Scythian (B.c. 634-607), and the Babylonian desolations; the temples of Melkarth and Astarte alone survive.

248. The armies of the Chaldæan are marshalled around the merchant city. The prophets of Salem pour forth their denunciations against thee, and the vials of their wrath on the regions of the Nile. For thirteen years thy palaces have resounded with the clangour of arms; but thy navies guard thy island, and ride triumphant on the sea. The Lydian, and the Lycian, and the Persian hang their shields on thy bastions, and array their thousands on thy walls; the squadrons of Togarmath are mounted in thy streets, and the Egyptian hosts are advancing.

249. Vain are the denunciations of the prophet; the fury of his hatred is vain. The armies of Babylon are retiring; the siege of the merchant city has failed.

250. MARSEILLES (Massilia).-About 600 years before the Christian era, the Phocæans, who were then rising into maritime power, and to whom, from 576 to 532, is ascribed the sovereignty of the sea, under Euxenus, who had already contracted a friendship with the ruler of the place, settled on the southern coasts of Gaul, not far from the mouth of the Rhone, and there founded Massilia, now represented by the flourishing town of Marseilles.

251. It is obvious, from the story of the settlement, that the Phocæans had previously visited these parts. Probably they had established such commercial relations as rendered them welcome guests.

252. There they formed an emporium, which, next to Carthage and Carteia, became the most important seat of commerce, and the most prolific centre of colonization for the West.

253. Domestic troubles, and the invasion of Cyrus, compelled the Phocæans, about sixty-six years afterwards, to quit their native seats; they planted, or endeavoured to plant, a settlement at Alalia, in Corsica, and successfully encountered the combined Carthaginian and Etruscan fleets. But the

vicinity of these formidable nations compelled them to abandon the enterprise, and to add their numbers to the settlement of their brethren in Marseilles.

254. From this time Massilia flourished. We hear nothing of her wars; but her minor towns, scattered from Liguria to Spain, excluded the Punic merchants from the whole south coast of Gaul.

255. She spread her civilizing and enriching influence to the very north of the mainland, and established colonies or factories opposite the British shore, from which she carried on a lucrative commerce with the southern coast of England, and derived from Cornwall in that direction the muchcoveted tin. Nor was that the only product. We hear of the import of lead; and the vicinity of her merchants, residing among the Veneti (in Brittany), not very far from the outlet of the Baltic, afforded the opportunity of purchasing amber, still more coveted than tin.

256. While the vessels from Carthage and Carteia reached the Cassiterides by sea, the British exports, brought across the Channel, were conveyed in about thirty days from the north to the southern ports of France, and thence distributed to the east by the ships and customers of Marseilles.

257. She, 150 years before the Christian era, was pressed by the transalpine Ligurians, and called for the aid, and, as a consequence, submitted to the sovereignty, of Rome. Her devotion to commerce, her convenient situation, and her pre-established connection with the coasts opposite to Albion, preserved to her the commerce which the defeated Carthaginians lost.

258. NAUCRATIS.-The Greek pirates infested Rhacotis, and, according to their habit, combined pillage and commerce along the Egyptian coasts. The Pharaohs strove to exclude them from their shores; but (B.c. 550) Amasis, to suppress piracy and encourage traffic, permitted Milesians to found a city in the Saitic nome on the eastern bank of

the Canopic branch of the Nile,—a city which stood, when Alexandria was founded, perhaps by reason of the extension of the alluvial land, full thirty miles from the sea. Like the Hanse Towns and other great cities of Europe, it enjoyed, by grant from the Pharaohs, the rights of self-government in the midst of a sovereign state. Though founded by Milesians, its population and prosperity were advanced by immigration from all parts of Greece. Its manufactures were porcelain and peculiar wreaths of flowers. Its prosperity knew no check till imperial Alexandria arose.

259. ATHENS, daughter of Cecropia (B.c. 1586), hybrid of Hellenic and Phoenician descent, birthplace of æsthetic beauty, school of wisdom and the elegant arts; for a thousand years thou hadst quietly and silently prospered, and weathered the storms which threatened, or broke upon thine or thy adjacent lands. The days of thy triumph, the days of Marathon (B.C. 490) and Salamis (B.c. 480), the morning of thy pride and ambition was the prelude of thy glory, and of thy speedy fall. Thy ships of commerce are converted into ships of war, and assert a piratical sovereignty on the sea (B.c. 477-413). Thy long walls are prepared (B.C. 456) for the defence which had been better maintained by thy forces engaged in invasion and foreign exploits. In thy pride and in thy glory, while everything is beautiful within thee, while Pericles rules, and the defamed Aspasia surrounds thee with a halo, thou art rushing upon ruin, and verging upon thy fall.-For sixty-four years only endured her splendid dominion, among the shortest and brightest eras of empire. The relics of the disordered army and baffled vessels which fled from Syracuse (B.C. 413-412) could no longer support her usurpations, or maintain dominion on the sea. Her power had departed before Lysander at Ægos Potamos took her navy while its sailors were taking their lunch.

260. CARTHAGE.-During the early period of her contests in aid of her Sicilian allies, Carthage expanded her naviga

tion and colonies with a boldness standing in strong contrast with her want of energy in war.

261. She (B.c. 450) dispatched Hanno, not to discover, for she must, since the voyage of her forefathers in the time of Necho, have known, but to colonize, the African coast beyond the Pillars of Hercules, with sixty ships, bearing 3000 persons, including women and children, on board. The numbers indicate emigration to known places of settlement rather than in search of a home. These were settled, in various positions, from Abyla to Cerne, that is, from Ceuta to somewhere about the mouth of Senegal.

262. About the same time, Hamilco was dispatched, but, probably, rather for discovery and commerce than for colonization, with a considerable squadron along the northwestern coast of Europe, and obtained considerable information of this region: indeed, it must have been to a considerable extent well known to their compatriots of Gades, and the other settlements in Spain.

263. ROME began her career with the destruction of commerce, in the subversion, or on the wrecks, of a magnificent city, which may be called primæval Rome,—a city which had constructed for her relief, in an unhealthy, and often inundated situation, with an enormous population, sewers adequate to the exigencies of Babylon, or the metropolis of the British realm,-sewers such as London is now first about to form,-sewers for which the tents of Romulus and the shanties of the Palatine, and even the cottages of the patrician owners of five- or six-acre farms, during the caziquedom of Servius Tullius and Tarquin, had no more occasion than the inhabitants of a country town; works of which it is obvious that the Romans were ignorant, when, after the conquest of Brennus, they built their streets crosswise above them. The whole Roman territory, at the time to which these stupendous works are usually ascribed, was less than those of some modern landed proprietors. The fee-simple of her possessions, from 60,000 to 100,000 acres of by no

means good land, would not have paid the wages of the the workmen who constructed these works, even if they had workmen of adequate skill.

264. The port of Ostia, dependent on its vast artificial accommodation, was adapted to a great merchant city, not to the martial clowns of regal Rome. They had neither the wealth, nor the labour, nor the talent, nor the need, nor the thought, which could devise, perfect, require, or desire such a port for such a town.

265. The Romans were never a commercial people; they had no genius for traffic; they sought not to earn by industry what they might obtain by force.

266. TYRE.-Once more must we turn our eyes upon Tyre. The mother of nations sits desolate; the merchant city is once more besieged. Another monster, more fierce and more successful than the Babylonian, has set forth on his career of conquest, by murder, rapine, and desolation to acquire the name of Hero and the appellation of Great.

267. The Macedonian phalanx has occupied the shores, and a huge mole of rock and rubbish is creeping irresistibly forward to the island gates. A ruthless and passionate boy has doomed the city, deemed eternal. After 2500 years of wealth and power (B.c. 332), her race of glory is run. supremacy is transplanted. Alexandria shall enjoy her commerce, and immortalize the destroyer's name.

Her

268. ALEXANDRIA.-Was it that mad boy's wisdom, or was he taught it by a prophetic seer? The desolator of nations, the destroyer of Tyre, the conqueror of Naucratis, from which perhaps the shore had too far retired, saw that nature had created the beach between the ocean and Lake Mereotis for the emporium of merchandise between India and the West. The refuge of the rover was destined to be the imperial city. Its founder passed away, his undigested empire dissolved; but Alexandria became a royal city, spacious and noble, and rich and proud. She became, and remained during the whole reign of the Ptolemies, empress of the Mediterranean trade; and during the reign of Rome she