DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61301#0119
PHOENICIA.
9i
marched towards Jordan, under the leadership of
Joshua, the son of Nun. They seem to have found some
of the conquered and naturally disaffected Hittites, and
by their help, after many struggles, broke the power of
the Amorites. The important point about these Hebrew
struggles is that the dispossessed Amorites were in their
turn driven toward the coast. Thus wave after wave
of population pressed the Phoenicians more and more to
their sea-board. We owe to the people of the Hebrews
many blessings, but not the least this, that, by pressing
hard upon the rear of the Phoenicians, they drove their
surplus population to betake them to their ships.
Accordingly this thirteenth century is, we are not sur-
prised to find, a marked epoch ; a great development
takes place in Phoenician trade, an impulse was given
toAvards the west.
To the west we must now turn, bearing always in
mind that the traffic with the east persisted and in-
creased, remembering also always that these Phoenician
ships that set sail westward were freighted not only with
the produce of Phoenicia and Syria, but with the wares
of distant Babylon, of Egypt, and Arabia.
There is no possible doubt whither the Phoenician
trader first steered his ship. The island of Cyprus lay
straight before him, in sight from his own mountains of
Libanus, only a hundred miles away. It is accordingly
this island of Cyprus that we find most thoroughly
9i
marched towards Jordan, under the leadership of
Joshua, the son of Nun. They seem to have found some
of the conquered and naturally disaffected Hittites, and
by their help, after many struggles, broke the power of
the Amorites. The important point about these Hebrew
struggles is that the dispossessed Amorites were in their
turn driven toward the coast. Thus wave after wave
of population pressed the Phoenicians more and more to
their sea-board. We owe to the people of the Hebrews
many blessings, but not the least this, that, by pressing
hard upon the rear of the Phoenicians, they drove their
surplus population to betake them to their ships.
Accordingly this thirteenth century is, we are not sur-
prised to find, a marked epoch ; a great development
takes place in Phoenician trade, an impulse was given
toAvards the west.
To the west we must now turn, bearing always in
mind that the traffic with the east persisted and in-
creased, remembering also always that these Phoenician
ships that set sail westward were freighted not only with
the produce of Phoenicia and Syria, but with the wares
of distant Babylon, of Egypt, and Arabia.
There is no possible doubt whither the Phoenician
trader first steered his ship. The island of Cyprus lay
straight before him, in sight from his own mountains of
Libanus, only a hundred miles away. It is accordingly
this island of Cyprus that we find most thoroughly