The words punica fides 'Phoenician trust' (or 'Punic trust') and "Phoenician story" were used by the ancient Greeks and Romans to mean treachery or a lie. While the Phoenicians were considered very capable sea-farers (the Romans eagerly copied a Carthaginian quinquereme when they found one abandoned), craftsmen, and merchants known among other things for their glass and purple dye, they were also looked down upon by most classical writers who described them.

In his comprehensive treatment of racist or proto-racist comments in literature from the ancient Greeks and Romans, The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity, Benjamin Isaac lists the descriptions made by ancient Greeks and Romans about the ancient Phoenicians and Carthaginians. It should be noted that the attitudes toward the Phoenicians may not have been static. In The Iliad, the description of Phoenicians is not negative, while in The Odyssey, it has begun its downwards spiral. I am only presenting the evidence Isaac has very neatly aggregated, rather than attempting to interpret it.

Homer: Skilled, Sailors, Greedy, Deceitful
In the Iliad (23.740-44), the Phoenicians are referred to "skilled Sidonian craftsmen" and mention is made of the fact that Phoenicians carried the crafted object across the water. In the Odyssey (14.287-297) the Phoenicians are deceitful and greedy. Elsewhere (Od. 15.415-8), an attractive and tall Phoenician woman is described as skilled in handiwork.

Plato (427-347 B.C.)
(Laws 747c-e) Describes the Phoenicians as narrow-minded and greedy.

Elsewhere (Leg. 637d-e) he describes them as warlike (as does Aristotle [Pol. 1324b]). Phoenician story=lie (Resp. 414c).

Plautus (c. 254-184 B.C.)
Plautus in his comedy about a Phoenician describes Phoenicians as cunning.

Polybius (2nd C B.C.)
Describes the Phoenicians as navigators.

Diodorus (1st C B.C.)
Pioneer sailors and traders.

Cicero (c. 106-43 B.C.)
Barbarians with a naval tradition and pirates, attributing Greek luxury and greed to Phoenician influence. He calls them the most treacherous of all people.

Cornelius Nepos (99 - 24 B.C.)
Nepos, a biographer of Hannibal, says that Hannibal surpassed commanders in skill.

Livy (c. 59/64 B.C. - A.D. 17/12)
Hannibal is described as cruel, perfidious, without fear of the gods or other religious scruple.

Pliny the Elder (23-79 A.D.)
Inventors of trade.

(Reference: ourworld.cs.com/latintexts/mela_home_page.htm Pomponius Mela (mid-1st C A.D.))
A geographer, Pomponius Mela describes the Phoenicians as "'an intelligent people, successful in war and peace....'" good at the arts, navigation, sea battles, and ruling.