om
they could entice on board, or whom they might find defenceless on the
strand; but they attempted all this with more risk than formerly, and
with less success. The inhabitants of the coast were possessed of
fully manned ships, similar in form to those of the Philistines or
the Zakkala, which, at the first sight of the Phoenicians, set out in
pursuit of them, or, following the example set by their foe, lay in
wait for them behind some headland, and retaliated upon them for their
cruelty. Piracy in the Archipelago was practised as a matter of course,
and there was no islander who did not give himself up to it when
the opportunity offered, to return to his honest occupations after a
successful venture. Some kings seem to have risen up here and there who
found this state of affairs intolerable, and endeavoured to remedy it
by every means within their power: they followed on the heels of the
corsairs and adventurers, whatever might be their country; they followed
them up to their harbours of refuge, and became an effective police
force in all parts of the sea where they were able to carry their flag.
The memory of such exploits was preserved in the tradition of the Cretan
empire which Minos had constituted, and which extended its protection
over a portion of continental Greece.

If the Phoenicians had had to deal only with the piratical expeditions
of the peoples of the coast or with the jealous watchfulness of the
rulers of the sea, they might have endured the evil, but they had now
to put up, in addition, with rivalry in the artistic and industrial
products of which they had long had the monopoly. The spread of art
had at length led to the establishment of local centres of production
everywhere, which bade fair to vie with those of Phoenicia. On the
continent and in the Cyclades there were produced statuettes, intaglios,
jewels, vases, weapons, and textile fabrics which rivalled those of the
East, and were probably much cheaper. The merchants of Tyre and Sidon
could still find a market, however, for manufactures requiring great
technical skill or displaying superior taste--such as gold or silver
bowls, engraved or decorated with figures in outline--but they had to
face a serious falling off in their sales of ordinary goods. To extend
their commerce they had to seek new and less critical markets, where the
bales of their wares, of which the AEgean population was becoming weary,
would lose none of their attractions. We do