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Updated: May 26, 2025
In our account of the commerce of the Phoenicians, their trade to Britain for tin has been described. Pliny, in his chapter on inventions and discoveries, states that this metal was first brought from the Cassiterides by Midacritus, but at what period, or of what nation he was, he does not inform us.
We hear of their carrying this cheap earthenware northwards to the Cassiterides or Scilly Islands, and southwards to the isle of Cerne, which is probably Arguin, on the West African coast; nor can we doubt that they supplied it also to the uncivilised races of the Mediterranean the Illyrians, Ligurians, Sicels, Sards, Corsicans, Spaniards, Libyans.
Hence the trade with the Cassiterides was constant, and so highly prized that a Phoenician captain, finding his ship followed by a Roman vessel, preferred running it upon the rocks to letting a rival nation learn the secret of how the tin-producing coast might be approached in safety.
The tin and lead, he adds, came from the Cassiterides. According to Camden, 800 vessels, laden with corn, were freighted annually to the continent; but this assertion rests on very doubtful authority, and cannot be credited if it applies to Britain, even very long after the Roman conquest.
These are few in number; for though New Tyre exceeded, according to all accounts, the old city in splendour, riches, and commercial prosperity, yet antient authors have not left us any precise accounts of their discoveries, such as can justly be fixed within the period to which we have alluded. It is generally believed, that the Cassiterides were the Scilly Islands, off the coast of Cornwall.
It is reported that the Romans sent an army by sea to India, against the great khan of Cathaia, 200 years before the Incarnation; which, passing through the Straits of Gibraltar, and running to the north-west, found ten islands opposite to Cape Finisterre; producing large quantities of tin, which perhaps may have been those afterwards called the Cassiterides.
"Certainly, the Cassiterides is Cornwall, and that point of land just ahead is the spot where the Tyrian wrecked his ship, so the legend goes." Madden's eyes followed Caradoc's gesture. "I've read that story, but I never thought of seeing the place." "Cornwall is entrancing if you care for antiquities," went on Smith in the polished style of a collegiate.
Phoenicia must have imported into Cyprus, to suit a peculiar Cyprian taste, the Egyptian statuettes, scarabs, and rings, and the Assyrian and Babylonian cylinders, which have been found there. The tin which she brought from the Cassiterides she distributed generally, for she did not discourage her colonists from manufacturing for themselves to some extent.
"Now, from my knowledge of the lie of coast-lands, I feel sure that the Isles of the Cassiterides must lie there," continued the captain, pointing westward, "and if we travel diligently, it is not unlikely that we shall come down upon the coast of this land almost opposite to them.
It will be seen from this speech that the Phoenician captain included the southern shore of England in his idea of the Cassiterides. His notion of the direction in which the islands lay, however, was somewhat incorrect, being founded partly on experience, but partly also on a misconception prevalent at the time that the islands referred to lay only a little way to the north of Spain.
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