Topic summary
Phoenician colonization
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Phoenicia.
Phoenician colonization
To facilitate their commercial ventures, the Phoenicians established numerous colonies and trading posts along the coasts of the Mediterranean. Phoenician city-states generally lacked the numbers or even the desire to expand their territories. Few settlements had more than 1,000 inhabitants; only Carthage, Tangier, and nearby settlements in the western Mediterranean of the Maghreb and Iberia would grow larger. A major motivating factor was competition with the Greeks, who began expanding throughout the during the same period. Though largely peaceful rivals, their respective settlements in Crete and Sicily did clash intermittently.