Part 11 (1/2)

On the whole, it seems most probable that the Phoenicians began with their own hieroglyphical system, selecting an object to represent the initial sound of its name, and at first drawing that object, but that they very soon followed the Egyptian idea of representing the original drawing in a conventional way, by a few lines, straight or curved.

Their hieroglyphic alphabet which is extant is an alphabet in the second stage, corresponding to the Egyptian hieratic, but not derived from it.

Having originally represented their _alef_ by an ox's head, they found a way of sufficiently indicating the head by three lines {...}, which marked the horns, the ears, and the face. Their _beth_ was a house in the tent form; their _gimel_ a camel, represented by its head and neck; their _daleth_ a door, and so on. The object intended is not always positively known; but, where it is known, there is no difficulty in tracing the original picture in the later conventional sign.

The Phoenician alphabet was not without its defects. The most remarkable of these was the absence of any characters expressive of vowel sounds.

The Phoenician letters are, all of them, consonants; and the reader is expected to supply the vowel sounds for himself. There was not even any system of pointing, so far as we know, whereby, as in Hebrew and Arabic, the proper sounds were supplied. Again, several letters were made to serve for two sounds, as _beth_ for both _b_ and _v_, _pe_ for both _p_ and _f_, _s.h.i.+n_ for both _s_ and _sh_, and _tau_ for both _t_ and _th_.

There were no forms corresponding to the sounds _j_ or _w_. On the other hand, there was in the alphabet a certain amount of redundancy. _Tsade_ is superfluous, since it represents, not a simple elemental sound, but a combination of two sounds, _t_ and _s_. Hence the Greeks omitted it, as did also the Oscans and the Romans. There is redundancy in the two forms for _k_, namely _kaph_ and _koph_; in the two for _t_, namely _teth_ and _tau_; and in the two for _s_, namely _samech_ and _s.h.i.+n_. But no alphabet is without some imperfections, either in the way of excess or defect; and perhaps we ought to be more surprised that the Phoenician alphabet has not more faults than that it falls so far short of perfection as it does.

The writing of the Phoenicians was, like that of the majority of the Semitic nations, from right to left. The reverse order was entirely unknown to them, whether employed freely as an alternative, as in Egypt, or confined, as in Greece, to the alternate lines. The words were, as a general rule, undivided, and even in some instances were carried over the end of one line into the beginning of another. Still, there are examples where a sign of separation occurs between each word and the next;[0139] and the general rule is, that the words do not run over the line. In the later inscriptions they are divided, according to the modern fas.h.i.+on, by a blank s.p.a.ce;[1310] but there seems to have been an earlier practice of dividing them by small triangles or by dots.

The language of the Phoenicians was very close indeed to the Hebrew, both as regards roots and as regards grammatical forms. The number of known words is small, since not only are the inscriptions few and scanty, but they treat so much of the same matters, and run so nearly in the same form, that, for the most part, the later ones contain nothing new but the proper names. Still they make known to us a certain number of words in common use, and these are almost always either identical with the Hebrew forms, or very slightly different from them, as the following table will demonstrate:--

Phoenician Hebrew English Ab {...} {...} father Aben {...} {...} stone Adon {...} {...} lord Adam {...} {...} man Aleph {...} {...} an ox Akh {...} {...} brother Akhar {...} {...} after Am {...} {...} mother Anak {...} {...} I Arets {...} {...} earth, land Ash {...} {...} who, which Barak {...} {...} to bless Bath {...} {...} daughter Ben {...} {...} son Benben {...} {...} grandson Beth {...} {...} house, temple Ba'al {...} {...} lord, citizen Ba'alat {...} {...} lady, mistress Barzil {...} {...} iron Dagan {...} {...} corn Deber {...} {...} to speak, say Daleth {...} {...} door Zan {...} {...} this Za {...} {...} this Zereng {...} {...} seed, race Har {...} {...} mountain Han {...} {...} grace, favour Haresh {...} {...} carpenter Yom {...} {...} day, also sea Yitten {...} {...} to give Ish {...} {...} man Ishath {...} {...} woman, wife Kadesh {...} {...} holy Kol {...} {...} every, all Kol {...} {...} voice Kohen {...} {...} priest Kohenath {...} {...} priestess Kara {...} {...} to call Lechem {...} {...} bread Makom {...} {...} a place Makar {...} {...} a seller Malakath {...} {...} work Melek {...} {...} king Mizbach {...} {...} altar Na'ar {...} {...} boy, servant Nehusht {...} {...} bra.s.s Nephesh {...} {...} soul Nadar {...} {...} to vow 'Abd {...} {...} slave, servant 'Am {...} {...} people 'Ain {...} {...} eye, fountain 'Ath {...} {...} time 'Olam {...} {...} eternity Pen {...} {...} face Per {...} {...} fruit Pathach {...} {...} door Rab {...} {...} lord, chief Rabbath {...} {...} lady Rav {...} {...} rain, irrigation Rach {...} {...} spirit Rapha {...} {...} physician Shamam {...} {...} the heavens Shemesh {...} {...} the sun Shamang {...} {...} to hear Shenath {...} {...} a year Shad {...} {...} a field Sha'ar {...} {...} a gate Shalom {...} {...} peace Shem {...} {...} a name Shaphat {...} {...} a judge Sopher {...} {...} a scribe Sakar {...} {...} memory Sar {...} {...} a prince Tsedek {...} {...} just

The Phoenician numerals, so far as they are known to us, are identical, or nearly identical, with the Hebrew. _'Ahad_ {...} is ”one;” _shen_ {...}, ”two;” _shalish_ {...}, ”three;” _arba_ {...}, ”four;” _hamesh_ {...}, ”five;” _eshman_ {...}, ”eight;” _'eser_ {...}, ”ten;” and so on.

Numbers were, however, by the Phoenicians ordinarily expressed by signs, not words--the units by perpendicular lines: | for ”one,” || for ”two,”

||| for ”three,” and the like; the tens by horizontal ones, either simple, {...}, or hooked at the right end, {...}; twenty by a sign resembling a written capital _n_, {...}; one hundred by a sign still more complicated, {...}.

The grammatical inflexions, the particles, the p.r.o.nouns, and the prepositions are also mostly identical. The definite article is expressed, as in Hebrew, by _h_ prefixed. Plurals are formed by the addition of _m_ or _th_. The prefix _eth_ {...} marks the accusative.

There is a _niphal_ conjugation, formed by prefixing _n_. The full personal p.r.o.nouns are _anak_ {...} = ”I” (compare Heb. {...}); _hu_ {...}, ”he” (compare Heb. {...}); _hi_ {...}, ”she” (compare Heb.

{...}); _anachnu_, ”we” (compare Heb. {...}); and the suffixed p.r.o.nouns are _-i_, ”me, my;” _-ka_, ”thee, thy;” _-h_ (p.r.o.nounced as _-oh_ or _-o_), ”him, his” (compare Heb. {...}); _-n_ ”our,” perhaps p.r.o.nounced _nu_; and _-m_, ”their, them,” p.r.o.nounced _om_ or _um_ (compare Heb.

{...}). _Vau_ prefixed means ”and;” _beth_ prefixed ”in;” _kaph_ prefixed ”as;” _lamed_ prefixed ”of” or ”to;” _'al_ {...} is ”over;”

_ki_ {...} ”because;” _im_ {...}, ”if;” _hazah_, _zath_, or _za_ {...}, ”this” (compare Heb. {...}); and _ash_ {...}, ”who, which” (compare Heb. {...}). _Al_ {...} and _lo_ {...} are the negatives (compare Heb.

{...}). The redundant use of the personal p.r.o.noun with the relative is common.

Still, Phoenician is not mere Hebrew; it has its own genius, its idioms, its characteristics. The definite article, so constantly recurring in Hebrew, is in Phoenician, comparatively speaking, rare. The quiescent letters, which in Hebrew ordinarily accompany the long vowels, are in Phoenician for the most part absent. The employment of the participle for the definite tenses of the verb is much more common in Phoenician than in Hebrew, and the Hebrew prefix _m_ is wanting. The ordinary termination of feminine singular nouns is _-th_, not _-h_. Peculiar forms occur, as _ash_ for _asher_, _'amath_ for _'am_ (”people”), _zan_ for _zah_ (”this”), &c. Words which in Hebrew are confined to poetry pa.s.s among the Phoenicians into ordinary use, as _pha'al_ ({...}, Heb.

{...}), ”to make,” which replaces the Hebrew {...}.[1311]

”It is strange,” says M. Renan, ”that the people to which all antiquity attributes the invention of writing, and which has, beyond all doubted, transmitted it to the entire civilised world, has scarcely left us any literature.”[1312] Certainly it is difficult to give the name of literature either to the fragments of so-called Phoenician works preserved to us in Greek translations, or to the epigraphic remains of actual Phoenician writing which have come down to our day. The works are two, and two only, viz. the pretended ”Phoenician History” of Sanchoniathon, and the ”Periplus” of Hanno. Of the former, it is perhaps sufficient to say that we have no evidence of its genuineness. Philo of Byblus, who pretends that he translated it from a Phoenician original, though possibly he had Phoenician blood in his veins, was a Greek in language, in temperament, and in tone of thought, and belonged to the Greece which is characterised by Juvenal as ”Graecia mendax.” It is impossible to believe that the Euemerism in which he indulges, and which was evidently the motive of his work, sprang from the brain of Sanchoniathon nine hundred years before Euemerus existed. One is tempted to suspect that Sanchoniathan himself was a myth--an ”idol of the cave,”

evolved out of the inner consciousness of Philo. Philo had a certain knowledge of the Phoenician language, and of the Phoenician religious system, but not more than he might have gained by personal communication with the priests of Byblus and Aphaca, who maintained the old wors.h.i.+p in, and long after, his day. It is not clear that he drew his statements from any ancient authorities, or from books at all. So far as the extant fragments go, a smattering of the language, a very moderate acquaintance with the religion, and a little imagination might readily have produced them.

A few extracts from the remains must be given to justify this judgement:--”The beginning of all things,” Philo says,[1313] ”was a dark and stormy air, or a dark air and a turbid chaos, resembling Erebus; and these were at first unbounded, and for a long series of ages had no limit. But after a time this wind became enamoured of its own first principles, and an intimate union took place between them, a connection which was called Desire {pothos}: and this was the beginning of the creation of all things. But it (i.e. the Desire) had no consciousness of its own creation: however, from its embrace with the wind was generated Mot, which some call watery slime, and others putrescence of watery secretion. And from this sprang all the seed of creation, and the generation of the universe. And first there were certain animals without sensation, from which intelligent animals were produced, and these were called 'Zopher-Semin,' i.e. 'beholders of the heavens;' and they were made in the shape of an egg, and from Mot shone forth the sun, and the moon, and the lesser and the greater stars. And when the air began to send forth light, by the conflagration of land and sea, winds were produced, and clouds, and very great downpours, and effusions of the heavenly waters. And when these were thus separated, and carried, through the heat of the sun, out of their proper places, and all met again in the air, and came into collision, there ensued thunderings and lightnings; and through the rattle of the thunder, the intelligent animals, above mentioned, were woke up, and, startled by the noise, began to move about both in the sea and on the land, alike such as were male and such as were female. All these things were found in the cosmogony of Taaut (Thoth), and in his Commentaries, and were drawn from his conjectures, and from the proofs which his intellect discovered, and which he made clear to us.”

Again, ”From the wind, Colpia, and his wife Bahu (Heb. {...}), which is by interpretation 'Night,' were born aeon and Protogonus, mortal men so named; of whom one, viz. aeon, discovered that life might be sustained by the fruits of trees. Their immediate descendants were called Genos and Genea, who lived in Phoenicia, and in time of drought stretched forth their hands to heaven towards the sun; for him they regarded as the sole Lord of Heaven, and called him Baal-samin, which means 'Lord of Heaven'

in the Phoenician tongue, and is equivalent to Zeus in Greek. And from Genos, son of aeon and Protogonus, were begotten mortal children, called Phos, and Pyr, and Phlox (i.e. Light, Fire, and Flame). These persons invented the method of producing fire by rubbing two pieces of wood together, and taught men to employ it. They begat sons of surprising size and stature, whose names were given to the mountains whereof they had obtained possession, viz. Casius, and Liba.n.u.s, and Antiliba.n.u.s, and Brathy. From them were produced Memrumus and Hypsuranius, who took their names from their mothers, women in those days yielding themselves without shame to any man whom they happened to meet. Hypsuranius lived at Tyre, and invented the art of building huts with reeds and rushes and the papyrus plant. He quarrelled with his brother, Usous, who was the first to make clothing for the body out of the skins of the wild beasts which he slew. On one occasion, when there was a great storm of rain and wind, the trees in the neighbourhood of Tyre so rubbed against each other that they took fire, and the whole forest was burnt; whereupon Usous took a tree, and having cleared it of its boughs, was the first to venture on the sea in a boat. He also consecrated two pillars to Fire and Wind, and wors.h.i.+pped them, and poured upon them the blood of the animals which he took by hunting. And when the two brothers were dead, those who remained alive consecrated rods to their memory, and continued to wors.h.i.+p the pillars, and to hold a festival in their honour year by year.”[1314]

Once more--”It was the custom among the ancients, in times of great calamity and danger, for the rulers of the city or nation to avert the ruin of all by sacrificing to the avenging deities the best beloved of their children as the price of redemption; and such as were thus devoted were offered with mystic ceremonies. Kronus, therefore, who was called El by the Phoenicians, and who, after his death, was deified and attached to the planet which bears his name, having an only son by a nymph of the country, who was called An.o.bret, took his son, whose name was Ieoud, which means 'only son' in Phoenician, and when a great danger from war impended over the land, adorned him with the ensigns of royalty, and, having prepared an altar for the purpose, voluntarily sacrificed him.”[1315]

It will be seen from these extracts that the literary value of Philo's work was exceedingly small. His style is complicated and confused; his matter, for the most part, worthless, and his mixture of Greek, Phoenician, and Egyptian etymologies absurd. If we were bound to believe that he translated a real Phoenician original, and that that original was a fair specimen of Phoenician literary talent, the only conclusion to which we could come would be, that the literature of the nation was beneath contempt.

But the ”Periplus” of Hanno will lead us to modify this judgment. It is so short a work that we venture to give it entire from the translation of Falconer,[1316] with a few obvious corrections.

The voyage of Hanno, King of the Carthaginians, round the parts of Libya beyond the Pillars of Hercules, which he deposited in the Temple of Kronos.

”It was decreed by the Carthaginians that Hanno should undertake a voyage beyond the Pillars of Hercules, and there found Liby-Phoenician cities. He sailed accordingly with sixty s.h.i.+ps of fifty oars each, and a body of men and women, to the number of thirty thousand, and provisions, and other necessaries.

”When we had weighed anchor, and pa.s.sed the Pillars, and sailed beyond them for two days, we founded the first city, which we named Thymiaterium. Below it lay an extensive plain. Proceeding thence towards the west, we came to Soloeis, a promontory of Libya thickly covered with trees, where we erected a temple to Neptune (Poseidon), and again proceeded for the s.p.a.ce of half a day towards the east, until we arrived at a lake lying not far from the sea, and filled with abundance of large reeds. Here elephants and a great number of other wild animals were feeding.

”Having pa.s.sed the lake about a day's sail, we founded cities near the sea, called Caricon-Teichos, and Gytta, and Acra, and Melitta, and Arambys. Thence we came to the great river Lixus, which flows from Libya. On its banks the Lixitae, a wandering tribe, were feeding flocks, amongst whom we continued some time on friendly terms. Beyond the Lixitae dwelt the inhospitable Ethiopians, who pasture a wild country intersected by large mountains, from which they say the river Lixus flows. In the neighbourhood of the mountains lived the Troglodytes, men of various appearances, whom the Lixitae described as swifter in running than horses. Having procured interpreters from them, we coasted along a desert country towards the south for two days; and thence again proceeded towards the east the course of a day. Here we found in the recess of a certain bay a small island, having a circuit of five stadia, where we settled a colony, and called it Cerne. We judged from our voyage that this place lay in a direct line with Carthage; for the length of our voyage from Carthage to the Pillars was equal to that from the Pillars to Cerne. We then came to a cape, which we reached by sailing up a large river called Chrete. The lake had three islands larger than Cerne; from which, proceeding a day's sail, we came to the extremity of the lake. This was overhung by huge mountains, inhabited by savage men, clothed in skins of wild beasts, who drove us away by throwing stones, and hindered us from landing. Sailing thence, we came to another river, that was deep and broad, and full of crocodiles and river horses (hippopotami), whence returning back, we came again to Cerne. Thence we sailed towards the south for twelve days, coasting along the sh.o.r.e, the whole of which is inhabited by Ethiopians, who would not wait our approach, but fled from us. Their language was unintelligible, even to the Lixitae who were with us. On the last day we approached some large mountains covered with trees, the wood of which was sweet-scented and variegated. Having sailed by these mountains for two days, we came to an immense opening of the sea; on each side of which, towards the continent, was a plain; from which we saw by night fire arising at intervals, either more or less.