By their turn of mind and by the language which they spoke, the Byblians or Giblites seem to have been, of all the Phoenicians, those who most resembled the Hebrews.

King Jehavmelek, who probably reigned at Byblus about B.C.

400, calls himself "a just king," and prays that he may obtain favour in the sight of God.

Later on it was at Byblus, and in the valleys of the Lebanon depending on it, that the inhabitants celebrated those mysteries of Astarte, together with that orgiastic worship of Adonis or Tammuz, which were so popular in Syria during the whole of the Greco-Roman period.[4105] The fourth Phoenician "world" was that of Tyre and Sidon, beginning at the Tamyras and ending with the promontory of Carmel.

Here it was that the Phoenician character developed especially those traits by which it is commonly known to the world at large--a genius for commerce and industry, a passion for the undertaking of long and perilous voyages, an adaptability to circumstances of all kinds, and an address in dealing with wild tribes of many different kinds which has rarely been equalled and never exceeded.