They cheated their
neighbors whenever they had a chance and they had made themselves
detested by all the other people of the Mediterranean.
They were brave and energetic navigators, but they showed themselves
cowards whenever they were obliged to choose between honorable dealing
and an immediate profit, obtained through fraudulent and shrewd trading.
As long as they had been the only sailors in the world who could handle
large ships, all other nations had been in need of their services. As
soon as the others too had learned how to handle a rudder and a set of
sails, they at once got rid of the tricky Phoenician merchant.
From that moment on, Tyre and Sidon had lost their old hold upon the
commercial world of Asia. They had never encouraged art or science. They
had known how to explore the seven seas and turn their ventures into
profitable investments. No state, however, can be safely built upon
material possessions alone.
The land of Phoenicia had always been a counting-house without a soul.
It perished because it had honored a well-filled treasure chest as the
highest ideal of civic pride.
THE ALPHABET FOLLOWS THE TRADE
I have told you how the Egyptians preserved speech by means of little
figures. I have described the wedge-shaped signs which served the people
of Mesopotamia as a handy means of transacting business at home
and abroad.
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