But they bestowed something far beyond this—something more enriching than silver and gold,—an alphabet,—and it is to the Phenicians that we are indebted for the alphabet now in use throughout the civilized world.
CHAPTER II.
Such an extension of power, and the acquisition of sources of wealth so boundless, excited the envy of other nations.
The Greeks are said to have been in the Iberian peninsula long before the fall of Troy, where they came with a fleet from Zante, in the Ionian Sea, and in memory of that place, called the city they founded Zacynthus, which name in time became Saguntum. Now they sent more expeditions and founded more cities on the Spanish coast; and the Babylonians, and the Assyrians, and, at a later time, the Persians and the Greeks, all took up arms against these insatiate traders.
Phenician supremacy was not easily maintained with so many jealous rivals in the field, and it was rudely shaken in 850 B.C., when
"The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold."
and the Phenician power was partially broken at its source in the East.
It is with thrilling interest that we read Isaiah's prophecy of the destruction of Tyre, which was written at this very time. For the Phenicians were the Canaanites of Bible history, and "Hiram King of Tyre" was their king; and his "navy," which, together with Solomon's "came once in three years from Tarshish," was their navy; and Tarshish was none other than Tartessus, their own province, just beyond Gibraltar on the Spanish coast. Nor is it at all improbable that Spanish gold was used to adorn the temple which the great Solomon was building. (I Kings ix., x.) Shakspere, who says all things better than anyone else, makes Othello find in the fatal handkerchief "confirmation strong as proofs from holy writ." Where can be found "confirmation" stronger than these "proofs from holy writ"? And where a more magnificent picture of the luxury, the sumptuous Oriental splendor of this nation at that period, than in Ezekiel, chapters xxvii., xxviii.? What an eloquent apostrophe to Tyre—"thou that art situate at the entry of the sea, a merchant of the people, for many isles."—"With thy wisdom and with thine understanding thou hast gotten thee riches," and, "by thy great wisdom and by thy traffick hast thou increased, and thine heart is lifted up." And then follows the terrible arraignment—"because of the iniquity of thy traffick." And then the final prediction of ruin—"I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth"; "thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt thou be any more." Where in any literature can we find such lurid splendor of description, and such a powerful appeal to the imagination of the reader! And where could the student of history find a more graphic and accurate picture of a vanished civilization!