Often around these Phoenician buildings the natives set up
their cabins and the mart became a city. The inhabitants adopted the
Phoenician gods, and even after the city had become Greek, the cult of
the dove-goddess was found there (as in Cythera), that of the god
Melkhart (as at Corinth), or of the god with the bull-face that
devours human victims (as in Crete).
=Influence of the Phoenicians.=--It is certain that the Phoenicians in
founding their trading stations cared only for their own interest. But
it came to pass that their colonies contributed to civilization. The
barbarians of the West received the cloths, the jewels, the utensils
of the peoples of the East who were more civilized, and, receiving
them, learned to imitate them. For a long time the Greeks had only
vases, jewels, and idols brought by the Phoenicians, and these served
them as models. The Phoenicians brought simultaneously from Egypt and
from Assyria industry and commodities.
=The Alphabet.=--At the same time they exported their alphabet. The
Phoenicians did not invent writing. The Egyptians knew how to write many
centuries before them, they even made use of letters each of which
expressed its own sound, as in our alphabet.
Pages:
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129