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When we entered on this digression, we had brought the historical sketch of
the discoveries and commerce of the Phoenicians down to the period of the
destruction of Old Tyre, or about six hundred years before Christ. We shall
now resume it, and add such particulars on these subjects as relate to the
period that intervened between that event and the capture of New Tyre by
Alexander the Great. These are few in number; for though New Tyre exceeded,
according to all accounts, the old city in splendour, riches, and
commercial prosperity, yet antient authors have not left us any precise
accounts of their discoveries, such as can justly be fixed within the
period to which we have alluded. They seem to have advanced farther than
they had previously done along the west coast of Africa, and further along
the north coast of Spain: the discovery of the Cassiterides also, and their
trade to these islands for tin, (which we have shewn could hardly have
taken place so early as is generally supposed,) must also have occurred,
either immediately before, or soon after, the building of New Tyre. It is
generally believed, that the Cassiterides were the Scilly Islands, off the
coast of Cornwall. Strabo and Ptolemy indeed place them off the coast of
Spain; but Diodorus Siculus and Pliny give them a situation, which,
considering the vague and erroneous ideas the antients possessed of the
geography of this part of the world, corresponds pretty nearly with the
southern part of Britain.
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