The Historians' History of the World 02 [Israel, India, Persia, Phoenicia, Minor Nations of Western Asia]

One of the principal articles exported by the Phœnicians to Egypt was wine, which this country did not at that time produce. Twice a year large cargoes of this were shipped from Phœnicia and Greece. The second great branch of the Phœnician land trade spread towards the east. It includes the commerce with Syria and Palestine, with Babylon and Assyria, and with the countries of Eastern Asia.

Palestine was the granary of the Phœnicians. Their own mountainous territory was but little adapted for agriculture, while Palestine produced corn in such abundance, as to be able to supply them plentifully with this first necessary of life. The corn of Judea was the best known. It excelled even that of Egypt. It was not, therefore, merely the proximity of the country which led the Phœnicians to prefer this market. Palestine also supplied them with wine and oil. The fact that Palestine was the granary of the Phœnicians explains, too, in the clearest manner, the good understanding and lasting peace that prevailed between these two nations. It is a striking feature in the Jewish history, that with all other nations around them they lived in a state of almost continual warfare; and that under David and Solomon they even became conquerors, and subdued considerable countries; and yet with their nearest neighbours, the Phœnicians, they never engaged in hostilities.

Syria proper, also, supplied its various productions, according to the nature of the different parts of the country—whether adapted for agriculture, the cultivation of the vine, or merely to the nomad life and the breeding of cattle. The wool of the wilderness was one of the wares supplied by the pastoral tribes, who wandered with their flocks as well over the Syrian as over the Arabian deserts.

A moment’s reflection upon Tyrian manufacture of woven goods and their dyes will enable the reader at once to perceive the great importance of this branch of commerce. It converted the very wilderness, so far as they were concerned, into an opulent country, which afforded them the finest and most precious raw materials for their most important manufactures. This circumstance, too, was a means of cementing and preserving a good understanding between them and these nomad tribes; a matter of no inconsiderable consequence to the Phœnicians, as it was through them that the rich produce of the southern regions came into their hands.

The great point, however, to which the trade of the Phœnicians was directed in the east, was Babylon. That a very active commerce was carried on with this flourishing city, even before it forcibly obtained the dominion of Asia and subjected Phœnicia itself, no one can doubt, who is acquainted with the situation and manners of the two nations; and yet, however astonishing it may seem, we have less information respecting this very important branch of trade than upon almost every other. Still we have the positive testimony of Herodotus, that it was one of the most ancient. It probably happened, that it was frequently interrupted by the great revolutions of interior Asia, in which Babylon itself often necessarily participated; it must, however, soon have revived, when the trade of Babylon itself again began to flourish. In proportion, however, as the silence of history upon this interesting subject is remarkable, the conjecture is strengthened, that the trading route between Babylon and Tyre lay through a long uninterrupted desert; the natural consequence of which would be, that, even supposing it not purposely concealed, this commerce would have become but little known. But even in this desert itself are found vestiges which seem to denote its course and magnitude: the ruins of Palmyra and Baalbec are probably links of the commercial chain which connected Tyre and Babylon.