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Commerce of the Mediterranean.

I. Rome had required two hundred and forty-four years to form her constitution under the kings, a hundred and seventy-two to establish and consolidate the consular Republic, seventy-two to complete the conquest of Italy, and now it will cost her nearly a century and a half to obtain the domination of the world—that is, of Northern Africa, Spain, the south of Gaul, Illyria, Epirus, Greece, Macedonia, Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt. Before undertaking the recital of these conquests, let us halt an instant to consider the condition of the basin of the Mediterranean at this period, of that sea round which were successively unfolded all the great dramas of ancient history. In this examination we shall see, not without a feeling of regret, vast countries where formerly produce, monuments, riches, numerous armies and fleets—all, indeed, revealed an advanced state of civilisation—now deserts or in a state of barbarism.

The Mediterranean had seen grow and prosper in turn on its coasts Sidon, and Tyre, and then Greece.

III

Sidon, already a flourishing city before the time of Homer, is soon eclipsed by the supremacy of Tyre; then Greece comes to carry on, in competition with her, the commerce of the interior sea; an age of pacific greatness and fruitful rivalries. To the Phœnicians chiefly, the South, the East, Africa, Asia beyond Mount Taurus, the Erythrean Sea (the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf), the ocean, and the distant voyages. To the Greeks, all the northern coasts, which they covered with their thousand settlements. Phœnicia devotes herself to adventurous enterprises and lucrative speculations. Greece, artistic before becoming a trader, propagates by her colonies her mind and her ideas.

This fortunate emulation soon disappears before the creation of two new colonies sprung from their bosom. The splendour of Carthage replaces that of Tyre. Alexandria is substituted for Greece. Thus a Western or Spanish Phœnicia shares the commerce of the world with an Eastern and Egyptian Greece, the fruit of the intellectual conquests of Alexander.

Northern Africa.

II. Rich in the spoils of twenty different peoples, Carthage was the proud capital of a vast empire. Its ports, hollowed out by the hand of man, were capable of containing a great number of ships.242 Her citadel, Byrsa, was two miles in circuit. On the land side the town was defended by a triple enclosure twenty-five stadia in length, thirty cubits high, and supported by towers of four storeys, capable of giving shelter to 4,000 horse, 300 elephants, and 20,000 foot soldiers;243 it enclosed an immense population, since, in the last years of its resistance, after a struggle of a century, it still counted 700,000 inhabitants.244 Its monuments were worthy of its greatness: among its remarkable buildings was the temple of the god Aschmoun, assimilated by the Greeks to Æsculapius;245 that of the sun, covered with plates of gold valued at a thousand talents;246 and the mantle or peplum, destined for the image of their great goddess, which cost a hundred and twenty.247 The empire of Carthage extended from the frontiers of Cyrenaica (the country of Barca, in the regency of Tripoli) into Spain; she was the metropolis of all the north of Africa, and, in Libya alone, possessed three hundred towns.248 Nearly all the isles of the Mediterranean, to the west and south of Italy, had received her factories. Carthage had imposed her sovereignty upon all the ancient Phœnician establishments in this part of the world, and had levied upon them an annual contingent of soldiers and tribute. In the interior of Africa, she sent caravans to seek elephants, ivory, gold, and black slaves, which she afterwards exported249 to the trading places on the Mediterranean. In Sicily, she gathered oil and wine; in the isle of Elba, she mined for iron; from Malta, she drew valuable tissues; from Corsica, wax and honey; from Sardinia, corn, metals, and slaves; from the Baleares, mules and fruits; from Spain, gold, silver, and lead; from Mauritania, the hides of animals; she sent as far as the extremity of Britain, to the Cassiterides (the Scilly Islands), ships to purchase tin.250 Within her walls industry flourished greatly, and tissues of great celebrity were fabricated.251

No market of the ancient world could be compared with that of Carthage, to which men of all nations crowded. Greeks, Gauls, Ligurians, Spaniards, Libyans, came in multitudes to serve under her standard;252 the Numidians lent her a redoubtable cavalry.253 Her fleet was formidable; it amounted at this epoch to five hundred vessels. Carthage possessed a considerable arsenal;254 we may appreciate its importance from the fact, that, after her conquest by Scipio, she delivered to him two hundred thousand suits of armour, and three thousand machines of war.255 So many troops and stores imply immense revenues. Even after the battle of Zama, Polybius could still call her the richest town in the world. Yet she had already paid heavy contributions to the Romans.256 An excellent system of agriculture contributed no less than her commerce to her prosperity. A great number of agricultural colonies257 had been established, which, in the time of Agathocles, amounted to more than two hundred. They were ruined by the war (440 of Rome).258 Byzacena (the southern part of the regency of Tunis) was the granary of Carthage.259

This province, surnamed Emporia, as being the trading country par excellence, vaunted by the geographer Scylax260 as the most magnificent and fertile part of Libya. It had, in the time of Strabo, numerous towns, so many magazines of the merchandise of the interior of Africa. Polybius261 speaks of its horses, oxen, sheep, and goats, as forming innumerable herds, such as he had never seen elsewhere. The small town of Leptis alone paid to the Carthaginians the enormous contribution of a talent a day (5,821 francs [£232 16s.]).262

This fertility of Africa explains the importance of the towns on the coast of the Syrtes, an importance, it is true, revealed by later testimonies, because they date from the decline of Carthage, but which must apply still more forcibly to the flourishing condition which preceded it. In 537, the vast port of the isle Cercina (Kirkeni, in the regency of Tunis, opposite Sfax) had paid ten talents to Servilius.263 More to the west, Hippo Regius (Bona) was still a considerable maritime town in the time of Jugurtha.264 Tingis (Tangiers), in Mauritania, which boasted of a very ancient origin, carried on a great trade with Bætica. Three African peoples in these countries lay under the influence and often the sovereignty of Carthage: the Massylian Numidians, who afterwards had Cirta (Constantine) for their capital; the Massæsylian Numidians, who occupied the provinces of Algiers and Oran; and the Mauri, or Moors, spread over Morocco. These nomadic peoples maintained rich droves of cattle, and grew great quantities of corn.

Hanno, a Carthaginian sea-captain, sent, towards 245, to explore the extreme parts of the African coast beyond the Straits of Gades, had founded a great number of settlements, no traces of which remained in the time of Pliny.265 These colonies introduced commerce among the Mauritanian and Numidian tribes, the peoples of Morocco, and perhaps even those of Senegal. But it was not only in Africa that the possessions of the Carthaginians extended; they embraced Spain, Sicily, and Sardinia.

Spain.

III. Iberia or Spain, with its six great rivers, navigable to the ancients, its long chains of mountains, its dense woods, and the fertile valleys of Bætica (Andalusia), appears to have nourished a population numerous, warlike, rich by its mines, its harvests, and its commerce. The centre of the peninsula was occupied by the Iberian and Celtiberian races; on the coasts, the Carthaginians and the Greeks had settlements; through contact with the Phœnician merchants, the populations of the coast districts attained a certain degree of civilisation, and from the mixture of the natives with the foreign colonists sprang a mongrel population, which, while it preserved the Iberic character, had adopted the mercantile habits of the Phœnicians and Carthaginians.

Once established in Spain, the Carthaginians and Greeks turned to useful purpose the timber which covered the mountains. Gades (Cadiz), a sort of factory founded at the extremity of Bætica by the Carthaginians, became one of their principal maritime arsenals. It was there that the ships were fitted out which ventured on the ocean in search of the products of Armorica, or Britain, and even of the Canaries. Although Gades had lost some of its importance by the foundation of Carthagena (New Carthage), in 526, it had still, in the time of Strabo, so numerous a population that it was in this respect inferior only to Rome. The tables of the census showed five hundred citizens of the equestrian order, a number equalled by none of the Italian cities, except Patavium (Padua).266 To Gades, celebrated for its temple of Hercules, flowed the riches of all Spain. The sheep and horses of Bætica rivalled in renown those of the Asturias. Corduba (Cordova), Hispalis (Seville), where, at a later period, the Romans founded colonies, were already great places of commerce, and had ports for the vessels which ascended the Bætis (Guadalquivir).267

Spain was rich in precious metals; gold, silver, iron, were there the object of industrial activity.268 At Osca (Huesca), they worked mines of silver; at Sisapo (Almaden), silver and mercury.269 At Cotinæ, copper was found along with gold. Among the Oretani, at Castulo (Cazlona, on the Guadalimar), the silver mines, in the time of Polybius, gave employment to 40,000 persons, and produced daily 25,000 drachmas.270 In thirty-two years, the Roman generals carried home from the peninsula considerable sums.271 The abundance of metals in Spain explains how so great a number of vessels of gold and silver was found among many of the chiefs or petty kings of the Iberian nations. Polybius compares one of them, for his luxury, with the king of the fabulous Phæaces.272

To the north, and in the centre of the peninsula, agriculture and the breeding of cattle were the principal sources of wealth. It was there that were made the says (vests of flannel or goats’ hair), which were exported in great numbers to Italy.273 In the Tarraconese, the cultivation of flax was very productive; the inhabitants had been the first to weave those fine cloths called carbasa, which were objects greatly prized as far as Greece.274 Leather, honey, and salt were brought by cargoes to the principal ports along the coast; at Emporiæ (Ampurias), a settlement of the Phocæans in Catalonia; at Saguntum,275 founded by Greeks from the island of Zacynthus; at Tarraco (Tarragona), one of the most ancient of the Phœnician settlements in Spain; and at Malaca (Malaga), whence were exported all sorts of salt fish.276 Lusitania, neglected by the Phœnician or Carthaginian ships, was less favoured. Yet we see, by the passage of Polybius277 which enumerates the mercantile exports of this province with their prices, that its agricultural products were very abundant.278

The prosperity of Spain appears also from the vast amount of its population. According to some authors, Tiberius Gracchus took from the Celtiberians three hundred oppida. In Turdetania (part of Andalusia), according to Strabo, there were counted no less than two hundred towns.279 Appian, the historian of the Spanish wars, points out the multitude of petty tribes which the Romans had to reduce,280 and during the campaign of Cn. Scipio, more than a hundred and twenty submitted.281

Thus the Iberian peninsula was at that time reckoned among the most populous and richest regions of Europe.

Southern Gaul.

IV. The part of Gaul which is bathed by the Mediterranean offers a spectacle no less satisfactory. Numerous migrations, arriving from the East, had pushed back the population of the Seine and the Loire towards the mouths of the Rhône, and already, in the middle of the fourth century before our era, the Gauls found themselves straitened in their frontiers. More civilised than the Iberians, but not less energetic, they combined gentle and hospitable manners with great activity, which was further developed by their contact with the Greek colonies spread from the maritime Alps to the Pyrenees. The cultivation of the fields and the breeding of cattle furnished their principal wealth, and their industry found support in the products of the soil and in its herds. Their manufacture consisted of says, not less in repute than those of the Celtiberians, and exported in great quantities to Italy. Good sailors, the Gauls transported by water, on the Seine, the Rhine, the Saône, the Rhône, and Loire, the merchandise and timber which, even from the coasts of the Channel, were accumulated in the Phocæan trading places on the Mediterranean.282 Agde (Agatha), Antibes (Antipolis), Nice (Nicæa), the isles of Hyères (Stœchades), Monaco (Portus Herculis Monœcei), were so many naval stations which maintained relations with Spain and Italy.283

Marseilles possessed but a very circumscribed territory, but its influence reached far into the interior of Gaul. It is to this town we owe the acclimatisation of the vine and the olive. Thousands of oxen came every year to feed on the thyme in the neighbourhood of Marseilles.284 The Massilian merchants traversed Gaul in all directions to sell their wines and the produce of their manufactures.285 Without rising to the rank of a great maritime power, still the small Phocæan republic possessed sufficient resources to make itself respected by Carthage; it formed an early alliance with the Romans. Massilian houses had, as early as the fifth century of Rome, established at Syracuse, as they did subsequently at Alexandria, factories which show a great commercial activity.286

Liguria, Cisalpine Gaul, Venetia, and Illyria.

V. Alone in the Tyrrhene Sea, the Ligures had not yet risen out of that almost savage life which the Iberians, sprung from the same stock, had originally led. If some towns on the Ligurian coast, and especially Genoa (Genua), carried on a maritime commerce, they supported themselves by piracy287 rather than by regular traffic.288

On the contrary, Cisalpine Gaul, properly so called, supported, as early as the time of Polybius, a numerous population. We may form some idea of it from the losses this province sustained during a period of twenty-seven years, from 554 to 582; Livy gives a total of 257,400 men killed, taken, or transported.289 The Gaulish tribes settled in the Cisalpine, though preserving their original manners, had, through their contact with the Etruscans, arrived at a certain degree of civilisation. The number of towns in this country was not very considerable, but it contained a great abundance of villages.290 Addicted to agriculture like the other Gauls, the Cisalpines bred in their forests droves of swine in such numbers, that they would have been sufficient, in the time of Strabo, to provision all Rome.291 The coins of pure gold, which in recent times have been found in Cisalpine Gaul, especially between the Po and the Adda, and which were struck by the Boii and some of the Ligurian populations, furnish evidence of the abundance of that metal, which was collected in the form of gold sand in the waters of the rivers.292 Moreover, certain towns of Etruscan origin, such as Mantua (Mantua) and Padua (Patavium), preserved vestiges of the prosperity they had reached at the time when the peoples of Tuscany extended their dominion beyond the Po. At once a maritime town and a place of commerce, Padua, at a remote epoch, possessed a vast territory, and could raise an army of 120,000 men.293 The transport of goods was facilitated by means of canals crossing Venetia, partly dug by the Etruscans. Such were those especially which united Ravenna with Altinum (Altino), which became at a later period the grand store-house of the Cisalpine territory.294

The commercial relations entertained by Venetia with Germany, Illyria, and Rhætia, go back far beyond the Roman epoch, and, at a remote antiquity, it was Venetia which received the amber from the shores of the Baltic.295 All the traffic which was afterwards concentrated at Aquileia, founded by the Romans after the submission of the Veneti, had then for its centre the towns of Venetia; and the numerous colonies established by the Romans in this part of the peninsula are proofs of its immense resources. Moreover, the Veneti, occupied in cultivating their lands and breeding horses, had peaceful manners which facilitated commercial relations, and contrasted with the piratical habits of the populations spread over the north and north-eastern coasts of the Adriatic.

The Istrians, the Liburni, and the Illyrians were the nations most formidable, both by their corsairs and by their armies; their light and rapid barques covered the Adriatic, and troubled the navigation between Italy and Greece. In the year 524, the Illyrians sent to sea a hundred lembi,296 while their land army counted hardly more than 5,000 men.297 Illyria was poor, and offered few resources to the Romans, notwithstanding the fertility of its soil. Agriculture was neglected, even in the time of Strabo. Istria contained a population much more considerable, in proportion to its extent.298 Yet she had, no more than Dalmatia and the rest of Illyria, attained, at the epoch of which we are speaking, that high degree of prosperity which she acquired afterwards by the foundation of Tergeste (Trieste) and Pola. The Roman conquest delivered the Adriatic from the pirates who infested it,299 and then only, the ports of Dyrrhachium and Apollonia obtained a veritable importance.

Epirus.

VI. Epirus, a country of pastures and shepherds, intersected by picturesque mountains, was a sort of Helvetia. Ambracia (now Arta), which Pyrrhus had chosen for his residence, had become a very fine town, and possessed two theatres. The palace of the king (Pyrrheum) formed a veritable museum for it furnished for the triumph of M. Fulvius Nobilior, in 565, two hundred and eighty-five statues in bronze, two hundred and thirty in marble,300 and paintings by Zeuxis, mentioned in Pliny.301 The town paid also, on this occasion, five hundred talents (2,900,000 francs, [£116,000]), and offered the consul a crown of gold weighing a hundred and fifty thousand talents (nearly 4,000 kilogrammes).302 It appears that before the war of Paulus Æmilius, this country contained a rather numerous population, and counted seventy towns, most of them situated in the country of the Molossi.303. After the battle of Pydna, the Roman general made so considerable a booty, that, without reckoning the treasury’s share, each foot-soldier received 200 denarii (about 200 francs [£8]), and each horse-soldier 400; in addition to which the sale of slaves arose to the enormous number of 150,000.

Greece.

VII. At the beginning of the first Punic War, Greece proper was divided into four principal powers: Macedonia, Ætolia, Achaia, and Sparta. All the continental part, which extends northward of the Gulf of Corinth as far as the mountains of Pindus, was under the dependence of Philip; the western part belonged to the Ætolians. The Peloponnesus was shared between the Achæans, the tyrant of Sparta, and independent towns. Greece had been declining during about a century, and seen her warlike spirit weaken and her population diminish; and yet Plutarch, comprising under this name the peoples of the Hellenic race, pretends that their country furnished King Philip with the money, food, and provisions of his army.304 The Greek navy had almost disappeared. The Achæan league, which comprised Argolis, Corinth, Sicyon, and the maritime cities of Achæa, had few ships. On land the Hellenic forces were less insignificant. The Ætolian league possessed an army of 10,000 men, and, in the war against Philip, pretended to have contributed more than the Romans to the victory of Cynoscephalæ. Greece was still rich in objects of art of all descriptions. When, in 535, the King of Macedonia captured the town of Thermæ, in Ætolia, he found in it more than two thousand statues.305

Athens, in spite of the loss of her maritime supremacy, preserved the remains of a civilization which had already attained the highest degree of splendour,306 and those incomparable buildings of the age of Pericles, the mere name of which reminds us of all that the arts have produced in greatest perfection. Among the most remarkable were the Acropolis, with its Parthenon and its Propylæa, masterpieces of Phidias, the statue of Minerva in gold and ivory, and another in bronze, the casque and spear of which were seen afar off at sea.307 The arsenal of the Piræus, built by the architect Philo, was, according to Plutarch, an admirable work.308

Sparta, although greatly fallen, was distinguished by its monuments and by its manufactures; the famous portico of the Persians,309 built after the Median wars—the columns of which, in white marble, represented the illustrious persons among the vanquished—was the principal ornament of the market. Iron, obtained in abundance from Mount Taygetus, was marvellously worked at Sparta, which was celebrated for the manufacture of arms and agricultural instruments.310 The coasts of Laconia abounded in shells, from which was obtained the purple, most valued after that of Phœnicia.311 The port of Gytheum, very populous, and very active in 559, still possessed great arsenals.312

In the centre of the peninsula, Arcadia, although its population was composed of shepherds, had the same love for the arts as the rest of Greece. It possessed two celebrated temples: that of Minerva at Tegæa, built by the architect Scopas,313 in which were united the three orders of architecture, and that of Apollo, at Phigalea,314 situated at an elevation of 3,000 feet above the level of the sea, and the remains of which still excite the wonder of travellers.

Elis, protected by its neutrality, was devoted to the arts of peace. There agriculture flourished; its fisheries were productive; it had manufactories of tissues of byssus which rivalled the muslins of Cos, and were sold for their weight in gold.315 The town of Elis possessed the finest gymnasium in Greece; people came to it to prepare themselves (sometimes a year in advance) for competition in the Olympic games.316

Olympia was the holy city, celebrated for its sanctuary and its consecrated garden, where stood, among a multitude of masterpieces of art, one of the wonders of the world, the statue of Jupiter, the work of Phidias,317 the majesty of which was such, that Paulus Æmilius, when he first saw it, believed he was in the presence of the divinity himself.

Argos, the country of several celebrated artists, possessed temples, fountains, a gymnasium, and a theatre; and its public place had served for a field of battle to the armies of Pyrrhus and Antigonus. It remained, until the subjugation by the Romans, one of the finest cities of Greece. Within its territory were the superb temple of Juno, the ancient sanctuary of the Argives, with the statue of the goddess in gold and silver—the work of Polycletus, and the vale of Nemæa, where one of the four national festivals of Greece was celebrated.318 Argolis also possessed Epidaurus, with its hot springs; its temple of Æsculapius, enriched with the offerings of those who came to be cured of their diseases;319 and its theatre, one of the largest in the country.320

Corinth, admirably situated upon the narrow isthmus which separates the Ægean Sea from the gulf which has preserved its name,321 with its dye-houses, its celebrated manufactories of carpets and of bronze, bore witness also to the ancient prosperity of the Hellenic race. Its population must have been considerable, since there were reckoned in it 460,000 slaves;322 marble palaces rose on all sides, adorned with statues and valuable vases. Corinth had the reputation of being the most voluptuous of towns. Among its numerous temples, that of Venus had in its service more than a thousand courtezans.323 In the sale of the booty made by Mummius, a painting by Aristides, representing Bacchus, was sold for 600,000 sestertii.324 There was seen in the triumph of Metellus surnamed Macedonicus, a group, the work of Lysippus, representing Alexander the Great, twenty-five horsemen, and nine foot-soldiers slain at the battle of the Granicus; this group, taken at Corinth, came from Dium in Macedonia.325

Other towns of Greece were no less rich in works of art.326 The Romans carried away from the little town of Eretria, at the time of the Macedonian war, a great number of paintings and precious statues.327 We know, from the traveller Pausanias, how prodigious was the quantity of offerings brought from the most diverse countries into the sanctuary of Delphi. This town, which, by its reputation for sanctity and its solemn games, the Pythian, was the rival of Olympia, gathered in its temple during ages immense treasures; and when it was plundered by the Phocæans, they found in it gold and silver enough to coin ten thousand talents of money (about 58 millions of francs [£2,320,000]). The ancient opulence of the Greeks had, nevertheless, passed into their colonies; and, from the extremity of the Black Sea to Cyrene, numerous establishments arose remarkable for their sumptuousness.

Macedonia.

VIII. Macedonia drew to herself, since the time of Alexander, the riches and resources of Asia. Dominant over a great part of Greece and Thrace, occupying Thessaly, and extending her sovereignty over Epirus, this kingdom concentrated in herself the vital strength of those cities formerly independent, which, two centuries before, were her rivals in power and courage. Under an economical administration, the public revenues rising from the royal domains,328 from the silver mines in Mount Pangeum, and from the taxes, were sufficient for the wants of the country.329 In 527, Antigonus sent to Rhodes considerable succours, which furnish the measure of the resources of Macedonia.330

Towards the year 563 of Rome, Philip had, by wise measures, raised again the importance of Macedonia. He collected in his arsenals materials for equipping three armies and provisions for ten years. Under Perseus, Macedonia was no less flourishing. That prince gave Cotys, for a service of six months with 1,000 cavalry, the large sum of 200 talents.331 At the battle of Pydna, which completed his ruin, nearly 20,000 men remained on the field, and 11,000 were made prisoners.332 In richness of equipment, the Macedonian troops far surpassed other armies. The Leucaspidan phalanx was dressed in scarlet, and carried gilt armour; the Chalcaspidan phalanx had shields of the finest brass.333 The prodigious splendour of the court of Perseus and that of his favourites reveal still more the degree of opulence at which Macedonia had arrived. All exhibited in their dresses and in their feasts a pomp equal to that of kings.334 Among the booty made by Paulus Æmilius were paintings, statues, rich tapestries, vases of gold, silver, bronze, and ivory, which were so many masterpieces.335 His triumph was unequalled by any other.336

Valerius of Antium estimates at more than 120 millions of sestertii (about 30 millions of francs [£1,200,000]) the gold and silver exhibited on this occasion.337 Macedonia, as we see, had absorbed the ancient riches of Greece. Thrace, long barbarous, began also to rise out of the condition of inferiority in which it had so long languished. Numerous Greek colonies, founded on the shores of the Pontus Euxinus, introduced there civilisation and prosperity; and among these colonies, Byzantium, though often harassed by the neighbouring barbarians, had already an importance and prosperity which presaged its future destinies.338 Foreigners, resorting to it from all parts, had introduced a degree of licentiousness which became proverbial.339 Its commerce was, above all, nourished by the ships of Athens, which went there to fetch the wheat of Tauris and the fish of the Euxine.340 When Athens, in her decline, became a prey to anarchy, Byzantium, where arts and letters flourished, served as a refuge to her exiles.

Asia Minor.

IX. Asia Minor comprised a great number of provinces, of which several became, after the dismemberment of the empire of Alexander, independent states. Of these, the principal formed into four groups, composing so many kingdoms, namely, Pontus, Bithynia, Cappadocia, and Pergamus. We must except from them some Greek cities on the coast, which kept their autonomy or were placed under the sovereignty of Rhodes. Their extent and limits varied often until the time of the Roman conquest, and several of them passed from one domination to another. All these kingdoms participated in different degrees in the prosperity of Macedonia.

“Asia,” says Cicero, “is so rich and fertile, that the fecundity of its plains, the variety of its products, the extent of its pastures, the multiplicity of the objects of commerce exported from it, give it an incontestible superiority over all other countries of the earth.341”

The wealth of Asia Minor appears from the amount of impositions paid by it to the different Roman generals. Without speaking of the spoils carried away by Scipio, in his campaign against Antiochus, and by Manlius Volso in 565, Sylla, and afterwards Lucullus and Pompey, each drew from this country about 20,000 talents,342 besides an equal sum distributed by them to their soldiers: which gives the enormous total of nearly seven hundred millions of francs [or twenty-eight millions sterling], received in a period of twenty-five years.

Kingdom of Pontus.

X. The most northern of the four groups named above formed a great part of the kingdom of Pontus. This province, the ancient Cappadocia Pontica, formerly a Persian satrapy, reduced to subjection by Alexander and his successor, recovered itself after the battle of Ipsus (453). Mithridates III. enlarged his territory by adding to it Paphlagonia, and afterwards Sinope and Galatia. Pontus soon extended from Colchis on the north-east to Lesser Armenia on the south-east, and had Bithynia for its boundary on the west. Thus, touching upon the Caucasus, and master of the Pontus Euxinus, this kingdom, composed of divers peoples, presented, under varied climates, a variety of different productions. It received wines and oils from the Ægean Sea, and wheat from the Bosphorus; it exported salt fish in great quantity,343 dolphin oil,344 and, as produce of the interior, the wools of the Gadilonitis,345 the fleeces of Ancyra, the horses of Armenia, Media, and Paphlagonia,346 the iron of the Chalybes, a population of miners to the south of Trapezus, already celebrated in the time of Homer, and mentioned by Xenophon.347 There also were found mines of silver, abandoned in the time of Strabo,348 but which have been re-opened in modern times. Important ports on the Black Sea facilitated the exportation of these products. It was at Sinope that Lucullus found a part of the treasures which he displayed at his triumph, and which gives us a lofty idea of the kingdom of Mithridates.349 An object of admiration at Sinope was the statue of Autolycus, one of the protecting heroes of the town, the work of the statuary Sthenis.350

Trapezus (Trebizonde), which before the time of Mithridates the Great preserved a sort of autonomy under the kings of Pontus, had an extensive commerce; which was the case also with another Greek colony, Amisus (Samsoun),351 regarded in the time of Lucullus as one of the most flourishing and richest towns in the country.352 In the interior, Amasia, which became afterwards one of the great fortresses of Asia Minor, and the metropolis of Pontus, had already probably, at the time of the Punic wars, a certain renown. Cabira, called afterwards Sebaste, and then Neocæsarea, the central point of the resistance of Mithridates the Great to Lucullus, owed its ancient celebrity to its magnificent Temple of the Moon. From the country of Cabira, there was, according to the statement of Lucullus,353 only the distance of a few days’ march into Armenia, a country the riches of which may be estimated by the treasures gathered by Tigranes.354

We can hence understand how Mithridates the Great was able, two centuries later, to oppose the Romans with considerable armies and fleets. He possessed in the Black Sea 400 ships,355 and his army amounted to 250,000 men and 40,000 horse.356 He received, it is true, succours from Armenia and Scythia, from the Palus Mæotis, and even from Thrace.

Bithynia.

XI. Bithynia, a province of Asia Minor, comprised between the Propontis, the Sangarius, and Paphlagonia, formed a kingdom, which, at the beginning of the sixth century of Rome, was adjacent to Pontus, and comprised several parts of the provinces contiguous to Mysia and Phrygia. In it were found several towns, the commerce of which rivalled that of the maritime towns of Pontus, and especially Nicæa and Nicomedia. This last, founded in 475 by Nicomedes I., took a rapid extension.357 Heraclea Pontica, a Milesian colony situated between the Sangarius and the Parthenius, preserved its extensive commerce, and an independence which Mithridates the Great himself could not entirely destroy; it possessed a vast port, safe and skilfully disposed, which sheltered a numerous fleet.358 The power of the Bithynians was not insignificant, since they sent into the field, in the war of Nicomedes against Mithridates, 56,000 men.359 If the traffic was considerable on the coasts of Bithynia, thanks to the Greek colonies, the interior was not less prosperous by its agriculture, and Bithynia was still, in the time of Strabo, renowned for its herds.360

One of the provinces of Bithynia fell into the hands of the Gauls (A.U.C. 478). Three peoples of Celtic origin shared it, and exercised in it a sort of feudal dominion. It was called Galatia from the name of the conquerors. Its places of commerce were: Ancyra, the point of arrival of the caravans coming from Asia, and Pessinus, one of the chief seats of the old Phrygian worship, where pilgrims repaired in great number to adore Cybele.361 The population of Galatia was certainly rather considerable, since in the famous campaign of Cneius Manlius Volso,362 in 565, the Galatians lost 40,000 men. The two tribes united of the Tectosagi and Trocmi raised at that period, in spite of many defeats, an army of 50,000 foot and 10,000 horse.363

Cappadocia.

XII. To the east of Galatia, Cappadocia comprised between the Halys and Armenia, distant from the sea, and crossed by numerous chains of mountains, formed a kingdom which escaped the conquests of Alexander, and which, a few years after his death, opposed Perdiccas with an army of 30,000 footmen and 15,000 horsemen.364 In the time of Strabo, wheat and cattle formed the riches of this country.365 In 566, King Ariarathes paid 600 talents for the alliance of the Romans.366 Mazaca (afterwards Cæsarea), capital of Cappadocia, a town of an entirely Asiatic origin, had been, from a very early period, renowned for its pastures.367

Kingdom of Pergamus.

XIII. The western part of Asia Minor is better known. It had seen, after the battle of Ipsus, the formation of the kingdom of Pergamus, which, thanks to the interested liberality of the Romans towards Eumenes II., increased continually until the moment when it fell under their sovereignty. To this kingdom belonged Mysia, the two Phrygias, Lycaonia, and Lydia. This last province, crossed by the Pactolus, had for its capital Ephesus, the metropolis of the Ionian confederation, at the same time the mart of the commerce of Asia Minor and one of the localities where the fine arts were cultivated with most distinction. This town had two ports: one penetrated into the heart of the town, while the other formed a basin in the very middle of the public market.368 The theatre of Ephesus, the largest ever built, was 660 feet in diameter, and was capable of holding 60,000 spectators. The most celebrated artists, Scopas, Praxiteles, etc., worked at Ephesus upon the great Temple of Diana. This monument, the building of which lasted two hundred and twenty years, was surrounded by 128 columns, each 60 feet high, presented by so many kings. Pergamus, the capital of the kingdom, passed for one of the finest cities in Asia, longe clarissimum Asiæ Pergamum, says Pliny;369 the port of Elæa contained maritime arsenals, and could arm numerous vessels.370 The acropolis of Pergamus, an inaccessible citadel, defended by two torrents, was the residence of the Attalides; these princes, zealous protectors of the sciences and arts, had founded in their capital a library of 200,000 volumes.371 Pergamus carried on a vast traffic; its cereals were exported in great quantities to most places in Greece.372 Cyzicus, situated on an island of the Propontis, with two closed ports forming a station for about two hundred ships,373 rivalled the richest cities of Asia. Like Adramyttium, it carried on a great commerce in perfumery,374 it worked the inexhaustible marble-quarries of the island of Proconnesus,375 and its commercial relations were so extensive that its gold coins were current in all the Asiatic factories.376 The town of Abydos possessed gold mines.377 The wheat of Assus was reputed the best in the world, and was reserved for the table of the kings of Persia.378

We may estimate the population and resources of this part of Asia from the armies and fleets which the kings had at their command at the time of the conquest of Greece by the Romans. In 555, Attalus II., and, ten years later, Eumenes II., sent them numerous galleys of five ranks of oars.379 The land forces of the kings of Pergamus were much less considerable.380 Their direct authority did not extend over a great territory, yet they had many tributary towns; hence their great wealth and small army. The Romans drew from this country, now nearly barren and unpeopled, immense contributions both in gold and wheat.381 The magnificence of the triumph of Manlius and the reflections of Livy, compared with the testimony of Herodotus, reveal all the splendour of the kingdom of Pergamus. It was after the war against Antiochus and the expedition of Manlius that extravagance began to display itself at Rome.382 Soldiers and generals enriched themselves prodigiously in Asia.383

The ancient colonies of Ionia and Æolis, such as Clazomenæ, Colophon, and many others, which were dependent for the most part on the kingdom of Pergamus, were fallen from their ancient grandeur. Smyrna, rebuilt by Alexander, was still an object of admiration for the beauty of its monuments. The exportation of wines, as celebrated on the coast of Ionia as in the neighbouring islands, formed alone an important support of the commerce of the ports of the Ægean Sea.

The treasures of the temple of Samothrace were so considerable, that we are induced to mention here a circumstance relating to this little island, though distant from Asia, and near the coast of Thrace: Sylla’s soldiers took in the sanctuary the Cabiri, an ornament of the value of 1,000 talents (5,820,000 francs [£232,800]).384

Caria, Lycia, and Cilicia.

XIV. On the southern coast of Asia Minor, some towns still sustained the rank they had attained one or two centuries before. The capital of Caria was Halicarnassus, a very strong town, defended by two citadels,385 and celebrated for one of the finest works of Greek art, the Mausoleum. In spite of the extraordinary fertility of the country, the Carians were accustomed, like the people of Crete, to engage as mercenaries in the Greek armies.386 On their territory stood the Ionian town of Miletus, with its four ports.387 The Milesians alone had civilised the shores of the Black Sea by the foundation of about eighty colonies.388

In turn independent, or placed under foreign dominion, Lycia, a province comprised between Caria and Cilicia, possessed some rich commercial towns. One especially, renowned for its ancient oracle of Apollo, no less celebrated than that of Delphi, was remarkable for its spacious port;389 this was Patara, which was large enough to contain the whole fleet of Antiochus, burnt by Fabius in 565.390 Xanthus, the largest town of the province, to which place ships ascended, only lost its importance after having been pillaged by Brutus.391 Its riches had at an earlier period drawn upon it the same fate from the Persians.392 Under the Roman dominion, Lycia beheld its population decline gradually; and of the seventy towns which it had possessed, no more than thirty-six remained in the eighth century of Rome.393

More to the east, the coasts of Cilicia were less favoured; subjugated in turn by the Macedonians, Egyptians, and Syrians, they had become receptacles of pirates, who were encouraged by the kings of Egypt in their hostility to the Seleucidæ.394 From the heights of the mountains which cross a part of the province, robbers descended to plunder the fertile plains situated on the eastern side (Cilicia Campestris).395 Still, the part watered by the Cydnus and the Pyramus was more prosperous, owing to the manufacture of coarse linen and to the export of saffron. There stood ancient Tarsus, formerly the residence of a satrap, the commerce of which had sprung up along with that of Tyre;396 and Soli, on which Alexander levied an imposition of a hundred talents as a punishment for its fidelity to the Persians,397 and which, by its maritime position, excited the envy of the Rhodians.398 These towns and other ports entered, after the battle of Ipsus, into the great commercial movement of which the provinces of Syria became the seat.

Syria.

XV. By the foundation of the empire of the Seleucidæ, Greek civilisation was carried into the interior of Asia, where the immobility of Eastern society was succeeded by the activity of Western life. Greek letters and arts flourished from the Sea of Phœnicia to the banks of the Euphrates. Numerous towns were built in Syria and Assyria, with all the richness and elegance of the edifices of Greece;399 some were almost in ruins in the time of Pliny.400 Seleucia, founded by Seleucus Nicator, at the mouth of the Orontes, and which received, with five other towns built by the same monarch, the name of the head of the Græco-Syrian dynasty, became a greatly frequented port. Antioch, built on the same river, rivalled the finest towns of Egypt and Greece by the number of its edifices, the extent of its places, and the beauty of its temples and statues.401 Its walls, built by the architect Xenæos, passed for a wonder, and in the Middle Ages their ruins excited the admiration of travellers.402 Antioch consisted of four quarters, having each its own enclosure;403 and the common enclosure which surrounded them all appears to have embraced an extent of six leagues in circumference. Not far from the town was the delightful abode of Daphne, where the wood, consecrated to Apollo and Diana, was an object of public veneration, and the place where sumptuous festivals were celebrated.404 Apamea was renowned for its pastures. Seleucus had formed there a stud of 30,000 mares, 300 stallions, and 500 elephants.405 The Temple of the Sun at Heliopolis (now Baalbek) was the most colossal work of architecture that had ever existed.406

The power of the empire of the Seleucidæ went on increasing until the time when the Romans seized upon it. Extending from the Mediterranean to the Oxus and Caucasus, this empire was composed of nearly all the provinces of the ancient kingdom of the Persians, and included peoples of different origins.407 Media was fertile, and its capital, Ecbatana, which Polybius represents as excelling in riches and the incredible luxury of its palaces the other cities of Asia, had not yet been despoiled by Antiochus III.;408 Babylonia, once the seat of a powerful empire, and Phœnicia, long the most commercial country in the world, made part of Syria, and touched upon the frontiers of the Parthians. Caravans, following a route which has remained the same during many centuries, placed Syria in communication with Arabia,409 whence came ebony, ivory, perfumes, resins, and spices; the Syrian ports were the intermediate marts for the merchants who proceeded as far as India, where Seleucus I. went to conclude a treaty with Sandrocottus. The merchandise of this country ascended the Euphrates as far as Thapsacus, and thence it was exported to all the provinces.410 Communications so distant and multiplied explain the prosperity of the empire of the Seleucidæ. Babylonia competed with Phrygia in embroidered tissues; purple and the tissues of Tyre, the glass, goldsmiths’ work, and dyes of Sidon, were exported far. Commerce had penetrated to the extremities of Asia. Silk stuffs were sent from the frontiers of China to Caspiæ Portæ, and thence conveyed by caravans at once towards the Tyrian Sea, Mesopotamia, and Pontus.411 Subsequently, the invasion of the Parthians, by intercepting the routes, prevented the Greeks from penetrating into the heart of Asia. Hence Seleucus Nicator formed the project of opening a way of direct communication between Greece and Bactriana, by constructing a canal from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea.412 Mines of precious metals were rather rare in Syria; but there was abundance of gold and silver, introduced by the Phœnicians, or imported from Arabia or Central Asia. We may judge of the abundance of money possessed by Seleucia, on the Tigris, by the amount of the contribution which was extorted from it by Antiochus III. (a thousand talents).413 The sums which the Syrian monarchs engaged to pay to the Romans were immense.414 The soil gave produce equal in importance with that of industry.415 Susiana, one of the provinces of Persia which had fallen under the dominion of the Seleucidæ, had so great a reputation for its corn, that Egypt alone could compete with it.416 Cœle-Syria was, like the north of Mesopotamia, in repute for its cattle.417 Palestine furnished abundance of wheat, oil, and wine. The condition of Syria was still so prosperous in the seventh century of Rome, that the philosopher Posidonius represents its inhabitants as indulging in continual festivals, and dividing their time between the labours of the field, banquets, and the exercises of the gymnasium.418 The festivals of Antiochus IV., in the town of Daphne,419 give a notion of the extravagance displayed by the grandees of that country.

The military forces assembled at different epochs by the kings of Syria enable us to estimate the population of their empire. In 537, at the battle of Raphia, Antiochus had under his command 68,000 men;420 in 564, at Magnesia, 62,000 infantry, and more than 12,000 horsemen.421 These armies, it is true, comprised auxiliaries of different nations. The Jews of the district of Carmel alone could raise 40,000 men.422

The fleet was no less imposing. Phœnicia counted numerous ports and well-stored arsenals; such were Aradus (Ruad), Berytus (Beyrout), Tyre (Sour). This latter town raised itself gradually from its decline. It was the same with Sidon (Saïde), which Antiochus III., in his war with Ptolemy, did not venture to attack on account of its soldiers, its stores, and its population.423 Moreover, the greater part of the Phœnician towns enjoyed, under the Seleucidæ, a certain autonomy favourable to their industry. In Syria, Seleucia, which Antiochus the Great recovered from the Egyptians, had become the first port in the kingdom on the Mediterranean.424 Laodicea carried on an active commerce with Alexandria.425 Masters of the coasts of Cilicia and Pamphylia, the kings of Syria obtained from them great quantities of timber for ship-building, which was floated down the rivers from the mountains.426 Thus uniting their vessels with those of the Phœnicians, the Seleucidæ launched upon the Mediterranean considerable armies.427

Distant commerce also employed numerous merchant vessels; the Mediterranean, like the Euphrates, was furrowed by barques which brought or carried merchandise of every description. Vessels sailing on the Erythræan Sea were in communication, by means of canals, with the shores of the Mediterranean. The great trade of Phœnicia with Spain and the West had ceased, but the navigation of the Euphrates and the Tigris replaced it for the transport of products, whether foreign or fabricated in Syria itself, and sent into Asia Minor, Greece, or Egypt. The empire of the Seleucidæ offered the spectacle of the ancient civilisation and luxury of Nineveh and Babylon, transformed by the genius of Greece.

Egypt.

XVI. Egypt, which Herodotus calls a present from the Nile, did not equal in surface a quarter of the empire of the Seleucidæ, but it formed a power much more compact. Its civilisation reached back more than three thousand years. The sciences and arts already flourished there, when Asia Minor, Greece, and Italy were still in a state of barbarism. The fertility of the valley of the Nile had permitted a numerous population to develop itself there to such a point, that under Amasis II., contemporary with Servius Tullius, twenty thousand cities were reckoned in it.428 The skilful administration of the first of the Lagides increased considerably the resources of the country. Under Ptolemy II., the annual revenues amounted to 14,800 talents (86,150,800 francs [£3,446,032]), and a million and a half of artabi429 of wheat.430 Besides the Egyptian revenues, the taxes levied in the foreign possessions reached the amount of about 10,000 talents a year. Cœle-Syria, Phœnicia, and Judea, with the province of Samaria, yielded annually to Ptolemy Euergetes 8,000 talents (46 millions and a half [£1,860,000]).431 A single feast cost Philadelphia 2,240 talents (more than 13 millions [more than half a million sterling]).432 The sums accumulated in the treasury amounted to the sum, perhaps exaggerated, of 740,000 talents (about 4 milliards 300 millions of francs [172 millions sterling]).433 In 527, Ptolemy Euergetes was able, without diminishing his resources too much, to send to the Rhodians 3,300 talents of silver, a thousand talents of copper, and ten millions of measures of wheat.434 The precious metals abounded in the empire of the Pharaohs, as is attested by the traces of mining operations now exhausted, and by the multitude of objects in gold contained in their tombs. Masters for some time of the Libanus, the kings of Egypt obtained from it timber for ship-building. These riches had accumulated especially at Alexandria, which became, after Carthage, towards the commencement of the seventh century of Rome, the first commercial city in the world.435 It was fifteen miles in circumference, had three spacious and commodious ports, which allowed the largest ships to anchor along the quay.436 There arrived the merchandises of India, Arabia, Ethiopia, and of the coast of Africa; some brought on the backs of camels, from Myos Hormos (to the north of Cosseïr), and then transported down the Nile; others came by canals from the bottom of the Gulf of Suez, or brought from the port of Berenice, on the Red Sea.437 The occupation of this sea by the Egyptians had put a stop to the piracies of the Arabs,438 and led to the establishment of numerous factories. India furnished spices, muslins, and dyes; Ethiopia, gold, ivory, and ebony; Arabia, perfumes.439 All these products were exchanged against those which came from the Pontus Euxinus and the Western Sea. The native manufacture of printed and embroidered tissues, and that of glass, assumed under the Ptolemies a new development. The objects exhumed from the tombs of this period, the paintings with which they are decorated, the allusions contained in the hieroglyphic texts and Greek papyrus, prove that the most varied descriptions of industry were exercised in the kingdom of the Pharaohs, and had attained a high degree of perfection. The excellence of the products and the delicacy of the work prove the intelligence of the workmen. Under Ptolemy II., the army was composed of 200,000 footmen, 40,000 cavalry, 300 elephants, and 200 chariots; the arsenals were capable of furnishing arms for 300,000 men.440 The Egyptian fleet, properly so called, consisted of a hundred and twelve vessels of the first class (from five to thirty ranges of oars), and two hundred and twenty-four of the second class, together with light craft; the king had, besides these, more than four thousand ships in the ports placed in subjection to him.441 It was especially after Alexander that the Egyptian navy became greatly extended.

Cyrenaica.

XVII. Separating Egypt from the possessions of Carthage, Cyrenaica (the regency of Tripoli), formerly colonised by the Greeks and independent, had fallen into the hands of the first of the Ptolemies. It possessed commercial and rich towns, and fertile plains; its cultivation extended even into the mountains;442 wine, oil, dates, saffron and different plants, such as the silphium (laserpitium),443 were the object of considerable traffic.444 The horses of Cyrenaica, which had all the lightness of the Arabian horses, were objects of research even in Greece,445 and the natives of Cyrene could make no more handsome present to Alexander than to send him three hundred of their coursers.446 Nevertheless, political revolutions had already struck at the ancient prosperity of the country,447 which previously formed, by its navigation, its commerce, and its arts, probably the finest of the colonies founded by the Greeks.

Cyprus.

XVIII. The numerous islands of the Mediterranean enjoyed equal prosperity. Cyprus, colonised by the Phœnicians, and subsequently by the Greeks, passing afterwards under the dominion of the Egyptians, had a population which preserved, from its native country, the love of commerce and distant voyages. Almost all its towns were situated on the sea-coast, and furnished with excellent ports. Ptolemy Soter maintained in it an army of 30,000 Egyptians.448 No country was richer in timber. Its fertility passed for being superior to that of Egypt.449 To its agricultural produce were added precious stones, mines of copper worked from an early period,450 and so rich, that this metal took its name from the island itself (Cuprum). In Cyprus were seen numerous sanctuaries, and especially the temple of Venus at Paphos, which contained a hundred altars.451

Crete.

XIX. Crete, peopled by different races, had attained even in the heroic age a great celebrity; Homer sang its hundred cities; but during several centuries it had been on the decline. Without commerce, without a regular navy, without agriculture, it possessed little else than its fruits and woods, and the sterility which characterises it now had already commenced. Nevertheless, there is every reason to believe that at the time of the Roman conquest, the island was still well peopled.452 Devoted to piracy,453 and reduced to sell their services, the Cretans, celebrated as archers, fought as mercenaries in the armies of Syria, Macedonia, and Egypt.454

Rhodes.

XX. If Crete was in decline, Rhodes, on the contrary, was extending its commerce, which took gradually the place of that of the maritime towns of Ionia and Caria. Already inhabited, in the time of Homer, by a numerous population, and containing three important towns, Lindos, Ialysus, and Camirus,455 the isle was, in the fifth century of Rome, the first maritime power after Carthage. The town of Rhodes, built during the war of the Peloponnesus (346), had, like the Punic city, two ports, one for merchant vessels, the other for ships of war. The right of anchorage produced a revenue of a million of drachmas a year.456 The Rhodians had founded colonies on different points of the Mediterranean shore,457 and entertained friendly relations with a great number of towns from which they received more than once succours and presents.458 They possessed upon the neighbouring Asiatic continent tributary towns, such as Caunus and Stratonicea, which paid them 120 talents (700,000 francs [£28,000]). The navigation of the Bosphorus, of which they strove to maintain the passage free, soon belonged to them almost exclusively.459 All the maritime commerce from the Nile to the Palus Mæotis thus fell into their hands. Laden with slaves, cattle, honey, wax, and salt meats,460 their ships went to fetch on the coast of the Cimmerian Bosphorus (Sea of Azof) the wheat then very celebrated,461 and to carry wines and oils to the northern coast of Asia Minor. By means of its fleets, though its land army was composed wholly of foreigners,462 Rhodes several times made war with success. She contended with Athens, especially from 397 to 399; she resisted victoriously, in 450, Demetrius Poliorcetes, and owed her safety to the respect of this prince for a magnificent painting of Ialysus, the work of Protogenes.463 During the campaigns of the Romans in Macedonia and Asia, she furnished them with considerable fleets.464 Her naval force was maintained until the civil war which followed the death of Cæsar, but was then annihilated.

The celebrity of Rhodes was no less great in arts and letters than in commerce. After the reign of Alexander, it became the seat of a famous school of sculpture and painting, from which issued Protogenes and the authors of the Laocoon and the Farnese Bull. The town contained three thousand statues,465 and a hundred and six colossi, among others the famous Statue of the Sun, one of the seven wonders of the world, a hundred and five feet high, the cost of which had been three thousand talents (17,400,000 francs [£696,000]).466 The school of rhetoric at Rhodes was frequented by students who repaired thither from all parts of Greece, and Cæsar, as well as Cicero, went there to perfect themselves in the art of oratory.

The other islands of the Ægean Sea had nearly all lost their political importance, and their commercial life was absorbed by the new states of Asia Minor, Macedonia, and Rhodes. It was not so with the Archipelago of the Ionian Sea, the prosperity of which continued until the moment when it fell into the power of the Romans. Corcyra, which received into its port the Roman forces, owed to its fertility and favourable position an extensive commerce. The rival of Corinth since the fourth century, she became corrupted like Byzantium and Zacynthus (Zante), which Agatharchides, towards 640, represents as grown effeminate by excess of luxury.467

Sardinia.

XXI. The flourishing condition of Sardinia arose especially from the colonies which Carthage had planted in it. The population of this island rendered itself formidable to the Romans by its spirit of independence.468 From 541469 to 580, 130,000 men were slain, taken, or sold.470 The number of these last was so considerable, that the expression Sardinians to sell (Sardi venales) became proverbial.471 Sardinia, which now counts not more than 544,000 inhabitants, then possessed at least a million. Its quantity of corn, and numerous herds of cattle, made of this island the second granary of Carthage.472 The avidity of the Romans soon exhausted it. Yet, in 552, the harvests were still so abundant, that there were merchants who were obliged to abandon the wheat to the sailors for the price of the freight.473 The working of the mines and the trade in wool of a superior quality474 occupied thousands of hands.

Corsica.

XXII. Corsica was much less populous. Diodorus Siculus gives it hardly more than 30,000 inhabitants,475 and Strabo represents them as savages, and living in the mountains.476 According to Pliny, however, it had thirty towns.477 Resin, wax, honey,478 exported from factories founded by the Etruscans and Phocæans on the coasts, were almost the only products of the island.

Sicily.

XXIII. Sicily, called by the ancients the favourite abode of Ceres, owed its name to the Sicani or Siculi, a race which had once peopled a part of Italy; Phœnician colonies, and afterwards Greek colonies, had established themselves in it. In 371, the Greeks occupied the eastern part, about two-thirds of the island; the Carthaginians, the western part. Sicily, on account of its prodigious fertility, was, as may be supposed, coveted by both peoples; it was soon the same in regard to the Romans, and, after the conquest, it became the granary of Italy.479 The orations of Cicero against Verres show the prodigious quantities of wheat which it sent, and to what a great sum the tenths or taxes amounted, which procured immense profits to the farmers of the revenues.480

The towns which, under Roman rule, declined, were possessed of considerable importance at the time of which we are speaking. The first among them, Syracuse, the capital of Hiero’s kingdom, contained 600,000 souls; it was composed of six quarters, comprised in a circumference of 180 stadia (36 kilometres); it furnished, when it was conquered, a booty equal to that of Carthage.481 Other cities rivalled Syracuse in extent and power. Agrigentum, in the time of the first Punic war, contained 50,000 soldiers;482 it was one of the principal garrisons in Sicily.483 Panormus (Palermo), Drepana (Trapani), and Lilybæum (Marsala), possessed arsenals, docks for ship-building, and vast ports. The roadstead of Messina was capable of holding 600 vessels.484 Sicily is still the richest country in ancient monuments; our admiration is excited by the ruins of twenty-one temples and of eleven theatres, among others that of Taormina, which contained 40,000 spectators.485

This concise description of the countries bordering on the Mediterranean, two or three hundred years before our era, shows sufficiently the state of prosperity of the different peoples who inhabited them. The remembrance of such greatness inspires a very natural wish, namely, that henceforth the jealousy of the great powers may no longer prevent the East from shaking off the dust of twenty centuries, and from being born again to life and civilisation!