2. Phoenicia under the hegemony of Tyre (B.C. 1252-877)
Influx of the Sidonian population raises Tyre to the first
place among the cities (about B.C. 1252)—First notable
result, the colonisation of Gades (B.C. 1130)—Other
colonies of about this period—Extension of Phoenician
commerce—Tyre ruled by kings—Abi-Baal—Hiram—Hiram’s
dealings with Solomon—His improvement of his own capital—
His opinion of “the land of Cabul”—His joint trade with the
Israelites—His war with Utica—Successors of Hiram—Time of
disturbance—Reign of Ithobal—of Badezor—of Matgen—of
Pygmalion—Founding of Carthage—First contact of Phoenicia
with Assyria—Submission of Phoenicia, B.C. 877.
Tyre was noted as a “strong city” as early as the time of Joshua,[1440] and was probably inferior only to Sidon, or to Sidon and Aradus, during the period of Sidonian ascendancy. It is mentioned in the “Travels of a Mohar” (about B.C. 1350) as “a port, richer in fish than in sands."[1441] The tradition was, that it acquired its predominance and pre-eminence from the accession of the Sidonian population, which fled thither by sea, when no longer able to resist the forces of Ascalon.[1442] We do not find it, however, attaining to any great distinction or notoriety, until more than a century later, when it distinguishes itself by the colonisation of Gades (about B.C. 1130), beyond the Pillars of Hercules, on the shores of the Atlantic. We may perhaps deduce from this fact, that the concentration of energy caused by the removal to Tyre of the best elements in the population of Sidon gave a stimulus to enterprise, and caused longer voyages to be undertaken, and greater dangers to be affronted by the daring seamen of the Syrian coast than had ever been ventured on before. The Tyrian seamen were, perhaps, of a tougher fibre than the Sidonian, and the change of hegemony is certainly accompanied by a greater display of energy, a more adventurous spirit, a wider colonisation, and a more wonderful commercial success, than characterise the preceding period of Sidonian leadership and influence.
The settlements planted by Tyre in the first burst of her colonising energy seem to have been, besides Gades, Thasos, Abdera, and Pronectus towards the north, Malaca, Sexti, Carteia, Belon, and a second Abdera in Spain, together with Caralis in Sardinia,[1443] Tingis and Lixus on the West African coast, and in North Africa Hadrumetum and the lesser Leptis.[1444] Her aim was to throw the meshes of her commerce wider than Sidon had ever done, and so to sweep into her net a more abundant booty. It was Tyre which especially affected “long voyages,"[1445] and induced her colonists of Gades to explore the shores outside the Pillars of Hercules, northwards as far as Cornwall and the Scilly Isles, southwards to the Fortunate Islands, and north-eastwards into the Baltic. It is, no doubt, uncertain at what date these explorations were effected, and some of them may belong to the later hegemony of Tyre, ab. B.C. 600; but the forward movement of the twelfth century seems to have been distinctly Tyrian, and to have been one of the results of the new position in which she was placed by the sudden collapse of her elder sister, Sidon.
According to some,[1446] Tyre, during the early period of her supremacy, was under the government of shôphetim, or “judges;” but the general usage of the Phoenician cities makes against this supposition. Philo in his “Origines of Phoenicia” speaks constantly of kings,[1447] but never of judges. We hear of a king, Abd-Baal, at Berytus[1448] about B.C. 1300. Sidonian kings are mentioned in connection with the myth of Europa.[1449] The cities founded by the Phoenicians in Cyprus are always under monarchical rule.[1450] Tyre itself, when its history first presents itself to us in any detail, is governed by a king.[1451] All that can be urged on the other side is, that we know of no Tyrian king by name until about B.C. 1050; and that, if there had been earlier kings, it might have been expected that some record of them would have come down to us. But to argue thus is to ignore the extreme scantiness and casual character of the notices which have reached us bearing upon the early Phoenician history. No writer has left us any continuous history of Phoenicia, even in the barest outline.[1452] Native monumental annals are entirely wanting. We depend for the early times upon the accident of Jewish monarchs having come into contact occasionally with Phoenician ones, and on Jewish writers having noted the occasions in Jewish histories. Scripture and Josephus alone furnish our materials for the period now under consideration, and the materials are scanty, fragmentary, and sadly wanting in completeness.
It is towards the middle of the eleventh century B.C. that these materials become available. About the time when David was acclaimed as king by the tribe of Judah at Hebron, a Phoenician prince mounted the throne of Tyre, by name Abibalus, or Abi-Baal.[1453] We do not know the length of his reign; but, while the son of Jesse was still in the full vigour of life, Abi-Baal was succeeded on the Tyrian throne by his son, Hiram or Hirôm, a prince of great energy, of varied tastes, and of an unusually broad and liberal turn of mind. Hiram, casting his eye over the condition of the states and kingdoms which were his neighbours, seems to have discerned in Judah and David a power and a ruler whose friendship it was desirable to cultivate with a view to the establishment of very close relations. Accordingly, it was not long after the Jewish monarch’s capture of the Jebusite stronghold on Mount Zion that the Tyrian prince sent messengers to him to Jerusalem, with a present of “timber of cedars,” and a number of carpenters, and stone-hewers, well skilled in the art of building.[1454] David accepted their services, and a goodly palace soon arose on some part of the Eastern hill, of which cedar from Lebanon was the chief material,[1455] and of which Hiram’s workmen were the constructors. At a later date David set himself to collect abundant and choice materials for the magnificent Temple which Solomon his son was divinely commissioned to build on Mount Moriah to Jehovah; and here again “the Zidonians and they of Tyre,” or the subjects of Hiram, “brought much cedar wood to David."[1456] The friendship continued firm to the close of David’s reign;[1457] and when Solomon succeeded his father as king of Israel and lord of the whole tract between the middle Euphrates and Egypt, the bonds were drawn yet closer, and an alliance concluded which placed the two powers on terms of the very greatest intimacy. Hiram had no sooner heard of Solomon’s accession than he sent an embassy to congratulate him;[1458] and Solomon took advantage of the opening which presented itself to announce his intention of building the Temple which his father had designed, and to request Hiram’s aid in the completion of the work. Copies of letters which passed between the two monarchs were preserved both in the Tyrian and the Jewish archives, and the Tyrian versions are said to have been still extant in the public record office of the city in the first century of the Christian era.[1459] These documents ran as follows:—
“Solomon to King Hiram [sends greeting]:—Know that my father David was desirous of building a temple to God, but was prevented by his wars and his continual expeditions; for he did not rest from subduing his adversaries, until he had made every one of them tributary to him. And now I for my part return thanks to God for the present time of peace, and having rest thereby I purpose to build the house; for God declared to my father that it should be built by me. Wherefore I beseech thee to send some of thy servants with my servants to Mount Lebanon, to cut wood there, for none among us can skill to hew timber like unto the Sidonians. And I will pay the wood-cutters their hire at whatsoever rate thou shalt determine.”
“King Hiram to King Solomon [sends greeting]:—Needs must I praise God, that hath given thee to sit upon thy father’s throne, seeing that thou art a wise man, and possessed of every virtue. And I, rejoicing at these things, will do all that thou hast desired of me. I will by my servants cut thee in abundance timber of cedar and timber of cypress, and will bring them down to the sea, and command my servants to construct of them a float, or raft, and navigate it to whatever point of thy coast thou mayest wish, and there discharge them; after which thy servants can carry them to Jerusalem. But be it thy care to provide me in return with a supply of food, whereof we are in want as inhabiting an island."[1460]
The result was an arrangement by which the Tyrian monarch furnished his brother king with timber of various kinds, chiefly cedar, cut in Lebanon, and also with a certain number of trained artificers, workers in metal, carpenters, and masons, while the Israelite monarch on his part made a return in corn, wine, and oil, supplying Tyre, while the contract lasted, with 20,000 cors of wheat, the same quantity of barley, 20,000 baths of wine, and the same number of oil, annually.[1461] Phoenicia always needed to import supplies of food for its abundant population,[1462] and having an inexhaustible store of timber in Lebanon, was glad to find a market for it so near. Thus the arrangement suited both parties. The hillsides of Galilee and the broad and fertile plains of Esdraelon and Sharon produced a superabundance of wheat and barley, whereof the inhabitants had to dispose in some quarter or other, and the highlands of Sumeria and Judæa bore oil and wine far beyond the wants of those who cultivated them. What Phoenicia lacked in these respects from the scantiness of its cultivable soil, Palestine was able and eager to supply; while to Phoenicia it was a boon to obtain, not only a market for her timber, but also employment for her surplus population, which under ordinary circumstances was always requiring to be carried off to distant lands, from the difficulty of supporting itself at home.