Phoenicia

 Phoenicia, centered in what is now Lebanon, was the first great maritime trading culture of the western world.  It held sway from approximately 1200 BC to approximately 540 BC.  Loosely comprised of city-states, including Byblos, Sidon, and Tyre, the Phoenicians were traders and mariners.  Building on local assets, such as the famed cedars of Lebanon and on Tyrian Purple, the prized cloth dye derived from the shell of the Murex sea snail, they opened maritime trade routes with Egypt and Greece.  They also developed the first modern alphabet, which was adopted and modified by the Greeks.  The Phoenicians established trading colonies in Italy (Genoa); Sardinia (Cagliari); Sicily (Palermo, Marsala); Libya (Tripoli); Malta; Morocco (Tangier); and Gibraltar, among others.  Their two most renowned colonies, though, were Carthage (in Tunisia) and Cartagena (in Spain).   Their mariners operated trade routes as far north as the British Isles and as far south as the Gulf of Guinea.  In his Histories, the Greek writer Herodotus records that the Egyptian pharaoh Necho II sent a Phoenician expedition down the Red Sea in 600 BC that circumnavigated Africa and returned to Egypt via the Pillars of Hercules three years later.  Although the Phoenicians maintained a naval fleet and a small army, they relied primarily on commercial trade to exercise influence rather than force of arms.  After Cyrus the Great conquered Phoenicia in 539 BC, the center of the Phoenician culture shifted to Carthage on the North African coast .  Carthage remained a major regional power until crushed by the Romans in 146 BC, bringing an end to the Punic Wars.  The influence of Phoenicia long outlived its city-states.  The Phoenicians perfected the galley as a trading vessel and are credited with development of the bireme, the ship with two levels of rowers that served as a major type of cargo vessel and warship in the Mediterranean for hundreds of years.  Their most lasting influence, though, was in the demonstration that maritime trade could be more important than military prowess in empire building.