Part 2 (1/2)

It is primarily on account of their language that the Phoenicians are regarded as Semites. When there are no historical grounds for believing that a nation has laid aside its own original form of speech, and adopted an alien dialect, language, if not a certain, is at least a very strong, evidence of ethnic character. Counter-evidence may no doubt rebut the _prima facie_ presumption; but in the case of the Phoenicians no counter-evidence is producible. They belong to exactly that geographic zone in which Semitism has always had its chief seat; they cannot be shown to have been ever so circ.u.mstanced as to have had any inducement to change their speech; and their physical character and mental characteristics would, by themselves, be almost sufficient ground for a.s.signing them to the type whereto their language points.

The place which the Phoenicians occupy within the Semitic group is a question considerably more difficult to determine. By local position they should belong to the western, or Aramaic branch, rather than to the eastern, or a.s.syro-Babylonian, or to the southern, or Arab. But the linguistic evidence scarcely lends itself to such a view, while the historic leads decidedly to an opposite conclusion. There is a far closer a.n.a.logy between the Palestinian group of languages--Phoenician, Hebrew, Moabite, and the a.s.syro-Babylonian, than between either of these and the Aramaic. The Aramaic is scanty both in variety of grammatical forms and in vocabulary; the Phoenician and a.s.syro-Babylonian are comparatively copious.[36] The Aramaic has the character of a degraded language; the a.s.syro-Babylonian and the Phoenician are modelled on a primitive type.[37] In some respects Phoenician is even closer to a.s.syro-Babylonian than Hebrew is--e.g. in preferring _at_ to _ah_ for the feminine singular termination.[38]

The testimony of history to the origin of the Phoenicians is the following. Herodotus tells us that both the Phoenicians themselves, and the Persians best acquainted with history and antiquities, agreed in stating that the original settlements of the Phoenician people were upon the Erythraean Sea (Persian Gulf), and that they had migrated from that quarter at a remote period, and transferred their abode to the sh.o.r.es of the Mediterranean.[39] Strabo adds that the inhabitants of certain islands in the Persian Gulf had a similar tradition, and showed temples in their cities which were Phoenician in character.[310] Justin, or rather Trogus Pompeius, whom he abbreviated, writes as follows:--”The Syrian nation was founded by the Phoenicians, who, being disturbed by an earthquake, left their native land, and settled first of all in the neighbourhood of the a.s.syrian Lake, and subsequently on the sh.o.r.e of the Mediterranean, where they built a city which they called Sidon on account of the abundance of the fish; for the Phoenicians call a fish _sidon_.”[311] The ”a.s.syrian lake” of this pa.s.sage is probably the Bahr Nedjif, or ”Sea of Nedjif,” in the neighbourhood of the ancient Babylon, a permanent sheet of water, varying in its dimensions at different seasons, but generally about forty miles long, and from ten to twenty broad.[312] Attempts have been made to discredit this entire story, but the highest living authority on the subject of Phoenicia and the Phoenicians adopts it as almost certainly true, and observes:--”The tradition relative to the sojourn of the Phoenicians on the borders of the Erythraean Sea, before their establishment on the coast of the Mediterranean, has thus a new light thrown upon it. It appears from the labours of M. Movers, and from the recent discoveries made at Nineveh and Babylon, that the civilisation and religion of Phoenicia and a.s.syria were very similar. Independently of this, the majority of modern critics admit it as demonstrated that the primitive abode of the Phoenicians ought to be placed upon the Lower Euphrates, in the midst of the great commercial and maritime establishments of the Persian Gulf, agreeable to the unanimous witness of all antiquity.”[313]

If we pa.s.s from the probable origin of the Phoenician people, and their place in the Semitic group, to their own special characteristics, we shall find ourselves upon surer ground, though even here there are certain points which are debateable. The following is the account of their general character given by a very high authority, and by one who, on the whole, may be regarded as an admirer:--

”The Phoenicians form, in some respects, the most important fraction of the whole group of antique nations, notwithstanding that they sprang from the most obscure and insignificant families. This fraction, when settled, was constantly exposed to inroad by new tribes, was utterly conquered and subjected by utter strangers when it had taken a great place among the nations, and yet by industry, by perseverance, by acuteness of intellect, by unscrupulousness and wait of faith, by adaptability and pliability when necessary, and dogged defiance at other times, by total disregard of the rights of the weaker, they obtained the foremost place in the history of their times, and the highest reputation, not only for the things that they did, but for many that they did not. They were the first systematic traders, the first miners and metallurgists, the greatest inventors (if we apply such a term to those who kept an ever-watchful lookout for the inventions of others, and immediately applied them to themselves with some grand improvements on the original idea); they were the boldest mariners, the greatest colonisers, who at one time held not only the gorgeous East, but the whole of the then half-civilised West in fee--who could boast of a form of government approaching to const.i.tutionalism, who of all nations of the time stood highest in practical arts and sciences, and into whose laps there flowed an unceasing stream of the world's entire riches, until the day came when they began to care for nothing else, and the enjoyment of material comforts and luxuries took the place of the thirst for and search after knowledge. Their piratical prowess and daring was undermined; their colonies, grown old enough to stand alone, fell away from them, some after a hard fight, others in mutual agreement or silently; and the nations in whose estimation and fear they had held the first place, and who had been tributary to them, disdained them, ignored them, and finally struck them utterly out of the list of nations, till they dwindled away miserably, a warning to all who should come after them.”[314]

The prominent qualities in this description would seem to be industry and perseverance, audacity in enterprise, adaptability and pliability, acuteness of intellect, unscrupulousness, and want of good faith. The Phoenicians were certainly among the most industrious and persevering of mankind. The accounts which we have of them from various quarters, and the remains which cover the country that they once inhabited, sufficiently attest their unceasing and untiring activity through almost the whole period of their existence as a nation. Always labouring in their workshops at home in mechanical and aesthetic arts, they were at the same time constantly seeking employment abroad, ransacking the earth for useful or beautiful commodities, building cities, constructing harbours, founding colonies, introducing the arts of life among wild nations, mining and establis.h.i.+ng fisheries, organising lines of land traffic, perpetually moving from place to place, and leaving wherever they went abundant proofs of their diligence and capacity for hard work.

From Thasos in the East, where Herodotus saw ”a large mountain turned topsy-turvy by the Phoenicians in their search for gold,”[315] to the Scilly Islands in the West, where workings attributable to them are still to be seen, all the metalliferous islands and coast tracts bear traces of Phoenician industry in tunnels, adits, and air-shafts, while manufactured vessels of various kinds in silver, bronze, and terra-cotta, together with figures and gems of a Phoenician type, attest still more widely their manufacturing and commercial activity.

Audacity in enterprise can certainly not be denied to the adventurous race which, from the islands and coasts of the Eastern Mediterranean, launched forth upon the unknown sea in fragile s.h.i.+ps, affronted the perils of waves and storms, and still more dreaded ”monsters of the deep,”[316] explored the recesses of the stormy Adriatic and inhospitable Pontus, steered their perilous course amid all the islets and rocks of the aegean, along the iron-bound sh.o.r.es of Thrace, Euboea, and Laconia, first into the Western Mediterranean basin, and then through the Straits of Gibraltar into the wild and boundless Atlantic, with its mighty tides, its huge rollers, its blinding rains, and its frequent fogs. Without a chart, without a compa.s.s, guided only in their daring voyages by their knowledge of the stars, these bold mariners penetrated to the sh.o.r.es of Scythia in one direction; to Britain, if not even to the Baltic, in another; in a third to the Fortunate Islands; while, in a fourth, they traversed the entire length of the Red Sea, and entering upon the Southern Ocean, succeeded in doubling the Cape of Storms two thousand years before Vasco di Gama, and in effecting the circ.u.mnavigation of Africa.[317] And, wild as the seas were with which they had to deal, they had to deal with yet wilder men. Except in Egypt, Asia Minor, Greece, and perhaps Italy, they came in contact everywhere with savage races; they had to enter into close relations with men treacherous, bloodthirsty, covetous--men who were almost always thieves, who were frequently cannibals, sometimes wreckers--who regarded foreigners as a cheap and very delicious kind of food. The pioneers of civilisation, always and everywhere, incur dangers from which ordinary mortals would shrink with dismay; but the earliest pioneers, the first introducers of the elements of culture among barbarians who had never heard of it, must have encountered far greater peril than others from their ignorance of the ways of savage man, and a want of those tremendous weapons of attack and defence with which modern explorers take care to provide themselves. Until the invention of gunpowder, the arms of civilised men--swords, and spears, and javelins, and the like--were scarcely a match for the cunningly devised weapons--boomerangs, and blow-pipes, and poisoned arrows, and la.s.soes[318]--of the savage.

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. It is most remarkable that the Egyptians, intolerant as they usually were of strangers, should have allowed the Phoenicians to settle in their southern capital, Memphis, and to build a temple and inhabit a quarter there.[319] It is also curious and interesting that the Phoenicians should have been able to ingratiate themselves with another most exclusive and self-sufficing people, viz. the Jews.

Hiram's friendly dealings with David and Solomon are well known; but the _continued_ alliance between the Phoenicians and the Israelites has attracted less attention. Solomon took wives from Phoenicia;[320]

Ahab married the daughter of Ithobalus, king of Sidon;[321] Phoenicia furnished timber for the second Temple;[322] Isaiah wound up his prophecy against Tyre with a consolation;[323] our Lord found faith in the Syro-Phoenician woman;[324] in the days of Herod Agrippa, Tyre and Sidon still desired peace with Judaea, ”because their country was nourished by the king's country.”[325] And similarly Tyre had friendly relations with Syria and Greece, with Mesopotamia and a.s.syria, with Babylonia and Chaldaea. At the same time she could bend herself to meet the wants and gain the confidence of all the varieties of barbarians, the rude Armenians, the wild Arabs, the barbarous tribes of northern and western Africa, the rough Iberi, the pa.s.sionate Gauls, the painted Britons, the coa.r.s.e Sards, the fierce Thracians, the filthy Scyths, the savage races of the Caucasus. Tribes so timid and distrustful as those of Tropical Africa were lured into peaceful and friendly relations by the artifice of a ”dumb commerce,”[326] and on every side untamed man was softened and drawn towards civilisation by a spirit of accommodation, conciliation, and concession to prejudices.

If the Phoenicians are to be credited with acuteness of intellect, it must be limited to the field of practical enquiry and discovery.

Whatever may be said with regard to the extent and variety of their literature--a subject which will be treated in another chapter--it cannot be pretended that humanity owes to them any important conquests of a scientific or philosophic character. Herodotus, who admires the learning of the Persians,[327] the science of the Babylonians,[328]

and the combined learning and science of the Egyptians,[329] limits his commendation of the Phoenicians to their skill in navigation, in mechanics, and in works of art.[330] Had they made advances in the abstract, or even in the mixed, sciences, in mathematics, or astronomy, or geometry, in logic or metaphysics, either their writings would have been preserved, or at least the Greeks would have made acknowledgments of being indebted to them.[331] But it is only in the field of practical matters that any such acknowledgments are made. The Greeks allow themselves to have been indebted to the Phoenicians for alphabetic writing, for advances in metallurgy, for improvements in s.h.i.+pbuilding, and navigation, for much geographic knowledge, for exquisite dyes, and for the manufacture of gla.s.s. There can be no doubt that the Phoenicians were a people of great practical ability, with an intellect quick to devise means to ends, to scheme, contrive, and execute, and with a happy knack of perceiving what was practically valuable in the inventions of other nations, and of appropriating them to their own use, often with improvements upon the original idea. But they were not possessed of any great genius or originality. They were, on the whole, adapters rather than inventors. They owed their idea of alphabetic writing to the Accadians,[332] their weights and measures to Babylon,[333] their s.h.i.+pbuilding probably to Egypt,[334] their early architecture to the same country,[335] their mimetic art to a.s.syria, to Egypt, and to Greece. They were not poets, or painters, or sculptors, or great architects, much less philosophers or scientists; but in the practical arts, and even in the practical sciences, they held a high place, in almost all of them equalling, and in some exceeding, all their neighbours.

We should be inclined also to a.s.sign to the Phoenicians, as a special characteristic, a peculiar capacity for business. This may be said, indeed, to be nothing more than acuteness of intellect applied in a particular way. To ourselves, however, it appears to be, in some sort, a special gift. As, beyond all question, there are many persons of extremely acute intellect who have not the slightest turn for business, or ability for dealing with it, so we think there are nations, to whom no one would deny high intellectual power, without the capacity in question. In its most perfect form it has belonged but to a small number of nations--to the Phoenicians, the Venetians, the Genoese, the English, and the Dutch. It implies, not so much high intellectual power, as a combination of valuable, yet not very admirable, qualities of a lower order. Industry, perseverance, shrewdness, quickness of perception, power of forecasting the future, power of organisation, boldness, promptness, are among the qualities needed, and there may be others discoverable by the skilful a.n.a.lyst. All these met in the Phoenicians, and met in the proportions that were needed for the combination to take full effect.

Whether unscrupulousness and want of good faith are rightly a.s.signed to the Phoenicians as characteristic traits, is, at the least, open to doubt. The Latin writers, with whom the reproach contained in the expression ”Punica fides” originated, are scarcely to be accepted as unprejudiced witnesses, since it is in most instances a necessity that they should either impute ”bad faith” to the opposite side, or admit that there was ”bad faith” on their own. The aspersions of an enemy are ent.i.tled to little weight. The cry of ”perfide Albion” is often heard in the land of one of our near neighbours; but few Englishmen will admit the justice of it. It may be urged in favour of the Phoenicians that long-continued commercial success is impossible without fair-dealing and honesty; that where there is commercial fair-dealing and honesty, those qualities become part and parcel of the national character, and determine national policy; and, further, that in almost every one of the instances of bad faith alleged, there is at the least a doubt, of which the accused party ought to have the benefit. At any rate, let it be remembered that the charges made affect the Liby-Phoenicians alone, and not the Phoenicians of Asia, with whom we are here primarily concerned, and that we cannot safely, or equitably, transfer to a mother-country faults which are only even alleged against one of her colonies.

Physically, the Phoenicians appear to have resembled the a.s.syrians and the Jews. They had large frames strongly made, well-developed muscles, curled beards, and abundant hair. In their features they may have borne a resemblance, but probably not a very strong resemblance, to the Cypriots,[336] who were a mixed people recruited from various quarters.[337] In complexion they belonged to the white race, but were rather sallow than fair. Their hair was generally dark, though it may have been sometimes red. Some have regarded the name ”Phoenician” as indicating that they were of a red or red-brown colour;[338] but it is better to regard the appellation as having pa.s.sed from the country to its people, and as applied to the country by the Greeks on account of the palm-trees which grew along its sh.o.r.es.

CHAPTER IV--THE CITIES

Importance of the cities in Phoenicia--Their names and relative eminence--Cities of the first rank--Sidon--Tyre-- Arvad or Aradus--Marathus--Gebal or Byblus--Tripolis--Cities of the second rank--Aphaca--Berytus--Arka--Ecdippa--Accho-- Dor--j.a.pho or Joppa--Ramantha or Laodicea--Fivefold division of Phoenicia.

Phoenicia, like Greece, was a country where the cities held a position of extreme importance. The nation was not a centralised one, with a single recognised capital, like Judaea, or Samaria, or Syria, or a.s.syria, or Babylonia. It was, like Greece, a congeries of h.o.m.ogeneous tribes, who had never been amalgamated into a single political ent.i.ty, and who clung fondly to the idea of separate independence. Tyre and Sidon are often spoken of as if they were metropolitical cities; but it may be doubted whether there was ever a time when either of them could claim even a temporary authority over the whole country. Each, no doubt, from time to time, exercised a sort of hegemony over a certain number of the inferior cities; but there was no organised confederacy, no obligation of any one city to submit to another, and no period, as far as our knowledge extends, at which all the cities acknowledged a single one as their mistress.[41] Between Tyre and Sidon there was especial jealousy, and the acceptance by either of the leaders.h.i.+p of the other, even temporarily, was a rare fact in the history of the nation.

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. Of the twenty-five a certain number were, historically and politically, insignificant; for instance, Gabala, Balanea, Paltos, Orthosia, Calamus, Trieris, Botrys, Sarepta, Ornithonpolis, Porphyreon. Sarepta is immortalised by the memory of its pious widow,[42] and Orthosia has a place in history from its connection with the adventures of Trypho;[43] but the rest of the list are little more than ”geographical expressions.” There remain fifteen important cities, of which six may be placed in the first rank and nine in the second--the six being Tyre, Sidon, Aradus, Byblus or Gebal, Marathus, and Tripolis; the nine, Laodicea, Simyra, Arka, Aphaca, Berytus, Ecdippa, Accho, Dor, and Joppa. It will be sufficient in the present place to give some account of these fifteen.

There are some grounds for considering Sidon to have been the most ancient of the Phoenician towns. In the Book of Genesis Sidon is called ”the eldest born of Canaan,”[44] and in Joshua, where Tyre is simply a ”fenced city” or fort,[45] it is ”_Great_ Zidon.”[46] Homer frequently mentions it,[47] whereas he takes no notice of Tyre. Justin makes it the first town which the Phoenicians built on arriving at the sh.o.r.es of the Mediterranean.[48] The priority of Sidon in this respect was, however, not universally acknowledged, since Tyre claims on some of her coins to have been ”the mother-city of the Sidonians,”[49] and Marathus was also regarded as a city of the very highest antiquity.[410] The city stood in Lat. 33 34' nearly, on the flat plain between the mountains and the sh.o.r.e, opposite a small promontory which projects into the sea towards the west, and is flanked towards the north-west and north by a number of rocky islands. The modern town of Sada stands close upon the sh.o.r.e, occupying the greater part of the peninsula and a portion of the plain on which it abuts; but the ancient city is found to have been situated entirely in the plain, and its most western traces are almost half a mile from the nearest point of the present walls.[411] The modern Sada has cl.u.s.tered itself about what was the princ.i.p.al port of the ancient town, which lay north of the promontory, and was well protected from winds, on the west by the princ.i.p.al island, which has a length of 250 yards, and on the north by a long range of islets and reefs, extending in a north-easterly direction a distance of at least 600 yards. An excellent roadstead was thus formed by nature, which art early improved into a small but commodious harbour, a line of wall being carried out from the coast northwards to the most easterly of the islets, and the only unprotected side of the harbour being thus securely closed. There is reason to believe that this work was completed anterior to the time of Alexander,[412] and was therefore due to the Phoenicians themselves, who were not blind to the advantages of closed harbours over open roadsteads. They seem also to have strengthened the natural barrier towards the north by a continuous wall of huge blocks along the reefs and the islets, portions of which are still in existence.

Besides this excellent harbour, 500 yards long by 200 broad, Sidon possessed on the southern side of the peninsula a second refuge for its s.h.i.+ps, less safe, but still more s.p.a.cious. This was an oval basin, 600 yards long from north to south, and nearly 400 broad from east to west, wholly surrounded by land on three sides, the north, the east, and the south, but open for the s.p.a.ce of about 200 yards towards the west. In fine weather this harbour was probably quite as much used as the other; it was protected from all the winds that were commonly prevalent, and offered a long stretch of sandy sh.o.r.e free from buildings on which vessels could be drawn up.

It is impossible to mark out the enceinte of the ancient town, or indeed to emplace it with any exact.i.tude. Only scanty and scattered remains are left here and there between the modern city and the mountains. There is, however, towards the south an extensive necropolis,[413] which marks perhaps the southern limits of the city, while towards the east the hills are penetrated by a number of sepulchural grottoes, and tombs of various kinds, which were also probably outside the walls. Were a northern necropolis to be discovered, some idea would be furnished of the extent of the city; but at present the plain has been very imperfectly examined in this direction. It is from the southern necropolis that the remarkable inscription was disinterred which first established beyond all possibility of doubt the fact that the modern Sada is the representative of the ancient Sidon.[414]

Twenty miles to the south of Sidon was the still more important city--the double city--of Tzur or Tyre. Tzur signifies ”a rock,” and at this point of the Syrian coast (Lat. 33 17') there lay at a short distance from the sh.o.r.e a set of rocky islets, on the largest of which the original city seems to have been built. Indentations are so rare and so shallow along this coast, that a maritime people naturally looked out for littoral islands, as affording under the circ.u.mstances the best protection against boisterous winds; and, as in the north Aradus was early seized and occupied by Phoenician settlers, so in the south the rock, which became the heart of Tyre, was seized, fortified, covered with buildings, and converted from a bare stony eminence into a town. At the same time, or not much later, a second town grew up on the mainland opposite the isle; and the two together were long regarded as const.i.tuting a single city. After the time of Alexander the continental town went to decay; and the name of Palae-Tyrus was given to it,[415] to distinguish it from the still flouris.h.i.+ng city on the island.

The islands of which we have spoken formed a chain running nearly in parallel to the coast. They were some eleven or twelve in number. The southern extremity of the chain was formed by three, the northern by seven, small islets.[416] Intermediate between these lay two islands of superior size, which were ultimately converted into one by filling up the channel between them. A further enlargement was effected by means of substructions thrown out into the sea, probably on two sides, towards the east and towards the south. By these means an area was produced sufficient for the site of a considerable town. Pliny estimated the circ.u.mference of the island Tyre at twenty-two stades,[417] or somewhat more than two miles and a half. Modern measurements make the actual present area one of above 600,000 square yards.[418] The shape was an irregular trapezium, 1,400 yards along its western face, 800 yards along its southern one, 600 along the face towards the east, and rather more along the face towards the north-east.

The whole town was surrounded by a lofty wall, the height of which, on the side which faced the mainland, was, we are told, a hundred and fifty feet.[419] Towards the south the foundations of the wall were laid in the sea, and may still be traced.[420] They consist of huge blocks of stone strengthened inside by a conglomerate of very hard cement. The wall runs out from the south-eastern corner of what was the original island, in a direction a little to the south of west, till it reaches the line of the western coast, when it turns at a sharp angle, and rejoins the island at its south-western extremity. At present sea is found for some distance to the north of the wall, and this fact has been thought to show that originally it was intended for a pier or quay, and the s.p.a.ce within it for a harbour;[421] but the latest explorers are of opinion that the s.p.a.ce was once filled up with masonry and rubbish, being an artificial addition to the island, over which, in the course of time, the sea has broken, and rea.s.serted its rights.[422]

Like Sidon, Tyre had two harbours, a northern and a southern. The northern, which was called the ”Sidonian,” because it looked towards Sidon, was situated on the east of the main island, towards the northern end of it. On the west and south the land swept round it in a natural curve, effectually guarding two sides; while the remaining two were protected by art. On the north a double line of wall was carried out in a direction a little south of east for a distance of about three hundred yards, the s.p.a.ce between the two lines being about a hundred feet. The northern line acted as a sort of breakwater, the southern as a pier.

This last terminated towards the east on reaching a ridge of natural rock, and was there met by the eastern wall of the harbour, which ran out in a direction nearly due north for a distance of 250 yards, following the course of two reefs, which served as its foundation.

Between the reefs was a s.p.a.ce of about 140 feet, which was left open, but could be closed, if necessary, by a boom or chain, which was kept in readiness. The dimensions of this northern harbour are thought to have been about 370 yards from north to south, by about 230 from east to west,[423] or a little short of those which have been a.s.signed to the northern harbour of Sidon. Concerning the southern harbour there is considerable difference of opinion. Some, as Kenrick and M. Bertou, place it due south of the island, and regard its boundary as the line of submarine wall which we have already described and regarded as const.i.tuting the southern wall of the town. Others locate it towards the south-east, and think that it is now entirely filled up. A ca.n.a.l connected the two ports, so that vessels could pa.s.s from the one to the other.