The Persians and Medes,—portions of the Arian race, and members of what has been classified, in respect of language, as the great Indo-European family,—occupied a part of the vast space comprehended between the Indus on the east, and the line of Mount Zagros (running eastward of the Tigris and nearly parallel with that river) on the west. The Phenicians as well as the Assyrians belonged to the Semitic, Aramæan, or Syro-Arabian family; comprising, besides, the Syrians, Jews, Arabians, and in part the Abyssinians. To what established family of the human race the swarthy and curly-haired Egyptians are to be assigned, has been much disputed; we cannot reckon them as members of either of the two preceding, and the most careful inquiries render it probable that their physical type was something purely African, approximating in many points to that of the negro.[502]
[502] See the discussion in Dr. Prichard, Natural History of Man, sect. xvii, p. 152.
Μελαγχρόες καὶ οὐλότριχες (Herodot. ii, 104: compare Ammian. Marcell. xxii, 16, “subfusculi, atrati,” etc.) are certain attributes of the ancient Egyptians, depending upon the evidence of an eye-witness.
“In their complexion, and in many of their physical peculiarities (observes Dr. Prichard, p. 138), the Egyptians were an African race. In the eastern, and even in the central parts of Africa, we shall trace the existence of various tribes in physical characters nearly resembling the Egyptians; and it would not be difficult to observe among many nations of that continent a gradual deviation from the physical type of the Egyptian to the strongly-marked character of the negro, and that without any very decided break or interruption. The Egyptian language, also, in the great leading principles of its grammatical construction, bears much greater analogy to the idioms of Africa than to those prevalent among the people of other regions.”
It has already been remarked that the Phenician merchant and trading vessel figures in the Homeric poems as a well-known visitor, and that the variegated robes and golden ornaments fabricated at Sidon are prized among the valuable ornaments belonging to the chiefs.[503] We have reason to conclude generally, that in these early times, the Phenicians traversed the Ægean sea habitually, and even formed settlements for trading and mining purposes upon some of its islands: on Thasos, especially, near the coast of Thrace, traces of their abandoned gold-mines were visible even in the days of Herodotus, indicating both persevering labor and considerable length of occupation. But at the time when the historical era opens, they seem to have been in course of gradual retirement from these regions,[504] and their commerce had taken a different direction. Of this change we can furnish no particulars; but we may easily understand that the increase of the Grecian marine, both warlike and commercial, would render it inconvenient for the Phenicians to encounter such enterprising rivals,—piracy (or private war at sea) being then an habitual proceeding, especially with regard to foreigners.