The adaptability and pliability of the Phoenicians was especially shown in their power of obtaining the favourable regard of almost all the peoples and nations with which they came into contact, whether civilised or uncivilised. It is most remarkable that the Egyptians, intolerant as they usually were of strangers, should have allowed the Phoenicians to settle in their southern capital, Memphis, and to build a temple and inhabit a quarter there.[319] It is also curious and interesting that the Phoenicians should have been able to ingratiate themselves with another most exclusive and self-sufficing people, viz. the Jews. Hiram’s friendly dealings with David and Solomon are well known; but the _continued_ alliance between the Phoenicians and the Israelites has attracted less attention. Solomon took wives from Phoenicia;[320] Ahab married the daughter of Ithobalus, king of Sidon;[321] Phoenicia furnished timber for the second Temple;[322] Isaiah wound up his prophecy against Tyre with a consolation;[323] our Lord found faith in the Syro-Phoenician woman;[324] in the days of Herod Agrippa, Tyre and Sidon still desired peace with Judæa, “because their country was nourished by the king’s country.”[325] And similarly Tyre had friendly relations with Syria and Greece, with Mesopotamia and Assyria, with Babylonia and Chaldæa. At the same time she could bend herself to meet the wants and gain the confidence of all the varieties of barbarians, the rude Armenians, the wild Arabs, the barbarous tribes of northern and western Africa, the rough Iberi, the passionate Gauls, the painted Britons, the coarse Sards, the fierce Thracians, the filthy Scyths, the savage races of the Caucasus. Tribes so timid and distrustful as those of Tropical Africa were lured into peaceful and friendly relations by the artifice of a “dumb commerce,”[326] and on every side untamed man was softened and drawn towards civilisation by a spirit of accommodation, conciliation, and concession to prejudices.