Fill in the Blanks Master Mariners: The Ancient PhoenicianOnline version History of Navigation - Teacher Paula D. Cava by Paula DC 1 Driven by their desire for and the acquisition of such commodities as silver from Spain , from Africa , and tin from the Scilly , the Phoenicians far and wide , even beyond the Mediterranean's traditional safe limits of the Pillars of Hercules and into the . They were credited with many important inventions and firmly established a reputation as the greatest in the ancient world . Phoenician were represented in the art of their neighbours , and their seamanship is praised above all other by such ancient writers as Homer and Herodotus . If any nation could claim to be the of the seas , it was the .