PHOENICIA (Gr. Phoinike) forms part of the seaboard of SYRIA (q.v.), extending along the Mediterranean (sometimes called the Phoenician Sea) from the mouth of the Eleutherus in the north to Mount Carmel in the south, a distance of rather more than two degrees of latitude. In early times Phoenicians were settled beyond this district, but for the Persian period Dor may be taken approximately as the limit towards the south. In the north a strip of country on the other side of the Eleutherus (Nahr al-Kebir) was frequently reckoned to Phoenicia. Formed partly by alluvium carried down by perennial streams from the mountains to the east, and fringed by great sand-dunes thrown up by the sea, Phoenicia is covered by a very fertile vegetable soil. It is only at Eleutherus in the north, and near Acre (Akka) in the south, that this strip of coastland widens out into plains of any extent; a smaller plain is found at Beirut (Beyrout). For the most part the mountains approach within not many miles of the coast, or even close to it, leaving only a narrow belt of lowland, which from remote antiquity has been traversed by a caravan-route. To the south of Tyre the cliffs sometimes advance so close to the sea that a passage for the road had to be hewn out of the rocks, as at Scala Tyriorum (Ras an-Nakura), and farther north at Promontorium Album (Ras al-Abyad). It is not known how far inland the Phoenician territory extended; the limit was probably different at different times. Both the maritime district, partly under artificial irrigation, and the terraces, laid out with great care on the mountain-sides, were in antiquity in a high state of cultivation; and the country—more especially that portion which lies north of the Kasimiye (Litani) along the flanks of Lebanon—still presents some of the richest and most beautiful landscapes in the world, in this respect far excelling the Italian Riviera. The lines of the lime-stone mountains, running for the most part parallel to the sea, are pierced by deep river-valleys; those that debouch to the south of the Kasimiye have already been mentioned in the article PALESTINE ; the most important of those to the north are the Nahr Zaherani, Al-Auwali, Damur (Tamy-ras), Nahr Beirut, Nahr al-Kelb (Lycus), Nahr Ibrahim (Adonis), Nahr Abu Ali (Kaddisha). The mountains are not rich in mineral products; but it may be mentioned that the geologist Fraas has recently discovered indubitable traces of amber-digging on the Phoenician coast. The purple-shell (Murex trunculus and brandaris) is still found in large quantities. The harbours on the Phoenician coast which played so important a part in antiquity are nearly all silted up, and, with the exception of that of Beirut, there is no safe port for the large vessels of modern times. A few bays, open towards the north, break the practically straight coast-line; and there are a certain number of small islands off the shore. It was, in the main, such points as these that the Phoenicians chose for their towns; since, while affording facilities for shipping, they also enabled the Phoenicians to protect themselves from attacks from the mainland, which was subject to them within but narrow limits.

Race.—The ethnographic relations of the Phoenicians have been the subject of much debate. As in Gen. x., Sidon, the firstborn of Canaan, is classed with the Hamites, many investigators are still of opinion that, in spite of their purely Semitic language, the Phoenicians were a distinct race from the Hebrews. They attach great weight to the peculiarities that mark the course of Phoenician civilization, and, above all, to their political organization and colonizing habits, which find no analogies among the Semites. In favour of the opposite and more probable view, that the Phoenicians, like the Canaanites, are an early offshoot from the Semitic stock, it may be urged (1) that the account in Gen. x. is not framed on strict ethnographic lines, and (2) that the absence from Phoenicia of all trace of an original non-Semitic form of speech cannot be reconciled with the theory of an exchange of language. The close connexion which existed from an early period between the Phoenicians and the Egyptians accounts for many coincidences in the matter of religion. Phoenician civilization, being on the whole of but little originality, may have been that of a Semitic people, who, from their situation on the narrow strip of country at the east end of the Mediterranean, were naturally addicted to trade and colonization.

Language.—Inscriptions, coins, topographical names preserved by classical writers, proper names of persons, and the Punic passages in the Paenulus of Plautus combine to show that the Phoenician language, like Hebrew, belonged to the north Semitic group. Even the Phoenician which survived as a rustic dialect in north Africa till the 5th century of our era was very closely akin to Hebrew. Though it retained certain old forms obsolete in Hebrew, Phoenician, as we know, represents on the whole a later stage of grammatical structure than the language of the Old Testament. Its vocabulary, in like manner, apart from a few archaisms, coincides most nearly with later Hebrew. At a very early period Semitic words were adopted into Greek from Phoenician; and it is also quite certain that the Phoenicians had at least a great share in the development and diffusion of the alphabetic character which forms the foundation of all European alphabets. We possess, however, only a few Phoenician inscriptions and coins of very early date. The longest and most important of the inscriptions—that on King Eshmun'azar's tomb—is in letters which, while very ancient in certain of their features, present a series of important modifications of the original type of the Semitic alphabet, as it can be fixed by comparison of the oldest documents. Still mora
divergent from the ancient characters are the forms of the letters on the Phoenician, i.e., Punic, monuments of north Africa. (A. SO.)

Religion.—Considering the great part which the Phoenicians played in the movements of ancient civilization, it is singular how fragmentary are our sources of knowledge for all the most essential elements of their history. What we are told of their religion is only in appearance an exception to this rule. Eusebius in the Prxparatio Evangelica cites at length from the Greek of Philo of Byblus a cosmogony and theogony professedly translated from a Berytian Sanchuniathon, who wrote 1221 B.C. But that this work is a forgery appears from the apocryphal authorities cited, and the affinity displayed with the system of Euhemerus. The forger was Philo himself, for the writer borrows largely from Hesiod and was therefore a Greek ; he gives Byblus the greatest prominence in a history professedly Berytian, and was therefore a Byblian ; and finally Philo was a fanatical Euhemerist, and the admitted object of the work was to make converts to that system. The materials used by Philo were, however, in all probability mainly genuine, but so cut and clipped to fit his system that they must be used with great caution and constantly controlled by the few scattered data that can be gathered from authentic sources.

The two triads of Hannibal's oath to Philip of Macedon (Polyb., vii. 9, 2)—Sun, Moon, and Earth, and Rivers, Meadows, and Waters—contain the objects on which all Phoenician worship is based. Rivers were generally sacred to gods, trees to goddesses; mountains, too, were revered as nearer than other places to heaven; and bsetylia or meteoric stones were held sacred as divine messengers.

Philo's second generation of men (Genos and Genea) first worshipped the plants of the earth, till a drought ensued and they stretched out their hands towards the sun as the Lord of Heaven or Beelsamen (Baal-Shamaim), —an indication that the worship of heavenly bodies was regarded as a later development of religion. Baudissin, on the other hand, has lately maintained that all Phoenician deities were astral and only manifested themselves in the terrestrial sphere, that the things holy to them on earth were symbols, not dwelling-places, of the gods. And there seems to be little doubt that this was the theory of later Phoenician theology, as appears in the legend of the fiery star of the queen of heaven that fell into the holy stream at Aphaca (Sozom., ii. 5, 5), in the coincidence of the names of sacred rivers with those of the celestial gods, and in the name Zeus thalassios [Gk.] (Hesych.) for a Sidonian sea-god. But surely this theory was devised to remove a contradiction which theologians felt to be involved in the popular religion. In the latter logical consistency is not necessarily to be presumed, and astral and terrestrial worships might well exist side by side. In historical times the astral element had the ascendency; the central point in religion, and the starting-point in all Phoenician mythology, was the worship of the Sun, who has either the Moon or (as the sun-god is also" the heaven-god) the Earth for wife. In Byblus, for_which alone we possess some details of the local cult, El was the founder and lord of the town, and therefore of course had the pre-eminence in religion; and so the Byblian Philo makes El to be the highest god and the other elim or elohim sub-ordinate to him. In the other towns also the numen patrium was a form of the sun-god, or else his wife, and enjoyed somewhat exclusive honour—a step in the direction of monotheism similar to the Moabite worship of Chemosh (cp. the Mesha stone). El is represented as the first to introduce circumcision and the first who sacrificed an only son or a virgin daughter to the supreme god. He wanders over all the earth, westward towards the setting sun, and leaves Byblus to his spouse Baaltis—this is meant to explain why she had the chief place in the cult of Byblus; her male companion Eliun, Shadid (or megistos theos [Gk.]), is conceived as her youthful lover, and El is transformed into a hostile god, who slays Shadid with the sword. According to another legend the youthful god is killed by a boar while hunting, and the mourning for him with the finding of him again make up a chief part of Byblian worship, which at an early date was enriched with elements borrowed from Egypt and the myth of Osiris. In other places we find as spouse of the highest god the moon-goddess Astarte with the cow's horns, who in Tyre was worshipped under the symbol of a star as queen of heaven. With her worship as with that of Baaltis were associated wild orgies; and traces of the like are not lacking even at Carthage (Aug., Civ. Dei, ii. 4), where theology had given a more earnest and gloomy character to the goddess. Astarte was viewed as the mother of the Tyrian sun-god Melkarth (Eudoxus, in Athen., ix. p. 392 D), or, as his full title runs, " our lord Melkarth the Baal of Tyre " (C.I.S., No. 122). On account of his regular daily course the Sun is viewed as the god who works and reveals himself in the world, as son of the god who is above the world, and as protector of civil order. But, again, as the Sun engenders the fruitfulness of the earth, he becomes the object of a sensual nature-worship, one feature of which is that men and women interchange garments. A chief feast to his honour in Tyre was the "awaking of Heracles" in the month Peritius (February/March; Menander of Eph., in Jos., Ant, viii. 5, 3), a festival of the returning power of the sun in spring, probably alluded to in the sarcasm of Elijah (1 Kings xviii. 27). Peculiar to Berytus is the worship of Poseidon and other sea-gods, who are connected genealogically with Zeus Belus, a son of El, born beyond the Euphrates, and perhaps therefore connected with the Babylonian fish-gods. Berytus was also a chief seat of the worship of the Cabiri, the seven nameless sons of Sydek, with their brother Eshmun, who is the eighth and greatest of the Cabiri. Philo supplies for them a genealogy which is an attempt to present the growth of man from rude to higher civilization, and presents analogies, long since observed, to the genealogy of the sons of Cain in Genesis. Not only their half-divine ancestors but the Cabiri themselves belong to a comparatively recent stage of religious development. They are the patron deities of manual arts and civil industry, and as such are the great gods of the Phoenician land, specially worshipped in the federal centre Tripolis. On coins of this town they are called Syrian (i.e., perhaps Assyrian) gods [803-1], which seems to imply that the Phoenicians themselves regarded as not primitive the many Egyptian elements which were quite early introduced into the religion of the Cabiri, and especially of Eshmun. On the other hand, a figure allied to Eshmun, Taaut, the inventor of the alphabet, is certainly borrowed from the Egyptian Tehuti. So, too, Onka (Steph., s.v. "Ogkaiai" [Gk.]) is probably the Anuke of Sais, and it is possible that the whole cycle of gods who revealed and interpreted the sacred books is Egyptian ; some of the latter have the form of a serpent.

The Phoenicians did not set up anthropomorphic statues of the gods, but symbolic pillars of stone, or, in the case of the queen of heaven, of wood (asherah). If an actual image was used, likeness to man was avoided by fantastic details : the god had two heads or wings, or some animal emblem, or was dwarfish or hermaphrodite, and so on. The sacrifices were of oxen and other male domestic animals— as expiatory offerings also stags [803-2] —and for minor offerings birds. Human sacrifices were exceptionally offered by the state to avert great disasters; the victim was chosen from among the citizens and must be innocent, wherefore children were chosen, and by preference firstborn or only sons. The same idea that the godhead demanded the holiest and most costly gift explains the prostitution of virgins at certain feasts in the sacred groves of the queen of heaven, and the temporary consecration of maidens or matrons as kedeshoth (hierodouloi [Gk.]). For this custom, as for that of human sacrifice, substitutes were by and by introduced in many places; thus at Byblus it was held sufficient that the women cut off their hair at the feast of Adonis (De Dea Syr., c. 6).

Origin of the Phoenicians.—The oldest towns were held to have been founded by the gods themselves, who presumably also placed the Phoenicians in them. Imitating the Egyptians, the race claimed an antiquity of 30,000 years (Africanus, in Syncellus, p. 31), yet they retained some memory of having migrated from older seats on an Eastern sea. Herodotus (vii. 89) understood this of the Persian Gulf; the companions of Alexander sought to prove by learned etymologies that they had actually found here the old seats of the Phoenicians. But all this rested on a mere blunder, and the true form of the tradition is preserved by Trogus (Just., xviii. 3, 3), who places the oldest seats of the Phoenicians on the Syriurn stagnum or Dead Sea—with which the Greeks before the time of the Dia-dochi had no acquaintance—and says that, driven thence by an earthquake, they reached the coast, and founded Sidon. This earthquake Bunsen has ingeniously identified with that which destroyed Sodom and Gomorrha, and with which Genesis itself connects the migrations of Lot. Perhaps it played much such a part in the mythic history of the peoples of Canaan as the breach of the dam of Marib does in the history of the Arabs.

In historical times the Phoenicians called themselves Canaanites and their land Canaan (Kena'an, Kena'; Xna [Gk.] in Hecatseus, fr. 254), the latter applying equally to the coast which they themselves-held and the inland highlands which the Israelites occupied. The Greeks call people and land Phoinikes Phoinike [Gk.]; the former is the older word, which in itself disposes of the idea that Phoenicia means the land of the date-palm, which the Greeks called phoinix [Gk.], i.e., Phoenician [803-3]. In truth, Phoinikes [Gk.], with an antique termination used in forming other names of nations (Aithikes [Gk.], Threikes [Gk.]), is derived from phoinos [Gk.], "blood-red," probably in allusion to the dark complexion of the race.





When the southern part of the coast of Canaan was occupied by the Philistines the region of Ekron became the boundary of Phoenicia to the south (Josh. xiii. 3); the northern boundary in the time of the Persians was the town of Posidium and the mouth of the Orontes (Herod., iii. 91; Pseudo-Scylax, § 104). Under the Seleucids these limits contracted, the southern boundary being the Chorseus (Ptol, Codd. B.E., Pal. 1), which falls into the sea north of the tower of Straton, and the northern the river Eleutherus, so that Orthosia was the last town of Phoenicia and the whole region of Aradus was excluded.[804-1] Under the Roman empire the southern boundary was unchanged, but the northern advanced to a little south of Balanea.[804-2] A still narrower definition of Canaan is that in Gen. x. 19 and Josh. xiii. 2-6, where Sidon or its territory is the northern limit; but the reference is only to the land destined to be occupied by Israel, for a younger hand has added to Sidon (the firstborn of Canaan) and Heth a list of other nations, sons of Canaan, extending northwards as far as Hamath.[804-3]

It is a singular fact that alike in the Old Testament and in Homer, in the time of Tyre's greatest might, we constantly read of Sidonians and not of Tyrians. The explanation that Sidonians is a synonym of Phoenicians in general is defended on 1 Kings v. 1 [15] compared with ver. 6 [20], but is not adequate; the same chapter distinguishes between the Sidonians and the Giblites or men of Byblus (E.V., "stone squarers," ver. 18 [32]). And in Gen. x. we have besides Sidon the peoples of Arce, Sinna, Aradus, and Simyra enumerated in order from south to north—mostly unimportant towns afterwards absorbed in the land of Aradus—and yet Tyre is lacking, though one fancies that we could better miss even Aradus, which was a colony from Sidon (Strabo, xvi. p. 753), only Aradus was founded by fugitives, and so must, from the first, have been independent. Hence we may conjecture that the list in Genesis is political in principle ; and this gives us a solution of the whole difficulty, viz., that, during the flourishing period of Phoenicia, Sidon and Tyre formed a single state whose kings reigned first in Sidon and then in Tyre, but whose inhabitants continued to take their name from the old metropolis. The first unambiguous example of two distinct kings in Tyre and Sidon is in the end of the 8th century B.C., on an inscription of Sennacherib (Schrader, K.A.T., 2d ed., p. 286 sq.), and there is every reason to think that the revolt of Sidon from Tyre about 726 spoken of by Menander (Jos., Ant., ix. 14, 2) was a revolt not from Tyrian hegemony but from the Tyrian kingdom. The several Phoenician cities had lists of their kings back to a very early date. Abedbalus [804-4] reigned at Berytus in the time which Philo had ciphered out as that of the judge Jerubbaal, i.e., about the beginning of the 13th century B.C., and in Sidon there is word of kings at the time to which the Greeks referred the rape of Europa (15th century ; see Laetus, in Tatian, Adv. Grsecos, 58). The leading Phoenician towns are mentioned in connexion with the Syrian wars of the Pharaohs of the XVIIIth, XlXth, and XXth Dynasties (16th-13th century); thus under Thothmes III. we read of Berytus, Ace, Joppe, and repeatedly of Aradus, which is commonly spoken of along with Haleb (Aleppo) and other eastern districts. The mention of Tyre is less certain, as there were two cities which the Egyptians called T'ar ; but there is no mistake as to the city on the sea called " T'aru the haven " in the journey of an Egyptian of the 14th century (Sec. of the Past, ii. 107 sq.),—"water is carried to it in barks, it is richer in fish than in sands " ; the noble aqueducts therefore, of which the ruins are still seen, were not yet constructed.

The oldest parts of Tyre were taken to be the town on the mainland, afterwards known as Paleetyrus, and the so-called temple of Hercules built on a rocky islet, which Hiram by and by united with the insular part of the town. According to native historians this temple was more properly one of Olympian Zeus, that is, of Baal-Shamaim, the Lord of Heaven. [804-5] Herodotus, after inquiries made on the spot, fixes the founding of the city in 2756 B.C. ; but Tyre did not attain great importance till the later island city was built. According to Trogus (Justin, xviii. 3, 5) the Phoenicians (not the people of Sidon, as the passage is often misread to mean), who had been subdued by the king of Asealon, took ship and founded Tyre a year before the taking of Troy. This goes well with the spread of the Philistine power in the time of the later judges and with the fact that Asealon was still a Canaanite town under Barneses II. (c. 1385 B.C.), while in the eighth year of Barneses III. (c. 1246) the Pulosata made a raid into Egypt. [804-6] Philistus (in Euseb., Can., No. 803) gives us without knowing it the era used in Tyre and in early times also in Carthage when he says that Zorus (i. e., Cor, Tyre) and Carchedon built Carthage in 1213 B.C., or rather, according to a very good MS. (Begin.), in 1209, which agrees with the date 1208 for the fall of Troy on the Parian marble, and also may be reconciled with the notice (taken from Philistus) in Appian, Punica, i.h that the founding of Zorus and Carchedon was fifty years before the fall of Troy, if we suppose that Philistus took for the latter event the latest date we know of, viz., that assigned by Democritus. [804-7] Now Josephus (Ant., viii. 3, 1) counts 229 years from the building of Tyre to Hiram, and places the foundation of Carthage (Cont. Ap., L 18) in the 155th year from Hiram's accession. The best authority for the last-named event is Timseus, who puts it in 814 B.C. This gives us for the founding of Tyre a date twelve years later than that of Philistus, but it is probable that Josephus in summing up the individual reigns between Hiram and the building of Carthage as given by Menander departed from the intention of his author in assuming that the twelve years of Astartus and the twelve of the contemporaneous usurper were not to be reckoned separately. [804-8] This hypothesis enables us to give a restored chronology which cannot be far from the truth (see infra).

Manufactures and Inventions.—The towns of the Phoenician coast were active from a very early date in various manufactures. Glass work, for which the sands of the Belus gave excellent material, had its chief seat in Sidon; embroidery and purple-dyeing were favoured by the prevalence of the purple-giving murex all along the coast. The ancients ascribed to the Phoenicians the invention of all three industries, but glass-making seems to have been borrowed from Egypt, where this manufacture is of immemorial antiquity; and several circumstances indicate that the other two arts probably came from Babylon—in particular, the names of the two main tints of purple— dark red (argaman) and dark blue (tokheleth)—seem not to be Phoenician. The Phoenicians, however, brought these arts to perfection and spread the knowledge of them. In other particulars also the ancients looked on the Phoenicians as the inventive people par excellence: to them as. the great trading nation was ascribed the invention of arithmetic, measure, and weight, which are really Babylonian in origin, and also of writing, although it is not even quite certain that it was the Phoenicians who adapted the Egyptian hieroglyphic alphabet to Semitic use. [804-9] Yet here again the Phoenicians have undisputedly the scarcely inferior merit of having communicated the art to all the nations of the Mediterranean basin.

Navigation, Trade, Colonies.-—The beginnings of navigation lie beyond all human memory, but it is not hard to understand how the ancients made this also an invention of the Phoenicians, whose skill as seamen was never matched by any ancient people before or after them. Even in later times Greek observers noted with admiration the exact order kept on board Phoenician ships, the skill with which every corner of space was utilized, the careful disposition of the cargo, the vigilance of the steersmen and their mates (Xen., Oec., viii. 11 sq.). They steered by the pole-star, which the Greeks therefore called the Phoenician star (Hyginus, Po. Ast, ii. 2); and all their vessels, from the common round gaulos [Gk.], to the great Tar-shish ships, the East-Indiamen—so to speak—of the ancient world, had a speed which the Greeks never rivalled. Of the extent of the Phoenicians' trade in the last days of Tyre's glory Ezekiel (xxvii. 12-25) has left a lively picture, which shows how large was the share they had in overland as well as in naval commerce. It was they, in fact, who from the earliest time distributed to the rest of the world the wares of Egypt and Babylon (Herod., i. 1). To the lands of the Euphrates and Tigris there were two routes : the more northerly passed obliquely through Mesopotamia and had on it the trading places of Haran (Carrhse), Canneh (Caenae), and Eden; the other, more southerly, had Sheba (Sabaea) for its goal, and led down the Euphrates, passing Asshur (Sura) and Chilmad (Charmande). There were other routes in the Persian and Macedonian period, but they do not belong to the present history.

Actual inland settlements of the Phoenicians seem to have been few; we know of one near the head of the northern trade road, Laish, which was lost to the Danites in the time of the judges (Judges xviii.), and one on the southern route, Eddana on the Euphrates (Steph. B., s.v.), which corresponds in name with Eden, but is not the same place, but perhaps rather the Giddan of Isidore of Charax {§ 1). In the, Arabian caravan trade in perfume, spices, and incense for worship the Phoenicians had a lively interest (Herod., iii. 107). These wares were mainly produced not in Arabia but in eastern Africa and India; but Sheba in Yemen was the emporium of the whole trade, and the active commerce of this rich and powerful state in the times before the Persian is seen better than by any direct testimony from the exact knowledge of the Sabasan lands shown in Gen. x., from the many references to Arabia and Sheba in the Assyrian monuments, and from such facts as Euting's discovery at Taima in the heart of Arabia of an Aramaic inscription of the 6th century B.C., composed by a man with an Egyptian name. [805-1]

In Egypt Phoenician trade and civilization soon took firm root; they alone were able to maintain their Egyptian trade and profits in the anarchic times of the XXlIId to the XXVth Dynasties (825-650 B.C.), times like those of the Mameluke beys, in which all other foreign merchants were frightened away and the Greek legend of the inhospitable Busiris originated. [805-2] The Tyrians had their own quarter in old Memphis (Herod., ii. 112), but there never were real colonies of the Phoenicians in Egypt.

That in matters economic Syria and Palestine depended on Phoenicia might have been inferred even if we had not the express testimony of Ezekiel that these lands were included in the sphere of Tyrian trade; so too was Togarmah, an Armenian district.

Cilicia was important to the Phoenicians as the natural point of shipment for wares from the Euphrates regions; and the opposite island of Cyprus attracted them by its store of timber for shipbuilding, and of copper. Both these countries were originally peopled by the non-Semitic Kittim, who have left their name in the Cilician district Cetis and the Cyprian city Citium; but they came under profound Semitic influences, mainly those of the Phoenicians, who on the mainland had settlements at Myri-_andus (Xen., Anah., i. 4, 6) and Tarsus, [805-3] while in Cyprus Citium—which to the last remained the chief seat of the Phoenician tongue and culture—was held to have its foundation from Belus (Steph., s.v. " _____"), and Carpasia from Pygmalion (Id., s.v.). Pseudo-Scylax (§ 103), writing in 346 B.C., knows Carpasia, Cerynea, and Lapethus as Phoenician; but the view that Phoenician sway in Cyprus was very ancient and that the Phoenicians were gradually driven back by the Greeks appears not to be sound. On the contrary, the balance of power seems to have varied greatly; the Assyrian tribute-lists of 673 and 667 (Schrader, K.A.T., p. 354 sq.) contain but two names of Phoenician cities in Cyprus, Sillu (Soli) and Kartihadast (probably NewPaphos); not one of the later Phoenician kingdoms is mentioned, so that presumably none of them then existed, and not one of the ten Cyprian kings mentioned appears to be Phoenician by name. Menander tells us (Jos., Ant., ix. 14, 2) that the kings of Tyre ruled over Cyprus at the close of the 8th century; but a very clear proof that there was no ancient and uninterrupted political connexion with Phoenicia lies in the fact that the Cyprian Greeks took the trouble to frame a Greek cuneiform character modelled on the Assyrian.

The Homeric poems represent the Phoenicians as present in Greek waters for purposes of traffic, including the purchase and capture of slaves, but not as settlers. Tradition (see especially Thucyd., i. 8) is unanimous in representing the Carians and Phoenicians as having occupied the islands of the Aegean before the migrations of the Greeks to Asia Minor, but so far as the Phoenicians are concerned this holds only of the southern islands—afterwards occupied by Dorians—where they had mining-stations, and also establishments for the capture of the murex and purple-dyeing. [805-4] The most northerly of the Cyclades on which we can prove a Phoenician settlement is Oliarus (Steph., s.v.), which was occupied by Sidonians, probably with a view to the use of the marble quarries of Paros, which lies opposite. Similarly the Byblians occupied Melos (Steph., s.v.), which produced a white pigment (Melian earth), alum, and sulphur. Two great islands were held as main seats of the purple trade, Cythera (Herod., i. 105) and Thera, with the neighbouring Anaphe (Herod., iv. 147 ; Steph., s.v. "Membliaros" [Gk.]),—as also the town Itanus at the eastern extremity of Crete (Steph., s.v.). Specially famous was the purple of the Laconian waters,—the isles of Elishah of Ezekiel xxvii. 7. Farther east the Phoenicians were settled in Rhodes. [805-5] The Greek local tradition about the Phoenicians seems, in Thera and Rhodes, to embody real historical reminiscences, and it is confirmed for Thera and Melos by the discoveries of Phoenician pottery and ornaments in the upper strata of the tuff, and for other places by peculiar cults which survived among the later Dorian settlers. Thus the Aphrodite Urania of Cythera was identical with the Oriental goddess of love at Paphos, and Herodotus (i. 105) makes her temple to be founded from Ascalon; the coins of Itanus (Mionnet, ii. 284 sq.) show a fish-tailed deity; in Rhodes human sacrifices to Cronus were long kept up (Porph., De Abs., ii. 54). The legends of Rhodes and Crete have a character quite distinct from that of other Greek myths, and so give lasting testimony to the deep influence in both islands of even the most hideous aspects of Phoenician religion; it is enough to refer in this connexion to the stories of the eight children of Helios in Rhodes, of Europa, the Minotaur, and the brazen Talos in Crete. The pre-Hellenic inhabitants of the islands, the Carians and their near kinsmen the Eteo-cretans or Mnoitse (probably identical with the PHILISTINES, q.v.), had no native civilization, and were therefore wholly under the influence of the higher culture of the Phoenicians. But on the Greeks too the Phoenicians had no small influence, as appears even from the many Phoenician loan-words for stuffs, utensils, writing materials, and similar things connected with trade. [806-1] From the Phoenicians the Greeks derived their weights and measures; mna [Gk.], the Hebrew maneh, became a familiar Greek word. From Phoenicia too they had the alphabet which unanimous tradition connects with the name of Cadmus, founder of Thebes. Hence Cadmus has been taken to mean "eastern" (from dip), and Thebes viewed as a Phoenician colony; but the Greeks did not speak Phoenician, and the Phoenicians would not call themselves Easterns. Further, an inland colony of Phoenicians is highly improbable; and all other traces seem to connect Cadmus with the north. But the Cadmeans, who traced their descent to Cadmus, colonized Thera, and it was they who, mingling with the Phoenicians left on the island, learned the alphabet. It was in Thera, where the oldest Greek inscriptions have been found, that the invention of letters was ascribed to the mythic ancestor, and that he was made out to be a Phoenician. We now know better than we did a few years ago how much the oldest Greeks depended before the migrations on the movements of Eastern civilization, and can well believe that the Phoenicians played a very important part in this connexion. Thus in the tombs of Mycenae we find Phoenician idols, objects of amber, and an ostrich egg side by side with rich jewels of gold, Oriental decoration, and images of Eastern plants and animals ; thus too the rock-tombs of Hymettus closely resemble those of Phoenicia; and above all we find on the Isthmus of Corinth, that most ancient seat of commerce, the worship of the Tyrian Melkarth under the name of Melicertes. Yet with all these proofs of a lively trade there is no trace of Phoenician settlements on the Greek mainland and the central islands of the iEgean; but in the north Thasus was occupied for the sake of its gold mines (Herod., vi. 47), and so probably was Galepsus on the opposite Thracian coast (Harpocr., s.v.), where also it was Phoenicians (Strabo, xiv. p. 680; from Callisthenes) who opened the gold mines of Pangaeus. Beyond these points their settlements in this direction do not seem to have extended; the Tyrians, indeed, according to Ezekiel, traded in slaves and bronze-ware with the Greeks of Pontus (Javan), the Tibareni (Tubal), and Moschi (Meshech); but all supposed traces of actual settlements on these coasts prove illusory, and Pronectus on the Gulf of Astacus, which Stephanus attributes to the Phoenicians, lies so isolated that it was perhaps only a station of their fleet in Persian times.

The great centre of Phoenician colonization was the western half of the Mediterranean and the Atlantic coasts to the right and left of the straits. In especial the trade with Tarshish, that is, the region of the Tartessus (Guadal-quivir), was what made the commercial greatness of the Phoenicians ; for here they had not only profitable fisheries (tunny and muraena) but above all rich mines of silver and other metals, to which the navigable rivers Guadiana and Guadalquivir gave easy access. The untutored natives had little idea of the value of the metals; for long there was no competition, and so the profits were enormous; it was said that even the anchors were of silver in ships returning from Spain (Diod., v. 35). Next the Phoenicians ventured farther on the ocean and drew tin from the mines of north-west Spain or the richer deposits of Cornwall; the tin islands (Cassiterides) were reached from Brittany, and are always distinguished from the British mainland, so that the old view which makes them the Scilly Islands is probably right. The tin was supposed to be produced where it was exchanged,—a very common case. [806-2] Amber too was brought in very early times from the farthest north ; amber ornaments are often mentioned by Homer, and have been found in the oldest tombs of Cumae and in those by the Lion gate at Mycenae. The Phoenicians can hardly have fetched the amber themselves from the Baltic or even from the North Sea (where it scarcely can have ever been common); it came to them by two trade routes, one from the Baltic to the Adriatic, the other up the Rhine and down the Rhone. But indeed a deposit of amber has been found in the Lebanon not far from Sidon, [806-3] and perhaps the Phoenicians worked this and only concealed, after their manner, the origin of the precious ware. Certainly the ancients knew of Syrian amber, and knew also that amber could be dug from the ground. [806-4] The rich trade with Spain led to the colonization of the west (Diod., ut supra). Strabo (i. 48) dates the settlements beyond the Pillars of Hercules soon after the Trojan War, in the time, that is, of Tyre's first expansion. Lixus in Mauretania was older than Gades (Pliny, xix. 63) and Gades a few years older than Utica (Veil., i. 2), which again was founded 1101 B.C. (Pseudo-Arist., Mir. ausc, 134; Bocchus, in Plin., xvi. 216). Most of the African colonies were no doubt younger; we have dates for Aoza (887-855, Menander) and Carthage (814, Timaeus). Here, as generally in like cases, the farthest points were settled first and the need for intermediate stations to secure connexion was felt later. The colonization was carried out on a great scale. Ophelas (Strabo, xvii. 826) may exaggerate when he speaks of 300 cities on the Mauretanian coast beyond the Pillars of Hercules; but the colonists and the Carthaginians after them stamped west Africa with a thoroughly Phoenician character, and their language was dominant, at least in the cities, far beyond the limits of their nationality, just as was the case with Latin and Arabic in later times. It is most likely that so great a mass of colonists was not wholly drawn from the narrow bounds of Phoenicia, but that the inland Canaanites, pushed back by Hebrews and Philistines, furnished many recruits; the supposed testimonies to this fact, however, are late, and certainly apocryphal.

Surveying the great settlements of the Phoenicians from east to west, we find them first in Sicily, occupying, in a way typical of the commencement of all their settlements, projecting headlands and neighbouring islets, from which they traded with the Siculi (Thucyd., vi. 2). Their chief seat seemingly was Macara (Heraclides, Polit., 29), on the south coast, ____ [Heb.] on coins, Heraclea Minoa of the Greeks. Before the Greeks they retired to the north coast, where they held Motye, Panormus, and Soloeis, supported by their alliance with and influence over the Elymi, and by the neighbourhood of Carthage, which here and elsewhere succeeded to the heritage of Tyre, and gave protection to the Phoenician colonies. The islands between Sicily and Africa—Melite, with its excellent harbour and commanding position on the naval highway, Gaulus, and Cossura—were also occupied (Diod., v. 12), and a beginning was made with the colonization pf Sardinia (ib., v. 35), where Caralis is said to be a Tyrian foundation (Claudian, B. Gild., 520) ; but real sovereignty over this island and Corsica was first exercised by the Carthaginians. [806-5] It is uncertain if Phoenician trade with and influence on the Etruscans is older than the political alliance of the latter with Carthage ; there were, at least, no Phoenician colonies in Italy. On the east coast of Spain Barcino (Auson., Epist., xxiv. 68) and Old Carthage (Ptol., ii. 6,64) are settlements apparently older than the Spanish empire of Carthage, but their origin is not therefore necessarily Phoenician, especially as Old Carthage lies inland ; they may date from the conflicts of Carthage and the Massaliotes. In Tartessus, on the other hand, or Turdetania, as it was called later, all the important coast towns were Phoenician (Strabo, iii. 151, 156 sq., 169 sq.)—Abdera, Sex (which was regarded as oneoi the oldest of the Tyrian settlements in Spain), Malaca, Carteia, and, most famous of all, Gades, with its most holy shrine of Hercules ; it lay on an islet which had not even drinking water, but the position was a commanding one. Still farther off lay Onoba, where the Tyrians are said tfo have settled before they were in Gades. In Africa the most easterly settlement was Great Leptis, which is the only colony ascribed to Sidonians, driven from their home by civil troubles (Sallust, Jug., 78), and is therefore presumably one of the oldest. Less certain are the accounts that the sister cities CEa and Sabratha were founded, the former by Phoenicians from Sicily, the latter from Tyre (Sil. Ital., iii. 256 sq.). The district Emporia on the Lesser Syrtis was named from its many Phoenician trading towns. Here, on the river Cinyps, corn produced three-hundredfold, and a great trade-road led inland to the land of the Garamantes. That the commercial town of Tacape (Kabis) and the island of Meninx (Jirba), with its purple-dyeing trade, were Phoenician is proved by inscriptions, and Capsa, in inland Numidia, was deemed a foundation of the Tyrian Hercules (Oros., v. 15). Among the Phoenician towns in Africa proper Achulla was Melitan (Steph., s.v. ""AxoWa"), Lesser Leptis and Hadrumetum Tyrian (Pliny, v. 76 ; Solin., 27, 9), as was also Aoza (Menander), that is, rather the TJzita of Strabo and Ptolemy (cp. Wilmanns on G.I.L., viii. 68), 63 miles inland from Leptis, than Auzia in inland Mauretania. On the north coast Carthage and Utica are Tyrian colonies, and probably also Hippo Zarytus, though Sidon, on a coin, claims it and other Tyrian colonies as her daughters (Movers, Phonizier, ii. 2, p. 134). The unidentified town of Canthele and the island Eudeipne are called Liby-Phoenician (Steph., s.vv.), and this name in later times denoted the Phoenicians in Africa apart from and in contrast to Carthage. The Semitic populations were thickly sown over all this region, but we cannot generally distinguish Phoenician colonies, Carthaginian foundations, and native settlements that had become Punic. Chalce, on the coast east of Oran, in the country of the Masffisyli, was Phoenician, but their great domain was the Atlantic coast of Mauretania. Tingis and Zelis, if originally Berber, became thoroughly Phoenician cities (Mela, ii. 6, 9 ; Strabo, iii. 140); the chief colony here was Lixus (Ps.-Scylax, § 112), a city accounted greater than Carthage. Southward, on the so-called Kolpos Emporikos [Gk.], and onwards to the mouth of the Dra river Tyrian colonies lay thick, and here a great trade-route went inland to the country of the Blacks. These colonies were ruined by the invasion of the Pharusii and Nigritse (Strabo, xvii. 826), who spread destruction just as did the Almoravids when they issued from the same region in the 11th century ; the Carthaginians saved the remnant of their kinsmen by sending Hanno to found the new colony of Thymiaterium and plant 30,000 Liby - Phoenicians in the old ports of Karikon Teichos, Gytte, Acra, Melitta, and Arambys. The most westerly point reached by the Phoenicians was the Fortunate Island (the largest of the Canaries, probably), which later fancy painted in glowing colours after intercourse with so distant a region had ceased (Diod., v. 20).





The trading connexions of the Phoenicians reached far beyond their most remote colonies, and it must have been their knowledge of Africa which encouraged Pharaoh Necho to send a Phoenician expedition to circumnavigate Africa. This greatest feat of ancient seamanship was actually accomplished in 611-605 B.C., at a time when the mother-country had already lost its independence, and the colonial empire had but a shadow of its former splendour. The power of Tyre rested directly on her colonies, which, unlike the Greek colonies, remained subject to the mother-city; we read of rebellions in Utica and Citium which were put down by arms. The colonies paid tithes of all their revenues and sometimes also of booty taken in war to the Tyrian Hercules, and sent envoys to Tyre for his chief feast. But Tyre was too remote long to exercise as effective a control over her dependencies as was possible to the more favourably placed Carthage; the relation gradually became looser, and the more substantial obligations of the colonies ceased to be discharged; yet Carthage certainly paid tithes to the Tyrian Hercules as late as the middle of the 6th century B.C.

Fragments of History.—Josephus (Ant., viii. 5, 3, and Ap., i. 17, 18) has fortunately preserved extracts of two Hellenistic historians, Dius and Menander of Ephesus, which supply at least the skeleton of the history of the golden age of Tyre. From them we learn that Hiram (or rather Hirom) I., son of Abibal, reigned from 980 to 946 B.C. He enlarged the insular town to the east by filling up the so-called euruchoron [Gk.], united the temple of Baal-Shamaim with the main island by a mole, placed in it a golden pillar, and splendidly renewed the temples of Hercules [807-1] and Astarte. The inhabitants of Utica—so the text must be corrected (Itukaiois [Gk.])—having ceased to pay tribute, Hiram reduced them in a victorious expedition, after which he founded the feast of the awaking of Hercules in the month Peritius. The Tyrian annals also mentioned the connexion of Hiram with Solomon king of Jerusalem. The relations of Phoenicians and Israelites had been generally friendly before this; it appears from Judges v. 17, Gen. xlix. 13, 20, that Asher, Zebulon, and Dan acknowledged some dependence on Sidon, and had in return a share in its commerce; and the only passage in the older period of the judges which represents Israelites as subject to Sidonians, and again casting off the yoke, is Judges x. 12, which perhaps refers to the time of power of the Canaanites of Hazor (Graetz, i. 412). The two nations drew closer together under the kings. Hiram built David's palace (2 Sam. v. 11), and also gave Solomon cedar and fir-trees, as well as workmen for his palace and temple, receiving in exchange large annual payments of oil and wine, and finally the cession of a Galilaean district (Cabul), in return for the gold he had supplied to decorate the interior of the temple. The temple was quite in Phoenician style, as appears particularly in the two pillars Jachin and Boaz. "We may also judge that it was Hiram's temples that led Solomon to propose to himself a similar work. [807-2] One commercial result of the alliance with Solomon was the united expedition from Eziongeber on the Gulf of Akaba to Ophir (Malabar). [807-3] The oldest known Phoenician inscription (C.I.S., No. 5) is of a servant of "Hiram king of the Sidonians," a title which, as we have seen, is quite suitable for the king of Tyre. Hiram's grandson Abdas-tarte I. (929-920) was murdered by his foster-brothers, and the eldest took the regal title (920-908), but in the last twelve years of his reign he shared his throne with a scion of the old house, [Abd]Astarte II. (908-896). His brother Astharym or Abdastharym (896-887) was murdered by a third brother Phelles, who, in turn, after a reign of but eight months, was slain by Ithobal I., priest of Astarte, whose reign (887-855) marks a return to more settled rule. Ithobal was beloved of the gods, and his intercession put an end to a year of drought which Josephus recognized as that which is familiar to us in the history of Elijah and Ahab. In 1 Kings xvi. 31 Ithobal appears as Ethbaal, king of the Sidonians. At this time the Tyrians still continued to expand mightily. Botrys in Phoenicia and Aoza in Africa are foundations of Ithobal; the more famous Carthage owed its foundation to the civil discords that followed on the death of King Metten I. (849-820). According to tho legend current in later Carthage (Justin, xviii. 4,3-6,9), Metten's son Phygmalion (820-773), who began to reign at the age of nine, slew, when he grew up, his uncle Sicharbas, the priest of Hercules and second man in the kingdom, in order to seize his treasures. The wife of Sicharbas was Elissa, Phygmalion's sister, and she fled and founded Carthage. Truth and fable in this legend are not easy to disentangle, but as Elissa is named also in the Tyrian annals she is probably historical.

From the time of Ithobal downwards the further progress of Phoenicia was threatened by a foreign power. The older campaigns of the empires of the Euphrates and Tigris against the Mediterranean coast had left no abiding results —neither that of the Chaldseans in 1535 or 1538 (Eus., Can., No. 481), nor that of Tiglath Pileser I., c. 1120 B.C. [807-4]More serious was the new advance of the Assyrians under Ashurnäcirpal (c. 870), when this prince took tribute from the lords of Tyre, Sidon, Byblus, Mahallat, Maiz, Kaiz, the Westland, and the island Aradus. A king of Aradus was one of the allies of Bammänidri of Damascus whom Shalmaneser III. smote at Karkar in 854 ; thereafter the Assyrian took tribute of Tyre in 842 and 839, and in the latter year also from Byblus. Again in 803 Rammänniräru boasted of exacting tribute from Tyre and Sidon, but thereafter there was a respite until Tiglath Pileser IL, the real founder of the Assyrian empire, to whom Tyre paid tribute in 741, and again along with Byblus in 738. In Tiglath Pileser's Philistine campaign of 734 Byblus and Aradus paid tribute, but a heavy contribution had to be exacted from Metten of Tyre by an Assyrian captain. For the history of Elu-laeus, who reigned in Tyre under the name of Pylas [808-1] (c. 728-692), we have a fragment of Menander. He subdued a revolt of the Cittsei in Cyprus, but thereafter was attacked by Shalmaneser IV., [808-2] to whom Sidon, Ace, Pala:-tyrus, and many other cities submitted, revolting from Tyre. A new kingdom was thus formed under a king [E]Iuli, whose name makes it likely that he was a relative of the Tyrian prince, and who presently appears on the monuments as lord of Great Sidon (the same name as in Josh, xix. 28), Lesser Sidon (= Paketyrus ?), and other cities. But insular Tyre did not yield, and Shalmaneser had to make a second expedition against it, for which the jealous particularism of the other Phoenician cities supplied the ships. With much inferior forces the Tyrians gained a naval victory and the king drew off. But the blockade was continued, and seems to have ended after five years in a capitulation. This siege probably began about the same time with that of Samaria, and may be dated 724-720. About 715 Ionian sea-rovers attacked Tyre and were repulsed by Sargon (Schräder, K.A.T., p. 169), an affair in which we may find the historical basis of such legends as that in the Cyclic Cypria, that Sidon was taken by Priam's son Alexander. [E]luli did not prove a faithful subject; Sennacherib attacked him, and he had to flee to Cyprus, Ithobal being set in his place (701). Among the Phoenician kings who appeared to do homage to Sennacherib a prince of Tyre does not appear. One sees from all this how barbarous and ill-consolidated the Assyrian power in the west was; after the retreat of Sennacherib it was even for a time seriously threatened by the Ethiopian dynasty which then held Egypt; and this may explain the revolt of Abdimilkut, king of Sidon, which was visited by Esar-haddon with the destruction of the city, the captivity of part of the inhabitants, and the execution of the rebel king (680 B.C., Menant, p. 241 sq.). Further unsuccessful revolts of Tyre (Baal I. being king, 662 or later) and of Aradus are recorded in the reign of Ashurbänlpal; but at last the war of this monarch with his brother seems to have enabled Phoenicia to throw off the yoke without a contest (c. 650).

The Assyrians had proved their inability to create anything ; but their talent for destruction was brilliantly exhibited in Phoenicia, and the downfall of Tyre was occasioned, if not caused, by their intervention in the west. For what Justin (xviii. 3, 6 sq.) relates of the Tyrians, that they were so reduced in number by protracted war with the Persians that, though they were at last victorious, their slaves were able to overpower and slay them to a man, all save Straton, whom a faithful servant saved, and whom the slaves chose, on account of his wisdom, to be king and founder of a new dynasty (Abdastarte III.), is only to be understood by reading Assyrians for Persians. [808-3] The catastrophe must have occurred soon after the events already noticed; and in the same period falls the decay of the colonial power of Tyre, which we cannot follow in detail, though we can recognize some of its symptoms. After reaching the Mediterranean the Assyrians established themselves in Cyprus (709); in the Greek islands farther west the Phoenicians had before this time been gradually displaced by the Dorian migration, which, however, must not be taken to be a single movement eastward in the 11th century, but a long course of colonizing expeditions, starting from Argos and continued for generations, about which we can only say that the whole was over by the middle of the 8th century. Thasus, the most northern settlement in the iEgean, was already deserted by the Phoenicians when the father of the poet Archilochus led a Parian colony thither in 708. But the loss of the more western colonies seems to have been contemporary with the fall of Tyrian independence. About 701 Isaiah looks for a revolt of Tartessus (xxiii. 10), and the first Greek visitor, the Samian Colaeus (639), found no trace of Phoenician competition remaining there (Herod., iv. 152). These circumstances seem to justify us in understanding what the contemporary poet Anacreon (fr. 8) says of the hundred and fifty years' reign of Arganthonius over Tartessus as really applying to the duration of the kingdom ; and as he died in 545 the kingdom will date from 695. In Sicily the Phoenicians began to be pushed back from the time of the founding of Gela (690); and Himera (648) and Selinus (628) mark the limits of Greek advance towards the region on the north-west coast, which the Phoenicians continued to hold. In 654 the Carthaginians occupied the island Ebusus, on the sea-way to Spain (Diod., v. 16), a step obviously directed to save what could still be saved. Soon after this, when Psammetichus opened Egypt to foreigners (650), the Greeks, whose mental superiority made them vastly more dangerous rivals than the Assyrians, supplanted the Phoenicians in their lucrative Egyptian trade; it is noteworthy that Egypt is passed over in silence in Ezekiel's full list of the trading connexions of Tyre.

In the last crisis of the dying power of Assyria the Egyptians for a short time laid their hand on Phoenicia, but after the battle of Carchemish (605) the Chaldaeans took their place. Apries made an attempt to displace the Chaldaeans, took Sidon by storm, gained over the other cities, and defeated the king of Tyre, who commanded the Phoenician and Cyprian fleet (Herod., ii. 161; Diod., i. 68). The party hostile to Chaldsea now took the rule all through Phoenicia. The new king of Tyre, Ithobal II., was on the same side (589), and after the fall of Jerusalem Nebuchadnezzar laid siege to the great merchant-city, which was still rich and strong enough to hold out for thirteen years (587-574). [808-4] Ezekiel says that Nebuchadnezzar and his host had no reward for their heavy service against Tyre, and the presumption is that the city capitulated on favourable terms, for Ithobal's reign ends with the close of the siege, and the royal family is subsequently found in Babylon, obviously as cards that might on occasion be played against the actual princes of Tyre. [808-5] The king appointed by Nebuchadnezzar was Baal II. (574-564), on whose death a republic was formed under a single suffet. This form of government lasted a year, and then after three months' interregnum under the high priest Abbar there were for six years two suffets—presumably one for the island and one for Old Tyre—after which an elected king, Balatorus, ruled for a year (557-556). The next two kings (556-532) were brought from Babylon. Under the second of these, Hiram III., Phoenicia passed in 538 from the Chaldseans to the Persians; at the same time Amasis of Egypt occupied Cyprus (Herod., ii. 182). There seems to have been no struggle, the great siege and the subsequent civil disorders had exhausted Tyre completely, and the city now becomes second to Sidon. Accordingly about this time Carthage asserted her independence; the political activity of Hanno the Great, the real founder of the Carthaginian state, falls in the years 538-521. [809-1] Of Hanno it is said that he made his townsmen Africans instead of Tyrians (Dio Chrys., Or., xxv. 7). The old dependence was changed for a mere relation of piety.

Constitution.—As Carthage was of old a republic, and its constitution underwent many changes, it is not safe to infer from the two Carthaginian suffets that Tyre also stood in the oldest time under two such magistrates. All Canaanite analogy speaks for kingship in the several cities as the oldest form of Phoenician government. The royal houses claimed descent from the gods, and the king could not be chosen outside their members (Curt., iv. 1, 17). The land belonged to the king, who was surrounded by much splendour (Ezek. xxviii. 13), but the highly-developed independent activity of the citizens limited his actual power more than in ordinary Oriental realms; it was possible for war or peace to be decided at Tyre in the king's absence, and in Sidon against his will (Arrian, ii. 15, 16; Curt., iv. 1, 16). In Tyre the high priest of Hercules was the second man in the state (Just., xviii. 4, 5), and so the office was by preference given to a kinsman of the king. The sovereign had a council of elders, who in Sidon were in number a hundred; of these the most distinguished were the ten First whom we find at Marathus and Carthage (Diod., ii. 628; Just., xviii. 6, 1),—originally, it may be supposed, heads of the most noble houses. The third estate was the people; the freemen, however, were much outnumbered by the slaves, as we have seen in Tyre. Under the Persians there was a federal bond between the cities, which we may suppose to be due to that great organizer Darius I. The federation comprised Sidon, Tyre, and Aradus—Sidon being chief—and contributed 300 triremes to the Persian fleet (Herod., vii. 89-99); the contingents of the lesser towns were under the command of the great cities, which probably had the rule in other matters also. This holds for Marathus, Sigon, Mariamme, which belonged to Aradus (Arr., ii. 13), even for Byblus also, which had its own kings in the Persian period, and seems from the number of its coins and inscriptions to have been very flourishing. We know the names of sixteen kings of Sidon, ten of Byblus, eight of Aradus, but none of Berytus in historical times; presumably it formed with Byblus a single kingdom, and in later times the capital was moved to the latter. Tripolis was a bond of three cities, Sidonian, Tyrian, and Aradian, a stadium distant from one another (Diod., xvi. 41). Here sat the federal council under the kings of the three leading states, who were accompanied to Tripolis by their senators (probably 300 in all). Among the chief concerns of this council were the relations to the Persian Government, which was represented at the meetings.

Under Persian Rule.—Phoenicia, Palestine, and Syria formed the fifth satrapy, paying a tribute of £99,296. The Phoenicians were favoured subjects for the sake of their indispensable fleet; and having also common interests against Greece they were amongst the most loyal subjects of the empire. Sidon, as we have seen, was now the chief city; its king at the time of the expedition of Xerxes was Tetramnestus. Among his descendants was the youthful Eshmun'azar, whose inscription on the great sarcophagus in Egyptian style now in the Louvre, taken with other notices, enables us to make out the following fragment of a genealogical table with much probability. [809-2]

== DIAGRAM ==

Reckoning back from Straton II., and remembering that Eshmun'azar II. died as a minor under the regency of his mother, we may place the death of the latter c. 400 B.C.; the gift of Dor and Japho, which he received from the great king, may have been a reward for fidelity in the rebellion of the younger Cyrus. Certainly it was not Eshmun'azar who led the eighty ships that joined Conon in 396 (Diod., xiv. 79), an event which may have been the beginning of the friendly relations between Sidon and Athens, indicated in a decree of " proxenia " for Straton I. (C. I. Gr., No. 87). Tyre was then quite weak; between 391 and 386 it was stormed by Evagoras of Salamis (Isocr., Paneg., 161, and Evag., 23, 62; Diod., xv. 2), who had already made the Greek element dominant over the Phoenician in Cyprus. Straton was friendly with Evagoras's son Nicocles; they rivalled one another in debauchery, and both found an unhappy end through their implication in the great revolt of the satraps (Ath., xii. 531). When Tachos entered Phoenicia Straton joined him, and on his failure (361) was about to fall into the hands of the foe when his wife slew him first and then herself (Jerome, ii. 1, 311 Vail.). A new revolt of Sidon against Persia took place under Tennes II. on account of insults offered to the Sidonians at the federal diet at Tripolis. Again they joined the Egyptian Nectanebus II., carried the rest of Phoenicia with them, and with the aid of Greek mercenaries from Egypt drove the satraps of Syria and Cilicia out of Phoenicia. Tennes, however, whose interests were not identical with those of the citizens at large, betrayed his people and opened the city to Artaxerxes III. The Sidonians, to the number of 40,000, are said to have burned themselves and their families within their houses (345 B.C., Diod., xvi. 41-45). Tennes himself was executed after he had served the ends of the great king. The Periplus ascribed to Scylax (§ 104) describes the respective possessions of Tyre and Sidon in the year before this catastrophe; Sidon had the coast from Leontopolis to Ornithopolis, an Aradus near the later Sycaminon, and Dor; Tyre had Sarepta and Exope (?) in the district of the later Calamon, farther south a town seemingly called Cirtha, and, strangely enough, the important Ascalon. Tyre now again for a short time took the first place. When, however, Alexander entered Phoenicia after Issus and the kings were absent with the fleet, Aradus, Byblus, and Sidon joined him, the last-named showing special zeal against Persia. The Tyrians also> offered submission, but refused to allow Alexander to enter the city and sacrifice in the temple of Hercules. Alexander was determined to make an example of the first sign of opposition that did not proceed from Persian officials, and at once began the siege. It lasted seven months, and, though the king, with enormous toil, drove a mole from the mainland to the island, he made little progress till the Persians were mad enough to dismiss the fleet and give him command of the sea through his Cyprian and Phoenician allies. The town was at length forced in July 332 ; 8000 Tyrians were slain, 30,000 inhabitants sold as slaves, and only a few notables, the king Azemilcus, and the Carthaginian festal envoys, who had all taken shelter in the fane of Hercules, were spared (Arr., ii. 13, 15 sq.). Tyre thus lost its political existence, and the foundation of Alexandria presently changed the lines of trade and gave a blow perhaps still more fatal to the Phoenician cities. The Phoenicians thenceforth ceased to be a great nation, though under the Greeks Tyre and Sidon were still wealthy towns, the seats of rich merchants.

Sources and Helps. —The only at all continuous records of ancient tradition are the account of Phoenician mythology by Philo of Byblus, the extracts of the Tyrian annals by Josephus from Menander of Ephesus, and what Justin in the 18th book of his abridgment of Pompeius Tragus has taken from Timseus. Every thing else has to be pieced together in mosaic fashion. The chief help is Movers's unfinished work, Die Phönizier, i., ii. 1-8 (Bonn, 1841-56), which must be compared with his article " Phoenizien," in Ersch and Gruber (1848). Both works are learned and indispensable, but to be used with caution wherever the author's judgment on his material is involved, especially in the treatment of the mythology, which is merely syncretistic, wdiereas it is essential to a right understanding of this subject to distinguish the peculiarities of the several Semitic nations. Seiden, De diis Syris (London,
1617), is still a valuable mine. The best recent contributions are those of Baudissin, Studien zur semitischen Religionsgeschichte (Leipsic, 1876, 1878). For the colonial history Bochart's monumental Chanaan (Caen, 1646) is not superseded even by Movers, who, as has been wittily observed, has created with the help of etymology Phoenician chambres de reunion ; and, though Olshausen (N. Rhein. Mus., 1853, p. 321 sq. ) does not go quite so far, both he and Miillenhoff (Deutsche Alterthumskunde, i., 1870) follow the steps of Movers much too closely. A good corrective is given by Meitzer (Gesch. d. Karthager, i., 1879), though he, again, is sometimes too sceptical. Movers is best on the history proper ; and the admirable sketch in Grote's History of Greece should also be consulted. See also Duncker, Gesch. des Alterthums, and Maspero, Hist. anc. de l'Orient. (A. v. G.)

Art.—Of Phoenician buildings few remains now exist on Phoenician soil ; the coast has always been, and still is, densely peopled, and the builders of successive generations, like those of the present day, have regarded ancient edifices as their most convenient quarries. Phoenician architecture had its beginning in the widening and adaptation of caves in the rocks ; the independent buildings of later times, constructed of great blocks of unhewn stone, are direct imitations of such cave-dwellings. As Syrian limestone (which is the material employed) does not admit of the chiselling of finer details, the Phoenician monuments are somewhat rough and irregular. Not a vestige remains of the principal sanctuary of this ancient people, the temple of Melkart in Tyre ; but Renan discovered a few traces of the temple of Adonis near Byblus, and a peculiar mausoleum, Burj al-Bezzak, still remains near Amrit (Marathus). It may also be conjectured that the conduits of Ras al-Ain, south of Tyre, are of ancient date. Various notices that have come down to us render it probable that the Phoenician temples, in the erection of which great magnificence was undoubtedly displayed, were in many respects similar to the temple at Jerusalem ; and confirmatory evidence is afforded by the remarkable remains of a sanctuary near Amrit, in which there is a cella in the midst of a large court hewn out of the rock, and other buildings more of an Egyptian style. In the domain of art originality was as little a characteristic of the Phoenicians as of the Hebrews ; they followed foreign and especially Egyptian models. This influence is mainly evident in sculptured remains, in which Egyptian motifs such as the Urasus frieze and the winged sun-disk not unfrequently occur. It was in the time of the Persian monarchy that Phoenician art reached its highest development; and to this period belong the oldest remains, numismatic as well as other, that have come down to us. The whole artistic movement may be divided into two great periods : in the first (from the earliest times to the 4th century B.C.) Egyptian influence is predominant, but the national Phoenician element is strongly marked; while in the second Greek influence has obtained the mastery, and the Phoenician element, though always making itself felt, is much less obtrusive. In the one period works of art, as statues of the gods and even sculptured sarcophagi, were sometimes imported direct from Egypt (such statues of the gods have been found even in the western colonies) ; in the other Greek works were procured mainly from Rhodes. The Phoenicians also adopted from the Egyptians the custom of depositing their dead in sarcophagi. The oldest examples of those anthropoid stone coffins are made after the pattern of Egyptian mummy-cases; they were painted in divers colours, and at first were cut in low-relief ; afterwards, however, towards and during the Greek period, the contours of the body began to be shown in stronger relief on the cover. Modern excavations show that, besides stone coffins (in marble or basalt), which indeed cannot be considered the oldest kind of receptacle, the Phoenicians employed coffins of wood, clay, and lead, to which were often attached metal plates or, at times it may be, decorations in carved wood. Embalming also seems to have been frequently practised as well as covering the body with stucco. Great care was bestowed by the Phoenicians on their burial-places, and their cemeteries are the most important monuments left to us. The tombs are subterranean chambers of the most varied form : the walls and roof are not always straight; sometimes there are two tiers of tombs one above the other, often several rows one behind the other. While in early times a mere perpendicular shaft led to the mouth of these excavations, at a later date regular stairs were constructed. The dead were deposited either on the floor of the chamber (often in a sarcophagus) or, according to the later custom, in niches. The mouths of the tombs were walled up and covered with slabs, and occasionally cippi were set up. The great sepul-chral monuments (popularly called maghddl, " spindles ") _ which have been found above the tombs near Amrit are very peculiar: some are adorned with lions at the base and at the top with pyramidal finials. Besides busts (which belong generally to the Greek period), the smaller objects usually discovered are numerous earthen pitchers and lamps, glass wares, such as tear-bottles, tesserae, and gems. Unrifled tombs are seldom met with.

Literature.—For topography and art, see Renan, Mission de Phenicie (Paris, 1846); for language, Schroder, Die phonizische Sprache (Halle, 1869), and Stade in Morgenlandisdie Forschungen (1875, p. 167) ; and for inscriptions, Corp. Inscr. Sem. (Paris, 1881, and following years). (A. SO.)


Footnotes

803-1 Eckhel, D.N.V., iii.374.

803-2 For stags offered to Tanit see Clermont-Ganneau, Journ. As., ser. 7, vol. xi. p. 232 sq., 444 sq.

803-3 In reality the date-palm is not aboriginal to these regions, Hehn, Kulturpflanzen, &c., 3d ed., p. 233.

804-1 Strabo, xvi. p. 753 ; Ptol., v. 15, 4, 5, both seemingly from Artemidorus. The Eleutherus as boundary appears also in Jos., Ant., xv. 4, 1 et saep.

804-2 Plin., N. H., v. 69, 79 ; Itin. Hieros., pp. 582, 585 (Wess.).

804-3 See Wellhausen in Jahrb. f. d. Theol., 1876, p. 403.

804-4 Nöldeke's conjecture for Abelbalos [Gk.], in Porphyry, ap. Euseb., Praep. Ev., x. 9.

804-5 This appears by comparing Herod., ii. 44, with the mention of the same golden stele by Menander (Jos., Cont. Ap., i. 18).

804-6 See Brugsch, Geschichte Aegyptens, pp. 516, 598.

804-7 If Democritus was born in 470 (Thrasyllus), his date for the fall of Troy is 1160.

804-8 He is contemporaneous on the reading Meth' on Astartos [Gk.] given by Theophilus, Ad Autol., iii. 19. If Josephus took it so, then according to the best readings he would get exactly 155 years.

804-9 That the Semitic alphabet did not come from cuneiform writing may be taken as certain; but also it is not probable that it came from the hieratic character of the Egyptians.

805-1 Nöldeke, in Sitzb. Berl. Ak., 1884, p. 813 sq.

805-2 Chalbes [Gk.], the herald of Busiris, is simply ____ [Heb.], "dog."

805-3 Tarsus was founded by Aradians, Dio Char., xxxiii. 40. Aix [Gk.]. a city of the Phoenicians in Hecatus, fr. 259, is probably not Aegae but Gaza.

805-4 As an enormous supply of murex was needed for this industry, the conjecture of Duncker is probably sound, that the purple stations were the oldest of all the Phoenician settlements.

805-5 Rodanim, 1 Chron. i. 7, by which Dodanim in Gen. x. 4 must be corrected; see Ergias (?) and Polyzelus, in Athen., viii. p. 360 D.

806-1 See A. Müller, in Beitr. z. K. d. indog. Spr., i. 273 sq.

806-2 See Lit. Centrbl., 1871, p. 528.

806-3 Fraas, Drei Mon. in Lib., p. 94, and Aus dem Orient, ii. 60 sq.

806-4 Pliny, N.H., xxxvii, 37, 40, reading with Detlefsen ex humo.

806-5 The Greeks of the 6th century had a very fantastic idea of the value of these islands (Herod., i. 170, v. 106, 124).

807-1 This is the Agenorium at the northern extremity of the island (Arr., ii. 24). Except in this point the topography of Renan (Miss. de Phén. p. 546 sq., andPl. lxix.) is here followed.

807-2 The date 11 or 12 Hiram which Josephus gives for the building of the temple (Ant., viii. 3, 1 ; Ap. i. 18) must in the Tyrian annals have referred to the cutting of wood in Lebanon for the native temples, which Josephus then misinterpreted by 1 Kings v. 6[20] sq.

807-3 So Caldwell, Comp. Gram. of Dravidian Languages, p. 66; Burnell, Indian Antiquary, 1872, p. 230. The decisive argument is that the Hebrew word for "peacocks" can only be the Tamil tôhei [see, however, OPHIR].

807-4 He also had control of the ships of the Aradians; Ménant, Ann. de rois d'Assyrie, p. 50.

808-1 So Codd. Samb. Big. The name may be Pil-eser.

808-2 The best MSS. -- Paris, 1421, and Oxon, -- offer (according to a private communication of Professor Niese) traces pointing to the reading epi toutou Selampsas [Gk.]

808-3 There was no Straton, king of Tyre, between 587 and 480 ; a war between Tyrians and Persians between 480 and 390 is nowhere heard of, and is highly improbable, and Straton, from what we learn of his descendants, cannot have reigned later than this.

808-4 See the Tyrian sources in Jos., Ap., i. 21, compared with Ezek. xxvi. 1 sq., xxix. 17 sq.

808-5 See Winer's "Pfingstprogramm": De Nebuc. exp. Tyr. ad Ez. xxvi. - xxciii. (Leipsic, 1848).

809-1 This date is got from Justin, who in xix.1,1 says of his Mago the same thing that others say of Hanno; for the defeat spoken of in xviii. 7, 1 is the battle against the Phocaeans in 538, and the war with a Spartan prince in Sicily (xix. 1, 7) is the war with Dorieus (.510). Taking into account the eleven years of Hasdruhal's dictatorship we get Hanno's date as above.

809-2 See for details Gutschmid, in Jahrbb. f. Phil. u. Pädog., 1857, p. 613 sq.


=====



The above article was written by two authors:

-- Albrecht Socin, Ph.D.; Professor of Semitic Theology, Leipzig University, from 1890; formerly of Tübingen University; compiled Baedeker's Handbooks of Palestine and Syria; author of an Arabic grammar.

and

-- A. von Gutschmid.