“In oldest times, when kings and hardy chiefs
In bleating sheep-folds met, for purest wool
Phœnicia’s hilly tracts were most renown’d,
And fertile Syria’s and Judæa’s land,
Hermon, and Seir, and Hebron’s brooky sides,
Twice with the murex, crimson hue, they ting’d
The shining fleeces—hence their gorgeous wealth;
And hence arose the walls of ancient Tyre[34].”
[34] Old Tyre was besieged by Nebuchadnezzar in the second year after the destruction of Jerusalem, or 584 B. C.