(720 B.C.). Henceforward the headship of the Phoenician cities of the West falls into the hands of Carthage, the scene of the last great act and final catastrophe in the drama of Phoenician history. At the very time, nay some say on the very day, when the Greeks of the East were destroying the host of Xerxes in the Strait of Salamis, the Hellenes of the West led by brave Gelon of Syracus were repelling a great army of Carthaginians before the walls of Himera, and during the third and fourth centuries B.C. the Greeks of Sicily lived in constant danger from the Carthaginians, who held the western part of the island with their factories of Lilybaeum, Drepanum and Motyé, until at last they were finally expelled from the island by the resistless might of Rome (241 B.C.).
Could we but learn the estimate put upon the ox by the Phoenicians or Carthaginians, we would get a fair index to its value over a wide extended area. For as in earlier times the Phoenician influence extended from Tyre to Gades, linking both east and west, so in later days Carthage extended her power over all North Africa from the Pillars of Herakles to the confines of Egypt, and over Southern Spain.
Some forty years ago the longest Phoenician inscription yet known was found at Marseilles. The inscription seems to have belonged to a temple of Baal, and contains directions touching sacrifices and certain payments to be made to the officiating priest. Chemical analysis of the stone has demonstrated that it is of a kind not found in France, but known in North Africa. Hence M. Renan thought that it had been brought as ballast in some ship. The names of two Suffetes stand at the head of the inscription, which seems along with other evidence to point to its having been engraved at Carthage. On palaeographical grounds its date is placed in the fourth century B.C., but why it came to Massalia seems still inexplicable. It is possible that in the fourth century B.C. there was a considerable body of Carthaginians resident at Massalia, just as on the other hand we know that there was a large Greek community residing at Carthage. If that were so, the Carthaginians would naturally keep up the worship of Baal at Marseilles, and would regulate the temple worship in accordance with the practice of the mother city. The
