Ascalon attacked the Sidonians by land, blockaded the offending town, and after a time compelled a surrender; but the defenders had a ready retreat by sea, and, when they could no longer hold out against their assailants, took ship, and removed themselves to Tyre, which at the time was probably a dependency.[1422] In navigation also and colonisation Sidon took the lead.

According to some, she was the actual founder of Aradus, which was said to have owed its origin to a body of Sidonian exiles, who there settled themselves.[1423] Not much reliance, however, can be placed on this tradition, which first appears in a writer of the Augustan age.

With more confidence we may ascribe to Sidon the foundation of Citium in Cyprus, the colonisation of the islands in the AEgean, and of those Phoenician settlements in North Africa which were anterior to the founding of Carthage.

It has even been supposed that the Sidonians were the first to make a settlement at Carthage itself,[1424] and that the Tyrian occupation under Dido was a recolonisation of an already occupied site.

Anyhow, Sidon was the first to explore the central Mediterranean, and establish commercial relations with the barbarous tribes of the mid-African coast, Cabyles, Berbers, Shuloukhs, Tauriks, and others.