THE DECLINE AND FALL

258

chap. ’ to each other in value.’ The ten thousand Eu-

_boic or Phoenician talents, about four millions

of Africa , sterling , 1 which vanquished Carthage was con-demned to pay within the term of fifty years,were a slight acknowledgment of the superio-rity of Rome, " and cannot bear the least pro-portion with the taxes afterwards raised bothon the lands and on the persons of the inhabi-tants, when the fertile coast of Africa was re-duced into a province . 31

of Spain, Spain , by a very singular fatality, was the

Peru and Mexico of the old world. The dis-covery of the rich western continent by thePhoenicians , and the oppression of the simplenatives, who were compelled to labour in theirown mines for the benefit of strangers, form anexact type of the more recent history of SpanishAmerica/ The Phoenicians were acquaintedonly with the sea-coast of Spain ; avarice, aswell as ambition, carried the arms of Rome andCarthage into the heart of the country, and al-most every part of the soil was found preg-nant with copper, silver, and gold. Mentionis made of a mine near Carthagena, which yield-

’ Velleius Paterculus , 1. ii, r, 39. He seems to give the preferenceto tlie revenue of Gaul.

1 The Euboio, the Phoenician , and the Alexandrian talents were dou-ble in weight to the Attic. See Hooper on ancient weights and mea-sures, p. iv, c. 5. It is very probable that the same talent was carriedfrom Tyre to Carthage.

“ Polyb. 1. xv, c. 2.

* Appian in Pitnicis, p. 84.

r Diodorus Siculus, 1. v. Cadiz was built by the Phoenicians , alittle more than a thousand years before Christ. ' See Veil, l’aterc.