able position, far more
advantageous than that of the inhabitants of Latium. Inhabiting
the country from sea to sea, they commanded the great Italian free
ports on the western waters, the mouths of the Po and the Venice
of that time on the eastern sea, and the land route which from
ancient times led from Pisa on the Tyrrhene Sea to Spina on the
Adriatic, while in the south of Italy they commanded the rich plains
of Capua and Nola. They were the holders of the most important
Italian articles of export, the iron of Aethalia, the copper
of Volaterrae and Campania, the silver of Populonia, and even the
amber which was brought to them from the Baltic.(6) Under the
protection of their piracy, which constituted as it were a rude
navigation act, their own commerce could not fail to flourish.
It need not surprise us to find Etruscan and Milesian merchants
competing in the market of Sybaris, nor need we be astonished to
learn that the combination of privateering and commerce on a great
scale generated the unbounded and senseless luxury, in which the
vigour of Etruria early wasted away.

Rivalry between the Phoenicians and Hellenes

While in Italy the Etruscans and, although in a lesser degree, the
Latins thus stood opposed to the Hellenes, warding them off and
partly treating them as enemies, this antagonism to some extent
necessarily affected the rivalry which then above all dominated the
commerce and navigation of the Mediterranean--the rivalry between
the Phoenicians and Hellenes. This is not the place to set forth
in detail how, during the regal period of Rome, these two great nations
contended for supremacy on all the shores of the Mediterranean, in
Greece even and Asia Minor, in Crete and Cyprus, on the African,
Spanish, and Celtic coasts. This struggle did not take place directly
on Italian soil, but its effects were deeply and permanently felt
in Italy. The fresh energies and more universal endowments of
the younger competitor had at first the advantage everywhere. Not
only did the Hellenes rid themselves of the Phoenician factories
in their own European and Asiatic homes, but they dislodged the
Phoenicians also from Crete and Cyprus, gained a footing in Egypt
and Cyrene, and possessed themselves of Lower Italy and the larger
eastern half of the island of Sicily. On all hands the small trading
stations of the Phoenicians gave way before the more energetic
colonization of the Greeks. Selinus (126) and Agrig