The harbour opened to the east, facing the mainland: it was divided into two basins by a stone jetty, and was doubtless insufficient for the sea-traffic, but this was the less felt inasmuch as there was a safe anchorage outside it—the best, perhaps, to be found in these waters. Opposite to Arvad, on an almost continuous line of coast some ten or twelve miles in length, towns and villages occurred at short intervals, such as Marath, Antarados, Enhydra, and Karnê, into which the surplus population of the island overflowed. Karnê possessed a harbour, and would have been a dangerous neighbour to the Arvadians had they themselves not occupied and carefully fortified it.*
* Marath, now Amrît, possesses some ancient ruins which have
been described by Renan. Antarados, which prior to the
Græco-Roman era was a place of no importance, occupies the
site of Tortosa. Enhydra is not known, and Karnê has been
replaced by Karnûn to the north of Tortosa. None of the
“neighbours of Arados” are mentioned by name in the Assyrian
texts; but W. Max Müller has demonstrated that the Egyptian
form Aratût or Aratiût corresponds with a Semitic plural
Arvadôt, and consequently refers not only to Arad itself,
but also to the fortified cities and towns which formed its
continental suburbs.
The cities of the dead lay close together in the background, on the slope of the nearest chain of hills; still further back lay a plain celebrated for its fertility and the luxuriance of its verdure: Lebanon, with its wooded peaks, was shut in on the north and south, but on the east the mountain sloped downwards almost to the sea-level, furnishing a pass through which ran the road which joined the great military highway not far from Qodshu. The influence of Arvad penetrated by means of this pass into the valley of the Orontes, and is believed to have gradually extended as far as Hamath itself—in other words, over the whole of Zahi. For the most part, however, its rule was confined to the coast between G-abala and the Nahr el-Kebîr; Simyra at one time acknowledged its suzerainty, at another became a self-supporting and independent state, strong enough to compel the respect of its neighbours.* Beyond the Orontes, the coast curves abruptly inward towards the west, and a group of wind-swept hills ending in a promontory called Phaniel,** the reputed scene of a divine manifestation, marked the extreme limit of Arabian influence to the north, if, indeed, it ever reached so far.
* Simyra is the modern Surnrah, near the Nahr el-Kebîr.
** The name has only come down to us under its Greek form,
but its original form, Phaniel or Penûel, is easily arrived
at from the analogous name used in Canaan to indicate
localities where there had been a theophany. Renan questions
whether Phaniel ought not to be taken in the same sense as
the Pnê-Baal of the Carthaginian inscriptions, and applied
to a goddess to whom the promontory had been dedicated; he
also suggests that the modern name Cap Madonne may be a
kind of echo of the title Rabbath borne by this goddess
from the earliest times.
Half a dozen obscure cities flourished here, Arka,* Siani,** Mahallat, Kaiz, Maîza, and Botrys,*** some of them on the seaboard, others inland on the bend of some minor stream. Botrys,**** the last of the six, barred the roads which cross the Phaniel headland, and commanded the entrance to the holy ground where Byblos and Berytus celebrated each year the amorous mysteries of Adonis.
* Arka is perhaps referred to in the tablets of Tel el-
Amarna under the form Irkata or Irkat; it also appears in
the Bible (Gen. x. 17) and in the Assyrian texts. It is the
Cassarea of classical geographers, which has now resumed its
old Phoenician name of Tell-Arka.
** Sianu or Siani is mentioned in the Assyrian texts and in
the Bible; Strabo knew it under the name of Sinna, and a
village near Arka was called Sin or Syn as late as the XVth
century.
*** According to the Assyrian inscriptions, these were the
names of the three towns which formed the Tripolis of
Græco-Roman times.
**** Botrys is the hellenized form of the name Bozruna or
Bozrun, which appears on the tablets of Tel el-Amarna; the
modern name, Butrun or Batrun, preserves the final letter
which the Greeks had dropped.
Gublu, or—as the Greeks named it—Byblos,* prided itself on being the most ancient city in the world. The god El had founded it at the dawning of time, on the flank of a hill which is visible from some distance out at sea. A small bay, now filled up, made it an important shipping centre. The temple stood on the top of the hill, a few fragments of its walls still serving to mark the site; it was, perhaps, identical with that of which we find the plan engraved on certain imperial coins.**
* Gublu or Gubli is the pronunciation indicated for this
name in the Tel el-Amarna tablets; the Egyptians transcribed
it Kupuna or Kupna by substituting n for l. The
Greek name Byblos was obtained from Gublu by substituting a
b for the g.
** Renan carried out excavations in the hill of Kassubah
which brought to light some remains of a Græco-Roman temple:
he puts forward, subject to correction, the hypothesis which
I have adopted above.
Two flights of steps led up to it from the lower quarters of the town, one of which gave access to a chapel in the Greek style, surmounted by a triangular pediment, and dating, at the earliest, from the time of the Seleucides; the other terminated in a long colonnade, belonging to the same period, added as a new façade to an earlier building, apparently in order to bring it abreast of more modern requirements.