AEschylus has an allusion of the same kind in his Agamemnon.

Euripide, and Theocritus, who mention respectively Syrian myrrh and Syrian frankincense, probably use the word "Syrian" for "Assyrian." The belief thus implied is not, however, borne out by inquiry.

Neither the spikenard nor the amonmum, nor the myrrh tree, nor the frankincense tree, nor any other actual spice, is produced within the limits of Assyria, which must always have imported its own spices from abroad, and can only have supplied them to other countries as a carrier.

In this capacity she may very probably, even in the time of her early greatness, have conveyed on to the coast of Syria the spicy products of Arabia and India, and thus have created an impression, which afterwards remained as a tradition, that she was a great spice-producer as well as a spice-seller.
In the same way, as a carrier, Assyria may have exported many other commodities.

She may have traded with the Phoenicians, not only in her own products, but in the goods which she received from the south and east, from Bactria, India, and the Persian Gulf,--such as lapis lazuli, pearls, cinnamon, muslins, shawls, ivory, ebony, cotton.