Successful commerce must rest upon the foundation of mutual confidence; and mutual confidence is impossible unless the rules of fair dealing are observed on both sides, if not invariably, yet, at any rate, so generally that the infraction of them is not contemplated on either side as anything but the remotest contingency.
Of the internal government of Sidon during this period no details have come down to us.

Undoubtedly, like all the Phoenician cities in the early times,[1434] she had her own kings; and we may presume, from the almost universal practice in ancient times, and especially in the East,[1435] that the monarchy was hereditary.

The main duties of the king were to lead out the people to battle in time of war, and to administer justice in time of peace.[1436] The kings were in part supported, in part held in check, by a powerful aristocracy--an aristocracy which, we may conjecture, had wealth, rather than birth, as its basis.

It does not appear that any political authority was possessed by the priesthood, nor that the priesthood was a caste, as in India, and (according to some writers) in Egypt.

The priestly office was certainly not attached by any general custom to the person of the kings, though kings might be priests, and were so occasionally.[1437] We do not distinctly hear of Sidon has having been engaged in any war during the period of her ascendancy, excepting that with the Philistines.