Page:History of Greece Vol III.djvu/359

ALPHABET. -SCALE OF WEIGHT. 343 Greek vessel had yet visited Libya; but when we reach 550 B. c., we find the Ionic ships predominant in the JEgean, and those of Corinth pjid Korkyra in force to the west of Peloponnesus. we see the flourishing cities of Kyrene and Barku already rooted in L ! Vyn. and the port of Xaukratis a busy emporium of (Grecian commerce with Egypt. The trade by land, which is all that Egypt bad enjoyed prior to Psammetichus, and which was exclusively conducted by Phenicians, is exchanged for a trade by eea, of whicLi the Phenicians have only a share, and seemingly a smaller share than the Greeks ; and the conquest by Amasis of the island of Cyprus, half-filled with Phenician settlements and once the tributary dependence of Tyre, affords one mark of the comparative decline of that great city. In her commerce with the Red sea and the Persian gulf she still remained without a com- petitor, the schemes of the Egyptian king Nekos having proved abortive ; f.ud even in the time of Herodotus, the spices and frankincense of Arabia were still brought and distributed only by the PheiJcian merchant. 1 But on the whole, both her polit- ical and industrial development are now cramped by impedi- ments, and kept down by rivals, not before in operation ; and the part which she will be found to play in the Mediterranean, through- out the whoie course of this history, is one subordinate and of reduced importance. The course of Grecian history is not directly affected by these countries, yc.t their effect upon the Greek mind was very consid- erable, and the opening of the Nile by Psammetichus constitutes an epoch la Hellenic thought. It supplied their observation with a large and diversified field of present reality, while it was at the same time one great source of those mysticizing tendencies which corrupted so many of their speculative minds. But to Phenicia and Assyria, the Greeks owe two acquisitions well deserving special mention, the alphabet, and the first standard and scale of weight, as well as coined money. Of neither of these acquisitions can we trace the precise date. That the Greek alphabet is derived from the Phenician, the analogy of the two proves beyond dispute, though we know not how or where the ines- timable present was handed over, of which no traces are to be found 1 Herodot iii, 107.