Produced by John Bickers and Dagny and David Widger





HISTORY

OF

P H OE N I C I A

by George Rawlinson, M.A.



First Published 1889 by Longmans, Green, and Co.



Camden Professor of Ancient History in the University of Oxford

Canon of Canterbury

Corresponding Member of the Royal Academy of Turin




TO THE

CHANCELLOR, VICE-CHANCELLOR, and SCHOLARS

Of The

UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

This Work

His Last as Occupant of a Professorial Chair

Is Dedicated

As a Token of Respect and Gratitude

By The

CAMDEN PROFESSOR

Oct. 1 MDCCCLXXXIX



PREPARER'S NOTE

     The original text contains a number of characters that are
     not available even in 8-bit Windows text. Where possible
     these have been represented with a similar letter, but some
     things, e.g. Hebrew script, have been omitted.

     The 8-bit version of this text includes Windows font
     characters. These may be lost in 7-bit versions of the text,
     or when viewed with different fonts.

     Greek text has been transliterated within brackets "{}"
     using an Oxford English Dictionary alphabet table.
     Diacritical marks have been lost. Phoenician or other
     Semitic text has been replaced with an ellipsis in brackets,
     i.e. "{...}".

     The numerous sketches and maps in the original have also
     been omitted.


PREFACE

Histories of Phoenicia or of the Phoenicians were written towards the
middle of the present century by Movers and Kenrick. The elaborate work
of the former writer[01] collected into five moderate-sized volumes
all the notices that classical antiquity had preserved of the Religion,
History, Commerce, Art, &c., of this celebrated and interesting nation.
Kenrick, making a free use of the stores of knowledge thus accumulated,
added to them much information derived from modern research, and was
content to give to the world in a single volume of small size,[02] very
scantily illustrated, the ascertained results of criticism and inquiry
on the subject of the Phoenicians up to his own day. Forty-four years
have since elapsed; and in the course of them large additions have been
made to certain branches of the inquiry, while others have remained very
much as they were before. Travellers, like Robinson, Walpole, Tristram,
Renan, and Lortet, have thrown great additional light on the geography,
geology, fauna, and flora of the country. Excavators, like Renan and the
two Di Cesnolas, have caused the soil to yield up most valuable remains
bearing upon the architecture, the art, the industrial pursuits, and the
manners and customs of the people. Antiquaries, like M. Clermont-Ganneau
and MM. Perrot and Chipiez, have subjected the remains to careful
examination and criticism, and have definitively fixed the character
of Phoenician Art, and its position in the history of artistic effort.
Researches are still being carried on, both in Phoenicia Proper and in
the Phoenician dependency of Cyprus, which are likely still further to
enlarge our knowledge with respect to Phoenician Art and Archæology; but
it is not probable that they will affect seriously the verdict already
delivered by competent judges on those subjects. The time therefore
appeared to the author to have come when, after nearly half a century of
silence, the history of the people might appropriately be rewritten. The
subject had long engaged his thoughts, closely connected as it is with
the histories of Egypt, and of the "Great Oriental Monarchies," which
for thirty years have been to him special objects of study; and a work
embodying the chief results of the recent investigations seemed to him
a not unsuitable termination to the historical efforts which his
resignation of the Professorship of Ancient History at Oxford, and his
entrance upon a new sphere of labour, bring naturally to an end.

The author wishes to express his vast obligations to MM. Perrot and
Chipiez for the invaluable assistance which he has derived from their
great work,[03] and to their publishers, the MM. Hachette, for their
liberality in allowing him the use of so large a number of MM. Perrot
and Chipiez' Illustrations. He is also much beholden to the same
gentlemen for the use of charts and drawings originally published in
the "Géographie Universelle." Other works from which he has drawn either
materials or illustrations, or both, are (besides Movers' and Kenrick's)
M. Ernest Renan's "Mission de Phénicie," General Di Cesnola's "Cyprus,"
A. Di Cesnola's "Salaminia," M. Ceccaldi's "Monuments Antiques de
Cypre," M. Daux's "Recherches sur les Emporia Phéniciens," the
"Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum," M. Clermont-Ganneau's "Imagerie
Phénicienne," Mr. Davis's "Carthage and her Remains," Gesenius's
"Scripturæ Linguæque Phoeniciæ Monumenta," Lortet's "La Syrie
d'aujourd'hui," Serra di Falco's "Antichità della Sicilia," Walpole's
"Ansayrii," and Canon Tristram's "Land of Israel." The difficulty has
been to select from these copious stores the most salient and noteworthy
facts, and to marshal them in such a form as would make them readily
intelligible to the ordinary English reader. How far he has succeeded in
doing this he must leave the public to judge. In making his bow to them
as a "Reader" and Writer "of Histories,"[04] he has to thank them for a
degree of favour which has given a ready sale to all his previous works,
and has carried some of them through several editions.

CANTERBURY: August 1889.





HISTORY OF PHOENICIA



CHAPTER I--THE LAND

     Phoenicia--Origin of the name--Spread of the name
     southwards--Real length of Phoenicia along the coast--
     Breadth and area--General character of the region--The
     Plains--Plain of Sharon--Plain of Acre--Plain of Tyre--Plain
     of Sidon--Plain of Berytus--Plain of Marathus--Hilly
     regions--Mountain ranges--Carmel--Casius--Bargylus--Lebanon--
     Beauty of Lebanon--Rivers--The Litany--The Nahr-el-Berid--
     The Kadisha--The Adonis--The Lycus--The Tamyras--The
     Bostrenus--The Zaherany--The Headlands--Main
     characteristics, inaccessibility, picturesqueness,
     productiveness.

Phoenicé, or Phoenicia, was the name originally given by the Greeks--and
afterwards adopted from them by the Romans--to the coast region of the
Mediterranean, where it faces the west between the thirty-second and the
thirty-sixth parallels. Here, it would seem, in their early voyagings,
the Pre-Homeric Greeks first came upon a land where the palm-tree was
not only indigenous, but formed a leading and striking characteristic,
everywhere along the low sandy shore lifting its tuft of feathery
leaves into the bright blue sky, high above the undergrowth of fig, and
pomegranate, and alive. Hence they called the tract Phoenicia, or "the
Land of Palms;" and the people who inhabited it the Phoenicians, or "the
Palm-tree people."

The term was from the first applied with a good deal of vagueness. It
was probably originally given to the region opposite Cyprus, from Gabala
in the north--now Jebili--to Antaradus (Tortosa) and Marathus (Amrith)
towards the south, where the palm-tree was first seen growing in rich
abundance. The palm is the numismatic emblem of Aradus,[11] and though
not now very frequent in the region which Strabo calls "the Aradian
coast-tract,"[12] must anciently have been among its chief ornaments. As
the Grecian knowledge of the coast extended southward, and a richer and
still richer growth of the palm was continually noticed, almost every
town and every village being embosomed in a circle of palm groves, the
name extended itself until it reached as far south at any rate as Gaza,
or (according to some) as Rhinocolura and the Torrens Ægypti. Northward
the name seems never to have passed beyond Cape Posideium (Possidi) at
the foot of Mount Casius, the tract between this and the range of Taurus
being always known as Syria, never as Phoenecia or Phoenicé.

The entire length of the coast between the limits of Cape Possidi and
Rhinocolura is, without reckoning the lesser indentations, about 380
miles, or nearly the same as that of Portugal. The indentations of the
coast-line are slight. From Rhinocolura to Mount Carmel, a distance of
150 miles, not a single strong promontory asserts itself, nor is there a
single bay of sufficient depth to attract the attention of geographers.
Carmel itself is a notable headland, and shelters a bay of some size;
but these once passed the old uniformity returns, the line being again
almost unbroken for a distance of seventy-five miles, from Haifa to
Beyrout (Berytus). North of Beyrout we find a little more variety.
The coast projects in a tolerably bold sweep between the thirty-fourth
parallel and Tripolis (Tarabulus) and recedes almost correspondingly
between Tripolis and Tortosa (Antaradus), so that a deepish bay is
formed between Lat. 34º 27´ and Lat. 34º 45´, whence the line again runs
northward unindented for fifty miles, to beyond Gabala (Jebili).
After this, between Gabala and Cape Posideium there is considerable
irregularity, the whole tract being mountainous, and spurs from Bargylus
and Casius running down into the sea and forming a succession of
headlands, of which Cape Posideium is the most remarkable.

But while the name Phoenicia is applied geographically to this long
extent--nearly 400 miles--of coast-line, historically and ethnically
it has to be reduced within considerably narrower limits. A race, quite
distinct from that of the Phoenicians, was settled from an early date
on the southern portion of the west Asian coast, where it verges towards
Africa. From Jabneh (Yebna) southwards was Palestine, the country of the
Philistines, perhaps even from Joppa (Jaffa), which is made the boundary
by Mela.[13] Thus at least eighty miles of coast-line must be deducted
from the 380, and the length of Phoenicia along the Mediterranean shore
must be regarded as not exceeding three hundred miles.

The width varied from eight or ten miles to thirty. We must regard
as the eastern boundary of Phoenicia the high ridge which forms the
watershed between the streams that flow eastward toward the Orontes,
Litany, and Jordan, and those that flow westward into the Mediterranean.
It is difficult to say what was the _average_ width, but perhaps it may
be fairly estimated at about fifteen miles. In this case the entire area
would have been about 4,500 square miles.

The tract was one of a remarkably diversified character. Lofty mountain,
steep wooded hill, chalky slope, rich alluvial plain, and sandy shore
succeeded each other, each having its own charm, which was enhanced by
contrast. The sand is confined to a comparatively narrow strip along the
seashore,[14] and to the sites of ancient harbours now filled up. It is
exceedingly fine and of excellent silicious quality, especially in the
vicinity of Sidon and at the foot of Mount Carmel. The most remarkable
plains are those of Sharon, Acre, Tyre, Sidon, Beyrout, and Marathus.
Sharon, so dear to the Hebrew poets,[15] is the maritime tract
intervening between the highland of Samaria and the Mediterranean,
extending from Joppa to the southern foot of Carmel--a distance of
nearly sixty miles--and watered by the Chorseas, the Kaneh, and other
rivers. It is a smooth, very slightly undulating tract, about ten
miles in width from the sea to the foot of the mountains, which rise up
abruptly from it without any intervening region of hills, and seem to
bound it as a wall, above which tower the huge rounded masses of Ebal
and Gerizim, with the wooded cone, on which stood Samaria, nestling at
their feet.[16] The sluggish streams, several of them containing water
during the whole of the year, make their way across it between reedy
banks,[17] and generally spread out before reaching the shore into wide
marshes, which might be easily utilised for purposes of irrigation.
The soil is extremely rich, varying from bright red to deep black,
and producing enormous crops of weeds or grain, according as it is
cultivated or left in a state of nature. Towards the south the view over
the region has been thus described: "From Ramleh there is a wide view
on every side, presenting a prospect rarely surpassed in richness and
beauty. I could liken it to nothing but the great plain of the Rhine
by Heidelberg or, better still, to the vast plains of Lombardy, as seen
from the cathedral of Milan and elsewhere. In the east the frowning
mountains of Judah rose abruptly from the tract at their foot; while on
the west, in fine contrast, the glittering waves of the Mediterranean
Sea associated our thoughts with Europe. Towards the north and south,
as far as the eye could reach, the beautiful plain was spread out like a
carpet at our feet, variegated with tracts of brown from which the crops
had just been taken, and with fields still rich with the yellow of the
ripe corn, or green with the springing millet. Immediately below us
the eye rested on the immense olive groves of Ramleh and Lydda, and the
picturesque towers and minarets and domes of these large villages. In
the plain itself were not many villages, but the tract of hills and
the mountain-side beyond, especially in the north-east, were perfectly
studded with them, and as now seen in the reflected beams of the setting
sun they seemed like white villas and hamlets among the dark hills,
presenting an appearance of thriftiness and beauty which certainly would
not stand a closer examination."[18] Towards its northern end Sharon
is narrowed by the low hills which gather round the western flanks
of Carmel, and gradually encroach upon the plain until it terminates
against the shoulder of the mountain itself, leaving only a narrow beach
at the foot of the promontory by which it is possible to communicate
with the next plain towards the north.[19]

Compared with Sharon the plain of Acre is unimportant and of small
extent. It reaches about eight miles along the shore, from the foot of
Carmel to the headland on which the town of Acre stands, and has a width
between the shore and the hills of about six miles. Like Sharon it is
noted for its fertility. Watered by the two permanent streams of the
Kishon and the Belus, it possesses a rich soil, which is said to be at
present "perhaps the best cultivated and producing the most luxuriant
crops, both of corn and weeds, of any in Palestine."[110] The Kishon
waters it on the south, where it approaches Carmel, and is a broad
stream,[111] though easily fordable towards its mouth. The Belus
(Namâané) flows through it towards the north, washing Acre itself, and
is a stream of even greater volume than the Kishon, though it has but a
short course.

The third of the Phoenician plains, as we proceed from south to north,
is that of Tyre. This is a long but comparatively narrow strip, reaching
from the Ras-el-Abiad towards the south to Sarepta on the north, a
distance of about twenty miles, but in no part more than five miles
across, and generally less than two miles. It is watered about midway
by the copious stream of the Kasimiyeh or Litany, which, rising east of
Lebanon in the Buka'a or Coelesyrian valley, forces its way through the
mountain chain by a series of tremendous gorges, and debouches upon the
Tyrian lowland about three miles to the south-east of the present city,
near the modern Khan-el-Kasimiyeh, whence it flows peaceably to the sea
with many windings through a broad low tract of meadow-land. Other
rills and rivulets descending from the west flank of the great mountain
increase the productiveness of the plain, while copious fountains of
water gush forth with surprising force in places, more especially at
Ras-el-Ain, three miles from Tyre, to the south.[112] The plain is, even
at the present day, to a large extent covered with orchards, gardens,
and cultivated fields, in which are grown rich crops of tobacco, cotton,
and cereals.

The plain of Sidon, which follows that of Tyre, and is sometimes
regarded as a part of it,[113] extends from a little north of Sarepta to
the Ras-el-Jajunieh, a distance of about ten miles, and resembles that
of Tyre in its principal features. It is long and narrow, never more
than about two miles in width, but well-watered and very fertile. The
principal streams are the Bostrenus (Nahr-el-Auly) in the north, just
inside the promontory of Jajunieh, the Nahr-Sanîk, south of Sidon, a
torrent dry in the summer-time,[114] and the Nahr-ez-Zaherany, two and
a half miles north of Sarepta, a river of moderate capacity. Fine
fountains also burst from the earth in the plain itself, as the
Ain-el-Kanterah and the Ain-el-Burâk,[115] between Sarepta and the
Zaherany river. Irrigation is easy and is largely used, with the result
that the fruits and vegetables of Saïda and its environs have the name
of being among the finest of the country.[116]

The plain of Berytus (Beyrout) is the most contracted of all the
Phoenician plains that are at all noticeable. It lies south, south-east,
and east of the city, intervening between the high dunes or sand-hills
which form the western portion of the Beyrout peninsula, and the skirts
of Lebanon, which here approach very near to the sea. The plain begins
at Wady Shuweifat on the south, about four miles from the town of
Beyrout, and extends northwards to the sea on the western side of
the Nahr Beyrout. The northern part of the plain is known as
Ard-el-Burâjineh. The plain is deficient in water,[117] yet is
cultivated in olives and mulberries, and contains the largest olive
grove in all Syria. A little beyond its western edge is the famous
pine forest[118] from which (according to some) Berytus derived its
name.[119]

The plain of Marathus is, next to Sharon, the most extensive in
Phoenicia. It stretches from Jebili (Gabala) on the north to Arka
towards the south, a distance of about sixty miles, and has a width
varying from two to ten miles. The rock crops out from it in places and
it is broken between Tortosa and Hammam by a line of low hills running
parallel with the shore.[120] The principal streams which water it are
the Nahr-el-Melk, or Badas, six miles south of Jebili, the Nahr Amrith,
a strong running brook which empties itself into the sea a few miles
south of Tortosa (Antaradus), the Nahr Kublé, which joins the Nahr
Amrith near its mouth, and the Eleutherus or Nahr-el-Kabir, which
reaches the sea a little north of Arka. Of these the Eleutherus is the
most important. "It is a considerable stream even in summer, and in
the rainy season it is a barrier to intercourse, caravans sometimes
remaining encamped on its banks for several weeks, unable to
cross."[121] The soil of the plain is shallow, the rock lying always
near the surface; the streams are allowed to run to waste and form
marshes, which breed malaria; a scanty population scarcely attempts more
than the rudest and most inefficient cultivation; and the consequence is
that the tract at present is almost a desert. Nature, however, shows its
capabilities by covering it in the spring-time from end to end with a
"carpet of flowers."[122]

From the edges of the plains, and sometimes from the very shore of the
sea, rise up chalky slopes or steep rounded hills, partly left to nature
and covered with trees and shrubs, partly at the present day cultivated
and studded with villages. The hilly region forms generally an
intermediate tract between the high mountains and the plains already
described; but, not unfrequently, it commences at the water's edge, and
fills with its undulations the entire space, leaving not even a strip
of lowland. This is especially the case in the central region between
Berytus and Arka, opposite the highest portion of the Lebanon; and again
in the north between Cape Possidi and Jebili, opposite the more northern
part of Bargylus. The hilly region in these places is a broad tract
of alternate wooded heights and deep romantic valleys, with streams
murmuring amid their shades. Sometimes the hills are cultivated in
terraces, on which grow vines and olives, but more often they remain in
their pristine condition, clothed with masses of tangled underwood.

The mountain ranges, which belong in some measure to the geography of
Phoenicia, are four in number--Carmel, Casius, Bargylus, and Lebanon.
Carmel is a long hog-backed ridge, running in almost a straight line
from north-west to south-east, from the promontory which forms the
western protection of the bay of Acre to El-Ledjun, on the southern
verge of the great plain of Esdraelon, a distance of about twenty-two
miles. It is a limestone formation, and rises up abruptly from the side
of the bay of Acre, with flanks so steep and rugged that the traveller
must dismount in order to ascend them,[123] but slopes more gently
towards the south, where it is comparatively easy of access. The
greatest elevation which it attains is about Lat. 32º 4´, where it
reaches the height of rather more than 1,200 feet; from this it falls
gradually as it nears the shore, until at the convent, with which the
western extremity is crowned, the height above the sea is no more than
582 feet. In ancient times the whole mountain was thickly wooded,[124]
but at present, though it contains "rocky dells" where there are "thick
jungles of copse,"[125] and is covered in places with olive groves and
thickets of dwarf oak, yet its appearance is rather that of a park
than of a forest, long stretches of grass alternating with patches of
woodland and "shrubberies, thicker than any in Central Palestine," while
the larger trees grow in clumps or singly, and there is nowhere, as in
Lebanon, any dense growth, or even any considerable grove, of forest
trees. But the beauty of the tract is conspicuous; and if Carmel means,
as some interpret, a "garden" rather than a "forest," it may be held
to well justify its appellation. "The whole mountain-side," says one
traveller,[126] "was dressed with blossoms and flowering shrubs and
fragrant herbs." "There is not a flower," says another,[127] "that I
have seen in Galilee, or on the plains along the coast, that I do not
find on Carmel, still the fragrant, lovely mountain that he was of old."

The geological structure of Carmel is, in the main, what is called "the
Jura formation," or "the upper oolite"--a soft white limestone, with
nodules and veins of flint. At the western extremity, where it overhangs
the Mediterranean, are found chalk, and tertiary breccia formed of
fragments of chalk and flint. On the north-east of the mountain, beyond
the Nahr-el-Mukattah, plutonic rocks appear, breaking through the
deposit strata, and forming the beginning of the basalt formation
which runs through the plain of Esdraelon to Tabor and the Sea of
Galilee.[128] Like most limestone formations, Carmel abounds in caves,
which are said to be more than 2,000 in number,[129] and are often of
great length and extremely tortuous.

Carmel, the great southern headland of Phoenicia, is balanced in a
certain sense by the extreme northern headland of Casius. Mount Casius
is, strictly speaking, the termination of a spur from Bargylus; but
it has so marked and peculiar a character that it seems entitled to
separate description. Rising up abruptly from the Mediterranean to the
height of 5,318 feet, it dominates the entire region in its vicinity,
and from the sea forms a landmark that is extraordinarily conspicuous.
Forests of fine trees clothe its flanks, but the lofty summit towers
high above them, a bare mass of rock, known at the present day as
Jebel-el-Akra, or "the Bald Mountain." It is formed mainly of the same
cretaceous limestone as the other mountains of these parts, and like
them has a rounded summit; but rocks of igneous origin enter into
its geological structure; and in its vegetation it more resembles the
mountain ranges of Taurus and Amanus than those of southern Syria and
Palestine. On its north-eastern prolongation, which is washed by the
Orontes, lay the enchanting pleasure-ground of Daphné, bubbling with
fountains, and bright with flowering shrubs, where from a remote
antiquity the Syrians held frequent festival to their favourite
deity--the "Dea Syra"--the great nature goddess.

The elevated tract known to the ancients as Bargylus, and to modern
geographers as the Ansayrieh or Nasariyeh mountain-region, runs at right
angles to the spur terminating in the Mount Casius, and extends from the
Orontes near Antioch to the valley of the Eleutherus. This is a distance
of not less than a hundred miles. The range forms the western boundary
of the lower Coelesyrian valley, which abuts upon it towards the east,
while westward it looks down upon the region, partly hill, partly
lowland, which may be regarded as constituting "Northern Phoenicia."
The axis of the range is almost due north and south, but with a slight
deflection towards the south-east. Bargylus is not a chain comparable
to Lebanon, but still it is a romantic and picturesque region. The lower
spurs towards the west are clothed with olive grounds and vineyards,
or covered with myrtles and rhododendrons; between them are broad open
valleys, productive of tobacco and corn. Higher up "the scenery becomes
wild and bold; hill rises to mountain; soft springing green corn gives
place to sterner crag, smooth plain to precipitous heights;"[130] and
if in the more elevated region the majesty of the cedar is wanting,
yet forests of fir and pine abound, and creep up the mountain-side, in
places almost to the summit, while here and there bare masses of rock
protrude themselves, and crag and cliff rise into the clouds that hang
about the highest summits. Water abounds throughout the region, which
is the parent of numerous streams, as the northern Nahr-el-Kebir, which
flows into the sea by Latakia, the Nahr-el-Melk, the Nahr Amrith, the
Nahr Kublé, the Nahr-el-Abrath, and many others. From the conformation
of the land they have of necessity short courses; but each and all of
them spread along their banks a rich verdure and an uncommon fertility.

But the _great_ range of Phoenicia, its glory and its boast is
Lebanon. Lebanon, the "White Mountain"[131]--"the Mont Blanc
of Palestine"[132]--now known as "the Old White-headed Man"
(Jebel-esh-Sheikh), or "the Mountain of Ice" (Jebel-el-Tilj), was to
Phoenicia at once its protection, the source of its greatness, and its
crowning beauty. Extended in a continuous line for a distance of above
a hundred miles, with an average elevation of from 6,000 to 8,000 feet,
and steepest on its eastern side, it formed a wall against which the
waves of eastern invasion naturally broke--a bulwark which seemed to say
to them, "Thus far shall ye go, and no further." The flood of conquest
swept along its eastern flank, down the broad vale of the Buka'a, and
then over the hills of Galilee; but its frowning precipices and its
lofty crest deterred or baffled the invader, and the smiling region
between its summit and the Mediterranean was, in the early times at any
rate, but rarely traversed by a hostile army. This western region it
was which held those inexhaustible stores of forest trees that supplied
Phoenicia with her war ships and her immense commercial navy; here were
the most productive valleys, the vineyards, and the olive grounds, and
here too were the streams and rills, the dashing cascades, the lovely
dells, and the deep gorges which gave her the palm over all the
surrounding countries for variety of picturesque scenery.

The geology of the Lebanon is exceedingly complicated. "While the
bulk of the mountain, and all the higher ranges, are without exception
limestone of the early cretaceous period, the valleys and gorges
are filled with formations of every possible variety, sedimentary,
metamorphic, and igneous. Down many of them run long streams of trap
or basalt; occasionally there are dykes of porphyry and greenstone, and
then patches of sandstone, before the limestone and flint recur."[133]
Some slopes are composed entirely of soft sandstone; many patches are of
a hard metallic-sounding trap or porphyry; but the predominant formation
is a greasy or powdery limestone, bare often, but sometimes clothed with
a soft herbage, or with a thick tangle of shrubs, or with lofty forest
trees. The ridge of the mountain is everywhere naked limestone rock,
except in the comparatively few places which attain the highest
elevation, where it is coated or streaked with snow. Two summits are
especially remarkable, that of Jebel Sunnin towards the south, which is
a conspicuous object from Beyrout,[134] and is estimated to exceed the
height of 9,000 feet,[135] and that of Jebel Mukhmel towards the north,
which has been carefully measured and found to fall a very little short
of 10,200 feet.[136] The latter, which forms a sort of amphitheatre,
circles round and impends over a deep hollow or basin, opening out
towards the west, in which rise the chief sources that go to form the
romantic stream of the Kadisha. The sides of the basin are bare and
rocky, fringed here and there with the rough knolls which mark the
deposits of ancient glaciers, the "moraines" of the Lebanon. In this
basin stand "the Cedars." It is not indeed true, as was for a long time
supposed, that the cedar grove of Jebel Mukhmel is the sole remnant
of that primeval cedar-forest which was anciently the glory of the
mountain. Cedars exist on Lebanon in six other places at least, if not
in more. Near Tannurin, on one of the feeders of the Duweir, a wild
gorge is clothed from top to bottom with a forest of trees, untouched
by the axe, the haunt of the panther and the bear, which on examination
have been found to be all cedars, some of a large size, from fifteen to
eighteen feet in girth. They grow in clusters, or scattered singly,
in every variety of situation, some clinging to the steep slopes,
or gnarled and twisted on the bare hilltops, others sheltered in the
recesses of the dell. There are also cedar-groves at B'sherrah; at El
Hadith; near Dûma, five hours south-west of El Hadith; in one of
the glens north of Deir-el-Kamar, at Etnub, and probably in other
places.[137] But still "the Cedars" of Jebel Mukhmel are entitled to
pre-eminence over all the rest, both as out-numbering any other cluster,
and still more as exceeding all the rest in size and apparent antiquity.
Some of the patriarchs are of enormous girth; even the younger ones have
a circumference of eighteen feet; and the height is such that the birds
which dwell among the upper branches are beyond the range of an ordinary
fowling-piece.

But it is through the contrasts which it presents that Lebanon has its
extraordinary power of attracting and delighting the traveller. Below
the upper line of bare and worn rock, streaked in places with snow, and
seamed with torrent courses, a region is entered upon where the freshest
and softest mountain herbage, the greenest foliage, and the most
brilliant flowers alternate with deep dells, tremendous gorges, rocky
ravines, and precipices a thousand feet high. Scarcely has the voyager
descended from the upper region of naked and rounded rock, when he
comes upon "a tremendous chasm--the bare amphitheatre of the upper basin
contracts into a valley of about 2,000 feet deep, rent at its bottom
into a cleft a thousand feet deeper still, down which dashes a river,
buried between these stupendous walls of rock. All above the chasm is
terraced as far as the eye can reach with indefatigable industry. Tiny
streamlets bound and leap from terrace to terrace, fertilising them as
they rush to join the torrent in the abyss. Some of the waterfalls are
of great height and of considerable volume. From one spot may be counted
no less than seven of these cascades, now dashing in white spray over a
cliff, now lost under the shade of trees, soon to reappear over the
next shelving rock."[138] Or, to quote from another writer,[139]--"The
descent from the summit is gradual, but is everywhere broken by
precipices and towering rocks, which time and the elements have
chiselled into strange fantastic shapes. Ravines of singular wildness
and grandeur furrow the whole mountain-side, looking in many places like
huge rents. Here and there, too, bold promontories shoot out, and
dip perpendicularly into the bosom of the Mediterranean. The ragged
limestone banks are scantily clothed with the evergreen oak, and
the sandstone with pines; while every available spot is carefully
cultivated. The cultivation is wonderful, and shows what all Syria might
be of under a good government. Miniature fields of grain are often seen
where one would suppose that the eagles alone, which hover round them,
could have planted the seed. Fig-trees cling to the naked rock; vines
are trained along narrow ledges; long ranges of mulberries on terraces
like steps of stairs cover the more gentle declivities; and dense groves
of olives fill up the bottoms of the glens. Hundreds of villages are
seen, here built amid labyrinths of rock, there clinging like swallows'
nests to the sides of cliffs, while convents, no less numerous, are
perched on the top of every peak. When viewed from the sea on a morning
in early spring, Lebanon presents a picture which once seen is never
forgotten; but deeper still is the impression left on the mind, when one
looks down over its terraced slopes clothed in their gorgeous foliage,
and through the vistas of its magnificent glens, on the broad and bright
Mediterranean."

The eastern flank of the mountain falls very far short of the western
both in area and in beauty. It is a comparatively narrow region, and
presents none of the striking features of gorge, ravine, deep dell, and
dashing stream which diversify the side that looks westward. The steep
slopes are generally bare, the lower portion only being scantily clothed
with deciduous oak, for the most part stunted, and with low scrub of
juniper and barberry.[140] Towards the north there is an outer barrier,
parallel with the main chain, on which follows a tolerably flat and
rather bare plain, well watered, and with soft turf in many parts, which
gently slopes to the foot of the main ascent, a wall of rock generally
half covered with snow, up which winds the rough track whereby
travellers reach the summit. Rills of water are not wanting; flowers
bloom to the very edge of the snow, and the walnut-tree flourishes in
sheltered places to within two or three thousand feet of the summit; but
the general character of the tract is bare and bleak; the villages are
few; and the terraced cultivation, which adds so much to the beauty
of the western side, is wanting. In the southern half of the range the
descent is abrupt from the crest of the mountain into the Buka'a, or
valley of the Litany, and the aspect of the mountain-side is one of
"unrelieved bareness."[141]

There is, however, one beauty at one point on this side of the Lebanon
range which is absent from the more favoured western region. On the
ascent from Baalbek to the Cedars the traveller comes upon Lake Lemone,
a beautiful mountain tarn, without any apparent exit, the only sheet
of water in the Lebanon. Lake Lemone is of a long oval shape, about
two miles from one end to the other, and is fed by a stream entering at
either extremity, that from the north, which comes down from the village
of Ainât, being the more important. As the water which comes into
the lake cannot be discharged by evaporation, we must suppose some
underground outlet,[142] by which it is conveyed, through the limestone,
into the Litany.

The eastern side of Lebanon drains entirely into this river, which is
the only stream whereto it gives birth. The Litany is the principal
of all the Phoenician rivers, for the Orontes must be counted not to
Phoenicia but to Syria. It rises from a small pool or lake near Tel
Hushben,[143] about six miles to the south-west of the Baalbek ruins.
Springing from this source, which belongs to Antilibanus rather than
to Lebanon, the Litany shortly receives a large accession to its waters
from the opposite side of the valley, and thus augmented flows along the
lower Buka'a in a direction which is generally a little west of south,
receiving on either side a number of streams and rills from both
mountains, and giving out in its turn numerous canals for irrigation.
As the river descends with numerous windings, but still with the same
general course, the valley of the Buka'a contracts more and more, till
finally it terminates in a gorge of a most extraordinary character.
Nothing in the conformation of the strata, or in the lie of ground,
indicates the coming marvel[144]--the roots of Lebanon and Hermon appear
to intermix--and the further progress of the river seems to be barred by
a rocky ridge stretching across the valley from east to west, when lo!
suddenly, the ridge is cut, as if by a knife, and a deep and narrow
chasm opens in it, down which the stream plunges in a cleft 200 feet
deep, and so narrow that in one place it is actually bridged over by
masses of rock which have fallen from the cliffs above.[145] In the
gully below fig-trees and planes, besides many shrubs, find a footing,
and the moist walls of rock on either side are hung with ferns of
various kinds, among which is conspicuous the delicate and graceful
maidenhair. Further down the chasm deepens, first to 1,000 and then
to 1,500 feet, "the torrent roars in the gorge, milk-white and swollen
often with the melting snow, overhung with semi-tropical oleanders,
fig-trees, and oriental planes, while the upper cliffs are clad
with northern vegetation, two zones of climate thus being visible at
once."[146] Where the gorge is the deepest, opposite the Castle of
Belfort (the modern Kulat-esh-Shukif), the river suddenly makes a turn
at right angles, altering its course from nearly due south to nearly
due west, and cuts through the remaining roots of Lebanon, still at
the bottom of a tremendous fissure, and still raging and chafing for
a distance of fifteen miles, until at length it debouches on the coast
plain, and meanders slowly through meadows to the sea,[147] which it
enters about five miles to the north of Tyre. The course of the Litany
may be roughly estimated at from seventy to seventy-five miles.

The other streams to which Lebanon gives birth flow either from its
northern or its western flank. From the northern flank flows one stream
only, the Nahr-el-Kebir or Eleutherus. The course of this stream is
short, not much exceeding thirty miles. It rises from several sources at
the edge of the Coelesyrian valley, and, receiving affluents from either
side, flows westward between Bargylus and Lebanon to the Mediterranean,
which it enters between Orthosia (Artousi) and Marathus (Amrith) with a
stream, the volume of which is even in the summer-time considerable. In
the rainy season it constitutes an important impediment to intercourse,
since it frequently sweeps away any bridge which may be thrown across
it, and is itself unfordable. Caravans sometimes remain encamped upon
its banks for weeks, waiting until the swell has subsided and crossing
is no longer dangerous.[148]

From the western flank of Lebanon flow above a hundred streams of
various dimensions, whereof the most important are the Nahr-el-Berid
or river of Orthosia, the Kadisha or river of Tripolis, the Ibrahim
or Adonis, the Nahr-el-Kelb or Lycus, the Damour or Tamyras, the Auly
(Aouleh) or Bostrenus, and the Zaherany, of which the ancient name is
unknown to us. The Nahr-el-Berid drains the north-western angle of the
mountain chain, and is formed of two main branches, one coming down from
the higher portion of the range, about Lat. 34º 20´, and flowing to
the north-west, while the other descends from a region of much less
elevation, about Lat. 34º 30´, and runs a little south of west to the
point of junction. The united stream then forces its way down a gorge
in a north-west direction, and enters the sea at Artousi, probably
the ancient Orthosia.[149] The length of the river from its remotest
fountain to its mouth is about twenty miles.

The Kadisha or "Holy River" has its source in the deep basin already
described, round which rise in a semicircle the loftiest peaks of the
range, and on the edge of which stand "the Cedars." Fed by the perpetual
snows, it shortly becomes a considerable stream, and flows nearly due
west down a beautiful valley, where the terraced slopes are covered with
vineyards and mulberry groves, and every little dell, every nook and
corner among the jagged rocks, every ledge and cranny on precipice-side,
which the foot of man can reach, or on which a basket of earth can be
deposited, is occupied with patch of corn or fruit-tree.[150] Lower down
near Canobin the valley contracts into a sublime chasm, its rocky walls
rising perpendicularly a thousand feet on either side, and in places not
leaving room for even a footpath beside the stream that flows along
the bottom.[151] The water of the Kadisha is "pure, fresh, cool, and
limpid,"[152] and makes a paradise along its entire course. Below
Canobin the stream sweeps round in a semicircle towards the north, and
still running in a picturesque glen, draws near to Tripolis, where it
bends towards the north-west, and enters the sea after passing
through the town. Its course, including main windings, measures about
twenty-five miles.

The Ibrahim, or Adonis, has its source near Afka (Apheca) in Lat. 34º 4´
nearly. It bursts from a cave at the foot of a tremendous cliff, and its
foaming waters rush down into a wild chasm.[153] Its flow is at first
towards the north-west, but after receiving a small tributary from
the north-east, it shapes its course nearly westward, and pursues
this direction, with only slight bends to the north and south, for the
distance of about fifteen miles to the sea. After heavy rain in Lebanon,
its waters, which are generally clear and limpid, become tinged with the
earth which the swollen torrent detaches from the mountain-side,[154]
and Adonis thus "runs purple to the sea"--not however once a year only,
but many times. It enters the Mediterranean about four miles south of
Byblus (Jebeil) and six north of Djouni.

The Lycus or Nahr-el-Kelb ("Dog River") flows from the northern and
western flanks of Jebel Sunnin. It is formed by the confluence of three
main streams. One of these rises near Afka, and runs to the south of
west, past the castle and temples of Fakra, to its junction with the
second stream, which is formed of several rivulets flowing from the
northern flank of Sunnin. Near Bufkeiya the river constituted by the
union of these two branches is joined by a third stream flowing from the
western flank of Sunnin with a westerly course, and from this point the
Lycus pursues its way in the same general direction down a magnificent
gorge to the Mediterranean. Both banks are lofty, but especially that to
the south, where one of Lebanon's great roots strikes out far, and dips,
a rocky precipice, into the bosom of the deep.[155] Low in the depths of
the gorge the mad torrent dashes over its rocky bed in sheets of foam,
its banks fringed with oleander, which it bathes with its spray. Above
rise jagged precipices of white limestone, crowned far overhead by many
a convent and village.[156] The course of the Nahr-el-Kelbis about equal
to that of the Adonis.

The Damour or Tamyras drains the western flank of Lebanon to the south
of Jebel Sunnin (about Lat. 33º 45´), the districts known as Menassif
and Jourd Arkoub, about Barouk and Deir-el-Kamar. It collects the waters
from an area of about 110 square miles, and carries them to the sea in
a course which is a little north of west, reaching it half-way between
Khan Khulda (Heldua) and Nebbi Younas. The scenery along its banks is
tame compared with that of the more northern rivers.

The Nahr-el-Auly or Bostrenus rises from a source to the north-east of
Barouk, and flows in a nearly straight course to the south-west for a
distance of nearly thirty-five miles, when it is joined by a stream
from Jezzin, which flows into it from the south-east. On receiving this
stream, the Auly turns almost at a right angle, and flows to the west
down the fine alluvial track called Merj Bisry, passing from this point
through comparatively low ground, and between swelling hills, until it
reaches the sea two miles to the north of Sidon. Its entire course is
not less than sixty miles.

The Zaherany repeats on a smaller scale the course of the Bostrenus. It
rises near Jerjû'a from the western flank of Jebel Rihan, the southern
extremity of the Lebanon range, and flows at first to the south-west.
The source is "a fine large fountain bursting forth with violence, and
with water enough for a mill race."[157] From this the river flows in
a deep valley, brawling and foaming along its course, through tracts of
green grass shaded by black walnut-trees for a distance of about five
miles, after which, just opposite Jerjû'a, it breaks through one of the
spurs from Rihan by a magnificent chasm. The gorge is one "than which
there are few deeper or more savage in Lebanon. The mountains on each
side rise up almost precipitously to the height of two or three thousand
feet above the stream, that on the northern bank being considerably the
higher. The steep sides of the southern mountain are dotted with shrub,
oak, and other dwarf trees."[158] The river descends in its chasm still
in a south-west direction until, just opposite Arab Salim, it "turns
round the precipitous corner or bastion of the southern Rihan into a
straight valley," and proceeds to run due south for a short distance.
Meeting, however, a slight swell of ground, which blocks what would seem
to have been its natural course, the river "suddenly turns west," and
breaking through a low ridge by a narrow ravine, pursues its way by
a course a little north of west to the Mediterranean, which it enters
about midway between Sidon and Sarepta.[159] The length of the stream,
including main windings, is probably not more than thirty-five miles.

We have spoken of the numerous promontories, terminations of spurs from
the mountains, which break the low coast-line into fragments, and go
down precipitously into the sea. Of these there are two between Tyre and
Acre, one known as the Ras-el-Abiad or "White Headland," and the
other as the Ras-en-Nakura. The former is a cliff of snow-white chalk
interspersed with black flints, and rises perpendicularly from the sea
to the height of three hundred feet.[160] The road, which in some places
impends over the water, has been cut with great labour through the rock,
and is said by tradition to have been the work of Alexander the Great.
Previously, both here and at the Ras-en-Nakura, the ascent was by steps,
and the passes were known as the Climaces Tyriorum, or "Staircases of
the Tyrians." Another similar precipice guards the mouth of the Lycus on
its south side and has been engineered with considerable skill, first by
the Egyptians and then by the Romans.[161] North of this, at Djouni, the
coast road "traverses another pass, where the mountain, descending to
the water, has been cut to admit it."[162] Still further north, between
Byblus and Tripolis, the bold promontory known to the ancients as
Theu-prosopon, and now called the Ras-esh-Shakkah, is still unconquered,
and the road has to quit the shore and make its way over the spur by
a "wearisome ascent"[163] at some distance inland. Again, "beyond the
Tamyras the hills press closely on the sea,"[164] and there is "a rocky
and difficult pass, along which the path is cut for some distance in the
rock."[165]

The effect of this conformation of the country was, in early times, to
render Phoenicia untraversable by a hostile army, and at the same time
to interpose enormous difficulties in the way of land communication
among the natives themselves, who must have soon turned their thoughts
to the possibility of communicating by sea. The various "staircases"
were painful and difficult to climb, they gave no passage to animals,
and only light forms of merchandise could be conveyed by them. As
soon as the first rude canoe put forth upon the placid waters of the
Mediterranean, it must have become evident that the saving in time and
labour would be great if the sea were made to supersede the land as the
ordinary line of communication.

The main characteristics of the country were, besides its
inaccessibility, its picturesqueness and its productiveness. The former
of these two qualities seems to have possessed but little attraction for
man in his primitive condition. Beauties of nature are rarely sung of
by early poets; and it appears to require an educated eye to appreciate
them. But productiveness is a quality the advantages of which can be
perceived by all. The eyes which first looked down from the ridge of
Bargylus or Lebanon upon the well-watered, well-wooded, and evidently
fertile tract between the mountain summits and the sea, if they took no
note of its marvellous and almost unequalled beauty, must at any
rate have seen that here was one of earth's most productive
gardens--emphatically a "good land," that might well content whosoever
should be so fortunate as to possess it. There is nothing equal to it in
Western Asia. The Damascene oasis, the lower valley of the Orontes, the
Ghor or Jordan plain, the woods of Bashan, and the downs of Moab are
fertile and attractive regions; but they are comparatively narrow
tracts and present little variety; each is fitted mainly for one kind of
growth, one class of products. Phoenicia, in its long extent from Mount
Casius to Joppa, and in its combination of low alluvial plain, rich
valley, sunny slopes and hills, virgin forests, and high mountain
pasturage, has soils and situations suited for productions of all manner
of kinds, and for every growth, from that of the lowliest herb to
that of the most gigantic tree. In the next section an account of its
probable products in ancient times will be given; for the present it is
enough to note that Western Asia contained no region more favoured or
more fitted by its general position, its formation, and the character of
its soil, to become the home of an important nation.



CHAPTER II--CLIMATE AND PRODUCTIONS

     Climate of Phoenicia--Varieties--Climate of the coast, in
     the south, in the north--Climate of the more elevated
     regions--Vegetable productions--Principal trees--Most
     remarkable shrubs and fruit-trees--Herbs, flowers, and
     garden vegetables--Zoology--Land animals--Birds--Marine and
     fresh-water fish--Principal shell-fish--Minerals.

The long extent of the Phoenician coast, and the great difference in the
elevation of its various parts, give it a great diversity of climate.
Northern Phoenicia is many degrees colder than southern; and the
difference is still more considerable between the coast tracts and the
more elevated portions of the mountain regions. The greatest heat
is experienced in the plain of Sharon,[21] which is at once the most
southern portion of the country, and the part most remote from any
hills of sufficient elevation to exert an important influence on the
temperature. Neither Carmel on the north, nor the hills of Samaria
on the east, produce any sensible effect on the climate of the Sharon
lowland. The heat in summer is intense, and except along the river
courses the tract is burnt up, and becomes little more than an expanse
of sand. As a compensation, the cold in winter is very moderate. Snow
scarcely ever falls, and if there is frost it is short-lived, and does
not penetrate into the ground.[22]

Above Carmel the coast tract is decidedly less hot than the region south
of it, and becomes cooler and cooler as we proceed northwards. Northern
Phoenicia enjoys a climate that is delightful, and in which it would be
difficult to suggest much improvement. The summer heat is scarcely ever
too great, the thermometer rarely exceeding 90º of Fahrenheit,[23] and
often sinking below 70º. Refreshing showers of rain frequently fall, and
the breezes from the north, the east, and the south-east, coming from
high mountain tracts which are in part snow-clad, temper the heat of the
sun's rays and prevent it from being oppressive. The winter temperature
seldom descends much below 50º; and thus the orange, the lemon and the
date-palm flourish in the open air, and the gardens are bright with
flowers even in December and January. Snow falls occasionally, but it
rarely lies on the ground for more than a few days, and is scarcely ever
so much as a foot deep. On the other hand, rain is expected during the
winter-time, and the entire line of coast is visited for some months
with severe storms and gales, accompanied often by thunder and violent
rain,[24] which strew the shore with wrecks and turn even insignificant
mountain streams into raging torrents. The storms come chiefly from the
west and north-west, quarters to which the harbours on the coast are
unfortunately open.[25] Navigation consequently suffers interruption;
but when once the winter is past, a season of tranquillity sets in, and
for many months of the year--at any rate from May to October[26]--the
barometer scarcely varies, the sky is unclouded, and rain all but
unknown.

As the traveller mounts from the coast tract into the more elevated
regions, the climate sensibly changes. An hour's ride from the plains,
when they are most sultry, will bring him into a comparatively cool
region, where the dashing spray of the glacier streams is borne on the
air, and from time to time a breeze that is actually cold comes down
from the mountain-tops.[27] Shade is abundant, for the rocks are often
perpendicular, and overhand the road in places, while the dense foliage
of cedars, or pines, or walnut-trees, forms an equally effectual screen
against the sun's noonday rays. In winter the uplands are, of course,
cold. Severe weather prevails in them from November to March;[28] snow
falls on all the high ground, while it rains on the coast and in the
lowlands; the passes are blocked; and Lebanon and Bargylus replenish the
icy stories which the summer's heat has diminished.

The vegetable productions of Phoenicia may be best considered under the
several heads of trees, shrubs, herbs, flowers, fruit-trees, and garden
vegetables. The chief trees were the palm-tree, the sycamore, the
maritime pine, and the plane in the lowlands; in the highlands the
cedar, Aleppo pine, oak, walnut, poplar, acacia, shumac, and carob. We
have spoken of the former abundance of the palm. At present it is found
in comparatively few places, and seldom in any considerable numbers.
It grows singly, or in groups of two or three, at various points of the
coast from Tripolis to Acre, but is only abundant in a few spots more
towards the south, as at Haifa, under Carmel, where "fine date-palms"
are numerous in the gardens,[29] and at Jaffa, where travellers remark
"a broad belt of two or three miles of date-palms and orange-groves
laden with fruit."[210] The wood was probably not much used as timber
except in the earliest times, since Lebanon afforded so many kinds of
trees much superior for building purposes. The date-palm was also valued
for its fruit, though the produce of the Phoenician groves can never
have been of a high quality.

The sycamore, or sycamine-fig, is a dark-foliaged tree, with a gnarled
stem when it is old;[211] it grows either singly or in clumps, and much
more resembles in appearance the English oak than the terebinth does,
which has been so often compared to it. The stem is short, and sends
forth wide lateral branches forking out in all directions, which renders
the tree very easy to climb. It bears a small fig in great abundance,
and probably at all seasons, which, however, is "tasteless and
woody,"[212] though eaten by the inhabitants. The sycamore is common
along the Phoenician lowland, but is a very tender tree and will not
grow in the mountains.

The plane-tree, common in Asia Minor, is not very frequent either in
Phoenicia or Palestine. It occurs, however, on the middle course of the
Litany, where it breaks through the roots of Lebanon,[213] and also
in many of the valleys[214] on the western flank of the mountain. The
maritime pine (_Pinus maritama_) extends in forests here and there along
the shore,[215] and is found of service in checking the advance of
the sand dunes, which have a tendency to encroach seriously on the
cultivable soil.

Of the upland trees the most common is the oak. There are three species
of oak in the country. The most prevalent is an evergreen oak (_Quercus
pseudococcifera_), sometimes mistaken by travellers for a holly,
sometimes for an ibex, which covers in a low dense bush many miles of
the hilly country everywhere, and occasionally becomes a large tree
in the Lebanon valleys,[216] and on the flanks of Casius and Bargylus.
Another common oak is _Quercus Ægilops_, a much smaller and deciduous
tree, very stout-trunked, which grows in scattered groups on Carmel and
elsewhere, "giving a park-like appearance to the landscape."[217] The
third kind is _Quercus infectoria_, a gall-oak, also deciduous, and very
conspicuous from the large number of bright, chestnut-coloured,
viscid galls which it bears, and which are now sometimes gathered for
exportation.[218]

Next to the oak may be mentioned the walnut, which grows to a great size
in sheltered positions in the Lebanon range, both upon the eastern and
upon the western flank;[219] the poplar, which is found both in the
mountains[220] and in the low country, as especially about Beyrout;[221]
the Aleppo pine (_Pinus halepensis_), of which there are large woods in
Carmel, Lebanon, and Bargylus,[222] while in Casius there is an
enormous forest of them;[223] and the carob (_Ceratonia siliqua_), or
locust-tree, a dense-foliaged tree of a bright lucid green hue, which
never grows in clumps or forms woods, but appears as an isolated tree,
rounded or oblong, and affords the best possible shade.[224] In the
vicinity of Tyre are found also large tamarisks, maples, sumachs, and
acacias.[225]

But the tree which is the glory of Phoenicia, and which was by far
the most valuable of all its vegetable productions, is, of course, the
cedar. Growing to an immense height, and attaining an enormous girth,
it spreads abroad its huge flat branches hither and thither, covering a
vast space of ground with its "shadowing shroud,"[226] and presenting
a most majestic and magnificent appearance. Its timber may not be of
first-rate quality, and there is some question whether it was really
used for the masts of their ships by the Phoenicians,[227] but as
building material it was beyond a doubt most highly prized, answering
sufficiently for all the purposes required by architectural art, and
at the same time delighting the sense of smell by its aromatic odour.
Solomon employed it both for the Temple and for his own house;[228] the
Assyrian kings cut it and carried it to Nineveh;[229] Herod the Great
used it for the vast additions that he made to Zerubbabel's temple;[230]
it was exported to Egypt and Asia Minor; the Ephesian Greeks constructed
of cedar, probably of cedar from Lebanon, the roof of their famous
temple of Diana.[231] At present the wealth of Lebanon in cedars is not
great, but the four hundred which form the grove near the source of the
Kadisha, and the many scattered cedar woods in other places, are to
be viewed as remnants of one great primeval forest, which originally
covered all the upper slopes on the western side, and was composed, if
not exclusively, at any rate predominantly, of cedars.[232] Cultivation,
the need of fuel, and the wants of builders, have robbed the mountain
of its primitive bright green vest, and left it either bare rock or
terraced garden; but in the early times of Phoenicia, the true Lebanon
cedar must undoubtedly have been its chief forest tree, and have stood
to it as the pine to the Swiss Alps and the chestnut to the mountains of
North Italy.

Of shrubs, below the rank of trees, the most important are the lentisk
(_Pistachia lentiscus_), the bay, the arbutus (_A. andrachne_), the
cypress, the oleander, the myrtle, the juniper, the barberry, the styrax
(_S. officinalis_), the rhododendron, the bramble, the caper plant, the
small-leaved holly, the prickly pear, the honeysuckle, and the jasmine.
Myrtle and rhododendron grow luxuriantly on the flanks of Bargylus, and
are more plentiful than any other shrubs in that region.[233] Eastern
Lebanon has abundant scrub of juniper and barberry;[234] while on the
western slopes their place is taken by the bramble, the myrtle, and the
clematis.[235] The lentisk, which rarely exceeds the size of a low
bush, is conspicuous by its dark evergreen leaves and numerous small red
berries;[236] the arbutus--not our species, but a far lighter and more
ornamental shrub, the _Arbutus andrachne_--bears also a bright red
fruit, which colours the thickets;[237] the styrax, famous for yielding
the gum storax of commerce, grows towards the east end of Carmel, and is
a very large bush branching from the ground, but never assuming the
form of a tree; it has small downy leaves, white flowers like orange
blossoms, and round yellow fruit, pendulous from slender stalks, like
cherries.[238] Travellers in Phoenicia do not often mention the caper
plant, but it was seen by Canon Tristram hanging from the fissures
of the rock, in the cleft of the Litany,[239] amid myrtle and bay and
clematis. The small-leaved holly was noticed by Mr. Walpole on the
western flank of Bargylus.[240] The prickly pear is not a native
of Asia, but has been introduced from the New World. It has readily
acclimatised itself, and is very generally employed, in Phoenicia, as in
the neighbouring countries, for hedges.[241]

The fruit-trees of Phoenicia are numerous, and grow most luxuriantly,
but the majority have no doubt been introduced from other countries,
and the time of their introduction is uncertain. Five, however, may be
reckoned as either indigenous or as cultivated at any rate from a remote
antiquity--the vine, the olive, the date-palm, the walnut, and the fig.
The vine is most widely spread. Vineyards cover large tracts in the
vicinity of all the towns; they climb up the sides of Carmel, Lebanon,
and Bargylus,[242] hang upon the edge of precipices, and greet the
traveller at every turn in almost every region. The size of individual
vines is extraordinary. "Stephen Schultz states that in a village
near Ptolemaïs (Acre) he supped under a large vine, the stem of which
measured a foot and a half in diameter, its height being thirty feet;
and that the whole plant, supported on trellis, covered an area of fifty
feet either way. The bunches of grapes weighed from ten to twelve pounds
and the berries were like small plums."[243] The olive in Phoenicia
is at least as old as the Exodus, for it was said of Asher, who was
assigned the more southern part of that country--"Let him be acceptable
to his brethren, and let him dip his foot in oil."[244] Olives at the
present day clothe the slopes of Lebanon and Bargylus above the vine
region,[245] and are carried upward almost to the very edge of the bare
rock. They yield largely, and produce an oil of an excellent
character. Fine olive-groves are also to be seen on Carmel,[246] in the
neighbourhood of Esfia. The date-palm has already been spoken of as
a tree, ornamenting the landscape and furnishing timber of tolerable
quality. As a fruit-tree it is not greatly to be prized, since it is
only about Haifa and Jaffa that it produces dates,[247] and those of no
high repute. The walnut has all the appearance of being indigenous in
Lebanon, where it grows to a great size,[248] and bears abundance
of fruit. The fig is also, almost certainly, a native; it grows
plentifully, not only in the orchards about towns, but on the flanks of
Lebanon, on Bargylus, and in the northern Phoenician plain.[249]

The other fruit-trees of the present day are the mulberry, the
pomegranate, the orange, the lemon, the lime, the peach, the apricot,
the plum, the cherry, the quince, the apple, the pear, the almond, the
pistachio nut, and the banana. The mulberry is cultivated largely on
the Lebanon[250] in connection with the growth of silkworms, but is not
valued as a fruit-tree. The pomegranate is far less often seen, but it
is grown in the gardens about Saida,[251] and the fruit has sometimes
been an article of exportation.[252] The orange and lemon are among
the commonest fruits, but are generally regarded as comparatively late
introductions. The lime is not often noticed, but obtains mention in the
work of Mr. Walpole.[253] The peach and apricot are for the most part
standard trees, though sometimes trained on trellises.[254] They were
perhaps derived from Mesopotamia or Persia, but at what date it is quite
impossible to conjecture. Apples, pears, plums, cherries, quinces,
are not unlikely to have been indigenous, though of course the present
species are the result of long and careful cultivation. The same may be
said of the almond and the pistachio nut. The banana is a comparatively
recent importation. It is grown along the coast from Jaffa as far
north as Tripolis, and yields a fruit which is said to be of excellent
quality.[255]

Altogether, Phoenicia may be pronounced a land of fruits. Hasselquist
says,[256] that in his time Sidon grew pomegranates, apricots, figs,
almonds, oranges, lemons, and plums in such abundance as to furnish
annually several shiploads for export, while D'Arvieux adds to this list
pears, peaches, cherries, and bananas.[257] Lebanon alone can furnish
grapes, olives, mulberries, figs, apples, apricots, walnuts, cherries,
peaches, lemons, and oranges. The coast tract adds pomegranates, limes,
and bananas. It has been said that Carmel, a portion of Phoenicia,
is "the garden of Eden run wild;"[258] but the phrase might be fitly
applied to the entire country.

Of herbs possessing some value for man, Phoenicia produces sage,
rosemary, lavender, rue, and wormwood.[259] Of flowers she has an
extraordinary abundance. In early spring (March and April) not only the
plains, but the very mountains, except where they consist of bare rock,
are covered with a variegated carpet of the loveliest hues[260] from
the floral wealth scattered over them. Bulbous plants are especially
numerous. Travellers mention hyacinths, tulips, ranunculuses, gladioli,
anemones, orchises, crocuses of several kinds--blue and yellow and
white, arums, amaryllises, cyclamens, &c., besides heaths, jasmine,
honeysuckle, clematis, _multiflora_ roses, rhododendrons, oleander,
myrtle, astragalus, hollyhocks, convolvuli, valerian, red linum,
pheasant's eye, guelder roses, antirrhinums, chrysanthemums, blue
campanulas, and mandrakes. The orchises include "_Ophrys atrata_, with
its bee-like lip, another like the spider orchis, and a third like the
man orchis;"[261] the cyclamens are especially beautiful, "nestling
under every stone and lavish of their loveliness with graceful tufts of
blossoms varying in hue from purest white to deepest purple pink."[262]
The multiflora rose is not common, but where it grows "covers the banks
of streams with a sheet of blossom;"[263] the oleanders fringe their
waters with a line of ruby red; the mandrake (_Mandragora officinalis_)
is "one of the most striking plants of the country, with its flat disk
of very broad primrose-like leaves, and its central bunch of dark blue
bell-shaped blossom."[264] Ferns also abound, and among them is the
delicate maidenhair.[265]

The principal garden vegetables grown at the present day are melons,
cucumbers, gourds, pumpkins, turnips, carrots, and radishes.[266] The
kinds of grain most commonly cultivated are wheat, barley, millet, and
maize. There is also an extensive cultivation of tobacco, indigo, and
cotton, which have been introduced from abroad in comparatively modern
times. Oil, silk, and fruits are, however, still among the chief
articles of export; and the present wealth of the country is
attributable mainly to its groves and orchards, its olives, mulberries,
figs, lemons, and oranges.

The zoology of Phoenicia has not until recently attracted very much
attention. At present the list of land animals known to inhabit it
is short,[267] including scarcely more than the bear, the leopard or
panther, the wolf, the hyæna, the jackal, the fox, the hare, the wild
boar, the ichneumon, the gazelle, the squirrel, the rat, and the mole.
The present existence of the bear within the limits of the ancient
Phoenicia has been questioned,[268] but the animal has been seen in
Lebanon by Mr. Porter,[269] and in the mountains of Galilee by Canon
Tristram.[270] The species is the Syrian bear (_Ursus syriacus_), a
large and fierce beast, which, though generally frugivorous, will under
the presser of hunger attack both men and animals. Its main habitat is,
no doubt, the less accessible parts of Lebanon; but in the winter it
will descend to the villages and gardens, where it often does much
damage.[271] The panther or leopard has, like the bear, been seen by
Mr. Porter in the Lebanon range;[272] and Canon Tristram, when visiting
Carmel, was offered the skin of an adult leopard[273] which had probably
been killed in that neighbourhood. Anciently it was much more frequent
in Phoenicia and Palestine than it is at present, as appears by the
numerous notices of it in Scripture.[274] Wolves, hyænas, and jackals
are comparatively common. They haunt not only Carmel and Lebanon, but
many portions of the coast tract. Canon Tristram obtained from Carmel
"the two largest hyænas that he had ever seen,"[275] and fell in with
jackals in the vicinity.[276] Wolves seem to be more scarce, though
anciently very plentiful.

The favourite haunts of the wild boar (_Sus scrofa_) in Phoenicia are
Carmel[277] and the deep valleys on the western slope of Lebanon. The
valley of the Adonis (Ibrahim) is still noted for them,[278] but, except
on Carmel, they are not very abundant. Foxes and hares are also somewhat
rare, and it is doubtful whether rabbits are to be found in any part of
the country;[279] ichneumons, which are tolerably common, seem sometimes
to be mistaken for them. Gazelles are thought to inhabit Carmel,[280]
and squirrels, rats, and moles are common. Bats also, if they may be
counted among land-animals, are frequent; they belong, it is probable,
to several species, one of which is _Xantharpyia ægyptiaca_.[281]

If the fauna of Phoenicia is restricted so far as land-animals are
concerned, it is extensive and varied in respect of birds. The list
of known birds includes two sorts of eagle (_Circaëtos gallicus_ and
_Aquila nævioïdes_), the osprey, the vulture, the falcon, the kite, the
honey-buzzard, the marsh-harrier, the sparrow-hawk, owls of two kinds
(_Ketupa ceylonensis_ and _Athene meridionalis_), the grey shrike
(_Lanius excubitor_), the common cormorant, the pigmy cormorant
(_Græculus pygmæus_), numerous seagulls, as the Adriatic gull (_Larus
melanocephalus_), Andonieri's gull, the herring-gull, the Red-Sea-gull
(_Larus ichthyo-aëtos_), and others; the gull-billed tern (_Sterna
anglica_), the Egyptian goose, the wild duck, the woodcock, the Greek
partridge (_Caccabis saxatilis_), the waterhen, the corncrake or
landrail, the coot, the water-ouzel, the francolin; plovers of three
kinds, green, golden, and Kentish; dotterels of two kinds, red-throated
and Asiatic; the Manx shearwater, the flamingo, the heron, the common
kingfisher, and the black and white kingfisher of Egypt, the jay,
the wood-pigeon, the rock-dove, the blue thrush, the Egyptian
fantail (_Drymoeca gracilis_), the redshank, the wheat-ear (_Saxicola
libanotica_), the common lark, the Persian horned lark, the cisticole,
the yellow-billed Alpine chough, the nightingale of the East (_Ixos
xanthopygius_), the robin, the brown linnet, the chaffinch; swallows of
two kinds (_Hirundo cahirica_ and _Hirundo rufula_); the meadow
bunting; the Lebanon redstart, the common and yellow water-wagtails, the
chiffchaff, the coletit, the Russian tit, the siskin, the nuthatch,
and the willow wren. Of these the most valuable for the table are the
partridge, the francolin, and the woodcock. The Greek partridge is "a
fine red-legged bird, much larger than our red-legged partridge, and
very much better eating, with white flesh, and nearly as heavy as a
pheasant."[282] The francolin or black partridge is also a delicacy;
and the woodcock, which is identical with our own, has the same delicate
flavour.

The fish of Phoenicia, excepting certain shell-fish, are little
known, and have seldom attracted the attention of travellers. The
Mediterranean, however, where it washes the Phoenician coast, can
furnish excellent mullet,[283] while most of the rivers contain
freshwater fish of several kinds, as the _Blennius lupulus_, the
_Scaphiodon capoëta_, and the _Anguilla microptera_.[284] All of these
fish may be eaten, but the quality is inferior.

On the other hand, to certain of the shell-fish of Phoenicia a great
celebrity attaches. The purple dye which gave to the textile fabrics
of the Phoenicians a world-wide reputation was prepared from certain
shell-fish which abounded upon their coast. Four existing species have
been regarded as more or less employed in the manufacture, and it seems
to be certain, at any rate, that the Phoenicians derived the dye from
more shell-fish than one. The four are the _Buccinum lapillus_ of
Pliny,[285] which is the _Purpura lapillus_ of modern naturalists; the
_Murex trunculus_; the _Murex brandaris_; and the _Helix ianthina_. The
Buccinum derives its name from the form of the shell, which has a
wide mouth, like that of a trumpet, and which after one or two twists
terminates in a pointed head.[286] The _Murex trunculus_ has the same
general form as the Buccinum; but the shell is more rough and spinous,
being armed with a number of long thin projections which terminate in a
sharp point.[287] The _Murex brandaris_ is a closely allied species, and
"one of the most plentiful on the Phoenician coast."[288] It is
unlikely that the ancients regarded it as a different shell from _Murex
trunculus_. The _Helix ianthina_ has a wholly different character. It is
a sort of sea-snail, as the name _helix_ implies, is perfectly smooth,
"very delicate and fragile, and not more than about three-quarters of an
inch in diameter."[289] All these shell-fish contain a _sac_ or bag
full of colouring matter, which is capable of being used as a dye. It
is quite possible that they were all, more or less, made use of by the
Phoenician dyers; but the evidence furnished by existing remains on
the Tyrian coast is strongly in favour of the _Murex brandaris_ as the
species principally employed.[290]

The mineral treasures of Phoenicia have not, in modern times, been
examined with any care. The Jura limestone, which forms the substratum
of the entire region, cannot be expected to yield any important mineral
products. But the sandstone, which overlies it in places, is "often
largely impregnated with iron," and some strata towards the southern end
of Lebanon are said to produce "as much as ninety per cent. of pure iron
ore."[291] An ochrous earth is also found in the hills above Beyrout,
which gives from fifty to sixty per cent. of metal.[292] Coal, too, has
been found in the same locality, but it is of bad quality, and does not
exist in sufficient quantity to form an important product. Limestone,
both cretaceous and siliceous, is plentiful, as are sandstone, trap and
basalt; while porphyry and greenstone are also obtainable.[293] Carmel
yields crystals of quarts and chalcedony,[294] and the fine sand about
Tyre and Sidon is still such as would make excellent glass. But the main
productions of Phoenicia, in which its natural wealth consisted, must
always have been vegetable, rather than animal or mineral, and have
consisted in its timber, especially its cedars and pines; its fruits,
as olives, figs, grapes, and, in early times, dates; and its garden
vegetables, melons, gourds, pumpkins, cucumbers.



CHAPTER III--THE PEOPLE--ORIGIN AND CHARACTERISTICS

     Semitic origin of the Phoenicians--Characteristics of the
     Semites--Place of the Phoenicians within the Semitic group--
     Connected linguistically with the Israelites and the Assyro-
     Babylonians--Original seat of the nation, Lower Babylonia--
     Special characteristics of the Phoenician people--Industry
     and perseverance--Audacity in enterprise--Pliability and
     adaptability--Acuteness of intellect--Business capacity--
     Charge made against them of bad faith--Physical
     characteristics.

The Phoenician people are generally admitted to have belonged to the
group of nations known as Semitic. This group, somewhat irrelevantly
named, since the descent of several of them from Shem is purely
problematic, comprises the Assyrians, the later Babylonians, the
Aramæans or Syrians, the Arabians, the Moabites, the Phoenicians, and
the Hebrews. A single and very marked type of language belongs to
the entire group, and a character of homogeneity may, with certain
distinctions, be observed among all the various members composing it.
The unity of language is threefold: it may be traced in the roots, in
the inflections, and in the general features of the syntax. The roots
are, as a rule, bilateral or trilateral, composed (that is) of two or
three letters, all of which are consonants. The consonants determine
the general sense of the words, and are alone expressed in the primitive
writing; the vowel sounds do but modify more or less the general sense,
and are unexpressed until the languages begin to fall into decay. The
roots are, almost all of them, more or less physical and sensuous. They
are derived in general from an imitation of nature. "If one looked
only to the Semitic languages," says M. Renan,[31] "one would say, that
sensation alone presided over the first acts of the human intellect, and
that language was primarily nothing but a mere reflex of the external
world. If we run through the list of Semitic roots, we scarcely meet
with a single one which does not present to us a sense primarily
material, which is then transferred, by transitions more or less direct
and immediate, to things which are intellectual." Derivative words are
formed from the roots by a few simple and regular laws. The noun is
scarcely inflected at all; but the verb has a marvellous wealth of
conjugations, calculated to express excellently well the external
relations of ideas, but altogether incapable of expressing their
metaphysical relations, from the want of definitely marked tenses and
moods. Inflections in general have a half-agglutinative character, the
meaning and origin of the affixes and suffixes being palpable. Syntax
scarcely exists, the construction of sentences having such a general
character of simplicity, especially in narrative, that one might compare
it with the naïve utterances of an infant. The utmost endeavour of the
Semites is to join words together so as to form a sentence; to join
sentences is an effort altogether beyond them. They employ the {lexis
eiromene} of Aristotle,[32] which proceeds by accumulating atom on atom,
instead of attempting the rounded period of the Latins and Greeks.

The common traits of character among Semitic nations have been summed up
by one writer under five heads:--1. Pliability combined with iron
fixity of purpose; 2. Depth and force; 3. A yearning for dreamy ease;
4. Capacity for the hardest work; and 5. Love of abstract thought.[33]
Another has thought to find them in the following list:--1. An intuitive
monotheism; 2. Intolerance; 3. Prophetism; 4. Want of the philisophic
and scientific faculties; 5. Want of curiosity; 6. Want of appreciation
of mimetic art; 7. Want of capacity for true political life.[34]
According to the latter writer, "the Semitic race is to be recognized
almost entirely by negative characteristics; it has no mythology, no
epic poetry, no science, no philosophy, no fiction, no plastic arts,
no civil life; everywhere it shows absence of complexity; absence of
combination; an exclusive sentiment of unity."[35] It is not very easy
to reconcile these two views, and not very satisfactory to regard a race
as "characterised by negatives." Agreement should consist in positive
features, and these may perhaps be found, first, in strength and depth
of the religious feeling, combined with firm belief in the personality
of the Deity; secondly, in dogged determination and "iron fixity of
purpose;" thirdly, in inventiveness and skill in the mechanical arts and
other industries; fourthly, in "capacity for hard work;" and, fifthly,
in a certain adaptability and pliability, suiting the race for expansion
and for commerce. All these qualities are perhaps not conspicuous in
all the branches of the Semites, but the majority of them will be found
united in all, and in some the combination would seem to be complete.

It is primarily on account of their language that the Phoenicians are
regarded as Semites. When there are no historical grounds for believing
that a nation has laid aside its own original form of speech, and
adopted an alien dialect, language, if not a certain, is at least a
very strong, evidence of ethnic character. Counter-evidence may no doubt
rebut the _prima facie_ presumption; but in the case of the Phoenicians
no counter-evidence is producible. They belong to exactly that
geographic zone in which Semitism has always had its chief seat; they
cannot be shown to have been ever so circumstanced as to have had any
inducement to change their speech; and their physical character and
mental characteristics would, by themselves, be almost sufficient ground
for assigning them to the type whereto their language points.

The place which the Phoenicians occupy within the Semitic group is a
question considerably more difficult to determine. By local position
they should belong to the western, or Aramaic branch, rather than to
the eastern, or Assyro-Babylonian, or to the southern, or Arab. But
the linguistic evidence scarcely lends itself to such a view, while
the historic leads decidedly to an opposite conclusion. There is a far
closer analogy between the Palestinian group of languages--Phoenician,
Hebrew, Moabite, and the Assyro-Babylonian, than between either of these
and the Aramaic. The Aramaic is scanty both in variety of grammatical
forms and in vocabulary; the Phoenician and Assyro-Babylonian are
comparatively copious.[36] The Aramaic has the character of a degraded
language; the Assyro-Babylonian and the Phoenician are modelled on
a primitive type.[37] In some respects Phoenician is even closer to
Assyro-Babylonian than Hebrew is--e.g. in preferring _at_ to _ah_ for
the feminine singular termination.[38]

The testimony of history to the origin of the Phoenicians is the
following. Herodotus tells us that both the Phoenicians themselves, and
the Persians best acquainted with history and antiquities, agreed in
stating that the original settlements of the Phoenician people were upon
the Erythræan Sea (Persian Gulf), and that they had migrated from that
quarter at a remote period, and transferred their abode to the shores
of the Mediterranean.[39] Strabo adds that the inhabitants of certain
islands in the Persian Gulf had a similar tradition, and showed temples
in their cities which were Phoenician in character.[310] Justin, or
rather Trogus Pompeius, whom he abbreviated, writes as follows:--"The
Syrian nation was founded by the Phoenicians, who, being disturbed by
an earthquake, left their native land, and settled first of all in the
neighbourhood of the Assyrian Lake, and subsequently on the shore of
the Mediterranean, where they built a city which they called Sidon on
account of the abundance of the fish; for the Phoenicians call a fish
_sidon_."[311] The "Assyrian lake" of this passage is probably the Bahr
Nedjif, or "Sea of Nedjif," in the neighbourhood of the ancient Babylon,
a permanent sheet of water, varying in its dimensions at different
seasons, but generally about forty miles long, and from ten to twenty
broad.[312] Attempts have been made to discredit this entire story,
but the highest living authority on the subject of Phoenicia and the
Phoenicians adopts it as almost certainly true, and observes:--"The
tradition relative to the sojourn of the Phoenicians on the borders
of the Erythræan Sea, before their establishment on the coast of the
Mediterranean, has thus a new light thrown upon it. It appears from the
labours of M. Movers, and from the recent discoveries made at Nineveh
and Babylon, that the civilisation and religion of Phoenicia and Assyria
were very similar. Independently of this, the majority of modern critics
admit it as demonstrated that the primitive abode of the Phoenicians
ought to be placed upon the Lower Euphrates, in the midst of the great
commercial and maritime establishments of the Persian Gulf, agreeable to
the unanimous witness of all antiquity."[313]

If we pass from the probable origin of the Phoenician people, and their
place in the Semitic group, to their own special characteristics, we
shall find ourselves upon surer ground, though even here there are
certain points which are debateable. The following is the account of
their general character given by a very high authority, and by one who,
on the whole, may be regarded as an admirer:--

"The Phoenicians form, in some respects, the most important fraction
of the whole group of antique nations, notwithstanding that they sprang
from the most obscure and insignificant families. This fraction, when
settled, was constantly exposed to inroad by new tribes, was utterly
conquered and subjected by utter strangers when it had taken a great
place among the nations, and yet by industry, by perseverance, by
acuteness of intellect, by unscrupulousness and wait of faith, by
adaptability and pliability when necessary, and dogged defiance at other
times, by total disregard of the rights of the weaker, they obtained
the foremost place in the history of their times, and the highest
reputation, not only for the things that they did, but for many that
they did not. They were the first systematic traders, the first miners
and metallurgists, the greatest inventors (if we apply such a term to
those who kept an ever-watchful lookout for the inventions of others,
and immediately applied them to themselves with some grand improvements
on the original idea); they were the boldest mariners, the greatest
colonisers, who at one time held not only the gorgeous East, but the
whole of the then half-civilised West in fee--who could boast of a form
of government approaching to constitutionalism, who of all nations of
the time stood highest in practical arts and sciences, and into whose
laps there flowed an unceasing stream of the world's entire riches,
until the day came when they began to care for nothing else, and the
enjoyment of material comforts and luxuries took the place of the thirst
for and search after knowledge. Their piratical prowess and daring was
undermined; their colonies, grown old enough to stand alone, fell
away from them, some after a hard fight, others in mutual agreement or
silently; and the nations in whose estimation and fear they had held the
first place, and who had been tributary to them, disdained them, ignored
them, and finally struck them utterly out of the list of nations, till
they dwindled away miserably, a warning to all who should come after
them."[314]

The prominent qualities in this description would seem to be industry
and perseverance, audacity in enterprise, adaptability and pliability,
acuteness of intellect, unscrupulousness, and want of good faith. The
Phoenicians were certainly among the most industrious and persevering of
mankind. The accounts which we have of them from various quarters,
and the remains which cover the country that they once inhabited,
sufficiently attest their unceasing and untiring activity through almost
the whole period of their existence as a nation. Always labouring in
their workshops at home in mechanical and æsthetic arts, they were at
the same time constantly seeking employment abroad, ransacking the
earth for useful or beautiful commodities, building cities, constructing
harbours, founding colonies, introducing the arts of life among wild
nations, mining and establishing fisheries, organising lines of land
traffic, perpetually moving from place to place, and leaving wherever
they went abundant proofs of their diligence and capacity for hard work.
From Thasos in the East, where Herodotus saw "a large mountain turned
topsy-turvy by the Phoenicians in their search for gold,"[315] to the
Scilly Islands in the West, where workings attributable to them are
still to be seen, all the metalliferous islands and coast tracts bear
traces of Phoenician industry in tunnels, adits, and air-shafts,
while manufactured vessels of various kinds in silver, bronze, and
terra-cotta, together with figures and gems of a Phoenician type, attest
still more widely their manufacturing and commercial activity.

Audacity in enterprise can certainly not be denied to the adventurous
race which, from the islands and coasts of the Eastern Mediterranean,
launched forth upon the unknown sea in fragile ships, affronted the
perils of waves and storms, and still more dreaded "monsters of
the deep,"[316] explored the recesses of the stormy Adriatic and
inhospitable Pontus, steered their perilous course amid all the islets
and rocks of the Ægean, along the iron-bound shores of Thrace, Euboea,
and Laconia, first into the Western Mediterranean basin, and then
through the Straits of Gibraltar into the wild and boundless Atlantic,
with its mighty tides, its huge rollers, its blinding rains, and its
frequent fogs. Without a chart, without a compass, guided only in their
daring voyages by their knowledge of the stars, these bold mariners
penetrated to the shores of Scythia in one direction; to Britain, if
not even to the Baltic, in another; in a third to the Fortunate Islands;
while, in a fourth, they traversed the entire length of the Red Sea,
and entering upon the Southern Ocean, succeeded in doubling the Cape
of Storms two thousand years before Vasco di Gama, and in effecting the
circumnavigation of Africa.[317] And, wild as the seas were with which
they had to deal, they had to deal with yet wilder men. Except in Egypt,
Asia Minor, Greece, and perhaps Italy, they came in contact everywhere
with savage races; they had to enter into close relations with men
treacherous, bloodthirsty, covetous--men who were almost always
thieves, who were frequently cannibals, sometimes wreckers--who regarded
foreigners as a cheap and very delicious kind of food. The pioneers of
civilisation, always and everywhere, incur dangers from which ordinary
mortals would shrink with dismay; but the earliest pioneers, the first
introducers of the elements of culture among barbarians who had never
heard of it, must have encountered far greater peril than others
from their ignorance of the ways of savage man, and a want of those
tremendous weapons of attack and defence with which modern explorers
take care to provide themselves. Until the invention of gunpowder,
the arms of civilised men--swords, and spears, and javelins, and
the like--were scarcely a match for the cunningly devised
weapons--boomerangs, and blow-pipes, and poisoned arrows, and
lassoes[318]--of the savage.

The adaptability and pliability of the Phoenicians was especially shown
in their power of obtaining the favourable regard of almost all the
peoples and nations with which they came into contact, whether civilised
or uncivilised. It is most remarkable that the Egyptians, intolerant as
they usually were of strangers, should have allowed the Phoenicians to
settle in their southern capital, Memphis, and to build a temple and
inhabit a quarter there.[319] It is also curious and interesting that
the Phoenicians should have been able to ingratiate themselves with
another most exclusive and self-sufficing people, viz. the Jews.
Hiram's friendly dealings with David and Solomon are well known; but
the _continued_ alliance between the Phoenicians and the Israelites has
attracted less attention. Solomon took wives from Phoenicia;[320]
Ahab married the daughter of Ithobalus, king of Sidon;[321] Phoenicia
furnished timber for the second Temple;[322] Isaiah wound up his
prophecy against Tyre with a consolation;[323] our Lord found faith in
the Syro-Phoenician woman;[324] in the days of Herod Agrippa, Tyre
and Sidon still desired peace with Judæa, "because their country was
nourished by the king's country."[325] And similarly Tyre had friendly
relations with Syria and Greece, with Mesopotamia and Assyria, with
Babylonia and Chaldæa. At the same time she could bend herself to meet
the wants and gain the confidence of all the varieties of barbarians,
the rude Armenians, the wild Arabs, the barbarous tribes of northern
and western Africa, the rough Iberi, the passionate Gauls, the painted
Britons, the coarse Sards, the fierce Thracians, the filthy Scyths, the
savage races of the Caucasus. Tribes so timid and distrustful as those
of Tropical Africa were lured into peaceful and friendly relations by
the artifice of a "dumb commerce,"[326] and on every side untamed
man was softened and drawn towards civilisation by a spirit of
accommodation, conciliation, and concession to prejudices.

If the Phoenicians are to be credited with acuteness of intellect,
it must be limited to the field of practical enquiry and discovery.
Whatever may be said with regard to the extent and variety of their
literature--a subject which will be treated in another chapter--it
cannot be pretended that humanity owes to them any important conquests
of a scientific or philosophic character. Herodotus, who admires the
learning of the Persians,[327] the science of the Babylonians,[328]
and the combined learning and science of the Egyptians,[329] limits
his commendation of the Phoenicians to their skill in navigation, in
mechanics, and in works of art.[330] Had they made advances in the
abstract, or even in the mixed, sciences, in mathematics, or astronomy,
or geometry, in logic or metaphysics, either their writings would have
been preserved, or at least the Greeks would have made acknowledgments
of being indebted to them.[331] But it is only in the field of practical
matters that any such acknowledgments are made. The Greeks allow
themselves to have been indebted to the Phoenicians for alphabetic
writing, for advances in metallurgy, for improvements in shipbuilding,
and navigation, for much geographic knowledge, for exquisite dyes, and
for the manufacture of glass. There can be no doubt that the Phoenicians
were a people of great practical ability, with an intellect quick to
devise means to ends, to scheme, contrive, and execute, and with a happy
knack of perceiving what was practically valuable in the inventions of
other nations, and of appropriating them to their own use, often with
improvements upon the original idea. But they were not possessed of any
great genius or originality. They were, on the whole, adapters rather
than inventors. They owed their idea of alphabetic writing to the
Accadians,[332] their weights and measures to Babylon,[333] their
shipbuilding probably to Egypt,[334] their early architecture to the
same country,[335] their mimetic art to Assyria, to Egypt, and to
Greece. They were not poets, or painters, or sculptors, or great
architects, much less philosophers or scientists; but in the practical
arts, and even in the practical sciences, they held a high place,
in almost all of them equalling, and in some exceeding, all their
neighbours.

We should be inclined also to assign to the Phoenicians, as a special
characteristic, a peculiar capacity for business. This may be said,
indeed, to be nothing more than acuteness of intellect applied in a
particular way. To ourselves, however, it appears to be, in some sort,
a special gift. As, beyond all question, there are many persons of
extremely acute intellect who have not the slightest turn for business,
or ability for dealing with it, so we think there are nations, to whom
no one would deny high intellectual power, without the capacity in
question. In its most perfect form it has belonged but to a small number
of nations--to the Phoenicians, the Venetians, the Genoese, the English,
and the Dutch. It implies, not so much high intellectual power, as a
combination of valuable, yet not very admirable, qualities of a lower
order. Industry, perseverance, shrewdness, quickness of perception,
power of forecasting the future, power of organisation, boldness,
promptness, are among the qualities needed, and there may be others
discoverable by the skilful analyst. All these met in the Phoenicians,
and met in the proportions that were needed for the combination to take
full effect.

Whether unscrupulousness and want of good faith are rightly assigned
to the Phoenicians as characteristic traits, is, at the least, open
to doubt. The Latin writers, with whom the reproach contained in the
expression "Punica fides" originated, are scarcely to be accepted as
unprejudiced witnesses, since it is in most instances a necessity that
they should either impute "bad faith" to the opposite side, or admit
that there was "bad faith" on their own. The aspersions of an enemy are
entitled to little weight. The cry of "perfide Albion" is often heard
in the land of one of our near neighbours; but few Englishmen will admit
the justice of it. It may be urged in favour of the Phoenicians that
long-continued commercial success is impossible without fair-dealing and
honesty; that where there is commercial fair-dealing and honesty,
those qualities become part and parcel of the national character, and
determine national policy; and, further, that in almost every one of the
instances of bad faith alleged, there is at the least a doubt, of which
the accused party ought to have the benefit. At any rate, let it be
remembered that the charges made affect the Liby-Phoenicians alone, and
not the Phoenicians of Asia, with whom we are here primarily concerned,
and that we cannot safely, or equitably, transfer to a mother-country
faults which are only even alleged against one of her colonies.

Physically, the Phoenicians appear to have resembled the Assyrians and
the Jews. They had large frames strongly made, well-developed muscles,
curled beards, and abundant hair. In their features they may have
borne a resemblance, but probably not a very strong resemblance, to
the Cypriots,[336] who were a mixed people recruited from various
quarters.[337] In complexion they belonged to the white race, but were
rather sallow than fair. Their hair was generally dark, though it may
have been sometimes red. Some have regarded the name "Phoenician" as
indicating that they were of a red or red-brown colour;[338] but it is
better to regard the appellation as having passed from the country to
its people, and as applied to the country by the Greeks on account of
the palm-trees which grew along its shores.



CHAPTER IV--THE CITIES

     Importance of the cities in Phoenicia--Their names and
     relative eminence--Cities of the first rank--Sidon--Tyre--
     Arvad or Aradus--Marathus--Gebal or Byblus--Tripolis--Cities
     of the second rank--Aphaca--Berytus--Arka--Ecdippa--Accho--
     Dor--Japho or Joppa--Ramantha or Laodicea--Fivefold division
     of Phoenicia.

Phoenicia, like Greece, was a country where the cities held a position
of extreme importance. The nation was not a centralised one, with a
single recognised capital, like Judæa, or Samaria, or Syria, or Assyria,
or Babylonia. It was, like Greece, a congeries of homogeneous tribes,
who had never been amalgamated into a single political entity, and who
clung fondly to the idea of separate independence. Tyre and Sidon are
often spoken of as if they were metropolitical cities; but it may be
doubted whether there was ever a time when either of them could claim
even a temporary authority over the whole country. Each, no doubt, from
time to time, exercised a sort of hegemony over a certain number of the
inferior cities; but there was no organised confederacy, no obligation
of any one city to submit to another, and no period, as far as our
knowledge extends, at which all the cities acknowledged a single one as
their mistress.[41] Between Tyre and Sidon there was especial jealousy,
and the acceptance by either of the leadership of the other, even
temporarily, was a rare fact in the history of the nation.

According to the geographers, the cities of Phoenicia, from Laodicea
in the extreme north to Joppa at the extreme south, numbered about
twenty-five. These were Laodicea, Gabala, Balanea, Paltos; Aradus,
with its dependency Antaradus; Marathus; Simyra, Orthosia, and Arka;
Tripolis, Calamus, Trieris, and Botrys; Byblus or Gebal; Aphaca;
Berytus; Sidon, Sarepta, and Ornithonpolis; Tyre and Ecdippa; Accho and
Porphyreon; Dor and Joppa. Of the twenty-five a certain number were,
historically and politically, insignificant; for instance, Gabala,
Balanea, Paltos, Orthosia, Calamus, Trieris, Botrys, Sarepta,
Ornithonpolis, Porphyreon. Sarepta is immortalised by the memory of its
pious widow,[42] and Orthosia has a place in history from its connection
with the adventures of Trypho;[43] but the rest of the list are little
more than "geographical expressions." There remain fifteen important
cities, of which six may be placed in the first rank and nine in the
second--the six being Tyre, Sidon, Aradus, Byblus or Gebal, Marathus,
and Tripolis; the nine, Laodicea, Simyra, Arka, Aphaca, Berytus,
Ecdippa, Accho, Dor, and Joppa. It will be sufficient in the present
place to give some account of these fifteen.

There are some grounds for considering Sidon to have been the most
ancient of the Phoenician towns. In the Book of Genesis Sidon is called
"the eldest born of Canaan,"[44] and in Joshua, where Tyre is simply a
"fenced city" or fort,[45] it is "_Great_ Zidon."[46] Homer frequently
mentions it,[47] whereas he takes no notice of Tyre. Justin makes it the
first town which the Phoenicians built on arriving at the shores of the
Mediterranean.[48] The priority of Sidon in this respect was, however,
not universally acknowledged, since Tyre claims on some of her coins to
have been "the mother-city of the Sidonians,"[49] and Marathus was also
regarded as a city of the very highest antiquity.[410] The city stood
in Lat. 33º 34´ nearly, on the flat plain between the mountains and the
shore, opposite a small promontory which projects into the sea towards
the west, and is flanked towards the north-west and north by a number
of rocky islands. The modern town of Saïda stands close upon the shore,
occupying the greater part of the peninsula and a portion of the plain
on which it abuts; but the ancient city is found to have been situated
entirely in the plain, and its most western traces are almost half a
mile from the nearest point of the present walls.[411] The modern Saïda
has clustered itself about what was the principal port of the ancient
town, which lay north of the promontory, and was well protected from
winds, on the west by the principal island, which has a length of 250
yards, and on the north by a long range of islets and reefs, extending
in a north-easterly direction a distance of at least 600 yards. An
excellent roadstead was thus formed by nature, which art early improved
into a small but commodious harbour, a line of wall being carried out
from the coast northwards to the most easterly of the islets, and the
only unprotected side of the harbour being thus securely closed. There
is reason to believe that this work was completed anterior to the time
of Alexander,[412] and was therefore due to the Phoenicians themselves,
who were not blind to the advantages of closed harbours over open
roadsteads. They seem also to have strengthened the natural barrier
towards the north by a continuous wall of huge blocks along the reefs
and the islets, portions of which are still in existence.

Besides this excellent harbour, 500 yards long by 200 broad, Sidon
possessed on the southern side of the peninsula a second refuge for its
ships, less safe, but still more spacious. This was an oval basin, 600
yards long from north to south, and nearly 400 broad from east to west,
wholly surrounded by land on three sides, the north, the east, and the
south, but open for the space of about 200 yards towards the west. In
fine weather this harbour was probably quite as much used as the other;
it was protected from all the winds that were commonly prevalent, and
offered a long stretch of sandy shore free from buildings on which
vessels could be drawn up.

It is impossible to mark out the enceinte of the ancient town, or indeed
to emplace it with any exactitude. Only scanty and scattered remains are
left here and there between the modern city and the mountains. There
is, however, towards the south an extensive necropolis,[413] which marks
perhaps the southern limits of the city, while towards the east the
hills are penetrated by a number of sepulchural grottoes, and tombs
of various kinds, which were also probably outside the walls. Were a
northern necropolis to be discovered, some idea would be furnished
of the extent of the city; but at present the plain has been very
imperfectly examined in this direction. It is from the southern
necropolis that the remarkable inscription was disinterred which first
established beyond all possibility of doubt the fact that the modern
Saïda is the representative of the ancient Sidon.[414]

Twenty miles to the south of Sidon was the still more important
city--the double city--of Tzur or Tyre. Tzur signifies "a rock," and
at this point of the Syrian coast (Lat. 33º 17´) there lay at a short
distance from the shore a set of rocky islets, on the largest of which
the original city seems to have been built. Indentations are so rare and
so shallow along this coast, that a maritime people naturally looked
out for littoral islands, as affording under the circumstances the best
protection against boisterous winds; and, as in the north Aradus was
early seized and occupied by Phoenician settlers, so in the south the
rock, which became the heart of Tyre, was seized, fortified, covered
with buildings, and converted from a bare stony eminence into a town. At
the same time, or not much later, a second town grew up on the
mainland opposite the isle; and the two together were long regarded as
constituting a single city. After the time of Alexander the continental
town went to decay; and the name of Palæ-Tyrus was given to it,[415] to
distinguish it from the still flourishing city on the island.

The islands of which we have spoken formed a chain running nearly in
parallel to the coast. They were some eleven or twelve in number. The
southern extremity of the chain was formed by three, the northern by
seven, small islets.[416] Intermediate between these lay two islands of
superior size, which were ultimately converted into one by filling up
the channel between them. A further enlargement was effected by means
of substructions thrown out into the sea, probably on two sides, towards
the east and towards the south. By these means an area was produced
sufficient for the site of a considerable town. Pliny estimated the
circumference of the island Tyre at twenty-two stades,[417] or somewhat
more than two miles and a half. Modern measurements make the actual
present area one of above 600,000 square yards.[418] The shape was an
irregular trapezium, 1,400 yards along its western face, 800 yards along
its southern one, 600 along the face towards the east, and rather more
along the face towards the north-east.

The whole town was surrounded by a lofty wall, the height of which, on
the side which faced the mainland, was, we are told, a hundred and fifty
feet.[419] Towards the south the foundations of the wall were laid in
the sea, and may still be traced.[420] They consist of huge blocks of
stone strengthened inside by a conglomerate of very hard cement. The
wall runs out from the south-eastern corner of what was the original
island, in a direction a little to the south of west, till it reaches
the line of the western coast, when it turns at a sharp angle, and
rejoins the island at its south-western extremity. At present sea is
found for some distance to the north of the wall, and this fact has been
thought to show that originally it was intended for a pier or quay, and
the space within it for a harbour;[421] but the latest explorers are
of opinion that the space was once filled up with masonry and rubbish,
being an artificial addition to the island, over which, in the course of
time, the sea has broken, and reasserted its rights.[422]

Like Sidon, Tyre had two harbours, a northern and a southern. The
northern, which was called the "Sidonian," because it looked towards
Sidon, was situated on the east of the main island, towards the northern
end of it. On the west and south the land swept round it in a natural
curve, effectually guarding two sides; while the remaining two were
protected by art. On the north a double line of wall was carried out in
a direction a little south of east for a distance of about three hundred
yards, the space between the two lines being about a hundred feet. The
northern line acted as a sort of breakwater, the southern as a pier.
This last terminated towards the east on reaching a ridge of natural
rock, and was there met by the eastern wall of the harbour, which
ran out in a direction nearly due north for a distance of 250 yards,
following the course of two reefs, which served as its foundation.
Between the reefs was a space of about 140 feet, which was left open,
but could be closed, if necessary, by a boom or chain, which was kept in
readiness. The dimensions of this northern harbour are thought to have
been about 370 yards from north to south, by about 230 from east to
west,[423] or a little short of those which have been assigned to the
northern harbour of Sidon. Concerning the southern harbour there is
considerable difference of opinion. Some, as Kenrick and M. Bertou,
place it due south of the island, and regard its boundary as the line
of submarine wall which we have already described and regarded as
constituting the southern wall of the town. Others locate it towards
the south-east, and think that it is now entirely filled up. A canal
connected the two ports, so that vessels could pass from the one to the
other.

The most remarkable of the Tyrian buildings were the royal palace, which
abutted on the southern wall of the town, and the temples dedicated
to Baal, Melkarth, Agenor, and Astarte or Ashtoreth.[424] The probable
character of the architecture of these buildings will be hereafter
considered. With respect to their emplacement, it would seem by the most
recent explorations that the temple of Baal, called by the Greeks that
of the Olympian Zeus, stood by itself on what was originally a separate
islet at the south-western corner of the city,[425] while that of
Melkarth occupied a position as nearly as possible central,[426] and
that of Agenor was placed near the point in which the island terminates
toward the north.[427] The houses of the inhabitants were closely
crowded together, and rose to the height of several storeys.[428] There
was an open space for the transaction of business within the walls
towards the east, called Eurychorus by those Phoenicians who wrote their
histories in Greek.[429] The town was full of dyeing establishments,
which made it difficult to traverse.[430] The docks and dockyards were
towards the east.

The population of the island Tyre, when it was captured by Alexander,
seems to have been about forty thousand souls.[431] As St. Malo, a city
less than one-third of the size, is known to have had at one time a
population of twelve thousand,[432] the number, though large for the
area, would seem not to be incredible.

Of Palæ-Tyrus, or the continental Tyre, no satisfactory account can
be given, since it has absolutely left no remains, and the classical
notices on the subject are exceedingly scanty. At different periods of
its history, its limits and extent probably varied greatly. Its position
was nearly opposite the island, and in the early times it must have
been, like the other coast towns, strongly fortified; but after its
capture by Alexander the walls do not seem to have been restored, and it
became an open straggling town, extending along the shore from the
river Leontes (Litany) to Ras-el-Ain, a distance of seven miles or more.
Pliny, who wrote when its boundary could still be traced, computed the
circuit of Palæ-Tyrus and the island Tyre together at nineteen Roman
miles,[433] the circuit of the island by itself being less than three
miles. Its situation, in a plain of great fertility, at the foot of the
south-western spurs of Lebanon, and near the gorge of the Litany, was
one of great beauty. Water was supplied to it in great abundance from
the copious springs of Ras-el-Ain, which were received into a reservoir
of an octagonal shape, sixty feet in diameter, and inclosed within walls
eighteen feet in height,[434] whence they were conveyed northwards to
the heart of the city by an aqueduct, whereof a part is still remaining.

The most important city of Phoenicia towards the north was Arvad, or
Aradus. Arvad was situated, like Tyre, on a small island off the Syrian
coast, and lay in Lat. 34º 48´ nearly. It was distant from the shore
about two miles and a half. The island was even smaller than that which
formed the nucleus of Tyre, being only about 800 yards, or less than
half a mile in length, by 500 yards, or rather more than a quarter of
a mile in breadth.[435] The axis of the island was from north-west to
south-east. It was a bare rock, low and flat, without water, and without
any natural soil. The iron coast was surrounded on three sides, the
north, the west, and the south, by a number of rocks and small islets,
which fringed it like the trimming of a shawl. Its Phoenician occupiers
early converted this debatable territory, half sea half shore, into
solid land, by filling up the interstices between the rocks with squared
stones and a solid cement as hard as the rock itself, which remains
to this day.[436] The north-eastern portion, which has a length of 150
yards by a breadth of 125, is perfectly smooth and almost flat, but with
a slight slope towards the east, which is thought to show that it was
used as a sort of dry dock, on which to draw up the lighter vessels, for
safety or for repairs.[437] The western and southern increased the area
for house-building. Anciently, as at Tyre, the houses were built
very close together, and had several storeys,[438] for the purpose
of accommodating a numerous population. The island was wholly without
natural harbour; but on the eastern side, which faced the mainland, and
was turned away from the prevailing winds, the art and industry of the
inhabitants constructed two ports of a fair size. This was effected by
carrying out from the shore three piers at right angles into the sea,
the central one to a distance of from seventy to a hundred yards, and
the other two very nearly as far--and thus forming two rectangular
basins, one on either side of the central pier, which were guarded from
winds on three sides, and only open towards the east, a quarter from
which the winds are seldom violent, and on which the mainland, less than
three miles off, forms a protection. The construction of the central
pier is remarkable. It is formed of massive blocks of sandstone, which
are placed transversely, so that their length forms the thickness of the
pier, and their ends the wall on either side. On both sides of the wall
are quays of concrete.[439]

The line of the ancient enceinte may still be traced around the three
outer sides of the island. It is a gigantic work, composed of stones
from fifteen to eighteen feet long, placed transversely, like those of
the centre pier, and in two places still rising to the height of five or
six courses (from thirty to forty feet).[440] The blocks are laid side
by side without mortar; they are roughly squared, and arranged generally
in regular courses; but sometimes two courses for a while take the place
of one.[441] There is a want of care in the arrangement of the blocks,
joints in one course being occasionally directly over joints in the
course below it. The stones are without any bevel or ornamentation of
any kind. They have been quarried in the island itself, and the beds of
rock from which they were taken may be seen at no great distance. At one
point in the western side of the island, the native rock itself has
been cut into the shape of the wall, and made to take the place of the
squared stones for the distance of about ten feet.[442] A moat has also
been cut along the entire western side, which, with its glacis, served
apparently to protect the wall from the fury of the waves.[443]

We know nothing of the internal arrangements of the ancient town beyond
the fact of the closeness and loftiness of the houses. Externally Aradus
depended on her possessions upon the mainland both for water and for
food. The barren rock could grow nothing, and was moreover covered with
houses. Such rainwater as fell on the island was carefully collected and
stored in tanks and reservoirs,[444] the remains of which are still
to be seen. But the ordinary supply of water for daily consumption was
derived in time of peace from the opposite coast. When this supply was
cut off by an enemy Aradus had still one further resource. Midway in
the channel between the island and the continent there burst out at the
bottom of the sea a fresh-water spring of great strength; by confining
this spring within a hemisphere of lead to which a leathern pipe was
attached the much-needed fluid was raised to the surface and received
into a vessel moored upon the spot, whence supplies were carried to
the island.[445] The phenomenon still continues, though the modern
inhabitants are too ignorant and unskilful to profit by it.[446]

On the mainland Aradus possessed a considerable tract, and had a number
of cities subject to her. Of these Strabo enumerates six, viz. Paltos,
Balanea, Carnus--which he calls the naval station of Aradus--Enydra,
Marathus, and Simyra.[447] Marathus was the most important of these. Its
name recalls the "Brathu" of Philo-Byblius[448] and the "Martu" of the
early Babylonian inscriptions,[449] which was used as a general term by
some of the primitive monarchs almost in the sense of "Syria." The word
is still preserved in the modern "M'rith" or "Amrith," a name attached
to some extensive ruins in the plain south-east of Aradus, which have
been carefully examined by M. Renan.[450] Marathus was an ancient
Phoenician town, probably one of the most ancient, and was always looked
upon with some jealousy by the Aradians, who ultimately destroyed it and
partitioned out the territory among their own citizens.[451] The same
fate befell Simyra,[452] a place of equal antiquity, the home probably
of those Zemarites who are coupled with the Arvadites in Genesis.[453]
Simyra appears as "Zimirra" in the Assyrian inscriptions, where it is
connected with Arka,[454] which was not far distant. Its exact site,
which was certainly south of Amrith, seems to be fixed by the name
Sumrah, which attaches to some ruins in the plain about a mile and a
half north of the Eleutherus (Nahr-el-Kebir) and within a mile of
the sea.[455] The other towns--Paltos, Balanea, Carnus,[456] and
Enydra--were in the more northern portion of the plain, as was also
Antaradus, now Tortosa, where there are considerable remains, but of a
date long subsequent to the time of Phoenician ascendancy.

Of the remaining Phoenician cities the most important seems to have
been Gebal, or Byblus. Mentioned under the name of Gubal in the Assyrian
inscriptions as early as the time of Jehu[457] (ab. B.C. 840), and
glanced at even earlier in the Hebrew records, which tell of its
inhabitants, the Giblites,[458] Gebal is found as a town of note in the
time of Alexander the Great,[459] and again in that of Pompey.[460] The
traditions of the Phoenicians themselves made it one of the most ancient
of the cities; and the historian Philo, who was a native of the place,
ascribes its foundation to Kronos or Saturn.[461] It was an especially
holy city, devoted in the early times to the worship of Beltis,[462] and
in the later to that of Adonis.[463] The position is marked beyond all
reasonable doubt by the modern Jebeïl, which retains the original
name very slightly modified, and answers completely to the ancient
descriptions. The town lies upon the coast, in Lat. 34º 10´ nearly,
about halfway between Tripolis and Berytus, four miles north of the
point where the Adonis river (now the Ibrahim) empties itself into the
sea. There is a "small but well-sheltered port,"[464] formed mainly by
two curved piers which are carried out from the shore towards the north
and south, and which leave between them only a narrow entrance. The
castle occupies a commanding position on a hill at a little distance
from the shore, and has a keep built of bevelled stones of a large size.
Several of them measure from fifteen to eighteen feet in length, and are
from five to six feet thick.[465] They were probably quarried by Giblite
"stone-cutters," but placed in their present position during the middle
ages.

Tripolis, situated halfway between Byblus and Aradus, was not one of
the original Phoenician cities, but was a joint colony from the three
principal settlements, Tyre, Sidon, and Aradus.[466] The date of
its foundation, and its native Phoenician name, are unknown to us:
conjecture hovers between Hosah, Mahalliba, Uznu, and Siannu, maritime
towns of Phoenicia known to the Assyrians,[467] but unmentioned by any
Greek author. The situation was a promontory, which runs out towards the
north-west, in Lat. 34º 27´ nearly, for the distance of a mile, and
is about half a mile wide. The site is "well adapted for a haven, as
a chain of seven small islands, running out to the north-west, affords
shelter in the direction from which the most violent winds blow."[468]
The remotest of these islands is ten miles distant from the shore.[469]
We are told that the colonists who founded Tripolis did not intermix,
but had their separate quarters of the town assigned to them, each
surrounded by its own wall, and lying at some little distance one from
the other.[470] There are no present traces of this arrangement, which
seems indicative of distrust; but some remains have been found of a wall
which was carried across the isthmus on the land side.[471] Tripolis is
now Tarabolus.

Aphaca, the only inland Phoenician town of any importance, is now Afka,
and is visited by most travellers and tourists. It was situated in a
beautiful spot at the head of the Adonis river,[472] a sacred stream
fabled to run with blood once a year, at the festival which commemorated
the self-mutilation of the Nature-god Adonis. Aphaca was a sort of
Delphi, a collection of temples rather than a town. It was dedicated
especially to the worship of the Syrian goddess, Ashtoreth or
Venus, sometimes called Beltis or Baaltis, whose orgies were of so
disgracefully licentious a character that they were at last absolutely
forbidden by Constantine. At present there are no remains on the
ancient site except one or two ruins of edifices decidedly Roman in
character.[473] Nor is the gorge of the Adonis any richer in ancient
buildings. There was a time when the whole valley formed a sort of
"Holy Land,"[474] and at intervals on its course were shown "Tombs of
Adonis,"[475] analogous to the artificial "Holy Sepulchres" of many
European towns in the middle ages. All, however, have disappeared, and
the traveller looks in vain for any traces of that curious cult which
in ancient times made Aphaca and its river one of the most noted of the
holy spots of Syria and a favourite resort of pilgrims.

Twenty-three miles south of Byblus was Berytus, which disputed with
Byblus the palm of antiquity.[476] Berytus was situated on a promontory
in Lat. 33º 54´, and had a port of a fair size, protected towards the
west by a pier, which followed the line of a ridge of rocks running
out from the promontory towards the north. It was not of any importance
during the flourishing Phoenician period, but grew to greatness under
the Romans,[477] when its harbour was much improved, and the town
greatly extended.[478] By the time of Justinian it had become the
chief city of Phoenicia, and was celebrated as a school of law and
science.[479] The natural advantages of its situation have caused it to
retain a certain importance, and in modern times it has drawn to itself
almost the whole of the commerce which Europe maintains with Syria.

Arka, or Arqa, the home of the Arkites of Genesis,[480] can never have
been a place of much consequence. It lies at a distance of four miles
from the shore, on one of the outlying hills which form the skirts of
Lebanon, in Lat. 34º 33, Long. 33º 44´ nearly. The towns nearest to it
were Orthosia, Simyra, and Tripolis. It was of sufficient consequence
to be mentioned in the Assyrian Inscriptions,[481] though not to attract
the notice of Strabo.

Ecdippa, south of Tyre, in Lat. 33º 1´, is no doubt the scriptural
Achzib,[482] which was made the northern boundary of Asher at the
division of the Holy Land among the twelve tribes. The Assyrian monarchs
speak of it under the same name, but mention it rarely, and apparently
as a dependency of Sidon.[483] The old name, in the shortened form of
"Zeb," still clings to the place.

Still further to the south, five miles from Ecdippa, and about
twenty-two miles from Tyre, lay Akko or Accho, at the northern extremity
of a wide bay, which terminates towards the south in the promontory of
Carmel. Next to the Bay of St. George, near Beyrout, this is the best
natural roadstead on the Syrian coast; and this advantage, combined with
its vicinity to the plain of Esdraelon, has given to Accho at various
periods of history a high importance, as in some sense "the key of
Syria." The Assyrians, in their wars with Palestine and Egypt, took care
to conquer and retain it.[484] When the Ptolemies became masters of
the tract between Egypt and Mount Taurus, they at once saw its value,
occupied it, strengthened its defences, and gave it the name of
Ptolemaïs. The old appellation has, however, reasserted itself; and,
as Acre, the city played an important part in the Crusades, in the
Napoleonic attempt on Egypt, and in the comparatively recent expedition
of Ibrahim Pasha. It had a small port of its own to the south-east of
the promontory on which it stood, which, like the other ports of the
ancient Phoenicia, is at the present time almost wholly sanded up.[485]
But its roadstead was of more importance than its port, and was used by
the Persians as a station for their fleet, from which they could keep
watch on Egypt.[486]

South of Accho and south of Carmel, close upon the shore, which is here
low and flat, was Dor, now Tantura, the seat of a kingdom in the time
of Joshua,[487] and allotted after its conquest to Manasseh.[488] Here
Solomon placed one of his purveyors,[489] and here the great Assyrian
monarch Tiglath-pileser II. likewise placed a "governor," about B.C.
732, when he reduced it.[490] Dor was one of the places where the
shell-fish which produced the purple dye were most abundant, and
remained in the hands of the Phoenicians during all the political
changes which swept over Syria and Palestine to a late period.[491] It
had fallen to ruin, however, by the time of Jerome,[492] and the present
remains are unimportant.

The extreme Phoenician city on the south was Japho or Joppa. It lay in
Lat. 32º 2´, close to the territory of Dan,[493] but continued to be
held by the Phoenicians until the time of the Maccabees,[494] when it
became Jewish. The town was situated on the slope of a low hill near the
sea, and possessed anciently a tolerable harbour, from which a trade was
carried on with Tartessus.[495] As the seaport nearest to Jerusalem,
it was naturally the chief medium of the commerce which was carried on
between the Phoenicians and the Jews. Thither, in the time of Solomon,
were brought the floats of timber cut in Lebanon for the construction
of the Temple and the royal palace; and thither, no doubt, were conveyed
"the wheat, and the barley, and the oil, and the wine," which the
Phoenicians received in return for their firs and cedars.[496] A similar
exchange of commodities was made nearly five centuries later at the same
place, when the Jews returned from the captivity under Zerubbabel.[497]
In Roman times the foundation of Cæsaræa reduced Joppa to
insignificance; yet it still, as Jaffa or Yáfa, retains a certain amount
of trade, and is famous for its palm-groves and gardens.

Joppa towards the south was balanced by Ramantha, or Laodicea, towards
the north. Fifty miles north of Aradus and Antaradus (Tortosa), in
Lat. 35º 30´ nearly, occupying the slope of a hill facing the sea, with
chalky cliffs on either side, that, like those of Dover, whiten the sea,
and with Mount Casius in the background, lay the most northern of all
the Phoenician cities in a fertile and beautiful territory.[498] The
original appellation was, we are told, Ramantha,[499] a name intended
probably to mark the _lofty_ situation of the place;[4100] but this
appellation was forced to give way to the Greek term, Laodicea, when
Seleucus Nicator, having become king of Syria, partially rebuilt
Ramantha and colonised it with Greeks.[4101] The coins of the city under
the Seleucidæ show its semi-Greek, semi-Phoenician character, having
legends in both languages. One of these, in the Phoenician character,
is read as _l'Ladika am b'Canaan_, i.e. "of Laodicea, a metropolis
in Canaan," and seems to show that the city claimed not only to be
independent, but to have founded, and to hold under its sway, a number
of smaller towns.[4102] It may have exercised a dominion over the entire
tract from Mount Casius to Paltos, where the dominion of Aradus began.
Laodicea is now Latakia, and is famous for the tobacco grown in the
neighbourhood. It still makes use of its ancient port, which would be
fairly commodious if it were cleared of the sand that at present chokes
it.[4103]

It has been said that Phoenicia was composed of "three worlds" with
distinct characteristics;[4104] but perhaps the number of the "worlds"
should be extended to five. First came that of Ramantha, reaching from
the Mons Casius to the river Badas, a distance of about fifty miles, a
remote and utterly sequestered region, into which neither Assyria nor
Egypt ever thought of penetrating. Commerce with Cyprus and southern
Asia Minor was especially open to the mariners of this region, who could
see the shores of Cyprus without difficulty on a clear day. Next came
the "world" of Aradus, reaching along the coast from the Badas to the
Eleutherus, another stretch of fifty miles, and including the littoral
islands, especially that of Ruad, on which Aradus was built. This tract
was less sequestered than the more northern one, and contains traces of
having been subjected to influences from Egypt at an early period. The
gap between Lebanon and Bargylus made the Aradian territory accessible
from the Coelesyrian valley; and there is reason to believe that one of
the roads which Egyptian and Assyrian conquest followed in these parts
was that which passed along the coast as far as the Eleutherus and then
turned eastward and north-eastward to Emesa (Hems) and Hamath. It must
have been conquerors marching by this line who set up their effigies at
the mouth of the Nahr-el-Kelb, and those who pursued it would naturally
make a point of reducing Aradus. Thus this second Phoenician "world" has
not the isolated character of the first, but shows marks of Assyrian,
and still more of early Egyptian, influence. The third Phoenician
"world" is that of Gebal or Byblus. Its limits would seem to be the
Eleutherus on the north, and on the south the Tamyras, which would allow
it a length of a little above eighty miles. This district, it has been
said, preserved to the last days of paganism a character which was
original and well marked. Within its limits the religious sentiment had
more intensity and played a more important part in life than elsewhere
in Phoenicia. Byblus was a sort of Phoenician Jerusalem. By their turn
of mind and by the language which they spoke, the Byblians or Giblites
seem to have been, of all the Phoenicians, those who most resembled the
Hebrews. King Jehavmelek, who probably reigned at Byblus about B.C. 400,
calls himself "a just king," and prays that he may obtain favour in
the sight of God. Later on it was at Byblus, and in the valleys of the
Lebanon depending on it, that the inhabitants celebrated those mysteries
of Astarte, together with that orgiastic worship of Adonis or Tammuz,
which were so popular in Syria during the whole of the Greco-Roman
period.[4105] The fourth Phoenician "world" was that of Tyre and Sidon,
beginning at the Tamyras and ending with the promontory of Carmel. Here
it was that the Phoenician character developed especially those traits
by which it is commonly known to the world at large--a genius for
commerce and industry, a passion for the undertaking of long and
perilous voyages, an adaptability to circumstances of all kinds, and an
address in dealing with wild tribes of many different kinds which has
rarely been equalled and never exceeded. "All that we are about to
say of Phoenicia," declares the author recently quoted, "of its rapid
expansion and the influence which it exercised over the nations of the
West, must be understood especially of Tyre and Sidon. The other towns
might furnish sailors to man the Tyrian fleet or merchandise for their
cargo, but it was Sidon first and then (with even more determination
and endurance) Tyre which took the initiative and the conduct of the
movement; it was the mariners of these two towns who, with eyes fixed
on the setting sun, pushed their explorations as far as the Pillars
of Hercules, and eventually even further."[4106] The last and least
important of the Phoenician "worlds" was the southern one, extending
sixty miles from Carmel to Joppa--a tract from which the Phoenician
character was well nigh trampled out by the feet of strangers ever
passing up and down the smooth and featureless region, along which lay
the recognised line of route between Syria and Mesopotamia on the one
hand, Philistia and Egypt on the other.[4107]



CHAPTER V--THE COLONIES

     Circumstances which led the Phoenicians to colonise--Their
     colonies best grouped geographically--1. Colonies of the
     Eastern Mediterranean--in Cyprus, Citium, Amathus, Curium,
     Paphos, Salamis, Ammochosta, Tamisus, and Soli;--in Cilicia,
     Tarsus;--in Lycia, Phaselis;--in Rhodes, Lindus, Ialysus,
     Camirus;--in Crete, and the Cyclades;--in the Northern
     Egean; &c. 2. In the Central and Western Mediterranean--in
     Africa, Utica, Hippo-Zaritis, Hippo Regius, Carthage,
     Hadrumetum, Leptis Minor, Leptis Major, and Thapsus;--in
     Sicily, Motya, Eryx, Panormus, Solocis;--between Sicily and
     Africa, Cossura, Gaulos, and Melita;--in Sardinia, Caralis,
     Nora, Sulcis, and Tharros;--in the Balearic Isles;--in
     Spain, Malaca, Sex, Abdera. 3. Outside the Straits of
     Gibraltar;--in Africa, Tingis, and Lixus; in Spain,
     Tartessus, Gades, and Belon--Summary.

The narrowness of the territory which the Phoenicians occupied the
military strength of their neighbours towards the north and towards the
south, and their own preference of maritime over agricultural pursuits,
combined to force them, as they began to increase and multiply, to
find a vent for their superfluous population in colonies. The military
strength of Philistia and Egypt barred them out from expansion upon
the south; the wild savagery of the mountain races in Casius, northern
Bargylus, and Amanus was an effectual barrier towards the north; but
before them lay the open Mediterranean, placid during the greater
portion of the year, and conducting to a hundred lands, thinly peopled,
or even unoccupied, where there was ample room for any number of
immigrants. The trade of the Phoenicians with the countries bordering
the Eastern Mediterranean must be regarded as established long
previously to the time when they began to feel cramped for space; and
thus, when that time arrived, they had no difficulty in finding fresh
localities to occupy, except such as might arise from a too abundant
amplitude of choice. Right in front of them lay, at the distance of not
more than seventy miles, visible from Casius in clear weather,[51] the
large and important island, once known as Chittim,[52] and afterwards as
Cyprus, which played so important a part in the history of the East from
the time of Sargon and Sennacherib to that of Bragadino and Mustapha
Pasha. To the right, well visible from Cyprus, was the fertile tract of
Cilicia Campestris, which led on to the rich and picturesque regions of
Pamphylia, Lycia, and Caria. From Caria stretched out, like a string
of stepping-stones between Asia and Europe, the hundred islets of
the Ægean, Cyclades, and Sporades, and others, inviting settlers, and
conducting to the large islands of Crete and Euboea, and the shores of
Attica and the Peloponnese. It is impossible to trace with any exactness
the order in which the Phoenician colonies were founded. A thousand
incidental circumstances--a thousand caprices--may have deranged what
may be called the natural or geographical order, and have caused
the historical order to diverge from it; but, on the whole, probably
something like the geographical order was observed; and, at any rate, it
will be most convenient, in default of sufficient data for an historical
arrangement, to adopt in the present place a geographic one, and,
beginning with those nearest to Phoenicia itself in the Eastern
Mediterranean, to proceed westward to the Straits of Gibraltar,
reserving for the last those outside the Straits on the shores of the
Atlantic Ocean.

The nearest, and probably the first, region to attract Phoenician
colonies was the island of Cyprus. Cyprus lies in the corner of the
Eastern Mediterranean formed by the projection of Asia Minor from the
Syrian shore. Its mountain chains run parallel with Taurus, and it is
to Asia Minor that it presents its longer flank, while to Phoenicia it
presents merely one of its extremities. Its length from east to west is
145 miles, its greatest width about sixty miles.[53] Two strongly marked
mountain ranges form its most salient features, the one running close
along the north coast from Cape Kormaciti to Cape S. Andreas; the other
nearly central, but nearer the south, beginning at Cape Renaouti in the
west and terminating at Cape Greco. The mountain ranges are connected
by a tract of high ground towards the centre, and separated by two broad
plains,[54] towards the east and west. The eastern plain is the more
important of the two. It extends along the course of the Pediæus from
Leucosia, or Nicosia, the present capital, to Salamis, a distance of
thirty-five miles, and is from five to twelve miles wide. The fertility
of the soil was reckoned in ancient times to equal that of Egypt.[55]
The western plain, that of Morfou, is much smaller, and is watered by
a less important river. The whole island, when it first became known to
the Phoenicians, was well wooded.[56] Lovely glens opened upon them, as
they sailed along its southern coast, watered by clear streams from the
southern mountain-range, and shaded by thick woods of pine and cedar,
the latter of which are said to have in some cases attained a greater
size even than those of the Lebanon.[57] The range was also prolific of
valuable metals.[58] Gold and silver were found in places, but only in
small quantities; iron was yielded in considerable abundance; but the
chief supply was that of copper, which derived its name from that of
the island.[59] Other products of the island were wheat of excellent
quality; the rich Cyprian wine which retains its strength and flavour
for well nigh a century, the _henna_ dye obtained from the plant called
_copher_ or _cyprus_, the _Lawsonia alba_ of modern botany; valuable
pigments of various kinds, red, yellow, green, and amber; hemp and flax;
tar, boxwood,[510] and all the materials requisite for shipbuilding
from the heavy timbers needed for the keel to the lightest spar and the
flimsiest sail.[511]

The earliest of the Phoenician settlements in Cyprus seem to have lain
upon its southern coast. Here were Citium, Amathus, Curium, and Paphus,
the Palæ-paphus of the geographers, which have all yielded abundant
traces of a Phoenician occupation at a very distant period. Citium, now
Larnaka, was on the western side of a deep bay, which indents the more
eastern portion of the southern coast, between the promontories of Citi
and Pyla. It is sheltered from all winds except the south-east,
and continues to the present day the chief port of the island. The
Phoenician settlers improved on the natural position by the formation
of an artificial basin, enclosed within piers, the lines of which may be
traced, though the basin itself is sanded up.[512] A plain extends for
some distance inland, on which the palm-tree flourishes, and which
is capable of producing excellent crops of wheat.[513] Access to the
interior is easy; for the mountain range sinks as it proceeds eastward,
and between Citium and Dali (Idalium), on a tributary of the Pediæus, is
of small elevation. There are indications that the Phoenicians did not
confine themselves to the coast, but penetrated into the interior, and
even settled there in large numbers. Idalium, sixteen miles north-west
of Citium, and Golgi (Athiénau), ten miles nearly due north of the
same, show traces of having supported for a considerable time a large
Phoenician population,[514] and must be regarded as outposts advanced
from Citium into the mountains for trading, and perhaps for mining
purposes. Idalium (Dali) has a most extensive Phoenician necropolis; the
interments have a most archaic character; and their Phoenician origin
is indicated both by their close resemblance to interments in Phoenicia
proper and by the discovery, in connection with them, of Phoenician
inscriptions.[515] At Golgi the remains scarcely claim so remote an
antiquity. They belong to the time when Phoenician art was dominated by
a strong Egyptian influence, and when it also begins to have a partially
Hellenic character. Some critics assign them to the sixth, or even to
the fifth century, B.C.[516]

West of Citium, also upon the south coast, and in a favourable situation
for trade with the interior, was Amathus. The name Amathus has been
connected with "Hamath;"[517] but there is no reason to suppose that the
Hamathites were Phoenicians. Amathus, which Stephen of Byzantium calls
"a most ancient Cyprian city,"[518] was probably among the earliest of
the Phoenician settlements in the island. It lay in the bay formed by
the projection of Cape Gatto from the coast, and, like Citium, looked
to the south-east. Westward and south-westward stretched an extensive
plain, fertile and well-watered, shaded by carob and olive-trees,[519]
whilst towards the north were the rich copper mines from which the
Amathusians derived much of their prosperity. The site has yielded a
considerable amount of Phoenician remains--tombs, sarcophagi, vases,
bowls, pateræ and statuettes.[520] Many of the tombs resemble those
at Idalium; others are stone chambers deeply buried in the earth. The
mimetic art shows Assyrian and Egyptian influence, but is essentially
Phoenician, and of great interest. Further reference will be made to it
in the Chapter on the Æsthetic Art of the Phoenicians.

Still further to the west, in the centre of the bay enclosed between
the promontories of Zeugari and Boosoura, was the colony of Curium, on
a branch of the river Kuras. Curium lay wholly open to the
south-western-gales, but had a long stretch of sandy shore towards the
south-east, on which vessels could be drawn up. The town was situated
on a rocky elevation, 300 feet in height, and was further defended by
a strong wall, a large portion of which may still be traced.[521] The
richest discovery of Phoenician ornaments and objects of art that has
yet been made took place at Curium, where, in the year 1874, General Di
Cesnola happened upon a set of "Treasure Chambers" containing several
hundreds of rings, gems, necklaces, bracelets, armlets, ear-rings,
bowls, basins, jugs, pateræ, &c., in the precious metals, which have
formed the principal material for all recent disquisitions on the true
character and excellency of Phoenician art. Commencing with works of
which the probable date is the fifteenth or sixteenth century B.C.,
and descending at least as far as the best Greek period[522] (B.C.
500-400), embracing, moreover, works which are purely Assyrian, purely
Egyptian, and purely Greek, this collection has yet so predominant a
Phoenician character as to mark Curium, notwithstanding the contrary
assertions of the Greeks themselves,[523] for a thoroughly Phoenician
town. And the history of the place confirms this view, since Curium
sided with Amathus and the Persians in the war of Onesilus.[524] No
doubt, like most of the other Phoenician cities in Cyprus, it was
Hellenised gradually; but there must have been many centuries during
which it was an emporium of Phoenician trade and a centre of Phoenician
influence.

Where the southern coast of Cyprus begins to trend to the north-west,
and a river of some size, the Bocarus or Diorizus, reaches the sea,
stood the Phoenician settlement of Paphos, founded (as was said[525]) by
Cinyras, king of Byblus. Here was one of the most celebrated of all the
temples of Astarté or Ashtoreth,[526] the Phoenician Nature-Goddess; and
here ruled for many centuries the sacerdotal class of the Cinyridæ. The
remains of the temple have been identified, and will be described in a
future chapter. They have the massive character of all early Phoenician
architecture.

Among other Phoenician settlements in Cyprus were, it is probable,
Salamis, Ammochosta (now Famagosta), Tamasus, and Soli. Salamis must be
regarded as originally Phoenician on account of the name, which cannot
be viewed as anything but another form of the Hebrew "Salem," the
alternative name of Jerusalem.[527] Salamis lay on the eastern coast of
the island at the mouth of the main river, the Pediæus. It occupied
the centre of a large bay which looked towards Phoenicia, and would
naturally be the place where the Phoenicians would first land. There is
no natural harbour beyond that afforded by the mouth of the Pediæus,
but a harbour was easily made by throwing out piers into the bay; and of
this, which is now sanded up, the outline may be traced.[528] There
are, however, no remains, either at Salamis or in the immediate
neighbourhood, which can claim to be regarded as Phoenician; and the
glories of the city belong to the history of Greece.

Ammochosta was situated within a few miles of Salamis, towards the
south.[529] Its first appearance in history belongs to the reign of
Esarhaddon (B.C. 680), when we find it in a list of ten Cyprian cities,
each having its own king, who acknowledged for their suzerain the great
monarch of Assyria.[530] Soon afterwards it again occurs among the
cities tributary to Asshur-bani-pal.[531] Otherwise we have no mention
of it in Phoenician times. As Famagosta it was famous in the wars
between the Venetians and the Turks.

Tamasus, or Tamassus, was an inland city, and the chief seat of the
mining operations which the Phoenicians carried on in the island in
search of copper.[532] It lay a few miles to the west of Idalium (Dali),
on the northern flank of the southern mountain chain. The river Pediæus
flowed at its feet. Like Ammochosta, it appears among the Cyprian towns
which in the seventh century B.C. were tributary to the Assyrians.[533]
The site is still insufficiently explored.

Soli lay upon the coast, in the recess of the gulf of Morfou.[534] The
fiction of its foundation by Philocyprus at the suggestion of Solon[535]
is entirely disproved by the occurrence of the name in the Assyrian
lists of Cyprian towns a century before Solon's time. Its sympathies
were with the Phoenician, and not with the Hellenic, population of the
island, as was markedly shown when it joined with Amathus and Citium in
calling to Artaxerxes for help against Evagoras.[536] The city stood on
the left bank of the river Clarius, and covered the northern slope of
a low hill detached from the main range, extending also over the low
ground at the foot of the hill to within a short distance of the shore,
where are to be seen the remains of the ancient harbour. The soil in
the neighbourhood is very rich, and adapted for almost any kind of
cultivation.[537] In the mountains towards the south were prolific veins
of copper.

The northern coast of the island between Capes Cormaciti and S. Andreas
does not seem to have attracted the Phoenicians, though there are some
who regard Lapethus and Cerynia as Phoenician settlements.[538] It is a
rock-bound shore of no very tempting aspect, behind which the mountain
range rises up steeply. Such Phoenician emigrants as held their way
along the Salaminian plain and, rounding Cape S. Andreas, passed into
the channel that separates Cyprus from the mainland, found the coast
upon their right attract them far more than that upon their left, and
formed settlements in Cilicia which ultimately became of considerable
importance. The chief of these was Tars or Tarsus, probably the Tarshish
of Genesis,[539] though not that of the later Books, a Phoenician city,
which has Phoenician characters upon its coins, and worshipped the
supreme Phoenician deity under the title of "Baal Tars," "the Lord of
Tarsus."[540] Tarsus commanded the rich Cilician plain up to the very
roots of Taurus, was watered by the copious stream of the Cydnus, and
had at its mouth a commodious harbour. Excellent timber for shipbuilding
grew on the slopes of the hills bounding the plain, and the river
afforded a ready means of floating such timber down to the sea.
Cleopatra's ships are said to have been derived from the Cilician
forests, which Antony made over to her for the purpose.[541] Other
Phoenician settlements upon the Cilician coast were, it is probable,
Soli, Celenderis, and Nagidus.

Pursuing their way westward, in search of new abodes, the emigrants
would pass along the coast, first of Pamphylia and then of Lycia. In
Pamphylia there is no settlement that can be with confidence assigned
to them; but in Lycia it would seem that they colonised Phaselis,
and perhaps other places. The mountain which rises immediately behind
Phaselis was called "Solyma;"[542] and a very little to the south was
another mountain known as "Phoenicus."[543] Somewhat further to the west
lies the cape still called Cape Phineka,[544] in which the root Phoenix
({phoinix}) is again to be detected. A large district inland was named
Cabalis or Cabalia,[545] or (compare Phoen. and Heb. _gebal_, mod. Arab.
_jebel_) the "mountain" country. Phaselis was situated on a promontory
projecting south-eastward into the Mediterranean,[546] and was reckoned
to have three harbours,[547] which are marked in the accompanying chart.
Of these the principal one was that on the western side of the isthmus,
which was formed by a stone pier carried out for more than two hundred
yards into the sea, and still to be traced under the water.[548]
The other two, which were of smaller size, lay towards the east. The
Phoenicians were probably tempted to make a settlement at the place,
partly by the three ports, partly by the abundance of excellent timber
for shipbuilding which the neighbourhood furnishes. "Between Phaselis
and Cape Avora, a little north of it," says a modern traveller, "a belt
of large and handsome pines borders the shore for some miles."[549]

From Lycia the Asiatic coast westward and north-westward was known as
Caria; and here Phoenician settlements appear to have been numerous. The
entire country was at any rate called Phoenicé by some authors.[550]
But the circumstances do not admit of our pointing out any special
Phoenician settlements in this quarter, which early fell under almost
exclusive Greek influence. There are ample grounds, however, for
believing that the Phoenicians colonised Rhodes at the south-western
angle of Asia Minor, off the Carian coast. According to Conon,[551] the
earliest inhabitants of Rhodes were the Heliades, whom the Phoenicians
expelled. The Phoenicians themselves were at a later date expelled by
the Carians, and the Carians by the Greeks. Ergeias, however, the native
historian, declared[552] that the Phoenicians remained, at any rate in
some parts of the island, until the Greeks drove them out. Ialysus was,
he said, one of their cities. Dictys Cretensis placed Phoenicians,
not only in Ialysus, but in Camirus also.[553] It is the conclusion of
Kenrick that "the Phoenician settlement in Rhodes was the first which
introduced civilisation among the primeval inhabitants, and that they
maintained their ascendancy till the rise of the naval power of the
Carians. These new settlers reduced the Phoenicians to the occupancy
of three principal towns"--i.e. Lindus, Ialysus, and Camirus; but "from
these too they were expelled by the Dorians, or only allowed to remain
at Ialysus as the hereditary priesthood of their native god."[554]
Rhodes is an island about one-fourth the size of Cyprus, with its axis
from the north-east to the south-west. It possesses excellent harbours,
accessible from all quarters,[555] and furnishing a secure shelter in
all weathers. The fertility of the soil is great; and the remarkable
history of the island shows the importance which attaches to it in the
hands of an enterprising people. Turkish apathy has, however, succeeded
in reducing it to insignificance.

The acquisition of Rhodes led the stream of Phoenician colonisation
onwards in two directions, south-westward and north-westward.
South-westward, it passed by way of Carpathus and Casus to Crete,
and then to Cythera; north-westward, by way of Chalcia, Telos, and
Astypalæa, to the Cyclades and Sporades. The presence of the Phoenicians
in Crete is indicated by the haven "Phoenix," where St. Paul's
conductors hoped to have wintered their ship;[556] by the town of
Itanus, which was named after a Phoenician founder,[557] and was a
staple of the purple-trade,[558] and by the existence near port Phoenix
of a town called "Araden." Leben, on the south coast, near Cape
Leo, seems also to have derived its name from the Semitic word for
"lion."[559] Crete, however, does not appear to have been occupied by
the Phoenicians at more than a few points, or for colonising so much
as for trading purposes. They used its southern ports for refitting and
repairing their ships, but did not penetrate into the interior, must
less attempt to take possession of the whole extensive territory. It was
otherwise with the smaller islands. Cythera is said to have derived its
name from the Phoenician who colonised it, and the same is also reported
of Melos.[560] Ios was, we are told, originally called Phoenicé;[561]
Anaphé had borne the name of Membliarus, after one of the companions
of Cadmus;[562] Oliarus, or Antiparos, was colonised from Sidon.[563]
Thera's earliest inhabitants were of the Phoenician race;[564] either
Phoenicians or Carians had, according to Thucydides,[565] colonised in
remote times "the greater part of the islands of the Ænean." There was a
time when probably all the Ægean islands were Phoenician possessions,
or at any rate acknowledged Phoenician influence, and Siphnus gave its
gold, its silver,[566] and its lead,[567] Cythera its shell-fish,[568]
Paros its marble, Melos its sulphur and its alum,[569] Nisyrus its
millstones,[570] and the islands generally their honey,[571] to increase
the wealth and advance the commercial interests of their Phoenician
masters.

From the Sporades and Cyclades the advance was easy to the islands
of the Northern Ægean, Lemnos, Imbrus, Thasos, and Samothrace. The
settlement of the Phoenicians in Thasos is attested by Herodotus, who
says that the Tyrian Hercules (Melkarth) was worshipped there,[572] and
ascribes to the Phoenicians extensive mining operations on the eastern
shores of the island between Ænyra and Coenyra.[573] A Phoenician
occupation of Lemnos, Imbrus, and Samothrace is indicated by the worship
in those islands of the Cabeiri,[574] who were undoubtedly Phoenician
deities. Whether the Phoenicians passed from these islands to the
Thracian mainland, and worked the gold-mines of Mount Pangæus in the
vicinity of Philippi, may perhaps be doubtful, but such seems to have
been the belief of Strabo and Pliny.[575] Strabo also believed that
there had been a Semitic element in the population of Euboea which had
been introduced by Cadmus;[576] and a Phoenician settlement in Boeotia
was the current tradition of the Greek writers upon primitive times,
whether historians or geographers.[577]

The further progress of the Phoenician settlements northward into the
Propontis and the Euxine is a point whereon different opinions may
be entertained. Pronectus, on the Bithynian, and Amastris, on the
Paphlagonian coast, have been numbered among the colonies of the
Phoenicians by some;[578] while others have gone so far as to ascribe to
them the colonisation of the entire countries of Bithynia, Mariandynia,
and Paphlagonia.[579] The story of the Argonauts may fairly be held to
show[580] that Phoenician enterprise early penetrated into the stormy
and inhospitable sea which washes Asia Minor upon the north, and even
reached its deepest eastern recess; but it is one thing to sail into
seas, and, landing where the natives seem friendly, to traffic with
the dwellers on them--it is quite another thing to attempt a permanent
occupation of portions of their coasts. To do so often provokes
hostility, and puts a stop to trade instead of encouraging it. The
Phoenicians may have been content to draw their native products from the
barbarous tribes of Northern Asia Minor and Western Thrace--nay, even
of Southern Scythia--without risking the collisions that might have
followed the establishment of settlements.

As with the Black Sea, so with the Adriatic, the commercial advantages
were not sufficient to tempt the Phoenicians to colonise. From Crete
and Cythera they sent their gaze afar, and fixed it midway in the
Mediterranean, at the western extremity of the eastern basin, on the
shores of Sicily, and the vast projection from the coast of North Africa
which goes forth to meet them. They knew the harbourless character
of the African coast west of Egypt, and the dangers of the Lesser and
Greater Syrtes. They knew the fertility of the Tunisian projection, the
excellence of its harbours, and the prolificness of the large island
that lay directly opposite. Here were the tracts where they might expand
freely, and which would richly repay their occupation of them. It
was before the beginning of the eleventh century B.C.--perhaps
some centuries before--that the colonisation of North Africa by the
Phoenicians was taken in hand:[581] and about the same time, in all
probability, the capes and isles about Sicily were occupied,[582] and
Phoenician influence in a little time extended over the entire island.

In North Africa the first colony planted is said to have been Utica.
Utica was situated a little to the west of Carthage, at the mouth of the
Mejerda or Bagradas river.[583] It stood on a rocky promontory which ran
out into the sea eastward, and partially protected its harbour. At the
opposite extremity, towards the north, ran out another promontory, the
modern Ras Sidi Ali-el-Mekki, while the mouth of the harbour, which
faced to the south-east, was protected by some islands. At present the
deposits of the Mejerda have blocked up almost the whole of this ancient
port, and the rocky eminence upon which the city stood looks down on
three sides upon a broad alluvial plain, through which the Mejerda
pursues a tortuous course to the sea.[584] The remains of the ancient
town, which occupy the promontory and a peninsula projecting from it,
include a necropolis, an amphitheatre, a theatre, a castle, the ruins
of a temple, and some remains of baths; but they have nothing about
them bearing any of the characteristics of Phoenician architecture, and
belong wholly to the Roman or post-Roman period. The neighbourhood is
productive of olives, which yield an excellent oil; and in the hills
towards the south-west are veins of lead, containing a percentage of
silver, which are thought to bear traces of having been worked at a very
early date.[585]

Near Utica was founded, probably not many years later, the settlement
of Hippo-Zaritis, of which the name still seems to linger in the modern
Bizerta. Hippo-Zaritis stood on the west bank of a natural channel,
which united with the sea a considerable lagoon or salt lake, lying
south of the town. The channel was kept open by an irregular flux and
reflux, the water of the lake after the rainy season flowing off into
the sea, and that of the sea, correspondingly, in the dry season passing
into the lake.[586] At the present time the lake is extraordinarily
productive of fish,[587] and the sea outside yields coral;[588] but
otherwise the advantages of the situation are not great.

Two degrees further to the west, on a hill overlooking the sea, and
commanding a lovely prospect over the verdant plain at its base, watered
by numerous streams, was founded the colony of Hippo Regius, memorable
as having been for five-and-thirty years the residence of St. Augustine.
The Phoenicians were probably attracted to the site by the fertility of
the soil, the unfailing supplies of water, and the abundant timber and
rich iron ore of the neighbouring mountains.[589] Hippo Regius is now
Bona, or rather has been replaced by that town, which lies about a mile
and a half north of the ancient Hippo, close upon the coast, in the
fertile tract formed by the soil brought down by the river Seybouse. The
old harbour of Hippo is filled up, and the remains of the ancient city
are scanty; but the lovely gardens and orchards, which render Bona
one of the most agreeable of Algerian towns, sufficiently explain and
justify the Phoenician choice of the site.[590]

In the same bay with Utica, further to the south, and near its inner
recess, was founded, nearly three centuries after Utica, the most
important of all the Phoenician colonies, Carthage. The advantages of
the locality are indicated by the fact that the chief town of Northern
Africa, Tunis, has grown up within a short distance of the site.
It combined the excellences of a sheltered situation, a good soil,
defensible eminences, and harbours which a little art made all that was
to be desired in ancient times and with ancient navies. These basins,
partly natural, partly artificial, still exist;[591] but their
communication with the sea is blocked up, as also is the channel which
connected the military harbour with the harbours of commerce. The
remains of the ancient town are mostly beneath the surface of the soil,
but modern research has uncovered a portion of them, and brought to
light a certain number of ruins which belong probably to the very
earliest period. Among these are walls in the style called "Cyclopian,"
built of a very hard material, and more than thirty-two feet thick,
which seem to have surrounded the ancient Byrsa or citadel, and which
are still in places sixteen feet high.[592] The Roman walls found
emplaced above these are of far inferior strength and solidity. An
extensive necropolis lies north of the ancient town, on the coast near
Cape Camart.

Another early and important Phoenician settlement in these parts was
Hadrumetum or Adrymes,[593] which seems to be represented by the
modern Soûsa. Hadrumetum lay on the eastern side of the great Tunisian
projection, near the southern extremity of a large bay which looks to
the east, and is now known as the Gulf of Hammamet. Its position was
upon the coast at the edge of the vast plain called at present the
"Sahel of Soûsa," which is sandy, but immensely productive of olive oil.
"Millions of olive-trees," it is said, "cover the tract,"[594] and the
present annual exportation amounts to 40,000 hectolitres.[595] Ancient
remains are few, but the Cothon, or circular harbour, may still be
traced, and in the necropolis, which almost wholly encircles the town,
many sepulchral chambers have been found, excavated in the chalk,
closely resembling in their arrangements those of the Phoenician
mainland.

South of Hadrumetum, at no great distance, was Leptis Minor, now
Lemta. The gulf of Hammamet terminates southwards in the promontory of
Monastir, between which and Ras Dimas is a shallow bay looking to the
north-east. Here was the Lesser Leptis, so called to distinguish it
from the larger city of the same name between the Lesser and the Greater
Syrtis; it was, however, a considerable town, as appears from its
remains. These lie along the coast for two miles and a half in Lat. 35º
43´, and include the ruins of an aqueduct, of a theatre, of quays, and
of jetties.[596] The neighbourhood is suited for the cultivation of the
olive.

The Greater Leptis (Leptis Major) lay at a considerable distance from
the Lesser one. Midway in the low African coast which intervenes between
the Tunisian projection and the Cyrenaic one, about Long. 14º 22´ E.
of Greenwich, are ruins, near a village called Lebda, which, it is
generally agreed, mark the site of this ancient city. Leptis Major was
a colony from Sidon, and occupied originally a small promontory, which
projects from the coast in a north-easterly direction, and attains a
moderate elevation above the plain at its base. Towards the mainland
it was defended by a triple line of wall still to be traced, and on
the sea-side by blocks of enormous strength, which are said to resemble
those on the western side of the island of Aradus.[597] In Roman times
the town, under the name of Neapolis,[598] attained a vast size, and
was adorned with magnificent edifices, of which there are still numerous
remains. The neighbourhood is rich in palm-groves and olive-groves,[599]
and the Cinyps region, regarded by Herodotus as the most fertile in
North Africa,[5100] lies at no great distance to the east.

Ten miles east, and a little south of Leptis Minor,[5101] was Thapsus,
a small town, but one of great strength, famous as the scene of Julius
Cæsar's great victory over Cato.[5102] It occupied a position close to
the promontory now known as Ras Dimas, in Lat. 35º 39´, Long. 11º 3´,
and was defended by a triple enclosure, whereof considerable remains
are still existing. The outermost of the three lines appears to have
consisted of little more than a ditch and a palisaded rampart, such as
the Romans were accustomed to throw up whenever they pitched a camp in
their wars; but the second and third were more substantial. The second,
which was about forty yards behind the first, was guarded by a deeper
ditch, from which rose a perpendicular stone wall, battlemented at top.
The third, forty yards further back, resembled the second, but was on
an enlarged scale, and the wall was twenty feet thick.[5103] Such triple
enclosures are thought to be traceable in other Phoenician settlements
also;[5104] but in no case are the remains so perfect as at Thapsus. The
harbour, which lay south of the town, was protected from the prevalent
northern and north-eastern winds by a huge mole or jetty, carried
out originally to a distance of 450 yards from the shore, and still
measuring 325 yards. The foundation consists of piles driven into the
sand, and placed very close together; but the superstructure is a stone
wall thirty-five feet thick, and still rising to a height of ten feet
above the surface of the water.[5105]

It is probable that there were many other early Phoenician settlements
on the North African seaboard; but those already described were
certainly the most important. The fertile coast tract between Hippo
Regius and the straits is likely to have been occupied at various
points from an early period. But none of these small trading settlements
attained to any celebrity; and thus it is unnecessary to go into
particulars respecting them.

In Sicily the permanent Phoenician settlements were chiefly towards the
west and the north-west. They included Motya, Eryx, Panormus (Palermo),
and Soloeis. That the Phoenicians founded Motya, Panormus, and Soloeis
is distinctly stated by Thucydides;[5106] while Eryx is proved to have
been Phoenician by its remains. Motya, situated on a littoral island
less than half a mile from the western shore, in Lat. 38º nearly,
has the remains of a wall built of large stones, uncemented, in the
Phoenician manner,[5107] and carried, like the western wall of Aradus,
so close to the coast as to be washed by the waves. It is said by
Diodorus to have been at one time a most flourishing town.[5108] The
coins have Phoenician legends.[5109]

Eryx lay about seven miles to the north-east of Motya, in a very strong
position. Mount Eryx (now Mount Giuliano), on which it was mainly built,
rises to the height of two thousand feet above the plain,[5110] and,
being encircled by a strong wall, was rendered almost impregnable. The
summit was levelled and turned into a platform, on which was raised the
temple of Astarte or Venus.[5111] An excellent harbour, formed by Cape
Drepanum (now Trapani), lay at its base. There were springs of water
within the walls which yielded an unfailing supply. The walls were of
great strength, and a considerable portion of them is still standing,
and attests the skill of the Phoenician architects. The blocks in the
lower courses are mostly of a large size, some of them six feet long,
or more, and bear in many cases the well-known Phoenician
mason-marks.[5112] They are laid without cement, like those of Aradus
and Sidon, and recall the style of the Aradian builders, but are at once
less massive and arranged with more skill. The breadth of the wall is
about seven feet. At intervals it is flanked by square towers projecting
from it, which are of even greater strength than the curtain between
them, and which were carried up to a greater height. The doorways in
the wall are numerous, and are of a very archaic character, being either
covered in by a single long stone lintel or else terminating in a false
arch.[5113] The commercial advantages of Eryx were twofold, consisting
in the produce of the sea as well as in that of the shore. The shore
is well suited for the cultivation of the vine,[5114] while the
neighbouring sea yields tunny-fish, sponges, and coral.[5115]

Panormus (now Palermo) occupies a site almost unequalled by any other
Mediterranean city, a site which has conferred upon it the title of
"the happy," and has rendered it for above a thousand years the most
important place in the island. "There is no town in Europe which enjoys
a more delicious climate, none so charming to look on from a distance,
none more delightfully situated in a nest of verdure and flowers. Its
superb mountains, with their bare flanks pierced along their base with
grottoes, enclose a marvellous garden, the famous 'Shell of Gold,' in
the midst of which are seen the numerous towers and domes, the fan-like
foliage of the palms, the spreading branches of the pines, and Mount
Reale on the south towering over all with its vast mass of convents and
churches."[5116] The harbour lies open to the north; but the Phoenician
settlers, here as elsewhere, no doubt made artificial ports by means
of piers and moles, which have, however, disappeared on this
much-frequented site, where generation after generation has been
continually at work building and destroying. Panormus has left us no
antique remains beyond its coins, which are abundant, and show that the
native name of the settlement was Mahanath.[5117] Mahanath was situated
about forty miles east of Eryx, on the northern coast of the island.

Solus, or Soloeis, the Soluntum of the Romans (now Solanto), lay on the
eastern side of the promontory (Cape Zafferana) which shuts in the bay
of Palermo on the right. It stood on a slope at the foot of a lofty
hill, overlooking a small round port, and was fortified by a wall of
large squared blocks of stone,[5118] which may be still distinctly
traced. The site has yielded sarcophagi of an unmistakably Phoenician
character,[5119] and other objects of a high antiquity which recall the
Phoenician manner;[5120] but the chief remains belong to the Greco-Roman
times.

The islands in the strait which separates the North African coast from
Sicily were also colonised by the Phoenicians. These were three in
number, Cossura (now Pantellaria), Gaulos (now Gozzo), and Melita (now
Malta). Cossura, the most western of the three, lay about midway in the
channel, but nearer to the African coast, from which it is distant not
more than about thirty-five miles. It is a mass of igneous rock, which
was once a volcano, and which still abounds in hot springs and in
jets of steam.[5121] There was no natural harbour of any size, but the
importance of the position was such that the Phoenicians felt bound to
occupy the island, if only to prevent its occupation by others. The soil
was sterile; but the coins, which are very numerous,[5122] give reason
to suppose that the rocks were in early times rich in copper.

Gaulos (now Gozzo) forms, together with Malta and some islets, an
insular group lying between the eastern part of Sicily and the Lesser
Syrtis. It is situated in Lat. 36º 2´, Long. 12º 10´ nearly, and is
distant from Sicily only about fifty miles. The colonisation of the
island by the Phoenicians, asserted by Diodorus,[5123] is entirely
borne out by the remains, which include a Phoenician inscription of
some length,[5124] coins with Phoenician legends,[5125] and buildings,
believed to be temples, which have Phoenician characteristics.[5126]
Some of the blocks of stone employed in their construction have a length
of nearly twenty feet,[5127] with a width and height proportionate; and
all are put together without cement or mortar of any kind. A conical
stone of the kind known to have been used by the Phoenicians in their
worship was found in one of the temples.[5128] Gaulos had a port which
was reckoned sufficiently commodious, and which lay probably towards the
south-east end of the island.

Melita, or Malta, which lies at a short distance from Gozzo, to the
south-east, is an island of more than double the size, and of far
greater importance. It possesses in La Valetta one of the best harbours,
or rather two of the best harbours, in the world. All the navies of
Europe could anchor comfortably in the "great port" to the east of the
town. The western port is smaller, but is equally well sheltered. Malta
has no natural product of much importance, unless it be the honey, after
which some think that it was named.[5129] The island is almost treeless,
and the light powdery soil gives small promise of fertility. Still, the
actual produce, both in cereals and in green crops, is large; and the
oranges, especially those known as mandarines, are of superior quality.
Malta also produced, in ancient as in modern times, the remarkable breed
of small dogs[5130] which is still held in such high esteem. But the
Phoenician colonisation must have taken place rather on account of the
situation and the harbour than on account of the products.

From Sicily and North Africa the tide of emigration naturally and easily
flowed on into Sardinia, which is distant, from the former about 150
and from the latter about 115 miles. The points chosen by the Phoenician
settlers lay in the more open and level region of the south and the
south-west, and were all enclosed within a line which might be drawn
from the coast a little east of Cagliari to the northern extremity of
the Gulf of Oristano.[5131] The tract includes some mountain groups,
but consists mainly of the long and now marshy plain, called the
"Campidano," which reaches across the island from Cagliari on the
southern to Oristano on the western coast. This plain, if drained, would
be by far the most fertile part of the island; and was in ancient times
exceedingly productive in cereals, as we learn from Diodorus.[5132]
The mountains west of it, especially those about Iglesias, contain
rich veins of copper and of lead, together with a certain quantity of
silver.[5133] Good harbours exist at Cagliari, at Oristano, and between
the island of S. Antioco and the western shore. It was at these points
especially that the Phoenicians made their settlements, the most
important of which were Caralis (Cagliari), Nora, Sulcis, and Tharros.
Caralis, or Cagliari, the present capital, lies at the bottom of a deep
bay looking southwards, and has an excellent harbour, sheltered in
all weathers. There are no remains of Phoenician buildings; but the
neighbourhood yields abundant specimens of Phoenician art in the shape
of tombs, statuettes, vases, bottles, and the like.[5134] Caralis
was probably the first of the settlements made by the Phoenicians in
Sardinia; it would attract them by its harbour, its mines, and the
fertility of its neighbourhood. From Caralis they probably passed to
Nora, which lay on the same bay to the south-west; and from Nora they
rounded the south-western promontory of Sardinia, and established
themselves on the small island now known as the Isola di San Antioco,
where they built a town which they called Sulchis or Sulcis.[5135]
Sulcis has yielded votive tablets of the Phoenician type, tombs, vases,
&c.[5136] The island was productive of lead, and had an excellent
harbour towards the north, and another more open one towards the south.
Finally, mid-way on the west coast, at the northern extremity of the
Gulf of Oristano, the Phoenicians occupied a small promontory which
projects into the sea southwards and there formed a settlement which
became known as Tharras or Tharros.[5137] Very extensive remains, quite
unmistakably Phoenician, including tombs, cippi, statuettes in metal and
clay, weapons, and the like, have been found on the site.[5138]

The passage would have been easy from Sardinia to Corsica, which is
not more than seven miles distant from it; but Corsica seems to have
possessed no attraction for the Phoenicians proper, who were perhaps
deterred from colonising it by its unhealthiness, or by the savagery of
its inhabitants. Or they may have feared to provoke the jealousy of the
Tyrrhenians, off whose coast the island lay, and who, without having
any colonising spirit themselves, disliked the too near approach of
rivals.[5139] At any rate, whatever the cause, it seems to have
been left to the Carthaginians, to bring Corsica within the range of
Phoenician influence; and even the Carthaginians did little more than
hold a few points on its shores as stations for their ships.[5140]

If from Sardinia the Phoenicians ventured on an exploring voyage
westward into the open Mediterranean, a day's sail would bring them
within sight of the eastern Balearic Islands, Minorca and Majorca.
The sierra of Majorca rises to the height of between 3,000 and 4,000
feet,[5141] and can be seen from a great distance. The occupation of the
islands by "the Phoenicians" is asserted by Strabo,[5142] but we cannot
be sure that he does not mean Phoenicians of Africa, i.e. Carthaginians.
Still, on the whole, modern criticism inclines to the belief that, even
before the foundation of Carthage, Phoenician colonisation had made its
way into the Balearic Islands, directly, from the Syrian coast.[5143]
Some resting-places between the middle Mediterranean and Southern Spain
must have been a necessity; and as the North African coast west of Hippo
offered no good harbours, it was necessary to seek them elsewhere.
Now Minorca has in Port Mahon a harbour of almost unsurpassed
excellence,[5144] while in Majorca there are fairly good ports both at
Palma and at Aleudia.[5145] Ivica is less well provided, but there is
one of some size, known as Pormany (i.e. "Porta magna"), on the western
side of the island, and another, much frequented by fishing-boats,[5146]
on the south coast near Ibiza. The productions of the Balearides were
not, perhaps, in the early times of much importance, since the islands
are not, like Sardinia, rich in metals, nor were the inhabitants
sufficiently civilised to furnish food supplies or native manufactures
in any quantity. If, then, the Phoenicians held them, it must have been
altogether for the sake of their harbours.

The colonies of the Mediterranean have now been, all of them, noticed,
excepting those which lay upon the south coast of Spain. Of these the
most important were Malaca (now Malaga), Sex or Sexti, and Abdera
(now Adra). Malaca is said by Strabo to have been "Phoenician in
its plan,"[5147] Abdera is expressly declared by him to have been "a
Phoenician settlement,"[5148] while Sexti has coins which connect it
with early Phoenician legends.[5149] The mountain range above Malaca
was anciently rich in gold-mines;[5150] Sexti was famous for its
salt-pans;[5151] Abdera lay in the neighbourhood of productive
silver-mines.[5152] These were afterwards worked from Carthagena,
which was a late Carthaginian colony, founded by Asdrubal, the uncle
of Hannibal. Malaga and Carthagena (i.e. New-Town) had well-sheltered
harbours; but the ports of Sexti and Abdera were indifferent.

Outside the Straits of Gibraltar, on the shores of the Atlantic, were
two further sets of Phoenician colonies, situated respectively in Africa
and in Spain. The most important of those in Africa were Tingis (now
Tangiers) and Lixus (now Chemmish), but besides these there were a vast
number of staples ({emporia}) without names,[5153] spread along the
coast as far as Cape Non, opposite the Canary Islands. Tingis, a second
Gibraltar, lay nearly opposite that wonderful rock, but a little west
of the narrowest part of the strait. It had a temple of the Tyrian
Hercules, said to have been older than that at Gades;[5154] and
its coins have Phoenician legends.[5155] The town was situated on
a promontory running out to the north-east at the extremity of a
semicircular bay about four miles in width, and thus possessed a harbour
not to be despised, especially on such a coast. The country around
was at once beautiful and fertile, dotted over with palms, and well
calculated for the growth of fruit and vegetables. The Atlas mountains
rose in the background, with their picturesque summits, while in front
were seen the blue Mediterranean, with its crisp waves merging into the
wilder Atlantic, and further off the shores of Spain, lying like a blue
film on the northern horizon.[5156]

While Tingis lay at the junction of the two seas, on the northern
African coast, about five miles east of Cape Spartel, Lixus was situated
on the open Atlantic, forty miles to the south of that cape, on the
West African coast, looking westward towards the ocean. The streams
from Atlas here collect into a considerable river, known now as the
Wady-el-Khous, and anciently as the Lixus.[5157] The estuary of this
river, before reaching the sea, meanders through the plain of
Sidi Oueddar, from time to time returning upon itself, and forming
peninsulas, which are literally almost islands.[5158] From this plain,
between two of the great bends made by the stream, rose in one place
a rocky hill; and here the Phoenicians built their town, protecting it
along the brow of the hill with a strong wall, portions of which still
remain in place.[5159] The blocks are squared, carefully dressed, and
arranged in horizontal courses, without any cement. Some of them are
as much as eleven feet long by six feet or somewhat more in height. The
wall was flanked at the corners by square towers, and formed a sort of
irregular hexagon, above a mile in circumference.[5160] A large building
within the walls seems to have been a temple;[5161] and in it was found
one of those remarkable conical stones which are known to have been
employed in the Phoenician worship. The estuary of the river formed a
tolerably safe harbour for the Phoenician ships, and the valley down
which the river flows gave a ready access into the interior.

In Spain, outside the Pillars of Hercules, the chief Phoenician
settlements were Tartessus, Agadir or Gades, and Belon. Tartessus has
been regarded by some as properly the name of a country rather than a
town;[5162] but the statements of the Greek and Roman geographers to the
contrary are too positive to be disregarded. Tartessus was a town in
the opinions of Scymnus Chius, Strabo, Mela, Pliny, Festus Avienus,
and Pausanias,[5163] who could not be, all of them, mistaken on such a
point. It was a town named from, or at any rate bearing the same
name with, an important river of southern Spain,[5164] probably the
Guadalquivir. It was not Gades, for Scymnus Chius mentions both cities
as existing in his day;[5165] it was not Carteia, for it lay west of
Gades, while Carteia lay east. Probably it occupied, as Strabo thought,
a small island between two arms of the Guadalquivir, and gradually
decayed as Gades rose to importance. It certainly did not exist
in Strabo's time, but five or six centuries earlier it was a most
flourishing place.[5166] If it is the Tarshish of Scripture, its
prosperity and importance must have been even anterior to the time of
Solomon, whose "navy of Tarshish" brought him once in every three years
"gold, and silver, and ivory, and apes, and peacocks."[5167] The south
of Spain was rich in metallic treasures, and yielded gold, silver,
copper, iron, lead, and tin;[5168] trade along the west coast of Africa
would bring in the ivory and apes abundant in that region; while the
birds called in our translation of the Bible "peacocks" may have
been guinea-fowl. The country on either side of the Guadalquivir to
a considerable distance took its name from the city, being called
Tartessis.[5169] It was immensely productive. "The wide plains through
which the Guadalquiver flows produced the finest wheat, yielding an
increase of a hundredfold; the oil and the wine, the growth of the
hills, were equally distinguished for their excellence. The wood was not
less remarkable for its fineness than in modern times, and had a native
colour beautiful without dye."[5170] Nor were the neighbouring sea and
stream less bountiful. The tunny was caught in large quantities off the
coast, shell-fish were abundant and of unusual size,[5171] while huge
eels were sometimes taken by the fishermen, which, when salted, formed
an article of commerce, and were reckoned a delicacy at Athenian
tables.[5172]

Gades is said to have been founded by colonists from Tyre a few years
anterior to the foundation of Utica by the same people.[5173] Utica, as
we have seen, dated from the twelfth century before Christ. The site of
Gades combined all the advantages that the Phoenicians desired for their
colonies. Near the mouth of the Guadalete there detaches itself from the
coast of Spain an island eleven miles in length, known now as the "Isla
de Leon," which is separated from the mainland for half its length by a
narrow but navigable channel, while to this there succeeds on the
north an ample bay, divided into two portions, a northern and a
southern.[5174] The southern, or interior recess, is completely
sheltered from all winds; the northern lies open to the west, but is so
full of creeks, coves, and estuaries as to offer a succession of fairly
good ports, one or other of which would always be accessible. The
southern half of the island is from one to four miles broad; but the
northern consists of a long spit of land running out to the north-west,
in places not more than a furlong in width, but expanding at its
northern extremity to a breadth of nearly two miles. The long isthmus,
and the peninsula in which it ends, have been compared to the stalk and
blossom of a flower.[5175] The flower was the ancient Gades, the modern
Cadiz. The Phoenician occupation of the site is witnessed to by Strabo,
Diodorus, Scymnus Chius, Mela, Pliny, Velleius Paterculus, Ælian and
Arrian,[5176] and is further evidenced by the numerous coins which bear
the legend of "Agadir" in Phoenician characters.[5177] But the place
itself retains no traces of the Phoenician occupation. The famous temple
of Melkarth, with its two bronze pillars in front bearing inscriptions,
has wholly perished, as have all other vestiges of the ancient
buildings. This is the result of the continuous occupation of the site,
which has been built on successively by Phoenicians, Carthaginians,
Romans, Vandals, Moors, and Spaniards. The space is somewhat confined,
and the houses in ancient times were, we are told, closely crowded
together,[5178] as they were at Aradus and Tyre. But the advantages of
the harbour and the productiveness of the vicinity more than made up for
this inconvenience. Gades may have been, as Cadiz is now said to be, "a
mere silver plate set down upon the edge of the sea,"[5179] but it was
the natural centre of an enormous traffic. It had easy access by the
valley of a large stream to the interior with its rich mineral and
vegetable products; it had the command of two seas, the Atlantic and the
Mediterranean; it trained its sailors to affront greater perils than any
which the Mediterranean offers; and it enjoyed naturally by its position
an almost exclusive commerce with the Northern Atlantic, with the
western coasts of Spain and Gaul, with Britain, North Germany, and the
Baltic.

Compared with Gades and Tartessus, Belon was an insignificant
settlement. Its name[5180] and coins[5181] mark it as Phoenician, but
it was not possessed of any special advantages of situation. The modern
Bolonia, a little south of Cadiz, is thought to mark the site.[5182]

We have reached now the limits of Phoenician colonisation towards
the West. While their trade was carried, especially from Gades, into
Luisitania and Gallæcia on the one hand, and into North-western Africa
on the other, reaching onward past these districts to Gaul and Britain,
to the Senegal and Gambia, possibly to the Baltic and the Fortunate
Islands, the range of their settlements was more circumscribed. As,
towards the north-east, though their trade embraced the regions of
Colchis and Thrace, of the Tauric Chersonese, and Southern Scythia,
their settlements were limited to the Ægean and perhaps the Propontis,
so westward they seem to have contented themselves with occupying a few
points of vantage on the Spanish and West African coasts, at no great
distance from the Straits, and from these stations to have sent out
their commercial navies to sweep the seas and gather in the products of
the lands which lay at a greater distance. The actual extent of their
trade will be considered in a later chapter. We have been here concerned
only with their permanent settlements or colonies. These, it has been
seen, extended from the Syrian coast to Cyprus, Cilicia, Rhodes, Crete,
the islands and shores of the Ægean and Propontis, the coasts of Sicily,
Sardinia, and North Africa, the Balearic Islands, Southern Spain, and
North-western Africa as far south as Cape Non. The colonisation was
not so continuous as the Greek, nor was it so extensive in one
direction,[5183] but on the whole it was wider, and it was far bolder
and more adventurous. The Greeks, as a general rule, made their advances
by slow degrees, stealing on from point to point, and having always
friendly cities near at hand, like an army that rests on its supports.
The Phoenicians left long intervals of space between one settlement and
another, boldly planted them on barbarous shores, where they had nothing
to rely on but themselves, and carried them into regions where the
natives were in a state of almost savagery. The commercial motive was
predominant with them, and gave them the courage to plunge into wild
seas and venture themselves among even wilder men. With the Greeks the
motive was generally political, and a safe home was sought, where social
and civil life might have free scope for quiet development.



CHAPTER VI--ARCHITECTURE

     Origin of the architecture in rock dwellings--Second style,
     a combination of the native rock with the ordinary wall--
     Later on, the use of the native rock, discarded--Employment
     of huge blocks of stone in the early walls--Absence of
     cement--Bevelling--Occurrence of Cyclopian walls--Several
     architectural members comprised in one block--Phoenician
     shrines--The Maabed and other shrines at Amrith--Phoenician
     temples--Temple of Paphos--Adjuncts to temples--Museum of
     Golgi--Treasure chambers of Curium--Walls of Phoenician
     towns--Phoenician tombs--Excavated chambers--Chambers built
     of masonry--Groups of chambers--Colonnaded tomb--Sepulchral
     monuments--The Burdj-el-Bezzâk--The Kabr Hiram--The two
     Méghâzil--Tomb with protected entrance--Phoenician
     ornamentation--Pillars and their capitals--Cornices and
     mouldings--Pavements in mosaic and alabaster--False arches--
     Summary.

The architecture of the Phoenicians began with the fashioning of the
native rock--so abundant in all parts of the country where they had
settled themselves--into dwellings, temples, and tombs. The calcareous
limestone, which is the chief geological formation along the Syrian
coast, is worked with great ease; and it contains numerous fissures and
caverns,[61] which a very moderate amount of labour and skill is capable
of converting into fairly comfortable dwelling-places. It is probable
that the first settlers found a refuge for a time in these natural
grottos, which after a while they proceeded to improve and enlarge,
thus obtaining a practical power of dealing with the material, and an
experimental knowledge of its advantages and defects. But it was not
long before these simple dwellings ceased to content them, and they were
seized with an ambition to construct more elaborate edifices--edifices
such as they must have seen in the lands through which they had passed
on their way from the shores of the Persian Gulf to the seaboard of the
Mediterranean. They could not at once, however, divest themselves
of their acquired habits, and consequently, their earliest buildings
continued to have, in part, the character of rock dwellings, while in
part they were constructions of the more ordinary and regular type. The
remains of a dwelling-house at Amrith,[62] the ancient Marathus, offer a
remarkable example of this intermixture of styles. The rock has been cut
away so as to leave standing two parallel walls 33 yards long, 19 feet
high, and 2 1/2 feet thick, which are united by transverse party-walls
formed in the same way.[63] Windows and doorways are cut in the walls,
some square at top, some arched. At the two ends the main walls were
united partly by the native rock, partly by masonry. The northern wall
was built of masonry from the very foundation, the southern consisted
for a portion of its height of the native rock, while above that were
several courses of stones carrying it up further. At Aradus and at
Sidon, similarly, the town walls are formed in many places of native
rock, squared and smoothed, up to a certain height, after which courses
of stone succeed each other in the ordinary fashion. It is as if the
Phoenician builders could not break themselves of an inveterate habit,
and rather than disuse it entirely submitted to an intermixture which
was not without a certain amount of awkwardness.

Another striking example of the mixed system is found at a little
distance from Amrith, in the case of a building which appears to have
been a shrine, tabernacle, or sanctuary. The site is a rocky platform,
about a mile from the shore. Here the rock has been cut away to a
depth varying from three to six yards, and a rectangular court has been
formed, 180 feet long by 156 feet wide, in the centre of which has been
left a single block of the stone, still of one piece with the court,
which rises to a height of ten feet, and forms the basis or pedestal of
the shrine itself.[64] The shrine is built of a certain number of large
blocks, which have been quarried and brought to the spot; it has a stone
roof with an entablature, and attains an elevation above the court of
not less than twenty-seven feet. The dimensions of the shrine are small,
not much exceeding seventeen feet each way.[65]

From constructions of this mixed character the transition was easy
to buildings composed entirely of detached stones put together in the
ordinary manner. Here, what is chiefly remarkable in the Phoenician
architecture is the tendency to employ, especially for the foundations
and lower courses of buildings, enormous blocks. When the immovable
native rock is no longer available, the resource is to make use of vast
masses of stone, as nearly immovable as possible. The most noted example
is that of the substructions which supported the platform whereon stood
the Temple of Jerusalem, which was the work of the Phoenician builders
whom Hiram lent to Solomon.[66] These substructions, laid bare at their
base by the excavations of the Palestine Exploration Fund, are found to
consist of blocks measuring from fifteen to twenty-five feet in length,
and from ten to twelve feet in height. The width of the blocks at the
angles of the wall, where alone it can be measured, is from twelve to
eighteen feet. At the south-west angle no fewer than thirty-one courses
of this massive character have been counted by the recent explorers, who
estimate the weight of the largest block at something above a hundred
tons![67]

A similar method of construction is found to have prevailed at Tyre,
at Sidon, at Aradus, at Byblus, at Leptis Major, at Eryx, at Motya, at
Gaulos, and at Lixus on the West African coast. The blocks employed do
not reach the size of the largest discovered at Jerusalem, but still are
of dimensions greatly exceeding those of most builders, varying, as they
do, from six feet to twenty feet in length, and being often as much as
seven or eight feet in breadth and height. As the building rises, the
stones diminish in size, and the upper courses are often in no way
remarkable. Stones of various sizes are used, and often the courses are
not regular, but one runs into another. A tower in the wall of Eryx is a
good specimen of this kind of construction.[68]

Where the stones are small, mortar has been employed by the builders,
but where they are of a large size, they are merely laid side by side
in rows or courses, without mortar or cement of any kind, and remain
in place through their own mass and weight. In the earliest style of
building the blocks are simply squared,[69] and the wall composed of
them presents a flat and level surface, or one only broken by small and
casual irregularities; but, when their ideas became more advanced, the
Phoenicians preferred that style of masonry which is commonly regarded
as peculiarly, if not exclusively, theirs[610]--the employment of large
blocks with deeply bevelled edges. The bevel is a depression round the
entire side of the stone, which faces outwards, and may be effected
either by a sloping cut which removes the right-angle from the edge, or
by two cuts, one perpendicular and the other horizontal, which take out
from the edge a rectangular bar or plinth. The Phoenician bevelling
is of this latter kind, and is generally accompanied by an artificial
roughening of the surface inside the bevel, which offers a strong
contrast to the smooth and even surface of the bevel itself.[611] The
style is highly ornamental and effective, particularly where a large
space of wall has to be presented to the eye, unbroken by door or
window.[612]

Occasionally, but very rarely, and only (so far as appears) in their
remoter dependencies, the Phoenicians constructed their buildings in
the rude and irregular way, which has been called Cyclopian, employing
unhewn polygonal blocks of various sizes, and fitting them roughly
together. The temples discovered in Malta and Gozzo have masonry of this
description.[613]

A peculiarity in Phoenician architecture, connected with the preference
for enormous blocks over stones of a moderate size, is the frequent
combination in a single mass of distinct architectural members; for
instance, of the shaft and capital of pillars, of entire pediments with
a portion of the wall below them, and of the walls of monuments with the
cornice and architrave. M. Renan has made some strong remarks on this
idiosyncrasy. "In the Grecian style," he says, "the beauty of the wall
is a main object with the architect, and the wall derives its beauty
from the divisions between the stones, which observe symmetrical laws,
and are in agreement with the general lines of the edifice. In a style
of this kind the stones of a wall have, all of them, the same dimension,
and this dimension is determined by the general plan of the building; or
else, as in the kind of work which is called 'pseud-isodomic,' the very
irregularity of the courses is governed by a law of symmetry. The
stones of the architrave, the metopes, the triglyphs, are, all of them,
separate blocks, even when it would have been perfectly easy to have
included in a single block all these various members. Such facts, as one
observes frequently in Syria, where three or four architectural members
are brought out from a single block, would have appeared to the Greeks
monstrous, since they are the negation of all logic."[614]

In cannot be denied that the habit of preferring large to small blocks,
even in monuments of a very moderate size, involved the Phoenician
architects in awkwardnesses and anomalies, which offend a cultivated
taste; but it should be remembered, on the other hand, that massiveness
in the material conduces greatly to stability, and that, in lands
where earthquakes are frequent, as they are along all the Mediterranean
shores, not many monuments would have survived the lapse of three
thousand years had the material employed been of a less substantial and
solid character.

Among the Phoenician constructions, of which it is possible to give some
account at the present day, without drawing greatly on the imagination,
are their shrines, their temples, the walls of their towns, and, above
all, their tombs. Recent researches in Phoenicia Proper, in Cyprus,
Sicily, Africa, and the smaller Mediterranean islands, have brought
to light numerous remains previously unknown; the few previously known
remains have been carefully examined, measured, and in some cases
photographed; and the results have been made accessible to the student
in numerous well-illustrated publications. When Movers and Kenrick
published their valuable works on the history of Phoenicia, and
the general characteristics of the Phoenician people, it was
quite impossible to do more than form conjectures concerning their
architecture from a few coins, and a few descriptions in ancient
writers. It is now a matter of comparatively little difficulty to set
before the public descriptions and representations which, if they still
leave something to be desired in the way of completeness, are
accurate, so far as they go, and will give a tolerably fair idea of the
architectural genius of the people.

One very complete and two ruined shrines have been found in Phoenicia
Proper, in positions and of a character which, in the judgment of the
best antiquaries, mark them as the work of the ancient people. All
these are situated on the mainland, near the site of Marathus, which lay
nearly opposite the island of Ruad, the ancient Aradus. The shrine
which is complete, or almost complete, bears the name of "the Maabed" or
"Temple." Its central position, in the middle of an excavated court,
and its mixed construction, partly of native rock and partly of quarried
stone, have been already described. It remains to give an account of the
shrine or tabernacle itself.[615] This is emplaced upon the mass of rock
left to receive it midway in the court, and is a sort of cell, closed
in on three sides by walls, and open on one side, towards the north.
The cell is formed of four quarried blocks, which are laid one over the
other. These are nearly of the same size, and similarly shaped, each of
them enclosing the cell on three sides, towards the east, the south,
and the west. The fourth, which is larger than any of the others,
constitutes the roof. It is a massive stone, carefully cut, which
projects considerably in front of the rest of the building, and is
ornamented towards the top with a cornice and string-course, extending
along the four sides.[616] Internally the roof is scooped into a sort of
shallow vault. The height of the shrine proper is about seventeen feet,
and the elevation of the entire structure above the court in which it
stands appears to be about twenty-seven feet. M. Renan conjectures that
the projecting portion of the roof had originally the support of two
pillars, which may have been either of wood, of stone, or of metal, and
notes that there are two holes in the basement stone, into which the
bottoms of the pillars were probably inserted.[617] He imagines that the
court was once enclosed completely by the construction of a wall at its
northern end, and that the water from a spring, which still rises within
the enclosure, was allowed to overflow the entire space, so that the
shrine looked down upon a basin or shallow lake and glassed itself in
the waters.[618] An image of a deity may have stood in the cell under
the roof, dimly visible to the worshipper between the two porch pillars.

The two ruined tabernacles lie at no great distance from the complete
one, which has just been described. One of them is so injured that its
plan is irrecoverable; but M. Renan carefully collected and measured
the fragments of the other, and thus obtained sufficient data for its
restoration.[619] It was, he believes, a monolithic chamber, with a roof
slightly vaulted, like that of the _Maabed_, having a length of eight
feet, a breadth of five, and a height of about ten feet, and ornamented
externally with a very peculiar cornice. This consisted of a series of
carvings, representing the fore part of an uræus or basilisk serpent,
uprearing itself against the wall of the shrine, which were continued
along the entire front of the chamber. There was also an internal
ornamentation of the roof, consisting of a winged circle of an Egyptian
character--a favourite subject with the Phoenician artists[620]--the
circle having an uræus erect on either side of it, and also of another
winged figure which appeared to represent an eagle.[621] The monolithic
chamber was emplaced upon a block of stone, ten feet in length and
breadth, and six feet in height, which itself stood upon a much smaller
stone, and overhung it on all sides. A flight of six steps, cut in the
upper block at either side, gave access to the chamber, which, however,
as it stood in a pool of water, must have been approached by a boat.
The entire height of the shrine above the water must have been about
eighteen feet.

Some other ruined shrines have been found in the more distant of the
Phoenician settlements, and representations of them are common upon the
_stelæ_, set up in temples as votive offerings. On these last the uræus
cornice is frequently repeated, and the figure of a goddess sometimes
appears, standing between the pillars which support the front of the
shrine.[622] There is a decided resemblance between the Phoenician
shrines and the small Egyptian temples, which have been called
_mammeisi_, the chief difference being that the latter are for the most
part peristylar.[623] M. Renan says of the _Maabed_, or main shrine
at Amrith:--"L'aspect général de l'édifice est Egyptian, mais avec une
certaine part d'originalité. Le bandeau et la corniche sur les quatre
côtés de la stalle supériere en sont le seul ornement. Cette simplicité,
cette sévérité de style, jointes à l'idée de force et de puissance
qu'éveillent les dimensions énormes des matériaux employés, sont des
caractères que nous avons déjà signalés dans les monumens funéraires
d'Amrith."[624]

From the shrines of the Phoenicians we may now pass to their temples, of
which, however, the remains are, unfortunately, exceedingly scanty.
Of real temples, as distinct from shrines, Phoenicia Proper does not
present to us so much as a single specimen. To obtain any idea of them,
we must quit the mother country, and betake ourselves to the colonies,
especially to those island colonies which have been less subjected than
the mainland to the destructive ravages of barbarous conquerors, and the
iconoclasm of fanatical populations. It is especially in Cyprus that we
meet with extensive remains, which, if not so instructive as might have
been wished, yet give us some important and interesting information.

The temple of Paphos, according to the measurements of General Di
Cesnola,[625] was a rectangular building, 221 feet long by 167 feet
wide, built along its lower corners of large blocks of stone, but
probably continued above in an inferior material, either wood or unbaked
brick.[626] The four corner-stones are still standing in their proper
places, and give the dimensions without a possibility of mistake.
Nothing is known of the internal arrangements, unless we attach credit
to the views of the savant Gerhard, who, in the early years of the
present century, constructed a plan from the reports of travellers,
in which he divided the building into a nave and two aisles, with an
ante-chapel in front, and a sacrarium at the further extremity.[627] M.
Gerhard also added, beyond the sacrarium, an apse, of which General Di
Cesnola found no traces, but which may possibly have disappeared in
the course of the sixty years which separated the observations of M.
Gerhard's informants from the researches of the later traveller.
The arrangement into a nave and two aisles is, to a certain extent,
confirmed by some of the later Cyprian coins, which certainly represent
Cyprian temples, and probably the temple of Paphos.[628] The floor of
the temple was, in part at any rate, covered with mosaic.[629]

This large building, which extended over an area of 36,800 square feet,
was emplaced within a sacred court, surrounded by a _peribolus_, or wall
of enclosure, built of even larger blocks than the temple itself,
and entered by at least one huge doorway. The width of this entrance,
situated near a corner of the western wall, was nearly eighteen
feet.[630] On one side of it were found still fixed in the wall the
sockets for the bolts on which the door swung, in length six inches, and
of proportionate width and depth. The peribolus was rectangular, like
the temple, and was built in lines parallel to it. The longer sides
measured 690 and the shorter 530 feet. One block, which was of blue
granite and must have come either from Asia Minor or from Egypt,
measured fifteen feet ten inches in length, with a width of seven feet
eleven inches, and a depth of two feet five inches.[631] It is thought
that the court was probably surrounded by a colonnade or cloister,[632]
though no traces have been at present observed either of the pillars
which must have supported such a cloister or of the rafters which must
have formed its roof. Ponds,[633] fountains, shrubberies, gardens,
groves of trees, probably covered the open space between the cloister
and the temple, while well-shaded walks led across it from the gates of
the enclosure to those of the sanctuary.

If we allow ourselves to indulge our fancy for a brief space, and
to complete the temple according to the idea which the coins above
represented naturally suggest, we may suppose that it did, in fact,
consist of a nave, two aisles, and a cell, or "holy of holies," the
nave being of superior height to the aisles, and rising in front into a
handsome façade, like the western end of a cathedral flanked by towers.
Through the open doorway between the towers might be seen dimly the
sacred cone or pillar which was emblematic of deity; on either side the
eye caught the ends of the aisles, not more than half the height of the
towers, and each crowned with a strongly projecting cornice, perhaps
ornamented with a row of uræi. In front of the two aisles, standing by
themselves, were twin columns, like Jachin and Boaz before the Temple
of Solomon. The aisles were certainly roofed: whether the nave also was
covered in, or whether, like the Greek hypæthral temples, it lay open
to the blue vault of heaven, is perhaps doubtful. The walls of the
buildings, after a few courses of hewn stone, were probably of wood,
perhaps of cedar, enriched with the precious metals, and the pavement
was adorned with a mosaic of many colours, "white, yellow, red, brown,
and rose."[634] Outside the temple was a mass of verdure. "In the sacred
precinct, and in its dependencies, all breathed of voluptuousness, all
spoke to the senses. The air of the place was full of perfumes, full of
soft and caressing sounds. There was the murmur of rills which flowed
over a carpet of flowers; there was, in the foliage above, the song of
the nightingale, and the prolonged and tender cooing of the dove; there
were, in the groves around, the tones of the flute, the instrument which
sounds the call to pleasure, and summons to the banquet chamber the
festive procession and the bridal train. Beneath the shelter of tents,
or of light booths with walls formed by the skilful interlacing of a
green mass of boughs, through which the myrtle and the laurel spread
their odours, dwelt the fair slaves of the goddess, those whom Pindar
called, in the drinking-song which he composed for Theoxenus of Corinth,
'the handmaids of persuasion.'"[635] Here and there in the precincts,
sacred processions took their prescribed way; ablutions were performed;
victims led up to the temple; votive offerings hung on the trees; festal
dances, it may be, performed; while in the cloister which skirted the
peribolus, dealers in shrines and images chaffered with their customers,
erotic poets sang their lays, lovers whispered, fortune-tellers plied
their trade, and a throng of pilgrims walked lazily along, or sat on the
ground, breathing in the soft, moist air, feasting their eyes upon the
beauty of upspringing fountain and flowering shrub, and lofty tree,
while their ears drank in the cadences of the falling waters, the song
of the birds, and the gay music which floated lightly on the summer
breeze.

Phoenician temples had sometimes adjuncts, as cathedrals have their
chapter-houses and muniment rooms, which were at once interesting and
important. There has been discovered at Athiénau in Cyprus--the
supposed site of Golgi--a ruined edifice, which some have taken for
a temple,[636] but which appears to have been rather a repository for
votive offerings, a sort of ecclesiastical museum. A picture of the
edifice, as he conceives it to have stood in its original condition,
has been drawn by one of its earliest visitants. "The building," he
says,[637] "was constructed of sun-dried bricks, forming four walls, the
base of which rested upon a substruction of solid stone-work. The walls
were covered, as are the houses of the Cypriot peasants of to-day, with
a stucco which was either white or coloured, and which was impenetrable
by rain. Wooden pillars with stone capitals supported internally a
pointed roof, which sloped at a low angle. It formed thus a sort of
terrace, like the roofs that we see in Cyprus at the present day. This
roof was composed of a number of wooden rafters placed very near each
other, above which was spread a layer of rushes and coarse mats, covered
with a thick bed of earth well pressed together, equally effective
against the entrance of moisture and against the sun's rays. Externally
the building must have presented a very simple appearance. In the
interior, which received no light except from the wide doorways in the
walls, an immovable and silent crowd of figures in stone, with features
and garments made more striking by the employment of paint, surrounded,
as with a perpetual worship, the mystic cone. Stone lamps, shaped like
diminutive temples, illumined in the corners the grinning _ex-votos_
which hung upon the walls, and the curious pictures with which they were
accompanied. Grotesque bas-reliefs adorned the circuit of the edifice,
where the slanting light was reflected from the white and polished
pavement-stones."[638] In length and breadth the chamber measured sixty
feet by thirty; the thickness of the basement wall was three feet.[639]
Midway between the side walls stood three rows of large square
pedestals--regularly spaced, and dividing the interior into four vistas
or avenues, which some critics regard as bases for statues, and some
as supports for the pillars which sustained the roof.[640] Two stone
capitals of pillars were found within the area of the chamber; and it is
conjectured that the entire disappearance of the shafts may be accounted
for by their having been of wood,[641] the employment of wooden shafts
with stone bases and capitals being common in Cyprus at the present
time.[642] Against each of the four walls was a row of pedestals
touching each other, which had certainly been bases for statues, since
the statues were found lying, mostly broken, in front of them. The
figures varied greatly in size, some being colossal, others mere
statuettes. Most probably all were votive offerings, presented by those
who imagined that they had been helped by the god of the temple to which
the chamber belonged, as an indication of their gratitude. The number
of pedestals found along one of the walls was seventy-two,[643] and the
original number must have been at least three times as great.

Another Cyprian temple, situated at Curium, not far from Paphos,
contained a very remarkable crypt, which appears to have been used as a
treasure-house.[644] It was entered by means of a flight of steps which
conducted to a low and narrow passage cut in the rock, and giving access
to a set of three similar semi-circular chambers, excavated side by
side, and separated one from another by doors. Beyond the third of
these, and at right angles to it, was a fourth somewhat smaller chamber,
which gave upon a second passage that it was found impossible to
explore.[645] The three principal chambers were fourteen feet six inches
in height, twenty-three feet long, and twenty-one feet broad. The
fourth was a little smaller,[646] and shaped somewhat irregularly. All
contained plate and jewels of extraordinary richness, and often of
rare workmanship. "The treasure found," says M. Perrot, "surpassed all
expectation, and even all hope. Never had such a discovery been made of
such a collection of precious articles, where the material was of the
richest, and the specimens of different styles most curious. There were
many bracelets of massive gold, and among them two which weighed a pound
apiece, and several others of a weight not much short of this. Gold
was met with in profusion under all manner of forms--finger-rings,
ear-rings, amulets, flasks, small bottles, hair-pins, heavy necklaces.
Silver was found in even greater abundance, both in ornaments and in
vessels; besides which there were articles in electrum, which is
an amalgam of silver with gold. Among the stones met with were
rock-crystals, carnelians, onyxes, agates, and other hard stones of
every variety; and further there were paste jewels, cylinders in soft
stone, statuettes in burnt clay, earthen vases, and also many objects
in bronze, as lamps, tripods, candelabra, chairs, vases, arms, &c. &c. A
certain amount of order reigned in the repository. The precious objects
in gold were collected together principally in the first chamber. The
second contained the silver vessels, which were arranged along a sort
of shelf cut in the rock, at the height of about eight inches above the
floor. Unfortunately the oxydation of these vessels had proceeded to
such lengths, that only a very small number could be extracted from
the mass, which for the most part crumbled into dust at the touch of
a finger. The third chamber held lamps and fibulæ in bronze, vases in
alabaster, and, above all, the groups and vessels modelled in clay;
while the fourth was the repository of the utensils in bronze, and of
a certain number which were either in copper or in iron. In the further
passage, which was not completely explored, there were nevertheless
found seven kettles in bronze."[647]

In the construction of the walls of their towns, especially of those
which were the most ancient, the feature which is most striking at
first sight is that on which some remarks have already been made, the
attachment of the lower portion of the wall to the soil from which the
wall springs. At Sidon, at Aradus, and at Semar-Gebeil, the _enceinte_
which protected the town consisted, up to the height of ten or twelve
feet, of native rock, cut to a perpendicular face, upon which were
emplaced several courses of hewn stone. The principle adopted was to
utilise the rock as far as possible, and then to supplement what was
wanting by a superstructure of masonry. Large blocks of stone, shaped to
fit the upper surface of the rock, were laid upon it, generally endways,
that is, with their smallest surface outwards, their length forming the
thickness of the wall, which was sometimes as much as fifteen or twenty
feet.[648] The massive blocks, once placed, were almost immovable, and
it was considered enough to lay them side by side, without clamps or
mortar, since their own weight kept them in place. It was not thought
of much consequence whether the joints of the courses coincided or not;
though care was taken that, if a coincidence occurred in two courses,
it should not be repeated in the third.[649] The elevation of walls
does not seem to have often exceeded from thirty to forty feet, though
Diodorus makes the walls of Carthage sixty feet high,[650] and Arrian
gives to the wall of Tyre which faced the continent the extraordinary
height of a hundred and fifty feet.[651]

If we may generalise from the most perfect specimens of Phoenician
town-walls that are still fairly traceable, as those of Eryx and
Lixus,[652] we may lay it down, that such walls were usually flanked,
at irregular intervals, by square or rectangular towers, which projected
considerably beyond the line of the curtain. The towers were of a more
massive construction than the wall itself, especially in the lower
portion, where vast blocks were common. The wall was also broken at
intervals by gates, some of which were posterns, either arched or
covered in by flat stones,[653] while others were of larger dimensions,
and were protected, on one side or on both, by bastions. The sites of
towns were commonly eminences, and the line of the walls followed
the irregularities of the ground, crowning the slopes where they were
steepest. Sometimes, as at Carthage and Thapsus, where the wall had to
be carried across a flat space, the wall of defence was doubled, or even
tripled. The restorations of Daux[654] contain, no doubt, a good deal
that is fanciful; but they give, probably, a fair idea of the general
character of the so-called "triple wall" of certain Phoenician cities.
The outer line, or {proteikhisma}, was little more than an earthwork,
consisting of a ditch, with the earth from it thrown up inwards, crowned
perhaps at top with a breastwork of masonry. The second line was far
more elaborate. There was first a ditch deeper than the outer one, while
behind this rose a perpendicular battlemented wall to the height, from
the bottom of the ditch, of nearly forty feet. In the thickness of
the wall, which was not much less than the height, were chambers for
magazines and cisterns, while along the top, behind the parapet, ran
a platform, from which the defenders discharged their arrows and other
missiles against the enemy. Further back, at the distance of about
thirty yards, came the main line of defence, which in general character
resembled the second, but was loftier and stronger. There was, first,
a third ditch (or moat, if water could be introduced), and behind it a
wall thirty-five feet thick and sixty feet high, pierced by two rows of
embrasures from which arrows could be discharged, and having a triple
platform for the defenders. This wall was kept entirely clear of the
houses of the town, and the different storeys could be reached by
sloping ascents or internal staircases. It was flanked at intervals
by square towers, somewhat higher than the walls, which projected
sufficiently for the defenders to enfilade the assailants when they
approached the base of the curtain.

The tombs of the Phoenicians were, most usually, underground
constructions, either simple excavations in the rock, or subterranean
chambers, built of hewn stone, at the bottom of sloping passages, or
perpendicular shafts, which gave access to them. The simpler kinds bear
a close resemblance to the sepulchres of the Jews. A chamber is opened
in the rock, in the sides of which are hollowed out, horizontally,
a number of caverns or _loculi_, each one intended to receive a
corpse.[655] If more space is needed, a passage is made from one of the
sides of the chamber to a certain distance, and then a second chamber is
excavated, and more _loculi_ are formed; and the process is repeated as
often as necessary. But chambers thus excavated were apt to collapse,
especially if the rock was of the soft and friable nature so common in
Phoenicia Proper and in Cyprus; on which account, in such soils, the
second kind of tomb was preferred, sepulchural chambers being solidly
built,[656] either singly or in groups, each made to hold a certain
number of sarcophagi. The most remarkable tombs of this class are those
found at Amathus, on the south coast of Cyprus, by General Di Cesnola.
They lie at the depth of from forty to fifty-five feet below the
surface of the soil,[657] and are square chambers, built of huge stones,
carefully squared, some of them twenty feet in length, nine in breadth,
and three in thickness, and even averaging a length of fourteen
feet.[658] Two shapes occur. Some of the tombs are almost perfect cubes,
the upright walls rising to a height of twelve or fifteen feet, and
being then covered in by three or four long slabs of stone. Others
resemble huts, having a gable at either end, and a sloping roof formed
of slabs which meet and support each other. A squared doorway, from five
to six feet in height, gives entrance to the tombs at one end, and
has for ornament a fourfold fillet, which surrounds it on three sides.
Otherwise, ornamentation is absent, the stonework of both walls and
roofs being absolutely plain and bare. Internally the chambers present
the same naked appearance, walls and roofs being equally plain, and
the floor paved with oblong slabs of stone, about a foot and a half in
length.

The grouped chambers are of several kinds. Sometimes there are two
chambers only, one opening directly into the other, and not always
similarly roofed. Occasionally, groups of three are found, and there are
examples of groups of four. In these instances, the exact symmetry is
remarkable. A single doorway of the usual character gives entrance to a
nearly square chamber, the exact dimensions of which are thirteen feet
four inches by twelve feet two inches. Midway in the side and opposite
walls are three other doorways, each of them three foot six inches in
width, which lead into exactly similar square chambers, having a length
of twelve feet two inches, and a width of ten feet nine.[659]

Chambers of the character here described contain in almost every
instance stone sarcophagi. These are ranged along the walls, at a little
distance from them. The chambers commonly contain two or three; but
sometimes one sarcophagus is superimposed upon another, and in this way
the number occasionally reaches to six.[660] Mostly, the sarcophagi are
plain, or nearly so, but are covered over with a sloping lid. Sometimes,
however, they are elaborately carved, and constitute works of art,
which are of the highest value. An account will be given of the most
remarkable of these objects in the chapter on Phoenician Æsthetic Art.

Another distinct type of Phoenician tomb is that which is peculiar
to Nea-Paphos, and which is thought by some to have been employed
exclusively by the High Priests of the great temple there.[661] The
peculiarity of these burial-places is, that the sepulchral chambers are
adjuncts of a quadrangular court open to the sky, and surrounded by
a colonnade supported on pillars.[662] The court, the colonnade, the
pillars, the entablature, and the chambers, with their niches for the
dead, are all equally cut out of the rock, as well as the passage by
which the court is entered, at one corner of the quadrangle. The
columns are either square or rounded, the rounded ones having capitals
resembling those of the Doric order; and the entablature is also a
rough imitation of the Doric triglyphs, and guttæ. The entrances to the
sepulchral chambers are under the colonnade, behind the pillars;[663]
and the chambers contain, beside niches, a certain number of bases for
sarcophagi, but no sarcophagi have been found in them. The quadrangle is
of a small size, not more than about eighteen feet each way.

Thus far we have described that portion of the sepulchral architecture
of the Phoenicians which is most hidden from sight, lying, as it does,
beneath the surface of the soil. With tombs of this quiet character the
Phoenicians were ordinarily contented. They were not, however, wholly
devoid of those feelings with respect to their dead which have caused
the erection, in most parts of the world, of sepulchral monuments
intended to attract the eye, and to hand on to later ages the memory of
the departed. Well acquainted with Egypt, they could not but have been
aware from the earliest times of those massive piles which the vanity
of Egyptian monarchs had raised up for their own glorification on the
western side of the valley of the Nile; nor in later days could
such monuments have escaped their notice as the Mausoleum of
Halicarnassus[664] or the Tomb of the Maccabees.[665] Accordingly, we
find them, at a very remote period, not merely anxious to inter their
dead decently and carefully in rock tombs or subterranean chambers of
massive stone, but also wishful upon occasions to attract attention
to the last resting-places of their great men, by constructions
which showed themselves above the ground, and had some architectural
pretensions. One of these, situated near Amrith, the ancient Marathus,
is a very curious and peculiar structure. It is known at the present day
as the Burdj-el-Bezzâk,[666] and was evidently constructed to be, like
the pyramids, at once a monument and a tomb. It is an edifice, built of
large blocks of stone, and rising to a height of thirty-two feet
above the plain at its base, so contrived as to contain two sepulchral
chambers, the one over the other. Externally, the monument is plain
almost to rudeness, being little more than a cubic mass, broken only by
two doorways, and having for its sole ornament a projecting cornice in
front. Internally, there is more art and contrivance. The chambers are
very carefully constructed, and contain a number of niches intended to
receive sarcophagi, the lower having accommodation for three and the
upper for twelve bodies.[667] It is thought that originally the cubic
mass, which is all that now remains, was surmounted by a pyramidical
roof, many stones from which were found by M. Renan among the débris
that were scattered around. The height of the monument was thus
increased by perhaps one-half, and did not fall much short of sixty-five
feet.[668] The cornice, which is now seen on one side only, and which is
there imperfect, originally, no doubt, encircled the entire edifice.

The other constructions erected by the Phoenicians to mark the
resting-places of their dead are simple monuments erected near, and
generally over, the tombs in which the bodies are interred. The best
known is probably that in the vicinity of Tyre, which the natives call
the Kabr-Hiram, or "Tomb of Hiram."[669] No great importance can be
attached to this name, which appears to be a purely modern one;[670] but
the monument is undoubtedly ancient, perhaps as ancient as any other
in Phoenicia.[671] It is composed of eight courses of huge stones
superimposed one upon another,[672] the blocks having in some cases a
length of eleven or twelve feet, with a breadth of seven or eight, and a
depth of three feet. The courses retreat slightly, with the exception of
the fifth, which projects considerably beyond the line of the fourth and
still more beyond that of the sixth. The whole effect is less that of a
pyramid than of a stelé or pillar, the width at top being not very much
smaller than that at the base. The monument is a solid mass, and is not
a square but a rectangular oblong, the broader sides measuring fourteen
feet and the narrower about eight feet six inches. Two out of the eight
courses are of the nature of substructions, being supplemental to the
rock, which supplies their place in part; and it is only recently
that they have been brought to light by means of excavation. Hence the
earlier travellers speak of the monument as having no more than
six courses. The present height above the soil is a little short of
twenty-five feet. A flight of steps cut in the rock leads down from
the monument to a sepulchral chamber, which, however, contains neither
sepulchral niche nor sarcophagus.

But the most striking of the Phoenician sepulchral monuments are to
be found in the north of Phoenicia, and not in the south, in the
neighbourhood, not of Tyre and Sidon, but of Marathus and Aradus. Two of
them, known as the Méghâzil,[673] form a group which is very remarkable,
and which, if we may trust the restoration of M. Thobois,[674] must have
had considerable architectural merit. Situated very near each other,
on the culminating point of a great plateau of rock, they dominate the
country far and wide, and attract the eye from a long distance. One
seems to have been in much simpler and better taste than the other.
M. Renan calls it "a real masterpiece, in respect of proportion, of
elegance, and of majesty."[675] It is built altogether in three stages.
First, there is a circular basement story flanked by four figures of
lions, attached to the wall behind them, and only showing in front of it
their heads, their shoulders, and their fore paws. This basement,
which has a height of between seven and eight feet, is surmounted by a
cylindrical tower in two stages, the lower stage measuring fourteen and
the upper, which is domed, ten feet. The basement is composed of four
great stones, the entire tower above it is one huge monolith. An unusual
and very effective ornamentation crowns both stages of the tower,
consisting of a series of gradines at top with square machicolations
below.

The other monument of the pair, distant about twenty feet from the one
already described, is architecturally far less happy. It is composed
of four members, viz. a low plinth for base, above this a rectangular
pedestal, surmounted by a strong band or cornice; next, a monolithic
cylinder, without ornaments, which contracts slightly as it ascends;
and, lastly, a pentagonal pyramid at the top. The pedestal is
exceedingly rough and unfinished; generally, the workmanship is rude,
and the different members do not assort well one with another. Still it
would seem that the two monuments belong to the same age and are parts
of the same plan.[676] Their lines are parallel, as are those of the
subterranean apartments which they cover, and they stand within a
single enclosure. Whether the same architect designed them both it is
impossible to determine, but if so he must have been one of the class of
artists who have sometimes happy and sometimes unhappy inspirations.

Both the Méghâzil are superimposed upon subterranean chambers,
containing niches for bodies, and reached by a flight of steps cut in
the rock, the entrance to which is at some little distance from the
monuments.[677] But there is nothing at all striking or peculiar in the
chambers, which are without ornament of any kind.

Another tomb, in the vicinity of the Méghâzil, is remarkable chiefly
for the care taken to shelter and protect the entrance to the set of
chambers which it covers.[678] The monument is a simple one. A square
monolith, crowned by a strong cornice, stands upon a base consisting of
two steps. Above the cornice is another monolith, the lower part squared
and the upper shaped into a pyramid. The upper part of the pyramid has
crumbled away, but enough remains to show the angle of the slope, and to
indicate for the original erection a height of about twenty feet. At the
distance of about ten yards from the base of the monument is a second
erection, consisting of two tiers of large stones, which roof in the
entrance to a flight of eighteen steps. These steps lead downwards to
a sloping passage, in which are sepulchral niches, and thence into
two chambers, the inner one of which is almost directly under the
main monument. Probably, a block of stone, movable but removed with
difficulty, originally closed the entrance at the point where the steps
begin. This stone ordinarily prevented ingress, but when a fresh corpse
was to be admitted, or funeral ceremonies were to be performed in one of
the chambers, it could be "rolled"[679] or dragged away.

Phoenician architects were, as a general rule, exceedingly sparing in
the use of ornament. Neither the pillar, nor the arch, much less the
vault, was a feature in their principal buildings, which affected
straight lines, right-angles, and a massive construction, based upon the
Egyptian. The pillar came ultimately to be adopted, to a certain extent,
from the Greeks; but only the simplest forms, the Doric and Ionic, were
in use, if we except certain barbarous types which the people invented
for themselves. The true arch was scarcely known in Phoenicia, at any
rate till Roman times, though false arches were not infrequent in
the gateways of towns and the doors of houses.[680] The external
ornamentation of buildings was chiefly by cornices of various kinds, by
basement mouldings, by carvings about doorways,[681] by hemispherical or
pyramidical roofs, and by the use of bevelled stones in the walls. The
employment of animal forms in external decoration was exceedingly rare;
and the half lions of the circular Méghâzil of Amrith are almost unique.

In internal ornamentation there was greater variety. Pavements were
sometimes of mosaic, and glowed with various colours;[682] sometimes
they were of alabaster slabs elaborately patterned. Alabaster slabs
also, it is probable, adorned the walls of temples and houses, excepting
where woodwork was employed, as in the Temple of Solomon. There is
much richness and beauty in many of the slabs now in the Phoenician
collection of the Louvre,[683] especially in those which exhibit the
forms of sphinxes or griffins. Many of the patterns most affected are
markedly Assyrian in character, as the rosette, the palm-head, the
intertwined ribbons, and the rows of gradines which occur so frequently.
Even the Sphinxes are rather Assyrian than Egyptian in character; and
exhibit the recurved wings, which are never found in the valley of the
Nile. In almost all the forms employed there is a modification of the
original type, sufficient to show that the Phoenician artist did not
care merely to reproduce.

On the whole the architecture must be pronounced wanting in originality
and in a refined taste. What M. Renan says of Phoenician art in
general[684] is especially true of Phoenician architecture. "Phoenician
art, which issued, as it would seem, originally from mere troglodytism,
was, from the time when it arrived at the need of ornament, essentially
an art of imitation. That art was, above all, industrial; that art never
raised itself for its great public monuments to a style that was at
once elegant and durable. The origin of Phoenician architecture was the
excavated rock, not the column, as was the case with the Greeks. The
wall replaced the excavated rock after a time, but without wholly
losing its character. There is nothing that leads us to believe that
the Phoenicians knew how to construct a keyed vault. The monolithic
principle which dominated the Phoenician and Syrian art, even after it
had taken Greek art for its model, is the exact contrary of the Hellenic
style. Greek architecture starts from the principle of employing small
stones, and proclaims the principal loudly. At no time did the Greeks
extract from Pentelicus blocks at all comparable for size with those of
Baalbek or of Egypt; they saw no use in doing so; on the contrary, with
masses of such enormity, which it is desired to use in their entirety,
the architect is himself dominated; the material, instead of being
subordinate to the design of the edifice, runs counter to the design
and contradicts it. The monuments on the Acropolis of Athens would be
impossible with blocks of the size usual in Syria."[685] Thus there is
always something heavy, rude, and coarse in the Phoenician buildings,
which betray their troglodyte origin by an over-massive and unfinished
appearance.

There is also a want of originality, more especially in the
ornamentation. Egypt, Assyria, and Greece have furnished the "motives"
which lie at the root of almost all the decorative art that is to be
met with, either in the mother country or in the colonies. Winged disks,
uræi, scarabs, sphinxes, have been adopted from Egypt; Assyria has
furnished gradines, lotus blossoms, rosettes, the palm-tree ornament,
the ribbon ornament, and the form of the lion; Greece has supplied
pillars, pediments, festoons, and chimæras. Native talent has
contributed little or nothing to the ornamentation of buildings, if
we except the modification of the types which have been derived from
foreign sources.

Finally, there is a want of combination and general plan in the
Phoenician constructions where they fall into groups. "This is sensibly
felt," according to M. Renan, "at Amrith, at Kabr-Hiram, and at
Um-el-Awamid. In the remains still visible in these localities there are
many fine ideas, many beautiful details; but they do not fall under any
general dominant plan, as do the buildings on the Acropolis of Athens.
One seems to see a set of people who are fond of working in stone for
its own sake, but who do not care to arrive at a mutual understanding in
order to produce in common a single work, since they do not know that it
is the conception of a grand whole which constitutes greatness in art.
Hence the incompleteness of the monuments; there is not a tomb to
which the relations of the deceased have deemed it fitting to give the
finishing touches; there is everywhere a certain egotism, like that
which in later times prevented the Mussulman monuments from enduring. A
passing pleasure in art does not induce men to finish, since finishing
requires a certain stiffness of will. In general, the ancient
Phoenicians appear to have had the spirit of sculptors rather than
of architects. They did not construct in great masses, but every one
laboured on his own account. Hence there was no exact measurement, and
no symmetry. Even the capitals of the columns at Um-el-Awamid are not
alike; in the portions which most evidently correspond the details are
different."[686]



CHAPTER VII--ÆSTHETIC ART

     Recent discoveries of Phoenician artistic remains--
     Phoenician sculpture--Statues and busts--Animal forms--Bas-
     reliefs--Hercules and Geryon--Scenes on sarcophagi--
     Phoenicians metal castings--Jachin and Boaz--Solomon's
     "Molten Sea"--Solomon's lavers--Statuettes in bronze--
     Embossed work upon cups and pateræ--Cup of Præneste--
     Intaglios on cylinders and gems--Phoenician painting--Tinted
     statues--Paintings on terra-cotta and clay.

Phoenician æsthetic art embraced sculpture, metal-casting, intaglio,
and painting to a small extent. Situated as the Phoenicians were, in
the immediate neighbourhood of nations which had practised from a remote
antiquity the imitation of natural forms, and brought into contact by
their commercial transactions with others, with whom art of every kind
was in the highest esteem--adroit moreover with their hands, clever,
active, and above all else practical--it was scarcely possible that they
should not, at an early period in their existence as a nation, interest
themselves in what they found so widely appreciated, and become
themselves ambitious of producing such works as they saw everywhere
produced, admired, and valued. The mere commercial instinct would lead
them to supply a class of goods which commanded a high price in the
world's markets; while it is not to be supposed that they were, any more
than other nations, devoid of those æsthetic propensities which find a
vent in what are commonly called the "fine arts," or less susceptible
of that natural pleasure which successful imitation evokes from all
who find themselves capable of it. Thus, we might have always
safely concluded, even without any material evidence of it, that the
Phoenicians had an art of their own, either original or borrowed; but
we are now able to do more than this. Recent researches in Phoenicia
Proper, in Cyprus, in Sardina, and elsewhere, have recovered such a mass
of Phoenician artistic remains, that it is possible to form a tolerably
complete idea of the character of their æsthetic art, of its methods,
its aims, and its value.

Phoenician sculpture, even at its best, is somewhat rude. The country
possesses no marble, and has not even any stone of a fine grain. The
cretaceous limestone, which is the principal geological formation, is
for the most part so pierced with small holes and so thickly sown with
fossil shells as to be quite unsuited for the chisel; and even the
better blocks, which the native sculptors were careful to choose,
are not free from these defects, and in no case offer a grain that
is satisfactory. To meet these difficulties, the Phoenician sculptor
occasionally imported his blocks either from Egypt or from the
volcanic regions of Taurus and Amanus;[71] but it was not until he had
transported himself to Cyprus, and found there an abundance of a soft,
but fairly smooth, compact, and homogeneous limestone, that he worked
freely, and produced either statues or bas-reliefs in any considerable
number.[72] The Cyprian limestone is very easy to work. "It is a whitish
stone when it comes out of the quarry, but by continued exposure to the
air the tone becomes a greyish yellow, which, though a little dull, is
not disagreeable to the eye. The nail can make an impression on it,
and it is worked by the chisel much more easily and more rapidly than
marble. But it is in the plastic arts as in literature and poetry--what
costs but little trouble has small chance of enduring. The Cyprian
limestone is too soft to furnish the effects and the contrasts which
marble offers, so to speak, spontaneously; it is incapable of receiving
the charming polish which makes so strong an opposition to the dark
shadows of the parts where the chisel has scooped deep. The chisel,
whatever efforts it may make and however laboriously it may be applied,
cannot impress on such material the strong and bold touches which
indicate the osseous structure, and make the muscles and the veins show
themselves under the epidermis in Greek statuary. The sculptor's work
is apt to be at once finikin and lax; it wants breadth, and it wants
decision. Moreover, the material, having little power of resistance,
retains but ill what the chisel once impressed; the more delicate
markings and the more lifelike touches that it once received, it loses
easily through friction or exposure to rough weather. A certain number
of the sculptured figures found by M. Di Cesnola at Athiénau were
discovered under conditions that were quite peculiar, having passed from
the shelter of a covered chamber to that of a protecting bed of dust,
which had hardened and adhered to their surfaces; and these figures
had preserved an unusual freshness, and seem as if just chiselled; but,
saving these exceptions, the Cypriot figures have their angles rounded,
and their projections softened down. It is like a page of writing, where
the ink, before it had time to dry, preserving its sharpness of tone,
has been absorbed by the blotting paper and has left only pale and
feeble traces."[73]

Another striking defect in the Phoenician, or at any rate in the
Cyprio-Phoenician, sculpture, and one that cannot be excused on account
of any inherent weakness in the material, is the thinness and flatness
of the greater part of the figures. The sculptor seems to have been
furnished by the stonecutter, not so much with solid blocks of stone, as
with tolerably thick slabs.[74] These he fashioned carefully in front,
and produced statues, which, viewed in front, are lifelike and fairly
satisfactory. But to the sides and back of the slab he paid little
attention, not intending that his work should be looked at from all
quarters, but that the spectator should directly face it. The statues
were made to stand against walls,[75] or in niches, or back to back, the
heels and backs touching;[76] they were not, properly speaking, works
_in the round_, but rather _alti relievi_ a little exaggerated, not
actually part of the wall, but laid closely against it. A striking
example of this kind of work may be seen in a figure now at New York,
which appears to represent a priest, whereof a front view is given by Di
Cesnola in his "Cyprus," and a side view by Perrot and Chipiez in their
"History of Ancient Art." The head and neck are in good proportion, but
the rest of the figure is altogether unduly thin, while for some space
above the feet it is almost literally a slab, scarcely fashioned at all.

This fault is less pronounced in some statues than in others, and from
a certain number of the statuettes is wholly absent. This is notably the
case in a figure found at Golgi, which represents a female arrayed in a
long robe, the ample folds of which she holds back with one hand, while
the other hand is advanced, and seems to have held a lotus flower.
Three graceful tresses fall on either side of the neck, round which is a
string of beads or pearls, with an amulet as pendant; while a long veil,
surmounted by a diadem, hangs from the back of the head. This statue is
in no respect narrow or flat, as may be seen especially from the side
view given by Di Cesnola;[77] but it is short and inelegant, though not
wanting in dignity; and it is disfigured by sandalled feet of a very
disproportionate size, which stand out offensively in front. The
figure has been viewed as a representation of the goddess Astarte or
Ashtoreth;[78] but the identification can scarcely be regarded as more
than a reasonable conjecture.

The general defects of Phoenician statuary, besides want of finish and
flatness, are a stiff and conventional treatment, recalling the art of
Egypt and Assyria, a want of variety, and a want of life. Most of the
figures stand evenly on the two feet, and have the arms pendant at the
two sides, with the head set evenly, neither looking to the right nor
to the left, while even the arrangement of the drapery is one of great
uniformity. In the points where there is any variety, the variety
is confined within very narrow limits. One foot may be a little
advanced;[79] one arm may be placed across the breast, either as
confined by the robe,[710] or as holding something, e.g. a bird or
a flower.[711] In female figures both arms may be laid along the
thighs,[712] or both be bent across the bosom, with the hands clasping
the breasts,[713] or one hand may be so placed, and the other depend
in front.[714] The hair and beard are mostly arranged with the utmost
regularity in crisp curls, resembling the Assyrian; where tresses
are worn, they are made to hang, whatever their number, with exact
uniformity on either side.[715] Armlets and bracelets appear always in
pairs, and are exactly similar; the two sides of a costume correspond
perfectly; and in the groups the figures have, as nearly as possible,
the same attitude.

Repose is no doubt the condition of human existence which statuary most
easily and most naturally expresses; and few things are more obnoxious
to a refined taste than that sculpture which, like that of Roubiliac,
affects movement, fidget, flutter, and unquiet. But in the Phoenician
sculpture the repose is overdone; except in the expression of faces,
there is scarcely any life at all. The figures do nothing; they simply
stand to be looked at. And they stand stiffly, sometimes even awkwardly,
rarely with anything like elegance or grace. The heads, indeed, have
life and vigour, especially after the artists have become acquainted
with Greek models;[716] but they are frequently too large for the bodies
whereto they are attached, and the face is apt to wear a smirk that is
exceedingly disagreeable. This is most noticeable in the Cypriot series,
as will appear by the accompanying representations; but it is not
confined to them, since it reappears in the bronzes found in Phoenicia
Proper.

Phoenician statues are almost always more or less draped. Sometimes
nothing is worn besides the short tunic, or _shenti_, of the Egyptians,
which begins below the navel and terminates at the knee.[717] Sometimes
there is added to this a close-fitting shirt, like a modern "jersey,"
which has short sleeves and clings to the figure, so that it requires
careful observation to distinguish between a statue thus draped and
one which has the _shenti_ only.[718] But there are also a number of
examples where the entire figure is clothed from the head to the ankles,
and nothing is left bare but the face, the hands, and the feet. A cap,
something like a Phrygian bonnet, covers the head; a long-sleeved robe
reaches from the neck to the ankles, or sometimes rests upon the feet;
and above this is a mantle or scarf thrown over the left shoulder,
and hanging down nearly to the knees. Ultimately a drapery greatly
resembling that of the Greeks seems to have been introduced; a long
cloak, or _chlamys_, is worn, which falls into numerous folds, and
is disposed about the person according to the taste and fancy of the
wearer, but so as to leave the right arm free.[719] Statues of this
class are scarcely distinguishable from Greek statues of a moderately
good type.

Phoenician sculptors _in the round_ did not very often indulge in
the representation of animal forms. The lion, however, was sometimes
chiselled in stone, either partially, as in a block of stone found by
M. Renan at Um-el-Awamid, or completely, as in a statuette brought by
General Di Cesnola from Cyprus. The representations hitherto discovered
have not very much merit. We may gather from them that the sculptors
were unacquainted with the animal itself, had never seen the king of
beasts sleeping in the shade or stretching himself and yawning as
he awoke, or walking along with a haughty and majestic slowness, or
springing with one bound upon his prey, but had simply studied without
much attention or interest the types furnished them by Egyptian
or Assyrian artists, who were familiar with the beast himself. The
representations are consequently in every case feeble and conventional;
in some they verge on the ridiculous. What, for instance, can be weaker
than the figure above given from the great work of Perrot and Chipiez,
with its good-humoured face, its tongue hanging out of its mouth, its
tottering forelegs, and its general air of imbecility? The lioness'
head represented in the same work is better, but still leaves much to be
desired, falling, as it does, very far behind the best Assyrian models.
Nor were the sculptors much more successful in their mode of expressing
animals with whose forms they were perfectly well acquainted. The sheep
carried on the back of a shepherd, brought from Cyprus and now in the
museum of New York, is a very ill-shaped sheep, and the doves so often
represented are very poor doves.[720] They are just recognisable, and
that is the most that can be said for them. A dog in stone,[721] found
at Athiénau, is somewhat better, equally the dogs of the Egyptians and
Assyrians. On the other hand, the only fully modelled horses that have
been found are utterly childish and absurd.[722]

The reliefs of the Phoenicians are very superior to their statues. They
vary in their character from almost the lowest kind of relief to the
highest. On dresses, on shields, on slabs, and on some sarcophagi it
is much higher than is usual even in Greece. A bas-relief of peculiar
interest was discovered at Athiénau by General Di Cesnola, and has been
represented both by him and by the Italian traveller Ceccaldi.[723] It
represents Hercules capturing the cattle of Geryon from the herdsman
Eurytion, and gives us reason to believe that that myth was a native
Phoenician legend adopted by the Greeks, and not a Hellenic one imported
into Phoenicia. The general character of the sculpture is archaic and
Assyrian; nor is there a trace of Greek influence about it. Hercules,
standing on an elevated block of stone at the extreme left, threatens
the herdsman, who responds by turning towards him, and making a menacing
gesture with his right hand, while in his left, instead of a club, he
carries an entire tree. His hair and beard are curled in the Assyrian
fashion, while his figure, though short, is strong and muscular. In
front of him are his cattle, mixed up in a confused and tangled mass,
some young, but most of them full grown, and amounting to the number
of seventeen. They are in various attitudes, and are drawn with much
spirit, recalling groups of cattle in the sculptures of Assyria and
Egypt, but surpassing any such group in the vigour of their life and
movement. Above, in an upper field or plain, divided from the under one
by a horizontal line, is the triple-headed dog, Orthros, running full
speed towards Hercules, and scarcely checked by the arrow which has met
him in mid career, and entered his neck at the point of junction between
the second and the third head.[724] The bas-relief is three feet two
inches in length, and just a little short of two feet in height. It
served to ornament a huge block of stone which formed the pedestal of a
colossal statue of Hercules, eight feet nine inches high.[725]

A sarcophagus, on which the relief is low, has been described and
figured by Di Cesnola,[726] who discovered it in the same locality as
the sculpture which has just engaged our attention. The sarcophagus,
which had a lid guarded by lions at the four corners, was ornamented
at both ends and along both sides by reliefs. The four scenes depicted
appear to be distinct and separate. At one end Perseus, having cut off
Medusa's head and placed it in his wallet, which he carries behind him
by means of a stick passed over his shoulder, departs homewards followed
by his dog. Medusa's body, though sunk upon one knee, is still upright,
and from the bleeding neck there spring the forms of Chrysaor and
Pegasus. At the opposite end of the tomb is a biga drawn by two horses,
and containing two persons, the charioteer and the owner, who is
represented as bearded, and rests his hand upon the chariot-rim. The
horse on the right hand, which can alone be distinctly seen, is well
proportioned and spirited. He is impatient and is held in by the driver,
and prevented from proceeding at more than a foot's pace. On the longer
sides are a hunting scene, and a banqueting scene. In a wooded country,
indicated by three tall trees, a party, consisting of five individuals,
engages in the pleasures of the chase. Four of the five are accoutred
like Greek soldiers; they wear crested helmets, cuirasses, belts, and
a short tunic ending in a fringe: the arms which they carry are a spear
and a round buckler or shield. The fifth person is an archer, and has a
lighter equipment; he wears a cloth about his loins, a short tunic, and
a round cap on his head. The design forms itself into two groups. On the
right two of the spearmen are engaged with a wild boar, which they are
wounding with their lances; on the left the two other spearmen and the
archer are attacking a wild bull. In the middle a cock separates the two
groups, while at the two extremities two animal forms, a horse grazing
and a dog trying to make out a scent, balance each other. The fourth
side of the sarcophagus presents us with a banqueting scene. On four
couches, much like the Assyrian,[727] are arranged the banqueters. At
the extreme right the couch is occupied by a single person, who has a
long beard and extends a wine-cup towards an attendant, a naked youth,
who is advancing towards him with a wine-jug in one hand, and a ladle or
strainer in the other. The three other couches are occupied respectively
by three couples, each comprising a male and a female. The male figure
reclines in the usual attitude, half sitting and half lying, with the
left arm supported on two pillows;[728] the female sits on the edge of
the couch, with her feet upon a footstool. The males hold wine-cups; of
the females, one plays upon the lyre, while the two others fondle with
one hand their lover or husband. A fourth female figure, erect in the
middle between the second and third couches, plays the double flute for
the delectation of the entire party. All the figures, except the boy
attendant, are decently draped, in robes with many folds, resembling
the Greek. At the side of each couch is a table, on which are spread
refreshments, while at the extreme left is a large bowl or amphora, from
which the wine-cups may be replenished. This is placed under the
shade of a tree, which tells us that the festivity takes place in a
garden.[729]

No one can fail to see, in this entire series of sculptures, the
dominant influence of Greece. While the form of the tomb, and the lions
that ornament the covering, are unmistakably Cyprio-Phoenician, the
reliefs contain scarcely a feature which is even Oriental; all has
markedly the colouring and the physiognomy of Hellenism. Yet Cyprian
artists probably executed the work. There are little departures
from Greek models, which indicate the "barbarian" workman, as the
introduction of trees in the backgrounds, the shape of the furniture,
the recurved wings of the Gorgon, and the idea of hunting the wild bull.
But the figures, the proportions, the draperies, the attitudes, the
chariot, the horse, are almost pure Greek. There is a grace and ease
in the modelling, an elegance, a variety, to which Asiatic art, left to
itself, never attained. The style, however, is not that of Greece at
its best, but of archaic Greece. There is something too much of exact
symmetry, both in the disposition of the groups and in the arrangement
of the accessories; nay, even the very folds of the garments are
over-stiff and regular. All is drawn in exact profile; and in the
composition there is too much of balance and correspondence. Still,
a new life shows itself through the scenes. There is variety in
the movements; there is grace and suppleness in the forms; there is
lightness in the outline, vigour in the attitudes, and beauty spread
over the whole work. It cannot be assigned an earlier date than the
fifth century B.C., and is most probably later,[730] since it took time
for improved style to travel from the head-centres of Greek art to the
remoter provinces, and still more time for it to percolate through the
different layers of Greek society until it reached the stratum of native
Cyprian artistic culture.

We may contrast with the refined work of the Athiénau sarcophagus the
far ruder, but more genuinely native, designs of a tomb of the same kind
found on the site of Amathus.[731] On this sarcophagus, the edges of
which are most richly adorned with patterning, there are, as upon the
other, four reliefs, two of them occupying the sides and two the ends.
Those at the ends are curious, but have little artistic merit. They
consist, in each case, of a caryatid figure four times repeated,
representations, respectively, of Astarté and of a pygmy god, who,
according to some, is Bes, and, according to others, Melkarth or
Esmun.[732] The figures of Astarté are rude, as are generally her
statues.[733] They have the hair arranged in three rows of crisp curls,
the arms bent, and the hands supporting the breasts. The only ornament
worn by them is a double necklace of pearls or round beads. The
representations of the pygmy god have more interest. They remind us of
what Herodotus affirms concerning the Phoenician _pataikoi_, which were
used for the figure-heads of ships,[734] and which he compares to the
Egyptian images of Phthah, or Ptah, the god of creation. They are ugly
dwarf figures, with a large misshapen head, a bushy beard, short arms,
fat bodies, a short striped tunic, and thick clumsy legs. Only one of
the four figures is at present complete, the sarcophagus having been
entered by breaking a hole into it at this end.

The work at the sides is much superior to that at the ends. The two
panels represent, apparently, a single scene. The scene is a procession,
but whether funeral or military it is hard to decide.[735] First come
two riders on horseback, wearing conical caps and close-fitting jerkins;
they are seated on a species of saddle, which is kept in place by a
board girth passing round the horse's belly, and by straps attached in
front. The two cavaliers are followed by four _bigæ_. The first contains
the principal personages of the composition, who sits back in his car,
and shades himself with a parasol, the mark of high rank in the East,
while his charioteer sits in front of him and holds the reins. The
second car has three occupants; the third two; and the fourth also two,
one of whom leans back and converses with the footmen, who close the
procession. These form a group of three, and seem to be soldiers, since
they bear shield and spear; but their costume, a loose robe wrapped
round the form, is rather that of civilians. The horses are lightly
caparisoned, with little more than a head-stall and a collar; but they
carry on their heads a conspicuous fan-like crest.[736] MM. Perrot and
Chipiez thus sum up their description of this monument:--"Both in the
ornamentation and in the sculpture properly so-called there is a mixture
of two traditions and two inspirations, diverse one from the other. The
persons who chiselled the figures in the procession which fills the
two principal sides of the sarcophagus were the pupils of Grecian
statuaries; they understood how to introduce variety into the attitudes
of those whom they represented, and even into the movements of the
horses. Note, in this connection, the steeds of the two cavaliers in
front; one of them holds up his head, the other bends it towards the
ground. The draperies are also cleverly treated, especially those of the
foot soldiers who bring up the rear, and resemble in many respects
the costume of the Greeks. On the other hand, the types of divinity,
repeated four times at the two ends of the monument, have nothing that
is Hellenic about them, but are borrowed from the Pantheon of Phoenicia.
Even in the procession itself--the train of horsemen, footmen, and
chariots, which is certainly the sculptor's true subject--there are
features which recall the local customs and usages of the East. The
conical caps of the two cavaliers closely resemble those which we see on
the heads of many of the Cyprian statues; the parasol which shades the
head of the great person in the first _biga_ is the symbol of Asiatic
royalty; lastly, the fan-shaped plume which rises above the heads of all
the chariot horses is an ornament that one sees in the same position
in Assyria and in Lycia, whensoever the sculptor desires to represent
horses magnificently caparisoned."[737]

Sarcophagi recently exhumed in the vicinity of Sidon are said to be
adorned with reliefs superior to any previously known specimens of
Phoenician art. As, however, no drawings or photographs of these
sculptures have as yet reached Western Europe, it will perhaps be
sufficient in this place to direct attention to the descriptions of them
which an eye-witness has published in the "Journal de Beyrout."[738] No
trustworthy critical estimate can be formed from mere descriptions,
and it will therefore be necessary to reserve our judgment until
the sculptures themselves, or correct representations of them, are
accessible.

The metal castings of the Phoenicians, according to the accounts which
historians give of them, were of a very magnificent and extraordinary
character. The Hiram employed by Solomon in the ornamentation of
the Temple at Jerusalem, who was a native of Tyre,[739] designed and
executed by his master's orders a number of works in metal, which seem
to have been veritable masterpieces. The strangest of all were the two
pillars of bronze, which bore the names of "Jachin" and "Boaz,"[740]
and stood in front of the Temple porch, or possibly under it.[741] These
pillars, with their capitals, were between thirty-four and thirty-five
feet high, and had a diameter of six feet.[742] They were cast hollow,
the bronze whereof they were composed having a uniform thickness of
three inches,[743] or thereabouts. Their ornamentation was elaborate.
A sort of chain-work covered the "belly" or lower part of the
capitals,[744] while above and below were representations of
pomegranates in two rows, probably at the top and bottom of the "belly,"
the number of the pomegranates upon each pillar being two hundred.[745]
At the summit of the whole was a sort of "lily-work"[746] or
imitation of the lotus blossom, a "motive" adopted from Egypt. Various
representations of the pillars have been attempted in works upon
Phoenician art, the most remarkable being those designed by M. Chipiez,
and published in the "Histoire de l'Art dans l'Antiquité."[747] Perhaps,
however, there is more to be said in favour of M. de Vogüé's view, as
enunciated in his work on the Jewish Temple.

The third great work of metallurgy which Hiram constructed for Solomon
was "the molten sea."[748] This was an enormous bronze basin, fifteen
feet in diameter, supported on the backs of twelve oxen, grouped in sets
of three.[749] The basin stood fourteen or fifteen feet above the level
of the Temple Court,[750] and was a vast reservoir, always kept full of
water, for the ablutions of the priests. There was an ornamentation of
"knops" or "gourds," in two rows, about the "brim" of the reservoir; and
it must have been supplied in its lower part with a set of stopcocks, by
means of which the water could be drawn off when needed. Representations
of the "molten sea" have been given by Mangeant, De Vogüé, Thenius, and
others; but all of them are, necessarily, conjectural. The design of
Mangeant is reproduced in the preceding representation. It is concluded
that the oxen must have been of colossal size in order to bear a proper
proportion to the basin, and not present the appearance of being crushed
under an enormous weight.[751]

Next in importance to these three great works were ten minor ones, made
for the Jewish Temple by the same artist. These were lavers mounted on
wheels,[752] which could be drawn or pushed to any part of the Temple
Court where water might be required. The lavers were of comparatively
small size, capable of containing only one-fiftieth part[753] of
the contents of the "molten sea," but they were remarkable for their
ornamentation. Each was supported upon a "base;" and the bases, which
seem to have been panelled, contained, in the different compartments,
figures of lions, oxen, and cherubim,[754] either single or in groups.
On the top of the base, which seems to have been square, was a circular
stand or socket, a foot and a half in height, into which the laver or
basin fitted.[755] This, too, was panelled, and ornamented with embossed
work, representing lions, cherubim, and palm-trees.[756] Each base was
emplaced upon four wheels, which are said to have resembled chariot
wheels, but which were molten in one piece, naves, spokes, and felloes
together.[757] A restoration by M. Mangeant, given by Perrot and Chipiez
in the fourth volume of their "History of Ancient Art," is striking, and
leaves little to be desired.

Hiram is also said to have made for Solomon a number of pots, shovels,
basins, flesh-hooks, and other instruments,[758] which were all used
in the Temple service; but as no description is given of any of these
works, even their general character can only be conjectured. We may,
however, reasonably suppose them not to have differed greatly from
the objects of a similar description found in Cyprus by General Di
Cesnola.[759]

From the conjectural, which may amuse, but can scarcely satisfy, the
earnest student, it is fitting that we should now pass to the known and
actual. Phoenician metal-work of various descriptions has been found
recently in Phoenicia Proper, in Cyprus, and in Sardinia; and, though
much of it consists of works of utility or of mere personal adornment,
which belong to another branch of the present enquiry, there is a
considerable portion which is more or less artistic and which rightly
finds its place in the present chapter. The Phoenicians, though they did
not, so far as we know, attempt with any frequency the production, in
bronze or other metal, of the full-sized human form,[760] were fond of
fabricating, especially in bronze, the smaller kinds of figures which
are known as "figurines" or "statuettes." They also had a special talent
for producing embossed metal-work of a highly artistic character in the
shape of cups, bowls, and dishes or _pateræ_, whereon scenes of various
kinds were represented with a vigour and precision that are quite
admirable. Some account of these two classes of works must here be
given.

The statuettes commence with work of the rudest kind. The Phoenician
sites in Sardinia have yielded in abundance grotesque figures of gods
and men,[761] from three or four to six or eight inches high, which must
be viewed as Phoenician productions, though perhaps they were not the
best works which Phoenician artists could produce, but such as were best
suited to the demands of the Sardinian market. The savage Sards would
not have appreciated beauty or grace; but to the savage mind there is
something congenial in grotesqueness. Hence gods with four arms and four
eyes,[762] warriors with huge horns projecting from their helmets,[763]
tall forms of extraordinary leanness,[764] figures with abnormally large
heads and hands,[765] huge noses, projecting eyes, and various other
deformities. For the home consumption statuettes of a similar character
were made; but they were neither so rude nor so devoid of artistic
merit. There is one in the Louvre, which was found at Tortosa, in
Northern Phoenicia, approaching nearly to the Sardinian type, while
others have less exaggeration, and seem intended seriously. In Cyprus
bronzes of a higher order have been discovered.[766] One is a figure of
a youth, perhaps Æsculapius, embracing a serpent; another is a female
form of much elegance, which may have been the handle of a vase or jug;
it springs from a grotesque bracket, and terminates in a bar ornamented
at either end with heads of animals. The complete bronze figure found
near Curium, which is supposed to represent Apollo and is figured by Di
Cesnola,[767] is probably not the production of a Phoenician artists,
but a sculpture imported from Greece.

The embossed work upon cups and _pateræ_ is sometimes of great
simplicity, sometimes exceedingly elaborate. A patera of the simplest
kind was found by General Di Cesnola in the treasury of Curium and is
figured in his work.[768] At the bottom of the dish, in the middle, is
a rosette with twenty-two petals springing from a central disk; this is
surrounded by a ring whereon are two wavy lines of ribbon intertwined.
Four deer, with strongly recurved horns, spaced at equal intervals,
stand on the outer edge of the ring in a walking attitude. Behind them
and between them are a continuous row of tall stiff reeds terminating in
blossoms, which are supposed to represent the papyrus plant. The reeds
are thirty-two in number. We may compare with this the medallion at
the bottom of a cup found at Cære in Italy, which has been published by
Grifi.[769] Here, on a chequered ground, stands a cow with two calves,
one engaged in providing itself with its natural sustenance, the other
disporting itself in front of its dam. In the background are a row of
alternate papyrus blossoms and papyrus buds bending gracefully to the
right and to the left, so as to form a sort of framework to the main
design. Above the cow and in front of the papyrus plants two birds wing
their flight from left to right across the scene.

A bronze bowl, discovered at Idalium (Dali) in Cyprus,[770] is, like
these specimens, Egyptian in its motive, but is more ambitious in that
it introduces the human form. On a throne of state sits a goddess,
draped in a long striped robe which reaches to the feet, and holding
a lotus flower in her right hand and a ball or apple in her left.
Bracelets adorn her wrists and anklets her feet. Behind her stands a
band of three instrumental performers, all of them women, and somewhat
variously costumed: the first plays the double pipe, the second performs
on a lyre or harp, the third beats the tambourine. In front of the
goddess is a table or altar, to which a votary approaches bringing
offerings. Then follows another table whereon two vases are set; finally
comes a procession of six females, holding hands, who are perhaps
performing a solemn dance. Behind them are a row of lotus pillars, the
supports probably of a temple, wherein the scene takes place. The human
forms in this design are ill-proportioned, and very rudely traced. The
heads and hands are too large, the faces are grotesque, and the figures
wholly devoid of grace. Mimetic art is seen clearly in its first stage,
and the Phoenician artist who has designed the bowl has probably fallen
short of his Egyptian models.

Animal and human forms intermixed occur on a silver _patera_ found
at Athiénau, which is more complicated and elaborate than the objects
hitherto described, but which is, like them, strikingly Egyptian.[771]
A small rosette occupies the centre; round it is, apparently, a pond
or lake, in which fish are disporting themselves; but the fish are
intermixed with animal and human forms--a naked female stretches out
her arms after a cow; a man clothed in a _shenti_ endeavours to seize
a horse. The pond is edged by papyrus plants, which are alternately
in blossom and in bud. A zigzag barrier separates this central
ornamentation from that of the outer part of the dish. Here a marsh is
represented in which are growing papyrus and other water-plants. Aquatic
birds swim on the surface or fly through the tall reeds. Four boats form
the chief objects in this part of the field. In one, which is fashioned
like a bird, there sits under a canopy a grandee, with an attendant in
front and a rower or steersman at the stern. Behind him, in a second
boat, is a band consisting of three undraped females, one of whom plays
a harp and another a tambourine, while the third keeps time with her
hands. A man with a punt-pole directs the vessel from the stern. In the
third boat, which has a freight of wine-jars, a cook is preparing a bird
for the grandee's supper. The fourth boat contains three rowers, who
possibly have the vessel of the grandee in tow. The first and second
boats are separated by two prancing steeds, the second and third by two
cows, the third and fourth by a chariot and pair. It is difficult to
explain the mixture of the aquatic with the terrestrial in this piece;
but perhaps the grandee is intended to be enjoying himself in a marshy
part of his domain, where he might ride, drive, or boat, according to
his pleasure. The whole scene is rather Egyptian than Phoenician or
Cypriot, and one cannot help suspecting that the _patera_ was made for
an Egyptian customer.

There is a _patera_ at Athens,[772] almost certainly Phoenician, which
may well be selected to introduce the more elaborate and complicated of
the Phoenician works of art in this class. It has been figured,[773]
and carefully described by MM. Perrot and Chipiez in these terms:--"The
medallion in the centre is occupied by a rosette with eight points. The
zone outside this, in which are distributed the personages represented,
is divided into four compartments by four figures, which correspond to
each other in pairs. They lift themselves out of a trellis-work, bounded
on either side by a light pillar without a base. The capitals which
crown the pillars recall those of the Ionic order, but the abacus is
much more developed. A winged globe, stretching from pillar to pillar,
roofs in this sort of little chapel; each is the shrine of a divinity.
One of the divinities is that nude goddess, clasping her breasts with
her hands, whom we have already met with in the Phoenician world more
than once; the other is a bearded personage, whose face is framed in by
his abundant hair; he appears to be dressed in a close-fitting garment,
made of a material folded in narrow plaits. We do not know what name to
give the personage. Each of the figures is repeated twice. The rest
of the field is occupied by four distinct subjects, two of them being
scenes of adoration. In one may be recognised the figure of Isis-Athor,
seated on a sort of camp-stool, and giving suck to the young Horus;[774]
on an altar in front of the goddess is placed the disk of the moon,
enveloped (as we have seen it elsewhere) by a crescent which recalls
the moon's phases. Behind the altar stands a personage whose sex is not
defined; the right hand, which is raised, holds a _patera_, while
the left, which falls along the hip, has the _ankh_ or _crux ansata_.
Another of the scenes corresponds to this, and offers many striking
analogies. The altar indeed is of a different form, but it supports
exactly the same symbols. The goddess sits upon a throne with her feet
on a footstool; she has no child; in one hand she holds out a cup,
in the other a lotus blossom. The personage who confronts her wears a
conical cap, and is clothed, like the worshipper of the corresponding
representation, in a long robe pressed close to the body by a girdle _à
cordelière_; he has also the _crux ansata_, and holds in the right hand
an object the character and use of which I am unable to conjecture.
We may associate with these two scenes of homage and worship another
representation in which there figure three musicians. The instruments
are the same as usual--the lyre, the tambourine, and the double pipe;
two of the performers march at a steady pace; the third, the one who
beats the metal(?) disk, dances, as he plays, with much vigour and
spirit. In the last compartment we come again upon a group that we have
already met with in one of the cups from Idalium.[775] . . . A beardless
individual, clothed in the _shenti_, has put his foot upon the body of
a griffin, which, in struggling against the pressure, flings its hind
quarters into the air in a sort of wild caper; the conqueror, however,
holds it fast by the plume of feathers which rises from its head, and
plunges his sword into its half-open beak. It is this group, drawn in
relief, and on a larger scale, that we meet with for a second time on
the Athenian _patera_; but in this case the group is augmented by a
second personage, who takes part in the struggle. This is an old man
with a beard who is armed with a formidable pike. Both the combatants
wear conical caps upon their heads, similar to those which we have
noticed as worn by a number of the statues from Cyprus; but the cap of
the right-hand personage terminates in a button, whereto is attached
a long appendage, which looks like the tail of an ox." The Egyptian
character of much of this design is incontestable. The _ankh_, the lotus
blossom in the hand, the winged disk, are purely Egyptian forms; the
Isis Athor with Horus in her lap speaks for itself; and the worshipper
in front of Isis has an unmistakably Egyptian head dress. But the
contest with the winged griffin is more Assyrian than Egyptian; the seat
whereon Isis sits recalls a well-known Assyrian type;[776] one of the
altars has a distinctly Assyrian character, while the band of musicians,
the Astarté figures standing in their shrines, and the pillars which
support, and frame in, the shrines are genuine Phoenician contributions.
Artistically this _patera_ is much upon a par with those from Dali and
Athiénau, which have been already described.

Our space will not admit of our pursuing this subject much further. We
cannot give descriptions of all the twenty _pateræ_,[777] pronounced by
the best critics to be Phoenician, which are contained in the museums of
Europe and America. Excellent representations of most of these works
of art will be found in Longpérier's "Musée Napoléon III.," in M.
Clermont-Ganneau's "Imagerie Phénicienne," and in the "Histoire de
l'Art dans l'Antiquité" of MM. Perrot et Chipiez. The bowls brought from
Larnaca, from Curium, and from Amathus are especially interesting.[778]
We must, however, conclude our survey with a single specimen of the most
elaborate kind of _patera_; and, this being the case, we cannot hesitate
to give the preference to the famous "Cup of Præneste," which has
been carefully figured and described in two of the three works above
cited.[779]

The cup in question consists of a thin plate of silver covered over with
a layer of gold; its greatest diameter is seven inches and three-fifths.
The under or outside is without ornament; the interior is engraved with
a number of small objects in low relief. In the centre, and surrounded
by a circle of beads, there is a subject to which we shall presently
have to return. The zone immediately outside this medallion, which is
not quite an inch in width, is filled with a string of eight horses,
all of them proceeding at a trot, and following each other to the right.
Over each horse two birds fly in the same direction. The horses' tails
are extraordinarily conventional, consisting of a stem with branches,
and resembling a conventional palm branch. Outside this zone there is an
exterior and a wider one, which is bounded on its outer edge by a huge
snake, whose scaly length describes an almost exact circle, excepting
towards the tail, where there are some slight sinuosities. This serpent,
whose head reaches and a little passes the thin extremity of the tail,
is "drawn," says M. Clermont-Ganneau, "with the hand of a master."[780]
It has been compared[781] with the well-known Egyptian and Phoenician
symbol for the {kosmos} or universe, which was a serpent with its tail
in its mouth. "Naturally," he continues,[782] "the outer zone by its
very position offers the greatest room for development. The artist is
here at his ease, and having before him a field relatively so vast, has
represented on it a series of scenes, remarkably alike for the style of
their execution, the diversity of their subject-matter, the number
of the persons introduced, and the nature of the acts which they
accomplish. . . . The scenes, however, are not, as some have imagined,
a series of detached fantastic subjects, arbitrarily chosen and
capriciously grouped, a mere confused _mêlée_ of men, animals, chariots,
and other objects; on the contrary, they form a little history, a
plastic idyll, a story with a beginning, a middle, and an end. It is a
narrative divided into nine scenes." (1) An armed hero, mounted in a car
driven by a charioteer, quits in the morning a castle or fortified town.
He is going to hunt, and carries his bow in his left hand. Over his head
is an umbrella, the badge of his high rank, and his defence against
the mid-day sun. A quiver hangs at the side of his chariot. He wears a
conical cap, while the driver has his head bare, and leans forwards
over the front of the car, seeming to shake the reins, and encourage
the horses to mend their pace. (2) After the car has proceeded a certain
distance, the hunter espies a stag upon a rocky hill. He stops his
chariot, gets down, and leaving the driver in charge of the vehicle,
ensconces himself behind a tree, and thus screened lets fly an arrow
against the quarry, which strikes it midway in the chest. (3) Weak and
bleeding copiously, the stag attempts to escape; but the hunter pursues
and takes possession of him without having to shoot a second time. (4)
The hour is come now for a rest. The sportsman has reached a wood, in
which date-bearing palms are intermingled with trees of a different
kind. He fastens his game to one of them, and proceeds to the skinning
and the disembowelling. Meanwhile, his attendant detaches the horses
from the car, relieves them of their harness, and proceeds to feed them
from a portable manger. The car, left to itself, is tilted back, and
stands with its pole in the air. (5) Food and drink having been prepared
and placed on two tables, or altars, the hunter, seated on a throne
under the shadow of his umbrella, pours a libation to the gods. They,
on their part, scent the feast and draw near, represented by the sun and
moon--a winged disk, and a crescent embracing a full orb. The feast is
also witnessed by a spirit of evil, in the shape of a huge baboon or
cynocephalous ape, who from a cavern at the foot of a wooded mountain,
whereon a stag and a hare are feeding, furtively surveys the ceremony.
(6) Remounting his chariot the hunter sets out on his return home, when
the baboon quits his concealment, and rushes after him, threatening him
with a huge stone. Hereupon a winged deity descends from heaven, and
lifting into the air chariot, horses, charioteer, and hunter, enfolds
them in an embrace and saves them. (7) The ape, baffled, pursues his
way; the chariot is replaced on the earth. The hunter prepares his bow,
places an arrow on the string, and hastily pursues his enemy, who is
speedily overtaken and thrown to the ground by the horses. (8) The
hunter dismounts, puts his foot upon the prostrate ape, and gives him
the _coup de grâce_ with a heavy axe or mace. A bird of prey hovers
near, ready to descend upon the carcase. (9) The hero remounts his
chariot, and returns to the castle or city which he left in the
morning.[783]

We have now to return to the medallion which forms the centre of the
cup. Within a circle of pearls or beads, similar to that separating the
two zones, is a round space about two inches in diameter, divided into
two compartments by a horizontal line. In the upper part are contained
three human figures, and the figure of a dog. At the extreme left is a
prisoner with a beard and long hair that falls upon his shoulders. His
entire body is naked. Behind him his two arms are brought together, tied
by a cord, and then firmly attached to a post. His knees are bent,
but do not reach the ground, and his feet are placed with their soles
uppermost against the post at its base. The attitude is one which
implies extreme suffering.[784] In front of the prisoner, occupying the
centre of the medallion, is the main figure of the upper compartment, a
warrior, armed with a spear, who pursues the third figure, a fugitive,
and seems to be thrusting his spear into the man's back. Both have long
hair, but are beardless; and wear the _shenti_ for their sole garment.
Between the legs of the main figure is a dog of the jackal kind, which
has his teeth fixed in the heels of the fugitive, and arrests his
flight. Below, in the second compartment, are two figures only, a man
and a dog. The man is prostrate, and seems to be crawling along the
ground, the dog stands partly on him, and appears to be biting his left
heel. The interpretation which M. Clermont-Ganneau gives to this entire
scene lacks the probability which attaches to his explanation of the
outer scene. He suggests that the prisoner is the hunter of the other
scene, plundered and bound by his charioteer, who is hastening away,
when he is seized by his master's dog and arrested in his flight.
The dog gnaws off his right foot and then attacks the left, while the
fugitive, in order to escape his tormentor, has to crawl along
the ground. But M. Clermont-Ganneau himself distrusts his
interpretation,[785] while he has convinced no other scholar of its
soundness. Judicious critics will be content to wait the further
researches which he promises, whereby additional light may perhaps be
thrown on this obscure matter.

In its artistic character the "cup of Præneste" claims a high place
among the works of art probably or certainly assignable to the
Phoenicians. The relief is high; the forms, especially the animal ones,
are spirited and well-proportioned. The horses are especially good. As
M. Clermont-Ganneau says, "their forms and their movements are indicated
with a great deal of precision and truth."[786] They show also a fair
amount of variety; they stand, they walk, they trot, they gallop at full
speed, always truthfully and naturally. The stag, the hare, and the dog
are likewise well portrayed; the ape has less merit; he is too human,
too like a mere unkempt savage. The human forms are about upon a par
with those of the Assyrians and Egyptians, which have evidently served
for their models, the Assyrian for the outer zone, the Egyptian for the
medallion. The encircling snake, as already observed, is a masterpiece.
There is no better drawing in any of the other _pateræ_. At best they
equal, they certainly do not surpass, the Prænestine specimen.

The intaglios of the Phoenicians are either on cylinders or on gems,
and can rarely be distinguished, unless they are accompanied by an
inscription, from the similar objects obtained in such abundance from
Babylonia and Assyria. They reproduce, with scarcely any variation, the
mythological figures and emblems native to those countries--the forms of
gods and priests, of spirits of good and evil, of kings contending with
lions, of sacred trees, winged circles, and the like--scarcely ever
introducing any novelty. The greater number of the cylinders are very
rudely cut. They have been worked simply by means of a splinter of
obsidian,[787] and are barbarous in execution, though interesting to the
student of archaic art. The subjoined are specimens. No. 1 represents
a four-winged genius of the Assyrian type, bearded, and clad in a short
tunic and a long robe, seizing with either hand a winged griffin, or
spirit of evil, and reducing them to subjection. In the field, towards
the two upper corners, are the same four Phoenician characters, twice
repeated; they designate, no doubt, the owner of the cylinder, which he
probably used as a seal, and are read as _Harkhu_.[788] No. 2, which
is better cut than No. 1, represents a king of the Persian (Achæmenian)
type,[789] who stands between two rampant lions, and seizes each by the
forelock. Behind the second lion is a sacred tree of a type that is not
uncommon; and behind the tree is an inscription, which has been read as
_l'Baletân_--i.e. "(the seal) of Baletan."[790] This cylinder was found
recently in the Lebanon.[791] Nos. 3 and 4 come from Salamis in Cyprus,
where they were found by M. Alexandre Di Cesnola,[792] the brother of
the General. No. 3 represents a robed figure holding two nondescript
animals by the hind legs; the creatures writhe in his grasp, and turn
their heads towards him, as though wishing to bite. The remainder of
the field is filed with detached objects, scattered at random--two human
forms, a griffin, two heads of oxen, a bird, two balls, three crosses,
a sceptre, &c. The forms are, all of them, very rudely traced. No. 4
resembles in general character No. 3, but is even ruder. Three similar
robed figures hold each other's hands and perhaps execute a dance around
some religious object. Two heads of oxen or cows, with a disk between
their horns, occupy the spaces intervening between the upper parts of
the figures. In the lower portion of the field, the sun and moon fill
the middle space, the sun, moon, and five planets the spaces to the
right and to the left. Another cylinder from the same place (No. 5)[793]
is tolerably well designed and engraved. It shows us two persons, a
man and a woman, in the act of presenting a dove to a female, who is
probably the goddess Astarté, and who willingly receives it at their
hands. Behind Astarté a seated lion echoes the approval of the goddess
by raising one of his fore paws, while a griffin, who wholly disapproves
of the offering, turns his back in disgust.

On another cylinder, which is certainly Phoenician, a rude
representation of a sacred tree occupies the central position. To the
left stands a worshipper with the right hand upraised, clad in a very
common Assyrian dress. Over the sacred tree is a coarse specimen of
the winged circle or disk, with head and tail, and fluttering ends of
ribbon.[794] On either side stand two winged genii, dressed in long
robes, and tall stiff caps, such as are often seen on the heads of
Persians in the Persepolitan sculptures, and on the darics.[795] In the
field is a Phoenician inscription, which is read as {...} or _Irphael
ben Hor'adad_, "Irphael, the son of Horadad."[796]

Phoenician cylinders are in glass, green serpentine, cornaline, black
hæmatite, steatite, and green jasper.[797] They are scratched rather
than deeply cut, and cannot be said ever to attain to any considerable
artistic beauty. Those which have been here given are among the best;
and they certainly fall short, both in design and workmanship, of many
Assyrian, Babylonian, and even Persian specimens.

The gems, on the other hand, are in many cases quite equal to the
Assyrian. There is one of special merit, which has been pronounced "an
exquisite specimen of Phoenician lapidary art,"[798] figured by General
Di Cesnola in his "Cyprus."[799] Two men in regular Assyrian costume,
standing on either side of a "Sacred Tree," grasp, each of them, a
branch of it. Above is a winged circle, with the wings curved so as
to suit the shape of the gem. Below is an ornament, which is six times
repeated, like the blossom of a flower; and below this is a trelliswork.
The whole is cut deeply and sharply. Its Phoenician authorship is
assured by its being an almost exact repetition of a group upon the
silver patera found at Amathus.[7100]

Of other gems equally well engraved the following are specimens. No. 1
is a scarab of cornaline found by M. de Vogüé in Phoenicia Proper.[7101]
Two male figures in Assyrian costume face each other, their advanced
feet crossing. Both hold in one hand the _ankh_ or symbol of life. One
has in the left hand what is thought to be a lotus blossom. The other
has the right hand raised in the usual attitude of adoration. Between
the figures, wherever there was space for them, are Phoenician
characters, which are read as {...}, or _l'Beka_--i.e. "(the seal) of
Beka."[7102] No. 2, which has been set in a ring, is one of the many
scarabs brought by General Di Cesnola from Cyprus.[7103] It contains the
figure of a hind, suckling her fawn, and is very delicately carved. The
hind, however, is in an impossible attitude, the forelegs being thrown
forwards, probably in order to prevent them from interfering with the
figure of the fawn. Above the hind is an inscription, which appears to
be in the Cyprian character, and which gives (probably) the name of
the owner. No. 3 introduces us to domestic life. A grand lady, of Tyre
perhaps or Sidon,[7104] by name Akhot-melek, seated upon an elegant
throne, with her feet upon a footstool, and dressed in a long robe which
envelops the whole of her figure, receives at the hands of a female
attendant a bowl or wine-cup, which the latter has just filled from an
_oenochoë_ of elegant shape, still held in her left hand. The attendant
wears a striped robe reaching to the feet, and over it a tunic fastened
round the waist with a belt. Her hair flows down on her shoulders, while
that of her mistress is confined by a band, from which depends an ample
veil, enveloping the cheeks, the back of the head, and the chin. We are
told that such veils are still worn in the Phoenician country.[7105] An
inscription, in a late form of the Phoenician character, surrounds
the two figures, and is read as {...} or _l'Akhot-melek ishat
Joshua(?)_--i.e. "(the seal) of Akhot-melek, wife of Joshua."[7106] No.
4 contains the figure of a lion, cut with much spirit. MM. Perrot et
Chipiez say of it--"Among the numerous representations of lions that
have been discovered in Phoenicia, there is none which can be placed on
a par with that on the scarab bearing the name of 'Ashenel: small as it
is, this lion has something of the physiognomy of those magnificent ones
which we have borrowed from the bas-reliefs of the Assyrians. Still,
the intaglio is in other respects decidedly Phoenician and not Assyrian.
Observe, for instance, the beetle with the wings expanded, which fills
up the lower part of the field; this is a _motive_ borrowed from
Egypt, which a Ninevite lapidary would certainly not have put in such a
place."[7107] The Phoenician inscription takes away all doubt as to the
nationality. It reads as {...}, or _'Ashenêl_, and no doubt designates
the owner. No. 5 is beautifully engraved on a chalcedony. It represents
a stag attacked by a griffin, which has jumped suddenly on its back. The
drawing is excellent, both of the real and of the imaginary animal, and
leaves nothing to be desired. The inscription, which occupies the upper
part of the field to the right, is in Cyprian characters, and shows that
the gem was the signet of a certain Akestodaros.[7108]

There are some Phoenician gems which are interesting from their subject
matter without being especially good as works of art. One of these
contains a representation of two men fighting.[7109] Both are armed with
two spears, and both carry round shields or bucklers. The warrior to
the right wears a conical helmet, and is thought to be a native
Cyprian;[7110] he carries a shield without an _umbo_ or boss. His
adversary on the left wears a loose cap, or hood, the {pilos apages} of
Herodotus,[7111] and has a prominent _umbo_ in the middle of his shield.
He probably represents a Persian, and appears to have received a wound
from his antagonist, which is causing him to sink to the ground. This
gem was found at Curium in Cyprus by General Di Cesnola.

Another, found at the same place, exhibits a warrior, or a hunter, going
forth to battle or to the chase in his chariot.[7112] A large quiver
full of arrows is slung at each side of his car. The warrior and his
horse (one only is seen) are rudely drawn, but the chariot is
very distinctly made out, and has a wheel of an Assyrian type. The
Salaminians of Cyprus were famous for their war chariots,[7113] of which
this may be a representation.

The island of Sardinia has furnished a prodigious number of
Phoenician seals. A single private collection contains as many as six
hundred.[7114] They are mostly scarabs, and the type of them is mostly
Egyptian. Sometimes they bear the forms of Egyptian gods, as Horus, or
Thoth, or Anubis;[7115] sometimes cartouches with the names of kings as
Menkara, Thothmes III., Amenophis III., Seti I., &c.;[7116] sometimes
mere sacred emblems, as the winged uræus, the disk between two
uræi,[7117] and the like. Occasionally there is the representation of a
scene with which the Egyptian bas-reliefs have made us familiar:[7118]
a warrior has caught hold of his vanquished and kneeling enemy by a lock
of his hair, and threatens him with an axe or mace, which he brandishes
above his head. Or a lion takes the place of the captive man, and is
menaced in the same way. Human figures struggling with lions, and lions
killing wild bulls, are also common;[7119] but the type in these cases
is less Egyptian than Oriental.

Phoenician painting was not, like Egyptian, displayed upon the walls of
temples, nor was it, like Greek, the production of actual pictures
for the decoration of houses. It was employed to a certain extent on
statues, not so as to cover the entire figure, but with delicacy and
discretion, for the marking out of certain details, and the emphasising
of certain parts of the design.[7120] The hair and beard were often
painted a brownish red; the pupil of the eye was marked by means of
colour; and robes had often a border of red or blue. Statuettes were
tinted more generally, whole vestments being sometimes coloured red
or green,[7121] and a gay effect being produced, which is said to be
agreeable and harmonious.[7122] But the nearest approach to painting
proper which was made by the Phoenicians was upon their vessels in clay,
in terra-cotta, and in alabaster. Here, though, the ornamentation was
sometimes merely by patterns or bands,[7123] there were occasionally
real attempts to depict animal and human forms, which, if not very
successful, still possess considerable interest. The noble amphora
from Curium, figured by Di Cesnola,[7124] contains above forty
representations of horses, and nearly as many of birds. The shape of the
horse is exceedingly conventional, the whole form being attenuated
in the highest degree; but the animal is drawn with spirit, and the
departure from nature is clearly intentional. In the animals that are
pasturing, the general attitude is well seized; the movement is exactly
that of the horse when he stretches his neck to reach and crop the
grass.[7125] In the birds there is equal spirit and greater truth to
nature: they are in various attitudes, preening their feathers, pecking
the ground, standing with head erect in the usual way. Other vases
contain figures of cows, goats, stags, fish and birds of various kinds,
while one has an attempt at a hippopotamus. The attempts to represent
the human form are certainly not happy; they remind us of the more
ambitious efforts of Chinese and Japanese art.



CHAPTER VIII--INDUSTRIAL ART AND MANUFACTURES

     Phoenician textile fabrics, embroidered or dyed--Account of
     the chief Phoenician dye--Mollusks from which the purple was
     obtained--Mode of obtaining them--Mode of procuring the dye
     from them--Process of dyeing--Variety of the tints--
     Manufacture of glass--Story of its invention--Three kinds of
     Phoenician glass--1. Transparent colourless glass--2. Semi-
     transparent coloured glass--3. Opaque glass, much like
     porcelain--Description of objects in glass--Methods pursued
     in the manufacture--Phoenician ceramic art--Earliest
     specimens--Vases with geometrical designs--Incised
     patterning--Later efforts--Use of enamel--Great amphora of
     Curium--Phoenician ceramic art disappointing--Ordinary
     metallurgy--Implements--Weapons--Toilet articles--Lamp-
     stands and tripods--Works in iron and lead.

Phoenicia was celebrated from a remote antiquity for the manufacture of
textile fabrics. The materials which she employed for them were wool,
linen yarn, perhaps cotton, and, in the later period of her commercial
prosperity, silk. The "white wool" of Syria was supplied to her in
abundance by the merchants of Damascus,[81] and wool of lambs, rams,
and goats seems also to have been furnished by the more distant parts of
Arabia.[82] Linen yarn may have been imported from Egypt, where it was
largely manufactured, and was of excellent quality;[83] while raw
silk is said to have been "brought to Tyre and Berytus by the Persian
merchants, and there both dyed and woven into cloaks."[84] The price of
silk was very high, and it was customary in Phoenicia to intermix the
precious material either with linen or with cotton;[85] as is still done
to a certain extent in modern times. It is perhaps doubtful whether,
so far as the mere fabric of stuffs was concerned, the products of the
Phoenician looms were at all superior to those which Egypt and Babylonia
furnished, much less to those which came from India, and passed under
the name of _Sindones_. Two things gave to the Phoenician stuffs that
high reputation which caused them to be more sought for than any others;
and these were, first, the brilliancy and beauty of their colours,
and, secondly, the delicacy with which they were in many instances
embroidered. We have not much trace of Phoenician embroidery on the
representations of dresses that have come down to us; but the testimony
of the ancients is unimpeachable,[86] and we may regard it as
certain that the art of embroidery, known at a very early date to the
Hebrews,[87] was cultivated with great success by their Phoenician
neighbours, and under their auspices reached a high point of perfection.
The character of the decoration is to be gathered from the extant
statues and bas-reliefs, from the representations on pateræ, on cups,
dishes, and gems. There was a tendency to divide the surface to be
ornamented into parallel stripes or bands, and to repeat along the
line a single object, or two alternately. Rosettes, monsters of various
kinds, winged globes with uræi, scarabs, sacred trees, and garlands
or blossoms of the lotus were the ordinary "motives."[88] Occasionally
human figures might be introduced, and animal forms even more
frequently; but a stiff conventionalism prevailed, the same figures were
constantly repeated, and the figures themselves had in few cases much
beauty.

The brilliancy and beauty of the Phoenician coloured stuffs resulted
from the excellency of their dyes. Here we touch a second branch of
their industrial skill, for the principal dyes used were originally
invented and continuously fabricated by the Phoenicians themselves,
not imported from any foreign country. Nature had placed along the
Phoenician coast, or at any rate along a great portion of it, an
inexhaustible supply of certain shell-fish, or molluscs, which contained
as a part of their internal economy a colouring fluid possessing
remarkable, and indeed unique, qualities. Some account has been already
given of the species which are thought to have been anciently most
esteemed. They belong, mainly, to the two allied families of the _Murex_
and the _Buccinum_ or _Purpura_. Eight species of the former, and six
of the latter, having their habitat in the Mediterranean, have been
distinguished by some naturalists;[89] but two of the former only,
and one of the latter, appear to have attracted the attention of the
Phoenicians. The _Murex brandaris_ is now thought to have borne away
the palm from all the others; it is extremely common upon the coast; and
enormous heaps of the shells are found, especially in the vicinity of
Tyre, crushed and broken--the débris, as it would seem, cast away by the
manufacturers of old.[810] The _Murex trunculus_, according to some, is
just as abundant, in a crushed state, in the vicinity of Sidon, great
banks of it existing, which are a hundred yards long and several yards
thick.[811] It is a more spinous shell than the _M. brandaris_, having
numerous projecting points, and a generally rough and rugged appearance.
The _Purpura_ employed seems to have been the _P. lapillus_, a mollusc
not confined to the Mediterranean, but one which frequents also our
own shores, and was once turned to some account in Ireland.[812] The
varieties of the _P. lapillus_ differ considerably. Some are nearly
white, some greyish, others buff striped with brown. Some, again, are
smooth, others nearly as rough as the _Murex trunculus_. The _Helix
ianthina_, which is included by certain writers among the molluscs
employed for dyeing purposes by the Phoenicians,[813] is a shell of a
completely different character, smooth and delicate, much resembling
that of an ordinary land snail, and small compared to the others. It is
not certain, however, that the _helix_, though abounding in the Eastern
Mediterranean,[814] ever attracted the notice of the Phoenicians.

The molluscs needed by the Phoenician dyers were not obtained without
some difficulty. As the Mediterranean has no tides, it does not uncover
its shores at low water like the ocean, or invite man to rifle them. The
coveted shell-fish, in most instances, preferred tolerably deep water;
and to procure them in any quantity it was necessary that they should
be fished up from a depth of some fathoms. The mode in which they were
captured was the following. A long rope was let down into the sea, with
baskets of reeds or rushes attached to it at intervals, constructed like
our lobster-traps or eel-baskets, with an opening that yielded easily
to pressure from the outside, but resisted pressure from the inside,
and made escape, when once the trap was entered, impossible. The baskets
were baited with mussels or frogs, both of which had great attractions
for the _Purpuræ_, and were seized and devoured with avidity. At the
upper end of the rope was attached to a large piece of cork, which, even
when the baskets were full, could not be drawn under water. It was usual
to set the traps in the evening, and after waiting a night, or sometimes
a night and a day, to draw them up to the surface, when they were
generally found to be full of the coveted shell-fish.[815]

There were two ways in which the dye was obtained from the molluscs.
Sometimes a hole was broken in the side of the shell, and the fish taken
out entire.[816] The _sac_ containing the colouring matter, which is
a sort of vein, beginning at the head of the animal, and following the
tortuous line of the body as it twists through the spiral shell,[817]
was then carefully extracted, either while the mollusc was still alive,
or as soon as possible after death, as otherwise the quality of the
dye was impaired. This plan was pursued more especially with the larger
species of _Purpuræ_, where the _sac_ attained a certain size; while
with a smaller kinds a different method was followed. In their case no
attempt was made to extract the _sac_, but the entire fish was crushed,
together with its shell, and after salt had been added in the proportion
of twenty ounces to a hundred pounds of the pulp, three days were
allowed for maceration; heat was then applied, and when, by repeated
skimming, the coarse particles had been removed, the dye was left in a
liquid state at the bottom. It was necessary that the vessel in which
this final process took place should be of lead, and not of bronze or
iron, since those metals gave the dye a disagreeable tinge.[818]

The colouring matter contained in the _sac_ of the _Purpuræ_ is a liquid
of a creamy consistency, and of a yellowish-white hue. On extraction, it
is at first decidedly yellow; then after a little time it becomes green;
and, finally, it settles into some shade of violet or purple. Chemical
analysis has shown that in the case of the _Murex trunculus_ the liquid
is composed of two elementary substances, one being cyanic acid, which
is of a blue or azure colour, and the other being purpuric oxide, which
is a bright red.[819] In the case of the _Murex brandaris_ one element
only has been found: it is an oxide, which has received the name of
_oxyde tyrien_.[820] No naturalist has as yet discovered what purpose
the liquid serves in the economy, or in the preservation, of the animal;
it is certainly not exuded, as sepia is by the cuttle-fish, to cloud the
water in the neighbourhood, and enable the creature to conceal itself.

Concerning the Phoenician process of dyeing, the accounts which have
come down to us are at once confused and incomplete. Nothing is said
with respect to their employment of mordants, either acid or alkali, and
yet it is almost certain that they must have used one or the other, or
both, to fix the colours, and render them permanent. The _gamins_
of Tyre employ to this day mordants of each sort;[821] and an alkali
derived from seaweed is mentioned by Pliny as made use of for fixing
some dyes,[822] though he does not distinctly tell us that it was known
to the Phoenicians or employed in fixing the purple. What we chiefly
learn from this writer as to the dyeing process is[823]--first, that
sometimes the liquid derived from the _murex_ only, sometimes that of
the _purpura_ or _buccinum_ only, was applied to the material which it
was wished to colour, while the most approved hue was produced by an
application of both dyes separately. Secondly, we are told that the
material, whatever it might be, was steeped in the dye for a certain
number of hours, then withdrawn for a while, and afterwards returned to
the vat and steeped a second time. The best Tyrian cloths were called
_Dibapha_, i.e. "twice dipped;" and for the production of the true
"Tyrian purple" it was necessary that the dye obtained from the
_Buccinum_ should be used after that from the _Murex_ had been applied.
The _Murex_ alone gave a dye that was firm, and reckoned moderately
good; but the _Buccinum_ alone was weak, and easily washed out.

The actual tints produced from the shell-fish appear to have ranged from
blue, through violet and purple, to crimson and rose.[824] Scarlet could
not be obtained, but was yielded by the cochineal insect. Even for
the brighter sorts of crimson some admixture of the cochineal dye was
necessary.[825] The violet tint was not generally greatly prized,
though there was a period in the reign of Augustus when it was the
fashion;[826] redder hues were commonly preferred; and the choicest
of all is described as "a rich, dark purple, the colour of coagulated
blood."[827] A deep crimson was also in request, and seems frequently to
be intended when the term purple ({porphureos}, _purpureus_) is used.

A third industry greatly affected by the Phoenicians was the manufacture
of glass. According to Pliny,[828] the first discovery of the substance
was made upon the Phoenician coast by a body of sailors whom he no doubt
regarded as Phoenicians. These persons had brought a cargo of natrum,
which is the subcarbonate of soda, to the Syrian coast in the vicinity
of Acre, and had gone ashore at the mouth of the river Belus to cook
their dinner. Having lighted a fire upon the sand, they looked about for
some stones to prop up their cooking utensils, but finding none, or none
convenient for the purpose, they bethought themselves of utilising for
the occasion some of the blocks of natrum with which their ship was
laden. These were placed close to the fire, and the heat was sufficient
to melt a portion of one of them, which, mixing with the siliceous sand
at its base, produced a stream of glass. There is nothing impossible
or even very improbable in this story; but we may question whether the
scene of it is rightly placed. Glass was manufactured in Egypt many
centuries before the probable date of the Phoenician occupation of
the Mediterranean coast; and, if the honour of the invention is to be
assigned to a particular people, the Egyptians would seem to have the
best claim to it. The process of glass-blowing is represented in tombs
at Beni Hassan of very great antiquity,[829] and a specimen of Egyptian
glass is in existence bearing the name of a Usurtasen, a king of the
twelfth dynasty.[830] Natrum, moreover, was an Egyptian product, well
known from a remote date, being the chief ingredient used in the various
processes of embalming.[831] Phoenicia has no natrum, and not even any
vegetable alkali readily procurable in considerable quantity. There _may
have been_ an accidental discovery of glass in Phoenicia, but priority
of discovery belonged almost certainly to Egypt; and it is, upon the
whole, most probable that Phoenicia derived from Egypt her knowledge
both of the substance itself and of the method of making it.

Still, there can be no doubt that the manufacture was one on which the
Phoenicians eagerly seized, and which they carried out on a large scale
and very successfully. Sidon, according to the ancients,[832] was the
chief seat of the industry; but the best sand is found near Tyre, and
both Tyre and Sarepta also seem to have been among the places where
glassworks were early established. At Sarepta extensive banks of
_débris_ have been found, consisting of broken glass of many colours,
the waste beyond all doubt of a great glass manufactory;[833] at Tyre,
the traces of the industry are less extensive,[834] but on the other
hand we have historical evidence that it continued to be practised there
into the middle ages.[835]

The glass produced by the Phoenicians was of three kinds: first,
transparent colourless glass, which the eye could see through; secondly,
translucent coloured glass, through which light could pass, though the
eye could not penetrate it so as to distinguish objects; and, thirdly,
opaque glass, scarcely distinguishable from porcelain. Transparent
glass was employed for mirrors, round plates being cast, which made very
tolerable looking-glasses,[836] when covered at the back by thin sheets
of metal, and also for common objects, such as vases, urns, bottles, and
jugs, which have been yielded in abundance by tombs of a somewhat late
date in Cyprus.[837] No great store, however, seems to have been set
upon transparency, in which the Oriental eye saw no beauty; and the
objects which modern research has recovered under this head at Tyre, in
Cyprus, and elsewhere, seem the work of comparatively rude artists, and
have little æsthetic merit. The shapes, however, are not inelegant.

The most beautiful of the objects in glass produced by the Phoenicians
are the translucent or semi-transparent vessels of different kinds, most
of them variously coloured, which have been found in Cyprus, at Camirus
in Rhodes, and on the Syrian coast, near Beyrout and elsewhere.[838]
These comprise small flasks or bottles, from three to six inches long,
probably intended to contain perfumes; small jugs (oenochoæ) from three
inches in height to five inches; vases of about the same size; amphoræ
pointed at the lower extremity; and other varieties. They are coloured,
generally, either in longitudinal or in horizontal stripes and bands;
but the bands often deviate from the straight line into zig-zags, which
are always more or less irregular, like the zig-zags of the Norman
builders, while sometimes they are deflected into crescents, or other
curves, as particularly one resembling a willow-leaf. The colours are
not very vivid, but are pleasing and well-contrasted; they are chiefly
five--white, blue, yellow, green, and a purplish brown. Red scarcely
appears, except in a very pale, pinkish form; and even in this form
it is uncommon. Blue, on the other hand, is greatly affected, being
sometimes used in the patterns, often taken for the ground,
and occasionally, in two tints, forming both groundwork and
ornamentation.[839] It is not often that more than three hues are found
on the same vessel, and sometimes the hues employed are only two. There
are instances, however, and very admirable instances, of the employment,
on a single vessel, of four hues.[840]

The colours were obtained, commonly, at any rate, from metallic oxides.
The ordinary blue employed is cobalt, though it is suspected that there
was an occasional use of copper. Copper certainly furnished the greens,
while manganese gave the brown, which shades off into purple and into
black. The beautiful milky white which forms the ground tint of some
vases is believed to have been derived from the oxide of tin, or else
from phosphate of chalk. It is said that the colouring matter of the
patterns does not extend through the entire thickness of the glass, but
lies only on the outer surface, being a later addition to the vessels as
first made.

Translucent coloured glass was also largely produced by the Phoenicians
for beads and other ornaments, and also for the imitation of gems. The
huge emerald of which Herodotus speaks,[841] as "shining with great
brilliancy at night" in the temple of Melkarth at Tyre, was probably
a glass cylinder, into which a lamb was introduced by the priests. In
Phoenician times the pretended stone is quite as often a glass paste as
a real gem, and the case is the same with the scarabs so largely used
as seals. In Phoenician necklaces, glass beads alternate frequently
with real agates, onyxes, and crystals; while sometimes glass in various
shapes is the only material employed. A necklace found at Tharros in
Sardinia, and now in the collection of the Louvre, which is believed
to be of Phoenician manufacture, is composed of above forty beads,
two cylinders, four pendants representing heads of bulls, and one
representing the face of a man, all of glass.[842] Another, found by M.
Renan in Phoenicia itself, is made up of glass beads imitating pearls,
intermixed with beads of cornaline and agate.[843]

Another class of glass ornaments consists of small flat _plaques_ or
plates, pierced with a number of fine holes, which appear to have been
sewn upon garments. These are usually patterned, sometimes with spirals,
sometimes with rosettes, occasionally, though rarely, with figures.
Messrs. Perrot and Chipiez represent one in their great work upon
ancient art,[844] where almost the entire field is occupied by a winged
griffin, standing upright on its two hind legs, and crowned with a
striped cap, or turban.

Phoenician opaque glass is comparatively rare, and possesses but little
beauty. It was rendered opaque in various ways. Messrs. Perrot and
Chipiez found that in a statue of Serapis, which they analysed, the
glass was mixed with bronze in the proportions of ten to three. An
opaque material of a handsome red colour was thus produced, which was
heavy and exceedingly hard.[845]

The methods pursued by the Phoenician glass-manufacturers were probably
much the same as those which are still employed for the production of
similar objects, and involved the use of similar implements, as the
blowpipe, the lathe, and the graver. The materials having been procured,
they were fused together in a crucible or melting-pot by the heat of a
powerful furnace. A blowpipe was then introduced into the viscous mass,
a portion of which readily attached itself to the implement, and so much
glass was withdrawn as was deemed sufficient for the object which it was
designed to manufacture. The blower then set to work, and blew hard
into the pipe until the glass at its lower extremity began to expand and
gradually took a pear-shaped form, the material partially coolling and
hardening, but still retaining a good deal of softness and pliability.
While in this condition, it was detached from the pipe, and modelled
with pincers or with the hand into the shape required, after which it
was polished, and perhaps sometimes cut by means of the turning-lathe.
Sand and emery were the chief polishers, and by their help a surface was
produced, with which little fault could be found, being smooth, uniform,
and brilliant. Thus the vessel was formed, and if no further ornament
was required, the manufacture was complete--a jug, vase, alabastron,
amphora, was produced, either transparent or of a single uniform
tint, which might be white, blue, brown, green, &c., according to the
particular oxide which had been thrown, with the silica and alkali, into
the crucible. Generally, however, the manufacturer was not content with
so simple a product: he aimed not merely at utility, but at beauty, and
proceeded to adorn the work of his hands--whatever it was--with patterns
which were for the most part in good taste and highly pleasing. These
patterns he first scratched on the outer surface of the vessel with a
graving tool; then, when he had made his depressions deep enough, he
took threads of coloured glass, and having filled up with the threads
the depressions which he had made, he subjected the vessel once more to
such a heat that the threads were fused, and attached themselves to the
ground on which they had been laid. In melting they would generally
more than fill the cavities, overflowing them, and protruding from
them, whence it was for the most part necessary to repeat the polishing
process, and to bring by means of abrasion the entire surface once more
into uniformity. There are cases where this has been incompletely done
and where the patterns project; there are others where the threads have
never thoroughly melted into the ground, and where in the course of
time they have partially detached themselves from it; but in general the
fusion and subsequent polishing have been all that could be wished,
and the patterns are perfectly level with the ground and seem one with
it.[846]

The running of liquid glass into moulds, so common nowadays, does not
seem to have been practised by the Phoenicians, perhaps because their
furnaces were not sufficiently hot to produce complete liquefaction.
But--if this was so--the pressure of the viscous material into moulds
cannot have been unknown, since we have evidence of the existence of
moulds,[847] and there are cases where several specimens of an object
have evidently issued from a single matrix.[848] Beads, cylinders,
pendants, scarabs, amulets, were probably, all of them, made in this
way, sometimes in translucent, sometimes in semi-opaque glass, as
perhaps were also the _plaques_ which have been already described.

The ceramic art of the Phoenicians is not very remarkable. Phoenicia
Proper is deficient in clay of a superior character, and it was probably
a very ordinary and coarse kind of pottery that the Phoenician merchants
of early times exported regularly in their trading voyages, both inside
and outside the Mediterranean. We hear of their carrying this cheap
earthenware northwards to the Cassiterides or Scilly Islands,[849] and
southwards to the isle of Cerné, which is probably Arguin, on the West
African coast;[850] nor can we doubt that they supplied it also to
the uncivilised races of the Mediterranean--the Illyrians, Ligurians,
Sicels, Sards, Corsicans, Spaniards, Libyans. But the fragile nature of
the material, and its slight value, have caused its entire disappearance
in the course of centuries, unless in the shape of small fragments; nor
are these fragments readily distinguishable from those whose origin is
different. Phoenicia Proper has furnished no earthen vessels, either
whole or in pieces, that can be assigned to a time earlier than the
Greco-Roman period,[851] nor have any such vessels been found hitherto
on Phoenician sites either in Sardinia, or in Corsica, or in Spain,
or Africa, or Sicily, or Malta, or Gozzo. The only places that have
hitherto furnished earthen vases or other vessels presumably Phoenician
are Jerusalem, Camirus in Rhodes, and Cyprus; and it is from the
specimens found at these sites that we must form our estimate of the
Phoenician pottery.

The earliest specimens are of a moderately good clay, unglazed. They are
regular in shape, being made by the help of a wheel, and for the most
part not inelegant, though they cannot be said to possess any remarkable
beauty. Many are without ornament of any kind, being apparently mere
jars, used for the storing away of oil or wine; they have sometimes
painted or scratched upon them, in Phoenician characters, the name of
the maker or owner. A few rise somewhat above the ordinary level, having
handles of some elegance, and being painted with designs and patterns,
generally of a geometrical character. A vase about six inches high,
found at Jerusalem, has, between horizontal bands, a series of geometric
patterns, squares, octagons, lozenges, triangles, pleasingly arranged,
and painted in brown upon a ground which is of a dull grey. At the top
are two rude handles, between which runs a line of zig-zag, while at
the bottom is a sort of stand or base. The shape is heavy and
inelegant.[852]

Another vase of a similar character to this, but superior in many
respects, was found by General Di Cesnola at Dali (Idalium), and is
figured in his "Cyprus."[853] This vase has the shape of an urn, and is
ornamented with horizontal bands, except towards the middle, where it
has its greatest diameter, and exhibits a series of geometric designs.
In the centre is a lozenge, divided into four smaller lozenges by a St.
Andrew's cross; other compartments are triangular, and are filled with
a chequer of black and white, resembling the squares of a chessboard.
Beyond, on either side, are vertical bands, diversified with a lozenge
ornament. Two hands succeed, of a shape that is thought to have "a
certain elegance."[854] There is a rim, which might receive a cover,
at top, and at bottom a short pedestal. The height of the vase is about
thirteen inches.

In many of the Cyprian vases having a geometric decoration, the figures
are not painted on the surface but impressed or incised. Messrs. Perrot
and Chipiez regard this form of ornamentation as the earliest; but the
beauty and finish of several vases on which it occurs is against the
supposition. There is scarcely to be found, even in the range of Greek
art, a more elegant form than that of the jug in black clay brought by
General Di Cesnola from Alambra and figured both in his "Cyprus"[855]
and in the "Histoire de l'Art."[856] Yet its ornamentation is incised.
If, then, incised patterning preceded painted in Phoenicia, at any rate
it held its ground after painting was introduced, and continued in vogue
even to the time when Greek taste had largely influenced Phoenician art
of every description.

The finest Phoenician efforts in ceramic art resemble either the best
Egyptian or the best Greek. As the art advanced, the advantage of a rich
glaze was appreciated, and specimens which seem to be Phoenician have
all the delicacy and beauty of the best Egyptian faïence. A cup found
at Idalium, plain on the outside, is covered internally with a green
enamel, on which are patterns and designs in black.[857] In a medallion
at the bottom of the cup is the representation of a marshy tract
overgrown with the papyrus plant, whereof we see both the leaves and
blossoms, while among them, rushing at full speed, is the form of a
wild boar. The rest of the ornamentation consists chiefly of concentric
circles; but between two of the circles is left a tolerably broad ring,
which has a pattern consisting of a series of broadish leaves pointing
towards the cup's centre. Nothing can be more delicate, or in better
taste, than the entire design.

The most splendid of all the Cyprian vases was found at Curium, and
has been already represented in this volume. It is an amphora of large
dimensions, ornamented in part with geometrical designs, in part with
compartments, in which are represented horses and birds. The form, the
designs, and the general physiognomy of the amphora are considered to be
in close accordance with Athenian vases of the most antique school. The
resemblance is so great that some have supposed the vase to have been
an importation from Attica into Cyprus;[858] but such conjectures
are always hazardous; and the principal motives of the design are so
frequent on the Cyprian vases, that the native origin of the vessel is
at least possible, and the judgment of some of the best critics seems to
incline in this direction.

Still, on the whole, the Cyprian ceramic art is somewhat disappointing.
What is original in it is either grotesque, as the vases in the shape of
animals,[859] or those crowned by human heads,[860] or those again which
have for spout a female figure pouring liquid out of a jug.[861] What is
superior has the appearance of having been borrowed. Egyptian, Assyrian,
and Greek art, each in turn, furnished shapes, designs, and patterns to
the Phoenician potters, who readily adopted from any and every quarter
the forms and decorations which hit their fancy. Their fancy was,
predominantly, for the _bizarre_ and the extravagant. Vases in the shape
of helmets, in the shape of barrels, in the shape of human heads,[862]
have little fitness, and in the Cyprian specimens have little beauty;
the mixture of Assyrian with Egyptian forms is incongruous; the birds
and beasts represented are drawn with studied quaintness, a quaintness
recalling the art of China and Japan. If there is elegance in some of
the forms, it is seldom a very pronounced elegance; and, where the taste
is best, the suspicion continually arises that a foreign model has been
imitated. Moreover, from first to last the art makes little progress.
There seems to have been an arrest of development.[863] The early
steps are taken, but at a certain point stagnation sets in; there is no
further attempt to improve or advance; the artists are content to repeat
themselves, and reproduce the patterns of the past. Perhaps there was no
demand for ceramic art of a higher order. At any rate, progress ceases,
and while Greece was rising to her grandest efforts, Cyprus, and
Phoenicia generally, were content to remain stationary.

Besides their ornamental metallurgy, which has been treated of in
a former chapter, the Phoenicians largely employed several metals,
especially bronze and copper, in the fabrication of vessels for ordinary
use, of implements, arms, toilet articles, furniture, &c. The vessels
include pateræ, bowls, jugs, amphoræ, and cups;[864] the implements,
hatchets, adzes, knives, and sickles;[865] the arms, spearheads,
arrowheads, daggers, battle-axes, helmets, and shields;[866] the toilet
articles, mirrors, hand-bells, buckles, candlesticks, &c.;[867] the
furniture, tall candelabra, tripods, and thrones.[868] The bronze is of
an excellent quality, having generally about nine parts of copper to one
of tin; and there is reason to believe that by the skilful tempering of
the Phoenician metallurgists, it attained a hardness which was not often
given it by others. The Cyprian shields were remarkable. They were of
a round shape, slightly convex, and instead of the ordinary boss, had
a long projecting cone in the centre. An actual shield, with the
cone perfect, was found by General Di Cesnola at Amathus,[869] and a
projection of the same kind is seen in several of the Sardinian bronze
and terra-cotta statuettes.[870] Shields were sometimes elaborately
embossed, in part with patterning, in part with animal and vegetable
forms.[871] Helmets were also embossed with care, and sometimes
inscribed with the name of the maker or the owner.[872]

Some remains of swords, probably Phoenician, have been found in
Sardinia. They vary from two feet seven inches to four feet two inches
in length.[873] The blade is commonly straight, and very thick in the
centre, but tapers off on both sides to a sharp edge. The point is
blunt, so that the intention cannot have been to use the weapon both for
cutting and thrusting, but only for the former. It would scarcely make
such a clean cut as a modern broadsword, but would no doubt be equally
effectual for killing or disabling. Another weapon, found in Sardinia,
and sometimes called a sword, is more properly a knife or dagger. In
length it does not exceed seven or eight inches, and of this length more
than a third is occupied by the handle.[874] Below the handle the
blade broadens for about an inch or an inch and a half; after this it
contracts, and tapers gently to a sharp point. Such a weapon appears
sometimes in the hand of a statuette.[875]

The bronze articles of the toilet recovered by recent researches in
Cyprus and elsewhere are remarkable. The handle of a mirror found in
Cyprus, and now in the Museum of New York, possesses considerable
merit. It consists mainly of a female figure, naked, and standing upon a
frog.[876] In her hands she holds a pair of cymbals, which she is in the
act of striking together. A ribbon, passed over her left shoulder,
is carried through a ring, from which hangs a seal. On her arms and
shoulders appear to have stood two lions, which formed side supports to
the mirror that was attached to the figure's head. If the face of the
cymbal-player cannot boast of much beauty, and her figure is thought to
"lack distinction," still it is granted that the _tout ensemble_ of
the work was not without originality, and may have possessed a certain
amount of elegance.[877] The frog is particularly well modelled.

Some candlesticks found in the Treasury of Curium,[878] and a tripod
from the same place, seem to deserve a short notice. The candlesticks
stand upon a sort of short pillar as a base, above which is the blossom
of a flower inverted, a favourite Phoenician ornament.[879] From this
rises the lamp-stand, composed of three leaves, which curl outwards, and
support between them a ring into which the bottom of the lamp fitted.
The tripod[880] is more elaborate. The legs, which are fluted, bulge
considerably at the top, after which they bend inwards, and form a curve
like one half of a Cupid's bow. To retain them in place, they are joined
together by a sort of cross-bar, about half-way in their length; while,
to keep them steady, they are made to rest on large flat feet. The
circular hoop which they support is of some width, and is ornamented
along its entire course with a zig-zag. From the hoop depend, half-way
in the spaces between the legs, three rings, from each of which there
hangs a curious pendant.

Besides copper and bronze, the Phoenicians seem to have worked in lead
and iron, but only to a small extent. Iron ore might have been obtained
in some parts of their own country, but appears to have been principally
derived from abroad, especially from Spain.[881] It was worked up
chiefly, so far as we know, into arms offensive and defensive. The sword
of Alexander, which he received as a gift from the king of Citium,[882]
was doubtless in this metal, which is the material of a sword found at
Amathus, and of numerous arrowheads.[883] We are also told that Cyprus
furnished the iron breast-plates worn by Demetrius Poliorcetes;[884] and
in pre-Homeric times it was a Phoenician--Cinyras--who gave to Agamemnon
his breast-plate of steel, gold, and tin.[885] That more remains of iron
arms and implements have not been found on Phoenician sites is probably
owing to the rapid oxydisation of the metal, which consequently decays
and disappears. The Hiram who was sent to assist Solomon in building and
furnishing the Temple of Jerusalem was, we must remember, "skilful
to work," not only "in gold, and silver, and bronze," but also "in
iron."[886]

Lead was largely furnished to the Phoenicians by the Scilly
Islands,[887] and by Spain.[888] It has not been found in any great
quantity on Phoenician sites, but still appears occasionally. Sometimes
it is a solder uniting stone with bronze;[889] sometimes it exists in
thin sheets, which may have been worn as ornaments.[890] In Phoenicia
Proper it has been chiefly met with in the shape of coffins,[891] which
are apparently of a somewhat late date. They are formed of several
sheets placed one over the other and then soldered together. There is
generally on the lid and sides of the coffin an external ornamentation
in a low relief, wherein the myth of Psyché is said commonly to play
a part; but the execution is mediocre, and the designs themselves have
little merit.



CHAPTER IX--SHIPS, NAVIGATION, AND COMMERCE

     Earliest navigation by means of rafts and canoes--Model of a
     very primitive boat--Phoenician vessel of the time of
     Sargon--Phoenician biremes in the time of Sennacherib--
     Phoenician pleasure vessels and merchant ships--Superiority
     of the Phoenician war-galleys--Excellence of the
     arrangements--Patæci--Early navigation cautious--Increasing
     boldness--Furthest ventures--Extent of the Phoenician land
     commerce--Witness of Ezekiel--Wares imported--Caravans--
     Description of the land trade--Sea trade of Phoenicia--1.
     With her own colonies--2. With foreigners--Mediterranean and
     Black Sea trade--North Atlantic trade--Trade with the West
     Coast of Africa and the Canaries--Trade in the Red Sea and
     Indian Ocean.

The first attempts of the Phoenicians to navigate the sea which washed
their coast were probably as clumsy and rude as those of other primitive
nations. They are said to have voyaged from island to island, in their
original abodes within the Persian Gulf, by means of rafts.[91] When
they reached the shores of the Mediterranean, it can scarcely have
been long ere they constructed boats for fishing and coasting purposes,
though no doubt such boats were of a very rude construction. Probably,
like other races, they began with canoes, roughly hewn out of the trunk
of a tree. The torrents which descended from Lebanon would from time
to time bring down the stems of fallen trees in their flood-time; and
these, floating on the Mediterranean waters, would suggest the idea
of navigation. They would, at first, be hollowed out with hatchets and
adzes, or else with fire; and, later on, the canoes thus produced would
form the models for the earliest efforts in shipbuilding. The great
length, however, would soon be found unnecessary, and the canoe would
give place to the boat, in the ordinary acceptation of the term. There
are models of boats among the Phoenician remains which have a very
archaic character,[92] and may give us some idea of the vessels in which
the Phoenicians of the remoter times braved the perils of the deep. They
have a keel, not ill shaped, a rounded hull, bulwarks, a beak, and a
high seat for the steersman. The oars, apparently, must have been passed
through interstices in the bulwark.

From this rude shape the transition was not very difficult to the
bark represented in the sculptures of Sargon,[93] which is probably a
Phoenician one. Here four rowers, standing to their oars, impel a vessel
having for prow the head of a horse and for stern the tail of a fish,
both of them rising high above the water. The oars are curved, like golf
or hockey-sticks, and are worked from the gunwale of the bark, though
there is no indication of rowlocks. The vessel is without a rudder; but
it has a mast, supported by two ropes which are fastened to the head and
stern. The mast has neither sail nor yard attached to it, but is crowned
by what is called a "crow's nest"--a bell-shaped receptacle, from which
a slinger or archer might discharge missiles against an enemy.[94]

A vessel of considerably greater size than this, but of the same
class--impelled, that is, by one bank of oars only--is indicated by
certain coins, which have been regarded by some critics as Phoenician,
by others as belonging to Cilicia.[95] These have a low bow, but an
elevated stern; the prow exhibits a beak, while the stern shows signs of
a steering apparatus; the number of the oars on each side is fifteen
or twenty. The Greeks called these vessels triaconters or penteconters.
They are represented without any mast on the coins, and thus seem to
have been merely row-boats of a superior character.

About the time of Sennacherib (B.C. 700), or a little earlier, some
great advances seem to have been made by the Phoenician shipbuilders. In
the first place, they introduced the practice of placing the rowers on
two different levels, one above the other; and thus, for a vessel of
the same length, doubling the number of the rowers. Ships of this kind,
which the Greeks called "biremes," are represented in Sennacherib's
sculptures as employed by the inhabitants of a Phoenician city, who fly
in them at the moment when their town is captured, and so escape their
enemy.[96] The ships are of two kinds. Both kinds have a double tier
of rowers, and both are guided by two steering oars thrust out from the
stern; but while the one is still without mast or sail, and is rounded
off in exactly the same way both at stem and stern, the other has a
mast, placed about midship, a yard hung across it, and a sail close
reefed to the yard, while the bow is armed with a long projecting beak,
like a ploughshare, which must have been capable of doing terrible
damage to a hostile vessel. The rowers, in both classes of ships, are
represented as only eight or ten upon a side; but this may have arisen
from artistic necessity, since a greater number of figures could not
have been introduced without confusion. It is thought that in the beaked
vessel we have a representation of the Phoenician war-galley; in the
vessel without a beak, one of the Phoenician transport.[97]

A painting on a vase found in Cyprus exhibits what would seem to have
been a pleasure-vessel.[98] It is unbeaked, and without any sign of
oars, except two paddles for steering with. About midship is a short
mast, crossed by a long spar or yard, which carries a sail, closely
reefed along its entire length. The yard and sail are managed by means
of four ropes, which are, however, somewhat conventionally depicted.
Both the head and stern of the vessel rise to a considerable height
above the water, and the stern is curved, very much as in the
war-galleys. It perhaps terminated in the head of a bird.

According to the Greek writers, Phoenician vessels were mainly of two
kinds, merchant ships and war-vessels.[99] The merchant ships were of
a broad, round make, what our sailors would call "tubs," resembling
probably the Dutch fishing-boats of a century ago. They were impelled
both by oars and sails, but depended mainly on the latter. Each of
them had a single mast of moderate height, to which a single sail was
attached;[910] this was what in modern times is called a "square sail,"
a form which is only well suited for sailing with when the wind is
directly astern. It was apparently attached to the yard, and had to be
hoisted together with the yard, along which it could be closely reefed,
or from which it could be loosely shaken out. It was managed, no doubt,
by ropes attached to the two lower corners, which must have been held
in the hands of sailors, as it would have been most dangerous to belay
them. As long as the wind served, the merchant captain used his sail;
when it died away, or became adverse, he dropped yard and sail on to his
deck, and made use of his oars.

Merchant ships had, commonly, small boats attached to them, which
afforded a chance of safety if the ship foundered, and were useful when
cargoes had to be landed on a shelving shore.[911] We have no means
of knowing whether these boats were hoisted up on deck until they were
wanted, or attached to the ships by ropes and towed after them; but the
latter arrangement is the more probable.

The war-galleys of the Phoenicians in the early times were probably of
the class which the Greeks called triaconters or penteconters, and which
are represented upon the coins. They were long open rowboats, in which
the rowers sat, all of them, upon a level, the number of rowers on
either side being generally either fifteen or twenty-five. Each galley
was armed at its head with a sharp metal spike, or beak, which was its
chief weapon of offence, vessels of this class seeking commonly to run
down their enemy. After a time these vessels were superseded by biremes,
which were decked, had masts and sails, and were impelled by rowers
sitting at two different elevations, as already explained. Biremes were
ere long superseded by triremes, or vessels with three banks of oars,
which are said to have been invented at Corinth,[912] but which came
into use among the Phoenicians before the end of the sixth century
B.C.[913] In the third century B.C. the Carthaginians employed in war
quadriremes, and even quinqueremes; but there is no evidence of the
employment of either class of vessel by the Phoenicians of Phoenicia
Proper.

The superiority of the Phoenician ships to others is generally allowed,
and was clearly shown when Xerxes collected his fleet of twelve hundred
and seven triremes against Greece. The fleet included contingents from
Phoenicia, Cyprus, Egypt, Cilicia, Pamphylia, Lycia, Caria, Ionia,
Æolis, and the Greek settlements about the Propontis.[914] When it
reached the Hellespont, the great king, anxious to test the quality of
his ships and sailors, made proclamation for a grand sailing match,
in which all who liked might contend. Each contingent probably--at any
rate, all that prided themselves on their nautical skill--selected its
best vessel, and entered it for the coming race; the king himself, and
his grandees and officers, and all the army, stood or sat along the
shore to see: the race took place, and was won by the Phoenicians of
Sidon.[915] Having thus tested the nautical skill of the various nations
under his sway, the great king, when he ventured his person upon the
dangerous element, was careful to embark in a Sidonian galley.[916]

A remarkable testimony to the excellence of the Phoenician ships with
respect to internal arrangements is borne by Xenophon, who puts the
following words into the mouth of Ischomachus, a Greek:[917] "I think
that the best and most perfect arrangement of things that I ever saw was
when I went to look at the great Phoenician sailing-vessel; for I saw
the largest amount of naval tackling separately disposed in the smallest
stowage possible. For a ship, as you well know, is brought to anchor,
and again got under way, by a vast number of wooden implements and of
ropes and sails the sea by means of a quantity of rigging, and is armed
with a number of contrivances against hostile vessels, and carries about
with it a large supply of weapons for the crew, and, besides, has all
the utensils that a man keeps in his dwelling-house, for each of the
messes. In addition, it is laden with a quantity of merchandise which
the owner carries with him for his own profit. Now all the things which
I have mentioned lay in a space not much bigger than a room which would
conveniently hold ten beds. And I remarked that they severally lay in a
way that they did not obstruct one another, and did not require anyone
to search for them; and yet they were neither placed at random, nor
entangled one with another, so as to consume time when they were
suddenly wanted for use. Also, I found the captain's assistant, who is
called 'the look-out man,' so well acquainted with the position of all
the articles, and with the number of them, that even when at a distance
he could tell where everything lay, and how many there were of each
sort, just as anyone who has learnt to read can tell the number of
letters in the name of Socrates and the proper place for each of them.
Moreover, I saw this man, in his leisure moments, examining and testing
everything that a vessel needs when at sea; so, as I was surprised,
I asked him what he was about, whereupon he replied--'Stranger, I
am looking to see, in case anything should happen, how everything
is arranged in the ship, and whether anything is wanting, or is
inconveniently situated; for when a storm arises at sea, it is not
possible either to look for what is wanting, or to put to right what is
arranged awkwardly.'"

Phoenician ships seem to have been placed under the protection of
the Cabeiri, and to have had images of them at their stem or stern or
both.[918] These images were not exactly "figure-heads," as they are
sometimes called. They were small, apparently, and inconspicuous, being
little dwarf figures, regarded as amulets that would preserve the vessel
in safety. We do not see them on any representations of Phoenician
ships, and it is possible that they may have been no larger than the
bronze or glazed earthenware images of Phthah that are so common in
Egypt. The Phoenicians called them _pittuchim_, "sculptures,"[919]
whence the Greek {pataikoi} and the French _fétiche_.

The navigation of the Phoenicians, in early times, was no doubt cautious
and timid. So far from venturing out of sight of land, they usually
hugged the coast, ready at any moment, if the sea or sky threatened,
to change their course and steer directly for the shore. On a shelving
coast they were not at all afraid to run their ships aground, since,
like the Greek vessels, they could be easily pulled up out of reach of
the waves, and again pulled down and launched, when the storm was over
and the sea calm once more. At first they sailed, we may be sure, only
in the daytime, casting anchor at nightfall, or else dragging their
ships up upon the beach, and so awaiting the dawn. But after a time they
grew more bold. The sea became familiar to them, the positions of coasts
and islands relatively one to another better known, the character of
the seasons, the signs of unsettled or settled weather, the conduct to
pursue in an emergency, better apprehended. They soon began to shape
the course of their vessels from headland to headland, instead of always
creeping along the shore, and it was not perhaps very long before they
would venture out of sight of land, if their knowledge of the weather
satisfied them that the wind might be trusted to continue steady, and if
they were well assured of the direction of the land that they wished to
make. They took courage, moreover, to sail in the night, no less than
in the daytime, when the weather was clear, guiding themselves by the
stars, and particularly by the Polar star,[920] which they discovered to
be the star most nearly marking the true north. A passage of Strabo[921]
seems to show that--in the later times at any rate--they had a method of
calculating the rate of a ship's sailing, though what the method was is
wholly unknown to us. It is probable that they early constructed charts
and maps, which however they would keep secret through jealousy of their
commercial rivals.

The Phoenicians for some centuries confined their navigation within the
limits of the Mediterranean, the Propontis, and the Euxine, land-locked
seas, which are tideless and far less rough than the open ocean. But
before the time of Solomon they had passed the Pillars of Hercules,
and affronted the dangers of the Atlantic.[922] Their frail and
small vessels, scarcely bigger than modern fishing-smacks, proceeded
southwards along the West African coast, as far as the tract watered
by the Gambia and Senegal, while northwards they coasted along Spain,
braved the heavy seas of the Bay of Biscay, and passing Cape Finisterre,
ventured across the mouth of the English Channel to the Cassiterides.
Similarly, from the West African shore, they boldly steered for the
Fortunate Islands (the Canaries), visible from certain elevated points
of the coast, though at 170 miles distance. Whether they proceeded
further, in the south to the Azores, Madeira, and the Cape de Verde
Islands, in the north to the coast of Holland, and across the German
Ocean to the Baltic, we regard as uncertain. It is possible that from
time to time some of the more adventurous of their traders may have
reached thus far; but their regular, settled, and established navigation
did not, we believe, extend beyond the Scilly Islands and coast of
Cornwall to the north-west, and to the south-west Cape Non and the
Canaries.

The commerce of the Phoenicians was carried on, to a large extent, by
land, though principally by sea. It appears from the famous chapter of
Ezekiel[923] which describes the riches and greatness of Tyre in the
sixth century B.C., that almost the whole of Western Asia was penetrated
by the Phoenician caravans, and laid under contribution to increase the
wealth of the Phoenician traders.

     "Thou, son of man, (we read) take up a lamentation for Tyre,
          and say
     unto her,
     O thou that dwellest at the entry of the sea,
     Which art the merchant of the peoples unto many isles,
     Thus saith the Lord God, Thou, O Tyre, hast said, I am perfect in
     beauty.
     Thy borders are in the heart of the sea;
     Thy builders have perfected thy beauty.
     They have made all thy planks of fir-trees from Senir;
     They have taken cedars from Lebanon to make a mast for thee
     Of the oaks of Bashan have they made thine oars;
     They have made thy benches of ivory,
     Inlaid in box-wood, from the isles of Kittim.
     Of fine linen with broidered work from Egypt was thy sail,
     That it might be to thee for an ensign;
     Blue and purple from the isles of Elishah was thy awning.
     The inhabitants of Zidon and of Arvad were thy rowers;
     Thy wise men, O Tyre, were in thee--they were thy pilots.
     The ancients of Gebal, and their wise men, were thy calkers;
     All the ships of the sea, with their mariners, were in thee,
     That they might occupy thy merchandise.
     Persia, and Lud, and Phut were in thine army, thy men of war;
     They hanged the shield and helmet in thee;
     They set forth thy comeliness.
     The men of Arvad, with thine army, were upon thy walls round about;
     And the Gammadim were in thy towers;
     They hanged their shields upon thy walls round about;
     They have brought to perfection thy beauty.
     Tarshish was thy merchant by reason of the multitude of all
          kinds of
     riches;
     With silver, iron, tin, and lead, they traded for thy wares.
     Javan, Tubal, and Meshech, they were thy traffickers;
     They traded the persons of men, and vessels of brass, for thy
     merchandise.
     They of the house of Togarmah traded for thy wares,
     With horses, and with chargers, and with mules.
     The men of Dedan were thy traffickers; many isles were the mart of
     thy hands;
     They brought thee in exchange horns of ivory, and ebony.
     Syria was thy merchant by reason of the multitude of thy
          handiworks;
     They traded for thy wares with emeralds, purple, and broidered
          work,
     And with fine linen, and coral, and rubies.
     Judah, and the land of Israel, they were thy traffickers;
     They traded for thy merchandise wheat of Minnith,
     And Pannag, and honey, and oil, and balm.
     Damascus was thy merchant for the multitude of thy handiworks;
     By reason of the multitude of all kinds of riches;
     With the wine of Helbon, and white wool.
     Dedan and Javan traded with yarn for thy wares;
     Bright iron, and cassia, and calamus were among thy merchandise.
     Dedan was thy trafficker in precious cloths for riding;
     Arabia, and all the princes of Kedar, they were the merchants
          of thy
     hand,
     In lambs, and rams, and goats, in these were they thy merchants.
     The traffickers of Sheba and Raamah, they were thy traffickers;
     They traded for thy wares with chief of all spices,
     And with all manner of precious stones, and gold.
     Haran, and Canneh, and Eden, the traffickers of Sheba,
     Asshur and Chilmad, were thy traffickers:
     They were thy traffickers in choice wares,
     In wrappings of blue and broidered work, and in chests of rich
     apparel,
     Bound with cords, and made of cedar, among thy merchandise.
     The ships of Tarshish were thy caravans for they merchandise;
     And thou wast replenished, and made very glorious, in the heart of
     the sea.
     Thy rowers have brought thee into great waters;
     The east wind hath broken thee in the heart of the sea.
     Thy reaches, and thy wares, thy merchandise, thy mariners, and thy
     pilots,
     Thy calkers, and the occupiers of thy merchandise,
     With all the men of war, that are in thee,
     Shall fall into the heart of the seas in the day of thy ruin.
     At the sound of thy pilot's cry the suburb's shall shake;
     And all that handle the oar, the mariners, and all the pilots
          of the
     sea,
     They shall come down from their ships, they shall stand upon the
     land,
     And shall cause their voice to be heard over thee, and shall cry
     bitterly,
     And shall cast up dust upon their heads, and wallow in the ashes;
     And they shall make themselves bald for thee, and gird them with
     sackcloth,
     And they shall weep for thee in bitterness of soul with bitter
     mourning.
     And in their wailing they shall take up a lamentation for thee,
     And lament over thee saying, Who is there like Tyre,
     Like her that is brought to silence in the midst of the sea?
     When thy wares went forth out of the seas, thou filledst many
     peoples;
     Thou didst enrich the kings of the earth with thy merchandise and
     thy riches.
     In the time that thou was broken by the seas in the depths of the
     waters,
     Thy merchandise, and all thy company, did fall in the midst of
          thee,
     And the inhabitants of the isles are astonished at thee,
     And their kings are sore afraid, they are troubled in their
     countenance,
     The merchants that are among the peoples, hiss at thee;
     Thou art become a terror; and thou shalt never be any more."

Translating this glorious burst of poetry into prose, we find the
following countries mentioned as carrying on an active trade with the
Phoenician metropolis:--Northern Syria, Syria of Damascus, Judah and
the land of Israel, Egypt, Arabia, Babylonia, Assyria, Upper
Mesopotamia,[924] Armenia,[925] Central Asia Minor, Ionia, Cyprus,
Hellas or Greece,[926] and Spain.[927] Northern Syria furnishes the
Phoenician merchants with _butz_, which is translated "fine linen," but
is perhaps rather cotton,[928] the "tree-wool" of Herodotus; it also
supplies embroidery, and certain precious stones, which our translators
have considered to be coral, emeralds, and rubies. Syria of Damascus
gives the "wine of Helbon"--that exquisite liquor which was the only
sort that the Persian kings would condescend to drink[929]--and "white
wool," the dainty fleeces of the sheep and lambs that fed on the upland
pastures of Hermon and Antilibanus. Judah and the land of Israel supply
corn of superior quality, called "corn of Minnith"--corn, i.e. produced
in the rich Ammonite country[930]--together with _pannag_, an unknown
substance, and honey, and balm, and oil. Egypt sends fine linen, one
of her best known products[931]--sometimes, no doubt, plain, but often
embroidered with bright patterns, and employed as such embroidered
fabrics were also in Egypt,[932] for the sails of pleasure-boats. Arabia
provides her spices, cassia, and calamus (or aromatic reed), and, beyond
all doubt, frankincense,[933] and perhaps cinnamon and ladanum.[934] She
also supplies wool and goat's hair, and cloths for chariots, and gold,
and wrought iron, and precious stones, and ivory, and ebony, of which
the last two cannot have been productions of her own, but must have been
imported from India or Abyssinia.[935] Babylonia and Assyria furnish
"wrappings of blue, embroidered work, and chests of rich apparel."[936]
Upper Mesopotamia partakes in this traffic.[937] Armenia gives horses
and mules. Central Asia Minor (Tubal and Meshech) supplies slaves and
vessels of brass, and the Greeks of Ionia do the like. Cyprus furnishes
ivory, which she must first have imported from abroad.[938] Greece
Proper sends her shell-fish, to enable the Phoenician cities to increase
their manufacture of the purple dye.[939] Finally, Spain yields silver,
iron, tin, and lead--the most useful of the metals--all of which she is
known to have produced in abundance.[940]

With the exception of Egypt, Ionia, Cyprus, Hellas, and Spain, the
Phoenician intercourse with these places must have been carried on
wholly by land. Even with Egypt, wherewith the communication by sea was
so facile, there seems to have been also from a very early date a land
commerce. The land commerce was in every case carried on by caravans.
Western Asia has never yet been in so peaceful and orderly condition as
to dispense prudent traders from the necessity of joining together in
large bodies, well provisioned and well armed, when they are about to
move valuable goods any considerable distance. There have always been
robber-tribes in the mountain tracts, and thievish Arabs upon the
plains, ready to pounce on the insufficiently protected traveller, and
to despoil him of all his belongings. Hence the necessity of the caravan
traffic. As early as the time of Joseph--probably about B.C. 1600--we
find a _company_ of the Midianites on their way from Gilead, with their
camels bearing spicery, and balm, and myrrh, going to carry it down
to Egypt.[941] Elsewhere we hear of the "travelling _companies_ of
the Dedanim,"[942] of the men of Sheba bringing their gold and
frankincense;[943] of a multitude of camels coming up to Palestine with
wood from Kedar and Nebaioth.[944] Heeren is entirely justified in
his conclusion that the land trade of the Phoenicians was conducted by
"large companies or caravans, since it could only have been carried on
in this way."[945]

The nearest neighbours of the Phoenicians on the land side were the
Jews and Israelites, the Syrians of Damascus, and the people of Northern
Syria, or the Orontes valley and the tract east of it. From the Jews and
Israelites the Phoenicians seem to have derived at all times almost
the whole of the grain which they were forced to import for their
sustenance. In the time of David and Solomon it was chiefly for wheat
and barley that they exchanged the commodities which they exported,[946]
in that of Ezekiel it was primarily for "wheat of Minnith;"[947] and
a similar trade is noted on the return of the Jews from the
captivity,[948] and in the first century of our era.[949] But besides
grain they also imported from Palestine at some periods wine, oil,
honey, balm, and oak timber.[950] Western Palestine was notoriously a
land not only of corn, but also of wine, of olive oil, and of honey,
and could readily impart of its superfluity to its neighbour in time
of need. The oaks of Bashan are very abundant, and seem to have been
preferred by the Phoenicians to their own oaks as the material of
oars.[951] Balm, or basalm, was a product of the land of Gilead,[952]
and also of the lower Jordan valley, where it was of superior
quality.[953]

From the Damascene Syrians we are told that Phoenicia imported "wine
of Helbon" and "white wool."[954] The "wine of Helbon" is reasonably
identified with that {oinos Khalubonios} which is said to have been the
favourite beverage of the Persian kings.[955] It was perhaps grown
in the neighbourhood of Aleppo.[956] The "white wool" may have been
furnished by the sheep that cropped the slopes of the Antilibanus, or by
those fed on the fine grass which clothes most of the plain at its
base. The fleece of these last is, according to Heeren,[957] "the finest
known, being improved by the heat of the climate, the continual exposure
to the open air, and the care commonly bestowed upon the flocks." From
the Syrian wool, mixed perhaps with some other material, seems to
have been woven the fabric known, from the city where it was commonly
made,[958] as "damask."

According to the existing text of Ezekiel,[959] Syria Proper "occupied
in the fairs" of Phoenicia with cotton, with embroidered robes, with
purple, and with precious stones. The valley of the Orontes is suitable
for the cultivation of cotton; and embroidered robes would naturally be
produced in the seat of an old civilisation, which Syria certainly was.
Purple seems somewhat out of place in the enumeration; but the Syrians
may have gathered the _murex_ on their seaboard between Mt. Casius and
the Gulf of Issus, and have sold what they collected in the Phoenician
market. The precious stones which Ezekiel assigns to them are difficult
of identification, but may have been furnished by Casius, Bargylus,
or Amanus. These mountains, or at any rate Casius and Amanus, are of
igneous origin, and, if carefully explored, would certainly yield gems
to the investigator. At the same time it must be acknowledged that Syria
had not, in antiquity, the name of a gem-producing country; and, so far,
the reading of "Edom" for "Aram," which is preferred by many,[960] may
seem to be the more probable.

The commerce of the Phoenicians with Egypt was ancient, and very
extensive. "The wares of Egypt" are mentioned by Herodotus as a portion
of the merchandise which they brought to Greece before the time of
the Trojan War.[961] The Tyrians had a quarter in the city of Memphis
assigned to them,[962] probably from an early date. According to
Ezekiel, the principal commodity which Egypt furnished to Phoenicia
was "fine linen"[963]--especially the linen sails embroidered with gay
patterns, which the Egyptian nobles affected for their pleasure-boats.
They probably also imported from Egypt natron for their glass-works,
papyrus for their documents, earthenware of various kinds for
exportation, scarabs and other seals, statuettes and figures of gods,
amulets, and in the later times sarcophagi.[964] Their exports to Egypt
consisted of wine on a large scale,[965] tin almost certainly, and
probably their peculiar purple fabrics, and other manufactured articles.

The Phoenician trade with Arabia was of especial importance, since not
only did the great peninsula itself produce many of the most valuable
articles of commerce, but it was also mainly, if not solely, through
Arabia that the Indian market was thrown open to the Phoenician traders,
and the precious commodities obtained for which Hindustan has always
been famous. Arabia is _par excellence_ the land of spices, and was the
main source from which the ancient world in general, and Phoenicia in
particular, obtained frankincense, cinnamon, cassia, myrrh, calamus
or sweet-cane, and ladanum.[966] It has been doubted whether these
commodities were, all of them, the actual produce of the country in
ancient times, and Herodotus has been in some degree discredited, but
perhaps without sufficient reason. He is supported to a considerable
extent by Theophrastus, the disciple of Aristotle, who says:[967]
"Frankincense, myrrh, and cassia grow in the Arabian districts of Saba
and Hadramaut; frankincense and myrrh on the sides or at the foot of
mountains, and in the neighbouring islands. The trees which produce them
grow sometimes wild, though occasionally they are cultivated; and the
frankincense-tree grows sometimes taller than the tree producing the
myrrh." Modern authorities declare the frankincense-tree (_Boswellia
thurifera_) to be still a native of Hadramaut;[968] and there is no
doubt that the myrrh-tree (_Balsamodendron myrrha_) also grows there. If
cinnamon and cassia, as the terms are now understood, do not at present
grow in Arabia, or nearer to Phoenicia than Hindustan, it may be that
they have died out in the former country, or our modern use of the
terms may differ from the ancient one. On the other hand, it is no
doubt possible that the Phoenicians imagined all the spices which they
obtained from Arabia to be the indigenous growth of the country, when in
fact some of them were importations.

Next to her spices, Arabia was famous for the production of a superior
quality of wool. The Phoenicians imported this wool largely. The flocks
of Kedar are especially noted,[969] and are said to have included both
sheep and goats.[970] It was perhaps a native woollen manufacture, in
which Dedan traded with Tyre, and which Ezekiel notices as a trade in
"cloths for chariots."[971] Goat's hair was largely employed in the
production of coverings for tents.[972] Arabia also furnished Phoenicia
with gold, with precious stones, with ivory, ebony, and wrought
iron.[973] The wrought iron was probably from Yemen, which was
celebrated for its manufacture of sword blades. The gold may have been
native, for there is much reason to believe that anciently the Arabian
mountain ranges yielded gold as freely as the Ethiopian,[974] with which
they form one system; or it may have been imported from Hindustan, with
which Arabia had certainly, in ancient times, constant communication.
Ivory and ebony must, beyond a doubt, have been Arabian importations.
There are two countries from which they may have been derived, India
and Abyssinia. It is likely that the commercial Arabs of the south-east
coast had dealings with both.[975]

Of Phoenician imports into Arabia we have no account; but we may
conjecture that they consisted principally of manufactured goods, cotton
and linen fabrics, pottery, implements and utensils in metal, beads, and
other ornaments for the person, and the like. The nomadic Arabs,
leading a simple life, required but little beyond what their own
country produced; there was, however, a town population[976] in the more
southern parts of the peninsula, to which the elegancies and luxuries of
life, commonly exported by Phoenicia, would have been welcome.

The Phoenician trade with Babylonia and Assyria was carried on probably
by caravans, which traversed the Syrian desert by way of Tadmor or
Palmyra, and struck the Euphrates about Circesium. Here the route
divided, passing to Babylon southwards along the course of the great
river, and to Nineveh eastwards by way of the Khabour and the Sinjar
mountain-range. Both countries seem to have supplied the Phoenicians
with fabrics of extraordinary value, rich in a peculiar embroidery, and
deemed so precious that they were packed in chests of cedar-wood, which
the Phoenician merchants must have brought with them from Lebanon.[977]
The wares furnished by Assyria were in some cases exported to
Greece,[978] while no doubt in others they were intended for home
consumption. They included cylinders in rock crystal, jasper, hematite,
steatite, and other materials, which may sometimes have found purchasers
in Phoenicia Proper, but appear to have been specially affected by the
Phoenician colonists in Cyprus.[979] On her part Phoenicia must have
imported into Assyria and Babylonia the tin which was a necessary
element in their bronze; and they seem also to have found a market in
Assyria for their own most valuable and artistic bronzes, the exquisite
embossed pateræ which are among the most precious of the treasures
brought by Sir Austen Layard from Nineveh.[980]

The nature of the Phoenician trade with Upper Mesopotamia is unknown to
us; and it is not impossible that their merchants visited Haran,[981]
rather because it lay on the route which they had to follow in order to
reach Armenia than because it possessed in itself any special attraction
for them. Gall-nuts and manna are almost the only products for which the
region is celebrated; and of these Phoenicia herself produced the one,
while she probably did not need the other. But the natural route to
Armenia was by way of the Coelesyrian valley, Aleppo and Carchemish, to
Haran, and thence by Amida or Diarbekr to Van, which was the capital of
Armenia in the early times.

Armenia supplied the Phoenicians with "horses of common and of noble
breeds,"[982] and also with mules.[983] Strabo says that it was a
country exceedingly well adapted for the breeding of the horse,[984]
and even notes the two qualities of the animal that it produced, one of
which he calls "Nisæan," though the true "Nisæan plain" was in Media.
So large was the number of colts bred each year, and so highly were they
valued, that, under the Persian monarchy the Great King exacted from
the province, as a regular item of its tribute, no fewer than twenty
thousand of them annually.[985] Armenian mules seem not to be mentioned
by any writer besides Ezekiel; but mules were esteemed throughout the
East in antiquity,[986] and no country would have been more likely
to breed them than the mountain tract of Armenia, the Switzerland of
Western Asia, where such surefooted animals would be especially needed.

Armenia adjoined the country of the Moschi and Tibareni--the Meshech
and Tubal of the Bible. These tribes, between the ninth and the seventh
centuries B.C., inhabited the central regions of Asia Minor and the
country known later as Cappadocia. They traded with Tyre in the "persons
of men" and in "vessels of brass" or copper.[987] Copper is found
abundantly in the mountain ranges of these parts, and Xenophon remarks
on the prevalence of metal vessels in the portion of the region which
he passed through--the country of the Carduchians.[988] The traffic in
slaves was one in which the Phoenicians engaged from very early times.
They were not above kidnapping men, women, and children in one country
and selling them into another;[989] besides which they seem to have
frequented regularly the principal slave marts of the time. They
bought such Jews as were taken captive and sold into slavery by the
neighbouring nations,[990] and they looked to the Moschi and Tibareni
for a constant supply of the commodity from the Black Sea region.[991]
The Caucasian tribes have always been in the habit of furnishing
slave-girls to the harems of the East, and the Thracians, who were not
confined to Europe, but occupied a great part of Asia Minor, regularly
trafficked in their children.[992]

Such was the extent of the Phoenician land trade, as indicated by the
prophet Ezekiel, and such were, so far as is at present known, the
commodities interchanged in the course of it. It is quite possible--nay,
probable--that the trade extended much further, and certain that it must
have included many other articles of commerce besides those which we
have mentioned. The sources of our information on the subject are so few
and scanty, and the notices from which we derive our knowledge for the
most part so casual, that we may be sure what is preserved is but a most
imperfect record of what was--fragments of wreck recovered from the sea
of oblivion. It may have been a Phoenician caravan route which Herodotus
describes as traversed on one occasion by the Nasamonians,[993] which
began in North Africa and terminated with the Niger and the city of
Timbuctoo; and another, at which he hints as lying between the coast
of the Lotus-eaters and Fezzan.[994] Phoenician traders may have
accompanied and stimulated the slave hunts of the Garamantians,[995] as
Arab traders do those of the Central African nations at the present day.
Again, it is quite possible that the Phoenicians of Memphis designed and
organised the caravans which, proceeding from Egyptian Thebes, traversed
Africa from east to west along the line of the "Salt Hills," by way of
Ammon, Augila, Fezzan, and the Tuarik country to Mount Atlas.[996] We
can scarcely imagine the Egyptians showing so much enterprise. But these
lines of traffic can be ascribed to the Phoenicians only by conjecture,
history being silent on the subject.

The sea trade of the Phoenicians was still more extensive than their
land traffic. It is divisible into two branches, their trade with their
own colonists, and that with the natives of the various countries to
which they penetrated in their voyages. The colonies sent out from
Phoenicia were, except in the single instance of Carthage, trading
settlements, planted where some commodity or commodities desired by
the mother-country abounded, and were intended to secure to the
mother-country the monopoly of such commodity or commodities. For
instance, Cyprus was colonised for the sake of its copper mines and its
timber; Cilicia and Lycia for their timber only; Thasos for its gold
mines; Salamis and Cythera for the purple trade; Sardinia and Spain for
their numerous metals; North Africa for its fertility and for the trade
with the interior. Phoenicia expected to derive, primarily, from each
colony the commodity or commodities which had caused the selection of
the site. In return she supplied the colonists with her own manufactured
articles; with fabrics in linen, wool, cotton, and perhaps to some
extent in silk; with every variety of pottery, from dishes and jugs of
the plainest and most simple kind to the most costly and elaborate
vases and amphoræ; with metal utensils and arms, with gold and silver
ornaments, with embossed shields and pateræ, with faïnce and glass, and
also with any foreign products or manufactures that they desired and
that the countries within the range of her influence could furnish.
Phoenicia must have imported into Cyprus, to suit a peculiar Cyprian
taste, the Egyptian statuettes, scarabs, and rings,[997] and the
Assyrian and Babylonian cylinders, which have been found there. The tin
which she brought from the Cassiterides she distributed generally, for
she did not discourage her colonists from manufacturing for themselves
to some extent. There was probably no colony which did not make its own
bronze vessels of the commoner sort and its own coarser pottery.

In her trade with the nations who peopled the coasts of the
Mediterranean, the Propontis, and the Black Sea, Phoenicia aimed
primarily at disposing to advantage of her own commodities, secondarily
at making a profit in commodities which she had obtained from other
countries, and thirdly on obtaining commodities which she might dispose
of to advantage elsewhere. Where the nations were uncivilised, or in a
low condition of civilisation, she looked to making a large profit by
furnishing them at a cheap rate with all the simplest conveniences of
life, with their pottery, their implements and utensils, their clothes,
their arms, the ornaments of their persons and of their houses.
Underselling the native producers, she soon obtained a monopoly of this
kind of trade, drove the native products out of the market, and imposed
her own instead, much as the manufacturers of Manchester, Birmingham,
and the Potteries impose their calicoes, their cutlery, and their
earthenware on the savages of Africa and Polynesia. Where culture was
more advanced, as in Greece and parts of Italy,[998] she looked to
introduce, and no doubt succeeded in introducing, the best of her own
productions, fabrics of crimson, violet, and purple, painted vases,
embossed pateræ, necklaces, bracelets, rings--"cunning work" of all
manner of kinds[999]--mirrors, glass vessels, and smelling-bottles. At
the same time she also disposed at a profit of many of the wares that
she had imported from foreign countries, which were advanced in certain
branches of art, as Egypt, Babylonia, Assyria, possibly India. The
muslins and ivory of Hindustan, the shawls of Kashmir, the carpets of
Babylon, the spices of Araby the Blest, the pearls of the Persian Gulf,
the faïence and the papyrus of Egypt, would be readily taken by the more
civilised of the Western nations, who would be prepared to pay a high
price for them. They would pay for them partly, no doubt, in silver and
gold, but to some extent also in their own manufactured commodities,
Attica in her ceramic products, Corinth in her "brass," Etruria in her
candelabra and engraved mirrors,[9100] Argos in her highly elaborated
ornaments.[9101] Or, in some cases, they might make return out of the
store wherewith nature had provided them, Euboea rendering her copper,
the Peloponnese her "purple," Crete her timber, the Cyrenaica its
silphium.

Outside the Pillars of Hercules the Phoenicians had only savage nations
to deal with, and with these they seem to have traded mainly for
the purpose of obtaining certain natural products, either peculiarly
valuable or scarcely procurable elsewhere. Their trade with the Scilly
Islands and the coast of Cornwall was especially for the procuring of
tin. Of all the metals, tin is found in the fewest places, and though
Spain seems to have yielded some anciently,[9102] yet it can only have
been in small quantities, while there was an enormous demand for tin
in all parts of the old world, since bronze was the material almost
universally employed for arms, tools, implements, and utensils of all
kinds, while tin is the most important, though not the largest, element
in bronze. From the time that the Phoenicians discovered the Scilly
Islands--the "Tin Islands" (Cassiterides), as they called them--it is
probable that the tin of the civilised world was almost wholly derived
from this quarter. Eastern Asia, no doubt, had always its own mines, and
may have exported tin to some extent, in the remoter times, supplying
perhaps the needs of Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon. But, after the rich
stores of the metal which our own islands possess were laid open, and
the Phoenicians with their extensive commercial dealings, both in the
West and in the East, became interested in diffusing it, British tin
probably drove all other out of use, and obtained the monopoly of the
markets wherever Phoenician influence prevailed. Hence the trade with
the Cassiterides was constant, and so highly prized that a Phoenician
captain, finding his ship followed by a Roman vessel, preferred running
it upon the rocks to letting a rival nation learn the secret of how the
tin-producing coast might be approached in safety.[9103] With the tin
it was usual for the merchants to combine a certain amount of lead and a
certain quantity of skins or hides; while they gave in exchange pottery,
salt, and articles in bronze, such as arms, implements, and utensils for
cooking and for the table.[9104]

If the Phoenicians visited, as some maintain that they did,[9105] the
coasts of the Baltic, it must have been for the purpose of obtaining
amber. Amber is thrown up largely by the waters of that land-locked
sea, and at present especially abounds on the shore in the vicinity of
Dantzic. It is very scarce elsewhere. The Phoenicians seem to have
made use of amber in their necklaces from a very early date;[9106] and,
though they might no doubt have obtained it by land-carriage across
Europe to the head of the Adriatic, yet their enterprise and their
commercial spirit were such as would not improbably have led them to
seek to open a direct communication with the amber-producing region, so
soon as they knew where it was situated. The dangers of the German
Ocean are certainly not greater than those of the Atlantic; and if the
Phoenicians had sufficient skill in navigation to reach Britain and the
Fortunate Islands, they could have found no very serious difficulty
in penetrating to the Baltic. On the other hand, there is no direct
evidence of their having penetrated so far, and perhaps the Adriatic
trade may have supplied them with as much amber as they needed.

The trade of the Phoenicians with the west coast of Africa had for its
principal objects the procuring of ivory, of elephant, lion, leopard,
and deer-skins, and probably of gold. Scylax relates that there was an
established trade in his day (about B.C. 350) between Phoenicia and
an island which he calls Cerne, probably Arguin, off the West African
coast. "The merchants," he says,[9107] "who are Phoenicians, when they
have arrived at Cerne, anchor their vessels there, and after having
pitched their tents upon the shore, proceed to unload their cargo, and
to convey it in smaller boats to the mainland. The dealers with whom
they trade are Ethiopians; and these dealers sell to the Phoenicians
skins of deer, lions, panthers, and domestic animals--elephants' skins
also, and their teeth. The Ethiopians wear embroidered garments, and use
ivory cups as drinking vessels; their women adorn themselves with ivory
bracelets; and their horses also are adorned with ivory. The Phoenicians
convey to them ointment, elaborate vessels from Egypt, castrated
swine(?), and Attic pottery and cups. These last they commonly purchase
[in Athens] at the Feast of Cups. These Ethiopians are eaters of flesh
and drinkers of milk; they make also much wine from the vine; and the
Phoenicians, too, supply some wine to them. They have a considerable
city, to which the Phoenicians sail up." The river on which the city
stood was probably the Senegal.

It will be observed that Scylax says nothing in this passage of
any traffic for gold. We can scarcely suppose, however, that the
Phoenicians, if they penetrated so far south as this, could remain
ignorant of the fact that West Africa was a gold-producing country,
much less that, being aware of the fact, they would fail to utilise it.
Probably they were the first to establish that "dumb commerce" which
was afterwards carried on with so much advantage to themselves by the
Carthaginians, and whereof Herodotus gives so graphic an account.
"There is a country," he says,[9108] "in Libya, and a nation, beyond the
Pillars of Hercules, which the Carthaginians are wont to visit, where
they no sooner arrive than forthwith they unlade their wares, and having
disposed them after an orderly fashion along the beach, there leave
them, and returning aboard their ships, raise a great smoke. The
natives, when they see the sample, come down to the shore, and laying
out to view so much gold as they think the wares are worth, withdraw to
a distance. The Carthaginians upon this come ashore again and look. If
they think the gold to be enough, they take it and go their way; but if
it does not seem to them sufficient, they go aboard ship once more, and
wait patiently. Then the others approach and add to their gold, till the
Carthaginians are satisfied. Neither party deals unfairly by the other:
for they themselves never touch the gold till it comes up to the worth
of their goods, nor do the natives ever carry off the goods until the
gold has been taken away."

The nature of the Phoenician trade with the Canaries, or Fortunate
Islands, is not stated by any ancient author, and can only be
conjectured. It would scarcely have been worth the Phoenicians' while
to convey timber to Syria from such a distance, or we might imagine the
virgin forests of the islands attracting them.[9109] The large breed of
dogs from which the Canaries derived their later name[9110] may perhaps
have constituted an article of export even in Phoenician times, as
we know they did later, when we hear of their being conveyed to King
Juba;[9111] but there is an entire lack of evidence on the subject.
Perhaps the Phoenicians frequented the islands less for the sake of
commerce than for that of watering and refitting the ships engaged in
the African trade, since the natives were less formidable than those who
inhabited the mainland.[9112]

There was one further direction in which the Phoenicians pushed their
maritime trade, not perhaps continuously, but at intervals, when their
political relations were such as to give them access to the sea which
washed Asia on the south and on the southeast. The nearest points at
which they could embark for the purpose of exploring or utilising the
great tract of ocean in this quarter were the inner recesses of the two
deep gulfs known as the Persian and the Arabian. It has been thought by
some[9113] that there were times in their history when the Phoenicians
had the free use of both these gulfs, and could make the starting-point
of their eastern explorations and trading voyages either a port on one
of the two arms into which the Red Sea divides towards the north, or a
harbour on the Persian Gulf near its north-western extremity. But the
latter supposition rests upon grounds which are exceedingly unsafe and
uncertain. That the Phoenicians migrated at some remote period from the
shores of the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean may be allowed to be
highly probable; but that, after quitting their primitive abodes
and moving off nearly a thousand miles to the westward, they still
maintained a connection with their early settlements and made them
centres for a trade with the Far East, is as improbable a hypothesis as
any that has ever received the sanction of men of learning and repute.
The Babylonians, through whose country the connection must have been
kept up, were themselves traders, and would naturally keep the Arabian
and Indian traffic in their own hands; nor can we imagine them as
brooking the establishment of a rival upon their shores. The Arabians
were more friendly; but they, too, would have disliked to share their
carrying trade with a foreign nation. And the evidence entirely fails
to show that the Phoenicians, from the time of their removal to the
Mediterranean, ever launched a vessel in the Persian Gulf, or had
any connection with the nations inhabiting its shores, beyond that
maintained by the caravans which trafficked by land between the
Phoenician cities and the men of Dedan and Babylon.[9114]

It was otherwise with the more western gulf. There, certainly, from
time to time, the Phoenicians launched their fleets, and carried on a
commerce which was scarcely less lucrative because they had to allow the
nations whose ports they used a participation in its profits. It is not
impossible that, occasionally, the Egyptians allowed them to build ships
in some one or more of their Red Sea ports, and to make such port or
ports the head-quarters of a trade which may have proceeded beyond the
Straits of Babelmandeb and possibly have reached Zanzibar and Ceylon.
At any rate, we know that, in the time of Solomon, two harbours upon
the Red Sea were open to them--viz. Eloth and Ezion-Geber--both places
situated in the inner recess of the Elanitic Gulf, or Gulf of Akaba,
the more eastern of the two arms into which the Red Sea divides.
David's conquest of Edom had put these ports into the possession of the
Israelites, and the friendship between Hiram and Solomon had given the
Phoenicians free access to them. It was the ambition of Solomon to make
the Israelites a nautical people, and to participate in the advantages
which he perceived to have accrued to Phoenicia from her commercial
enterprise. Besides sharing with the Phoenicians in the trade of
the Mediterranean,[9115] he constructed with their help a fleet at
Ezion-Geber upon the Red Sea,[9116] and the two allies conjointly made
voyages to the region, or country, called Ophir, for the purpose
of procuring precious stones, gold, and almug-wood.[9117] Ophir is,
properly speaking, a portion of Arabia,[9118] and Arabia was famous for
its production of gold,[9119] and also for its precious stones.[9120]
Whether it likewise produced almug-trees is doubtful;[9121] and it is
quite possible that the joint fleet went further than Ophir proper, and
obtained the "almug-wood" from the east coast of Africa, or from India.
The Somauli country might have been as easily reached as South-eastern
Arabia, and if India is considerably more remote, yet there was nothing
to prevent the Phoenicians from finding their way to it.[9122] We have,
however, no direct evidence that their commerce in the Indian Ocean ever
took them further than the Arabian coast, about E. Long. 55º.



CHAPTER X--MINING

     Surface gathering of metals, anterior to mining--Earliest
     known mining operations--Earliest Phoenician mining in
     Phoenicia Proper--Mines of Cyprus--Phoenician mining in
     Thasos and Thrace--in Sardinia--in Spain--Extent of the
     metallic treasures there--Phoenician methods not unlike
     those of the present day--Use of shafts, adits, and
     galleries--Roof of mines propped or arched--Ores crushed,
     pounded, and washed--Use of quicksilver unknown--Mines
     worked by slave labour.

The most precious and useful of the metals lie, in many places, so near
the earth's surface that, in the earliest times, mining is unneeded
and therefore unpractised. We are told that in Spain silver was first
discovered in consequence of a great fire, which consumed all the
forests wherewith the mountains were clothed, and lasted many days;
at the end of which time the surface of the soil was found to be
intersected by streams of silver from the melting of the superficial
silver ore through the intense heat of the conflagration. The natives
did not know what to do with the metal, so they bartered it away to the
Phoenician traders, who already frequented their country, in return for
some wares of very moderate value.[101] Whether this tale be true or
no, it is certain that even at the present day, in what are called "new
countries," valuable metals often show themselves on the surface of
the soil, either in the form of metalliferous earths, or of rocks which
shine with spangles of a metallic character, or occasionally, though
rarely, of actual masses of pure ore, sometimes encrusted with an oxide,
sometimes bare, bright, and unmistakable. In modern times, whenever
there is a rush into any gold region--whether California, or Australia,
or South Africa--the early yield is from the surface. The first comers
scratch the ground with a knife or with a pick-axe, and are rewarded by
discovering "nuggets" of greater or less dimensions; the next flight
of gold-finders search the beds of the streams; and it is not until the
supply from these two sources begins to fail that mining, in the proper
sense of the term, is attempted.

The earliest mining operations, whereof we have any record, are those
conducted by the Egyptian kings of the fourth, fifth and twelfth
dynasties, in the Sinaitic region. At two places in the mountains
between Suez and Mount Sinai, now known as the Wady Magharah and
Sarabit-el-Khadim, copper was extracted from the bosom of the earth by
means of shafts laboriously excavated in the rocks, under the auspices
of these early Pharaohs.[102] Hence at the time of the Exodus the
process of mining was familiar to the Hebrews, who could thus fully
appreciate the promise,[103] that they were about to be given "a good
land"--"a land whose stones were iron, and out of whose hills they might
_dig brass_." The Phoenicians, probably, derived their first knowledge
of mining from their communications with the Egyptians, and no doubt
first practised the art within the limits of their own territory--in
Lebanon, Casius, and Bargylus. The mineral stores of these regions were,
however, but scanty, and included none of the more important metals,
excepting iron. The Phoenicians were thus very early in their history
driven afield for the supply of their needs, and among the principal
causes of their first voyages of discovery must be placed the desire
of finding and occupying regions which contained the metallic treasures
wherein their own proper country was deficient.

It is probable that they first commenced mining operations on a large
scale in Cyprus. Here, according to Pliny,[104] copper was first
discovered; and though this may be a fable, yet here certainly it was
found in great abundance at a very early time, and was worked to such
an extent, that the Greeks knew copper, as distinct from bronze, by
no other name than that of {khalkos Kuprios}, whence the Roman _Æs
Cyprium_, and our own name for the metal. The principal mines were in
the southern mountain range, near Tamasus,[105] but there were others
also at Amathus, Soli, and Curium.[106] Some of the old workings
have been noticed by modern travellers, particularly near Soli and
Tamasus,[107] but they have neither been described anciently nor
examined scientifically in modern times. The ore from which the metal
was extracted is called _chalcitis_ by Pliny,[108] and may have been the
"chalcocite" of our present metallurgical science, which is a sulphide
containing very nearly eighty per cent. of copper. The brief account
which Strabo gives of the mines of Tamasus shows that the ore was
smelted in furnaces which were heated by wood fires. We gather also from
Strabo that Tamasus had silver mines.

That the Phoenicians conducted mining operations in Thasos we know from
Herodotus,[109] and from other writers of repute[1010] we learn that
they extended these operations to the mainland opposite. Herodotus had
himself visited Thasos, and tells us that the mines were on the eastern
coast of the island, between two places which he calls respectively
Ænyra and Coenyra. The metal sought was gold, and in their quest of it
the Phoenicians had, he says, turned an entire mountain topsy-turvy.
Here again no modern researches seem to have been made, and nothing
more is known than that at present the natives obtain no gold from their
soil, do not seek for it, and are even ignorant that their island was
ever a gold-producing region.[1011] The case is almost the same on the
opposite coast, where in ancient times very rich mines both of gold and
silver abounded,[1012] which the Phoenicians are said to have
worked, but where at the present day mining enterprise is almost at a
standstill, and only a very small quantity of silver is produced.[1013]

Sardinia can scarcely have been occupied by the Phoenicians for anything
but its metals. The southern and south-western parts of the island,
where they made their settlements, were rich in copper and lead; and the
position of the cities seems to indicate the intention to appropriate
these metals. In the vicinity of the lead mines are enormous heaps of
scoriæ, mounting up apparently to a very remote era.[1014] The scoriæ
are not so numerous in the vicinity of the copper mines, but "pigs" of
copper have been found in the island, unlike any of the Roman period,
which are perhaps Phoenician, and furnish specimens of the castings
into which the metal was run, after it had been fused and to some extent
refined. The weight of the pigs is from twenty-eight to thirty-seven
kilogrammes.[1015] Pigs of lead have also been found, but they are less
frequent.

But all the other mining operations of the Phoenicians were
insignificant compared with those of which the theatre was Spain. Spain
was the Peru of the ancient world, and surpassed its modern rival, in
that it produced not only gold and silver, but also copper, iron, tin,
and lead. Of these metals gold was the least abundant. It was found,
however, as gold dust in the bed of the Tagus;[1016] and there were
mines of it in Gallicia,[1017] in the Asturias, and elsewhere. There was
always some silver mixed with it, but in one of the Gallician mines
the proportion was less than three per cent. Elsewhere the proportion
reached to ten or even twelve and a half per cent.; and, as there was
no known mode of clearing the gold from it, the produce of the Gallician
mine was in high esteem and greatly preferred to that of any other.
Silver was yielded in very large quantities. "Spain," says Diodorus
Siculus,[1018] "has the best and most plentiful silver from mines of all
the world." "The Spanish silver," says Pliny,[1019] "is the best." When
the Phoenicians first visited Spain, they found the metal held in no
esteem at all by the natives. It was the common material of the cheapest
drinking vessels, and was readily parted with for almost anything that
the merchants chose to offer. Much of it was superficial, but the veins
were found to run to a great depth; and the discovery of one vein was
a sure index of the near vicinity of more.[1020] The out-put of the
Spanish silver mines during the Phoenician, Carthaginian, and Roman
periods was enormous, and cannot be calculated; nor has the supply even
yet failed altogether. The iron and copper of Spain are also said to
have been exceedingly abundant in ancient times,[1021] though, owing to
the inferior value of the metals, and to their wider distribution, but
little is recorded with regard to them. Its tin and lead, on the other
hand, as being metals found in comparatively few localities, receive not
infrequent mention. The Spanish tin, according to Posidonius, did not
crop out upon the surface,[1022] but had to be obtained by mining.
It was produced in some considerable quantity in the country of the
Artabri, to the north of Lusitania,[1023] as well as in Lusitania
itself, and in Gallicia;[1024] but was found chiefly in small particles
intermixed with a dark sandy earth. Lead was yielded in greater
abundance; it was found in Cantabria, in Bætica, and many other
places.[1025] Much of it was mixed with silver, and was obtained in
the course of the operations by means of which silver was smelted and
refined.[1026] The mixed metal was called _galena_.[1027] Lead, however,
was also found, either absolutely pure,[1028] or so nearly so that the
alloy was inappreciable, and was exported in large quantities, both by
the Phoenicians and the Carthaginians, and also by the Romans. It was
believed that the metal had a power of growth and reproduction, so that
if a mine was deserted for a while and then re-opened, it was sure to be
found more productive than it was previously.[1029] The fact seems to be
simply that the supply is inexhaustible, since even now Spain furnishes
more than half the lead that is consumed by the rest of Europe. Besides
the ordinary metals, Spain was capable of yielding an abundance of
quicksilver;[1030] but this metal seems not to have attracted the
attention of the Phoenicians, who had no use for it.

The methods employed by the Phoenicians to obtain the metals which they
coveted were not, on the whole, unlike those which continue in use at
the present day. Where surface gold was brought down by the streams, the
ground in their vicinity, and such portions of their beds as could be
laid bare, were searched by the spade; any earth or sand that was seen
to be auriferous was carefully dug out and washed, till the earthy
particles were cleared away, and only the gold remained. Where the metal
lay deeper, perpendicular shafts were sunk into the ground to a greater
or less depth--sometimes, if we may believe Diodorus,[1031] to the depth
of half a mile or more; from these shafts horizontal adits were carried
out at various levels, and from the adits there branched lateral
galleries, sometimes at right angles, sometimes obliquely, which pursued
either a straight or a tortuous course.[1032] The veins of metal were
perseveringly followed up, and where faults occurred in them, filled
with trap,[1033] or other hard rock, the obstacle was either tunnelled
through or its flank turned, and the vein still pursued on the other
side. As the danger of a fall of material from the roofs of the adits
and galleries was well understood, it was customary to support them by
means of wooden posts, or, where the material was sufficiently firm, to
arch them.[1034] Still, from time to time, falls would occur, with great
injury and loss of life to the miners. Nor was there much less danger
where a mountain was quarried for the sake of its metallic treasures.
Here, too, galleries were driven into the mountain-side, and portions of
it so loosened that after a time they detached themselves and fell with
a loud crash into a mass of _débris_.[1035] It sometimes happened that,
as the workings proceeded, subterranean springs were tapped, which
threatened to flood the mine, and put an end to its further utilisation.
In such cases, wherever it was possible, tunnels were constructed, and
the water drained off to a lower level.[1036] In the deeper mines this,
of course, could not be done, and such workings had to be abandoned,
until the invention of the Archimedes' screw (ab. B.C. 220-190), when
the water was pumped up to the surface, and so got rid of.[1037]
But before this date Phoenicia had ceased to exist as an independent
country, and the mines that had once been hers were either no longer
worked, or had passed into the hands of the Romans or the Carthaginians.

When the various ores were obtained, they were first of all crushed,
then pounded to a paste; after which, by frequent washings, the
non-metallic elements were to a large extent eliminated, and the
metallic ones alone left. These, being collected, were placed in
crucibles of white clay,[1038] which were then submitted to the action
of a furnace heated to the melting point. This point could only be
reached by the use of the bellows. When it was reached, the impurities
which floated on the top of the molten metal were skimmed off, or the
metal itself allowed, by the turning of a cock, to flow from an upper
crucible into a lower one. For greater purity the melting and skimming
process was sometimes repeated; and, in the case of gold, the skimmings
were themselves broken up, pounded, and again submitted to the melting
pot.[1039] The use of quicksilver, however, being unknown, the gold was
never wholly freed from the alloy of silver always found in it, nor was
the silver ever wholly freed from an alloy of lead.[1040]

The Romans and Carthaginians worked their mines almost wholly by slave
labour; and very painful pictures are drawn of the sufferings undergone
by the unhappy victims of a barbarous and wasteful system.[1041] The
gangs of slaves, we are told, remained in the mines night and day, never
seeing the sun, but living and dying in the murky and foetid atmosphere
of the deep excavations. It can scarcely be hoped that the Phoenicians
were wiser or more merciful. They had a large command of slave
labour, and would naturally employ it where the work to be done was
exceptionally hard and disagreeable. Moreover, the Carthaginians, their
colonists, are likely to have kept up the system, whatever it was,
which they found established on succeeding to the inheritance of the
Phoenician mines, and the fact that they worked them by means of slaves
makes it more than probable that the Phoenicians had done so before
them.[1042]

When the metals were regarded as sufficiently cleansed from impurities,
they were run into moulds, which took the form of bars, pigs, or
ingots. Pigs of copper and lead have, as already observed, been found in
Sardinia which may well belong to Phoenician times. There is also in the
museum of Truro a pig of tin, which, as it differs from those made
by the Romans, Normans, and later workers, has been supposed to be
Phoenician.[1043] Ingots of gold and silver have not at present been
found on Phoenician localities; but the Persian practice, witnessed to
by Herodotus,[1044] was probably adopted from the subject nation, which
confessedly surpassed all the others in the useful arts, in commerce,
and in practical sagacity.



CHAPTER XI--RELIGION

     Strength of the religious sentiment among the Phoenicians--
     Proofs--First stage of the religion, monotheistic--Second
     stage, a polytheism within narrow limits--Worship of Baal--
     of Ashtoreth--of El or Kronos--of Melkarth--of Dagon--of
     Hadad--of Adonis--of Sydyk--of Esmun--of the Cabeiri--of
     Onca--of Tanith--of Beltis--Third stage marked by
     introduction of foreign deities--Character of the Phoenician
     worship--Altars and sacrifice--Hymns of praise, temples, and
     votive offerings--Wide prevalence of human sacrifice and of
     licentious orgies--Institution of the Galli--Extreme
     corruption of the later religion--Views held on the subject
     of a future life--Piety of the great mass of the people
     earnest, though mistaken.

There can be no doubt that the Phoenicians were a people in whose
minds religion and religious ideas occupied a very prominent place.
Religiousness has been said to be one of the leading characteristics
of the Semitic race;[0111] and it is certainly remarkable that with that
race originated the three principal religions, two of which are the only
progressive religions, of the modern world. Judaism, Christianity, and
Mohammedanism all arose in Western Asia within a restricted area, and
from nations whose Semitic origin is unmistakable. The subject of
ethnic affinities and differences, of the transmission of qualities and
characteristics, is exceedingly obscure; but, if the theory of heredity
be allowed any weight at all, there should be no difficulty in accepting
the view that particular races of mankind have special leanings and
aptitudes.

Still, the religiousness of the Phoenicians does not rest on any _à
priori_ arguments, or considerations of what is likely to have been.
Here was a nation among whom, in every city, the temple was the centre
of attraction, and where the piety of the citizens adorned every temple
with abundant and costly offerings. The monarchs who were at the head of
the various states showed the greatest zeal in continually maintaining
the honour of the gods, repaired and beautified the sacred buildings,
and occasionally added to their kingly dignity the highly esteemed
office of High Priest.[0112] The coinage of the country bore religious
emblems,[0113] and proclaimed the fact that the cities regarded
themselves as under the protection of this or that deity. Both the kings
and their subjects bore commonly religious names--names which designated
them as the worshippers or placed them under the tutelage of some god or
goddess. Abd-alonim, Abdastartus, Abd-osiris, Abdemon (which is properly
Abd-Esmun), Abdi-milkut, were names of the former kind, Abi-baal (=
"Baal is my father"), Itho-bal (= "with him is Baal"), Baleazar or
Baal-azur (= "Baal protects"), names of the latter. The Phoenician ships
carried images of the gods[0114] in the place of figure-heads. Wherever
the Phoenicians went, they bore with them their religion and their
worship; in each colony they planted a temple or temples, and everywhere
throughout their wide dominion the same gods were worshipped with the
same rites and with the same observances.

In considering the nature of the Phoenician religion, we must
distinguish between its different stages. There is sufficient reason
to believe that originally, either when they first occupied their
settlements upon the Mediterranean or before they moved from their
primitive seats upon the shores of the Persian Gulf, the Phoenicians
were Monotheists. We must not look for information on this subject
to the pretentious work which Philo of Byblus, in the first or second
century of our era, put forth with respect to the "Origines" of his
countrymen, and attributed to Sanchoniatho;[0115] we must rather look to
the evidence of language and fact, records which may indeed be misread,
but which cannot well be forged or falsified. These will show us that
in the earliest times the religious sentiment of the Phoenicians
acknowledged only a single deity--a single mighty power, which was
supreme over the whole universe. The names by which they designated him
were El, "great;" Ram or Rimmon, "high;" Baal, "Lord;" Melek or Molech,
"King;" Eliun, "Supreme;" Adonai, "My Lord;" Bel-samin, "Lord of
Heaven," and the like.[0116] Distinct deities could no more be intended
by such names as these than by those under which God is spoken of in
the Hebrew Scriptures, several of them identical with the Phoenician
names--El or Elohim, "great;" Jehovah, "existing;" Adonai, "my Lord;"
Shaddai, "strong;" El Eliun,[0117] "the supreme Great One." How far
the Phoenicians actually realised all that their names properly imply,
whether they went so far as to divest God wholly of a material nature,
whether they viewed Him as the Creator, as well as the Lord, of the
world, are problems which it is impossible, with the means at present
at our disposal, to solve. But they certainly viewed Him as "the Lord
of Heaven,"[0118] and, if so, no doubt also as the Lord of earth; they
believed Him to be "supreme" or "the Most High;" and they realised his
personal relation to each one of his worshippers, who were privileged
severally to address Him as Adonai--"_my_ Lord." It may be presumed that
at this early stage of the religion there was no idolatry; when One
God alone is acknowledged and recognised, the feeling is naturally that
expressed in the Egyptian hymn of praise--"He is not graven in marble;
He is not beheld; His abode is unknown; there is no building that can
contain Him; unknown is his name in heaven; He doth not manifest his
forms; vain are all representations."[0119]

But this happy state of things did not--perhaps we may say, could
not--in the early condition of the human intelligence, last long. Fallen
man, left to himself, very soon corrupts his way upon the earth; his
hands deal with wickedness; and, in a little while, "every imagination
of the thoughts of his heart is only evil continually."[1110] When he
becomes conscious to himself of sin, he ceases to be able to endure the
thought of One Perfect Infinite Being, omnipotent, ever-present, who
reads his heart, who is "about his path, and about his bed, and spies
out all his ways."[1111] He instinctively catches at anything whereby he
may be relieved from the intolerable burden of such a thought; and
here the imperfection of language comes to his aid. As he has found it
impossible to express in any one word all that is contained in his idea
of the Divine Being, he has been forced to give Him many names, each of
them originally expressive of some one of that Being's attributes. But
in course of time these words have lost their force--their meaning has
been forgotten--and they have come to be mere proper names, designative
but not significative. Here is material for the perverted imagination to
work upon. A separate being is imagined answering to each of the names;
and so the _nomina_ become _numina_.[1112] Many gods are substituted for
one; and the idea of God is instantly lowered. The gods have different
spheres. No god is infinite; none is omnipotent, none omnipresent;
therefore none omniscient. The aweful, terrible nature of God is got rid
of, and a company of angelic beings takes its place, none of them very
alarming to the conscience.

In its second stage the religion of Phoenicia was a polytheism, less
multitudinous than most others, and one in which the several divinities
were not distinguished from one another by very marked or striking
features. At the head of the Pantheon stood a god and a goddess--Baal
and Ashtoreth. Baal, "the Lord," or Baal-samin,[1113] "the Lord of
Heaven," was compared by the Greeks to their Zeus, and by the Romans
to their Jupiter. Mythologically, he was only one among many gods,
but practically he stood alone; he was the chief of the gods, the main
object of worship, and the great ruler and protector of the Phoenician
people. Sometimes, but not always, he had a solar character, and was
represented with his head encircled by rays.[1114] Baalbek, which was
dedicated to him, was properly "the city of the Sun," and was called by
the Greeks Heliopolis. The solar character of Baal is, however, far
from predominant, and as early as the time of Josiah we find the Sun
worshipped separately from him,[1115] no doubt under a different name.
Baal is, to a considerable extent, a city god. Tyre especially was
dedicated to him; and we hear of the "Baal of Tyre"[1116] and again of
the "Baal of Tarsus."[1117] Essentially, he was the embodiment of the
generative principle in nature--"the god of the creative power, bringing
all things to life everywhere."[1118] Hence, "his statue rode upon
bulls, for the bull was the symbol of generative power; and he was also
represented with bunches of grapes and pomegranates in his hand,"[1119]
emblems of productivity. The sacred conical stones and pillars dedicated
in his temples[1120] may have had their origin in a similar symbolism.
As polytheistic systems had always a tendency to enlarge themselves,
Baal had no sooner become a separate god, distinct from El, and Rimmon,
and Molech, and Adonai, than he proceeded to multiply himself, and from
Baal became Baalim,[1121] either because the local Baals--Baal-Tzur,
Baal-Sidon, Baal-Tars, Baal-Libnan, Baal-Hermon--were conceived of as
separate deities, or because the aspects of Baal--Baal as Sun-God, Baal
as Lord of Heaven, Baal as lord of flies,[1122], &c.--were so viewed,
and grew to be distinct objects of worship. In later times he was
identified with the Egyptian Ammon, and worshipped as Baal-Hammon.

Baal is known to have had temples at Baalbek, at Tyre, at Tarsus, at
Agadir[1123] (Gades), in Sardinia,[1124] at Carthage, and at Ekron.
Though not at first worshipped under a visible form, he came to have
statues dedicated to him,[1125] which received the usual honours.
Sometimes, as already observed, his head was encircled with a
representation of the solar rays; sometimes his form was assimilated to
that under which the Egyptians of later times worshipped their Ammon.
Seated upon a throne and wrapped in a long robe, he presented the
appearance of a man in the flower of his age, bearded, and of solemn
aspect, with the carved horn of a ram on either side of his forehead.
Figures of rams also supported the arms of his throne on either side,
and on the heads of these two supports his hands rested.[1126]

The female deity whose place corresponded to that of Baal in the
Phoenician Pantheon, and who was in a certain sense his companion and
counterpart, was Ashtoreth or Astarte. As Baal was the embodiment of the
generative principle in nature, so was Ashtoreth of the receptive and
productive principle. She was the great nature-goddess, the Magna Mater,
regent of the stars, queen of heaven, giver of life, and source of
woman's fecundity.[1127] Just as Baal had a solar, so she had a lunar
aspect, being pictured with horns upon her head representative of the
lunar crescent.[1128] Hence, as early as the time of Moses, there
was a city on the eastern side of Jordan, named after her,
Ashtoreth-Karnaim,[1129] or "Astarte of the two horns." Her images are
of many forms. Most commonly she appears as a naked female, with long
hair, sometimes gathered into tresses, and with her two hands supporting
her two breasts.[1130] Occasionally she is a mother, seated in a
comfortable chair, and nursing her babe.[1131] Now and then she is
draped, and holds a dove to her breast, or else she takes an attitude
of command, with the right hand raised, as if to bespeak attention.
Sometimes, on the contrary, her figure has that modest and retiring
attitude which has caused it to be described by a distinguished
archæologist[1132] as "the Phoenician prototype of the Venus de Medici."
The Greeks and Romans, who identified Baal determinately with their
Zeus or Jupiter, found it very much more difficult to fix on any single
goddess in their Pantheon as the correspondent of Astarte. Now they made
her Hera or Juno, now Aphrodite or Venus, now Athene, now Artemis, now
Selene, now Rhea or Cybele. But her aphrodisiac character was certainly
the one in which she most frequently appeared. She was the goddess of
the sexual passion, rarely, however, represented with the chaste and
modest attributes of the Grecian Aphrodite-Urania, far more commonly
with those coarser and more repulsive ones which characterise Aphrodite
Pandemos.[1133] Her temples were numerous, though perhaps not quite so
numerous as those of Baal. The most famous were those at Sidon, Aphaca,
Ashtoreth-Karnaim, Paphos, Pessinus, and Carthage. At Sidon the kings
were sometimes her high-priests;[1134] and her name is found as
a frequent element in Phoenician personal names, royal and other:
e.g.--Astartus, Abdastartus, Delæastartus, Am-ashtoreth, Bodoster,
Bostor, &c.

The other principal Phoenician deities were El, Melkarth, Dagon, Hadad,
Adonis, Sydyk, Eshmun, the Cabeiri, Onca, Tanith, Tanata, or Anaitis,
and Baalith, Baaltis, or Beltis. El, or Il, originally a name of the
Supreme God, became in the later Phoenician mythology a separate and
subordinate divinity, whom the Greeks compared to their Kronos[1135]
and the Romans to their Saturn. El was the special god of Gebal
or Byblus,[1136] and was worshipped also with peculiar rites at
Carthage.[1137] He was reckoned the son of Uranus and the father of
Beltis, to whom he delivered over as her especial charge the city of
Byblus.[1138] Numerous tales were told of him. While reigning on earth
as king of Byblus, or king of Phoenicia, he had fallen in love with a
nymph of the country, called Anobret, by whom he had a son named Ieoud.
This son, much as he loved him, when great dangers from war threatened
the land, he first invested with the emblems of royalty, and then
sacrificed.[1139] Uranus (Heaven) married his sister Ge (Earth), and Il
or Kronos was the issue of this marriage, as also were Dagon, Bætylus,
and Atlas. Ge, being dissatisfied with the conduct of her husband,
induced her son Kronos to make war upon him, and Kronos, with the
assistance of Hermes, overcame Uranus, and having driven him from his
kingdom succeeded to the imperial power. Besides sacrificing Ieoud,
Kronos murdered another of his sons called Sadid, and also a daughter
whose name is not given. Among his wives were Astarte, Rhea, Dioné,
Eimarmené, and Hora, of whom the first three were his sisters.[1140]
There is no need to pursue this mythological tangle. If it meant
anything to the initiated, the meaning is wholly lost; and the stories,
gravely as they are related by the ancient historian, to the modern, who
has no key to them, are almost wholly valueless.

Originally, Melkarth would seem to have been a mere epithet,
representing one aspect of Baal. The word is formed from the two roots
_melek_ and _kartha_[1141] (= Heb. _kiriath_, "city"), and means "King
of the City," or "City King," which Baal was considered to be. But the
two names in course of time drifted apart, and Melicertes, in Philo
Byblius, has no connection at all with Baal-samin.[1142] The Greeks,
who identified Baal with their Zeus, viewed Melkarth as corresponding to
their Heracles, or Hercules; and the later Phoenicians, catching at this
identification, represented Melkarth under the form of a huge muscular
man, with a lion's skin and sometimes with a club.[1143] Melkarth was
especially worshipped at Tyre, of which city he was the tutelary deity,
at Thasos, and at Gades. Herodotus describes the temple of Hercules at
Tyre, and attributes to it an antiquity of 2,300 years before his
own time.[1144] He also visited a temple dedicated to the same god
at Thasos.[1145] With Gades were connected the myths of Hercules'
expedition to the west, of his erection of the pillars, his defeat of
Chrysaor of the golden sword, and his successful foray upon the flocks
and herds of the triple Geryon.[1146] Whether these legends were Greek
or Phoenician in origin is uncertain; but the Phoenicians, at any
rate, adopted them, and here have been lately found on Phoenician sites
representations both of Geryon himself,[1147] and the carrying off
by Hercules of his cattle.[1148] The temple of Heracles at Gades is
mentioned by Strabo[1149] and others. It was on the eastern side of
the island, where the strait between the island and the continent was
narrowest. Founded about B.C. 1100, it continued to stand to the time
of Silius Italicus, and, according to the tradition, had never needed
repair.[1150] An unextinguished fire had burnt upon its altar for
thirteen hundred years; and the worship had remained unchanged--no
image profaned the Holy of Holies, where the god dwelt, waited on by
bare-footed priests with heads shaved, clothed in white linen robes, and
vowed to celibacy.[1151] The name of the god occurs as an element in
a certain small number of Phoenician names of men--e.g. Bomilcar,
Himilcar, Abd-Melkarth, and the like.

Dagon appears in scripture only as a Philistine god,[1152] which would
not prove him to have been acknowledged by the Phoenicians; but as Philo
of Byblus admits him among the primary Phoenician deities, making him a
son of Uranus, and a brother of Il or Kronis,[1153] it is perhaps right
that he should be allowed a place in the Phoenician list. According to
Philo, he was the god of agriculture, the discoverer of wheat, and the
inventor of the plough.[1154] Whether he was really represented, as is
commonly supposed,[1155] in the form of a fish, or as half man and
half fish, is extremely doubtful. In the Hebrew account of the fall
of Dagon's image before the Ark of the Covenant at Ashdod there is no
mention made of any "fishy part;" nor is there anything in the Assyrian
remains to connect the name Dagon, which occurs in them, with the
remarkable figure of a fish-god so frequent in the bas-reliefs. That
figure would seem rather to represent, or symbolise, either Hea or
Nin. The notion of Dagon's fishy form seems to rest entirely on an
etymological basis--on the fact, i.e. that _dag_ means "fish," in
Hebrew. In Assyrian, however, _kha_ is "fish," and not _dag_; while in
Hebrew, though _dag_ is "fish," _dagan_ is "corn." It may be noted also
that the Phoenician remains contain no representation of a fish deity.
On the whole, it is perhaps best to be content with the account of
Philo, and to regard the Phoenician Dagon as a "Zeus Arotrios"--a god
presiding over agriculture and especially worshipped by husbandmen. The
name, however, does not occur in the Phoenician remains which have come
down to us.

Hadad, like Dagon, obtains his right to be included in the list of
Phoenician deities solely from the place assigned to him by Philo.
Otherwise he would naturally be viewed as an Aramean god, worshipped
especially in Aram-Zobah, and in Syria of Damascus.[1156] In Syria,
he was identified with the sun;[1157] and it is possible that in the
Phoenician religion he was the Sun-God, worshipped (as we have seen)
sometimes independently of Baal. His image was represented with the
solar rays streaming down from it towards the earth, so as to indicate
that the earth received from him all that made it fruitful and
abundant.[1158] Macrobius connects his name with the Hebrew _chad_,
"one;" but this derivation is improbable.[1159] Philo gives him the
title of "King of Gods," and says that he reigned conjointly with
Astarte and Demaroüs,[1160] but this does not throw much light on the
real Phoenician conception of him. The local name, Hadad-rimmon,[1161]
may seem to connect him with the god Rimmon, likewise a Syrian
deity,[1162] and it is quite conceivable that the two words may have
been alternative names of the same god, just as Phoebus and Apollo were
with the Greeks. We may conjecture that the Sun was worshipped under
both names in Syria, while in Phoenicia Hadad was alone made use of. The
worship of Baal as the Sun, which tended to prevail ever more and more,
ousted Hadad from his place, and caused him to pass into oblivion.

Adonis was probably, like Hadad, originally a sun-god; but the myths
connected with him gave him, at any rate in the late Phoenician times, a
very distinct and definite personality. He was made the son of Cinryas,
a mythic king of Byblus,[1163] and the husband of Astarte or Ashtoreth.
One day, as he chased the wild boar in Lebanon, near the sources of the
river of Byblus, the animal which he was hunting turned upon him, and
so gored his thigh that he died of the wound. Henceforth he was mourned
annually. At the turn of the summer solstice, the anniversary of his
death, all the women of Byblus went in a wild procession to Aphaca, in
the Lebanon, where his temple stood, and wept and wailed on account of
his death. The river, which his blood had once actually stained, turned
red to show its sympathy with the mourners, and was thought to flow with
his blood afresh. After the "weeping for Tammuz"[1164] had continued for
a definite time, the mourning terminated with the burial of an image of
the god in the sacred precinct. Next day Adonis was supposed to return
to life; his image was disinterred and carried back to the temple with
music and dances, and every circumstance of rejoicing.[1165] Wild orgies
followed, and Aphaca became notorious for scenes to which it will be
necessary to recur hereafter. The Adonis myth is generally explained
as representing either the perpetually recurrent decay and recovery of
nature, or the declension of the Sun as he moves from the summer to the
winter constellations, and his subsequent return and reappearance in
all his strength. But myths obtained a powerful hold on ancient
imaginations, and the worshippers of Adonis probably in most cases
forgot the symbolical character of his cult, and looked on him as
a divine or heroic personage, who had actually gone through all the
adventures ascribed to him in the legend. Hence the peculiarly local
character of his worship, of which we find traces only at Byblus and at
Jerusalem.

Sydyk, "Justice," or, the "Just One,"[1166] whose name corresponds
to the Hebrew Zadok or Zedek, appears in the Phoenician mythology
especially as the father of Esmun and the Cabeiri. Otherwise he is only
known as the son of Magus (!) and the discoverer of salt.[1167] It
is perhaps his name which forms the final element in Melchizedek,
Adoni-zedek,[1168] and the like. We have no evidence that he was really
worshipped by the Phoenicians.

Esmun, on the other hand, the son of Sydyk, would seem to have been an
object of worship almost as much as any other deity. He was the special
god of Berytus,[1169] but was honoured also in Cyprus, at Sidon, at
Carthage, in Sardinia, and elsewhere.[1170] His name forms a frequent
element in Phoenician names, royal and other:--e.g. Esmun-azar,
Esmun-nathan, Han-Esmun, Netsib-Esmun, Abd-Esmun, &c. According to
Damascius,[1171] he was the eighth son of Sydyk, whence his name, and
the chief of the Cabeiri. Whereas they were dwarfish and misshapen, he
was a youth of most beautiful appearance, truly worthy of admiration.
Like Adonis, he was fond of hunting in the woods that clothe the flanks
of Lebanon, and there he was seen by Astronoë, the Phoenician goddess,
the mother of the gods (in whom we cannot fail to recognise Astarte),
who persecuted him with her attentions to such an extent that to escape
her he was driven to the desperate resource of self-emasculation. Upon
this the goddess, greatly grieved, called him Pæan, and by means of
quickening warmth brought him back to life, and changed him from a man
into a god, which he thenceforth remained. The Phoenicians called him
Esmun, "the eighth," but the Greeks worshipped him as Asclepius, the
god of healing, who gave life and health to mankind. Some of the later
Phoenicians regarded him as identical with the atmosphere, which,
they said, was the chief source of health to man.[1172] But it is
not altogether clear that the earlier Phoenicians attached to him any
healing character.[1173]

The seven other Cabeiri, or "Great Ones," equally with Esmun the sons of
Sydyk, were dwarfish gods who presided over navigation,[1174] and were
the patrons of sailors and ships. The special seat of their worship in
Phoenicia Proper was Berytus, but they were recognised also in several
of the Phoenician settlements, as especially in Lemnos, Imbrus, and
Samothrace.[1175] Ships were regarded as their invention,[1176] and a
sculptured image of some one or other of them was always placed on every
Phoenician war-galley, either at the stern or stem of the vessel.[1177]
They were also viewed as presiding over metals and metallurgy,[1178]
having thus some points of resemblance to the Greek Hephæstus and the
Latin Vulcan. Pigmy and misshapen gods belong to that fetishism which
has always had charms for the Hamitic nations; and it may be suspected
that the Phoenicians adopted the Cabeiri from their Canaanite
predecessors, who were of the race of Ham.[1179] The connection between
these pigmy deities and the Egyptian Phthah, or rather Phthah-Sokari, is
unmistakable, and was perceived by Herodotus.[1180] Clay pigmy figurines
found on Phoenician sites[1181] very closely resemble the Egyptian
images of that god; and the coins attributed to Cossura exhibit
a similar dwarfish form, generally carrying a hammer in the right
hand.[1182] An astral character has been attached by some writers to the
Cabeiri,[1183] but chiefly on account of their number, which is scarcely
a sufficient proof.

Several Greek writers speak of a Phoenician goddess corresponding to the
Grecian Athene,[1184] and some of them say that she was named Onga or
Onca.[1185] The Phoenician remains give us no such name; but as Philo
Byblius has an "Athene" among his Phoenician deities, whom he makes the
daughter of Il, or Kronos, and the queen of Attica,[1186] it is perhaps
best to allow Onca to retain her place in the Phoenician Pantheon. Philo
says that Kronos _by her advice_ shaped for himself out of iron a sword
and a spear; we may therefore presume that she was a war-goddess (as was
Pallas-Athene among the Greeks), whence she naturally presided over
the gates of towns,[1187] which were built and fortified for warlike
purposes.

The worship of a goddess, called Tanath or Tanith, by the later
Phoenicians, is certain, since, besides the evidence furnished by the
name Abd-Tanith, i.e. "Servant of Tanith,"[1188] the name Tanith itself
is distinctly read on a number of votive tablets brought from Carthage,
in a connection which clearly implies her recognition, not only as a
goddess, but as a great goddess, the principal object of Carthaginian
worship. The form of inscription on the tablets is, ordinarily, as
follows:--[1189]

     "To the great [goddess], Tanith, and
     To our lord and master Baal-Hammon.
     The offerer is ....,
     Son of ...., son of ...."

Tanith is invariable placed before Baal, as though superior to him, and
can be no other than the celestial goddess (Dea coelestis), whose temple
in the Roman Carthage was so celebrated.[1190] The Greeks regarded her
as equivalent to their Artemis;[1191] the Romans made her Diana, or
Juno, or Venus.[1192] Practically she must at Carthage have taken the
place of Ashtoreth. Apuleius describes her as having a lunar character,
like Ashtoreth, and calls her "the parent of all things, the mistress
of the elements, the initial offspring of the ages, the highest of the
deities, the queen of the Manes, the first of the celestials, the single
representative of all the gods and goddesses, the one divinity whom
all the world worships in many shapes, with varied rites, and under a
multitude of names."[1193] He says that she was represented as riding
upon a lion, and it is probably her form which appears upon some of the
later coins of Carthage, as well as upon a certain number of gems.[1194]
The origin of the name is uncertain. Gesenius would connect it at
once with the Egyptian Neith (Nit), and with the Syrian Anaïtis or
Tanaïtis;[1195] but the double identification is scarcely tenable, since
Anaïtis was, in Egypt, not Neith, but Anta.[1196] The subject is very
obscure, and requires further investigation.

Baaltis, or Beltis, was, according to Philo Byblius, the daughter of
Uranus and the sister of Asthoreth or Astarte.[1197] Il made her one of
his many wives, and put the city of Byblus, which he had founded, under
her special protection.[1198] It is doubtful, however, whether she was
really viewed by the Phoenicians as a separate goddess, and not rather
as Ashtoreth under another name. The word is the equivalent of {...},
"my lady," a very suitable title for the supreme goddess. Beltis,
indeed, in Babylonia, was distinct from Ishtar;[1199] but this fact must
not be regarded as any sufficient proof that the case was the same in
Phoenicia. The Phoenician polytheism was decidedly more restricted than
the Babylonian, and did not greatly affect the needless multiplication
of divinities. Baaltis in Phoenicia may be the Beltis of Babylon
imported at a comparatively late date into the country, but is more
probably an alternative name, or rather, perhaps, a mere honorary title
of Ashtoreth.[11100]

The chief characteristic of the third period of the Phoenician religion
was the syncretistic tendency,[11101] whereby foreign gods were called
in, and either identified with the old national divinities, or joined
with them, and set by their side. Ammon, Osiris, Phthah, Pasht, and
Athor, were introduced from Egypt, Tanith from either Egypt or Syria,
Nergal from Assyria, Beltis (Baaltis) perhaps from Babylon. The worship
of Osiris in the later times appears from such names as Abd-Osir,
Osir-shamar, Melek-Osir, and the like,[11102] and is represented on
coins with Phoenician legends, which are attributed either to Malta or
Gaulos.[11103] Osiris was, it would seem, identified with Adonis,[11104]
and was said to have been buried at Byblus;[11105] which was near the
mouth of the Adonis river. His worship was not perhaps very widely
spread; but there are traces of it at Byblus, in Cyprus, and
in Malta.[11106] Ammon was identified with Baal in his solar
character,[11107] and was generally worshipped in conjunction with
Tanith, more especially at Carthage.[11108] He was represented with
his head encircled by rays, and with a perfectly round face.[11109] His
common title was "Lord" {...}, but in Numidia he was worshipped as "the
Eternal King" {...}.[11110] As the giver of all good things, he held
trees or fruits in his hands.[11111]

The Phoenicians worshipped their gods, like most other ancient nations,
with prayer, with hymns of praise, with sacrifices, with processions,
and with votive offerings. We do not know whether they had any regularly
recurrent day, like the Jewish Sabbath, or Christian Sunday, on which
worship took place in the temples generally; but at any rate each temple
had its festival times, when multitudes flocked to it, and its gods were
honoured with prolonged services and sacrifices on a larger scale than
ordinary. Most festivals were annual, but some recurred at shorter
intervals; and, besides the festivals, there was an every day cult,
which was a duty incumbent upon the priests, but at which the private
worshipper also might assist to offer prayer or sacrifice. The ordinary
sacrificial animals were oxen, cows, goats, sheep, and lambs; swine
were not offered, being regarded as unclean;[11112] but the stag was
an acceptable victim, at any rate on certain occasions.[11113] At
all functions the priests attended in large numbers, habited in white
garments of linen or cotton, and wearing a stiff cap or mitre upon their
heads:[11114] on one occasion of a sacrifice Lucian counted above three
hundred engaged in the ceremony.[11115] It was the duty of some to slay
the victims; of others to pour libations; of a third class to bear about
pans of coal on which incense could be offered; of a fourth to attend
upon the altars.[11116] The priests of each temple had at their head a
Chief or High Priest, who was robed in purple and wore a golden tiara.
His office, however, continued only for a year, when another was chosen
to succeed him.[11117]

Ordinarily, sacrifices were offered, in Phoenicia as elsewhere,
singly, and upon altars; but sometimes it was customary to have a great
holocaust. Large trees were dug up by the roots, and planted in the
court of the temple; the victims, whether goats, or sheep, or cattle of
any other kind, were suspended by ropes from the branches; birds were
similarly attached, and garments, and vessels in gold and silver. Then
the images of the gods belonging to the temple were brought out, and
carried in a solemn procession round the trees; after which the
trees were set on fire, and the whole was consumed in a mighty
conflagration.[11118] The season for this great holocaust was the
commencement of the spring-time, when the goodness of Heaven in once
more causing life to spring up on every side seemed to require man's
special acknowledgment.

Hymns of praise are spoken of especially in connection with this same
Spring-Festival.[11119] Votive offerings were continually being offered
in every temple by such as believed that they had received any benefit
from any god, either in consequence of their vows, or prayers, or even
by the god's spontaneous action. The sites of temples yield numerous
traces of such offerings. Sometimes they are in the shape of stone
_stelæ_ or pillars, inscribed and more or less ornamented,[11120]
sometimes of tablets placed within an ornamental border, and generally
accompanied by some rude sculptures;[11121] more often of figures,
either in bronze or clay, which are mostly of a somewhat rude character.
M. Renan observes with respect to these figures, which are extremely
numerous:--"Ought we to see in these images, as has been supposed, long
series of portraits of priests and priestesses continued through several
centuries? We do not think so. The person represented in these statues
appears to us to be the author of a vow or of a sacrifice made to the
divinity of the temple . . . Vows and sacrifices were very fleeting
things; it might be feared that the divinity would soon forget them. An
inscription was already recognised as a means of rendering the memory
of a vow more lasting; but a statue was a momento still more--nay, much
more efficacious. By having himself represented under the eyes of the
divinity in the very act of accomplishing his vow, a man called to mind,
as one may say, incessantly the offering which he had made to the
god, and the homage which he had rendered him. An idea of this sort
is altogether in conformity with the materialistic and self-interested
character of the Phoenician worship, where the vow is a kind of
business affair, a matter of debtor and creditor account, in which a man
stipulates very clearly what he is to give, and holds firmly that he
is to be paid in return . . . We have then, in these statues,
representations of pious men, who came one after another to acquit
themselves of their debt in the presence of the divinity; in order that
the latter should not forget that the debt was discharged, they set up
their images in front of the god. The image was larger or smaller,
more or less carefully elaborated, in a more or less valuable material,
according to the means of the individual who consecrated it."[11122]

Thus far there was no very remarkable difference between the Phoenician
religious system and other ancient Oriental worships, which have a
general family likeness, and differ chiefly in the names and number
of the deities, the simplicity or complication of the rites, and the
greater or less power and dignity attached to the priestly office.
In these several respects the Phoenician religion seems to have leant
towards the side of simplicity, the divinities recognised being,
comparatively speaking, few, priestly influence not great, and the
ceremonial not very elaborate. But there were two respects in which
the religion was, if not singular, at any rate markedly different from
ordinary polytheisms, though less in the principles involved than in
the extent to which they were carried out in practice. These were the
prevalence of licentious orgies and of human sacrifice. The worship of
Astarte was characterised by the one, the worship of Baal by the other.
Phoenician mythology taught that the great god, Il or El, when reigning
upon earth as king of Byblus, had, under circumstances of extreme
danger to his native land, sacrificed his dearly loved son, Ieoud, as
an expiatory offering. Divine sanction had thus been given to the horrid
rite; and thenceforth, whenever in Phoenicia either public or private
calamity threatened, it became customary that human victims should be
selected, the nobler and more honourable the better, and that the wrath
of the gods should be appeased by taking their lives. The mode of death
was horrible. The sacrifices were to be consumed by fire; the life
given by the Fire God he should also take back again by the flames which
destroy being. The rabbis describe the image of Moloch as a human figure
with a bull's head and outstretched arms;[11123] and the account which
they give is confirmed by what Diodorus relates of the Carthaginian
Kronos. His image, Diodorus says,[11124] was of metal, and was made hot
by a fire kindled within it; the victims were placed in its arms and
thence rolled into the fiery lap below. The most usual form of the
rite was the sacrifice of their children--especially of their eldest
sons[11125]--by parents. "This custom was grounded in part on the notion
that children were the dearest possession of their parents, and, in
part, that as pure and innocent beings they were the offerings of
atonement most certain to pacify the anger of the deity; and further,
that the god of whose essence the generative power of nature was had a
just title of that which was begotten of man, and to the surrender
of their children's lives . . . Voluntary offering on the part of
the parents was essential to the success of the sacrifice; even the
first-born, nay, the only child of the family, was given up. The parents
stopped the cries of their children by fondling and kissing them, for
the victim ought not to weep; and the sound of complaint was drowned
in the din of flutes and kettledrums. Mothers, according to
Plutarch,[11126] stood by without tears or sobs; if they wept or sobbed
they lost the honour of the act, and their children were sacrificed
notwithstanding. Such sacrifices took place either annually or on an
appointed day, or before great enterprises, or on the occasion of public
calamities, to appease the wrath of the god."[11127]

In the worship of Astarte the prostitution of women, and of effeminate
men, played the same part that child murder did in the worship of Baal.
"This practice," says Dr. Döllinger,[11128] "so widely spread in the
world of old, the delusion that no service more acceptable could be
rendered a deity than that of unchastity, was deeply rooted in the
Asiatic mind. Where the deity was in idea sexual, or where two deities
in chief, one a male and the other a female, stood in juxtaposition,
there the sexual relation appeared as founded upon the essence of the
deity itself, and the instinct and its satisfaction as that in men which
most corresponded with the deity. Thus lust itself became a service
of the gods; and, as the fundamental idea of sacrifice is that of the
immediate or substitutive surrender of a man's self to the deity, so the
woman could do the goddess no better service than by prostitution. Hence
it was the custom [in some places] that a maiden before her marriage
should prostitute herself once in the temple of the goddess;[11129]
and this was regarded as the same in kind with the offering of the
first-fruits of the field." Lucian, a heathen and an eye-witness, tells
us[11130]--"I saw at Byblus the grand temple of the Byblian Venus, in
which are accomplished the orgies relating to Adonis; and I learnt the
nature of the orgies. For the Byblians say that the wounding of Adonis
by the boar took place in their country; and, in memory of the accident,
they year by year beat their breasts, and utter lamentations, and go
through the orgies, and hold a great mourning throughout the land. When
the weeping is ended, first of all, they make to Adonis the offerings
usually made to a corpse; after which, on the next day, they feign that
he has come to life again, and hold a procession [of his image] in the
open air. But previously they shave their heads, like the Egyptians when
an Apis dies; and if any woman refuse to do so, she must sell her beauty
during one day to all who like. Only strangers, however, are permitted
to make the purchase, and the money paid is expended on a sacrifice
which is offered to the goddess." "In this way," as Dr. Döllinger goes
on to say, "they went so far at last as to contemplate the abominations
of unnatural lust as a homage rendered to the deity, and to exalt it
into a regular cultus. The worship of the goddess [Ashtoreth] at
Aphaca in the Lebanon was specially notorious in this respect."[11131]
Here, according to Eusebius, was, so late as the time of Constantine the
Great, a temple in which the old Phoenician rites were still retained.
"This," he says, "was a grove and a sacred enclosure, not situated, as
most temples are, in the midst of a city, and of market-places, and
of broad streets, but far away from either road or path, on the rocky
slopes of Libanus. It was dedicated to a shameful goddess, the goddess
Aphrodite. A school of wickedness was this place for all such profligate
persons as had ruined their bodies by excessive luxury. The men there
were soft and womanish--men no longer; the dignity of their sex they
rejected; with impure lust they thought to honour the deity. Criminal
intercourse with women, secret pollutions, disgraceful and nameless
deeds, were practised in the temple, where there was no restraining law,
and no guardian to preserve decency."[11132]

One fruit of this system was the extraordinary institution of the Galli.
The Galli were men, who made themselves as much like women as they
could, and offered themselves for purposes of unnatural lust to either
sex. Their existence may be traced in Israel and Judah,[11133] as
well as in Syria and Phoenicia.[11134] At great festivals, under the
influence of a strong excitement, amid the din of flutes and drums and
wild songs, a number of the male devotees would snatch up swords or
knives, which lay ready for the purpose, throw off their garments, and
coming forward with a loud shout, proceed to castrate themselves openly.
They would then run through the streets of the city, with the mutilated
parts in their hands, and throw them into the houses of the inhabitants,
who were bound in such case to provide the thrower with all the apparel
and other gear needful for a woman.[11135] This apparel they thenceforth
wore, and were recognised as attached to the worship of Astarte,
entitled to reside in her temples, and authorised to take part in
her ceremonies. They joined with the priests and the sacred women at
festival times in frenzied dances and other wild orgies, shouting, and
cutting themselves on the arms, and submitting to be flogged one by
another.[11136] At other seasons they "wandered from place to place,
taking with them a veiled image or symbol of their goddess, and clad in
women's apparel of many colours, and with their faces and eyes painted
in female fashion, armed with swords and scourges, they threw themselves
by a wild dance into bacchanalian ecstasy, in which their long hair
was draggled through the mud. They bit their own arms, and then hacked
themselves with their swords, or scourged themselves in penance for
a sin supposed to have been committed against the goddess. In these
scenes, got up to aid the collection of money, by long practice they
contrived to cut themselves so adroitly as not to inflict on themselves
any very serious wounds."[11137]

It is difficult to estimate the corrupting effect upon practice and
morals of a religious system which embraced within it so many sensual
and degrading elements. Where impurity is made an essential part of
religion, there the very fountain of life is poisoned, and that
which should have been "a savour of life unto life"--a cleansing and
regenerating influence--becomes "a savour of death unto death"--an
influence leading on to the worst forms of moral degradation. Phoenician
religion worked itself out, and showed its true character, in the first
three centuries after our era, at Aphaca, at Hierapolis, and at Antioch,
where, in the time of Julian, even a Libanius confessed that the great
festival of the year consisted only in the perpetration of all that was
impure and shameless, and the renunciation of every lingering spark of
decency.[11138]

A vivid conception of another world, and of the reality of a life after
death, especially if connected with a belief in future rewards and
punishments, might have done much, or at any rate something, to
counteract the effect upon morals and conduct of the degrading tenets
and practices connected with the Astarte worship; but, so far as
appears, the Phoenicians had a very faint and dim conception of the life
to come, and neither hoped for happiness, nor feared misery in it. Their
care for the preservation of their bodies after death, and the provision
which in some cases they are seen to have made for them,[11139] imply
a belief that death was not the end of everything, and a few
vague expressions in inscriptions upon tombs point to a similar
conviction;[11140] but the life of the other world seems to have been
regarded as something imperfect and precarious[11141]--a sort of shadowy
existence in a gloomy _Sheôl_, where was neither pleasure nor pain,
neither suffering nor enjoyment, but only quietness and rest. The
thought of it did not occupy men's minds, or exercise any perceptible
influence over their conduct. It was a last home, whereto all must
go, acquiesced in, but neither hoped for nor dreaded. A Phoenician's
feelings on the subject were probably very much those expressed by Job
in his lament:--[11142]

     "Why died I not from the womb? Why gave I not up the ghost at my
         birth?
     Why did the knees prevent me? or why the breasts that I should
          suck?
     For now should I have lain still and been quiet;
     I should have slept, and then should I have been at rest;
     I should have been with the kings and councillors of the earth,
     Who rebuilt for themselves the cities that were desolate.
     I should have been with the princes that had much gold,
     And that filled their houses with silver . . .
     There they that are wicked cease from troubling,
     There they that are weary sink to rest;
     There the prisoners are in quiet together,
     And hear no longer the voice of the oppressor:
     There are both the great and small, and the servant is freed from
     his master."

Still their religion, such as it was, had a great hold upon the
Phoenicians. Parents gave to their children, almost always, religious
names, recognising each son and daughter as a gift from heaven, or
placing them under the special protection of the gods generally, or of
some single divinity. It was piety, an earnest but mistaken piety, which
so often caused the parent to sacrifice his child--the very apple of his
eye and delight of his heart--that so he might make satisfaction for
the sins which he felt in his inmost soul that he had committed. It
was piety that filled the temples with such throngs, that brought for
sacrifice so many victims, that made the worshipper in every difficulty
put up a vow to heaven, and caused the payment of the vows in such
extraordinary profusion. At Carthage alone there have been found
many hundreds of stones, each one of which records the payment of a
vow;[11143] while other sites have furnished hundreds or even thousands
of _ex votos_--statues, busts, statuettes, figures of animals,
cylinders, seals, rings, bracelets, anklets, ear-rings, necklaces,
ornaments for the hair, vases, amphoræ, oenochoæ, pateræ, jugs, cups,
goblets, bowls, dishes, models of boats and chariots--indicative of an
almost unexampled devotion. A single chamber in the treasury of
Curium produced more than three hundred articles in silver
and silver-gilt;[11144] the temple of Golgi yielded 228 votive
statues;[11145] sites in Sardinia scarcely mentioned in antiquity have
sufficed to fill whole museums with statuettes, rings, and scarabs. If
the Phoenicians did not give evidence of the depth of their religious
feeling by erecting, like most nations, temples of vast size and
magnificence, still they left in numerous places unmistakable proof of
the reality of their devotion to the unseen powers by the multiplicity,
and in many cases the splendour,[11146] of their votive offerings.



CHAPTER XII--DRESS, ORNAMENTS, AND SOCIAL HABITS

     Dress of common men--Dress of men of the upper classes--
     Treatment of the hair and beard--Male ornaments--Supposed
     priestly costume--Ordinary dress of women--Arrangement of
     their hair--Female ornaments--Necklaces--Bracelets--Ear-
     rings--Ornaments for the hair--Toilet pins--Buckles--A
     Phoenician lady's toilet table--Freedom enjoyed by
     Phoenician women--Active habits of the men--Curious agate
     ornament--Use in furniture of bronze and ivory.

The dress of the Phoenician men, especially of those belonging to the
lower orders, consisted, for the most part, of a single close-fitting
tunic, which reached from the waist to a little above the knee.[0121] The
material was probably either linen or cotton, and the simple garment
was perfectly plain and unornamented, like the common _shenti_ of the
Egyptians. On the head was generally worn a cap of one kind or another,
sometimes round, more often conical, occasionally shaped like a helmet.
The conical head-dresses seem to have often ended in a sort of top-knot
or button, which recalls the head-dress of a Chinese Mandarin.

Where the men were of higher rank, the _shenti_ was ornamented. It was
patterned, and parted towards the two sides, while a richly adorned
lappet, terminating in uræi, fell down in front.[0122] The girdle, from
which it depended, was also patterned, and the _shenti_ thus arranged
was sometimes a not inelegant garment. In addition to the _shenti_, it
was common among the upper classes to wear over the bust and shoulders a
close-fitting tunic with short sleeves,[0123] like a modern "jersey;" and
sometimes two garments were worn, an inner robe descending to the feet,
and an outer blouse or shirt, with sleeves reaching to the elbow.[0124]
Occasionally, instead of this outer blouse, the man of rank has a mantle
thrown over the left shoulder, which falls about him in folds that are
sufficiently graceful.[0125] The conical cap with a top-knot is, with
persons of this class, the almost universal head-dress.

Great attention seems to have been paid to the hair and beard. Where no
cap is worn, the hair clings closely to the head in a wavy compact mass,
escaping however from below the wreath or diadem, which supplies the
place of a cap, in one or two rows of crisp, rounded curls.[0126] The
beard has mostly a strong resemblance to that affected by the Assyrians,
and familiar to us from their sculptures. It is arranged in three, four,
or five rows of small tight curls,[0127] and extends from ear to ear
around the cheeks and chin. Sometimes, however, in lieu of the many
rows, we find one row only, the beard falling in tresses, which are
curled at the extremity.[0128] There is no indication of the Phoenicians
having cultivated mustachios.

For ornaments the male Phoenicians wore collars, which were sometimes
very elaborate, armlets, bracelets, and probably finger-rings. The
collars resembled those of the Egyptians, being arranged in three rows,
and falling far over the breast.[0129] The armlets seem to have been
plain, consisting of a mere twist of metal, once, twice, or thrice
around the limb.[1210] The royal armlets of Etyander, king of Paphos,
are single twists of gold, the ends of which only just overlap: they
are plain, except for the inscription, which reads _Eteadoro to Papo
basileos_, or "The property of Etyander, king of Paphos."[1211] Men's
bracelets were similar in character. The finger-rings were either of
gold or silver, and generally set with a stone, which bore a device, and
which the wearer used as a seal.[1212]

The most elaborate male costume which has come down to us is that of
a figure found at Golgi, and believed to represent a high priest of
Ashtoreth. The conical head-dress is divided into partitions by narrow
stripes, which, beginning at its lower edge, converge to a point at top.
This point is crowned by the representation of a calf's or bull's head.
The main garment is a long robe reaching from the neck to the feet,
"worn in much the same manner as the peplos on early Greek female
figures." Round the neck of the robe are two rows of stars painted in
red, probably meant to represent embroidery. A little below the knee
is another band of embroidery, from which the robe falls in folds or
pleats, which gather closely around the legs. Above the long robe is
worn a mantle, which covers the right arm and shoulder, and thence hangs
down below the right knee, passing also in many folds from the shoulder
across the breast, and thence, after a twist around the left arm,
falling down below the left knee. The treatment of the hair is
remarkable. Below the rim of the cap is the usual row of crisp curls;
but besides these, there depend from behind the ears on either side of
the neck three long tresses. The feet of the figure are naked. The right
hand holds a cup by its foot between the middle and fore-fingers, while
the left holds a dove with wings outspread.[1213]

Women were, for the most part, draped very carefully from head to
foot. The nude figures which are found abundantly in the Phoenician
remains[1214] are figures of goddesses, especially of Astarte, who were
considered not to need the ornament, or the concealment of dress. Human
female figures are in almost every case covered from the neck to
the feet, generally in garments with many folds, which, however,
are arranged very variously. Sometimes a single robe of the amplest
dimensions seems to envelop the whole form, which it completely conceals
with heavy folds of drapery.[1215] The long petticoat is sleeved, and
gathered into a sinus below the breasts, about which it hangs loosely.
Sometimes, on the contrary, the petticoat is perfectly plain, and has
no folds.[1216] Occasionally a second garment is worn over the gown
or robe, which covers the left shoulder and the lap, descending to the
knees, or somewhat lower.[1217] The waist is generally confined by a
girdle, which is knotted in front.[1218] There are a few instances in
which the feet are enclosed in sandals.[1219]

The hair of women is sometimes concealed under a cap, but generally it
escapes from such confinement, and shows itself below the cap in great
rolls, or in wavy masses, which flow off right and left from a parting
over the middle of the forehead.[1220] Tresses are worn occasionally:
these depend behind either ear in long loose curls, which fall upon the
shoulders.[1221] Female heads are mostly covered with a loose hood,
or cap; but sometimes the hair is merely encircled by a band or bands,
above and below which it ripples freely.[1222]

Phoenician women were greatly devoted to the use of personal ornaments.
It was probably from them that the Hebrew women of Isaiah's time derived
the "tinkling ornaments of the feet, the cauls, the round tires like the
moon, the chains, the bracelets, and the mufflers, the bonnets and the
ornaments of the legs, and the head-bands, and the tablets, and the
ear-rings, the rings and nose-jewels, the changeable suits of apparel,
and the mantles, and the wimples, and the crisping pins, the glasses,
and the fine linen, and the hoods, and the vails,"[1223] which the
prophet denounces so fiercely. The excavations made on Phoenician sites
have yielded in abundance necklaces, armlets, bracelets, pendants to
be worn as lockets, ear-rings, finger-rings, ornaments for the hair,
buckles or brooches, seals, buttons, and various articles of the toilet
such as women delight in.

Women wore, it appears, three or four necklaces at the same time, one
above the other.[1224] A string of small beads or pearls would closely
encircle the neck just under the chin. Below, where the chest begins,
would lie a second string of larger beads, perhaps of gold, perhaps only
of glass, while further down, as the chest expands, would be rows of
still larger ornaments, pendants in glass, or crystal, or gold, or agate
modelled into the shape of acorns, or pomegranates, or lotus flowers, or
cones, or vases, and lying side by side to the number of fifty or sixty.
Several of the necklaces worn by the Cypriote ladies have come down
to us. One is composed of a row of one hundred and three gold beads,
alternately round and oval, to the oval ones of which are attached
pendants, also in gold, representing alternately the blossom and bud of
the lotus plant, except in one instance. The central bead of all has as
its pendant a human head and bust, modelled in the Egyptian style, with
the hair falling in lappets on either side of the face, and with a broad
collar upon the shoulders and the breast.[1225] Another consists of
sixty-four gold beads, twenty-two of which are of superior size to the
rest, and of eighteen pendants, shaped like the bud of a flower,
and delicately chased.[1226] There are others where gold beads are
intermixed with small carnelian and onyx bugles, while the pendants are
of gold, like the beads; or where gold and rock-crystal beads alternate,
and a single crystal vase hangs as pendant in the middle; or where
alternate carnelian and gold beads have as pendant a carnelian cone, a
symbol of Astarte.[1227] Occasionally the sole material used is glass.
Necklaces have been found composed entirely of long oval beads of blue
or greenish-blue glass; others where the colour of the beads is a dark
olive;[1228] others again, where all the component parts are of glass,
but the colours and forms are greatly varied. In a glass necklace found
at Tharros in Sardinia, besides beads of various sizes and hues, there
are two long rough cylinders, four heads of animals, and a human head as
central ornament. "Taken separately, the various elements of which
this necklace is composed have little value; neither the heads of the
animals, nor the bearded human face, perhaps representing Bacchus,
are in good style; the cylinders and rounded beads which fill up the
intermediate spaces between the principal objects are of very poor
execution; but the mixture of whites, and greys, and yellows, and
greens, and blues produces a whole which is harmonious and gay."[1229]

Perhaps the most elegant and tasteful necklace of all that have been
discovered is the one made of a thick solid gold cord, very soft
and elastic, which is figured on the page opposite.[1230] At either
extremity is a cylinder of very fine granulated work, terminating in one
case in a lion's head of good execution, in the other surmounted by a
simple cap. The lion's mouth holds a ring, while the cap supports a long
hook, which seems to issue from a somewhat complicated knot, entangled
wherein is a single light rosette. "In this arrangement, in the curves
of the thin wire, which folds back upon itself again and again, there is
an air of ease, an apparent negligence, which is the very perfection of
technical skill."[1231]

The bracelets worn by the Phoenician ladies were of many kinds, and
frequently of great beauty. Some were bands of plain solid gold, without
ornament of any kind, very heavy, weighing from 200 to 300 grammes
each.[1232] Others were open, and terminated at either extremity in
the head of an animal. One, found by General Di Cesnola at Curium in
Cyprus,[1233] exhibited at the two ends heads of lions, which seemed
to threaten each other. The execution of the heads left nothing to
be desired. Some others, found in Phoenicia Proper, in a state of
extraordinary preservation, were of similar design, but, in the place of
lions' heads, exhibited the heads of bull, with very short horns.[1234]
A third type aimed at greater variety, and showed the head of a
wild goat at one end, and that of a ram at the other.[1235] In a few
instances, the animal representation appears at one extremity of the
bracelet only, as in a specimen from Camirus, whereof the workmanship is
unmistakably Phoenician, which has a lion's head at one end, and at the
other tapers off, like the tail of a serpent.[1236]

A pair of bracelets in the British Museum, said to have come from
Tharros, consist of plain thin circlets of gold, with a ball of gold in
the middle. The ball is ornamented with spirals and projecting knobs,
which must have been uncomfortable to the wearer, but are said not to be
wanting in elegance.[1237]

There are other Phoenician bracelets of an entirely different character.
These consist of broad flat bands, which fitted closely to the wrist,
and were fastened round it by means of a clasp. Two, now in the Museum
of New York, are bands of gold about an inch in width, ornamented
externally with rosettes, flowers, and other designs in high relief, on
which are visible in places the remains of a blue enamel.[1238] Another
is composed of fifty-four large-ribbed gold beads, soldered together by
threes, and having for centre a gold medallion, with a large onyx set
in it, and with four gold pendants.[1239] A third bracelet of the kind,
said to have been found at Tharros, consists of six plates, united
by hinges, and very delicately engraved with patterns of a thoroughly
Phoenician character, representing palms, volutes, and flowers.[1240]

But it is in their earrings that the Phoenician ladies were most curious
and most fanciful. They present to us, as MM. Perrot and Chipiez
note, "an astonishing variety."[1241] Some, which must have been very
expensive, are composed of many distinct parts, connected with each
other by chains of an elegant pattern. One of the most beautiful
specimens was found by General Di Cesnola in Cyprus.[1242] There is a
hook at top, by which it was suspended. Then follows a medallion, where
the workmanship is of singular delicacy. A rosette occupies the centre;
around it are a set of spirals, negligently arranged, and enclosed
within a chain-like band, outside of which is a double beading. From
the medallion depend by finely wrought chains five objects. The central
chain supports a human head, to which is attached a conical vase,
covered at top: on either side are two short chains, terminating in
rings, from which hang small nondescript pendants: beyond are two
longer chains, with small vases or bottles attached. Another, found in
Sardinia, is scarcely less complicated. The ring which pierced the ear
forms the handle of a kind of basket, which is covered with lines of
bead-work: below, attached by means of two rings, is the model of a hawk
with wings folded; below the hawk, again attached by a couple of rings,
is a vase of elegant shape, decorated with small bosses, lozenges, and
chevrons.[1243] Other ear-rings have been found similar in type to this,
but simplified by the omission of the bird, or of the basket.[1244]

An entirely different type is that furnished by an ear-ring in the
Museum of New York brought from Cyprus, where the loop of the ornament
rises from a sort of horse-shoe, patterned with bosses and spirals, and
surrounded by a rough edging of knobs, standing at a little distance one
from another.[1245] Other forms found also in Cyprus are the ear-ring
with the long pendant, which has been called "an elongated pear,"[1246]
ornamented towards the lower end with small blossoms of flowers, and
terminating in a minute ball, which recalls the "drops" that are still
used by the jewellers of our day; the loop which supports a _crux
ansata_;[1247] that which has attached to it a small square box, or
measure containing a heap of grain, thought to represent wheat;[1248]
and those which support fruit of various kinds.[1249] An ear-ring of
much delicacy consists of a twisted ring, curved into a hook at one
extremity, and at the other ending in the head of a goat, with a ring
attached to it, through which the hook passes.[1250] Another, rather
curious than elegant, consists of a double twist, ornamented with
lozenges, and terminating in triangular points finely granulated.[1251]

Ornaments more or less resembling this last type of ear-ring, but larger
and coarser, have given rise to some controversy, having been regarded
by some as ear-rings, by others as fastenings for the dress, and by a
third set of critics as ornaments for the hair. They consist of a double
twist, sometimes ornamented at one end only, sometimes at both. A lion's
or a griffin's head crowns usually the principal end; round the neck
is a double or triple collar, and below this a rosette, very carefully
elaborated. In one instance two griffins show themselves side by side,
exhibiting their heads, their chests, their wings, and their fore-paws
or hands; between them is an ornament like that which commonly surmounts
Phoenician _stelæ_; and below this a most beautiful rosette.[1252] The
fashioning shows that the back of the ornament was not intended to be
seen, and favours the view that it was to be placed where a mass of hair
would afford the necessary concealment.

The Phoenician ladies seem also to have understood the use of hair-pins,
which were from two to three inches long, and had large heads, ribbed
longitudinally, and crowned with two smaller balls, one above the
other.[1253] The material used was either gold or silver.

To fasten their dresses, the Phoenician ladies used _fibulæ_ or buckles
of a simple character. Brooches set with stones have not at present
been found on Phoenician sites; but in certain cases the fibulæ show
a moderate amount of ornament. Some have glass beads strung on the
pin that is inserted into the catch; others have the rounded portion
surmounted by the figure of a horse or of a bird.[1254] Most fibulæ
are in bronze; but one, found in the treasury of Curium, and now in the
Museum of New York, was of gold.[1255] This, however, was most probably
a votive offering.

It is impossible at present to reproduce the toilet table of a
Phoenician lady. We may be tolerably sure, however, that certain
indispensable articles would not be lacking. Circular mirrors, either
of polished metal, or of glass backed by a plate of tin or silver,
would undoubtedly have found their place on them, together with various
vessels for holding perfumes and ointments. A vase in rock crystal,
discovered at Curium, with a funnel and cover in gold, the latter
attached by a fine gold chain to one of its handles,[1256] was doubtless
a fine lady's favourite smelling bottle. Various other vessels in
silver, of a small size,[1257] as basins and bowls beautifully chased,
tiny jugs, alabasti, ladles, &c., had also the appearance of belonging
rather to the toilet table than to the plate-basket. Some of the
alabasti would contain _kohl_ or _stibium_, some salves and ointments,
others perhaps perfumed washes for the complexion. Among the bronze
objects found,[1258] some may have been merely ornaments, others stands
for rings, bracelets, and the like. One terra-cotta vase from Dali
seems made for holding pigments,[1259] and raises the suspicion that
Phoenician, or at any rate Cyprian, beauties were not above heightening
their charms by the application of paint.

Women in Phoenicia seem to have enjoyed considerable freedom. They are
represented as banqueting in the company of men, sometimes sitting
with them on the same couch, sometimes reclining with them at the same
table.[1260] Occasionally they delight their male companion by playing
upon the lyre or the double pipe,[1261] while in certain instances they
are associated in bands of three, who perform on the lyre, the double
pipe, and the tambourine.[1262] They take part in religious processions,
and present offerings to the deities.[1263] The positions occupied in
history by Jezebel and Dido fall in with these indications, and imply
a greater approach to equality between the sexes in Phoenicia than in
Oriental communities generally.

The men were, for Orientals, unusually hardy and active. In only
one instance is there any appearance of the use of the parasol by a
Phoenician.[1264] Sandals are infrequently worn; neck, chest, arms, and
legs are commonly naked. The rough life of seamen hardened the greater
number; others hunted the wild ox and the wild boar[1265] in the marshy
plains of the coast tract, and in the umbrageous dells of Lebanon. Even
the lion may have been affronted in the great mountain, and if we are
unable to describe the method of its chase in Phoenicia, the reason
is that the Phoenician artists have, in their representations of lion
hunts, adopted almost exclusively Assyrian models.[1266] The Phoenician
gift of facile imitation was a questionable advantage, since it led the
native artists continually to substitute for sketches at first hand of
scenes with which they were familiar, conventional renderings of similar
scenes as depicted by foreigners.

An ornament found in Cyprus, the intention of which is uncertain, finds
its proper place in the present chapter, though we cannot attach it to
any particular class of objects. It consists of a massive knob of solid
agate, with a cylinder of the same both above and below, through which a
rod, or bar, must have been intended to pass. Some archæologists see
in it the top of a sceptre;[1267] others, the head of a mace;[1268]
but there is nothing really to prove its use. We might imagine it the
adornment of a throne or chair of state, or the end of a chariot pole,
or a portion of the stem of a candelabrum. Antiquity has furnished
nothing similar with which to compare it; and we only say of it, that,
whatever was its purpose, so large and so beautiful a mass of agate has
scarcely been met with elsewhere.[1269] The cutting is such as to show
very exquisitely the veining of the material.

Bronze objects in almost infinite variety have been found on Phoenician
sites,[1270] but only a few of them can have been personal ornaments.
They comprise lamps, bowls, vases, jugs, cups, armlets, anklets,
daggers, dishes, a horse's bit, heads and feet of animals, statuettes,
mirrors, fibulæ, buttons, &c. Furniture would seem to have been largely
composed of bronze, which sometimes formed its entire fabric, though
generally confined to the ornamentation. Ivory was likewise employed in
considerable quantities in the manufacture of furniture,[1271] to which
it was applied as an outer covering, or veneer, either plain, or more
generally carved with a pattern or with figures. The "ivory house" of
Ahab[1272] was perhaps so called, not so much from the application of
the precious material to the doors and walls, as from its employment in
the furniture. There is every probability that it was the construction
of Phoenician artists.



CHAPTER XIII--PHOENICIAN WRITING, LANGUAGE, AND LITERATURE

     The Phoenician alphabet--Its wide use--Its merits--Question
     of its origin--Its defects--Phoenician writing and language--
     Resemblance of the language to Hebrew--In the vocabulary--
     In the grammar--Points of difference between Phoenician and
     Hebrew--Scantiness of the literature--Phoenician history of
     Philo Byblius--Extracts--Periplus of Hanno--Phoenician
     epigraphic literature--Inscription of Esmunazar--Inscription
     of Tabnit--Inscription of Jehav-melek--Marseilles
     inscription--Short inscriptions on votive offerings and
     tombs--Range of Phoenician book-literature.

The Phoenician alphabet, like the Hebrew, consisted of twenty-two
characters, which had, it is probable, the same names with the Hebrew
letters,[0131] and were nearly identical in form with the letters used
anciently by the entire Hebrew race. The most ancient inscription in the
character which has come down to us is probably that of Mesha,[0132] the
Moabite king, which belongs to the ninth century before our era.
The next in antiquity, which is of any considerable length, is that
discovered recently in the aqueduct which brings the water into the pool
of Siloam,[0133] which dates probably from the time of Hezekiah, ab. B.C.
727-699. Some short epigraphs on Assyrian gems, tablets, and cylinders
belong apparently to about the same period. The series of Phoenician and
Cilician coins begins soon after this, and continues to the time of the
Roman supremacy in Western Asia. The soil of Phoenicia Proper, and of
the various countries where the Phoenicians established settlements or
factories, as Cyprus, Malta, Sicily, Sardinia, Southern Gaul, Spain, and
North Africa, has also yielded a large crop of somewhat brief legends,
the "inscription of Marseilles"[0134] being the most important of them.
Finally there have been found within the last few years, in Phoenicia
itself, near Byblus and Sidon, the three most valuable inscriptions of
the entire series--those of Jehavmelek, Esmunazar and Tabnit--which have
enabled scholars to place the whole subject on a scientific basis.

It is now clear that the same, or nearly the same, alphabet was in
use from a very early date over the greater part of Western Asia--in
Phoenicia, Moab, Judæa, Samaria, Lycia, Caria, Phrygia, &c.--that it was
adopted, with slight alterations only, by the Etruscans and the Greeks,
and that from them it was passed on to the nations of modern Europe, and
acquired a quasi-universality. The invention of this alphabet was, by
the general consent of antiquity, ascribed to the Phoenicians;[0135]
and though, if their claim to priority of discovery be disputed, it is
impossible to prove it, their practical genius and their position among
the nations of the earth are strong subsidiary arguments in support of
the traditions.

The Phoenician alphabet, or the Syrian script, as some call it,[0136]
did not obtain its general prevalence without possessing some peculiar
merits. Its primary merit was that of simplicity. The pictorial systems
of the Egyptians and the Hittites required a hand skilled in drawing to
express them; the cuneiform syllabaries of Babylonia, Assyria, and Elam
needed an extraordinary memory to grasp the almost infinite variety in
the arrangement of the wedges, and to distinguish each group from all
the rest; even the Cypriote syllabary was of awkward and unnecessary
extent, and was expressed by characters needlessly complicated. The
Phoenician inventor, whoever he was, reduced letters to the smallest
possible number, and expressed them by the simplest possible forms.
Casting aside the idea of a syllabary, he reduced speech to its ultimate
elements, and set apart a single sign to represent each possible variety
of articulation, or rather each variety of which he was individually
cognisant. How he fixed upon his signs, it is difficult to say.
According to some, he had recourse to one or other of previously
existing modes of expressing speech, and merely simplified the
characters which he found in use. But there are two objections to this
view. First, there is no known set of characters from which the early
Phoenician can be derived with any plausability. Resemblances no doubt
may be pointed out here and there, but taking the alphabet as a whole,
and comparing it with any other, the differences will always be quite
as numerous and quite as striking as the similarities. For instance, the
writer of the article on the "Alphabet" in the "Encyclopædia Britannica"
(1876) derives the Phoenician letters from letters used in the Egyptian
hieratic writing,[0137] but his own table shows a marked diversity in at
least eleven instances, a slight resemblance in seven or eight, a strong
resemblance in no more than two or three. Derivation from the Cypriote
forms has been suggested by some; but here again eight letters are very
different, if six or seven are similar. Recently, derivation from the
Hittite hieroglyphs has been advocated,[0138] but the alleged instances
of resemblance touch nine characters only out of the twenty-two. And
real resemblance is confined to three or four. Secondly, no theory of
derivation accounts for the Phoenician names of their letters, which
designate objects quite different from those represented by the Egyptian
hieroglyphs, and equally different from those represented by the Hittite
letters. For instance, the Egyptian _a_ is the ill-drawn figure of an
eagle, the Phoenician _alef_ has the signification of "ox;" the _b_
of the Egyptians is a hastily drawn figure of a crane, the Phoenician
_beth_ means "a house."

On the whole, it seems most probable that the Phoenicians began with
their own hieroglyphical system, selecting an object to represent the
initial sound of its name, and at first drawing that object, but that
they very soon followed the Egyptian idea of representing the original
drawing in a conventional way, by a few lines, straight or curved.
Their hieroglyphic alphabet which is extant is an alphabet in the second
stage, corresponding to the Egyptian hieratic, but not derived from it.
Having originally represented their _alef_ by an ox's head, they found
a way of sufficiently indicating the head by three lines {...}, which
marked the horns, the ears, and the face. Their _beth_ was a house in
the tent form; their _gimel_ a camel, represented by its head and neck;
their _daleth_ a door, and so on. The object intended is not always
positively known; but, where it is known, there is no difficulty in
tracing the original picture in the later conventional sign.

The Phoenician alphabet was not without its defects. The most remarkable
of these was the absence of any characters expressive of vowel sounds.
The Phoenician letters are, all of them, consonants; and the reader is
expected to supply the vowel sounds for himself. There was not even any
system of pointing, so far as we know, whereby, as in Hebrew and Arabic,
the proper sounds were supplied. Again, several letters were made to
serve for two sounds, as _beth_ for both _b_ and _v_, _pe_ for both _p_
and _f_, _shin_ for both _s_ and _sh_, and _tau_ for both _t_ and _th_.
There were no forms corresponding to the sounds _j_ or _w_. On the other
hand, there was in the alphabet a certain amount of redundancy. _Tsade_
is superfluous, since it represents, not a simple elemental sound, but a
combination of two sounds, _t_ and _s_. Hence the Greeks omitted it, as
did also the Oscans and the Romans. There is redundancy in the two forms
for _k_, namely _kaph_ and _koph_; in the two for _t_, namely _teth_
and _tau_; and in the two for _s_, namely _samech_ and _shin_. But no
alphabet is without some imperfections, either in the way of excess or
defect; and perhaps we ought to be more surprised that the Phoenician
alphabet has not more faults than that it falls so far short of
perfection as it does.

The writing of the Phoenicians was, like that of the majority of the
Semitic nations, from right to left. The reverse order was entirely
unknown to them, whether employed freely as an alternative, as in Egypt,
or confined, as in Greece, to the alternate lines. The words were, as
a general rule, undivided, and even in some instances were carried over
the end of one line into the beginning of another. Still, there are
examples where a sign of separation occurs between each word and the
next;[0139] and the general rule is, that the words do not run over
the line. In the later inscriptions they are divided, according to the
modern fashion, by a blank space;[1310] but there seems to have been an
earlier practice of dividing them by small triangles or by dots.

The language of the Phoenicians was very close indeed to the Hebrew,
both as regards roots and as regards grammatical forms. The number
of known words is small, since not only are the inscriptions few and
scanty, but they treat so much of the same matters, and run so nearly in
the same form, that, for the most part, the later ones contain nothing
new but the proper names. Still they make known to us a certain number
of words in common use, and these are almost always either identical
with the Hebrew forms, or very slightly different from them, as the
following table will demonstrate:--

     Phoenician                 Hebrew                  English
     Ab {...}                  {...}                   father
     Aben {...}                {...}                   stone
     Adon {...}                {...}                   lord
     Adam {...}                {...}                   man
     Aleph {...}               {...}                   an ox
     Akh {...}                 {...}                   brother
     Akhar {...}               {...}                   after
     Am {...}                  {...}                   mother
     Anak {...}                {...}                   I
     Arets {...}               {...}                   earth, land
     Ash {...}                 {...}                   who, which
     Barak {...}               {...}                   to bless
     Bath {...}                {...}                   daughter
     Ben {...}                 {...}                   son
     Benben {...}              {...}                   grandson
     Beth {...}                {...}                   house, temple
     Ba'al {...}               {...}                   lord, citizen
     Ba'alat {...}             {...}                   lady, mistress
     Barzil {...}              {...}                   iron
     Dagan {...}               {...}                   corn
     Deber {...}               {...}                   to speak, say
     Daleth {...}              {...}                   door
     Zan {...}                 {...}                   this
     Za {...}                  {...}                   this
     Zereng {...}              {...}                   seed, race
     Har {...}                 {...}                   mountain
     Han {...}                 {...}                   grace, favour
     Haresh {...}              {...}                   carpenter
     Yom {...}                 {...}                   day, also sea
     Yitten {...}              {...}                   to give
     Ish {...}                 {...}                   man
     Ishath {...}              {...}                   woman, wife
     Kadesh {...}              {...}                   holy
     Kol {...}                 {...}                   every, all
     Kol {...}                 {...}                   voice
     Kohen {...}               {...}                   priest
     Kohenath {...}            {...}                   priestess
     Kara {...}                {...}                   to call
     Lechem {...}              {...}                   bread
     Makom {...}               {...}                   a place
     Makar {...}               {...}                   a seller
     Malakath {...}            {...}                   work
     Melek {...}               {...}                   king
     Mizbach {...}             {...}                   altar
     Na'ar {...}               {...}                   boy, servant
     Nehusht {...}             {...}                   brass
     Nephesh {...}             {...}                   soul
     Nadar {...}               {...}                   to vow
     'Abd {...}                {...}                   slave, servant
     'Am {...}                 {...}                   people
     'Ain {...}                {...}                   eye, fountain
     'Ath {...}                {...}                   time
     'Olam {...}               {...}                   eternity
     Pen {...}                 {...}                   face
     Per {...}                 {...}                   fruit
     Pathach {...}             {...}                   door
     Rab {...}                 {...}                   lord, chief
     Rabbath {...}             {...}                   lady
     Rav {...}                 {...}                   rain, irrigation
     Rach {...}                {...}                   spirit
     Rapha {...}               {...}                   physician
     Shamam {...}              {...}                   the heavens
     Shemesh {...}             {...}                   the sun
     Shamang {...}             {...}                   to hear
     Shenath {...}             {...}                   a year
     Shad {...}                {...}                   a field
     Sha'ar {...}              {...}                   a gate
     Shalom {...}              {...}                   peace
     Shem {...}                {...}                   a name
     Shaphat {...}             {...}                   a judge
     Sopher {...}              {...}                   a scribe
     Sakar {...}               {...}                   memory
     Sar {...}                 {...}                   a prince
     Tsedek {...}              {...}                   just

The Phoenician numerals, so far as they are known to us, are identical,
or nearly identical, with the Hebrew. _'Ahad_ {...} is "one;" _shen_
{...}, "two;" _shalish_ {...}, "three;" _arba_ {...}, "four;" _hamesh_
{...}, "five;" _eshman_ {...}, "eight;" _'eser_ {...}, "ten;" and so on.
Numbers were, however, by the Phoenicians ordinarily expressed by signs,
not words--the units by perpendicular lines: | for "one," || for "two,"
||| for "three," and the like; the tens by horizontal ones, either
simple, {...}, or hooked at the right end, {...}; twenty by a sign
resembling a written capital _n_, {...}; one hundred by a sign still
more complicated, {...}.

The grammatical inflexions, the particles, the pronouns, and the
prepositions are also mostly identical. The definite article is
expressed, as in Hebrew, by _h_ prefixed. Plurals are formed by the
addition of _m_ or _th_. The prefix _eth_ {...} marks the accusative.
There is a _niphal_ conjugation, formed by prefixing _n_. The full
personal pronouns are _anak_ {...} = "I" (compare Heb. {...}); _hu_
{...}, "he" (compare Heb. {...}); _hi_ {...}, "she" (compare Heb.
{...}); _anachnu_, "we" (compare Heb. {...}); and the suffixed pronouns
are _-i_, "me, my;" _-ka_, "thee, thy;" _-h_ (pronounced as _-oh_ or
_-o_), "him, his" (compare Heb. {...}); _-n_ "our," perhaps pronounced
_nu_; and _-m_, "their, them," pronounced _om_ or _um_ (compare Heb.
{...}). _Vau_ prefixed means "and;" _beth_ prefixed "in;" _kaph_
prefixed "as;" _lamed_ prefixed "of" or "to;" _'al_ {...} is "over;"
_ki_ {...} "because;" _im_ {...}, "if;" _hazah_, _zath_, or _za_ {...},
"this" (compare Heb. {...}); and _ash_ {...}, "who, which" (compare
Heb. {...}). _Al_ {...} and _lo_ {...} are the negatives (compare Heb.
{...}). The redundant use of the personal pronoun with the relative is
common.

Still, Phoenician is not mere Hebrew; it has its own genius, its idioms,
its characteristics. The definite article, so constantly recurring in
Hebrew, is in Phoenician, comparatively speaking, rare. The quiescent
letters, which in Hebrew ordinarily accompany the long vowels, are in
Phoenician for the most part absent. The employment of the participle
for the definite tenses of the verb is much more common in Phoenician
than in Hebrew, and the Hebrew prefix _m_ is wanting. The ordinary
termination of feminine singular nouns is _-th_, not _-h_. Peculiar
forms occur, as _ash_ for _asher_, _'amath_ for _'am_ ("people"), _zan_
for _zah_ ("this"), &c. Words which in Hebrew are confined to poetry
pass among the Phoenicians into ordinary use, as _pha'al_ ({...}, Heb.
{...}), "to make," which replaces the Hebrew {...}.[1311]

"It is strange," says M. Renan, "that the people to which all antiquity
attributes the invention of writing, and which has, beyond all doubted,
transmitted it to the entire civilised world, has scarcely left us
any literature."[1312] Certainly it is difficult to give the name
of literature either to the fragments of so-called Phoenician works
preserved to us in Greek translations, or to the epigraphic remains of
actual Phoenician writing which have come down to our day. The works
are two, and two only, viz. the pretended "Phoenician History" of
Sanchoniathon, and the "Periplus" of Hanno. Of the former, it is perhaps
sufficient to say that we have no evidence of its genuineness. Philo of
Byblus, who pretends that he translated it from a Phoenician original,
though possibly he had Phoenician blood in his veins, was a Greek in
language, in temperament, and in tone of thought, and belonged to the
Greece which is characterised by Juvenal as "Græcia mendax." It is
impossible to believe that the Euemerism in which he indulges, and
which was evidently the motive of his work, sprang from the brain of
Sanchoniathon nine hundred years before Euemerus existed. One is tempted
to suspect that Sanchoniathan himself was a myth--an "idol of the cave,"
evolved out of the inner consciousness of Philo. Philo had a certain
knowledge of the Phoenician language, and of the Phoenician religious
system, but not more than he might have gained by personal communication
with the priests of Byblus and Aphaca, who maintained the old worship
in, and long after, his day. It is not clear that he drew his statements
from any ancient authorities, or from books at all. So far as the extant
fragments go, a smattering of the language, a very moderate acquaintance
with the religion, and a little imagination might readily have produced
them.

A few extracts from the remains must be given to justify this
judgement:--"The beginning of all things," Philo says,[1313] "was a dark
and stormy air, or a dark air and a turbid chaos, resembling Erebus;
and these were at first unbounded, and for a long series of ages had
no limit. But after a time this wind became enamoured of its own first
principles, and an intimate union took place between them, a connection
which was called Desire {pothos}: and this was the beginning of the
creation of all things. But it (i.e. the Desire) had no consciousness of
its own creation: however, from its embrace with the wind was generated
Môt, which some call watery slime, and others putrescence of watery
secretion. And from this sprang all the seed of creation, and the
generation of the universe. And first there were certain animals without
sensation, from which intelligent animals were produced, and these were
called 'Zopher-Sêmin,' i.e. 'beholders of the heavens;' and they were
made in the shape of an egg, and from Môt shone forth the sun, and the
moon, and the lesser and the greater stars. And when the air began
to send forth light, by the conflagration of land and sea, winds were
produced, and clouds, and very great downpours, and effusions of the
heavenly waters. And when these were thus separated, and carried,
through the heat of the sun, out of their proper places, and all met
again in the air, and came into collision, there ensued thunderings
and lightnings; and through the rattle of the thunder, the intelligent
animals, above mentioned, were woke up, and, startled by the noise,
began to move about both in the sea and on the land, alike such as
were male and such as were female. All these things were found in the
cosmogony of Taaut (Thoth), and in his Commentaries, and were drawn from
his conjectures, and from the proofs which his intellect discovered, and
which he made clear to us."

Again, "From the wind, Colpia, and his wife Bahu (Heb. {...}), which is
by interpretation 'Night,' were born Æon and Protogonus, mortal men so
named; of whom one, viz. Æon, discovered that life might be sustained by
the fruits of trees. Their immediate descendants were called Genos and
Genea, who lived in Phoenicia, and in time of drought stretched forth
their hands to heaven towards the sun; for him they regarded as the sole
Lord of Heaven, and called him Baal-samin, which means 'Lord of Heaven'
in the Phoenician tongue, and is equivalent to Zeus in Greek. And from
Genos, son of Æon and Protogonus, were begotten mortal children, called
Phôs, and Pyr, and Phlox (i.e. Light, Fire, and Flame). These persons
invented the method of producing fire by rubbing two pieces of wood
together, and taught men to employ it. They begat sons of surprising
size and stature, whose names were given to the mountains whereof they
had obtained possession, viz. Casius, and Libanus, and Antilibanus, and
Brathy. From them were produced Memrumus and Hypsuranius, who took
their names from their mothers, women in those days yielding themselves
without shame to any man whom they happened to meet. Hypsuranius lived
at Tyre, and invented the art of building huts with reeds and rushes and
the papyrus plant. He quarrelled with his brother, Usôus, who was the
first to make clothing for the body out of the skins of the wild beasts
which he slew. On one occasion, when there was a great storm of rain
and wind, the trees in the neighbourhood of Tyre so rubbed against each
other that they took fire, and the whole forest was burnt; whereupon
Usôus took a tree, and having cleared it of its boughs, was the first
to venture on the sea in a boat. He also consecrated two pillars to Fire
and Wind, and worshipped them, and poured upon them the blood of the
animals which he took by hunting. And when the two brothers were dead,
those who remained alive consecrated rods to their memory, and continued
to worship the pillars, and to hold a festival in their honour year by
year."[1314]

Once more--"It was the custom among the ancients, in times of great
calamity and danger, for the rulers of the city or nation to avert the
ruin of all by sacrificing to the avenging deities the best beloved of
their children as the price of redemption; and such as were thus devoted
were offered with mystic ceremonies. Kronus, therefore, who was called
El by the Phoenicians, and who, after his death, was deified and
attached to the planet which bears his name, having an only son by a
nymph of the country, who was called Anobret, took his son, whose name
was Ieoud, which means 'only son' in Phoenician, and when a great
danger from war impended over the land, adorned him with the ensigns
of royalty, and, having prepared an altar for the purpose, voluntarily
sacrificed him."[1315]

It will be seen from these extracts that the literary value of Philo's
work was exceedingly small. His style is complicated and confused;
his matter, for the most part, worthless, and his mixture of Greek,
Phoenician, and Egyptian etymologies absurd. If we were bound to believe
that he translated a real Phoenician original, and that that original
was a fair specimen of Phoenician literary talent, the only conclusion
to which we could come would be, that the literature of the nation was
beneath contempt.

But the "Periplus" of Hanno will lead us to modify this judgment. It is
so short a work that we venture to give it entire from the translation
of Falconer,[1316] with a few obvious corrections.

The voyage of Hanno, King of the Carthaginians, round the parts of Libya
beyond the Pillars of Hercules, which he deposited in the Temple of
Kronos.

"It was decreed by the Carthaginians that Hanno should undertake a
voyage beyond the Pillars of Hercules, and there found Liby-Phoenician
cities. He sailed accordingly with sixty ships of fifty oars each, and a
body of men and women, to the number of thirty thousand, and provisions,
and other necessaries.

"When we had weighed anchor, and passed the Pillars, and sailed
beyond them for two days, we founded the first city, which we named
Thymiaterium. Below it lay an extensive plain. Proceeding thence towards
the west, we came to Soloeis, a promontory of Libya thickly covered
with trees, where we erected a temple to Neptune (Poseidon), and again
proceeded for the space of half a day towards the east, until we arrived
at a lake lying not far from the sea, and filled with abundance of large
reeds. Here elephants and a great number of other wild animals were
feeding.

"Having passed the lake about a day's sail, we founded cities near
the sea, called Caricon-Teichos, and Gytta, and Acra, and Melitta,
and Arambys. Thence we came to the great river Lixus, which flows from
Libya. On its banks the Lixitæ, a wandering tribe, were feeding flocks,
amongst whom we continued some time on friendly terms. Beyond the
Lixitæ dwelt the inhospitable Ethiopians, who pasture a wild country
intersected by large mountains, from which they say the river Lixus
flows. In the neighbourhood of the mountains lived the Troglodytes, men
of various appearances, whom the Lixitæ described as swifter in running
than horses. Having procured interpreters from them, we coasted along
a desert country towards the south for two days; and thence again
proceeded towards the east the course of a day. Here we found in the
recess of a certain bay a small island, having a circuit of five stadia,
where we settled a colony, and called it Cerne. We judged from our
voyage that this place lay in a direct line with Carthage; for the
length of our voyage from Carthage to the Pillars was equal to that
from the Pillars to Cerne. We then came to a cape, which we reached
by sailing up a large river called Chrete. The lake had three islands
larger than Cerne; from which, proceeding a day's sail, we came to the
extremity of the lake. This was overhung by huge mountains, inhabited
by savage men, clothed in skins of wild beasts, who drove us away by
throwing stones, and hindered us from landing. Sailing thence, we came
to another river, that was deep and broad, and full of crocodiles and
river horses (hippopotami), whence returning back, we came again to
Cerne. Thence we sailed towards the south for twelve days, coasting
along the shore, the whole of which is inhabited by Ethiopians, who
would not wait our approach, but fled from us. Their language was
unintelligible, even to the Lixitæ who were with us. On the last day we
approached some large mountains covered with trees, the wood of which
was sweet-scented and variegated. Having sailed by these mountains for
two days, we came to an immense opening of the sea; on each side of
which, towards the continent, was a plain; from which we saw by night
fire arising at intervals, either more or less.

"Having taken in water there, we sailed forward during five days near
the land, until we came to a large bay, which our interpreter informed
us was called 'the Western Horn.' In this was a large island, and in the
island a salt-water lake, and in this another island, where, when we had
landed, we could discover nothing in the daytime except trees; but
in the night we saw many fires burning, and heard the sound of pipes,
cymbals, drums, and confused shouting. We were then afraid, and our
diviners ordered us to abandon the island. Sailing quickly away thence,
we passed by a country burning with fires and perfumes; and streams of
fire supplied thence fell into the sea. The country was untraversable
on account of the heat. So we sailed away quickly from there also, being
much terrified; and, passing on for four days, we observed at night a
country full of flames. In the middle was a lofty fire, larger than the
rest, which seemed to touch the stars. When day came, we discovered it
to be a huge hill, called 'the Chariot of the Gods.' On the third day
after our departure thence, after sailing by streams of fire, we arrived
at a bay, called 'the Southern Horn;' at the bottom of which lay an
island like the former one, having a lake, and in the lake another
island full of savage people, far the greater part of whom were women,
whose bodies were hairy, and whom our interpreters called 'gorillæ.'
Though we pursued the men, we could not catch any of them; but all
escaped us, climbing over the precipices, and defending themselves
with stones. Three women were, however, taken; but they attacked their
conductors with their teeth and nails, and could not be prevailed upon
to accompany us. So we killed them, and flayed them, and brought their
skins with us to Carthage. We did not sail further on, our provisions
failing us."

The style of this short work, though exceedingly simple and
inartificial, is not without its merits. It has the directness, the
perspicuity, and the liveliness of Cæsar's Commentaries or of the Duke
of Wellington's Despatches. Montesquieu[1317] says of it:--"Hanno's
Voyage was written by the very man who performed it. His recital is
not mingled with ostentation. Great commanders write their actions with
simplicity, because they receive more honour from facts than words."
If we may take the work as a specimen of the accounts which Phoenician
explorers commonly gave of their travels in unknown regions, we must
regard them as having set a pattern which modern travellers would do
well to follow. Hanno gives us facts, not speculations--the things which
he has observed, not those of which he has dreamt; and he delivers his
facts in the fewest possible words, and in the plainest possible way. He
does not cultivate flowers of rhetoric; he does not unduly spin out his
narrative. It is plain that he is especially bent on making his meaning
clear, and he succeeds in doing so.

The epigraphic literature of the Phoenicians, which M. Renan considers
to supply fairly well the almost complete loss of their books,[1318]
scarcely deserves to be so highly rated. It consists at present of
five or six moderately long, and some hundreds of exceedingly short,
inscriptions; the longer ones being, all of them, inscribed on stones,
the shorter on stones, vases, pateræ, gems, coins, and the like. The
longest of all is that engraved on the sarcophagus of Esmunazar, king of
Sidon, discovered near the modern Saida in the year 1855, and now in the
museum of the Louvre. This has a length of twenty-two long lines, and
contains 298 words.[1319] It is fairly legible throughout; and the sense
is, for the most part, fairly well ascertained, though the meaning of
some passages remains still more or less doubtful. The following is the
translation of M. Renan:--

"In the month of Bul (October), in the fourteenth year of the reign of
King Esmunazar, king of the Sidonians, son of King Tabnit, king of the
Sidonians, King Esmunazar, king of the Sidonians, spake, saying--I am
snatched away before my time, the child of a few days, the orphan son
of a widow; and lo! I am lying in this coffin, and in this tomb, in the
place which I have built. I adjure every royal personage and every
man whatsoever, that they open not this my chamber, and seek not for
treasures there, since there are here no treasures, and that they remove
not the coffin from my chamber, nor build over this my chamber any other
funeral chamber. Even if men speak to thee, listen not to their words;
since every royal personage and every other man who shall open this
funeral chamber, or remove the coffin from this my chamber, or build
anything over this chamber--may they have no funeral chamber with the
departed, nor be buried in tombs, nor have any son or descendant to
succeed to their place; but may the Holy Gods deliver them into the
hand of a mighty king who shall reign over them, and destroy the royal
personage or the man who shall open this my funeral chamber, or remove
this coffin, together with the offspring of the royal personage or other
man, and let them not have either root below, or any fruit above, or
glory among such as live beneath the sun. Since I am snatched away
before my time, the child of a few days, the orphan son of a widow, even
I.

"For I am Esmunazar, king of the Sidonians, the son of King Tabnit, king
of the Sidonians, and the grandson of Esmunazar, king of the Sidonians,
and my mother is Am-Ashtoreth, priestess of our lady Ashtoreth, the
queen, the daughter of King Esmunazar, king of the Sidonians--and it is
we who have built the temples of the gods, the temple of Ashtoreth in
Sidon on the shore of the sea, and have placed Ashtoreth in her temple
to glorify her; and we too have built the temple of Esmun, and set the
sacred grove, En Yidlal, in the mountain, and made him (Esmun) dwell
there to glorify him; and it is we who have built temples to the
[other] deities of the Sidonians, in Sidon on the shore of the sea,
as the temple of Baal-Sidon, and the temple of Asthoreth, who bears the
name of Baal. And for this cause has the Lord of Kings given us Dor and
Joppa, and the fertile cornlands which are in the plains of Sharon, as
a reward for the great things which I have done, and added them to the
boundaries of the land, that they may belong to the Sidonians for ever.
I adjure every royal personage, and every man whatsoever, that they open
not this my chamber, nor empty my chamber, nor build aught over this my
chamber, nor remove the coffin from this my chamber, lest the Holy Gods
deliver them up, and destroy the royal personage, or the men [who
shall do so], and their offspring for ever."[1320]

The inscription on the tomb of Tabnit, Esmunazar's father, found near
Beyrout in 1886, is shorter, but nearly to the same effect. It has been
thus translated:--"I, Tabnit, priest of Ashtoreth, and king of Sidon,
lying in this tomb, say--I adjure every man, when thou shalt come upon
this sepulchre, open not my chamber, and trouble me not, for there is
not with me aught of silver, nor is there with me aught of gold, there
is not with me anything whatever of spoil, but only I myself who lie in
this sepulchre. Open not my chamber, and trouble me not; for it would be
an abomination in the sight of Ashtoreth to do such an act. And if thou
shouldest open my chamber, and trouble me, mayest thou have no
posterity all thy life under the sun, and no resting-place with the
departed."[1321]

A stelé of a Byblian king, Jehavmelek, probably somewhat more ancient
than these,[1322] bears an inscription of a different kind, since it
is attached to a votive offering and not to a sepulchre. The king
represents himself in a bas-relief as making an offering to Beltis or
Ashtoreth, and then appends an epigraph, which runs to fifteen long
lines,[1323] and is to the following effect:--"I am Jehavmelek, king of
Gebal, the son of Jahar-baal, and the grandson of Adom-melek, king of
Gebal, whom lady Beltis of Gebal has made king of Gebal; and I invoke
my lady Beltis of Gebal, because she has heard my voice. And I have made
for my lady Beltis of Gebal the brazen altar which is in this temple,
and the golden carving which is in front of this my carving, and the
uræus of gold which is in the middle of the stone over the golden
carving. And I have made this portico, with its columns, and the
capitals that are upon the columns, and the roof of the temple also,
I, Jehavmelek, king of Gebal, have made for my lady Beltis of Gebal,
because, whenever I have invoked my lady Beltis of Gebal, she has heard
my voice, and been good to me. May Beltis of Gebal bless Jehavmelek,
king of Gebal, and grant him life, and prolong his days and his years
over Gebal, because he is a just king; and may the lady Beltis of Gebal
obtain him favour in the sight of the Gods, and in the sight of the
people of foreign lands, for ever! Every royal personage and every other
man who shall make additions to this altar, or to this golden carving,
or to this portico, I, Jehavmelek, king of Gebal, set may face against
him who shall so do, and I pray my lady Beltis of Gebal to destroy that
man, whoever he be, and his seed after him."[1324]

The inscription of Marseilles, if it had been entire, would have been
as valuable and interesting as any of these; but, unfortunately, its
twenty-one lines are in every case incomplete, being broken off, or else
illegible, towards the left. It appears to have been a decree emanating
from the authorities of Carthage, and prescribing the amount of the
payments to be made in connection with the sacrifices and officials of
a temple of Baal which may have existed either at Marseilles or at
Carthage itself. To translate it is impossible without a vast amount of
conjecture; but M. Renan's version[1325] seems to deserve a place in the
present collection.

INSCRIPTION OF MARSEILLES

"The temple of Baal . . . Account of the payments fixed by those set
over the payments, in the time of our lords, Halats-Baal, the Suffes,
the son of Abd-Tanith, the son of Abd-Esmun, and of Halats-Baal, the
Suffes, the son of Abd-Esmun, the son of Halts-Baal, and of their
colleagues:--For an ox, whether as burnt sacrifice, or expiatory
offering, or thank offering, to the priests [shall be given] ten
[shekels] of silver on account of each; and, if it be a burnt
sacrifice, they shall have besides this payment three hundred weight of
the flesh; and if the sacrifice be expiatory, [they shall have] the
fat and the additions, and the offerer of the sacrifice shall have the
skin, and the entrails, and the feet, and the rest of the flesh. For a
calf without horns and entire, or for a ram, whether as burnt sacrifice,
or expiatory offering, or thank offering, to the priests [shall be
given] five [shekels] of silver on account of each; and if it be a
burnt sacrifice, they shall have, besides this payment, a hundred weight
and a half of the flesh; and if the sacrifice be expiatory, they shall
have the fat and the additions, and the skin, and entrails, and
feet, and the rest of the flesh shall be given to the offerer of the
sacrifice. For a he-goat, or a she-goat, whether as a burnt sacrifice,
or expiatory offering, or thank offering, to the priests [shall be
given] one [shekel] and two _zers_ of silver on account of each; and
if it be an expiatory sacrifice, they shall have, besides this payment,
the fat and the additions; and the skin, and entrails, and feet, and the
rest of the flesh shall be given to the offerer of the sacrifice. For a
sheep, or a kid, or a fawn (?), whether as burnt sacrifice, or
expiatory offering, or thank offering, to the priests [shall be given]
three-fourths of a shekel of silver and . . . _zers_, on account of
each; and if it be an expiatory sacrifice, they shall have, besides this
payment, the fat and the additions; and the skin, and the entrails, and
the feet, and the rest of the flesh [13shall be given] to the offerer of
the sacrifice. For a bird, domestic or wild, whether as thank offering,
or for augury, or for divination, to the priests [shall be given]
three-fourths of a shekel of silver and two _zers_ on account of each,
and the flesh shall be for the offerer of the sacrifice. For a bird,
or for the holy first-fruits, or for the offering of a cake, or for an
offering of oil, to the priests [shall be given] ten _zers_ of silver
on account of each, and . . . In every expiatory sacrifice that shall
be offered before the deities, to the priests [shall be given] the fat
and the additions, and in the sacrifice of . . . For a meat offering, or
for milk, or for fat, or for any sacrifice which any man shall offer
as an oblation, to the priests [there shall be given] . . . For every
offering that a man shall offer who is poor in sheep, or poor in birds,
[there shall be given] to the priests nothing at all. Every native,
and every inhabitant, and every feaster at the table of the gods, and
all the men who sacrifice . . . those men shall make a payment for every
sacrifice, according to that which is prescribed in [this] writing . . .
Every payment which is not prescribed in this tablet shall be made
proportionally to the rate fixed by those set over the payments in the
time of our lords, Halats-Baal, the son of Abd-Tanith, and Halats-Baal,
the son of Abd-Esmun, and their colleagues. Every priest who takes a
payment beyond the amount prescribed in this tablet shall be fined
. . . And every offerer of a sacrifice who shall not pay [the amount]
prescribed, beyond the payment which [is here fixed, he shall
pay] . . ."

Of the shorter inscriptions of the Phoenicians, by far the greater
number were attached either to votive offerings or to tombs. Some
hundreds have been found of both classes, but they are almost wholly
without literary merit, being bald and jejune in the extreme, and
presenting little variety. The depositor of a votive offering usually
begins by mentioning the name and title, or titles, of the deity to whom
he dedicates it. Then he appends his own name, with the names of his
father and grandfather. Occasionally, but rarely, he describes his
offering, and states the year in which it was set up. Finally, he asks
the deity to bless him. The following are examples:--

INSCRIPTION OF UM-EL-AWAMID

"To the lord Baal-Shamaïm, [the vow] which was vowed by Abdelim,
son of Mattan, son of Abdelim, son of Baal-Shomar, of the district of
Laodicea. This gateway and doors did I make in fulfilment of it. I built
it in the 180th year of the Lord of Kings, and in the 143rd year of the
people of Tyre, that it might be to me a memorial and for a good name
beneath the feet of my lord, Baal-Shamaïm, for ever. May he bless
me!"[1326]

INSCRIPTION ON A CIPPUS FROM CARTHAGE

"To the lady Tanith, and to our master, the lord Baal-Hammon; the
offerer is Abd-Melkarth, the Suffes, son of Abd-Melkarth, son of
Hanno."[1327]

INSCRIPTION ON A CIPPUS FOUND IN MALTA

"To our lord Melkarth, the lord of Tyre. The offerer is thy servant,
Abd-Osiri, and my brother, Osiri-Shomar, both [of us] sons of
Osiri-Shomar, the son of Abd-Osiri. In hearing their voice, may he bless
them."[1328]

INSCRIPTION ON A MARBLE ALTAR, BROUGHT FROM LARNAKA

"On the sixth day of the month Bul, in the twenty-first year of King
Pumi-yitten, king of Citium and Idalium, and Tamasus, son of King
Melek-yitten, king of Citium and Idalium, this altar and these two lions
were given by Bodo, priest of Reseph-hets, son of Yakun-shalam, son of
Esmunadon, to his lord Reseph-hets. May he bless [him]."[1329]

INSCRIPTION ON A MARBLE TABLET FOUND IN CYPRUS

"On the seventh day of the month . . . in the thirty-first year of
the Lord of Kings, Ptolemæus, son of Ptolemæus . . . which was the
fifty-seventh year of the Citians, when Amarat-Osiri, daughter of . . .
son of Abd-Susim, of Gad'ath, was _canephora_ of Asinoë Philadelphus,
these statues were set up by Bathshalun, daughter of Maryichai, son
of Esmunadon, to the memory of his grandsons, Esmunadon, Shallum, and
Abd-Reseph, the three sons of Maryichai, son of Esmunadon, according to
the vow which their father, Maryichai, vowed, when he was still alive,
to their lord, Reseph-Mikal. May he bless them!"[1330]

There is a little more variety in the inscriptions on tombstones. The
great majority, indeed, are extremely curt and dry, containing scarcely
anything beyond the name of the person who is buried in the tomb,
or that together with the name of the person by whom the monument is
erected; e.g. "To Athad, the daughter of Abd-Esmun, the Suffes, and wife
of Ger-Melkarth, the son of Ben-hodesh, the son of Esmunazar"[1331];
or "This monument I, Menahem, grandson of Abd-Esmun, have erected to my
father, Abd-Shamash, son of Abd-Esmun"[1332]; or "I, Abd-Osiri, the son
of Abd-Susim, the son of Hur, have erected this monument, while I am
still alive, to myself, and to my wife, Ammat-Ashtoreth, daughter of
Taam, son of Abd-melek, [and have placed it] over the chamber of my
tomb, in perpetuity."[1333] But, occasionally, we get a glimpse, beyond
the mere dry facts, into the region of thought; as where the erector of
a monument appends to the name of one, whom we may suppose to have been
a miser, the remark, that "the reward of him who heaps up riches is
contempt;"[1334] or where one who entertains the hope that his friend
is happier in another world than he was upon earth, thus expresses
himself--"In memory of Esmun. After rain, the sun shines forth;"[1335]
or, again, where domestic affection shows itself in the declaration
concerning the departed--"When he entered into the house that is so full
[of guests], there was grief for the memory of the sage, the man that
was hard as adamant, that bore calamities of every sort, that was
a widower through the death of my mother, that was like a pellucid
fountain, and had a name pure from crime. Erected in affection by me his
son to my father."[1336]

With respect to the extent and range of the Phoenician book literature,
the little that can be gathered from the notices remaining to us in the
Greek and Roman writers is the following. In Phoenicia Proper there were
historical writers at least from the time of Hiram, the contemporary of
David, who wrote the annals of their country in a curt dry form somewhat
resembling that of Kings and Chronicles.[1337] The names of the kings
and the length of their reigns were carefully recorded, together with
some of the more remarkable events belonging to each reign; but there
was no attempt at the philosophy of history, nor at the graces of
composition. In some places, especially at Sidon, philosophy and science
were to a certain extent cultivated. Mochus, a Sidonian, wrote a work on
the atomic theory at a very early date, though scarcely, as Posidonius
maintained,[1338] one anterior to the Trojan war. Later on, the Sidonian
school specially affected astronomy and arithmetic, in which they made
so much progress that the Greeks acknowledged themselves their debtors
in those branches of knowledge.[1339] It is highly probable, though not
exactly capable of proof, that the Tyrian navigators from a very remote
period embodied in short works the observations which they made in their
voyages, on the geography, hydrography, ethology, and natural history
of the counties, which were visited by them. Hanno's "Periplus" may have
been composed on a model of these earlier treatises, which at a later
date furnished materials to Marinus for his great work on geography. It
was, however, in the Phoenician colony of Carthage that authorship was
taken up with most spirit and success. Hiempsal, Hanno, Mago, Hamilcar,
and others, composed works, which the Romans valued highly, on the
history, geography, and "origines" of Africa, and also upon practical
agriculture.[1340] Mago and Hamilcar were regarded as the best
authorities on the latter subject both by the Greeks and Romans, and
were followed, among the Greeks by Mnaseas and Paxamus,[1341] among the
Romans by Varro and Columella.[1342] So highly was the work of Mago,
which ran to twenty-eight books, esteemed, that, on the taking
of Carthage, it was translated into Latin by order of the Roman
Senate.[1343] After the fall of Carthage, Tyre and Sidon once more
became seats of learning; but the Phoenician language was discarded, and
Greek adopted in its place. The Tyrian, Sidonian, Byblian and Berytian
authors, of whom we hear, bear Greek names:[1344] and it is impossible
to say whether they belonged, in any true sense, to the Phoenician race.
Philo of Byblus and Marinus of Tyre are the only two authors of this
later period who held to Phoenician traditions, and, presumably,
conveyed on to later ages Phoenician ideas and accumulations. If neither
literature nor science gained much from the work of the former, that of
the latter had considerable value, and, as the basis of the great
work of Ptolemy, must ever hold an honourable place in the history of
geographical progress.



CHAPTER XIV--POLITICAL HISTORY




1. Phoenicia, before the establishment of the hegemony of Tyre.

     Separate autonomy of the Phoenician cities--No marked
     predominance of any one or more of them during the Egyptian
     period, B.C. 1600-1350--A certain pre-eminence subsequently
     acquired by Aradus and Sidon--Sidonian territorial
     ascendancy--Great proficiency of Sidon in the arts--Sidon's
     war with the Philistines--Her early colonies--Her advances
     in navigation--Her general commercial honesty--Occasional
     kidnapping--Stories of Io and Eumæus--Internal government--
     Relations with the Israelites.

When the Phoenician immigrants, in scattered bands, and at longer or
shorter intervals, arrived upon the Syrian coast, and finding it empty
occupied it, or wrested it from its earlier possessors, there was a
decided absence from among them of any single governing or controlling
authority; a marked tendency to assert and maintain separate rule
and jurisdiction. Sidon, the Arkite, the Arvadite, the Zemarite, are
separately enumerated in the book of Genesis;[0141] and the Hebrews have
not even any one name under which to comprise the commercial people
settled upon their coast line,[0142] until we come to Gospel times,
when the Greeks have brought the term "Syro-Phoenician" into use.[0143]
Elsewhere we hear of "them of Sidon," "them of Tyre,"[0144] "the
Giblites,"[0145] "the men of Arvad,"[0146] "the Arkites," "the Sinites,"
"the Zemarites,"[0147] "the inhabitants of Accho, of Achzib, and
Aphek,"[0148] but never of the whole maritime population north of
Philistia under any single ethnic appellation. And the reason seems to
be, that the Phoenicians, even more than the Greeks, affected a city
autonomy. Each little band of immigrants, as soon as it had pushed its
way into the sheltered tract between the mountains and the sea, settled
itself upon some attractive spot, constructed habitations, and having
surrounded its habitations with walls, claimed to be--and found none to
dispute the claim--a distinct political entity. The conformation of the
land, so broken up into isolated regions by strong spurs from Lebanon
and Bargylus, lent additional support to the separatist spirit, and
the absence in the early times of any pressure of danger from without
permitted its free indulgence without entailing any serious penalty. It
is difficult to say at what time the first settlements took place; but
during the period of Egyptian supremacy over Western Asia, under the
eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties (ab. B.C. 1600-1350), we seem to
find the Phoenicians in possession of the coast tract, and their cities
severally in the enjoyment of independence and upon a quasi-equality.
Tyre, Sidon, Gebal, Aradus, Simyra, Sarepta, Berytus, and perhaps Arka,
appear in the inscriptions of Thothmes III,[0149] and in the "Travels of
a Mohar,"[1410] without an indication of the pre-eminence, much less
the supremacy, of any one of them. The towns pursued their courses
independently one of another, submitting to the Egyptians when hard
pressed, but always ready to reassert themselves, and never joining, so
far as appears, in any league or confederation, by which their separate
autonomy might have been endangered. During this period no city springs
to any remarkable height of greatness or prosperity; material progress
is, no doubt, being made by the nation; but it is not very marked, and
it does not excite any particular attention.

But with the decline of the Egyptian power, which sets in after the
death of the second Rameses, a change takes place. External pressure
being removed, ambitions begin to develop themselves. In the north
Aradus (Arvad), in the south Sidon, proceed to exercise a sort of
hegemony over several neighbouring states. Sidon becomes known as
"Great Zidon."[1411] Not content with her maritime ascendancy, which was
already pushing her into special notice, she aspired to a land dominion,
and threw out offshoots from the main seat of her power as far as Laish,
on the head-waters of the Jordan.[1412] It was her support, probably,
which enabled the inhabitants of such comparatively weak cities as Accho
and Achzib and Aphek to resist the invasion of the Hebrews, and maintain
themselves, despite all attempts made to reduce them.[1413] At the same
time she gradually extended her influence over the coast towns in her
neighbourhood, as Sarepta, Heldun, perhaps Berytus, Ecdippa, and Accho.
The period which succeeds that of Egyptian preponderance in Western
Asia may be distinguished as that of Sidonian ascendancy, or of such
ascendancy slightly modified by an Aradian hegemony in the north over
the settlements intervening between Mount Casius and the northern roots
of Lebanon.[1414] During this period Sidon came to the front, alike in
arts, in arms, and in navigation. Her vessels were found by the earliest
Greek navigators in all parts of the Mediterranean into which they
themselves ventured, and were known to push themselves into regions
where no Greek dared to follow them. Under her fostering care Phoenician
colonisation had spread over the whole of the Western Mediterranean,
over the Ægean, and into the Propontis. She had engaged in war with
the powerful nation of the Philistines, and, though worsted in the
encounter, had obtained a reputation for audacity. By her wonderful
progress in the arts, her citizens had acquired the epithet of
{poludaidaloi},[1415] and had come to be recognised generally as the
foremost artificers of the world in almost every branch of industry.
Sidonian metal-work was particularly in repute. When Achilles at the
funeral of Patroclus desired to offer as a prize to the fastest runner
the most beautiful bowl that was to be found in all the world, he
naturally chose one which had been deftly made by highly-skilled
Sidonians, and which Phoenician sailors had conveyed in one of their
hollow barks across the cloud-shadowed sea.[1416] When Menelaus proposed
to present Telemachus, the son of his old comrade Odysseus, with
what was at once the most beautiful and the most valuable of all his
possessions, he selected a silver bowl with a golden rim, which in
former days he had himself received as a present from Phædimus, the
Sidonian king.[1417] The sailors who stole Eumæus from Ortygia, and
carried him across the sea to Ithica, obtained their prize by coming to
his father's palace, and bringing with them, among other wares,

     . . . a necklace of fine gold to sell,
     With bright electron linked right wondrously and well.[1418]

Sidon's pre-eminence in the manufacture, the dyeing, and the embroidery
of textile fabrics was at the same time equally unquestionable. Hecuba,
being advised to offer to Athêné, on behalf of her favourite son,
the best and loveliest of all the royal robes which her well-stored
dress-chamber could furnish--

     She to her fragrant wardrobe bent her way,
     Where her rich veils in beauteous order lay;
     Webs by Sidonian virgins finely wrought,
     From Sidon's woofs by youthful Paris brought,
     When o'er the boundless main the adulterer led
     Fair Helen from her home and nuptial bed;
     From these she chose the fullest, fairest far,
     With broidery bright, and blazing as a star.[1419]

Already, it would seem, the precious shell-fish, on which Phoenicia's
commerce so largely rested in later times, had been discovered; and it
was the dazzling hue of the robe which constituted its especial value.
Sidon was ultimately eclipsed by Tyre in the productions of the loom;
and the unrivalled dye has come down to us, and will go down to all
future ages, as "_Tyrian_ purple;" but we may well believe that in this,
as in most other matters on which prosperity and success depended,
Tyre did but follow in the steps of her elder sister Sidon, perfecting
possibly the manufacture which had been Sidon's discovery in the early
ages. According to Scylax of Cadyanda, Dor was a Sidonian colony.[1420]
Geographically it belonged rather to Philistia than to Phoenicia; but
its possession of large stores of the purple fish caused its sudden
seizure and rapid fortification at a very remote date, probably by the
Phoenicians of Sidon.[1421] It is quite possible that this aggression
may have provoked that terrible war to which reference has already been
made, between the Philistines under the hegemony of Ascalon and the
first of the Phoenician cities. Ascalon attacked the Sidonians by land,
blockaded the offending town, and after a time compelled a surrender;
but the defenders had a ready retreat by sea, and, when they could
no longer hold out against their assailants, took ship, and removed
themselves to Tyre, which at the time was probably a dependency.[1422]

In navigation also and colonisation Sidon took the lead. According to
some, she was the actual founder of Aradus, which was said to have
owed its origin to a body of Sidonian exiles, who there settled
themselves.[1423] Not much reliance, however, can be placed on this
tradition, which first appears in a writer of the Augustan age. With
more confidence we may ascribe to Sidon the foundation of Citium in
Cyprus, the colonisation of the islands in the Ægean, and of those
Phoenician settlements in North Africa which were anterior to the
founding of Carthage. It has even been supposed that the Sidonians were
the first to make a settlement at Carthage itself,[1424] and that the
Tyrian occupation under Dido was a recolonisation of an already occupied
site. Anyhow, Sidon was the first to explore the central Mediterranean,
and establish commercial relations with the barbarous tribes of the
mid-African coast, Cabyles, Berbers, Shuloukhs, Tauriks, and others. She
is thought to claim on a coin to be the mother-city of Melita, or Malta,
as well as of Citium and Berytus;[1425] and, if this claim be allowed,
we can scarcely doubt that she was also the first to plant colonies in
Sicily. Further than this, it would seem, Sidonian enterprise did not
penetrate. It was left for Tyre to discover the wealth of Southern
Spain, to penetrate beyond the Straits of Gibraltar, and to affront the
perils of the open ocean.

But, within the sphere indicated, Sidonian rovers traversed all parts of
the Great Sea, penetrated into every gulf, became familiar sights to the
inhabitants of every shore. From timid sailing along the coast by
day, chiefly in the summer season, when winds whispered gently,
and atmospheric signs indicated that fair weather had set in, they
progressed by degrees to long voyages, continued both by night and
day,[1426] from promontory to promontory, or from island to island,
sometimes even across a long stretch of open sea, altogether out of
sight of land, and carried on at every season of the year except some
few of special danger. To Sidon is especially ascribed the introduction
of the practice of sailing by night,[1427] which shortened the duration
of voyages by almost one-half, and doubled the number of trips that a
vessel could accomplish in the course of a year. For night sailing the
arts of astronomy and computation had to be studied;[1428] the aspect of
the heavens at different seasons had to be known; and among the shifting
constellations some fixed point had to be found by which it would be
safe to steer. The last star in the tail of the Little Bear--the polar
star of our own navigation books--was fixed upon by the Phoenicians,
probably by the Sidonians, for this purpose,[1429] and was practically
employed as the best index of the true north from a remote period. The
rate of a ship's speed was, somehow or other, estimated; and though
it was long before charts were made, or the set of currents taken into
account, yet voyages were for the most part accomplished with very
tolerable accuracy and safety. An ample commerce grew up under Sidonian
auspices. After the vernal equinox was over a fleet of white-winged
ships sped forth from the many harbours of the Syrian coast, well laden
with a variety of wares--Phoenician, Assyrian, Egyptian[1430]--and made
for the coasts and islands of the Levant, the Ægean, the Propontis, the
Adriatic, the mid-Mediterranean, where they exchanged the cargoes which
they had brought with them for the best products of the lands whereto
they had come. Generally, a few weeks, or at most a month or two, would
complete the transfer the of commodities, and the ships which left
Sidon in April or May would return about June or July, unload, and make
themselves ready for a second voyage. But sometimes, it appears, the
return cargo was not so readily procured, and vessels had to remain in
the foreign port, or roadstead, for the space of a whole year.[1431]

The behaviour of the traders must, on the whole, have been such as won
the respect of the nations and tribes wherewith they traded. Otherwise,
the markets would soon have been closed against them, and, in lieu of
the peaceful commerce which the Phoenicians always affected, would have
sprung up along the shores of the Mediterranean a general feeling of
distrust and suspicion, which would have led on to hostile encounters,
surprises, massacres, and then reprisals. The entire history of
Phoenician commerce shows that such a condition of things never existed.
The traders and their customers were bound together by the bonds of
self-interest, and, except in rare instances, dealt by each other fairly
and honestly. Still, there were occasions when, under the stress of
temptation, fair-dealing was lost sight of, and immediate prospect of
gain was allowed to lead to the commission of acts destructive of all
feeling of security, subversive of commercial morals, and calculated to
effect a rupture of commercial relations, which it may often have taken
a long term of years to re-establish. Herodotus tells us that, at a date
considerably anterior to the Trojan war, when the ascendancy over the
other Phoenician cities must certainly have belonged to Sidon, an affair
of this kind took place on the coast of Argolis, which was long felt
by the Greeks as an injury and an outrage. A Phoenician vessel made the
coast near Argos, and the crew, having effected a landing, proceeded to
expose their merchandise for sale along the shore, and to traffic with
the natives, who were very willing to make purchases, and in the course
of five or six days bought up almost the entire cargo. At length, just
as the traders were thinking of re-embarking and sailing away, there
came down to the shore from the capital a number of Argive ladies,
including among them a princess, Io, the daughter of Inachus, the Argive
king. Hereupon, the trafficking and the bargaining recommenced; goods
were produced suited to the taste of the new customers; and each strove
to obtain what she desired most at the least cost. But suddenly, as they
were all intent upon their purchases, and were crowding round the stern
of the ship, the Phoenicians, with a general shout, rushed upon
them. Many--the greater part, we are told--made their escape; but
the princess, and a certain number of her companions, were seized and
carried on board. The traders quickly put to sea, and hoisting their
sails, hurried away to Egypt.[1432]

Another instance of kidnapping, accomplished by art rather than by
force, is related to us by Homer.[1433] Eumæus, the swineherd of
Ulysses, was the son of a king, dwelling towards the west, in an island
off the Sicilian coast. A Phoenician woman, herself kidnapped from Sidon
by piratical Taphians, had the task of nursing and tending him assigned
to her, and discharged it faithfully until a great temptation befell
her. A Sidonian merchant-ship visited the island, laden with rich store
of precious wares, and proceeded to open a trade with the inhabitants,
in the course of which one of the sailors seduced the Phoenician nurse,
and suggested that when the vessel left, she should allow herself to be
carried off in it. The woman, whose parents were still alive at Sidon,
came into the scheme, and being apprised of the date of the ship's
departure, stole away from the palace unobserved, taking with her three
golden goblets, and also her master's child, the boy of whom she had
charge. It was evening, and all having been prepared beforehand, the
nurse and child were hastily smuggled on board, the sails were hoisted,
and the ship was soon under weigh. The wretched woman died ere the
voyage was over, but the boy survived, and was carried by the traders to
Ithaca, and there sold for a good sum to Laërtes.

It is not suggested that these narratives, in the form in which they
have come down to us, are historically true. There may never have been
an "Io, daughter of Inachus," or an "Eumæus, son of Ctesius Ormenides,"
or an island, "Syria called by name, over against Ortygia," or even a
Ulysses or a Laërtes. But the tales could never have grown up, have been
invented, or have gained acceptance, unless the practice of kidnapping,
on which they are based, had been known to be one in which the
Phoenicians of the time indulged, at any rate occasionally. We must
allow this blot on the Sidonian escutcheon, and can only plead, in
extenuation of their offence, first, the imperfect morality of the
age, and secondly, the fact that such deviations from the line of
fair-dealing and honesty on the part of the Sidonian traders must have
been of rare occurrence, or the flourishing and lucrative trade, which
was the basis of all the glory and prosperity of the people, could not
possibly have been established. Successful commerce must rest upon the
foundation of mutual confidence; and mutual confidence is impossible
unless the rules of fair dealing are observed on both sides, if not
invariably, yet, at any rate, so generally that the infraction of
them is not contemplated on either side as anything but the remotest
contingency.

Of the internal government of Sidon during this period no details have
come down to us. Undoubtedly, like all the Phoenician cities in the
early times,[1434] she had her own kings; and we may presume, from
the almost universal practice in ancient times, and especially in the
East,[1435] that the monarchy was hereditary. The main duties of the
king were to lead out the people to battle in time of war, and to
administer justice in time of peace.[1436] The kings were in part
supported, in part held in check, by a powerful aristocracy--an
aristocracy which, we may conjecture, had wealth, rather than birth, as
its basis. It does not appear that any political authority was possessed
by the priesthood, nor that the priesthood was a caste, as in India, and
(according to some writers) in Egypt. The priestly office was certainly
not attached by any general custom to the person of the kings, though
kings might be priests, and were so occasionally.[1437]

We do not distinctly hear of Sidon has having been engaged in any
war during the period of her ascendancy, excepting that with the
Philistines. Still as "the Zidonians" are mentioned among the nations
which "oppressed Israel" in the time of the Judges,[1438] we must
conclude that differences arose between them and their southern
neighbours in some portion of this period, and that, war having broken
out between them, the advantage rested with Sidon. The record of
"Judges" is incomplete, and does not enable us even to fix the date of
the Sidonian "oppression." We can only say that it was anterior to the
judgeship of Jephthah, and was followed, like the other "oppressions,"
by a "deliverance."

The war with the Philistines brought the period of Sidonian ascendancy
to an end, and introduces us to the second period of Phoenician history,
or that of the hegemony of Tyre. The supposed date of the change is B.C.
1252.[1439]




2. Phoenicia under the hegemony of Tyre (B.C. 1252-877)

     Influx of the Sidonian population raises Tyre to the first
     place among the cities (about B.C. 1252)--First notable
     result, the colonisation of Gades (B.C. 1130)--Other
     colonies of about this period--Extension of Phoenician
     commerce--Tyre ruled by kings--Abi-Baal--Hiram--Hiram's
     dealings with Solomon--His improvement of his own capital--
     His opinion of "the land of Cabul"--His joint trade with the
     Israelites--His war with Utica--Successors of Hiram--Time of
     disturbance--Reign of Ithobal--of Badezor--of Matgen--of
     Pygmalion--Founding of Carthage--First contact of Phoenicia
     with Assyria--Submission of Phoenicia, B.C. 877.

Tyre was noted as a "strong city" as early as the time of Joshua,[1440]
and was probably inferior only to Sidon, or to Sidon and Aradus, during
the period of Sidonian ascendancy. It is mentioned in the "Travels of
a Mohar" (about B.C. 1350) as "a port, richer in fish than in
sands."[1441] The tradition was, that it acquired its predominance and
pre-eminence from the accession of the Sidonian population, which
fled thither by sea, when no longer able to resist the forces of
Ascalon.[1442] We do not find it, however, attaining to any great
distinction or notoriety, until more than a century later, when it
distinguishes itself by the colonisation of Gades (about B.C. 1130),
beyond the Pillars of Hercules, on the shores of the Atlantic. We may
perhaps deduce from this fact, that the concentration of energy caused
by the removal to Tyre of the best elements in the population of
Sidon gave a stimulus to enterprise, and caused longer voyages to be
undertaken, and greater dangers to be affronted by the daring seamen
of the Syrian coast than had ever been ventured on before. The Tyrian
seamen were, perhaps, of a tougher fibre than the Sidonian, and the
change of hegemony is certainly accompanied by a greater display of
energy, a more adventurous spirit, a wider colonisation, and a more
wonderful commercial success, than characterise the preceding period of
Sidonian leadership and influence.

The settlements planted by Tyre in the first burst of her colonising
energy seem to have been, besides Gades, Thasos, Abdera, and Pronectus
towards the north, Malaca, Sexti, Carteia, Belon, and a second Abdera in
Spain, together with Caralis in Sardinia,[1443] Tingis and Lixus on
the West African coast, and in North Africa Hadrumetum and the lesser
Leptis.[1444] Her aim was to throw the meshes of her commerce wider than
Sidon had ever done, and so to sweep into her net a more abundant booty.
It was Tyre which especially affected "long voyages,"[1445] and induced
her colonists of Gades to explore the shores outside the Pillars of
Hercules, northwards as far as Cornwall and the Scilly Isles, southwards
to the Fortunate Islands, and north-eastwards into the Baltic. It is, no
doubt, uncertain at what date these explorations were effected, and some
of them may belong to the _later_ hegemony of Tyre, ab. B.C. 600;
but the forward movement of the twelfth century seems to have been
distinctly Tyrian, and to have been one of the results of the new
position in which she was placed by the sudden collapse of her elder
sister, Sidon.

According to some,[1446] Tyre, during the early period of her supremacy,
was under the government of _shôphetim_, or "judges;" but the general
usage of the Phoenician cities makes against this supposition. Philo in
his "Origines of Phoenicia" speaks constantly of kings,[1447] but never
of judges. We hear of a king, Abd-Baal, at Berytus[1448] about B.C.
1300. Sidonian kings are mentioned in connection with the myth of
Europa.[1449] The cities founded by the Phoenicians in Cyprus are
always under monarchical rule.[1450] Tyre itself, when its history first
presents itself to us in any detail, is governed by a king.[1451] All
that can be urged on the other side is, that we know of no Tyrian king
by name until about B.C. 1050; and that, if there had been earlier
kings, it might have been expected that some record of them would have
come down to us. But to argue thus is to ignore the extreme scantiness
and casual character of the notices which have reached us bearing upon
the early Phoenician history. No writer has left us any continuous
history of Phoenicia, even in the barest outline.[1452] Native
monumental annals are entirely wanting. We depend for the early
times upon the accident of Jewish monarchs having come into contact
occasionally with Phoenician ones, and on Jewish writers having noted
the occasions in Jewish histories. Scripture and Josephus alone furnish
our materials for the period now under consideration, and the materials
are scanty, fragmentary, and sadly wanting in completeness.

It is towards the middle of the eleventh century B.C. that these
materials become available. About the time when David was acclaimed as
king by the tribe of Judah at Hebron, a Phoenician prince mounted the
throne of Tyre, by name Abibalus, or Abi-Baal.[1453] We do not know the
length of his reign; but, while the son of Jesse was still in the full
vigour of life, Abi-Baal was succeeded on the Tyrian throne by his son,
Hiram or Hirôm, a prince of great energy, of varied tastes, and of an
unusually broad and liberal turn of mind. Hiram, casting his eye over
the condition of the states and kingdoms which were his neighbours,
seems to have discerned in Judah and David a power and a ruler
whose friendship it was desirable to cultivate with a view to the
establishment of very close relations. Accordingly, it was not long
after the Jewish monarch's capture of the Jebusite stronghold on Mount
Zion that the Tyrian prince sent messengers to him to Jerusalem, with
a present of "timber of cedars," and a number of carpenters, and
stone-hewers, well skilled in the art of building.[1454] David accepted
their services, and a goodly palace soon arose on some part of the
Eastern hill, of which cedar from Lebanon was the chief material,[1455]
and of which Hiram's workmen were the constructors. At a later date
David set himself to collect abundant and choice materials for the
magnificent Temple which Solomon his son was divinely commissioned to
build on Mount Moriah to Jehovah; and here again "the Zidonians and
they of Tyre," or the subjects of Hiram, "brought much cedar wood to
David."[1456] The friendship continued firm to the close of David's
reign;[1457] and when Solomon succeeded his father as king of Israel
and lord of the whole tract between the middle Euphrates and Egypt, the
bonds were drawn yet closer, and an alliance concluded which placed the
two powers on terms of the very greatest intimacy. Hiram had no sooner
heard of Solomon's accession than he sent an embassy to congratulate
him;[1458] and Solomon took advantage of the opening which presented
itself to announce his intention of building the Temple which his father
had designed, and to request Hiram's aid in the completion of the work.
Copies of letters which passed between the two monarchs were preserved
both in the Tyrian and the Jewish archives, and the Tyrian versions are
said to have been still extant in the public record office of the city
in the first century of the Christian era.[1459] These documents ran as
follows:--

"Solomon to King Hiram [sends greeting]:--Know that my father David
was desirous of building a temple to God, but was prevented by his wars
and his continual expeditions; for he did not rest from subduing his
adversaries, until he had made every one of them tributary to him. And
now I for my part return thanks to God for the present time of peace,
and having rest thereby I purpose to build the house; for God declared
to my father that it should be built by me. Wherefore I beseech thee to
send some of thy servants with my servants to Mount Lebanon, to cut
wood there, for none among us can skill to hew timber like unto the
Sidonians. And I will pay the wood-cutters their hire at whatsoever rate
thou shalt determine."

"King Hiram to King Solomon [sends greeting]:--Needs must I praise
God, that hath given thee to sit upon thy father's throne, seeing that
thou art a wise man, and possessed of every virtue. And I, rejoicing
at these things, will do all that thou hast desired of me. I will by my
servants cut thee in abundance timber of cedar and timber of cypress,
and will bring them down to the sea, and command my servants to
construct of them a float, or raft, and navigate it to whatever point
of thy coast thou mayest wish, and there discharge them; after which thy
servants can carry them to Jerusalem. But be it thy care to provide me
in return with a supply of food, whereof we are in want as inhabiting an
island."[1460]

The result was an arrangement by which the Tyrian monarch furnished
his brother king with timber of various kinds, chiefly cedar, cut in
Lebanon, and also with a certain number of trained artificers, workers
in metal, carpenters, and masons, while the Israelite monarch on his
part made a return in corn, wine, and oil, supplying Tyre, while the
contract lasted, with 20,000 cors of wheat, the same quantity of barley,
20,000 baths of wine, and the same number of oil, annually.[1461]
Phoenicia always needed to import supplies of food for its abundant
population,[1462] and having an inexhaustible store of timber in
Lebanon, was glad to find a market for it so near. Thus the arrangement
suited both parties. The hillsides of Galilee and the broad and fertile
plains of Esdraelon and Sharon produced a superabundance of wheat and
barley, whereof the inhabitants had to dispose in some quarter or other,
and the highlands of Sumeria and Judæa bore oil and wine far beyond
the wants of those who cultivated them. What Phoenicia lacked in these
respects from the scantiness of its cultivable soil, Palestine was able
and eager to supply; while to Phoenicia it was a boon to obtain, not
only a market for her timber, but also employment for her surplus
population, which under ordinary circumstances was always requiring
to be carried off to distant lands, from the difficulty of supporting
itself at home.

A still greater advantage was it to the rude Judæans to get the
assistance of their civilised and artistic neighbours in the design and
execution, both of the Temple itself and of all those accessories,
which in ancient times a sacred edifice on a large scale was regarded
as requiring. The Phoenicians, and especially the Tyrians, had long
possessed, both in their home and foreign settlements, temples of some
pretension, and Hiram had recently been engaged in beautifying and
adorning, perhaps in rebuilding, some of these venerable edifices at
Tyre.[1463] A Phoenician architectural style had thus been formed, and
Hiram's architects and artificers would be familiar with constructive
principles and ornamental details, as well as with industrial processes,
which are very unlikely to have been known at the time to the Hebrews.
The wood for the Jewish Temple was roughly cut, and the stones quarried,
by Israelite workmen;[1464] but all the delicate work, whether in the
one material or the other, was performed by the servants of Hiram.
Stone-cutters from Gebal (Byblus) shaped and smoothed the "great stones,
costly stones" employed in the substructions of the "house;"[1465]
Tyrian carpenters planed and polished the cedar planks used for the
walls, and covered them with representations of cherubs and palms and
gourds and opening flowers.[1466] The metallurgists of Sidon probably
supplied the cherubic figures in the inner sanctuary,[1467] as well as
the castings for the doors,[1468] and the bulk of the sacred vessels.
The vail which separated between the "Holy Place" and the Holy of
Holies--a marvellous fabric of blue, and purple, and crimson, and white,
with cherubim wrought thereon[1469]--owed its beauty probably to Tyrian
dyers and Tyrian workers in embroidery. The master-workman lent by the
Tyrian monarch to superintend the entire work--an extraordinary and
almost universal genius--"skilful to work in gold and in silver, in
brass, in iron, in stone, and in timber; in purple, in blue, in fine
linen, and in crimson; also to grave any manner of graving"[1470]--who
bore the same name with the king,[1471] was the son of an Israelite
mother, but boasted a Tyrian father,[1472] and was doubtless born and
bred up at Tyre. Under his special direction were cast in the valley of
the Jordan, between Succoth and Zarthan,[1473] those wonderful pillars,
known as Jachin and Boaz, which have already been described, and which
seem to have had their counterparts in the sacred edifices both of
Phoenicia and Cyprus.[1474] To him also is specially ascribed the
"molten sea," standing on twelve oxen,[1475] which was perhaps the most
artistic of all the objects placed within the Temple circuit, as are
also the lavers upon wheels,[1476] which, if less striking as works of
art, were even more curious.

The partnership established between the two kingdoms in connection with
the building and furnishing of the Jewish Temple, which lasted for seven
years,[1477] was further continued for thirteen more[1478] in connection
with the construction of Solomon's palace. This palace, like an Assyrian
one, consisted of several distinct edifices. "The chief was a long hall
which, like the Temple, was encased in cedar; whence probably its name,
'The House of the Forest of Lebanon.' In front of it ran a pillared
portico. Between this portico and the palace itself was a cedar porch,
sometimes called the Tower of David. In this tower, apparently hung over
the walls outside, were a thousand golden shields, which gave to the
whole place the name of the Armoury. With a splendour that outshone any
like fortress, the tower with these golden targets glittered far off
in the sunshine like the tall neck, as it was thought, of a beautiful
bride, decked out, after the manner of the East, with strings of golden
coins. This porch was the gem and centre of the whole empire; and was
so much thought of that a smaller likeness to it was erected in another
part of the precinct for the queen. Within the porch itself was to be
seen the king in state. On a throne of ivory, brought from Africa or
India, the throne of many an Arabian legend, the kings of Judah were
solemnly seated on the day of their accession. From its lofty seat, and
under that high gateway, Solomon and his successors after him delivered
their solemn judgments. That 'porch' or 'gate of justice' still kept
alive the likeness of the old patriarchal custom of sitting in judgment
at the gate; exactly as the 'Gate of Justice' still recalls it to us at
Granada, and the Sublime Porte--'the Lofty Gate'--at Constantinople. He
sate on the back of a golden bull, its head turned over its shoulder,
probably the ox or bull of Ephraim; under his feet, on each side of the
steps, were six golden lions, probably the lions of Judah. This was 'the
seat of Judgment.' This was 'the throne of the House of David.'"[1479]

We have dwelt the longer upon these matters because it is from the
lengthy and elaborate descriptions which the Hebrew writers give of
these Phoenician constructions at Jerusalem that we must form our
conceptions, not only of the state of Phoenician art in Hiram's time,
but also of the works wherewith he adorned his own capital. He came to
the throne at the age of nineteen,[1480] on the decease of his father,
and immediately set to work to improve, enlarge, and beautify the city,
which in his time claimed the headship of, at any rate, all Southern
Phoenicia. He found Tyre a city built on two islands, separated the one
from the other by a narrow channel, and so cramped for room that the
inhabitants had no open square, or public place, on which they could
meet, and were closely packed in overcrowded dwellings.[1481] The
primary necessity was to increase the area of the place; and this Hiram
effected, first, by filling up the channel between the two islands with
stone and rubbish, and so gaining a space for new buildings, and then by
constructing huge moles or embankments towards the east, and towards
the south, where the sea was shallowest, and thus turning what had been
water into land. In this way he so enlarged the town that he was able
to lay out a "wide space" (Eurychôrus)[1482] as a public square, which,
like the Piazza di San Marco at Venice, became the great resort of the
inhabitants for business and pleasure. Having thus provided for utility
and convenience, he next proceeded to embellishment and ornamentation.
The old temples did not seem to him worthy of the renovated capital;
he therefore pulled them down and built new ones in their place. In the
most central part of the city[1483] he erected a fane for the worship
of Melkarth and Ashtoreth, probably retaining the old site, but
constructing an entirely new building--the building which Herodotus
visited,[1484] and in which Alexander insisted on sacrificing.[1485]
Towards the south-west,[1486] on what had been a separate islet,
he raised a temple to Baal, and adorned it with a lofty pillar of
gold,[1487] or at any rate plated with gold. Whether he built himself a
new palace is not related; but as the royal residence of later times was
situated on the southern shore,[1488] which was one of Hiram's additions
to his capital, it is perhaps most probable that the construction of
this new palace was due to him. The chief material which he used in his
buildings was, as in Jerusalem, cedar. The substructions alone were of
stone. They were probably not on so grand a scale as those of the Jewish
Temple, since the wealth of Hiram, sovereign of a petty kingdom, must
have fallen very far short of Solomon's, ruler of an extensive empire.

At the close of the twenty years during which Hiram had assisted Solomon
in his buildings, the Israelite monarch deemed it right to make his
Tyrian brother some additional compensation beyond the corn, and wine,
and oil with which, according to his contract, he had annually supplied
him. Accordingly, he voluntarily ceded to him a district of Galilee
containing twenty cities, a portion of the old inheritance of
Asher,[1489] conveniently near to Accho, of which Hiram was probably
lord, and not very remote from Tyre. The tract appears to have been
that where the modern Kabûl now stands, which is a rocky and bare
highland,[1490]--part of the outlying roots of Lebanon--overlooking the
rich plain of Akka or Accho, and presenting a striking contrast to its
fertility. Hiram, on the completion of the cession, "came out from Tyre
to see the cities which Solomon had given him," and was disappointed
with the gift. "What cities are these," he said, "which thou hast given
me, my brother? And he called them the land of Cabul"--"rubbish" or
"offscourings"--to mark his disappointment.[1491]

But this passing grievance was not allowed in any way to overshadow, or
interfere with, the friendly alliance and "entente cordiale" (to use a
modern phrase) which existed between the two nations. Solomon, according
to one authority,[1492] paid a visit to Tyre, and gratified his host by
worshipping in a Sidonian temple. According to another,[1493] Hiram
gave him in marriage, as a secondary wife, one of his own daughters--a
marriage perhaps alluded to by the writer of Kings when he tells us that
"King Solomon loved many strange women together with the daughter of
Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, _Zidonians_, and
Hittites."[1494] The closest commercial relations were established
between the two countries, and the hope of them was probably one of
the strongest reasons which attracted both parties to the alliance. The
Tyrians, on their part, possessed abundant ships; their sailors had full
"knowledge of the sea,"[1495] and the trade of the Mediterranean was
almost wholly in their hands. Solomon, on his side, being master of the
port of Ezion-Geber on the Red Sea, had access to the lucrative traffic
with Eastern Africa, Arabia, and perhaps India, which had hitherto been
confined to the Egyptians and the Arabs. He had also, by his land power,
a command of the trade routes along the Coele-Syrian valley, by Aleppo,
and by Tadmor, which enabled him effectually either to help or to hinder
the Phoenician land traffic. Thus either side had something to gain from
the other, and a close commercial union might be safely counted on to
work for the mutual advantage of both. Such a union, therefore, took
place. Hiram admitted Solomon to a participation in his western traffic;
and the two kings maintained a conjoint "navy of Tarshish,"[1496] which,
trading with Spain and the West coast of Africa, brought to Phoenicia
and Palestine "once in three years" many precious and rare commodities,
the chief of them being "gold, and silver, ivory, and apes, and
peacocks." Spain would yield the gold and the silver, for the Tagus
brought down gold,[1497] and the Spanish silver-mines were the richest
in the world.[1498] Africa would furnish in abundance the ivory and the
apes; for elephants were numerous in Mauritania,[1499] and on the west
coast,[14100] in ancient times; and the gorilla[14101] and the Barbary
ape are well-known African products. Africa may also have produced the
"peacocks," if _tukkiyim_ are really "peacocks," though they are
not found there at the present day. Or the _tukkiyim_ may have been
Guinea-fowl--a bird of the same class with the peacock.

In return, Solomon opened to Hiram the route to the East by way of the
Red Sea. Solomon, doubtless by the assistance of shipwrights furnished
to him from Tyre, "made a navy of ships at Ezion-Geber, which is beside
Eloth, on the shore of the Red Sea, in the land of Edom,"[14102] and the
sailors of the two nations conjointly manned the ships, and performed
the voyage to Ophir, whence they brought gold, and "great plenty of
almug-trees," and precious stones.[14103] The position of Ophir has been
much disputed, but the balance of argument is in favour of the theory
which places it in Arabia, on the south-eastern coast, a little outside
the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb.[14104] It is possible that the fleet did
not confine itself to trade with Ophir, but, once launched on the Indian
Ocean, proceeded along the Atlantic coast to the Persian Gulf and the
peninsula of Hindustan. Or Ophir may have been an Arab emporium for the
Indian trade, and the merchants of Syria may have found there the
Indian commodities, and the Indian woods,[14105] which they seem to have
brought back with them to their own country. A most lucrative traffic
was certainly established by the united efforts of the two kings; and if
the lion's share of the profit fell to Solomon and the Hebrews,[14106]
still the Phoenicians and Hiram must have participated to some
considerable extent in the gains made, or the arrangement would not have
continued.

It is thought that Hiram was engaged in one war of some importance.
Menander tells us, according to the present text of Josephus,[14107]
that the "Tityi" revolted from him, and refused any longer to pay him
tribute, whereupon he made an expedition against them, and succeeded
in compelling them to submit to his authority. As the "Tityi" are
an unknown people, conjecture has been busy in suggesting other
names,[14108] and critics are now of the opinion that the original word
used by Menander was not "Tityi," but "Itykæi." The "Itykæi" are the
people of Utica: and, if this emendation be accepted,[14109] we must
regard Hiram as having had to crush a most important and dangerous
rebellion. Utica, previously to the foundation of Carthage, was by far
the most important of all the mid-African colonies, and her successful
revolt would probably have meant to Tyre the loss of the greater
portion, if not the whole, of those valuable settlements. A rival to her
power would have sprung up in the West, which would have crippled her
commerce in that quarter, and checked her colonising energy. She would
have suffered thus early more than she did four hundred years later by
the great development of the power of Carthage; would have lost a large
portion of her prestige; and have entered on the period of her decline
when she had but lately obtained a commanding position. Hiram's energy
diverted these evils: he did not choose that his kingdom should be
dismembered, if he could anyhow help it; and, offering a firm and
strenuous opposition to the revolt, he succeeded in crushing it, and
maintaining the unity of the empire.

The brilliant reign of Hiram, which covered the space of forty-three
years, was not followed, like that of Solomon, by any immediate
troubles, either foreign or domestic. He had given his people, either at
home or abroad, constant employment; he had consulted their convenience
in the enlargement of his capital; he had enriched them, and gratified
their love of adventure, by his commercial enterprises; he had
maintained their prestige by rivetting their yoke upon a subject state;
he had probably pleased them by the temples and other public buildings
with which he had adorned and beautified their city. Accordingly, he
went down to the grave in peace; and not only so, but left his dynasty
firmly established in power. His son, Baal-azar or Baleazar, who was
thirty-six years of age, succeeded him, and held the throne for seven
years, when he died a natural death.[14110] Abd-Ashtoreth (Abdastartus),
the fourth monarch of the house, then ascended the throne, at the age of
twenty, and reigned for nine years before any troubles broke out. Then,
however, a time of disturbance supervened. Four of his foster-brothers
conspired against Abd-Ashtoreth, and murdered him. The eldest of them
seized the throne, and maintained himself upon it for twelve years, when
Astartus, perhaps a son of Baal-azar, became king, and restored the line
of Hiram. He, too, like his predecessor, reigned twelve years, when his
brother, Aserymus, succeeded him. Aserymus, after ruling for nine years,
was murdered by another brother, Pheles, who, in his turn, succumbed
to a conspiracy headed by the High Priest, Eth-baal, or Ithobal.[14111]
Thus, while the period immediately following the death of Hiram was one
of tranquillity, that which supervened on the death of Abd-Astartus,
Hiram's grandson, was disturbed and unsettled. Three monarchs met with
violent deaths within the space of thirty-four years, and the reigning
house was, at least, thrice changed during the same interval.

At length with Ithobal a more tranquil time was reached. Ithobal, or
Eth-baal, was not only king, but also High Priest of Ashtoreth, and thus
united the highest sacerdotal with the highest civil authority. He was a
man of decision and energy, a worthy successor of Hiram, gifted like him
with wide-reaching views, and ambitious of distinction. One of his first
acts was to ally himself with Ahab, King of Israel, by giving him his
daughter, Jezebel, in marriage,[14112] thus strengthening his land
dominion, and renewing the old relations of friendship with the Hebrew
people. Another act of vigour assigned to him is the foundation of
Botrys, on the Syrian coast, north of Gebal, perhaps a defensive
movement against Assyria.[14113] Still more enterprising was his renewal
of the African colonisation by his foundation of Aüza in Numidia,[14114]
which became a city of some importance. Ithobal's reign lasted, we are
told, thirty-two years. He was sixty-eight years of age at his death,
and was succeeded by his son, who is called Badezor, probably a
corruption of Balezor, or Baal-azar[14115]--the name given by Hiram
to his son and successor. Of Badezor we know nothing, except that
he reigned six years, and was succeeded by his son Matgen, perhaps
Mattan,[14116] a youth of twenty-three.

With Matgen, or Mattan, whichever be the true form of the name, the
internal history of Tyre becomes interesting. It appears that two
parties already existed in the state, one aristocratic, and the other
popular.[14117] Mattan, fearing the ascendancy of the popular party,
married his daughter, Elisa, whom he intended for his successor, to her
uncle and his own brother, Sicharbas, who was High Priest of Melkarth,
and therefore possessed of considerable authority in his own person.
Having effected this marriage, and nominated Elisa to succeed him,
Mattan died at the early age of thirty-two, after a reign of only
nine years.[14118] Besides his daughter, he had left behind him a son,
Pygmalion, who, at his decease, was but eight or nine years old. This
child the democratic party contrived to get under their influence,
proclaimed him king, young as he was, and placed him upon the throne.
Elisa and her husband retired into private life, and lived in peace for
seven years, but Pygmalion, being then grown to manhood, was not
content to leave them any longer unmolested. He murdered Sicharbas, and
endeavoured to seize his riches. But the ex-Queen contrived to frustrate
his design, and having possessed herself of a fleet of ships, and
taken on board the greater number of the nobles, sailed away, with her
husband's wealth untouched, to Cyprus first, and then to Africa.[14119]
Here, by agreement with the inhabitants, a site was obtained, and
the famous settlement founded, which became known to the Greeks as
"Karchêdon," and to the Romans as "Carthago," or Carthage. Josephus
places this event in the hundred and forty-fourth year after the
building of the Temple of Solomon,[14120] or about B.C. 860. This date,
however, is far from certain.

It appears to have been in the reign of Ithobal that the first contact
took place between Phoenicia and Assyria. About B.C. 885, a powerful
and warlike monarch, by name Asshur-nazir-pal, mounted the throne of
Nineveh, and shortly engaged in a series of wars towards the south, the
east, the north, and the north-west.[14121] In the last-named direction
he crossed the Euphrates at Carchemish (Jerablus), and, having overrun
the country between that river and the Orontes, he proceeded to pass
this latter stream also, and to carry his arms into the rich tract which
lay between the Orontes and the Mediterranean. "It was a tract," says
M. Maspero,[14122] "opulent and thickly populated, at once full of
industries and commercial; the metals, both precious and ordinary, gold,
silver, copper, tin (?), iron, were abundant; traffic with Phoenicia
supplied it with the purple dye, and with linen stuffs, with ebony and
with sandal-wood. Asshur-nazir-pal's attack seems to have surprised
the chief of the Hittites in a time of profound peace. Sangar, King of
Carchemish, allowed the passage of the Euphrates to take place without
disputing it, and opened to the Assyrians the gates of his capital.
Lubarna, king of Kunulua, alarmed at the power of the enemy, and
dreading the issue of a battle, came to terms with him, consenting to
make over to him twenty talents of gold, a talent of silver, two hundred
talents of tin, a hundred of iron, 2,000 oxen, 10,000 sheep, a thousand
garments of wool or linen, together with furniture, arms, and slaves
beyond all count. The country of Lukhuti resisted, and suffered the
natural consequences--all the cities were sacked, and the prisoners
crucified. After this exploit, Asshur-nazir-pal occupied both the slopes
of Mount Lebanon, and then descended to the shores of the Mediterranean.
Phoenicia did not await his arrival to do him homage: the kings of Tyre,
Sidon, Gebal, and Arvad, 'which is in the midst of the sea,' sent him
presents. The Assyrians employed their time in cutting down cedar trees
in Lebanon and Amanus, together with pines and cypresses, which they
transported to Nineveh to be used in the construction of a temple to
Ishtar."

The period of the Assyrian subjection, which commenced with this
attack on the part of Asshur-nazir-pal, will be the subject of the next
section. It only remains here briefly to recapitulate the salient points
of Phoenician history under Tyre's first supremacy. In the first place,
it was a time of increased daring and enterprise, in which colonies were
planted upon the shores of the Atlantic Ocean, and trade extended to
the remote south, the more remote north, and the still more remote
north-east, to the Fortunate Islands, the Cassiterides, and probably the
Baltic. Secondly, it was a time when the colonies on the North African
coast were reinforced, strengthened, and increased in number; when
the Phoenician yoke was rivetted on that vast projection into the
Mediterranean which divides that sea into two halves, and goes far to
give the power possessing it entire command of the Mediterranean waters.
Thirdly, it was a time of extended commerce with the East, perhaps the
only time when Phoenician merchant vessels were free to share in the
trade of the Red Sea, to adventure themselves in the Indian Ocean,
and to explore the distant coasts of Eastern Africa, Southern Arabia,
Beloochistan, India and Ceylon. Fourthly, it was a time of artistic
vigour and development, when Tyre herself assumed that aspect of
splendour and magnificence which thenceforth characterised her until her
destruction by Alexander, and when she so abounded in æsthetic energy
and genius that she could afford to take the direction of an art
movement in a neighbouring country, and to plant her ideas on that
conspicuous hill which for more than a thousand years drew the eyes of
men almost more than any other city of the East, and was only destroyed
because she was felt by Rome to be a rival that she could not venture to
spare. Finally, it was a time when internal dissensions, long existing,
came to a head, and the state lost, through a sudden desertion, a
considerable portion of its strength, which was transferred to a distant
continent, and there steadily, if not rapidly, developed itself into
a power, not antagonistic indeed, but still, by the necessity of its
position, a rival power--a new commercial star, before which all other
stars, whatever their brightness had been, paled and waned--a new factor
in the polity of nations, whereof account had of necessity to be taken;
a new trade-centre, which could not but supersede to a great extent all
former trade-centres, and which, however unwillingly, as it rose, and
advanced, and prospered, tended to dim, obscure, and eclipse the glories
of its mother-city.




3. Phoenicia during the period of its subjection to Assyria (B.C.
877-635)

     Phoenicia conquered by the Assyrians (about B.C. 877)--
     Peaceful relations established (about B.C. 839)--Time of
     quiet and prosperity--Harsh measures of Tiglath-pileser II.
     (about B.C. 740)--Revolt of Simyra--Revolt of Tyre under
     Elulæus--Wars of Elulæus with Shalmaneser IV. and with
     Sennacherib--Reign of Abdi-Milkut--His war with Esarhaddon--
     Accession of Baal--His relations with Esarhaddon and Asshur-
     bani-pal--Revolt and reduction of Arvad, Hosah, and Accho--
     Summary.

The first contact of Phoenicia with Assyria took place, as above
observed, in the reign of Asshur-nazir-pal, about the year B.C. 877. The
principal cities, on the approach of the great conquering monarch,
with his multitudinous array of chariots, his clouds of horse, and his
innumerable host of foot soldiers, made haste to submit themselves,
sought to propitiate the invader by rich gifts, and accepted what
they hoped might prove a nominal subjection. Arvad, which, as the most
northern, was the most directly threatened, Gebal, Sidon, and even the
comparatively remote Tyre, sent their several embassies, made their
offerings, and became, in name at any rate, Assyrian dependencies. But
the real subjection of this country was not effected at this time,
nor without a struggle. Asshur-nazir-pal's yoke lay lightly upon his
vassals, and during the remainder of his long reign--from B.C. 877 to
B.C. 860--he seems to have desisted from military expeditions,[14123]
and to have exerted no pressure on the countries situated west of
the Euphrates. It was not until the reign of his son and successor,
Shalmaneser II., that the real conquest of Syria and Phoenicia was
taken in hand, and pressed to a successful issue by a long series
of hard-fought campaigns and bloody battles. From his sixth to his
twenty-first year Shamaneser carried on an almost continuous war in
Syria,[14124] where his adversaries were the monarchs of Damascus and
Hamath, and "the twelve kings beside the sea, above and below,"[14125]
one of whom is expressly declared to have been "Mattan-Baal of
Arvad."[14126] It was not until the year B.C. 839 that this struggle
was terminated by the submission of the monarchs engaged in it to their
great adversary, and the firm establishment of a system of "tribute
and taxes."[14127] The Phoenician towns agreed to pay annually to the
Assyrian monarch a certain fixed sum in the precious metals, and further
to make him presents from time to time of the best products of their
country. Among these are mentioned "skins of buffaloes, horns of
buffaloes, clothing of wool and linen, violet wool, purple wool, strong
wood, wood for weapons, skins of sheep, fleeces of shining purple, and
birds of heaven."[14128]

The relations of Phoenicia towards the Assyrian monarchy continued to
be absolutely peaceful for above a century. The cities retained their
native monarchs, their laws and institutions, their religion, and their
entire internal administration. So long as they paid the fixed tribute,
they appear not to have been interfered with in any way. It would seem
that their trade prospered. Assyria had under her control the greater
portion of those commercial routes across the continent of Asia,[14129]
which it was of the highest importance to Phoenicia to have open
and free from peril. Her caravans could traverse them with increased
security, now that they were safeguarded by a power whereof she was a
dependency. She may even have obtained through Assyria access to regions
which had been previously closed to her, as Media, and perhaps Persia.
At any rate Tyre seems to have been as flourishing in the later times
of the Assyrian dominion as at almost any other period. Isaiah, in
denouncing woe upon her, towards the close of the dominion, shows us
what she had been under it:--

     Be silent (he says), ye inhabitants of the island,
     Which the merchants of Zidon, that pass over the sea, have
          replenished.
     The corn of the Nile, on the broad waters,
     The harvest of the River, has been her revenue:
     She has been the mart of nations . . .
     She was a joyful city,
     Her antiquity was of ancient days . . .
     She was a city that dispensed crowns;
     Her merchants were princes,
     And her traffickers the honourable of the earth.[14130]

A change in the friendly feelings of the Phoenician cities towards
Assyria first began after the rise of the Second or Lower Assyrian
Empire, which was founded, about B.C. 745, by Tiglath-pileser II.[14131]
Tiglath-pileser, after a time of quiescence and decay, raised up Assyria
to be once more a great conquering power, and energetically applied
himself to the consolidation and unification of the empire. It was
the Assyrian system, as it was the Roman, to absorb nations by slow
degrees--to begin by offering protection and asking in return a moderate
tribute; then to draw the bonds more close, to make fresh demands and
enforce them; finally, to pick a quarrel, effect a conquest, and absorb
the country, leaving it no vestige of independence. Tiglath-pileser
began this process of absorption in Northern Syria about the year B.C.
740. He rearranged the population in the various towns, taking from
some and giving to others,[14132] adding also in most cases an Assyrian
element, appointing Assyrian governors,[14133] and requiring of the
inhabitants "the performance of service like the Assyrians."[14134]
Among the places thus treated between the years B.C. 740 and B.C. 738,
we find the Phoenician cities of Zimirra, or Simyra, and Arqa, or Arka.
Zimirra was in the plain between the sea and Mount Bargylus, not very
far from the island of Aradus, whereof it was a dependency. Arqa was
further to the south, beyond the Eleutherus, and belonged properly to
Tripolis, if Tripolis had as yet been founded, or else to Botrys. Both
of them were readily accessible from the Orontes valley along the
course of the Eleutherus, and, being weak, could offer no resistance.
Tiglath-pileser carried out his plans, rearranged the populations, and
placed the cities under Assyrian governors responsible to himself. There
was no immediate outbreak; but the injury rankled. Within twenty years
Zimirra joined a revolt, to which Hamath, Arpad, Damascus, and Samaria
were likewise parties, and made a desperate attempt to shake off the
Assyrian yoke.[14135] The attempt failed, the revolt was crushed, and
Zimirra is heard of no more in history.

But this was not the worst. The harsh treatment of Simyra and Arka,
without complaint made or offence given, after a full century of patient
and quiet submission, aroused a feeling of alarm and indignation among
the Phoenician cities generally, which could not fail to see in what
had befallen their sisters a foreshadowing of the fate that they had to
expect one day themselves. Beginning with the weakest cities, Assyria
would naturally go on to absorb those which were stronger, and Tyre
herself, the "anointed cherub,"[14136] could look for no greater favour
than, like Ulysses in the cave of Polyphemus, to be devoured last.
Luliya, or Elulæus, the king of Tyre at the time,[14137] endeavoured
to escape this calamity by gathering to himself a strength which would
enable him to defy attack. He contrived to establish his dominion over
almost the whole of Southern Phoenicia--over Sidon, Accho, Ecdippa,
Sarepta, Hosah, Bitsette, Mahalliba, &c.[14138]--and at the same time
over the distant Cyprus,[14139] where the Cittæans, or people of Citium,
held command of the island. After a time the Cittæans revolted from him,
probably stirred up by the Assyrians. But Elulæus, without delay, led
an expedition into Cyprus, and speedily put down the rebellion. Hereupon
the Assyrian king of the time, Shalmaneser IV., the successor and
probably the son of Tiglath-pileser II., led a great expedition into the
west about B.C. 727, and "overran all Syria and Phoenicia."[14140] But
he was unable to make any considerable impression. Tyre and Aradus were
safe upon their islands; Sidon and the other cities upon the mainland,
were protected by strong and lofty walls. After a single campaign, the
Great King found it necessary to offer terms of peace, which proved
acceptable, and the belligerents parted towards the close of the year,
without any serious loss or gain on either side.[14141]

It seemed necessary to adopt some different course of action.
Shalmaneser had discovered during his abortive campaign that there were
discords and jealousies among the various Phoenician cities; that none
of them submitted without repugnance to the authority of Tyre, and that
Sidon especially had an ancient ground of quarrel with her more powerful
sister, and always cherished the hope of recovering her original
supremacy. He had seen also that the greater number of the Phoenician
towns, if he chose to press upon them with the full force of his immense
military organisation, lay at his mercy. He had only to invest each
city on the land side, to occupy its territory, to burn its villas, to
destroy its irrigation works, to cut down its fruit trees, to interfere
with its water-supply, and in the last instance to press upon it, to
batter down its walls, to enter its streets, slaughter its population,
or drive it to take refuge in its ships,[14142] and he could become
absolute master of the whole Phoenician mainland. Only Tyre and Aradus
could escape him. But might not they also be brought into subjection
by the naval forces which their sister cities, once occupied, might be
compelled to furnish, and to man, or, at any rate, to assist in manning?
Might not the whole of Phoenicia be in this way absorbed into the
empire? The prospect was pleasing, and Shalmaneser set to work to
convert the vision into a reality. By his emissaries he stirred up the
spirit of disaffection among the Tyrian subject towns, and succeeded in
separating from Tyre, and drawing over to his own side, not only
Sidon and Acre and their dependencies, but even the city of Palæ-Tyrus
itself,[14143] or the great town which had grown up opposite the island
Tyre upon the mainland. The island Tyre seems to have been left without
support or ally, to fight her own battle singly. Shalmaneser called upon
his new friends to furnish him with a fleet, and they readily responded
to the call, placing their ships at his disposal to the number of sixty,
and supplying him further with eight hundred skilled oarsmen, not a
sufficient number to dispense with Assyrian aid, but enough to furnish
a nucleus of able seamen for each vessel. The attack was then made.
The Assyro-Phoenician fleet sailed in a body from some port on the
continent, and made a demonstration against the Island City, which they
may perhaps have expected to frighten into a surrender. But the Tyrians
were in no way alarmed. They knew, probably, that their own countrymen
would not fight with very much zeal for their foreign masters, and they
despised, undoubtedly, the mixed crews, half skilled seamen, half tiros
and bunglers, which had been brought against them. Accordingly they
thought it sufficient to put to sea with just a dozen ships--one to
each five of the enemy, and making a sudden attack with these upon the
adverse fleet, they defeated it, dispersed it, and took five hundred
prisoners. Shalmaneser saw that he had again miscalculated; and,
despairing of any immediate success, drew off his ships and his troops,
and retired to his own country. He left behind him, however, on the
mainland opposite the island Tyre, a certain number of his soldiers,
with orders to prevent the Tyrians from obtaining, according to their
ordinary practice, supplies of water from the continent. Some were
stationed at the mouth of the river Leontes (the Litany), a little to
the north of Tyre, a perennial stream bringing down a large quantity
of water from Coele-Syria and Lebanon; others held possession of the
aqueducts on the south, built to convey the precious fluid across the
plain from the copious springs of Ras el Ain[14144] to the nearest point
of the coast opposite the city. The continental water supply was
thus effectually cut off; but the Tyrians were resolute, and made no
overtures to the enemy. For five years, we are told,[14145] they were
content to drink such water only as could be obtained in their own
island from wells sunk in the soil, which must have been brackish,
unwholesome, and disagreeable. At the end of that time a revolution
occurred at Nineveh. Shalmaneser lost his throne (B.C. 722), and a new
dynasty succeeding, amid troubles of various kinds, attention was drawn
away from Tyre to other quarters; and Elulæus was left in undisturbed
possession of his island city for nearly a quarter of a century.

It appears that, during this interval, Elulæus rebuilt the power which
Shalmaneser had shattered and brought low, repossessing himself
of Cyprus, or, at any rate, of some portion of it,[14146] and
re-establishing his authority over all those cities of the mainland
which had previously acknowledged subjection to him. These included
Sidon, Bit-sette, Sarepta, Mahalliba, Hosah, Achzib or Ecdippa, and
Accho (Acre). There is some ground for thinking that he transferred his
own residence to Sidon,[14147] perhaps for the purpose of keeping closer
watch upon the town which he most suspected of disaffection. The policy
of Sargon seems to have been to leave Phoenicia alone, and content
himself with drawing the tribute which the cities were quite willing to
pay in return for Assyrian protection. His reign lasted from B.C. 722 to
B.C. 705, and it was not until Sennacherib, his son and successor,
had been seated for four years upon the throne that a reversal of
this policy took place, and war _à outrance_ was declared against
the Phoenician king, who had ventured to brave, and had succeeded
in baffling, Assyria more than twenty years previously. Sennacherib
entertained grand designs of conquest in this quarter, and could not
allow the example of an unpunished and triumphant rebellion to be
flaunted in the eyes of a dozen other subject states, tempting them
to throw off their allegiance. He therefore, as soon as affairs in
Babylonia ceased to occupy him, marched the full force of the empire
towards the west, and proclaimed his intention of crushing the
Phoenician revolt, and punishing the audacious rebel who had so long
defied the might of Assyria. The army which he set in motion must
have numbered more than 200,000 men;[14148] its chariots were
numerous,[14149] its siege-train ample and well provided.[14150] Such
terror did it inspire among those against whom it was directed that
Elulæus was afraid even to await attack, and, while Sennacherib was
still on his march, took ship and removed himself to the distant island
of Cyprus,[14151] where alone he could feel safe from pursuit and
capture. But, though deserted by their sovereign, his towns seem to have
declined to submit themselves. No great battle was fought; but severally
they took arms and defended their walls. Sennacherib tells us that he
took one after another--"by the might of the soldiers of Asshur his
lord"[14152]--Great Sidon, Lesser Sidon, Bit-sette, Zarephath or
Sarepta, Mahalliba, Hosah, Achzib or Ecdippa, and Accho--"strong cities,
fortresses, walled and enclosed, Luliya's castles."[14153] He does not
claim, however, to have taken Tyre, and we may conclude that the Island
City escaped him. But he made himself master of the entire tract upon
the continent which had constituted Luliya's kingdom, and secured its
obedience by placing over it a new king, in whom he had confidence, a
certain Tubaal[14154] (Tob-Baal), probably a Phoenician. At the same
time he rearranged the yearly tribute which the cities had to pay to
Assyria,[14155] probably augmenting it, as a punishment for the long
rebellion.

We hear nothing more of Phoenicia during the reign of Sennacherib,
except that, shortly after his conquest of the tract about Sidon, he
received tribute, not only from the king whom he had just set over that
town, but also from Uru-melek, king of Gebal (Byblus), and Abd-ilihit,
king of Arvad.[14156] The three towns represent, probably, the whole
of Phoenicia, Aradus at this time exercising dominion over the northern
tract, or that extending from Mount Casius to the Eleutherus, Gebal or
Byblus over the central tract from the Eleutherus to the Tamyras, and
Sidon, in the temporary eclipse of Tyre, ruling the southern tract from
the Tamyrus to Mount Carmel. It appears further,[14157] that at some
date between this tribute-giving (B.C. 701) and the death of Sennacherib
(B.C. 681) Tubaal must have been succeeded in the government of Sidon by
Abdi-Milkut, or Abd-Melkarth[14158] ({...}), but whether this change was
caused by a revolt, or took place in the ordinary course, Tubaal dying
and being succeeded by his son, is wholly uncertain.

All that we know is that Esarhaddon, on his accession, found
Abd-Melkarth in revolt against his authority. He had formed an alliance
with a certain Sanduarri, king of Kundi and Sizu,[14159] a prince of the
Lebanon, and had set up as independent monarch, probably during the
time of the civil way which was waged between Esarhaddon and two of
his brothers who disputed his succession after they had murdered his
father.[14160] As soon as this struggle was over, and the Assyrian
monarch found himself free to take his own course, he proceeded at once
(B.C. 680) against these two rebels. Both of them tried to escape him.
Abd-Melkarth, quitting his capital, fled away by sea, steering probably
either for Aradus or for Cyprus. Sanduarri took refuge in his mountain
fastnesses. But Esarhaddon was not to be baffled. He caused both chiefs
to be pursued and taken. "Abd-Melkarth," he says,[14161] "who from the
face of my solders into the middle of the sea had fled, like a fish from
out of the sea, I caught, and cut off his head . . . Sanduarri, who took
Abd-Melkarth for his ally, and to his difficult mountains trusted, like
a bird from the midst of the mountains, I caught and cut off his head."
Sidon was very severely punished. Esarhaddon boasts that he swept away
all its subject cities, uprooted its citadel and palace, and cast the
materials into the sea, at the same time destroying all its habitations.
The town was plundered, the treasures of the palace carried off, and
the greater portion of the population deported to Assyria. The blank was
filled up with "natives of the lands and seas of the East"--prisoners
taken in Esarhaddon's war with Babylon and Elam, who, like the
Phoenicians themselves at a remote time, exchanged a residence on the
shores of the Persian Gulf for one on the distant Mediterranean. An
Assyrian general was placed as governor over the city, and its name
changed from Sidon to "Ir-Esarhaddon."

It seems to have been in the course of the same year that Esarhaddon
held one of those courts, or _durbars_, in Syria, which all subject
monarchs were expected to attend, and whereat it was the custom that
they should pay homage to their suzerain. Hither flocked almost all the
neighbouring monarchs[14162]--Manasseh, king of Judah, Qavus-gabri,
king of Ammon, Zilli-bel, king of Gaza, Mitinti of Askelon, Ikasamsu of
Ekron, Ahimelek of Ashdod, together with twelve kings of the Cyprians,
and three Phoenician monarchs, Baal, king of Tyre, Milki-asaph, king of
Gebal, and Mattan-baal, king of Arvad. Tribute was paid, home rendered,
and after a short sojourn at the court, the subject-monarchs were
dismissed. The foremost position in Esarhaddon's list is occupied by
"Baal, king of Tyre;" and this monarch appears to have been received
into exceptional favour. He had perhaps been selected by Esarhaddon to
rule Southern Phoenicia on the execution of Abd-Melkarth. At any rate,
he enjoyed for some time the absolute confidence and high esteem of his
suzerain. If we may venture to interpret a mutilated inscription,[14163]
he furnished Esarhaddon with a fleet, and manned it with his own
sailors. Certainly, he received from Esarhaddon a considerable extension
of his dominions. Not only was his authority over Accho recognised
and affirmed, but the coast tract south of Carmel, as far as Dor, the
important city Gebal, and the entire region of Lebanon, were placed
under his sovereignty.[14164] The date assigned to these events is
between B.C. 680 and B.C. 673. It was in this latter year that the
Assyrian monarch resolved on an invasion of Egypt. For fifty years the
two countries had been watching each other, counteracting each other's
policy, lending support to each other's enemies, coming into occasional
collision the one with the other, not, however, as principals, but as
partakers in other persons' quarrels. Now, at length there was to be an
end of subterfuge and pretences. Esarhaddon, about B.C. 673, resolved to
attempt the conquest of Egypt. He "set his face to go to the country of
Magan and Milukha."[14165] He let his intention be generally known. No
doubt he called on his subject allies for contingents of men, if not for
supplies of money. To Tyre he must naturally have looked for no niggard
or grudging support. What then must have been his disgust and rage at
finding that, at the critical moment, Tyre had gone over to the enemy?
Notwithstanding the favours heaped on him by his suzerain, "Baal, king
of Tyre, to Tirhakah, king of Ethiopia, his country entrusted, and the
yoke of Asshur threw off and made defiance."[14166] Esarhaddon was too
strongly bent on his Egyptian expedition to be diverted from it by this
defection; but in the year B.C. 672, as he marched through Syria and
Palestine on his way to attack Tirhakah, he sent a detachment against
Tyre, with orders to his officers to repeat the tactics of Shalmaneser,
by occupying points of the coast opposite to the island Tyre, and
"cutting off the supplies of food and water."[14167] Baal was by this
means greatly distressed, and it would seem that within a year or two
he made his submission, surrendering either to Esarhaddon or to his son
Asshur-bani-pal, in about the year of the latter's accession (B.C. 668).
It is surprising to find that he was not deposed from his throne; but
as the circumstances seem to have been such as made it imperative on the
Assyrian king to condone minor offences in order to accomplish a great
enterprise--the restoration of the Assyrian dominion over the Nile
valley. Esarhaddon had effected the conquest of Egypt in about the
year B.C. 670, and had divided the country into twenty petty
principalities;[14168] but within a year his yoke had been thrown off,
his petty princes expelled, and Tirhakah reinstated as sole monarch over
the "Two Regions."[14169] It was the determination of Asshur-bani-pal,
on becoming king, to strain every nerve and devote his utmost energy to
the re-conquest of the ancient kingdom, so lightly won and so lightly
lost by his father. Baal's perfidy was thus forgiven or overlooked. A
great expedition was prepared. The kings of Phoenicia, Palestine, and
Cyprus were bidden once more to assemble, to bring their tribute, and
pay homage to their suzerain as he passed on his way at the head of his
forces towards the land of the Pharaohs. Baal came, and again holds
the post of honour;[14170] with him were the king of Judah--doubtless
Manasseh, but the name is lost--the kings of Edom, Moab, Gaza, Askelon,
Ekron, Gebal, Arvad, Paphos, Soli, Curium, Tamassus, Ammochosta, Lidini,
and Aphrodisias, with probably those also of Ammon, Ashdod, Idalium,
Citium, and Salamis.[14171] Each in turn prostrated himself at the foot
of the Great Monarch, paid homage, and made profession of fidelity.
Asshur-bani-pal then proceeded on his way, and the kings returned to
their several governments.

It is about four years after this, B.C. 664, that we find Baal attacked
and punished by the Assyrian monarch. The subjugation of Egypt had
been in the meantime, though not without difficulty, completed.
Asshur-bani-pal's power extended from the range of Niphates to the First
Cataract. Whether during the course of the four years' struggle, by
which the reconquest of Egypt was effected, the Tyrian prince had
given fresh offence to his suzerain, or whether it was the old offence,
condoned for a time but never forgiven, that was now avenged, is not
made clear by the Assyrian Inscriptions. Asshur-bani-pal simply tells us
that, in his third expedition, he proceeded against Baal, king of Tyre,
dwelling in the midst of the sea, _who his royal will disregarded, and
did not listen to the words of his lips_. "Towers round him," he says,
"I raised, and over his people I strengthened the watch; on sea and
land his forts I took; his going out I stopped. Water and sea-water, to
preserve their lives, their mouths drank. By a strong blockade, which
removed not, I besieged them; their works I checked and opposed; to my
yoke I made them submissive. The daughter proceeding from his body, and
the daughters of his brothers, for concubines he brought to my presence.
Yahi-milki, his son, the glory of the country, of unsurpassed renown,
at once he sent forward, to make obeisance to me. His daughter, and the
daughters of his brothers, with their great dowries, I received. Favour
I granted him, and the son proceeding from his body, I restored, and
gave him back."[14172] Thus Baal once more escaped the fate he must
have expected. Asshur-bani-pal, who was far from being of a clement
disposition, suffered himself to be appeased by the submission made,
restored Baal to his favour, and allowed him to retain possession of his
sovereignty.

Another Phoenician monarch also was, about the same time, threatened
and pardoned. This was Yakinlu, the king of Arvad, probably the son and
successor of Mattan-Baal, the contemporary of Esarhaddon.[14173] He
is accused of having been wanting in submission to Asshur-bani-pal's
fathers;[14174] but we may regard it as probable that his real offence
was some failure in his duties towards Asshur-bani-pal himself. Either
he had openly rebelled, and declared himself independent, or he had
neglected to pay his tribute, or he had given recent offence in some
other way. The Phoenician island kings were always more neglectful of
their duties than others, since it was more difficult to punish them.
Assyria did not even now possess any regular fleet, and could only
punish a recalcitrant king of Arvad or Tyre by impressing into her
service the ships of some of the Phoenician coast-towns, as Sidon, or
Gebal, or Accho. These towns were not very zealous in such a service,
and probably did not maintain strong navies, having little use for them.
Thus Yakinlu may have expected that his neglect, whatever it was,
would be overlooked. But Asshur-bani-pal was jealous of his rights,
and careful not to allow any of them to lapse by disuse. He let his
displeasure be known at the court of Yakinlu, and very shortly received
an embassy of submission. Like Baal, Yakinlu sent a daughter to take
her place among the great king's secondary wives, and with her he sent
a large sum of money, in the disguise of a dowry.[14175] The tokens of
subjection were accepted, and Yakinlu was allowed to continue king
of Arvad. When, not long afterwards, he died,[14176] and his ten sons
sought the court of Nineveh to prefer their claims to the succession,
they were received with favour. Azi-Baal, the eldest, was appointed
to the vacant kingdom, while his nine brothers were presented by
Asshur-bani-pal with "costly clothing, and rings."[14177]

Two other revolts of two other Phoenician towns belong to a somewhat
later period. On his return from an expedition against Arabia, about
B.C. 645, Asshur-bani-pal found that Hosah, a small place in the
vicinity of Tyre,[14178] and Accho, famous as Acre in later times, had
risen in revolt against their Assyrian governors, refused their
tribute, and asserted independence.[14179] He at once besieged, and
soon captured, Hosah. The leaders of the rebellion he put to death; the
plunder of the town, including the images of its gods, and the bulk of
its population, he carried off into Assyria. The people of Accho, he
says, he "quieted." It is a common practice of conquerors "to make a
solitude and call it peace." Asshur-bani-pal appears to have punished
Accho, first by a wholesale massacre, and then by the deportation of all
its remaining inhabitants.

It is evident from this continual series of revolts and rebellions that,
however mild had been the sway of Assyria over her Phoenician subjects
in the earlier times, it had by degrees become a hateful and a grinding
tyranny. Commercial states, bent upon the accumulation of wealth, do
not without grave cause take up arms and affront the perils of war, much
less do so when their common sense must tell them that success is
almost absolutely hopeless, and that failure will bring about their
destruction. The Assyrians were a hard race. Such tenderness as they
ever showed to any subject people was, we may be sure, in every case
dictated by policy. While their power was unsettled, while they feared
revolts, and were uncertain as to their consequences, their attitude
towards their dependents was conciliating. When they became fully
conscious of the immense preponderance of power which they wielded, and
of the inability of the petty states of Asia to combine against them in
any firm league, they grew careless and confident, reckless of giving
offence, ruder in their behaviour, more grasping in their exactions,
more domineering, more oppressive. Prudence should perhaps have
counselled the Phoenician cities to submit, to be yielding and pliant,
to cultivate the arts of the parasite and the flatterer; but the people
had still a rough honesty about them. It was against the grain to
flatter or submit themselves; constant voyages over wild seas in
fragile vessels kept up their manhood; constant encounters with pirates,
cannibals, and the rudest possible savages made them brave and daring;
exposure to storm, and cold, and heat braced their frames; the nautical
life developed and intensified in them a love of freedom. The Phoenician
of Assyrian times was not to be coaxed into accepting patiently the lot
of a slave. Suffer as he might by his revolts, they won him a certain
respect; it is likely that they warded off many an indignity, many an
outrage. The Assyrians knew that his endurance could not be reckoned on
beyond a certain point, and they knew that in his death-throes he was
dangerous. The Phoenicians probably suffered considerably less than the
other subject nations under Assyrian rule; and the maritime population,
which was the salt of the people, suffered least of all, since it was
scarcely ever brought into contact with its nominal rulers.




4. Phoenicia during its struggles with Babylon and Egypt (about B.C.
635-527)

     Decline of Assyria--Scythic troubles--Fall of Nineveh--Union
     of the Phoenician cities under Tyre--Invasion of Syria by
     Neco--Battle of Megiddo--Submission of Phoenicia to Neco--
     Tyrian colony at Memphis--Conquest of Phoenicia by
     Nebuchadnezzar--Reign of Ithobal II. at Tyre--He revolts
     from Nebuchadnezzar but is reduced to subjection--Decline of
     Tyre--General weakness of Phoenicia under Babylon.

It is impossible to fix the year in which Phoenicia became independent
of Assyria. The last trace of Assyrian interference, in the way of
compulsion, with any of the towns belongs to B.C. 645, when she severely
punished Hosah and Accho. The latest sign of her continued domination
is found in B.C. 636, when the Assyrian governor of a Phoenician town,
Zimirra, appears in the list of Eponyms.[14180] It must have been very
soon after this that the empire became involved in those troubles
and difficulties which led on to its dissolution. According to
Herodotus,[14181] Cyaxares, king of Media, laid siege to Nineveh in B.C.
633, or very soon afterwards. His attack did not at once succeed; but it
was almost immediately followed by the irruption into South-western Asia
of Scythic hordes from beyond the Caucasus, which overran country after
country, destroying and ravaging at their pleasure.[14182] The reality
of this invasion is now generally admitted. "It was the earliest
recorded," says a modern historian, "of those movements of the northern
populations, hid behind the long mountain barrier, which, under the name
of Himalaya, Caucasus, Taurus, Hæmus, and the Alps, has been reared by
nature between the civilised and uncivilised races of the old world.
Suddenly, above this boundary, appeared those strange, uncouth, fur-clad
forms, hardly to be distinguished from their horses and their waggons,
fierce as their own wolves or bears, sweeping towards the southern
regions, which seemed to them their natural prey. The successive
invasions of Parthians, Turks, Mongols in Asia, of Gauls, Goths,
Vandals, Huns in Europe, have, it is well said, 'illustrated the law,
and made us familiar with its operations. But there was a time in
history before it had come into force, and when its very existence must
have been unsuspected. Even since it began to operate, it has so often
undergone prolonged suspension that the wisest may be excused if
they cease to bear it in mind, and are as much startled when a
fresh illustration of it occurs, as if the like had never happened
before.'[14183] No wonder that now, when the veil was for the first time
rent asunder, all the ancient monarchies of the South--Assyria, Babylon,
Media, Egypt, even Greece and Asia Minor--stood aghast at the spectacle
of these savage hordes rushing down on the seats of luxury and
power."[14184] Assyria seems to have suffered from the attack almost as
much as any other country. The hordes probably swarmed down from
Media through the Zagros passes into the most fruitful portion of the
empire--the flat country between the mountains and the Tigris. Many of
the old cities, rich with the accumulated stores of ages, were besieged,
and perhaps taken, and their palaces wantonly burnt by the barbarous
invaders. The tide then swept on. Wandering from district to district,
plundering everywhere, settling nowhere, the clouds of horse passed
over Mesopotamia, the force of the invasion becoming weaker as it spread
itself, until in Syria it reached its term through the policy of the
Egyptian king, Psamatik I. That monarch bribed the nomads to advance
no further,[14185] and from this time their power began to wane. Their
numbers must have been greatly thinned in the long course of battles,
sieges, and skirmishes wherein they were engaged year after year;
they suffered also through their excesses;[14186] and perhaps through
intestine dissensions. At last they recognised that their power was
broken. Many bands probably returned across the Caucasus into the Steppe
country. Others submitted and took service under the native rulers of
Asia.[14187] Great numbers were slain, and, except in a province of
Armenia, which thenceforward became known as Sacasêné,[14188]
and perhaps in one Syrian town, which acquired the name of
Scythopolis,[14189] the invaders left no permanent trace of their brief
but terrible inroad.

The shock of the Scythian irruption cannot but have greatly injured and
weakened Assyria. The whole country had been ravaged and depopulated;
the provinces had been plundered, many of the towns had been taken and
sacked, the palaces of the old kings had been burnt,[14190] and all
the riches that had not been hid away had been lost. Assyria, when the
Scythian wave had passed, was but the shadow of her former self. Her
_prestige_ was gone, her armed force must have been greatly diminished,
her hold upon the provinces, especially the more distant ones, greatly
weakened. Phoenicia is likely to have detached herself from Assyria at
latest during the time that the Scyths were dominant, which was probably
from about B.C. 630 to B.C. 610. When Assyrian protection was withdrawn
from Syria, as it must have been during this period, and when every
state and town had to look solely to itself for deliverance from a
barbarous and cruel enemy, the fiction of a nominal dependence on a
distant power could scarcely be maintained. Without any actual revolt,
the Phoenician cities became their own masters, and the speedy fall of
Assyria before the combined attack of the Medes and Babylonians,[14191]
after the Scythians had withdrawn, prevented for some time any
interference with their recovered independence.

A double danger, however, impended. On the one side Egypt, on the other
Babylon, might be confidently expected to lay claim to the debatable
land which nature had placed between the seats of the great Asiatic and
the great African power, and which in the past had almost always been
possessed by the one or the other of them. Egypt was the nearer of the
two, and probably seemed the most to be feared. She had recently fallen
under the power of an enterprising native monarch, who had already,
before the fall of Assyria, shown that he entertained ambitious designs
against the Palestinian towns, having begun attacks upon Ashdod
soon after he ascended the throne.[14192] Babylon was, comparatively
speaking, remote and had troublesome neighbours, who might be expected
to prevent her from undertaking distant expeditions. It was clearly the
true policy for Phoenicia to temporise, to enter into no engagements
with either Babylon or Egypt, to strengthen her defences, to bide her
time, and, so far as possible, to consolidate herself. Something like
a desire for consolidation would seem to have come over the people; and
Tyre, the leading city in all but the earliest times, appears to have
been recognised as the centre towards which other states must gravitate,
and to have risen to the occasion. If there ever was such a thing as a
confederation of all the Phoenician cities, it would seem to have been
at this period. Sidon forgot her ancient rivalry, and consented to
furnish the Tyrian fleet with mariners.[14193] Arvad gave not only
rowers to man the ships, but also men-at-arms to help in guarding the
walls.[14194] The "ancients of Gebal" lent their aid in the Tyrian
dockyards.[14195] The minor cities cannot have ventured to hold aloof.
Tyre, as the time approached for the contest which was to decide whether
Egypt or Babylon should be the great power of the East, appears to have
reached the height of her strength, wealth, and prosperity. It is now
that Ezekial says of her--"O Tyrus, thy heart is lifted up, and thou
hast said, I am a God, I sit in the seat of God in the midst of the
seas--Behold, thou art wiser than Daniel, there is no secret that they
can hide from thee: from thy wisdom and with thine understanding hast
thou gotten thee riches, and hast gotten gold and silver into thy
treasures: by thy great wisdom and by thy traffick thou hast increased
thy riches, and thy heart is lifted up because of thy riches"[14196];
and again, "O thou that are situated at the entry of the sea, which art
the merchant of the peoples unto many isles, thus saith the Lord God,
Thou, O Tyre, hast said, I am perfect in beauty. Thy borders are in the
heart of the sea; thy builders have perfected thy beauty. They have made
all thy planks of fir-trees from Senir; they have taken from Lebanon
cedars to make masts for thee; of the oaks of Bashan have they made
thine oars; they have made thy benches of ivory, inlaid in boxwood, from
the isles of Kittim . . . The ships of Tarshish were thy caravans for
thy merchandise; and thou wast replenished, and made very glorious in
the heart of the sea."[14197]

The first to strike of the two great antagonists was Egypt. Psamatik I.,
who was advanced in years at the time of Assyria's downfall,[14198] died
about B.C. 610, and was succeeded by a son still in the full vigour of
life, the brave and enterprising Neco. Neco, in B.C. 608, having made
all due preparations, led a great expedition into Palestine,[14199] with
the object of bringing under his dominion the entire tract between
the River of Egypt (Wady el Arish) and the Middle Euphrates. Already
possessed of Ashdod[14200] and perhaps also of Gaza[14201] and
Askelon,[14202] he held the keys of Syria, and could have no difficulty
in penetrating along the coast route, through the rich plain of Sharon,
to the first of the mountain barriers which are interposed between the
Nile and the Mesopotamian region. His famous fleet[14203] would support
him along the shore, at any rate as far Carmel; and Dor and Accho would
probably be seized, and made into depôts for his stores and provisions.
The powerful Egyptian monarch marching northward with his numerous
and well-disciplined army, partly composed of native troops, partly of
mercenaries from Asia Minor, Greeks and Carians, probably did not look
to meet with any opposition, till, somewhere in Northern Syria, he
should encounter the forces of Babylonia, which would of course be moved
westward to meet him. What then must have been his surprise when he
found the ridge connecting Carmel with the highland of Samaria occupied
by a strong body of troops, and his further progress barred by a foe who
had appeared to him too insignificant to be taken into account? Josiah,
the Jewish monarch of the time, grandson of Manasseh and great-grandson
of Hezekiah, who, in the unsettled state of Western Asia, had united
under his dominion the entire country of the twelve tribes,[14204] had
quitted Jerusalem, and thrown himself across the would-be conqueror's
path in the strong and well-known position of Megiddo. Here, in remote
times, had the great Thothmes met and defeated the whole force of Syria
and Mesopotamia under the king of Kadesh;[14205] here had Deborah and
Barak, the son of Abinoam, utterly destroyed the mighty army of Jabin,
king of Canaan, under Sisera.[14206] Here now the gallant, if rash,
Judæan king elected to take his stand, moved either by a sense of
duty, because he regarded himself as a Babylonian feudatory, or simply
determined to defend the Holy Land against any heathen army that,
without permission, trespassed on it. In vain did Neco seek to induce
Josiah to retire and leave the way open, by assuring him that he had no
hostile intentions against Judæa, but was marching on Carchemish by the
Euphrates, there to contend with the Babylonians.[14207] The Jewish king
persisted in his rash enterprise, and Neco was forced to brush him from
his path. His seasoned and disciplined troops easily overcame the hasty
levies of Josiah; and Josiah himself fell in the battle.

We have no details with respect to the remainder of the expedition.
Neco, no doubt, pressed forward through Galilee and Coele-Syria towards
the Euphrates. Whether he had to fight any further battles we are not
informed. It is certain that he occupied Carchemish,[14208] and made it
his headquarters, but whether it submitted to him, or was besieged and
taken, is unknown. All Syria, Phoenicia, and Palestine were overrun, and
became temporarily Egyptian possessions.[14209] But Phoenicia does not
appear to have been subdued by force. Tyrian prosperity continued, and
the terms on which Phoenicia stood towards Egypt during the remainder of
Neco's reign were friendly. Phoenicians at Neco's request accomplished
the circumnavigation of Africa;[14210] and we may suspect that it was
Neco who granted to Tyre the extraordinary favour of settling a colony
in the Egyptian capital, Memphis.[14211] Probably Phoenicia accepted
at the hands of Neco the same sort of position which she had at first
occupied under Assyria, a position, as already explained, satisfactory
to both parties.

But the glory and prosperity which Egypt had thus acquired were very
short-lived. Within three years Babylonia asserted herself. In B.C.
605, the crown prince, Nebuchadnezzar, acting on behalf of his father,
Nabopolassar, who was aged and infirm,[14212] led the forces of Babylon
against the audacious Pharaoh, who had dared to affront the "King of
kings," "the Lord of Sumir and Accad," had taken him off his guard,
and deprived him of some of his fairest provinces. Babylonia, under
Nabopolassar and Nebuchadnezzar, was no unworthy successor of the mighty
power which for seven hundred years had held the supremacy of Western
Asia. Her citizens were as brave; her armies as well disciplined; her
rulers as bold, as sagacious, and as unsparing. Habakkuk's description
of a Babylonian army belongs to about this date, and is probably drawn
from the life--"Lo, I raise up the Chaldæans, that bitter and hasty
nation, which shall march through the breadth of the land, to possess
the dwelling-places that are not theirs. They are terrible and dreadful;
from them shall proceed judgment and captivity; their horses are swifter
than leopards, and are more fierce than the evening wolves; and their
horsemen shall spread themselves, and their horsemen shall come from
far; they shall fly as the eagle that hasteth to eat. They shall come
all for violence; their faces shall sup as the east wind, and they shall
gather the captivity as the sand. And they shall scoff at kings, and
princes shall be a scorn unto them; they shall derive every stronghold;
for they shall heap dust, and take it."[14213] Early in the year
B.C. 605 the host of Nebuchadnezzar appeared on the right bank of the
Euphrates, moving steadily along its reaches, and day by day approaching
nearer and nearer to the great fortress in and behind which lay the army
of Neco, well ordered with shield and buckler, its horses harnessed,
and its horsemen armed with spears that had been just furbished, and
protected by helmets and brigandines.[14214] One of the "decisive
battles of the world" was impending. If Egypt conquered, Oriental
civilisation would take the heavy immovable Egyptian type; change,
advance, progress would be hindered; sacerdotalism in religion,
conventionalism in art, pure unmitigated despotism in government would
generally prevail; all the throbbing life of Asia would receive a sudden
and violent check; Semitism would be thrust back; Aryanism, just pushing
itself to the front, would shrink away; the monotonous Egyptian tone of
thought and life would spread, like a lava stream, over the manifold
and varied forms of Asiatic culture; crushing them out, concealing them,
making them as though they had never been. The victory of Babylon, on
the other hand, would mean room for Semitism to develop itself, and for
Aryanism to follow in its wake; fresh stirs of population and of thought
in Asia; further advances in the arts; variety, freshness, growth; the
continuance of the varied lines of Oriental study and investigation
until such time as would enable Grecian intellect to take hold of them,
sift them, and assimilate whatever in them was true, valuable, and
capable of expansion.

We have no historical account of the great battle of Carchemish.
Jeremiah, however, beholds it in vision. He sees the Egyptians "dismayed
and turned away back--their mighty ones are beaten down, and are fled
apace, and look not back, since fear is round about them."[14215] He
sees the "swift flee away," and the "mighty men" attempting to
"escape;" but they "stumble and fall toward the north by the river
Euphrates."[14216] "For this is the day of the Lord God of hosts, a day
of vengeance, that He may avenge Him of His adversaries; and the sword
devours, and it is satiate and made drunk with their blood, for the
Lord God of hosts hath a sacrifice in the north country by the river
Euphrates."[14217] The "valiant men" are "swept away"--"many fall--yea,
one falls upon another, and they say, Arise and let us go again to
our own people, and to the land of our nativity from the oppressing
sword."[14218] Nor do the mercenaries escape. "Her hired men are in the
midst of her, like fatted bullocks; for they also are turned back, and
are fled away together; they did not stand because the day of their
calamity was come upon them, and the time of their visitation."[14219]
The defeat was, beyond a doubt, complete, overwhelming. The shock of
it was felt all over the Delta, at Memphis, and even at distant
Thebes.[14220] The hasty flight of the entire Egyptian host left the
whole country open to the invading army. "Like a whirlwind, like
a torrent, it swept on. The terrified inhabitants retired into
the fortified cities,"[14221] where for the time they were safe.
Nebuchadnezzar did not stop to commence any siege. He pursued Neco up
to the very frontier of Egypt, and would have continued his victorious
career into the Nile valley, had not important intelligence arrested his
steps. His aged father had died at Babylon while he was engaged in his
conquests, and his immediate return to the capital was necessary, if he
would avoid a disputed succession.[14222] Thus matters in Syria had to
be left in a confused and unsettled state, until such time as the Great
King could revisit the scene of his conquests, and place them upon some
definite and satisfactory footing.

On the whole, the campaign had, apparently, the effect of drawing closer
the links which united Phoenicia with Egypt.[14223] Babylon had shown
herself a fierce and formidable enemy, but had disgusted men more than
she had terrified them. It was clear enough that she would be a
hard mistress, a second and crueller Assyria. There was thus, on
Nebuchadnezzar's departure, a general gravitation of the Syrian and
Palestinian states towards Egypt, since they saw in her the only
possible protector against Babylon, and dreaded her less than they did
the "bitter and hasty nation."[14224] Neco, no doubt, encouraged the
movement which tended at once to strengthen himself and weaken his
antagonist; and the result was that, in the course of a few years,
both Judæa and Phoenicia revolted from Nebuchadnezzar, and declared
themselves independent. Phoenicia was still under the hegemony of
Tyre, and Tyre had at its head an enterprising prince, a second
Ithobal,[14225] who had developed its resources to the uttermost, and
was warmly supported by the other cities.[14226] His revolt appears
to have taken place in the year B.C. 598, the seventh year of
Nebuchadnezzar.[14227] Nebuchadnezzar at once marched against him in
person. The sieges of Tyre, Sidon, and Jerusalem were formed. Jerusalem
submitted almost immediately.[14228] Sidon was taken after losing half
her defenders by pestilence;[14229] but Tyre continued to resist for the
long space of thirteen years.[14230] The continental city was probably
taken first. Against this Nebuchadnezzar could freely employ his
whole force--his "horses, his chariots, his companies, and his much
people"--he could bring moveable forts close up to the walls, and cast
up banks against them, and batter them with his engines, or undermine
them with spade and mattock. When a breach was effected, he could pour
his horse into the streets, and ride down all opposition. It is
the capture of the continental city which Ezekiel describes when he
says:[14231] "Thus saith the Lord God: Behold, I will bring upon Tyrus
Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, a king of kings, from the north, with
horses and with chariots, and with horsemen, and companies, and much
people. He shall slay with the sword thy daughters in the field; and he
shall make a fort against thee, and cast a mount against thee, and lift
up the buckler against thee. And he shall set engines of war against thy
walls, and with his axes he shall break down thy towers. By reason of
the abundance of his horses, their dust shall cover thee; thy walls
shall shake at the noise of the horseman, and of the wheels and of the
chariots, when he shall enter into thy gates, as men enter into a city
wherein is made a breach. With the hoofs of his horses shall he tread
down all thy streets: he shall slay thy people by the sword, and thy
strong garrisons shall go down to the ground. And they shall make a
spoil of thy riches, and make a prey of thy merchandise; and they shall
break down thy walls, and destroy thy pleasant houses: and they shall
lay thy stones and thy timber and thy dust in the midst of the water."
But the island city did not escape. When continental Phoenicia was
reduced, it was easy to impress a fleet from maritime towns; to man
it, in part with Phoenicians, in part with Babylonians, no mean
sailors,[14232] and then to establish a blockade of the isle. Tyre may
more than once have crippled and dispersed the blockading squadron; but
by a moderate expenditure fresh fleets could be supplied, while Tyre,
cut off from Lebanon, would find it difficult to increase or renew
her navy. There has been much question whether the island city was
ultimately captured by Nebuchadnezzar or no; but even writers who take
the negative view[14233] admit that it must have submitted and owned the
suzerainty of its assailant. The date of the submission was B.C. 585.

Thus Tyre, in B.C. 585, "fell from her high estate." Ezekiel's
prophecies were fulfilled. Ithobal II., the "prince of Tyrus" of those
prophecies,[14234] whose "head had been lifted up," and who had said in
his heart, "I am a God, I sit in the seat of God, in the midst of the
waters," who deemed himself "wiser than Daniel," and thought that no
secret was hid from him, was "brought down to the pit," "cast to the
ground," "brought to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them
that beheld him."[14235] Tyre herself was "broken in the midst of the
seas."[14236] A blight fell upon her. For many years, Sidon, rather than
Tyre, became once more the leading city of Phoenicia, was regarded as
pre-eminent in naval skill,[14237] and is placed before Tyre when
the two are mentioned together.[14238] Internal convulsion, moreover,
followed upon external decline. Within ten years of the death of
Ithobal, the monarchy came to an end by a revolution,[14239] which
substituted for Kings Suffetes or Shophetim, "judges," officers of an
inferior status, whose tenure of office was not very assured. Ecnibal,
the son of Baslach, the first judge, held the position for no more than
two months; Chelbes, the son of Abdæus, who followed him, ruled for ten
months; Abbarus, a high priest, probably of Melkarth, for three months.
Then, apparently to weaken the office, it was shared between two, as at
Carthage, and Mytgon (perhaps Mattan), together with Ger-ashtoreth,
the son of Abd-elim, judged Tyre for six years. But the partisans of
monarchy were now recovering strength; and the reign of a king, Balator,
was intruded at some point in the course of the six years' judgeship.
Judges were then abolished by a popular movement, and kings of the old
stock restored. The Tyrians sent to Babylon for a certain Merbal,
who must have been either a refugee or a hostage at the court of
Neriglissar. He was allowed to return to Tyre, and, being confirmed
in the sovereignty, reigned four years. His brother, Eirom, or Hiram,
succeeded him, and was still upon the throne when the Empire of Babylon
came to an end by the victory of Cyrus over Nabonidus (B.C. 538).

Phoenicia under the Babylonian rule was exceptionally weak. She had to
submit to attacks from Egypt under Apries, which fell probably in the
reign of Baal over Tyre, about B.C. 565. She had also to submit to the
loss of Cyprus under Amasis,[14240] probably about B.C. 540, or a little
earlier, when the power of Babylon was rapidly declining. She had been,
from first to last, an unwilling tributary of the Great Empire on the
Lower Euphrates, and was perhaps not sorry to see that empire go down
before the rising power of Persia. Under the circumstances she would
view any chance as likely to advance her interests, and times of
disturbance and unsettlement gave her the best chance of obtaining a
temporary independence. From B.C. 538 to B.C. 528 or 527 she seems to
have enjoyed one of these rare intervals of autonomy. Egypt, content
with having annexed Cyprus, did not trouble her; Persia, engaged in wars
in the far East,[14241] made as yet no claim to her allegiance. In peace
and tranquillity she pursued her commercial career, covered the seas
with her merchant vessels, and the land-routes of trade with her
caravans, repaired the damages inflicted by Nebuchadnezzar on her
cities; maintained, if she did not even increase, her naval strength,
and waited patiently to see what course events would take now that
Babylon was destroyed, and a new and hitherto unknown power was about to
assume the first position among the nations of the earth.




5. Phoenicia under the Persians (B.C. 528-333)

     Phoenicia not claimed by Cyrus--Submits willingly to
     Cambyses--Takes part in his invasion of Egypt--Refuses to
     proceed against Carthage--Exceptional privileges enjoyed by
     the Phoenicians under the Persians--Government system of
     Darius advantageous to them--Their conduct in the Ionian
     revolt--In the expeditions of Mardonius and Datis--In the
     great expedition of Xerxes--Interruption of the friendly
     relations between Phoenicia and Persia--Renewal of amity--
     Services rendered to Persia between B.C. 465 and 392--
     Amicable relations with Athens--Phoenicia joins in revolt of
     Evagoras--Supports Tachos, king of Egypt--Declares herself
     independent under Tennes--Conquered and treated with great
     severity of Ochus--Sidonian dynasty of the Esmunazars.

The conquest of Babylon by Cyrus gave him, according to Oriental
notions generally, a claim to succeed to the inheritance of the entire
Babylonian empire; but the claim would remain dormant until it was
enforced. The straggling character of the territory, which was shaped
like a Greek {L}, ascending from Babylon along the course of the
Euphrates to the Armenian mountains, and then descending along the
line of the Mediterranean coast as far as Gaza or Raphia, rendered the
enforcement of the claim a work of difficulty, more especially in the
remote West, which was distant fifteen hundred miles from Persia Proper,
and more than a thousand miles from Babylon. Cyrus, moreover, was
prevented, first by wars in his immediate neighbourhood,[14242] and
later on by a danger upon his north-eastern frontier,[14243] from taking
the steps usually taken by a conqueror to establish his dominion in a
newly-annexed region, and thus he neither occupied Syria with troops,
nor placed it under the administration of Persian governors. The only
step which, so far as we know, he took, implying that his authority
reached so far, was the commission which he gave to Zerubbabel and the
other chiefs of the Jewish nation to proceed from Babylonia to Judæa,
and re-establish themselves, if they could, on the site of the destroyed
Jerusalem.[14244] The return from the Captivity which followed was in
some sense the occupation of a portion of the extreme West by a Persian
garrison, and may be viewed as a step intended to be "preparatory
towards obtaining possession of the entire sea-coast;"[14245] but it
appears to have been an isolated movement, effected without active
Persian support, and one whereby the neighbouring countries were only
slightly affected.

That Phoenicia retained her independence until the reign of Cambyses is
distinctly implied, if not actually asserted, by Herodotus.[14246] She
saw without any displeasure the re-establishment in her neighbourhood
of a nation with which her intercourse had always been friendly, and
sometimes close and cordial. Tyre and Sidon vied with each other in
their readiness to supply the returned exiles with the timber which they
needed for the rebuilding of their temple and city; and once more, as
in the days of Solomon, the Jewish axes were heard amid the groves of
Lebanon, and the magnificent cedars of that favoured region were cut
down, conveyed to the coast, and made into floats or rafts, which
Phoenician mariners transported by sea to Joppa, the nearest seaport
to Jerusalem.[14247] In return, the Jews willingly rendered to the
Phoenicians such an amount of corn, wine, and oil as was equivalent in
value to the timber received from them,[14248] and thus the relations
between the two peoples were replaced on a footing which recalled the
time of their closest friendship, nearly five hundred years previously.

On the death of Cyrus, and the accession of his son Cambyses, B.C. 529,
the tranquillity which South-western Asia had enjoyed since the time
of the wars of Nebuchadnezzar came to an end. Cyrus had, it is said,
designed an expedition against Egypt,[14249] as necessary to round off
his conquests, and Cambyses naturally inherited his father's projects.
He had no sooner mounted the throne than he commenced preparations for
an attack upon the ancient kingdom of the Pharaohs, which, under the
dynasty of the Psamatiks, had risen to something of its early greatness,
and had been especially wealthy and prosperous under the usurper
Amasis.[14250] It was impossible to allow an independent and rival
monarchy so close upon his borders, and equally impossible to shrink
from an enterprise which had been carried to a successful issue both by
Assyria and by Babylon. Persian prestige required the subjugation
and absorption of a country which, though belonging geographically
to Africa, was politically and commercially an integral part of
that Western Asia over which Persia claimed a complete and absolute
supremacy.

The march upon Egypt implied and required the occupation of the
Mediterranean seaboard. No armies of any considerable size have ever
attempted to traverse the almost waterless desert which separates the
Lower Euphrates valley from the delta of the Nile. Light _corps d'armée_
have no doubt occasionally passed from Circesium by way of Tadmor
to Damascus, and _vice versâ_;[14251] but the ordinary line of route
pursued by conquerors follows the course of the Euphrates to Carchemish,
then strikes across the chalky upland in the middle of which stands the
city of Aleppo, and finally descends upon Egypt by way of the Orontes,
the Coele-Syrian valley, and the plains of Sharon and Philistia.[14252]
This was undoubtedly the line followed by Cambyses,[14253] and it
necessarily brought him into contact with the Phoenicians. The contact
was not an hostile one. It would have been madness on the part of the
Phoenicians to have attempted any resistance to the vast host with which
Cambyses, we may be sure, made his invasion, and it would have been
folly on the part of Cambyses to employ force when he could better
obtain his object by persuasion. It must have been a very special object
with him to obtain the hearty co-operation of the Phoenician naval
forces in the attack which he was meditating, since he would otherwise
have had no fleet at all capable of coping with the fleet of Egypt. Neco
had made Egypt a strong naval power;[14254] Apries had contented for
naval supremacy in the Eastern Mediterranean with Tyre;[14255] Amasis
had made an expedition by sea against Cyprus, had crushed whatever
resistance the Cyprians were able to offer, had permanently occupied the
island,[14256] and added the Cyprian fleet to his own. Cambyses had as
yet no ships, except such as he could procure from the Greek cities of
Asia Minor, which were not likely to be very zealous in his service,
since they had friends engaged upon the other side.[14257] Accordingly,
the Persian monarch seems to have made friendly overtures to the
Phoenician states, which were received with favour, and led to an
arrangement satisfactory to both parties. Phoenicia surrendered the
independence which it was impossible for her to maintain, and placed
her fleet at the disposal of Persia.[14258] Persia spared her cities
any occupation, imposed on her a light tribute, and allowed her that
qualified independence which is implied in the retention of her native
princes. From first to last under the Persian _régime_, Phoenician
monarchs bear rule in the Phoenician cities,[14259] and command the
contingents which the cities furnish to any combined Persian fleet.

The friendly arrangement concluded between Phoenicia and Persia was
followed, very naturally, by a further accession to the Persian power.
Cyprus, whose population was in great part Phoenician, had for centuries
been connected politically in the closest manner with the Phoenician
towns on the Asiatic mainland, especially with Tyre and Sidon. Her
enslavement by Amasis must have been hateful to her, and she must have
been only too glad to see an opportunity of shaking off the Egyptian
yoke. Accordingly, no sooner did the Phoenicians of the mainland
conclude the arrangement by which they became part and parcel of the
Persian Empire than the Cyprians followed their example, and, revolting
from Egypt, offered themselves of their own free will to Persia.[14260]
Cambyses, it is needless to say, readily accepted them as his subjects.

The invasion of Egypt could now be taken in hand with every prospect of
a successful issue. The march of the land army along the shore would be
supported by a parallel movement on the part of a powerful fleet, which
would carry its provisions and its water, explore the country in front,
and give notice of the movements of the enemy, and of the place where
they proposed to make a stand in force. When Egypt was reached the
fleet would command all the navigable mouths of the Nile, would easily
establish a blockade of all ports, and might even mount the Nile and
take a part in the siege of Memphis. It would seem that all these
services were rendered to the Persian monarch by the great fleet which
he had collected, of which the Phoenician ships were recognised as
the main strength. The rapid conquest of Egypt was in this way much
facilitated, and Cambyses within a twelvemonth found himself in
possession of the entire country within its recognised limits of the
Mediterranean and "the tower of Syêné."[14261]

But the Great King was not satisfied with a single, albeit a
magnificent, achievement. He had accomplished in one short campaign what
it took the Assyrians ten years, and Nebuchadnezzar eighteen years, to
effect. But he now set his heart on further conquests. "He designed,"
says Herodotus,[14262] "three great expeditions. One was to be against
the Carthaginians, another against the Ammonians, and a third against
the long-lived Ethopians, who dwelt in that part of Lybia which borders
upon the southern sea." The expedition against the Carthaginians is the
only one of the three which here concerns us: it was to be entrusted
to the fleet. Instead of conducting, or sending, a land force along the
seaboard of North Africa, which was probably known to be for the most
part barren and waterless, Cambyses judged that it would be sufficient
to dispatch his powerful navy against the Liby-Phoenician colony, which
he supposed would submit or else be subjugated. But on broaching
this plan to the leaders of the fleet he was met with a determined
opposition. The Phoenicians positively refused to proceed against their
own colonists. They urged that they were bound to the Carthaginians by
most solemn oaths, and that it would be as wicked and unnatural for
them to execute the king's orders as for parents to destroy their own
children.[14263] It was a bold act to run counter to the will of a
despotic monarch, especially of one so headstrong and impetuous as
Cambyses. But the Phoenicians were firm, and the monarch yielded. "He
did not like," Herodotus says, "to force the war upon the Phoenicians,
because they had surrendered themselves to the Persians, and because on
the Phoenicians his entire sea-service depended." He therefore
allowed their opposition to prevail, and desisted from his proposed
undertaking.[14264]

This acquiescence in their wishes on the part of the Great King, and his
abstinence from any attempt at compulsion, would seem to have paved the
way for that thoroughly good understanding between the suzerain power
and her dependency which characterises the relations of the two for
the next century and a half, with the single exception of one short
interval. "The navy of Phoenicia became a regular and very important
part of the public power"[14265] of the Persian state. Complete
confidence was felt by their Persian masters in the fidelity,
attachment, and hearty good-will of the Phoenician people. Exceptional
favour was shown them. Not only were they allowed to maintain their
native kings, their municipal administration, their national laws and
religion, but they were granted exceptional honours and exceptional
privileges and immunities. The Great King maintained a park and royal
residence in some portion of Phoenicia,[14266] probably in the vicinity
of Sidon,[14267] and no doubt allowed his faithful subjects to bask
occasionally in the sunshine of his presence. When the internal
organisation of the empire was taken in hand, and something approaching
to a uniform system of government established for revenue purposes,
though Phoenicia could not be excused from contributing to the
taxation of the empire, yet the burden laid upon her seems to have been
exceptionally light. United in a satrapy--the fifth--with Syria,
Cyprus, and Palestine, and taxed according to her population rather
than according to her wealth, she paid a share--probably not more than
a third or a fourth--of 350 talents,[14268] or an annual contribution
to the needs of the empire amounting to no less than 30,000l. Persia,
moreover, encouraged Phoenicia to establish an internal organisation of
her own, and, under her suzerainty, Tyre, Sidon, and Aradus were united
by federal bonds, and had a common council, which met at Tripolis,
probably of three hundred members.[14269] This council debated
matters in which Phoenicia generally was interested, and, in times of
disturbance, decided questions of peace and war.

The reign of Darius Hystaspis (B.C. 521-486), the successor of Cambyses
upon the Persian throne, introduced several changes into the Persian
governmental system which were of advantage to the Phoenicians. Darius
united the most distant parts of his empire by postal routes, along
which at moderate intervals were maintained post-houses, with relays
of horses,[14270] primarily for the use of the government, but at the
service of the traveller or private trader when not needed for business
of state. Phoenician commerce must have been much helped by these
arrangements, which facilitated rapid communication, gave security to
lines of route which had been previously infested with robbers, and
provided resting-places for the companies of merchants and traders, not
unlike the caravanserai of modern Turkey and Persia.

Darius also established throughout his vast empire a uniform coinage,
based apparently on that which had previously prevailed in Lydia.
His "darics," as they were called by the Greeks, were, in the first
instance, gold coins of a rude type, a little heavier than our
sovereigns, weighing between 123 and 124 grains troy.[14271] They bore
the figure of an archer on the obverse, and on the reverse a very rough
and primitive _quadratum incusum_. Darius must have coined them in vast
abundance, since early in the reign of his successor a single
individual of no great eminence had accumulated as many as 3,993,000
of them.[14272] Subsequently to the introduction of the gold darics,
a silver coinage was issued, originally (we are told) in Egypt by a
Persian satrap called Aryandes,[14273] but afterwards by the central
government. The name of "daric" was extended to these coins also, which,
however, were much larger and heavier than the gold coins, weighing
as much as 235 grains, and corresponding to the Greek tetradrachm,
and (nearly) to the Hebrew shekel. The establishment of this excellent
circulating medium, and the wide extension which it almost immediately
attained, must have given an enormous stimulus to trade, and have been
found of the greatest convenience by the Phoenician merchants, who had
no longer to carry with them the precious metal in bars or ingots, and
to weigh their gold and silver in the balance in connection with every
purchase that they made, but could effect both sales and purchases
in the simple and commodious manner still in use among all civilised
nations at the present day.

Under these circumstances we can well understand that the Phoenicians
were thoroughly satisfied with the position which they occupied under
the earlier Persian kings, and strove zealously to maintain and extend
the empire to which they owed so much. Their fidelity was put to a
crucial test after they had been subjects of Darius Hystaspis for a
little more than twenty years, and had had about fourteen or fifteen
years' experience of the advantages of his governmental system.
Aristagoras of Miletus, finding himself in a position of difficulty, had
lighted up the flames of war in Asia Minor, and brought about a general
revolt of the Greeks in those parts against the Persian power--a revolt
which spread on from the Greeks to the native Asiatics, and in a short
time embraced, not only Ionia and Æolis, but Caria, Caunus, and
almost the whole of Cyprus.[14274] The bulk of the Cyprian cities were
Phoenician colonies, and the political connection between these cities
and Phoenicia was so close and of such ancient date that the Phoenicians
can scarcely have failed to be moved by their example and by their
danger. A wave of sympathy might have been expected to sweep across the
excitable people, and it would not have been surprising had they rushed
headlong into rebellion with the same impetuosity as their Cyprian
brethren. Had they done so the danger to Persia would have been very
great, and the course of the world's history might perhaps have been
differently shaped. The junction of the Phoenician fleet with the navies
of Cyprus, Ionia, Caria, and Æolis would have transferred the
complete sovereignty of the Eastern Mediterranean to the side of the
rebels.[14275] The contagion of revolt would probably have spread. Lycia
and Cilicia, always eager for independence,[14276] would probably have
joined the malcontents; Pamphylia, which lay between them, would have
followed their example; the entire seaboard of Asia Minor and Syria
would have been lost; Egypt would, most likely, have seen in the
crisis her opportunity, and have avenged the cruelties and insults
of Cambyses[14277] by the massacre of her Persian garrison. Persia's
prosperity would have received a sudden check, from which it might never
have recovered; Greece would have escaped the ordeal of the invasion of
Xerxes; and the character of the struggle between Europe and Asia would
have been completely altered.

But the view which the Phoenicians took of their duties, or of their
interests, led them to act differently. When the Persians, anxious to
recover Cyprus, applied to the Phoenician cities for a naval force, to
transport their army from Cilica to the island, and otherwise help them
in the war, their request was at once complied with. Ships were sent to
the Cilician coast without any delay;[14278] the Persian land force was
conveyed in safety across the strait and landed on the opposite shore;
the ships then rounded Cape St. Andreas and anchored in the bay
opposite Salamis, where the Ionian fleet was drawn up in defence of
the town.[14279] An engagement followed--the first, so far as we
know, between Phoenicians and Greeks--wholly to the advantage of the
latter.[14280] No complaint, however, is made of any lukewarmness, or
want of zeal, on the part of the Phoenicians, who seem to have been
beaten in fair fight by an enemy whom they had perhaps despised. Their
ill fortune did not lead to any very serious result, since the Persian
land force defeated the Cyprians, and thus Persia once more obtained
possession of the island.

A year or two later the Phoenicians recovered their lost laurels. In
B.C. 495 the Persians, having trampled out the flames of revolt in
Cyprus, Caria, and Caunus, resolved on a great effort to bring the war
to a close by attacking the Ionian Greeks in their own country, and
crushing the head and front of the rebellion, which was the great and
flourishing city of Miletus. Miletus lay on the southern shore of a
deep bay--the Sinus Latmicus--which penetrated the western coast of Asia
Minor in about Lat. 37º 30´, but which the deposits of the Mæander have
now filled up.[14281] North-west of the town, at the distance of about
a mile, was the small island of Ladé, now a mere hillock on the flat
alluvial plain. While the Persian land force advanced along the shore,
and invested Milestus on the side towards the continent, a combined
fleet of six hundred vessels[14282] proceeded to block the entrance to
the bay, and to threaten the doomed city from the sea. This fleet was
drawn from four only of the countries subject to Persia--viz. Phoenicia,
Cilicia, Cyprus, and Egypt--whereof Phoenicia, we are told, "showed the
greatest zeal,"[14283] and we may presume furnished by far the larger
number of ships. On their arrival in Milesian waters the captains found
a strong naval force collected to meet them, which rested upon the
island of Ladé, and guarded the approaches to the town. Miletus had
summoned to her aid the contingents of her various allies--Chios,
Lesbos, Samos, Teos, Priene, Erythræ, Phocæa, Myus--and had succeeded
in gathering together a fleet amounting to above three hundred and fifty
vessels.[14284] This time Phoenicia did not despise her foe. Before
engaging, every effort was made to sow discord and dissension among the
confederates, and induce the Greek captains to withdraw their squadrons,
or at any rate to remain neutral in the battle.[14285] Considerable
effect was produced by these machinations; and when at last the attack
was made, two of the principal of the Greek allies[14286] drew off, and
sailed homewards, leaving the rest of the confederates to their fate.
Yet, notwithstanding this defection, the battle was stoutly contested
by the ships which remained, especially those of the Chians,[14287] and
though a very decisive and complete victory was ultimately gained by the
Phoenicians and their allies, the cost of the victory was great. Persia
regained her naval supremacy in the Eastern Mediterranean; Phoenicia
re-established her claim to be considered the great sea power of the
time; but she lost a large number of her best vessels and seamen, and
she was taught the lesson that, to cope with Greeks, she must have a
vast superiority of force upon her side--a superiority of not much less
than three to one.

Miletus soon fell after the victory of Ladé, and the Phoenician fleet
was then employed for some time in chastising the islanders who had
taken part in the revolt, and in reducing various towns upon the
European shores of the Hellespont, the Propontis, and the Bosphorus,
including Perinthus, Selymbria, and Byzantium.[14288] Miltiades, the
destined hero of Marathon, narrowly escaped capture at the hands of the
Phoenicians at this time, as he fled from his government in the Thracian
Chersonese to Athens. The vessel which bore him just escaped into the
harbour of Imbrus; but his son, Metiochus, who was on board a worse
sailer, was less fortunate. The Phoenicians captured him, and, learning
who he was, conveyed him to Darius at Susa, where he was well treated
and became a naturalised Persian.[14289]

After the Ionian revolt had been completely put down and avenged, the
states subject to Persia, and the Phoenicians among them, enjoyed a
brief period of repose. But soon the restless spirit which possessed
all the earlier Persian monarchs incited Darius to carry his warlike
enterprises into "fresh fields and pastures new." From the eastern
coast of the Ægean Sea he looked out towards a land possessing every
attraction that soil or clime could offer, fertile, rich in minerals,
and with many excellent harbours, well watered, abounding in corn and
wine and oil, in wooded hillsides, and in productive plains. According
to Herodotus,[14290] he had already explored the strength and weakness
of the region by means of a commission of Persian nobles, who had
surveyed all the shores of Greece from the decks of Phoenician ships.
The result was that he coveted the possession of the land thus made
known to him, and came to a fixed resolution that he would add it to his
territories.

There were two modes by which Greece might be approached from Asia.
Bridges of boats could be thrown across the Bosphorus or the Hellespont,
mere salt rivers, scarcely more formidable than the streams of the
Euphrates and the Tigris. In this way Europe could be invaded in force,
and the army sent across the straits, could pursue its way along the
shore till it reached the rich plains of Thessaly, and from Thessaly
passed into Boetia, Attica, and the Peloponnese. Or a fleet, with a land
force on board, might proceed from Asia Minor across the Ægean, where
the numerous islands, scattered at short intervals, seemed to have been
arranged by nature as stepping-stones, whereby the adventurous denizens
of either continent might cross easily into the other; and a landing
might be suddenly effected near the very heart of Greece without a tenth
part of the trouble that must be taken if the other line of route were
pursued. In either case the attendance of a fleet would be necessary. If
the more circuitous route were pursued, a powerful squadron must attend
the march of the army along the shore, to convey its supplies; if the
direct route were preferred, a still larger fleet would be necessary for
the conveyance, not only of the supplies, but of the army itself. Darius
gave a trial to each of the two plans. In the year B.C. 492 he sent a
fleet and army under Mardonius by way of the Hellespont and the European
coast; but this expedition met with severe disasters, the fleet being
shattered by a storm off Mount Athos, and the land force greatly damaged
by a night attack on the part of the Thracians.[14291] Two years later
he dispatched the famous expedition under Datis and Artaphernes, which
took its course through the islands, and landed perhaps 200,000 men on
the plain of Marathon,[14292] but being there defeated by Miltiades,
returned hastily to Asia by the sea route. The fleets employed on both
these occasions were numerous,[14293] and appear to have been collected
from several of the Persian maritime states;[14294] the proportion which
the several contingents bore one to another is not stated, but there can
be little doubt that the Phoenicians contributed the greater number. We
have no details of the conduct of the Phoenicians on either occasion,
beyond a casual notice that in the expedition of Datis and Artaphernes
one of their vessels plundered the temple of Delium on the Boeotian
coast opposite Chalcis, carrying off from it an image of Apollo plated
with gold.[14295] The superstition of Datis deprived them of this
valuable booty; but we may safely conclude from the anecdote that, while
rendering service to Persia, the keen-witted mariners took care not to
neglect their own material interests.

In the third and greatest of the expeditions conducted by Persia against
Greece, the Phoenicians are found to have played a very important and
prominent part. Even before the expedition commenced, a call was made
upon them in connection with it for services of an unusual character.
The loss of the fleet of Mardonius off Mount Athos induced Xerxes to
determine on cutting a ship-canal through the isthmus which joins Athos
to the mainland; and his passion for great and striking achievements
caused him to project the construction of a double bridge of boats
across the Hellespont. Phoenician technical skill was invoked for the
furtherance of both objects. At Athos they worked in conjunction with
the maritime states generally, but showed an amount of engineering
knowledge far in advance of their fellow-labourers. The others attempted
to give perpendicular sides to their portions of the excavation, but
found the sides continually fall in, and so (as Herodotus observes) "had
double labour."[14296] The Phoenicians alone knew that the sides must be
sloped at an angle, and, calculating the proper slope aright,
performed their share of the task without mishap. At the Hellespont the
Phoenicians had for co-partners the Egyptians only, and the two nations
appear to have displayed an equal ability.[14297] Cables were passed
from shore to shore, made taut by capstans and supported by an almost
continuous line of boats; planks were then laid upon the cables, and
covered with brushwood, while a thick layer of earth was placed upon the
top. A solid causeway was thus formed, which was guarded on either side
by bulwarks of such a height that the horses which crossed the bridge
could not see over them; and thus the cavalry and the sumpter beasts
passed from one continent to the other without a suspicion that they had
ever had anything but _terra firma_ under them. The structure served
its purpose, but was not found strong enough to defy even for a year the
forces of the winds and waves. Before the return of Xerxes, towards the
close of B.C. 480, the autumnal gales had broken it up; and the army
which accompanied him had to re-cross the strait in a number of separate
ships.[14298]

The fleet which Xerxes collected to accompany his land army and take
part in his great expedition amounted, it is said, to a total of 1207
vessels.[14299] Of these the Phoenician triremes were at once the most
numerous and the best. While Egypt furnished 200 ships, Cyprus 150,
Cilicia, Ionia, and the Hellespontine Greeks 100 each, and the other
maritime nations, all together, 257, Phoenicia singly contributed no
fewer than 300.[14300] The superiority of the Phoenician vessels was
sufficiently shown, first by the regatta at Abydos, which was won by
a Sidonian trireme;[14301] next, by the preference of Xerxes for
Phoenician over other vessels;[14302] and, thirdly, by the position
assigned them at Salamis, where care was taken to pit them against the
Athenians,[14303] who were recognised as superior at sea to all the
other Greeks. If the Phoenician prowess and naval skill did not succeed
in averting defeat from the Persians, we must ascribe it first to the
narrowness of the seas in which they had to engage the enemy; and,
secondly, to the still greater prowess and skill of their principal
antagonists, the Athenians, the Eginetans, and the Corinthians.

In the naval combats at Artemisium, the Egyptians, according to
Herodotus,[14304] were considered to have borne off the palm on the
Persian side; but Diodorus assigns that honour to the Sidonians.[14305]
At Salamis the brunt of the conflict fell on the Phoenician contingent,
which began the battle,[14306] and for some time forced the Athenian
squadron to beat a retreat, but was ultimately overpowered and forced
to take to flight, after suffering great losses. A large number of the
ships were sunk; several were taken by the Greeks; comparatively few
escaped from the battle without serious injury.[14307] Xerxes, however,
who from his silver-footed throne on Mount Ægaleos surveyed the
scene,[14308] but, amid the general turmoil and confusion, could ill
distinguish the conduct of the several contingents, enraged at the
loss of the battle, and regarding the Phoenicians as answerable for the
unhappy result, since they formed the nucleus and chief strength of the
fleet, laid the whole blame of the failure upon them, and, on some
of the captains appearing before him to excuse themselves, had them
beheaded upon the spot.[14309] At the same time he also threatened the
other Phoenician commanders with his vengeance, and so alarmed them
that, according to Diodorus,[14310] they quitted the fleet and sailed
away to Asia.

This harsh and unjust treatment seems to have led to an estrangement
between the Persians and the foremost of the naval nations subject to
them, which lasted for fifteen years. The Persians naturally distrusted
those whom they had injured, and were unwilling to call them in to their
aid. The Phoenicians probably brooded over their wrongs, and abstained
from volunteering an assistance which they were not asked to furnish.
The war between Persia and Greece continued, and was transferred from
Europe to Asia, but no Phoenicians are mentioned as taking part in it.
The Phoenician ships retired from Samos on the approach of the Greek
fleet under Leotychides.[14311] No Phoenicians fought at Mycale. None
are heard of as engaged at Sestos, or Byzantium, or Eïon, or Doriscus,
or even Phaselis. It was not until--in B.C. 465--the war passed from
the Ægean to the southern coast of Asia Minor, and their dependency,
Cyprus, was threatened, that the Phoenicians again appeared upon
the scene, and mustered in strength to the support of their Persian
suzerain.

The Persian fleet which fought at the Eurymedon is said to have
consisted of three hundred and forty vessels, drawn from the
three subject nations of the Phoenicians, the Cyprians, and the
Cilicians.[14312] It was under the command of Tithraustes, a son of
Xerxes. Cimon, who led the fleet of the Athenians and their allies,
attacked it with a force of 250 triremes, of which Athens had furnished
the greater number. The battle was contested with extreme obstinacy
on both sides; but at length the Athenians prevailed, and besides
destroying a large number of the enemy's vessels, took as many as a
hundred with their crews on board. At the same time a land victory was
gained over the Persian troops. The double exploit was regarded as one
of the most glorious in the annals of Greece, and was commemorated at
Delos by a tablet with the following inscription:--[14313]

     Since first the sea Europe from Asia severed,
     \    And Mars to rage 'mid humankind began,
     Never was such a blow as this delivered
     \    On land and sea at once by mortal man.
     These heroes did to death a host of Medes
     \    Near Cyprus, and then captured with their crews
     \    Five score Phoenician vessels; at the news
     All Asia groaned, hard hit by such brave deeds.

It is scarcely necessary to follow further in detail the services which
Phoenicia rendered to Persia as her submissive and attached ally. For
the space of about seventy-five years from the date of the engagement
at the Eurymedon (B.C. 465-390), the Phoenicians continued to hold the
first place among the Persian naval states, and to render their mistress
effective help in all her naval enterprises. They protected Cyprus
and Egypt from the Athenian attacks, bore their part in the war with
Amyrtæus and Inaros, and more than once inflicted severe blows upon the
Athenian navy.[14314] It was his command of a Phoenician fleet amounting
to nearly a hundred and fifty triremes which enabled Tissaphernes to
play so influential a part in Asia Minor during the later years of the
Peloponnesian war. It was the presence of their ships at Cnidus which,
in B.C. 394, turned the scale between Athens and Sparta, enabling
the Athenians to recover the naval supremacy which they had lost at
Ægos-Potami. It was the appearance of a Phoenician fleet in Greek
waters[14315] which, in the following year, gave an opportunity to the
Athenians to rebuild their "Long Walls," alarmed Sparta for her own
safety, and extorted from her fears--in B.C. 387--the agreement known
as "the Peace of Antalcidas." Persia owed to her Phoenician subjects
the glory of recovering complete possession of Asia Minor, and of being
accepted as a sort of final arbiter in the quarrels of the Grecian
states. From B.C. 465 to B.C. 392 Phoenicia served Persia with rare
fidelity, never hesitating to lend her aid, and never showing the least
inclination to revolt.

It was probably under these circumstances, when Athens owed the recovery
of her greatness in no small measure to the Phoenicians, that those
relations of friendship and intimacy were established between the two
peoples of which we have evidence in several inscriptions. Phoenicians
settled in Attica, particularly at Phalerum and the Piræus, and had
their own places of worship and interment. Six sepulchral inscriptions
have been found, either in Athens itself or at the Piræus,[14316] five
of them bilingual,[14317] which mark the interment in Attic soil of
persons whose nationality was Phoenician. They had monuments erected
over them, generally of some pretension, which must have obtained as
much respect as the native tombstones, since otherwise they could not
have endured to our day. There is also at the Piræus an altar,[14318]
which a Phoenician must have erected and dedicated to a Phoenician god,
whom he worshipped on Attic soil apparently without let or hindrance.
The god's name is given as "Askum-Adar," a form which does not elsewhere
recur, but which is thought to designate the god elsewhere called
Sakon, who corresponded to the Grecian Hermes.[14319] Moreover, there is
evidence of the Phoenicians having worshipped two other deities in their
Attic abodes, one a god who corresponded to the Greek Poseidon and the
Roman Neptune, the other the Babylonian and Assyrian Nergal. Among the
lost orations of Deniarchus was one delivered by that orator on the
occasion of the suit between the people of Phalerum and the
Phoenician inhabitants of the place with respect to the priesthood of
Poseidon;[14320] and a sepulchral monument at the Piræus was erected
to Asepta, daughter of Esmun-sillem, of Sidon, by Itten-bel, son of
Esmun-sibbeh, high priest of the god Nergal.[14321] It appears further
from the Greek inscription, edited by Böckh,[14322] that about this time
(B.C. 390-370) a decree was promulgated by the Council {bonle} of
Athens whereby the relation of Proxenia was established between
Strato (Abd-astartus), king of Sidon, and the Athenian people, and
all Sidonians sojourning in Attica were exempted from the tax usually
charged upon foreign settlers, from the obligation of the Choregia, and
from all other contributions to the state.

The power of Persia began about this time to decline, and the
Phoenicians seem to have wavered in their allegiance. In B.C. 406 or 405
Egypt shook off the Persian yoke, and established her independence under
a native sovereign.[14323] Soon afterwards, probably in B.C. 392 or 391,
Evagoras, a Cypriot Greek, who claimed descent from Teucer, inaugurated
a revolution at Salamis in Cyprus, where he slew the Phoenician monarch,
Abdemon, who held his throne under Persia, and, himself mounting the
throne, proceeded to reduce to subjection the whole island.[14324] Vast
efforts were made to crush him, but for ten years he defied the power
of Persia, and maintained himself as an independent monarch.[14325] Even
when finally he made his submission, it was under an express stipulation
that he should retain his royal dignity, and be simply bound to pay
his tribute regularly, and to render such obedience as subject kings
commonly paid to their suzerain.[14326]

In the course of his resistance to Persia, it is beyond question that
Evagoras received a certain amount of support from Phoenicia; but the
circumstances under which the support was given was doubtful. According
to Isocrates,[14327] he equipped a large fleet, and attacked the
Phoenicians on the mainland with so much vigour as even to take the
great city of Tyre by assault; but Diodorus says nothing of the attack,
and it is conjectured that the contagion of revolt, which certainly
affected, more or less, Cyprus, Cilicia, Caria, and some of the Syrian
Arabs,[14328] spread also thus early to Phoenicia, and that "the
surrender of Tyre was a voluntary defection."[14329] In that case, we
must view Phoenicia, or at any rate a portion of it, as having detached
itself from Persia, about B.C. 390, sixty years before the final
break-up of the Empire.

But the disaffection of Phoenicia does not become open and patent until
about thirty years later. The decline of Persia had continued. In B.C.
375 an attempt to recover Egypt, for which a vast armament had been
collected under Pharnabazus and Iphicrates, completely failed.[14330]
Nine years afterwards, in B.C. 366, the revolt of the satraps began.
First Ariobarzanes, satrap of Phrygia, renounced his allegiance, and
defended himself with success against Autophradutes, satrap of Lydia,
and Mausolus, native king of Caria under Persia. Then Aspis, who held a
part of Cappadocia, revolted and maintained himself by the help of the
Pisidians, until he was overpowered by Datames. Next Datames himself,
satrap of the rest of Cappadocia, understanding that the mind of the
Persian king was poisoned against him, made a treaty with Ariobarzanes,
and assumed an independent attitude in his own province. Finally, in
B.C. 362, there seems to have been something like a general revolt
of the western provinces, in which the satraps of Mysia, Phrygia, and
Lydia, Mausolus prince of Caria, and the peoples of Lycia, Pisidia,
Pamphylia, Cilicia, and Syria participated.[14331] Then, if not earlier,
Phoenicia openly threw in her lot with the disaffected;[14332] refused
her tribute like the others, and joined her forces with theirs. Nor,
when the rebellion collapsed, did she at once return to her allegiance.
When Tachos, native king of Egypt, in B.C. 361, having secured the
services of Agesilaus and Chabrias, advanced boldly into Syria, with the
object of enlarging his own dominions at the expense of Persia, he was
received with favour by the Phoenicians, who were quite willing to form
a portion of his empire. But the rebellion of Nectanebo forced Tachos
to relinquish his projects,[14333] and the dominion over the Phoenician
cities seems to have reverted to Persia without any effort on her part.

In this condition matters remained till about the year B.C. 351,
when Sidon, feeling herself aggrieved by the conduct of the Persian
authorities at Tripolis,[14334] where the general assembly of the
Phoenicians held its meetings, boldly raised the standard of revolt
against Persia under Tennes, or Tabnit II., and induced the Phoenicians
generally to declare themselves independent. Alliance was at once formed
with the Egyptian king, Nekht-nebf, or Nectanebo II., who sent a body
of 4,000 Greek mercenaries, under Mentor the Rhodian, to the aid of
Tennes.[14335] Hostilities commenced by the Phoenicians expelling
or massacring the Persian garrisons, devastating the royal park or
paradise, and burning the stores of forage collected for the use of the
Persian cavalry.[14336] An attempt made by two satraps--Belesys of Syria
and Mazæus of Cilicia--to crush the revolt was completely defeated by
Tennes, with the aid of Mentor and his Greeks, who gained a
decisive victory over the satraps, and drove the Persians out of
Phoenicia.[14337] Cyprus then joined the rebels. The nine principal
cities made common cause, expelled the Persians, and declared themselves
free states, under their respective native kings.[14338] Ochus, the
Persian king, was at last roused to exert himself. Collecting an army
of 300,000 foot and 30,000 horse, supported by 300 triremes and 500
transports or provision-ships,[14339] he proceeded to the west in
person, determined to inflict condign punishment on the rebels, and
to recover to the empire, not only Cyprus and Phoenicia, but also the
long-lost Egypt.

Tennes, on his part, had done his best in the way of preparations for
defence. He had collected a fleet of above a hundred ships--triremes
and quinqueremes,[14340] the latter now heard of for the first time
in Asiatic warfare. He had strengthened the fortifications of Sidon,
surrounding the town with a triple ditch of great width and depth, and
considerably raising the height of the walls.[14341] He had hired Greek
mercenaries to the number of six thousand, raising thus the number
in his service to ten thousand in all, had armed and drilled the most
active and athletic of the citizens, and had collected vast stores of
provisions, armour, and weapons. But the advance of the Persian monarch
at the head of so large a force filled Tennes with dismay and
despair. Successful resistance was, he thought, impossible; and with a
selfishness and a cowardice that must ever make him rank among the most
infamous of men, he resolved, if possible, to purchase his own pardon
of the King by delivering to his vengeance the entire body of his
fellow-countrymen. Accordingly, after handing over to him a hundred of
the principal citizens, who were immediately transfixed with javelins,
he concerted measures with Mentor for receiving the Persians within
the walls. While the arrangements were proceeding, five hundred of the
remaining citizens issued forth from one of the gates of the town, with
boughs of supplication, as a deputation to implore the mercy of Ochus,
but only to suffer the same fate as their fellow-townsmen. The Persians
were then received within the walls; but the citizens, understanding
what their fate was to be, resolved to anticipate it. They had already
burnt their ships, to prevent any desertion. Now they shut themselves
up, with their wives and children, in their houses, and applying the
torch to their dwellings lighted up a general conflagration. More than
forty thousand persons perished in the flames. Ochus sold the ruins at
a high price to speculators, who calculated on reimbursing themselves
by the treasures which they might dig out from among the ashes. As for
Tennes, it is satisfactory to find that a just vengeance overtook him.
The treachery which he had employed towards others was shown also to
himself. Ochus, who had given him a solemn promise that he would spare
his life, no sooner found that there was nothing more to be gained by
letting him live, than he relentlessly put him to death.[14342]

No further resistance was made by the Phoenician cities. Ochus marched
on against Egypt and effected its reconquest.[14343] The Cyprian revolt
was put down by the Prince of Caria, Istricus.[14344] A calm, prelude to
the coming storm, settled down upon Persia; and Phoenicia participated
in the general tranquillity. The various communities, exhausted by
their recent efforts, and disappointed with the result, laid aside their
political aspirations, and fell back upon their commercial instincts.
Trade once more flourished. Sidon rose again from her ashes, and
recovered a certain amount of prosperity. She held the coast from
Leontopolis to Ornithonpolis, and possessed also the dependency of
Dor;[14345] but she had lost Sarepta to Tyre,[14346] which stepped into
the foremost place among the cities on her fall, and retained it until
destroyed by Alexander. The other towns which still continued to be of
some importance were Aradus, and Gebal or Byblus. These cities, like
Tyre and Sidon, retained their native kings,[14347] who ruled their
several states with little interference from the Persians. The line of
monarchs may be traced at Sidon for five generations, from the first
Esmunazar, who probably reigned about B.C. 460-440, through three
generations and four kings, to the second Strato, the contemporary of
Alexander.[14348] The first Esmunazar was succeeded by his son, Tabnit,
about B.C. 440. Tabnit married his sister, Am-Ashtoreth, priestess of
Ashtoreth, and had issue, two sons, Esmunazar II., whose tomb was found
near Sidon by M. de Vogüé in the year 1855, and Strato I. Esmunazar II.
is thought to have died about B.C. 400, and to have been succeeded by
his brother Strato, the Proxenus of Athens, who reigned till B.C. 361.
On Strato's death, his son, the second Tabnit--known to the Greeks as
Tennes--mounted the throne, and reigned till B.C. 345, when he was put
to death by Ochus. A second Strato, the son of Tennes, then became king,
and retained his sovereignty till after the battle of Issus[14349] (B.C.
333).




6. Phoenicia in the time of Alexander the Great (B.C. 333-323)

     Alexander's invasion of Asia--Preparations made to resist
     it, insufficient--What should have been done--Movements of
     Memnon in B.C. 333--His death--Paralysis of the Persian
     fleet--Attack on Phoenicia after Issus--Submission of all
     the cities but Tyre--Siege of Tyre--Fall of the city--Cruel
     treatment of the inhabitants.

The invasion of Asia by Alexander the Great, though it found the
Persians unready, was by no means of the nature of a surprise. The
design had been openly proclaimed by Philip in the year B.C. 338, when
he forced the Grecian States to appoint him generalissimo of their
armies, which he promised to lead to the conquest of the East.[14350]
Darius Codomannus had thus ample warning of what he had to expect,
and abundant opportunity to make the fullest preparations for defence.
During the years B.C. 338 and 337, while Philip was still alive, he did
do something towards organising defensive measures, collected troops
and ships, and tried to foment discontent and encourage anti-Macedonian
movements in Greece.[14351] But the death of Philip by the dagger of
Pausanias caused him most imprudently to relax his efforts, to consider
the danger past, and to suspend the operations, which he had commenced,
until he should see whether Alexander had either the will or the power
to carry into effect his father's projects. The events of the years
B.C. 336 and 335, the successes of Alexander in Thrace, Illyria, and
Boeotia,[14352] woke him from his fool's paradise to some sense of the
realities of the situation. In B.C. 335 the preparations for defence
were resumed. Orders were issued to the satraps of Phrygia and Lydia
to draw together their troops towards the north-western corner of Asia
Minor, and to take the offensive against the Macedonian force which had
crossed the straits before Philip's death. The Persian garrisons in this
quarter were strongly reinforced with troops of a good quality, drawn
from the remoter provinces of the empire, as from Persia Proper, Media,
Hyrcania, and Bactria. Notice was given to the Phoenicians to prepare a
considerable fleet, and hold it in readiness for active service. Above
all, Memnon the Rhodian was given a command on the Asiatic seaboard, and
entrusted with a body of five thousand Greek mercenaries, which he was
empowered to use at his discretion.[14353]

But these steps, though in the right direction, were quite inadequate
under the circumstances. Everything that was possible should have been
done to prevent Alexander from crossing to Asia in force. The fleet
should not only have been commanded to hold itself in readiness,
but should have been brought up. Four hundred or five hundred
vessels,[14354] from Phoenicia, Cyprus, Egypt, Lycia, and Cilicia,
should have been moved into the northern Egean and the Propontis, and
have kept watch on every Grecian port. Alexander was unable to muster
for the transport of his army across the Straits a larger number than
160 triremes.[14355] Persia should have met them with a fleet three
times as large. Had Memnon been given from the first a free hand at sea,
instead of satrapial power on land, it is quite conceivable that
the invasion of Asia by Alexander might have proved as abortive an
enterprise as the contemplated invasion of England by Napoleon.

As it was, the fleet of Persia, composed mainly of Phoenician vessels,
did not appear in the northern Egean waters until some weeks after
Alexander had transported his grand army into Asia, and fought at
the Granicus, so that when it arrived it was of comparatively little
service. Too late even to save Miletus, it had to be a tame spectator
of the siege and capture of that important town.[14356] It was then
withdrawn to Halicarnassus, where its presence greatly helped the
defence, but not to the extent of wholly baffling the besiegers.
Halicarnassus fell, like Miletus, after a while, being entered from
the land side; but the fleet saved the troops, the stores, and the
inhabitants.[14357]

During the early part of the ensuing year, B.C. 333, while Alexander
was engaged in conquering the interior of Asia Minor, the Persian fleet
under Memnon at last took the aggressive, and, advancing northwards,
employed itself in establishing Persian influence over the whole of the
Egean, and especially in reducing the important islands of Chios and
Lesbos.[14358] Memnon was now in full command. Fortune smiled on
him; and it seemed more than probable that the war would be, at least
partially, transferred into Greece, where the Spartans only waited
for Memnon's appearance to commence an anti-Macedonian movement. The
presence of a powerful fleet in Greek waters, and Memnon's almost
unlimited command of Persian gold, might in a short time have raised
such a flame in Greece as to necessitate Alexander's return in order to
extinguish it.[14359] The invasion of Asia might have been arrested in
mid course; Alexander might have proved as powerless as Agesilaus to
effect any great change in the relations of the two continents; but,
at the critical moment, the sudden and unexpected death of the Rhodian
chief cast all these hopes to the ground,[14360] and deprived Persia of
her last chance of baffling the invader.

Thus, first by mismanagement and then by an unhappy accident, the
Phoenicians were precluded from rendering Persia any effective service
in the time of her great necessity. Wiser than Napoleon, Alexander would
not contest the sovereignty of the seas with the great naval power of
the day, and he even, when he once felt himself strongly lodged in Asia,
disbanded his naval force,[14361] that so it might be impossible for
disaster at sea to tarnish his prestige. He was convinced that Asia
could be won by the land force which he had been permitted to disembark
on its shores, and probably anticipated the transfer of naval supremacy
which almost immediately followed on the victory of Issus. The complete
defeat of the great army of Codomannus, and its retirement on the
Euphrates,[14362] left the entire seaboard of Syria and Phoenicia open
to him. He resolved at once to take advantage of the opportunity, and to
detach from Persia the three countries of Phoenicia, Egypt, and Cyprus.
If he could transfer to himself the navies of these powers, his maritime
supremacy would be incontestable. He would render his communications
with Macedonia absolutely secure. He would have nothing to fear from
revolt or disturbance at home, however deeply he might plunge into the
Asiatic continent. If the worst happened to him in Asia, he would have
assured himself a safe return.

Accordingly, no sooner was the retreat of Darius upon the line of the
Euphrates, and his abandonment of Syria, ascertained, than Alexander,
after despatching a detachment of his army to Damascus, marched in
person into Phoenicia.[14363] The Phoenicians were placed between
two dangers. On the one hand, Alexander might ravage their territory,
capture and pillage their cities, massacre or sell for slaves the
greater portion of their citizens, and destroy their very existence as
a people; on the other hand, Darius held as hostages for their fidelity
the crews and captains of their triremes, which formed a portion of his
fleet, and had on board a large number of their chief men, and even
some of their kings.[14364] It was impossible, however, to temporise; a
choice had necessarily to be made; and when Alexander entered Phoenicia,
the cities, in almost every case, decided on submitting to him. First
Strato, the son of Ger-astartus, king of Aradus, who was serving on
board the Phoenician contingent to the Persian fleet, went out to meet
Alexander, and surrendered into his hands the four cities of Aradus,
Marathus, Sigon, and Mariamme.[14365] Then Byblus, whose king was also
absent with the fleet, opened its gates to the Macedonians.[14366] Next
Sidon, mindful of her recent wrongs, sent envoys to invite Alexander's
approach, and joyfully embraced his cause.[14367] Even Tyre nominally
made submission, and declared itself ready to obey Alexander's
commands;[14368] and the transfer of Phoenicia to the side of Alexander
might have been made without bloodshed, had the Macedonian monarch been
content to leave their island city, which was their true capital,
and their pride and glory, unmolested. But Alexander could not brook
anything that in any degree savoured of opposition to his will. When
therefore, on his expressing a wish to sacrifice to Melkarth in their
island town, the Tyrians declined to receive him within the walls, and
suggested that his pious design might be sufficiently accomplished by
his making his intended offering in Palæ-Tyrus, where there was a temple
of the same god, which was older (they said) and more venerable than
their own, Alexander's pride was touched, and he became violently
enraged.[14369] Dismissing the envoys with angry threats, he at once
began preparations for an attack upon the town.

The Tyrians have been accused of extreme rashness and folly in
not making an unqualified submission to the demands preferred by
Alexander,[14370] but the reproach scarcely appears to be deserved.
They had on previous occasions resisted for years the entire power
of Assyria, and of Babylon; they naturally deemed themselves only
assailable by sea; their fortifications were of immense strength; and
they possessed a navy much superior to any of which Alexander could
boast at the time when he threatened them. Their own vessels were eighty
in number; those of their kinsmen upon the continent were likewise
eighty; Cyprus, which for centuries had been closely allied with them,
and which was more than half Phoenician in blood, could furnish a
hundred and twenty; Carthage, if she chose, could send to their aid,
without any difficulty, as many as two hundred.[14371] Alexander had
never been able to collect from the Greek states which owned his sway
a fleet of more than one hundred and sixty sail; and, having disbanded
this fleet, he could not readily have mustered from the cities and
countries accessible to him, exclusive of Cyprus and Phoenicia, so many
as a hundred.[14372] The Tyrians, when they took their resolution to
oppose Alexander, had a right to expect that their kindred would either
assist them, or at any rate not serve against them, and that thus they
would be sure to maintain their supremacy at sea. As for Alexander's
design to join the island Tyre to the continent by means of a mole, they
cannot have had the slightest suspicion of it, since no work of the
kind had ever previously been accomplished, or even attempted; for
the demonstration of Xerxes against Salamis was not seriously
intended.[14373] They naturally counted on the struggle being entirely
by sea, and may well have thought that on their own element they would
not be worsted. Even if the continental towns forsook them and went over
to the enemy, why might they not do as they had done in Shalmaneser's
time, defeat their unnatural countrymen, and retain their naval
supremacy? Moreover, if they made a gallant fight, might not Persia be
expected to second their efforts? Would she not attack Alexander from
the flanks of Lebanon, intercept his supplies, cut off his foragers, and
make his position untenable; the Tyrians could scarcely anticipate that
Persia would sit with folded hands, a calm spectator of a seven months'
siege, and do absolutely nothing.

Having determined on resistance to the demands of Alexander, the Tyrians
lost no time in placing their city in a position to resist attack. They
summoned their king, Azemilcus, from the Persian fleet, and required him
to hasten home with the entire squadron which he commanded.[14374]
They collected triremes and lighter vessels from various quarters. They
distributed along the walls of the city upon every side a number of
engines of war, constructed to hurl darts and stones, and amply provided
them with missiles.[14375] The skilled workmen and engineers resident
in the town were called upon not merely to furnish additional engines
of the old type, but to exercise their ingenuity in devising new and
unheard of structures.[14376] They armed all the young and vigorous
among the people, and appointed them their several stations at the
walls. Finally, to diminish the number of mouths to be fed, and to save
themselves from distracting cares, they sent away to Carthage a number
of their aged men, their women, and their children, who were readily
received and supported by the rich and friendly colonists.[14377]

Meantime Alexander had taken his resolution. Either recollecting what
Xerxes had threatened to do at Salamis, or prompted merely by his own
inventive genius, he determined on the construction of a great mole, or
embankment, which should be carried out from the Asiatic mainland across
the half-mile of channel to the very walls of the recalcitrant city,
and should thus join the island to the Syrian shore. The width of the
embankment he fixed at two plethra, or nearly seventy yards.[14378]
Material for the construction was abundant. The great city of Palæ-Tyrus
was close at hand, partly in ruins, and with many of the houses deserted
by their inhabitants. Its walls would furnish abundance of stone,
mortar, and rubble. Behind Palæ-Tyrus lay the flanks of Lebanon,
cultivated in orchards, while beyond were its dense and inexhaustible
forests of fir, pine, and cedar. Human labour could be obtained to
almost any extent, for the neighbourhood was populous, and Alexander's
authority acknowledged by all. Accordingly the work, once commenced, for
a while made fair progress. Piles were cut in the mountain, which
were driven with much ease into the soft mud of the channel, which was
shallow near the shore,[14379] and completely under the control of the
Macedonians, since the Tyrian vessels could not approach it for fear of
sticking in the ooze. Between the piles, towards the edge of the mole,
were sunk stones, trunks of trees, and material of the more solid
character, while the central part was filled up with rubble and rubbish
of every sort and kind. Still, the operation was toilsome and tedious,
even from the first, while the further that the mole was advanced into
the sea, the more difficult and dangerous became its construction. The
channel deepened gradually from a few feet towards the shore to eighteen
or twenty,[14380] as it approached the island. The Tyrians in their
vessels were soon able to act. In small boats at first, and afterwards
in their triremes, they attacked and annoyed the workmen, perpetually
hindered their work, and occasionally destroyed portions of it.[14381]
Damage was also inflicted by the wind and waves; and the rate of
progress became, in consequence, exceedingly slow. A strong current set
through the channel, and this was continually working its way among
the interstices of the mole, washing holes in its sides and face, and
loosening the interior of the structure. When a storm arose, the surf
broke over the top of the work, and did even greater damage, carrying
portions of the outer casing into the sea.

To meet the assaults of the Tyrian ships upon the work, the Macedonians
constructed two movable towers, well protected against torches and
weapons by curtains made of raw hides,[14382] and advancing these upon
the surface of the mole to the points most threatened, discharged from
the engines which the towers contained darts and stones of a large size
against the Tyrian sailors. Thus protected, the workmen were able to
make sensible progress, and the Tyrians began to fear that, unless they
could destroy the towers, the mole would ere long be completed. For
the accomplishment of their purpose, they resolved to employ
a fire-ship.[14383] Selecting one of the largest of their
horse-transports, they stowed the hold with dry brushwood and other
combustible materials; and erecting on the prow two masters, each with
a projecting arm, attached to either a cauldron, filled with bitumen
and sulphur, and with every sort of material apt to kindle and nourish
flame. By loading the stern of the transport with stones of a large
size, they succeeded in depressing it and correspondingly elevating the
prow, which was thus prepared to glide over the smooth surface of the
mole and bring itself into contact with the towers. In the fore part
of the ship were deposited a quantity of torches, resin, and other
combustibles. Watching an opportunity when the wind blew strongly from
the seaward straight upon the mole, they towed the vessel at their best
speed in the direction of the towers, set it on fire, and then, loosing
their hawsers, allowed it to dash itself upon the work. The prow slid
over the top a certain distance and then stopped. The arms projecting
from the masts broke off at the sudden check,[14384] and scattered the
contents of the cauldrons around. The towers caught fire and were at
once in a blaze. The Macedonians found it impossible to extinguish the
flames, since the Tyrian triremes, drawing close to the mole, prevented
approach by flights of arrows and other missiles. "At the same time,
the full naval force of the city, both ships and little boats, was sent
forth to land men at once on all parts of the mole. So successful was
this attack, that all the Macedonian engines were burnt--the outer
woodwork which kept the mole together was torn up in many places--and
a large part of the structure came to pieces."[14385] A heavy
sea, moreover, accompanied the gale of wind which had favoured the
conflagration, and penetrating the loosened work, carried the whole into
deep waters.[14386]

Alexander had now seriously to consider what course he should take.
Hitherto his attempt had proved an entire failure. Should he relinquish
it? To do so would be to acknowledge himself baffled and defeated, to
tarnish the prestige which he held so dear, and to cripple the plans
that he had formed against Persia. It was simply impossible
that Alexander, being the man he was, should so act. No--he must
persevere--he must confront and overcome his difficulties--he must
repair the damages that he had suffered, restore his lost works, and
carry them out on a larger scale, and with more skill than before. He
gave orders therefore for an enlargement and alteration of the mole,
which he no longer carried across the strait in a direct line, but
inclined to the south-west,[14387] so that it might meet the force of
the prevalent wind, instead of exposing its flank to the violent gusts.
He also commanded the construction of fresh towers and fresh engines,
stronger and more in number than the former ones.[14388] But this alone
would not, he felt, be enough. His designs had been frustrated hitherto
solely from the fact that the Tyrians were masters of the sea; and
it was plain to him that, so long as this state of things remained
unaltered, it was next to impossible that he should succeed. The great
desideratum--the one condition of success--was the possession of a
powerful fleet. Such a fleet must be either built or collected. Leaving
therefore the restoration of the mole and the engines to his generals,
Alexander went in person to Sidon, and there set himself to gather
together as large a fleet as he could. Most opportunely it happened
that, either shortly before Alexander's arrival or immediately
afterwards, the ships of Sidon, Aradus, and Byblus, which had been
serving with the Persian naval force in the Ægean, had been required by
their respective commanders to proceed homewards, and, to the number of
eighty, had sailed into the harbour of Sidon.[14389] The kings had,
in fact, deserted the Persian cause on hearing that their cities had
submitted to Alexander, and readily placed their respective squadrons
at his disposal. Further contingents were received from other
quarters--from Rhodes ten triremes, from the seaports of Lycia the
same number, from Soli and Mallus three, from Macedonia a single
penteconter.[14390] The number of the vessels was thus brought up to one
hundred and four; but even with such a fleet it would have been rash to
engage the Tyrian navy; and Alexander would probably have had to build
an additional squadron had he not received, suddenly and unexpectedly,
the adhesion of the princes of Cyprus. Cyprus, being an island, was
as yet in no danger, and might have been expected at least to remain
neutral until the fate of Tyre was decided; but, for reasons that
history has not recorded, the petty kings of the island about this
time--some months after the battle of Issus--resolved to desert Persia,
to detach themselves wholly from Tyre, and to place their navy at
the disposal of the Macedonians.[14391] The number of their triremes
amounted to 120; and Alexander, having now under his command a fleet
of 224 sail, could no longer feel any doubt of being able to wrest the
supremacy at sea from the unfortunate Tyrians.

Accordingly, after allowing his ships a period of eleven days for
nautical practice, and placing on board a number of his bravest
soldiers,[14392] Alexander sailed out from Sidon at the head of his
entire fleet, and made straight for Tyre in order of battle. He himself
in person commanded the right wing, the post of danger, since it held
the open sea, and had under him the bulk of the Cyprian ships, with
their commanders. Pnytagoras of Salamis and Craterus led the left wing,
which was composed mainly of the vessels furnished by the Phoenician
towns upon the mainland, and held its course at no great distance from
the shore. The Tyrians, who had received no intelligence from without,
saw with astonishment the great fleet, nearly three times as large
as their own,[14393] bearing down upon them in orderly array, and
challenging them to the combat. They had not now the spirit of ancient
times, when no disparity of force dismayed them. Surprised and alarmed,
they resolved to decline a battle, to remain within their ports, and to
use their ships for blocking the entrances. Alexander, advancing from
the north, when he saw the mouth of the Sidonian harbour, which faced
northwards, strongly guarded, did not attempt to force it, but anchored
his vessels outside, and established a blockade, the maintenance of
which he entrusted to the Cyprian squadron. The next day he ordered the
Phoenician ships to proceed southwards, and similarly block and watch
the southern or Egyptian harbour.[14394] For himself, he landed upon
the mole, and pitching his tent near the south-western corner, there
established himself.[14395]

The mole had not advanced very much during his absence. Vast efforts had
been made to re-establish it, but they had not been attended with any
great success.[14396] Whole trees, torn up by the roots, and with their
branches still adhering to them, had been dragged to the water's edge,
and then precipitated into the strait;[14397] a layer of stones and mud
had been placed upon them, to solidify them into a mass; on the top of
this other trees had been placed, and the former process repeated. But
the Tyrians had met the new tactics with new methods. They had employed
divers to attach hooks to the boughs where they projected into the sea,
and by sheer force had dragged the trees out from the superincumbent
mass, bringing down in this way large portions of the structure.[14398]
But with Alexander's coming, and the retirement of the Tyrian fleet,
all this was altered. Alexander's workmen were no longer impeded, except
from the town, and in a short time the mole was completed across the
channel and carried up to the very foot of the defences. The new towers,
which had replaced the burnt ones, were brought up close to the walls,
and plied the new machines which Cyprian and Phoenician engineers had
constructed for their new master.[14399] The battering of the wall
began. Engines moreover of a large size were placed on horse-transports
furnished by Sidon, and on the heavier and clumsier of the triremes, and
with these attacks were made upon the town in various places, all round
the circuit of the walls, which, if they did nothing else, served to
distract the attention of the defenders. To meet such assailants the
Tyrians had let down huge blocks of stone into the sea, which prevented
the approach of the ships, and hindered those on board from using the
battering ram. These blocks the Macedonians endeavoured to weigh up and
remove by means of cranes; but their vessels were too unsteady for the
purpose, whereupon they proceeded to anchor them. The Tyrians went out
in boats well protected, and passing under the stems and sterns of the
vessels, cut the cables, whereupon the Macedonians kept an armed watch
upon the cables in boats of their own, which the Tyrians did not venture
to attack. They were not, however, without resource even yet, since
they contrived still to cut the cables by means of divers. At last the
Macedonians bethought themselves of using chains for cables instead of
ropes; these could not be cut, and the result was that at length they
succeeded in dragging the stones away and obtaining access to the foot
of the walls wherever they pleased.[14400]

Under these circumstances, threatened on every side, and feeling almost
at the last gasp, the Tyrians resolved on a final desperate effort.
They would make a bold attempt to recover the command of the sea. As the
Macedonian fleet was divided, part watching the Sidonian and part the
Egyptian harbour, they could freely select to contend with which portion
they preferred. Their choice fell upon the Cyprian contingent, which
was stationed to the north of the mole, keeping guard on the "Portus
Sidonius." This they determined to attack, and to take, if possible, by
surprise. Long previously they had spread sails along the mouth of
the harbour, to prevent their proceedings inside it from being
overlooked.[14401] They now prepared a select squadron of thirteen
ships--three of them quinqueremes, three quadriremes, and seven
triremes--and silently placing on board their best sailors and the best
and bravest of their men-at-arms, waited till the hour of noon, when the
Cyprian crews would be taking their mid-day meal, and Alexander might be
expected, according to his general habit, to have retired to his tent
on the opposite side of the mole. When noon came, still in deep silence,
they issued from the harbour in single file, each crew rowing gently
without noise or splash, or a word spoken, either by the boatswains
or by anyone else. In this way they came almost close to the Cyprians
without being perceived: then suddenly the boatswains gave out their
cry, and the men cheered, and all pulled as hard as they could, and with
splash and dash they drove their ships against the enemy's, which were
inert, lying at anchor, some empty, others hurriedly taking their crews
on board. The ships of three Cyprian kings--Pnytagoras, king of Salamis,
Androcles, king of Amathus, and Pasicrates, king of Curium[14402]--were
at once run down and sunk.[14403] Many others were disabled; the rest
fled, pursued by the Tyrians, and sought to reach the shore. All would
probably have been lost, had not Alexander returned from his tent
earlier than usual, and witnessed the Tyrian attack. With his usual
promptitude, he at once formed his plan. As only a portion of the
Cyprian fleet had maintained the blockade, while the remainder of
their ships were lying off the north shore of the mole with their crews
disembarked, he set to work to man these, and sent them off, as each
was got ready, to station themselves at the mouth of the harbour, and
prevent any more of the Tyrian vessels from sallying forth. He then
hurried to the southern side of the mole, where the Greco-Phoenician
squadron kept guard, and manning a certain number of the vessels,[14404]
sailed with them round the western shore of the island into the northern
bay, where the Tyrians and the remnant of the Cyprian fleet were still
contending. Those in the city perceived the movement, and made every
effort to signal it to their sailors, but in vain. The noise and uproar
of the battle prevented them from hearing until it was too late. It was
not till Alexander had entered the northern bay that they understood,
and turned and fled, pursued by his ships, which captured or disabled
the greater number. The crews, however, and the men-at-arms, escaped,
since they threw themselves overboard, and easily swam into the
harbour.[14405]

This was the last attempt of the Tyrians by sea. They were now invested
on every side, and hopelessly shut up within their defences. Still,
however, they made a desperate resistance. On the side of the mole the
Macedonians, having brought up their towers and battering-ram close to
the wall, attacked it with much vigour, hurling against it great masses
of stone, and by constant flights of darts and arrows driving
the defenders from the battlements.[14406] At the same time the
battering-rams were actively plied, and every effort made to effect a
breach. But the Tyrians deadened the blows of the rams and the force
of the stones by letting down from the walls leathern bags filled with
sea-weed at the points assailed;[14407] while, by wheels which were set
in rapid motion, they intercepted the darts and javelins wherewith
they were attacked, and broke them or diverted them from their intended
courses.[14408] When boarding-bridges were thrown from the towers to the
top of the walls, and an attempt was made to pass troops into the
town across them, they flung grappling hooks among the soldiers on the
bridges, which caught in their bodies and lacerated them, or dragged
their shields from their hands, or sometimes hauled them bodily into the
air, and then dashed them against the wall or against the ground.[14409]
Further, they made ready masses of red-hot metal, and hurled them
against the towers and the scaling-parties.[14410] They also heated sand
over fires and poured it from the battlements on all who approached the
foot of the wall; this, penetrating between the armour and the skin,
inflicted such intolerable pain that the sufferers were forced to tear
off their coats of mail, whereupon they were easily transfixed by arrows
or long lances.[14411] With scythes they cut the ropes and thongs by
means of which the rams were worked;[14412] and at last, armed
with hatchets, they sprang from the battlements upon the Macedonian
boarding-bridges, and in a hand-to-hand combat defeated and drove back
their assailants.[14413] Finally, when, despite of all their efforts,
the outer wall began to give way, they constructed an inner wall to take
its place, broader and stronger than the other.[14414]

Alexander, after a time, became convinced that his endeavours to take
the city from the mole were hopeless, and turned his attention to the
sea defences, north and south of the mole, which were far less strong
than those which he had hitherto been attacking.[14415] He placed his
best engines and his boarding-bridges upon ships, and proceeded to
batter the sea walls in various places. On the south side, near the
Egyptian harbour, he found a weak place, and concentrating his efforts
upon it, he succeeded in effecting a large breach.[14416] He then gave
orders for a general assault.[14417] The two fleets were commanded to
force simultaneously the entrances to the two harbours; other vessels
to make demonstrations against the walls at all approachable points; the
army collected on the mole to renew its assaults; while he himself,
with his trustiest soldiers, delivered the main attack at the southern
breach.[14418] Two vessels were selected for the purpose. On one, which
was that of Coenus, he embarked a portion of the phalanx; on the
other, which was commanded by Admetus, he placed his bodyguard, himself
accompanying it. The struggle was short when once the boarding-bridges
were thrown across and rested on the battered wall. Fighting under the
eye of their king, the Macedonians carried all before them, though not
without important losses. Admetus himself, who was the first to step
on to the wall, received a spear thrust, and was slain.[14419] But the
soldiers who were following close behind him maintained their footing,
and in a little time got possession of several towers, with the spaces
between them. Alexander was among the foremost of those who mounted the
breach,[14420] and was for a while hotly engaged in a hand-to-hand fight
with the enemy. When those who resisted him were slain or driven off,
he directed his troops to seize the royal palace, which abutted on the
southern wall, and through it make their entrance into the town.[14421]

Meanwhile, the Greco-Phoenician fleet on the south side of the mole had
burst the boom and other obstacles by which the Egyptian harbour was
closed, and, attacking the ships within, had disabled some, and driven
the rest ashore, thus gaining possession of the southern port and a
ready access to the adjacent portion of the city.[14422] The Cyprians,
moreover, on the north, had forced their way into the Sidonian harbour,
which had no boom, and obtained an entrance into the town on that
quarter.[14423] The defences were broken through in three places, and
it might have been expected that resistance would have ceased. But the
gallant defenders still would not yield. A large body assembled at the
Agenorium, or temple of Agenor, and there made a determined stand, which
continued till Alexander himself attacked them with his bodyguard, and
slew almost the entire number. Others, mounting upon the roofs of the
houses, flung down stones and missiles of all kinds upon the Macedonians
in the street. A portion shut themselves up in their homes and perished
by their own hands. In the streets and squares there was a terrible
carnage. The Macedonians were infuriated by the length of the siege, the
stubbornness of the resistance, and the fact that the Tyrians had in the
course of the siege publicly executed, probably by way of sacrifice, a
number of their prisoners upon the walls. Those who died with arms in
their hands are reckoned at eight thousand;[14424] two thousand more,
who had been made prisoners, were barbarously crucified by command of
Alexander round the walls of the city.[14425] None of the adult free
males were spared, except the few who had taken refuge with Azemilcus
the king in the temple of Melkarth, which Alexander professed greatly
to revere, and a certain number whom the Sidonians, touched at last with
pity, concealed on board their triremes. The women, the children, and
the slaves, to the number of thirty thousand,[14426] were sold to the
highest bidder.

Having worked his will, and struck terror, as he hoped, into the hearts
of all who might be thinking of resisting him, Alexander concluded the
Tyrian episode of his career by a religious ceremony.[14427] Entering
the city from the mole in a grand procession, accompanied by his entire
force of soldiers, fully armed and arrayed, while his fleet also played
its part in the scene, he proceeded to the temple of Melkarth in the
middle of the town, and offered his much desired sacrifice to Hercules.
A gymnastic contest and a torch race formed a portion of the display.
To commemorate his victory, he dedicated and left in the temple the
battering-ram which had made the first impression on the southern wall,
together with a Tyrian vessel, used in the service of the god, which he
had captured when he bore down upon the city from Sidon with his fleet.
Over the charred and half-ruined remnants of the city, into which he
had introduced a certain number of colonists, chiefly Carians,[14428]
he placed as ruler a member of a decayed branch of the royal family, a
certain Abd-elonim, whom the Greeks called Ballonymos.[14429]




7. Phoenicia under the Greeks (B.C. 323-65)

     The Phoenicians faithful subjects of Alexander--At his death
     Phoenicia falls, first to Laomedon, then to Ptolemy Lagi--Is
     held by the Ptolemies for seventy years--Passes willingly,
     B.C. 198, under the Seleucidæ--Relations with the Seleucid
     princes and with the Jews--Hellenisation of Phoenicia--
     Continued devotion of the Phoenicians generally to trade and
     commerce--Material prosperity of Phoenicia.

Phoenicia continued faithful to Alexander during the remainder of his
career. Phoenician vessels were sent across the Ægean to the coast
of the Peloponnese to maintain the Macedonian interest in that
quarter.[14430] Large numbers of the mercantile class accompanied the
march of his army for the purposes of traffic. A portion of these, when
Alexander reached the Hydaspes and determined to sail down the course of
the Indus to the sea, were drafted into the vessels which he caused to
be built,[14431] descended the river, and accompanied Nearchus in his
voyage from Patala to the Persian Gulf. Others still remained with the
land force, and marched with Alexander himself across the frightful
deserts of Beloochistan, where they collected the nard and myrrh, which
were almost its only products, and which were produced in such abundance
as to scent the entire region.[14432] On Alexander's return to Babylon,
Phoenicia was required to supply him with additional vessels, and
readily complied with the demand. A fleet of forty-eight ships--two
of them quinqueremes, four quadriremes, twelve triremes, and thirty
pentaconters, or fifty-oared galleys--was constructed on the Phoenician
coast, carried in fragments to Thapsacus on the Euphrates, and there
put together and launched on the stream of the Euphrates, down which it
sailed to Babylon.[14433] Seafaring men from Phoenicia and Syria were at
the same time enlisted in considerable numbers, and brought to Alexander
at his new capital to man the ships which he was building there, and
also to supply colonists for the coasts of the Persian Gulf and the
islands scattered over its surface.[14434] Alexander, among his many
projects, nourished an intention of adding to his dominions, at any
rate, the seaboard of Arabia, and understood that for this purpose
he must establish in the Persian Gulf a great naval power, such as
Phoenicia alone out of all the countries under his dominion was able
to furnish. His untimely death brought all these schemes to an end, and
plunged the East into a sea of troubles.

In the division of Alexander's empire, which followed upon his death,
Phoenicia was at first assigned, together with Syria, to Laemedon,
and the two formed together a separate satrapy.[14435] But, after the
arrangement of Triparadisus (B.C. 320), Ptolemy Lagi almost immediately
attacked Laemedon, dispossessed him of his government, and attached it
to his own satrapy of Egypt.[14436] Six years later (B.C. 314),
attacked in his turn by Antigonus, Ptolemy was forced to relinquish his
conquests,[14437] none of which offered much resistance excepting
Tyre. Tyre, though no more than eighteen years had elapsed since its
desolation by Alexander, had, like the fabled phoenix, risen again from
its ruins, and through the recuperative energy of commerce had attained
almost to its previous wealth and prosperity.[14438] Its walls had been
repaired, and it was defended by its Egyptian garrison with pertinacity.
Antigonus, who was master of the Phoenician mainland, established
dockyards at Sidon, Byblus, and Tripolis, set eight thousand sawyers and
labourers to cut down timber in Lebanon, and called upon the kings
of the coast towns to build him a fleet with the least possible
delay.[14439] His orders were carried out, and Tyre was blockaded by sea
and land for the space of fifteen months, when the provisions failed and
the town was forced to surrender itself.[14440] The garrison marched out
with the honours of war, and Phoenicia became an appendage of the empire
(for such it was) of Antigonus.

From Antigonus Phoenicia passed to his son Demetrius, who maintained his
hold on it, with some vicissitudes of fortune, till B.C. 287, when it
once more passed under the dominion of Ptolemy Lagi.[14441] From
this time it was an Egyptian dependency for nearly seventy years,
and flourished commercially, if it not distinguish itself by warlike
exploits. The early Ptolemies were mild and wise rulers. They encouraged
commerce, literature, and art. So far as was possible they protected
their dominions from external attack, put down brigandage, and ruled
with equity and moderation. It was not until the fourth prince of the
house of Lagus, Philopator, mounted the throne (B.C. 222) that the
character of their rule changed for the worse, and their subjects began
to have reason to complain of them. The weakness and profligacy of
Philopater[14442] tempted Antiochus III. to assume the aggressive, and
to disturb the peace which had now for some time subsisted between
Syria and Egypt, the Lagidæ and the Seleucidæ. In B.C. 219 he drove the
Egyptians out of Seleucia, the port of Antioch,[14443] and being joined
by Theodotus, the Egyptian governor of the Coelesyrian province, invaded
that country and Phoenicia, took possession of Tyre and Accho, which
was now called Ptolemaïs, and threatened Egypt with subjugation.[14444]
Phoenicia once more became the battle-field between two great powers,
and for the next twenty years the cities were frequently taken and
re-taken. At last, in B.C. 198, by the victory of Antiochus over
Scopas,[14445] and the surrender of Sidon, Phoenicia passed, with
Coelesyria, into the permanent possession of the Seleucidæ, and, though
frequently reclaimed by Egypt, was never recovered.

The change of rulers was, on the whole, in consonance with the wishes
and feelings of the Phoenicians. Though Alexandria may not have been
founded with the definite intention of depressing Tyre, and raising
up a commercial rival to her on the southern shore of the
Mediterranean;[14446] yet the advantages of the situation, and the
interests of the Lagid princes, constituted her in a short time an
actual rival, and an object of Phoenician jealousy. Phoenicia had been
from a remote antiquity[14447] down to the time of Alexander, the main,
if not the sole, dispenser of Egyptian products to Syria, Asia Minor,
and Europe. With the foundation of Alexandria this traffic passed out of
her hands. It may be true that what she lost in this way was "more than
compensated by the new channels of eastern traffic which Alexander's
conquests opened to her, by the security given to commercial intercourse
by the establishment of a Greek monarchy in the ancient dominions of the
Persian kings, and by the closer union which now prevailed between all
parts of the civilised world."[14448] But the balance of advantage and
disadvantage does not even now always reconcile traders to a definite
and tangible loss; and in the ruder times of which we are writing it
was not to be expected that arguments of so refined and recondite a
character should be very sensibly felt. Tyre and Sidon recognised in
Alexandria a rival from the first, and grew more and more jealous of her
as time went on. She monopolised the trade in Egyptian commodities from
her foundation. In a short time she drew to herself, not only the
direct Egyptian traffic, but that which her rulers diverted from other
quarters, and drew to Egypt by the construction of harbours, and roads
with stations and watering places.[14449] Much of the wealth that had
previously flowed into Phoenicia was, in point of fact, diverted to
Egypt, and especially to Alexandria, by the judicious arrangements of
the earlier Lagid princes. Phoenicia, therefore, in attaching herself to
the Seleucidæ, felt that she was avenging a wrong, and though materially
she might not be the gainer, was gratified by the change in her
position.

The Seleucid princes on their part regarded the Phoenicians with
favour, and made a point of conciliating their affections by personal
intercourse with them, and by the grant of privileges. At the
quinquennial festival instituted by Alexander ere he quitted Tyre, which
was celebrated in the Greek fashion with gymnastic and musical contests,
the Syrian kings were often present in person, and took part in the
festivities.[14450] They seem also to have visited the principal cities
at other times, and to have held their court in them for many days
together.[14451] With their consent and permission, the towns severally
issued their own coins, which bore commonly legends both in Greek and
in Phoenician, and had sometimes Greek, sometimes Phoenician
emblems.[14452] Both Aradus and Tyre were allowed the privilege of being
asylums,[14453] from which political refugees could not be demanded by
the sovereign.

The Phoenicians in return served zealously on board the Syro-Macedonian
fleet, and showed their masters all due respect and honour.[14454] They
were not afraid, however, of asserting an independence of thought and
judgment, even in matters where the kings were personally concerned. On
one occasion, when Antiochus Epiphanes was holding his court at Tyre, a
cause of the greatest importance was brought before him for decision by
the authorities at Jerusalem. The high-priest of the time, Menelaus,
who had bought the office from the Syrian king, was accused of having
plundered the Temple of a number of its holy vessels, and of having
sold them for his own private advantage. The Sanhedrim, who prosecuted
Menelaus, sent three representatives to Tyre, to conduct the case, and
press the charges against him. The evidence was so clear that the High
Priest saw no chance of an acquittal, except by private interest. He
therefore bribed an influential courtier, named Ptolemy, the son of a
certain Dorymenes, to intercede with Antiochus on his behalf, and,
if possible, obtain his acquittal. The affair was not one of much
difficulty. Justice was commonly bought and sold at the Syro-Macedonian
Court, and Antiochus readily came into the views of Ptolemy, and
pronounced the High Priest innocent. He thought, however, that in so
grave a matter some one must be punished, and, as he had acquitted
Menelaus, he could only condemn his accusers. These unfortunates
suffered death at his hands, whereon the Tyrians, compassionating their
fate, and to mark their sense of the iniquity of the sentence, decreed
to give them an honourable burial. The historian who relates the
circumstance evidently feels that it was a bold and courageous act, very
creditable to the Tyrian people.[14455]

It is not always, however, that we can justly praise the conduct of
the Phoenicians at this period. Within six years of the time when the
Tyrians showed themselves at once so courageous and so compassionate,
the nation generally was guilty of complicity in a most unjust and
iniquitous design. Epiphanes, having driven the Jews into rebellion by
a most cruel religious persecution, and having more than once suffered
defeat at their hands, resolved to revenge himself by utterly destroying
the people which had provoked his resentment.[14456] Called away to
the eastern provinces by a pressing need, he left instructions with his
general, Lysias, to invade Judæa with an overwhelming force, and, after
crushing all resistance, to sell the surviving population--men, women,
and children--for slaves. Lysias, in B.C. 165, marched into Judæa,
accompanied by a large army, with the full intention of carrying out to
the letter his master's commands. In order to attract purchasers for the
multitude whom he would have to sell, he made proclamation that the rate
of sale should be a talent for ninety, or less than 3l. a head,[14457]
while at the same he invited the attendance of the merchants from all
"the cities of the sea-coast," who must have been mainly, if not wholly,
Phoenicians. The temptation was greater than Phoenician virtue could
resist. The historian tells us that "the merchants of the country,
hearing the fame of the Syrians, took silver and gold very much, with
servants, and came into the Syrian camp to buy the children of Israel
for money."[14458] The result was a well-deserved disappointment. The
Syrian army suffered complete defeat at the hands of the Jews, and had
to beat a hasty retreat; the merchants barely escaped with their lives.
As for the money which they had brought with them for the purchase of
the captives, it fell into the hands of the victorious Jews, and formed
no inconsiderable part of the booty which rewarded their valour.[14459]

After this, we hear but little of any separate action on the part of
the Phoenicians, or of any Phoenician city, during the Seleucid period.
Phoenicia became rapidly Hellenised; and except that they still remained
devoted to commercial pursuits, the cities had scarcely any distinctive
character, or anything that marked them out as belonging to a separate
nationality. Greek legends became more frequent upon the coins; Greek
names were more and more affected, especially by the upper classes; the
men of letters discarded Phoenician as a literary language, and composed
the works, whereby they sought to immortalize their names, in Greek.
Greek philosophy was studied in the schools of Sidon;[14460] and at
Byblus Phoenician mythology was recast upon a Greek type. At the same
time Phoenician art conformed itself more and more closely to Greek
models, until all that was rude in it, or archaic, or peculiar, died
out, and the productions of Phoenician artists became mere feeble
imitations of second-rate Greek patterns.

The nation gave itself mainly to the pursuit of wealth. The old trades
were diligently plied. Tyre retained its pre-eminence in the manufacture
of the purple dye; and Sidon was still unrivalled in the production of
glass. Commerce continued to enrich the merchant princes, while at the
same time it provided a fairly lucrative employment for the mass of the
people. A new source of profit arose from the custom, introduced by
the Syro-Macedonians, of farming the revenue. In Phoenicia, as in Syria
generally, the taxes of each city were let out year by year to some of
the wealthiest men of the place,[14461] who collected them with extreme
strictness, and made over but a small proportion of the amount to
the Crown. Large fortunes were made in this way, though occasionally
foreigners would step in, and outbid the Phoenician speculators,[14462]
who were not content unless they gained above a hundred per cent.
on each transaction. Altogether, Phoenicia may be pronounced to have
enjoyed much material prosperity under the Seleucid princes, though,
in the course of the civil wars between the different pretenders to
the Crown, most of the cities had, from time to time, to endure sieges.
Accho especially, which had received from the Lagid princes the name
of Ptolemaïs, and was now the most important and flourishing of the
Phoenician towns, had frequently to resist attack, and was more than
once taken by storm.[14463]




8. Phoenicia under the Romans (B.C. 65-A.D. 650)

     Syria made a Roman province, B.C. 65--Privileges granted by
     Rome to the Phoenician cities--Phoenicia profits by the
     Roman suppression of piracy, but suffers from Parthian
     ravages--The Phoenicians offend Augustus and lose their
     favoured position, but recover it under later emperors--
     Mention of the Phoenician cities in the New Testament--
     Phoenicia accepts Christianity--Phoenician bishops at the
     early Councils--Phoenician literature at this date--Works of
     Antipater, Apollonius, Philo, Hermippus, Marinus, Maximus,
     and Porphyry--School of law at Berytus--Survival of the
     Phoenician commercial spirit--Survival of the religion--
     Summary.

The kingdom of the Seleucidæ came to an end through its own internal
weakness and corruption. In B.C. 83 their subjects, whether native
Asiatics or Syro-Macedonians, were so weary of the perpetual series of
revolts, civil wars, and assassinations that they invited Tigranes,
the king of the neighbouring Armenia, to step in and undertake the
government of the country.[14464] Tigranes ruled from B.C. 83 till B.C.
69, when he was attacked by the Romans, to whom he had given just cause
of offence by his conduct in the Mithridatic struggle. Compelled by
Lucullus to relinquish Syria, he retired to his own dominions, and was
succeeded by the last Seleucid prince, Antiochus Asiaticus, who reigned
from B.C. 69 to B.C. 65. Rome then at length came forward, and took the
inheritance to which she had become entitled a century and a quarter
earlier by the battle of Magnesia, and which she could have occupied at
any moment during the interval, had it suited her purpose. The combat
with Mithridates had forced her to become an Asiatic power; and having
once overcome her repugnance to being entangled in Asiatic politics,
she allowed her instinct of self-aggrandizement to have full play,
and reduced the kingdom of the Seleucidæ into the form of a Roman
province.[14465]

The province, which retained the name of Syria, and was placed under
a proconsul,[14466] whose title was "Præses Syriæ," extended from the
flanks of Amanus and Taurus to Carmel and the sources of the Jordan,
and thus included Phoenicia. The towns, however, of Tripolis, Sidon, and
Tyre were allowed the position of "free cities," which secured them an
independent municipal government, under their own freely elected council
and chief magistates. These privileges, conferred by Pompey, were not
withdrawn by Julius Cæsar, when he became master of the Roman world; and
hence we find him addressing a communication respecting Hyrcanus to the
"Magistates, Council, and People of Sidon."[14467] A similar regard was
shown for Phoenician vested rights by Anthony, who in B.C. 36, when his
infatuation for Cleopatra was at its height, and he agreed to make over
to her the government of Palestine and of Coelesyria, as far as the
river Eleutherus, especially exempted from her control, despite her
earnest entreaties, the cities of Tyre and Sidon.[14468] Anthony also
wrote more than one letter to the "Magistates, Council, and People
of Tyre," in which he recognised them as "allies" of the Roman people
rather than subjects.[14469]

So far the Phoenicians would seem to have gained rather than lost by
exchanging the dominion of Syria for that of Rome. They gained also
greatly by the strictness with which Rome kept the police of the Eastern
Mediterranean. For many years previously to B.C. 67 their commerce had
been preyed upon to an enormous extent by the piratical fleets, which,
issuing from the creeks and harbours of Western Cilicia and Pamphylia,
spread terror on every side,[14470] and made the navigation of the
Levant and Ægean as dangerous as it had been in the days anterior to
Minos.[14471] Pompey, in that year, completely destroyed the piratical
fleets, attacked the pirates in their lairs, and cleared them out from
every spot where they had established themselves. Voyages by sea became
once more as safe as travels by land; and a vigilant watch being kept on
all the coasts and islands, piracy was never again permitted to gather
strength, or become a serious evil. The Phoenician merchants could once
more launch their trading vessels on the Mediterranean waters without
fear of their suffering capture, and were able to insure their cargoes
at a moderate premium.

But their connection with Rome exposed the Phoenicians to some fresh,
and terrible, perils. The great attack of Crassus on Parthia in the year
B.C. 53 had bitterly exasperated that savage and powerful kingdom, which
was quite strong enough to retaliate, under favourable circumstances,
upon the mighty mistress of the West, and to inflict severe sufferings
upon Rome's allies, subjects, and dependencies. After a preliminary
trial of strength[14472] in the years B.C. 522 and 51, Pacorus, the
son of Orodes, in B.C. 40, crossed the Euphrates in force, defeated the
Romans under Decidius Saxa, and carried fire and sword over the whole
of the Syrian presidency.[14473] Having taken Apamea and Antioch, he
marched into Phoenicia, ravaged the open country, and compelled all
the towns, except Tyre, to surrender. Tyre, notwithstanding the mole
constructed by Alexander, which joined it to the continent, was still
regarded as impregnable, unless invested both by sea and land; on which
account Pacorus, as he had no naval force, relinquished the idea of
capturing it.[14474] But all the other cities either gave themselves
up or were taken, and the conquest of Phoenicia being completed, the
Parthian prince proceeded to occupy Palestine. Jerusalem fell into his
hands, and for three years the entire tract between the Taurus range
and Egypt was lost to Rome, and formed a portion of the Parthian Empire.
What hardships, what insults, what outrages the Phoenicians had to
endure during this interval we do not know, and can only conjecture; but
the conduct of the Parthians at Jerusalem[14475] makes it probable that
the inhabitants of the conquered districts generally had much cause for
complaint. However, the time of endurance did not last very long; in
the third year from the commencement of the invasion the fortune of war
turned against the assailants. Rome, under Ventidius, recovered her
lost laurels. Syria was reoccupied, and the Parthians driven across the
Euphrates, never again to pass it.[14476]

In the struggle (which soon followed these events) between Antony and
Augustus, Phoenicia had the misfortune to give offence to the latter.
The terms on which they stood with Antony, and the protection which he
had afforded to their cities against the greed of Cleopatra, naturally
led them to embrace his cause; and it should scarcely have been regarded
as a crime in them that they did so with ardour. But Augustus, who
was certainly not clement by nature, chose to profess himself deeply
aggrieved by the preference which they had shown for his rival, and,
when he personally visited the East in B.C. 20, inflicted a severe
punishment on two at least of the cities. Dio Cassius can scarcely be
mistaken when he says that Tyre and Sidon were "enslaved"--i.e. deprived
of freedom--by Augustus,[14477] who must certainly have revoked the
privilege originally granted by Pompey. Whether the privilege was
afterwards restored is somewhat uncertain; but there is distinct
evidence that more than one of the later emperors was favourably
disposed to Rome's Phoenician subjects. Claudius granted to Accho the
title and status of a Roman colony;[14478] while Hadrian allowed Tyre to
call herself a "metropolis."[14479]

Two important events have caused Tyre and Sidon to be mentioned in the
New Testament. Jesus Christ, in the second year of his ministry, "arose
and went" from Galilee "into the borders of Tyre and Sidon," and
there wrought a miracle at the earnest request of a "Syro-Phoenician
woman."[14480] And Herod Agrippa, the grandson of Herod the Great,
when at Cæsarea in A.D. 44, received an embassy from "them of Tyre and
Sidon," with whom he was highly offended, and "made an oration" to the
ambassadors.[14481] In this latter place the continued semi-independence
of Tyre and Sidon seems to be implied. Agrippa is threatening them with
war, while they "desire peace." "Their country" is spoken of as if
it were distinct from all other countries. We cannot suppose that
the Judæan prince would have ventured to take up this attitude if the
Phoenician cities had been fully incorporated into the Roman State,
since in that case quarrelling with them would have been quarrelling
with Rome, a step on which even Agrippa, with all his pride and all his
rashness, would scarcely have ventured. It is probable, therefore, that
either Tiberius or Claudius had revoked the decree of Augustus, and
re-invested the Phoenician cities with the privilege whereof the first
of the emperors had deprived them.

Not long after this, about A.D. 57, we have evidence that the great
religious and social movement of the age had swept the Phoenician cities
within its vortex, and that, in some of them at any rate, Christian
communities had been formed, which were not ashamed openly to profess
the new religion. The Gospel was preached in Phoenicia[14482] as early
as A.D. 41. Sixteen years later, when St. Paul, on his return from
his third missionary journey, landed at Tyre, and proceeded thence
to Ptolemaïs, he found at both places "churches," or congregations of
Christians, who received him kindly, ministered to his wants, prayed
with him, and showed a warm interest in his welfare.[14483] These
communities afterwards expanded. By the end of the second century after
Christ Tyre was the seat of a bishopric, which held an important place
among the Syrian Sees. Several Tyrian bishops of the second, third, and
fourth centuries are known to us, as Cassius (ab. A.D. 198), Marinus
(A.D. 253), Methodius (A.D. 267-305), Tyrannion (A.D. 310), and Paulinus
(A.D. 328). Early in the fourth century (B.C. 335) Tyre was the seat of
a synod or council, called to consider charges made against the great
Athanasius,[14484] who was taxed with cruelty, impiety, and the use of
magical arts. As the bishops who assembled belonged chiefly to the party
of Arius, the judgment of the council condemned Athanasius, and deprived
him of his see. On appeal the decision was reversed; Athanasius was
reinstated,[14485] and advanced; the cause with which he had identified
himself triumphed; and the Synod of Tyre being pronounced unorthodox,
the Tyrian church, like that of Antioch, sank in the estimation of the
Church at large.

Tyre also made herself obnoxious to the Christian world in another
way. In the middle of the third century she produced the celebrated
philosopher, Porphyry,[14486] who, of all the literary opponents of
Christianity, was the most vigorous and the most successful. Porphyry
appears to have been a Phoenician by descent. His original name was
Malchus--i.e. Melek or Malik, "king." To disguise his Asiatic origin,
and ingratiate himself with the literary class of the day, who were
chiefly Greeks or Grecised Romans, he took the Hellenic and far more
sonorous appellation of Porphyrius, which he regarded as a sort of
synonym, since purple was the _royal_ colour. He early gave himself to
the study of philosophy, and was indefatigable in his efforts to acquire
knowledge and learning of every kind. In Asia, probably at Tyre
itself, he attended the lectures of Origen; at Athens he studied under
Apollonius and Longinus; in Rome, whereto he ultimately gravitated, he
attached himself to the Neo-Platonic school of Plotinus. His literary
labours, which were enormous, had for their general object the
establishment of that eclectic system which Ammonius Saccas, Plotinus,
Jamblichus, and others had elaborated, and were endeavouring to
impose upon the world as constituting at once true religion and true
philosophy. He was of a constructive rather than a destructive turn of
mind. Still, he thought it of great importance, and a necessity of
the times, that he should write a book against the Christians, whose
opinions were, he knew, making such progress as raised the suspicion
that they would prevail over all others, and in a short time become
universal. This polemical treatise ran to fifteen books, and "exhibited
considerable acquaintance with both the Jewish and the Christian
scriptures."[14487] It is now lost, but its general character is well
known from the works of Eusebius, Jerome, and others. The style was
caustic and trenchant. An endeavour was made to show that both the
historical scriptures of the Old Testament and the Gospels and Acts in
the New were full of discrepancies and contradictions. The history and
antiquities of the Jews, as put forth in the Bible, were examined, and
declared to be unworthy of credit. A special attack was made on the
genuineness and authenticity of the book of Daniel, which was pronounced
to be the work of a contemporary of Antiochus Epiphanes, who succeeded
in palming off upon his countrymen his own crude production as the
work of the venerated sage and prophet. Prevalent modes of interpreting
scripture were passed under review, and the allegorical exegesis of
Origen was handled with especial severity. The work is said to have
produced a vast effect, especially among the upper classes, whose
conversion to Christianity it tended greatly to check and hinder.
Answers to the book, or to particular portions of it, were published by
Eusebius of Cæsarea, by Apollinaris, and by Methodius, Bishop of Tyre;
but these writers had neither the learning nor the genius of their
opponent, and did little to counteract the influence of his work on the
upper grades of society.[14488]

The literary importance of the Phoenician cities under the Romans is
altogether remarkable. Under Augustus and Tiberius--especially from
about B.C. 40 to A.D. 20--Sidon was the seat of a philosophical school,
in which the works of Aristotle were studied and explained,[14489]
perhaps to some extent criticised.[14490] Strabo attended this school
for a time in conjunction with two other students, named Boëthus and
Diodotus. Tyre had even previously produced the philosophers, Antipater,
who was intimate with the younger Cato, and Apollonius, who wrote a work
about Zeno, and formed a descriptive catalogue of the authors who had
composed books on the subject of the philosophy of the Stoics.[14491]
Strabo goes so far as to say that philosophy in all its various aspects
might in his day be better studied at Tyre and Sidon than anywhere
else.[14492] A little later we find Byblus producing the semi-religious
historian, Philo, who professed to reveal to the Greeks the secrets of
the ancient Phoenician mythology, and who, whatever we may think of his
judgment, was certainly a man of considerable learning. He was followed
by his pupil, Hermippus, who was contemporary with Trajan and Hadrian,
and obtained some reputation as a critic and grammarian.[14493] About
the same time flourished Marinus, the writer on geography, who was
a Tyrian by birth, and "the first author who substituted maps,
mathematically constructed according to latitude and longitude, for the
itinerary charts" of his predecessors.[14494] Ptolemy of Pelusium based
his great work entirely upon that of Marinus, who is believed to have
utilised the geographical and hydrographical accumulations of the old
Phoenician navigators, besides availing himself of the observations of
Hipparchus, and of the accounts given of their travels by various Greek
and Roman authors. Contemporary with Marinus was Paulus, a native of
Tyre, who was noted as a rhetorician, and deputed by his city to go as
their representative to Rome and plead the cause of the Tyrians before
Hadrian.[14495] A little later we hear of Maximus, who flourished under
Marcus Aurelius and Commodus (ab. A.D. 160-190), a Tyrian, like Paulus,
and a rhetorician and Platonic philosopher.[14496] The literary glories
of Tyre culminated and terminated with Porphyry, of whose works we have
already given an account.

Towards the middle of the third century after Christ a school of law and
jurisprudence arose at Berytus, which attained high distinction, and
is said by Gibbon[14497] to have furnished the eastern provinces of the
empire with pleaders and magistrates for the space of three centuries
(A.D. 250-550). The course of education at Berytus lasted five years,
and included Roman Law in all its various forms, the works of Papinian
being especially studied in the earlier times, and the same together
with the edicts of Justinian in the later.[14498] Pleaders were forced
to study either at Berytus, or at Rome, or at Constantinople,[14499]
and, the honours and emoluments of the profession being large, the
supply of students was abundant and perpetual. External misfortune, and
not internal decay, at last destroyed the school, the town of Berytus
being completely demolished by an earthquake in the year A.D. 551. The
school was then transferred to Sidon, but appears to have languished
on its transplantation to a new soil and never to have recovered its
pristine vigour or vitality.

It is difficult to decide how far these literary glories of the
Phoenician cities reflect any credit on the Phoenician race. Such a
number of Greeks settled in Syria and Phoenicia under the Seleucidæ
that to be a Tyrian or a Sidonian in the Græco-Roman period furnished
no evidence at all of a man having any Phoenician blood in his veins.
It will have been observed that the names of the Tyrian, Sidonian, and
Berytian learned men and authors of the time--Antipater, Apollonius,
Boëthus, Diodotus, Philo, Hermippus, Marinus, Paulus, Maximus,
Porphyrius--are without exception either Latin or Greek. The language in
which the books were written was universally Greek, and in only one or
two cases is there reason to suppose that the authors had any knowledge
of the Phoenician tongue. The students at Berytus between A.D. 250 and
550 were probably, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, Greeks or
Romans. Phoenician nationality had, in fact, almost wholly disappeared
in the Seleucid period. The old language ceased to be spoken, and
though for some time retained upon the coins together with a Greek
legend,[14500] became less frequent as time went on, and soon after the
Christian era disappeared altogether. It is probable that, as a spoken
language, Phoenician had gone out of use even earlier.[14501]

In two respects only did the old national spirit survive, and give
indication that, even in the nation's "ashes," there still lived some
remnant of its "wonted fires." Tyre and Sidon were great commercial
centres down to the time of the Crusades, and quite as rich, quite as
important, quite as flourishing, commercially, as in the old days of
Hiram and Ithobal. Mela[14502] speaks of Sidon in the second century
after Christ as "still opulent." Ulpian,[14503] himself a Tyrian by
descent, calls Tyre in the reign of Septimus Severus "a most splendid
colony." A writer of the age of Constantine says of it: "The prosperity
of Tyre is extraordinary. There is no state in the whole of the East
which excels it in the amount of its business. Its merchants are
persons of great wealth, and there is no port where they do not exercise
considerable influence."[14504] St. Jerome, towards the end of the
fourth century, speaks of Tyre as "the noblest and most beautiful of all
the cities of Phoenicia,"[14505] and as "an emporium for the commerce of
almost the whole world."[14506] During the period of the Crusades, "Tyre
retained its ancient pre-eminence among the cities of the Syrian coast,
and excited the admiration of the warriors of Europe by its capacious
harbours, its wall, triple towards the land and double towards the sea,
its still active commerce, and the beauty and fertility of the opposite
shore." The manufactures of purple and of glass were still carried on.
Tyre was not reduced to insignificance until the Saracenic conquest
towards the close of the thirteenth century of our era, when its trade
collapsed, and it became "a rock for fishermen to spread their nets
upon."[14507]

The other respect in which the vitality of the old national spirit
displayed itself was in the continuance of the ancient religion. While
Christianity was adopted very generally by the more civilised of the
inhabitants, and especially by those who occupied the towns, there were
shrines and fanes in the remote districts, and particularly in the less
accessible parts of Lebanon, where the old rites were still in force,
and the old orgies continued to be carried on, just as in ancient times,
down to the reign of Constantine. The account of the licentious worship
of Ashtoreth at Aphaca, which has been already quoted from Eusebius,
belongs to the fourth century after our era, and shows the tenacity with
which a section of the Phoenicians, not withstanding their Hellenisation
in language, in literature, and in art, clung to the old barbarous and
awful cult, which had come down to them by tradition from their fathers.
A similar worship at the same time maintained itself on the other side
of the Lebanon chain in Heliopolis, or Baalbek, where the votaries of
impurity allowed their female relatives, even their wives and
their daughters, to play the harlot as much as they pleased.[14508]
Constantine exerted himself to put down and crush out these iniquities,
but it is more than probable that, in the secret recesses of the
mountain region, whither government officials would find it hard to
penetrate, the shameful and degrading rites still found a refuge, rooted
as they were in the depraved affections of the common people, to a much
later period.

The mission of the Phoenicians, as a people, was accomplished before the
subjection to Rome began. Under the Romans they were still ingenious,
industrious, intelligent. But in the earlier times they were far more
than this. They were the great pioneers of civilisation. Intrepid,
inventive, enterprising, they at once made vast progress in the arts
themselves, and carried their knowledge, their active habits, and their
commercial instincts into the remotest regions of the old continent.
They exercised a stimulating, refining, and civilising influence
wherever they went. North and south and east and west they adventured
themselves amid perils of all kinds, actuated by the love of adventure
more than by the thirst for gain, conferring benefits, spreading
knowledge, suggesting, encouraging, and developing trade, turning men
from the barbarous and unprofitable pursuits of war and bloodshed to
the peaceful occupations of productive industry. They did not aim at
conquest. They united the various races of men by the friendly links of
mutual advantage and mutual dependence, conciliated them, softened them,
humanised them. While, among the nations of the earth generally, brute
force was worshipped as the true source of power and the only basis of
national repute, the Phoenicians succeeded in proving that as much could
be done by arts as by arms, as great glory and reputation gained, as
real a power built up, by the quiet agencies of exploration, trade, and
commerce, as by the violent and brutal methods of war, massacre, and
ravage. They were the first to set this example. If the history of the
world since their time has not been wholly one of the potency in human
affairs of "blood and iron," it is very much owing to them. They, and
their kinsmen of Carthage, showed mankind what a power might be wielded
by commercial states. The lesson has not been altogether neglected in
the past. May the writer be pardoned if, in the last words of what is
probably his last historical work, he expresses a hope that, in the
future, the nations of the earth will more and more take the lesson to
heart, and vie with each other in the arts which made Phoenicia great,
rather than in those which exalted Rome, her oppressor and destroyer?






FOOTNOTES


PREFACE

[Footnote 01: _Die Phönizier, und das phönizische Alterthum_, by F. C.
Movers, in five volumes, Berlin, 1841-1856.]

[Footnote 02: _History and Antiquities of Phoenicia_, by John Kenrick,
London, 1855.]

[Footnote 03: _Histoire de l'Art dans l'Antiquité_, par MM. Perrot et
Chipiez, Paris, 1881-7, 4 vols.]

[Footnote 04: Will of William Camden, Clarencieux King-of-Arms, founder
of the "Camden Professorship," 1662.]


I--THE LAND

[Footnote 11: See Eckhel, _Doctr. Num. Vet._ p. 441.]

[Footnote 12: {'H ton 'Aradion paralia}, xvi. 2, § 12.]

[Footnote 13: Pomp. Mel. _De Situ Orbis_, i. 12.]

[Footnote 14: The tract of white sand (Er-Ramleh) which forms the
coast-line of the entire shore from Rhinocolura to Carmel is said to
be gradually encroaching, fresh sand being continually brought by the
south-west wind from Egypt. "It has buried Ascalon, and in the north,
between Joppa and Cæsaræa, the dunes are said to be as much as three
miles wide and 300 feet high" (Grove, in Smith's _Dict. of the Bible_,
ii. 673).]

[Footnote 15: See Cant. ii. 1; Is. xxxiii. 9; xxxv. 2; lxv. 10.]

[Footnote 16: Stanley, _Sinai and Palestine_, p. 254.]

[Footnote 17: The Kaneh derives its name from this circumstance, and may
be called "the River of Canes."]

[Footnote 18: Robinson, _Biblical Researches_, iii. 28, 29.]

[Footnote 19: Grove, l.s.c.]

[Footnote 110: Stanley, _Sinai and Palestine_, p. 260.]

[Footnote 111: Lynch found it eighteen yards in width in April 1848
(_The Jordan and the Dead Sea_, p. 64). He found the Belus twice as wide
and twice as deep as the Kishon.]

[Footnote 112: A more particular description of these fountains will be
given in the description of the city of Tyre, with which they were very
closely connected.]

[Footnote 113: Robinson, _Biblical Researches_, iii. 410.]

[Footnote 114: Robinson, iii. 415.]

[Footnote 115: Ibid. p. 414. Compare Renan, _Mission de Phénicie_, pp.
524, 665.]

[Footnote 116: Robinson, iii. 420.]

[Footnote 117: Renan, _Mission de Phénicie_, p. 353.]

[Footnote 118: See Edrisi (traduction de Joubert), i. 355; D'Arvieux,
_Mémoires_, ii. 33; Renan, pp. 352, 353.]

[Footnote 119: Gesenius, _Thesaurus_, p. 247.]

[Footnote 120: Renan, pp. 59, 60.]

[Footnote 121: Kenrick (_Phoenicia_, p. 8), who quotes Burckhardt
(_Syria_, p. 161), and Chesney (_Euphrates Expedition_, i. 450).]

[Footnote 122: Renan, p. 59:--"C'est un immense tapis de fleurs."]

[Footnote 123: Mariti, _Travels_, ii. 131 (quoted by Kenrick, p. 22).]

[Footnote 124: Strabo, xvi. 2, § 27.]

[Footnote 125: Stanley, _Sinai and Palestine_, p. 344.]

[Footnote 126: Martineau, _Eastern Life_, p. 539.]

[Footnote 127: Van de Velde, _Travels_, i. 317, 318. Compare Porter,
_Giant Cities of Bashan_, p. 236.]

[Footnote 128: Ritter, _Erdkunde_, xvi. 31.]

[Footnote 129: Grove, in Smith's _Dictionary of the Bible_, i. 278.]

[Footnote 130: Walpole's _Ansayrii_, iii. 156.]

[Footnote 131: The derivation of Lebanon from "white," is generally
admitted. (see Gesenius, _Thesaurus_, p. 369; Buxtorf, _Lexicon_, p.
1119; Fürst, _Concordantia_, p. 588.)]

[Footnote 132: Stanley, _Sinai and Palestine_, p. 395.]

[Footnote 133: Tristram, _The Land of Israel_, p. 634.]

[Footnote 134: Ibid. p. 7.]

[Footnote 135: Porter, in Smith's _Dictionary of the Bible_, ii. 86.]

[Footnote 136: Ibid. Compare _Nat. Hist. Review_, No. v. p. 11.]

[Footnote 137: See Tristram, _Land of Israel_, pp. 625-629.]

[Footnote 138: See Tristram, _Land of Israel_, p. 626.]

[Footnote 139: Porter, in _Dictionary of the Bible_, ii. 86.]

[Footnote 140: Tristram, _Land of Israel_, p. 621.]

[Footnote 141: Ibid. p. 600. Compare Porter, in Smith's _Dictionary of
the Bible_, ii. 87.]

[Footnote 142: Such outlets are common in Greece, where they are called
_Katavothra_. They probably also occur in Asia Minor.]

[Footnote 143: Burckhardt, _Travels in Syria_, p. 10; Chesney,
_Euphrates Expedition_, i. 398.]

[Footnote 144: Tristram, p. 600.]

[Footnote 145: Porter, _Handbook for Syria_, p. 571; Robinson, _Later
Researches_, p. 423.]

[Footnote 146: Tristram, p. 594.]

[Footnote 147: Robinson, _Biblical Researches_, iii. 409.]

[Footnote 148: Burckhardt, _Travels in Syria_, p. 161; Chesney,
_Euphrates Expedition_, i. 450; Walpole's _Ansayrii_, iii. 49.]

[Footnote 149: Renan, _Mission de Phénicie_, p. 116.]

[Footnote 150: Porter, _Giant Cities of Bashan_, p. 289.]

[Footnote 151: Ibid. p. 288.]

[Footnote 152: Walpole's _Ansayrii_, iii. 44.]

[Footnote 153: Porter, _Giant Cities_, p. 292; Robinson, _Later
Researches_, p. 605; Renan, _Mission de Phénicie_, p. 297.]

[Footnote 154: Maundrell, _Travels_, pp. 57, 58; Porter, _Giant Cities_,
p. 284; Renan, _Mission de Phénicie_, p. 283.]

[Footnote 155: Porter, p. 283.]

[Footnote 156: Porter, p. 284.]

[Footnote 157: Robinson, _Later Researches_, p. 45.]

[Footnote 158: Ibid. p. 43.]

[Footnote 159: Tristram, _Land of Israel_, p. 44.]

[Footnote 160: Kenrick, _Phoenicia_, p. 20.]

[Footnote 161: See the _Transactions of the Society of Bibl.
Archæology_, vol. vii.; and compare Kenrick, _Phoenicia_, p. 14;
Robinson, _Later Researches_, pp. 617-624.]

[Footnote 162: Walpole's _Ansayrii_, iii. 6.]

[Footnote 163: Ibid. p. 34. Compare Renan, _Mission de Phénicie_, who
calls the pass over the spur "un véritable casse-cou sur des roches
inclinées" (p. 150).]

[Footnote 164: Kenrick, _Phoenicia_, p. 16.]

[Footnote 165: Robinson, _Biblical Researches_, iii. 432.]


II--CLIMATE AND PRODUCTIONS

[Footnote 21: Kenrick, _Phoenicia_, p. 32.]

[Footnote 22: Grove, in Smith's _Dict. of the Bible_, ii. 693.]

[Footnote 23: Kenrick, l.s.c.]

[Footnote 24: See Canon Tristram's experiences, _Land of Israel_, pp.
96-115.]

[Footnote 25: Ibid. pp. 94, 95.]

[Footnote 26: Kenrick, p. 34.]

[Footnote 27: Walpole's _Ansayrii_, p. 76.]

[Footnote 28: Kenrick, p. 33.]

[Footnote 29: Tristram, _Land of Israel_, p. 95.]

[Footnote 210: Ibid. p. 409.]

[Footnote 211: Ibid. p. 31.]

[Footnote 212: Ibid. p. 34.]

[Footnote 213: Ibid. p. 596.]

[Footnote 214: Hooker, in _Dictionary of the Bible_, ii. 684.]

[Footnote 215: Hooker, in _Dictionary of the Bible_, p. 683.]

[Footnote 216: Dr. Hooker says:--"_Q. pseudococcifera_ is perhaps the
commonest plant in all Syria and Palestine, covering as a low dense
bush many square miles of hilly country everywhere, but rarely or never
growing on the plains. It seldom becomes a large tree, except in the
valleys of the Lebanon." Walpole found it on Bargylus (_Ansayrii_, iii.
137 et sqq.); Tristram on Lebanon, _Land of Israel_, pp. 113, 117.]

[Footnote 217: Hooker, in _Dict. of the Bible_, ii. 684. Compare
Tristram, _Land of Israel_, p. 113.]

[Footnote 218: Ibid.]

[Footnote 219: See Walpole, _Ansayrii_, iii. 222, 236; Tristram, _Land
of Israel_, pp. 622, 623; Robinson, _Later Researches_, p. 607.]

[Footnote 220: Walpole, iii. 433; Robinson, _Later Researches_, p..
614.]

[Footnote 221: Tristram, _Land of Israel_, p. 6.]

[Footnote 222: Ibid. p. 111; Walpole, _Ansayrii_, iii. 166; Hooker, in
_Dict. of the Bible_, ii. 683.]

[Footnote 223: Walpole says that Ibrahim Pasha cut down as many as
500,000 Aleppo pines in Casius (_Ansayrii_, iii. 281), and that it would
be quite feasible to cut down 500,000 more.]

[Footnote 224: Hooker, in _Dict. of the Bible_, ii. 684; and compare
Tristram, _Land of Israel_, pp. 16, 88.]

[Footnote 225: Robinson, _Biblical Researches_, iii. 383, 415.]

[Footnote 226: Ezek. xxxi. 3.]

[Footnote 227: Ibid. xxvii. 5. The Hebrew _erez_ probably covered other
trees besides the actual cedar, as the Aleppo pine, and perhaps the
juniper. The pine would have been more suited for masts than the cedar.]

[Footnote 228: 1 Kings vi. 9, 10, 15, 18, &c.; vii. 1-7.]

[Footnote 229: _Records of the Past_, i. 104. ll. 78, 79; iii. 74, ll.
88-90; p. 90, l. 9; &c. Compare Layard, _Nineveh and Babylon_, pp. 356,
357.]

[Footnote 230: Joseph, _Bell. Jud._, v. 5, § 2.]

[Footnote 231: Plin. _H. N._, xiii. 5; xvi. 40.]

[Footnote 232: Compare the arguments of Canon Tristram, _Land of
Israel_, pp. 631, 632.]

[Footnote 233: Walpole, _Ansayrii_, pp. 123, 227.]

[Footnote 234: Tristram, _Land of Israel_, p. 621.]

[Footnote 235: Ibid. pp. 13, 38, &c.]

[Footnote 236: Hooker, in _Dictionary of the Bible_, ii. 684.]

[Footnote 237: Tristram, _Land of Israel_, p. 82; compare Hooker,
l.s.c.]

[Footnote 238: This is Dr. Hooker's description. Canon Tristram says
of the styrax at the eastern foot of Carmel, that "of all the flowering
shrubs it is the most abundant," and that it presents to the eye "one
sheet of pure white blossom, rivalling the orange in its beauty and its
perfume" (_Land of Israel_, p. 492).]

[Footnote 239: Ibid. p. 596.]

[Footnote 240: Walpole, _Ansayrii_, iii. 298.]

[Footnote 241: Tristram, pp. 16, 28, &c.; Robinson, _Biblical
Researches_, iii. 438.]

[Footnote 242: The "terraced vineyards of Esfia" on Carmel are noted by
Canon Tristram (_Land of Israel_, p. 492). Walpole speaks of vineyards
on Bargylus (_Ansaryii_, iii. 165). The vine-clad slopes of the Lebanon
attract notice from all Eastern travellers.]

[Footnote 243: Quoted by Dr. Hooker, in Smith's _Dictionary of the
Bible_, ii. 684, 685.]

[Footnote 244: Deut. xxxiii. 24.]

[Footnote 245: Tristram, _Land of Israel_, pp. 7, 16, 17; Walpole,
_Ansayrii_, iii. 147, 177.]

[Footnote 246: Tristram, p. 492; Stanley, _Sinai and Palestine_, p.
347.]

[Footnote 247: Hooker, in Smith's _Dictionary of the Bible_, ii. 685.]

[Footnote 248: Tristram, pp. 622, 633; Walpole, _Ansayrii_, iii. 446;
Robinson, _Later Researches_, p. 607.]

[Footnote 249: Tristram, pp. 17, 38; Walpole, _Ansayrii_, iii. 32, 294,
373.]

[Footnote 250: Robinson, _Bibl. Researches_, iii. 419, 431, 438, &c.]

[Footnote 251: Tristram, _Land of Israel_, p. 28.]

[Footnote 252: Hasselquist, _Reise_, p. 188.]

[Footnote 253: _Ansayrii_, i. 66.]

[Footnote 254: Tristram, l.s.c.]

[Footnote 255: Hooker, in _Dictionary of the Bible_, ii. 685.]

[Footnote 256: _Reise_, l.s.c.]

[Footnote 257: _Mémoires_, i. 332.]

[Footnote 258: Tristram, _Land of Israel_, p. 493.]

[Footnote 259: Tristram, _Land of Israel_, p. 82.]

[Footnote 260: Renan, _Mission de Phénicie_, p. 59; Hooker, in
_Dictionary of the Bible_, ii. 687; Tristram, _Land of Israel_, p. 493.]

[Footnote 261: Tristram, _Land of Israel_, l.s.c.]

[Footnote 262: Ibid. p. 82.]

[Footnote 263: Ibid. p. 596. Compare Walpole's _Ansayrii_, iii. 443.]

[Footnote 264: Tristram, _Land of Israel_, p. 102.]

[Footnote 265: Tristram, _Land of Israel_, pp. 61, 599.]

[Footnote 266: Ibid. pp. 38, 626, &c. Dr. Robinson notices the
cultivation of the potato high up in Lebanon; but he observed it only in
two places (_Later Researches_, pp. 586, 596).]

[Footnote 267: It can scarcely be doubted that Phoenicia contained
anciently two other land animals of considerable importance, viz. the
lion and the deer. Lions, which were common in the hills of Palestine
(1 Sam. xvii. 34; 1 Kings xiii. 24; xx. 36; 2 Kings xvii. 25, 26) and
frequented also the Philistine plain (Judg. xiv. 5), would certainly not
have neglected the lowland of Sharon, which was in all respects suited
for their habits. Deer, which still inhabit Galilee (Tristram, _Land of
the Israel_, pp. 418, 447), are likely, before the forests of Lebanon
were so greatly curtailed, to have occupied most portions of it (See
Cant. ii. 9, 17; viii. 14). To these two Canon Tristram would add the
crocodile (_Land of Israel_, p. 103), which he thinks must have been
found in the Zerka for that river to have been called "the Crocodile
River" by the Greeks, and which he is inclined to regard as still a
denizen of the Zerka marshes. But most critics have supposed that the
animal from which the Zerka got its ancient name was rather some large
species of monitor.]

[Footnote 268: Kenrick, _Phoenicia_, p. 36.]

[Footnote 269: See his article on Lebanon in Smith's _Dictionary of the
Bible_, ii. 87.]

[Footnote 270: _Land of Israel_, p. 447.]

[Footnote 271: Houghton, in Smith's _Dict. of the Bible_, ad voc. BEAR,
iii. xxv.]

[Footnote 272: _Dict. of the Bible_, ii. 87.]

[Footnote 273: _Land of Israel_, p. 116. Compare Porter's _Giant Cities
of Bashan_, p. 236.]

[Footnote 274: Cant. iv. 8; Is. xi. 6; Jer. v. 6; xiii. 23; Hos. xiii.
7; Hab. i. 8.]

[Footnote 275: _Land of Israel_, l.s.c.]

[Footnote 276: Ibid. p. 83.]

[Footnote 277: Ibid. p. 115.]

[Footnote 278: Walpole's _Ansayrii_, iii. 23.]

[Footnote 279: Houghton, in Smith's _Dict. of the Bible_, ad voc. CONEY
(iii. xliii.); Tristram, _Land of Israel_, pp. 62, 84, 89.]

[Footnote 280: Tristram, _Land of Israel_, p. 106.]

[Footnote 281: Ibid. pp. 88, 89.]

[Footnote 282: Tristram, _Land of Israel_, p. 83.]

[Footnote 283: Ibid. p. 55.]

[Footnote 284: Ibid. p. 103. Compare Walpole, _Ansayrii_, iii. 34, 188,
and Lortet, _La Syrie d'aujourd'hui_, pp. 58, 61.]

[Footnote 285: _Hist. Nat._ ix. 36.]

[Footnote 286: Kenrick, _Phoenicia_, p. 239. There are representations
of the Buccunum in Forbes and Hanley's _British Mollusks_, vol. iv. pl.
cii. Nos. 1, 2, 3.]

[Footnote 287: Kenrick, p. 239.]

[Footnote 288: Tristram, _Land of Israel_, p. 51.]

[Footnote 289: Wilksinson, in Rawlinson's _Herodotus_, ii. 347, note 2.]

[Footnote 290: Canon Tristram writs: "Among the rubbish thrown out in
the excavations made at Tyre were numerous fragments of glass, and whole
'kitchen middens' of shells, crushed and broken, the owners of which had
once supplied the famous Tyrian purple dye. All these shells were of one
species, the _Murex brandaris_" (_Land of Israel_, p. 51).]

[Footnote 291: Porter, in _Dict. of the Bible_, ii. 87.]

[Footnote 292: Kenrick, _Phoenicia_, p. 37.]

[Footnote 293: Tristram, p. 634.]

[Footnote 294: Grove, in _Dict. of the Bible_, i. 279.]


III--THE PEOPLE--ORIGIN AND CHARACTERISTICS

[Footnote 31: _Histoire des Languages Sémitiques_, p. 22.]

[Footnote 32: _Rhet._ iii. 8.]

[Footnote 33: Deutsch, _Literary Remains_, p. 160.]

[Footnote 34: Renan, _Hist. des Langues Sémitiques_, pp. 5, 14.]

[Footnote 35: Ibid. p. 16.]

[Footnote 36: Deutsch, _Literary Remains_, p. 305.]

[Footnote 37: Ibid.]

[Footnote 38: _Ancient Monarchies_, i. 275; Deutsch, p. 306.]

[Footnote 39: Herod. i. 2; vii. 89.]

[Footnote 310: Strab. xvi. 3, § 4.]

[Footnote 311: _Hist. Philipp._ xviii. 3, § 2.]

[Footnote 312: _Ancient Monarchies_, i. 14.]

[Footnote 313: Renan, _Histoire des Langues Sémitiques_, p. 183.]

[Footnote 314: Deutsch, _Literary Remains_, pp. 162, 163.]

[Footnote 315: Herod. vi. 47:--{'Oros mega anestrammenon en te
zetesei}.]

[Footnote 316: On this imaginary "monsters," see Herod. vi. 44.]

[Footnote 317: Ibid. iv. 42.]

[Footnote 318: Herod. vii. 85.]

[Footnote 319: Ibid. ii. 112.]

[Footnote 320: 1 Kings xi. 1.]

[Footnote 321: Ibid. xvi. 31.]

[Footnote 322: Ezra iii. 7.]

[Footnote 323: Is. xxiii. 15-18.]

[Footnote 324: Mark vii. 26-30.]

[Footnote 325: Acts xii. 20.]

[Footnote 326: Herod. iv. 196.]

[Footnote 327: Herod, i. 1:--{Perseon oi Lagioi}.]

[Footnote 328: Ibid. ii. 190.]

[Footnote 329: Ibid. ii. 4, 99, 142.]

[Footnote 330: Ibid. i. 1; iv. 42; vi. 47; vii. 23, 44, 96.]

[Footnote 331: As they do of being indebted to the Babylonians and the
Egyptians for astronomical and philosophic knowledge.]

[Footnote 332: Deutsch, _Literary Remains_, p. 163.]

[Footnote 333: Ibid.]

[Footnote 334: Compare the representation of Egyptian ships in
Dümichen's _Voyage d'une Reine Egyptienne_ (date about B.C. 1400)
with the far later Phoenician triremes depicted by Sennacherib (Layard,
_Monuments of Nineveh_, second series, pl. 71).]

[Footnote 335: Renan, _Mission de Phénicie_, pp. 100, 101.]

[Footnote 336: The Cypriot physiognomy is peculiar. (See Di Cesnola's
_Cyprus_, pp. 123, 129, 131, 132, 133, 141, &c.)]

[Footnote 337: Herod. vii. 90.]

[Footnote 338: Kenrick, _Phoenicia_, p. 68, note 3.]


IV--THE CITIES

[Footnote 41: The nearest approach to such a period is the time a little
preceding Nebuchadnezzar's siege, when Sidon, Byblus, and Aradus all
appear as subject to Tyre (Ezek. xxvii. 8-11).]

[Footnote 42: 1 Kings xvii. 9-24.]

[Footnote 43: 1 Macc. xv. 37.]

[Footnote 44: Gen. x. 15.]

[Footnote 45: Josh. xix. 29.]

[Footnote 46: Ibid. verse 28.]

[Footnote 47: See Hom. _Il._ vii. 290; xxiii. 743; _Od._ iv. 618; xiv.
272, 285; xvi. 117, 402, 424.]

[Footnote 48: _Hist. Philipp._ xviii. 3, § 2.]

[Footnote 49: Kenrick, _Phoenicia_, p. 460.]

[Footnote 410: Steph, Byz. ad voc.]

[Footnote 411: Renan, _Mission de Phénicie_, pl. lxvii.]

[Footnote 412: Scylax, _Periplus_, § 104. This work belongs to the time
of Philip, Alexander's father.]

[Footnote 413: See Renan, _Mission de Phénicie_, pl. lxii.]

[Footnote 414: The inscription on the sarcophagus of Esmunazar. (See
_Records of the Past_, ix. 111-114, and the _Corp. Inscr. Semit._, i.
13-20.)]

[Footnote 415: The name "Palæ-Tyrus" is first found in Strabo (xvi. 2, §
24).]

[Footnote 416: Kenrick, _Phoenicia_, p. 347.]

[Footnote 417: Plin. _H. N._ v. 17.]

[Footnote 418: Renan (_Mission de Phénicie_, p. 552) gives the area as
576,508 square metres.]

[Footnote 419: Arrian, _Exp. Alex._ ii. 21.]

[Footnote 420: Renan, _Mission de Phénicie_, p. 560.]

[Footnote 421: So Bertou (_Topographie de Tyr_, p. 14), and Kenrick
(_Phoenicia_, p. 352).]

[Footnote 422: Renan, _Mission de Phénicie_, p. 560.]

[Footnote 423: Kenrick, _Phoenicia_, p. 351.]

[Footnote 424: See the fragments of Dius and Menander, preserved by
Josephus (_Contr. Ap._ i. § 17, 18), and compare Arrian, _Exp. Alex._
ii. 24. It is quite uncertain what Phoenician deity is represented by
"Agenor."]

[Footnote 425: Renan, _Mission de Phénicie_, p. 559.]

[Footnote 426: Ibid.]

[Footnote 427: Ibid.]

[Footnote 428: Strab. xvi. 2, § 23.]

[Footnote 429: Menand, ap. Joseph. l.s.c.]

[Footnote 430: Strab. l.s.c.]

[Footnote 431: Eight thousand are said to have been killed in the siege,
and 30,000 sold when the place was taken. (Arrian, _Exp. Alex._ l.s.c.)
A certain number were spared.]

[Footnote 432: Renan, _Mission de Phénicie_, p. 552.]

[Footnote 433: Plin. _H. N._ v. 17.]

[Footnote 434: Kenrick, _Phoenicia_, p. 348.]

[Footnote 435: Renan, _Mission de Phénicie_, p. 22.]

[Footnote 436: See Capt. Allen's _Dead Sea_, ii. 179.]

[Footnote 437: See Capt. Allen's _Dead Sea_, ii. 179.]

[Footnote 438: Strabo, xvi. 2, § 13.]

[Footnote 439: Allen, _Dead Sea_, l.s.c.]

[Footnote 440: Ibid. p. 180.]

[Footnote 441: See the woodcut, and compare Renan, _Mission de
Phénicie_, planches, pl. ii.; and Perrot et Chipiez, _Histoire de l'Art
dans l'Antiquité_, iii. 25.]

[Footnote 442: Allen, _Dead Sea_, ii. 180.]

[Footnote 443: Ibid.]

[Footnote 444: Strab. xvi. 2, § 13.]

[Footnote 445: Strab. xvi. 2, § 13. See also Lucret. _De Rer. Nat._ vi.
890.]

[Footnote 446: Renan, _Mission de Phénicie_, p. 42.]

[Footnote 447: Strab. xvi. 2, § 12.]

[Footnote 448: Fr. ii. 7. Philo, however, makes "Brathu" a mountain.]

[Footnote 449: See _Records of the Past_, iii. 19, 20.]

[Footnote 450: _Mission de Phénicie_, pp. 58-61.]

[Footnote 451: Strab. l.s.c.]

[Footnote 452: Ibid.]

[Footnote 453: Gen. x. 18.]

[Footnote 454: _Eponym Canon_, p. 123, 1. 2.]

[Footnote 455: Renan, _Mission de Phénicie_, p. 115. And compare the
map.]

[Footnote 456: Carnus is identified by M. Renan with the modern Carnoun,
on the coast, three miles north of Tortosa (_Mission_, p. 97).]

[Footnote 457: _Eponym Canon_, p. 114, l. 104.]

[Footnote 458: Josh. xiii. 5; 1 Kings v. 18.]

[Footnote 459: Arr. _Exp. Alex._ ii. 15.]

[Footnote 460: Strab. xvi. 2, § 18.]

[Footnote 461: Fragm. ii. 8, § 17.]

[Footnote 462: _Corp. Inscr. Sem._, i. 3 (pl 1); Philo-Bybl. Fr. ii. 8,
§ 25.]

[Footnote 463: Strab. l.s.c.]

[Footnote 464: Allen, _Dead Sea_, ii. 164.]

[Footnote 465: Ibid.]

[Footnote 466: Strab. xvi. 2, § 15.]

[Footnote 467: See G. Smith's _Eponym Canon_, pp. 123, 132, 148.]

[Footnote 468: Kenrick, _Phoenicia_, p. 9.]

[Footnote 469: Burckhardt, _Travels in Syria_, p. 162.]

[Footnote 470: Scylax, _Peripl._, § 104; Diod. Sic. xvi. 41; Pomp. Mel.
i. 12.]

[Footnote 471: Tristram, _Land of Israel_, p. 633; Perrot et Chipiez,
_Histoire de l'Art dans l'Antiquité_, iii. 56.]

[Footnote 472: Perrot et Chipiez, iii. 57, 59.]

[Footnote 473: Allen, _Dead Sea_, ii. 152.]

[Footnote 474: Renan, _Mission de Phénicie_, p. 295.]

[Footnote 475: Lucian, _De Dea Syra_, § 9.]

[Footnote 476: Philo. Bybl. Fr. ii. 8, § 25.]

[Footnote 477: Stephen of Byzantium calls it {polin thoinikes ek mikrae
megalen}. Strabo says that it was rebuilt by the Romans (xvi. 2, § 19).]

[Footnote 478: Phocas, _Descr. Urbium_, § 5.]

[Footnote 479: Cellarius, _Geograph._ ii. 378.]

[Footnote 480: Gen. x. 17.]

[Footnote 481: _Eponym Canon_, pp. 120, l. 25; 123, l. 2.]

[Footnote 482: Josh. xix. 29.]

[Footnote 483: _Eponym Canon_, p. 132, l. 10.]

[Footnote 484: _Eponym Canon_, p. 132, l. 10; 148, l. 103.]

[Footnote 485: Kenrick, _Phoenicia_, pp. 20, 21.]

[Footnote 486: This seems to be the true meaning of Strab. xvi. 2, § 25;
sub init.]

[Footnote 487: Josh. vii. 23.]

[Footnote 488: Ibid. xvii. 11.]

[Footnote 489: 1 Kings iv. 11.]

[Footnote 490: _Ancient Monarchies_, ii. 132.]

[Footnote 491: Steph. Byz. ad voc. DORA.]

[Footnote 492: Hieronym. _Epit. Paulæ_ (Opp. i. 223).]

[Footnote 493: Josh. xix. 47.]

[Footnote 494: 1 Macc. x. 76.]

[Footnote 495: Jonah i. 3.]

[Footnote 496: 2 Chron. ii. 16.]

[Footnote 497: Ezra iii. 7.]

[Footnote 498: See Capt. Allen's _Dead Sea_, ii. 188.]

[Footnote 499: Eustah. _ad Dionys. Perieg._ l. 915.]

[Footnote 4100: Compare the Heb. "Ramah" and "Ramoth" from {...}, "to be
high."]

[Footnote 4101: Kenrick, _Phoenicia_, p. 3.]

[Footnote 4102: Gesenius, _Monumenta Scripture Linguæque, Phoeniciæ_, p.
271.]

[Footnote 4103: Allen, _Dead Sea_, ii. 189.]

[Footnote 4104: Perrot et Chipiez, _Histoire de l'Art_, iii. 23.]

[Footnote 4105: Perrot and Chipiez, iii. 23-25.]

[Footnote 4106: Perrot et Chipiez, _Histoire de l'Art dans l'Antiquité_,
iii. 25, 26.]

[Footnote 4107: The Phoenicians held Dor and Joppa during the greater
part of their existence as a nation, but the tract between them, and
that between Dor and Carmel--the plain of Sharon--shows no trace of
their occupation.]


V--THE COLONIES

[Footnote 51: Kenrick, _Phoenicia_, p. 71.]

[Footnote 52: Gen. x. 4. Compare Joseph. _Ant. Jud._ i. 6.]

[Footnote 53: Kenrick, p. 72.]

[Footnote 54: The two plains are sometimes regarded as one, which is
called that of Mesaoria; but they are really distinct, being separated
by high ground in Long. 33º nearly.]

[Footnote 55: Ælian, _Hist. Ann._ v. 56.]

[Footnote 56: Strab. xiv. 6, § 5.]

[Footnote 57: Theophrastus, _Hist. Plant._ v. 8.]

[Footnote 58: Di Cesnola, _Cyprus_, Introduction, p. 7.]

[Footnote 59: The copper of Cyprus became known as {khalkos Kuprios}
or {Æs Cyprium}, then as _cyprium_ or _cyprum_, finally as "copper,"
"kupfer," "cuivre," &c.]

[Footnote 510: Ezek. xxvii. 6.]

[Footnote 511: Compare Ammianus--"Tanta tamque multiplici fertilitate
abundat rerum omnium Cyprus, ut, nullius externi indigens adminiculi,
indigenis viribus a fundamento ipso carinæ ad supremos ipsos carbasos
ædificet onerariam navem, omnibusque armamentis instructam mari
committat" (xiv. 8, § 14).]

[Footnote 512: Di Cesnola, _Cyprus_, p. 49.]

[Footnote 513: Kenrick, _Phoenicia_, p. 75.]

[Footnote 514: Di Cesnola, pp. 65-117.]

[Footnote 515: Ibid. pp. 68, 83.]

[Footnote 516: Perrot et Chipiez, _Histoire de l'Art_, iii. 215.]

[Footnote 517: Ibid.]

[Footnote 518: {Polis Kuprou arkhaiotate}.]

[Footnote 519: Di Cesnola, _Cyprus_, p. 294.]

[Footnote 520: Ibid. pp. 254-281.]

[Footnote 521: Di Cesnola, _Cyprus_, p. 294.]

[Footnote 522: Ibid. p. 378.]

[Footnote 523: Strabo, xiv. 6, § 3; Steph. Byz. ad voc. CURIUM.]

[Footnote 524: Herod. v. 113.]

[Footnote 525: Apollodor. _Biblioth._ iii. 14, § 13.]

[Footnote 526: Virg. _Æn._ i. 415-417; Tacit. _Ann._ iii. 62; _Hist._
ii. 2; Strab. xiv. 6, § 3.]

[Footnote 527: Ps. lxxvi. 2.]

[Footnote 528: Di Cesnola, _Cyprus_, p. 201.]

[Footnote 529: Di Cesnola, _Cyprus_, p. 198, and Map.]

[Footnote 530: _Eponym Canon_, p. 139, l. 23.]

[Footnote 531: Ibid. p. 144, l. 22.]

[Footnote 532: On the copper-mines of Tamasus, see Strab. xiv. 6, § 5;
and Steph. Byz. ad voc.]

[Footnote 533: _Eponym Canon_, ll.s.c.]

[Footnote 534: Di Cesnola, _Cyprus_, p. 228.]

[Footnote 535: Plut. _Vit. Solon._ § 26.]

[Footnote 536: Diod. Sic. xiv. 98, § 2.]

[Footnote 537: Di Cesnola, _Cyprus_, p. 231.]

[Footnote 538: Kenrick, _Phoenicia_, p. 74.]

[Footnote 539: Gen. x. 4.]

[Footnote 540: Gesenius, _Mon. Script. Linquæque Phoeniciæ_, p. 278.]

[Footnote 541: Strab. xiv. 5, § 3.]

[Footnote 542: Ibid. xiv. 3, § 9. Mt. Solyma, now Takhtalu, is the most
striking mountain of these parts. Its bald summit rises to the height of
4,800 feet above the Mediterranean (Beaufort, _Karamania_, p. 57).]

[Footnote 543: Strab. xiv. 3, § 8, sub fin.]

[Footnote 544: Beaufort, _Karamania_, p. 31.]

[Footnote 545: Herod. iii. 90; vii. 77; Strab. xiii. 4, § 15; Steph.
Byz. ad. voc.]

[Footnote 546: Beaufort, _Karamania_, p. 56.]

[Footnote 547: Strab. xiv. 3, § 9.]

[Footnote 548: Beaufort, pp. 59, 60.]

[Footnote 549: Ibid. p. 70.]

[Footnote 550: As Corinna and Basilides (see Athen. _Deipnos_, iv.
174).]

[Footnote 551: Ap. Phot. _Bibliothec._ p. 454.]

[Footnote 552: Ap. Athen. _Deipn._ viii. 361.]

[Footnote 553: Dict. Cret. i. 18; iv. 4.]

[Footnote 554: Kenrick, _Phoenicia_, pp. 80, 81.]

[Footnote 555: Aristid. _Orat._ § 43.]

[Footnote 556: Acts xxvii. 12.]

[Footnote 557: Steph. Byz. ad voc.]

[Footnote 558: Herod. iv. 151.]

[Footnote 559: Heb. {...}, Copt. _labo_, &c.]

[Footnote 560: Steph. Byz. ad voc. {KUTHERA}; Festus, ad voc. MELOS.]

[Footnote 561: Kenrick, p. 96.]

[Footnote 562: Steph. Byz. ad voc. {MEMBLIAROS}.]

[Footnote 563: Heraclid. Pont. ap. Steph. Byz. ad voc.]

[Footnote 564: Herod. iv. 147.]

[Footnote 565: Thucyd. i. 8.]

[Footnote 566: Herod. iii. 57; Pausan. x. 11.]

[Footnote 567: Tournefort, _Voyages_, i. 136.]

[Footnote 568: Plin, _H. N._ iv. 12. Compare Steph. Byz. ad voc.
{KUTHERA}.]

[Footnote 569: Theophrast. _Hist. Plant._ iv. 2; Plin. _H. N._ xxxv.
15.]

[Footnote 570: Strab. x. 5, § 16.]

[Footnote 571: Ibid. § 19, ad fin.]

[Footnote 572: Herod. ii. 44.]

[Footnote 573: Ibid. vi. 47.]

[Footnote 574: Hesych. ad voc. {KABEIROI}; Steph. Byz. ad voc. {IMBROS};
Strab. vii. Fr. 51.]

[Footnote 575: Strab. xiv. 5, § 28; Plin. _H. N._ vii. 56.]

[Footnote 576: Strab. x. 1, § 8.]

[Footnote 577: Herod. v. 57; Strab. ix. 2, § 3; Pausan. ix. 25, § 6,
&c.]

[Footnote 578: Steph. Byz. ad voc. {PRONEKTOS}; Scymn. Ch. l. 660.]

[Footnote 579: Apollon. Rhod. ii. l. 178; Euseb. _Præp. Ev._ p. 115;
Schol. ad Apollon. Rhod. l.s.c.; Steph. Byz. ad voc. {SESAMOS}.]

[Footnote 580: So Kenrick, _Phoenicia_, pp. 91, 92.]

[Footnote 581: Utica was said to have been founded 287 years before
Carthage (Aristot. _De Ausc. Mir._ § 146). Carthage was probably founded
about B.C. 850.]

[Footnote 582: Thucyd. vi. 2.]

[Footnote 583: Strab. xvii. 3, § 13.]

[Footnote 584: See the chart opposite, and the description in the
_Géographie Universelle_, xi. 271, 272.]

[Footnote 585: Ibid. p. 270.]

[Footnote 586: Plin. _H. N._ v. 4, § 23; _Géographie Universelle_, xi.
157.]

[Footnote 587: _Géograph. Univ._ xi. 275.]

[Footnote 588: Ibid. p. 274.]

[Footnote 589: _Géograph. Univ._ xi. 413, 414.]

[Footnote 590: Ibid. pp. 410, 411.]

[Footnote 591: See Davis's _Carthage_, pp. 128-130; and compare the
woodcut in the _Géograph. Univ._ xi. 259.]

[Footnote 592: Beulé, _Fouilles à Carthage_, quoted in the _Géograph.
Univ._ xi. 258.]

[Footnote 593: "Adrymes" is the Greek name (Strab. xvii. 3, § 16),
Adrumetum or Hadrumetum, the Roman one (Sall. _Bell. Jugurth._ § 19;
Liv. xxx. 29; Plin. _H. N._ v. 4, § 25).]

[Footnote 594: _Géograph. Univ._ xi. 227, 228.]

[Footnote 595: Ibid. p. 227, note.]

[Footnote 596: _Géographie Universelle_, xi. 224.]

[Footnote 597: _Géograph. Univ._ xi. 84.]

[Footnote 598: Strabo, xvii. 3, § 18.]

[Footnote 599: See Della Cella, _Narrative_, p. 37, E. T.; Beechey,
_Narrative_, p. 51.]

[Footnote 5100: Herod. iv. 198. Compare Ovid. _Pont._ ii. 7, 25.]

[Footnote 5101: See the chart in the _Géographie Universelle_, xi. 223.]

[Footnote 5102: Strab. xvii. 3, § 12.]

[Footnote 5103: See Daux, _Recherches sur les Emporia Phéniciens_, pp.
256-258; and compare Pl. viii.]

[Footnote 5104: At Utica, Carthage, and elsewhere.]

[Footnote 5105: Daux, _Recherches_, pp. 169-171; Perrot et Chipiez,
_Histoire de l'Art dans l'Antiquité_, iii. 400-402.]

[Footnote 5106: Thucyd. vi. 2.]

[Footnote 5107: Perrot et Chipiez, _Histoire de l'Art_, iii. 336.]

[Footnote 5108: Diod. Sic. xiv. 68.]

[Footnote 5109: Gesenius, _Monumenta Phoenicia_, pp. 297, 298, and Tab.
39, xii. A, B.]

[Footnote 5110: Perrot et Chipiez, _Histoire de l'Art_, iii. 330.]

[Footnote 5111: Polyb. i. 55.]

[Footnote 5112: Perrot et Chipiez, _Histoire de l'Art_, iii. 331.
Compare the accompanying woodcut.]

[Footnote 5113: Perrot et Chipiez, _Hist. de l'Art_, iii. 334; Woodcuts,
No. 242 and 243.]

[Footnote 5114: Marsala, whose wine is so well known, occupies a site on
the coast at a short distance.]

[Footnote 5115: _Géographie Universelle_, i. 552.]

[Footnote 5116: _Géographie Universelle_, i. p. 551.]

[Footnote 5117: See Gesenius, _Monumenta Phoenicia_, pp. 288-290, and
Tab. 38, ix. Mahanath corresponds to the Greek {skenai} and the Roman
_castra_. Compare the Israelite "Mahanaim."]

[Footnote 5118: Serra di Falco, _Antichità di Sicilia_, v. 60, 67.]

[Footnote 5119: Perrot et Chipiez, _Hist. de l'Art_, iii. 187-189.]

[Footnote 5120: Ibid. p. 426.]

[Footnote 5121: _Géographie Universelle_, i. 571.]

[Footnote 5122: Gesenius, _Monumenta Phoenicia_, p. 298.]

[Footnote 5123: Diod. Sic. v. 12.]

[Footnote 5124: See the _Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum_, vol. i. No.
132.]

[Footnote 5125: Gesenius, _Mon. Phoen._ Tab. 40, xiv.]

[Footnote 5126: For an account of these buildings, called by the natives
"Giganteja," see Perrot et Chipiez, _Histoire de l'Art_, iii. 297, 298.]

[Footnote 5127: Ibid.]

[Footnote 5128: Ibid. p. 299. [Footnote 5129: "Malte, l'île de miel"
(_Géogr. Univ._ i. 576).]

[Footnote 5130: {Kunidia, a kalousi Melitaia} (Strab. vi. 2, § 11, sub
fin.).]

[Footnote 5131: Perrot et Chipiez, _Histoire de l'Art_, iv. 2.]

[Footnote 5132: Diod. Sic. xiv. 63, § 4; 77, § 6; xxi. 16, &c.]

[Footnote 5133: Perrot et Chipiez, l.s.c. Compare the _Géographie
Universelle_, i. 599, 600.]

[Footnote 5134: Perrot et Chipiez, iii. 233; La Marmora, _Voyage en
Sardaigne_, ii. 171-341.]

[Footnote 5135: Strabo calls the town Sulchi ({Soulkhoi}, v. 2, § 7).]

[Footnote 5136: Perrot et Chipiez, iii. 231, 232, 253, &c.]

[Footnote 5137: None of the classical geographers mentions the place
excepting Ptolemy, who calls it "Tarrus" (_Geograph._ iii. 3).]

[Footnote 5138: See Perrot et Chipiez, _Histoire de l'Art_, iii.
231-236, and 418-421.]

[Footnote 5139: Herod. i. 166.]

[Footnote 5140: Kenrick, _Phoenicia_, p. 116; Perrot et Chipiez, iii. 46,
186.]

[Footnote 5141: _Géographie Universelle_, i. 800.]

[Footnote 5142: Strab. iii. 5, § 1.]

[Footnote 5143: Kenrick, p. 118; _Géogr. Univ._ i. 795.]

[Footnote 5144: "Un admirable port natured divisé par des ilôts et des
péninsules en cales et en bassins secondairs; tous les avantages se
trouvent réunis dans ce bras de mer" (_Géographie Universelle_, i.
808).]

[Footnote 5145: Ibid. p. 801.]

[Footnote 5146: Ibid. p. 799.]

[Footnote 5147: {Phoinikike to skhemati} (Strab. iii. 4, § 2).]

[Footnote 5148: {Phoinikon ktisma} (ib. iii. 4, § 3).]

[Footnote 5149: Gesenius, _Mon. Phoen._ pp. 308-310; Tab. 40, xvi.]

[Footnote 5150: Strab. iii. 4, § 2.]

[Footnote 5151: Ibid.]

[Footnote 5152: Ibid. iii. 4, § 6.]

[Footnote 5153: Three hundred, according to some writers (Ibid. xvii. 3,
§ 3).]

[Footnote 5154: Plin. _H. N._ xix. 4.]

[Footnote 5155: Gesenius, _Mon. Phoen._ pp. 309, 310.]

[Footnote 5156: _Géograph. Univ._ xi. 710-713.]

[Footnote 5157: Strab. ii. 3, § 4; Hanno, _Peripl._ § 6; Scylax,
_Peripl._ § 112.]

[Footnote 5158: See _Géograph. Univer._ xi. 714.]

[Footnote 5159: Perrot et Chipiez, _Histoire de l'Art_, iii. 337.]

[Footnote 5160: Ibid. p. 339.]

[Footnote 5161: Ibid. p. 341.]

[Footnote 5162: See Kenrick, _Phoenicia_, p. 118; Dyer, in Smith's _Dict.
of Greek and Roman Geography_, ii. 1106.]

[Footnote 5163: Scymn. Ch. ll. 100-106; Strabo, iii. 2, § 11; Mela,
_De Situ Orbis_, ii. 6; Plin. _H. N._ iv. 21; Fest. Avien. _Descriptio
Orbis_, l. 610; Pausan. vi. 19.]

[Footnote 5164: Stesichorus, _Fragmenta_ (ed. Bergk), p. 636; Strab.
l.s.c.]

[Footnote 5165: Scymn. Ch. l.s.c.]

[Footnote 5166: See Herod. i. 163.]

[Footnote 5167: 1 Kings x. 22.]

[Footnote 5168: Strab. iii. 2, § 8; _Géograph. Univ._ i. 741-745.]

[Footnote 5169: Strab. iii. 2, § 11.]

[Footnote 5170: Kenrick, _Phoenicia_, p. 119.]

[Footnote 5171: Strab. iii. 2, § 7.]

[Footnote 5172: Aristoph. _Ran._ l. 476; Jul. Pollux, vi. 63.]

[Footnote 5173: Vell. Paterc. i. 2.]

[Footnote 5174: _Géograph. Univ._ i. 756-758.]

[Footnote 5175: Ibid. p. 758.]

[Footnote 5176: Strab. iii. 5, § 5; Diod. Sic. v. 20; Scymn. Ch. 160;
Mela, iii. 6, § 1; Plin. _H. N._ v. 19; &c.]

[Footnote 5177: Gesen. _Mon. Phoen._ pp. 304, 370.]

[Footnote 5178: Strabo, iii. 5, § 3.]

[Footnote 5179: See the _Géographie Universelle_, i. 759.]

[Footnote 5180: The name is to be connected with the words Baal, Belus,
Baalath, &c. There was a river "Belus," in Phoenicia Proper.]

[Footnote 5181: Gesenius, _Monumenta Phoenicia_, pp. 311, 312.]

[Footnote 5182: Ibid. p. 311.]

[Footnote 5183: I.e. towards the north-east, in the Propontis and the
Euxine.]


VI--ARCHITECTURE

[Footnote 61: Perrot et Chipiez, _Histoire de l'Art dans l'Antiquité_,
iii. 101.]

[Footnote 62: See Renan, _Mission de Phoenicie_, p. 92, and Planches, pl.
12.]

[Footnote 63: Ibid.]

[Footnote 64: Renan, _Mission de Phénicie_, pp. 62-68.]

[Footnote 65: Ibid. Planches, pl. 10.]

[Footnote 66: 1 Kings v. 17, 18.]

[Footnote 67: _Our Work in Palestine_, p. 115. Warren, _Recovery of
Jerusalem_, i. 121.]

[Footnote 68: See the _Corpus. Inscr. Semit._ Pars I. Planches, pl. 29,
No. 136.]

[Footnote 69: As at Sidon in the pier wall, and at Aradus in the remains
of the great wall of the town.]

[Footnote 610: M. Renan has found reason to question the truth of this
view. Bevelling, he thinks, may have begun with the Phoenicians; but it
became a general feature of Palestinian and Syrian architecture, being
employed in Syria as late as the middle ages. The enclosure of the
mosque at Hebron and the great wall of Baalbek are bevelled, but are
scarcely Phoenician.]

[Footnote 611: See Renan, _Mission de Phénicie_, Planches, pl. vi.]

[Footnote 612: Compare the enclosure of the Haram at Jerusalem, the
mosque at Hebron, and the temples at Baalbek (Perrot et Chipiez,
_Histoire de l'Art_, iii. 105, No. 42; iv. 274, No. 139, and p. 186, No.
116).]

[Footnote 613: See Perrot et Chipiez, iii. 108, 299, &c.]

[Footnote 614: Renan, _Mission_, p. 822.]

[Footnote 615: See Renan, _Mission_, pp. 62-68; and compare Perrot et
Chipiez, _Histoire de l'Art_, iii. 242, 243.]

[Footnote 616: See Renan, _Mission de Phénicie_, p. 64.]

[Footnote 617: See Renan, _Mission de Phénicie_, pp. 63, 64.]

[Footnote 618: Ibid. p. 65.]

[Footnote 619: See the volume of Plates published with the _Mission_,
pl. ix. fig 1.]

[Footnote 620: Di Cesnola, _Cyprus_, p. 110; pl. xxxv. fig. 20; xxxvi.
fig. 7; xxxvii. figs. 10, 11; Perrot et Chipiez, _Histoire de l'Art_,
iii. pp. 124, 428, 533, &c.]

[Footnote 621: Renan, _Mission_, Planches, pl. ix. fig. 3.]

[Footnote 622: See Perrot et Chipie, _Histoire de l'Art_, iii. 253, No.
193; p. 310, No. 233.]

[Footnote 623: See the author's _History of Ancient Egypt_, i. 237.]

[Footnote 624: _Mission de Phénicie_, pp. 64, 65.]

[Footnote 625: See Di Cesnola's _Cyprus_, pp. 210-212.]

[Footnote 626: The temple of Solomon was mainly of wood; that of Golgi
(Athiénau) was, it is thought, of crude brick (Di Cesnola, _Cyprus_, p.
139).]

[Footnote 627: See the plan in Perrot et Chipiez, _Histoire de l'Art_,
iii. 267, No. 200. Explorations are now in progress, which, it is hoped,
may reveal more completely the plan of the building.]

[Footnote 628: As being the most important temple in the island.]

[Footnote 629: Di Cesnola, _Cyprus_, p. 211.]

[Footnote 630: Ibid. p. 210.]

[Footnote 631: Ibid.]

[Footnote 632: Perrot et Chipiez, iii. 269.]

[Footnote 633: In M. Gerhard's plan two circular ponds or reservoirs are
marked, of which General Di Cesnola found no trace.]

[Footnote 634: Di Cesnola, _Cyprus_, p. 211.]

[Footnote 635: Perrot et Chipiez, iii. 322.]

[Footnote 636: As Di Cesnola, and Ceccaldi.]

[Footnote 637: Ceccaldi, as quoted by Perrot et Chipiez, iii. 275.]

[Footnote 638: Ceccaldi, _Monuments Antiques de Cypre_, pp. 47, 48.]

[Footnote 639: Di Cesnola, _Cyprus_, p. 139.]

[Footnote 640: Di Cesnola, _Cyprus_, p. 149; Perrot et Chipiez,
_Histoire de l'Art_, iii. 274; Ceccaldi, l.s.c.]

[Footnote 641: Di Cesnola, p. 139.]

[Footnote 642: Ibid. p. 140.]

[Footnote 643: Ibid. Compare Perrot et Chipiez, l.s.c.]

[Footnote 644: The only original account of this crypt is that of
General Di Cesnola, _Cyprus_, pp. 303-305.]

[Footnote 645: Mephitic vapours prevented the workmen from continuing
their excavations.]

[Footnote 646: The length of this room was twenty feet, the breadth
nineteen feet, and the height fourteen feet (Di Cesnola, _Cyprus_, p.
304).]

[Footnote 647: Perrot et Chipiez, _Histoire de l'Art_, iii. 285.]

[Footnote 648: See the woodcut representing a portion of the old wall of
Aradus, which is taken from M. Renan's _Mission_, Planches, pl. 2.]

[Footnote 649: In some of the ruder walls, as in those of Banias and
Eryx, even this precaution is not observed. See Perrot et Chipiez,
_Histoire de l'Art_, iii. 328, 334.]

[Footnote 650: Diod. Sic. xxxii. 14.]

[Footnote 651: Arrian, _Exp. Alex._ ii. 21, § 3.]

[Footnote 652: Perrot et Chipiez, _Hist. de l'Art_, iii. 331, 332, 339.]

[Footnote 653: Perrot et Chipiez, _Hist. de l'Art_, iii. pp. 333, 334.]

[Footnote 654: See his _Recherches sur l'origine et l'emplacement des
Emporia Phéniciens_, pl. 8.]

[Footnote 655: Compare Renan, _Mission de Phénicie_, pls. 7, 16, 18,
&c.; and Di Cesnola, _Cyprus_, p. 224.]

[Footnote 656: Di Cesnola, _Cyprus_, p. 256, 260; Perrot et Chipiez,
_Hist. de l'Art_, iii. 219-221.]

[Footnote 657: Di Cesnola, _Cyprus_, p. 255.]

[Footnote 658: Di Cesnola, _Cyprus_, pp. 255, 256.]

[Footnote 659: See Di Cesnola, _Cyprus_, p. 260; and compare Perrot et
Chipiez, _Hist. de l'Art_, iii. 219, No. 155.]

[Footnote 660: Di Cesnola, p. 259.]

[Footnote 661: Perrot et Chipiez, iii. 224.]

[Footnote 662: See Ross, _Reisen nach Cypern_, pp. 187-189; and
_Archäologische Zeitung_ for 1851, pl. xxviii. figs. 3 and 4.]

[Footnote 663: They are not shown in Ross's representation, but appear
in Di Cesnola's.]

[Footnote 664: See Sir C. Newton's _Halicarnassus_, pls. xviii. xix.]

[Footnote 665: 1 Macc. xiii. 27-29.]

[Footnote 666: Renan, _Mission de Phénicie_, p. 80.]

[Footnote 667: Renan, _Mission de Phénicie_, p. 81.]

[Footnote 668: Ibid. pp. 82, 85.]

[Footnote 669: See Robinson, _Researches in Palestine_, iii. 385.]

[Footnote 670: Renan, _Mission de Phénicie_, p. 599.]

[Footnote 671: Perrot and Chipiez remark that "the general aspect of the
edifice recalls that of the great tombs at Amrith;" and conclude
that, "if the tomb does not actually belong to the time of Solomon's
contemporary and ally, at any rate it is anterior to the Greco-Roman
period" (_Hist. de l'Art_, iii. 167).]

[Footnote 672: See the section of the building in Renan's _Mission_,
Planches, pl. xlviii.]

[Footnote 673: Renan, _Mission de Phénicie_, p. 71.]

[Footnote 674: Ibid. Planches, pl. 13.]

[Footnote 675: Ibid. p. 72.]

[Footnote 676: Perrot et Chipiez, _Histoire de l'Art_, iii. 153.]

[Footnote 677: Renan, _Mission de Phénicie_, pp. 71-73.]

[Footnote 678: "Ce que ce tombeau offre de tout à fait particulier c'est
que l'entrée du caveau, ou, pour mieux dire, l'escalier qui y conduit,
est couvert, dans sa partie antérieure, par un énorme bloc régulièrement
taillé en dos d'âne et supporté par une assise de grosses pierres"
(Perrot et Chipiez, _Hist. de l'Art_, iii. 154).]

[Footnote 679: Mark xvi. 3, 4.]

[Footnote 680: Perrot et Chipiez, _Hist. de l'Art_, iii. 334.]

[Footnote 681: Perrot et Chipiez, _Hist. de l'Art_, iii. 126, No. 68.]

[Footnote 682: Di Cesnola, _Cyprus_, pp. 211, 301.]

[Footnote 683: See Perrot et Chipiez, _Histoire de l'Art_, iii.
129-134.]

[Footnote 684: _Mission de Phénicie_, p. 822.]

[Footnote 685: Renan, _Mission de Phénicie_, p. 822.]

[Footnote 686: Renan, _Mission de Phénicie_, p. 829.]


VII--ÆSTHETIC ART

[Footnote 71: See Perrot et Chipiez, _Hist. de l'Art_, iii. 404, and
compare pp. 428 and 437.]

[Footnote 72: Di Cesnola, _Cyprus_, pp. 129-157, &c.]

[Footnote 73: Perrot et Chipiez, iii. 510.]

[Footnote 74: Ibid. p. 513: "Les figures semblent avoir été taillées non
dans des blocs prismatiques, mais dans de la pierre débitée en carrière,
sous forme de dalles épaisses."]

[Footnote 75: Di Cesnola, p. 150.]

[Footnote 76: Ibid. pp. 149, 150.]

[Footnote 77: Di Cesnola, p. 157.]

[Footnote 78: So both Di Cesnola (l.s.c) and Perrot et Chipiez, iii.
565.]

[Footnote 79: Perrot et Chipiez, _Hist. de l'Art_, iii. Nos. 349, 385,
405, &c.; Di Cesnola, _Cyprus_, pp. 133, 149, 157.]

[Footnote 710: Perrot et Chipiez, iii. 519, No. 353.]

[Footnote 711: Ibid. Nos. 323, 342, 368. Occasionally an arm is placed
across the breast without anything being clasped (Di Cesnola, _Cyprus_,
pp. 131, 240).]

[Footnote 712: Perrot et Chipiez, Nos. 299, 322, 373.]

[Footnote 713: Ibid. Nos. 291, 321, 379, 380.]

[Footnote 714: Ibid. Nos. 381, 382.]

[Footnote 715: Perrot et Chipiez, Nos. 306, 345, 349, &c.]

[Footnote 716: See Di Cesnola, _Cyprus_, pp. 141, 230, 243, &c.]

[Footnote 717: Compare Perrot et Chipiez, iii. 530, No. 358; p. 533, No.
359; and Di Cesnola, pp. 131, 154, &c.]

[Footnote 718: Di Cesnola, pp. 129, 145; Perrot et Chipiez, pp. 527,
545.]

[Footnote 719: Di Cesnola, pp. 149, 151, 161, &c.]

[Footnote 720: Perrot et Chipiez, _Hist. de l'Art_, iii. 201, No. 142;
p. 451, No. 323; p. 598, No. 409. The best dove is that in the hand of a
priest represented by Di Cesnola (_Cyprus_, p. 132).]

[Footnote 721: Di Cesnola, _Cyprus_, p. 114.]

[Footnote 722: Ibid. p. 331; Perrot et Chipiez, iii. 203, and Pl. ii.
opp. p. 582.]

[Footnote 723: Di Cesnola, _Cyprus_, p. 136; Ceccaldi, _Rev. Arch._ vol.
xxiv. pl. 21.]

[Footnote 724: Di Cesnola, p. 137.]

[Footnote 725: Ibid. p. 133.]

[Footnote 726: Ibid. pp. 110-114.]

[Footnote 727: See the _Story of Assyria_, p. 403; and compare _Ancient
Monarchies_, i. 395, 493.]

[Footnote 728: See _Story of Assyria_, l.s.c.; and for the classical
practice, which was identical, compare Lipsius, _Antiq. Lect._ iii.]

[Footnote 729: So it is in a garden that Asshurbani-pal and his queen
regale themselves (_Ancient Monarchies_, i. 493). Compare Esther i. 7.]

[Footnote 730: Perrot et Chipiez, _Hist. de l'Art_, iii. 620.]

[Footnote 731: Di Cesnola, _Cyprus_, pp. 259-267.]

[Footnote 732: Di Cesnola is in favour of Melkarth (p. 264); MM. Perrot
and Chipiez of Bes (_Hist. de l'Art_, iii. 610). Individually, I incline
to Esmun.]

[Footnote 733: See Di Cesnola, Pl. vi.; Perrot et Chipiez, iii. 450,
555, 557; Nos. 321, 379, 380, 381, and 382.]

[Footnote 734: Herod. iii. 37.]

[Footnote 735: Perrot et Chipiez see in it the travels of the deceased
in another world (_Hist. de l'Art_, iii. 612); but they admit that at
first sight one would be tempted to regard it as the representation of
an historical event, as the setting forth of a prince for war, or his
triumphant return.]

[Footnote 736: A similar crest was used by the Persians (_Ancient
Monarchies_, iii. 180, 234), and the Lycians (Fellows's _Lycia_, pl.
xxi. oop. p. 173).]

[Footnote 737: Perrot et Chipiez, _Histoire de l'Art_, iii. 609-611.]

[Footnote 738: See the _Journal le Bachir_ for June 8, 1887, published
at Beyrout.]

[Footnote 739: 1 Kings vii. 14; 2 Chron. ii. 14.]

[Footnote 740: 1 Kings vii. 21.]

[Footnote 741: "_In_ the porch" (1 Kings vii. 21); "_before_ the house,"
"before the temple" (2 Chron. iii. 15, 17).]

[Footnote 742: 1 Kings vii. 15, 16.]

[Footnote 743: Jer. lii. 21.]

[Footnote 744: 1 Kings vii. 17, 20.]

[Footnote 745: Ibid. verse 20; 2 Chron. iv. 13; Jer. lii. 23.]

[Footnote 746: 1 Kings vii. 22.]

[Footnote 747: See Perrot et Chipiez, _Hist. de l'Art_, vol. iv. Pls.
vi. and vii. opp. pp. 318 and 320.]

[Footnote 748: 1 Kings vii. 23.]

[Footnote 749: Ibid. vv. 23-25.]

[Footnote 750: See the representation in Perrot et Chipiez, iv. 327, No.
172.]

[Footnote 751: Perrot et Chipiez, iv. 328.]

[Footnote 752: 1 Kings vii. 27-39.]

[Footnote 753: Ibid. verse 38.]

[Footnote 754: Ibid. verse 29.]

[Footnote 755: See the woodcut in Perrot et Chipiez, iv. 331, No. 173;
and compare 1 Kings vii. 31.]

[Footnote 756: 1 Kings vii. 36.]

[Footnote 757: 1 Kings vii. 33.]

[Footnote 758: Ibid. v. 40. Compare 2 Chron. iv. 16.]

[Footnote 759: See Di Cesnola's _Cyprus_, Pls. xxi. and xxx.]

[Footnote 760: A single statue in bronze, of full size, or larger than
life, is said to have been exhumed in Cyprus in 1836 (Perrot et Chipiez,
iii. 514); but it has not reached our day.]

[Footnote 761: See the works of La Marmora (_Voyage en Sardaigne_), Cara
(_Relazione sugli idoli sardo-fenici_), and Perrot et Chipiez (_Hist. de
l'Art_, iv. 65-89).]

[Footnote 762: Perrot et Chipiez, iv. 65, 66.]

[Footnote 763: Ibid. pp. 67, 69, 88.]

[Footnote 764: Ibid. pp. 67, 70, 89.]

[Footnote 765: Ibid. 52, 74, 75, 87, &c.]

[Footnote 766: See Di Cesnola, _Cyprus_, Pl. iv. opp. p. 84.]

[Footnote 767: Ibid. opp. p. 345.]

[Footnote 768: Ibid. p. 337.]

[Footnote 769: _Monumenti di cere antica_, Pl. x. fig. 1.]

[Footnote 770: Di Cesnola, _Cyprus_, p. 77.]

[Footnote 771: Di Cesnola, _Cyprus_, Pl. xi. opp. p. 114.]

[Footnote 772: In the museum of the Varvakeion. (See Perrot et Chipiez,
_Hist. de l'Art_, iii. 782-785.)]

[Footnote 773: Ibid. p. 783, No. 550.]

[Footnote 774: Compare the author's _History of Ancient Egypt_, i. 362.]

[Footnote 775: Perrot et Chipiez, iii. 779, No. 548.]

[Footnote 776: See _Ancient Monarchies_, i. 392.]

[Footnote 777: See Clermont-Ganneau, _Imagerie Phénicienne_, p. xiii.]

[Footnote 778: See Clermont-Ganneau, _Ima. Phénicienne_, Pls. ii. iv.
and vi. Compare Longpérier, _Musée Napoléon III._, Pl. x.; Di Cesnola,
_Cyprus_, p. 329; Pl. xix. opp. p. 276; Perrot et Chipiez, _Hist. de
l'Art_, iii. 777, 789; Nos. 547 and 552.]

[Footnote 779: Clermont-Ganneau, Pl. i. at end of volume; Perrot et
Chipiez, iii. 759, No. 543.]

[Footnote 780: _L'Imagerie Phénicienne_, p. 8.]

[Footnote 781: Helbig, _Bullettino dell' Instituto di Corrispondenza
archeologica_, 1876, p. 127.]

[Footnote 782: _L'Imagerie Phénicienne_, p. 8.]

[Footnote 783: _L'Imagerie Phénicienne_, pp. xi, xiii, and 18-39.]

[Footnote 784: Ibid. p. 151.]

[Footnote 785: _L'Imagerie Phénicienne_, pp. 150-156. It is fatal to M.
Clermont-Ganneau's idea--1. That the hunter in the outer scene has no
dog; 2. That the dress of the charioteer is wholly unlike that of
the fugitive attacked by the dog; and 3. That M. Clermont-Ganneau's
explanation accounts in no way for the medallion's central and main
figure.]

[Footnote 786: "Les formes et les mouvements des chevaux sont indiqués
avec beaucoup du sûreté et de justesse" (ibid. p. 6).]

[Footnote 787: So Mr. C. W. King in his appendix to Di Cesnola's
_Cyprus_, p. 387. He supports his view by Herod. vii. 69.]

[Footnote 788: Perrot et Chipiez, iii. 632.]

[Footnote 789: Compare the cylinder of Darius Hystaspis (_Ancient
Monarchies_, iii. 227) and another engraved on the same page.]

[Footnote 790: Perrot et Chipiez, iii. 635, note.]

[Footnote 791: _Proceedings of the Society of Bibl. Archæology_ for
1883--4, p. 16.]

[Footnote 792: See M. A. Di Cesnola's _Salaminia_, Pls. xii. and xiii.]

[Footnote 793: See Perrot et Chipiez, iii. 639, No. 431.]

[Footnote 794: These fluttering ends of ribbon are very common in the
Persian representations. See _Ancient Monarchies_, iii. 351.]

[Footnote 795: _Ancient Monarchies_, iii. pp. 203, 204, 208.]

[Footnote 796: Perrot et Chipiez, _Hist. de l'Art_, iii. 630.]

[Footnote 797: Ibid. pp. 635-639. Green serpentine is the most usual
material (C. W. King, in Di Cesnola's _Cyprus_, p. 387).]

[Footnote 798: King, in Di Cesnola's _Cyprus_, p. 388.]

[Footnote 799: Pl. xxxvi. a.]

[Footnote 7100: Di Cesnola, _Cyprus_, p. 277.]

[Footnote 7101: See De Vogüé's _Mélanges d'Archéologie Orientale_, pl.
v.]

[Footnote 7102: Perrot et Chipiez, iii. 631.]

[Footnote 7103: See Di Cesnola's _Cyprus_, pl. xxvi. (top line).]

[Footnote 7104: See Perrot et Chipiez, iii. 645.]

[Footnote 7105: Ibid. p. 646.]

[Footnote 7106: De Vogüé, _Mélanges_, p. 111.]

[Footnote 7107: Perrot et Chipiez, _Hist. de l'Art_, iii. 651.]

[Footnote 7108: Ibid. p. 652.]

[Footnote 7109: See Di Cesnola, _Cyprus_, pl. xxxvi. fig. 8.]

[Footnote 7110: Perrot et Chipiez, iii. 646.]

[Footnote 7111: Herod. vii. 61.]

[Footnote 7112: Di Cesnola, _Cyprus_, pl. xxxv. fig. a.]

[Footnote 7113: Herod. v. 113.]

[Footnote 7114: That of Canon Spano. (See Perrot et Chipiez, iii. 655,
note 1.)]

[Footnote 7115: Perrot et Chipiez, iii. 656, 657, Nos. 466, 467, 468.]

[Footnote 7116: Perrot et Chipiez, iii. p. 655.]

[Footnote 7117: Ibid. p. 656, Nos. 464, 465.]

[Footnote 7118: See the author's _History of Ancient Egypt_, ii. 47, 54,
70.]

[Footnote 7119: Perrot et Chipiez, iii. 657, 658, Nos. 471-476.]

[Footnote 7120: Perrot et Chipiez, iii. 655:--"La couleur parait y avoir
été employée d'une manière discrète; elle servait à faire ressortir
certains détails."]

[Footnote 7121: Ross, _Reisen auf den griechischen Inseln_, iv. 100.]

[Footnote 7122: Perrot et Chipiez, iii. 666:--"On obtenait ainsi un
ensemble qui, malgré la rapidité du travail, ne manquait pas de gaieté,
d'harmonie et d'agrément."]

[Footnote 7123: See Di Cesnola, _Cyprus_, pp. 65, 71, 91, 181, &c.; and
Perrot et Chipiez, iii. 686, 691, 699, &c.]

[Footnote 7124: _Cyprus_, pl. xxix. (p. 333).]

[Footnote 7125: Perrot et Chipiez, iii. 704.]


VIII--INDUSTRIAL ART AND MANUFACTURES

[Footnote 81: Ezek. xxvii. 18.]

[Footnote 82: Ibid. xxvii. 21.]

[Footnote 83: See Herod. ii. 182, and compare the note of Sir G.
Wilkinson on that passage in Rawlinson's _Herodotus_, ii. 272.]

[Footnote 84: Kenrick, _Phoenicia_, p. 246.]

[Footnote 85: Ibid.]

[Footnote 86: Hom. _Il._ vi. 289; _Od._ xv. 417; Æsch. _Suppl._ ll.
279-284; Lucan, _Phars._ x. 142, &c.]

[Footnote 87: Ex. xxvi. 36, xxviii. 39.]

[Footnote 88: Perrot et Chipiez, _Histoire de l'Art_, iii. 877.]

[Footnote 89: Smyth, _Mediterranean Sea_, pp. 205-207.]

[Footnote 810: Tristram, _Land of Israel_, p. 51.]

[Footnote 811: Lortet, _La Syrie d'aujourd'hui_, p. 103.]

[Footnote 812: See _Phil. Transactions_, xv. 1,280.]

[Footnote 813: Wilksinson, in Rawlinson's _Herodotus_, ii. 347.]

[Footnote 814: Kenrick, _Phoenicia_, p. 258.]

[Footnote 815: See Jul. Pollux, _Onomasticon_, i. 4, § 45.]

[Footnote 816: This is the case with almost all the refuse shells found
in the "kitchen middens" (as they have been called) on the Syrian coast.
See Lortet, _La Syrie d'aujourd'hui_, p. 103).]

[Footnote 817: See Réaumur, quoted by Kenrick, _Phoenicia_, p. 256.]

[Footnote 818: Plin. _H. N._ ix. 38.]

[Footnote 819: See Grimaud de Caux's paper in the _Revue de Zoologie_
for 1856, p. 34; and compare Lortet, _La Syrie d'aujourd'hui_, p. 102.]

[Footnote 820: Ibid.]

[Footnote 821: Lortet, _La Syrie d'aujourd'hui_, p. 127.]

[Footnote 822: Plin. _H. N._ xxxii. 22.]

[Footnote 823: Ibid. ix. 37-39.]

[Footnote 824: For the tints producible, see a paper by M.
Lacaze-Duthiers, in the _Annales des Sciences Naturelles_ for 1859,
Zoologie, 4me. série, xii. 1-84.]

[Footnote 825: Plin. _H. N._ ix. 41.]

[Footnote 826: Ibid. ix. 39:--"Cornelius Nepos, qui divi Augusti
principatu obiit. Me, inquit, juvene violacea purpura vigebat, cujus
libra denariis centum venibat."]

[Footnote 827: Kenrick, _Phoenicia_, p. 242. Compare Pliny, _H. N._ ix.
38:--"Laus summa in colore sanguinis concreti."]

[Footnote 828: _Hist. Nat._ xxxvi. 65.]

[Footnote 829: Wilkinson, in Rawlinson's _Herodotus_, ii. 82. Similar
representations occur in tombs near the Pyramids.]

[Footnote 830: Wilksinson, _Manners and Customs_, iii. 88.]

[Footnote 831: Herod. ii. 86-88.]

[Footnote 832: Plin. _H. N._ v 19; xxxvi. 26, &c.]

[Footnote 833: Lortet, _La Syrie d'aujourd'hui_, p. 113.]

[Footnote 834: Ibid. p. 127.]

[Footnote 835: Perrot et Chipiez, _Hist. de l'Art_, iii. 735, note 2.]

[Footnote 836: Plin. _H. N._ xxxvi. 26.]

[Footnote 837: Perrot et Chipiez, iii. 739.]

[Footnote 838: See Perrot et Chipiez, _Histoire de l'Art_, iii.
734-744.]

[Footnote 839: Perrot et Chipiez, _Histore de l'Art_, iii. pl. viii. No.
2 (opp. p. 740).]

[Footnote 840: Ibid. pl. vii. No. 1 (opp. p. 734).]

[Footnote 841: Herod. ii. 44.]

[Footnote 842: Perrot et Chipiez, _Hist. de l'Art_, iii. 745, and pl.
x.]

[Footnote 843: Ibid.]

[Footnote 844: Perrot et Chipiez, iii. 746, No. 534.]

[Footnote 845: Ibid. pp. 739, 740.]

[Footnote 846: See Perrot et Chipiez, _Histoire de l'Art_, iii. 740,
741.]

[Footnote 847: The British Museum has a mould which was found at
Camirus, intended to give shape to glass earrings. It is of a hard
greenish stone, apparently a sort of breccia.]

[Footnote 848: Perrot et Chipiez, iii. 745.]

[Footnote 849: Strabo, iii. 5, § 11.]

[Footnote 850: Scylax, _Periplus_, § 112.]

[Footnote 851: Perrot et Chipiez, _Histoire de l'Art_, iii. 669.
(Compare Renan _Mission de Phénicie_, pl. xxi.)]

[Footnote 852: Perrot et Chipiez, iii. 670. The vase is figured on p.
670, No. 478.]

[Footnote 853: Di Cesnola, _Cyprus_, p. 68. Compare Perrot et Chipiez,
_Hist. de l'Art_, iii. 671, No. 479.]

[Footnote 854: Perrot et Chipiez, l.s.c.]

[Footnote 855: Di Cesnola, _Cyprus_, appendix, p. 408.]

[Footnote 856: Perrot et Chipiez, iii. 685, No. 485.]

[Footnote 857: Di Cesnola, _Cyprus_, p. 102. Compare Perrot et Chipiez,
_Hist. de l'Art_, iii. 675, No. 483.]

[Footnote 858: So Di Cesnola, _Cyprus_, p. 332, and Mr. Murray, of the
British Museum, ibid., appendix, pp. 401, 402.]

[Footnote 859: Perrot et Chipiez, _Hist. de l'Art_, iii. 693-695.]

[Footnote 860: Di Cesnola, _Cyprus_, pp. 394, 402, and pl. xlii. fig.
4.]

[Footnote 861: Perrot et Chipiez, _Hist. de l'Art_, iii. 698.]

[Footnote 862: Ibid. p. 676, No. 484; p. 691, No. 496; and p. 697, No.
505.]

[Footnote 863: Ibid. p. 730.]

[Footnote 864: Di Cesnola, _Cyprus_, p. 282, and pl. xxx.]

[Footnote 865: Ibid.]

[Footnote 866: Perrot et Chipiez, _Hist. de l'Art_, iii. 866-868.
Compare Di Cesnola, _Cyprus_, pl. x.]

[Footnote 867: Di Cesnola, _Cyprus_, pp. 335, 336, and pls. iv. and
xxx.; Perrot et Chipiez, _Hist. de l'Art_, iii. 831, 862, 863, &c.]

[Footnote 868: Di Cesnola, l.s.c.; Perrot et Chipiez, iii. 864.]

[Footnote 869: Di Cesnola, _Cyprus_, pl. xx.]

[Footnote 870: Perrot et Chipiez, iv. 15, 66-68, 70; Cesnola, _Cyprus_,
p. 203.]

[Footnote 871: Perrot et Chipiez, iii. 870, 871.]

[Footnote 872: Ibid. p. 867, No. 633.]

[Footnote 873: Ibid. iv. 94.]

[Footnote 874: Perrot et Chipiez, iv. 94, No. 91.]

[Footnote 875: Ibid. p. 67, No. 53.]

[Footnote 876: Ibid. iii. 862, No. 629.]

[Footnote 877: Perrot et Chipiez, iii. p. 863.]

[Footnote 878: De Cesnola, _Cyprus_, p. 336.]

[Footnote 879: See Perrot et Chipiez, iii. 133, Nos. 80, 81.]

[Footnote 880: Di Cesnola, p. 335.]

[Footnote 881: See Ezek. xxvii. 12; Strab. iii. 2, § 8.]

[Footnote 882: Plutarch, _Vit. Alex. Magni_, § 32.]

[Footnote 883: Ceccaldi, _Monumens Antiques de Cyprus_, p. 138; Di
Cesnola, _Cyprus_, p. 282; Perrot et Chipiez, _Hist. de l'Art_, iii.
874.]

[Footnote 884: Plutarch, _Vit. Demetrii_, § 21.]

[Footnote 885: Hom. _Il._ xi. 19-28.]

[Footnote 886: 2 Chron. ii. 14. Iron, in the shape of nails and rings,
has been found in several graves in Phoenicia Proper, where the coffin
seems to have been of wood (Renan, _Mission de Phénicie_, p. 866).]

[Footnote 887: Strab. iii. 5, § 11.]

[Footnote 888: Ezek. xxvii. 12.]

[Footnote 889: See Perrot et Chipiez, _Hist. de l'Art_, iv. 80.]

[Footnote 890: Ibid. iii. 815, No. 568.]

[Footnote 891: Renan, _Mission de Phénicie_, p. 427, and pl. lx. fig. 1;
Perrot et Chipiez, _Hist. de l'Art_, iii. 177, No. 123.]


IX--SHIPS, NAVIGATION, AND COMMERCE

[Footnote 91: Plin. _H. N._ vii. 56.]

[Footnote 92: Perrot et Chipiez, _Hist. de l'Art_, iii. 517, No. 352.]

[Footnote 93: Layard, _Nineveh and its Remains_, ii. 383.]

[Footnote 94: Compare the practice of the Egyptians (Rosellini,
_Monumenti Storici_, pl. cxxxi.)]

[Footnote 95: See Mionnet, _Déscript. de Médailles_, vol. vii. pl. lxi.
fig. 1; Gesenius, _Ling. Scripturæque Phoen. Monumenta_, pl. 36, fig. G;
Layard, _Nineveh and its Remains_, ii. 378.]

[Footnote 96: Layard, _Monuments of Nineveh_, first series, pl. 71;
_Nineveh and its Remains_, l.s.c.]

[Footnote 97: So Perrot et Chipiez, _Hist. de l'Art_, iii. 34.]

[Footnote 98: See Di Cesnola, _Cyprus_, pl. xlv.]

[Footnote 99: Herod. iii. 136.]

[Footnote 910: In later times there must have been more sails than one,
since Xenophon describes a Phoenician merchant ship as sailing by means
of a quantity of rigging, which implies _several_ sails (Xen. _OEconom._
§ 8).]

[Footnote 911: Scylax. _Periplus_, § 112.]

[Footnote 912: Thucyd. i. 13.]

[Footnote 913: Herod. l.s.c.]

[Footnote 914: See Herod. vii. 89-94.]

[Footnote 915: Ibid. vii. 44.]

[Footnote 916: Ibid. vii. 100.]

[Footnote 917: Xen. _OEconom._ § 8, pp. 11-16 (Ed. Schneider).]

[Footnote 918: Herodotus (iii. 37) says they were at the prow of the
ship; but Suidas (ad voc.) and Hesychius (ad voc.) place them at the
stern. Perhaps there was no fixed rule.]

[Footnote 919: The {pataikoi} of the Greeks probably representes the
Hebrew {...}, which is from {...}, "insculpere," and is applied in
Scripture to "carved work" of any kind. (See 1 Kings vi. 29; Ps. lxxiv.
6; &c.) Some, however, derive the word from the Egyptian name Phthah, or
Ptah. (See Kenrick, _Phoenicia_, p. 235.)]

[Footnote 920: Manilius, i. 304-308.]

[Footnote 921: Strab. _Geograph._ xv.]

[Footnote 922: Tarshish (Tartessus) was on the Atlantic coast, outside
the Straits.]

[Footnote 923: Ezek. xxvii.]

[Footnote 924: Signified by one of its chief cities, Haran (now
Harran).]

[Footnote 925: Signified by "the house of Togarmarh" (verse 14).]

[Footnote 926: Ionia, Cyprus, and Hellas are the Greek correspondents of
Javan, Chittim, and Elishah, Chittim representing Citium, the capital of
Cyprus.]

[Footnote 927: Spain is intended by "Tarshish" (verse 12) == Tartessus,
which was a name given by the Phoenicians to the tract upon the lower
Bætis (Guadalquivir).]

[Footnote 928: See the _Speaker's Commentary_, ad loc.]

[Footnote 929: Strab. xv. 3, § 22.]

[Footnote 930: Minnith appears as an Ammonite city in the history of
Jephthah (Judg. xi. 33).]

[Footnote 931: Herod. ii. 37, 182; iii. 47.]

[Footnote 932: See Rawlinson's _Herodotus_, ii. 157; _History of Ancient
Egypt_, i. 509; Rosellini, _Mon. Civili_, pls. 107-109.]

[Footnote 933: See Herod. iii. 107; _History of Ancient Egypt_, ii.
222-224.]

[Footnote 934: That these were Arabian products appears from Herod. iii.
111, 112. They may be included in the "chief of all spices," which Tyre
obtained from the merchants of Sheba and Raamah (Ezek. xxvii. 22).]

[Footnote 935: Arabia has no ebony trees, and can never have produced
elephants.]

[Footnote 936: See Ezek. xxvii. 23, 24. Canneh and Chilmad were probably
Babylonian towns.]

[Footnote 937: Upper Mesopotamia is indicated by one of its chief
cities, Haran (Ezek. xxvii. 23).]

[Footnote 938: Ezek. xxvii. 6. Many objects in ivory have been found in
Cyprus.]

[Footnote 939: Ibid. verse 7. The _Murex brandaris_ is still abundant on
the coast of Attica, and off the island of Salamis (Perrot et Chipiez,
_Hist. de l'Art_, iii. 881).]

[Footnote 940: Strab. iii. 2, § 8-12; Diod. Sic. v. 36; Plin. _H. N._
iii. 3.]

[Footnote 941: See Gen. xxxvii. 28.]

[Footnote 942: Isaiah xxi. 13.]

[Footnote 943: Ibid. lx. 6.]

[Footnote 944: Ibid. verses 6, 7.]

[Footnote 945: Heeren, _Asiatic Nations_, ii. 93, 100, 101.]

[Footnote 946: 1 Kings v. 11; 2 Chr. ii. 10.]

[Footnote 947: Ezek. xxvii. 17.]

[Footnote 948: Ezra iii. 7.]

[Footnote 949: Acts xii. 20.]

[Footnote 950: 2 Chron. l.s.c.; Ezra l.s.c.; Ezek. xxvii. 6, 17.]

[Footnote 951: Ezek. l.s.c.]

[Footnote 952: Gen. xxxvii. 28.]

[Footnote 953: Strab. xvi. 2, § 41.]

[Footnote 954: Ezek. xxvii. 18.]

[Footnote 955: Strab. xv. 3, § 22.]

[Footnote 956: So Heeren (_As. Nat._ ii. 118). But there is a Helbon a
little to the north of Damascus, which is more probably intended.]

[Footnote 957: Ibid.]

[Footnote 958: See Amos, iii. 12, where some translate "the children of
Israel that dwell in Samaria in the corner of a bed, and upon a damask
couch."]

[Footnote 959: Ezek. xxvii. 16.]

[Footnote 960: The Hebrew terms for Syria {...} and Edom {...} are
constantly confounded by the copyists, and we must generally look to the
context to determine which is the true reading.]

[Footnote 961: Herod. i. 1.]

[Footnote 962: Ibid. ii. 112.]

[Footnote 963: Ch. xxvii. 7.]

[Footnote 964: Egyptian pottery, scarabs, seals, figures of gods, and
amulets, are common on most Phoenician sites. The Sidonian sarcophagi,
including that of Esmunazar, are of an Egyptian stone.]

[Footnote 965: Herod. iii. 5, 6.]

[Footnote 966: Ibid. iii. 107; Strab. xvi. 4, § 19; Diod. Sic. ii. 49.]

[Footnote 967: Theophrast. _Hist. Plant._ ix. 4.]

[Footnote 968: Wilkinson, in the author's _Herodotus_, iii. 497, note 6;
Heeren, _As. Nat._ ii. 95.]

[Footnote 969: Is. lx. 7; Her. xlix. 29.]

[Footnote 970: Ezek. xxvii. 21.]

[Footnote 971: Ezek. xxvii. 20.]

[Footnote 972: Ex. xxvi. 7; xxxvi. 14.]

[Footnote 973: Ezek. xxvii. 15, 19-22.]

[Footnote 974: See Heeren, _Asiatic Nations_, ii. 96.]

[Footnote 975: Ibid. pp. 99, 100.]

[Footnote 976: Gerrha, Sanaa, and Mariaba were flourishing towns in
Strabo's time, and probably during several centuries earlier.]

[Footnote 977: Ezek. xxvii. 23, 24.]

[Footnote 978: Herod. i. 1.]

[Footnote 979: See Di Cesnola, _Cyprus_, pls. xxxi.-xxxiii.; A. Di
Cesnola, _Salaminia_, ch. xii.; Perrot et Chipiez, _Hist. de l'Art_,
iii. 636-639.]

[Footnote 980: Layard, _Monuments of Nineveh_, 2nd series, pls. 57-67;
_Nineveh and Babylon_, pp. 183-187.]

[Footnote 981: Ezek. xxvii. 23.]

[Footnote 982: So Heeren translates (_As. Nat._ ii. 123).]

[Footnote 983: Ezek. xxvii. 14.]

[Footnote 984: Strab. xi. 14, § 9:--{'Estin ippobotos sphodra e khora}.]

[Footnote 985: Ibid.]

[Footnote 986: 1 Kings i. 33; Esth. viii. 10, 14.]

[Footnote 987: Ezek. xxvii. 13.]

[Footnote 988: Xen. _Anab._ iv. 1, § 6.]

[Footnote 989: Hom. _Od._ xv. 415-484; Herod. i. 1.]

[Footnote 990: Joel iii. 6.]

[Footnote 991: Ezek. xxvii. 13.]

[Footnote 992: Herod. v. 5.]

[Footnote 993: Herod. ii. 32.]

[Footnote 994: Ibid. iv. 183.]

[Footnote 995: Ibid.]

[Footnote 996: Ibid. iv. 181-184. Compare Heeren, _African Nations_, ii.
pp. 202-235.]

[Footnote 997: No doubt some of these may have been imparted by the
Cyprians themselves, and others introduced by the Egyptians when they
held Cyprus; but they are too numerous to be accounted for sufficiently
unless by a continuous Phoenician importation.]

[Footnote 998: Especially Etruria, which was advanced in civilisation
and the arts, while Rome was barely emerging from barbarism.]

[Footnote 999: 2 Chron. ii. 14.]

[Footnote 9100: Dennis, _Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria_, ii. 204,
514; Gerhard, _Etruskische Spiegel_, passim.]

[Footnote 9101: Schliemann, _Mycenæ_, Pls. 357-519.]

[Footnote 9102: Ezek. xxvii. 12; Plin. _H. N._ xxxiv. 16; &c.]

[Footnote 9103: Strabo, iii. 5, § 11.]

[Footnote 9104: Ibid. In Roman times the pigs of tin were brought to the
Isle of Wight by the natives, thence transported across the Channel, and
conveyed through Gaul to the mouth of the Rhône (Diod. Sic. v. 22).]

[Footnote 9105: Heeren, _Asiatic Nations_, ii. 80.]

[Footnote 9106: Hom. _Od._ xv. 460. Some doubt, however, if amber is
here intended.]

[Footnote 9107: Scylax, _Periplus_, § 112.]

[Footnote 9108: Herod. iv. 196.]

[Footnote 9109: These forests (spoken of by Diodorus, v. 19) have now
to a great extent been cleared away, though some patches still remain,
especially in the more western islands of the group. The most remarkable
of the trees is the _Pinus canariensis_.]

[Footnote 9110: Pliny, _H. N._ vi. 32, sub fin.]

[Footnote 9111: Pliny, l.s.c. The breed is now extinct.]

[Footnote 9112: The savagery of the ancient inhabitants of the mainland
is strongly marked in the narrative of Hanno (_Periplus_, passim).]

[Footnote 9113: As Heeren (_As. Nat._ ii. 71, 75, 239).]

[Footnote 9114: Ezek. xxvii. 15, 20, 23.]

[Footnote 9115: See 1 Kings x. 22; 2 Chr. ix. 21.]

[Footnote 9116: 1 Kings ix. 26, 27.]

[Footnote 9117: Ibid. x. 11; 2 Chr. ix. 10.]

[Footnote 9118: Gen. x. 29. Compare Twistleton, in Dr. Smith's
_Dictionary of the Bible_, vol. ii. ad voc. OPHIR.]

[Footnote 9119: Ps. lxxii. 15; Ezek. xxvii. 22; Strab. xvi. 4, § 18;
Diod. Sic. ii. 50.]

[Footnote 9120: Ezel. l.s.c.; Strab. xvi. 4, § 20.]

[Footnote 9121: There are no sufficient data for determining what tree
is intended by the almug or algum tree. The theory which identifies it
with the "sandal-wood" of India has respectable authority in its favour,
but cannot rise beyond the rank of a conjecture.]

[Footnote 9122: If Scylax of Cadyanda could sail, in the reign of Darius
Hystaspis, from the mouth of the Indus to the Gulf of Suez (Herod.
iv. 44), there could have been no great difficulty in the Phoenicians
accomplishing the same voyage in the opposite direction some centuries
earlier.]


X--MINING

[Footnote 101: Diod. Sic. v. 35, § 2.]

[Footnote 102: Brugsch, _History of Egypt_, i. 65; Birch, _Ancient
Egypt_, p. 65.]

[Footnote 103: Deut. viii. 7-9.]

[Footnote 104: Plin. _H. N._ xxxiv. 2:--"In Cypro proma æris inventio."
The story went, that Cinryas, the Paphian king, who gave Agamemnon his
breastplate of steel, gold, and tin (Hom. _Il._ xii. 25), invented the
manufacture of copper, and also invented the tongs, the hammer, the
lever, and the anvil (Plin. _H. N._ vii. 56, § 195).]

[Footnote 105: Strab. xiv. 6, § 5; Steph. Byz. ad voc. {Tamasos}.]

[Footnote 106: See the _Dictionary of Gk. and Rom. Geography_, i. 729.]

[Footnote 107: Ross, _Inselnreise_, iv. 157, 161.]

[Footnote 108: Plin. _H. N._ l.s.c.]

[Footnote 109: Herod. vi. 47.]

[Footnote 1010: Plin. _H. N._ vi. 56; Strab. xiv. 5, § 28.]

[Footnote 1011: See the description of Thasos in the _Géographie
Universelle_, i. 142.]

[Footnote 1012: Herod. vii. 112; Aristot. _De Ausc. Mir._ § 42; Thuc.
iv. 105; Diod. Sic. xvi. 8; App. _Bell. Civ._ iv. 105; Justin, viii. 3;
Plin. _H. N._ vii. 56, &c.]

[Footnote 1013: Col. Leake speaks of _one_ silver mine as still being
worked (_Northern Greece_, iii. 161).]

[Footnote 1014: Perrot et Chipiez, _Hist. de l'Art_, iv. 99.]

[Footnote 1015: Ibid. p. 100, note.]

[Footnote 1016: Plin. _H. N._ xxxiii. 4, § 21.]

[Footnote 1017: Ibid. xxxiii. 4, § 23.]

[Footnote 1018: Diod. Sic. v. 35, § 1.]

[Footnote 1019: Plin. _H. N._ xxxiii. 6, § 31.]

[Footnote 1020: Ibid. § 96.]

[Footnote 1021: Strab. iii. 2, § 8; Diod. Sic. v. 36, § 2.]

[Footnote 1022: Ap. Strab. iii. 2, § 9. Compare Diod. Sic. v. 38, § 4.]

[Footnote 1023: Strab. l.s.c.]

[Footnote 1024: Plin. _H. N._ xxxiv. 16, § 156.]

[Footnote 1025: Plin. _H. N._ xxxiv. 16, § 158 and § 165.]

[Footnote 1026: Polyb. xxxiv. 5, § 11; Plin. _H. N._ xxxiv. 16, § 158.]

[Footnote 1027: Plin. xxxiv. 18, § 173.]

[Footnote 1028: Ibid. § 159.]

[Footnote 1029: Ibid. xxxiv. 17, § 164.]

[Footnote 1030: Quicksilver is still among the products of the Spanish
mines, where its presence is noted by Pliny (_H. N._ xxxiii. 6, § 99).]

[Footnote 1031: Diod. Sic. v. 36, § 2.]

[Footnote 1032: Ibid. {Kai plagias kai skolias diaduseis poikilos
metallourgountes}.]

[Footnote 1033: Pliny says "flint," but this can scarcely have been the
material. (See Plin. _H. N._ xxxiii. 4, § 71.)]

[Footnote 1034: Ibid. § 70.]

[Footnote 1035: Ibid. § 73.]

[Footnote 1036: Diod. Sic. v. 37, § 3.]

[Footnote 1037: Diod. Sic. v. 37, § 3. Compare Strab. iii. 2, § 9.]

[Footnote 1038: Plin. _H. N._ xxxiii. 4, § 69.]

[Footnote 1039: Ibid.]

[Footnote 1040: Kenrick, _Phoenicia_, p. 263.]

[Footnote 1041: Diod. Soc. v. 38, § 1.]

[Footnote 1042: Kenrick thinks that the Carthaginians "introduced the
practice of working the mines by slave labour" (_Phoenicia_, l.s.c.); but
to me the probability appears to be the other way.]

[Footnote 1043: See Wilkinson, in the author's _Herodotus_, ii. 504.]

[Footnote 1044: Herod. iii. 96.]


XI--RELIGION

[Footnote 0111: Renan, _Histoire des Langues Sémitiques_, p. 5.]

[Footnote 0112: Ithobal, father of Jezebel, was High Priest of Ashtoreth
(Menand. Ephes. Fr. 1). Amastarte, the mother of Esmunazar II. (_Records
of the Past_, ix. 113) was priestess of the same deity.]

[Footnote 0113: As figures of Melkarth, or Esmun, or dedications to Baal,
as lord of the particular city issuing it.]

[Footnote 0114: Herod. iii. 37.]

[Footnote 0115: For the fragments of the work which remain, see the
_Fragmenta Historicum Græcorum_ of C. Müller, iii. 561-571. Its value
has been much disputed, but seems to the present writer only slight.]

[Footnote 0116: Compare Max Müller, _Science of Religion_, p. 177 et
seqq.]

[Footnote 0117: Gen. xiv. 18-22.]

[Footnote 0118: Philo Bybl. Fr. 1, § 5.]

[Footnote 0119: _Records of the Past_, iv. 109, 113.]

[Footnote 1110: Gen. vi. 5.]

[Footnote 1111: Ps. cxxxix. 2.]

[Footnote 1112: Max Müller, _Chips from a German Workshop_, i. 28.]

[Footnote 1113: Philo Bybl. Fr. 1, § 5. Compare the _Corpus Ins. Semit._
vol. i. p. 29.]

[Footnote 1114: See Renan, _Mission de Phénicie_, pl. xxxii.; Gesenius,
_Linguæ Scripturæque Phoeniciæ Monumenta_, Tab. xxi.]

[Footnote 1115: 2 Kings xxiii. 5. Compare verse 11.]

[Footnote 1116: Gesenius, _Monumenta Phoenicia_, p. 96.]

[Footnote 1117: Ibid. pp. 276-278.]

[Footnote 1118: See Döllinger's _Judenthum und Heidenthum_, i. 425; E.
T.]

[Footnote 1119: Döllinger, _Judenthum und Heidenthum_, i. 425, E. T.
Compare Gesenius, _Mon. Phoen._ Tab. xxiii.]

[Footnote 1120: Herod. ii. 44; Perrot et Chipiez, _Hist. de l'Art_, iii.
77.]

[Footnote 1121: Judg. ii. 11; iii. 7; x. 6, &c.]

[Footnote 1122: 2 Kings i. 2.]

[Footnote 1123: Strab. iii. 5, § 5.]

[Footnote 1124: Perrot et Chipiez, _Hist. de l'Art_, iv. 113.]

[Footnote 1125: 2 Kings iii. 2.]

[Footnote 1126: See the representation in Perrot et Chipiez, _Hist. de
l'Art_, iii. 73.]

[Footnote 1127: Döllinger, _Judenthum und Heidenthum_, i. 427.]

[Footnote 1128: Perrot et Chipiez, iii. 77.]

[Footnote 1129: Gen. xiv. 5.]

[Footnote 1130: Perrot et Chipiez, iii. 419, 450, 555, &c.]

[Footnote 1131: Ibid. p. 554.]

[Footnote 1132: Curtius, in the _Archäologische Zeitung_ for 1869, p.
63.]

[Footnote 1133: Kenrick, _Phoenicia_, p. 303.]

[Footnote 1134: Menand. Ephes. Fr. 1.]

[Footnote 1135: See Philo Bybl. Fe. ii. 8, § 14; {'Ilon ton kai Kronon}.
Damascius ap. Phot. _Bibl._ p. 1050.]

[Footnote 1136: Philo. Bybl. Fr. ii. 8, § 17.]

[Footnote 1137: Diod. Sic. xx. 14.]

[Footnote 1138: Philo Bybl. Fr. ii. 8, § 25.]

[Footnote 1139: Ibid. Fr. iv.]

[Footnote 1140: Ibid. Fr. ii. 8, § 14-19.]

[Footnote 1141: _Karth_ or _Kartha_, is probably the root of Carthage,
Carthagena, Carteia, &c., as Kiriath is of Kiriathaim, Kiriath-arba,
Kiriath-arim, &c.]

[Footnote 1142: Melicertes is the son of Demaroüs and the grandson of
Uranus; Baal-samin is a god who stands alone, "without father, without
mother, without descent."]

[Footnote 1143: See Perrot et Chipiez, _Hist. de l'Art_, iii. 567, 577,
578; Gesenius, _Mon. Phoen._ Tab. xxxvii. I.]

[Footnote 1144: Herod. ii. 44.]

[Footnote 1145: Ibid.]

[Footnote 1146: Strab. iii. 5, § 4-6.]

[Footnote 1147: Perrot et Chipiez, _Hist. de l'Art_, iii. 575.]

[Footnote 1148: Ibid. p. 574.]

[Footnote 1149: Strab. iii. 5, § 5.]

[Footnote 1150: Sil. Ital. iii. 18-20.]

[Footnote 1151: Ibid. iii. 21-27.]

[Footnote 1152: 1 Sam. v. 2-5; 1 Mac. x. 18.]

[Footnote 1153: Philo Bybl. Fr. ii. 8, § 14.]

[Footnote 1154: Ibid. § 20.]

[Footnote 1155: Layard, _Ninev. and Bab._ p. 343; Kenrick, _Phoenicia_,
p. 323.]

[Footnote 1156: See 2 Sam. viii. 3, and 1 Kings xv. 18, where the names
Hadad-ezer and Ben-hadad suggest at any rate the worship of Hadad.]

[Footnote 1157: Macrob. _Saturnalia_, i. 23.]

[Footnote 1158: So Macrobius, l.s.c. Compare the representations of
the Egyptian Sun-God, Aten, in the sculpures of Amenhotep IV. (See the
_Story of Egypt_, in G. Putnam's Series, p. 225.)]

[Footnote 1159: The _h_ in "Hadad" is _he_ ({...}), but in _chad_ it is
_heth_ ({...}). The derivation also leaves the reduplication of the

[Footnote 1160: Philo Bybl. Fr. ii. 24, § 1.]

[Footnote 1161: Zech. xii. 11.]

[Footnote 1162: 1 Kings i. 18; 2 Kings v. 18.]

[Footnote 1163: Kenrick, _Phoenicia_, p. 311.]

[Footnote 1164: Ezek. viii. 14.]

[Footnote 1165: The Adonis myth is most completely set forth by the
Pseudo-Lucian, _De Dea Syra_, § 6-8.]

[Footnote 1166: Philo Bybl. Fr. ii. 8, § 11.]

[Footnote 1167: Ibid.]

[Footnote 1168: "King of Righteousness" and "Lord of Righteousness" are
the interpretations usually given; but "Zedek is my King" and "Zedek is
my Lord" would be at least equally admissible.]

[Footnote 1169: Berytus was under the protection of the Cabeiri
generally (Philo Bybl. ii. 8, § 25) and of Esmun in particular. Kenrick
says that he had a temple there (_Phoenicia_, p. 327).]

[Footnote 1170: Cyprian inscriptions contain the names of Bar-Esmun,
Abd-Esmun, and Esmun-nathan; Sidonian ones those of two Esmun-azars.
Esmun's temple at Carthage was celebrated (Strab. xvii. 14; Appian,
viii. 130). His worship in Sardinia is shown by votive offerings (Perrot
et Chipiez, _Hist. de l'Art_, iii. 308).]

[Footnote 1171: Ap. Phot. _Bibliothec._ Cod. ccxlii. p. 1074.]

[Footnote 1172: Pausan. viii. 23.]

[Footnote 1173: The name _Astresmunim_, "herb of Esmun," given by
Dioscorides (iv. 71) to the _solanum_, which was regarded as having
medicinal qualities, is the nearest approach to a proof that the
Phoenicians themselves connected Esmun with the healing art.]

[Footnote 1174: Philo Bybl. Fr. ii. 8, § 11.]

[Footnote 1175: Herod. ii. 51; Kenrick, _Egypt_, Appendix, pp. 264-287.]

[Footnote 1176: Philo Bybl. l.s.c.]

[Footnote 1177: Herod. iii. 37; Suidas ad voc. {pataikos}; Hesych. ad
voc. {Kabeiroi}.]

[Footnote 1178: Strab. x. 3, § 7.]

[Footnote 1179: Gen. ix. 22; x. 6. Compare the author's _Herodotus_, iv.
239-241.]

[Footnote 1180: Herod. iii. 37.]

[Footnote 1181: Perrot et Chipiez, _Hist. de l'Art_, iii. 65, 78, &c.]

[Footnote 1182: Gesenius, _Mon. Phoen._ Tab. xxxix.]

[Footnote 1183: Berger, _La Phénicie_, p. 24; Perrot et Chipiez, iii.
70.]

[Footnote 1184: Pausan. ix. 12; Nonnus, _Dionysiac._ v. 70; Steph. Byz.
ad voc. {'Ogkaiai}; Hesych. ad voc. {'Ogka}; Scholiast. ad Pind. _Ol._
ii. &c.]

[Footnote 1185: As Stephen and Hesychius.]

[Footnote 1186: Philo Bybl. Fr. ii. § 24.]

[Footnote 1187: The "Oncæan" gate at Thebes is said to have taken its
name from her.]

[Footnote 1188: Gesen. _Mon. Phoen_. p. 113.]

[Footnote 1189: Ibid. pp. 168-177.]

[Footnote 1190: Prosper, _Op._ iii. 38; Augustine, _De Civ. Dei_, ii.
3.]

[Footnote 1191: Gesen. _Mon. Ph._ Tab. ix.]

[Footnote 1192: Ibid. p. 168.]

[Footnote 1193: Apul. _Metamorph._ xi. 257.]

[Footnote 1194: Gesen. _Mon. Ph._ Tab. xvi.]

[Footnote 1195: Ibid. pp. 115-118.]

[Footnote 1196: See the author's _History of Ancient Egypt_, i. 400.]

[Footnote 1197: See the Fragments of Philo Bybl. Fr. ii. 8, § 19.]

[Footnote 1198: Ibid. § 25.]

[Footnote 1199: See Sir H. Rawlinson's _Essay on the Religion of the
Babylonians and Assyrians_, in the author's _Herodotus_, i. 658.]

[Footnote 11100: So Gesenius, _Mon. Phoen._ p. 402; Kenrick, _Phoenicia_,
p. 301, and others.]

[Footnote 11101: There seems also to have been a tendency to increase
the number of the gods by additions, of which the foreign origin is,
at any rate, "not proven." Among the deities brought into notice by the
later Phoenicians are--1. Zephon, an equivalent of the Egyptian Typhon,
but probably a god of Phoenician origin (Ex. xiv. 2); 2. Sad or Tsad,
sometimes apparently called Tsadam; 3. Sakon or Askun, a name which
forms perhaps the first element in Sanchon-iathon (= Sakon-yithan); 4.
Elat, a goddess, a female form of El, perhaps equivalent to the Arabian
Alitta (Herod. i. 131) or Alilat (ibid. iii. 8); 5. 'Aziz, a god who was
perhaps common to the Phoenicians with the Syrians, since Azizus is said
to have been "the Syrian Mars;" and 6. Pa'am {...}, a god otherwise
unknown. (See the _Corpus Inscr. Semit._ i. 122, 129, 132, 133, 144,
161, 197, 333, 404, &c.)]

[Footnote 11102: Gesenius, _Mon. Phoen._ pp. 96, 110, &c.; _Corpus Ins.
Semit._ Fasc. ii. pp. 154, 155.]

[Footnote 11103: Ibid. p. 99 and Tab. xl. A.]

[Footnote 11104: Steph. Byz. ad voc. {'Amathous}.]

[Footnote 11105: Lucian, _De Dea Syra_, § 7.]

[Footnote 11106: Plut. _De Is. et Osir._ § 15, 16; Steph. Byz. l.s.c.;
Gesen. _Mon. Phoen._ pp. 96, 110.]

[Footnote 11107: Gesen. _Mon. Phoen._ Tab. xxi.]

[Footnote 11108: Ibid. pp. 168, 174, 175, 177.]

[Footnote 11109: Ibid. Tab. xxi.]

[Footnote 11110: Ibid. pp. 197, 202, 205.]

[Footnote 11111: Ibid. Tab. xxi. and Tab. xxiii.]

[Footnote 11112: Lucian, _De Dea Syria_, § 54.]

[Footnote 11113: Clermont-Ganneau, in the _Journal Asiatique_, Série
vii. vol. xi. 232, 444.]

[Footnote 11114: Lucian, § 42.]

[Footnote 11115: Ibid. Compare the 450 prophets of Baal at Samaria (1
Kings xviii. 19).]

[Footnote 11116: Lucian, l.s.c.]

[Footnote 11117: Ibid. Lucian's direct testimony is conined to
Hierapolis, but his whole account seems to imply the closest possible
connection between the Syrian and Phoenician religious usages.]

[Footnote 11118: Lucian, § 49.]

[Footnote 11119: Lucian, § 50: {'Aeidousi enthea kai ira asmata}.]

[Footnote 11120: Gesenius, _Scripturæ Linguæque Phoeniciæ Monumenta_,
Tab. 6, 9, 10, &c.; _Corp. Ins. Semit._ Tab. ix. 52; xxii. 116, 117;
xxiii. 115 A, &c.]

[Footnote 11121: Gesen. Tab. 15, 16, 17, 21, &c.; _Corp. Ins. Semit._
Tab. xliii. 187, 240; liv. 352, 365, 367, 369, &c.]

[Footnote 11122: _Revue Archéologique_, 2me Série, xxxvii. 323.]

[Footnote 11123: Jarchi on Jerem. vii. 31.]

[Footnote 11124: Diod. Sic. xx. 14.]

[Footnote 11125: 2 Kings iii. 27; xvi. 3; xxi. 6; Micah vi. 7.]

[Footnote 11126: Plutarch, _De Superstitione_, § 13.]

[Footnote 11127: Döllinger, _Judenthum und Heidenthum_, i. 427, E. T.]

[Footnote 11128: _Judenthum und Heidenthum_, book vi. § 4 (i. 428, 429
of N. Darnell's translation).]

[Footnote 11129: Herod. i. 199; Strab. xvi. 1058; Baruch vi. 43.]

[Footnote 11130: _De Dea Syra_, § 6.]

[Footnote 11131: _Judenthum und Heidenthum_, l.s.c. p. 429; Engl.
Trans.]

[Footnote 11132: Euseb. _Vit. Constantin. Magni_, iii. 55, § 3.]

[Footnote 11133: See 1 Kings xiv. 24; xv. 12; xxii. 46; 2 Kings xxiii.
7.]

[Footnote 11134: Lucian, _De Dea Syra_, § 50-52; _Corp. Ins. Semit._
vol. i. Fasc. 1, p. 92; Liv. xxix. 10, 14; xxxvi. 36; Juv. vi. 512; Ov.
_Fast._ iv. 237; Mart. _Ep._ iii. 31; xi. 74; Plin. _H. N._ v. 32; xi.
49; xxxv. 13; Propert. ii. 18, l. 15; Herodian, § 11.]

[Footnote 11135: Lucian, § 51.]

[Footnote 11136: Ibid. § 50.]

[Footnote 11137: Döllinger, _Judenthum und Heidenthum_ (i. 431; Engl.
Tr.). Compare Senec. _De Vita Beata_, § 27; Lact. § 121.]

[Footnote 11138: Liban. _Opera_, xi. 456, 555; cxi. 333.]

[Footnote 11139: Compare Perrot et Chipiez, _Histoire de l'Art_,
iii. 210, 232, 233, 236; Di Cesnola, _Cyprus_, pp. 66, 67, &c. In the
anthropoeid sarcophagi, a hole is generally bored from the cavity of
the ear right through the entire thickness of the stone, in order,
apparently, that the corpse might hear the prayers addressed to it
(Perrot et Chipiez, iii. 139).]

[Footnote 11140: One of Esmunazar's curses on those who should disturb
his remains is a prayer that they may not be "held in honour among
the Manes" (_Corps. Ins. Semit._ vol. i. Fasc. 1, p. 9). A funereal
inscription translated by Gesenius (_Mon. Phoen._ p. 147) ends with the
words, "After rain the sun shines forth."]

[Footnote 11141: Perrot et Chipiez, iii. 139.]

[Footnote 11142: Job iii. 11-19.]

[Footnote 11143: The compilers of the _Corpus Ins. Smit._ edit 256 of
these, and then stop, fearing to weary the reader (i. 449).]

[Footnote 11144: Di Cesnola, _Cyprus_, p. 325.]

[Footnote 11145: Ibid. p. 146.]

[Footnote 11146: Di Cesnola, _Cyprus_, pp. 306-334.]


XII--DRESS, ORNAMENTS, AND SOCIAL HABITS

[Footnote 0121: See also Di Cesnola, _Cyprus_, p. 233; Perrot et Chipiez,
_Hist. de l'Art_, iii. 405, 447, 515, &c.]

[Footnote 0122: Perrot et Chipiez, iii. 428, 527, 531, 533, 534, &c.]

[Footnote 0123: Ibid. pp. 527, 545; Di Cesnola, _Cyprus_, p. 145.]

[Footnote 0124: Perrot et Chipiez, p. 538.]

[Footnote 0125: Ibid. pp. 539, 547; Di Cesnola, pp. 143, 145, 149, 151,
&c.]

[Footnote 0126: Di Cesnola, pp. 141, 145, 149, 151, 153, 240, 344.]

[Footnote 0127: Ibid. pp. 141, 143, 149; Perrot et Chipiez, pp. 511, 513,
531, &c.]

[Footnote 0128: Perrot et Chipiez, pp. 519, 523, &c.]

[Footnote 0129: Ibid. pp. 531, 533; Di Cesnola, pp. 129, 131, &c.]

[Footnote 1210: Perrot et Chipiez, pp. 527, 533, 539; Di Cesnola, pp.
129, 145, 154.]

[Footnote 1211: Di Cesnola, p. 306.]

[Footnote 1212: Ibid. Pls. xlvi. and xlvii.; Perrot et Chipiez, pp. 205,
643, 837.]

[Footnote 1213: Di Cesnola, p. 132.]

[Footnote 1214: Perrot et Chipiez, pp. 64, 450, 555, 557; Di Cesnola,
Pls vi. and xv.; also p. 275.]

[Footnote 1215: Perrot et Chipiez, _Hist. de l'Art_, iii. 431.]

[Footnote 1216: Perrot et Chipiez, pp. 202, 451, 554.]

[Footnote 1217: Ibid. pp. 473, 549; Di Cesnola, _Cyprus_, p. 230.]

[Footnote 1218: Perrot et Chipiez, iii. 549.]

[Footnote 1219: Ibid. pp. 189, 549, 565.]

[Footnote 1220: Di Cesnola, _Cyprus_, 141, 190, 230.]

[Footnote 1221: Ibid. pp. 141, 191.]

[Footnote 1222: Ibid. p. 141.]

[Footnote 1223: Is. iii. 18-23.]

[Footnote 1224: Perrot et Chipiez, pp. 257, 450, 542, 563, 824.]

[Footnote 1225: Di Cesnola, _Cyprus_, pl. xxiii.; Perrot et Chipiez,
_Histoire de l'Art_, iii. 819, A.]

[Footnote 1226: Di Cesnola, pl. xxii.; Perrot et Chipiez, iii. 819, B.]

[Footnote 1227: Di Cesnola, p. 315.]

[Footnote 1228: See plate x. in Perrot et Chipiez, iii. opp. p. 824.]

[Footnote 1229: Ibid. pp. 826, 827.]

[Footnote 1230: Compare Di Cesnola, pl. xxv.; Perrot et Chipiez, iii.
826.]

[Footnote 1231: Perrot et Chipiez, iii. 826.]

[Footnote 1232: Di Cesnola, _Cyprus_, p. 311.]

[Footnote 1233: Ibid. Compare Perrot et Chipiez, p. 832.]

[Footnote 1234: These bracelets are in Paris, in the collection of M. de
Clercq (Perrot et Chipiez, iii. 832).]

[Footnote 1235: Ibid.]

[Footnote 1236: This bracelet is in silver, but the head of the lion has
been gilded. It is now in the British Museum.]

[Footnote 1237: Perrot et Chipiez, p. 836; No. 604.]

[Footnote 1238: Di Cesnola, _Cyprus_, pp. 311, 312.]

[Footnote 1239: Ibid. p. 312. Compare Perrot et Chipiez, p. 835.]

[Footnote 1240: Perrot et Chipiez, l.s.c. (No. 603.)]

[Footnote 1241: Perrot et Chipiez, p. 818: "Il y a dans les formes de
ces boucles d'orielles une étonnante variété."]

[Footnote 1242: See his _Cyprus_, pl. xxv., and compare Perrot et
Chipiez, iii. 819, fig. D.]

[Footnote 1243: Perrot et Chipiez, p. 821; No. 577.]

[Footnote 1244: Ibid. Nos. 578, 579.]

[Footnote 1245: Di Cesnola, pl. xxvi.]

[Footnote 1246: Perrot et Chipiez, p. 823.]

[Footnote 1247: See Perrot et Chipiez, iii. 822; No. 582.]

[Footnote 1248: Ibid. pp. 821, 822. Compare Di Cesnola, _Cyprus_, p.
297, and pl. xxvii.]

[Footnote 1249: Perrot et Chipiez, p. 823.]

[Footnote 1250: Di Cesnola, p. 310; Perrot et Chipiez, p. 818; No. 574.]

[Footnote 1251: Perrot et Chipiez, p. 818; No. 575.]

[Footnote 1252: Di Cesnola, pl. xxviii.]

[Footnote 1253: Ibid. pl. xxi.]

[Footnote 1254: Perrot et Chipiez, pp. 830, 831.]

[Footnote 1255: Perrot et Chipiez, p. 831; No. 595.]

[Footnote 1256: Di Csnola, p. 316.]

[Footnote 1257: Ibid. pl. xxi (opp. p. 312).]

[Footnote 1258: Ibid. pl. xxx.]

[Footnote 1259: Ibid. pl. ix.]

[Footnote 1260: Compare Di Cesnola, p. 149.]

[Footnote 1261: Ibid. pl. x.]

[Footnote 1262: Ibid. p. 77; Perrot et Chipiez, iii. 783.]

[Footnote 1263: Di Cesnola, p. 149.]

[Footnote 1264: Ibid. pl. xiv.]

[Footnote 1265: Ibid. pl. x.]

[Footnote 1266: See Perrot et Chipiez, iii. 769, 771, 789.]

[Footnote 1267: Perrot et Chipiez, iii. 798.]

[Footnote 1268: C. W. King, in Di Cesnola's _Cyprus_, pp. 363, 364.]

[Footnote 1269: Mr. King says of it: "No piece of antique worked agate
hitherto known equals in magnitude and curiosity the ornament discovered
among the bronze and iron articles of the treasure. It is a sphere about
six inches in diameter, black irregularly veined with white, having the
exterior vertically scored with incised lines, imitating, as it were,
the gadroons of a melon" (ibid. p. 363).]

[Footnote 1270: Renan, _Mission de Phénicie_, Pls. xii. xiii.; Di
Cesnola, _Cyprus_, pls. iv. and xxx.; and pp. 335, 336.]

[Footnote 1271: Perrot et Chipiez, iii. 846-853.]

[Footnote 1272: 1 Kings xxii. 39.]


XIII--PHOENICIAN WRITING, LANGUAGE, AND LITERATURE

[Footnote 0131: This follows from the fact that the Greeks, who tell us
that they got their letters from the Phoenicians, gave them names only
slightly modified from the Hebrew.]

[Footnote 0132: See Dr. Ginsburg's _Moabite Stone_, published in 1870.]

[Footnote 0133: See _Quarterly Statement of the Palestine Exploration
Fund_ for October 1881, pp. 285-287.]

[Footnote 0134: _Corp. Ins. Semit._ i. 224-226.]

[Footnote 0135: Herod. v. 58; Diod. Sic. v. 24; Plin. _H. N._ v. 12; vii.
56; Tacit. _Ann._ xi. 14; Euseb. _Chron. Can._ i. 13; &c.]

[Footnote 0136: Capt. Conder, in the _Quarterly Statement of the
Palestine Exploration Fund_, Jan. 1889, p. 17.]

[Footnote 0137: _Encycl. Britann._ i. 600 and 606.]

[Footnote 0138: Conder, in _Quarterly Statement_, &c. l.s.c.]

[Footnote 0139: See Gesenius, _Mon. Phoen._ Tab. 19 and 20.]

[Footnote 1310: See the _Corpus Ins. Semit._ i. 3, 30, 73, &c.;
Gesenius, _Mon. Phoen._ Tab. 29-33.]

[Footnote 1311: See on this entire subject Gesenius, _Scripturæ
Linguæque Phoeniciæ Monumenta_, pp. 437-445; Movers, article on
_Phoenizien_ in the _Cyclopädie_ of Ersch and Gruber; Renan, _Histoire
des Langues Sémitiques_, pp. 189-192.]

[Footnote 1312: Renan, _Histoire_, &c., p. 186.]

[Footnote 1313: Philo Byblius, Fr. i.]

[Footnote 1314: Philo Byblius, Fr. ii. § 5-8.]

[Footnote 1315: Ibid. Fr. v.]

[Footnote 1316: _The Voyage of Hanno translated, and accompanied with
the Greek Text_, by Thomas Falconer, M.A., London, 1797.]

[Footnote 1317: Quoted by Falconer in his second "Dissertation," p. 67.]

[Footnote 1318: See the _Histoire des Langues Sémitiques_ (p.
186):--"Les monuments épigraphiques viennent heureusement combler en
partie cette lacune."]

[Footnote 1319: See the _Corpus Inscr. Semit._ i. 13.]

[Footnote 1320: _Corpus Inscr. Semit._ i. 20.]

[Footnote 1321: _Story of Phoenicia_, p. 269.]

[Footnote 1322: On the age of Jehavmelek, see M. Renan's remarks in the
_Corpus Inscriptionum Semit._ i. 8.]

[Footnote 1323: Ibid. p. 3.]

[Footnote 1324: I have followed the translation of M. Renan (_Corp. Ins.
Semit._ i. 8).]

[Footnote 1325: See the _Corpus Inscr. Semit._ i. 226-236.]

[Footnote 1326: See the _Corp. Inscr. Sem._ i. 30-32.]

[Footnote 1327: Gesenius, _Script. Linguæque Phoen. Monumenta_, p. 177.]

[Footnote 1328: Ibid. p. 96.]

[Footnote 1329: See the _Corpus Inscr. Semit._ i. 36-39.]

[Footnote 1330: Ibid. pp. 110-112.]

[Footnote 1331: Ibid. p. 69.]

[Footnote 1332: Ibid. p. 76.]

[Footnote 1333: See the _Corpus Inscr. Semit._ pp. 67, 68.]

[Footnote 1334: Gesenius, _Scripturæ Linguæque Phoen. Mon._ p. 144.]

[Footnote 1335: Ibid. p. 147.]

[Footnote 1336: Ibid. p. 187.]

[Footnote 1337: See the fragments of Dius and Menander, who followed the
Tyrian historians (Joseph. _Contr. Ap._ i. 18).]

[Footnote 1338: Ap. Strab. xvii. 2, § 22.]

[Footnote 1339: Ibid.]

[Footnote 1340: See Sallust, _Bell. Jugurth._ § 17; Cic. _De Orat._ i.
58; Amm. Marc. xxii. 15; Solin. _Polyhist._ § 34.]

[Footnote 1341: Columella, xii. 4.]

[Footnote 1342: Ibid. i. 1, § 6.]

[Footnote 1343: Plin. _H. N._ xviii. 3.]

[Footnote 1344: As Antipater and Apollonius, Stoic philosophers of Tyre
(Strab. l.s.c.), Boëthus and Diodotus, Peripatetics, of Sidon (ibid.),
Philo of Byblus, Hermippus of Berytus, and others.]


XIV--POLITICAL HISTORY

[Footnote 0141: Gen. x. 15-18.]

[Footnote 0142: "Canaanite" is used in a much wider sence, including all
the Syrian nations between the coast line and the desert.]

[Footnote 0143: Mark vii. 26.]

[Footnote 0144: Ezra iii. 7.]

[Footnote 0145: 1 Kings v. 18 (marginal rendering).]

[Footnote 0146: Ezek. xxvii. 11.]

[Footnote 0147: Gen. x. 17, 18.]

[Footnote 0148: Judg. i. 31.]

[Footnote 0149: Brugsch, _Hist. of Egypt_, i. 222, et seq.]

[Footnote 1410: See _Records of the Past_, ii. 110, 111.]

[Footnote 1411: Josh. xi. 8; xix. 28.]

[Footnote 1412: Judg. xviii. 7, 8.]

[Footnote 1413: Ibid. i. 31.]

[Footnote 1414: Ramantha (Laodicea) in later times claimed the rank of
"Metropolis," which implied a supremacy over other cities; but the real
chief power of the north was Aradus.]

[Footnote 1415: Hom. _Il._ xxiii. 743.]

[Footnote 1416: Ibid. 743-748.]

[Footnote 1417: Hom. _Od._ iv. 613-619.]

[Footnote 1418: Ibid. xv. 460 (Worsley's translation).]

[Footnote 1419: Hom. _Il._ vi. 290-295 (Sotheby's translation).]

[Footnote 1420: Scylax, _Periplus_, § 104.]

[Footnote 1421: Cl. Julius, quoted by Stephen of Byzantium, ad voc.
{DOROS}.]

[Footnote 1422: Justin, _Hist. Philipp._ xviii. 3.]

[Footnote 1423: Strab. xvi. ii. § 13.]

[Footnote 1424: Appian, _De Rebus Punicus_, § 1, &c.]

[Footnote 1425: Gesenius, _Mon. Phoen._ p. 267.]

[Footnote 1426: The Sidonian vessel which carries off Eumæus quits the
Sicilian haven after sunset, and continues its voyage night and day
without stopping--{'Exemar men onos pleomen nuktas te kai e mar} (Hom.
_Od._ xv. 471-476).]

[Footnote 1427: Strabo, xvi. 2, § 24.]

[Footnote 1428: Ibid.]

[Footnote 1429: Manilius, i. 304-309.]

[Footnote 1430: Herod. i. 1.]

[Footnote 1431: See Hom. _Odyss._ xv. 455.]

[Footnote 1432: Herod. l.s.c.]

[Footnote 1433: Hom. _Odyss._ xv. 403-484.]

[Footnote 1434: Strabo, xvi. 2, § 14.]

[Footnote 1435: We find hereditary monarchy among the Hittites (_Records
of the Past_, iv. 28), at Tyre (Menand. ap. Joseph. _Contr. Ap._ i. 18),
in Moab (_Records_, xi. 167), in Judah and Israel, in Syria (2 Kings,
xiii. 24), in Ammon (2 Sam. x. 1), &c.]

[Footnote 1436: 1 Sam. viii. 20.]

[Footnote 1437: When kings are priests, it is noted as exceptional. (See
Menand. l.s.c.; _Inscription of Tabnit_, line 1.)]

[Footnote 1438: Judg. x. 12.]

[Footnote 1439: Kenrick, _Phoenicia_, p. 343.]

[Footnote 1440: Josh. xix. 29.]

[Footnote 1441: _Records of the Past_, ii. 111.]

[Footnote 1442: Justin, _Hist. Phil._ xviii. 3.]

[Footnote 1443: Claudian, _Bell. Gild._ l. 120.]

[Footnote 1444: Solinus, _Polyhist._ § 29; Plin. _H. N._ v. 76.]

[Footnote 1445: Herod. i. 1 ({nautiliai makrai}).]

[Footnote 1446: Maspero, _Histoire Ancienne des Peuples de l'Orient_, p.
321.]

[Footnote 1447: See the fragments of Philo Byblius, passim.]

[Footnote 1448: Euseb. _Præp. Ev_. x. 9, § 12.]

[Footnote 1449: Tatian, _Adv. Græc._ § 58.]

[Footnote 1450: Cinyras and Belus are both connected with Cyprus as
kings. The Assyrians found kings there in all the cities (G. Smith,
_Eponym Canon._ p. 139). So the Persians (Herod. v. 104-110).]

[Footnote 1451: Dius, Fr. 2; Menand. Fr. 1.]

[Footnote 1452: Justin (xviii. 3) is scarcely an exception.]

[Footnote 1453: See the fragments of Dius and Menander above cited.]

[Footnote 1454: 1 Chr. xiv. 1.]

[Footnote 1455: 2 Sam. vii. 2.]

[Footnote 1456: 1 Chr. xxii. 4.]

[Footnote 1457: 1 Kings v. 1.]

[Footnote 1458: Joseph, _Ant. Jud._ viii. 2, § 6; 1 Kings, l.s.c.]

[Footnote 1459: Ibid. viii. 2, § 8.]

[Footnote 1460: See Joseph. _Ant. Jud._ viii. 2, § 7, and compare the
letters with their Hebrew counterparts in 1 Kings v. 3-6 and 7-9.]

[Footnote 1461: 1 Kings v. 10-12.]

[Footnote 1462: Ezek. xxvii. 17; Acts xii. 20.]

[Footnote 1463: Menander, Fr. 1.]

[Footnote 1464: 1 Kings v. 15, 18; 2 Chr. ii. 18.]

[Footnote 1465: 1 Kings v. 17, 18.]

[Footnote 1466: Ibid. vi. 18, 29.]

[Footnote 1467: Ibid. verses 23-28.]

[Footnote 1468: Ibid. verse 35.]

[Footnote 1469: 2 Chron. iii. 14.]

[Footnote 1470: Ibid. ii. 14.]

[Footnote 1471: 1 Kings vii. 13.]

[Footnote 1472: 1 Kings vii. 14; 2 Chron. ii. 14.]

[Footnote 1473: 1 Kings vii. 46.]

[Footnote 1474: Menander, Fr. 1; Dius, Fr. 2; Philostrat. _Vit. Apoll._
v. 5; Sil. Ital. _Bell. Pun._ iii. 14, 22, 30.]

[Footnote 1475: 1 Kings vii. 15-22.]

[Footnote 1476: Ibid. verses 27-37.]

[Footnote 1477: Ibid. vi. 38.]

[Footnote 1478: Ibid. vii. 1. Compare ix. 10.]

[Footnote 1479: Stanley, _Lectures on the Jewish Church_, ii. 165-167.]

[Footnote 1480: See the Fragment of Menander above quoted, where Hiram
is said to have been fifty-three years old at his decease, and to have
reigned thirty-four years.]

[Footnote 1481: Strabo, xvi. 2, § 23.]

[Footnote 1482: Menander, l.s.c.]

[Footnote 1483: So M. Renan, _Mission de Phénicie_, p. 369.]

[Footnote 1484: Herod. ii. 44.]

[Footnote 1485: Arrian, _Exped. Alex._ ii. 16, 24.]

[Footnote 1486: So M. Renan, after careful examination (_Mission_,
l.s.c.). The earlier opinion placed the smaller island, with its Temple
of Baal, towards the north (Kenrick, _Phoenicia_, p. 347).]

[Footnote 1487: Menander, l.s.c.]

[Footnote 1488: Arrian, _Exp. Alex._ ii. 23, sub fin.]

[Footnote 1489: Josh. xix. 27.]

[Footnote 1490: See Robinson, _Later Researches_, pp. 87, 88.]

[Footnote 1491: 1 Kings ix. 10-13.]

[Footnote 1492: Justin, _Dial. c. Tryph._ § 34.]

[Footnote 1493: Menand. ap. Clem. Alex. _Strom._ i. 386.]

[Footnote 1494: 1 Kings xi. 1.]

[Footnote 1495: Ibid. ix. 27.]

[Footnote 1496: See 1 Kings x. 22. The distinctness of this navy from
the one which brought gold from Ophir has been maintained by Dean
Stanley (_Lectures on the Jewish Church_, ii. 156) and the Rev. J.
Hammond (_Pulpit Commentary_, Comment on 1 Kings, p. 213), as well as by
the present writer (_Speaker's Commentary_, ii. pp. 545, 546).]

[Footnote 1497: Mela. iii. 1; Plin. _H. N._ iv. 22, § 115; Catull. xx.
30, &c.]

[Footnote 1498: See Plin. _H. N._ iii. 3; xxxiii. 6; Polyb. x. 10;
Strab. iii. 2, § 3 and 10.]

[Footnote 1499: Herod. iv. 191; Plin. _H. N._ viii. 11.]

[Footnote 14100: Hanno, _Periplus_, p. 6.]

[Footnote 14101: Ibid. pp. 13, 14.]

[Footnote 14102: 1 Kings ix. 26.]

[Footnote 14103: 1 Kings x. 11.]

[Footnote 14104: The case is excellently stated in Mr. Twistleton's
article on OPHIR in Dr. Smith's _Dictionry of the Bible_, vol. ii.]

[Footnote 14105: As _almug_ or _algum_ which is "the Hebraised form of a
Deccan word for sandalwood" (Stanley, _Lectures_, ii. 157).]

[Footnote 14106: 1 Kings ix. 28.]

[Footnote 14107: _Contr. Ap._ i. 18.]

[Footnote 14108: Kenrick argues in favour of {Kitioi} (_Phoenicia_, p.
357).]

[Footnote 14109: See _Encycl. Britann._ ad voc. PHOENICIA, xviii. 807.]

[Footnote 14110: Menander, Fr. 2.]

[Footnote 14111: Ibid.]

[Footnote 14112: 1 Kings xvi. 31.]

[Footnote 14113: The Assyrians probably found their way into Phoenicia
through the gap in the mountain line between Bargylus and Lebanon.
Botrys occupied a strong position between this gap and the southern
Phoenician cities, Gebal, Sidon, and Tyre.]

[Footnote 14114: Menander, l.s.c. Aüza, which at a later date became
Auzen, is mentioned by Tacitus (_Ann._ iv. 25) and Ptolemy (_Geograph_.
iv. 2).]

[Footnote 14115: The Greek _lamda_, {L}, readily passes into _delta_
{D}. Baal-azar is found as a Phoenician name in an inscription (_Corp.
Ins. Semit._ i. 335, no. 256).]

[Footnote 14116: See Gesen. _Mon. Phoen._ p. 410. _Mattan_, "a gift," was
the name borne by Athaliah's high priest of Baal (2 Kings xi. 18). It is
found as an element in several Phoenician names, as Mattan-elim (_Corp.
Ins. Semit._ i. 298, no. 194); Mattan-Baal (ibid. p. 309, no. 212), &c.]

[Footnote 14117: See Justin, _Hist. Phil._ xviii. 5.]

[Footnote 14118: Menander, Fr. 1.]

[Footnote 14119: Kenrick, _Phoenicia_, pp. 363-367.]

[Footnote 14120: _Contr. Ap._ i. 18.]

[Footnote 14121: _Ancient Monarchies_, ii. 84-89.]

[Footnote 14122: _Histoire Ancienne_, pp. 347, 348.]

[Footnote 14123: _Ancient Monarchies_, ii. 90-99.]

[Footnote 14124: _Ancient Monarchies_, ii. 102-106; _Eponym Canon_, pp.
108-114.]

[Footnote 14125: _Eponym Canon_, p. 112, l. 45.]

[Footnote 14126: Ibid. p. 108, l. 93.]

[Footnote 14127: Ibid. p. 115, l. 14.]

[Footnote 14128: Ibid. p. 120, ll. 33-35.]

[Footnote 14129: When Assyria became mistress of the Upper Syria, the
Orontes valley, and the kingdom of Israel, she could have strangled the
Phoenician land commerce at a moment's notice.]

[Footnote 14130: Is. xxiii. 2-8.]

[Footnote 14131: _Eponym Canon_, p. 64.]

[Footnote 14132: _Eponym Canon_, pp. 117-120.]

[Footnote 14133: Ibid. p. 123, ll. 1-5.]

[Footnote 14134: Ibid. p. 120, l. 28.]

[Footnote 14135: In B.C. 720. (See _Eponym Canon_, p. 126, ll. 33-35.)]

[Footnote 14136: Ezek. xxviii. 14.]

[Footnote 14137: Menander ap. Joseph. _Ant. Jud._ ix. 14, § 2; _Eponym
Canon_, p. 131.]

[Footnote 14138: _Eponym Canon_, p. 132.]

[Footnote 14139: Menander, l.s.c.]

[Footnote 14140: Joseph, _Ant. Jud._ l.s.c. {'Epelthe polemon ten te
Surian pasan kai Phoiniken}.]

[Footnote 14141: Ibid.]

[Footnote 14142: A slab of Sennacherib's represents the Assyrian army
entering a city, probably Phoenician, at one end, while the inhabitants
embark on board their ships at the other (Layard, _Monuments of
Nineveh_, 1st series, pl. 71; _Nin. and its Remains_, ii. 384).]

[Footnote 14143: Menander, l.s.c.]

[Footnote 14144: Compare Perrot et Chipiez, _Hist. de l'Art_, iii. 357,
and Lortet, _La Syrie d'aujourd'hui_, p. 128.]

[Footnote 14145: Menander, ut supra.]

[Footnote 14146: This folows from his taking refuge there when attacked
by Sennacherib (_Eponym Canon_, p. 136).]

[Footnote 14147: Since Sennacherib calls him persistently "king of
Sidon" (ibid. p. 131, l. 2; p. 135, ll. 13, 17), not king of Tyre.]

[Footnote 14148: It was the same army which lost 185,000 men by miracle
in one night (2 Kings xix. 35).]

[Footnote 14149: 2 Kings xix. 23.]

[Footnote 14150: _Eponym Canon_, p. 134, l. 11.]

[Footnote 14151: _Records of the Past_, i. 35.]

[Footnote 14152: _Eponym Canon_, p. 132.]

[Footnote 14153: Ibid.]

[Footnote 14154: _Eponym Canon_, p. 132, l. 14; p. 136, ll. 14, 19.
"Tubaal" is probably for Tob-baal, "Baal is good," like "Tabrimon" for
Tob-Rimmon, "Rimmon is good" (1 Kings xv. 18), and "Tabeal" for Tob-
El, "God is good" (Is. vii. 6).]

[Footnote 14155: _Eponym Canon_, p. 132, ll. 15, 16.]

[Footnote 14156: Ibid. ll. 19, 20.]

[Footnote 14157: From the fact that Abd-Milkut is king of Sidon at the
accession of Esarhaddon (_Records of the Past_, iii. 111).]

[Footnote 14158: Abd-Melkarth is one of the commonest of Phoenician
names. It occurs, either fully, or in the contracted form of
Bod-Melkarth, scores of times in the inscriptions of Carthage. The
meaning is "servant of Melkarth."]

[Footnote 14159: _Records of the Past_, iii. 112.]

[Footnote 14160: _Ancient Monarchies_, ii. 186.]

[Footnote 14161: _Rec. of the Past_, iii. 111, 112.]

[Footnote 14162: _Eponym Canon_ pp. 139, 140.]

[Footnote 14163: Ibid. p. 140, Extract xxxviii. ll. 1-3.]

[Footnote 14164: _Eponym Canon_, p. 140, Ext. xxxviii. ll. 4-9.]

[Footnote 14165: Ibid. p. 141, Ext. xl.]

[Footnote 14166: Ibid. p. 142, ll. 12, 13.]

[Footnote 14167: _Eponym Canon_, p. 142, l. 14.]

[Footnote 14168: See _Ancient Monarchies_ ii. 193.]

[Footnote 14169: Ibid. p. 195.]

[Footnote 14170: _Eponym Canon_, p. 143, Extr. xli. l. 3.]

[Footnote 14171: _Eponym Canon_, pp. 143, 144. Six names are lost
between the eleventh line and the eighteenth. They may be supplied from
the broken cylinder of Esarhaddon (_Records of the Past_, iii. 107,
108.)]

[Footnote 14172: _Eponym Canon_, pp. 144, 145, ll. 84-98.]

[Footnote 14173: Ibid. p. 139, l. 17.]

[Footnote 14174: _Records of the Past_, vol. i. p. 100.]

[Footnote 14175: _Records of the Past_, i. 66; ix. 41.]

[Footnote 14176: Ibid. iii. 67, ll. 116, 117.]

[Footnote 14177: Ibid. i. 67, 68.]

[Footnote 14178: See Judg. xix. 29; _Eponym Canon_, p. 132, l. 9.]

[Footnote 14179: _Eponym Canon_, pp. 149, 149.]

[Footnote 14180: _Eponym Canon_, p. 70.]

[Footnote 14181: Herod. i. 103. B.C. 633 was, according to Herodotus,
the year of the accession of Cyaxares. His attack on Nineveh seems to
have followed shortly after.]

[Footnote 14182: Herod. l.s.c. and iv. 1; Ezek. xxxviii. 2-16; Strabo,
xi. 8, § 4; Diod. Sic. ii. 34, § 2-5.]

[Footnote 14183: _Ancient Monarchies_, ii. 221.]

[Footnote 14184: Stanley, _Lectures on the Jewish Church_, ii. 432,
433.]

[Footnote 14185: Herod. i. 105; Strabo, i. 3, 16; Justin, ii. 3.]

[Footnote 14186: Herod. l.s.c.; Hippocrat. _De Aëre, Aqua, et Locis_,
vi. § 108.]

[Footnote 14187: Herod. i. 73.]

[Footnote 14188: Strabo, xi. 767; Arrian, _Exp. Alex._ iii. 8, § 4.]

[Footnote 14189: Polyb. v. 70, § 4.]

[Footnote 14190: _Ancient Monarchies_, ii. 228, note.]

[Footnote 14191: _Ancient Monarchies_, ii. 232.]

[Footnote 14192: Herod. ii. 157; and compare the author's _History of
Ancient Egypt_, ii. 467, note 6.]

[Footnote 14193: Ezek. xxvii. 8.]

[Footnote 14194: Ibid. verse 11.]

[Footnote 14195: Ibid. verse 9.]

[Footnote 14196: Ibid. xxviii. 2-5.]

[Footnote 14197: Ezek. xxvii. 3-6, and 25.]

[Footnote 14198: See the author's _History of Ancient Egypt_, ii. 472,
note 1.]

[Footnote 14199: Herod. ii. 159; 2 Kings xxiii. 29; 2 Chron. xxxv.
20-24.]

[Footnote 14200: Herod. ii. 157.]

[Footnote 14201: See Jer. xlvii. 1. Gaza, however, may not have been
taken till the campaign of B.C. 608.]

[Footnote 14202: Herod. i. 105 raises the suspicion that Askelon, which
was nearer Egypt than Ashdod, may have belonged to Psamatik I.]

[Footnote 14203: Ibid. ii. 159.]

[Footnote 14204: 2 Kings xxiii. 19; 2 Chron. xxxiv. 6.]

[Footnote 14205: _History of Ancient Egypt_, ii. 228.]

[Footnote 14206: Judg. iv. 15; v. 19.]

[Footnote 14207: 2 Chron. xxxv. 21.]

[Footnote 14208: See Jer. xlvi. 2.]

[Footnote 14209: Berosus, Fr. 1; 2 Kings xxiv. 7.]

[Footnote 14210: Herod. iv. 42.]

[Footnote 14211: Ibid. ii. 112.]

[Footnote 14212: Berosus, l.s.c.]

[Footnote 14213: Habakkuk, i. 6-10.]

[Footnote 14214: Jer. xlvi. 3, 4.]

[Footnote 14215: Ibid. verse 5.]

[Footnote 14216: Ibid. verse 6.]

[Footnote 14217: Jer. xlvi. 10.]

[Footnote 14218: Ibid. verse 16.]

[Footnote 14219: Ibid. verse 21.]

[Footnote 14220: Stanley, _Lectures on the Jewish Church_, ii. 455.]

[Footnote 14221: Ibid.]

[Footnote 14222: Berosus, l.s.c. The extreme haste of the return is
indicated by the fact, which is noted, that Nebuchadnezzer himself,
with a few light troops, took the short cut across the desert, while
his army, with its prisoners, pursued the more usual route through
the valley of the Orontes, by Aleppo to Carchemish, and then along the
course of the Euphrates.]

[Footnote 14223: See _History of Ancient Egypt_, ii. 480.]

[Footnote 14224: Habak. i. 6.]

[Footnote 14225: Menander ap. Joseph. _Contr. Ap._ i. 21.]

[Footnote 14226: Ezek. xxvii. 8, 9, 11.]

[Footnote 14227: So Joseph. l.s.c. Mr. Kenrick disputes the date on
account of Ezek. xxvi. 2, which he thinks must refer to the _final_
siege and capture of Jerusalem; but the reference may be to the breaking
of the power of Judæa, either by Neco in B.C. 608 or by Nebuchadnezzar
in B.C. 605.]

[Footnote 14228: 2 Kings xxiv. 2; 2 Chr. xxxvi. 6.]

[Footnote 14229: Ezek. xxviii. 21-23.]

[Footnote 14230: Menander, l.s.c.]

[Footnote 14231: Ezek. xxvi. 8-12.]

[Footnote 14232: Isaiah xliii. 14; Æschyl. _Pers._ l. 54.]

[Footnote 14233: As Kenrick (_Phoenicia_, p. 390).]

[Footnote 14234: See especially, ch. xxviii. 2, 12.]

[Footnote 14235: Ibid. verses 2-10, 17, 18.]

[Footnote 14236: Ezek. xxvii. 26.]

[Footnote 14237: Herod. vii. 44, 96, 100, 128.]

[Footnote 14238: Ibid. ii. 161; vii. 98; Ezra iii. 7.]

[Footnote 14239: Menander, Fr. 2.]

[Footnote 14240: Herod. ii. 182.]

[Footnote 14241: Ibid. i. 201-214; Ctesias, _Ex. Pers._ § 6-8.]

[Footnote 14242: Herod. i. 177; Arrian, _Exp. Alex._ iii. 27.]

[Footnote 14243: Herod. i. 201-214; Ctes. _Ex. Pers._ l.s.c.]

[Footnote 14244: Ezra i. 1-11.]

[Footnote 14245: Kenrick, _Phoenicia_, p. 393.]

[Footnote 14246: Herod. iii. 19, 34.]

[Footnote 14247: Ezra iii. 7.]

[Footnote 14248: Ezra iii. 7.]

[Footnote 14249: Herod. i. 153.]

[Footnote 14250: Ibid. ii. 177.]

[Footnote 14251: See Berosus, ap. Joseph. _Ant. Jud._ x. 11, § 1.]

[Footnote 14252: Hence the sacred writers speak of the Assyrians and
Babylonians as "God's _northern_ army," "a people from the _north_
country." (Jer. i. 15; vi. 22; Ezek. xxvi. 7; Joel ii. 20, &c.)]

[Footnote 14253: See Herod. iii. 5.]

[Footnote 14254: Ibid. ii. 159.]

[Footnote 14255: Ibid. ii. 161.]

[Footnote 14256: Ibid. ii. 182.]

[Footnote 14257: Herod. ii. 150, 154; iii. 11.]

[Footnote 14258: Ibid. iii. 19.]

[Footnote 14259: Ibid. vii. 98; viii. 67, § 2; Diod. Sic. xvi. 42, § 2;
xvii. 47, § 1; Arrian, _Exp. Alex._ ii. 13, 15, &c.]

[Footnote 14260: Herod. iii. 19.]

[Footnote 14261: Ezek. xxix. 10.]

[Footnote 14262: Herod. iii. 17.]

[Footnote 14263: Herod. iii. 19.]

[Footnote 14264: Ibid.]

[Footnote 14265: Kenrick, _Phoenicia_, p. 394.]

[Footnote 14266: Diod. Sic. xvi. 41.]

[Footnote 14267: Kenrick, p. 391, note 3.]

[Footnote 14268: Herod. iii. 91.]

[Footnote 14269: Diod. Sic. xvi. 41, § 2.]

[Footnote 14270: Herod. v. 52.]

[Footnote 14271: See the author's _Herodotus_, iv. 30, note 1.]

[Footnote 14272: Herod. vii. 28.]

[Footnote 14273: Ibid. iv. 166.]

[Footnote 14274: Herod. v. 37-104.]

[Footnote 14275: Phoenicia could furnish 300 triremes, Cyprus 150, Ionia
at this time 283 (Herod. vi. 8), Æolis at least 70 (ibid.), Caria the
same number (ib. vii. 93)--total, 873. Against these Darious could only
have mustered 200 from Egypt (ib. vii. 89), 100 from Cilicia (ib. 91),
50 from Lycia (ib. 92), and 30 from Pamphylia (ib. 91)--total, 380.]

[Footnote 14276: Herod. i. 28, 176; Appian, _Bell. Civ._ iv. 80.]

[Footnote 14277: Herod. iii. 14-16, 27-29, 37, &c.]

[Footnote 14278: Ibid. v. 108.]

[Footnote 14279: Ibid.]

[Footnote 14280: Ibid. v. 112.]

[Footnote 14281: See the author's _Herodotus_, i. 268, 269, 3rd ed.]

[Footnote 14282: Herod. vi. 9.]

[Footnote 14283: Ibid. ch. 6.]

[Footnote 14284: Herod. ch. 8.]

[Footnote 14285: Ibid. chs. 9-13.]

[Footnote 14286: The Lesbians and most of the Samians (Herod. v. 14).]

[Footnote 14287: Ibid. ch. 15.]

[Footnote 14288: Ibid. chs. 31-33.]

[Footnote 14289: Herod. v. 41.]

[Footnote 14290: Ibid. iii. 135-138.]

[Footnote 14291: Herod. vi. 43-45.]

[Footnote 14292: See the author's _Herodotus_, iii. 494, note 3.]

[Footnote 14293: The fleet which accomponied Mardonius lost nearly
_three hundred_ vessels off Mount Athos (Herod. vi. 44), and therefore
can scarcely have fallen much short of 500; that of Datis and
Artaphernes is reckoned at 600 by Herodotus (vi. 95), at a thousand by
Cicero (_Orat. in Verr._ ii. 1, § 18), and Valerius Maximus (i. 1).]

[Footnote 14294: So Herodotus (vi. 95).]

[Footnote 14295: Herod. vi. 118.]

[Footnote 14296: Herod. vii. 23.]

[Footnote 14297: Ibid. vii. 34-36.]

[Footnote 14298: Ibid. viii. 117.]

[Footnote 14299: Æschyl. _Pers._ l. 343; Herod. vii. 89.]

[Footnote 14300: Herod. vii. 89-95; Diod. Sic. xi. 3, § 7.]

[Footnote 14301: Herod. vii. 44.]

[Footnote 14302: Ibid. vii. 100, 128.]

[Footnote 14303: Ibid. viii. 85.]

[Footnote 14304: Ibid. viii. 17.]

[Footnote 14305: Diod. Sic. xi. 13, § 2: {'Aristeusai Phasi para men
tois 'El-lesin 'Athnaious, para de, tois barbarois Sidonious}.]

[Footnote 14306: Herod. viii. 84; Æschyl. _Pers._ ll. 415-7.]

[Footnote 14307: Herod. viii. 86-90.]

[Footnote 14308: Ibid. ch. 90.]

[Footnote 14309: Ibid. ch. 90.]

[Footnote 14310: Diod. Sic. xi. 19, § 4.]

[Footnote 14311: Herod. ix. 96.]

[Footnote 14312: Diod. Sic. xi. 60, § 5, 6.]

[Footnote 14313: So Diodorus (xi. 62, § 3); but the mention of Cyprus in
line 6 renders this somewhat doubtful.]

[Footnote 14314: Thucyd. i. 110.]

[Footnote 14315: See _Ancient Monarchies_, iii. 501.]

[Footnote 14316: See the _Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum_, i.
139-148.]

[Footnote 14317: Nos. 115, 116, 117, 119, 120.]

[Footnote 14318: Ibid. No. 118.]

[Footnote 14319: _Corp. Ins. Sem._ i. 132, 145.]

[Footnote 14320: Dionys. Halicarn. _De Orat. Antiq._ "Dinarch." § 10.]

[Footnote 14321: _Corp. Ins. Sem._ i. 145, No. 119.]

[Footnote 14322: See the _Corpus Inscriptionum Græcarum_, i. 126, No.
87.]

[Footnote 14323: Nefaheritis or Nefaa-ert. (See the author's _Story of
Egypt_, pp. 385, 386, and compare _Ancient Monarchies_, iii. 481, 482.)]

[Footnote 14324: Isocrates, _Paneg._ and _Evag._; Theopompas, Fr. 111;
Diod. Sic. xiv. 98; Ctesias, _Exc. Pers._ Fr. 29, § 63.]

[Footnote 14325: Diod. Sic. xv. 9, § 2. (See Grote's _Hist. of Greece_,
x. 30, note 3.)]

[Footnote 14326: Diod. Sic. xv. 9, § 2.]

[Footnote 14327: Isocrates, _Paneg._ § 161; _Evag._ §§ 23, 62.]

[Footnote 14328: See Diod. Sic. xiv. 98; xv. 2; Ephorus Fr.; 134
Isocrates, _Evag._ §§ 75, 76.]

[Footnote 14329: Kenrick, _Phoenicia_, p. 405.]

[Footnote 14330: See _Ancient Monarchies_, iii. 504.]

[Footnote 14331: _Ancient Monarchies_, iii. 505, 506.]

[Footnote 14332: Diod. Sic. xv. 90, § 3.]

[Footnote 14333: Ibid. xv. 92, § 5.]

[Footnote 14334: Ibid. xvi. 41, § 1.]

[Footnote 14335: Diod. Sic. xvi. 42, § 2.]

[Footnote 14336: Ibid. xvi. 41, § 5.]

[Footnote 14337: Ibid. xvi. 32, § 2.]

[Footnote 14338: Ibid. § 5.]

[Footnote 14339: Ibid. xvi. 40, § 5, ad fin.]

[Footnote 14340: Ibid. xvi. 44, § 6, ad fin.]

[Footnote 14341: Diod. Sic. xvi. § 5.]

[Footnote 14342: Diodorus is our authority for all these facts (xvi. 45,
§ 1-6).]

[Footnote 14343: See the author's _Story of Egypt_, pp. 396-401.]

[Footnote 14344: Diod. Sic. xvi. 42, § 6; 46, § 3.]

[Footnote 14345: Scylax, _Periplus_, § 104.]

[Footnote 14346: Ibid.]

[Footnote 14347: See Arrian, _Exp. Alex._ ii. 13, sub fin.; 15, sub
fin.; 30, sub init.]

[Footnote 14348: See _Encycl. Brit._ xviii. 809.]

[Footnote 14349: Quint. Curt. iv. 4; Justin, xi. 10. Diodorus by mistake
makes Strato II. king of Tyre (xvii. 47, § 1).]

[Footnote 14350: Arrian, _Exp. Alex._ i. 1, § 2.]

[Footnote 14351: See Grote, _History of Greece_, xii. 102.]

[Footnote 14352: Ibid. pp. 29-51.]

[Footnote 14353: Diod. Sic. xvii. 7.]

[Footnote 14354: Four hundred were actually brought to the relief of
Miletus a few weeks later (Arrian, _Exp. Alex._ i. 18, § 5).]

[Footnote 14355: Ibid. § 4.]

[Footnote 14356: Diod. Sic. xvii. 22; Arrian, _Exp. Alex._ i. 18-20.]

[Footnote 14357: Diod. Sic. xvii. 23-26; Arrian, _Exp. Alex._ i. 20-23.]

[Footnote 14358: Diod. Sic. xvii. 29, § 2; Arrian., _Exp. Alex._ ii. 1,
§ 1.]

[Footnote 14359: See the remarks of Mr. Grote (_History of Greece_, xii.
142, 143.)]

[Footnote 14360: Diod. Sic. xvii. 29, § 4.]

[Footnote 14361: Arrian, _Exp. Alex._ i. 20, § 1; Diod. Sic. i. 22, §
5.]

[Footnote 14362: Arrian, ii. 8-13.]

[Footnote 14363: Arrian, ii. 13, 87; Diod. Sic. xvii. 40, § 2.]

[Footnote 14364: As Ger-astartus, king of Aradus (Arrian, l.s.c.);
Enylus, king of Byblus (ibid. ii. 20, § 1); and Azemileus, king of Tyre
(ibid. ii. 15, ad fin.)]

[Footnote 14365: Arrian, _Exp. Alex._ ii. 13, ad fin.]

[Footnote 14366: Ibid. ii. 15, § 6.]

[Footnote 14367: Arrian, l.s.c.]

[Footnote 14368: Ibid. ii. 15, § 7; Q. Curt. iv. 2, § 3.]

[Footnote 14369: Arrian, _Exp. Alex._ ii. 16, ad fin.; Q. Curt. iv. 2, §
5; Justin, xi. 10.]

[Footnote 14370: Diod. Sic. xvii. 40, § 2.]

[Footnote 14371: See Diod. Sic. xv. 73, § 4; 77, § 4.]

[Footnote 14372: In point of fact, he only obtained, towards the fleet
which he collected against Tyre, twenty-three vessels that were not
either Cyprian or Phoenician (Arrian, _Exp. Alex._ ii. 20, § 2).]

[Footnote 14373: Herod. viii. 97.]

[Footnote 14374: Compare Arrian, _Exp. Alex._ ii. 15, § 7, with ii. 24,
§ 5.]

[Footnote 14375: Diod. Sic. xvii. 41, § 3.]

[Footnote 14376: Ibid. § 4.]

[Footnote 14377: Q. Curt. iv. § 20; Diod. Sic. xvii. 41, § 1, 2.]

[Footnote 14378: Diod. Sic. xvii. 40, § 5.]

[Footnote 14379: Arrian, _Exp. Alex._ ii. 18, § 3.]

[Footnote 14380: Arrian, _Exp. Alex._ ii. 18, § 3.]

[Footnote 14381: Diod. Sic. xvii. 42, § 1; Arrian, _Exp. Alex._ ii. 18,
§ 5.]

[Footnote 14382: Arrian, ii. 18, sub fin.]

[Footnote 14383: Ibid. ii. 19, § 1.]

[Footnote 14384: This seems to be Arrian's meaning, when he says, {ai
keraiai periklastheisaiexekhean es to pur osa es exapsin tes phlogus
pareskeuasmena en} (ii. 19, § 4).]

[Footnote 14385: Grote, _History of Greece_, xii. 185, 186.]

[Footnote 14386: Kenrick, _Phoenicia_, p. 418.]

[Footnote 14387: Q. Curt. iv. 3, § 8.]

[Footnote 14388: Arrian, l.s.c.]

[Footnote 14389: Arrian, ii. 20, § 1.]

[Footnote 14390: Ibid. § 2.]

[Footnote 14391: Arrian, ii. 20; § 3; Q. Curt. iv. 3, § 11.]

[Footnote 14392: {'Epibibasas tois katastromasi ton upaspiston osoi
ikanoi edokoun es to ergon} (Arrian, ii. 20, § 6).]

[Footnote 14393: The Tyrians had but eighty vessels against Alexander's
224.]

[Footnote 14394: Arrian, _Exp. Alex._ ii. 20, ad fin.]

[Footnote 14395: Ibid. ii. 21, § 8.]

[Footnote 14396: Q. Curt. iv. 3, § 7-9.]

[Footnote 14397: Diod. Sic. xvii. 42, § 6; Q. Curt. l.s.c.]

[Footnote 14398: See Kenrick, _Phoenicia_, pp. 421, 422.]

[Footnote 14399: Arrian, _Exp. Alex._ ii. 21, § 1.]

[Footnote 14400: Arrian, _Exp. Alex._ ii. 21, § 4-7.]

[Footnote 14401: Arrian, _Exp. Alex._ ii. 21, § 8.]

[Footnote 14402: Some editions of Arrian gave {Pasikratous tou
Thourieos}, "Pasicrates the Thurian," but the right reading is
undoubtedly {tou Kourieos}, "the Curian, or king of Curium." (See the
note of Sintenis ad loc.)]

[Footnote 14403: Arrian, _Exp. Alex._ ii. 22, § 2.]

[Footnote 14404: Six triremes and all the quinqueremes (Arrian, ii. 22,
§ 3).]

[Footnote 14405: Arrian, _Exp. Alex._ ii. 22, § 5.]

[Footnote 14406: Diod. Sic. xvii. 42, § 7.]

[Footnote 14407: Ibid. xvii. 45, § 4.]

[Footnote 14408: Diod. Sic. xvii. 45, § 3.]

[Footnote 14409: Ibid. xvii. 43, § 7, 8.]

[Footnote 14410: Ibid. xvii. 44, § 4.]

[Footnote 14411: Ibid. xvii. 44, § 1-3.]

[Footnote 14412: Ibid. § 4.]

[Footnote 14413: Ibid. xvii. 45, § 6.]

[Footnote 14414: Ibid. xvii. 43, § 3.]

[Footnote 14415: Arrian, _Exp. Alex._ ii. 22, sub fin.]

[Footnote 14416: {Kateseise tou teikhous epi mega} (Ibid. ii. 23, § 1).]

[Footnote 14417: Diod. Sic. xvii. 46, § 1.]

[Footnote 14418: Arrian, ii. 23, § 2.]

[Footnote 14419: Ibid. ii. 23, § 5.]

[Footnote 14420: Not "_the_ foremost," as Diodorus says (xvii. 46, §
2).]

[Footnote 14421: Arrian, _Exp. Alex._ ii. 23, ad fin.]

[Footnote 14422: Ibid. ii. 24, § 1.]

[Footnote 14423: Ibid.]

[Footnote 14424: Arrian, _Exp. Alex._ ii. 24, § 4.]

[Footnote 14425: Diod. Sic. xvii. 46, § 4.]

[Footnote 14426: So Arrian (l.s.c.) Diodorus reduces the number to
thirteen thousand (xvii. 46, § 4).]

[Footnote 14427: Diod. Sic. xvii. 46, § 5; Arrian, ii. 24, § 6.]

[Footnote 14428: See Kenrick, _Phoenicia_, p. 428, note 3.]

[Footnote 14429: See Diod. Sic. xvii. 46, § 6. The name Abd-elonim,
"servant of the gods," is common. The Greeks and Romans generally render
it by Abdalonymus.]

[Footnote 14430: Arrian, _Exp. Alex._ iii. 6, § 3.]

[Footnote 14431: Ibid. vi. 1, § 6.]

[Footnote 14432: Arrian, _Exp. Alex._ vi. 22, § 4.]

[Footnote 14433: Ibid. vii. 19, § 3.]

[Footnote 14434: Ibid. § 5.]

[Footnote 14435: Diod. Sic. xviii. 3, § 1.]

[Footnote 14436: Ibid. 43, § 2.]

[Footnote 14437: Diod. Sic. xix. 58, § 1.]

[Footnote 14438: So Kenrick, _Phoenicia_, p. 433. Compare Diod. Sic.
xviii. 37, § 4.]

[Footnote 14439: Diod. Sic. xix. 58, § 2-4.]

[Footnote 14440: Ibid. 61, § 6.]

[Footnote 14441: Plutarch, _Vit. Demetr._ § 32.]

[Footnote 14442: Diod. Sic. xxx. 17; Polyb. v. 40.]

[Footnote 14443: Polyb. v. 60.]

[Footnote 14444: Ibid. v. 62.]

[Footnote 14445: Polyb. xvi. 18; Joseph. _Ant. Jud._ xii. 3, § 3.]

[Footnote 14446: See Kenrick, _Phoenicia_, p. 436.]

[Footnote 14447: Herod. i. 1. Egypt never sent trading ships into the
Mediterranean. All her commerce with Syria, Asia Minor, and Europe was
carried on either in Greek or Phoenician bottoms.]

[Footnote 14448: Kenrick, _Phoenicia_, l.s.c.]

[Footnote 14449: As that of the Red Sea, Arabia, and the East African
coast.]

[Footnote 14450: 2 Macc. iv. 18.]

[Footnote 14451: Ibid. verses 44-50.]

[Footnote 14452: Gesenius, _Mon. Phoen._ pls. 32-34.]

[Footnote 14453: Kenrick, _Phoenicia_, pp. 437, 438.]

[Footnote 14454: Livy, xxvii. 30.]

[Footnote 14455: 2 Macc. iv. 49.]

[Footnote 14456: 1 Macc. iii. 34-36; 2 Macc. viii. 9; Joseph. _Ant.
Jud._ xii. 7, § 2,]

[Footnote 14457: 2 Macc. viii. 11.]

[Footnote 14458: 1 Macc. iii. 41.]

[Footnote 14459: 2 Macc. viii. 25; Joseph. _Ant. Jud._ xii. 7, § 4.]

[Footnote 14460: Strab. xvii. 2, § 22.]

[Footnote 14461: Joseph. _Ant. Jud._ xii. 4, § 3.]

[Footnote 14462: Ibid. § 4.]

[Footnote 14463: By Theodotus in B.C. 219 (Polyb. v. 61, § 5), by
Cleopatra, queen of Syria, about B.C. 85 (Joseph. _Ant. Jud._ xiii. 13,
§ 2), by Tigranes in B.C. 83 (ibid. xiii. 16, § 4), &c.]

[Footnote 14464: Justin, _Hist. Philipp._ xl. 1; Appian, _Syriaca_, §
48.]

[Footnote 14465: Kenrick, _Phoenicia_, p. 438.]

[Footnote 14466: Or, sometimes, under a proprætor.]

[Footnote 14467: Joseph. _Ant. Jud._ xiv. 10, § 2.]

[Footnote 14468: Ibid. xv. 4, § 1, ad fin.]

[Footnote 14469: Ibid. xiv. 12, §§ 4, 5.]

[Footnote 14470: Mommsen, _History of Rome_, iv. 113-115, Engl. Tr.;
Merivale, _Roman Empire_, i. 36.]

[Footnote 14471: Thucyd. i. 4.]

[Footnote 14472: See the author's _Sixth Oriental Monarchy_, pp.
178-180.]

[Footnote 14473: Dio Cass. _Hist. Rom._ xlviii. 25.]

[Footnote 14474: Ibid. § 26.]

[Footnote 14475: Joseph. _Ant. Jud._ xiv. 13.]

[Footnote 14476: Dio. Cass. xlviii. 39-41.]

[Footnote 14477: Ibid. liv. 7.]

[Footnote 14478: Ramsay, in Smith's _Dict. of Greek and Rom. Geography_,
i. 11.]

[Footnote 14479: Suidas ad voc. {Paulos Turios}.]

[Footnote 14480: Mark vii. 24-30. Compare Matt. xv. 21-28.]

[Footnote 14481: Acts xii. 20, 21.]

[Footnote 14482: Acts xi. 19.]

[Footnote 14483: Ibid. xxi. 3-7.]

[Footnote 14484: See Robertson, _History of the Christian Church_, i.
195, 196.]

[Footnote 14485: Ibid. p. 201.]

[Footnote 14486: Some doubts have been entertained as to whether
Porphyry was really a Tyrian, but his own statement (_Vit. Plotini_, ii.
107), backed as it is by the testimony of Eunapius and Suidas, should be
regarded as settling the question.]

[Footnote 14487: Mason, in Smith's _Dict. of Greek and Rom. Biography_,
iii. 502.]

[Footnote 14488: See the article on PORPHYRIUS in Smith's _Dict. of
Greek and Rom. Biography_, iii. 498-502.]

[Footnote 14489: Strab. xvi. 2, § 24.]

[Footnote 14490: See the lines quoted by Kenrick (_Phoenicia_, p. 440,
note) from Cramer's _Anecdota Græca_ (iv. 19, § 6):--]

{Oi tes Stoas bullousin 'Akademian, Purronas outoi, pantas o
Stegeirites. 'Alloi de touton Phoinikes te kai Suroi.}]

[Footnote 14491: Strabo, l.s.c.]

[Footnote 14492: Ibid. Strabo's words are: {Nuni de pases kai tes alles
philosophias euporian polu pleisten labein estin ek touton ton poleon.}]

[Footnote 14493: Smith's _Dict. of Greek and Rom. Biography_, ii. 417.]

[Footnote 14494: Kenrick, _Phoenicia_, p. 440.]

[Footnote 14495: Suidas, s.v. {Paulos Turios}.]

[Footnote 14496: Smith's _Dict. of Greek and Rom. Biography_, ii. 1000.]

[Footnote 14497: Smith's Gibbon, ii. 317.]

[Footnote 14498: Heineccius, _Ant. Rom. Synt._ Proëm, § 45.]

[Footnote 14499: Ibid.]

[Footnote 14500: See Eckhel, _Doctr. Num. Vet._ iii. 366; Mionnet,
_Description des Médailles_, Supplement.]

[Footnote 14501: Note that the "Syro-Phoenician woman" who conversed with
our Lord is spoken of as also {'Ellenis}, one whose language was Greek
(Mark vii. 26).]

[Footnote 14502: _De situ orbis_, i. 12; "Sidon adhuc opulenta."]

[Footnote 14503: Ulpian, _Digest. Leg. de Cens._ tit. 15.]

[Footnote 14504: _Exp. totius Mundi_ in Hudson's _Geographi Minores_,
iii. 6.]

[Footnote 14505: Hieronymus, _Comment. ad Ezek._ xxxvi. 7.]

[Footnote 14506: Hieronymus, _Comment. ad Ezek._ xxvii. 2.]

[Footnote 14507: Ezek. xxvi. 14.]

[Footnote 14508: Euseb. _Vita Constantin. Magni_, iii. 58.]





End of Project Gutenberg's History of Phoenicia, by George Rawlinson