THE PHOENICIANS.- INTERCHANGE. 103 and ingenuity, and less of religious exclusiveness, yet still differ* ent from, and even antipathetic to, the character of the Greeks. In the Homeric poems, he appears somewhat like the Jew of the Middle Ages, a crafty trader, turning to profit the violence and rapacity of others, bringing them ornaments, decorations, the finest and brightest products of the loom, gold, silver, electruro, ivory, tin, etc., in exchange for which he received landed produce, gkins, wool, and slaves, the only commodities which even a wealthy Greek chief of those early times had to offer, prepared at the same time for dishonest gain, in any manner which chance might throw in his way. 1 He is, however, really a trader, not undertaking expeditions with the deliberate purpose of surprise and plunder, and standing distinguished in this respect from the Tyrrhenian, Kretan, or Taphian pirate. Tin, ivory, and electrum, all of which are acknowledged in the Homeric poems, were the fruit of Phoenician trade with the West as well as with the East. 3 1 O'lyss. xiv. 290 ; xv. 416. 4>otvts fy.&ev uvr/p, inra-r/Xia ctJoJf, Tp(jK7?f, of 6fj 7ro/U.d KUK' uvdpunotaiv Lupyet. The interesting narrative given by Eumseus, of the manner in which ha fell into slavery, is a vivid picture of Phoenician dealing (compare Herodot. i. 2-4. Iliad, vi. 290 ; xxiii. 743). Paris is reported to have visited Sidon, and brought from thence women eminent for skill at the loom. The Cyprian Verses (see the Argument, ap. Dtlntzer, p. 17) affirmed that Paris had landed at Sidon ; and attacked and captured the city. Taphian corsairs kidnapped slaves at Sidon (Odyss. xv. 424). The ornaments or trinkets ((i^vpfiara) which the Phoenician merchant carries with him, seem to be the same as the daidaha TroAAci, Hopnaf re yvafnrTuf #' e/.iKaf, etc. which Hephaestus was employed in fabricating (Iliad, xviii. 400) under the protection of Thetis. "Fallacissimum csse genus Phoenician omnia monnmenta vetustatis atquc omnes historic nobis prodiderunt." (Cicero, Orat. Trium. partes ineditse, ed. Maii, 1815, p. 13.)
- Ivory is frequently mentioned in Homer, who uses the word eXe^ac ex-
clusively to mean that substance, not to signify the animal. The art of dyeing, especially with the various shades of purple, was in after-ages one of the special excellences of the Phoenicians : yet Homer, where he alludes in a simile to dyeing or staining, introduces a Mseonian of Karian woman as the performer of the process, not a Phoenician (Iliad, iv.
- 41).
What the electrum named in the Homeric poems really is cannot be posi- tively determined. The worl in antiquity meant two different things: 1,
