CHAPTER XII.
THE TRADE OF THE PHENICIANS.
We found above at what an early period the migratory tribes of Arabia came into intercourse with the region of the Euphrates, and the valley of the Nile, how in both these places they purchased corn, implements, and weapons in return for their horses and camels, their skins and their wool, and the prisoners taken in their feuds. It was this exchange trade of the Arabian tribes which in the first instance brought about the intercourse of Syria with Babylonia and Egypt. Egypt like Babylonia required oil and wine for their population; metals, skins, and wool for their manufactures; wood for the building of houses and ships. For the Syrians and cities of the Phenicians the intercourse with the Arabians, and the lands of the Euphrates and Tigris, was facilitated by the fact that nations related to them in race and language dwelt as far as the border-mountains of Armenia and Iran and the southern coast of Arabia, and their trade with Egypt was facilitated in the same manner when Semitic tribes between 2000 and 1500 B.C. obtained the supremacy in Egypt and maintained it for more than three centuries. From the fact that Babylonian weights and measures were in use in Syria in the sixteenth century B.C., we may conclude that there must have been close trade relations between Syria and Babylonia from the year 2000 B.C.; and in the same manner in consequence of the conquest of Egypt by the shepherds more active relations must have commenced between Syria and the land of the Nile, at a period not much later. The supremacy which Egypt afterwards obtained over Syria under the Tuthmosis and Amenophis must have rather advanced than destroyed this; thus Sethos, towards the year 1400, used his successes against the Cheta, i. e. the Hittites, to have cedars felled on Lebanon. We may assume that even before this time, after the rise of the kingdom of the Hittites, i. e. after the middle of the fifteenth century, the cities of the Phenicians were no longer content to exchange the products of Syria, wine, oil, and brass, the manufactures of their own growing industry, purple stuffs and weapons, with the manufactures of Egypt, linen cloths, and papyrus tissues, glass and engraved stones, ornaments and drugs, on the one hand, and on the other hand with the manufactures of Babylon, cloths, ointments, and embroidered stuffs: they also carried Egyptian fabrics to Babylon, and Babylonian fabrics to Egypt. The trade of Phœnicia with Egypt and Babylonia was no longer restricted to the exchange of Phenician-Syrian products and fabrics with those of Egypt and Babylon: it was at the same time a middle trade between those two most ancient seats of cultivation, between Egypt and Babylonia. It cannot have been any detriment to this trade of the Phenicians that a second centre of civic life sprang up subsequently on the central Tigris in the growing power of Assyria. In the ruins of Chalah (p. 34) Egyptian works of art have been dug up in no inconsiderable numbers. Herodotus begins his work with the observation that the Phenicians at an early period endeavoured to export and exchange Egyptian and Assyrian (i. e. Babylonian and Assyrian) wares.
The sea lay open to the cities of the Phenicians for their intercourse with Egypt; for this route they were independent of the good will or aversion of the tribes and princes, who ruled in the south of Canaan; moreover the wood of Lebanon could not be carried by land to Egypt. We may certainly assume that the navigation of the Phenicians was enabled to obtain its earliest practice for further journeys by these voyages to that mouth of the Nile, which the Egyptians opened to foreign ships (I. 227). The free and secure use of the routes of the caravans to the Euphrates, and from this river to the Syrian coast, must have been obtained from the rulers of Syria, the princes of Hamath and Damascus, the migratory tribes of the Syrian desert, the princes whose dominions lay on the Euphrates; and would hardly be obtained without heavy payments. So much the more desirable was it, if the cities could enter into special relations with one or other of these princes, such as David and Solomon, who not only opened Israel to them, but also provided the routes with caravanserais and warehouses (p. 187). The trade-road to the Euphrates led from Sidon past Dan (Laish) in Israel to Damascus, hence northwards past Riblah and Emesa (Hems) to Hamath, from Hamath to Bambyke (Hierapolis) in the neighbourhood of the Euphrates, and then crossed over the river to Harran (I. 320). From Harran the caravans went down along the Belik to the Euphrates, then in the valley of the Euphrates to Babylon, or went eastwards past Nisibis (Nisib) to the Tigris. A shorter road to the Euphrates ran past Damascus and the oasis of Tadmor, and reached the river at Thipsach (Thapsacus) at the farthest bend to the west.[538]
We have already seen at what an early period the trade with the land of frankincense, i. e. with South Arabia, grew up for Egypt, owing to the mutual intercourse of the Arabian tribes (I. 226). The first attempt of Egypt to open a communication by sea with South Arabia falls about the year 2300 B.C. At a period not later, other Arabian tribes must have carried the incense and spices of South Arabia to Elam, Ur and Nipur, and Babylon. Syria must have received the products of South Arabia first through Babylon, then by means of direct communication with the Arabs, and lastly by the special caravans of the Phenicians. We hear of two trade-roads to that land. One led past Damascus to the oasis of Duma (Dumat el Dshandal), and from thence through the interior of Arabia to the south; the other ran through Israel past Ashtaroth Karnaim, through the territories of the Ammonites, Moabites, and Edomites, to Elath, and thence led along the coast of the Arabian Gulf to the Sabæans (I. 320). From the Sabæans and the Chatramites even before the year 1500 B.C. the caravans brought not spices only and incense, but also the products of the Somali coast. The Sabæans traversed the Arabian Gulf and carried home the products of the coast of East Africa; the southwest coast of Arabia was no longer a place for producing and exporting frankincense and spices; it became the trading-place of the Somali coast, and before the year 1000 B.C. was also the trading-place for the products of India, which ships of the Indians carried to the shore of the Sabæans and Chatramites (I. 322). It must have been a considerable increase in the extent of the Phenician trade and the gains obtained from it, when the Phenicians were able to make such a fruitful use of their connection with South Arabia that it fell into their hands to provide Egypt, with her products, and perhaps even Babylonia also. Their caravan trade with South Arabia must have been lively, and the impulse to extend it strong, as they induced king Solomon to allow them to attempt a connection by sea from Elath with South Arabia. By the foundation and success of the trade to Ophir, and the most remote places of the East which they reached, their commerce obtained its widest extent, and brought in the richest returns. With incense and balsam, there came to Tyre cinnamon and cassia, sandal-wood and ivory, gold and pearls from India, and the silk tissues of the distant East.[539]
The commerce of the Phenician cities comprised Egypt, Babylonia, and Assyria, it touched Mesopotamia and Armenia, the lands of the Moschi and Tibarenes, the silver and copper mines of the Chalybes on the Black Sea.[540] When on the opening of the communication by the Red Sea with South Arabia and the countries beyond, it gained the widest extent to the south and east, it had for a whole century past traversed the entire length of the Mediterranean to the Straits of Gibraltar. We saw above how the Phenicians steered to Cyprus, Rhodes, Crete, to the Ægean Sea, to the coasts of Hellas, in order to barter or dig up minerals, to collect purple-fish for their coloured stuffs, and how after the middle of the thirteenth century they began to plant settlements on these coasts. The request for minerals must have been so strongly felt in their own cities, in Egypt and the lands of the Euphrates, in the course of the twelfth century, that the ships of the Phenicians went farther and farther to the west in search of them, that Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica were reached and then colonised by them. At the same time Ityke and Old Hippo were built on the coast of Africa. These supplied saltpetre, alum, and salt, skins of lions and panthers, horns of buffalos, ostrich eggs and feathers, slaves and ivory to the mother-cities. After this, about the year 1100 B.C., Gades was built on the shore of the Atlantic Ocean. The trade of the Phenicians now brought not only the products of Syria and the manufactures of their cities to Egypt and Babylonia; it was not merely a middle trade between those two lands, nor merely an independent trade and middle trade between South Arabia and the civilised countries; it mediated now between the East and the West, the products and manufactures of the near and distant East, and the natural products of the near and distant West, between the ancient civilisation of the East and the young life of the nations of the West. It was above all the metals of the West, the gold of the Thracian, the copper of the Italian islands, the silver of Tartessus, which the ships of the Phenicians carried into the harbours of the mother-cities: the nations of the West received in return weapons, and metal vases, ornaments, variegated cloths, and purple garments. The works of Babylonian and Egyptian style, the works which are found in the tombs of Caere, Clusium, Alsium, at Corneto and Praeneste, adorned in types at once Egyptian and Babylonian-Assyrian, like the implements and ornaments found in the tombs of Spata and Mycenæ, can only have come into the possession of the Etruscans, Latins, and Lucanians from intercourse with the Phenicians, the Phenician colonies of Sicily, or from the trade with Carthage.[541]
From Gades the Phenicians succeeded in forcing their way farther to the Atlantic Ocean. Phenician colonies were founded on the west coast of Africa. Lixus, the oldest and most important of these (Lachash, now El Araish), at the mouth of the river of the same name (now Wadi el Ghos), is said to have been the seat of a famous sanctuary of Melkarth.[542] Strabo is of opinion that these colonies of the Phenicians beyond the pillars of Hercules were built soon after the Trojan war, i. e. about the year 1100 B.C.[543] Diodorus told us already how Phenician ships, steering to the coast of Libya in order to explore the sea beyond the pillars were carried away by a storm far into the ocean, and discovered a large island opposite Libya, which, from the pleasantness of the air and the abundance of blessings, seemed fitted to be the dwelling of the gods rather than men (p. 82). We can hardly doubt, therefore, that the Phenicians visited Madeira and the Canary Islands.
Tin was early known to the ancient world, and was indispensable for the alloy of copper, but it could only be found mixed with copper in the mines of the Chalybes and Tibarenes (the Tabal of the Assyrians, the Tubal of the Hebrews), whose name is found in Genesis in Tubal-cain, the first smith, the father of them that work in brass and iron (I. 539). Besides these, there were tin mines only in the lofty Hindukush, in the north-west of Iberia, and in the south-west of England.[544] Herodotus observes: Tin and amber come from the extreme western ends of Europe. He could not learn from any eye-witness whether there was a sea there, though he had taken much trouble in the matter. Pliny tells us: Midacritus first brought tin from the island Kassiteris, i. e. the tin-island.[545] It was the Phenicians who obtained tin, and they did not obtain it from Iberia only: their ships sailed through the Bay of Biscay, they became acquainted with the shore of Brittany, which appears to have been known to them as Œstrymnis; they discovered the tin islands, i. e. the Channel Islands, the coast of Cornwall, and even the island of Albion.[546] The tin-islands or Kassiterides of the Greeks are the islands of the north-west ocean, known to the Phenicians, who procured tin from them.
The Homeric poems often mention amber, which, worked into ornaments, Phenician ships brought to the Greeks. Ornaments of amber are met with in the oldest tombs of Cumae, in the tombs at the Lion's Gate at Mycenæ.[547] Hence the Phenicians must have been in possession of amber as early as the eleventh century B.C. Amber was found not only on the shores of the Baltic, but also on the coast of the North Sea, between the mouth of the Rhine and the Elbe. We may therefore draw the conclusion that in the eleventh and tenth centuries B.C. they must have advanced far enough in the Channel towards the mouth of the Rhine, or beyond it, to obtain amber by exchange or collect it themselves, unless we assume an extensive intercourse between the Celts and Germans.[548]