The inhabitants of Phœnicia are first mentioned as Sidonians of the coast (though the name Phœnician also occurs), whose trinkets, like those of Autolycus, captivated the maidens of the Grecian islands,[63] and the produce of the Sidonian looms is said in the Iliad[64] to have been used for the most costly offerings to the gods. A little later we are able to trace them to Cyprus, Carthage, Malta, Sicily, the Balearic Islands, and, through the Pillars of Hercules, to Cadiz on the shores of the Atlantic. At first, probably, kidnapping went hand-in-hand with more legitimate trade; but, even in remote times, the presence of the Phœnicians must have been deemed beneficial, or Pindar would not have compared his own relations with his patron Hiero to those of a Phœnician merchant.[65] Indeed there is no recognised value in the dealings of the civilized with the uncivilized when they first meet; hence those Phœnicians need not be deemed unjust who exchanged the pottery of Athens against the ivory of Africa.[66] [Sidenote: The prophecy of Ezekiel.] Phœnician commerce was probably at its highest when Nebuchadnezzar, with the view, it is likely, of obtaining a powerful navy, made his famous attack upon Tyre. Hence the description of Tyre, and of her dealings with the nations around her, in the celebrated prophecy of Ezekiel, ch. xxvii., has great value as showing what her state was (about B.C. 588) when ruin was immediately impending over her; and it becomes worth while to give an attentive consideration to the statements of the prophet, who was evidently well acquainted with the history of Tyre. Thus, after stating that Tyre was “a merchant of the people for many isles,”[67] Ezekiel tells us that her “ship boards” were made “of fir-trees of Senir,” her masts of “cedars from Lebanon,” her oars “of the oaks of Bashan,” and the benches of her galleys “of ivory, brought out of the isles of Chittim.”[68] It is true that doubts have been expressed as to the fitness of some of these materials for the purposes mentioned; but it is, perhaps, best not to strain to the uttermost a description obviously poetical. The “ivory” here noticed is most likely box-wood,[69] the abundant produce of Corsica, Italy, and Spain, of the “Isles of Chittim,” or Western Europe.