Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/120

 104 HISTORY OF GREECE. Thucydides tells us that the Phoenicians and Karians, in very early periods, occupied many of the islands of the JEgean, and we know, from the striking remnant of their mining works which Herodotus himself saw in Thasus, off the coast of Thrace, thai they had once extracted gold from the mountains of that island, at a period indeed very far back, since their occupation must have been abandoned prior to the settlement of the poet Archilo- chus. 1 Yet few of the islands in the JEgean were rich in such valuable products, nor was it in the usual course of Phoenician proceeding to occupy islands, except where there was an adjoining mainland with which trade could be carried on. The traffic of these active mariners required no permanent settlement, but as occasional visitors they were convenient, in enabling a Greek chief to turn his captives to account, to get rid of slaves or friendless Thetes who were troublesome, and to supply himself with the metals, precious as well as useful. 2 The halls of Alki- amber ; 2, an im-pure gold, containing as much as one-fifth or more of silver (Pliny, H. N. xxxiii. 4). The passages in which we read the word in the Odyssey do not positively exclude either of these meanings ; but they present to us electrum so much in juxtaposition with gold and silver each separately, that perhaps the second meaning is more probable than the first. Herodotus understands it to mean amber (iii. 115) : Sophokles, on the contrary, employs it to designate a metal akin to gold (Antigone, 1033). See the dissertation of Buttmann, appended to his collection of essays called Mythologies, vol. ii. p. 337 ; also, Beckmann, History of Inventions, voL iv. p. 12, Engl. Transl. " The ancients (observes the latter) used as a pecu- liar metal a mixture of gold and silver, because they were not acquainted with the art of separating them, and gave it the name of electrum." l)r Thirlwall (Hist, of Greece, vol. i. p. 241) thinks that the Homeric electiiim ia amber ; on the contrary, Hiillmann thinks that it was a metallic substance (Handels, Gcschichte der Griechen, pp. 63-81). Beckmann doubts whether the oldest naaairepoc of the Greeks was really tin: he rather thinks that it was "the stannum of the Eomans, the werk of our smelting-houses, that is, a mixture of lead, silver, and other accidental metals." (Ibid. p. 20). The Greeks of Massalia procured tin from Britain, through Gaul, by the Seine, the Saone, and the Rhone (Diodor. v. 22). 1 Herodot. ii. 44 ; vi. 47. Archiloch. Fragm. 21-22, ed. Gaisf. (Enomauf. op: Euseb. Praep. Ev. vi. 7. Thucyd. i. 12. The Greeks connected this Phoenician settlement in Thasns with tho legend of Kadmus and his sister Europa: Thasus, the cponymus of the island, was brother of Kadmus. (Herod, ib.)
 * The angry Laomcdon threatens when Poseidon and Apollo ask fro