This market, which was thus supplied by the constant concourse of merchants, who resorted to it from various parts, could not fail, by these means, to have been considerable.  It received, afterwards, an additional supply from those piracies, which we mentioned to have existed in the uncivilized ages of the world, and which, in fact, it greatly promoted and encouraged; and it became, from these united circumstances, so famous, as to have been known, within a few centuries from the time of Pharaoh, both to the Grecian colonies in Asia, and the Grecian islands.  Homer mentions Cyprus and AEgypt as the common markets for slaves, about the times of the Trojan war.  Thus Antinous, offended with Ulysses, threatens to send him to one of these places, if he does not instantly depart from his table.[025] The same poet also, in his hymn to Bacchus[026], mentions them again, but in a more unequivocal manner, as the common markets for slaves.  He takes occasion, in that hymn, to describe the pirates method of scouring the coast, from the circumstance of their having kidnapped Bacchus, as a noble youth, for whom they expected an immense ransom.  The captain of the vessel, having dragged him on board, is represented as addressing himself thus, to the steersman: 

“Haul in the tackle, hoist aloft the sail,
Then take your helm, and watch the doubtful gale! 
To mind the captive prey, be our’s the care,
While you to AEgypt or to Cyprus steer;
There shall he go, unless his friends he’ll tell,
Whose ransom-gifts will pay us full as well.”

It may not perhaps be considered as a digression, to mention in few words, by itself, the wonderful concordance of the writings of Moses and Homer with the case before us:  not that the former, from their divine authority, want additional support, but because it cannot be unpleasant to see them confirmed by a person, who, being one of the earliest writers, and living in a very remote age, was the first that could afford us any additional proof of the circumstances above-mentioned.  AEgypt is represented, in the first book of the sacred writings, as a market for slaves, and, in the [027]second, as famous for the severity of its servitude. [028]The same line, which we have already cited from Homer, conveys to us the same ideas.  It points it out as a market for the human species, and by the epithet of “bitter AEgypt,” ([029]which epithet is peculiarly annexed to it on this occasion) alludes in the strongest manner to that severity and rigour, of which the sacred historian transmitted us the first account.