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The spirit of the two most famous nations of antiquity was remarkably exclusive. In the time of Homer the Greeks had not begun to consider themselves as a distinct race. They still looked with something of childish wonder and awe on the riches and wisdom of Sidon and Egypt. From what causes, and by what gradations, their feelings underwent a change, it is not easy to determine.

There are some grounds for considering Sidon to have been the most ancient of the Phoenician towns. Homer frequently mentions it, 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.

With nothing she cared to affect, she was quite free from affectation, and even the critical Lawrence Grant was struck with the dignity which her narrow simplicity, that had seemed small even in Sidon, attained in her palatial hall in San Francisco.

The receipts placed me in possession of fifty dollars, after defraying all expenses in Tyre and settling my bill and recovering my satchel from Sidon which I did by a messenger the same evening after the lecture. My editorial friend advised me now to stop at Sidon only long enough to take the first train home, leaving the Sidonites to discover the sell without expense. But I scouted the idea.

And they began to stand against the Lamanites with power; and in that selfsame hour that they cried unto the Lord for their freedom, the Lamanites began to flee before them; and they fled even to the waters of Sidon.

We next hear of him at Beyrout, at Sidon, and Tyre, celebrated for its glass manufactory, at Acre, at Jaffa near Mount Carmel, at Capernaum, at the beautiful town of Cæsarea, at Samaria, which is built in the midst of a fertile tract, where are vineyards, gardens, orchards, and olive-yards, at Nablous, at Gibeon, and then at Jerusalem.

It has even been supposed that the Sidonians were the first to make a settlement at Carthage itself, and that the Tyrian occupation under Dido was a recolonisation of an already occupied site. Anyhow, Sidon was the first to explore the central Mediterranean, and establish commercial relations with the barbarous tribes of the mid-African coast, Cabyles, Berbers, Shuloukhs, Tauriks, and others.

After a lengthened negotiation, during which the inhabitants of Sidon rose considerably in their offers, the king, being in great straits for means to discharge the pay of his soldiers, hearkened willingly to the offers of the Sidonians; yet, afraid of reproach from the Christians, he dared not openly to consent to their proposals.

This man came to be the most prosperous of all the kings up to that time except only his forefather Psammetichos; and he reigned five-and-twenty years, during which he led an army against Sidon and fought a sea-fight with the king of Tyre.

The Phenician gods were of such a character as to favour the survival of savage practices; the Semite, as we saw, is extremely matter-of-fact and practical in his religion, and a god who was a king would receive the same kind of offerings as the king of Sidon or of Tyre was accustomed to.