History of Phoenicia - George Rawlinson |
(1252 to 877 B.C.)
Influx of the Sidonian population raises Tyre to the first place among the cities (about B.C. 1252)—First notable result, the colonisation of Gades (B.C. 1130)—Other colonies of about this period—Extension of Phoenician commerce—Tyre ruled by kings—Abi-Baal—Hiram—Hiram's dealings with Solomon—His improvement of his own capital—His opinion of "the land of Cabul"—His joint trade with the Israelites—His war with Utica—Successors of Hiram—Time of disturbance—Reign of Ithobal—of Badezor—of Matgen—of Pygmalion—Founding of Carthage—First contact of Phoenicia with Assyria—Submission of Phoenicia, B.C. 877.
Tyre was noted as a "strong city" as early as the time of Joshua, and was probably inferior only to Sidon, or to Sidon and Aradus, during the period of Sidonian ascendancy. It is mentioned in the "Travels of a Mohar" (about B.C. 1350) as "a port, richer in fish than in sands." The tradition was, that it acquired its predominance and pre-eminence from the accession of the Sidonian population, which fled thither by sea, when no longer able to resist the forces of Ascalon. We do not find it, however, attaining to any great distinction or notoriety, until more than a century later, when it distinguishes itself by the colonisation of Gades (about B.C. 1130), beyond the Pillars of Hercules, on the shores of the Atlantic. We may perhaps deduce from this fact, that the concentration of energy caused by the removal to Tyre of the best elements in the population of Sidon gave a stimulus to enterprise, and caused longer voyages to be undertaken, and greater dangers to be affronted by the daring seamen of the Syrian coast than had ever been ventured on before. The Tyrian seamen were, perhaps, of a tougher fibre than the Sidonian, and the change of hegemony is certainly accompanied by a greater display of energy, a more adventurous spirit, a wider colonisation, and a more wonderful commercial success, than characterise the preceding period of Sidonian leadership and influence.
The settlements planted by Tyre in the first burst of her colonising energy seem to have been, besides Gades, Thasos, Abdera, and Pronectus towards the north, Malaca, Sexti, Carteia, Belon, and a second Abdera in Spain, together with Caralis in Sardinia, Tingis and Lixus on the West African coast, and in North Africa Hadrumetum and the lesser Leptis. Her aim was to throw the meshes of her commerce wider than Sidon had ever done, and so to sweep into her net a more abundant booty. It was Tyre which especially affected "long voyages," and induced her colonists of Gades to explore the shores outside the Pillars of Hercules, northwards as far as Cornwall and the Scilly Isles, southwards to the Fortunate Islands, and north-eastwards into the Baltic. It is, no doubt, uncertain at what date these explorations were effected, and some of them may belong to the later hegemony of Tyre, ab. B.C. 600; but the forward movement of the twelfth century seems to have been distinctly Tyrian, and to have been one of the results of the new position in which she was placed by the sudden collapse of her elder sister, Sidon.
According to some, Tyre, during the early period of her supremacy, was under the government of shophetim, or "judges;" but the general usage of the Phoenician cities makes against this supposition. Philo in his "Origines of Phoenicia" speaks constantly of kings, but never of judges. We hear of a king, Abd-Baal, at Berytus about B.C. 1300. Sidonian kings are mentioned in connection with the myth of Europa. The cities founded by the Phoenicians in Cyprus are always under monarchical rule. Tyre itself, when its history first presents itself to us in any detail, is governed by a king. All that can be urged on the other side is, that we know of no Tyrian king by name until about B.C. 1050; and that, if there had been earlier kings, it might have been expected that some record of them would have come down to us. But to argue thus is to ignore the extreme scantiness and casual character of the notices which have reached us bearing upon the early Phoenician history. No writer has left us any continuous history of Phoenicia, even in the barest outline. Native monumental annals are entirely wanting. We depend for the early times upon the accident of Jewish monarchs having come into contact occasionally with Phoenician ones, and on Jewish writers having noted the occasions in Jewish histories. Scripture and Josephus alone furnish our materials for the period now under consideration, and the materials are scanty, fragmentary, and sadly wanting in completeness.
It is towards the middle of the eleventh century B.C. that these materials become available. About the time when David was acclaimed as king by the tribe of Judah at Hebron, a Phoenician prince mounted the throne of Tyre, by name Abibalus, or Abi-Baal. We do not know the length of his reign; but, while the son of Jesse was still in the full vigour of life, Abi-Baal was succeeded on the Tyrian throne by his son, Hiram or Hirom, a prince of great energy, of varied tastes, and of an unusually broad and liberal turn of mind. Hiram, casting his eye over the condition of the states and kingdoms which were his neighbours, seems to have discerned in Judah and David a power and a ruler whose friendship it was desirable to cultivate with a view to the establishment of very close relations. Accordingly, it was not long after the Jewish monarch's capture of the Jebusite stronghold on Mount Zion that the Tyrian prince sent messengers to him to Jerusalem, with a present of "timber of cedars," and a number of carpenters, and stone-hewers, well skilled in the art of building. David accepted their services, and a goodly palace soon arose on some part of the Eastern hill, of which cedar from Lebanon was the chief material, and of which Hiram's workmen were the constructors. At a later date David set himself to collect abundant and choice materials for the magnificent Temple which Solomon his son was divinely commissioned to build on Mount Moriah to Jehovah; and here again "the Zidonians and they of Tyre," or the subjects of Hiram, "brought much cedar wood to David." The friendship continued firm to the close of David's reign; and when Solomon succeeded his father as king of Israel and lord of the whole tract between the middle Euphrates and Egypt, the bonds were drawn yet closer, and an alliance concluded which placed the two powers on terms of the very greatest intimacy. Hiram had no sooner heard of Solomon's accession than he sent an embassy to congratulate him; and Solomon took advantage of the opening which presented itself to announce his intention of building the Temple which his father had designed, and to request Hiram's aid in the completion of the work. Copies of letters which passed between the two monarchs were preserved both in the Tyrian and the Jewish archives, and the Tyrian versions are said to have been still extant in the public record office of the city in the first century of the Christian era. These documents ran as follows:—
"Solomon to King Hiram:—Know that my father David was desirous of building a temple to God, but was prevented by his wars and his continual expeditions; for he did not rest from subduing his adversaries, until he had made every one of them tributary to him. And now I for my part return thanks to God for the present time of peace, and having rest thereby I purpose to build the house; for God declared to my father that it should be built by me. Wherefore I beseech thee to send some of thy servants with my servants to Mount Lebanon, to cut wood there, for none among us can skill to hew timber like unto the Sidonians. And I will pay the wood-cutters their hire at whatsoever rate thou shalt determine."
"King Hiram to King Solomon:—Needs must I praise God, that hath given thee to sit upon thy father's throne, seeing that thou art a wise man, and possessed of every virtue. And I, rejoicing at these things, will do all that thou hast desired of me. I will by my servants cut thee in abundance timber of cedar and timber of cypress, and will bring them down to the sea, and command my servants to construct of them a float, or raft, and navigate it to whatever point of thy coast thou mayest wish, and there discharge them; after which thy servants can carry them to Jerusalem. But be it thy care to provide me in return with a supply of food, whereof we are in want as inhabiting an island."
The result was an arrangement by which the Tyrian monarch furnished his brother king with timber of various kinds, chiefly cedar, cut in Lebanon, and also with a certain number of trained artificers, workers in metal, carpenters, and masons, while the Israelite monarch on his part made a return in corn, wine, and oil, supplying Tyre, while the contract lasted, with 20,000 cors of wheat, the same quantity of barley, 20,000 baths of wine, and the same number of oil, annually. Phoenicia always needed to import supplies of food for its abundant population, and having an inexhaustible store of timber in Lebanon, was glad to find a market for it so near. Thus the arrangement suited both parties. The hillsides of Galilee and the broad and fertile plains of Esdraelon and Sharon produced a superabundance of wheat and barley, whereof the inhabitants had to dispose in some quarter or other, and the highlands of Sumeria and Judaea bore oil and wine far beyond the wants of those who cultivated them. What Phoenicia lacked in these respects from the scantiness of its cultivable soil, Palestine was able and eager to supply; while to Phoenicia it was a boon to obtain, not only a market for her timber, but also employment for her surplus population, which under ordinary circumstances was always requiring to be carried off to distant lands, from the difficulty of supporting itself at home.
A still greater advantage was it to the rude Judaeans to get the assistance of their civilised and artistic neighbours in the design and execution, both of the Temple itself and of all those accessories, which in ancient times a sacred edifice on a large scale was regarded as requiring. The Phoenicians, and especially the Tyrians, had long possessed, both in their home and foreign settlements, temples of some pretension, and Hiram had recently been engaged in beautifying and adorning, perhaps in rebuilding, some of these venerable edifices at Tyre. A Phoenician architectural style had thus been formed, and Hiram's architects and artificers would be familiar with constructive principles and ornamental details, as well as with industrial processes, which are very unlikely to have been known at the time to the Hebrews. The wood for the Jewish Temple was roughly cut, and the stones quarried, by Israelite workmen; but all the delicate work, whether in the one material or the other, was performed by the servants of Hiram. Stone-cutters from Gebal (Byblus) shaped and smoothed the "great stones, costly stones" employed in the substructions of the "house;" Tyrian carpenters planed and polished the cedar planks used for the walls, and covered them with representations of cherubs and palms and gourds and opening flowers. The metallurgists of Sidon probably supplied the cherubic figures in the inner sanctuary, as well as the castings for the doors, and the bulk of the sacred vessels. The vail which separated between the "Holy Place" and the Holy of Holies—a marvellous fabric of blue, and purple, and crimson, and white, with cherubim wrought thereon —owed its beauty probably to Tyrian dyers and Tyrian workers in embroidery. The master-workman lent by the Tyrian monarch to superintend the entire work—an extraordinary and almost universal genius—"skilful to work in gold and in silver, in brass, in iron, in stone, and in timber; in purple, in blue, in fine linen, and in crimson; also to grave any manner of graving" —who bore the same name with the king, was the son of an Israelite mother, but boasted a Tyrian father, and was doubtless born and bred up at Tyre. Under his special direction were cast in the valley of the Jordan, between Succoth and Zarthan, those wonderful pillars, known as Jachin and Boaz, which have already been described, and which seem to have had their counterparts in the sacred edifices both of Phoenicia and Cyprus. To him also is specially ascribed the "molten sea," standing on twelve oxen, which was perhaps the most artistic of all the objects placed within the Temple circuit, as are also the lavers upon wheels, which, if less striking as works of art, were even more curious.
The partnership established between the two kingdoms in connection with the building and furnishing of the Jewish Temple, which lasted for seven years, was further continued for thirteen more in connection with the construction of Solomon's palace. This palace, like an Assyrian one, consisted of several distinct edifices. "The chief was a long hall which, like the Temple, was encased in cedar; whence probably its name, 'The House of the Forest of Lebanon.' In front of it ran a pillared portico. Between this portico and the palace itself was a cedar porch, sometimes called the Tower of David. In this tower, apparently hung over the walls outside, were a thousand golden shields, which gave to the whole place the name of the Armoury. With a splendour that outshone any like fortress, the tower with these golden targets glittered far off in the sunshine like the tall neck, as it was thought, of a beautiful bride, decked out, after the manner of the East, with strings of golden coins. This porch was the gem and centre of the whole empire; and was so much thought of that a smaller likeness to it was erected in another part of the precinct for the queen. Within the porch itself was to be seen the king in state. On a throne of ivory, brought from Africa or India, the throne of many an Arabian legend, the kings of Judah were solemnly seated on the day of their accession. From its lofty seat, and under that high gateway, Solomon and his successors after him delivered their solemn judgments. That 'porch' or 'gate of justice' still kept alive the likeness of the old patriarchal custom of sitting in judgment at the gate; exactly as the 'Gate of Justice' still recalls it to us at Granada, and the Sublime Porte—'the Lofty Gate'—at Constantinople. He sate on the back of a golden bull, its head turned over its shoulder, probably the ox or bull of Ephraim; under his feet, on each side of the steps, were six golden lions, probably the lions of Judah. This was 'the seat of Judgment.' This was 'the throne of the House of David.'"
We have dwelt the longer upon these matters because it is from the lengthy and elaborate descriptions which the Hebrew writers give of these Phoenician constructions at Jerusalem that we must form our conceptions, not only of the state of Phoenician art in Hiram's time, but also of the works wherewith he adorned his own capital. He came to the throne at the age of nineteen, on the decease of his father, and immediately set to work to improve, enlarge, and beautify the city, which in his time claimed the headship of, at any rate, all Southern Phoenicia. He found Tyre a city built on two islands, separated the one from the other by a narrow channel, and so cramped for room that the inhabitants had no open square, or public place, on which they could meet, and were closely packed in overcrowded dwellings. The primary necessity was to increase the area of the place; and this Hiram effected, first, by filling up the channel between the two islands with stone and rubbish, and so gaining a space for new buildings, and then by constructing huge moles or embankments towards the east, and towards the south, where the sea was shallowest, and thus turning what had been water into land. In this way he so enlarged the town that he was able to lay out a "wide space" (Eurychorus) as a public square, which, like the Piazza di San Marco at Venice, became the great resort of the inhabitants for business and pleasure. Having thus provided for utility and convenience, he next proceeded to embellishment and ornamentation. The old temples did not seem to him worthy of the renovated capital; he therefore pulled them down and built new ones in their place. In the most central part of the city he erected a fane for the worship of Melkarth and Ashtoreth, probably retaining the old site, but constructing an entirely new building—the building which Herodotus visited, and in which Alexander insisted on sacrificing. Towards the south-west, on what had been a separate islet, he raised a temple to Baal, and adorned it with a lofty pillar of gold, or at any rate plated with gold. Whether he built himself a new palace is not related; but as the royal residence of later times was situated on the southern shore, which was one of Hiram's additions to his capital, it is perhaps most probable that the construction of this new palace was due to him. The chief material which he used in his buildings was, as in Jerusalem, cedar. The substructions alone were of stone. They were probably not on so grand a scale as those of the Jewish Temple, since the wealth of Hiram, sovereign of a petty kingdom, must have fallen very far short of Solomon's, ruler of an extensive empire.
At the close of the twenty years during which Hiram had assisted Solomon in his buildings, the Israelite monarch deemed it right to make his Tyrian brother some additional compensation beyond the corn, and wine, and oil with which, according to his contract, he had annually supplied him. Accordingly, he voluntarily ceded to him a district of Galilee containing twenty cities, a portion of the old inheritance of Asher, conveniently near to Accho, of which Hiram was probably lord, and not very remote from Tyre. The tract appears to have been that where the modern Kabul now stands, which is a rocky and bare highland, —part of the outlying roots of Lebanon—overlooking the rich plain of Akka or Accho, and presenting a striking contrast to its fertility. Hiram, on the completion of the cession, "came out from Tyre to see the cities which Solomon had given him," and was disappointed with the gift. "What cities are these," he said, "which thou hast given me, my brother? And he called them the land of Cabul"—"rubbish" or "offscourings"—to mark his disappointment.
But this passing grievance was not allowed in any way to overshadow, or interfere with, the friendly alliance and "entente cordiale" (to use a modern phrase) which existed between the two nations. Solomon, according to one authority, paid a visit to Tyre, and gratified his host by worshipping in a Sidonian temple. According to another, Hiram gave him in marriage, as a secondary wife, one of his own daughters—a marriage perhaps alluded to by the writer of Kings when he tells us that "King Solomon loved many strange women together with the daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, and Hittites." The closest commercial relations were established between the two countries, and the hope of them was probably one of the strongest reasons which attracted both parties to the alliance. The Tyrians, on their part, possessed abundant ships; their sailors had full "knowledge of the sea," and the trade of the Mediterranean was almost wholly in their hands. Solomon, on his side, being master of the port of Ezion-Geber on the Red Sea, had access to the lucrative traffic with Eastern Africa, Arabia, and perhaps India, which had hitherto been confined to the Egyptians and the Arabs. He had also, by his land power, a command of the trade routes along the Coele-Syrian valley, by Aleppo, and by Tadmor, which enabled him effectually either to help or to hinder the Phoenician land traffic. Thus either side had something to gain from the other, and a close commercial union might be safely counted on to work for the mutual advantage of both. Such a union, therefore, took place. Hiram admitted Solomon to a participation in his western traffic; and the two kings maintained a conjoint "navy of Tarshish," which, trading with Spain and the West coast of Africa, brought to Phoenicia and Palestine "once in three years" many precious and rare commodities, the chief of them being "gold, and silver, ivory, and apes, and peacocks." Spain would yield the gold and the silver, for the Tagus brought down gold, and the Spanish silver-mines were the richest in the world. Africa would furnish in abundance the ivory and the apes; for elephants were numerous in Mauritania, and on the west coast, in ancient times; and the gorilla and the Barbary ape are well-known African products. Africa may also have produced the "peacocks," if tukkiyim are really "peacocks," though they are not found there at the present day. Or the tukkiyim may have been Guinea-fowl—a bird of the same class with the peacock.
In return, Solomon opened to Hiram the route to the East by way of the Red Sea. Solomon, doubtless by the assistance of shipwrights furnished to him from Tyre, "made a navy of ships at Ezion-Geber, which is beside Eloth, on the shore of the Red Sea, in the land of Edom," and the sailors of the two nations conjointly manned the ships, and performed the voyage to Ophir, whence they brought gold, and "great plenty of almug-trees," and precious stones. The position of Ophir has been much disputed, but the balance of argument is in favour of the theory which places it in Arabia, on the south-eastern coast, a little outside the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb. It is possible that the fleet did not confine itself to trade with Ophir, but, once launched on the Indian Ocean, proceeded along the Atlantic coast to the Persian Gulf and the peninsula of Hindustan. Or Ophir may have been an Arab emporium for the Indian trade, and the merchants of Syria may have found there the Indian commodities, and the Indian woods, which they seem to have brought back with them to their own country. A most lucrative traffic was certainly established by the united efforts of the two kings; and if the lion's share of the profit fell to Solomon and the Hebrews, still the Phoenicians and Hiram must have participated to some considerable extent in the gains made, or the arrangement would not have continued.
It is thought that Hiram was engaged in one war of some importance. Menander tells us, according to the present text of Josephus, that the "Tityi" revolted from him, and refused any longer to pay him tribute, whereupon he made an expedition against them, and succeeded in compelling them to submit to his authority. As the "Tityi" are an unknown people, conjecture has been busy in suggesting other names, and critics are now of the opinion that the original word used by Menander was not "Tityi," but "Itykaei." The "Itykaei" are the people of Utica: and, if this emendation be accepted, we must regard Hiram as having had to crush a most important and dangerous rebellion. Utica, previously to the foundation of Carthage, was by far the most important of all the mid-African colonies, and her successful revolt would probably have meant to Tyre the loss of the greater portion, if not the whole, of those valuable settlements. A rival to her power would have sprung up in the West, which would have crippled her commerce in that quarter, and checked her colonising energy. She would have suffered thus early more than she did four hundred years later by the great development of the power of Carthage; would have lost a large portion of her prestige; and have entered on the period of her decline when she had but lately obtained a commanding position. Hiram's energy diverted these evils: he did not choose that his kingdom should be dismembered, if he could anyhow help it; and, offering a firm and strenuous opposition to the revolt, he succeeded in crushing it, and maintaining the unity of the empire.
The brilliant reign of Hiram, which covered the space of forty-three years, was not followed, like that of Solomon, by any immediate troubles, either foreign or domestic. He had given his people, either at home or abroad, constant employment; he had consulted their convenience in the enlargement of his capital; he had enriched them, and gratified their love of adventure, by his commercial enterprises; he had maintained their prestige by rivetting their yoke upon a subject state; he had probably pleased them by the temples and other public buildings with which he had adorned and beautified their city. Accordingly, he went down to the grave in peace; and not only so, but left his dynasty firmly established in power. His son, Baal-azar or Baleazar, who was thirty-six years of age, succeeded him, and held the throne for seven years, when he died a natural death. Abd-Ashtoreth (Abdastartus), the fourth monarch of the house, then ascended the throne, at the age of twenty, and reigned for nine years before any troubles broke out. Then, however, a time of disturbance supervened. Four of his foster-brothers conspired against Abd-Ashtoreth, and murdered him. The eldest of them seized the throne, and maintained himself upon it for twelve years, when Astartus, perhaps a son of Baal-azar, became king, and restored the line of Hiram. He, too, like his predecessor, reigned twelve years, when his brother, Aserymus, succeeded him. Aserymus, after ruling for nine years, was murdered by another brother, Pheles, who, in his turn, succumbed to a conspiracy headed by the High Priest, Eth-baal, or Ithobal. Thus, while the period immediately following the death of Hiram was one of tranquillity, that which supervened on the death of Abd-Astartus, Hiram's grandson, was disturbed and unsettled. Three monarchs met with violent deaths within the space of thirty-four years, and the reigning house was, at least, thrice changed during the same interval.
At length with Ithobal a more tranquil time was reached. Ithobal, or Eth-baal, was not only king, but also High Priest of Ashtoreth, and thus united the highest sacerdotal with the highest civil authority. He was a man of decision and energy, a worthy successor of Hiram, gifted like him with wide-reaching views, and ambitious of distinction. One of his first acts was to ally himself with Ahab, King of Israel, by giving him his daughter, Jezebel, in marriage, thus strengthening his land dominion, and renewing the old relations of friendship with the Hebrew people. Another act of vigour assigned to him is the foundation of Botrys, on the Syrian coast, north of Gebal, perhaps a defensive movement against Assyria. Still more enterprising was his renewal of the African colonisation by his foundation of Auza in Numidia, which became a city of some importance. Ithobal's reign lasted, we are told, thirty-two years. He was sixty-eight years of age at his death, and was succeeded by his son, who is called Badezor, probably a corruption of Balezor, or Baal-azar —the name given by Hiram to his son and successor. Of Badezor we know nothing, except that he reigned six years, and was succeeded by his son Matgen, perhaps Mattan, a youth of twenty-three.
With Matgen, or Mattan, whichever be the true form of the name, the internal history of Tyre becomes interesting. It appears that two parties already existed in the state, one aristocratic, and the other popular. Mattan, fearing the ascendancy of the popular party, married his daughter, Elisa, whom he intended for his successor, to her uncle and his own brother, Sicharbas, who was High Priest of Melkarth, and therefore possessed of considerable authority in his own person. Having effected this marriage, and nominated Elisa to succeed him, Mattan died at the early age of thirty-two, after a reign of only nine years. Besides his daughter, he had left behind him a son, Pygmalion, who, at his decease, was but eight or nine years old. This child the democratic party contrived to get under their influence, proclaimed him king, young as he was, and placed him upon the throne. Elisa and her husband retired into private life, and lived in peace for seven years, but Pygmalion, being then grown to manhood, was not content to leave them any longer unmolested. He murdered Sicharbas, and endeavoured to seize his riches. But the ex-Queen contrived to frustrate his design, and having possessed herself of a fleet of ships, and taken on board the greater number of the nobles, sailed away, with her husband's wealth untouched, to Cyprus first, and then to Africa. Here, by agreement with the inhabitants, a site was obtained, and the famous settlement founded, which became known to the Greeks as "Karchedon," and to the Romans as "Carthago," or Carthage. Josephus places this event in the hundred and forty-fourth year after the building of the Temple of Solomon, or about B.C. 860. This date, however, is far from certain.
It appears to have been in the reign of Ithobal that the first contact took place between Phoenicia and Assyria. About B.C. 885, a powerful and warlike monarch, by name Asshur-nazir-pal, mounted the throne of Nineveh, and shortly engaged in a series of wars towards the south, the east, the north, and the north-west. In the last-named direction he crossed the Euphrates at Carchemish (Jerablus), and, having overrun the country between that river and the Orontes, he proceeded to pass this latter stream also, and to carry his arms into the rich tract which lay between the Orontes and the Mediterranean. "It was a tract," says M. Maspero, "opulent and thickly populated, at once full of industries and commercial; the metals, both precious and ordinary, gold, silver, copper, tin (?), iron, were abundant; traffic with Phoenicia supplied it with the purple dye, and with linen stuffs, with ebony and with sandal-wood. Asshur-nazir-pal's attack seems to have surprised the chief of the Hittites in a time of profound peace. Sangar, King of Carchemish, allowed the passage of the Euphrates to take place without disputing it, and opened to the Assyrians the gates of his capital. Lubarna, king of Kunulua, alarmed at the power of the enemy, and dreading the issue of a battle, came to terms with him, consenting to make over to him twenty talents of gold, a talent of silver, two hundred talents of tin, a hundred of iron, 2,000 oxen, 10,000 sheep, a thousand garments of wool or linen, together with furniture, arms, and slaves beyond all count. The country of Lukhuti resisted, and suffered the natural consequences—all the cities were sacked, and the prisoners crucified. After this exploit, Asshur-nazir-pal occupied both the slopes of Mount Lebanon, and then descended to the shores of the Mediterranean. Phoenicia did not await his arrival to do him homage: the kings of Tyre, Sidon, Gebal, and Arvad, 'which is in the midst of the sea,' sent him presents. The Assyrians employed their time in cutting down cedar trees in Lebanon and Amanus, together with pines and cypresses, which they transported to Nineveh to be used in the construction of a temple to Ishtar."
The period of the Assyrian subjection, which commenced with this attack on the part of Asshur-nazir-pal, will be the subject of the next section. It only remains here briefly to recapitulate the salient points of Phoenician history under Tyre's first supremacy. In the first place, it was a time of increased daring and enterprise, in which colonies were planted upon the shores of the Atlantic Ocean, and trade extended to the remote south, the more remote north, and the still more remote north-east, to the Fortunate Islands, the Cassiterides, and probably the Baltic. Secondly, it was a time when the colonies on the North African coast were reinforced, strengthened, and increased in number; when the Phoenician yoke was rivetted on that vast projection into the Mediterranean which divides that sea into two halves, and goes far to give the power possessing it entire command of the Mediterranean waters. Thirdly, it was a time of extended commerce with the East, perhaps the only time when Phoenician merchant vessels were free to share in the trade of the Red Sea, to adventure themselves in the Indian Ocean, and to explore the distant coasts of Eastern Africa, Southern Arabia, Beloochistan, India and Ceylon. Fourthly, it was a time of artistic vigour and development, when Tyre herself assumed that aspect of splendour and magnificence which thenceforth characterised her until her destruction by Alexander, and when she so abounded in aesthetic energy and genius that she could afford to take the direction of an art movement in a neighbouring country, and to plant her ideas on that conspicuous hill which for more than a thousand years drew the eyes of men almost more than any other city of the East, and was only destroyed because she was felt by Rome to be a rival that she could not venture to spare. Finally, it was a time when internal dissensions, long existing, came to a head, and the state lost, through a sudden desertion, a considerable portion of its strength, which was transferred to a distant continent, and there steadily, if not rapidly, developed itself into a power, not antagonistic indeed, but still, by the necessity of its position, a rival power—a new commercial star, before which all other stars, whatever their brightness had been, paled and waned—a new factor in the polity of nations, whereof account had of necessity to be taken; a new trade-centre, which could not but supersede to a great extent all former trade-centres, and which, however unwillingly, as it rose, and advanced, and prospered, tended to dim, obscure, and eclipse the glories of its mother-city.