But these lines of traffic can be ascribed to the Phoenicians only by conjecture, history being silent on the subject.
The sea trade of the Phoenicians was still more extensive than their land traffic.

It is divisible into two branches, their trade with their own colonists, and that with the natives of the various countries to which they penetrated in their voyages.

The colonies sent out from Phoenicia were, except in the single instance of Carthage, trading settlements, planted where some commodity or commodities desired by the mother-country abounded, and were intended to secure to the mother-country the monopoly of such commodity or commodities.

For instance, Cyprus was colonised for the sake of its copper mines and its timber; Cilicia and Lycia for their timber only; Thasos for its gold mines; Salamis and Cythera for the purple trade; Sardinia and Spain for their numerous metals; North Africa for its fertility and for the trade with the interior.

Phoenicia expected to derive, primarily, from each colony the commodity or commodities which had caused the selection of the site.