Their Commerce

The land was well adapted for agriculture; but its excellent harbours
and the abundant supply of timber and of metals favoured above all
things the growth of commerce; and it was there perhaps, where the
opulent eastern continent abuts on the wide-spreading Mediterranean
so rich in harbours and islands, that commerce first dawned in all
its greatness upon man. The Phoenicians directed all the resources of
courage, acuteness, and enthusiasm to the full development of commerce
and its attendant arts of navigation, manufacturing, and colonization,
and thus connected the east and the west. At an incredibly early
period we find them in Cyprus and Egypt, in Greece and Sicily, in
Africa and Spain, and even on the Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea.
The field of their commerce reached from Sierra Leone and Cornwall
in the west, eastward to the coast of Malabar. Through their hands
passed the gold and pearls of the East, the purple of Tyre, slaves,
ivory, lions' and panthers' skins from the interior of Africa,
frankincense from Arabia, the linen of Egypt, the pottery and fine
wines of Greece, the copper of Cyprus, the silver of Spain, tin from
England, and iron from Elba. The Phoenician mariners brought to
every nation whatever it could need or was likely to purchase; and
they roamed everywhere, yet always returned to the narrow home to
which their affections clung.

Their Intellectual Endowments

The Phoenicians are entitled to be commemorated in history by the
side of the Hellenic and Latin nations; but their case affords a
fresh proof, and perhaps the strongest proof of all, that the
development of national energies in antiquity was of a one-sided