The History of Rome, Book III - From the Union of Italy to the Subjugation of Carthage and the Greek States by Theodor Mommsen
page 37 of 668 (05%)
page 37 of 668 (05%)
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beyond the Pillars of Hercules and found cities of Liby-phoenicians."
In substance the word "Liby-phoenicians" was used by the Carthaginians not as a national designation, but as a category of state-law. This view is quite consistent with the fact that grammatically the name denotes Phoenicians mingled with Libyans (Liv. xxi. 22, an addition to the text of Polybius); in reality, at least in the institution of very exposed colonies, Libyans were frequently associated with Phoenicians (Diod. xiii. 79; Cic. pro Scauro, 42). The analogy in name and legal position between the Latins of Rome and the Liby-phoenicians of Carthage is unmistakable. 4. The Libyan or Numidian alphabet, by which we mean that which was and is employed by the Berbers in writing their non-Semitic language --one of the innumerable alphabets derived from the primitive Aramaean one--certainly appears to be more closely related in several of its forms to the latter than is the Phoenician alphabet; but it by no means follows from this, that the Libyans derived their writing not from Phoenicians but from earlier immigrants, any more than the partially older forms of the Italian alphabets prohibit us from deriving these from the Greek. We must rather assume that the Libyan alphabet has been derived from the Phoenician at a period of the latter earlier than the time at which the records of the Phoenician language that have reached us were written. 5. II. VII. Decline of the Roman Naval Power 6. II. VII. Decline of the Roman Naval Power 7. II. VII. The Roman Fleet |
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