Phœnicia was at the height of prosperity from the eleventh to the sixth
centuries B. C. As a colonizing country it preceded the Greeks on the
shores and islands of the Mediterranean, and sent ships to regions that
the Greeks knew nothing of, save by report of the bold mariners of Tyre.
Until the rise of Alexandria about 300 B. C., the sea trade of Phœnicia
was rivaled only by that of Carthage, its own colony; and Phœnician
merchants still kept up their great land trade by caravans with Arabia,
central Asia and northern India, Scythia and the Caucasian countries.
By far the most renowned of all Phœnician colonies--famous in history
for Hannibal’s heroic hate of Rome and warlike skill--was Carthage, in
the center of the northern coast of Africa. The date of its foundation
is put about 850 B. C. At Utica and Tunis, to the north and south,
Phœnician settlements were already existing.