coast of Iran and, passing up the Persian Gulf, gained the valley of the two great rivers. Even more important were the overland roads from China and India which met at Babylon and Nineveh. Along these routes traveled long lines of caravans laden with the products of the distant East - gold and ivory, jewels and silks, tapestries, spices, and fine woods. Still other

avenues of commerce radiated to the west and entered Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt. Many of these trade routes are in use even to-day.

While the inhabitants of Babylonia and Assyria were able to control the caravan routes of Asia, it was reserved for a Syrian Commerce people, the Phoenicians, to become the pioneers of with Europe commerce with Europe. As early as 1500 B.C. the rich copper mines of Cyprus attracted Phoenician colonists to this island. From Cyprus these bold mariners and keen business men passed to Crete, thence along the shores of Asia Minor to the Greek mainland, and possibly to the Black Sea. Some centuries later the Phoenicians were driven from these regions by the rising power of the Greek states. Then they

sailed farther westward and established their trading posts in Sicily, Africa, and Spain. At length they passed through the strait of Gibraltar into the Atlantic and visited the shores of western Europe and Africa.

The Phoenicians obtained a great variety of products from their widely scattered settlements. The mines of Spain yielded tin, lead, and silver. The tin was especially Phoenician

valuable because of its use in the manufacture imports and exports of bronze.1 From Africa came ivory, ostrich feathers, and gold; from Arabia, incense, perfumes, and costly spices. The Phoenicians found a ready sale for these commodities throughout the East. Still other products were brought directly to Phoenicia to provide the raw materials for her flourishing manufactures. The fine carpets and glassware, the artistic works in silver and bronze, and the beautiful purple cloths 2 produced by Phoenician factories were exported to every region of the known world.

Phoenician voyages of 3 exploration

The Phoenicians were the boldest sailors of antiquity. Some of their long voyages are still on record. We learn from the Bible that they made cruises on the Red Sea and Indian Ocean and brought the gold of Ophir "four hundred and twenty talents". to Solomon.3 There is even a story of certain Phoenicians who, by direction of an Egyptian king, explored the eastern coast of Africa, rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and after three years' absence returned to Egypt through the strait of Gibraltar. A much more probable narrative is that of the voyage of Hanno, a Carthaginian admiral. We still possess a Greek translation of his interesting log book. It describes an expedition made about 500 B.C. along the western coast of Africa. The explorers seem to have sailed as far as the country now called Sierra Leone. Nearly two thousand years elapsed before a similar voyage along the African coast was undertaken.

1 See page 5.

2 "Tyrian purple" was a dye secured from a species of shellfish found along the Phoenician coast and in Greek waters.

I

See 1 Kings, ix, 26-28. The site of Ophir is not known, though probably it was in southern Arabia.

Wherever the Phoenicians journeyed, they established settlements. Most of these were merely trading posts which conPhoenician tained the warehouses for the storage of their settlements goods. Here the shy natives came to barter their raw materials for the finished products cloths, tools, weapons, wine, and oil-which the strangers from the East had brought with them. Phoenician settlements sometimes grew to be large and flourishing cities. The colony of Gades in southern Spain, mentioned in the Old Testament as Tarshish,' survives to this day as Cadiz. The city of Carthage, founded in North Africa by colonists from Tyre, became the commercial mistress of the Mediterranean. Carthaginian history has many points of contact with that of the Greeks and Romans.

contracts

16. Law and Morality

It is clear that societies so highly organized as Phoenicia, Egypt, and Babylonia must have been held together by the Babylonian firm bonds of law. The ancient Babylonians, especially, were a legal-minded people. When a man sold his wheat, bought a slave, married a wife, or made a will, the transaction was duly noted on a contract tablet, which was then filed away in the public archives. Instead of writing his name, a Babylonian stamped his seal on the wet clay of the tablet. Every man who owned property had to have a seal.

The earliest laws were, of course, unwritten. They were no more than the long-established customs of the community. As Code of civilization advanced, the usages that generally Hammurabi prevailed were written out and made into legal codes. A recent discovery has given to us the almost complete text of the laws which Hammurabi, the Babylonian king, ordered to be engraved on stone monuments and set up in all the chief cities of his realm.2

The code of Hammurabi shows, in general, a high sense of

1 See Ezekiel, xxvii, 12, 25.

2 A monument containing the code of Hammurabi was found on the site of Susa in 1901-1902 A.D. See the illustration, page 25.