CHAP, xiii.] GENERAL CONCLUSIONS. 479 



in the year 1879 by the expedition under the command 

 of Professor Nordenskiold. 1 Thule was considered an 

 island by Ptolemy and the later Greek and Latin 

 writers, and its true relation to the mainland of Europe 

 was not known before the fifth century after Christ. 



It is unnecessary for us to inquire into the Eoman 

 influence on the nations of the north, since it was felt in 

 this country only at the beginning of the Historic period. 

 As the Eoman power gradually mastered the Phoeni- 

 cian, Etruskan, and Greek, Eoman coins and merchandise 

 passed along the old routes to the north, which remain 

 the great highways of commerce to this day. The dis- 

 coveries of Pytheas were followed by those of the Eoman 

 navigators, and in the first century after Christ the 

 British Isles, the Hebrides, and the Orkneys were known 

 to the geographers. 



General Conclusions. 



The preceding pages offer us the materials for arriving 

 at a just idea of the condition of Europe at the begin- 

 ning of history. The civilisation of Egypt was being 

 felt in the Mediterranean area before the fifteenth century, 

 and the Assyrian by the tenth century before Christ, but 

 the influence of these, spread principally by the Phoeni- 

 cians, was not known beyond the Pillars of Hercules be- 

 fore the twelfth century. Then the Phoenicians pushed 

 as far as Gades, and gradually extended their trade 

 along the Atlantic until it arrived in Britain in the fifth 

 century before Christ. The Etruskans became masters 

 of Italy at least one thousand years before Christ, and 



1 The objection urged by Polybius, that Pytheas' narrative is untrue 

 because he was a scientific man incapable of supporting the expense of an 

 expedition, applies equally to Professor Nordenskiold. 



