History glossary
Phoenicians
seafaring people from the Levant whose trade networks and colonies shaped the Mediterranean.
- Category
- People and culture
- Region
- Levant and Mediterranean
- Date range
- especially first millennium BCE
What it means
The Phoenicians were people from cities such as Tyre, Sidon, and Byblos on the eastern Mediterranean coast. Their traders, sailors, alphabetic writing, and colonies spread across the Mediterranean. Carthage began as one of those Phoenician-founded settlements and later became a major power in its own right.
Related terms
Stories using this term
The Punic Wars: The Story of Rome, Carthage and Hannibal
From rivalry over Sicily to Hannibal's invasion, Zama, and the destruction of Carthage, the Punic Wars made Rome the dominant power of the Mediterranean and changed the Republic forever.
The Persian Empire
From Cyrus the Great to Alexander's conquest, the Achaemenid Persian Empire turned regional kingship into a vast realm held together by conquest, roads, tribute, local cooperation, and royal power.
Alexander the Great and the Hellenistic World
From Philip II's military reforms to the fall of the last Hellenistic kingdom, this story follows Alexander's conquests, the wars of his successors, and the spread of Greek culture across the ancient Near East.
