Part 2 (2/2)

The most remarkable of the Tyrian buildings were the royal palace, which ab.u.t.ted on the southern wall of the town, and the temples dedicated to Baal, Melkarth, Agenor, and Astarte or Ashtoreth.[424] The probable character of the architecture of these buildings will be hereafter considered. With respect to their emplacement, it would seem by the most recent explorations that the temple of Baal, called by the Greeks that of the Olympian Zeus, stood by itself on what was originally a separate islet at the south-western corner of the city,[425] while that of Melkarth occupied a position as nearly as possible central,[426] and that of Agenor was placed near the point in which the island terminates toward the north.[427] The houses of the inhabitants were closely crowded together, and rose to the height of several storeys.[428] There was an open s.p.a.ce for the transaction of business within the walls towards the east, called Eurychorus by those Phoenicians who wrote their histories in Greek.[429] The town was full of dyeing establishments, which made it difficult to traverse.[430] The docks and dockyards were towards the east.

The population of the island Tyre, when it was captured by Alexander, seems to have been about forty thousand souls.[431] As St. Malo, a city less than one-third of the size, is known to have had at one time a population of twelve thousand,[432] the number, though large for the area, would seem not to be incredible.

Of Palae-Tyrus, or the continental Tyre, no satisfactory account can be given, since it has absolutely left no remains, and the cla.s.sical notices on the subject are exceedingly scanty. At different periods of its history, its limits and extent probably varied greatly. Its position was nearly opposite the island, and in the early times it must have been, like the other coast towns, strongly fortified; but after its capture by Alexander the walls do not seem to have been restored, and it became an open straggling town, extending along the sh.o.r.e from the river Leontes (Litany) to Ras-el-Ain, a distance of seven miles or more.

Pliny, who wrote when its boundary could still be traced, computed the circuit of Palae-Tyrus and the island Tyre together at nineteen Roman miles,[433] the circuit of the island by itself being less than three miles. Its situation, in a plain of great fertility, at the foot of the south-western spurs of Lebanon, and near the gorge of the Litany, was one of great beauty. Water was supplied to it in great abundance from the copious springs of Ras-el-Ain, which were received into a reservoir of an octagonal shape, sixty feet in diameter, and inclosed within walls eighteen feet in height,[434] whence they were conveyed northwards to the heart of the city by an aqueduct, whereof a part is still remaining.

The most important city of Phoenicia towards the north was Arvad, or Aradus. Arvad was situated, like Tyre, on a small island off the Syrian coast, and lay in Lat. 34 48' nearly. It was distant from the sh.o.r.e about two miles and a half. The island was even smaller than that which formed the nucleus of Tyre, being only about 800 yards, or less than half a mile in length, by 500 yards, or rather more than a quarter of a mile in breadth.[435] The axis of the island was from north-west to south-east. It was a bare rock, low and flat, without water, and without any natural soil. The iron coast was surrounded on three sides, the north, the west, and the south, by a number of rocks and small islets, which fringed it like the tr.i.m.m.i.n.g of a shawl. Its Phoenician occupiers early converted this debatable territory, half sea half sh.o.r.e, into solid land, by filling up the interstices between the rocks with squared stones and a solid cement as hard as the rock itself, which remains to this day.[436] The north-eastern portion, which has a length of 150 yards by a breadth of 125, is perfectly smooth and almost flat, but with a slight slope towards the east, which is thought to show that it was used as a sort of dry dock, on which to draw up the lighter vessels, for safety or for repairs.[437] The western and southern increased the area for house-building. Anciently, as at Tyre, the houses were built very close together, and had several storeys,[438] for the purpose of accommodating a numerous population. The island was wholly without natural harbour; but on the eastern side, which faced the mainland, and was turned away from the prevailing winds, the art and industry of the inhabitants constructed two ports of a fair size. This was effected by carrying out from the sh.o.r.e three piers at right angles into the sea, the central one to a distance of from seventy to a hundred yards, and the other two very nearly as far--and thus forming two rectangular basins, one on either side of the central pier, which were guarded from winds on three sides, and only open towards the east, a quarter from which the winds are seldom violent, and on which the mainland, less than three miles off, forms a protection. The construction of the central pier is remarkable. It is formed of ma.s.sive blocks of sandstone, which are placed transversely, so that their length forms the thickness of the pier, and their ends the wall on either side. On both sides of the wall are quays of concrete.[439]

The line of the ancient enceinte may still be traced around the three outer sides of the island. It is a gigantic work, composed of stones from fifteen to eighteen feet long, placed transversely, like those of the centre pier, and in two places still rising to the height of five or six courses (from thirty to forty feet).[440] The blocks are laid side by side without mortar; they are roughly squared, and arranged generally in regular courses; but sometimes two courses for a while take the place of one.[441] There is a want of care in the arrangement of the blocks, joints in one course being occasionally directly over joints in the course below it. The stones are without any bevel or ornamentation of any kind. They have been quarried in the island itself, and the beds of rock from which they were taken may be seen at no great distance. At one point in the western side of the island, the native rock itself has been cut into the shape of the wall, and made to take the place of the squared stones for the distance of about ten feet.[442] A moat has also been cut along the entire western side, which, with its glacis, served apparently to protect the wall from the fury of the waves.[443]

We know nothing of the internal arrangements of the ancient town beyond the fact of the closeness and loftiness of the houses. Externally Aradus depended on her possessions upon the mainland both for water and for food. The barren rock could grow nothing, and was moreover covered with houses. Such rainwater as fell on the island was carefully collected and stored in tanks and reservoirs,[444] the remains of which are still to be seen. But the ordinary supply of water for daily consumption was derived in time of peace from the opposite coast. When this supply was cut off by an enemy Aradus had still one further resource. Midway in the channel between the island and the continent there burst out at the bottom of the sea a fresh-water spring of great strength; by confining this spring within a hemisphere of lead to which a leathern pipe was attached the much-needed fluid was raised to the surface and received into a vessel moored upon the spot, whence supplies were carried to the island.[445] The phenomenon still continues, though the modern inhabitants are too ignorant and unskilful to profit by it.[446]

On the mainland Aradus possessed a considerable tract, and had a number of cities subject to her. Of these Strabo enumerates six, viz. Paltos, Balanea, Carnus--which he calls the naval station of Aradus--Enydra, Marathus, and Simyra.[447] Marathus was the most important of these. Its name recalls the ”Brathu” of Philo-Byblius[448] and the ”Martu” of the early Babylonian inscriptions,[449] which was used as a general term by some of the primitive monarchs almost in the sense of ”Syria.” The word is still preserved in the modern ”M'rith” or ”Amrith,” a name attached to some extensive ruins in the plain south-east of Aradus, which have been carefully examined by M. Renan.[450] Marathus was an ancient Phoenician town, probably one of the most ancient, and was always looked upon with some jealousy by the Aradians, who ultimately destroyed it and part.i.tioned out the territory among their own citizens.[451] The same fate befell Simyra,[452] a place of equal antiquity, the home probably of those Zemarites who are coupled with the Arvadites in Genesis.[453]

Simyra appears as ”Zimirra” in the a.s.syrian inscriptions, where it is connected with Arka,[454] which was not far distant. Its exact site, which was certainly south of Amrith, seems to be fixed by the name Sumrah, which attaches to some ruins in the plain about a mile and a half north of the Eleutherus (Nahr-el-Kebir) and within a mile of the sea.[455] The other towns--Paltos, Balanea, Carnus,[456] and Enydra--were in the more northern portion of the plain, as was also Antaradus, now Tortosa, where there are considerable remains, but of a date long subsequent to the time of Phoenician ascendancy.

Of the remaining Phoenician cities the most important seems to have been Gebal, or Byblus. Mentioned under the name of Gubal in the a.s.syrian inscriptions as early as the time of Jehu[457] (ab. B.C. 840), and glanced at even earlier in the Hebrew records, which tell of its inhabitants, the Giblites,[458] Gebal is found as a town of note in the time of Alexander the Great,[459] and again in that of Pompey.[460] The traditions of the Phoenicians themselves made it one of the most ancient of the cities; and the historian Philo, who was a native of the place, ascribes its foundation to Kronos or Saturn.[461] It was an especially holy city, devoted in the early times to the wors.h.i.+p of Beltis,[462] and in the later to that of Adonis.[463] The position is marked beyond all reasonable doubt by the modern Jebel, which retains the original name very slightly modified, and answers completely to the ancient descriptions. The town lies upon the coast, in Lat. 34 10' nearly, about halfway between Tripolis and Berytus, four miles north of the point where the Adonis river (now the Ibrahim) empties itself into the sea. There is a ”small but well-sheltered port,”[464] formed mainly by two curved piers which are carried out from the sh.o.r.e towards the north and south, and which leave between them only a narrow entrance. The castle occupies a commanding position on a hill at a little distance from the sh.o.r.e, and has a keep built of bevelled stones of a large size.

Several of them measure from fifteen to eighteen feet in length, and are from five to six feet thick.[465] They were probably quarried by Giblite ”stone-cutters,” but placed in their present position during the middle ages.

Tripolis, situated halfway between Byblus and Aradus, was not one of the original Phoenician cities, but was a joint colony from the three princ.i.p.al settlements, Tyre, Sidon, and Aradus.[466] The date of its foundation, and its native Phoenician name, are unknown to us: conjecture hovers between Hosah, Mahalliba, Uznu, and Siannu, maritime towns of Phoenicia known to the a.s.syrians,[467] but unmentioned by any Greek author. The situation was a promontory, which runs out towards the north-west, in Lat. 34 27' nearly, for the distance of a mile, and is about half a mile wide. The site is ”well adapted for a haven, as a chain of seven small islands, running out to the north-west, affords shelter in the direction from which the most violent winds blow.”[468]

The remotest of these islands is ten miles distant from the sh.o.r.e.[469]

We are told that the colonists who founded Tripolis did not intermix, but had their separate quarters of the town a.s.signed to them, each surrounded by its own wall, and lying at some little distance one from the other.[470] There are no present traces of this arrangement, which seems indicative of distrust; but some remains have been found of a wall which was carried across the isthmus on the land side.[471] Tripolis is now Tarabolus.

Aphaca, the only inland Phoenician town of any importance, is now Afka, and is visited by most travellers and tourists. It was situated in a beautiful spot at the head of the Adonis river,[472] a sacred stream fabled to run with blood once a year, at the festival which commemorated the self-mutilation of the Nature-G.o.d Adonis. Aphaca was a sort of Delphi, a collection of temples rather than a town. It was dedicated especially to the wors.h.i.+p of the Syrian G.o.ddess, Ashtoreth or Venus, sometimes called Beltis or Baaltis, whose orgies were of so disgracefully licentious a character that they were at last absolutely forbidden by Constantine. At present there are no remains on the ancient site except one or two ruins of edifices decidedly Roman in character.[473] Nor is the gorge of the Adonis any richer in ancient buildings. There was a time when the whole valley formed a sort of ”Holy Land,”[474] and at intervals on its course were shown ”Tombs of Adonis,”[475] a.n.a.logous to the artificial ”Holy Sepulchres” of many European towns in the middle ages. All, however, have disappeared, and the traveller looks in vain for any traces of that curious cult which in ancient times made Aphaca and its river one of the most noted of the holy spots of Syria and a favourite resort of pilgrims.

Twenty-three miles south of Byblus was Berytus, which disputed with Byblus the palm of antiquity.[476] Berytus was situated on a promontory in Lat. 33 54', and had a port of a fair size, protected towards the west by a pier, which followed the line of a ridge of rocks running out from the promontory towards the north. It was not of any importance during the flouris.h.i.+ng Phoenician period, but grew to greatness under the Romans,[477] when its harbour was much improved, and the town greatly extended.[478] By the time of Justinian it had become the chief city of Phoenicia, and was celebrated as a school of law and science.[479] The natural advantages of its situation have caused it to retain a certain importance, and in modern times it has drawn to itself almost the whole of the commerce which Europe maintains with Syria.

Arka, or Arqa, the home of the Arkites of Genesis,[480] can never have been a place of much consequence. It lies at a distance of four miles from the sh.o.r.e, on one of the outlying hills which form the skirts of Lebanon, in Lat. 34 33, Long. 33 44' nearly. The towns nearest to it were Orthosia, Simyra, and Tripolis. It was of sufficient consequence to be mentioned in the a.s.syrian Inscriptions,[481] though not to attract the notice of Strabo.

Ecdippa, south of Tyre, in Lat. 33 1', is no doubt the scriptural Achzib,[482] which was made the northern boundary of Asher at the division of the Holy Land among the twelve tribes. The a.s.syrian monarchs speak of it under the same name, but mention it rarely, and apparently as a dependency of Sidon.[483] The old name, in the shortened form of ”Zeb,” still clings to the place.

Still further to the south, five miles from Ecdippa, and about twenty-two miles from Tyre, lay Akko or Accho, at the northern extremity of a wide bay, which terminates towards the south in the promontory of Carmel. Next to the Bay of St. George, near Beyrout, this is the best natural roadstead on the Syrian coast; and this advantage, combined with its vicinity to the plain of Esdraelon, has given to Accho at various periods of history a high importance, as in some sense ”the key of Syria.” The a.s.syrians, in their wars with Palestine and Egypt, took care to conquer and retain it.[484] When the Ptolemies became masters of the tract between Egypt and Mount Taurus, they at once saw its value, occupied it, strengthened its defences, and gave it the name of Ptolemas. The old appellation has, however, rea.s.serted itself; and, as Acre, the city played an important part in the Crusades, in the Napoleonic attempt on Egypt, and in the comparatively recent expedition of Ibrahim Pasha. It had a small port of its own to the south-east of the promontory on which it stood, which, like the other ports of the ancient Phoenicia, is at the present time almost wholly sanded up.[485]

But its roadstead was of more importance than its port, and was used by the Persians as a station for their fleet, from which they could keep watch on Egypt.[486]

South of Accho and south of Carmel, close upon the sh.o.r.e, which is here low and flat, was Dor, now Tantura, the seat of a kingdom in the time of Joshua,[487] and allotted after its conquest to Mana.s.seh.[488] Here Solomon placed one of his purveyors,[489] and here the great a.s.syrian monarch Tiglath-pileser II. likewise placed a ”governor,” about B.C.

732, when he reduced it.[490] Dor was one of the places where the sh.e.l.l-fish which produced the purple dye were most abundant, and remained in the hands of the Phoenicians during all the political changes which swept over Syria and Palestine to a late period.[491] It had fallen to ruin, however, by the time of Jerome,[492] and the present remains are unimportant.

The extreme Phoenician city on the south was j.a.pho or Joppa. It lay in Lat. 32 2', close to the territory of Dan,[493] but continued to be held by the Phoenicians until the time of the Maccabees,[494] when it became Jewish. The town was situated on the slope of a low hill near the sea, and possessed anciently a tolerable harbour, from which a trade was carried on with Tartessus.[495] As the seaport nearest to Jerusalem, it was naturally the chief medium of the commerce which was carried on between the Phoenicians and the Jews. Thither, in the time of Solomon, were brought the floats of timber cut in Lebanon for the construction of the Temple and the royal palace; and thither, no doubt, were conveyed ”the wheat, and the barley, and the oil, and the wine,” which the Phoenicians received in return for their firs and cedars.[496] A similar exchange of commodities was made nearly five centuries later at the same place, when the Jews returned from the captivity under Zerubbabel.[497]

In Roman times the foundation of Caesaraea reduced Joppa to insignificance; yet it still, as Jaffa or Yafa, retains a certain amount of trade, and is famous for its palm-groves and gardens.

Joppa towards the south was balanced by Ramantha, or Laodicea, towards the north. Fifty miles north of Aradus and Antaradus (Tortosa), in Lat. 35 30' nearly, occupying the slope of a hill facing the sea, with chalky cliffs on either side, that, like those of Dover, whiten the sea, and with Mount Casius in the background, lay the most northern of all the Phoenician cities in a fertile and beautiful territory.[498] The original appellation was, we are told, Ramantha,[499] a name intended probably to mark the _lofty_ situation of the place;[4100] but this appellation was forced to give way to the Greek term, Laodicea, when Seleucus Nicator, having become king of Syria, partially rebuilt Ramantha and colonised it with Greeks.[4101] The coins of the city under the Seleucidae show its semi-Greek, semi-Phoenician character, having legends in both languages. One of these, in the Phoenician character, is read as _l'Ladika am b'Canaan_, i.e. ”of Laodicea, a metropolis in Canaan,” and seems to show that the city claimed not only to be independent, but to have founded, and to hold under its sway, a number of smaller towns.[4102] It may have exercised a dominion over the entire tract from Mount Casius to Paltos, where the dominion of Aradus began.

Laodicea is now Latakia, and is famous for the tobacco grown in the neighbourhood. It still makes use of its ancient port, which would be fairly commodious if it were cleared of the sand that at present chokes it.[4103]

It has been said that Phoenicia was composed of ”three worlds” with distinct characteristics;[4104] but perhaps the number of the ”worlds”

should be extended to five. First came that of Ramantha, reaching from the Mons Casius to the river Badas, a distance of about fifty miles, a remote and utterly sequestered region, into which neither a.s.syria nor Egypt ever thought of penetrating. Commerce with Cyprus and southern Asia Minor was especially open to the mariners of this region, who could see the sh.o.r.es of Cyprus without difficulty on a clear day. Next came the ”world” of Aradus, reaching along the coast from the Badas to the Eleutherus, another stretch of fifty miles, and including the littoral islands, especially that of Ruad, on which Aradus was built. This tract was less sequestered than the more northern one, and contains traces of having been subjected to influences from Egypt at an early period. The gap between Lebanon and Bargylus made the Aradian territory accessible from the Coelesyrian valley; and there is reason to believe that one of the roads which Egyptian and a.s.syrian conquest followed in these parts was that which pa.s.sed along the coast as far as the Eleutherus and then turned eastward and north-eastward to Emesa (Hems) and Hamath. It must have been conquerors marching by this line who set up their effigies at the mouth of the Nahr-el-Kelb, and those who pursued it would naturally make a point of reducing Aradus. Thus this second Phoenician ”world” has not the isolated character of the first, but shows marks of a.s.syrian, and still more of early Egyptian, influence. The third Phoenician ”world” is that of Gebal or Byblus. Its limits would seem to be the Eleutherus on the north, and on the south the Tamyras, which would allow it a length of a little above eighty miles. This district, it has been said, preserved to the last days of paganism a character which was original and well marked. Within its limits the religious sentiment had more intensity and played a more important part in life than elsewhere in Phoenicia. Byblus was a sort of Phoenician Jerusalem. By their turn of mind and by the language which they spoke, the Byblians or Giblites seem to have been, of all the Phoenicians, those who most resembled the Hebrews. King Jehavmelek, who probably reigned at Byblus about B.C. 400, calls himself ”a just king,” and prays that he may obtain favour in the sight of G.o.d. Later on it was at Byblus, and in the valleys of the Lebanon depending on it, that the inhabitants celebrated those mysteries of Astarte, together with that orgiastic wors.h.i.+p of Adonis or Tammuz, which were so popular in Syria during the whole of the Greco-Roman period.[4105] The fourth Phoenician ”world” was that of Tyre and Sidon, beginning at the Tamyras and ending with the promontory of Carmel. Here it was that the Phoenician character developed especially those traits by which it is commonly known to the world at large--a genius for commerce and industry, a pa.s.sion for the undertaking of long and perilous voyages, an adaptability to circ.u.mstances of all kinds, and an address in dealing with wild tribes of many different kinds which has rarely been equalled and never exceeded. ”All that we are about to say of Phoenicia,” declares the author recently quoted, ”of its rapid expansion and the influence which it exercised over the nations of the West, must be understood especially of Tyre and Sidon. The other towns might furnish sailors to man the Tyrian fleet or merchandise for their cargo, but it was Sidon first and then (with even more determination and endurance) Tyre which took the initiative and the conduct of the movement; it was the mariners of these two towns who, with eyes fixed on the setting sun, pushed their explorations as far as the Pillars of Hercules, and eventually even further.”[4106] The last and least important of the Phoenician ”worlds” was the southern one, extending sixty miles from Carmel to Joppa--a tract from which the Phoenician character was well nigh trampled out by the feet of strangers ever pa.s.sing up and down the smooth and featureless region, along which lay the recognised line of route between Syria and Mesopotamia on the one hand, Philistia and Egypt on the other.[4107]

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