The purple dyeing, i. e. the colouring of woofs by the liquor from fish, was discovered by the Phenicians. They were unsurpassed in this art; it outlived by many centuries the power and splendour of their cities. Trumpet and purple fish were found in great numbers on their coasts, and the liquor from these provided excellent dye. The liquor of the purple-fish, which comes from a vessel in the throat, is dark-red in the small fish, and black in the larger fish; the liquor of the trumpet-fish is scarlet. The fish were pounded and the dye extracted by decoction. By mixing, weakening, or thickening this material, and by adding this or that ingredient, various colours were obtained, through all the shades of crimson and violet down to the darkest black, in which fine woollen stuffs and linen from Egypt were dipped. The stuffs soaked in these colours are the purple cloths of antiquity, and were distinguished by the bright sheen of the colours. The Tyrian double-dyed cloth, which had the colour of curdled blood, and the violet amethyst purple were considered the most beautiful.[521] Three hundred pounds of the raw material were usually required to dye 50 pounds of wool.[522] When the purple stuffs began to be sought after, the fish collected on the coasts of Tyre, Sidon, and Sarepta were no longer sufficient. We saw how the ships of the Phenicians went from coast to coast in order to get fresh materials for the dye, and found them in great numbers on the shores of Cyprus, Rhodes, Crete, Cythera, and Thera; in the bays of Laconia and Argos, and in the straits of Eubœa. Purple-fish were also collected on the greater Syrtis, in Sicily, the Balearic Isles, and coasts of Tarshish.[523] Even at a later period, when the art of dyeing with the purple-fish was understood and practised at many places in the Mediterranean Sea, the Tyrian purple still maintained its pre-eminence and fame. "Tyre," says Strabo, "overcame her misfortunes, and always recovered herself by means of her navigation, in which the Phenicians were superior to all others, and her purples. The Tyrian purple is the most beautiful; the fish are caught close at hand, and every other requirement for the dyeing is there in abundance."[524] A hundred years later Pliny adds "that the ancient glory of Tyre survived now only in her fish and her purples."[525] The consumption and expense of purple in antiquity was very great, especially in Hither Asia. At first the Phenician kings wore the purple robe as the sign of their rank; then it became the adornment of the princes of the East, the priests, the women of high rank, and upper classes. In the temples and palaces the purple served for curtains and cloths, robes and veils for the images and shrines. The kings of Babylon and Assyria, and after them the kings of Persia, collected stores of purple stuffs in their palaces. Plutarch puts the value of the amount of purple found by Alexander at Susa at 5000 talents.[526] In the West also the purple robe soon became the distinguishing garb of royalty and rank. Yet the Greeks and Romans of the better times, owing to the costliness of the material, contented themselves with the possession of borders or stripes of purple.
The weaving and embroidery of the Phenicians apparently followed Assyrian and Babylonian patterns. They must also have made and exported ceramic ware and earthen vessels in large numbers at an ancient period, as is proved by the tributes brought to Tuthmosis III., the discoveries in Cyprus, Rhodes, Thera, and at Hissarlik. In the preparation of perfumes Sidon and Tyre were not equal to the Babylonians. It is true that their manufacturers supplied susinum and cyprinum of excellent quality, but they could not attain to the cinnamon or the nard ointment, nor to the royal ointment of the Babylonians.[527]
In mining the Phenicians were masters. In regard to the Phenician skill in this art, the Book of Job says, "The earth, from which comes nourishment, is turned up; he lays his hand upon the flint; far from the dealings of men he makes his descending shaft. No bird of prey knows the path; the eye of the vulture discovers it not; the wild beasts do not tread it. Through the rocks paths are made; he searches out the darkness and the night. Then his eye beholds all precious things. The stone of the rocks is the place of the sapphire and gold-dust. Iron is taken out of the mountains; stones are melted into brass, the drop of water is stopped, and the hidden is brought to light."[528] The Phenicians dug mines for copper, first on Lebanon and then in Cyprus. We saw that they afterwards, in the second half of the thirteenth century, opened out the gold treasures of Thasos in the Thracian Sea. Herodotus, who had seen their abandoned mines there (they lay on the south coast of Thasos), informed us that the Phenicians had entirely "turned over a whole mountain." Yet even in the fifth century B.C. the mines of Thasos produced a yearly income of from two to three hundred talents. In Spain the Phenicians opened their mines in the silver mountain, i. e. in the Sierra Morena, above the lower course of the Baetis (the Guadalquivir);[529] their ships went up the stream as far as Sephela (perhaps Hispalis, Seville). The richest silver-mines lay above Sephela at Ilipa (Niebla); the best gold and copper mines were at Cotini, in the region of Gades.[530] Diodorus assures us that all the mines in Iberia had been opened by Phenicians and Carthaginians, and not one by the Romans. In the more ancient times the workmen here brought up in three days an Euboic talent of silver, and their wages were fixed at a fourth part of the returns. The mines in Iberia were carried down many stades in depth and length, with pits, shafts, and sloping paths crossing each other; for the veins of gold and silver were more productive at a greater depth. The water in the mines was taken out by Egyptian spiral pumps. Strabo observes that the gold ore when brought up was melted over a slow fire, and purified by vitriolated earth. The smelting-ovens for the silver were built high, in order that the vapour from the ore, which was injurious and even deadly, might pass into the air.[531]
The Phenicians also understood how to work skilfully the metals supplied by their mines. At the founding of Gades, which we had to place about the year 1100 B.C., iron pillars with inscriptions are mentioned which the settlers put up in the temple of Melkarth (p. 82). The brass work which the melter, Hiram of Tyre, executed for Solomon (p. 182) is evidence of long practice in melting brass, and of skill in bringing into shape large masses of melted metal. The Homeric poems speak of Sidon as "rich in brass," and "skilful;" they tell us of large beaten bowls of brass and silver of Sidonian workmanship, "rich in invention." Even at a later period the goblets of Sidon were in request. Not only metal implements and vessels of brass and copper, molten and beaten, were furnished by the Phenicians; they must also have manufactured armour in large quantities, if we may draw any conclusion about armour from the tribute imposed on the Syrians by Tuthmosis III. It is easily intelligible of what value it must have been for the nations of the West to come into the possession of splendid armour and good weapons. Besides these are the ornaments found in great numbers, and of high antiquity, in the tombs of Spata and Mycenæ, and in the excavations at Hissarlik. In Homer, Phenician ships bring necklaces of gold and amber to the Greeks. At a later time the ornaments of the Phenicians and their alabaster boxes were sought after; the carved work in ivory and wood, with which they also adorned the prows and banks of oars of their ships, is praised by Ezekiel. They also knew how to set and cut precious stones; some seals have come down to us in part from an ancient date.[532]
In ship-building the Phenicians were confessedly superior; they are said to have discovered navigation.[533] The ancient forests of cedar and cypress which rose immediately above their shores supplied the best wood, which resisted decay for an extraordinary length of time even in salt water. Much as the Phenicians used these forests in the course of a thousand years for building their ships, their palaces, and temples, as well as for exportation, they provided even in the third century B.C. a material which for extent, size, and beauty won the admiration of the Greeks.[534] The oldest ship of the Phenicians which continued through all time in use as a trading-vessel was the gaulos, a vessel with high prow and stern, both of which were similarly rounded. It was propelled by a large sail and by rowers, from 20 to 30 in number. Besides the gaulos, there was the long and narrow fifty-oar, which served for a merchantman and pirate-ship as well as for a ship of war, and after the discovery of the silver land the large and armed merchantman, the ship of Tarshish. Isaiah enumerates the ship of Tarshish among the costly structures of men.[535] Ezekiel compares Tyre to a proud ship of the sea. We know that the great transport-ships and merchantmen of the Phenicians and Carthaginians could take about 500 men on board. The Byblians were considered the best ship-builders. The keels of the ships, like the masts, were made of cedar; the oars were of oak, supplied by the oak forests of the table-land of Bashan. The mariners of Sidon and Aradus were considered the best rowers. The Greeks praise the strict and careful order on board a Phenician ship, the happy use of the smallest spaces, the accuracy in distributing and placing the lading, the experience, wisdom, activity, and safety of the Phenician pilots and officers.[536] Others commend the great sail and oar power of the Phenician ships. They could sail even against the wind, and make fortunate voyages in the stormy season of the year. While the Greeks steered by the Great Bear, which, if a more visible, was a far more uncertain guide, the Phenicians had at an early time discovered a less conspicuous but more trustworthy guide in the polar star, which the Greeks call the "Phenician star." The Greeks themselves allow that this circumstance rendered the voyages of the Phenicians more accurate and secure. On an average the Phenician ships, which as a rule did not set out before the end of February, and returned at the end of October, accomplished 120 miles in 24 hours; but ships that were excellently built and equipped, and sufficiently manned, ran about 150 miles.[537] In the fifteenth century the galleys of Venice could run from 50 to 100 miles in the Mediterranean in the 24 hours. The excellence of the Phenician navy survived the independence of the cities. Inclination towards, and pleasure in navigation, as well as skill in it, were always to be found among the populations of those cities. The Phenician ships were by far the best in the fleets of the Persian kings.
FOOTNOTES:
[474] Eustath. ad "Odysseam," 4, 617.
[475] Vol. i. p. 352.
[476] De Luynes, "Essai sur la numismatique des satrapies," p. 69.
[477] Above, p. 188.