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[60]
As for ourselves, therefore, we neither inhabit a maritime country,
nor do we delight in merchandise, nor in such a mixture with other men
as arises from it; but the cities we dwell in are remote from the sea,
and having a fruitful country for our habitation, we take pains in cultivating
that only. Our principal care of all is this, to educate our children well;
and we think it to be the most necessary business of our whole life to
observe the laws that have been given us, and to keep those rules of piety
that have been delivered down to us. Since, therefore, besides what we
have already taken notice of, we have had a peculiar way of living of our
own, there was no occasion offered us in ancient ages for intermixing among
the Greeks, as they had for mixing among the Egyptians, by their intercourse
of exporting and importing their several goods; as they also mixed with
the Phoenicians, who lived by the sea-side, by means of their love of lucre
in trade and merchandise. Nor did our forefathers betake themselves, as
did some others, to robbery; nor did they, in order to gain more wealth,
fall into foreign wars, although our country contained many ten thousands
of men of courage sufficient for that purpose. For this reason it was that
the Phoenicians themselves came soon by trading and navigation to be known
to the Grecians, and by their means the Egyptians became known to the Grecians
also, as did all those people whence the Phoenicians in long voyages over
the seas carried wares to the Grecians. The Medes also and the Persians,
when they were lords of Asia, became well known to them; and this was especially
true of the Persians, who led their armies as far as the other continent
[Europe]. The Thracians were also known to them by the nearness of their
countries, and the Scythians by the means of those that sailed to Pontus;
for it was so in general that all maritime nations, and those that inhabited
near the eastern or western seas, became most known to those that were
desirous to be writers; but such as had their habitations further from
the sea were for the most part unknown to them which things appear to have
happened as to Europe also, where the city of Rome, that hath this long
time been possessed of so much power, and hath performed such great actions
in war, is yet never mentioned by Herodotus, nor by Thucydides, nor by
any one of their contemporaries; and it was very late, and with great difficulty,
that the Romans became known to the Greeks. Nay, those that were reckoned
the most exact historians (and Ephorus for one) were so very ignorant of
the Gauls and the Spaniards, that he supposed the Spaniards, who inhabit
so great a part of the western regions of the earth, to be no more than
one city. Those historians also have ventured to describe such customs
as were made use of by them, which they never had either done or said;
and the reason why these writers did not know the truth of their affairs
was this, that they had not any commerce together; but the reason why they
wrote such falsities was this, that they had a mind to appear to know things
which others had not known. How can it then be any wonder, if our nation
was no more known to many of the Greeks, nor had given them any occasion
to mention them in their writings, while they were so remote from the sea,
and had a conduct of life so peculiar to themselves?
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