The History of Antiquity Volume Ii Part 2

[28] Euseb. "Chron." 1, p. 26, ed. Schone.

[29] 1, 184, 187.

[30] Vol. i. 512.

[31] Menant, "Annal." p. 18.

[32] G. Smith, "Discov." p. 249.

[33] The date of Tiglath Adar is fixed by the statement of Sennacherib that he lost his seal to the Babylonians 600 years before Sennacherib took Babylon, _i.e._ about the year 1300 B.C. As the series of seven kings who reigned before Tiglath Adar is fixed, a.s.sur-bil-nisi, the first of these, can be placed about 1460 B.C. if we allow 20 years to each.

[34] Vol. i. p. 262.

[35] This series, Pudiel, Bel-nirar and Bin-nirar, is established by tiles of Kileh-Shergat, and the fact that it joins on to a.s.sur-u-ballit, by the tablet of Bin-nirar discovered by G. Smith, in which he calls himself great grandson of a.s.sur-u-ballit, grandson of Bel-nirar, and son of Pudiel; G. Smith, "Discov." p. 244.

[36] G. Smith, "Discov." pp. 244, 245.

[37] E. Schrader, "Keilinschriften und A. T." s. 20; "Records of the Past," 7, 17.

[38] Menant, "Annal." p. 73.

[39] G. Smith, _loc. cit._ p. 249.

[40] G. Smith, _loc. cit._ p. 250; E. Schrader, "A. B. Keilinschriften,"

s. 294. As Sennacherib states that he brought back this seal from Babylon after 600 years, and as Sennacherib took Babylon twice in 704 and 694 B.C., the loss of it falls either in the year 1304 or 1294 B.C.

As he brings back the a.s.syrian images of the G.o.ds at the second capture (694 B.C.), the seal of Tiglath Adar may have been brought back on this occasion.

[41] G. Smith, _loc. cit._ p. 250.

[42] So the pa.s.sage runs according to a communication from E. Schrader.

On the reading Adarpalbitkur as against the readings Ninpalazira and Adarpala.s.sar, see E. Schrader, "A. B. Keilinschriften," s. 152. On what Menant ("Annal." p. 29) grounds the a.s.sumption that Belkudurussur was the immediate successor of Tiglath Adar I cannot say; it would not be chronologically impossible, but the synchronistic tablet merely informs us that Adarpalbitkur was the successor of Belkudurussur; G. Rawlinson, "Mon." 2, 49. Still less am I able to find any foundation for the statement that Binpaliddin of Babylon, the opponent of Belkudurussur and Adarpalbitkur, was a va.s.sal-king set up by a.s.syria. The date of Tiglath Pilesar I. is fixed by the Bavian inscription, which tells us that Sennacherib at his second capture of Babylon brought back out of that city the images of the G.o.ds lost by Tiglath Pilesar 418 years previously (Bav. 43-50), at the period between 1130 and 1100 B.C. If he began to reign 1130, then the five kings before him (the series from Adarpalbitkur to Tiglath Pilesar is fixed by the cylinder of the latter), allowing 20 years to each reign, bring us to 1230 B.C. for the beginning of Belkudurussur. To go back further seems the more doubtful, as Tiglath Pilesar put a.s.sur-dayan, the third prince of this series, only 60 years before his own time.

[43] Sayce, "Records of the Past," 3, 31; Menant, _loc. cit._ p. 31.

[44] Communication from E. Schrader.

[45] Cf. G. Smith, _loc. cit._ p. 251.

[46] Vol. i. p. 263; Menant, _loc. cit._ p. 32.

[47] Menant, "Annal." pp. 47, 48.

[48] Column, 1, 62, _seqq._, 1, 89.

[49] Column, 5, 44.

[50] Column, 6, 39.

[51] Menant, _loc. cit._ p. 48.

[52] Vol. i. p. 519; E. Schrader, "Keilinschriften und A. T." s. 16.

[53] Menant, _loc. cit._ p. 51.

[54] Vol. i. p. 263; Bavian Inscrip. 48-50; Menant, "Annal." pp. 52, 236. Inscription on the black basalt-stone in Oppert et Menant, "Doc.u.ments juridiques," p. 98. Is the name of the witness (col. 2, 27), Sar-babil-a.s.sur-issu (p. 115), correctly explained by "The king of Babel has conquered a.s.shur"?

[55] Col. 1, 62.

[56] Ammian. Marcell. 18, 9.

[57] Araziki cannot be taken for Aradus, the name of which city on the obelisk and in the inscriptions of a.s.surnasirpal, Shalmanesar, and elsewhere is Arvadu.

[58] Sayce, "Records," 3, 33; Menant, "Annal." p. 53; "Babylone," pp.

129, 130.

[59] According to G. Smith ("Discov." p. 91, 252) this Samsi-Bin II.

restored the temple of Istar at Nineveh which Samsi-Bin I. had built (above, p. 3).

[60] Inscription of Kurkh, "Records of the Past," 3, 93; Menant, "Annal." p. 55.

[61] Menant, "Annal." p. 63.

[62] E. Schrader, "Keilinschriften und A. T." s. 7.

CHAPTER III.

THE NAVIGATION AND COLONIES OF THE PHENICIANS.

At the time when Babylonia, on the banks of the Euphrates, flourished under the successors of Hammurabi in an ancient and peculiar civilisation, and a.s.syria was struggling upwards beside Babylonia on the banks of the Tigris, strengthening her military power in the Armenian mountains and the ranges of the Zagrus, and already beginning to try her strength in more distant campaigns, a Semitic tribe succeeded in rising into eminence in the West also, in winning and exerting a deep-reaching influence on distant and extensive lands. It was a district of the most moderate extent from which this influence proceeded, its dominion was of a different kind from that of the Babylonians and a.s.syrians; it grew up on an element which elsewhere appeared not a favourite with the Semites, and sought its points of support in settlements on distant islands and coasts. By this tribe the sea was actively traversed and with ever-increasing boldness; by circ.u.mspection, by skill, by tough endurance and brave ventures it succeeded in extending its dominion in ever-widening circles, and making the sea the instrument of its wealth and the bearer of its power.

On the coasts of Syria were settled the tribes of the Arvadites, Giblites and Sidonians (I. 344). Their land extended from the mouth of the Eleutherus (Nahr el Kebir) in the north to the promontory of Carmel in the south. A narrow strip of coast under Mount Lebanon, from 10 to 15 miles in breadth and some 150 miles in length, was all that they possessed. Richly watered by the streams sent down from Lebanon to the sea, the small plains formed round their mouths and separated by the spurs of the mountain ranges are of the most abundant fertility. The Eleutherus is followed to the south by the Adonis (Nahr el Ibrahim), and this by the Lycus (Nahr el Kelb); then follow the Tamyras (Nahr Damur), the Bostrenus (Nahr el Auli[63]), the Belus (the Sihor Libnath of the Hebrews, now Nahr Naman), and lastly the Kishon. Above the sh.o.r.e rise hills clothed with date-palms, vines and olives; higher up on Lebanon splendid mountain pastures spread out, and above these we come to the vast forests (I. 338) which provide shade in the glowing heat, as Tacitus says,[64] and to the bright snow-fields which crown the summit of Lebanon. Ammia.n.u.s speaks of the region under Lebanon as full of pleasantness and beauty. The upper slopes of the mountain furnish pasture and forests; in the rocks are copper and iron. The high mountain-range, which sharply divided the inhabitants of the coast from the interior (at a much later time, even after the improvements of the Roman Caesars, there were, as there are now, nothing but mule-tracks across Lebanon[65]), lay behind the inhabitants of the coast, and before them lay the sea. At an early period they must have become familiar with that element. The name of the tribe which the Hebrew Scriptures call the "first-born of Canaan" means "fishermen." The places on the coast found the sea the easiest means of communication. Thus the sea, so rich in islands, the long but proportionately narrow basin which lay before the Sidonians, Giblites and Arvadites, would soon attract to longer voyages the fishermen and navigators of the coast.

We found that the beginning of civilisation in Canaan could not be placed later than about the year 2500 B.C., and we must therefore allow a considerable antiquity to the cities of the Sidonians, Giblites, Arvadites, Zemarites and Arkites. The settlement on the site of Sidon was founded, no doubt, before the year 2000 B.C., and that on the site of Byblus cannot certainly be placed later than this period.[66] The campaigns which the Pharaohs undertook against Syria and the land of the Euphrates after the expulsion of the Shepherds could not leave these cities unmoved. If the Zemar of the inscriptions of Tuthmosis III. is Zemar (Simyra) near Aradus, and Arathutu is Aradus itself, the territories of these cities were laid waste by this king in his sixth campaign (about the year 1580 B.C.); if Arkatu is Arka, south of Aradus, this place must have been destroyed in his fifteenth campaign (about the year 1570 B.C.). Sethos I. (1440-1400 B.C.) subdued the land of Limanon (_i.e._ the region of Lebanon), and caused cedars to be felled there.

One of his inscriptions mentions Zor, _i.e._ Tyre, among the cities conquered by him. The son and successor of Sethos I., Ramses II., also forced his way in the first decades of the fourteenth century as far as the coasts of the Phenicians. At the mouth of the Nahr el Kelb, between Sidon and Berytus, the rocks on the coast display the memorial which he caused to be set up in the second and third year of his reign in honour of the successes obtained in this region.[67] In the fifth year of his reign Ramses, with the king of the Cheta' defeats the king of Arathu in the neighbourhood of Kadeshu on the Orontes, and Ramses III. about the year 1310 B.C., mentions beside the Cheta who attack Egypt the people of Arathu, by which name, in the one case as in the other, may be meant the warriors of Aradus.[68] If Arathu, like Arathutu, is Aradus, it follows, from the position which Ramses II. and III. give to the princes of Arathu, that beside the power to which the kingdom of the Hitt.i.tes had risen about the middle of the fifteenth century B.C., and which it maintained to the end of the fourteenth,[69] the Phenician cities had a.s.sumed an independent position. The successes of the Pharaohs in Syria come to an end in the first decades of the fourteenth century. Egypt makes peace and enters into a contract of marriage with the royal house of the Cheta; the Syrians obtain even the preponderance against Egypt (I. 152), to which Ramses III. towards the end of the fourteenth century was first able to oppose a successful defence.

The overthrow of the kingdom of the Hitt.i.tes, which succ.u.mbed to the attack of the Amorites (I. 348) soon after the year 1300 B.C., must have had a reaction on the cities of the Phenicians. Expelled Hitt.i.tes must have been driven to the coast-land, or have fled thither, and in the middle of the thirteenth century the successes gained by the Hebrews who broke in from the East, over the Amorites, the settlement of the Hebrews on the mountains of the Amorites, must again have thrown the vanquished, _i.e._ the fugitives of this nation, towards the coast.

With this retirement of the older strata of the population of Canaan to the coast is connected the movement which from this period emanates from the coasts of the Phenicians, and is directed towards the islands of the Mediterranean and the aegean. It is true that on this subject only the most scanty statements and traces, only the most legendary traditions have come down to us, so that we can ascertain these advances only in the most wavering outlines. One hundred miles to the west off the coast of Phoenicia lies the island of Cyprus. On the southern coast of this island, which looked towards Phoenicia, stood the city of Citium, Kith and Chith in the inscriptions of the Phenicians, and apparently Kittii in those of the a.s.syrians. Sidonian coins describe Citium as a daughter of Sidon.[70] After this city the whole island is known among the Semites as Kittim and Chittim; this name is even used in a wider sense for all the islands of the Mediterranean.[71] The western writers state that before the time of the Trojan war Belus had conquered and subjugated the island of Cyprus, and that Citium belonged to Belus.[72] The victorious Belus is the Baal of the Phenicians. The date of the Trojan war is of no importance for the settlement of the Phenicians in Cyprus, for this statement is found in Virgil only. More important is the fact that the settlers brought the Babylonian cuneiform writing to Cyprus. This became so firmly rooted in use that even the Greeks, who set foot on the island at a far later time, scarcely before the end of the ninth century, adopted this writing, which here meanwhile had gone through a peculiar development, and had become a kind of syllabic-writing, and used it on coins and in inscriptions even in the fifth century B.C.[73] The settlement of the Sidonians in Cyprus must therefore have taken place before the time in which the alphabetic writing, _i.e._ the writing specially known as Phenician, was in use in Syria, and hence at the latest before 1100 B.C. How long before this time the settlement of the Phenicians in Cyprus took place can, perhaps, be measured by the fact that the Cyprian alphabet is a simplification of the old Babylonian cuneiform writing. The simplified form would undoubtedly have been driven out by the far more convenient alphabetic writing of the Phenicians if the Cyprian writing had not become fixed in use in this island before the rise of the alphabetic writing. Further, since the Phenicians, as we shall see, set foot on the coast of h.e.l.las from about the year 1200 B.C. onwards, we must place the foundation of the colonies on the coasts nearest them, the settlement in Cyprus, before this date, about the middle of the thirteenth century B.C.

What population the Phenicians found on Cyprus it is not possible to discover. Herodotus tells us that the first inhabitants of the island were Ethiopians, according to the statements of the Cyprians. It is beyond a doubt that not Citium only, but the greater part of the cities of the island were founded by the Phenicians, and that the Phenician element became the ruling element of the whole island.[74] It is Belus who is said to have conquered Cyprus, and to whom the city of Citium is said to belong; _i.e._ Citium wors.h.i.+pped the G.o.d Baal. At Amathus, to the west of Citium, on the south coast of the island, which was called the oldest city on Cyprus, and which nevertheless bears a distinctly Semitic name (Hamath), Adonis and Ashera-Astarte were wors.h.i.+pped,[75]

and these deities had also one of their oldest and most honoured seats of wors.h.i.+p at Paphos (Pappa in the inscriptions), on the west coast. The Homeric poems represent Aphrodite as hastening to her altar at Paphos in Cyprus. Pausanias observes that the Aphrodite of Cyprus was a warlike Aphrodite,[76] and as the daughters of the Cyprians surrendered themselves to the foreign seamen in honour of this G.o.ddess,[77] it was the Astarte-Ashera of the Phenicians who was wors.h.i.+pped at Amathus and Paphos. The Zeus of the Cyprian city Salamis (Sillumi in the inscriptions of the a.s.syrians), to whom, according to the evidence of western writers, human sacrifices were offered, can only be Baal Moloch, the evil sun-G.o.d of the Phenicians. In the beginning of the tenth century B.C. the cities of Cyprus stood under the supremacy of the king of Tyre.[78] The island was of extraordinary fertility. The forests furnished wood for s.h.i.+p-building; the mountains concealed rich veins of the metal which has obtained the name of copper from this island.[79]

Hence it was a very valuable acquisition, an essential strengthening of the power of Sidon in the older, and Tyre in the later, period.

Following Zeno of Rhodes, who wrote the history of his home in the first half of the second century B.C.,[80] Diodorus tells us: The king of the Phenicians, Agenor, bade his son Cadmus seek his sister Europa,[81] who had disappeared, and bring back the maiden, or not return himself to Phoenicia. Overtaken by a violent storm, Cadmus vowed a shrine to Poseidon. He was saved, and landed on the island of Rhodes, where the inhabitants wors.h.i.+pped before all other G.o.ds the sun, who had here begotten seven sons and among them Makar. Cadmus set up a temple in Rhodes to Poseidon, as he had vowed to do, and left behind Phenicians to keep up the service; but in the temple which belonged to Athena at Cnidus in Rhodes he dedicated a work of art, an iron bowl, which bore an inscription in Phenician letters, the oldest inscription which came from Phoenicia to the h.e.l.lenes. From Rhodes Cadmus came to Samothrace, and there married Harmonia. The G.o.ds celebrated this first marriage by bringing gifts, and blessing the married pair to the tones of heavenly music.[82]