Such an extension of power, and the acquisition of sources of wealth so boundless, excited the envy of other nations.

The Greeks are said to have been in the Iberian peninsula long before the fall of Troy, where they came with a fleet from Zante, in the Ionian Sea, and in memory of that place, called the city they founded Zacynthus, which name in time became Saguntum. Now they sent more expeditions and founded more cities on the Spanish coast; and the Babylonians, and the Assyrians, and, at a later time, the Persians and the Greeks, all took up arms against these insatiate traders.

Phenician supremacy was not easily maintained with so many jealous rivals in the field, and it was rudely shaken in 850 B.C., when

and the Phenician power was partially broken at its source in the East.

It is with thrilling interest that we read Isaiah's prophecy of the destruction of Tyre, which was written at this very time. For the Phenicians were the Canaanites of Bible history, and "Hiram King of Tyre" was their king; and his "navy," which, together with Solomon's "came once in three years from Tarshish," was their navy; and Tarshish was none other than Tartessus, their own province, just beyond Gibraltar on the Spanish coast. Nor is it at all improbable that Spanish gold was used to adorn the temple which the great Solomon was building. (I Kings ix., x.) Shakspere, who says all things better than anyone else, makes Othello find in the fatal handkerchief "confirmation strong as proofs from holy writ." Where can be found "confirmation" stronger than these "proofs from holy writ"? And where a more magnificent picture of the luxury, the sumptuous Oriental splendor of this nation at that period, than in Ezekiel, chapters xxvii., xxviii.? What an eloquent apostrophe to Tyre—"thou that art situate at the entry of the sea, a merchant of the people, for many isles."—"With thy wisdom and with thine understanding thou hast gotten thee riches," and, "by thy great wisdom and by thy traffick hast thou increased, and thine heart is lifted up." And then follows the terrible arraignment—"because of the iniquity of thy traffick." And then the final prediction of ruin—"I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth"; "thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt thou be any more." Where in any literature can we find such lurid splendor of description, and such a powerful appeal to the imagination of the reader! And where could the student of history find a more graphic and accurate picture of a vanished civilization!

In 850 B.C., the same year in which the Assyrians partly subjugated the Phenicians in the East, the city of Carthage was founded upon the north coast of Africa, and there commenced a movement, with that city as its center, which drew together all their scattered possessions into a Punic confederacy. This was composed of the islands of Sardinia, Corsica, part of Sicily, the Balearic Isles, and the cities and colonies upon the Spanish Peninsula and African coast. As the power of this confederacy expands, the name Phenician passes away and that of Carthaginian takes its place in history.

Carthage became a mighty city, and controlled with a strong hand the scattered empire which had been planted by the Syrian tradesmen. Carthaginian merchants and miners were in Tartessus, and were planting cities and colonies throughout the peninsula, and a torrent of Carthaginian life was thus pouring into Spain for many hundred years, and the blood of the two races must have freely mingled.

There are memorials of this time now existing, not only in Phenician coins, medals, and ruins, but in the names of the cities. Barcelona, named after the powerful family of Barca in Carthage, to which Hannibal belonged. Carthagena, a memorial of Carthage, which meant "the city"; and even Cordova is traced to its primitive form,—Kartah-duba,—meaning "an important city." While Isabella, the name most famous in Spanish annals, has a still greater antiquity; and was none other than Jezebel—after the beautiful daughter of the King of Sidon (the "Zidoneans"), who married Ahab, and lured him to his downfall. And we are told that this wicked siren whose dreadful fate Elijah foretold, was cousin to Dido, she who Virgil tells us "wept in silence" for the faithless Æneas. With what a strange thrill do we find these threads of association between history sacred and profane, and both mingled with the modern history of Spain.

But Phenicia, for the "iniquity of her traffick," was doomed. The roots of this old Asiatic tree had been slowly and surely perishing, while her branches in the West were expanding. In the year 332 B.C. the siege and destruction of Tyre, predicted five hundred years before by Isaiah, was accomplished by Alexander the Great, and the words of the prophet found their complete fulfillment—that the people of Tarshish should find no city, no port, no welcome, when they came back to Syria!

But on the northern coast of the Mediterranean there was another power which was waxing, while the Carthaginian was waning. The occupation of the young Roman Republic was not trade, but conquest. A bitter enmity existed between the two nations. Rome was determined to break this grasping old Asiatic confederacy and to drive it out of Europe. The Spanish Peninsula she knew little about, but the rich islands near her own coast—they must be hers.

When, after the first Punic war (264-241 B.C.), the Carthaginians saw Sardinia and Sicily torn from them, Hamilcar, their great general, determined upon a plan of vengeance which should make of Italy a Punic province. His people were strong upon the sea, but for this war of invasion they must have an army, too. So he conceived the idea of making Spain the basis of his military operations, and recruiting an immense army from the Iberian Peninsula.