than six hundred years; and formed a State which was able to dispute pre-eminence with the greatest empire of the world, by their wealth, their commerce, their numerous armies, their formidable fleets, and above all by the courage and ability of their commanders; and she extended her commerce over every part of the known world. A colony of Phœnicians or Ethiopians, known in scripture as Canaanites, settled in Carthage. The Carthaginians settled in Spain and Portugal. The first inhabitants of Spain were the Celtæ, a people of Gaul; after them the Phœnicians possessed themselves of the most southern parts of the country, and may well be supposed to have been the first civilizers of this kingdom, and the founders of the most ancient cities. After these, followed the Grecians; then the Carthaginians.
Portugal was anciently called Lusitania, and inhabited by tribes of wandering people, till it became subject to the Carthaginians and Phœnicians, who were dispossessed by the Romans 250 years before Christ. [Rollin.]
The Carthaginians were masters of all the coast which lies on the Mediterranean, and all the country as far as the river Iberus. Their dominions, at the time when Hannibal the Great set out for Italy, all the coast of Africa from the Aræ Phileanorum, by the great Syrtis, to the pillars of Hercules was subject to the Carthaginians, who had maintained three great wars against the Romans. But the Romans finally prevailed by carrying the war into Africa, and the last Punic war terminated with the overthrow of Carthage. [Nepos in vita Annibalis. Liv.]
The celebrated Cyrene was a very powerful city, situated on the Mediterranean, towards the greater Syrtis, in Africa, and had been built by Battus, the Lacedemonian. [Rollin.]
Cyrene. (Acts xi. 20.) A province and city of Libya. There was anciently a Phœnician colony called Cyrenaica, or "Libya about Cyrene."—(Acts ii. 10.)
Cyrene. A country west of Egypt, and the birthplace of Callimachus the poet, Eratosthenes the historian, and Simon, who bore the Savior's cross. Many Jews from hence were at the Pentecost, and were converted
