The Hellenes in Italy—­Maritime Supremacy of the Tuscans and Carthaginians

Relations of Italy with Other Lands

In the history of the nations of antiquity a gradual dawn ushered in the day; and in their case too the dawn was in the east.  While the Italian peninsula still lay enveloped in the dim twilight of morning, the regions of the eastern basin of the Mediterranean had already emerged into the full light of a varied and richly developed civilization.  It falls to the lot of most nations in the early stages of their development to be taught and trained by some rival sister-nation; and such was destined to be in an eminent degree the lot of the peoples of Italy.  The circumstances of its geographical position, however, prevented this influence from being brought to bear upon the peninsula by land.  No trace is to be found of any resort in early times to the difficult route by land between Italy and Greece.  There were in all probability from time immemorial tracks for purposes of traffic, leading from Italy to the lands beyond the Alps; the oldest route of the amber trade from the Baltic joined the Mediterranean at the mouth of the Po—­on which account the delta of the Po appears in Greek legend as the home of amber—­and this route was joined by another leading across the peninsula over the Apennines to Pisae; but from these regions no elements of civilization could come to the Italians.  It was the seafaring nations of the east that brought to Italy whatever foreign culture reached it in early times.

Phoenicians in Italy

The oldest civilized nation on the shores of the Mediterranean, the Egyptians, were not a seafaring people, and therefore exercised no influence on Italy.  But the same may be with almost equal truth affirmed of the Phoenicians.  It is true that, issuing from their narrow home on the extreme eastern verge of the Mediterranean, they were the first of all known races to venture forth in floating houses on the bosom of the deep, at first for the purpose of fishing and dredging, but soon also for the prosecution of trade.  They were the first to open up maritime commerce; and at an incredibly early period they traversed the Mediterranean even to its furthest extremity in the west.  Maritime stations of the Phoenicians appear on almost all its coasts earlier than those of the Hellenes:  in Hellas itself, in Crete and Cyprus, in Egypt, Libya, and Spain, and likewise on the western Italian main.  Thucydides tells us that all around Sicily, before the Greeks came thither or at least before they had established themselves there in any considerable numbers, the Phoenicians had set up their factories on the headlands and islets, not with a view to gain territory, but for the sake of trading with the natives.  But it was otherwise in the case of continental Italy.  No sure proof has hitherto been given of the existence