[ 8 9 ] 
(2 1 ) Thucydides, that in his days, or rather at the 
time of the Peloponnefian war, the Phoenicians, 
and not the Carthaginians, were inhabitants of 
Malta and Gozo. The Carthaginians muft therefore 
have firft occupied thofe iflands in feme part of the 
interval between the Peloponnefian war and the age 
of Polybius ; which is all we can, with fafetv, 
pronounce, (22) or decide, in this dark and intricate 
affair. 
VI. 
I have already offered it as my opinion, fince an 
infpe&ion of Mr. Godwyn’s medal, that the pieces of 
Gozo I (23) formerly attempted to explain are not 
Punic, but proper Phoenician, coins. Nor can it 
reafonably be deemed an objection to this opinion 
that the mafeuline plural termination of the inferip- 
tion is IN, and not IM. For that mafeuline plurals, 
even in the days of Sanchoniatho, fometimes, amongfl 
the Phoenicians, ended in IN, we learn from (24) 
Philo Byblius. The Phoenician words Beellamen, 
or potP ‘TJO, and Zophafemin, or occurring 
in that author, to omit others that might, with equal 
facility, be adduced, and (25) particularly the legend 
pTi, TZIDON 1 N, on the reverfe of a Sidonian 
(21) Thucydid. Lib. VII. Phil. Cluver. ubi fup. 
(22) That the Carthaginians, however, began to fettle either 
in one or both of the iflands here mentioned not many years after 
the conclufion of the Peloponnefian war, we may venture to 
pronounce probable, from what has been advanced in a pre- 
ceding note. . - 
(23) Philofoph. PranfaR. Vol. LVIff.p. 235, 236, 261, 262. 
(24) Sanchoniath. apud Eufeb. Preep. Evar,g. V id. etiam Bo- 
chart. Chan. cap. II. p. 783. Francofurti ad Moenum, 1681. 
(25) Peller. Recueil de Medailles de Peuples & de Villes , &c. 
Tom. II. p. 221. PI. LXXXII. n. 19, 20, 21, 22.' A Paris, 1763. 
Vol. LX. N coin, 
