A source-book of ancient history - The Search For Mecca

CHAPTER IV
SYRIA: THE PHCENICIANS AND THE HEBREWS
I. SiDON AND Tyre
Comparative
importance.
Strabo xvi. 2.
22-4.
Ancient
World. 38 f.
Tyre: its
dwellings
and dyeworks.
A ncient
World, 280 f.
Next to Sidon is Tyre, the largest and most ancient
city of the Phoenicians. This city is the rival of Sidon in
magnitude, fame, and antiquity, as recorded in many
fables. For although poets have celebrated Sidon more
than Tyre (Homer does not even mention Tyre), yet
the colonies sent into Africa and Spain, as far as, and
beyond the pillars, extol much more the glory of Tyre.
Both however were formerly, and are at present, distinguished
and illustrious cities, but which of the two
should be called the capital of Phoenicia is a subject of
dispute among the inhabitants. Sidon is situated upon a
fine naturally-formed harbor on the mainland.
Tyre is wholly an island, built in nearly the same manner
as Aradus. It is joined to the continent by a mound,
which Alexander raised, when he was besieging it.
It has
two harbors, one close, the other open, which is called the
Egyptian harbor. The houses here, it is said, consist of
many stories, of more than at Rome; on the occurrence,
therefore, of an earthquake, the city was nearly demolished.
It sustained great injury when it was taken by siege by
Alexander, but it rose above these misfortunes, and recovered
itself both by the skill of the people in the art of navigation,
in which the Phoenicians in general have always
excelled all nations, and by (the export of) purple-dyed
manufactures, the Tyrian purple being in the highest esti-
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