Before Chrifl 146. 107 



Tyre, her mother country, and after havmg rivaled even in miUtary 

 prowefs the haughty Roman repubUc, whofe fole and unremitting pur- 

 suit was the aggrandizement of her dominions by war and conqueft, 

 and whom ihe brought to tremble on the brink of deflrudion, fell the 

 mofl; illuftrious of the republics of antiquity. In her fall commerce re- 

 ceived a wound, under which it languilhed (at leaft in the weftern world) 

 during many dark centuries of Roman oppreflion, and of fubfequent 

 ignorance, brought upon the civilized part of the world by the nations, 

 whom Providence in due time raifed up to revenge upon Rome the in- 

 juries of Carthage, of commerce, and of mankind. 



The Romans, as if determined upon the total abolition of commerce, 

 in this fame year alfo deftroyed the mercantile city of Corinth, which 

 till now had retained the epithet of wealthy, bellowed upon it fo many 

 ages before by the father of Grecian poetry. In confequence of its 

 opulence and tafte it had long been the repofitory of the mofl admired 

 produdions of Grecian art. But now the mofl capital paintings were 

 made tables for the Roman favages to play at dice upon : and fo utter- 

 ly ignorant was the conful Mummius, that, when a picture of Bachus 

 by Ariflides, (faid to be the firll painter who reprefented the paffions of 

 the foul in his figures) which had been got out of the hands of the 

 foldiers by giving them a more convenient table, was bought by Attains 

 king of Pergamus at the price of fix thoufand fellertium, he, aflonifhed 

 at the greatnefs of the fum, and concluding that the pidlure muft pof^ 

 fefs lome myflerious or magic virtue, refufed to let him have it, and 

 fent it to Rome. He gave another fpecimen of his grofs ignorance, 

 when he (hipped the mofl capital ftatues of the Grecian fculptors, by- 

 threatening to make the mailers of the veflels, if they loft any of them, 

 find others at their own coft. This importation introduced the firfl ru- 

 diments of tafle for the fine arts among the Romans, who had hitherto 

 feen nothing fuperior to the paltry performance of their own imitators 

 of the Etrulcan painters and flatuaries. \Folyb. * ap. Strabo, L. viii, 

 p. 584 — Vel. Paterc. L. i, c. 13 — Flin. Hi/}, nat. L. xxxv, c. 4.] 



The few merchants, who were now left alive in the countries liable 

 to be infefled by the Romans, fled for refuge from the fword of oppref- 

 fion or extermination to the fhelter of fuperftition. They eflablilhed 

 themfelves at Delos, a fmall illand of the ^Egaean fea, which, with every 

 perfon and thing in it being under the protedion of Apollo, was 

 efleemed fo facred, that hitherto it had never been violated either by- 

 Greeks or foreigners ; and it foon became a noted emporium, where 

 merchants of various nations met in tranquillity, even when their coun- 

 tries were engaged in hoflilities. But it is a melancholy confideration, 



* Polybius went from the ruins of Carthage to cities in the weftern world: and he faw with his own 

 Corinth, and thus in a few months witnefTed tiie eyes the profanation of Ariltidcs's pifture by thf 

 total deftruftion of two of the mofl flourifliing dice-players. 



O2 



