stirring capital of a powerful state, and a chief seat of
Phoenician civilization, which was zealously fostered at the court of
the Berber king--fostered perhaps studiously with a view to the future
Carthagino-Numidian kingdom. The hitherto degraded Libyan nationality
thus rose in its own estimation, and the native manners and language
made their way even into the old Phoenician towns, such as Great
Leptis. The Berber began, under the aegis of Rome, to feel himself
the equal or even the superior of the Phoenician; Carthaginian envoys
at Rome had to submit to be told that they were aliens in Africa,
and that the land belonged to the Libyans. The Phoenico-national
civilization of North Africa, which still retained life and vigour
even in the levelling times of the Empire, was far more the work
of Massinissa than of the Carthaginians.

The State of Culture in Spain

In Spain the Greek and Phoenician towns along the coast, such as
Emporiae, Saguntum, New Carthage, Malaca, and Gades, submitted to the
Roman rule the more readily, that, left to their own resources, they
would hardly have been able to protect themselves from the natives;
as for similar reasons Massilia, although far more important and more
capable of self-defence than those towns, did not omit to secure a
powerful support in case of need by closely attaching itself to the
Romans, to whom it was in return very serviceable as an intermediate
station between Italy and Spain. The natives, on the other hand, gave
to the Romans endless trouble. It is true that there were not wanting
the rudiments of a national Iberian civilization, although of its
special character it is scarcely possible for us to acquire any clear
idea. We find among the Iberians a widely diffused national writing,
which divides itself into two chief kinds, that of the valley of the
Ebro, and the Andalusian, and each of these was presumably subdivided
into various branches: this writing seems to have originated at a very
early period, and to be traceable rather to the old Greek than to the
Phoenician alphabet. There is even a tradition that the Turdetani
(round Seville) possessed lays from very ancient times, a metrical
book of laws of 6000 verses, and even historical records; at any rate
this tribe is described as the most civilized of all the Spanish
tribes, and at the same time the least warlike; indeed, it regularly
carried on its wars by means of foreign mercenaries. To the same
regi