The History of Antiquity, Vol. 2 (of 6)

Hiram, the son of this king, ascended the throne of Tyre while yet a youth, in 1001 B.C. He is said to have again subjugated to his dominion the Kittians, i. e. the inhabitants of Citium, or the cities of Cyprus generally, who refused to pay tribute. What reasons and what views of advantage in trade induced Hiram to enter into relations with David in the last years of his reign, and unite these relations even more closely with Solomon, the successor of David, has been recounted above. It was this understanding which not only opened Israel completely to the trade of the Phenicians, but also procured to the latter secure and new roads through Israel to the Euphrates and Egypt, and made it possible for them to discover and use the road by sea to South Arabia. Thus, a good century after the founding of Gades, the commerce of the Phenicians reached the widest extension which it ever obtained. We saw that the Phenicians about the year 990 B.C. went by ship from Elath past South Arabia to the Somali coast, and reached Ophir, i. e. apparently the land of the Abhira (i. e. herdsmen) on the mouths of the Indus.477 The other advantages which accrued to Hiram from his connection with Israel were not slight. Solomon paid him, as has been said, 20,000 Kor of wheat and 20,000 Bath of oil yearly for 20 years in return for wood and choice quarry stones, and finally, in order to discharge his debt, had to give up 20 Israelitish towns on his borders.

Hiram had to dispose of very considerable resources; his receipts must have been far in excess of Solomon's. Of the silver of Tarshish which the ships brought from Gades to Tyre, of the gold imported by the trade to Ophir, of the profits of the maritime trade with the land of incense, a considerable percentage must have come into the treasury of the king, and he enjoyed in addition the payments of Solomon. In any case he had at his command means sufficient to enlarge, adorn, and fortify his city. Ancient Tyre lay on the seashore; with the growth of navigation and trade, the population passed over from the actual city to an island off the coast, which offered excellent harbours. On a rock near this island lay that temple of Baal Melkarth, the god of Tyre, to which the priests ascribed a high antiquity; they told Herodotus that it was built in the year 2750 B.C. (I. 345). Hiram caused this island to be enlarged by moles to the north and west towards the mainland, and protected these extensions by bulwarks. The circuit of the island was now 22 stades, i. e. more than two and a half miles; the arm of the sea, which separates the island from the mainland, now measured only 2400 feet (three stades).478 The whole island was surrounded with strong walls of masonry, which ran out sharply into the sea, and were washed by its waves, so that no room remained for the besieger to set foot and plant his scaling-ladders there. On the side of the island towards the mainland, where the docks were, these walls were the highest. Alexander of Macedon found them 150 feet high. The two harbours lay on the eastern side of the island – on the north-east and the south-east; on the north-east was the Sidonian harbour (which even now is the harbour of Sur); and on the south-east the Egyptian harbour. If the former was secured and closed by huge dams, the latter also was not without its protecting works, as huge blocks in the sea appear to show, though the dams here were no longer in perfect preservation even in Strabo's time. On the south shore of the island, eastward of the Egyptian harbour, lay the royal citadel; on the north-west side a temple of Baal Samim, the Agenorion of the Greeks. The rock which supported the temple of Melkarth appears to have been situated close to the city on the west.479 This, like the temple of Astarte, was adorned and enlarged or restored by Hiram. For the roof he caused cedars of Lebanon to be felled. In the ancient shrine of the protecting deity of the city, the temple of Melkarth, he dedicated a great pillar of gold, which Herodotus saw there 500 years later beside an erect smaragdus, which was so large that it gave light by night. This was perhaps a symbol of the light not overcome by the darkness.480

Hiram died after a reign of 34 years, in the fifty-third year of his life. His son Baleazar, who sat on the throne for seven years (967-960 B.C.), was succeeded by his son Abdastartus (i. e. servant of Astarte), who, after a reign of nine years (960-951 B.C.), fell before a conspiracy headed by the sons of his nurse. Abdastartus was murdered, and the eldest of the sons of his nurse maintained his dominion over Tyre for 12 years (951-939 B.C.). Then the legitimate dynasty returned to the throne. Of the brothers of the murdered Abdastartus, Astartus was the first to reign (939-927 B.C.), and after him Astarymus (927-918 B.C.), who was murdered by a fourth brother, Pheles. But Pheles could not long enjoy the fruits of his crime. He had only been eight months on the throne when he was slain by the priest of Astarte, Ethbaal (Ithobaal). With Pheles the race of Abibaal comes to an end (917 B.C.).

Ethbaal ascended the throne of Tyre, and was able to establish himself upon it. He is said to have built or fortified Bothrys in Lebanon, perhaps as a protection against the growing forces of Damascus.481 In Israel, during Ethbaal's reign, as we have seen, Omri at the head of the army made himself master of the throne in 899 B.C., just as Ethbaal had usurped the throne of Tyre. Both were in a similar position. Both had to establish their authority and found their dynasty. Ethbaal's daughter was married to Ahab, the son of Omri. What were the results of this connection for Israel and Judah we have seen already. To what a distance the power of Tyre extended in another direction is clear from the fact that Ethbaal founded Auza in the interior of Africa, to the south of the already ancient colony of Ityke (p. 82).482 After a reign of 32 years Ethbaal was succeeded by his son Balezor (885-877 B.C.).483 After eight years Balezor left two sons, Mutton and Sicharbaal, both under age. Yet the throne remained in the house of Ethbaal, and continued to do so even when Mutton died in the year 853 B.C., and again left a son nine years old, Pygmalion, and a daughter Elissa, a few years older, whom he had married to his brother Sicharbaal, the priest of the temple of Melkarth.484 Mutton had intended that Elissa and Pygmalion should reign together, and thus the power really passed into the hands of Sicharbaal, the husband of Elissa. When Pygmalion reached his sixteenth year the people transferred to him the sovereignty of Tyre, and he put Sicharbaal, his uncle, to death, either because he feared his influence as the chief priest of the tutelary god of the city, or because, as we are told, he coveted his treasures (846 B.C.).485

Elissa fled from Tyre before her brother, as we are told, with others who would not submit to the tyranny of Pygmalion.486 The exiles (we may perhaps suppose that they were members of old families, as it was apparently the people who had transferred the throne to Pygmalion) are said to have first landed at Cyprus, then to have sailed to the westward, and to have landed on the coast of Africa, in the neighbourhood of Ityke, the old colony of the Phenicians, and there to have bought as much land of the Libyans as could be covered by the skin of an ox. By dividing this into very thin strips they obtained a piece of land sufficient to enable them to build a fortress. This new dwelling-place, or the city which grew up round this fortress, the wanderers called, in reference to their old home, Karthada (Karta hadasha), i. e. "the new city," the Karchedon of the Greeks, the Carthage of the Romans. The legend of the purchase of the soil may have arisen from the fact that the settlers for a long time paid tribute to the ancient population, the Maxyans, for their soil. The ox-hide and all that is further told us of the fortunes of Elissa, her resistance to the suit of the Libyan prince Iarbas,487 her self-immolation in order to escape from this suit (Virgil made despised love the motive for this immolation), is due to the transference of certain traits from the myths of the horned moon-goddess, to whom the cow is sacred, the wandering Astarte, who also bore the name of Dido, and of certain customs in the worship of the goddess to Carthage; these also have had influence on the narrative of the flight of Elissa.488

The new settlement was intended to become an important centre for the colonies of the Phenicians in the West. The situation was peculiarly fortunate. Where the north coast of Africa approaches Sicily most nearly, the mountain range which runs along this coast, and forms the edge of the table-land in the interior, sinks down in gentle declivities, which thus form water-courses of considerable length, to a fertile hill country still covered with olive-gardens and orange-forests. From the north the sea penetrates deeply into the land between the "beautiful promontory" (Ras Sidi Ali) and the promontory of Hermes (Ras Addar). On the western side of this bay a ridge of land runs out, which possesses excellent springs of water. Not far from the shore a rock rises steeply to the height of about 200 feet. On this was planted the new citadel, Byrsa, on which the wanderers erected a temple to their god Esmun (I. 377). This citadel, which is said to have been about 2000 paces (double paces) in the circuit,489 was also the city round which at a later time grew up the lower city, at first on the south-east toward the shore, and then on the north-west toward the sea. The harbour lay to the south-east, under the citadel. Some miles to the north of the new settlement, on the mouth of the Bagradas (Medsherda), at the north-west corner of the bay, was Ityke, the ancient colony of the Phenicians, which had been in existence for more than two centuries when the new settlers landed on the shore of the bay; and not far to the south on the shore was Adrymes (Hadrumetum), another city of their countrymen, which Sallust mentions among the oldest colonies of the Phenicians.490 The Carthaginians never forgot their affection for the ancient Ityke, by whose assistance, no doubt, their own settlement had been supported.491

The fragment which Josephus has preserved from the annals of the kings of Tyre ends with the accession of Pygmalion and the flight of Elissa. More than two centuries had passed since the campaign of Tiglath Pilesar I. to the Mediterranean, during which the cities of the Phenicians had suffered nothing from the arms and expeditions of the Assyrians. But when Balezor and Mutton, the son and grandson of Ethbaal, ruled over Tyre (885-853 B.C.), Assurbanipal of Assyria (883-859 B.C.) began to force his way to the west over the Euphrates. When he had reduced the sovereign of Karchemish to obedience by repeated campaigns, and had built fortresses on both banks of the Euphrates, he advanced in the year 876 B.C. to the Orontes, captured the marches of Lebanus (Labnana), and received tribute from the king of Tyre, i. e. from Mutton, from the kings of Sidon, of Byblus, and Aradus. According to the inscriptions, the tribute consisted of bars of silver, gold, and lead. Assurbanipal's successor, Shalmanesar II. of Assyria (859-823 B.C.), pushed on even more energetically to the west. After forcing Cilicia to submit, he attacked Hamath, and in the year 854, as we have seen, he defeated at Karkar the united kings of Hamath, Damascus, and Israel, who were also joined by Matinbaal, the king of Aradus. But Shalmanesar was compelled to undertake three other campaigns to Damascus (850, 849, and 846 B.C.) before he succeeded, in the year 842 B.C., in making Damascus tributary. As has been remarked, Israel did not any longer attempt the decision of arms, and sought to gain the favour of Assyria; like Tyre and Sidon, Jehu sent tribute to Shalmanesar. This payment of tribute was repeated perforce by Tyre, Sidon, and Byblus, in the years 839 and 835 B.C., in which Shalmanesar's armies again appeared in Syria. Moreover, the inscriptions of Bin-nirar, king of Assyria (810-781 B.C.), tell us that Damascus, Tyre, Sidon, Israel, Edom, and the land of the Philistines had paid him tribute. It is obvious that the cities of the Phenicians would have been as a rule most willing to pay it. When Assyria had definitely extended her dominion as far as the Euphrates, it was in the power of the Assyrian king to stop the way for the merchants of those cities to Mesopotamia and Babylon, and thus to inflict very considerable damage on the trade of the Phenicians, which was for the most part a carrying trade between the East and West. What were the sums paid in tribute, even if considerable, when compared with such serious disadvantages?

Hitherto we have been able to observe monarchy in the patriarchal form of the head of the tribe, in the god-like position of the Pharaohs of Egypt, in the forms of a military principate, who ruled with despotic power over wide kingdoms, or in diminished copies of this original. It would be interesting to trace out and ascertain the changes which it had now to undergo at the head of powerful trading and commercial cities such as the Phenicians were. We have already seen that the principate of these cities was of great antiquity, that it remained in existence through all the periods of Phenician history, that it was rooted deeply enough to outlive even the independence of the cities. All more detailed accounts are wanting, and even inductions or comparisons with the constitution of Carthage in later times carry us little further. Not to mention the very insufficient accounts which we possess of this constitution, it was only to the oldest settlements of the Phenicians in Cyprus that the monarchy passed, at least it was only in these that it was able to maintain itself. The examination of these institutions of Carthage is adapted to show us in contrast on the one hand to the tribal princes of the Arabians, and on the other to the monarchy of Elam, Babel, and Asshur – what forms the feeling and character of a Semitic community, in which the burghers had reached the full development of their powers, were able to give to their state, which at the same time was supreme over a wide region; but for the constitution of the Phenician cities scarcely any conclusions can be drawn from it.

Of the internal condition of the Phenician cities, the fragment of the history of Tyre in Josephus only enables us to ascertain that there was no lack of strife and bloodshed in the palaces of the kings, and that the priests of the tutelary deity must have been of importance and influence beside the king. But it follows from the nature of things that these city-kings could not have held sway with the same complete power as the military princes of the great kingdoms of the East. The development of independence among the burghers must have placed far closer limitations upon the will of the kings in these cities than was the case elsewhere in the East. The more lively the trade and industry of the cities, the more strongly must the great merchants and manufacturers have maintained against the kings the consideration and advancement of their own interests. For the maintenance of order and peace, of law and property in the cities they looked to the king, but they had also to make important demands before the throne, and were combined against it by community of interests. They were compelled to advance these independently if the king refused his consent. Isaiah tells us that the merchants of Tyre were princes. Ezekiel speaks of the grey-haired men, the "elders" of the city of Byblus.492 Of the later period we know with greater certainty that there was a council beside the kings, the membership in which may have belonged primarily to the chiefs of the old families, but also in part to the hereditary priests. Inscriptions of the cities belonging to Grecian times present the title "elders."493 The families in the Phenician cities which could carry back their genealogy to the forefathers of the tribes which possessed land and influence before the fall of the Hittites, the incursions of the Hebrews, and the spread of trade had brought a mass of strangers into the city walls, would appear to have had the first claim to a share in the government; the heads of these families may at first have formed the council which stood beside the king. Yet it lies in the nature of great manufacturing and trading cities that the management of interests of this kind cannot be confined to the elders of the family or remain among the privileges of birth. Hence we may assume that the great trading firms and merchants could not long be excluded from these councils. In the fourth century B.C. the council of Sidon seems to have consisted of 500 or 600 elders.494 Owing to the treasures of East and West which poured together into the cities of the Phenicians, life became luxurious within their walls. Men's efforts were directed to gain and acquisition; the merchants would naturally desire to enjoy their wealth. The lower classes of the closely-compressed population no doubt followed the example set them by the higher. From the multitude of retail dealers and artizans, the number of pilots and mariners who returned home eager for enjoyment after long voyages, men whose passions would be unbridled, a turbulent population must have grown up, in spite of the numerous colonies into which the ambitious as well as the poor might emigrate or be sent with the certain prospect of a better position. We saw above that the people of Tyre are said to have transferred the rule to Pygmalion. For the later period it is certain that even the people had a share in the government.495

The hereditary monarchy passed, so far as we can see, from the mother-cities to the oldest colonies only, i. e. the cities in Cyprus. In the other colonies the chief officers were magistrates, usually two in number.496 They were called Sufetes, i. e. judges. In Carthage these two yearly officers, in whose hands lay the supreme administration of justice, and the executive, formed with 30 elders the governing body of the city. It seems that these 30 men were the representatives of as many original combinations of families into which the old houses of the city were incorporated. The connection of the colonies and mother-cities, both in general and more especially where the colony could dispense with the protection of the mother-city, were far more mercantile and religious than political. The colonies worshipped the deities of the mother-cities, and gave them a share in their booty. We also find that descendants of priests who had emigrated from the mother-city stood at the head of the temples of the colonies. In Carthage, where the priests of Melkarth wore the purple robe, the office was hereditary in the family of Bithyas, who is said to have left Tyre with Elissa.497

We are acquainted with the gods of the Phenician cities, and the mode in which they worshipped them; with El and Baal-Samim, Baal-Melkarth and Baal-Moloch, Adonis, Astarte and Ashera, with the rites of continence and mutilation, of sensual excess and prostitution, of sacrifice and fire-festival, which were intended to win their favour and grace. We observed that the protecting deities of the separate states had even before the days of Hiram been united in the system of the seven great gods, the Cabiri, at whose head was placed an eighth, Esmun, the supreme deity. We saw that in this system special meanings were ascribed to them in reference to the protection of peace and law, of industry and navigation; and we cannot doubt that with the riches which accumulated in the walls of the cities, with the luxury of life which these riches permitted, the lascivious and sensual side of the worship must have increased and extended.

The life led by the kings of the old Phenician cities is described as rich and splendid. We have already assumed that the princes of the Phenician cities had a rich share in the returns of trade, and indeed the fact can be proved from the Hebrew Scriptures for Hiram, king of Tyre. Ezekiel tells us, "The king of Tyre sits like a god in the seat of God, in the midst of the seas; he dwells as in Eden, in the garden of God. Precious stones are the covering of his palaces: the ruby, the topaz, the diamond, the chrysolite, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the carbuncle, the emerald, and gold; the workmanship of his ring-cases he bears upon him."498 "His garments," we are told in a song of the Hebrews, "smell of myrrh, aloes, and cassia; in ivory palaces the sound of harps gladdens him. At his right hand stands the queen in gold of Ophir, in a garment of wrought gold: on broidered carpets she shall be brought to him; the young maidens, her companions, follow her."499

Hosea calls Tyre "a plantation in a pleasant meadow."500 Of the city itself Ezekiel says, "The architects have made her beauty perfect. All her planks (wainscot) were of cypress, and her masts of cedar of Lebanon; the rudders are of oaks of Bashan, the benches of ivory, set in costly wood from the island of Cyprus. For sails Tyre spreads out byssus and gay woofs; blue and red purple from the islands of Elisa formed their coverlets."501 In the description of Strabo, more than 500 years later, Tyre appears less magnificent. The houses of the city were very high, higher than at Rome; the city still wealthy, owing to the trade in her two harbours and her purple factories, but the number of these made the city unpleasant. Strabo does not mention any considerable building in the city. Of Aradus he says, "The smallness of the rock on which the city lies, seven stades only in circuit, and the number of inhabitants caused every house to have many stories. Drinking-water had to be obtained from the mainland; on the island there were only wells and cisterns."502

Scarcely any striking remains of the ancient buildings of Phœnicia have come down to our time. The ancient temples enumerated in the treatise on the Syrian goddess have perished without a trace; the temple of Melkarth of Tyre, the great temple of Astarte at Sidon, the temple of Bilit (Ashera) at Byblus,503 although they were certainly not of a character easy to destroy. That the Phenicians were acquainted from very ancient periods with the erection of strong masonry was proved above. Not only have we the legend of the Greeks, that Cadmus taught them the art of masonry and built the famous walls of Thebes; we saw how Israel, about the year 1000 B.C., provided herself with masons, stone-cutters, and materials from Tyre. Hence we may also assume that the architecture of the temple and the royal palaces of Solomon described in the Books of Kings corresponded to the architecture of the Phenicians. The temples and palaces of the Phenicians consisted, therefore, of walls of large materials, roofed with beams of cedar; in the interior the materials were no doubt covered, as at Jerusalem, with planks of wood and ornaments of brass, "so that the stone was nowhere seen" (p. 183). Ezekiel has already told us that the planks of the roofs of the royal palace at Tyre were overlaid with gold and precious stones; and the Books of Kings showed us that even the floors were adorned with gold. All the remains of walls in Phœnicia that can be referred to an ancient period exhibit a style of building confined to the stone of the mountain range which hems the coast, and desirous of imitating the nature of the rocks. Blocks of large dimensions were used by preference; at first they were worked as little as possible, and fitted to each other, and the interstices between the great blocks were filled with smaller stones. Of this kind are the fragments of the walls which surround the rock on which the city of Aradus stood. Gigantic blocks, visible even now here and there, formed the dams of the harbours of Aradus, Sidon, Tyre, and Japho.504 It was a step in advance that the blocks, while retaining the form in which they were quarried, were smoothed at the joints in order to be fitted together more firmly, and a further step still that the blocks were hewn into squares, though at first the outer surfaces of the squares were not smoothed. So far as remains allow us to see, the detached structures were of a simple and massive character, in shape like cubes of vast dimensions; the walls, as is shown by the city wall of Aradus, were joined without mortar, and in the oldest times the buildings appear to have been roofed with monoliths. Cedar beams were not sought after till larger spaces had to be covered. Beside old water-basins hewn in the rock, and oil or wine presses of the same character, we have no remains of ancient Phenician temples but those on the site of Marathus (now Amrit), a city of the tribe of the Arvadites, to the south of Aradus, and in the neighbourhood of Byblus.505 The bases of the walls which enclose the courts and water-basins of the temple of Marathus can still be traced, as well as the huge stones which formed the three cellæ, the innermost shrines of this temple. On either side of a back wall formed of similar materials heavy blocks protrude, and are roofed over, together with this wall, by a great monolith, which protected the sacred stone or the image of the deity.506 This heavy style of the city walls, dams, temples, and royal castles did not prevent the Phenicians, any more than the Egyptians, from building the upper stories of the dwelling-houses of their cities in light wood-work.