Tyrus

“ Although Tyrus visited every country, yet every nation at this time (Sidon and Israel excepted) received her with wounded pride,—no home or haven was given from love, but from fear,—every hand was ready to be raised against her; and when the fatal moment arrived when it could be done with safety, not a Nation, upon the surrounding shores of the Mediterranean, but at once exerted the wished-for resentment;—and this was but in accordance with Prophecy. [Ezekiel xxvi.]
"Many nations to come up against thee." [i. e. Tyrus.] This just behaviour the Tyrians knew would be their doom ”

“ The only nation is the Tyrian!—that name is used in its triple or Phœnician sense, and comprehends Sidon, Tyrus, and Carthage,—not a remnant remains whereby the slightest form can be traced, save the mere foundations of their former greatness! Egypt was the neighbour of the Tyrian, and consequently imparted her knowledge through commercial communion. ”

“ The great city of Tyrus, once so glorious and now forever gone, is a type of the commercial glory of the world, its wealth and its prince, foreshadowing the final great world-city and world-system Babylon. Satan controlled Tyrus as he will also control the coming, final Babylon. We have therefore here a description of Satan in his original condition as an unfallen creature. He was full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. He was in Eden the garden of God and every precious stone was his covering. He was the anointed cherub that covereth, perhaps an archangel like Michael. ”

“ Tyrus, and Zidon, though
it be very wise.
38:009:003 And Tyrus did build herself a strong hold, and heaped up
silver as the dust, and fine gold as the mire of the streets.
38:009:004 Behold, the LORD will cast her out, and he will smite her
power in the sea; and she shall be devoured with fire. ”

“ They had for many ages no rivals upon the waters of the Mediterranean;—but when by degrees other Nations were established upon the opposite shores, or Islands of the great Inland Sea, and availing themselves of the same means as the Tyrians to increase their power or wealth,—then Tyrus, ever jealous of her original strength,—instantly made war, or piratical crusades, against those infant navies, and crushed them even in their cradled security. ”

“ 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! ”

“ Tyrus had no Slaves, in the usual acceptation of the word,—for she had no foreign conquests,—and her subjects were too proud to allow of any but themselves to pilot or man their galleys,—either for merchandise or warfare;—nor would she allow foreigners to live within her walls, especially of the lower ranks of life, lest they should obtain the secret of ship-building, and so convey intelligence to other nations bordering upon the Mediterranean. ”

“ The subjugation of Tyrus by policy was one of the schemes of Alexander,—for avoiding its destruction,—he would then be sure of Navies, Pilots, and Mariners, to carry his warfare, at a later period, to the river Tiber and to Rome itself;—for his thirst of Conquest,—had it not been allayed by the poison-draught in Asia,—could only have been quenched within the great Capital of Italy. Alexander, therefore, flattered [344] the Tyrians by raising to the throne of Sidon, a man who bore the same name,— (Strato) and was of the same family as the Founder of the present dynasty at Tyrus ”

“ Upon the mainland they erected many buildings of a minor character, such as are usually found in the environs of [329] a City;—and a great proportion of the labouring classes dwelt there; as, also, the strangers visiting Tyrus in pursuit of traffic or merchandise. Many years were employed in bringing the Island-Capital to a state of complete defence, owing to the diminished numbers of the male population immediately after the siege. Tyrus must now be viewed as only on the Island, which was about 800 yards from the shore,—somewhat less than half a mile. ”

“ Antiochus and his daughter dead; The men of Tyrus on the head Of Helicanus would set on The crown of Tyre, but he will none: The mutiny he there hastes t’ oppress; Says to ’em, if King Pericles Come not home in twice six moons, He, obedient to their dooms, Will take the crown. The sum of this, Brought hither to Pentapolis Y-ravished the regions round, And every one with claps can sound, ‘Our heir-apparent is a king! Who dream’d, who thought of such a thing?’ Brief, he must hence depart to Tyre: His queen with child makes her desire — Which who shall cross? ”

“ Believing, from the general and early character of the Sculpture, that Copan was the first built city in Ancient America,—we are still further warranted in the belief from the definition of the Chief Altar,—for it appears to illustrate in every particular, both by incidents and emblems, the last event of Tyrus in its Asiatic history, but which was the first event leading to the existence of the Tyrians in the Western Hemisphere. ”

“ 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 ”

“ There can remain upon the mind of the reader, (from the previous quotation) not a doubt, that the celebrated Cadmus of Classic history was of Tyrus,—and consequently it is the first name to be found having reference to Tyrian history. The chief events only of that history will be enlarged upon in these pages;—for our aim will be to obtain, and delineate the vital spirit of the Nation, and its principle of action,—that Instruction may not be forgotten, in the contemplation of History's wild romance,—for her prerogative has ever been, to prove that truth is more strange than fiction! ”

“ 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. ”

“ Tyre or Phoenicia. - Amo 1:9. “Thus saith Jehovah: For three transgressions of Tyre, and for four, I shall not reverse it, because they have delivered up prisoners in full number to Edom, and have not remembered the brotherly covenant, Amo 1:10. I send fire into the wall of Tyrus, and it will devour their palaces.” In the case of Phoenicia, the capital only (Tzōr, i.e., Tyrus; see at Jos 19:29) is mentioned. ”

“ Here then is a distinct and undeniable record of the Tyrians being, not only carpenters (their Shipbuilding proves that) but Masons,—and which in the original Hebrew text is defined to be "hewers of the stone of the wall;" and consequently they were Sculptors, as well as Architects. Their building and adorning of Solomon's Temple (as will be shewn in the History of Tyrus) are additional facts, with the building of the Palace of David, to put at rest any suspicion, or question, whether the Tyrians themselves, unassisted by others, could have built and Sculptured those edifices in America. ”

“ I am sorry, Tyrus, that I could not please you and your young friend by cutting the young Englishman’s throat. Had I known that was why you wished me to carry him off, I might have left him behind with the old fool who played that he had been killed, when we took good care to kill nothing save a horse. But now I am glad that we took the trouble, for one of my men tells me he is the son of an aristocrat and that the man we left behind is rich. It is well. A satisfactory ransom must be paid before the young Englishman is set at liberty. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Many analogies are found to the Tyrians, in the details and decorations of the Peruvian Mummies,—both of the rich and the poor. Those of the poor are invariably found resting upon beds of [198] broken fish-shells;—these beds are supposed to be placed there for "religious motives." May not the purple murex (i. e. dye shellfish) of Tyrus (as on the Altar of Copan) be here alluded to by this religious custom? In the same Mummy-pits (and they extend over a mile) are found various models of boats, lines, and fish-hooks ”

“ The prospect was pleasing, and Shalmaneser set to work to convert the vision into a reality. By his emissaries he stirred up the spirit of disaffection among the Tyrian subject towns, and succeeded in separating from Tyre, and drawing over to his own side, not only Sidon and Acre and their dependencies, but even the city of Palæ-Tyrus itself,14143 or the great town which had grown up opposite the island Tyre upon the mainland. The island Tyre seems to have been left without support or ally, to fight her own battle singly. ”

“ Orders were thereupon forthwith given that a general and desperate assault upon the walls should be made at sunrise of the morrow, as that would be the precise moment when Tyrus—as one man—would be bent in adoration to the visible God of Light. The wooden-towers were to be secretly advanced during the night [368] to the walls,—as, also, the ponderous battering-rams;—the former were to be filled with soldiery, so as to be ready for instantly entering the city through any breach, by lowering the tower drawbridges;—"crouching," like their ancestors, "in the ominous horse" at the siege of Troy. ”

“ 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;" ”

“ The Babylonian could not reach these fugitives for the reason stated,—viz., the want of navigable means. And besides, the Metropolis was destroyed, and that was his intent; and that accomplished, he would be willing to receive a tributary capitulation from the Islanders. In the course of the Siege, the King of Tyrus died, and also the Prince. [These deaths were prophesied by Ezekiel.] The Tyrian Monarch was succeeded by Baal, a branch of the Royal House. ”

“ 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. ”

“ THALIARD.
So, this is Tyre, and this the court. Here must I Kill King Pericles; and if I do it not, I am sure to be hanged at home: ’tis dangerous. Well, I perceive he was a wise fellow, and had good discretion, that, being bid to ask what he would of the king, desired he might know none of his secrets: now do I see he had some reason for ’t; for if a king bid a man be a villain, he’s bound by the indenture of his oath to be one. Hush! here come the lords of Tyre. [Enter Helicanus and Escanes, with other Lords of Tyre.] ”

“ The Worship of Hercules in Tyre.—The Tyrians Refuse to Admit Alexander.
The reason of this demand was, that in Tyre there existed a temple of Heracles, [1] the most ancient of all those which are mentioned in history. It was not dedicated to the Argive Heracles, the son of Alcmena; for this Heracles was honoured in Tyre many generations before Cadmus set out from Phoenicia and occupied Thebes, and before Semele, the daughter of Cadmus, was born, from whom Dionysus, the son of Zeus, was born. ”

“ The Greek legend of Tyro is in many respects similar. This Tyro had an amour with Poseidon (as Silvia had with Mars) , and two sons were born in both cases. Tyro’s mother-in-law confined her in a dungeon, and exposed the two infants (Pelias and Neleus) in a boat on the river Enīpeus (3 syl.) . Here they were discovered and brought up by a herdsman (Romulus and Remus were brought up by a shepherd) , and when grown to manhood, they put to death their mother-in-law, who had caused them to be exposed (as Romulus and Remus put to death their great-uncle, Amulius) . ”