to remain at Ialysus as the hereditary priesthood of their native god."[554] Rhodes is an island about one-fourth the size of Cyprus, with its axis from the north-east to the south-west.  It possesses excellent harbours, accessible from all quarters,[555] and furnishing a secure shelter in all weathers.  The fertility of the soil is great; and the remarkable history of the island shows the importance which attaches to it in the hands of an enterprising people.  Turkish apathy has, however, succeeded in reducing it to insignificance.

The acquisition of Rhodes led the stream of Phoenician colonisation onwards in two directions, south-westward and north-westward.  South-westward, it passed by way of Carpathus and Casus to Crete, and then to Cythera; north-westward, by way of Chalcia, Telos, and Astypalaea, to the Cyclades and Sporades.  The presence of the Phoenicians in Crete is indicated by the haven “Phoenix,” where St. Paul’s conductors hoped to have wintered their ship;[556] by the town of Itanus, which was named after a Phoenician founder,[557] and was a staple of the purple-trade,[558] and by the existence near port Phoenix of a town called “Araden.”  Leben, on the south coast, near Cape Leo, seems also to have derived its name from the Semitic word for “lion."[559] Crete, however, does not appear to have been occupied by the Phoenicians at more than a few points, or for colonising so much as for trading purposes.  They used its southern ports for refitting and repairing their ships, but did not penetrate into the interior, must less attempt to take possession of the whole extensive territory.  It was otherwise with the smaller islands.  Cythera is said to have derived its name from the Phoenician who colonised it, and the same is also reported of Melos.[560] Ios was, we are told, originally called Phoenice;[561] Anaphe had borne the name of Membliarus, after one of the companions of Cadmus;[562] Oliarus, or Antiparos, was colonised from Sidon.[563] Thera’s earliest inhabitants were of the Phoenician race;[564] either Phoenicians or Carians had, according to Thucydides,[565] colonised in remote times “the greater part of the islands of the AEnean.”  There was a time when probably all the AEgean islands were Phoenician possessions, or at any rate acknowledged Phoenician influence, and Siphnus gave its gold, its silver,[566] and its lead,[567] Cythera its shell-fish,[568] Paros its marble, Melos its sulphur and its alum,[569] Nisyrus its millstones,[570] and the islands generally their honey,[571] to increase the wealth and advance the commercial interests of their Phoenician masters.