“And Herod was highly displeased with them of Tyre and Sidon; but they came with one accord to him, and having made Blastus, the king’s chamberlain, their friend, desired peace, because their country was nourished by the king’s country.”—Acts, ch. xi. ver. 20.
Tyre, in the time of Pliny:—“Tyrus, in the olden time an island, lying almost three quarters of a mile within the deep sea; but now, through the skill and labour of Alexander at the siege of it, joined to the main land. It is greatly renowned; for out of it have come three other cities of ancient name;—viz., Leptis, Utica, and that great Carthage, which so long strove with the empire of Rome, for the monarchy and dominion of the whole world. Not only these, but the Gades, divided, as it were, from the rest of the earth, were peopled from thence. Now, all its glory and reputation arise out of its dye purple and crimson colours. The compass of it is nineteen miles, if Palæ-tyrus be included in it.”
There was a style of architecture called Tyrian; and of this order Sir C. Wren supposes was the theatre; by the fall of which, Samson made so great a slaughter of the Philistines. “In considering what this fabric must be,” says he[304], “that could at one pull be demolished, I conceive it an oval amphitheatre, the scene in the middle, where a vast roof of cedar-beams, resting round upon the walls, centered all upon one short architrave, that united two cedar pillars in the middle. One pillar would not be sufficient to unite the ends of at least one hundred beams that tended to a centre; therefore, I say, there must be a short architrave resting upon two pillars, upon which all the beams tending to the centre of the amphitheatre might be supported. Now, if Samson, by his miraculous strength, pressing upon one of these pillars, moved it from its basis, the whole roof must of necessity fall.” The most observable monument of the Tyrian style is the sepulchre of Absalom, over against Jerusalem, in the valley of Jehosaphat.
When Tyre fell into the hands of the Romans, it did not cease to be a flourishing city. It was made the metropolis of a province by the emperor Hadrian, who repaired its fortifications, and gave it all the advantages of a Roman colony.
About A. D. 639, it fell from the dominion of Rome into the hands of the Saracens, who remained a considerable time in possession of it.
On this capture most of the inhabitants emigrated to Acre. It still remains, we are told by Mr. Addison, in nearly the same state in which they abandoned it, with the addition of about a hundred new stone buildings, occupying a small space to the north of the peninsula contiguous to the port. Many parts of the double wall, which encompassed the island, are still visible, and attest the strength of its ancient foundations. The isthmus is so completely covered with sand, washed up by the sea, on either side, that none but those, acquainted with the history of Tyre, would suppose it to be the work of man. The peninsula is about a mile long, and half a mile broad; and its surface is covered with the foundations of buildings, now nearly all in ruins. On the western side, where the ground is somewhat more elevated than the rest, is a citadel, which Mr. Addison naturally supposes, occupies the site of the ancient one. On the eastern side, he goes on to observe, are the remains of a Gothic church, built by the crusaders, of materials belonging to the temple of Jupiter Olympus, which was destroyed by Constantine the Great, or that of Hercules, the tutelary deity of the ancient Tyrians. Of this only part of the choir remains. The interior is divided into three aisles, separated by rows of columns of red granite; of a kind nowhere else known in Syria. At the extremities of the two branches of the cross were two towers, the ascent to which was by a spiral staircase, which still remains entire. Djezzar, who stripped all this country to ornament his mosque at Acre, wished to carry them away; but his engineers were not able even to move them. This is supposed to have been the cathedral, of which Eusebius speaks, calling it the most magnificent temple in Phœnicia, and in which the famous William of Tyre was the first archbishop.
In the second century, it became a bishop’s see; and St. Jerome says, that in his time it was not only the most famous and beautiful city of Phœnicia, but a mart for all the nations of the world. It was dependent upon the patriarch of Antioch; but the see had no less than fourteen suffragans.
In 1112, Tyre was besieged by the crusaders; also again in 1124. It was successfully attacked by Saladin, in 1192; but in 1291, Kabil, sultan of the Mamelukes, obtained it by capitulation, and rased its forts.
Tyre is now called Sur or Sour. For this name several explanations have been given. We shall select the most probable, and these are by Volney, and Dr. Shaw. “In the name Sour,” says Volney, “we recognise that of Tyre, which we receive from the Latin; but if we recollect, that the y was formerly pronounced ou; and observe, that the Latins have substituted the t for θ of the Greeks, and that the θ had the sound of th, in the word think, we shall be less surprised at the alteration. This has not happened among the Orientals, who have always called this place ‘Tsour,’ and ‘Sour.’”