was protected and encouraged; and such
was not the case elsewhere. The position of Caere was especially
remarkable. "The Caerites," says Strabo, "were held in much repute
among the Hellenes for their bravery and integrity, and because,
powerful though they were, they abstained from robbery." It is
not piracy that is thus referred to, for in this the merchant of
Caere must have indulged like every other. But Caere was a sort
of free port for Phoenicians as well as Greeks. We have already
mentioned the Phoenician station--subsequently called Punicum--and
the two Hellenic stations of Pyrgi and Alsium.(5) It was these
ports that the Caerites refrained from robbing, and it was beyond
doubt through this tolerant attitude that Caere, which possessed
but a wretched roadstead and had no mines in its neighbourhood,
early attained so great prosperity and acquired, in reference to
the earliest Greek commerce, an importance even greater than the
cities of the Italians destined by nature as emporia at the mouths
of the Tiber and Po. The cities we have just named are those which
appear as holding primitive religious intercourse with Greece. The
first of all barbarians to present gifts to the Olympian Zeus was
the Tuscan king Arimnus, perhaps a ruler of Ariminum. Spina and
Caere had their special treasuries in the temple of the Delphic
Apollo, like other communities that had regular dealings with the
shrine; and the sanctuary at Delphi, as well as the Cumaean oracle,
is interwoven with the earliest traditions of Caere and of Rome.
These cities, where the Italians held peaceful sway and carried
on friendly traffic with the foreign merchant, became preeminently
wealthy and powerful, and were genuine marts not only for Hellenic
merchandise, but also for the germs of Hellenic civilization.

Hellenes and Etruscans--Etruscan Maritime Power

Matters stood on a different footing with the "wild Tyrrhenians."
The same causes, which in the province of Latium, and in the districts
on the right bank of the Tiber and along the lower course of the
Po that were perhaps rather subject to Etruscan supremacy than
strictly Etruscan, had led to the emancipation of the natives
from the maritime power of the foreigner, led in Etruria proper to
the development of piracy and maritime ascendency, in consequence
possibly of the difference of national character disposing the people
to violence and pillage, or it may be for other reasons with which