128 A. D. 14. 



banks of the navigable rivers. The chief of thefe were Corduba (Cor- 

 dova), Malaca (Malaga), lUpa (Penaflor), HifpaUs (Seville), with many- 

 others, which after being colonized by the Romans, who thereupon fre- 

 quently affumed the credit of being their founders, retain to this day 

 fome fliare of fplendour, and eveii, when compared with fome parts of 

 modern Spain, a portion of the induflry, derived from their Phoenician 

 founders through the revolutions of thirty centuries. But the chief of 

 the whole for commercial dignity, as already obferved, was Gadir (call- 

 ed by the Romans Gadcs, and at this day Cadiz), which was now be- 

 come the greateft emporium in the weftern world, the rival of Alexan- 

 dria in commerce, and by fome fuppoied inferior only to Rome in the 

 number of its inhabitants, many of whom, not able to find houfe-room 

 on the fmall ifland whereon the town was built, lived entirely upon the 

 water. The Turtuli exported great quantities of corn, and wine ; ex- 

 cellent oil, but in fmall quantity ; honey, and wax ; pitch ; much fear- 

 let dye {zoKzoi), and vermilion (p'?tro;), which the Romans obliged them 

 to bring in a rude ftate, to be refined at Rome ; fait ; faked provifions 

 of a fuperior quality ; wool of fo e::cellent a kind, that a talent (^193 : 

 i5yfl;erling) was an ufual price for a good breeding ram. They had 

 formerly exported confiderable quantities of woollen drapery ; but they 

 were now apparently obliged to give up that manufacture, and to carry 

 their raw wool to the Romans, who probably put the manufadure into 

 the hands of their own domeftic Haves. Befides their agriculture, ma- 

 nufadtures, and commerce, they were enriched by a great fifliery, which 

 they carried on, not only in the feas adjacent to their own coail, which 

 fwarmed with great variety of ufcful fifli of a fuperior quality and fize, 

 but alio on the coaft of Africa to a confiderable diftance : and before 

 they fell under a foreign dominion, they had had the produce of their 

 own very rich mines, which were now the property of the conquerors. 

 So extenfive a commerce and fifhery employed a quantity of fliipping 

 fcarcely inferior to that employed in the whole of the African trade; 

 and all their veflx;Is were built of timber produced in the country. The 

 merchaiats of Gadir in particular had fliips of very great burthen, where- 

 with they traded in the Mediterranean and alfo in the Ocean, as far at 

 lead as the Fortunate iflands (the Canaries), and probably alfo to the re- 

 mote fettlements and trading poflis, which the Carthaginians had efl:ab- 

 liflicd on the weft coaft of Africa. There is alio reafon to believe, that 

 they ftill poflefied a fliare of the Britifti tin trade in the antient channel 

 of diredl importation from the Cafiiterides. 



The eaft coaft of the northern province of Spain, called Tarraconen- 

 fis, aUb contained many good trading towns. The firft and the beft of 

 thefe was New Carthage, called alio Carthago fpartaria from the great 

 abundance of fpartum produced in the fields adjacent to it, (and now 

 Carthagcna), which ftill retained fome of the mercantile genius of its 



