Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 1.djvu/52

 32 HISTORY or ART IN PHOENICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES. Cagliari, and they founded stations on the western coast which afterwards became the towns of Nora and Tharros. From these ports the coasts of Spain could be easily reached, either by hugging the shores of Mauritania* or by way of the Balearic Islands. To the Phoenicians the chief attraction of Spain lay in its mines, of which the more accessible seams had already per- haps been worked by the indigenous races. By following the coast southward and westward the Tyrian seamen would at last arrive at Calpe, whence they would look out on a boundless and unknown sea, suggesting that they had at last reached the end of the habit- able world. The fears that seized them have sent an echo down even to our times. They could not repress the misgivings they felt at the long rollers of the Atlantic and at the swing of its tides ; they hesitated on the threshold of the unknown. According to a tradition long current at Gades, it was only after having twice retreated that they at last nerved themselves to pass the straits and to land on the other side. 1 A third expedition, led by a bolder captain, founded on a small island close to the main-land the colony which was afterwards to become famous as Gadira, Gades and Cadiz.' By its situation and its houses tightly packed into a narrow space, Gadira must have reminded its founders of Tyre and Arvad. It became a fruitful nursery of hardy sailors and rapidly attained a prosperity that still excited the admiration of Strabo in the first century of our era. 3 Its insular site made this advanced post secure enough, while its proximity to the main land made business easy. The Phoenician merchants soon established intimate relations with the people of Betica, the Turtes, Turditani or Turdules of the Greek and Latin historians. It has sometimes been suggested that a connection should be sought between the name of these people and the word Tarshish, which was certainly borrowed by the Hebrew writers from the Phoenicians. 4 We have some reason to believe, however, that at first the word Tarshish was applied by the Syrian navigators to southern Italy ; with time it became 1 STRABO, iii. v. 5, 2 From the Phoenician word gfidir, a "closed and fortified place." Sec FR. LENORM ANT'S Manuel de FHistoire aticienne, vol. iii. p. 58. 3 STRABO, iii. i. 8 ; v. 3 ; DIODORUS, v. xx. 2. 4 Genesis x. 4 ; i Chronicles. 7; Psalms Ixxii. 10 ; ISAIAH xxiii. 6, 10, 14; Ixxi. 19; EZEKIEL xxvii. 12.