Phoenician Civilization: A History from Beginning to End

As the tee-shirt slogans say, “If you can read this, thank the Phoenicians.” The Phoenician achievements include creating the world’s first alphabet, which consisted of 22 consonant letters. If you’re sipping wine as you read, that’s another reason to thank the Phoenicians. From their travels, they learned which grapes were most suited for winemaking and spread those vines to the places along their trading routes.

The Phoenicians were the masters of the Mediterranean Sea, traders whose purple dye colored the royal raiment of the elite, whose horse-headed ships sailed forth from the rich and sophisticated city-states of Byblos, Sidon, and Tyre, and who may have, according to the historian Herodotus, even circumnavigated Africa. These people were so wealthy that when empires came to conquer, they paid tribute rather than go to war, a method which worked for a time—that is until the armies of the Persians under Cyrus the Great and Alexander the Great came to the city walls.

Conquered, many of the Phoenicians left for Carthage. Once again, the Phoenician acumen for trading and making money created yet another powerful city, one so affluent that up-and-coming Rome grew envious and acquisitive. What Rome wanted, Rome took; the Punic Wars, which took place over a century starting in 264 BCE, saw the erosion of Phoenician influence and wealth and the rise of the Roman Empire.