d other nations, and created a great empire, of which Sardia
was the capital. The treasures lie amassed exceeded any thing before known
to the Greeks, though inferior to the treasures accumulated at Susa and
other Persian capitals when Alexander conquered the East.

But the Lydian monarchy under Croesus was soon absorbed in the Persian
empire, together with the cities of the Ionian Greeks, as has been
narrated.

(M211) But there was another power intimately connected with the kingdom
of Judea,--the Phoenician, which furnished Solomon artists and timber for
his famous temple. We close this chapter with a brief notice of the
greatest merchants of the ancient world, the Phoenicians.

(M212) They belonged, as well as the Assyrians, to the Semitic or
Syro-Arabian family, comprising, besides, the Syrians, Jews, Arabians, and
in part the Abyssinians. They were at a very early period a trading and
mercantile nation, and the variegated robes and golden ornaments
fabricated at Sidon were prized by the Homeric heroes. They habitually
traversed the AEgean Sea, and formed settlements on its islands.

(M213) The Phoenician towns occupied a narrow slip of the coast of Syria
and Palestine, about one hundred and twenty miles in length, and generally
about twenty in breadth--between Mount Libanus and the sea, Aradus was the
northernmost, and Tyre the southernmost city. Between these were situated
Sidon, Berytus, Tripolis, and Byblus. Within this confined territory was
concentrated a greater degree of commercial wealth and enterprise, also of
manufacturing skill, than could be found in the other parts of the world
at the time. Each town was an independent community, having its own
surrounding territory, and political constitution and hereditary prince.
Tyre was a sort of presiding city, having a controlling political power
over the other cities. Mount Libanus, or Lebanon, touched the sea along
the Phoenician coast, and furnished abundant supplies for ship-building.

(M214) The great Phoenician deity was Melkarth, whom the Greeks called
Hercules, to whom a splendid temple was erected at Tyre, coeval, perhaps,
with the foundation of the city two thousand three hundred years before
the time of Herodotus. In the year 700 B.C., the Phoenicians seemed to have
reached their culminating power, and they had colonies in Africa, Sicily,
Sardinia, and Spain. Carthage, Utica, and Gades were all flourishing
cities before the first Olympiad. The comm