CHAP. IT.

SPAIN.

97

If we may give credit to a fragment still re-maining of that ancient historian Agatharchidas,there was a time when the value of silver inArabia was tenfold that of gold* owing to theabundance of the latter and the scarcity of theformer metal. How far this may be accurate itis impossible to say, though, from the direct in-tercourse of Arabia with India , and from theArabians knowing nothing of Spain but throughthe Tyrians, it is highly probable that the re-lative value of the two metals might have beenwidely different in that age from what exists atpresent. The Tyrians, however, certainly con-veyed much of the silver they procured in Spain to Arabia , and there exchanged it for gold togreat advantage; and there seems traces of anintercourse between Tyre and the countries be-yond the Straits of Babelmandel, if not withIndia itself. This view of the relative value ofgold to silver in different parts of the world inVery ancient times, may serve to account insome degree for the curious spectacle whichthe extensive trade and the vast wealth of thatNaturally poor country, Phoenicia , exhibited inthe early period of the history of mankind.

We return from these matters of trade inr etnote ages to the mines of Spain . They areb y all ancient authors represented as highlyproductive, but none of the accounts they havetransmitted to us are sufficiently statistical to

VOL. t.

II