110 GREECE VERSUS TYRE. 



to the nutmeg growers of the equatorial groves, from 

 the mulberry plantations of the Celestial empire to the 

 tin mines of Cornwall, and the silver mines of Spain, 

 emulation was excited, new wants were created, whole 

 nations were stimulated to industry by means of the 

 Phoenicians. 



Shipbuilding and navigation were their inventions, 

 and for a long time were entirely in their hands. 

 Phoenician shipwrights were employed to build the 

 fleet of Sennacherib : Phoenician mariners were em- 

 ployed by Necho to sail round Africa. But they could 

 not for ever monopolise the sea. The Greeks built 

 ships on the Phoenician model and soon showed their 

 masters that kidnapping and piracy was a game at 

 which two could play. The merchant kings who 

 possessed the whole commercial world were too wise to 

 stake their prosperity on a single province. They had 

 no wish to tempt a siege of Tyre which might resemble 

 the siege of Troy. They quickly retired from Greece 

 and its islands, and the western coast of Asia Minor 

 and the margin of the Black Sea. They allowed the 

 Greeks to take the foot of Italy, and the eastern half 

 of Sicily, and did not molest their isolated colonies, 

 Cyrene in Africa, and Marseilles in Southern Gaul. 



But in spite of all their prudence and precautions 

 the Greeks supplanted them entirely. The Phoenicians 

 like the Jews were vassals of necessity and by position : 

 they lived half way between two empires. They 

 found it cheaper to pay tribute than to go to war, 

 and submitted to the Emperor of Syria for the time 

 being, sending their money with equal indifference to 

 Nineveh or Memphis. 



But when the empire was disputed, as in the days 

 of Nebuchadnezzar and of Necho, they were compelled 



