* Their taste for agriculture, and the comparative
perfection of their modes of culture, are proved by the
greatness of the remains still to be observed: “The
Phoenicians constructed a winepress, a trough, to last for
ever.” Their colonists at Carthage carried with them the same
clever methods, and the Romans borrowed many excellent
things in the way of agriculture from Carthaginian books,
especially from those of Mago.
Among no other people was the art of irrigation so successfully practised, and from such a narrow strip of territory as belonged to them no other cultivators could have gathered such abundant harvests of wheat and barley, and such supplies of grapes, olives, and other fruits. From Arvad to Tyre, and even beyond it, the littoral region and the central parts of the valleys presented a long ribbon of verdure of varying breadth, where fields of corn were blended with gardens and orchards and shady woods. The whole region was independent and self-supporting, the inhabitants having no need to address themselves to their neighbours in the interior, or to send their children to seek their fortune in distant lands. To insure prosperity, nothing was needed but a slight exercise of labour and freedom from the devastating influence of war.
The position of the country was such as to secure it from attack, and from the conflicts which laid waste the rest of Syria. Along almost the entire eastern border of the country the Lebanon was a great wall of defence running parallel to the coast, strengthened at each extremity by the additional protection of the rivers Nahr el-Kebîr and Litany. Its slopes were further defended by the forest, which, with its lofty trees and brushwood, added yet another barrier to that afforded by rocks and snow. Hunters’ or shepherds’ paths led here and there in tortuous courses from one side of the mountain to the other. Near the middle of the country two roads, practicable in all seasons, secured communications between the littoral and the plain of the interior. They branched off on either side from the central road in the neighbourhood of Tabakhi, south of Qodshu, and served the needs of the wooded province of Magara.* This region was inhabited by pillaging tribes, which the Egyptians called at one time Lamnana, the Libanites,** at others Shausu, using for them the same appellation as that which they bestowed upon the Bedouin of the desert.
* Magara is mentioned in the Anastasi Papyrus, No. 1, and
Chabas has identified it with the plain of Macra, which
Strabo places in Syria, in the neighbourhood of Eloutheros.
** The name Lamnana is given in a picture of the campaigns
of Seti I.
The roads through this province ran under the dense shade afforded by oaks, cedars, and cypresses, in an obscurity favourable to the habits of the wolves and hyamas which infested it, and even of those thick-maned lions known to Asia at the time; and then proceeding in its course, crossed the ridge in the neighbourhood of the snow-peak called Shaua, which is probably the Sannîn of our times. While one of these roads, running north along the lake of Yamuneh and through the gorge of Akura, then proceeded along the Adonis* to Byblos, the other took a southern direction, and followed the Nahr el-Kelb to the sea.
* This is the road pointed out by Renan as the easiest but
least known of those which cross the Lebanon; the remains of
an Assyrian inscription graven on the rocks near Aîn el-
Asafîr show that it was employed from a very early date, and
Renan thought that it was used by the armies which came from
the upper valley of the Orontes.
Towards the mouth of the latter a wall of rock opposes the progress of the river, and leaves at length but a narrow and precipitous defile for the passage of its waters: a pathway cut into the cliff at a very remote date leads almost perpendicularly from the bottom of the precipice to the summit of the promontory. Commerce followed these short and direct routes, but invading hosts very rarely took advantage of them, although they offered access into the very heart of Phoenicia. Invaders would encounter here, in fact, a little known and broken country, lending itself readily to surprises and ambuscades; and should they reach the foot of the Lebanon range, they would find themselves entrapped in a region of slippery defiles, with steep paths at intervals cut into the rock, and almost inaccessible to chariots or horses, and so narrow in places that a handful of resolute men could have held them for a long time against whole battalions. The enemy preferred to make for the two natural breaches at the respective extremities of the line of defence, and for the two insular cities which flanked the approaches to them—Tyre in the case of those coming from Egypt, Arvad and Simyra for assailants from the Euphrates. The Arvadians, bellicose by nature, would offer strong resistance to the invader, and not permit themselves to be conquered without a brave struggle with the enemy, however powerful he might be.* When the disproportion of the forces which they could muster against the enemy convinced them of the folly of attempting an open conflict, their island-home offered them a refuge where they would be safe from any attacks.
* Thûtmosis III. was obliged to enter on a campaign against
Arvad in the year XXIX., in the year XXX., and probably
twice in the following years. Under Amenôthes III. and IV.
we see that these people took part in all the intrigues
directed against Egypt; they were the allies of the Khati
against Ramses II. in the campaign of the year V. and later
on we find them involved in most of the wars against
Assyria.
Sometimes the burning and pillaging of their property on the mainland might reduce them to throw themselves on the mercy of their foes, but such submission did not last long, and they welcomed the slightest occasion for regaining their liberty. Conquered again and again on account of the smallness of their numbers, they were never discouraged by their reverses, and Phoenicia owed all its military history for a long period to their prowess. The Tyrians were of a more accommodating nature, and there is no evidence, at least during the early centuries of their existence, of the display of those obstinate and blind transports of bravery by which the Arvadians were carried away.*
* No campaign against Tyre is mentioned in any of the
Egyptian annals: the expedition of Thûtmosis III. against
Senzauru was directed against a town of Coele-Syria
mentioned in the Tel el-Amarna tablets with the orthography
Zinzar, the Sizara-Larissa of Græco-Roman times, the Shaizar
of the Arab Chronicles. On the contrary, the Tel el-Amarna
tablets contain several passages which manifest the fidelity
of Tyre and its governors to the King of Egypt.