September ii, 1890] 



NA TURE 



483 



or mapalia of the Numidians described by Sallust, and had 

 endeavoured to reproduce them in stone : Oblonga, incurvis 

 lateribus tecta, quasi navium carina: sunt. 



For a long time the Phoenicians had no rivals in navigation, 

 but subsequently the Greeks — especially the Phocians — esta- 

 blished colonies in the Western Mediterranean, in Spain, 

 Corsica, Sardinia, Malta, and the south of France, through the 

 means of which they propagated not only their commerce but 

 their arts, literature, and ideas. They introduced many valuable 

 plants, such as the olive, thereby modifying profoundly the 

 agriculture of the countries in which they settled. They 

 have even left traces of their blood, and it is no doubt to 

 this that the women of Provence owe the classical beauty of 

 their features. 



But they were eclipsed by their successors ; the empire of 

 Alexander opened out a road to India, in which, indeed, the 

 Phoenicians had preceded him, and introduced the produce of 

 the East into the Mediterranean, while the Tyrian colony of 

 Carthage became the capital of another vast empire, which, 

 from its situation, midway between the l^evant and the Atlantic 

 Ocean, enabled it to command the Mediterranean traffic. 



The Carthaginians at one time ruled over territory extending 

 along the coast from Cyrene to Numidia, besides having a con- 

 siderable influence over the interior of the continent, so that 

 the name of Africa, given to their own dominions, was gradually 

 applied to a whole quarter of the globe. The ruling passion 

 with the Carthaginians was love of gain, not patriotism, and 

 their wars were largely fought with mercenaries. It was the 

 excellence of ber civil constitution which, according to Aristotle, 

 kept in cohesion for centuries her straggling possessions. A 

 country feebly patriotic, which entrusts her defence to foreigners, 

 has the seeds of inevitable decay, which ripened in her struggle 

 with Rome, despite the warlike genius of Hamilcar and the 

 devotion of the magnanimous Hannibal. The gloomy and 

 cruel religion of Carthage, with its human sacrifices to ^Ioloch 

 and its worship of Baal under the name of Melkarth, led to a 

 criminal code of Draconic severity and alienated it from sur- 

 rounding nations. When the struggle with Rome began, Carth- 

 age had no friends. The first Punic War was a contest for the 

 possession of Sicily, whose prosperity is even now attested by 

 the splendour of its Hellenic monuments. When Sicily was 

 lost by the Carthaginians, so also was the dominion of the sea, 

 which hitherto had been uncontested. The second Punic War 

 resulted in the utter prostration of Carthage and the loss of all 

 her possessions out of Africa ; and in 20i B.C., when this war 

 was ended, 552 ye.ars after the foundation of the city, Rome was 

 mistress of the world. 



The destruction of Carthage after the third Punic War was a 

 heavy blow to Mediterranean commerce. It was easy for Cato 

 to utter his stern Delenda est Carthago ; destruction is easy, but 

 construction is vastly more difficult. Although Augustus in his 

 might built a new Carthage near the site of the old city, he 

 could never attract again the trade of the Mediterranean which 

 had been diverted into other channels. Roman supremacy was 

 unfavourable to the growth of commerce, because, though she 

 allowed unrestricted trade throughout her vast empire, and greatly 

 improved internal communications in the subjugated countries, | 

 Rome itself absorbed the greater part of the wealth, and did not ' 

 produce any commodities in return for its immense consumption, i 

 therefore Mediterranean commerce did not thrive under the 

 Roman rule. The conquest of Carthage, Greece, Egypt, and 

 the East poured in riches to^ Rome, and dispensed for a time 

 with the needs of productive industry, but formed no enduring 

 basis of prosperity. 



It is only in relation to the Mediterranean that I can refer to 

 Roman history, but I must allude to the interesting episode in 

 the life of Diocletian, who, after an anxious reign of twenty-one 

 years in the eastern division of the empire, abdicated at Nicomedia 

 and retired to his native province of Illyria. He spent the rest 

 of his life in rural pleasures and horticulture at Salona, near 

 which he built that splendid palace within the walls of which 

 subsequently arose the modern city of Spalato. Nothing more I 

 interesting exists on the shores of the Mediterranean than this 

 extraordinary edifice, perhaps the largest that ever arose at the 

 bidding of a single man ; not only vast and beautiful, but 

 marking one of the most important epochs in the history of 

 architecture. 



Though now obstructed with a mass of narrow, tortuous 

 streets, its salient features are distinctly visible. The great 



NO. 1089, VOL. 42] 



temple, probably the mausoleum of the founder, has become 

 the cathedral, and after the Pantheon at Rome there is no finer 

 specimen of a heathen temple turned into a Christian church. 

 Strange it is that the tomb of him whose reign was marked by 

 such unrelenting persecution of the Christians should have been 

 accepted as the model of those baptisteries so commonly con 

 structed in the following centuries. 



Of Diocletian's Salona, one of the chief cities of the Roman 

 ; world, but little now remains save traces of the long irregular 

 wall ; recent excavations have brought to light much that is 

 interesting, but all of the Christian epoch, such as a large basilica 

 which had been used as a necropolis, and a baptistery, one of 

 those copied from the temple of Spalato, on the Mosaic pave- 

 ment of which can still be read the text, Sicut cervus desiderat 

 fontem aquarum ita anima viea ad te Deus. 



The final partition of the Roman Empire took place in 365 ; 

 forty years later the barbarians of the North began to invade 

 Italy and the south of Europe ; and in 429, Genseric, at the head 

 of his Vandal hordes, crossed over into Africa from Andalusia, 

 a province which still bears their name, devastating the country 

 as far as the Cyrenaica, He subsequently annexed the Balearic 

 Islands, Corsica and Sardinia, he ravaged the -oasts of Italy 

 and Sicily, and even of Greece and Illyria, but the most memo- 

 rable of his exploits was the unresisted sack of Rome, whence 

 he returned to Africa laden with treasure and bearing the 

 Empress Eudoxia a captive in his train. 



The degenerate emperors of the West were powerless to 



avenge this insult, but Byzantium, though at this time sinking 



to decay, did make a futile attempt to attack the Vandal monarch 



in his African stronghold. It was not, however, till 533, '\>\ the 



reign of Justinian, when the successors of Genseric had fallen 



into luxurious hahits and had lost the rough valour of their 



j ancestors, that Belisarius was able to break their power and take 



; their last king a prisoner to Constantinople. The Vanda 



domination in Africa was destroyed, but that of the Byzantines 



I was never thoroughly consolidated ; it rested not on its own 



I strength, but on the weakness of its enemies, and it was quite 



unable to cope with the next great wave of invasion which swept 



j over the land, perhaps the most extraordinary event in the world's 



history, save only the introduction of Christianity. 

 j In 647, twenty-seven years after the Hedjira of Mohammed, 

 ; Abdulla ibn Saad started from Egypt for the conquest of Africa 

 with an army of 40,000 men. 



The expedition had two determining causes — the hope of 

 plunder and the desire to promulgate the religion of El Islam. 

 The sands and scorching heat of the desert, which had nearly 

 proved fatal to the army of Cato, were no bar to the hardy 

 Arabians and their enduring camels. The march to Tripoli was 

 a fatiguing one, but it was successfully accomplished ; the invaders 

 did not exhaust their force in a vain effort to reduce its fortifica- 

 tions, but swept on over the Syrtic desert, and north to the 

 province of Africa, where, near the splendid city of Sufietula, a 

 great battle was fought between them and the army of the 

 Exarch Gregorius, in which the Christians were signally defeated, 

 their leader killed, and his daughter allotted to Ibn-ez-Zobair, 

 who had slain her father. 



Not only did the victorious Moslems overrun North Africa, 

 but soon they had powerful fleets at sea which dominated the 

 entire Mediterranean, and the emperors of the East had enough 

 to do to protect their own capital. 



Egypt, Syria, Spain, Provence, and the islands of the Medi- 

 terranean successively fell to their arms, and until they were 

 checked at the Pyrenees by Charles Martel it seemed at one 

 time as if the whole of Southern Europe would have been com- 

 pelled to submit to the disciples of the new religion. Violent, 

 implacable, and irresistible at the moment of conquest, the 

 Arabs were not unjust or hard masters in countries which 

 submitted to their conditions. Every endeavour was, of course, 

 made to proselytize, but Christians were allowed to preserve 

 their religion on payment of a tax, and even Popes were in the 

 habit of entering into friendly relations with the invaders. The 

 Church of St. Cyprian and St. Augustine, with its 500 Sees, was 

 indeed expunged, but five centuries after the passage of the 

 Mohammedan army from Egypt to the Atlantic a remnant of it 

 still existed. It was not till the twelfth century that the religion 

 and language of Rome became utterly extinguished. 



The Arabs introduced a high state of civilization into the 

 countries where they settled ; their architecture is the wonder 

 and admiration of the world at the present day ; their irrigational 



