The history of Phœnicia is peculiarly a history of separate cities and colonies, never united into one great independent state, though now and then alliances existed between several cities in order to repel a common danger. Each city of Phœnicia was governed by a king or petty chief, under or with whom an aristocracy, and at times elective magistrates, appear to have held sway. But the genius of the race cared little for political development; they devoted themselves almost exclusively to commercial pursuits.
THE GREAT CITIES OF SIDON
AND TYRE
Sidon was probably the more ancient of the Phœnician cities. Its richly embroidered robes are mentioned in the Homeric poems. It was the greatest maritime city of the ancient world until its colony, Tyre, surpassed it, and it seems to have been subject to Tyre in the time of David and Solomon. About 700 B. C., it became independent again, but was taken by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, about 600 B. C., and became subject to Persia about 500 B. C. Under the Persian rule, it was a great and populous city, and, coming into the hands of Alexander the Great in 333 B. C., helped him with a fleet in his siege of Tyre. Its history ends with submission to Roman power, 63 B. C.
Tyre was a powerful city as early as 1200 B. C. The friendship of its king, Hiram, with Solomon is well known from the Hebrew Scriptures; and at this time the commerce of Tyre was foremost in the Mediterranean, and its ships sailed into the Indian Ocean from the port of Elath on the Red Sea. Tyre is celebrated for its obstinate resistance to enemies. Sargon, king of Assyria, besieged the city in vain for five years (721-717 B. C). Nebuchadnezzar took thirteen years (598-585 B. C.) to capture it only partially, and it was taken by Alexander the Great after a seven months’ siege, in 332 B. C. The old glory of Tyre departed with the transfer of its chief trade to the newly created city of Alexandria, though the indomitable energy of the Phœnicians again, in Roman times, made it a great seat of trade.
PHOENICIAN MARINERS FOUND
CARTHAGE
Phœnicia was at the height of prosperity from the eleventh to the sixth centuries B. C. As a colonizing country it preceded the Greeks on the shores and islands of the Mediterranean, and sent ships to regions that the Greeks knew nothing of, save by report of the bold mariners of Tyre. Until the rise of Alexandria about 300 B. C., the sea trade of Phœnicia was rivaled only by that of Carthage, its own colony; and Phœnician merchants still kept up their great land trade by caravans with Arabia, central Asia and northern India, Scythia and the Caucasian countries.
By far the most renowned of all Phœnician colonies—famous in history for Hannibal’s heroic hate of Rome and warlike skill—was Carthage, in the center of the northern coast of Africa. The date of its foundation is put about 850 B. C. At Utica and Tunis, to the north and south, Phœnician settlements were already existing.
VAST EXTENT OF PHOENICIAN
COMMERCE
The trade of Tyre and her sister cities reached almost throughout the world as then known. They imported the spices—notably the myrrh and frankincense—of Arabia; the ivory, ebony, and cotton goods of India; linen yarn and corn from Egypt; wool and wine from Damascus; embroideries from Babylon and Nineveh; pottery, in the days of Grecian art, from Attica; horses and chariots from Armenia; copper from the shores of the Euxine Sea; lead from Spain; tin from Cornwall. Phœnicia exported not only these articles of food and use and luxury, but the rich purple dyes made from the murex (a kind of shell-fish) of its own coast, the famous hue of Tyre, with which were tinged the silken costly robes of the despots. From Sidon went the famous glass produced in part from fine white sand, found plenteously near Mount Carmel. There was gold from Ophir, and interchange of cedar, sent by Hiram, king of Tyre, for building Solomon’s Temple, in barter for the wheat and balm and oil of Israel’s fertile land.