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a necklace of fine gold to sell, With bright electron linked right wondrously and well.[1418] Sidon's pre-eminence in the manufacture, the dyeing, and the embroidery of textile fabrics was at the same time equally unquestionable.

Hecuba, being advised to offer to Athene, on behalf of her favourite son, the best and loveliest of all the royal robes which her well-stored dress-chamber could furnish-- She to her fragrant wardrobe bent her way, Where her rich veils in beauteous order lay; Webs by Sidonian virgins finely wrought, From Sidon's woofs by youthful Paris brought, When o'er the boundless main the adulterer led Fair Helen from her home and nuptial bed; From these she chose the fullest, fairest far, With broidery bright, and blazing as a star.[1419] Already, it would seem, the precious shell-fish, on which Phoenicia's commerce so largely rested in later times, had been discovered; and it was the dazzling hue of the robe which constituted its especial value.
Sidon was ultimately eclipsed by Tyre in the productions of the loom; and the unrivalled dye has come down to us, and will go down to all future ages, as "_Tyrian_ purple;" but we may well believe that in this, as in most other matters on which prosperity and success depended, Tyre did but follow in the steps of her elder sister Sidon, perfecting possibly the manufacture which had been Sidon's discovery in the early ages.

According to Scylax of Cadyanda, Dor was a Sidonian colony.[1420] Geographically it belonged rather to Philistia than to Phoenicia; but its possession of large stores of the purple fish caused its sudden seizure and rapid fortification at a very remote date, probably by the Phoenicians of Sidon.[1421] It is quite possible that this aggression may have provoked that terrible war to which reference has already been made, between the Philistines under the hegemony of Ascalon and the first of the Phoenician cities.