On that sterile crag were woven the robes of Persian satraps and Sicilian tyrants; there were fashioned silver bowls and chargers for the banquets of kings; and there Pomeranian amber was set in Lydian gold to adorn the necks of queens.

In the warehouses were collected the fine linen of Egypt and the odorous gums of Arabia; the ivory of India, and the tin of Britain.

In the port lay fleets of great ships which had weathered the storms of the Euxine and the Atlantic.
Powerful and wealthy colonies in distant parts of the world looked up with filial reverence to the little island; and despots, who trampled on the laws and outraged the feelings of all the nations between the Hydaspes and the Aegean, condescended to court the population of that busy hive.

At a later period, on a dreary bank formed by the soil which the Alpine streams swept down to the Adriatic, rose the palaces of Venice.

Within a space which would not have been thought large enough for one of the parks of a rude northern baron were collected riches far exceeding those of a northern kingdom.