Part 9 (1/2)

The Romans and Carthaginians worked their mines almost wholly by slave labour; and very painful pictures are drawn of the sufferings undergone by the unhappy victims of a barbarous and wasteful system.[1041] The gangs of slaves, we are told, remained in the mines night and day, never seeing the sun, but living and dying in the murky and foetid atmosphere of the deep excavations. It can scarcely be hoped that the Phoenicians were wiser or more merciful. They had a large command of slave labour, and would naturally employ it where the work to be done was exceptionally hard and disagreeable. Moreover, the Carthaginians, their colonists, are likely to have kept up the system, whatever it was, which they found established on succeeding to the inheritance of the Phoenician mines, and the fact that they worked them by means of slaves makes it more than probable that the Phoenicians had done so before them.[1042]

When the metals were regarded as sufficiently cleansed from impurities, they were run into moulds, which took the form of bars, pigs, or ingots. Pigs of copper and lead have, as already observed, been found in Sardinia which may well belong to Phoenician times. There is also in the museum of Truro a pig of tin, which, as it differs from those made by the Romans, Normans, and later workers, has been supposed to be Phoenician.[1043] Ingots of gold and silver have not at present been found on Phoenician localities; but the Persian practice, witnessed to by Herodotus,[1044] was probably adopted from the subject nation, which confessedly surpa.s.sed all the others in the useful arts, in commerce, and in practical sagacity.

CHAPTER XI--RELIGION

Strength of the religious sentiment among the Phoenicians-- Proofs--First stage of the religion, monotheistic--Second stage, a polytheism within narrow limits--Wors.h.i.+p of Baal-- of Ashtoreth--of El or Kronos--of Melkarth--of Dagon--of Hadad--of Adonis--of Sydyk--of Esmun--of the Cabeiri--of Onca--of Tanith--of Beltis--Third stage marked by introduction of foreign deities--Character of the Phoenician wors.h.i.+p--Altars and sacrifice--Hymns of praise, temples, and votive offerings--Wide prevalence of human sacrifice and of licentious orgies--Inst.i.tution of the Galli--Extreme corruption of the later religion--Views held on the subject of a future life--Piety of the great ma.s.s of the people earnest, though mistaken.

There can be no doubt that the Phoenicians were a people in whose minds religion and religious ideas occupied a very prominent place.

Religiousness has been said to be one of the leading characteristics of the Semitic race;[0111] and it is certainly remarkable that with that race originated the three princ.i.p.al religions, two of which are the only progressive religions, of the modern world. Judaism, Christianity, and Mohammedanism all arose in Western Asia within a restricted area, and from nations whose Semitic origin is unmistakable. The subject of ethnic affinities and differences, of the transmission of qualities and characteristics, is exceedingly obscure; but, if the theory of heredity be allowed any weight at all, there should be no difficulty in accepting the view that particular races of mankind have special leanings and apt.i.tudes.

Still, the religiousness of the Phoenicians does not rest on any _a priori_ arguments, or considerations of what is likely to have been.

Here was a nation among whom, in every city, the temple was the centre of attraction, and where the piety of the citizens adorned every temple with abundant and costly offerings. The monarchs who were at the head of the various states showed the greatest zeal in continually maintaining the honour of the G.o.ds, repaired and beautified the sacred buildings, and occasionally added to their kingly dignity the highly esteemed office of High Priest.[0112] The coinage of the country bore religious emblems,[0113] and proclaimed the fact that the cities regarded themselves as under the protection of this or that deity. Both the kings and their subjects bore commonly religious names--names which designated them as the wors.h.i.+ppers or placed them under the tutelage of some G.o.d or G.o.ddess. Abd-alonim, Abdastartus, Abd-osiris, Abdemon (which is properly Abd-Esmun), Abdi-milkut, were names of the former kind, Abi-baal (= ”Baal is my father”), Itho-bal (= ”with him is Baal”), Baleazar or Baal-azur (= ”Baal protects”), names of the latter. The Phoenician s.h.i.+ps carried images of the G.o.ds[0114] in the place of figure-heads. Wherever the Phoenicians went, they bore with them their religion and their wors.h.i.+p; in each colony they planted a temple or temples, and everywhere throughout their wide dominion the same G.o.ds were wors.h.i.+pped with the same rites and with the same observances.

In considering the nature of the Phoenician religion, we must distinguish between its different stages. There is sufficient reason to believe that originally, either when they first occupied their settlements upon the Mediterranean or before they moved from their primitive seats upon the sh.o.r.es of the Persian Gulf, the Phoenicians were Monotheists. We must not look for information on this subject to the pretentious work which Philo of Byblus, in the first or second century of our era, put forth with respect to the ”Origines” of his countrymen, and attributed to Sanchoniatho;[0115] we must rather look to the evidence of language and fact, records which may indeed be misread, but which cannot well be forged or falsified. These will show us that in the earliest times the religious sentiment of the Phoenicians acknowledged only a single deity--a single mighty power, which was supreme over the whole universe. The names by which they designated him were El, ”great;” Ram or Rimmon, ”high;” Baal, ”Lord;” Melek or Molech, ”King;” Eliun, ”Supreme;” Adonai, ”My Lord;” Bel-samin, ”Lord of Heaven,” and the like.[0116] Distinct deities could no more be intended by such names as these than by those under which G.o.d is spoken of in the Hebrew Scriptures, several of them identical with the Phoenician names--El or Elohim, ”great;” Jehovah, ”existing;” Adonai, ”my Lord;”

Shaddai, ”strong;” El Eliun,[0117] ”the supreme Great One.” How far the Phoenicians actually realised all that their names properly imply, whether they went so far as to divest G.o.d wholly of a material nature, whether they viewed Him as the Creator, as well as the Lord, of the world, are problems which it is impossible, with the means at present at our disposal, to solve. But they certainly viewed Him as ”the Lord of Heaven,”[0118] and, if so, no doubt also as the Lord of earth; they believed Him to be ”supreme” or ”the Most High;” and they realised his personal relation to each one of his wors.h.i.+ppers, who were privileged severally to address Him as Adonai--”_my_ Lord.” It may be presumed that at this early stage of the religion there was no idolatry; when One G.o.d alone is acknowledged and recognised, the feeling is naturally that expressed in the Egyptian hymn of praise--”He is not graven in marble; He is not beheld; His abode is unknown; there is no building that can contain Him; unknown is his name in heaven; He doth not manifest his forms; vain are all representations.”[0119]

But this happy state of things did not--perhaps we may say, could not--in the early condition of the human intelligence, last long. Fallen man, left to himself, very soon corrupts his way upon the earth; his hands deal with wickedness; and, in a little while, ”every imagination of the thoughts of his heart is only evil continually.”[1110] When he becomes conscious to himself of sin, he ceases to be able to endure the thought of One Perfect Infinite Being, omnipotent, ever-present, who reads his heart, who is ”about his path, and about his bed, and spies out all his ways.”[1111] He instinctively catches at anything whereby he may be relieved from the intolerable burden of such a thought; and here the imperfection of language comes to his aid. As he has found it impossible to express in any one word all that is contained in his idea of the Divine Being, he has been forced to give Him many names, each of them originally expressive of some one of that Being's attributes. But in course of time these words have lost their force--their meaning has been forgotten--and they have come to be mere proper names, designative but not significative. Here is material for the perverted imagination to work upon. A separate being is imagined answering to each of the names; and so the _nomina_ become _numina_.[1112] Many G.o.ds are subst.i.tuted for one; and the idea of G.o.d is instantly lowered. The G.o.ds have different spheres. No G.o.d is infinite; none is omnipotent, none omnipresent; therefore none omniscient. The aweful, terrible nature of G.o.d is got rid of, and a company of angelic beings takes its place, none of them very alarming to the conscience.

In its second stage the religion of Phoenicia was a polytheism, less mult.i.tudinous than most others, and one in which the several divinities were not distinguished from one another by very marked or striking features. At the head of the Pantheon stood a G.o.d and a G.o.ddess--Baal and Ashtoreth. Baal, ”the Lord,” or Baal-samin,[1113] ”the Lord of Heaven,” was compared by the Greeks to their Zeus, and by the Romans to their Jupiter. Mythologically, he was only one among many G.o.ds, but practically he stood alone; he was the chief of the G.o.ds, the main object of wors.h.i.+p, and the great ruler and protector of the Phoenician people. Sometimes, but not always, he had a solar character, and was represented with his head encircled by rays.[1114] Baalbek, which was dedicated to him, was properly ”the city of the Sun,” and was called by the Greeks Heliopolis. The solar character of Baal is, however, far from predominant, and as early as the time of Josiah we find the Sun wors.h.i.+pped separately from him,[1115] no doubt under a different name.

Baal is, to a considerable extent, a city G.o.d. Tyre especially was dedicated to him; and we hear of the ”Baal of Tyre”[1116] and again of the ”Baal of Tarsus.”[1117] Essentially, he was the embodiment of the generative principle in nature--”the G.o.d of the creative power, bringing all things to life everywhere.”[1118] Hence, ”his statue rode upon bulls, for the bull was the symbol of generative power; and he was also represented with bunches of grapes and pomegranates in his hand,”[1119]

emblems of productivity. The sacred conical stones and pillars dedicated in his temples[1120] may have had their origin in a similar symbolism.

As polytheistic systems had always a tendency to enlarge themselves, Baal had no sooner become a separate G.o.d, distinct from El, and Rimmon, and Molech, and Adonai, than he proceeded to multiply himself, and from Baal became Baalim,[1121] either because the local Baals--Baal-Tzur, Baal-Sidon, Baal-Tars, Baal-Libnan, Baal-Hermon--were conceived of as separate deities, or because the aspects of Baal--Baal as Sun-G.o.d, Baal as Lord of Heaven, Baal as lord of flies,[1122], &c.--were so viewed, and grew to be distinct objects of wors.h.i.+p. In later times he was identified with the Egyptian Ammon, and wors.h.i.+pped as Baal-Hammon.

Baal is known to have had temples at Baalbek, at Tyre, at Tarsus, at Agadir[1123] (Gades), in Sardinia,[1124] at Carthage, and at Ekron.

Though not at first wors.h.i.+pped under a visible form, he came to have statues dedicated to him,[1125] which received the usual honours.

Sometimes, as already observed, his head was encircled with a representation of the solar rays; sometimes his form was a.s.similated to that under which the Egyptians of later times wors.h.i.+pped their Ammon.

Seated upon a throne and wrapped in a long robe, he presented the appearance of a man in the flower of his age, bearded, and of solemn aspect, with the carved horn of a ram on either side of his forehead.

Figures of rams also supported the arms of his throne on either side, and on the heads of these two supports his hands rested.[1126]

The female deity whose place corresponded to that of Baal in the Phoenician Pantheon, and who was in a certain sense his companion and counterpart, was Ashtoreth or Astarte. As Baal was the embodiment of the generative principle in nature, so was Ashtoreth of the receptive and productive principle. She was the great nature-G.o.ddess, the Magna Mater, regent of the stars, queen of heaven, giver of life, and source of woman's fecundity.[1127] Just as Baal had a solar, so she had a lunar aspect, being pictured with horns upon her head representative of the lunar crescent.[1128] Hence, as early as the time of Moses, there was a city on the eastern side of Jordan, named after her, Ashtoreth-Karnaim,[1129] or ”Astarte of the two horns.” Her images are of many forms. Most commonly she appears as a naked female, with long hair, sometimes gathered into tresses, and with her two hands supporting her two b.r.e.a.s.t.s.[1130] Occasionally she is a mother, seated in a comfortable chair, and nursing her babe.[1131] Now and then she is draped, and holds a dove to her breast, or else she takes an att.i.tude of command, with the right hand raised, as if to bespeak attention.

Sometimes, on the contrary, her figure has that modest and retiring att.i.tude which has caused it to be described by a distinguished archaeologist[1132] as ”the Phoenician prototype of the Venus de Medici.”

The Greeks and Romans, who identified Baal determinately with their Zeus or Jupiter, found it very much more difficult to fix on any single G.o.ddess in their Pantheon as the correspondent of Astarte. Now they made her Hera or Juno, now Aphrodite or Venus, now Athene, now Artemis, now Selene, now Rhea or Cybele. But her aphrodisiac character was certainly the one in which she most frequently appeared. She was the G.o.ddess of the s.e.xual pa.s.sion, rarely, however, represented with the chaste and modest attributes of the Grecian Aphrodite-Urania, far more commonly with those coa.r.s.er and more repulsive ones which characterise Aphrodite Pandemos.[1133] Her temples were numerous, though perhaps not quite so numerous as those of Baal. The most famous were those at Sidon, Aphaca, Ashtoreth-Karnaim, Paphos, Pessinus, and Carthage. At Sidon the kings were sometimes her high-priests;[1134] and her name is found as a frequent element in Phoenician personal names, royal and other: e.g.--Astartus, Abdastartus, Delaeastartus, Am-ashtoreth, Bodoster, Bostor, &c.

The other princ.i.p.al Phoenician deities were El, Melkarth, Dagon, Hadad, Adonis, Sydyk, Eshmun, the Cabeiri, Onca, Tanith, Tanata, or Anaitis, and Baalith, Baaltis, or Beltis. El, or Il, originally a name of the Supreme G.o.d, became in the later Phoenician mythology a separate and subordinate divinity, whom the Greeks compared to their Kronos[1135]

and the Romans to their Saturn. El was the special G.o.d of Gebal or Byblus,[1136] and was wors.h.i.+pped also with peculiar rites at Carthage.[1137] He was reckoned the son of Ura.n.u.s and the father of Beltis, to whom he delivered over as her especial charge the city of Byblus.[1138] Numerous tales were told of him. While reigning on earth as king of Byblus, or king of Phoenicia, he had fallen in love with a nymph of the country, called An.o.bret, by whom he had a son named Ieoud.

This son, much as he loved him, when great dangers from war threatened the land, he first invested with the emblems of royalty, and then sacrificed.[1139] Ura.n.u.s (Heaven) married his sister Ge (Earth), and Il or Kronos was the issue of this marriage, as also were Dagon, Baetylus, and Atlas. Ge, being dissatisfied with the conduct of her husband, induced her son Kronos to make war upon him, and Kronos, with the a.s.sistance of Hermes, overcame Ura.n.u.s, and having driven him from his kingdom succeeded to the imperial power. Besides sacrificing Ieoud, Kronos murdered another of his sons called Sadid, and also a daughter whose name is not given. Among his wives were Astarte, Rhea, Dione, Eimarmene, and Hora, of whom the first three were his sisters.[1140]

There is no need to pursue this mythological tangle. If it meant anything to the initiated, the meaning is wholly lost; and the stories, gravely as they are related by the ancient historian, to the modern, who has no key to them, are almost wholly valueless.

Originally, Melkarth would seem to have been a mere epithet, representing one aspect of Baal. The word is formed from the two roots _melek_ and _kartha_[1141] (= Heb. _kiriath_, ”city”), and means ”King of the City,” or ”City King,” which Baal was considered to be. But the two names in course of time drifted apart, and Melicertes, in Philo Byblius, has no connection at all with Baal-samin.[1142] The Greeks, who identified Baal with their Zeus, viewed Melkarth as corresponding to their Heracles, or Hercules; and the later Phoenicians, catching at this identification, represented Melkarth under the form of a huge muscular man, with a lion's skin and sometimes with a club.[1143] Melkarth was especially wors.h.i.+pped at Tyre, of which city he was the tutelary deity, at Thasos, and at Gades. Herodotus describes the temple of Hercules at Tyre, and attributes to it an antiquity of 2,300 years before his own time.[1144] He also visited a temple dedicated to the same G.o.d at Thasos.[1145] With Gades were connected the myths of Hercules'

expedition to the west, of his erection of the pillars, his defeat of Chrysaor of the golden sword, and his successful foray upon the flocks and herds of the triple Geryon.[1146] Whether these legends were Greek or Phoenician in origin is uncertain; but the Phoenicians, at any rate, adopted them, and here have been lately found on Phoenician sites representations both of Geryon himself,[1147] and the carrying off by Hercules of his cattle.[1148] The temple of Heracles at Gades is mentioned by Strabo[1149] and others. It was on the eastern side of the island, where the strait between the island and the continent was narrowest. Founded about B.C. 1100, it continued to stand to the time of Silius Italicus, and, according to the tradition, had never needed repair.[1150] An unextinguished fire had burnt upon its altar for thirteen hundred years; and the wors.h.i.+p had remained unchanged--no image profaned the Holy of Holies, where the G.o.d dwelt, waited on by bare-footed priests with heads shaved, clothed in white linen robes, and vowed to celibacy.[1151] The name of the G.o.d occurs as an element in a certain small number of Phoenician names of men--e.g. Bomilcar, Himilcar, Abd-Melkarth, and the like.

Dagon appears in scripture only as a Philistine G.o.d,[1152] which would not prove him to have been acknowledged by the Phoenicians; but as Philo of Byblus admits him among the primary Phoenician deities, making him a son of Ura.n.u.s, and a brother of Il or Kronis,[1153] it is perhaps right that he should be allowed a place in the Phoenician list. According to Philo, he was the G.o.d of agriculture, the discoverer of wheat, and the inventor of the plough.[1154] Whether he was really represented, as is commonly supposed,[1155] in the form of a fish, or as half man and half fish, is extremely doubtful. In the Hebrew account of the fall of Dagon's image before the Ark of the Covenant at Ashdod there is no mention made of any ”fishy part;” nor is there anything in the a.s.syrian remains to connect the name Dagon, which occurs in them, with the remarkable figure of a fish-G.o.d so frequent in the bas-reliefs. That figure would seem rather to represent, or symbolise, either Hea or Nin. The notion of Dagon's fishy form seems to rest entirely on an etymological basis--on the fact, i.e. that _dag_ means ”fish,” in Hebrew. In a.s.syrian, however, _kha_ is ”fish,” and not _dag_; while in Hebrew, though _dag_ is ”fish,” _dagan_ is ”corn.” It may be noted also that the Phoenician remains contain no representation of a fish deity.

On the whole, it is perhaps best to be content with the account of Philo, and to regard the Phoenician Dagon as a ”Zeus Arotrios”--a G.o.d presiding over agriculture and especially wors.h.i.+pped by husbandmen. The name, however, does not occur in the Phoenician remains which have come down to us.

Hadad, like Dagon, obtains his right to be included in the list of Phoenician deities solely from the place a.s.signed to him by Philo.

Otherwise he would naturally be viewed as an Aramean G.o.d, wors.h.i.+pped especially in Aram-Zobah, and in Syria of Damascus.[1156] In Syria, he was identified with the sun;[1157] and it is possible that in the Phoenician religion he was the Sun-G.o.d, wors.h.i.+pped (as we have seen) sometimes independently of Baal. His image was represented with the solar rays streaming down from it towards the earth, so as to indicate that the earth received from him all that made it fruitful and abundant.[1158] Macrobius connects his name with the Hebrew _chad_, ”one;” but this derivation is improbable.[1159] Philo gives him the t.i.tle of ”King of G.o.ds,” and says that he reigned conjointly with Astarte and Demarous,[1160] but this does not throw much light on the real Phoenician conception of him. The local name, Hadad-rimmon,[1161]

may seem to connect him with the G.o.d Rimmon, likewise a Syrian deity,[1162] and it is quite conceivable that the two words may have been alternative names of the same G.o.d, just as Phoebus and Apollo were with the Greeks. We may conjecture that the Sun was wors.h.i.+pped under both names in Syria, while in Phoenicia Hadad was alone made use of. The wors.h.i.+p of Baal as the Sun, which tended to prevail ever more and more, ousted Hadad from his place, and caused him to pa.s.s into oblivion.