The conquest of Edom by David and the Hebrew fleets which sailed from the Gulf of Aqaba must soon have acquainted the merchant princes of Ma’ân and Saba with the fact that a new power had risen in Western Asia, and a new market been opened for their goods. The road to Palestine was well-known and frequently travelled, and Minæan or Sabæan settlements existed upon it almost as far as the frontiers of Edom. What more natural, therefore, than that a Sabæan queen should visit her wealthy neighbour whose patronage had become important for Sabæan trade? That queens might rule in the Arabian peninsula we know from the annals of Tiglath-pileser III., which refer to Zabibê and her successor Samsê, each of whom is called a ‘queen of the land of the Arabs.’
Even the Pharaoh of Egypt condescended to mingle the blood of the solar race with that of the grandson of a Hebrew fellah. Solomon married the daughter of the Egyptian monarch. But it was a monarch of the twenty-first dynasty, who, though acknowledged as the sole legitimate representative of the line of the Sun-god Ra, had nevertheless been sadly shorn of his ancient rights and authority. His power was confined to the Delta, where he held his court in the old Hyksos capital of Tanis or Zoan, close to the Asiatic frontier, and as far removed as possible from the rival dynasty which ruled in Upper Egypt. He was doubtless glad to secure a son-in-law who could defend him from his enemies at home in case of need, and whose friendship was preferable to his hostility.
The Egyptian princess had brought with her as dowry the Canaanitish city of Gezer. That it should have been in the power of the Pharaoh to give it is at first sight surprising. It shows that Egypt had never relinquished in theory her old claims to be mistress of Canaan. Like the title of ‘king of France,’ which so long lingered in the royal style of England, they were never abandoned, but were ready to be revived whenever an opportunity occurred. Towards the close of the period of the Judges, but before the Philistines had become formidable, Assyria and Egypt had met on friendly terms on the coast of Palestine. The Assyrian conqueror, Tiglath-pileser I. (in B.C. 1100), had found his way to the Phœnician city of Arvad, and there received from the Egyptian Pharaoh various presents which included a crocodile and a hippopotamus. The campaign of the Assyrian king had brought him to the edge of the territory which the Egyptian rulers of the twenty-first dynasty still regarded as their own, and they hastened accordingly to propitiate the invader, and thus to stay his further advance. The embassy and gifts further show that the occupation of the coast by the Philistines did not prevent the Egyptians from maintaining their old relations with Phœnicia, though they may have done so by sea rather than by land. At all events an expedition sent to Gebal by Hir-Hor, the high priest of Thebes, at the beginning of the twenty-first dynasty, was despatched in ships.[[528]] Had the coast-road been free from danger, the Egyptians would doubtless have asserted their right to march along it. They seized the first occasion to do so, when the Philistines had been conquered by David, and the successor of David was the Pharaoh’s ally.
Solomon engaged in no wars of his own. He was no general himself, and it may be that he feared to intrust a subject with an army. Joab had taught him how easily the commander-in-chief might defy his master, Abner how readily he might betray him. In the list of officials given in the Hebrew text, Benaiah indeed is stated to have been ‘over the host’ (1 Kings iv. 4), but Benaiah was actually the commander of the bodyguard, so that his command of the army must have been merely nominal. Practically the army which had played so large a part in the history of David had ceased to exist. Hence it was that Rezon was able to establish an independent kingdom in Damascus, and that when the Ten Tribes revolted there was no army at hand with which to suppress the rebellion. Hence, too, the curious fact that just as Solomon sought the help of Hiram in fitting out his merchant fleet in the Gulf of Aqaba, so also he sought the help of the Egyptian king in subduing the one Canaanitish city of importance which still preserved its freedom. Gezer had maintained its Canaanitish continuity from the days when as yet the Israelites had not entered Canaan, and the mounds of Tel Jezer which mark its site must still conceal beneath them the records of its early history. Doubtless the Egyptian court was gratified at the arrangement with the Hebrew king. It admitted the Egyptian claim of suzerainty over Palestine, and admitted the right of its armies to march along its roads. But the substantial advantages remained with Solomon. He gained Gezer without either expense or trouble, and at the same time he allied himself by marriage with the oldest and most exclusive royal race in the Oriental world. Like the kings of Mitanni in the age of the eighteenth dynasty, the son-in-law of the Pharaoh was on a footing of equality with the proudest princes of Asia.
The alliance with Hiram was no less advantageous. Hiram had done for Tyre what Solomon was doing for Jerusalem. It has been conjectured that his father Abibal, or Abi-Baal, was the founder of a dynasty; at all events the accession of Hiram ushered in a new era for the Tyrian state. He succeeded to the throne at the age of nineteen years, and during his long reign of thirty-four years he raised Tyre to an unprecedented height of prosperity and power, and rebuilt the city itself. The ancient ‘rock’ from which it had derived its name was connected by an embankment with another rocky islet close to it, and a new and splendid city was erected upon the space thus won from the sea. Excellent harbours were constructed, massive walls built round the city, and the venerable temple of Melkarth restored from its foundations, and decorated with all the sumptuous splendour of Phœnician art.
Tyre had always been famous for its sailors and its ships, and its wealth is celebrated even in the letters of Tel el-Amarna. But under Hiram its maritime trade underwent an enormous development. The conquest of the Philistines by David, and the consequent disappearance of piracy from the eastern basin of the Mediterranean, were the immediate causes of this. Tyrian ships could now venture into the bays and havens of the Greek seas in quest of slaves, or the precious purple-fish, and their merchants could make voyages in safety as far as Tarshish. Riches poured into ‘the merchant-city,’ and Hiram had resources in abundance for his public works.
The Hebrew king was eager to follow the example of his Tyrian neighbour. It was true that his subjects were neither sailors nor traders; it was true, also, that the harbours on the Mediterranean coast which the conquest of the Philistines had added to his dominions were few and poor. But the conquest of Edom had given him the entrance to the spice-lands of Southern Arabia, and the gold-mines which recent discovery has found in Central Africa.[[529]] An agreement was therefore come to with Hiram which was to the profit of both. Hiram gave Solomon sailors and boat-builders, as well as the use of his Mediterranean ports; in return he received from Solomon the right of using the harbours of the Red Sea. While the products of Europe made their way to Solomon through Tyre, the products of the south passed to Hiram from the Edomite havens of Elath and Ezion-geber.
Hiram was useful to Solomon in yet another way. The age of empire-building was over; the time had come to create a capital which should be worthy of the empire. Like Ramses II. of Egypt, Solomon made himself an imperishable name as a builder. Jerusalem was strongly fortified; royal palaces were erected; above all, a temple was raised to Yahveh that vied in splendour with those of Phœnicia and the Nile. But the architects and artisans had to be brought from the dominions of the Tyrian king; the Israelites had been too much barbarised by the long struggle for existence they had had to wage for another Bezaleel to be born among them, as in the days when they had but just quitted the cultured land of the Delta. It is true that the master-artificer in bronze, who designed the bronze-work of the temple, was a Hebrew on his mother’s side, but he bore the Tyrian name of Hiram, and his father was ‘a man of Tyre.’ Even for his carpenters and masons Solomon was indebted to his Tyrian ally; it was only the gangs of labourers driven to their forced work among the forests and quarries of Lebanon that were levied by Hadoram out of ‘Israel.’ The Israelites had become hewers of wood and drawers of water for their king, and, as in the old days of Egyptian bondage, 3300 taskmasters were employed in keeping them to their work.[[530]] Like the architects, the skilled artificers were lent by Hiram; from Hiram came also the logs of cedar and fir that were needed for the buildings at Jerusalem.
In return Solomon provided his ally with wheat and oil. The island-city was dependent on others for its corn; on the rock of Tyre and on the barren crags of the opposite mainland no wheat could be grown. Twenty cities of Galilee, moreover, were ceded to Hiram. But for these Hiram had to pay one hundred and twenty talents of gold; and in the end, the wily Hebrew, like his forefather Jacob, had the best of the bargain. When the Tyrian king came to inspect his new territory, it ‘pleased him not.’ Solomon, in fact, had given him what it was not worth his own while to keep.
The royal palace was thirteen years in building. Attached to it was the armoury, or House of the Forest of Lebanon as it was called from the cedar used in its construction. Here the three hundred shields and two hundred targets of gold were stored, which were made for the bodyguard, and served also as a reserve fund in case of need. The architecture of the palace itself culminated, as in Persia, in the audience-chamber with its throne of ivory overlaid with gold, and approached by six steps which were guarded on either side by the images of lions. Another palace was erected for the Egyptian queen; like the palace of the king it was in the Upper City, close to the spot on which the temple was destined to stand.