Sidon

“ Sidon, the stage of the moving events so far recorded, though it makes much of possessing a separate importance, is really a cross-river residential suburb of Tyre, the great seaport in which all the ships of the world come to and fro. During the day Sidon is virtually emptied of its men-folk, and is given up to perambulators and feminine activities generally; for the men have streamed across the ferries that bridge the sunny, boisterous river, to the docks and offices of Tyre. ”

“ The King of Sidon Next morning the sun came up in a sky of perfect blue and the Hapi, driven forward by the oars, since her mast was gone, passed northward over a quiet sea. Not a league away upon our right, gleaming like gold, were the roofs of the glorious city of Tyre, set like a queen upon her island throne, Tyre that as yet did not dream of evil days when her marble palaces should melt in flame and her merchant princes and citizens lie butchered by the thousand in her streets; Tyre the wanton, the beauteous, the wealthy, who sucked riches from all the lands. ”

“ Thence it is one day's journey to Saida, which is Sidon, a large city, p.29 with about twenty Jews. Ten miles therefrom a people dwell who are at war with the men of Sidon; they are called Druses, and are pagans of a lawless character. They inhabit the mountains and the clefts of the rocks; they have no king or ruler, but dwell independent in these high places, and their border extends to Mount Hermon, which is a three days' journey. They are steeped in vice, brothers marrying their sisters, and fathers their daughters. ”

“ The streets are very narrow, and the buildings of any interest few; most prominent are some large caravanserais belonging to the period of Sidon's modern prosperity, and the large mosque, formerly a church of the knights of St John. The inhabitants support themselves mainly on the produce of their luxuriant gardens; but the increasing trade of Beirūt has withdrawn the bulk of the commerce from Sidon. In earlier days Phoenicia produced excellent wine, that of Sidon being specially esteemed ”

“ For if such works of power had been done in Tyre and Sidon as have been done in you, they would have been turned from their sins, in days gone by, seated in the dust.
10:14 But it will be better for Tyre and Sidon, in the day of judging, than for you.
10:15 And you, Capernaum, were you not lifted up to heaven? you will go down to hell.
10:16 Whoever gives ear to you, gives ear to me; and whoever is against you, is against me; and whoever is against me, is against him who sent me.
10:17 And the seventy came back with joy, saying, Lord, even the evil spirits are under our power in your name. ”

“ The Marquess of Montferrat travelled splendidly from Acre to Sidon with six galleys in his convoy. So many, indeed, did not suffice him; for at Sidon he took off his favourite wife with her women, eunuchs and janissaries, and thus with twelve ships came to Tripolis. Thence by the Aleppo road he went to Karak of the Knights, thence again, after a rest of two days, he started—he, the knights and esquires of his body in cloth of gold, with scarlet housings for the mules, litters for his womenkind; with his poets, his jongleurs, his priest, his Turcopoles and favourites ”

“ When the Sidonians saw themselves betrayed, and that the enemy had got entire possession of their city, they gave themselves up to despair, shut themselves up in their houses, and set them on fire. In this manner 40,000 men, besides women and children, perished in the flames! At this time, Sidon was so immensely rich, that the cinders, among which a vast quantity of gold and silver had melted, were sold by the conqueror for a large sum of money. ”

“ For some time, then, you see we have been in the lap of luxury; but nothing has ever led me for a moment to forget you or your ships, or to cease to long for the Great Sea and our noble Sidon."
"And Sidon ere long you shall see!" said I, when he had finished his narrative; "we are now on our way back; it is impossible to penetrate farther, and we are homeward bound."
"Sidon for ever! and long live the King!" shouted Chamai; "we shall see the sun again."
"And get some wine!" cried Himilco, tossing his cap in the air.
"And some new clothes!" chimed in Hannibal ”

“ He took her to Sidon. He left her—he left her and her child. Troop your way with speed to Sidon. Solve the story which I tell you. Bring me answer from Phœnicia.'
The spirits of the deep bent low their shadowy forms; one by one quickly snatched a grain of burning incense from the altar fire, placed the sparks upon their awful brows, rose together, met the storm-wind howling fiercely, passed it faster than conception, skimmed the foaming crests of billows, swooped again o'er struggling biremes [Pg 161] with their crews of doomed seamen. ”

“ Sidon was ultimately eclipsed by Tyre in the productions of the loom; and the unrivalled dye has come down to us, and will go down to all future ages, as “Tyrian purple;” but we may well believe that in this, as in most other matters on which prosperity and success depended, Tyre did but follow in the steps of her elder sister Sidon, perfecting possibly the manufacture which had been Sidon’s discovery in the early ages. According to Scylax of Cadyanda, Dor was a Sidonian colony.1420 Geographically it belonged rather to Philistia than to Phoenicia ”

“ I am at a loss to know the advantage of making a regular attack by troops on Sidon.
“Our only object is to land arms for the mountaineers, and if this cannot be accomplished without considerable loss, it is not worth the expense, and does not come within the scope of my instructions. 74“Sidon, I am told, is a very solidly built town, as are the works about it. ”

“ Blaney, by a mode of rendering fully warranted by the Hebrew text, applies these words to Sidon, where they received their accomplishment in a manner strikingly peculiar. The difference of translation consists in reading—“For she (Sidon) has built Tyre, a fortress for herself,” instead of “For Tyre has built a fortress for herself;” thus applying the expressions which follow to Sidon, instead of Tyre; which, however, is not thereby excluded from a full participation in the burden of the prophecy, evidently denounced against both. ”

“ I staid there but half a day, and arrived at Sidon, where I was most kindly received by Mr Clerambaut, brother-in-law to Mr Peyssonel, and French consul at this place; a man in politeness, humanity, and every social quality of the mind, inferior to none I have ever known. ”

“ ESTHER'S CHOICE
A story of Rabbi Simon ben Yochai, which is related in the holy Midrash Shir-Hasirim of the holy Midrashim.... Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is ONE!...
In those days there lived in Sidon, the mighty city, a certain holy Israelite possessing much wealth, and having the esteem of all who knew him, even among the Gentiles. In all Sidon there was no man who had so beautiful a wife; for the comeliness of her seemed like that of Sarah, whose loveliness illumined all the land of Egypt. ”

“ So the five men going on came to Lais: and they saw how the people dwelt therein without any fear, according to the custom of the Sidonians, secure and easy, having no man at all to oppose them, being very rich, and living separated, at a distance from Sidon and from all men.
18:8. And they returned to their brethren in Saraa and Esthaol, who asked them what they had done: to whom they answered:
18:9. Arise, and let us go up to them: for we have seen the land which is exceeding rich and fruitful: neglect not, lose no time: let us go and possess it, there will be no difficulty. ”

“ Their locality being on the sea-coast would naturally suggest to them the means of carrying on commercial intercourse with their colonies or neighbours,—and they were the first of the human family so located after the Deluge;—this is proved by the third descendant from Noah,—viz., Sidon,—founding the first sea-coast capital. The Tyrians, as the immediate branch of the House of Sidon, may be believed to have practised the Science, in its simple and elementary forms, many years before Joshua's record, that Tyrus was a "strong city;" ”

“ But you may take my word for it that the tribes on the Bœtis are far more anxious to take your goods than to do you any bodily injury. In time, I have no doubt, they will become perfectly submissive to our rule."
"And then," I exclaimed, "Tarshish, like Zeugis, will be one of the brightest jewels in the crown of our glorious Sidon." ”

“ THE LOVES OF CLITOPHO AND LEUCIPPE BOOK I.
Sidon is situated upon the coast of the Assyrian sea; it is the mother [1] city of the Phœnicians, and its inhabitants were the founders of Thebes. It has a harbour of capacious extent, which gradually admits within it the waters of the sea; it is double, because, to the right, a passage has been dug into an inner basin, which likewise admits the sea; in this manner the first harbour becomes the entrance to a second, which affords a secure haven to vessels during summer, while in winter they can ride at anchor safely in the former. ”

“ The plain of Sidon, which follows that of Tyre, and is sometimes regarded as a part of it,113 extends from a little north of Sarepta to the Ras-el-Jajunieh, a distance of about ten miles, and resembles that of Tyre in its principal features. It is long and narrow, never more than about two miles in width, but well-watered and very fertile. ”

“ Flew they on with awful swiftness, till the air waves left behind them wound the earth in many circles, till the silent city Sidon slept beneath their hovering pinions; glanced their message to the spirit—Spirit Prince of Ashtoreth. Gained their answer, sailed they westward to Ionia, faster than the coming day-dawn; stood before the great Saronia; hailed her priestess of Diana; whispered forth with frightful meaning:
'Thou thyself, from her begotten, standest first amongst all women. ”

“ During the most flourishing times of Sidon and Tyre the land of the Phoenicians was a perpetual apple of contention between the powers that ruled on the Euphrates and on the Nile, and was subject sometimes to the Assyrians, sometimes to the Egyptians. ”

“ The Island which they now inhabited, and those surrounding them, belonged to the Tyrians,—a free gift of which by the owners, in exchange for the Galleys of the Sidonians (save one for their own return to Sidon) , would naturally occur to the parties, under the peculiar circumstances in which they were now relatively placed. It will readily be admitted that the Sidonians, having hazarded their lives, and even the destruction of their country, in "gleaning" from the carnage at Tyrus, the "remnant" of the People, that they would not hesitate to grant them the means of perfect safety. ”

“ It is with them a body without a soul—a form, and a greatly altered form, without the spirit and power which makes it a transforming principle among mankind. But the darkness is passing away—rays of light are breaking upon these regions—and we doubt not the day is not far remote when the religion of Christ will, in its enlightening and transforming power, revisit these regions, and make them revive and flourish like the garden of the Lord.
From Soor we made our next stage to Saida, the ancient Sidon, which is so often mentioned in connection with Tyre—"Tyre and Sidon." ”

“ In the inscription on the bulls, and on the cylinders Smith and Taylor, [285] Sennacherib tells us: "In my third campaign I marched against the land of the Chatti (the Syrians) . Luli (Elulæus) , the king of Sidon, was seized with a mighty terror of my rule, and fled from the West land (acharri) to Cyprus (Yatnan) , in the sea. I reduced his land to subjection. Great Sidon, and Little Sidon, Beth Zitti, Zarephath, Machallib, Achzib, Akko, his fortified cities, the might of my warriors and the terror of Asshur overpowered them. ”

“ With more confidence we may ascribe to Sidon the foundation of Citium in Cyprus, the colonisation of the islands in the Ægean, and of those Phoenician settlements in North Africa which were anterior to the founding of Carthage. It has even been supposed that the Sidonians were the first to make a settlement at Carthage itself,1424 and that the Tyrian occupation under Dido was a recolonisation of an already occupied site. ”

“ When you, Tenes, are king not only of Sidon but of Egypt, Cyprus, Persia, and the East, as I can make you, if you obey me in all things, then I, Ayesha, vow myself to you as your sole wife and queen. But if, ere this dignity is mine and yours, you dare even to touch my robe, then in the name of Isis and speaking with the voice of Isis, I, Ayesha, vow to you shame and death in the world and after it all the torments of hell and the jaws of the Devourer that await the judgment of Thoth on perjured souls beyond the Sun. ”

“ My editorial friend advised me now to stop at Sidon only long enough to take the first train home, leaving the Sidonites to discover the sell without expense. But I scouted the idea. I was flushed with the success of the previous evening (a success mainly due, as the sagacious reader knows, to the editor of the Times and his corps of confidants distributed at intervals over the hall) ; I was chagrined at the turn my original enterprise had taken, but determined to carry it out 'to the death;' and, more than all, I was burning to revenge myself on the perfidious postmaster of Sidon, and Dr. ”

“ The latter finding that they were discovered, instantly increased their speed towards the Isle,—thus enticing the former to follow;—all were silent on board the Tyrian Galley, as if in sorrow at discovery,—the Romans gained upon them,—the Sons of Sidon in apparent despair threw overboard their cargo and all useless material, as in fear of losing the secret,—the Romans believing that the Tyrians by sailing close in-shore, and from their loss of cargo, were about to land in sullen silence, instantly renewed their energy both by oars and sail ”