The History of Antiquity Volume Ii Part 18

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 s.h.i.+p 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]

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 Tars.h.i.+sh which the s.h.i.+ps 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 seash.o.r.e; with the growth of navigation and trade, the population pa.s.sed 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 G.o.d 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] 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 sh.o.r.e 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] 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]

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] 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] After a reign of 32 years Ethbaal was succeeded by his son Balezor (885-877 B.C.).[483] 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] Mutton had intended that Elissa and Pygmalion should reign together, and thus the power really pa.s.sed 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 G.o.d of the city, or because, as we are told, he coveted his treasures (846 B.C.).[485]

Elissa fled from Tyre before her brother, as we are told, with others who would not submit to the tyranny of Pygmalion.[486] 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] 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-G.o.ddess, to whom the cow is sacred, the wandering Astarte, who also bore the name of Dido, and of certain customs in the wors.h.i.+p of the G.o.ddess to Carthage; these also have had influence on the narrative of the flight of Elissa.[488]

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 sh.o.r.e 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 G.o.d Esmun (I. 377). This citadel, which is said to have been about 2000 paces (double paces) in the circuit,[489] was also the city round which at a later time grew up the lower city, at first on the south-east toward the sh.o.r.e, 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 sh.o.r.e of the bay; and not far to the south on the sh.o.r.e was Adrymes (Hadrumetum), another city of their countrymen, which Sall.u.s.t mentions among the oldest colonies of the Phenicians.[490] The Carthaginians never forgot their affection for the ancient Ityke, by whose a.s.sistance, no doubt, their own settlement had been supported.[491]

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 pa.s.sed 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 a.s.syrians. But when Balezor and Mutton, the son and grandson of Ethbaal, ruled over Tyre (885-853 B.C.), a.s.surbanipal of a.s.syria (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 Leba.n.u.s (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. a.s.surbanipal's successor, Shalmanesar II. of a.s.syria (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 a.s.syria; 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 a.s.syria (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 a.s.syria had definitely extended her dominion as far as the Euphrates, it was in the power of the a.s.syrian 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 G.o.d-like position of the Pharaohs of Egypt, in the forms of a military princ.i.p.ate, 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 princ.i.p.ate 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 const.i.tution of Carthage in later times carry us little further. Not to mention the very insufficient accounts which we possess of this const.i.tution, it was only to the oldest settlements of the Phenicians in Cyprus that the monarchy pa.s.sed, at least it was only in these that it was able to maintain itself. The examination of these inst.i.tutions 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 a.s.shur--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 const.i.tution 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] Of the later period we know with greater certainty that there was a council beside the kings, the members.h.i.+p 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 t.i.tle "elders."[493] 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 Hitt.i.tes, the incursions of the Hebrews, and the spread of trade had brought a ma.s.s 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 a.s.sume 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] 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 cla.s.ses of the closely-compressed population no doubt followed the example set them by the higher. From the mult.i.tude of retail dealers and artizans, the number of pilots and mariners who returned home eager for enjoyment after long voyages, men whose pa.s.sions 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]

The hereditary monarchy pa.s.sed, 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] 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 wors.h.i.+pped 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]

We are acquainted with the G.o.ds of the Phenician cities, and the mode in which they wors.h.i.+pped 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 prost.i.tution, 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 G.o.ds, 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 acc.u.mulated in the walls of the cities, with the luxury of life which these riches permitted, the lascivious and sensual side of the wors.h.i.+p 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 a.s.sumed 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 G.o.d in the seat of G.o.d, in the midst of the seas; he dwells as in Eden, in the garden of G.o.d. 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 workmans.h.i.+p of his ring-cases he bears upon him."[498] "His garments," we are told in a song of the Hebrews, "smell of myrrh, aloes, and ca.s.sia; 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]

Hosea calls Tyre "a plantation in a pleasant meadow."[500] 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] 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]

Scarcely any striking remains of the ancient buildings of Phoenicia have come down to our time. The ancient temples enumerated in the treatise on the Syrian G.o.ddess 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] 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 a.s.sume 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 bra.s.s, "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 Phoenicia 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 j.a.pho.[504] 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 ma.s.sive 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 s.p.a.ces 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] 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 cellae, 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] 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 Phoenicia 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] 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]

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 Phoenicia 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 h.e.l.lenism. 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 Phoenicia. 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]

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] 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] 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 Mycenae 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 Phoenicia 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 a.s.shur, 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 Phoenicia 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 Mycenae, gold-plates, frontlets, and armlets, exhibit ornaments like those figured on the monuments of a.s.syria; 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]) are formed in the manner of the Eastern Semites, which brings the form of the muscles into prominence. We may a.s.sume 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 Phoenicia adopted Egyptian symbols for their ornaments; the monoliths of the roofs of those three cellae 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 Phoenicia. 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] 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 b.r.e.a.s.t.s and peculiar wings, in a treatment obviously already conventional. In Phoenicia 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 a.s.syria. 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] 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 coa.r.s.ely wrought in the style of the plastic art of Babylon and a.s.syria.[515] The relation in which the lion stood to the G.o.d Melkarth naturally made the delineation of the lion a favourite object of Phenician art.

Phoenicia, 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 Phoenicia 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] The inscriptions of Phoenicia have perished because they were engraved like those inscriptions of Gades, on plates of bra.s.s. 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 G.o.ds for himself and his land; he prays that Dor and j.a.pho 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 G.o.ds will destroy him with his seed; he is not to be buried, and after death will find no rest among the shades.[517]

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] 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 gla.s.s was undoubtedly older in Egypt than in Phoenicia (I.

224). Egypt also practised work in metals before Phoenicia. 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 gla.s.s, 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 gla.s.s-river (Sihor Libnath),[519] provided the Phenician manufacturers with the earth necessary for the manufacture of gla.s.s. It was maintained that the most beautiful gla.s.s was cast in Sarepta (Zarpath, _i.e._ melting), a city on the coast between Sidon and Tyre.[520]

The purple dyeing, _i.e._ the colouring of woofs by the liquor from fish, was discovered by the Phenicians. They were unsurpa.s.sed 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] Three hundred pounds of the raw material were usually required to dye 50 pounds of wool.[522]

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 s.h.i.+ps 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 sh.o.r.es of Cyprus, Rhodes, Crete, Cythera, and Thera; in the bays of Laconia and Argos, and in the straits of Euboea. Purple-fish were also collected on the greater Syrtis, in Sicily, the Balearic Isles, and coasts of Tars.h.i.+sh.[523] 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] A hundred years later Pliny adds "that the ancient glory of Tyre survived now only in her fish and her purples."[525] 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 cla.s.ses. 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 a.s.syria, 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] In the West also the purple robe soon became the distinguis.h.i.+ng 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 a.s.syrian 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]

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 bra.s.s, the drop of water is stopped, and the hidden is brought to light."[528] 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] their s.h.i.+ps 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] Diodorus a.s.sures 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 pa.s.s into the air.[531]

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 bra.s.s work which the melter, Hiram of Tyre, executed for Solomon (p. 182) is evidence of long practice in melting bra.s.s, and of skill in bringing into shape large ma.s.ses of melted metal. The Homeric poems speak of Sidon as "rich in bra.s.s," and "skilful;" they tell us of large beaten bowls of bra.s.s and silver of Sidonian workmans.h.i.+p, "rich in invention."

Even at a later period the goblets of Sidon were in request. Not only metal implements and vessels of bra.s.s and copper, molten and beaten, were furnished by the Phenicians; they must also have manufactured armour in large quant.i.ties, 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 Mycenae, and in the excavations at Hissarlik.

In Homer, Phenician s.h.i.+ps 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 s.h.i.+ps, 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]

In s.h.i.+p-building the Phenicians were confessedly superior; they are said to have discovered navigation.[533] The ancient forests of cedar and cypress which rose immediately above their sh.o.r.es 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 s.h.i.+ps, 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] The oldest s.h.i.+p 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-s.h.i.+p as well as for a s.h.i.+p of war, and after the discovery of the silver land the large and armed merchantman, the s.h.i.+p of Tars.h.i.+sh. Isaiah enumerates the s.h.i.+p of Tars.h.i.+sh among the costly structures of men.[535] Ezekiel compares Tyre to a proud s.h.i.+p of the sea. We know that the great transport-s.h.i.+ps and merchantmen of the Phenicians and Carthaginians could take about 500 men on board. The Byblians were considered the best s.h.i.+p-builders. The keels of the s.h.i.+ps, 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 s.h.i.+p, the happy use of the smallest s.p.a.ces, the accuracy in distributing and placing the lading, the experience, wisdom, activity, and safety of the Phenician pilots and officers.[536] Others commend the great sail and oar power of the Phenician s.h.i.+ps. 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 circ.u.mstance rendered the voyages of the Phenicians more accurate and secure. On an average the Phenician s.h.i.+ps, 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 s.h.i.+ps that were excellently built and equipped, and sufficiently manned, ran about 150 miles.[537]

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 s.h.i.+ps were by far the best in the fleets of the Persian kings.

FOOTNOTES:

[474] Eustath. ad "Odysseam," 4, 617.

[475] Vol. i. p. 352.

[476] De Luynes, "Essai sur la numismatique des satrapies," p. 69.

[477] Above, p. 188.

[478] Curt. 4, 8. Pliny ("Hist. Nat." 5, 17) puts the distance from the mainland at 700 paces (double paces).

[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 Phenicie," p. 546 ff.) on the Agenorion has been adopted; some others of his results appear to be uncertain.

[480] Vol. i. 367; Menander in Joseph. "c. Apion." 1, 17, 18.

[481] Joseph. "Antiq." 8, 13, 2.

[482] Joseph. _loc. cit._

[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.

[484] On the ident.i.ty of the names Acerbas, Sichaeus, Sicharbas, Sicharbaal, Serv. "ad aeneid," 1, 343; Movers, "Phoeniz." 2, 1, 355.

[485] Justin, 18, 4.

[486] Timaeus, fragm. 23, ed. Muller; Appian, "Rom. Hist." 8, 1.

[487] Timaeus, fragm. 23, ed. Muller.