[ca. 887-723 B.C.]
With Ithobaal’s accession orderly conditions were again restored. He entered into friendly relations with the kingdom of northern Israel, concluded what Amos calls a “brotherly covenant” with it, and gave his daughter, Jezebel, in marriage to the warlike king, Ahab, son of Omri. The drought which visited northern Syria in Ahab’s time is also mentioned in the annals of Tyre; they limit its duration to one year, and ascribe its cessation to an intercessory procession which Ithobaal performed. Under his government the heavy doom which was to fall on the Syrian countries from Assyria, drew nearer to Phœnicia. Asshurnazirpal marched with his army (876 B.C.) down from the upper valley of the Orontes into the low-lying coast district of Djun Akkor, and proceeding southward across it, penetrated to the Nahr-el-Kelb, where one of the Assyrian rock sculptures appears to date from him. The towns of Phœnicia made haste to buy him off with presents, and thus escaped for this time. Ithobaal, it is said, founded Botrys, probably in the well-grounded anticipation that this raid would not be the last of the kind which would take this direction. From Botrys the passage of the Ras-el-Shakka could be commanded.
The successor of Ithobaal was his son Baalazar, who reigned six years, and the latter’s son Mettenus (Metten) then ruled during twenty-nine years. After his death the crown passed to Pygmalion. With this king, who occupied the throne forty-seven years, the consecutive list of the kings of Tyre which has come down to us from Menander’s works, comes to an end. No more of it has been preserved intact.
In Baalazar’s time the danger threatening Phœnicia from the growing power of Assyria, seems to have been recognised at Aradus and in the neighbouring towns. In the battle of Qarqar (854) Mettenbaal [Matinu-Baal of Shalmaneser II’s records], King of Aradus, fought on Ahab’s side against Shalmaneser II, and so perhaps did also the troops of Ushu and Sian, two places which the Assyrian inscriptions generally mention, together with Simyra and Aradus, and also those of Akko. These would be the towns which were least protected by natural boundaries on the side of northern Syria. Shalmaneser II boasts that on his campaigns against Hazael of Damascus, he had taken tribute from Tyre, where Metten was then reigning, and Sidon (842 and 839 B.C.), and also from Byblus (839); this may be a bragging name for voluntary presents he had received there. In Pygmalion’s time Sidon and Tyre seem to have been under an obligation to pay taxes to the Assyrian king, Adad-nirari III, whose conquering expeditions twice attained Phœnicia (804 and 803). It then had peace from the Assyrians for more than half a century, until the time of Tiglathpileser III. This king’s inscriptions announce that he wasted the territory of the towns of Simyra, Akko, Ushu, and Sian, installed there Assyrian captains and established colonists who were brought thither from the farthest corners of the empire. Hiram II of Tyre and Sibittibi’li of Byblus are named amongst the kings whose homage he received in Syria, and on another occasion Mettenbaal of Aradus, while Tyre had to pay him one hundred and fifty talents of gold. Aradus, Byblus, and Tyre were apparently the only independent states of Phœnicia at this time.
[723-671 B.C.]
Tyre remained the most independent and the most powerful. Elulæus, who reigned there about 728-692 B.C., under the name of Pylas, succeeded, at the outset of his reign in subduing the rebellious Cypriotes by means of his war-ships. In his time Shalmaneser IV, the successor of Tiglathpileser III, overran the whole of Phœnicia. A peace was concluded, by which Sidon, Akko, even Palætyrus, and many other towns passed to the Assyrian king. Apparently they wish to make themselves independent of the island city, even at the cost of their political independence. But since the Tyrians showed themselves dissatisfied with this, Shalmaneser again advanced into Phœnicia, and in order to reach the island fortress, he collected sixty ships with eight hundred rowers, from which it appears that they were of small dimensions. But the Tyrians defended themselves bravely; with twelve ships they scattered the enemy’s fleet, and took five hundred prisoners. Then the Assyrian king marched away, but left behind a part of his army, to hold the mainland opposite Tyre and cut it off from the river which there fell into the sea, and from the aqueducts, and thus prevent the Tyrians from supplying themselves with drinking water. This is said to have lasted for five years, while the Tyrians had recourse to the water which collected in wells they dug on their island. In the end they appear to have grown weary of resisting. Apparently the annals of Tyre do not assert that the efforts of the Assyrians were entirely without result. Sargon ascended the throne of Assyria in 722, and it is supposed that the Tyrians came to terms with him in 720, when he appeared in Syria to crush the alliance of Arpad, Simyra, Damascus, and Samaria. Sargon boasts that he drew the Ionians like fish from the sea, and quieted Cilicia, and Tyre, and he speaks of Tyre as a town which belonged to him. Sennacherib set up a king in Sidon, named Tubaal, that is Ithobaal, on whom he imposed a tax; Abdili’ti of Aradus and Urumilki of Byblus also did homage to him. From Syria he took workmen to Nineveh, who had there to build ships for him after the pattern of the vessels of their own country. These were manned with Tyrian, Sidonian, and also Greek, i.e., probably Cyprian, seamen, and with them he was able to undertake a maritime expedition on the Tigris to subdue the people of Bit Yakin and the Elamites “with their gods,” and to carry them away as prisoners (694 B.C.). These vessels are represented on a bas-relief at Kuyunjik, round transports, with the hind and foreparts bent upwards, and war-ships with a great projecting keel. Both classes had two decks. On the upper one, behind high side railings, outside which the warriors have hung their shields, the prisoners and men armed with spears, are seen seated. Between the decks sit the oarsmen, their backs turned to the forepart of the ship. Two rows of oars are at work, one above the other; two long poles serve instead of a rudder and are disposed right and left of the stern of the vessel.
[671-586 B.C.]
Soon after Sennacherib’s son Esarhaddon had begun his reign, Abd-milkot, king of Sidon, the successor, apparently, of that Ithobaal or Ethbaal whom Sennacherib had installed there, allowed himself to be beguiled into an effort after independence, in unison with Sanduarri, ruler of the two towns of Kundu and Sizu, which are to be sought inland, to the east of Sidon. The attempt failed. Sidon was taken (678 B.C.), plundered, and laid waste; the fortifications were demolished, the inhabitants led away into exile, and on its site a new settlement was established, which was peopled by men from the eastern districts of the Assyrian empire and received as a colony the name of Kar-Asshur-akhe-iddin (the city of Esarhaddon). In the year 671 B.C. Esarhaddon took the field against Tirhaqa of Egypt; and Baal of Tyre, trusting in Tirhaqa’s power, exhibited insubordination. As in Shalmaneser’s time, Tyre was again cut off by the Assyrians from all its supplies of food and water. It is not stated whether Baal was thus reduced to submission. But certain it is that in Asshurbanapal’s reign Baal was again besieged by the Assyrians, in his island city. Defences were again erected on the mainland opposite, and all approaches were blocked by land and sea. To quench their thirst the besieged are said to have been finally reduced to drinking salt water. The final result was that Baal submitted and tendered guarantees for a more loyal demeanour in future. He delivered up his own daughter and those of his brother as wives for the supreme king, together with a rich dowry, and also surrendered him his son Yahi-melek. This was more than Asshurbanapal required, and he sent Yahi-melek back to his father. Probably with the assistance of Baal’s war-ships, the Assyrians then proceeded to the subjection of the other island king of Phœnicia, Yakinlu of Aradus. He also was compelled to send his daughter to Nineveh with many presents; every such addition to his harem was peculiarly grateful to Asshurbanapal. Subsequently, however, Yakinlu again fell into disgrace, and was deposed; perhaps not without the co-operation of his ten sons, who all presented themselves, with valuable presents, at Asshurbanapal’s court, to make application for the vacant throne. It was given to one of them, called Azebaal; the rest were bought off with honours. The period to which these events belong cannot be exactly determined; it is possible that they may have some connection with the fact that Asshurbanapal’s brother Shamash-shum-ukin succeeded in rousing the vassals in the west to rebellion. In connection with a campaign which was undertaken against the Arab prince Yauta about 640 B.C., the towns of Ushu and Akko were punished in exemplary fashion, for negligent payment of the tribute and for repudiating their allegiance. This may have been the last warlike action which an Assyrian army performed in the territory of Phœnicia, although an Assyrian governor of Simyra, with the rank of an eponymos, or limmu, is mentioned as late as the year 636 B.C.
Syria and Palestine did not escape the blows of fate whose force wrecked the Assyrian empire after Asshurbanapal’s reign. Hordes of Scythian horsemen, carrying bows and javelins, broke in from the north and penetrated as far as the frontiers of Egypt (about 625 B.C.). Presents from Psamthek I are said to have induced them to turn back. Before leaving Syria the stragglers plundered the sanctuary of Aphrodite at Askalon. The power of Egypt was again increased under the rule of Psamthek, for his special care was the creation of a mercenary army composed of Carians and Ionians, and so strong did it become that his son and successor, Neku II (608 B.C.), was able to go still further and attempt to recover the dominion which the Pharaohs of the New Kingdom had possessed in Syria. Josiah of Judah, who was foolhardy enough to oppose him at Megiddo, was by him defeated. Syria seems to have submitted to him, as far as the countries bordering the Euphrates. Gaza offered resistance, but was taken.
But it was only for a short time that Neku II could feel himself a conqueror. Nabopolassar sent his son Nebuchadrezzar against him, and at Carchemish on the Euphrates a battle was fought in the year 605 B.C. which Neku lost. Nebuchadrezzar could not at once completely follow up his victory, for he had to return to Babylon, where his father had in the meantime died. Still the Babylonians now had a free hand in Syria, and Neku did not again venture to face them.