At the same time she also disposed at a profit of many of the wares that she had imported from foreign countries, which were advanced in certain branches of art, as Egypt, Babylonia, Assyria, possibly India.

The muslins and ivory of Hindustan, the shawls of Kashmir, the carpets of Babylon, the spices of Araby the Blest, the pearls of the Persian Gulf, the faience and the papyrus of Egypt, would be readily taken by the more civilised of the Western nations, who would be prepared to pay a high price for them.

They would pay for them partly, no doubt, in silver and gold, but to some extent also in their own manufactured commodities, Attica in her ceramic products, Corinth in her "brass," Etruria in her candelabra and engraved mirrors,[9100] Argos in her highly elaborated ornaments.[9101] Or, in some cases, they might make return out of the store wherewith nature had provided them, Euboea rendering her copper, the Peloponnese her "purple," Crete her timber, the Cyrenaica its silphium.
Outside the Pillars of Hercules the Phoenicians had only savage nations to deal with, and with these they seem to have traded mainly for the purpose of obtaining certain natural products, either peculiarly valuable or scarcely procurable elsewhere.

Their trade with the Scilly Islands and the coast of Cornwall was especially for the procuring of tin.

Of all the metals, tin is found in the fewest places, and though Spain seems to have yielded some anciently,[9102] yet it can only have been in small quantities, while there was an enormous demand for tin in all parts of the old world, since bronze was the material almost universally employed for arms, tools, implements, and utensils of all kinds, while tin is the most important, though not the largest, element in bronze.