Phoenice or Phoenike was an ancient Greek city in Epirus and capital of the Chaonians. It was also the location of the Treaty of Phoenice which ended the First Macedonian War, as well as one of the wealthiest cities in Epirus until the Roman conquest. During the early Byzantine period, Phoenice was the see of a bishopric. The city is an archaeological park of Albania and is located on a hill above a modern town which bears the same name, Finiq, in modern southern Albania.

Phoenicia ( or ; from the , ; , ) was an ancient Semitic thalassocratic civilization situated on the western, coastal part of the Fertile Crescent and centered on the coastline of modern Lebanon, Israel and Syria. All major Phoenician cities were on the coastline of the Mediterranean, some colonies reaching the Western Mediterranean. It was an enterprising maritime trading culture that spread across the Mediterranean from 1500 BC to 300 BC. The Phoenicians used the galley, a man-powered sailing vessel, and are credited with the invention of the bireme. By their innovations in shipbuilding and seafaring, the Phoenicians were enabled to sail as far west as present-day Morocco and Spain carrying huge cargoes of goods for trade. They were famed in Classical Greece and Rome as 'traders in purple', referring to their monopoly on the precious purple dye of the murex snail, used, among other things, for royal clothing, and for the spread of their alphabets, from which almost all modern phonetic alphabets are derived.