The Phœnicians carried on commerce also with Gaul from their colonies in the south, such as that of Herakleia at the mouth of the Rhone, and in the Greek city of Massilia they were sufficiently numerous to possess a temple dedicated to Melkarth. Punic coins are found in the south of France, and those of the Punic colonies in Sicily occur in Italy, and have been discovered in the pass of the Great St. Bernard, pointing out unmistakably the direction taken by their commerce.[1]
The Etruskans and their Influence.
The people known to the Latins as the Etruskans are considered by all writers, however much they may differ as to their origin, as "a mixed race composed partly of the earlier occupants, partly of a people of foreign origin who became dominant by right of conquest, and engrafted their peculiar civilisation on that previously existing in the land."[2] Among the earlier inhabitants the Pelasgi are the most important, considered by Mr. A. S. Murray[3] as the common forefathers of the ancient Greeks and the Etruskans. His view is supported by the similarity of works of art found in Mykenæ, Palestrina, and the Regulini tomb at Cære, as well as by the Cyclopean polygonal masonry named after them in Greece and Italy.[4] Their peculiar architecture is found also in the islands of the
- ↑ For lists of discoveries of Punic remains see Wiberg, Der Einfluss der klassischen Völker auf den Norden, pp. 82, 83.
- ↑ Dennis, The Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria, 2d edit., 1878, 2 vols. 8vo. In this paragraph I have mainly followed the views of this author.
- ↑ Encycl. Brit., article Etruria.
- ↑ Cosa, Tarquinii, Agylla, Volterra, Saturnia, Alsium, Pisæ, in Etruria, Mykenæ, and Thessaly, and Epirus in Greece. For an account of the masonry see Dennis, ii. p. 255.
