^j^ . .Before Chrift loO' — 87. 



the fartheft nation he had vifited m his former voyage *. [Strabo^ L. ii, 

 p. 155 — Pli/i. L. ii, c. 67.] 



^ The celebrated Mithridates, king of Pontus, built a palace, a water 

 mill, and fome other conveniencies, : in his city of Cabira. This, I be- 

 lieve, "is the earliefl: notice we have of a water mill, an engine fo ufeful 

 'in preparing the mofl: valuable article of our dayiy fubfiflence ; and 

 from its being mentioned along with the palace, it may be prefumed to 

 have been tli/en a recent difcovery f. \Strabo, L. xii, p. 834.] 

 . After the depreflion of Tyre, and tlie dellrudion of Carthage, the 

 only trading community of the Phoenicians, remaining in any degree of 

 profperity, feems to have been that of Gadir. They have already been 

 noted as the original difcoverers of the Cafliterides. They alfo carried 

 on a great fidiery on the weft coaft of Africa, at a place which has been 

 long after noted for the great abundance of fifh : and they appear to 

 have traded to the two Fortunate iflands, which are defcribed as fepa- 

 rated from each other by a narrow channel, and as blefied with a de- 

 lightful climate and a fertile foil, yielding fpontaneoufly every thing ne- 

 ceflary to the fubliftence of mankind \. 



I have already obferved, that after the deftrudion of Carthage the 

 feafaring people were driven by neceffity or defpair, to become free- 

 booters and pirates. But as the languifhing ftate, to which commerce 

 was now reduced, afforded them few prizes upon the fea, their plunder 

 was chiefly collected by ravaging the coafts ; and they had every reafon to 

 make the Romans tlje principal objects of their hoftility and revenge. 

 In time they became mafters of the Mediterranean fea from end to 

 end, and alfo of feveral hundreds of towns upon its coafts : but Cilicia, the 

 Balearic iflands, and Crete, were their principal ftations. Mithridates 

 king of Pontus, being at war with the Romans (a' . 87), was fenfible 

 how much it was his intereft to cultivate the friendfliip of thofe nlafters 

 of the fea, who poflefled a thoufand warlike vefl"els, and fcarcely permit- 

 ted a cargo of corn to proceed to Rome, or a Roman governor to go by 

 water to his province. Long they rode triumphant in the Mediterran- 



* Strabo, after relating the voyages of Eudoxus could be no other than the Canaries, the only con- 

 nives feveial arguments proving the whole to be fidcrablc idands vifible from the coaft of Africa-, 

 fabuloue, vvhicli, however, arc more captious than The innacuracy in the number of the iflands is 

 folid. eafily explained from the account being given by 



■}■ Papcirolhis, who feems not to have read Strabo fcamcn to Sertorius, who, Plutarch fays, had fome 



er Vitruvius, fuppofes, that Bclifarius con(lru£lcd thoughts of retiring to thofe happy iflands to pais 



the firll water mills, wlien he was befieged in Rome the remainder of his life in bliistul cafe, free from 



by the Goths. The mills he means were couflruflcd the alarms and the fatigues of war. Florus goes 



in barges moored in the Tiber, and weredcviftd by fo far as to fay, that he afliially arrived at them ; 



that great general ssfiiLJlilula for the vfual 'water but from the relation of Plutarch, and from the 



mjV/j-, bccanfe the fmall dreams were tlicn in the very bufy life of that commander, there is iiafon 



power of tlie enemy. to believe, that he never put his defign in execu- 



X So ihefe iflan Is are defcribed by Plutarch in lion, fo far as even to vifit them. If he had, wii 



the Life of Sertorius. He adds, that they were fluuild probably have known inpre oJF .them than 



ten thoufand lladia from Libya, which mull be un- wc do. • 4 • •' '' 



fltrftood as meaning from the Straits : for they ilil ,/!>;■ . 



