P. V. N. Myers

“ Phœnician Commerce.—When we catch our first glimpse of the Mediterranean, about 1500 B.C., it is dotted with the sails of Phœnician navigators. It was natural that the people of the Phœnician coast should have been led to a seafaring life. The lofty mountains that back the little strip of shore seemed to shut them out from a career of conquest and to prohibit an extension of their land domains. At the same time, the Mediterranean in front invited them to maritime enterprise ”

“ Another celebrated product of the country was the Tyrian purple, which was obtained from several varieties of the murex, a species of shell-fish, secured at first along the Phœnician coast, but later sought in distant waters, especially in the Grecian seas. The Phœnicians were of Semitic race, and of close kin to most of the so-called Canaanitish tribes. They were a maritime and trading people.
Tyre and Sidon.—The various Phœnician cities never coalesced to form a true nation. ”

“ The introduction of letters among the different nations, vast as was the benefit which the gift conferred upon peoples just beginning to make advances in civilization, was only one of the many advantages which resulted to the early civilization of Europe from the commercial enterprise of the Phœnicians. ”