Still further to the south, five miles from Ecdippa, and about twenty-two miles from Tyre, lay Akko or Accho, at the northern extremity of a wide bay, which terminates towards the south in the promontory of Carmel.  Next to the Bay of St. George, near Beyrout, this is the best natural roadstead on the Syrian coast; and this advantage, combined with its vicinity to the plain of Esdraelon, has given to Accho at various periods of history a high importance, as in some sense “the key of Syria.”  The Assyrians, in their wars with Palestine and Egypt, took care to conquer and retain it.[484] When the Ptolemies became masters of the tract between Egypt and Mount Taurus, they at once saw its value, occupied it, strengthened its defences, and gave it the name of Ptolemais.  The old appellation has, however, reasserted itself; and, as Acre, the city played an important part in the Crusades, in the Napoleonic attempt on Egypt, and in the comparatively recent expedition of Ibrahim Pasha.  It had a small port of its own to the south-east of the promontory on which it stood, which, like the other ports of the ancient Phoenicia, is at the present time almost wholly sanded up.[485] But its roadstead was of more importance than its port, and was used by the Persians as a station for their fleet, from which they could keep watch on Egypt.[486]

South of Accho and south of Carmel, close upon the shore, which is here low and flat, was Dor, now Tantura, the seat of a kingdom in the time of Joshua,[487] and allotted after its conquest to Manasseh.[488] Here Solomon placed one of his purveyors,[489] and here the great Assyrian monarch Tiglath-pileser II. likewise placed a “governor,” about B.C. 732, when he reduced it.[490] Dor was one of the places where the shell-fish which produced the purple dye were most abundant, and remained in the hands of the Phoenicians during all the political changes which swept over Syria and Palestine to a late period.[491] It had fallen to ruin, however, by the time of Jerome,[492] and the present remains are unimportant.

The extreme Phoenician city on the south was Japho or Joppa.  It lay in Lat. 32º 2’, close to the territory of Dan,[493] but continued to be held by the Phoenicians until the time of the Maccabees,[494] when it became Jewish.  The town was situated on the slope of a low hill near the sea, and possessed anciently a tolerable harbour, from which a trade was carried on with Tartessus.[495] As the seaport nearest to Jerusalem, it was naturally the chief medium of the commerce which was carried on between the Phoenicians and the Jews.  Thither, in the time of Solomon, were brought the floats of timber cut in Lebanon for the construction of the Temple and the royal palace; and thither, no doubt, were conveyed “the wheat, and the barley, and the oil, and the wine,” which the Phoenicians received in return for their firs and cedars.[496] A similar exchange of commodities was made nearly five centuries later at the same place, when the Jews returned from the captivity under Zerubbabel.[497] In Roman times the foundation of Caesaraea reduced Joppa to insignificance; yet it still, as Jaffa or Yafa, retains a certain amount of trade, and is famous for its palm-groves and gardens.