It Has Already Been Remarked, That As The Alleged Circumnavigation Of Africa By The Phoenicians Took Place During The Reign Of Necho, The Successor Of Psammeticus, The Grounds For Its Authenticity Are Much Stronger Than If It Had Occurred Previously To The Intercourse Of The Greeks With Egypt.

The employment of Phoenician mariners by Necho, to circumnavigate Africa, bespeaks a monarch bent on maritime and commercial enterprise; and there are other transactions of his reign which confirm this character.

It is said that Sesostris attempted to unite by a canal the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, but that he did not succeed in his attempt: Necho also made the attempt with as little success. He next turned his thoughts to the navigation and commerce of the Mediterranean and Red Sea, in each of which he had large fleets.

The superstitious antipathy of the Egyptians having been thus broken through, and the recurrence of this antipathy secured against, by the advantages they derived from navigation and commerce, the Egyptian monarchs seem, as long as Egypt continued free, to have directed their attention and resources, with considerable zeal and success, to maritime affairs. Their strength by sea, as well as their experience, may be estimated by an event during the reign of Apries, the grandson of Necho: this monarch was engaged in war with the Sidonians, Tyrians and Cypriots; he took the city of Sidon by storm, and defeated both the Phoenicians and Cypriots in a sea fight. In fact, during his reign the Egyptians had the command of the Mediterranean Sea. It is probable, that if they had continued long after this time an independent state, they would have been still more celebrated and successful in their maritime and commercial affairs; but in the year 525 before Christ, about seventy years after the reign of Apries, Egypt was conquered by the Persians.

Notwithstanding, therefore, this temporary dereliction of their antipathy to the sea, and intercourse with foreigners, the Egyptians can scarcely be regarded as a nation distinguished for their maritime and commercial enterprises; and they certainly by no means, either by sea or land, took advantages of those favourable circumstances by which their country seemed to be marked out for the attainment of an extensive and lucrative commerce. It is well remarked by Dr. Vincent, that "while Egypt was under the power of its native sovereigns Tyre, Sidon, Arabia, Cyprus, Greece, Sicily, and Carthage, were all enriched by the trade carried on in its ports, and the articles of commerce which could be obtained there, and there only; the Egyptians themselves were hardly known in the Mediterranean as the exporters of their own commodities; they were the Chinese of the ancient world, and the ships of all nations, except their own, laded in their harbours." As soon, however, as it passed from the power of its native sovereigns, and became subject successively to the Persians, Macedonians, and Romans, it furnished large fleets, and, as we shall afterwards notice, under the Greeks, Alexandria became one of the principal commercial cities in the world.

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