Page:Early Man in Britain and His Place in the Tertiary Period.djvu/484

456 in Phœnicia. We should have expected that this want of originality would have made itself felt least in things connected with commerce, and yet it betrays itself even there. The Phœnicians borrowed from Greek taste and Greek art even in their coins, and on a gold coin from Carthage the head of a Greek god is to be seen with a Phœnician inscription. They first copied the Egyptians, then the Assyrians, and afterwards the successive rulers of the Mediterranean with whom they came in contact. The Phœnician "step" ornament is probably derived from an Assyrian source, and the habit of going to the animal and vegetable worlds for many of their designs is certainly due to the influence of their neighbours. It was indeed impossible, as Wiberg remarks, that in so small a territory as that of Tyre and Sidon any independent style of art could have arisen.

The conquest of Phœnicia by the Assyrians, B.C. 859, was followed by an emigration to Africa of the rich and illustrious Tyrian merchants, who founded Carthage, according to Movers, about 814 B.C. The new emigrants, afterwards joined by another large body of citizens flying from the attack of Nebuchadnezzar, caused the centre of Phœnician life and power to be shifted to the west. The colonies in Sicily, Sardinia, North Africa, and Malta, acknowledged the supremacy of the new Tyre, and Gades and all its dependencies