460 EARLY MAN IN BRITAIN. [CHAP. xm. 



ancient world. We have already pointed out that it is 

 widely distributed in the Iberian peninsula, where it 

 was worked by the Phoenicians and the Eomans, and 

 that it was obtained in the Bronze age in Brittany, 

 and worked by the Etruskans in Tuscany. It is very 

 probable that the mines first worked by the Phoenicians 

 were those nearest to Gades, and afterwards those farther 

 away to the north of Lusitania and of Galicia, then 

 those of Brittany, and lastly those of Britain and Ireland, 

 the regions most remote from their influence. 



The reader will see from the position held by the 

 Phoenicians in the ancient world that they must have 

 made known the arts and civilisation of the southern 

 peoples among the barbarians living on the borders of 

 the ocean. They must have exchanged the products of 

 the Mediterranean for the metal, furs, and .other articles 

 of the natives. But their influence has left little evidence 

 behind, because the metal -work which they brought 

 bore nothing distinctively Phoenician about it. They 

 manufactured articles for the various markets just as 

 the cutlers of Birmingham make creases for the Malays, 

 and peculiar hoes for the plantations in the "West Indies, 

 and just as the cotton-spinners of Lancashire suit their 

 wares to the markets, and the calico-printers use one set 

 of designs for Japan and another set for the trade of 

 Asia Minor. They may have introduced into the west, 

 and probably did introduce, vast quantities of swords, 

 daggers, spears, glass beads, and other things ; but 

 these cannot be identified as Phoenician, because of 

 the absence of a distinctive style. This view is mate- 

 rially strengthened by the reflection that their fleets 

 navigated the western seas about 200 years before 

 the Homeric times, the date of which is fixed by Mr. 



