136 PRINCIPAL EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE 



ledge of countries and of nations, we have named the more 

 ancient seats of civilisation in Egypt, Phoenicia, and Etruria ; 

 and have considered the basin of the Mediterranean, in its 

 peculiarities of form and of geographical position relatively 

 to other portions of the earth's surface, and in regard to the 

 influence which these have exerted on commercial inter- 

 course with the West Coast of Africa, with the North of 

 Europe, and with the Arabian and Indian Seas. No por- 

 tion of the earth has been the theatre of more frequent 

 changes in the possession of power, or of more active and 

 varied movement under mental influences. The progressive 

 movement propagated itself widely and enduringly through 

 the Greeks and the Eomans, and especially after the 

 latter had broken the Phcenicio-Garthaginian power. That 

 which we call the beginning of history, is but the record 

 of later generations. It is a privilege of the period at 

 which we live, that by brilliant advances in the general and 

 comparative study of languages, by the more careful search 

 for monuments, and by their more certain interpretation, the 

 historical investigator finds that his scope of vision enlarges 

 daily ; and penetrating through successive strata, a higher 

 antiquity begins to reveal itself to his eyes. Besides the 

 different cultivated nations of the Mediterranean which we 

 have named, there are also others shewing traces of ancient 

 civilisation, as in Western Asia the Phrygians and Lycians, 

 and in the extreme west the Turchli and Turdetani. ( 189 ) 

 Strabo says of the latter, " they are the most civilised of all 

 the Iberians; they have the art of writing, and possess 

 written books of old memorials, and also poems and laws in 

 metrical verse, to which they ascribe an age of six thousand 

 years/' I have referred to these particular instances as 



