ABSTRACT
The hierarchic structure of a network is mirrored by the different numbers of connections that the various vertices have. Though Greeks and Phoenicians each conformed to their own model of expansion, it is impossible to draw a neat division between a 'Phoenician' and a 'Greek' network. The open network of the Early Iron Age turned into a full-fledged world-system, focused exclusively on Tyre. The remarkable persistence-or, more accurately, revival-of Phoenician or Punic identities in the Imperial period is a complex matter that deserves some explanation. Certainly, the Phoenicians of the Iron Age were as much 'frogs around a pond' as their Greek neighbours. The Phoenicians' seafaring and commercial activities were likewise impressive, as were their colonial ventures which, like those of the Greeks, encompassed the entire Mediterranean, and even beyond. The 'network' paradigm is most apt for explaining the genesis of the Phoenician commercial diaspora in the Mediterranean, and its gradual transformation into an informal empire dominated by Carthage.
