According to the geographers, the cities of Phoenicia, from Laodicea in the extreme north to Joppa at the extreme south, numbered about twenty-five. These were Laodicea, Gabala, Balanea, Paltos; Aradus, with its dependency Antaradus; Marathus; Simyra, Orthosia, and Arka; Tripolis, Calamus, Trieris, and Botrys; Byblus or Gebal; Aphaca; Berytus; Sidon, Sarepta, and Ornithonpolis; Tyre and Ecdippa; Accho and Porphyreon; Dor and Joppa. Of the twenty-five a certain number were, historically and politically, insignificant; for instance, Gabala, Balanea, Paltos, Orthosia, Calamus, Trieris, Botrys, Sarepta, Ornithonpolis, Porphyreon. Sarepta is immortalised by the memory of its pious widow,[42] and Orthosia has a place in history from its connection with the adventures of Trypho;[43] but the rest of the list are little more than “geographical expressions.” There remain fifteen important cities, of which six may be placed in the first rank and nine in the second--the six being Tyre, Sidon, Aradus, Byblus or Gebal, Marathus, and Tripolis; the nine, Laodicea, Simyra, Arka, Aphaca, Berytus, Ecdippa, Accho, Dor, and Joppa. It will be sufficient in the present place to give some account of these fifteen. There are some grounds for considering Sidon to have been the most ancient of the Phoenician towns. In the Book of Genesis Sidon is called “the eldest born of Canaan,”[44] and in Joshua, where Tyre is simply a “fenced city” or fort,[45] it is “_Great_ Zidon.”[46] Homer frequently mentions it,[47] whereas he takes no notice of Tyre. Justin makes it the first town which the Phoenicians built on arriving at the shores of the Mediterranean.[48] The priority of Sidon in this respect was, however, not universally acknowledged, since Tyre claims on some of her coins to have been “the mother-city of the Sidonians,”[49] and Marathus was also regarded as a city of the very highest antiquity.[410] The city stood in Lat. 33º 34´ nearly, on the flat plain between the mountains and the shore, opposite a small promontory which projects into the sea towards the west, and is flanked towards the north-west and north by a number of rocky islands. The modern town of Saïda stands close upon the shore, occupying the greater part of the peninsula and a portion of the plain on which it abuts; but the ancient city is found to have been situated entirely in the plain, and its most western traces are almost half a mile from the nearest point of the present walls.[411] The modern Saïda has clustered itself about what was the principal port of the ancient town, which lay north of the promontory, and was well protected from winds, on the west by the principal island, which has a length of 250 yards, and on the north by a long range of islets and reefs, extending in a north-easterly direction a distance of at least 600 yards. An excellent roadstead was thus formed by nature, which art early improved into a small but commodious harbour, a line of wall being carried out