880 REPORT—1890. 
subordinate constructions intended for worship; altars composed of two immense 
monoliths, erected in the form of a T ; sacred enclosures and megalithic habitations. 
One type of talayot is especially remarkable, of better masonry than the others and 
exactly resembling inverted boats. One is tempted to believe that the Phoeni- 
cians had in view the grass habitations or mapalia of the Numidians described by 
Sallust, and had endeavoured to reproduce them in stone: Oblonga, icurvis 
lateribus tecta, quasi navium carine sunt. 
For a long time the Phoenicians had no rivals in navigation, but subsequently 
the Greeks—especially the Phocians—established colonies in the Western Mediter- 
ranean, 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 Levant 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 considerable 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 her 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 inevi- 
table decay, which ripened in her struggle with Rome, despite the warlike genius 
of Hamilkar and the devotion of the magnanimous Hannibal. The gloomy and 
cruel religion of Carthage, with its human sacrifices to Moloch and its worship of 
Baal under the name of Melcarth, led to a criminal code of Draconic severity and 
alienated it from surrounding nations. When the struggle with Rome began, 
Carthage 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 monu- 
ments. 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 201 8.c., when this war was ended, 552 years 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, 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 produc- 
tive 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 — 
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