Sidon was the first town of Phœnicia to rise to importance, and Tyre afterwards, with greater vigour, rose to power and greatness; and both, from being originally colonies of poor fishermen, became the famous ports which sent forth ships to all points of the Mediterranean, and even to the British Isles, carrying all kinds of merchandise to barter for silver, gold, and tin, as well as for other raw materials from the barbarians beyond the seas, and carrying these raw materials back to supply the artists and artificers of the East. No two cities of the ancient world did so much for the spread and progress of human civilisation as the maritime cities of Tyre and Sidon. [Illustration: Fig. 210.—Phœnician Merchant Galley; from Layard. (P. & C.)] Like the rest of Phœnicia, Sidon, the first in power, accepted without resistance the supremacy of Egypt. This was indeed to her great advantage, for the ships of Sidon could fly the Egyptian flag in any part of the Mediterranean or other seas, and so exist secure under the protection of the mighty monarchs of that great country. In return for this protection the Phœnicians carried on a successful trade with Egyptian goods, thus benefiting themselves, and their masters to even a greater degree. The Phœnician fleets were, in fact, at the entire disposal of the Egyptians, who possessed, in the early days, no fleet of their own. Sidon was sacked and taken by the Philistines about B.C. 1000 or 900, and from that period Tyre rose in supremacy. The first Tyrian king known by name was Abibaal, the contemporary of David; his son was Hiram, the friend of Solomon. [Illustration: Fig. 211.—Phœnician War Galley; from Layard. (P. & C.)] Afterwards Tyre, with its close intercourse with Egypt, established colonies on the Delta of the Nile, the most renowned of which was called the “New City,” _Karthadast_, called by the Greeks Carchedon, and by the Romans Carthage. This daughter of Tyre rose to great prosperity, but never forgot her allegiance to the mother city. Their combined fleets sailed to, and founded, colonies in Sardinia, Cyprus, the Grecian Archipelago, and to Spain, doing enormous trade with both East and West. The Phœnician ships that are known to us from the relief representations are of two kinds, the round-prowed galleys, or cargo-carriers (Fig. 210), and the ram-stemmed vessels, or war galleys (Fig. 211). There is no record that has been found of their larger sea-going “merchantmen” ships. [Illustration: Fig. 212.—Carthaginian Coin, Silver. (P. & C.)] The growing power of the Greeks and Etruscans, and their improvement in shipbuilding, was a new competition with the ships of Tyre in the East, and at length forced the Tyrians to find new markets in the West. [Illustration: Fig. 213.—Carthaginian Coin, Electrum. (P. & C.)] The staple trade of the Tyrians had now become that of metals, the chief of which was tin, owing to the great demand for it in the manufacture of bronze in this period.