We have no historical account of the great battle of Carchemish. Jeremiah, however, beholds it in vision. He sees the Egyptians “dismayed and turned away back—their mighty ones are beaten down, and are fled apace, and look not back, since fear is round about them."[14215] He sees the “swift flee away,” and the “mighty men” attempting to “escape;” but they “stumble and fall toward the north by the river Euphrates."[14216] “For this is the day of the Lord God of hosts, a day of vengeance, that He may avenge Him of His adversaries; and the sword devours, and it is satiate and made drunk with their blood, for the Lord God of hosts hath a sacrifice in the north country by the river Euphrates."[14217] The “valiant men” are “swept away”—“many fall—yea, one falls upon another, and they say, Arise and let us go again to our own people, and to the land of our nativity from the oppressing sword."[14218] Nor do the mercenaries escape. “Her hired men are in the midst of her, like fatted bullocks; for they also are turned back, and are fled away together; they did not stand because the day of their calamity was come upon them, and the time of their visitation."[14219] The defeat was, beyond a doubt, complete, overwhelming. The shock of it was felt all over the Delta, at Memphis, and even at distant Thebes.[14220] The hasty flight of the entire Egyptian host left the whole country open to the invading army. “Like a whirlwind, like a torrent, it swept on. The terrified inhabitants retired into the fortified cities,"[14221] where for the time they were safe. Nebuchadnezzar did not stop to commence any siege. He pursued Neco up to the very frontier of Egypt, and would have continued his victorious career into the Nile valley, had not important intelligence arrested his steps. His aged father had died at Babylon while he was engaged in his conquests, and his immediate return to the capital was necessary, if he would avoid a disputed succession.[14222] Thus matters in Syria had to be left in a confused and unsettled state, until such time as the Great King could revisit the scene of his conquests, and place them upon some definite and satisfactory footing.
On the whole, the campaign had, apparently, the effect of drawing closer the links which united Phoenicia with Egypt.[14223] Babylon had shown herself a fierce and formidable enemy, but had disgusted men more than she had terrified them. It was clear enough that she would be a hard mistress, a second and crueller Assyria. There was thus, on Nebuchadnezzar’s departure, a general gravitation of the Syrian and Palestinian states towards Egypt, since they saw in her the only possible protector against Babylon, and dreaded her less than they did the “bitter and hasty nation."[14224] Neco, no doubt, encouraged the movement which tended at once to strengthen himself and weaken his antagonist; and the result was that, in the course of a few years, both Judæa and Phoenicia revolted from Nebuchadnezzar, and declared themselves independent. Phoenicia was still under the hegemony of Tyre, and Tyre had at its head an enterprising prince, a second Ithobal,[14225] who had developed its resources to the uttermost, and was warmly supported by the other cities.[14226] His revolt appears to have taken place in the year B.C. 598, the seventh year of Nebuchadnezzar.[14227] Nebuchadnezzar at once marched against him in person. The sieges of Tyre, Sidon, and Jerusalem were formed. Jerusalem submitted almost immediately.[14228] Sidon was taken after losing half her defenders by pestilence;[14229] but Tyre continued to resist for the long space of thirteen years.[14230] The continental city was probably taken first. Against this Nebuchadnezzar could freely employ his whole force—his “horses, his chariots, his companies, and his much people”—he could bring moveable forts close up to the walls, and cast up banks against them, and batter them with his engines, or undermine them with spade and mattock. When a breach was effected, he could pour his horse into the streets, and ride down all opposition. It is the capture of the continental city which Ezekiel describes when he says:[14231] “Thus saith the Lord God: Behold, I will bring upon Tyrus Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, a king of kings, from the north, with horses and with chariots, and with horsemen, and companies, and much people. He shall slay with the sword thy daughters in the field; and he shall make a fort against thee, and cast a mount against thee, and lift up the buckler against thee. And he shall set engines of war against thy walls, and with his axes he shall break down thy towers. By reason of the abundance of his horses, their dust shall cover thee; thy walls shall shake at the noise of the horseman, and of the wheels and of the chariots, when he shall enter into thy gates, as men enter into a city wherein is made a breach. With the hoofs of his horses shall he tread down all thy streets: he shall slay thy people by the sword, and thy strong garrisons shall go down to the ground. And they shall make a spoil of thy riches, and make a prey of thy merchandise; and they shall break down thy walls, and destroy thy pleasant houses: and they shall lay thy stones and thy timber and thy dust in the midst of the water.” But the island city did not escape. When continental Phoenicia was reduced, it was easy to impress a fleet from maritime towns; to man it, in part with Phoenicians, in part with Babylonians, no mean sailors,[14232] and then to establish a blockade of the isle. Tyre may more than once have crippled and dispersed the blockading squadron; but by a moderate expenditure fresh fleets could be supplied, while Tyre, cut off from Lebanon, would find it difficult to increase or renew her navy. There has been much question whether the island city was ultimately captured by Nebuchadnezzar or no; but even writers who take the negative view[14233] admit that it must have submitted and owned the suzerainty of its assailant. The date of the submission was B.C. 585.
Thus Tyre, in B.C. 585, “fell from her high estate.” Ezekiel’s prophecies were fulfilled. Ithobal II., the “prince of Tyrus” of those prophecies,[14234] whose “head had been lifted up,” and who had said in his heart, “I am a God, I sit in the seat of God, in the midst of the waters,” who deemed himself “wiser than Daniel,” and thought that no secret was hid from him, was “brought down to the pit,” “cast to the ground,” “brought to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that beheld him."[14235] Tyre herself was “broken in the midst of the seas."[14236] A blight fell upon her. For many years, Sidon, rather than Tyre, became once more the leading city of Phoenicia, was regarded as pre-eminent in naval skill,[14237] and is placed before Tyre when the two are mentioned together.[14238] Internal convulsion, moreover, followed upon external decline. Within ten years of the death of Ithobal, the monarchy came to an end by a revolution,[14239] which substituted for Kings Suffetes or Shophetim, “judges,” officers of an inferior status, whose tenure of office was not very assured. Ecnibal, the son of Baslach, the first judge, held the position for no more than two months; Chelbes, the son of Abdæus, who followed him, ruled for ten months; Abbarus, a high priest, probably of Melkarth, for three months. Then, apparently to weaken the office, it was shared between two, as at Carthage, and Mytgon (perhaps Mattan), together with Ger-ashtoreth, the son of Abd-elim, judged Tyre for six years. But the partisans of monarchy were now recovering strength; and the reign of a king, Balator, was intruded at some point in the course of the six years’ judgeship. Judges were then abolished by a popular movement, and kings of the old stock restored. The Tyrians sent to Babylon for a certain Merbal, who must have been either a refugee or a hostage at the court of Neriglissar. He was allowed to return to Tyre, and, being confirmed in the sovereignty, reigned four years. His brother, Eirom, or Hiram, succeeded him, and was still upon the throne when the Empire of Babylon came to an end by the victory of Cyrus over Nabonidus (B.C. 538).
Phoenicia under the Babylonian rule was exceptionally weak. She had to submit to attacks from Egypt under Apries, which fell probably in the reign of Baal over Tyre, about B.C. 565. She had also to submit to the loss of Cyprus under Amasis,[14240] probably about B.C. 540, or a little earlier, when the power of Babylon was rapidly declining. She had been, from first to last, an unwilling tributary of the Great Empire on the Lower Euphrates, and was perhaps not sorry to see that empire go down before the rising power of Persia. Under the circumstances she would view any chance as likely to advance her interests, and times of disturbance and unsettlement gave her the best chance of obtaining a temporary independence. From B.C. 538 to B.C. 528 or 527 she seems to have enjoyed one of these rare intervals of autonomy. Egypt, content with having annexed Cyprus, did not trouble her; Persia, engaged in wars in the far East,[14241] made as yet no claim to her allegiance. In peace and tranquillity she pursued her commercial career, covered the seas with her merchant vessels, and the land-routes of trade with her caravans, repaired the damages inflicted by Nebuchadnezzar on her cities; maintained, if she did not even increase, her naval strength, and waited patiently to see what course events would take now that Babylon was destroyed, and a new and hitherto unknown power was about to assume the first position among the nations of the earth.
5. Phoenicia under the Persians (B.C. 528-333)
Phoenicia not claimed by Cyrus—Submits willingly to
Cambyses—Takes part in his invasion of Egypt—Refuses to
proceed against Carthage—Exceptional privileges enjoyed by
the Phoenicians under the Persians—Government system of
Darius advantageous to them—Their conduct in the Ionian
revolt—In the expeditions of Mardonius and Datis—In the
great expedition of Xerxes—Interruption of the friendly
relations between Phoenicia and Persia—Renewal of amity—
Services rendered to Persia between B.C. 465 and 392—
Amicable relations with Athens—Phoenicia joins in revolt of
Evagoras—Supports Tachos, king of Egypt—Declares herself
independent under Tennes—Conquered and treated with great
severity of Ochus—Sidonian dynasty of the Esmunazars.
The conquest of Babylon by Cyrus gave him, according to Oriental notions generally, a claim to succeed to the inheritance of the entire Babylonian empire; but the claim would remain dormant until it was enforced. The straggling character of the territory, which was shaped like a Greek {L}, ascending from Babylon along the course of the Euphrates to the Armenian mountains, and then descending along the line of the Mediterranean coast as far as Gaza or Raphia, rendered the enforcement of the claim a work of difficulty, more especially in the remote West, which was distant fifteen hundred miles from Persia Proper, and more than a thousand miles from Babylon. Cyrus, moreover, was prevented, first by wars in his immediate neighbourhood,[14242] and later on by a danger upon his north-eastern frontier,[14243] from taking the steps usually taken by a conqueror to establish his dominion in a newly-annexed region, and thus he neither occupied Syria with troops, nor placed it under the administration of Persian governors. The only step which, so far as we know, he took, implying that his authority reached so far, was the commission which he gave to Zerubbabel and the other chiefs of the Jewish nation to proceed from Babylonia to Judæa, and re-establish themselves, if they could, on the site of the destroyed Jerusalem.[14244] The return from the Captivity which followed was in some sense the occupation of a portion of the extreme West by a Persian garrison, and may be viewed as a step intended to be “preparatory towards obtaining possession of the entire sea-coast;"[14245] but it appears to have been an isolated movement, effected without active Persian support, and one whereby the neighbouring countries were only slightly affected.
That Phoenicia retained her independence until the reign of Cambyses is distinctly implied, if not actually asserted, by Herodotus.[14246] She saw without any displeasure the re-establishment in her neighbourhood of a nation with which her intercourse had always been friendly, and sometimes close and cordial. Tyre and Sidon vied with each other in their readiness to supply the returned exiles with the timber which they needed for the rebuilding of their temple and city; and once more, as in the days of Solomon, the Jewish axes were heard amid the groves of Lebanon, and the magnificent cedars of that favoured region were cut down, conveyed to the coast, and made into floats or rafts, which Phoenician mariners transported by sea to Joppa, the nearest seaport to Jerusalem.[14247] In return, the Jews willingly rendered to the Phoenicians such an amount of corn, wine, and oil as was equivalent in value to the timber received from them,[14248] and thus the relations between the two peoples were replaced on a footing which recalled the time of their closest friendship, nearly five hundred years previously.
On the death of Cyrus, and the accession of his son Cambyses, B.C. 529, the tranquillity which South-western Asia had enjoyed since the time of the wars of Nebuchadnezzar came to an end. Cyrus had, it is said, designed an expedition against Egypt,[14249] as necessary to round off his conquests, and Cambyses naturally inherited his father’s projects. He had no sooner mounted the throne than he commenced preparations for an attack upon the ancient kingdom of the Pharaohs, which, under the dynasty of the Psamatiks, had risen to something of its early greatness, and had been especially wealthy and prosperous under the usurper Amasis.[14250] It was impossible to allow an independent and rival monarchy so close upon his borders, and equally impossible to shrink from an enterprise which had been carried to a successful issue both by Assyria and by Babylon. Persian prestige required the subjugation and absorption of a country which, though belonging geographically to Africa, was politically and commercially an integral part of that Western Asia over which Persia claimed a complete and absolute supremacy.