24

HISTORY OF MARINE ARCHITECTURE.

ease of human necessities and wants, unless it were extended still farther, and thecontrivance rendered agreeable to the sight also. After having for a considerabletime exercised their unbounded tyranny, as it might be fairly stiled, over all therest of the world, their arrogance received a fatal check, they fell, as they justlymerited, beneath the superior power of the Persians, and, considered as a com-mercial state, were heard of no more.

The people who appear next in point of antiquity, and, indeed, power, were theCarthaginians, a branch or colony sent forth from Tyre, one of the most powerfulcities in Phoenicia. Strictly pursuing the example, and manners of the parentstate, they soon raised themselves into considerable notice, both as a commercialand a warlike nation: they rose, with a rapidity almost incredible, into thehighest rank of political consequence, and were for many ages the arbiters of theworld. At length, like most other cotemporary states, they sunk before thesuperior genius, the indefatigable industry of the Romans; and were, thoughnot till after a long, a most animated struggle, completely swallowed up in thevortex of their rival’s power.

A more extensive account of this brave but unfortunate people would lead ustoo far from our own particular subject, and prove rather a general history of thestate itself, than of that abridged part of it which relates to the science of shipbuild-ing only. To speak the truth, the practice and method used universally at that timeby all who were ranked among great and commercial nations, differed, we be-lieve, in so slight a degree from each other, that it would certainly, at this remoteperiod of time, be difficult, if not absolutely impossible, to trace or point them out.Of superior antiquity as naval powers, and cotemporary with the latter, consideredin a commercial light, were the different slates of Greece: trade indeed was butlittle regarded among them : the leading feature of their ambitious minds was thatof raising themselves superior to all surrounding nations by dint of arms alone.They considered commerce as a mere secondary occupation, needing to be ex-erted but sparingly, and having for its only useful branch the power of supplyingsuch articles, or stores, the production of foreign countries, as were necessary tothe furtherance of their hostile designs against their supposed enemies. Com-merce might be said, therefore, almost to sleep, far as respected them, and Carthagefor a considerable space continued the emporium, till fate, as we have just ob-served, raised up a most formidable competitor in the Roman republic.

Useful, and even necessary, as commerce might be considered in the light ofa state engine, that proud imperious people affected to hold it in the utmost

contempt.