rritory has been estimated as having a sea-line of not less than 1400
miles, and containing 300 towns; she had also possessions in Spain, in
Sicily, and other Mediterranean islands, acquired, not by conquest, but
by colonization. In the silver mines of Spain she employed not less than
forty thousand men. In these respects she was guided by the maxims of
her Phoenician ancestry, for the Tyrians had colonized for depots, and
had forty stations of that kind in the Mediterranean. Indeed, Carthage
herself originated in that way, owing her development to the position
she held at the junction of the east and west basins. The Carthaginian
merchants did not carry for hire, but dealt in their commodities. This
implied an extensive system of depots and bonding. They had anticipated
many of the devices of modern commerce. They effected insurances, made
loans on bottomry, and it has been supposed that their leathern money
may have been of the nature of our bank notes.

[Sidenote: Attempts of the Persians at dominion in the Mediterranean.]

[Sidenote: Contest between them and the Greeks.]

[Sidenote: The fifty years' war, and eventual supremacy of Athens.]

In the preceding chapter we have spoken of the attempts of the Asiatics
on Egypt and the south shore of the Mediterranean; we have now to turn
to their operations on the north shore, the consequences of which are of
the utmost interest in the history of philosophy. It appears that the
cities of Asia Minor, after their contest with the Lydian kings, had
fallen an easy prey to the Persian power. It remained, therefore, only
for that power to pass to the European continent. A pretext is easily
found where the policy is so clear. So far as the internal condition of
Greece was concerned, nothing could be more tempting to an invader.
There seemed to be no bond of union between the different towns, and,
indeed, the more prominent ones might be regarded as in a state of
chronic revolution. In Athens, since B.C. 622, the laws of Draco had
been supplanted by those of Solon; and again and again the government
had been seized by violence or gained through intrigue by one adventurer
after another. Under these circumstances the Persian king passed an army
into Europe. The military events of both this and the succeeding
invasion under Xerxes have been more than sufficiently illustrated by
the brilliant imagination of the lively Greeks. It was needless,
however, to devise such fictions as the m