ABSTRACT
The Phoenicians were great sailors and traders, and they are credited with inventing the first alphabet. Since they sailed the entire Mediterranean as far as the Iberian Peninsula (modern-day Spain and Portugal), they needed settlements where they could stop to reprovision their ships. These settlements served as markets for their cargoes as well. Carthage became the greatest of these outposts. When in 575 B.C.E. the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar captured the Phoenician capital of Tyre, Carthage became the chief city of the Phoenician empire, a series of coastal cities along the Mediterranean.
