462 EARLY MAN IN BRITAIN. [CHAP. xnr. 



The Phoenicians carried on commerce also with 

 Gaul from their colonies in the south, such as that 

 of Herakleia at the mouth of the Khone, and in the 

 Greek city of Massilia they were sufficiently numerous 

 to possess a temple dedicated to Melkarth. Punic coins 

 are found in the south of France, and those of the Punic 

 colonies in Sicily occur in Italy, and have been dis- 

 covered in the pass of the Great St. Bernard, pointing out 

 unmistakably the direction taken by their commerce. 1 



The Etruskans and their Influence. 



The people known to the Latins as the Etruskans are 

 considered by all writers, however much they may differ 

 as to their origin, as " a mixed race composed partly of 

 the earlier occupants, partly of a people of foreign origin 

 who became dominant by right of conquest, ^nd engrafted 

 their peculiar civilisation on that previously existing in the 

 land." 2 Among the earlier inhabitants the Pelasgi are the 

 most important, considered by Mr. A. S. Murray 3 as the 

 common forefathers of the ancient Greeks and the Etrus- 

 kans. His view is supported by the similarity of works 

 of art found in Mykense, Palestrina, and the Eegulini 

 tomb at Caere, as well as by the Cyclopean polygonal 

 masonry named after them in Greece and Italy. 4 Their 

 peculiar architecture is found also in the islands of the 



1 For lists of discoveries of Punic remains see Wiberg, Der Einfluss 

 der Tclassischen Volker auf den Norden, pp. 82, 83. 



2 Dennis, The Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria, 2d edit., 1878, 2 vols. 

 8vo. In this paragraph I have mainly followed the views of this author. 



3 Encycl. Brit., article Etruria. 



* Cosa, Tarquinii, Agylla, Volterra, Saturnia, Alsium, Pisse, in Etruria, 

 Mykense, and Thessaly, and Epirus in Greece. For an account of the 

 masonry see Dennis, ii p. 255. 



