George Albert Cooke

“ Even when Athens had developed a rival navy Greek observers noted with admiration the discipline kept on board the Phoenician ships and the skill with which they were handled (Xen. Oec. viii.) ; all the Phoenician vessels from the round merchant-boat (γαῦλος—after which the island of Gaulus, now Gozo, near Malta was called) to the great Tarshish-ships, the “East-Indiamen” of the ancient world, excelled those of the Greeks in speed and equipment. As E. Meyer points out, the war between the Greeks and the Persians was mainly a contest between the sea-powers of Greece and Phoenicia. ”

“ Sometimes the god received a distinguishing attribute which indicates an association not with any particular place, but with some special characteristic, the most common forms are Ba‘al-ḥammān, the chief deity of Punic north Africa, perhaps “the glowing Ba‘al,” the god of fertilizing warmth, and Ba‘al-shamēm, “Ba‘al of the heavens.” [25] The latter deity was widely venerated throughout the North-Semitic world; his name, which does not appear in the Phoenician inscriptions before the 3rd century B.C., implies perhaps a more universal conception of deity than existed in the earlier days. ”

“ For the geography and civilization of Canaan about 1400 B.C. we have valuable evidence in the Egyptian papyrus Anastasi I., which mentions Kepuna (Gubna, Gebal-Byblus) the holy city, and continues: “Come then to Berytus, to Sidon, to Sarepta. Where is the ford of Nat-’ana (? Nahr el-Kāsimīyeh, or a town) ? Where is ’Eutu (? Usu, Palaetyrus) ? Another city on the sea is called a haven, D’ar (Tyre) is its name, water is carried to it in boats; it is richer in fish than in sands.” ”

“ Two or three other deities may be mentioned here: Eshmun, the god of vital force and healing, worshipped at Sidon especially, but also at Carthage and in the colonies, identified by the Greeks with Asclepius; Melqarth, the patron deity of Tyre, identified with Heracles; Reshef or Reshūf, the “flame” or “lightning” god, especially popular in Cyprus and derived originally from Syria, whom the Greeks called Apollo. A tendency to form a distinct deity by combining the attributes of two produced such curious fusions as Milk-‘asitart, Milk-ba‘al, Milk-’osir, Eshmun-melqarth, Melqarth-resef, &c. ”

“ All Canaanite analogy speaks for kingship as the oldest form of Phoenician government. In the native inscriptions the chief of the city in Phoenicia itself and in Cyprus is always called king. The royal houses claimed divine descent, [13] and the king could not be chosen outside their members. His power, however, was limited by the wealthy merchant families, who possessed great influence in public affairs; thus it was possible for war or peace to be decided at Tyre in the king’s absence, or at Sidon against his will (Arrian ii. 15 and 16; Curtius iv. 1, 15) . ”

“ The Hittites (q.v.) were invading Syria; nomads from the desert supported the invasion; and many of the local chiefs were ready to seize the opportunity to throw off the yoke of Egypt. The towns of Phoenicia were divided; Aradus, Simyra, Sidon supported the rebellion; Ribhabad, the vassal of Byblus, and Abi-melech, king of Tyre, held out for Egypt; but while all the towns made professions of fidelity, they were scheming for their own interests, and in the end Egypt lost them all except Byblus. ”

“ Hence Aradus, Byblus, Sidon and Tyre issued a coinage of their own, of which many specimens exist: the coins are stamped as a rule with emblem or name of the city, sometimes with the name of the ruler. [17] Thus from the coins of Byblus we learn the names of four kings, ‘El-pa‘al, ‘Az-ba‘al (between 360 and 340 B.C.) , Adar-melek, ‘Ain-el; from the coins of the other cities it is difficult to obtain much information. The native inscriptions, however, now become available, though most of them belong to the period which follows, and only a few have been discovered in Phoenicia itself. ”

“ Besides busts and figurines, which belong as a rule to the Greek period, the smaller objects usually found are earthen pitchers and lamps, glass-wares, tesserae and gems. Of buildings which can be called architectural few specimens now exist on Phoenician soil, for the reason that for ages the inhabitants have used the ruins as convenient quarries. Not a vestige remains of the great sanctuary of Melqarth at Tyre; a few traces of the temple of Adonis near Byblus were discovered by Renan, and a peculiar mausoleum, Burj al-Bezzāq, is still to be seen near Amrīt ”

“ Commercial interests dominated everything else, and while these stimulated a municipal life not without vigour, civil discipline and loyalty were but feebly felt. On occasion the towns could defend their independence with strenuous courage; the higher qualities which make for a progressive national life the Phoenicians did not possess. ”

“ But as Tyre decayed in power the colonies turned more and more to Carthage as their natural parent and protector. For effective control over a colonial empire Carthage had the advantage of situation over far-away Tyre; the traditional bonds grew lax and the ancient dues ceased to be paid, though as late as the middle of the 6th century Carthage rendered tithes to the Tyrian Melqarth. ”

“ But Elulaeus, according to Menander, suppressed the revolt of Citium, and early in the reign of Sennacherib joined the league of Philistia and Judah, in alliance with Egypt and Ethiopia, which aimed at throwing off the oppressive tyranny of Assyria; as usual, however, the city-states of Phoenicia could not combine even against a common foe, and several broke away from Tyre, so Menander tells us, and sided with Assyria. ”

“ Phoenicia now became part of the fifth satrapy of the Persian Empire, and entered upon a spell of comparative peace and The Persian Period, 538-333 B. C. growing prosperity. Favoured for the sake of their fleet, and having common interests against Greece, [15] the Phoenicians were among the most loyal subjects of the empire. At this period Sidon occupied the position of leading state; in the fleet her king ranked next to Xerxes and before the king of Tyre (Herod. viii. 67) ; her situation afforded advantages for expansion which Tyre on its small and densely populated island could not rival. ”

“ It was in the times of the Persian monarchy that Phoenician art reached its highest development, and to this period belong the oldest sculptures and coins that have come down to us. A characteristic specimen of the former is the stele of Yehaw-milk, king of Gebal (CIS. i. 1) , in which the king is represented in Persian dress, and the goddess to whom he is offering a bowl looks exactly like an Egyptian Isis-Hathor; the inscription mentions the various objects of bronze and gold, engraved work and temple furniture, which the king dedicated. ”

“ When Alexander the Great entered Phoenicia after the battle of Issus (333 B.C.) , the kings were absent with the Persian fleet The Macedonian Period, 333-69 B.C. in the Aegean; but the cities of Aradus, Byblus and Sidon welcomed him readily, the last-named showing special zeal against Persia. The Tyrians also offered submission, but refused to allow the conqueror to enter the city and sacrifice to the Tyrian Heracles. Alexander was determined to make an example of the first who should offer opposition, and at once began the siege. ”

“ The proper names further illustrate the way in which the relation of man to God was regarded; the commonest forms are servant (‘abd, e.g. ‘Abd-‘ashtart) , member or limb (bod, e.g. Bod-melqarth) , client or guest (ger, e.g. Ger-eshmun) ; the religious idea of the guest of a deity had its origin in the social custom of extending hospitality to a stranger and in the old Semitic right of sanctuary. The interpretation of such names as ’Abi-ba‘al (father of Ba‘al) , Ḥimilkath (brother of Milkath) , Ḥiram (brother of the exalted one) is not altogether certain, and can hardly be discussed here. ”

“ Inscriptions of the 3rd and 2nd centuries B.C. mention a Rab (chief) in Sidon, Cyprus and Gaulus (Gozo) ; what his position was it is difficult to say; in the colonies he may have been a district governor. During Nebuchadrezzar’s time, as we have seen, a republic took the place of the monarchy at Tyre, and the government was administered by a succession of suffetes (judges) ; they held office for short terms, and in one instance two ruled together for six years. Much later, in the 3rd century B.C., an inscription from Tyre mentions a suffete (NSI. No. 8) without adding more to our knowledge. ”

“ The list of Hiram's successors given by Josephus indicates frequent changes of dynasty until the time of Ithobal I. priest of Astarte, whose reign (887-855) marks a return to more settled rule. In contrast to Hiram I., king of Tyre, Ithobal or Ethbaal is styled in 1 Kings xvi. 31 “king of the Sidonians,” i.e. of the Phoenicians, showing that in the interval the kings of Tyre had extended their rule over the other Phoenician cities. Under Ethbaal further expansion is recorded; Botrys north of Byblus and Aoza in North Africa are said to have been founded by him ”

“ In this connexion may be mentioned the custom of burning the chief god of the city in effigy, or in the person of a human representative, at Tyre and in the Tyrian colonies, such as Carthage and Gades; the custom lasted down to a late time (see Frazer, loc. cit. ch. v.) . Another horrible sacrifice was regularly demanded by Phoenician religion: women sacrificed their virginity at the shrines of Astarte in the belief that they thus propitiated the goddess and won her favour (Frazer, ibid. ch. iii) ”

“ But dyeing and embroidery probably came from Babylon in the first instance; glass-making seems to have been borrowed from Egypt; the invention of arithmetic and of weights and measures must be laid to the credit of the Babylonians. ”

“ They called themselves Canaanites and their land Canaan; such is their name in the Amarna tablets, Kinaḫḫi and Kinaḫni; and with this agrees the statement assigned to Hecataeus (Fr. hist. gr. i. 17) that Phoenicia was formerly called Χνᾶ, a name which Philo of Byblus adopts into his mythology by making “Chna who was afterwards called Phoinix” the eponym of the Phoenicians (Fr. hist. gr. iii. 569) . In the reign of Antiochus IV. and his successors the coins of Laodicea of Libanus bear the legend “Of Laodicea which is in Canaan” ”

“ The vast number of small votive tablets found at Carthage prove this: they were all inscribed by grateful devotees “to the lady Tanith, Face of Ba‘al, and the lord Ba‘al hammān, because he heard their voice.” The care which the Phoenicians bestowed upon the burial of the dead has been alluded to above; pillars (masṣēbōth) were set up to commemorate the dead among the living (e.g. NSI. Nos. 18, 19, 21, 32) ; if there were no children to fulfil the pious duty, a monument would be set up by a man during his lifetime (ibid. No. 16; cf. 2 Sam. xviii. 18) . ”

“ The two pillars before the porch of Solomon's temple (1 Kings vii. 21) remind us of the two pillars which Herodotus saw in the temple of Melqarth at Tyre (Herod. ii. 44) , and of those which stood before the temples of Paphos and Hierapolis (see W. R. Smith, Rel. of Sem. p. 468 seq.) .
Religion—Like the Canaanites of whom they formed a branch, the Phoenicians connected their religion with the great powers and The Phoenician Gods. processes of nature. [22] The gods whom they worshipped belonged essentially to the earth ”

“ Ant. viii. 3, 1, dates the building of Solomon's temple in the 11th year of Hiram, and 420 years after the foundation of Tyre. This gives a Tyrian era which began in 1198-1197 B.C., i.e. at the time when the Philistines settled on the coast of Canaan, an event which had considerable effect upon the cities of Phoenicia (above, Justin xviii. 3) . In the Tyrian annals (Jos. c. Ap. i. 18) the reference was probably to the felling of timber in Lebanon for Hiram's temples ”

“ Tennes, however, betrayed his people and opened the city to Artaxerxes III.; the inhabitants to the number of 40,000 are said to have set fire to their houses and perished; Tennes himself was executed after he had served the ends of the great king (346 B.C.; Diod. xvi. 41-45) . The last king of Sidon was Straton II. (‘Abd-‘ashtart, 346-332) before the Persian Empire came to an end. [16]
Towards the close of the 5th century the Phoenician coins begin to supplement our historical sources (see Numismatics) . ”