e the
opulent eastern continent abuts on the wide-spreading Mediterranean
so rich in harbours and islands, that commerce first dawned in all
its greatness upon man. The Phoenicians directed all the resources of
courage, acuteness, and enthusiasm to the full development of commerce
and its attendant arts of navigation, manufacturing, and colonization,
and thus connected the east and the west. At an incredibly early
period we find them in Cyprus and Egypt, in Greece and Sicily, in
Africa and Spain, and even on the Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea.
The field of their commerce reached from Sierra Leone and Cornwall
in the west, eastward to the coast of Malabar. Through their hands
passed the gold and pearls of the East, the purple of Tyre, slaves,
ivory, lions' and panthers' skins from the interior of Africa,
frankincense from Arabia, the linen of Egypt, the pottery and fine
wines of Greece, the copper of Cyprus, the silver of Spain, tin from
England, and iron from Elba. The Phoenician mariners brought to
every nation whatever it could need or was likely to purchase; and
they roamed everywhere, yet always returned to the narrow home to
which their affections clung.

Their Intellectual Endowments

The Phoenicians are entitled to be commemorated in history by the
side of the Hellenic and Latin nations; but their case affords a
fresh proof, and perhaps the strongest proof of all, that the
development of national energies in antiquity was of a one-sided
character. Those noble and enduring creations in the field of
intellect, which owe their origin to the Aramaean race, do not belong
primarily to the Phoenicians. While faith and knowledge in a certain
sense were the especial property of the Aramaean nations and first
reached the Indo-Germans from the east, neither the Phoenician
religion nor Phoenician science and art ever, so far as we can
see, held an independent rank among those of the Aramaean family.
The religious conceptions of the Phoenicians were rude and uncouth,
and it seemed as if their worship was meant to foster rather than to
restrain lust and cruelty. No trace is discernible, at least in times
of clear historical light, of any special influence exercised by their
religion over other nations. As little do we find any Phoenician
architecture or plastic art at all comparable even to those of Italy,
to say nothing of the lands where art was native. The most ancient
seat of scientific observation and of its