There are some grounds for considering Sidon to have been the most ancient of the Phoenician towns.  In the Book of Genesis Sidon is called “the eldest born of Canaan,"[44] and in Joshua, where Tyre is simply a “fenced city” or fort,[45] it is “Great Zidon."[46] Homer frequently mentions it,[47] whereas he takes no notice of Tyre.  Justin makes it the first town which the Phoenicians built on arriving at the shores of the Mediterranean.[48] The priority of Sidon in this respect was, however, not universally acknowledged, since Tyre claims on some of her coins to have been “the mother-city of the Sidonians,"[49] and Marathus was also regarded as a city of the very highest antiquity.[410] The city stood in Lat. 33º 34’ nearly, on the flat plain between the mountains and the shore, opposite a small promontory which projects into the sea towards the west, and is flanked towards the north-west and north by a number of rocky islands.  The modern town of Saida stands close upon the shore, occupying the greater part of the peninsula and a portion of the plain on which it abuts; but the ancient city is found to have been situated entirely in the plain, and its most western traces are almost half a mile from the nearest point of the present walls.[411] The modern Saida has clustered itself about what was the principal port of the ancient town, which lay north of the promontory, and was well protected from winds, on the west by the principal island, which has a length of 250 yards, and on the north by a long range of islets and reefs, extending in a north-easterly direction a distance of at least 600 yards.  An excellent roadstead was thus formed by nature, which art early improved into a small but commodious harbour, a line of wall being carried out from the coast northwards to the most easterly of the islets, and the only unprotected side of the harbour being thus securely closed.  There is reason to believe that this work was completed anterior to the time of Alexander,[412] and was therefore due to the Phoenicians themselves, who were not blind to the advantages of closed harbours over open roadsteads.  They seem also to have strengthened the natural barrier towards the north by a continuous wall of huge blocks along the reefs and the islets, portions of which are still in existence.

Besides this excellent harbour, 500 yards long by 200 broad, Sidon possessed on the southern side of the peninsula a second refuge for its ships, less safe, but still more spacious.  This was an oval basin, 600 yards long from north to south, and nearly 400 broad from east to west, wholly surrounded by land on three sides, the north, the east, and the south, but open for the space of about 200 yards towards the west.  In fine weather this harbour was probably quite as much used as the other; it was protected from all the winds that were commonly prevalent, and offered a long stretch of sandy shore free from buildings on which vessels could be drawn up.