to us of dominions still older than that of Rome, and of the wreck of an empire (Phænicia) from which the very germ of European civilisation sprung.

Tripoli was the seat of literature, art, and com merce long before the Romans dreamed of African conquest, being one of the 300 cities which sprung from Carthage and acknowledged her supremacy; and Carthage (herself a Phoenician colony), we are told, was founded in 850 B.C.-just 100 years before Rome appeared.

What school-boy is not conversant with the story of Dido its foundress :-How, as an unhappy widow, she fled from Phoenician Tyre to escape the assassins of her husband; and how, after having built the city, she fell in love with the shipwrecked Æneas; and upon discovering that her passion was unrequited, threw herself upon the burning pyre and perished in the flames!

Be this as it may, it is certain that Carthage rose to be a great power, becoming first the equal of Rome, then her rival, then the fierce disputer with her for universal dominion, and, at last, her vanquished foe and vassal (B.C. 146).

Now, we have not introduced this brief sketch of Carthagenean history without a purpose. The fact is-as has already been hinted-there is reason for supposing that some portions of these Ruins may have belonged to Punic times, and have been the work of

Phænician hands. Upon a careful examination it will be observed that some of the granite columns appear much older than the rest; that some appear to have been polished, whilst others to have been merely rough-cut into form. This peculiarity, we think, deserves the attention of the learned in this department of antiquities.

INSCRIPTIONS.-Among these Ruins are still left two inscriptions, one in Greek, the other in Latin. There are also a few letters of another in Latin.

Until lately there was a fourth inscription-the most interesting, perhaps, of them all, and bilingual-the one part being in Latin, the other in Phoenician characters. This has been removed to the British Museum, where, by the kindness of Mr. Franks, we have been allowed to copy it for these Notes.

The Phoenician Inscription is as follows:

of Rome remains to eternity;" and M. Saulcy, " To the mistress of the eternal house."

The difference of interpretation between these two authorities arises from the fact that the inscription itself is but a broken sentence, and also from the difficulty of determining whether one of the characters represents an R or a soft H.

The Latin letters AVG SVFE i.e., Avgvstvs SVFES, refers to the chief magistrate of Carthage,which, in itself, shows from whence these Ruins came.

*

The history of this inscription is singular. It appears originally to have formed part of a triumphal arch, and was brought over with the Ruins; but of so little account was it taken by Sir J. Wyattville, that the learned Gesinius tells us he saw it at Virginia Water in 1835 doing duty, with its inscription upside down, as the pedestal of a statue of Flora or Ceres !

After this it found its way to the Royal Library at the Castle, and in 1862 was handed over to the British Museum, where it is placed by the side of other records of the same character.†

Looking upon this broken sentence in ancient

*There is still at TRIPOLI a magnificent triumphal arch erected in 164 A.D., to the Emperors M. Aur. Antoninus and L. Aur. Verus, but we are not able to say if this fragment belonged to it

or not.

† Gesinius, pl. lxiv.-Tripolitana Bilinguis, p. 213.

Phoenician characters, how insensibly are our minds carried back to those remote days-nearly 3000 years gone by-when the hardy Tyrean mariners carried on a trade in tin with the Celtic aborigines of Cornwall! For centuries, indeed, they secured the monopoly of this highly prized metal; and, it is related, that it was the discovery of its locality by the Romans which led to the conquest of Britain.

Here, then, is traced for us a sermon in stone, lifting up its voice in the ancient and long-forgotten language of Tyre and Sidon; conveying its moral to the busy sons of this our own generation of enterprising, money-making men!

It may

be interesting to some to know that Cadmus is said to have introduced the Phoenician alphabet among the Greeks, which thus became the parent of their language-the grandest language of ancient or modern times.

There are some who believe that the ancient language of Ireland is but a distant dialect of Phoenician; but as the learned differ upon this point, we do not presume to offer an opinion.

GREEK INSCRIPTION-This is on a marble altar, of which the accompanying print is an accurate drawing. It stands on the south-side of the archway, and is still in a good state of preservation.

ΔΙ ΗΛΙΜΕΓΑΛΟΙ
ΣΑΡΑΠΙΔΙΚΑΙΤΟΙΣ

ΣΥΝΝΟΙΣ ΘΕΟΙΣ
Π ΑΥΡΗΛΙΟΣ ΔΙΣΚΟΣ
ΑΝΕΘΗΚΕΝ

Fairly written out, this Inscription runs thus:

ΔΙ ΗΛΙΩ ΜΕΓΑΛΩΝ
ΣΑΡΑΠΙΔΙ ΚΑΙ ΤΟΙΣ

ΣΥΝΝΑΟΙΣ ΘΕΟΙΣ.

Π' ΑΥΡΗΛΙΟΣ ΔΙΟΣΚΟΡΟΣ

ΑΝΕΘΗΚΕΝ.

and its translation is as follows:-" Publius Aurelius, a servant of Jupiter, dedicated (this alter) to Jupiter Helios, the great Serapis, and to the other gods worshipped