THE HISTORY OF OLD ROME

I. The Period Anterior to the Abolition of the Monarchy

From: The History of Rome, by Theodor Mommsen
Translated with the sanction of the author by William Purdie Dickson

CHAPTER X - The Greeks in Italy - Maritime Supremacy of the Tuscans and Carthaginians

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Page 28

Rivalry between the Phoenicians and Greeks

While in Italy the Etruscans and, although in a lesser degree, the Latins thus stood opposed to the Greeks, warding them off and partly treating them as enemies, this antagonism to some extent necessarily affected the rivalry which then above all dominated the commerce and navigation of the Mediterranean--the rivalry between the Phoenicians and Greeks.

This is not the place to set forth in detail how, during the regal period of Rome, these two great nations contended for supremacy on all the shores of the Mediterranean, in Greece even and Asia Minor, in Crete and Cyprus, on the African, Spanish, and Celtic coasts. This struggle did not take place directly on Italian soil, but its effects were deeply and permanently felt in Italy.

The fresh energies and more universal endowments of the younger competitor had at first the advantage everywhere. Not only did the Greeks rid themselves of the Phoenician factories in their own European and Asiatic homes, but they dislodged the Phoenicians also from Crete and Cyprus, gained a footing in Egypt and Cyrene, and possessed themselves of Lower Italy and the larger eastern half of the island of Sicily.

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