Phoenicia

“ From Caria stretched out, like a string of stepping-stones between Asia and Europe, the hundred islets of the Ægean, Cyclades, and Sporades, and others, inviting settlers, and conducting to the large islands of Crete and Euboea, and the shores of Attica and the Peloponnese. It is impossible to trace with any exactness the order in which the Phoenician colonies were founded. A thousand incidental circumstances—a thousand caprices—may have deranged what may be called the natural or geographical order, and have caused the historical order to diverge from it ”

“ Here it was that the Phoenician character developed especially those traits by which it is commonly known to the world at large—a genius for commerce and industry, a passion for the undertaking of long and perilous voyages, an adaptability to circumstances of all kinds, and an address in dealing with wild tribes of many different kinds which has rarely been equalled and never exceeded. ”

“ They did not aim at conquest. They united the various races of men by the friendly links of mutual advantage and mutual dependence, conciliated them, softened them, humanised them. While, among the nations of the earth generally, brute force was worshipped as the true source of power and the only basis of national repute, the Phoenicians succeeded in proving that as much could be done by arts as by arms, as great glory and reputation gained, as real a power built up, by the quiet agencies of exploration, trade, and commerce, as by the violent and brutal methods of war, massacre, and ravage. ”

“ According to the geographers, the cities of Phoenicia, from Laodicea in the extreme north to Joppa at the extreme south, numbered about twenty-five. These were Laodicea, Gabala, Balanea, Paltos; Aradus, with its dependency Antaradus; Marathus; Simyra, Orthosia, and Arka; Tripolis, Calamus, Trieris, and Botrys; Byblus or Gebal; Aphaca; Berytus; Sidon, Sarepta, and Ornithonpolis; Tyre and Ecdippa; Accho and Porphyreon; Dor and Joppa. ”

“ When Movers and Kenrick published their valuable works on the history of Phoenicia, and the general characteristics of the Phoenician people, it was quite impossible to do more than form conjectures concerning their architecture from a few coins, and a few descriptions in ancient writers. It is now a matter of comparatively little difficulty to set before the public descriptions and representations which, if they still leave something to be desired in the way of completeness, are accurate, so far as they go, and will give a tolerably fair idea of the architectural genius of the people. ”

“ Altogether, Phoenicia may be pronounced to have enjoyed much material prosperity under the Seleucid princes, though, in the course of the civil wars between the different pretenders to the Crown, most of the cities had, from time to time, to endure sieges. Accho especially, which had received from the Lagid princes the name of Ptolemaïs, and was now the most important and flourishing of the Phoenician towns, had frequently to resist attack, and was more than once taken by storm.14463
8. ”

“ And the reason seems to be, that the Phoenicians, even more than the Greeks, affected a city autonomy. Each little band of immigrants, as soon as it had pushed its way into the sheltered tract between the mountains and the sea, settled itself upon some attractive spot, constructed habitations, and having surrounded its habitations with walls, claimed to be—and found none to dispute the claim—a distinct political entity. ”

“ No further resistance was made by the Phoenician cities. Ochus marched on against Egypt and effected its reconquest.14343 The Cyprian revolt was put down by the Prince of Caria, Istricus.14344 A calm, prelude to the coming storm, settled down upon Persia; and Phoenicia participated in the general tranquillity. The various communities, exhausted by their recent efforts, and disappointed with the result, laid aside their political aspirations, and fell back upon their commercial instincts. ”

“ It was against the grain to flatter or submit themselves; constant voyages over wild seas in fragile vessels kept up their manhood; constant encounters with pirates, cannibals, and the rudest possible savages made them brave and daring; exposure to storm, and cold, and heat braced their frames; the nautical life developed and intensified in them a love of freedom. The Phoenician of Assyrian times was not to be coaxed into accepting patiently the lot of a slave. ”

“ The Greeks, as a general rule, made their advances by slow degrees, stealing on from point to point, and having always friendly cities near at hand, like an army that rests on its supports. The Phoenicians left long intervals of space between one settlement and another, boldly planted them on barbarous shores, where they had nothing to rely on but themselves, and carried them into regions where the natives were in a state of almost savagery. The commercial motive was predominant with them, and gave them the courage to plunge into wild seas and venture themselves among even wilder men. ”

“ The long isthmus, and the peninsula in which it ends, have been compared to the stalk and blossom of a flower.5175 The flower was the ancient Gades, the modern Cadiz. The Phoenician occupation of the site is witnessed to by Strabo, Diodorus, Scymnus Chius, Mela, Pliny, Velleius Paterculus, Ælian and Arrian,5176 and is further evidenced by the numerous coins which bear the legend of “Agadir” in Phoenician characters.5177 But the place itself retains no traces of the Phoenician occupation. ”

“ Æon, discovered that life might be sustained by the fruits of trees. Their immediate descendants were called Genos and Genea, who lived in Phoenicia, and in time of drought stretched forth their hands to heaven towards the sun; for him they regarded as the sole Lord of Heaven, and called him Baal-samin, which means ‘Lord of Heaven’ in the Phoenician tongue, and is equivalent to Zeus in Greek. ”

“ Phoenicia Proper has furnished no earthen vessels, either whole or in pieces, that can be assigned to a time earlier than the Greco-Roman period,851 nor have any such vessels been found hitherto on Phoenician sites either in Sardinia, or in Corsica, or in Spain, or Africa, or Sicily, or Malta, or Gozzo. The only places that have hitherto furnished earthen vases or other vessels presumably Phoenician are Jerusalem, Camirus in Rhodes, and Cyprus ”

“ If, then, incised patterning preceded painted in Phoenicia, at any rate it held its ground after painting was introduced, and continued in vogue even to the time when Greek taste had largely influenced Phoenician art of every description.
The finest Phoenician efforts in ceramic art resemble either the best Egyptian or the best Greek. ”

“ Some short epigraphs on Assyrian gems, tablets, and cylinders belong apparently to about the same period. The series of Phoenician and Cilician coins begins soon after this, and continues to the time of the Roman supremacy in Western Asia. The soil of Phoenicia Proper, and of the various countries where the Phoenicians established settlements or factories, as Cyprus, Malta, Sicily, Sardinia, Southern Gaul, Spain, and North Africa, has also yielded a large crop of somewhat brief legends, the “inscription of Marseilles"0134 being the most important of them. ”

“ The Phoenicians were probably tempted to make a settlement at the place, partly by the three ports, partly by the abundance of excellent timber for shipbuilding which the neighbourhood furnishes. “Between Phaselis and Cape Avora, a little north of it,” says a modern traveller, “a belt of large and handsome pines borders the shore for some miles."549
From Lycia the Asiatic coast westward and north-westward was known as Caria; and here Phoenician settlements appear to have been numerous. ”

“ When they became fully conscious of the immense preponderance of power which they wielded, and of the inability of the petty states of Asia to combine against them in any firm league, they grew careless and confident, reckless of giving offence, ruder in their behaviour, more grasping in their exactions, more domineering, more oppressive. Prudence should perhaps have counselled the Phoenician cities to submit, to be yielding and pliant, to cultivate the arts of the parasite and the flatterer ”

“ During the period which elapsed before the rise of the Assyrian power in Syria the Phoenicians were left to themselves. This was the period of their development, and Tyre became the leading city of Phoenicia.
Between the withdrawal of the Egyptian rule in Syria and the western advance of Assyria there comes an interval during Independence of Phoenicia. which the city-states of Phoenicia owned no suzerain. The history of this period is mainly a history of Tyre, which not only rose to a sort of hegemony among the Phoenician states, but founded colonies beyond the seas (below) . ”

“ The ceramic art of the Phoenicians is not very remarkable. Phoenicia Proper is deficient in clay of a superior character, and it was probably a very ordinary and coarse kind of pottery that the Phoenician merchants of early times exported regularly in their trading voyages, both inside and outside the Mediterranean. ”

“ Decline of Assyria—Scythic troubles—Fall of Nineveh—Union of the Phoenician cities under Tyre—Invasion of Syria by Neco—Battle of Megiddo—Submission of Phoenicia to Neco— Tyrian colony at Memphis—Conquest of Phoenicia by Nebuchadnezzar—Reign of Ithobal II. at Tyre—He revolts from Nebuchadnezzar but is reduced to subjection—Decline of Tyre—General weakness of Phoenicia under Babylon.
It is impossible to fix the year in which Phoenicia became independent of Assyria. ”

“ The adaptability and pliability of the Phoenicians was especially shown in their power of obtaining the favourable regard of almost all the peoples and nations with which they came into contact, whether civilised or uncivilised. ”

“ Such a number of Greeks settled in Syria and Phoenicia under the Seleucidæ that to be a Tyrian or a Sidonian in the Græco-Roman period furnished no evidence at all of a man having any Phoenician blood in his veins. It will have been observed that the names of the Tyrian, Sidonian, and Berytian learned men and authors of the time—Antipater, Apollonius, Boëthus, Diodotus, Philo, Hermippus, Marinus, Paulus, Maximus, Porphyrius—are without exception either Latin or Greek. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But the most striking of the Phoenician sepulchral monuments are to be found in the north of Phoenicia, and not in the south, in the neighbourhood, not of Tyre and Sidon, but of Marathus and Aradus. Two of them, known as the Méghâzil,673 form a group which is very remarkable, and which, if we may trust the restoration of M. Thobois,674 must have had considerable architectural merit. Situated very near each other, on the culminating point of a great plateau of rock, they dominate the country far and wide, and attract the eye from a long distance. ”

“ At last, in B.C. 198, by the victory of Antiochus over Scopas,14445 and the surrender of Sidon, Phoenicia passed, with Coelesyria, into the permanent possession of the Seleucidæ, and, though frequently reclaimed by Egypt, was never recovered. ”

“ Phoenicia must have imported into Cyprus, to suit a peculiar Cyprian taste, the Egyptian statuettes, scarabs, and rings,997 and the Assyrian and Babylonian cylinders, which have been found there. The tin which she brought from the Cassiterides she distributed generally, for she did not discourage her colonists from manufacturing for themselves to some extent. There was probably no colony which did not make its own bronze vessels of the commoner sort and its own coarser pottery. ”

“ The sea trade of the Phoenicians was still more extensive than their land traffic. It is divisible into two branches, their trade with their own colonists, and that with the natives of the various countries to which they penetrated in their voyages. The colonies sent out from Phoenicia were, except in the single instance of Carthage, trading settlements, planted where some commodity or commodities desired by the mother-country abounded, and were intended to secure to the mother-country the monopoly of such commodity or commodities. ”

“ The nearest, and probably the first, region to attract Phoenician colonies was the island of Cyprus. Cyprus lies in the corner of the Eastern Mediterranean formed by the projection of Asia Minor from the Syrian shore. Its mountain chains run parallel with Taurus, and it is to Asia Minor that it presents its longer flank, while to Phoenicia it presents merely one of its extremities. ”

“ From first to last under the Persian régime, Phoenician monarchs bear rule in the Phoenician cities,14259 and command the contingents which the cities furnish to any combined Persian fleet.
The friendly arrangement concluded between Phoenicia and Persia was followed, very naturally, by a further accession to the Persian power. Cyprus, whose population was in great part Phoenician, had for centuries been connected politically in the closest manner with the Phoenician towns on the Asiatic mainland, especially with Tyre and Sidon. ”