Tyrrhenian Sea

“ The Babylonian had therefore to erect his forts and mounds, and with his engines of war make a breach into the mainland City. During the several years, thousands were slain on either side; those of the Tyrians were replaced by her "wise-men" of the Ocean,—her pilots and mariners; and as they left their vessels for the Metropolis, the Galleys were sunk at Sea to prevent their falling into the enemy's hands, and thereby enable them to turn upon the Island, the only place of Tyrian retreat. ”

“ We set out from Tyre at an early hour, and rode along the beach around the head of the bay to the Ras-el-Abiad, the ancient Promontorium Album. The morning was wild and cloudy, with gleams of sunshine that flashed out over the dark violet gloom of the sea. The surf was magnificent, rolling up in grand billows, which broke and formed again, till the last of the long, falling fringes of snow slid seething up the sand. Something of ancient power was in their shock and roar, and every great wave that plunged and drew back again, called in its solemn bass: "Where are the ships of Tyre? ”

“ In places the bounding wall runs on the very edge of a precipice, and many a crazy house, overhanging, seems ready to topple into the abyss. The views are magnificent, whether one looks down the valley to the leafy shore, or, in an opposite direction, up to the grand heights which, at this narrowest point of Calabria, separate the Ionian from the Tyrrhene Sea. ”

“ All the world knew of the Phoenician seaports, Tyre and Sidon. They were as famous as Memphis and Thebes on the Nile, as magnificent as Nineveh on the Tigris and Babylon on the Euphrates. Men spoke of the "renowned city of Tyre," whose merchants were as princes, whose "traffickers" were among the honourable of the earth. "O thou that art situate at the entry of the sea," cries the poet again, when the greatness of Tyre was passing away, "which art a merchant of the people from many isles.... Thy borders are in the midst of the seas; thy builders have perfected thy beauty. ”

“ The shipwrights of Tyre and Sidon were carried across Mesopotamia to the Tigris, where they constructed for the Assyrian monarch a fleet of ships like their own galleys, which descended the river to its mouth, and astonished the populations bordering on the Persian Gulf with spectacle never before seen in those waters. Though the Chaldaeans had for centuries navigated this inland sea, and may have occasionally ventured beyond its limits, yet neither as sailors nor as ship-builders was their skill to compare with that of the Phoenicians. ”

“ The island on which the Tyre of Alexander's [Pg 148] day had been built was about half a mile from the shore. The water between was about eighteen feet deep, and formed a harbor for the vessels. The great business of the Tyrians was commerce. They bought and sold merchandise in all the ports of the Mediterranean Sea, and transported it by their merchant vessels to and fro. They had also fleets of war galleys, which they used to protect their interests on the high seas, and in the various ports which their merchant vessels visited. ”

“ Half an hour later one of the watch on a quinquereme that lay off the mouth of the Egyptian Harbor to prevent the escape of any of the Tyrian vessels heard a voice under the stern and saw the white gleam of Joel's shoulders in the water.
There was no sound in the Macedonian camp save the monotonous cries of the sentinels when the young Israelite stepped from a small boat and climbed the southern slope of the mole. He looked back and saw Tyre, standing in the sea like an island raised upon cliffs of stone and crowned with a circle of light. ”

“ Tyre was at that time seated on an island of the sea, about a quarter of a league from the continent. It was surrounded by a strong wall, a hundred and fifty feet high, which the waves of the sea washed; and the Carthaginians, a colony from Tyre, a mighty people, and sovereigns of the ocean, promised to come to the assistance of their parent State. Encouraged, therefore, by these favorable circumstances, the Tyrians determined not to surrender, but to hold out the place to the last extremity. ”

“ Here, then, is the fact of a fleet having been built by the Tyrians, for a foreign king, on the shores of the Red Sea, and for a voyage to India. Now this Navy was built for Solomon three hundred and eighty-five years before the time of Pharaoh-Necho, the period now under contemplation. Why should not the Tyrians build another Navy upon the borders of the Red Sea, at a later period, for another nation,—and especially when for an expedition calling forth every energy of the renowned Navigators? ”

“ 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;" ”

“ Tyrus stood in the estimation of the world like a majestic Temple, which all mankind had aided in building, but when erected and secure, none of the builders were allowed to enter. If a foreign nation required a naval expedition, Tyrus was the only power to furnish it in every department,—material, shipwrights, pilots, and mariners:—this is proved by the fleets loaned to the Kings of Israel and Egypt;—and the Tyrians never made a voyage for another country, that they were not the especial gainers by the expedition. ”

“ Thracians, as they are called, and reached Salmydessus. This is a point at which many trading vessels bound for the Black Sea run aground and are wrecked, owing to a sort of marshy ledge or sandbank which runs out for a considerable distance into the sea (4) . The Thracians, who dwell in these parts, have set up pillars as boundary marks, and each set of them has the pillage of its own flotsom and jetsom; for in old days, before they set up these landmarks, the wreckers, it is said, used freely to fall foul of and slay one another. ”

“ Those called the Sinones inhabited the mountain farthest from the sea of all the other mountains, and because the heat was excessive and troublesome to them, they resolved to seek for themselves some more commodious habitations. To this end, they sent forth the ablest of their young men, well armed, to find out some other seats, who, making an interruption into Tyrrhenia [4] with thirty thousand men, wasted and spoiled the territories of the Caulonians.
About this time the Romans sent ambassadors into Tyrrhenia, to gain intelligence what this expedition of the Gauls meant ”

“ The Indians went to Persia, and thence embarked on the Hyrcanian Sea, and ascending the Rha, now the Wolga, got to Great Permia through the river Kama; from whence they might take shipping again on the Black Sea, or the Baltic. They have, in all times, been enterprising men. The Tyrians undertook most surprising voyages.
If after surveying all these vast provinces, we direct our view towards the east, we shall find the limits of Europe and Asia again confounded. A new name is wanting for a considerable part of the globe. ”

“ Alexander besieged Tyre seven months;298 during which time he erected vast mounds of earth, plied it with his engines, and invested it on the side next the sea with two hundred galleys. When the Tyrians saw this fleet, they were astonished; because it greatly exceeded what they had any reason to expect. They had had in contemplation to send most of their women and children, with all the men, who were past the military age, to Carthage: but, [Pg 486] confident in their strength, they had delayed doing so ”

“ The Tyrrhenians founded Nicæa, when they became masters of the sea." Nicæa is probably the modern Mariana, which lies on the same level region of the coast. We may assume that this colony existed contemporaneously with Alalia, and that the immigration of the entire community of Phocæans excited jealousy and alarm in the Tyrrhenians, whence the collision between them and the Greeks. It is uncertain whether the Carthaginians had at this period possessions in Corsica; but they had colonies in the neighbouring Sardinia. ”

“ The country of the Sabini lies between the Latini and the Ombrici, it likewise extends to the Samnitic mountains, but approaches nearer to the Apennines inhabited by the Vestini, the Peligni, and the Marsi. The Ombrici lie between the country of the Sabini and Tyrrhenia, but extend beyond the mountains as far as Ariminum,1681 and Ravenna. The Tyrrheni, commencing from their own sea and the Tiber, extend to the circular chain of mountains which stretches from Liguria to the Adriatic. ”

“ According to Nearchus, the sea-coast of Susis is swampy, and terminates at the river Euphrates; at its mouth is a village which receives the merchandize from Arabia, for the coast of Arabia approaches close to the mouths of the Euphrates and the Pasitigris; the whole intermediate space is occupied by a lake which receives the Tigris. On sailing up the Pasitigris 150 stadia is a bridge of rafts leading to Susa from Persis, and is distant from Susa 60 (600?) stadia; the Pasitigris is distant from the Oroatis about 2,000 stadia; the ascent through the lake to the mouth of the Tigris is 600 stadia ”

“ From the Persian they could entertain no fears of commercial rivalry, for he had no river or port upon the Mediterranean.
The honour of Tyrus, as a Nation, however, was shewn in refusing to loan or man a navy, intended by a foreign king (who at first concealed his intent) for [330] carrying on a war against Carthage, and which denial led to the abandonment of the proposed warfare. It will be remembered that Carthage was originally founded by a Tyrian Princess and her countrymen. The Patriotism of the Tyrians was as powerful as their knowledge of Science was universal. ”

“ Over these it spreads itself, forming the well-known “Chaldaean marshes,” which absorb the chief proportion of the water that flows into them, and in which the “great river” seems at various times to have wholly, or almost wholly, lost itself. No such misfortune can befall the Tigris, which runs in a deep bed, and seldom varies its channel, offering a strong contrast to the sister stream.
Frequent allusion has been made, in the course of this description of the Tigris and Euphrates, to the fact of their having each a flood season. ”

“ Arrian treats the temple of Hêraklês in the island-Tyre as the most ancient temple within the memory of man (Exp. Al. ii, 16) . The Tyrians also lived on their island during the invasion of Salmaneser king of Nineveh, and their position enabled them to hold out against him, while Palæ-Tyrus on the terra firma was obliged to yield itself (Joseph. ib. ix, 14, 2) . The town taken (or reduced to capitulate) , after a long siege, by Nebuchadnezzar, was the insular Tyrus, not the continental or Palæ-Tyrus, which had surrendered without resistance to Salmaneser. ”

“ But the main stream of Tyrian commerce hugged the south rather than the north coasts of the Eastern Mediterranean. Phoenician sailors were essentially southerners--men who, if they would brave now and again the cold winds of the Aegean and Adriatic, refused to do so oftener than was necessary--men to whom African shores and a climate softened by the breath of the Ocean were more congenial.
If, however, the Phoenicians were undoubtedly agents who introduced the Egyptian culture to the early Hellenes of both Asia and Europe, did they also introduce the Mesopotamian? ”

“ The inhabitants of Tyrus from their small locality [i. e. the Island] were essentially a practical people,—they had no space to build idle or useless edifices, like those of Egypt,—they had no captives! The Tyrians were of all people of the ancient world, best adapted to imitate what was of utility and stability,—thence their selecting pyramidal bases, as foundations for their Temples in America, and which have preserved those edifices, and the judgment of the builders, even to this day, through a period of time beyond two thousand years! ”

“ We now submit the subject to the reader's opinion, upon a review of the evidence, facts, and reasoning upon the entire proposition; and shall proceed with the History of Tyrus and the Migration, in the belief that the decision is in the affirmative;—and that consequently the Fortunate Isles (i. e. the Canaries) are admitted to have been discovered, and claimed, by the Tyrians during this first great Voyage around the Continent of Africa, and between the years 609-606 before the Christian Æra ”

“ Bitter thoughts must have filled his breast when he saw his ancient, favourite city, and the temples wherein he and his brother gods had been so revered, now ignominiously laid waste.
Better than either Mars or Apollo fared the god Bacchus at the great stampede, and the legends relate the following:—In Tyrol there are very large lakes, surrounded by magnificent trees that are mirrored in the blue waters. Trees and water murmur so that one experiences strange feelings of awe when one wanders there alone. ”

“ And that the Tyrrhenians bring up all the children that are born, no one knowing to what father each child belongs: and the children, too, live in the same manner as those who have brought them up, having feasts very frequently, and being intimate with all the women. Nor is it reckoned among the Tyrrhenians at all disgraceful either to do or suffer anything in the open air, or to be seen while it is going on ”