Page:History of Greece Vol III.djvu/289

 UTICA. - CARTHAGE. - CADES 273 mediately westward of cape Bona, was convenient for commerce with Sicily, Italy, and Sardinia ; and the other Pheniciau colonies, Adrumetum, Neapolis, Hippo (two towns so called), the lesser Leptis. etc., were settled on the coast not far distant from the eastern or western promontories which included the gulf of Tunis, common to Carthage and Utica. These early Phenician settlements were planted thus in the territory now known as the kingdom of Tunis and the western portion of the French province of Constantine. From thence to the Pillars of Herakles (strait of Gibraltar), we do not hear ot any others ; but the colony of Gades, outside of the strait, form- ed the centre of a nourishing and extensive commerce, which reached on one side far to the south, not less than thirty days' sail along the western coast of Africa, 1 and on the other side to Britain and the Scilly Islands. There were numerous Pheni- cian factories and small trading-towns along the western coast of what is now the empire of Morocco ; and the island of Kerne, twelve days' sail along the coast from the strait of Gibraltar, formed an established depot for Phenician merchandise in trading with the interior. There were, moreover, towns not far distant from the coast, of Libyans or Ethiopians, to which the inhabitants of the central regions resorted, and where they brought their leopard skins and elephants' teeth, to be exchanged against the unguents of Tyre and the pottery of Athens. 2 So distant a trade, 1 Strabo. xvii. pp. S23-82G. He found it stated by some authors that there had once been three hundred trading establishments along this coast, reach- ing thirty days' voyage southward from Tingis or Lixus (Tangier); but that they had been chiefly ruined by the tribes of the interior, the Pharu- sians and Xurrito:. lie suspects the statement of being exaggerated, but there seems nothing at all incredible in it. From Strabo's language wo gather that Eratosthenes set forth the statement as in his judgment a true one. 8 Compare Skylax, c. Ill, and the Periplus of Hanno, ap. Hudson, Geogr. Grace. Min. vol. i, pp. 1-6. I have already observed that the rapi^of (salt provisions) from Gadeira was currently sold in the markets of Athens^ from the Peloponnesian war downward. Eupolis. Frugm. 23; Mapucaf, p. 506. ed. Meincke, Comic. Grrcc. Horep' j)v TO Tt'ipixo; ; Qpvyiov rj TadeipiKuv ; Compare the citr.t'ons from the other comic writers, Antiphanes and Niko>< VOL. IIT. 12* 18flL