The commerce of the Phoenicians with Egypt was ancient, and very extensive.  “The wares of Egypt” are mentioned by Herodotus as a portion of the merchandise which they brought to Greece before the time of the Trojan War.[961] The Tyrians had a quarter in the city of Memphis assigned to them,[962] probably from an early date.  According to Ezekiel, the principal commodity which Egypt furnished to Phoenicia was “fine linen"[963]—­especially the linen sails embroidered with gay patterns, which the Egyptian nobles affected for their pleasure-boats.  They probably also imported from Egypt natron for their glass-works, papyrus for their documents, earthenware of various kinds for exportation, scarabs and other seals, statuettes and figures of gods, amulets, and in the later times sarcophagi.[964] Their exports to Egypt consisted of wine on a large scale,[965] tin almost certainly, and probably their peculiar purple fabrics, and other manufactured articles.

The Phoenician trade with Arabia was of especial importance, since not only did the great peninsula itself produce many of the most valuable articles of commerce, but it was also mainly, if not solely, through Arabia that the Indian market was thrown open to the Phoenician traders, and the precious commodities obtained for which Hindustan has always been famous.  Arabia is par excellence the land of spices, and was the main source from which the ancient world in general, and Phoenicia in particular, obtained frankincense, cinnamon, cassia, myrrh, calamus or sweet-cane, and ladanum.[966] It has been doubted whether these commodities were, all of them, the actual produce of the country in ancient times, and Herodotus has been in some degree discredited, but perhaps without sufficient reason.  He is supported to a considerable extent by Theophrastus, the disciple of Aristotle, who says:[967] “Frankincense, myrrh, and cassia grow in the Arabian districts of Saba and Hadramaut; frankincense and myrrh on the sides or at the foot of mountains, and in the neighbouring islands.  The trees which produce them grow sometimes wild, though occasionally they are cultivated; and the frankincense-tree grows sometimes taller than the tree producing the myrrh.”  Modern authorities declare the frankincense-tree (Boswellia thurifera) to be still a native of Hadramaut;[968] and there is no doubt that the myrrh-tree (Balsamodendron myrrha) also grows there.  If cinnamon and cassia, as the terms are now understood, do not at present grow in Arabia, or nearer to Phoenicia than Hindustan, it may be that they have died out in the former country, or our modern use of the terms may differ from the ancient one.  On the other hand, it is no doubt possible that the Phoenicians imagined all the spices which they obtained from Arabia to be the indigenous growth of the country, when in fact some of them were importations.