not universally acknowledged, since Tyre claims on some of her coins to
have been "the mother-city of the Sidonians,"[49] and Marathus was also
regarded as a city of the very highest antiquity.[410] The city stood
in Lat. 33º 34´ nearly, on the flat plain between the mountains and the
shore, opposite a small promontory which projects into the sea towards
the west, and is flanked towards the north-west and north by a number
of rocky islands. The modern town of Saïda stands close upon the shore,
occupying the greater part of the peninsula and a portion of the plain
on which it abuts; but the ancient city is found to have been situated
entirely in the plain, and its most western traces are almost half a
mile from the nearest point of the present walls.[411] The modern Saïda
has clustered itself about what was the principal port of the ancient
town, which lay north of the promontory, and was well protected from
winds, on the west by the principal island, which has a length of 250
yards, and on the north by a long range of islets and reefs, extending
in a north-easterly direction a distance of at least 600 yards. An
excellent roadstead was thus formed by nature, which art early improved
into a small but commodious harbour, a line of wall being carried out
from the coast northwards to the most easterly of the islets, and the
only unprotected side of the harbour being thus securely closed. There
is reason to believe that this work was completed anterior to the time
of Alexander,[412] and was therefore due to the Phoenicians themselves,
who were not blind to the advantages of closed harbours over open
roadsteads. They seem also to have strengthened the natural barrier
towards the north by a continuous wall of huge blocks along the reefs
and the islets, portions of which are still in existence.

Besides this excellent harbour, 500 yards long by 200 broad, Sidon
possessed on the southern side of the peninsula a second refuge for its
ships, less safe, but still more spacious. This was an oval basin, 600