History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce, Volume 1 (of 4)

by W. S. Lindsay

The Phœnicians.

To recur to the Phœnicians. There has been much discussion as to whence they came; and many able writers a few years since, as Bochart and Heeren, held the view that they were the same as the Canaanites. Modern research, however, fully confirms the judgment of Herodotus,[61] that they were really immigrants from the shores of the Persian Gulf; thereby, in themselves, affording an illustration of that great law of migration westwards, of which that of Abraham and of his family, and that of Chedorlaomer from Elam to the valley of the Jordan, are the earliest recorded instances. There seems, indeed, to have been a marked distinction between the Phœnicians and the Canaanites; the former having been a peaceable mercantile population, generally on terms of good will with the Jews, while the Canaanites were a fierce and warlike race. The names, too, of many of the Phœnician cities in Syria are believed to be of Hamite, and not of Semitic origin, as, for instance, those of Askalon, Arka, Aradus, Gaza, and, most probably, those also of Sidon and Tyre.

It is remarkable that a district, whose people became so famous in the early history of the world, should have been confined within so limited an area; for the average breadth of Phœnicia never exceeded twelve miles, while sometimes it is considerably less. In length it was about two hundred and twenty-five miles, from Aradus in the north to Joppa in the south.

Early notices of them.

But if its territory was small, its position was admirably fitted for the grandest development of over-sea trade; and Tyre itself occupied pre-eminently the situation best fitted for carrying on the commerce of the then known world. We shall, therefore, briefly trace the course of that commerce, with a sketch of the chief places to which the Tyrians traded, and with some notice of the colonies they founded in the prosecution of this object; for to the activity of this remarkable people we owe the first link connecting the civilization of the East with Europe and Western Africa.[62]

The inhabitants of Phœnicia are first mentioned as Sidonians of the coast (though the name Phœnician also occurs), whose trinkets, like those of Autolycus, captivated the maidens of the Grecian islands,[63] and the produce of the Sidonian looms is said in the Iliad[64] to have been used for the most costly offerings to the gods. A little later we are able to trace them to Cyprus, Carthage, Malta, Sicily, the Balearic Islands, and, through the Pillars of Hercules, to Cadiz on the shores of the Atlantic. At first, probably, kidnapping went hand-in-hand with more legitimate trade; but, even in remote times, the presence of the Phœnicians must have been deemed beneficial, or Pindar would not have compared his own relations with his patron Hiero to those of a Phœnician merchant.[65] Indeed there is no recognised value in the dealings of the civilized with the uncivilized when they first meet; hence those Phœnicians need not be deemed unjust who exchanged the pottery of Athens against the ivory of Africa.[66]

The prophecy of Ezekiel.

Phœnician commerce was probably at its highest when Nebuchadnezzar, with the view, it is likely, of obtaining a powerful navy, made his famous attack upon Tyre. Hence the description of Tyre, and of her dealings with the nations around her, in the celebrated prophecy of Ezekiel, ch. xxvii., has great value as showing what her state was (about B.C. 588) when ruin was immediately impending over her; and it becomes worth while to give an attentive consideration to the statements of the prophet, who was evidently well acquainted with the history of Tyre. Thus, after stating that Tyre was “a merchant of the people for many isles,”[67] Ezekiel tells us that her “ship boards” were made “of fir-trees of Senir,” her masts of “cedars from Lebanon,” her oars “of the oaks of Bashan,” and the benches of her galleys “of ivory, brought out of the isles of Chittim.”[68] It is true that doubts have been expressed as to the fitness of some of these materials for the purposes mentioned; but it is, perhaps, best not to strain to the uttermost a description obviously poetical. The “ivory” here noticed is most likely box-wood,[69] the abundant produce of Corsica, Italy, and Spain, of the “Isles of Chittim,” or Western Europe.

“The inhabitants of Zidon and Arvad” (Aradus, now Ruad,) “were thy mariners;”[70] but Tyre kept the command of her ships in her own hands, for “thy wise men, O Tyrus, that were in thee, were thy pilots.”[71] “The ancients of Gebal,” Ezekiel continues, “and the wise men thereof were in thee thy calkers. All the ships of the sea with their mariners were in thee to occupy their merchandise;”[72] that is, besides their own shipping, they largely employed those of surrounding and seafaring peoples, as those of Cyprus, and probably of Rhodes and Crete. “Fine linen with broidered work from Egypt was that which thou spreadest forth to be thy sail; blue and purple from the isles of Elishah was that which covered thee.”[73] The isles of Elishah are generally supposed to be the Greek Archipelago, and Pausanias states that the purple of the coast of Laconia, which was but little inferior to that of Tyre itself, was used for the decoration of awnings.[74] “Javan” (the Ionian Greeks) “Tubal, and Meshech” (probably the people of the southern coasts of the Black Sea) “they were thy merchants; they traded the persons of men and vessels of brass in thy market;”[75] a trade in slaves which has survived to the present day from the neighbouring district of Circassia; as, also, many of the brazen vessels procurable at Mosul and other Turkish entrepôts derive their copper from the mountain districts of the Taurus.

Again, “They of the house of Togarmah traded in thy fairs with horses and horsemen and mules,”[76] a species of merchandise equally existent now in Armenia (or Togarmah),[77] that country being still as famous for its horses and mules as it was then. The constant denunciations of the prophets show how the baneful trade in slaves prevailed of old.[78] The Mossynoeci and Chalybes were famous for their mineral wealth;[79] and the prophet adds, “Tarshish was thy merchant by reason of the multitude of all kind of riches; with silver, iron, tin, and lead, they traded in thy fairs.”[80] “The ships of Tarshish did sing of thee in thy market.”[81] Tarshish has been identified by some with Tartessus in Spain, by others with other places; but the probability is that the phrase “ships of Tarshish” was an accepted term for any vessels with large and rich cargoes, like our name “Indiamen.” Ancient history abounds with notices of the mineral wealth of the Spanish Peninsula. Aristotle tells us that silver was once so abundant there, that the Phœnicians not only freighted their ships with it, but even made their anchors of that precious metal;[82] and iron, lead, salt, corn, and wine, were among its most common productions.[83]