Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 1).djvu/76

 *thing like an exclusive monopoly. Yet the abundant details given by Herodotus, Diodorus, Aristotle, Strabo, Terence, and Plautus, show clearly that, even with these places, her commercial relations attained considerable dimensions. The wines and oils of Sicily and Italy found their best market in Carthage, the return being black slaves from Central Africa. Malta, Corsica, Elba, produced fine cloths, wax and honey, and iron, respectively; while the mines of Spain, with her great port Cadiz, the entrepôt for tin from Britain, before the Massalians brought it overland through France, produced the largest and most enduring portion of her revenue.

To her commerce with the interior of Africa by means of caravans mention has already been made; and it is scarcely necessary to add that the details which Herodotus and other ancient writers give of this trade, read much like a page out of Livingstone, or Baker, or Du Chaillu. Then, as now, the wants of the respective populations were much the same; if the interior could send abundance of ivory or gold-dust, salt, a need of their daily life, could be procured only from the Mediterranean shores. Lastly, it is certain that Carthage, like the United States of America in modern times, was mainly indebted for her navy to her merchant service, inasmuch as in times of peace she set apart scarcely any shipping for merely warlike purposes.