The History of Antiquity, Vol. 2 (of 6)

Jehu had caused the king of Judah to be closely pursued on that day. At Jibleam the arrows of the pursuers reached Ahaziah; wounded to the death, he came to Megiddo, and there he died. Thus the prospect was opened to Jehu of becoming master of the kingdom of Judah also. With this object in view, he caused the brothers and relatives of the murdered Ahaziah to be massacred, so far as he could take them; in all they were 42 men.[457 - 2 Kings x. 12-14.] But meanwhile the mother of the murdered Ahaziah, Athaliah, heard in Judah of the death of her son in Israel, and seized the reins of government there. She determined to retain them against every one; and on her side also destroyed all who stood in her way. She did not spare even her own grandsons, the sons of Ahaziah; it was with difficulty that the king's sister succeeded in saving Joash, the infant son of her brother.[458 - 2 Kings xi. 1-3.]

The prophets of Israel took no offence at the cruelties of Jehu, to which they had given the first impulse; according to the revision of the annals, they even proclaimed to him the word of Jehovah. "Because thou hast done what is right and good in my eyes, and hast executed upon the house of Ahab all that was in my heart, thy descendants shall sit upon the throne of Israel."[459 - 2 Kings x. 30. "To the fourth generation" may have been added by the revision post eventum.] Jehu on his part was no less anxious to show his gratitude to the men to whom he owed his exaltation. He summoned the priests of Baal, and announced to them in craft, "Ahab served Baal a little, but Jehu shall serve him much;" and caused a great sacrifice to be made to Baal; all who remained absent should not live. Thus he collected all the servants and priests of Baal in the temple of the god at Samaria. The sacrifice began; Jehu came in person to take part in the solemnity; when on a sudden 80 soldiers entered the temple and massacred them all. The two pillars before the temple were burnt, the image of Baal was thrown down, the temple was destroyed, and the place purified.[460 - 2 Kings x. 18-27.]

A hundred and ten years had elapsed since the revolt of the ten tribes from the house of David and the division of Israel. During this time the two kingdoms had been at war, and had summoned strangers into the land against each other; even the connection into which they had entered in the last thirty years, and the close relations existing between Ahab and Joram of Israel and Jehoshaphat, Jehoram and Ahaziah of Judah had not been able to give more than a transitory firmness and solidity to the two kingdoms. In the kingdom of Judah the crown continued in the house of David; in Israel neither Jeroboam's nor Baasha's race had taken root. And now the house of Omri also was overthrown and destroyed by a ruthless murderer. With Jehu a third warrior had gained the crown of Israel by a violent hand, and a fourth dynasty sat upon the throne of Jeroboam.

It was a favourable circumstance for the new king of Israel that Shalmanesar II. of Assyria again made war upon Damascus. On the mountains opposite to the range of Lebanon, so Shalmanesar tells us, he defeated Hazael of the land of Aram, i. e. of Damascus, in the year 842 B.C.; he slew 16,000 of his warriors, and took 1121 war-chariots. After this he besieged him in Damascus, and destroyed his fortifications. Jehu could hardly think, as Ahab had done before him, of joining Damascus in resisting Assyria; his object was rather to establish the throne he had usurped by submission to and support from Assyria. In this year, as Shalmanesar tells us, he sent tribute like Sidon and Tyre. On an obelisk in his palace at Chalah, on which Shalmanesar caused the annals of his victories to be written and a picture to be made of the offering of the tribute from five nations, we see him standing with two eunuchs behind him, one of whom holds an umbrella, while two others lead before him the deputies of Jehu. The first Israelite prostrates himself and kisses the ground before the feet of Shalmanesar; seven other Israelites bring jars with handles, cups, sacks, goblets, and staves. They are bearded, with long hair, with shoes on their feet, and round caps on their heads, the points of which fall slightly backwards. The under garment reaches almost to the ancles; the upper garment falls in two parts evenly before and behind from the shoulders to the hem of the under garment. The inscription underneath runs: "The tribute of Jehu (Jahua), the son of Omri (Chumri): bars of gold, bars of silver, cups of gold, ladles and goblets of gold, golden pitchers, lead, and spears: this I received."[461 - E. Schrader, "Keilinschriften und A. T." s. 105.]

Though Jehu submitted to the Assyrians, the power and spirit of Hazael was not broken by his defeat or by the siege of Damascus. Shalmanesar speaks of a new campaign against the cities of Hazael in the year 839 B.C. He does not tell us that he has reduced Damascus, he merely remarks that Sidon, Tyre, and Byblus have paid tribute; and again, under the year 835 B.C. he merely notes in general terms that he has received the tribute of all the princes of the land of Chatti (Syria). Hazael remained powerful enough to take from Jehu, who, though a bloody and resolute murderer, was a bad ruler, all the territory on the east of the Jordan which Ahab and Joram had defended with such vigour.[462 - 2 Kings x. 32.] Under Jehoahaz, the son of Jehu (815-798 B.C.), the power of Israel sank lower and lower. Hazael, and after him his son, Benhadad III., pressed heavily upon him. Jehoahaz was compelled to purchase peace by further concessions;[463 - 2 Kings xiii. 25.] his whole fighting force was reduced to 10 chariots of war, 50 horsemen, and 10,000 foot-soldiers, while Ahab had led 200 chariots into the field.

The devastation caused by Damascus in Israel was terrible. The Books of Kings represent Elisha as saying to Hazael, "The fortresses of Israel thou shalt set on fire, their young men thou shalt slay with the sword, their children thou shalt cut in pieces, and rip up their women with child;"[464 - 2 Kings viii. 12.] and in the prophet Amos we are told that the Damascenes had thrashed Israel with sledges of iron. In the prophecies of Amos, Jehovah says: "Therefore I will send fire into the house of Hazael, to consume the palaces of Benhadad, and break the bars of Damascus, and destroy the inhabitants of the valley of idols."[465 - Amos i. 3.]

The Assyrians brought relief to the kingdom of Israel. In the Books of the Kings we are told, "Jehovah gave Israel a saviour, so that they went out from under the hand of the Aramaeans (Syrians), and they dwelt in their tents as yesterday and the day before."[466 - 2 Kings xiii. 5.] It was Bin-nirar III., king of Asshur, who threatened Damascus and Syria. In the year 803 B.C. the canon of the Assyrians notices a campaign of this king against Syria, and in his inscriptions he mentions that he had conquered Mariah, king of Damascus (who must have been the successor of Benhadad III.), and laid heavy tribute upon him.[467 - See below, p. 326.] Though Israel (the house of Omri), as well as Sidon, the Philistines, and Edomites, had now to pay tribute to the conqueror of Damascus, yet in the last years of the reign of Jehoahaz the land was able to breathe again, and Joash, the grandson of Jehu (798-790 B.C.[468 - Of this date and the time of Amaziah I shall treat in the first chapter of Book IV.]), was able to retake from the enfeebled Damascus the cities which his father had lost,[469 - 2 Kings xiii. 25.] and make the weight of his arms felt by the kingdom of Judah.

In Judah, as has been mentioned, Jehoram's widow, Athaliah, the mother of the murdered Ahaziah, had seized the throne (843 B.C.). She is the only female sovereign in the history of Israel. Athaliah was the daughter of Ahab of Israel and Jezebel of Tyre; like her mother, she is said to have favoured the worship of Baal. As the prophets of Israel had prepared the ruin of the house of Omri in Israel, the high priest of the temple at Jerusalem, Jehoiadah, now undertook to overthrow the daughter of this house in Judah. Ahaziah's sister had saved a son of Ahaziah, Joash, while still an infant, from his grandmother (p. 255). He grew up in concealment in the temple at Jerusalem, and was now seven years old. This boy the priest determined to place upon the throne. He won the captains of the body-guard, showed them the young Joash in the temple, and imparted his plan for a revolt. On a Sabbath the body-guard and the Levites formed a circle in the court of the temple. Jehoiadah brought the boy out of the temple and placed the crown upon his head; he was anointed, and the soldiers proclaimed him king to the sound of trumpets. The people agreed. Athaliah hastened with the cry of treason into the temple. But at Jehoiadah's command she was seized by the body-guard, taken from the temple precincts, and slain in the royal palace. Then the boy was brought thither by the Levites and solemnly placed upon the throne. "And all the people of the land rejoiced, and the city was at rest," say the Books of Kings (837 B.C.).

The victory of the priesthood had the same result for Judah as the resistance of Elijah and the prophets against Ahab, and the overthrow of his house, had introduced in Israel, i. e. the suppression of the worship of Baal. The temple of Baal at Jerusalem was destroyed; the high priest of it, Mathan by name, was slain. Yet the number of the worshippers in Jerusalem must have been so considerable, and their courage so little broken, that it was thought necessary to protect the temple of Jehovah by setting a guard to prevent their attacks.[470 - 2 Kings xi. 3-20.] Jehoiadah continued to act as regent for the young king, and the prophecies of Joel, which have come down to us from this period,[471 - They fall about 830 B.C. The minority of the king is clear, and the verses iv. 4 ff. points to the incursion of the Philistines into Judah, mentioned p. 252.] prove that under this regency the worship of Jehovah became dominant, that the festivals and sacrifices were held regularly in the temple at Jerusalem, and that the ordinances of the priests were in full force. When Joash became ruler he carried on the restoration of the temple, which had fallen into decay, even more eagerly than the priesthood. His labours were interrupted. It was the time when Israel could not defend themselves against Damascus. Marching through Israel, Hazael invaded Judah, and besieged Jerusalem. Joash was compelled to ransom himself with all that his fathers, Jehoshaphat, Jehoram, and Ahaziah, had consecrated to Jehovah, and what he himself had dedicated in the temple, and with the treasures of the royal palace.[472 - 2 Kings xii. 17, 18. The occurrence is recorded after the twenty-third year of Joash, and the twenty-third year was 815 B.C.]

Like his father and his grandmother, Joash died by a violent death. Two of his servants murdered him (797 B.C.); but his son Amaziah kept the throne, and caused the murderers of his father to be executed. He commenced a war, for what reason we know not, with Israel, who was now fighting with success against Damascus. Joash of Israel defeated him at Bethshemesh; Amaziah was taken prisoner and his army dispersed. The king of Israel occupied Jerusalem, plundered the temple and the palace, and did not set the king of Judah free till the walls of Jerusalem were thrown down for a space of 400 cubits from the gate of Ephraim, i. e. the western gate of the outer city to the corner gate, at the north-west corner of Jerusalem, and the Judæans had given hostages to keep the peace for the future. Against the Edomites Amaziah contended with more success. He defeated them in the Valley of Salt; 10,000 Edomites are said to have been left on the field on that day. The result of the victory was the renewal of the dependence of Edom on Judah, though not as yet throughout the whole extent of the land. Amaziah also fell before a conspiracy. It was in vain that he escaped from the conspirators from Jerusalem to Lachish; they followed him and slew him there. But the people placed his son Uzziah (Azariah), though only 16 years old, on the throne of Judah (792 B.C.).[473 - The subjugation of Edom can only have taken place after the year 803 B.C., i. e. after the march of Bin-nirar II. to the sea-coast. Bin-nirar enumerates Edom among the tribute-paying tribes of Syria. On this and on the date of Uzziah's accession, cf. Book IV. chap. 2.]

CHAPTER XI

THE CITIES OF THE PHENICIANS

The voyages of the Phenicians on the Mediterranean; their colonies on the coasts and islands of that sea; their settlements in Cyprus, Rhodes, Crete, the islands of the Ægean, Samothrace, and Thasos, on the coasts of Hellas, on Malta, Sicily, and Sardinia; their establishments on the northern edge of Africa in the course of the thirteenth and twelfth centuries B.C.; their discovery of the Atlantic about the year 1100 B.C., have been traced by us already. Of the internal conditions and the constitution of the cities whose ships traversed the Mediterranean in every direction, and now found so many native harbours on the coasts and islands, we have hardly any information. We only know that monarchy existed from an ancient period in Sidon and Tyre, in Byblus, Berytus, and Aradus; and we are restricted to the assumption that this monarchy arose out of the patriarchal headship of the elders of the tribes. These tribes had long ago changed into civic communities, and their members must have consisted of merchant-lords, ship-owners, and warehousemen, of numerous labourers, artisans, sailors, and slaves. The accounts of the Hebrews exhibit the cities of the Philistines, the southern neighbours of the Phenicians on the Syrian coast, united by a league in the eleventh century B.C. The kings of the five cities of the Philistines combine for consultation, form binding resolutions, and take the field in common. We find nothing like this in the cities of the Phenicians. Not till a far later date, when the Phenicians had lost their independence, were federal forms of government prevalent among them.

The campaigns of the Pharaohs, Tuthmosis III., Sethos, and Ramses II., did not leave the cities of the Phenicians untouched (I. 342). After the reign of Ramses III., i. e. after the year 1300 B.C., Syria was not attacked from the Nile; but the overthrow of the kingdom of the Hittites about this period, and the subjugation of the Amorites by the Israelites, forced the old population to the coast (about 1250 B.C.). One hundred and fifty years later a new opponent of Syria showed himself, not from the south, but from the east. Tiglath Pilesar I., king of Assyria (1130-1100 B.C.), forced his way over the Euphrates, and reached the great sea of the western land (p. 42). His successes in these regions, even if he set foot on Lebanon, could at most have reached only the northern towns of the Phenicians; in any case they were of a merely transitory nature.

The oldest city of the Phenicians was Sidon; her daughter-city, Tyre, was also founded at a very ancient period. We found that the inscriptions of Sethos I. mentioned it among the cities reduced by him. The power and importance of Tyre must have gradually increased with the beginning of a more lively navigation between the cities and the colonies; about the year 1100 B.C. her navigation and influence appears to have surpassed those of the mother-city. If Old Hippo in Africa was founded from Sidon, Tyrian ships sailed through the Straits of Gibraltar, discovered the land of silver, and founded Gades beyond the pillars. Accordingly we also find that Tyre, and not Sidon, was mistress of the island of Cyprus.

According to the statements of the Greeks, a king of the name of Sobaal or Sethlon ruled in Sidon at the time of the Trojan war, i. e. before the year 1100 B.C.;[474 - Eustath. ad "Odysseam," 4, 617.] about the same time a king of the name of Abelbaal reigned in Berytus.[475 - Vol. i. p. 352.] From a fragment of Menander of Ephesus, preserved to us by Josephus, it follows that after the middle of the eleventh century B.C. Abibaal was reigning in Tyre. A sardonyx, now at Florence, exhibits a man with a high crown on his head and a staff in his hand; in front of him is a star with four rays; the inscription in old Phenician letters runs, "Of Abibaal." Did this stone belong to king Abibaal?[476 - De Luynes, "Essai sur la numismatique des satrapies," p. 69.]

Hiram, the son of this king, ascended the throne of Tyre while yet a youth, in 1001 B.C. He is said to have again subjugated to his dominion the Kittians, i. e. the inhabitants of Citium, or the cities of Cyprus generally, who refused to pay tribute. What reasons and what views of advantage in trade induced Hiram to enter into relations with David in the last years of his reign, and unite these relations even more closely with Solomon, the successor of David, has been recounted above. It was this understanding which not only opened Israel completely to the trade of the Phenicians, but also procured to the latter secure and new roads through Israel to the Euphrates and Egypt, and made it possible for them to discover and use the road by sea to South Arabia. Thus, a good century after the founding of Gades, the commerce of the Phenicians reached the widest extension which it ever obtained. We saw that the Phenicians about the year 990 B.C. went by ship from Elath past South Arabia to the Somali coast, and reached Ophir, i. e. apparently the land of the Abhira (i. e. herdsmen) on the mouths of the Indus.[477 - Above, p. 188.] The other advantages which accrued to Hiram from his connection with Israel were not slight. Solomon paid him, as has been said, 20,000 Kor of wheat and 20,000 Bath of oil yearly for 20 years in return for wood and choice quarry stones, and finally, in order to discharge his debt, had to give up 20 Israelitish towns on his borders.

Hiram had to dispose of very considerable resources; his receipts must have been far in excess of Solomon's. Of the silver of Tarshish which the ships brought from Gades to Tyre, of the gold imported by the trade to Ophir, of the profits of the maritime trade with the land of incense, a considerable percentage must have come into the treasury of the king, and he enjoyed in addition the payments of Solomon. In any case he had at his command means sufficient to enlarge, adorn, and fortify his city. Ancient Tyre lay on the seashore; with the growth of navigation and trade, the population passed over from the actual city to an island off the coast, which offered excellent harbours. On a rock near this island lay that temple of Baal Melkarth, the god of Tyre, to which the priests ascribed a high antiquity; they told Herodotus that it was built in the year 2750 B.C. (I. 345). Hiram caused this island to be enlarged by moles to the north and west towards the mainland, and protected these extensions by bulwarks. The circuit of the island was now 22 stades, i. e. more than two and a half miles; the arm of the sea, which separates the island from the mainland, now measured only 2400 feet (three stades).[478 - Curt. 4, 8. Pliny ("Hist. Nat." 5, 17) puts the distance from the mainland at 700 paces (double paces).] The whole island was surrounded with strong walls of masonry, which ran out sharply into the sea, and were washed by its waves, so that no room remained for the besieger to set foot and plant his scaling-ladders there. On the side of the island towards the mainland, where the docks were, these walls were the highest. Alexander of Macedon found them 150 feet high. The two harbours lay on the eastern side of the island – on the north-east and the south-east; on the north-east was the Sidonian harbour (which even now is the harbour of Sur); and on the south-east the Egyptian harbour. If the former was secured and closed by huge dams, the latter also was not without its protecting works, as huge blocks in the sea appear to show, though the dams here were no longer in perfect preservation even in Strabo's time. On the south shore of the island, eastward of the Egyptian harbour, lay the royal citadel; on the north-west side a temple of Baal Samim, the Agenorion of the Greeks. The rock which supported the temple of Melkarth appears to have been situated close to the city on the west.[479 - On coins of Tyre of a later time we find two rocks, which indicate the position of the city. Ezekiel (xxvi. 4, 5) threatens that she shall be a naked rock in the sea for the spreading of nets. Joseph. "c. Apion," 8, 5, 3; Diod. 17, 46; Arrian, 2, 21, 23. Renan's view ("Mission de Phénicie," p. 546 ff.) on the Agenorion has been adopted; some others of his results appear to be uncertain.] This, like the temple of Astarte, was adorned and enlarged or restored by Hiram. For the roof he caused cedars of Lebanon to be felled. In the ancient shrine of the protecting deity of the city, the temple of Melkarth, he dedicated a great pillar of gold, which Herodotus saw there 500 years later beside an erect smaragdus, which was so large that it gave light by night. This was perhaps a symbol of the light not overcome by the darkness.[480 - Vol. i. 367; Menander in Joseph. "c. Apion." 1, 17, 18.]

Hiram died after a reign of 34 years, in the fifty-third year of his life. His son Baleazar, who sat on the throne for seven years (967-960 B.C.), was succeeded by his son Abdastartus (i. e. servant of Astarte), who, after a reign of nine years (960-951 B.C.), fell before a conspiracy headed by the sons of his nurse. Abdastartus was murdered, and the eldest of the sons of his nurse maintained his dominion over Tyre for 12 years (951-939 B.C.). Then the legitimate dynasty returned to the throne. Of the brothers of the murdered Abdastartus, Astartus was the first to reign (939-927 B.C.), and after him Astarymus (927-918 B.C.), who was murdered by a fourth brother, Pheles. But Pheles could not long enjoy the fruits of his crime. He had only been eight months on the throne when he was slain by the priest of Astarte, Ethbaal (Ithobaal). With Pheles the race of Abibaal comes to an end (917 B.C.).

Ethbaal ascended the throne of Tyre, and was able to establish himself upon it. He is said to have built or fortified Bothrys in Lebanon, perhaps as a protection against the growing forces of Damascus.[481 - Joseph. "Antiq." 8, 13, 2.] In Israel, during Ethbaal's reign, as we have seen, Omri at the head of the army made himself master of the throne in 899 B.C., just as Ethbaal had usurped the throne of Tyre. Both were in a similar position. Both had to establish their authority and found their dynasty. Ethbaal's daughter was married to Ahab, the son of Omri. What were the results of this connection for Israel and Judah we have seen already. To what a distance the power of Tyre extended in another direction is clear from the fact that Ethbaal founded Auza in the interior of Africa, to the south of the already ancient colony of Ityke (p. 82).[482 - Joseph. loc. cit.] After a reign of 32 years Ethbaal was succeeded by his son Balezor (885-877 B.C.).[483 - In order to bring the reigns of Josephus into harmony with his total, the total, which is given twice, must be retained. Hence nothing remains but to replace, as Movers has already done, the three and six years given by Josephus for Balezor and Mutton by the eight and 25 years given by Syncellus.] After eight years Balezor left two sons, Mutton and Sicharbaal, both under age. Yet the throne remained in the house of Ethbaal, and continued to do so even when Mutton died in the year 853 B.C., and again left a son nine years old, Pygmalion, and a daughter Elissa, a few years older, whom he had married to his brother Sicharbaal, the priest of the temple of Melkarth.[484 - On the identity of the names Acerbas, Sichaeus, Sicharbas, Sicharbaal, Serv. "ad Æneid," 1, 343; Movers, "Phoeniz." 2, 1, 355.] Mutton had intended that Elissa and Pygmalion should reign together, and thus the power really passed into the hands of Sicharbaal, the husband of Elissa. When Pygmalion reached his sixteenth year the people transferred to him the sovereignty of Tyre, and he put Sicharbaal, his uncle, to death, either because he feared his influence as the chief priest of the tutelary god of the city, or because, as we are told, he coveted his treasures (846 B.C.).[485 - Justin, 18, 4.]

Elissa fled from Tyre before her brother, as we are told, with others who would not submit to the tyranny of Pygmalion.[486 - Timaeus, fragm. 23, ed. Müller; Appian, "Rom. Hist." 8, 1.] The exiles (we may perhaps suppose that they were members of old families, as it was apparently the people who had transferred the throne to Pygmalion) are said to have first landed at Cyprus, then to have sailed to the westward, and to have landed on the coast of Africa, in the neighbourhood of Ityke, the old colony of the Phenicians, and there to have bought as much land of the Libyans as could be covered by the skin of an ox. By dividing this into very thin strips they obtained a piece of land sufficient to enable them to build a fortress. This new dwelling-place, or the city which grew up round this fortress, the wanderers called, in reference to their old home, Karthada (Karta hadasha), i. e. "the new city," the Karchedon of the Greeks, the Carthage of the Romans. The legend of the purchase of the soil may have arisen from the fact that the settlers for a long time paid tribute to the ancient population, the Maxyans, for their soil. The ox-hide and all that is further told us of the fortunes of Elissa, her resistance to the suit of the Libyan prince Iarbas,[487 - Timaeus, fragm. 23, ed. Müller.] her self-immolation in order to escape from this suit (Virgil made despised love the motive for this immolation), is due to the transference of certain traits from the myths of the horned moon-goddess, to whom the cow is sacred, the wandering Astarte, who also bore the name of Dido, and of certain customs in the worship of the goddess to Carthage; these also have had influence on the narrative of the flight of Elissa.[488 - Vol. i. 371; Movers, "Phœniz." 1, 609 ff.]

The new settlement was intended to become an important centre for the colonies of the Phenicians in the West. The situation was peculiarly fortunate. Where the north coast of Africa approaches Sicily most nearly, the mountain range which runs along this coast, and forms the edge of the table-land in the interior, sinks down in gentle declivities, which thus form water-courses of considerable length, to a fertile hill country still covered with olive-gardens and orange-forests. From the north the sea penetrates deeply into the land between the "beautiful promontory" (Ras Sidi Ali) and the promontory of Hermes (Ras Addar). On the western side of this bay a ridge of land runs out, which possesses excellent springs of water. Not far from the shore a rock rises steeply to the height of about 200 feet. On this was planted the new citadel, Byrsa, on which the wanderers erected a temple to their god Esmun (I. 377). This citadel, which is said to have been about 2000 paces (double paces) in the circuit,[489 - Oros. 4, 22; Strabo, p. 832.] was also the city round which at a later time grew up the lower city, at first on the south-east toward the shore, and then on the north-west toward the sea. The harbour lay to the south-east, under the citadel. Some miles to the north of the new settlement, on the mouth of the Bagradas (Medsherda), at the north-west corner of the bay, was Ityke, the ancient colony of the Phenicians, which had been in existence for more than two centuries when the new settlers landed on the shore of the bay; and not far to the south on the shore was Adrymes (Hadrumetum), another city of their countrymen, which Sallust mentions among the oldest colonies of the Phenicians.[490 - Sall. "Jug." 19.] The Carthaginians never forgot their affection for the ancient Ityke, by whose assistance, no doubt, their own settlement had been supported.[491 - The various statements about the year of the foundation of Carthage are collected in Müller, "Geograph. Græci min." 1, xix. It is impossible to fix the foundation more accurately than about the middle of the ninth century B.C. We may place it in the year 846 B.C. if we rest on the 143⅔ years of Josephus from the building of the temple (according to our own date 990 B.C.), and the round sum given by Appian – that 700 years elapsed from the founding by Dido to the destruction of the city; "Rom. Hist." 8, 132.]

The fragment which Josephus has preserved from the annals of the kings of Tyre ends with the accession of Pygmalion and the flight of Elissa. More than two centuries had passed since the campaign of Tiglath Pilesar I. to the Mediterranean, during which the cities of the Phenicians had suffered nothing from the arms and expeditions of the Assyrians. But when Balezor and Mutton, the son and grandson of Ethbaal, ruled over Tyre (885-853 B.C.), Assurbanipal of Assyria (883-859 B.C.) began to force his way to the west over the Euphrates. When he had reduced the sovereign of Karchemish to obedience by repeated campaigns, and had built fortresses on both banks of the Euphrates, he advanced in the year 876 B.C. to the Orontes, captured the marches of Lebanus (Labnana), and received tribute from the king of Tyre, i. e. from Mutton, from the kings of Sidon, of Byblus, and Aradus. According to the inscriptions, the tribute consisted of bars of silver, gold, and lead. Assurbanipal's successor, Shalmanesar II. of Assyria (859-823 B.C.), pushed on even more energetically to the west. After forcing Cilicia to submit, he attacked Hamath, and in the year 854, as we have seen, he defeated at Karkar the united kings of Hamath, Damascus, and Israel, who were also joined by Matinbaal, the king of Aradus. But Shalmanesar was compelled to undertake three other campaigns to Damascus (850, 849, and 846 B.C.) before he succeeded, in the year 842 B.C., in making Damascus tributary. As has been remarked, Israel did not any longer attempt the decision of arms, and sought to gain the favour of Assyria; like Tyre and Sidon, Jehu sent tribute to Shalmanesar. This payment of tribute was repeated perforce by Tyre, Sidon, and Byblus, in the years 839 and 835 B.C., in which Shalmanesar's armies again appeared in Syria. Moreover, the inscriptions of Bin-nirar, king of Assyria (810-781 B.C.), tell us that Damascus, Tyre, Sidon, Israel, Edom, and the land of the Philistines had paid him tribute. It is obvious that the cities of the Phenicians would have been as a rule most willing to pay it. When Assyria had definitely extended her dominion as far as the Euphrates, it was in the power of the Assyrian king to stop the way for the merchants of those cities to Mesopotamia and Babylon, and thus to inflict very considerable damage on the trade of the Phenicians, which was for the most part a carrying trade between the East and West. What were the sums paid in tribute, even if considerable, when compared with such serious disadvantages?

Hitherto we have been able to observe monarchy in the patriarchal form of the head of the tribe, in the god-like position of the Pharaohs of Egypt, in the forms of a military principate, who ruled with despotic power over wide kingdoms, or in diminished copies of this original. It would be interesting to trace out and ascertain the changes which it had now to undergo at the head of powerful trading and commercial cities such as the Phenicians were. We have already seen that the principate of these cities was of great antiquity, that it remained in existence through all the periods of Phenician history, that it was rooted deeply enough to outlive even the independence of the cities. All more detailed accounts are wanting, and even inductions or comparisons with the constitution of Carthage in later times carry us little further. Not to mention the very insufficient accounts which we possess of this constitution, it was only to the oldest settlements of the Phenicians in Cyprus that the monarchy passed, at least it was only in these that it was able to maintain itself. The examination of these institutions of Carthage is adapted to show us in contrast on the one hand to the tribal princes of the Arabians, and on the other to the monarchy of Elam, Babel, and Asshur – what forms the feeling and character of a Semitic community, in which the burghers had reached the full development of their powers, were able to give to their state, which at the same time was supreme over a wide region; but for the constitution of the Phenician cities scarcely any conclusions can be drawn from it.

Of the internal condition of the Phenician cities, the fragment of the history of Tyre in Josephus only enables us to ascertain that there was no lack of strife and bloodshed in the palaces of the kings, and that the priests of the tutelary deity must have been of importance and influence beside the king. But it follows from the nature of things that these city-kings could not have held sway with the same complete power as the military princes of the great kingdoms of the East. The development of independence among the burghers must have placed far closer limitations upon the will of the kings in these cities than was the case elsewhere in the East. The more lively the trade and industry of the cities, the more strongly must the great merchants and manufacturers have maintained against the kings the consideration and advancement of their own interests. For the maintenance of order and peace, of law and property in the cities they looked to the king, but they had also to make important demands before the throne, and were combined against it by community of interests. They were compelled to advance these independently if the king refused his consent. Isaiah tells us that the merchants of Tyre were princes. Ezekiel speaks of the grey-haired men, the "elders" of the city of Byblus.[492 - Ezekiel xxvii. 9.] Of the later period we know with greater certainty that there was a council beside the kings, the membership in which may have belonged primarily to the chiefs of the old families, but also in part to the hereditary priests. Inscriptions of the cities belonging to Grecian times present the title "elders."[493 - Renan, "Mission de Phénicie," p. 199.] The families in the Phenician cities which could carry back their genealogy to the forefathers of the tribes which possessed land and influence before the fall of the Hittites, the incursions of the Hebrews, and the spread of trade had brought a mass of strangers into the city walls, would appear to have had the first claim to a share in the government; the heads of these families may at first have formed the council which stood beside the king. Yet it lies in the nature of great manufacturing and trading cities that the management of interests of this kind cannot be confined to the elders of the family or remain among the privileges of birth. Hence we may assume that the great trading firms and merchants could not long be excluded from these councils. In the fourth century B.C. the council of Sidon seems to have consisted of 500 or 600 elders.[494 - Diod. 16, 41, 45; fragm. 23, ed. Bipont; cf. Justin. 18, 6.] Owing to the treasures of East and West which poured together into the cities of the Phenicians, life became luxurious within their walls. Men's efforts were directed to gain and acquisition; the merchants would naturally desire to enjoy their wealth. The lower classes of the closely-compressed population no doubt followed the example set them by the higher. From the multitude of retail dealers and artizans, the number of pilots and mariners who returned home eager for enjoyment after long voyages, men whose passions would be unbridled, a turbulent population must have grown up, in spite of the numerous colonies into which the ambitious as well as the poor might emigrate or be sent with the certain prospect of a better position. We saw above that the people of Tyre are said to have transferred the rule to Pygmalion. For the later period it is certain that even the people had a share in the government.[495 - Joseph. "Antiq." 14, 12, 4, 5; Curt. 4, 15.]

The hereditary monarchy passed, so far as we can see, from the mother-cities to the oldest colonies only, i. e. the cities in Cyprus. In the other colonies the chief officers were magistrates, usually two in number.[496 - Liv. 28, 37; Movers, "Phœniz." 2, 1, 490 ff, 529 ff.] They were called Sufetes, i. e. judges. In Carthage these two yearly officers, in whose hands lay the supreme administration of justice, and the executive, formed with 30 elders the governing body of the city. It seems that these 30 men were the representatives of as many original combinations of families into which the old houses of the city were incorporated. The connection of the colonies and mother-cities, both in general and more especially where the colony could dispense with the protection of the mother-city, were far more mercantile and religious than political. The colonies worshipped the deities of the mother-cities, and gave them a share in their booty. We also find that descendants of priests who had emigrated from the mother-city stood at the head of the temples of the colonies. In Carthage, where the priests of Melkarth wore the purple robe, the office was hereditary in the family of Bithyas, who is said to have left Tyre with Elissa.[497 - Servius, "ad Æneid." 1, 738.]

We are acquainted with the gods of the Phenician cities, and the mode in which they worshipped them; with El and Baal-Samim, Baal-Melkarth and Baal-Moloch, Adonis, Astarte and Ashera, with the rites of continence and mutilation, of sensual excess and prostitution, of sacrifice and fire-festival, which were intended to win their favour and grace. We observed that the protecting deities of the separate states had even before the days of Hiram been united in the system of the seven great gods, the Cabiri, at whose head was placed an eighth, Esmun, the supreme deity. We saw that in this system special meanings were ascribed to them in reference to the protection of peace and law, of industry and navigation; and we cannot doubt that with the riches which accumulated in the walls of the cities, with the luxury of life which these riches permitted, the lascivious and sensual side of the worship must have increased and extended.

The life led by the kings of the old Phenician cities is described as rich and splendid. We have already assumed that the princes of the Phenician cities had a rich share in the returns of trade, and indeed the fact can be proved from the Hebrew Scriptures for Hiram, king of Tyre. Ezekiel tells us, "The king of Tyre sits like a god in the seat of God, in the midst of the seas; he dwells as in Eden, in the garden of God. Precious stones are the covering of his palaces: the ruby, the topaz, the diamond, the chrysolite, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the carbuncle, the emerald, and gold; the workmanship of his ring-cases he bears upon him."[498 - Ezekiel xxviii. 2-17.] "His garments," we are told in a song of the Hebrews, "smell of myrrh, aloes, and cassia; in ivory palaces the sound of harps gladdens him. At his right hand stands the queen in gold of Ophir, in a garment of wrought gold: on broidered carpets she shall be brought to him; the young maidens, her companions, follow her."[499 - Psalm xlv. 9-15. Though it is doubtful whether there is any reference here to Tyre, the court-life of the Israelites was imitated from the Phenicians.]

Hosea calls Tyre "a plantation in a pleasant meadow."[500 - Hosea ix. 13.] Of the city itself Ezekiel says, "The architects have made her beauty perfect. All her planks (wainscot) were of cypress, and her masts of cedar of Lebanon; the rudders are of oaks of Bashan, the benches of ivory, set in costly wood from the island of Cyprus. For sails Tyre spreads out byssus and gay woofs; blue and red purple from the islands of Elisa formed their coverlets."[501 - Ezekiel xxvii. 4-7.] In the description of Strabo, more than 500 years later, Tyre appears less magnificent. The houses of the city were very high, higher than at Rome; the city still wealthy, owing to the trade in her two harbours and her purple factories, but the number of these made the city unpleasant. Strabo does not mention any considerable building in the city. Of Aradus he says, "The smallness of the rock on which the city lies, seven stades only in circuit, and the number of inhabitants caused every house to have many stories. Drinking-water had to be obtained from the mainland; on the island there were only wells and cisterns."[502 - Strabo, pp. 754, 756.]

Scarcely any striking remains of the ancient buildings of Phœnicia have come down to our time. The ancient temples enumerated in the treatise on the Syrian goddess have perished without a trace; the temple of Melkarth of Tyre, the great temple of Astarte at Sidon, the temple of Bilit (Ashera) at Byblus,[503 - Lucian, "De Syria dea," 3-5.] although they were certainly not of a character easy to destroy. That the Phenicians were acquainted from very ancient periods with the erection of strong masonry was proved above. Not only have we the legend of the Greeks, that Cadmus taught them the art of masonry and built the famous walls of Thebes; we saw how Israel, about the year 1000 B.C., provided herself with masons, stone-cutters, and materials from Tyre. Hence we may also assume that the architecture of the temple and the royal palaces of Solomon described in the Books of Kings corresponded to the architecture of the Phenicians. The temples and palaces of the Phenicians consisted, therefore, of walls of large materials, roofed with beams of cedar; in the interior the materials were no doubt covered, as at Jerusalem, with planks of wood and ornaments of brass, "so that the stone was nowhere seen" (p. 183). Ezekiel has already told us that the planks of the roofs of the royal palace at Tyre were overlaid with gold and precious stones; and the Books of Kings showed us that even the floors were adorned with gold. All the remains of walls in Phœnicia that can be referred to an ancient period exhibit a style of building confined to the stone of the mountain range which hems the coast, and desirous of imitating the nature of the rocks. Blocks of large dimensions were used by preference; at first they were worked as little as possible, and fitted to each other, and the interstices between the great blocks were filled with smaller stones. Of this kind are the fragments of the walls which surround the rock on which the city of Aradus stood. Gigantic blocks, visible even now here and there, formed the dams of the harbours of Aradus, Sidon, Tyre, and Japho.[504 - Renan, "Mission de Phénicie," p. 39 ff, 362.] It was a step in advance that the blocks, while retaining the form in which they were quarried, were smoothed at the joints in order to be fitted together more firmly, and a further step still that the blocks were hewn into squares, though at first the outer surfaces of the squares were not smoothed. So far as remains allow us to see, the detached structures were of a simple and massive character, in shape like cubes of vast dimensions; the walls, as is shown by the city wall of Aradus, were joined without mortar, and in the oldest times the buildings appear to have been roofed with monoliths. Cedar beams were not sought after till larger spaces had to be covered. Beside old water-basins hewn in the rock, and oil or wine presses of the same character, we have no remains of ancient Phenician temples but those on the site of Marathus (now Amrit), a city of the tribe of the Arvadites, to the south of Aradus, and in the neighbourhood of Byblus.[505 - Ceccaldi, "Le Monument de Sarba," Revue Archéolog. 1878.] The bases of the walls which enclose the courts and water-basins of the temple of Marathus can still be traced, as well as the huge stones which formed the three cellæ, the innermost shrines of this temple. On either side of a back wall formed of similar materials heavy blocks protrude, and are roofed over, together with this wall, by a great monolith, which protected the sacred stone or the image of the deity.[506 - Renan, "Mission de Phénicie," p. 60 ff.] This heavy style of the city walls, dams, temples, and royal castles did not prevent the Phenicians, any more than the Egyptians, from building the upper stories of the dwelling-houses of their cities in light wood-work.

By far the most important remains of ancient Phœnicia are the rock-tombs, which are found in great numbers and extent opposite to the islands of Tyre and Aradus, as well as at Sidon, Byblus, and among the ruins of the other cities on the spurs of Lebanon; and which at Tyre especially spread out into wide burial-places, and several stories of tombs, one upon the other. In the same style we find to the west of the ruins of Carthage long walls of rocks hollowed out into thousands of tombs, and furnished with arched niches for the reception of the dead.[507 - Beulé, "Nachgrabungen zu Karthago," s. 98 ff (translation).] In the oldest period the Phenicians must have placed their dead in natural cavities of rock, and perhaps they erected a stone before them as a memorial. In Genesis Abraham buries Sarah in the cave of Machpelah, and Jacob sets up a stone on the grave of Rachel.[508 - Gen. xxxv. 20.] Afterwards the natural hollows were extended, and whole cavities dug out artificially for tombs. The tomb of David and the tombs of his successors were hewn in the rocks of the gorge which separated the city from the height of Zion (p. 177). The oldest of the artificial tombs in Phœnicia are doubtless those which consist of cubical chambers with horizontal hewn roofs. Round one or two large chambers lower oblong depressions are driven further in the rocks to receive the corpses. The entrance into these ancient chambers are formed by downward perpendicular shafts, at the bottom of which on two sides are openings into the chambers secured by slabs of stone laid before them. Shafts of this kind must be meant when the Hebrews say in a figure of the dead, "The mouth of the well has eaten him up." Later than the tombs of this description are those the entrance to which is on the level ground (which was then closed by a stone), which have roofs hewn in low arches, and side niches for the corpses. The arched chambers approached by steps leading downward, the walls of which are decorated after Grecian patterns on the stone, or on stucco, must originate from the time of the predominance of Greek art, i. e. of the days of Hellenism. The oldest style of burial was the placing of the corpse in the cavity, the grave-chamber, and afterwards in the depression at the side of this. At a later time apparently the enclosure of the corpse in a narrow coffin of clay became common here, as in Babylonia. Coffins of lead have also been found in the rock-tombs of Phœnicia. But beside these, heavy oblong stone-coffins with a simple slab of stone as a lid were in use in ancient times; along with flat lids, lids raised in a low triangle are also found; later still, and latest of all, are coffins and sarcophagi adorned with acroteria and other ornaments of the Greek style.[509 - Renan, loc. cit. 412 ff.]

In the flat limestone rocks which run at a moderate elevation in the neighbourhood of Sidon, and contain the vast necropolis of that city, there is a cavern, now called Mogharet Ablun, i. e. the cave of Apollo. Beside the entrance, in a depression covered by a structure attached to the rock-wall (the rock-tombs were supplemented and extended by structures attached to the wall), was found a coffin of blackish blue stone, the form of which indicates the shape of the buried person after the manner of the mummy-coffins of Egypt, and displays in colossal relief the mask of the dead in Egyptian style, with an Egyptian covering for the head and beard on the chin; the band round the neck ends behind in two hawk's heads. The inscription in Phenician letters teaches us that this coffin contained Esmunazar, king of Sidon. Similar sarcophagi in stone, in part expressing the form even more accurately, seven or eight in number, have been discovered in other chambers of the burial-place of Sidon, and in the burial-places of Byblus and Antaradus, but only in cubical, i. e. in more ancient chambers. Marble coffins of this kind have also been found in the Phenician colonies of Soloeis and Panormus in Sicily, and of the same shape in burnt earth in Malta and Gozzo. The Phenicians, therefore, came to imitate the coffins of the Egyptians. Similar imitation of Egyptian burial is proved by the gold plates found in Phenician chambers, which are like those with which we find the mouth closed in Egyptian mummies, and the discovery of golden masks in Phenician chambers,[510 - In Cyprus also a mask of this kind has been found.] which correspond to the gilding of the masks of the face of the innermost Egyptian coffins which immediately surround the linen covering. As the face-mask of the external coffin imitated the face of the dead in stone or in coloured wood, so also ought the inner gilded face to preserve the features of the dead. This imitation of the Egyptian style of burial among the Phenicians must go back to a great antiquity. It is true that Esmunazar of Sidon did not rule till the second half of the fifth or the beginning of the fourth century B.C.[511 - Von Gutschmid, in "Fleckeisens Jahrbücher," 1875, s. 579.] Yet the shape and style of his coffin reminds us of older Egyptian patterns; it is most like the stone coffins of Egypt which have come down from the beginning of the sixth century. And if the ancient tombs opened at Mycenæ behind the lion's gate belong to Carians influenced by Phenician civilisation (p. 74), if golden masks are here found on the face of the dead, the Phenicians must have borrowed this custom from the Egyptians as early as the thirteenth century, if not even earlier.

The remains which have come down to us of the sculpture, jars, and utensils of Phœnicia exhibit the double influence which the art and industry of the Phenicians underwent even at an early period. Agreeably to the close relations into which the Phenicians entered, on the one hand with Babel and Asshur, and on the other with Egypt, the effects of these two ancient civilisations meet each other on the coast of Syria. The arts of the kindred land of the Euphrates, the relations of which to Phœnicia were at the same time the older, naturally made themselves felt first. When Tuthmosis III. collected tribute in Syria at the beginning of the sixteenth century, the Babylonian weight was already in use there; the jars which were brought to this king as the tribute of Syria are carefully worked, but as yet adorned with very simple and recurring patterns of lines. On the other hand, the ornaments found in the tombs of Mycenæ, gold-plates, frontlets, and armlets, exhibit ornaments like those figured on the monuments of Assyria; and the objects found in the rock-tombs on Hymettus, at Spata, point even more definitely to Babylonian patterns: winged fabulous animals and battles of beasts (a lion attacking a bull or an antelope[512 - ΑΘΗΝΑΙΟΝ σ´ γ´ πίναξ; A. 7, B. 8.]) are formed in the manner of the Eastern Semites, which brings the form of the muscles into prominence. We may assume that the influence of Egypt began with the times of the Tuthmosis and Amenophis, and their supremacy in Syria, and slowly gathered strength. The heavy style of Phenician buildings would not be made lighter or more free by the architecture of Egypt, which also arose out of building in rock. The temples of Phœnicia adopted Egyptian symbols for their ornaments; the monoliths of the roofs of those three cellæ at Marathus exhibit the winged sun's-disk, the emblem at the entrance of Egyptian temples; the chests for the dead and masks for the mummies of the Egyptians were imitated in the rock-tombs of Phœnicia. If the weaving of the Phenicians at first copied the ancient Babylonian patterns, they began under the stronger influence of Egypt to adorn their pottery and metal-work after Egyptian patterns. But they also combined the Babylonian and Egyptian elements in their art.[513 - Helbig, "Cenni sopra l'arte fenicia," p. 17 ff.] The oldest memorial of this combination is perhaps retained in that winged sphinx, which belongs to the time of the dominion of the shepherds in Egypt. In the graves on Hymettus pictures in relief of female winged sphinxes are found with clothed breasts and peculiar wings, in a treatment obviously already conventional. In Phœnicia itself are found reliefs of similar sphinxes, old men with a human face on either side of the tree of life, which meet us oftentimes in the monuments of Assyria. This combination, this use of Babylonian and Egyptian types and forms side by side, is seen most clearly on a large bowl found at Curium near Amathus, in Cyprus, and wrought with great care and skill.[514 - Ceccaldi, "Les fouilles de Curium," Revue Archéolog. 1877.] It follows that the art of the Phenicians was essentially imitative and intended to furnish objects for trade. Of round works of sculpture we have only dwarfish deities (I. 378), the typical form of which was naturally retained, and a few lions coarsely wrought in the style of the plastic art of Babylon and Assyria.[515 - Renan, loc. cit. pp. 175, 181, 397.] The relation in which the lion stood to the god Melkarth naturally made the delineation of the lion a favourite object of Phenician art.

Phœnicia, though the home of alphabetical writing, has left us no more than two or three inscriptions, and Carthage has not left us a great number. Not that there was any lack of inscriptions in Phœnicia in ancient days. We have heard already of ancient inscriptions at Rhodes, Thebes, and Gades. Job wishes that "his words might be graven on rocks for ever with an iron chisel and lead."[516 - Job xix. 23.] The inscriptions of Phœnicia have perished because they were engraved like those inscriptions of Gades, on plates of brass. Beside the inscription on the coffin of Esmunazar, king of Sidon, already mentioned, of a date about 400 B.C., only two or three smaller inscriptions have been preserved, which do not go beyond the second century B.C. In this inscription Esmunazar speaks in person; he calls himself the son of Tabnit, king of the Sidonians, son of Esmunazar, king of the Sidonians. With his mother, Amastarte, the priestess of Astarte, he had erected temples to Baal, Astarte, and Esmun. He beseeches the favour of the gods for himself and his land; he prays that Dor and Japho may always remain under Sidon; he declares that he wishes to rest in the grave which he has built and in this coffin. No one is to open the tomb or plunder it, or remove or damage this stone coffin. If any man attempts it the gods will destroy him with his seed; he is not to be buried, and after death will find no rest among the shades.[517 - Rödiger, "Z. D. M. G." 9, 647; Schlottmann, "Inschrift Esmunazars;" Halévy, "Mélanges," pp. 9, 34; Oppert, "Records of the Past," 9, 109.]

There is scarcely any side of civilisation, any forms of technical art, the invention of which was not ascribed by the Greeks to the Phenicians. They were nearly all made known to the Greeks through the Phenicians; more especially the building of walls and fortresses, mining, the alphabet, astronomy, numbers, mathematics, navigation, together with a great variety of applications of technical skill. If the discovery of alphabetic writing belongs to the Phenicians, the Babylonians were the instructors of the Phenicians in astronomy as well as in fixing measures and weights (I. 305). Yet this is no reason for contesting the statement of Strabo that the Sidonians were "eager inquirers into the knowledge of the stars and of numbers, to which they were led by navigation by night and the art of calculation."[518 - Strabo, p. 757.] In the same way the technical discoveries ascribed by the Greeks to the Phenicians were not all made in their cities; they carried on with vigour and skill what grew up independently among them as well as what they learnt from others. The making of glass was undoubtedly older in Egypt than in Phœnicia (I. 224). Egypt also practised work in metals before Phœnicia. Snefru and Chufu made themselves masters of the copper mines of the peninsula of Sinai before the year 3000 B.C. (I. 95), while the Phenicians can hardly have occupied the copper island off their coast (Cyprus) before the middle of the thirteenth century B.C. Artistic weaving and embroidery were certainly practised at a more ancient date in Babylonia than in the cities of the Phenicians. But all these branches of industry were carried on with success by the Phenicians. Sidon furnished excellent works in glass, which were accounted the best even down to a late period of antiquity. The dunes on the coast between Acco and Tyre, where is the mouth of the glass-river (Sihor Libnath),[519 - Joshua xix. 26. Strabo, p. 758. Tacitus says, "On the shore of Judæa the Belus falls into the sea: the sand collected at the mouth of this river, when mixed with saltpetre, is melted into glass. The strip of shore is of moderate extent, but inexhaustible;" "Hist." 5, 7] provided the Phenician manufacturers with the earth necessary for the manufacture of glass. It was maintained that the most beautiful glass was cast in Sarepta (Zarpath, i. e. melting), a city on the coast between Sidon and Tyre.[520 - Pliny, "Hist. Nat." 5, 17.]

The purple dyeing, i. e. the colouring of woofs by the liquor from fish, was discovered by the Phenicians. They were unsurpassed in this art; it outlived by many centuries the power and splendour of their cities. Trumpet and purple fish were found in great numbers on their coasts, and the liquor from these provided excellent dye. The liquor of the purple-fish, which comes from a vessel in the throat, is dark-red in the small fish, and black in the larger fish; the liquor of the trumpet-fish is scarlet. The fish were pounded and the dye extracted by decoction. By mixing, weakening, or thickening this material, and by adding this or that ingredient, various colours were obtained, through all the shades of crimson and violet down to the darkest black, in which fine woollen stuffs and linen from Egypt were dipped. The stuffs soaked in these colours are the purple cloths of antiquity, and were distinguished by the bright sheen of the colours. The Tyrian double-dyed cloth, which had the colour of curdled blood, and the violet amethyst purple were considered the most beautiful.[521 - Adolph Schmidt, "Forschungen auf dem Gebiete des Alterthums," s. 69.] Three hundred pounds of the raw material were usually required to dye 50 pounds of wool.[522 - Schmidt, loc. cit. 129 ff.] When the purple stuffs began to be sought after, the fish collected on the coasts of Tyre, Sidon, and Sarepta were no longer sufficient. We saw how the ships of the Phenicians went from coast to coast in order to get fresh materials for the dye, and found them in great numbers on the shores of Cyprus, Rhodes, Crete, Cythera, and Thera; in the bays of Laconia and Argos, and in the straits of Eubœa. Purple-fish were also collected on the greater Syrtis, in Sicily, the Balearic Isles, and coasts of Tarshish.[523 - Herod. 4, 151; Pliny, "Hist. Nat." 9, 60; Strabo, pp. 145, 835.] Even at a later period, when the art of dyeing with the purple-fish was understood and practised at many places in the Mediterranean Sea, the Tyrian purple still maintained its pre-eminence and fame. "Tyre," says Strabo, "overcame her misfortunes, and always recovered herself by means of her navigation, in which the Phenicians were superior to all others, and her purples. The Tyrian purple is the most beautiful; the fish are caught close at hand, and every other requirement for the dyeing is there in abundance."[524 - Strabo, p. 757.] A hundred years later Pliny adds "that the ancient glory of Tyre survived now only in her fish and her purples."[525 - Pliny, "Hist. Nat." 5, 17.] The consumption and expense of purple in antiquity was very great, especially in Hither Asia. At first the Phenician kings wore the purple robe as the sign of their rank; then it became the adornment of the princes of the East, the priests, the women of high rank, and upper classes. In the temples and palaces the purple served for curtains and cloths, robes and veils for the images and shrines. The kings of Babylon and Assyria, and after them the kings of Persia, collected stores of purple stuffs in their palaces. Plutarch puts the value of the amount of purple found by Alexander at Susa at 5000 talents.[526 - Plut. "Alex." c. 36.] In the West also the purple robe soon became the distinguishing garb of royalty and rank. Yet the Greeks and Romans of the better times, owing to the costliness of the material, contented themselves with the possession of borders or stripes of purple.

The weaving and embroidery of the Phenicians apparently followed Assyrian and Babylonian patterns. They must also have made and exported ceramic ware and earthen vessels in large numbers at an ancient period, as is proved by the tributes brought to Tuthmosis III., the discoveries in Cyprus, Rhodes, Thera, and at Hissarlik. In the preparation of perfumes Sidon and Tyre were not equal to the Babylonians. It is true that their manufacturers supplied susinum and cyprinum of excellent quality, but they could not attain to the cinnamon or the nard ointment, nor to the royal ointment of the Babylonians.[527 - Movers, "Phœniz." 3, 103.]

In mining the Phenicians were masters. In regard to the Phenician skill in this art, the Book of Job says, "The earth, from which comes nourishment, is turned up; he lays his hand upon the flint; far from the dealings of men he makes his descending shaft. No bird of prey knows the path; the eye of the vulture discovers it not; the wild beasts do not tread it. Through the rocks paths are made; he searches out the darkness and the night. Then his eye beholds all precious things. The stone of the rocks is the place of the sapphire and gold-dust. Iron is taken out of the mountains; stones are melted into brass, the drop of water is stopped, and the hidden is brought to light."[528 - Job xxviii. 1-11. In this description the author could only have Phenician mines in his eye.] The Phenicians dug mines for copper, first on Lebanon and then in Cyprus. We saw that they afterwards, in the second half of the thirteenth century, opened out the gold treasures of Thasos in the Thracian Sea. Herodotus, who had seen their abandoned mines there (they lay on the south coast of Thasos), informed us that the Phenicians had entirely "turned over a whole mountain." Yet even in the fifth century B.C. the mines of Thasos produced a yearly income of from two to three hundred talents. In Spain the Phenicians opened their mines in the silver mountain, i. e. in the Sierra Morena, above the lower course of the Baetis (the Guadalquivir);[529 - Müllenhoff, "Deutsche Altertumskunde," 1, 120 ff.] their ships went up the stream as far as Sephela (perhaps Hispalis, Seville). The richest silver-mines lay above Sephela at Ilipa (Niebla); the best gold and copper mines were at Cotini, in the region of Gades.[530 - Strabo, p. 142. Kotini = the Oleastrum of the Romans; Pliny, "Hist. Nat." 3, 3. Ptolem. 2, 4, 14.] Diodorus assures us that all the mines in Iberia had been opened by Phenicians and Carthaginians, and not one by the Romans. In the more ancient times the workmen here brought up in three days an Euboic talent of silver, and their wages were fixed at a fourth part of the returns. The mines in Iberia were carried down many stades in depth and length, with pits, shafts, and sloping paths crossing each other; for the veins of gold and silver were more productive at a greater depth. The water in the mines was taken out by Egyptian spiral pumps. Strabo observes that the gold ore when brought up was melted over a slow fire, and purified by vitriolated earth. The smelting-ovens for the silver were built high, in order that the vapour from the ore, which was injurious and even deadly, might pass into the air.[531 - Strabo, pp. 175, 176, 120; Pliny, "Hist. Nat." 7, 57.]

The Phenicians also understood how to work skilfully the metals supplied by their mines. At the founding of Gades, which we had to place about the year 1100 B.C., iron pillars with inscriptions are mentioned which the settlers put up in the temple of Melkarth (p. 82). The brass work which the melter, Hiram of Tyre, executed for Solomon (p. 182) is evidence of long practice in melting brass, and of skill in bringing into shape large masses of melted metal. The Homeric poems speak of Sidon as "rich in brass," and "skilful;" they tell us of large beaten bowls of brass and silver of Sidonian workmanship, "rich in invention." Even at a later period the goblets of Sidon were in request. Not only metal implements and vessels of brass and copper, molten and beaten, were furnished by the Phenicians; they must also have manufactured armour in large quantities, if we may draw any conclusion about armour from the tribute imposed on the Syrians by Tuthmosis III. It is easily intelligible of what value it must have been for the nations of the West to come into the possession of splendid armour and good weapons. Besides these are the ornaments found in great numbers, and of high antiquity, in the tombs of Spata and Mycenæ, and in the excavations at Hissarlik. In Homer, Phenician ships bring necklaces of gold and amber to the Greeks. At a later time the ornaments of the Phenicians and their alabaster boxes were sought after; the carved work in ivory and wood, with which they also adorned the prows and banks of oars of their ships, is praised by Ezekiel. They also knew how to set and cut precious stones; some seals have come down to us in part from an ancient date.[532 - Ezekiel xxvii. 5, 6; Levy, "Siegel und Gemmen." If the first text of the Pentateuch represents the names of the tribes of the people as engraved upon the precious stones in the shield on the breast of the high priest (Exod. xxv. 7; xxviii. 9 ff, supra, 207), the author had, no doubt, the work of Phenician artists in his eye.]

In ship-building the Phenicians were confessedly superior; they are said to have discovered navigation.[533 - Pliny, "Hist. Nat." 5, 13.] The ancient forests of cedar and cypress which rose immediately above their shores supplied the best wood, which resisted decay for an extraordinary length of time even in salt water. Much as the Phenicians used these forests in the course of a thousand years for building their ships, their palaces, and temples, as well as for exportation, they provided even in the third century B.C. a material which for extent, size, and beauty won the admiration of the Greeks.[534 - Diodor. 19, 58.] The oldest ship of the Phenicians which continued through all time in use as a trading-vessel was the gaulos, a vessel with high prow and stern, both of which were similarly rounded. It was propelled by a large sail and by rowers, from 20 to 30 in number. Besides the gaulos, there was the long and narrow fifty-oar, which served for a merchantman and pirate-ship as well as for a ship of war, and after the discovery of the silver land the large and armed merchantman, the ship of Tarshish. Isaiah enumerates the ship of Tarshish among the costly structures of men.[535 - Isaiah ii. 16.] Ezekiel compares Tyre to a proud ship of the sea. We know that the great transport-ships and merchantmen of the Phenicians and Carthaginians could take about 500 men on board. The Byblians were considered the best ship-builders. The keels of the ships, like the masts, were made of cedar; the oars were of oak, supplied by the oak forests of the table-land of Bashan. The mariners of Sidon and Aradus were considered the best rowers. The Greeks praise the strict and careful order on board a Phenician ship, the happy use of the smallest spaces, the accuracy in distributing and placing the lading, the experience, wisdom, activity, and safety of the Phenician pilots and officers.[536 - Xen. "Œcon." 8, 12.] Others commend the great sail and oar power of the Phenician ships. They could sail even against the wind, and make fortunate voyages in the stormy season of the year. While the Greeks steered by the Great Bear, which, if a more visible, was a far more uncertain guide, the Phenicians had at an early time discovered a less conspicuous but more trustworthy guide in the polar star, which the Greeks call the "Phenician star." The Greeks themselves allow that this circumstance rendered the voyages of the Phenicians more accurate and secure. On an average the Phenician ships, which as a rule did not set out before the end of February, and returned at the end of October, accomplished 120 miles in 24 hours; but ships that were excellently built and equipped, and sufficiently manned, ran about 150 miles.[537 - Movers, "Phœniz." 3, 182 ff, 191 ff.] In the fifteenth century the galleys of Venice could run from 50 to 100 miles in the Mediterranean in the 24 hours. The excellence of the Phenician navy survived the independence of the cities. Inclination towards, and pleasure in navigation, as well as skill in it, were always to be found among the populations of those cities. The Phenician ships were by far the best in the fleets of the Persian kings.

CHAPTER XII

THE TRADE OF THE PHENICIANS

We found above at what an early period the migratory tribes of Arabia came into intercourse with the region of the Euphrates, and the valley of the Nile, how in both these places they purchased corn, implements, and weapons in return for their horses and camels, their skins and their wool, and the prisoners taken in their feuds. It was this exchange trade of the Arabian tribes which in the first instance brought about the intercourse of Syria with Babylonia and Egypt. Egypt like Babylonia required oil and wine for their population; metals, skins, and wool for their manufactures; wood for the building of houses and ships. For the Syrians and cities of the Phenicians the intercourse with the Arabians, and the lands of the Euphrates and Tigris, was facilitated by the fact that nations related to them in race and language dwelt as far as the border-mountains of Armenia and Iran and the southern coast of Arabia, and their trade with Egypt was facilitated in the same manner when Semitic tribes between 2000 and 1500 B.C. obtained the supremacy in Egypt and maintained it for more than three centuries. From the fact that Babylonian weights and measures were in use in Syria in the sixteenth century B.C., we may conclude that there must have been close trade relations between Syria and Babylonia from the year 2000 B.C.; and in the same manner in consequence of the conquest of Egypt by the shepherds more active relations must have commenced between Syria and the land of the Nile, at a period not much later. The supremacy which Egypt afterwards obtained over Syria under the Tuthmosis and Amenophis must have rather advanced than destroyed this; thus Sethos, towards the year 1400, used his successes against the Cheta, i. e. the Hittites, to have cedars felled on Lebanon. We may assume that even before this time, after the rise of the kingdom of the Hittites, i. e. after the middle of the fifteenth century, the cities of the Phenicians were no longer content to exchange the products of Syria, wine, oil, and brass, the manufactures of their own growing industry, purple stuffs and weapons, with the manufactures of Egypt, linen cloths, and papyrus tissues, glass and engraved stones, ornaments and drugs, on the one hand, and on the other hand with the manufactures of Babylon, cloths, ointments, and embroidered stuffs: they also carried Egyptian fabrics to Babylon, and Babylonian fabrics to Egypt. The trade of Phœnicia with Egypt and Babylonia was no longer restricted to the exchange of Phenician-Syrian products and fabrics with those of Egypt and Babylon: it was at the same time a middle trade between those two most ancient seats of cultivation, between Egypt and Babylonia. It cannot have been any detriment to this trade of the Phenicians that a second centre of civic life sprang up subsequently on the central Tigris in the growing power of Assyria. In the ruins of Chalah (p. 34) Egyptian works of art have been dug up in no inconsiderable numbers. Herodotus begins his work with the observation that the Phenicians at an early period endeavoured to export and exchange Egyptian and Assyrian (i. e. Babylonian and Assyrian) wares.

The sea lay open to the cities of the Phenicians for their intercourse with Egypt; for this route they were independent of the good will or aversion of the tribes and princes, who ruled in the south of Canaan; moreover the wood of Lebanon could not be carried by land to Egypt. We may certainly assume that the navigation of the Phenicians was enabled to obtain its earliest practice for further journeys by these voyages to that mouth of the Nile, which the Egyptians opened to foreign ships (I. 227). The free and secure use of the routes of the caravans to the Euphrates, and from this river to the Syrian coast, must have been obtained from the rulers of Syria, the princes of Hamath and Damascus, the migratory tribes of the Syrian desert, the princes whose dominions lay on the Euphrates; and would hardly be obtained without heavy payments. So much the more desirable was it, if the cities could enter into special relations with one or other of these princes, such as David and Solomon, who not only opened Israel to them, but also provided the routes with caravanserais and warehouses (p. 187). The trade-road to the Euphrates led from Sidon past Dan (Laish) in Israel to Damascus, hence northwards past Riblah and Emesa (Hems) to Hamath, from Hamath to Bambyke (Hierapolis) in the neighbourhood of the Euphrates, and then crossed over the river to Harran (I. 320). From Harran the caravans went down along the Belik to the Euphrates, then in the valley of the Euphrates to Babylon, or went eastwards past Nisibis (Nisib) to the Tigris. A shorter road to the Euphrates ran past Damascus and the oasis of Tadmor, and reached the river at Thipsach (Thapsacus) at the farthest bend to the west.[538 - Supra, p. 187. Movers, "Phœniz." 2, 3, 244 ff.]

We have already seen at what an early period the trade with the land of frankincense, i. e. with South Arabia, grew up for Egypt, owing to the mutual intercourse of the Arabian tribes (I. 226). The first attempt of Egypt to open a communication by sea with South Arabia falls about the year 2300 B.C. At a period not later, other Arabian tribes must have carried the incense and spices of South Arabia to Elam, Ur and Nipur, and Babylon. Syria must have received the products of South Arabia first through Babylon, then by means of direct communication with the Arabs, and lastly by the special caravans of the Phenicians. We hear of two trade-roads to that land. One led past Damascus to the oasis of Duma (Dumat el Dshandal), and from thence through the interior of Arabia to the south; the other ran through Israel past Ashtaroth Karnaim, through the territories of the Ammonites, Moabites, and Edomites, to Elath, and thence led along the coast of the Arabian Gulf to the Sabæans (I. 320). From the Sabæans and the Chatramites even before the year 1500 B.C. the caravans brought not spices only and incense, but also the products of the Somali coast. The Sabæans traversed the Arabian Gulf and carried home the products of the coast of East Africa; the southwest coast of Arabia was no longer a place for producing and exporting frankincense and spices; it became the trading-place of the Somali coast, and before the year 1000 B.C. was also the trading-place for the products of India, which ships of the Indians carried to the shore of the Sabæans and Chatramites (I. 322). It must have been a considerable increase in the extent of the Phenician trade and the gains obtained from it, when the Phenicians were able to make such a fruitful use of their connection with South Arabia that it fell into their hands to provide Egypt, with her products, and perhaps even Babylonia also. Their caravan trade with South Arabia must have been lively, and the impulse to extend it strong, as they induced king Solomon to allow them to attempt a connection by sea from Elath with South Arabia. By the foundation and success of the trade to Ophir, and the most remote places of the East which they reached, their commerce obtained its widest extent, and brought in the richest returns. With incense and balsam, there came to Tyre cinnamon and cassia, sandal-wood and ivory, gold and pearls from India, and the silk tissues of the distant East.[539 - Movers, loc. cit. 2, 3, 265 ff.]

The commerce of the Phenician cities comprised Egypt, Babylonia, and Assyria, it touched Mesopotamia and Armenia, the lands of the Moschi and Tibarenes, the silver and copper mines of the Chalybes on the Black Sea.[540 - Vol. i. p. 538. Ezekiel xxvii. 14; xxxviii. 6.] When on the opening of the communication by the Red Sea with South Arabia and the countries beyond, it gained the widest extent to the south and east, it had for a whole century past traversed the entire length of the Mediterranean to the Straits of Gibraltar. We saw above how the Phenicians steered to Cyprus, Rhodes, Crete, to the Ægean Sea, to the coasts of Hellas, in order to barter or dig up minerals, to collect purple-fish for their coloured stuffs, and how after the middle of the thirteenth century they began to plant settlements on these coasts. The request for minerals must have been so strongly felt in their own cities, in Egypt and the lands of the Euphrates, in the course of the twelfth century, that the ships of the Phenicians went farther and farther to the west in search of them, that Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica were reached and then colonised by them. At the same time Ityke and Old Hippo were built on the coast of Africa. These supplied saltpetre, alum, and salt, skins of lions and panthers, horns of buffalos, ostrich eggs and feathers, slaves and ivory to the mother-cities. After this, about the year 1100 B.C., Gades was built on the shore of the Atlantic Ocean. The trade of the Phenicians now brought not only the products of Syria and the manufactures of their cities to Egypt and Babylonia; it was not merely a middle trade between those two lands, nor merely an independent trade and middle trade between South Arabia and the civilised countries; it mediated now between the East and the West, the products and manufactures of the near and distant East, and the natural products of the near and distant West, between the ancient civilisation of the East and the young life of the nations of the West. It was above all the metals of the West, the gold of the Thracian, the copper of the Italian islands, the silver of Tartessus, which the ships of the Phenicians carried into the harbours of the mother-cities: the nations of the West received in return weapons, and metal vases, ornaments, variegated cloths, and purple garments. The works of Babylonian and Egyptian style, the works which are found in the tombs of Caere, Clusium, Alsium, at Corneto and Praeneste, adorned in types at once Egyptian and Babylonian-Assyrian, like the implements and ornaments found in the tombs of Spata and Mycenæ, can only have come into the possession of the Etruscans, Latins, and Lucanians from intercourse with the Phenicians, the Phenician colonies of Sicily, or from the trade with Carthage.[541 - Helbig, "Annali del Inst. Arch." 1876, pp. 57, 117, 247 ff.]

From Gades the Phenicians succeeded in forcing their way farther to the Atlantic Ocean. Phenician colonies were founded on the west coast of Africa. Lixus, the oldest and most important of these (Lachash, now El Araish), at the mouth of the river of the same name (now Wadi el Ghos), is said to have been the seat of a famous sanctuary of Melkarth.[542 - Pliny, "Hist. Nat." s. 1; 19, 22. Cf. Movers, loc. cit. 2, 2, 537 ff.] Strabo is of opinion that these colonies of the Phenicians beyond the pillars of Hercules were built soon after the Trojan war, i. e. about the year 1100 B.C.[543 - Strabo, p. 48; cf. p. 150.] Diodorus told us already how Phenician ships, steering to the coast of Libya in order to explore the sea beyond the pillars were carried away by a storm far into the ocean, and discovered a large island opposite Libya, which, from the pleasantness of the air and the abundance of blessings, seemed fitted to be the dwelling of the gods rather than men (p. 82). We can hardly doubt, therefore, that the Phenicians visited Madeira and the Canary Islands.

Tin was early known to the ancient world, and was indispensable for the alloy of copper, but it could only be found mixed with copper in the mines of the Chalybes and Tibarenes (the Tabal of the Assyrians, the Tubal of the Hebrews), whose name is found in Genesis in Tubal-cain, the first smith, the father of them that work in brass and iron (I. 539). Besides these, there were tin mines only in the lofty Hindukush, in the north-west of Iberia, and in the south-west of England.[544 - The German tin-mines were not opened till the middle ages; those of farther India in the last century; Müllenhoff, "Deutsche Altertumskunde," s. 24.] Herodotus observes: Tin and amber come from the extreme western ends of Europe. He could not learn from any eye-witness whether there was a sea there, though he had taken much trouble in the matter. Pliny tells us: Midacritus first brought tin from the island Kassiteris, i. e. the tin-island.[545 - Herod. 3, 115; Pliny, "Hist. Nat." 7, 57.] It was the Phenicians who obtained tin, and they did not obtain it from Iberia only: their ships sailed through the Bay of Biscay, they became acquainted with the shore of Brittany, which appears to have been known to them as Œstrymnis; they discovered the tin islands, i. e. the Channel Islands, the coast of Cornwall, and even the island of Albion.[546 - At a later time we meet with the name Prettanian islands. Ynis Prydein, i. e. island of Prydein, was the name given by the Welsh to their land; Müllenhoff, loc. cit. s. 88 ff, 93 ff.] The tin-islands or Kassiterides of the Greeks are the islands of the north-west ocean, known to the Phenicians, who procured tin from them.

The Homeric poems often mention amber, which, worked into ornaments, Phenician ships brought to the Greeks. Ornaments of amber are met with in the oldest tombs of Cumae, in the tombs at the Lion's Gate at Mycenæ.[547 - Helbig, "Commercio dell ambra," p. 10, n. 4. On the amber in the tombs east of the Apennines, pp. 15, 16.] Hence the Phenicians must have been in possession of amber as early as the eleventh century B.C. Amber was found not only on the shores of the Baltic, but also on the coast of the North Sea, between the mouth of the Rhine and the Elbe. We may therefore draw the conclusion that in the eleventh and tenth centuries B.C. they must have advanced far enough in the Channel towards the mouth of the Rhine, or beyond it, to obtain amber by exchange or collect it themselves, unless we assume an extensive intercourse between the Celts and Germans.[548 - Müllenhoff, loc. cit. s. 223.]

The starting-point, harbour, and emporium for the trade in the West and the voyages beyond the pillars of Melkarth in the Atlantic Ocean was Gades. Long after the naval power of the Phenicians and Carthage had perished, Gades remained a great, rich, and flourishing city of trade. Strabo describes it thus: "Situated on a small island not much more than a hundred stades in length, and scarce a stade in breadth, without any possessions on the mainland or the islands, this city sends out the most and largest ships, and seems to yield to no other city, except Rome, in the number of the inhabitants. But the greater part do not live in the city, but on ships."[549 - Strabo, p. 168.]