Phoenician colonisation

Can't answer any of the detail ones.

1. Unknown, you might have been sent by a merchant or by the King of your home city, no one is sure of that. But you'd definitely know what you were there for, probably trading,
4. Potentially anything. Tyhrranian Purple was the main Phoenician produce but they had access to anything they might have bought from Arabs as well (our main non-Greek information on the Phoenicians comes from the Old Testament, Judea and Israel were major allies of the Phoenicians, who they called Canaanites, because the Canaanites relied on the Hebrews for safe trade routes with Arabia). Parts of Phoenicia were in revolt against Persia in 350 BC but usually you've have Persian and Mesopotamian goods as well. Grain from Scythia and other Black Sea goods could be purchased off the Greeks and the Phoenicians were the only Mediteranian people with access to British tin.
5. A good harbour, duh. Then access to locals to trade with.
6. Build houses probably. Make sure the ships are safe.
7. Never. Only communication is by boat and Phoenician boats are everywhere all the time.

350BC? You die. 400 years earlier and you're safe.

But for the purpose of discussion:

1) Depends. It's usually the first, that you are looking for specific resources for whatever reason. But you're going there to stay so you need to have access to water, safety(ie height) and various other situations that benefit your location.
2) Greek colony ships in the 8th century BC carried around 1000-2000 people. So I suspect that Phoenician ships(inferior to the Greek ones) would carry at least 500 people. I'd say it would be something like 1500 people since it's apparently 350BC
3) Can't tell. I'd say 40:60 excluding children, being Semitic people who would probably follow the doctrine of "populate the earth". So it sort of depends on their tribe. Not sure what the general consensus on marriage was by then.
4) Everything you can think of. Weapons, food, clothing supplies, water, alcohol, medicine etc
5) As I said earlier, the height of the location. Ideally to overlook any potential enemies from sea or ground and enough height to give better defense over invaders.
6) "You're free". Lol, jk. I suppose it's to gather enough wood and rock to be able to build shelters and later on to look for anything they can use to improve their lifestyle. Then, find tradeable resources.
7) Answer here should be never.

In 350 BC, you'd probably just join your cousins from Carthage who had already settled there. A century or two before:

1) You're not settling unless you've identified some tribe that you have good hopes of allying. If you're settling, a trader has already been in the area so you have a general idea of what you're dealing with, including possible settlement sites and relevant trade goods. It's been at least several months since the last trader was there, though, so it's always risky.
2) No idea. (Considering the range and effectiveness of Phoenician trade I doubt that their ships were inferior to the Greeks, though. If they were, not by much. Greek superiority is clear for navies from the 5th C. or so, but trade ships are a different matter.)
3) Very likely more men than women. Ships need male crews, women can be got locally. You need that alliance anyway so why not include them in the treaty?
4) Essential supplies for the first winter, weapons, trade goods appropriate to the local tribe.
5) Defensible harbor and hilltop with good fresh water and some farmland nearby. And most importantly, a friendly tribe.
6) Shelter, a well or cistern, rudimentary defenses.
7) Months at a time. Ships come by more often but many are not Phoenician and even most Phoenicians are not from your city. There'll be little reason for traders to put in until you've established yourself. A round trip for communication is going to be a month or so, depending on the weather. In any case, it'll be too long for them to react in an emergency; you better hope that alliance comes off.

The Phoenician ships were inferior but they probably had better sailors and maybe a better command too. It didn't matter if it was military ships or trade ships, Phoenicians usually copied the Greek ones and weren't really successful (though the Greeks apparently became better shipmakers than the Phoenicians after trying to copy their first designs, since most of Greece was ruined by the Santorini explosion). Phoenicians were mostly traders, they traded with the Greeks, so they didn't have that much of a trouble getting around the Mediterranean. Had the Phoenicians been Persians instead - or another traditional enemy of the Greeks - then they'd have a lot of trouble trading as the Greeks would 'harass' them at every chance given.
It must be noted that Phoenicians were not really that great at sea commerce. Their main strength was land commerce. They get their reputation because they had big ships that were not easily sunk (but their power was not that great compared to others of their time).

As for your woman remark, I doubt that could be the case. An alliance could be forged if the chief of the othe tribe granted a settler one of the women, or his daughter/niece, not a bunch of women. Lots of women travelled with the settlers because they were going to settle. If you send 70:30 or 80:20 ratio, then there's no point. Only case could be a 60:40 ration but I think the Phoenicians, like all semitic people of the time, had a thing for populating the world so men could have had more than 1 woman each. I need to check on their religious views again but there were 4-5 different tribes iirc with different set of beliefs so it's a bit odd to group them together as "Phoenicians" and call it "their policy".
And they weren't brutal enough to kill off the men of some villages and keep the women for themselves.

diegosimeone said:

The Phoenician ships were inferior but they probably had better sailors and maybe a better command too. It didn't matter if it was military ships or trade ships, Phoenicians usually copied the Greek ones and weren't really successful (though the Greeks apparently became better shipmakers than the Phoenicians after trying to copy their first designs, since most of Greece was ruined by the Santorini explosion). Phoenicians were mostly traders, they traded with the Greeks, so they didn't have that much of a trouble getting around the Mediterranean. Had the Phoenicians been Persians instead - or another traditional enemy of the Greeks - then they'd have a lot of trouble trading as the Greeks would 'harass' them at every chance given.
It must be noted that Phoenicians were not really that great at sea commerce. Their main strength was land commerce. They get their reputation because they had big ships that were not easily sunk (but their power was not that great compared to others of their time).

Click to expand...

I don't know where you're getting this. Phoenicia started trading around the Mediterranean basin before the Greeks did (not counting the Minoans) and had a network that was at least as extensive. A lot of it was run from Carthage after a certain point but that was still a Phoenician city. The focus of the trade was the southern shore, including Egypt, Tunisia, Spain and most of the islands in between. Inland trade routes played a part but the sea trade was definitely more important. I've seen no evidence that their trade ships were inferior to the Greeks', although the Greeks certainly did eventually build better war ships.

diegosimeone said:

As for your woman remark, I doubt that could be the case. An alliance could be forged if the chief of the othe tribe granted a settler one of the women, or his daughter/niece, not a bunch of women. Lots of women travelled with the settlers because they were going to settle. If you send 70:30 or 80:20 ratio, then there's no point. Only case could be a 60:40 ration but I think the Phoenicians, like all semitic people of the time, had a thing for populating the world so men could have had more than 1 woman each. I need to check on their religious views again but there were 4-5 different tribes iirc with different set of beliefs so it's a bit odd to group them together as "Phoenicians" and call it "their policy".
And they weren't brutal enough to kill off the men of some villages and keep the women for themselves.

Click to expand...

There is no indication that the Phoenicians were more focused on population growth than other civilizations nor that they practiced polygamy among the lower orders of society more often than others did. The fact is, ships can carry only a limited number of people and you need men, for rowing/sailing, for building and defense. You also need ship space for trade goods to befriend at least one local tribe. If all that succeeds, you may send for the next ship to carry women. If you took a lot of women in your first ship, you'd be weaker on arrival and would only risk them. In the meantime, there are quite a few indications for intermarriage with the locals including mythological references to abductions of groups of women. They don't need to come from your allies' tribe, they can also be raided from another one a little further down the road. I should have mentioned that second ship perhaps, but I'm pretty sure that the first one is mostly men.

Well, I think you are spot on with the first ship comment. But the question was about colonists in general. And they don't really sent one ship, they went in groups. So perhaps the first couple of ships carried men ready for anything while the rest carried mixed populations.
As for Greek trading, of course you have to include the Minoans. Either because they were also Greek (which linear A shall prove when someone bothers with it) or because the Minoans controlled most of the Hellenic area. I mentioned earlier that Phoenician ships were inferior so they possibly carried less people with them because I suspect that trading ships were most likely to be used for these purposes. Maybe a couple of warships were to be used escorts but they probably didn't stay much. Those may very well have been the 'first ships' you have mentioned.

Also, I think you have them mixed up. Phoenician war ships were initially much better than Greek warships.The trading ships of the Greeks also had some fighting capacity which made them better than the rest. This changed during Philip's and Alexander's era. In the GrecoPersian wars, the Persians used Phoenician warships which were considered better (in practice they were not, they were just bigger) while in some cases the Greeks tackled those with trading ships. The Phoenician trading ships were never really on par with the Greek ones.
After a while, a ship construction mania hit the Greeks till the creation of Syracusia. It was some sort of competition between colony-states. They eventually stopped as these ships didn't really travel much, there weren't many ports with the capacity to hold them and they were running out of wood

RedRalphWiggum said:

I am a Phoenician colonist exploring southern Sardinia with a view to setting up a colony in 350BC.

1. Is it likely I have been sent with a specific purpose in mind, i.e. obtaining a specific good for trade, or am I there speculatively?
2. How many people are in my ship(s)?
3. What is the ration of men to women among my colonists likely to be?
4. What goods are in my ship(s)?
5. Aside from a source of fresh water, what am I looking for as a sign a given area would be good to colonise?
6. When I settle upon a location, what are the first tasks I direct my colonists to do?
7. How long can I expect communications to my homeland to be cut?

Click to expand...

I would assume the Phoenicians would only institute colonies where they'd know they could exploit their skills. So where they'd know they could trade.
1) Your people would have been trading with the area for some time, so probably specific.
5) IIRC an easily defensible position (island in front of the coast, peninsula) close to a trade source. It is probably likely you are expending an existing trade post.
6) Build defences? Make treaties with the locals, perhaps get hostages.