THE MEDITERRANEAN LOOKS WEST 81 



the Phoenicians, who struck out beyond the Straits of Gibral- 

 tar at least a thousand years before Christ to sniff out the 

 news of the western ocean. The provincial city of Carthage, 

 outgrowing its parent ports of Tyre and Sidon, made a per- 

 fect jumping-off place for further explorations west. About the 

 year 1,100 b.c. the Phoenician traders settled the city of Cades, 

 now Cadiz, beyond the Pillars of Hercules on the Atlantic 

 coast of Spain. They found the neighboring city of Tartessos, 

 or Tarshish, already in existence, but after a few years we hear 

 no more of Tartessos. The hard-bitten traders from the inland 

 sea were in full and exclusive command of the Straits, and like 

 all traders were determined to keep this advantage. These men 

 were traders, not much interested in science, literature, or the 

 arts unless they furthered commercial enterprise. But they 

 broke trail for more subtle civilizations to follow. They 

 planted colonies in Sicily, southern France, North Africa, 

 Spain, and possibly as far north as their trade routes in the 

 English Channel. A pretty good case has been made out by 

 Wadell that they founded London and were the real pre- 

 Roman rulers of southwestern England before the Saxons. 

 The image of Britannia can be found on many a Phoenician 

 coin dug up in English soil. Cup markings and Hittite sym- 

 bols for the sun and of the cross have also been found in 

 England. 



The power of Tyre as a great seaport city-state was largely 

 drawn from the western trade in tin from the British Isles and 

 silver and copper from Spain and from the tuna fisheries of the 

 eastern Atlantic shores. The colonies of Phoenicians in west- 

 ern Europe some thousand years before Christ were beginning 

 to suckle on the rich harvests of the great Ocean River that 

 poured its warmth from the far Caribbean along the shores of 

 Spain and France and Cornwall. By the year 500 b.c. Carthage 

 was the complete master of the western Mediterranean and 

 the waters westward beyond the Straits. The last free explorers 



