I.] THE PHOENICIANS. 5
its western end. In the first of these seas we note their progress
by way of Cyprus and Rhodes to Crete, which island, from its
position at the southern limit of the Aegean, and between the
extremities of the continents of Greece and Asia Minor, was
suited to be a starting-point for future advances.
In the Aegean itself we find numerous evidences ^e Aegfeaa
of their presence. Thus the name Samos, which,
whether it occurs in the island of that name or in Samothrace,
was recognised by the Greeks as meaning 'a height1/ is derived
from the Semitic shamah ' to be high.' Lampsacus, as the city at
the entrance of the Hellespont from the Propontis was called,
signified in that language the town "at the ford." Atabyrium,
the highest summit in Rhodes, is the same as Tabor; in fact the
Greeks thus designated the well-known mountain in Palestine,
lardanos also, the stream in Crete, has the same name as the
Jordan, yarden being the Phoenician word for 'river1; and
Adramyttium in Mysia corresponds to Hadrumetum in Africa.
Elsewhere we find traces of the Phoenician religion. In Thasos
there was a temple of the Tyrian Heracles2, i.*. Melcarth; and
in several places where the local name Macaria is found associated
with traditions of Heracles, it would seem to be a corruption of
the title of the same god. The cult of Aphrodite Urania which
existed in Cythera, a Phoenician station, was in reality that of
Astarte, and in several places called Astyra we find the traces of
her name. Again, the 'Great Gods' that were worshipped in
Samothrace, though in all probability they were not originally
Semitic divinities, yet seem at one time to have passed under the
influence of the Phoenicians from their name Cabeiri, which is
derived from kabir 'great,' a title applied by that people to their
leading deities. In connexion with the purple fisheries, by which
they obtained the Tyrian dye, we find the Phoenicians in the
Laconian gulf and at Hermione in the Argolic Acte, both of
which places were famed for their purple; and in the same
connexion we discover their traces at Corinth, on the coins of
which city the purple-mussel appears, and where Sisyphus is said
to have been father of Porphyrion, that is the purple-trade, and
1 Strabo, 8. 3. 19, vdfiovs fcdXow rd 0^.
a Herod, a, 44.