n was not long confined to Africa. Her ambitious
inhabitants extended their conquest into Europe, by invading Sardinia,
seizing a great part of Sicily, and subduing almost all of Spain.
Having sent powerful colonies everywhere, they enjoyed the empire of
the seas for more than six hundred years and formed a State which was
able to dispute pre-eminence with the greatest empire of the world, by
their wealth, their commerce, their numerous armies, their formidable
fleets, and above all by the courage and ability of their commanders,
and she extended her commerce over every part of the known world. A
colony of Phoenicians or Ethiopians, known in Scripture as Canaanites,
settled in Carthage. The Carthaginians settled in Spain and Portugal.
The first inhabitants of Spain were the Celts, a people of Gaul, after
them the Phoenicians possessed themselves of the most southern parts
of the country, and may well be supposed to have been the first
civilizers of this kingdom, and the founders of the most ancient
cities. After these, followed the Grecians, then the Carthaginians.

Portugal was anciently called Lusitania, and inhabited by tribes of
wandering people, till it became subject to the Carthaginians and
Phoenicians, who were dispossessed by the Romans 250 years before
Christ. (ROLLIN.)

The Carthaginians were masters of all the coast which lies on the
Mediterranean, and all the country as far as the river Iberus. Their
dominions, at the time when Hannibal the Great set out for Italy, all
the coast of Africa from the Arae Phileanorum, by the great Syrtis, to
the pillars of Hercules was subject to the Carthaginians, who had
maintained three great wars against the Romans. But the Romans finally
prevailed by carrying the war into Africa, and the last Punic war
terminated with the overthrow of Carthage (NEPOS, _in Vita Annibalis_,
liv.)

The celebrated Cyrene was a very powerful city, situated on the
Mediterranean, towards the greater Syrtis, in Africa, and had been
built by Battus, the Lacedaemonian. (ROLLIN.)

_Cyrene_--(Acts xi. 20.) A province and city of Libya. There was
anciently a Phoenician colony called Cyrenaica, or "Libya, about
Cyrene." (Acts ii. 10.).

_Cyrene_--A country west of Egypt, and the birthplace of Callimachus
the poet, Eratosthenes the historian, and Simon who bore the Saviour's
cross. Many Jews from hence were at the Pentecost, and were converted
under Peter's sermon (Acts ii.). The region, now under