Page:History of Greece Vol III.djvu/364

 348 HISTORY OF GREECE. has been imagined with some probability that she is identical with Astarte, the divine patroness under whose auspices the colony was originally established, as Gades and Tarsus were founded under those of Herakles, the tale of the funeral pile and self-burning appearing in the religious ceremonies of other Cilician and Syrian towns. 1 Phenician religion and worship was diffused along with the Phenician colonies throughout the larger portion of the Mediterranean. The Phokaeans of Ionia, who amidst their adventurous voyages w estward established the colony of Massalia, (as early as 600 B. c.) were only enabled to accomplish this by a naval victory over the Carthaginians, the earliest example of Greek and Carthaginian collision which has been preserved to us. The Carthaginians were jealous of commercial rivalry, and their traffic with the Tus- cans and Latins in Italy, as well as their lucrative mine-working in Spain, dates from a period when Greek commerce in those regions was hardly known. In Greek authors, the denomination Phenicians is often used to designate the Carthaginians, a/ well as the inhabitants of Tyre and Sidon, so that we cannot always distinguish which of the two is meant ; but it is remarkable that the distant establishment of Gades, and the numerous settlements planted for commercial purposes along the western coast of Africa, and without the strait of Gibraltar, are expressly ascribed to the Tyrians. 2 Many of the other Phenician establishments on the southern coast of Spain seemed to have owed their origin to Car- thage rather than to Tyre. But the relations between the two, so far as we know them, were constantly amicable, and Carthage, even at the period of her highest glory, sent Theori with a trib- ute of religious recognition to the Tyrian Herakles : the visit of these envoys coincided with the siege of the town by Alexander the Great. On that critical occasion, the wives and children of the Tyrians were sent to find shelter at Carthage : two centuries before, when the Persian empire was in its age of growth and expansion, the Tyrians had refused to aid Kambyses with their fleet in his plans for conquering Carthage, and thus probably pro- served their colony from subjugation. 3 1 See Movers, Die Phcinizier, pp. 609-616.
 * Strabo, xvii, p. 826. 3 Herodot. iii, 19-