the Jews.
Hiram's friendly dealings with David and Solomon are well known; but the _continued_ alliance between the Phoenicians and the Israelites has attracted less attention.

Solomon took wives from Phoenicia;[320] Ahab married the daughter of Ithobalus, king of Sidon;[321] Phoenicia furnished timber for the second Temple;[322] Isaiah wound up his prophecy against Tyre with a consolation;[323] our Lord found faith in the Syro-Phoenician woman;[324] in the days of Herod Agrippa, Tyre and Sidon still desired peace with Judaea, "because their country was nourished by the king's country."[325] And similarly Tyre had friendly relations with Syria and Greece, with Mesopotamia and Assyria, with Babylonia and Chaldaea.

At the same time she could bend herself to meet the wants and gain the confidence of all the varieties of barbarians, the rude Armenians, the wild Arabs, the barbarous tribes of northern and western Africa, the rough Iberi, the passionate Gauls, the painted Britons, the coarse Sards, the fierce Thracians, the filthy Scyths, the savage races of the Caucasus.

Tribes so timid and distrustful as those of Tropical Africa were lured into peaceful and friendly relations by the artifice of a "dumb commerce,"[326] and on every side untamed man was softened and drawn towards civilisation by a spirit of accommodation, conciliation, and concession to prejudices.
If the Phoenicians are to be credited with acuteness of intellect, it must be limited to the field of practical enquiry and discovery.
Whatever may be said with regard to the extent and variety of their literature--a subject which will be treated in another chapter--it cannot be pretended that humanity owes to them any important conquests of a scientific or philosophic character.

Herodotus, who admires the learning of the Persians,[327] the science of the Babylonians,[328] and the combined learning and science of the Egyptians,[329] limits his commendation of the Phoenicians to their skill in navigation, in mechanics, and in works of art.[330] Had they made advances in the abstract, or even in the mixed, sciences, in mathematics, or astronomy, or geometry, in logic or metaphysics, either their writings would have been preserved, or at least the Greeks would have made acknowledgments of being indebted to them.[331] But it is only in the field of practical matters that any such acknowledgments are made.