pe, the greatest discovery for
shortening the route to India. This was discovered during the time that
Egypt was a Roman province.
-=-

[end of page #54]

Such were the vicissitudes, changes, and variations of this commerce
in early periods, and during the middle ages; and, when we come to
treat of the same within the last two centuries, we shall find it equally
liable to alteration.

Of all the spots on the face of the earth that have undergone revolution
and ruin, they that are now the most completely sunk below their
natural level, are those which were formerly the highest above it.

We have left uninterrupted the detail of the commercial greatness of
those places, in order not to break the narrative; but as cities cannot be
great without connection, it is necessary to notice, that Marseilles in
France, and Carthagena, and some other places on the coast of Spain,
were those, by which eastern luxuries came into Europe from
Alexandria and Tyre. The Carthaginians, a Tyrian colony, had the
produce from Tyre, and from Rhinocolura, and supplied Spain and the
western portion of Africa; but when Alexandria arose, Carthage began
to fall. Alexandria, situated near to it on the same coast, was a rival,
not a friend, as Tyre had been, and the first Punic war, in which the
pride of that republic had involved it with Rome, following soon after,
hastened its decline. {50}

The nations of Greece, which had risen to power and wealth, owed
these more to their superiority in mind, in learning, and the fine arts,
than to any attention they ever paid to commerce; they had begun by
being the most barbarous of all the people in that part of the globe,
and got their first knowledge from the Egyptians, whom they long
considered as their superiors in science, as the Romans afterwards did
the Greeks; but when the barbarians broke down the western empire,
learning as well as commerce was very soon extinguished.

It was the share of Indian commerce, settled at Constantinople, that
tended more than any other circumstance to preserve that empire so
long. To that, and to the barbarians having other occupation, rather

---
{50} Marseilles was founded soon after the city of Rome, but it was a
government of itself, and made no part of ancient Gaul. The Gauls
were warlike barbarians. The inhabitants of Marseilles were polished,
like the inhabitants of other towns that enjoyed commercial wealth.
They were always allies, and steady friends to t