CHAPTER V. PHŒNICIA UNDER THE GREEKS, THE ROMANS, AND THE SARACENS
Ptolemy, to whom Egypt fell in the first division of Alexander’s empire, almost immediately attempted the conquest of Syria and Palestine, agreeably to the policy which the sovereigns of Egypt have always adopted, when that country has been ruled by an enterprising king. The forces which Antipater had left there were unequal to its defence, and Ptolemy easily made himself master of them, Jerusalem alone offering any resistance. He placed garrisons in the Phœnician cities, of which he kept possession till the year 315 B.C., when Antigonus, returning victorious from his war in Babylonia, easily reduced the other towns of Phœnicia, and took Joppa and Gaza by storm, but met with an obstinate resistance from Tyre.
Only eighteen years had elapsed since its desolation by Alexander, but the elastic power of commerce had repaired its strength, and though joined to the mainland by his mole, it was nearly as unassailable by an enemy that did not command the sea as while it remained an island. Antigonus blockaded it by land, and collecting a body of eight thousand wood-cutters and sawyers, felled the cedars and cypresses of Lebanon, which were conveyed to the coast by one thousand yoke of oxen, and fashioned into a fleet at Tripolis, Byblus, and Sidon. With the ships constructed in Phœnicia, Rhodes, and Cilicia, he reduced Tyre at the end of fifteen months. His son Demetrius, however, having advanced to Gaza, was totally defeated there (312 B.C.) by Ptolemy, who regained possession of the whole coast of Palestine and Phœnicia, but was compelled almost immediately to resign it to Antigonus and retire into Egypt, having destroyed the fortifications of Akko (Acre), Joppa, Samaria, and Gaza, the first of which was the key of Syria, the second and third of Judea, and the fourth of Egypt. Having defeated the fleet of Ptolemy before Salamis in Cyprus, and reduced that island, which was a chief source of his naval power, Antigonus, in 307 B.C., with his son Demetrius, attempted without success the invasion of Egypt, and on their retreat Ptolemy again possessed himself for a short time of the seacoast of Phœnicia, with the exception of Sidon. False intelligence of a victory gained by Antigonus caused him to make a truce with Sidon and withdraw into Egypt. By the battle of Ipsus (301 B.C.), in which Antigonus lost his life, his son Demetrius was dispossessed of the throne of Syria. He still, however, retained Cyprus, and having obtained possession of the harbours of Tyre and Sidon, reinforced his garrisons in those cities, when required by Seleucus to surrender them, as belonging to his kingdom of Syria, in the new division of territory consequent on the battle of Ipsus. During the war between them, terminated by the surrender of Demetrius in 287 B.C., Ptolemy, who had conquered Cyprus, appears quietly to have reoccupied Phœnicia and retained it during his life.
[301-63 B.C.]
The possession of Phœnicia had become still more important to the kings of Syria, since Seleucus (300 B.C.) made Antioch on the Orontes, with the harbour of Seleucia at its mouth, a principal seat of his power. Hence a series of struggles between the Seleucidæ and the Ptolemies during the latter part of the third century B.C. Ptolemy Euergetes, the third of the dynasty, had marched an army into Syria in the beginning of his reign (246 B.C.), and had placed an Egyptian garrison in Seleucia, of which his son, Ptolemy Philopator, still kept possession, when Antiochus the Great undertook (218 B.C.) the reconquest of Syria and Phœnicia. He took Seleucia by assault; Tyre and Akko were put into his hands by the treachery of Theodotus, Ptolemy’s lieutenant; and Nicolaus, who commanded the Egyptian army and fleet, was defeated and driven to take refuge in Sidon. In the following year, however, Antiochus, having collected his forces at Raphia, between Gaza and the frontier of Egypt, was totally defeated by Ptolemy, and Phœnicia and Syria remained in the possession of the Egyptians till the death of Ptolemy and the succession of his infant son.
In the year 203 B.C. Antiochus led an army into Syria and Palestine, and recovered possession of them. The Egyptians sent a force under Scopas, which gained some temporary advantages, but they were defeated at Panium and shut up in Sidon, where they were compelled to surrender. Thus Phœnicia once more (198 B.C.) fell under the power of Syria.
Tyre suffered a severe blow, when Ptolemy Philadelphus constructed the harbour of Berenice on the Red Sea, and established a road with stations and watering places between that place and Coptos, reopening at the same time the canal which joined the Pelusiac branch of the Nile to the Gulf of Suez. The traffic of the Red Sea and Indian Ocean, which had hitherto passed from Eloth and Ezion-geber across the Desert to Rhinocolura, and thence been conveyed by Tyrian vessels to all parts of the Mediterranean, was now brought by the Nile or the canal to Alexandria. The opening of the safe and easy route by Kosseir and Coptos, which saved the dangerous navigation of the northern end of the Red Sea, gradually drew to Egypt the wealth that had previously flowed into Phœnicia.
The sufferings which the Syrians endured from the civil wars of the Seleucidæ induced them in the year 83 B.C. to place themselves under the dominion of Tigranes, king of Armenia, who took possession of Syria. This state of things lasted for fourteen years, when, in consequence of the victories of Lucullus, Syria and Phœnicia returned for a short time (67 B.C.) to the dominion of the Seleucidæ. Four years later Pompey reduced Syria into a Roman province, making Gaza, Joppa, Dora, and Turris Stratonis free.
[63 B.C.-636 A.D.]
The dominion of Rome, however, was exercised mildly; and though Tyre and Sidon ceased to have any political importance, they retained their ancient fame for nautical science, for the manufacture of glass, and the preparation of the purple dye. A school of philosophy arose here, whose doctrines, like those of Alexandria, combined Greek and oriental elements, and endeavoured to reconcile philosophy with theology. Strabo mentions several contemporaries, eminent in their day, whom Tyre and Sidon had produced. Philo, to whom we owe the translation of Sanchoniathon, was a native of Byblus; his pupil, Hermippus, of Berytus. Porphyry, whose original name was Malchus, was of Tyrian parentage, though born at Batanæa, on the eastern side of the Jordan. Berytus became the seat of a school of law, which for three centuries furnished the eastern portion of the empire with pleaders and magistrates. Marinus of Tyre, who lived in the early part of the second century after Christ, was the first author who substituted maps, mathematically constructed according to latitude and longitude, for the itinerary charts which had been in use before. The maps of Marinus, like those of Ptolemy, which were only an improvement upon them, must have been founded on records of voyages and travels, of which the measured or computed distances were translated into latitudes and longitudes. Nowhere could such records have abounded more than in Phœnicia, which for so many centuries had taken the lead of all other nations in navigation and commerce. Had the invention of maps, in the modern sense, been due to the geographers and mathematicians of Alexandria, it is not probable that Ptolemy, himself a native of Alexandria, would have based his own work entirely on that of Marinus of Tyre.
After the sale of the empire by the Roman soldiery to Didius Julianus and his subsequent assassination (A.D. 193), Septimius Severus and Pescennius Niger were competitors for the purple. Niger, who commanded in the East, had his headquarters at Antioch, and all Syria as far as the Euphrates and the coast of Phœnicia was under his power. Antioch and Berytus favoured the cause of Niger; Laodicea and Tyre, through jealousy of their neighbours, that of Severus. On the news of Niger’s unsuccessful attempt to obstruct the march of Severus through the passes of Taurus, they destroyed the insignia of Niger, and proclaimed his rival. Niger sent against them his Mauritanian light troops, with orders to destroy the towns, and put the inhabitants to the sword. The commission was cruelly executed by the barbarians entrusted with it; they fell on the Laodiceans by surprise, and having inflicted great injury upon them, proceeded to Tyre, which they plundered and burnt after a great slaughter of the inhabitants. It had no longer the protection which its insular situation would have afforded it against an invasion of cavalry; Alexander had joined it permanently to the land.
Niger had been defeated by Severus in the battle of Issus (A.D. 194), and was soon after slain at Antioch. In his subsequent settlement of the affairs of the East (A.D. 201), Severus recruited the population of Tyre from the third legion, whose quarters had long been in Syria and Phœnicia, and rewarded the attachment of its inhabitants by giving it the title of Colony with the Jus Italicum. Its prosperity appears to have received only a transient check from its conflagration. A writer of the age of Constantine describes it as equalling all the cities of the East in wealth and commercial activity; there was no port in which its merchants did not hold the first rank. St. Jerome, about the end of the fourth century, in his Commentary on Ezekiel, speaks of it as the noblest and most beautiful city of Phœnicia, an emporium for the commerce of the world, and is at a loss how to reconcile its actual condition with the threat of its perpetual desolation.
[636-1124 A.D.]
The conquest of Phœnicia and Syria in the seventh century, by the Saracens, led to the establishment of an imperial dye-house at Constantinople, the products of which are repeatedly mentioned in the writings of Anastasius, the librarian of the Vatican, under the popedom of Leo III; but the Tyrian purple still enjoys its former celebrity, and is among the articles of luxury imported by the Venetian merchants into Lombardy in the time of Charlemagne.
Under the tolerant and enlightened sway of the caliphs, the civilisation of Phœnicia suffered no decay. At the time of the Crusades, Tyre retained its ancient pre-eminence among the cities of the Syrian coast, and excited the admiration of the warriors of Europe by its capacious harbours, its wall, triple towards the land and double towards the sea, its still active commerce, and the beauty and fertility of the opposite shore. To the manufacture of glass was added that of sugar, which for its medicinal virtues was carried to the remotest parts of the world. Joppa was at first the only harbour which the Christians possessed; but in the first ten years of the twelfth century, Baldwin, the successor of Godfrey on the throne of Jerusalem, reduced Antipatris, Cæsarea, Acre, Byblus, Tripolis, and Berytus. Sidon was induced to surrender (A.D. 1110) by the opportune arrival of a fleet from Norway, manned by Crusaders, and commanded by the brother of the king, which, passing through the British Channel and the Straits of Gibraltar, anchored in the port of Joppa. Tyre and Askalon alone remained in the hands of the infidels. Baldwin collected his forces (A.D. 1111) for an attack on the former city; but the Norwegian fleet had returned home after the capture of Sidon, and the ships which he hastily collected from the seacoast were of little value. The city had a numerous garrison, the troops, withdrawn from places less defensible, having thrown themselves into Tyre. Sieges were still conducted after the ancient manner, with the battering-ram and the balista. The besiegers made repeated attacks upon the walls, had forced the first and second, and at last brought up against the third two wooden towers, of such a height as to command the interior of the city, and covered with hides of oxen and camels to prevent their being set on fire; the besieged, however, had erected within towers of still greater height, from which they hurled Greek fire and combustibles of every kind upon the works of the Crusaders. Both the towers were utterly consumed. The approach of an army of twenty thousand men from Damascus was announced, and after a siege of four months, Baldwin, despairing of success, drew off his army to Acre and Jerusalem. From Tiberias the Christians made incursions into the territory of Tyre; but Baldwin having built a fort on the site of Palætyrus, undertook no further enterprises against the maritime towns during the remainder of his reign. No re-enforcements of ships and warriors arrived from the West, and the Christian power in the Holy Land was weakened by the dissensions of its chiefs.
His successor, Baldwin II, was taken prisoner in the year 1123, and the Sultan of Egypt was encouraged to attack Joppa with a fleet of ninety sail. The barons of the kingdom of Jerusalem assembled at Acre, appointed Eustace de Grenier viceroy, and sent a pressing message to the Venetians, who had set out with a powerful armament for the East, but had halted on the way to besiege Corfu. Before their arrival, however, the Egyptians had raised the siege and retired on Ibelim, where thirty thousand of them were totally defeated by eight thousand Christians, animated by the presence of their bishops and their holiest relics. The Venetian fleet followed the Egyptian to Askalon, and destroyed it in a battle before the walls of that fortress.
[1124-1187 A.D.]
The presence of such powerful auxiliaries encouraged the Christians to undertake aggressive operations, but it was difficult to decide whether Askalon or Tyre should be first attacked, the neighbours of each naturally considering it as the most formidable. The dispute was settled by an appeal to Heaven. Two pieces of parchment were placed in a box upon the altar, on one of which was written “Tyre,” and on the other “Askalon.” The child who was sent to make a choice drew forth that which was inscribed “Tyre,” and preparations were forthwith made for the siege, which began on the 15th of February, A.D. 1124. The Christians fortified themselves on the land side against the attempts to relieve the city which the Turks of Damascus might be expected to make, and began to construct machines with which to assail the walls. The population of Tyre, devoted to commerce, and become rich and luxurious by its means, was unwarlike; but the garrison was composed of Damascenes and Egyptians, who put in force all the known means for obstructing the progress of the siege. The tower of the Christians was set on fire, and only saved from destruction by the heroism of a pilgrim, who ascended it amidst its own flames and the missiles of the Tyrians. They were skilful swimmers, and under cover of night swam to the guardship of the Venetians, cut the cable by which it was anchored, and fastening another to the vessel drew it to the shore.
In expectation that the blockade by sea would be broken by a fleet from Egypt, or by land from Damascus, the Tyrians held out against assault and famine till the month of June. But no effective aid came from either quarter. The commander of Damascus twice marched as far as the Leontes; but the first time he withdrew at the sight of the Christian army, and the second he came to propose terms of capitulation. They were readily granted by the chiefs, though the common soldiers murmured that they were deprived of their hope of plunder, the infidels being allowed to remain in the city on payment of a moderate ransom, or to withdraw with their property. On the 25th of June the garrison marched out; the banners of the kingdom of Jerusalem, the republic of Venice, and the Count of Tripolis were hoisted on the towers, and Tyre once more became Christian. Its archbishopric was given four years after, with some diminution of the province, to William, an Englishman, and the best historian of the Holy Wars. Askalon was not reduced till the year 1153, when it surrendered to Baldwin III, after a siege of eight months.
[1187-1453 A.D.]
The kingdom of Jerusalem, which had been in a state of gradual decline during the twelfth century, notwithstanding the efforts made by Europe for its aid, was overthrown by Saladin in the year 1187, and the whole of the seacoast would have fallen into his power but for the heroic defence of Tyre. The battle of Tiberias, in which the army of the Cross had been annihilated, and the king Lusignan taken prisoner, had spread consternation among the Christians; one city after another had opened its gates to the conqueror. Conrad, the son of the Marquis of Montferrat, arrived off the harbour of Acre a few days after its surrender to the Saracens. He had heard nothing of the misfortunes of the Christians, but the light of the setting sun, falling on the banner of Saladin on the ramparts, showed him his danger, and with some difficulty he made his escape to Tyre.
The Count of Sidon, who had taken refuge there, and the castellan of Tyre were negotiating with Saladin for its surrender, and had already prepared to hoist his colours on the walls, as soon as he made his appearance before the gates. The people of Tyre, however, received Conrad with acclamations; the Count of Sidon fled to Tripolis, and preparations were made for the defence of the city. Saladin collected some ships to blockade Tyre by sea, and in the end of the month of December invested the city. Conrad had very few ships, but having possessed himself of some of Saladin’s fleet, which he had enticed to enter the harbour by the hope of a surrender, he manned them with his own troops, and attacking the remainder, drove them on shore. The enemy had taken advantage of his temporary absence to attempt to scale the walls; but he promptly returned and compelled them to retire with the loss of a thousand men. Saladin on this raised the siege, and did not resume it in the following spring. The archbishop, William of Tyre, had been engaged in soliciting aid from the Christian powers of the West, and had prevailed on the king of Sicily to send a fleet to Tyre with three hundred knights; other reinforcements arrived; the release of the captive king, Guy of Lusignan, gave unity to the Crusaders, and they became the assailants. In August of this year (A.D. 1189) the siege of Acre began, which ended, after a succession of extraordinary vicissitudes, in its capture by the united arms of Philip Augustus and Richard Cœur-de-Lion. By the pacification of August, 1192, Joppa is fixed as the southern, and Tyre as the northern boundary of the Christian territories in Palestine.
Tyre continued to flourish as a commercial city during the succeeding century, chiefly through the activity of the Venetians. In return for the assistance which they had rendered to Baldwin II, they had obtained for themselves the concession of a third part of the city and its dependent territory, the right of being governed by their own magistrates and tried by their own tribunals, and various commercial privileges throughout the extent of the kingdom of Jerusalem; and they succeeded in maintaining these rights, though often infringed.
The rise of the Mameluke power in Egypt was soon felt in the capture of Antioch (A.D. 1268), and the subsequent reduction of the principal towns of the seacoast. A temporary respite was obtained by the second expedition of Louis IX, in 1270, and of the son of Henry III, afterwards Edward I of England, in the following year. The dissensions which followed the death of the sultan Bibars (or Beybars) by whom Antioch had been taken, delayed the catastrophe which the nations of the West took no means to avert. The sultan Kalavun (Kalaoon) resumed the attack on the remains of the Christian kingdom. Margaret, the widow of John de Montfort, who held the principality of Tyre, entered into an agreement with him, by which she bound herself to withdraw from all alliance with the Christian princes who harboured evil designs against the sultan, to raise no new fortifications nor repair the old, and to divide with him the revenues of all territory which they might hold in common. Acre was again the scene on which the Christians and Saracens tried their strength. Kalavun died on the march from Egypt, but Ashraf, his son and successor, adopted his policy, and the siege was begun in the first week of April, 1291. Since its reconquest by Philip and Richard, it had taken the place of Tyre as the great mart of the Syrian coast; every language of the East or West found an interpreter within its walls. It was far more strongly fortified than when it defied for two years the attacks of Saladin, and forces were assembled in it amply sufficient for its defence, had they been wielded with vigour and unanimity. But dissension reigned among them. On the 18th of May, 1291, the whole city with the exception of the fort of the Templars, was occupied by Ashraf, and this was delivered up to him by capitulation on the next day. The few places which the Christians still held in Syria attempted no defence. The Frank inhabitants of Tyre abandoned it on the evening of the day on which Acre surrendered, and the Saracens entered it the following morning.
[1479-1516 A.D.]
Othman, the founder of the present Turkish empire, began his reign in A.D. 1288, three years before the reduction of Syria by the sultan of Egypt. From the conquest of Asia Minor and the Danubian provinces of the Greek empire, the Turks advanced in the middle of the fifteenth century to the capture of Constantinople (A.D. 1453), and spread a panic through Europe by the sack of Otranto in A.D. 1479. The progress of conquest was checked during the reign of Bajazet II; but his successor, Selim I, in A.D. 1516, conquered Syria in a single campaign, and since that time it has been subject to the Ottomans, the most barbarous of all the conquerors by whom it has successively been subdued. The consequent decline of its prosperity has been rapid and complete. The insecurity of life and property has been fatal alike to manufacturing industry, to agriculture, and to commerce; the traveller, if without arms or escort, has pursued his researches in perpetual danger of being plundered or killed, and with the certainty of vexatious delays and interruptions; the means of communication have been suffered to fall into decay, and no effort has been made to check the process by which nature is destroying the harbours of the coast. Neither sieges nor earthquakes have done so much as Turkish oppression and misrule to make Tyre what the traveller now sees, “a rock for fishermen to spread their nets upon.”[b]
Phœnician Sarcophagus
(In the Metropolitan Museum, New York)