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310 The Britiſh Merchant.[May Mould be ruined by the conqueſt of the Saracens, and the bar- barous tyranny of the Mamelukes.

Cyprus, in the mean time, attained to no ſmall importance: its ſituation was advantageouſly contiguous to the coaſts of Egypt and Syria; it was fertile, and afforded many valuable natural produdtions; it had harbours ſufficiently acceſible and ſecure for- ſhipping. By the Phænicians and Egyptians it had been, at 2 very early period, viſited and colonized: it became an object and a ſcene of the adventures and enterprizes of the Greeks. In

the period which ſucceeded the‘ conqueſts of Alexander, while the race of the Ptolemies reigned in Egypt, and the Romans were extending their dominion eaſtward, Cyprus roſe into. conſi- deration: its ſhips viſited many of the ſurrounding ports, both eaſtern and weſtern; both the ſale of its native commodities, and the transference of thoſe of other countries, yielded to its mer-

chants an ample income of commercial profits.

Rhodes was another of the‘Nes in the Mediterranean Sea, which roſe. to great commercial importance, in the time between the Grecian and the Roman conqueſts of Aia: it had been, long before, eminently diſtinguiſhed among the iſles; its merchants appeared to have engroſled, during this latter period, a very large proportioû of the: commerce between Greece and the north-eaſt coaſts of the Mediterranean: its maritime laws were, at length, adopted into the ſyſtem of Roman juriſprudence.‘The Romans», when they firſt began to éxtend their conqueſts into Upper Aſia, derived much advantage from the naval aid of the Rhodians. Under the Roman empire, Rhodes long continued a buſy and opulent

(cene‘of trac, Luxury and refinement of manners naturally

accompanied the ſucceſs of its navigation ánd commerce: Artiſts,

orators, and rhetoricians of illuſtrious fame, long flouriſhed in

Rhodes: it was here that Cicero, at a mature a2g5» for ſome time»,

ſtudied. Tiberius Cælar paſſed’ here thoſe years» during which

the jealouſy or diſlike of Auguſtus, obliged him to live at a

diſtance from Rome.

Corinth alſo roſe to great diſtin(ion, as a commercial city, during the fame ages:‘ts ſituation, on one ſide of a narrow iſthmus, dividing the Egean from the Tonian Archipelago, natu- rally contributed to make it an emporium of the trade between Mand the weſt. Dhe paſſage round the coats of the Pelo- penneſus. was long and dangerous. The land-carriage between the one. hide of the Corinthian iſthmus, and the other, was very ſhort: hence, after the fall of the political greatneſs of Athens,

much of the Athenian trade ſeems to have been gradually tran(- f ſome of the mo

Crréd to Corinth, TE Was the parent-ítate 0 flouriſhing weſtern colónies of the Greeks 5 and its natural inter-

couríe with theſe could not but contribute to advance its com-

mercial proſperity: it continued to flouriſh till, in the Roman conqueſt of Greece» its opulence, its political greatneſs, and its _/ Pu) 0

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