CHAPTER I. LAND AND PEOPLE
Phœnicia proper, even in its most flourishing state, was one of the smallest countries of antiquity. It comprised that part of the Syrian coast extending from Akko to Aradus, [Arvad] a narrow strip of land about two hundred miles in length, from north to south; and probably nowhere more than thirty-five miles in width. This short line of coast, rich in bays and harbours, was covered with lofty mountains, many of which ran out into the sea and formed promontories, and whose heights, covered with forests, supplied the most valuable material in the construction of the fleets and habitations of the Phœnicians. The larger range of these mountains bore the name of Libanus [Lebanon], and the other parallel range, the Antilibanus, lay eastward towards Syria. The sea, which broke with great fury upon this rocky shore, had probably separated some of these promontories from the mainland, and which, forming little islands at a small distance from the shore, are not less worthy of note than the mainland itself, being everywhere covered with extensive colonies and flourishing cities. Thus Aradus, the most northern frontier city of Phœnicia, was built on one of these islands; and opposite to it on the mainland was Antaradus, which derived its name from it. About eighteen miles to the south of this stood, and still stands, Tripolis; and at a like distance Byblus, with the temple of Adonis; and again, farther south, Berytus. Keeping along the coast, we come to Sidon at nearly the same distance; and finally, fourteen or fifteen miles farther, towards the southern boundary of the country, was erected, upon another island, the stately Tyre, the queen of Phœnician cities. The space between these places was covered with a number of towns of less import, but equally the abode of industry, and widely celebrated for their arts and manufactures. Among these were Sarepta [Zarephath], Botrys, Orthosia, and others; forming, as it were, one unbroken city, extending along the whole line of coast and over the islands; and which, with the harbours and seaports, and the numerous fleets lying within them, must have afforded altogether a spectacle scarcely to be equalled in the world, and must have excited in the stranger who visited them, the highest idea of the opulence, the power, and the enterprising spirit of the inhabitants.
Although these cities existed altogether in the flourishing period of Phœnicia, history has given us some account of the manner and time of their successive foundations. They were colonies of one another; and, like all other colonies of the ancient world, were founded either for purposes of trade, or by bodies of citizens who left their native abode in consequence of civil dissensions. The oldest of them, “the first-born of Canaan,” according to the Mosaic record, was Sidon, the foundress of the trade and navigation of the Phœnicians. Sidon was the parent of Tyre. In the first place, merely as a staple for her own wares; but the daughter soon waxed greater than the mother, and successfully rivalled her. In the blooming period of Phœnicia, Sidon was only the second Phœnician city in point of extent, though still rich and mighty, and secured in a great measure by her excellent harbours from ruin and decline, so long as the maritime commerce of the Phœnicians should endure. Arvad was founded by another colony from Sidon, and owed its origin to a civil broil in this city, which drove the discontented party to seek a new abode.
Palætyrus, founded by Sidon, and situated on the mainland, continued a powerful, rich, and flourishing commercial city till the time of Nebuchadrezzar, the Babylonian-Chaldean conqueror; against whom it had to defend itself during a siege or blockade of thirteen years; but that he in reality ever took or destroyed it, as is commonly asserted, there is no historical proof. During this blockade, the greater part of the inhabitants took refuge upon a neighbouring island, already furnished with numerous establishments and buildings, and thus founded the island city of Tyre, which, favoured by its strong position, soon equalled the parent city, and not only outlived the Babylonian and Persian empires, but continued to increase as the ancient Tyre declined. It was finally captured by Alexander, after an obstinate resistance; but he robbed it less of its ancient opulence and splendour by his arms, than by the foundation of Alexandria, which henceforth became the great seat of the commerce of the world, though Tyre did not altogether decline. In the midst of this city stood the temple of the principal deity of the Tyrians, the protecting god of the city, as its name, Melkarth, signifies. This deity was called by the Greeks the Tyrian Hercules, though entirely different from their god bearing the same name; hence the myths of the two are often confounded. The worship of the Tyrian deity was introduced into the most distant parts of the world to which that people penetrated and founded settlements; he was honoured as the national god by the independent colonies of Tyre, who were wont to acknowledge his supremacy by solemn embassies. The city was protected by high walls of cut stone; and had two harbours, one on the north towards Sidon, the other on the south towards Egypt. The mouth of the latter could be closed by immense chains.
Let us now inquire what was the internal government of these cities? What their relation with each other? Whether they formed one general confederation? or whether they remained entirely separate states, without any common tie? These questions demand our serious attention.
The remarks above made upon the nature of the country readily explain why the Phœnicians could never become a conquering nation, and the founders of a great monarchy, such as that of the Chaldeans, the Persians, and others. They must have been well satisfied, if they could protect their little territory from the invasions of such powerful Asiatic conquerors; and being, from the earliest times downwards a people dwelling in cities, they could have had no idea of taking the long marauding expeditions common to nomad nations.
In order to obtain a correct idea of the political state of Phœnicia, it is necessary to have a general notion of the rise and progress of civil government among the Syrian tribes. As far as the light of history carries us back, we everywhere find a number of single cities, with the territory around them, under a monarchial form of government; the sovereign power being placed in the hands of kings or princes. Examples certainly are to be met with where some of these cities and their monarchs obtained a decided preponderance (Damascus is at once an instance) and assumed to themselves a degree of authority. This, however, was a kind of forced alliance, which extended no farther than the exaction of tribute and subsidies in times of war, without depriving the subjected cities of their government and rulers. Syria, while independent and left to itself, never became organised into one state or one monarchy.
Here, then, we trace the groundwork of the Phœnician government. This country, like Syria, never became one state; but, from the earliest period down to the Persian monarchy, was always divided into a number of separate cities, each with its little territory around it. Some writers have stated positively the precise extent of the dominions of each city. Thus Antaradus, and the territory about it, formed part of the domain of Aradus, to which it lay opposite; thus Sarepta came within the dominion of Sidon, etc.
Allied cities, however, were certainly frequent in Phœnicia; indeed it seems very probable, that at certain times all the cities of Phœnicia formed one confederation, at the head of which stood originally Sidon, and afterwards Tyre. Even as early as the Mosaic period, alliances among these cities were common; the necessity of their common defence from foreign attack, which separately they were too weak to withstand, must naturally have led to this system. Neither were these confederations confined to Phœnicia alone; they prevailed also in the countries colonised by the Phœnicians; and Carthage in Africa, as well as Gades [or Gadeira] in Spain, stood at the head of the settlements in these districts without, however, obtaining a complete authority over them. A common religion, the worship of the Tyrian Hercules, the national and colonial deity, formed likewise a bond of union for all these cities, both of the mother country and the colonies, and strengthened and preserved the connection between them.
It is the nature, however, of all such confederations, to be liable to frequent changes; they vary indeed according to the political interests, and even the power and views of the separate states. Many changes of this kind must have arisen in this quarter, by the foundation and growing prosperity of the inland colonies; and many modifications must have taken place as these acquired sufficient strength to assume a kind of independence of the parent states. In the present case, in which we shall confine our observations to the flourishing period of Tyre,—that is, the period from Solomon to Cyrus, or at least Nebuchadrezzar,—it will be sufficient to show that Tyre, in the sense just stated, was always the dominant city of Phœnicia.
This may be inferred, in the first place, from the description given of Tyre by the prophet Ezekiel. Sidon and Arvad [Aradus] were at this time her allies, and supplied their contingents of soldiers and sailors. This being proved of the largest and most distant city of Phœnicia, no doubt can be well entertained respecting the smaller and nearer.
Besides, the subjects and allies of Tyre, and their revolts against the capital, are more than once expressly spoken of in history. The most striking proof of this is preserved in Josephus, from the works of Menander. For when King Shalmaneser undertook his expedition into western Asia and against Phœnicia, the allied cities, Sidon, Palætyrus, Akko, and many others, revolted against the Tyrians, and submitted to the king of Assyria. They went so far indeed as to fit out a fleet against them, which was defeated by the Tyrians, who thus secured themselves from further danger.
By comparing these fragments of Phœnician history and its government with the accounts that are left us respecting the state of Carthage, we obtain something more than bare historical conjecture, as we find a striking similarity between the government of the mother country and the colonies. What Tyre was towards Sidon, Arvad, Tripolis, etc., Carthage was towards Utica, Leptis, Adrumetum, and other cities. It not only seems quite natural, that in cities inhabited by one people, and so frequently called upon to struggle against their common and powerful enemies, alliances should be formed, and by alliances a kind of authority be conceded to the mightiest; but it is also consonant with the whole tenor of ancient history, that colonies should adopt the government of the mother state.
It may be concluded, then, from these facts, that the Phœnician cities formed together one confederation, at the head of which, in the period of their greatest splendour and perfect independence, stood Tyre. At the time of their subjection to Assyria and Persia, the bond that connected them necessarily became loosened, the other cities paid their tribute and furnished their contingents to Persia instead of to Tyre; the latter, however, still preserved its rank, and was always considered the chief city of the land.
The next question, namely, What was the internal government of the Phœnician cities? is equally difficult and obscure.
However desirable it may be to trace out accurately the gradual rise and progress of civic government in these, the earliest commercial cities, want of information limits us to a few general observations.
First, then, there can be no doubt but that each Phœnician city had its own proper government, and that in this respect they were perfectly independent of each other. They always appear so, as the following pages will evince, upon every occasion, and in every period of their history; being never spoken of but as separate states.
Secondly, It seems equally certain, that the chief authority was placed in the hands of kings, and certainly of hereditary kings, although political parties many times fomented revolutions by which new families were raised to the throne. This is especially shown by the history of Tyre; a catalogue of whose kings is extant in Josephus, from the time of Hiram, the contemporary of David, till the siege of the city by Nebuchadrezzar. Even under the dominion of the Persians, the royal dignity was preserved, though the monarchs were now only tributary princes, obliged to furnish money and ships to the Persians, and to attend them, when required, in their military expeditions. The kings of Tyre appear in this state in the expedition of the Persians against Athens, and even as late as the overthrow of Persia and the capture of Tyre by Alexander. As Tyre had its proper kings, so also had the other Phœnician cities, Sidon, Aradus, and Byblus. These are mentioned in various periods, and even as late as the Macedonian conquest.
Thirdly, Notwithstanding the existence of the royal dignity, the government was certainly not despotic; nay, the monarchial power was so strictly limited as to render it almost republican. It was indeed well-nigh impossible that despotism could have endured for so many centuries in commercial states, which can thrive only in the atmosphere of political liberty. A large maritime commerce requires a spirit of enterprise and resolute activity altogether incompatible with despotic government. Even the repeated political changes which took place in all these cities, and more particularly in Tyre, as well as the continual departure of colonies and their settlement in distant parts of the world, are circumstances which not only could not have been brought forth by despotism, but are the legitimate offspring of free nations. Many particulars which warrant this conclusion may still be found in Phœnician history, notwithstanding the general scantiness of its information.
Next to the kings stood the Phœnician magistrates. These conjointly sent ambassadors. Indeed, at certain periods, a general congress of the great Phœnician cities was wont to be held, when the kings in council with the sanhedrim deliberated upon the common affairs of the confederacy. Tripolis was the place destined for the common assembly of the three principal cities.
Besides this, there is no question but the authority of the monarchs was very essentially limited by religion. The priests in these states formed a numerous and powerful class, and seem to have stood next in rank to the kings. Sicharbas, or Sichæus, the chief priest of the principal temple, was the husband of Dido [Elissa], and brother-in-law to King Pygmalion. His persecution and death by the latter, gave rise to those serious commotions which ended in the emigration of that numerous colony which founded the city of Carthage. The political influence of the Phœnician priests of Baal among the Jews, which caused a revolution in the state, is sufficiently well known. Among a people like the Phœnicians, where everything so much depended on sanctuaries and religion, the priesthood could scarcely fail to have a large share in the government, though we are not in a situation to determine precisely its extent.
The prophet Ezekiel in his prophecy against the king of Tyre, gives us a somewhat deep insight into the power of the prince of that city. He is pictured as a powerful prince, living in great splendour; but still as the ruler of a commercial city, which by its trade filled his treasury; as one who encourages and protects commerce by his wisdom and policy; but who, in the end, degenerating to craft and injustice, is threatened with the punishment of his misdeeds. “With thy wisdom and with thy understanding,” Ezekiel cries, “hast thou gotten thee riches; with gold and silver hast thou filled thy treasury by means of the greatness of thy commerce. Full of wisdom sealedst thou great sums; thou dwellst in a garden of God, ornamented from thine infancy with precious stones, clothed with fine garments. But traffic has enriched thee with ill-gotten wealth and thou hast sinned.” From this remarkable passage it may at least be gathered, that the revenue of the Tyrian kings, and without doubt that of the princes of the other cities also, was derived from commerce; but whether from the customs, or, which seems more probable, from a monopoly of some of the branches of trade, or from both, cannot be decided.[b]
ORIGIN OF THE PHŒNICIANS
As is seen on examination of the different names which were in course of time applied to the Phœnicians, they are not as a race to be separated from the rest of the Canaanites, especially from the various elements of the pre-Israelitish population of Palestine. Their history is only that of a section of the Canaanite race, the history of that portion which, as far back as the times to which the earliest historical information concerning this territory refers, had fixed its abode, not in the interior of Palestine but on the edge of the sea, along the coasts of the strip of country which bordered it on the north as far as those level stretches of the coast lands of Syria which extended to the northwestern slopes of Lebanon. Although in the matter of descent no difference can be discerned between them and the other Canaanites, historical science must, nevertheless, regard them as a different people. It is in this sense that they are spoken of as the Phœnician race, the Phœnician people. They, and the inhabitants of the colonies which they founded, alone have a claim to the name of Phœnicians.
We can only guess at the manner in which the settlement of the Phœnician country by the Canaanites was effected, but the occurrences which afterwards took place in the interior of Palestine point to the assumption that the Canaanites did not spread inwards from the coast. It is not easily conceivable that at first they possessed merely those long narrow stretches of land and only subsequently extended their settlements from thence over those portions of the country west of Jordan of which they were masters before the Israelites. From ancient times there prevailed, as far as can be discovered, an endeavour on the part of the population of the interior, to approach the flat country on the coast, where the fruitful fields were in any case much more attractive than the mountains and hilly districts which, even in the time of the Israelites, were still partly covered with forest.
It may be concluded, therefore, that the Canaanite population of Phœnicia had at some time immigrated thither, either from the southern strips of the Syrian coast or from the northern portions of the interior of Palestine. But if this be so, the immigration must still be looked upon as an event which was completed at a distance of time historically so remote, that a distinct and faithful recollection of it can hardly have been preserved by the Phœnicians themselves. Even a possibility that a dim notion of these occurrences may have lingered, at least in isolated legends, is scarcely to be calculated on. Rather should we expect all real knowledge of the kind to be early extinguished, and that the Phœnicians in their new home, as a result of the historical development through which they passed, should have early come to regard themselves as the primitive inhabitants of the country. As a fact there do exist notices respecting what purport to be Phœnician traditions, the age and to some extent the authenticity of which cannot indeed be determined, but which seem to indicate that at least in Hellenic and still later times, the Phœnicians cherished this opinion. Every people considers itself autochthonous, directly it has ceased to remember its origin.
On the other hand, there are accounts which tell of an immigration of the Phœnicians, and even of an immigration from regions lying farther south. The first who speaks of this is Herodotus. In the description of the collection of Xerxes’ army which he sketches in the seventh book of his work, he says: “As regards the Phœnicians, they formerly dwelt, as they themselves say, on the Erythræan Sea. From thence they passed transversely across Syria and now dwell there on the seashore.”
Most of the remaining notices of the coming of the Phœnicians from the Erythræan Sea, which are found in the writings of the ancients, are to be referred to this assertion of Herodotus. The few other isolated references may be passed over in silence, with the exception of the one concerning the origin of the Phœnicians furnished by Justin in his extracts from the historical works of Pompeius Trogus. What he tells us is as follows: “The people of the Tyrians are descended from Phœnicians who, disquieted by an earthquake, left their first home on the inland sea of Syria (ad Syrium stagnum), and soon after settling on the nearest seacoast, there built a town, which they called Sidon on account of the abundance of fish, for the fish is called ‘sidon’ by the Phœnicians.” The statement that “sidon” means “fish” is incorrect, but it has at least the sense of “fishing.”
The inland sea, the Syrium stagnum which is here mentioned, is said to be not far from the Syrian coast. This has been thought to refer to the Lake of Gennesareth, the Sea of Galilee, with its abundance of fish. But as stagnum means a body of water with no outlet, this interpretation is improbable. Christian Carl Josias Bunsen seems rather to have found the real one, when he expressed the opinion that the Dead Sea is meant, and that the earthquake which is said to have induced the Phœnicians to quit the shores of that sea was the same to which the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is ascribed in the Bible. The tale of the destruction of these towns apparently lies at the root of the idea that in this region, immeasurable ages ago, there existed a higher civilisation than was known in historical times, and which belonged to races other than those which dwelt there in the historical period. The higher the idea which men formed of this ruined civilisation, the less could they impute its disappearance exclusively to chance, and the blind forces of the rude powers of nature. When legend glances back to the prehistoric past, she always regards the overthrow of the noble and beautiful as the direct result of a crime.
Compared with one another, the two accounts allow us to conclude the existence of a common tradition, in which the division of the peoples into different tribes is explained generally, and its cause is conceived to have been a great natural disturbance, a transformation of the earth’s surface which is said to have occurred in the region round about the Dead Sea. In the reports which underlie the statements of Justin, or rather the sources of Pompeius Trogus, the history of the rise of the Phœnicians began with this catastrophe and therefore probably the general history of the various offshoots of the Canaanite section of humanity. On the other hand, in the Bible narrative, the same tradition is applied to connect it with the rise of two races which afterwards dwelt in the vicinity of that catastrophe. The peculiar nature of the catastrophe and the circumstance that just such great convulsions of the earth give occasion to new adjustments of the relations of peoples, lead to the conclusion that the joint tradition, which may be inferred from the two presentations, again refers back to a conception which cannot have arisen in the north of Palestine or in its coast districts, but only in the immediate neighbourhood of the Dead Sea, and in face of tokens which witness in eloquent language to the effects of the mighty forces of nature. In other words, a legend of local origin which ascribed the creation of the Dead Sea to a powerful convulsion of the earth, formed the germ of a legendary cycle with much common groundwork, in which the chief importance was assigned to the region of the Dead Sea and an earthquake which is said to have done its work there. This cycle consisted of a series of legends whose subject was the destruction of a lost civilisation which had attained a high pitch of excellence, and expression was thereby given to the conviction that the history of nations is not indeed to be traced back to its first starting-point, the origin of man, but that nevertheless the human race must have had a common origin.
If we ask with which race this legendary cycle developed, it is evident that we have here to do with a tradition of Canaanite origin which can have arisen only amongst those Canaanites who had their seat in the inland district, which lies in the neighbourhood of the Dead Sea. When it arose, cannot of course be determined. The Biblical account comes from the so-called Yahvistic narrator, who wrote as is assumed about the middle of the ninth century B.C. No doubt, however, the tradition on which this narrator draws is of much more ancient origin.
At best then we conclude that the information of Herodotus and Justin was derived from a Canaanite legend, in which a region by the Dead Sea was regarded as the starting-point of a division of the nations. And the starting-point was placed there, not because it was historically certain that such a movement of nations had begun in that place, but, on the contrary, because the starting-point was really unknown. But that region was said to have been the scene of a violent transformation of the earth’s surface, which had swallowed up the flourishing settlements of antiquity, and in their place created a dreary waste. It was only for this reason that the legend for the division of the nations was there localised.
The early study of navigation in Phœnicia, the development of the Phœnician race into a seafaring commercial people, the international character of their proceedings—in short all those peculiarities attending the appearance of this people in history, which have always required explanation—have been readily ascribed to their former sojourn on the shore of the Erythræan Sea. For the idea is, that it was not by any means in a state of savagery, but as skilled seamen, as experienced traders, conversant with all the achievements of the civilisation of southern latitudes and prepared for every contingency, that the Phœnicians for some cause not further explained, changed their home and sought out the Mediterranean coast of Syria. Although it has never been asserted that this event could belong to historical times, with it the explanation of historical problems, which so far as it is admissible, at all times is to be drawn entirely and without arbitrary suppositions from the condition and situation of the Phœnician settlements on the Syrian shore, is relegated into the region of the entirely unknown. As a matter of fact, those particular regions which have been specially represented as the primitive home of the Phœnicians, namely, the Babylonian coasts of the Persian Gulf and those which lie to the west of them, are so little qualified to favour the rise of navigation, owing to the want of suitable woods, that, as Aristobulus informs us, when Alexander the Great conceived the design of bringing the coast district of eastern Arabia under his dominion, both seamen and portable ready-made ships had to be brought from Phœnicia to Babylon, and this was actually done with the express intention of making of Babylonia, what it had never hitherto been, namely, “a second Phœnicia.”
Thus neither those statements which make the Phœnicians the primitive inhabitants of their country, nor those which represent them as immigrants, have any convincing force. It is in itself probable that they were originally native not to Phœnicia but to some place farther south, and in the interior of Palestine; but not because we have information to that effect, but solely on account of the outlying position of their settlements, representing the most northerly extent of territory of the Canaanites. Amongst the peoples of antiquity the Phœnician is not indeed the only one which must not be regarded as autochthonous, although all the accounts of their immigration which we possess are unworthy of credit. As a rule no conjectures can be brought forward, as to the road by which this or that people reached its place of abode. That this is possible in the case of the Phœnicians is one of the exceptions. They can only have reached their homes from the south, and that which urged them forward was, as has already been emphasised above, that same movement of peoples, which, starting from the northern territories of Arabia, has always produced an effect in the south of Palestine.[c]
