Phoenicia, Phoenicians

The territory and inhabitants of the ancient city-states of the Levantine coast, including Arvad, Berytus, Sidon and Tyre. The name is probably derived from the purple dye they produced. The Phoenicians were Semitic-speaking peoples related to the Canaanites. They were expert sailors and traders who colonized the Mediterranean from the 10th to the 5th centuries BC. They had considerable influence on the Greeks, to whom they gave their alphabet, and on the peoples of southern Spain, including the Tartessians. Conquered by Persia in the 530s BC, the Phoenicians provided the bulk of the Persian fleet in their wars with the Greeks. Phoenician settlements in the western Mediterranean became independent under Carthage.