* No direct evidence exists to lead us to attribute the foundation of these towns to the Phoenicians, but the Semitic origin of nearly all the names is an uncontested fact.

[Illustration:  297.jpg THE MUREX TRUNCULUS]

It is made up of fertile valleys and mountains clothed with forests, and its inhabitants could employ themselves in mines and fisheries.  The Phoenicians effected a settlement on the coast at Itanos, at Kairatos, and at Arados, and obtained possession of the peak of Cythera, where, it is said, they raised a sanctuary to Astarte.  If, on leaving Rhodes, they had chosen to steer due north, they would soon have come into contact with numerous rocky islets scattered in the sea between the continents of Asia and Europe, which would have furnished them with as many stations, less easy of attack, and more readily defended than posts on the mainland.  Of these the Giblites occupied Melos, while the Sidonians chose Oliaros and Thera, and we find traces of them in every island where any natural product, such as metals, sulphur, alum, fuller’s earth, emery, medicinal plants, and shells for producing dyes, offered an attraction.  The purple used by the Tyrians for dyeing is secreted by several varieties of molluscs common in the Eastern Mediterranean; those most esteemed by the dyers were the Murex trunculus and the Murex Brandaris, and solid masses made up of the detritus of these shells are found in enormous quantities in the neighbourhood of many Phoenician towns.  The colouring matter was secreted in the head of the shellfish.  To obtain it the shell was broken by a blow from a hammer, and the small quantity of slightly yellowish liquid which issued from the fracture was carefully collected and stirred about in salt water for three days.

[Illustration:  298.jpg DAGGER OF AHMOSIS]

     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin.

It was then boiled in leaden vessels and reduced by simmering over a slow fire; the remainder was strained through a cloth to free it from the particles of flesh still floating in it, and the material to be dyed was then plunged into the liquid.  The usual tint thus imparted was that of fresh blood, in some lights almost approaching to black; but careful manipulation could produce shades of red, dark violet, and amethyst.  Phoenician settlements can be traced, therefore, by the heaps of shells upon the shore, the Cyclades and the coasts of Greece being strewn with this refuse.  The veins of gold in the Pangaion range in Macedonia attracted them off the Thracian coast* received also frequent visits from them, and they carried their explorations even through the tortuous channel of the Hellespont into the Propontis, drawn thither, no doubt by the silver mines in the Bithynian mountains** which were already being worked by Asiatic miners.

     * The fact that they worked the mines of Thasos is attested
     by Herodotus.

     ** Pronektos, on the Gulf of Ascania, was supposed to be a
     Phoenician colony.