1200.7 The Britiſp Merchant. Z1i

obſtinate reſiſtance to their arms, provoked them to raze it to the ground: its’ ſpoils firſt taught Rome to admire the elegance of Grecian art,

Athens, even after it ceaſed to be free, continued fill to retain à part of its ancient trade and manufaGuring induſtry. The fame of its philoſophers, rhectoricians, and artiſts, could not periſh; and the concourſe of mankind to ſtudy in this illuſtrious city, could not but fill introduce wealth to foſter its manufac- tures, and continue and renew its commercial intercourſe with all parties of the world. The Romans venerating its eloquence, Philoſophy, and arts, ever inclined to treat it as 2 favourite city!

Carthage was, in the mean time, riſing“to the moſt ſplendid ſuperiority of commercial greatneſs. The fall of Tyre was uſeful to Carthage. While the commerce of Aſia was injured by the progreſs of the vidories of Alexander, many of the Tyrian merchants cautiouſly«transferred their wealth to Cars thage: their mercantile ſagacity„and‘experience accompanied the transference of their capital, Tn conſequence of theſe events, Carthage was enabled to ſhare with Alexandria that commerce which had been before engroſled by the Tyrians alone. No longer content with merely intercourſe with the countries with which they had. beea accuſtomed to trade, the Carthaginians now aſpired‘to cruſh their commercial rivals by military force, and to ſubjugate the barbarous natives, not of one or two only, but ôf every country in which they found any precious natural PÞrodudtions. They before poſſeſſed extenſive territories; and theſe they fll enlarged: their ſway was extended over a wide tract in. Africa; they reduced the greater part of the native inhabitants of Spain under their dominion. Sicily, and Sar= dinia, were made tributary(to their commercial and political greatneſs. They, for a time, more than divided with the Greeks, the advantages of the trade between the eaſtern and the weſtern world; they retained their primary Tyrian cha- rater of merchants. Even at the height of their greatneſs, they were but like our Weſt-India plaaters, a handful of merchants among myriads of ſlaves, and’ of mercenary ſoldiers. Bar- barians they might have eaſily withſtood, or even a civilized and diſciplined people that ſhould hav«< fought and' laboured, chiefly or ſolely by the hands of ſlaves. But their ambition, and indeed the eſſential intereſts of their commerce, quickly brought ther power into colliſion with that of the Romans. The Cartha- ginians aſpired, juft as the Europeans have been ſcen to dò, in

modern times, to reduce all the weſtern countries into ſuch a ſubje&ion to their power. that c ley might’ become ſubſeryient to the intereſts of their commerce. Oppofízd by diſciplined armies,

one, and unaided, were able to maſter CoN&Œ AG, MAG. D'8

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