68 Before Chnll 431. 



o\\'n eyes many of the countries, which he defcribes ; and he was ai: 

 great pains to obtain the bell: information : yet he acknowleges, that he 

 could not difcover the fituation of the iflands called Caffiterides from 

 which tin was brought, nor that of the country, which produced the 

 amber : a pretty clear proof, that the Greeks had no commerce, or in- 

 tercourfe with either of them. The cenfure thrown upon Herodotus 

 as a fabulifl proceeds only from fuperticiality and ignorance ; and his 

 general veracity is acknowleged and refpeded by the mofl judicious and 

 critical writers. 



431 An interval of petty hoftilities among the Greeks was fucceed- 



ed by the Peloponnellan war, wherein the Lacedeemonians and their 

 allies, fupported by the wealth of the Perfian empire *, exerted them- 

 felves to wreft from the Athenians the fovereignty, which they had af- 

 fumed over the maritime flates of Ionia, the iflands, and the whole of 

 the neighbouring coalls. This was moflly a naval war ; yet the events 

 of it had no other connedion with commerce, than the ufual conle- 

 quence of interrupting and diftreffing it. It prefled with particular 

 hardlhip upon the Phcenicians, who, as the principal maritime fubjeds 

 of Perfia, were obliged to furnifh mofl of the naval armaments, w^here- 

 by their fliipping was in a great meafure drawn off from its own proper 

 defliination to be fubfervient to the ambition of Perfia and Lacedeemon. 

 The war, after raging for twenty-feven years, was concluded (a". 404). 

 by the deftrudion of Athens. The Lacedoemonians immediately af- 

 fumed the fame power over the maritime flates, the abufe of whi-ch by 

 the Athenians had been the pretence for the war : and they exercifed it: 

 with fuch rigour, that the governments of the Pcrlians and of the 

 Athenians were thought very mild by thole, who now groaned under 

 their tyranny. 



From the very imperfcd knowlege, we have of the more valuable 

 pacific and commercial tranfadions of the Carthaginians, we may ven- 

 ture to affign the prefent time as the sera of their greatefl: commercial 

 fplendour. Their mother country was deprefled by its fubjedion to 

 Perfia. The Athenians, alter havirrg->^xpelled the Perfians, and the 

 Phcenicians as being their fubjeds, from the Grecian feas, and having 

 reigned triumphant for leventy-two years, during which they engrofled 

 the commerce of the ^Egaean fea, but with a more anxious folicitude 



important geographical faft, wherein lie is fup- the nccowit of Mr. Part's liwvds in j1fii:a, pp. 2^, 



ported by the teftimony of Ph'iiy and Ptolemy, has 53.] 



been coiuradidted in later ages, even down to the * The Lacedaemonians raifed the pay of their 



very time that Mr. Park was abfolutely engaged failors from three oboli (not quite ^d) to four 



in exploring the courfe of this famous river, the oboh (about 5}</). But tin's was not conhdertd 



Nii-il-abeed, Joliba, or Niger, who li;;3 unqnef- as nccclFaiy for their fiipport, or as an e(juivaltnt 



lion.ib!y alcertained the coneftnefs of the iiifor- compenlalion fur their fervice: it was a mere walle 



mat 'ii i^i^'cn us by Herodotus. \_L. W, cc. 32133. of the Peifiaii treafure, calculated to corrupt the 



'—Plinii H'lft. nat. L. v, f. 9 ; L. viii, c, z\.~~Stc failors of their Athenian rivals, and to entice theiu 



to dtfert. 



