A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels - Volume 18 / Historical Sketch of the Progress of Discovery, Navigation, and / Commerce, from the Earliest Records to the Beginning of the Nineteenth / Century, By William Stevenson

by Robert Kerr; William Stevenson

In the Odyssey he conducts Neptune into Ethiopia; and the account he gives seems to warrant the belief, that by the Ethiopians he meant not merely the Ethiopians of Africa, but the inhabitants of India: we know that the ancients, even so late as the time of Strabo and Ptolemy, considered all those nations as Ethiopians who lived upon the southern ocean from east to west; or, as Ptolemy expresses it, that under the zodiac, from east to west, inhabit the inhabitants black of colour. Homer represents these two nations as respectively the last of men, one of them on the east and the other on the west. From his description of the gardens of Alcinous, it may even be inferred that he had received some information respecting the climate of the tropical regions; for this description appears to us rather borrowed from report, than entirely the produce of imagination.

Close to the gates a spacious garden lies, From storms defended and inclement skies. Four acres was th' allotted space of ground, Fenc'd with a green enclosure all around, Tall thriving trees confess'd the fruitful mould; The red'ning apple ripens here to gold. Here the blue fig with luscious juice o'erflows, With deeper red the full pomegranate glows, The branch here bends beneath the weighty pear, And verdant olives flourish round the year. The balmy spirit of the western gale Eternal breathes on fruits untaught to fail: Each dropping pear a following pear supplies, On apples apples, figs on figs arise: The same mild season gives the blooms to blow, The buds to harden, and the fruits to grow; Here order'd vines in equal ranks appear, With all th' united labours of the year; Some to unload the fertile branches run, Some dry the black'ning clusters in the sun, Others to tread the liquid harvest join, The groaning presses foam with floods of wine. Here are the vines in early flow'r descry'd, Here grapes discolour'd on the sunny side, And there in autumn's richest purple dy'd. Beds of all various herbs, for ever green, In beauteous order terminate the scene.

Odyssey, b. vii. v. 142.

This description perfectly applies to the luxuriant and uninterrupted vegetation of tropical climates.

From the time of Homer to that of Herodotus, the Greeks spread themselves over several parts of the countries lying on the Mediterranean sea. About 600 years before Christ, a colony of Phocean Greeks from Ionia, founded Massilia, the present Marseilles; and between the years 500 and 430, the Greeks had established themselves in Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, and even in some of the southern provinces of Spain. They were invited or compelled to these emigrations by the prospect of commercial advantages, or by intestine wars; and they were enabled to accomplish their object by the geographical and nautical charts, which they are said to have obtained from the Phoenicians, and by means of the sphere constructed by Anaximander the Milesian. The eastern parts of the Mediterranean, however, seem still to have been unexplored. Homer tells us that none but pirates ventured at the risk of their lives to steer directly from Crete to Lybia; and when the Ionian deputies arrived at Egina, where the naval forces of Greece were assembled, with an earnest request that the fleet might sail to Ionia, to deliver their country from the dominion of Xerxes, who was at that time attempting to subdue Greece, the request was refused, because the Greeks were ignorant of the course from Delos to Ionia, and because they believed it to be as far from Egina to Samos, as from Egina to the Pillars of Hercules.

CHAPTER II.

HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE PROGRESS OF DISCOVERY AND COMMERCIAL ENTERPRIZE, FROM THE AGE OF HERODOTUS TO THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT, B.C. 324.

From the scanty materials respecting the Phoenicians, with which we are supplied by ancient history, it is evident that they founded several colonies, either for the purpose of commerce, or, induced by other motives, in different parts of Africa. Of these colonies, the most celebrated was that of Carthage: a state which maintained an arduous contest with Rome, during the period when the martial ardour and enterprize of that city was most strenuously supported by the stern purity of republican virtue, which more than once drove it to the brink of ruin, and which ultimately fell, rather through the vice of its own constitution and government, and the jealousies and quarrels of its own citizens, and through the operation of extraneous circumstances, over which it could have no controul, than from the fair and unassisted power of its adversary.

The era of the foundation of Carthage is unknown. According to some writers, it was built so early as 1233 years before Christ; but the more general, as well as more probable opinion, assigns it a much later foundation--about 818 years before the Christian era. If this opinion be correct, Rome and Carthage were founded nearly about the same period. The circumstances which led to and accompanied the foundation of Carthage, though related with circumstantial fulness by the ancient poets, are by no means accurately know to authentic history.