History of Phoenicia Part 8

Translating this glorious burst of poetry into prose, we find the following countries mentioned as carrying on an active trade with the Phoenician metropolis:--Northern Syria, Syria of Damascus, Judah and the land of Israel, Egypt, Arabia, Babylonia, a.s.syria, Upper Mesopotamia,[924] Armenia,[925] Central Asia Minor, Ionia, Cyprus, h.e.l.las or Greece,[926] and Spain.[927] Northern Syria furnishes the Phoenician merchants with _butz_, which is translated "fine linen," but is perhaps rather cotton,[928] the "tree-wool" of Herodotus; it also supplies embroidery, and certain precious stones, which our translators have considered to be coral, emeralds, and rubies. Syria of Damascus gives the "wine of Helbon"--that exquisite liquor which was the only sort that the Persian kings would condescend to drink[929]--and "white wool," the dainty fleeces of the sheep and lambs that fed on the upland pastures of Hermon and Antiliba.n.u.s. Judah and the land of Israel supply corn of superior quality, called "corn of Minnith"--corn, i.e. produced in the rich Ammonite country[930]--together with _pannag_, an unknown substance, and honey, and balm, and oil. Egypt sends fine linen, one of her best known products[931]--sometimes, no doubt, plain, but often embroidered with bright patterns, and employed as such embroidered fabrics were also in Egypt,[932] for the sails of pleasure-boats. Arabia provides her spices, ca.s.sia, and calamus (or aromatic reed), and, beyond all doubt, frankincense,[933] and perhaps cinnamon and ladanum.[934] She also supplies wool and goat's hair, and cloths for chariots, and gold, and wrought iron, and precious stones, and ivory, and ebony, of which the last two cannot have been productions of her own, but must have been imported from India or Abyssinia.[935] Babylonia and a.s.syria furnish "wrappings of blue, embroidered work, and chests of rich apparel."[936]

Upper Mesopotamia partakes in this traffic.[937] Armenia gives horses and mules. Central Asia Minor (Tubal and Meshech) supplies slaves and vessels of bra.s.s, and the Greeks of Ionia do the like. Cyprus furnishes ivory, which she must first have imported from abroad.[938] Greece Proper sends her sh.e.l.l-fish, to enable the Phoenician cities to increase their manufacture of the purple dye.[939] Finally, Spain yields silver, iron, tin, and lead--the most useful of the metals--all of which she is known to have produced in abundance.[940]

With the exception of Egypt, Ionia, Cyprus, h.e.l.las, and Spain, the Phoenician intercourse with these places must have been carried on wholly by land. Even with Egypt, wherewith the communication by sea was so facile, there seems to have been also from a very early date a land commerce. The land commerce was in every case carried on by caravans.

Western Asia has never yet been in so peaceful and orderly condition as to dispense prudent traders from the necessity of joining together in large bodies, well provisioned and well armed, when they are about to move valuable goods any considerable distance. There have always been robber-tribes in the mountain tracts, and thievish Arabs upon the plains, ready to pounce on the insufficiently protected traveller, and to despoil him of all his belongings. Hence the necessity of the caravan traffic. As early as the time of Joseph--probably about B.C. 1600--we find a _company_ of the Midianites on their way from Gilead, with their camels bearing spicery, and balm, and myrrh, going to carry it down to Egypt.[941] Elsewhere we hear of the "travelling _companies_ of the Dedanim,"[942] of the men of Sheba bringing their gold and frankincense;[943] of a mult.i.tude of camels coming up to Palestine with wood from Kedar and Nebaioth.[944] Heeren is entirely justified in his conclusion that the land trade of the Phoenicians was conducted by "large companies or caravans, since it could only have been carried on in this way."[945]

The nearest neighbours of the Phoenicians on the land side were the Jews and Israelites, the Syrians of Damascus, and the people of Northern Syria, or the Orontes valley and the tract east of it. From the Jews and Israelites the Phoenicians seem to have derived at all times almost the whole of the grain which they were forced to import for their sustenance. In the time of David and Solomon it was chiefly for wheat and barley that they exchanged the commodities which they exported,[946]

in that of Ezekiel it was primarily for "wheat of Minnith;"[947] and a similar trade is noted on the return of the Jews from the captivity,[948] and in the first century of our era.[949] But besides grain they also imported from Palestine at some periods wine, oil, honey, balm, and oak timber.[950] Western Palestine was notoriously a land not only of corn, but also of wine, of olive oil, and of honey, and could readily impart of its superfluity to its neighbour in time of need. The oaks of Bashan are very abundant, and seem to have been preferred by the Phoenicians to their own oaks as the material of oars.[951] Balm, or basalm, was a product of the land of Gilead,[952]

and also of the lower Jordan valley, where it was of superior quality.[953]

From the Damascene Syrians we are told that Phoenicia imported "wine of Helbon" and "white wool."[954] The "wine of Helbon" is reasonably identified with that {oinos Khalubonios} which is said to have been the favourite beverage of the Persian kings.[955] It was perhaps grown in the neighbourhood of Aleppo.[956] The "white wool" may have been furnished by the sheep that cropped the slopes of the Antiliba.n.u.s, or by those fed on the fine gra.s.s which clothes most of the plain at its base. The fleece of these last is, according to Heeren,[957] "the finest known, being improved by the heat of the climate, the continual exposure to the open air, and the care commonly bestowed upon the flocks." From the Syrian wool, mixed perhaps with some other material, seems to have been woven the fabric known, from the city where it was commonly made,[958] as "damask."

According to the existing text of Ezekiel,[959] Syria Proper "occupied in the fairs" of Phoenicia with cotton, with embroidered robes, with purple, and with precious stones. The valley of the Orontes is suitable for the cultivation of cotton; and embroidered robes would naturally be produced in the seat of an old civilisation, which Syria certainly was.

Purple seems somewhat out of place in the enumeration; but the Syrians may have gathered the _murex_ on their seaboard between Mt. Casius and the Gulf of Issus, and have sold what they collected in the Phoenician market. The precious stones which Ezekiel a.s.signs to them are difficult of identification, but may have been furnished by Casius, Bargylus, or Ama.n.u.s. These mountains, or at any rate Casius and Ama.n.u.s, are of igneous origin, and, if carefully explored, would certainly yield gems to the investigator. At the same time it must be acknowledged that Syria had not, in antiquity, the name of a gem-producing country; and, so far, the reading of "Edom" for "Aram," which is preferred by many,[960] may seem to be the more probable.

The commerce of the Phoenicians with Egypt was ancient, and very extensive. "The wares of Egypt" are mentioned by Herodotus as a portion of the merchandise which they brought to Greece before the time of the Trojan War.[961] The Tyrians had a quarter in the city of Memphis a.s.signed to them,[962] probably from an early date. According to Ezekiel, the princ.i.p.al commodity which Egypt furnished to Phoenicia was "fine linen"[963]--especially the linen sails embroidered with gay patterns, which the Egyptian n.o.bles affected for their pleasure-boats.

They probably also imported from Egypt natron for their gla.s.s-works, papyrus for their doc.u.ments, earthenware of various kinds for exportation, scarabs and other seals, statuettes and figures of G.o.ds, amulets, and in the later times sarcophagi.[964] Their exports to Egypt consisted of wine on a large scale,[965] tin almost certainly, and probably their peculiar purple fabrics, and other manufactured articles.

The Phoenician trade with Arabia was of especial importance, since not only did the great peninsula itself produce many of the most valuable articles of commerce, but it was also mainly, if not solely, through Arabia that the Indian market was thrown open to the Phoenician traders, and the precious commodities obtained for which Hindustan has always been famous. Arabia is _par excellence_ the land of spices, and was the main source from which the ancient world in general, and Phoenicia in particular, obtained frankincense, cinnamon, ca.s.sia, myrrh, calamus or sweet-cane, and ladanum.[966] It has been doubted whether these commodities were, all of them, the actual produce of the country in ancient times, and Herodotus has been in some degree discredited, but perhaps without sufficient reason. He is supported to a considerable extent by Theophrastus, the disciple of Aristotle, who says:[967]

"Frankincense, myrrh, and ca.s.sia grow in the Arabian districts of Saba and Hadramaut; frankincense and myrrh on the sides or at the foot of mountains, and in the neighbouring islands. The trees which produce them grow sometimes wild, though occasionally they are cultivated; and the frankincense-tree grows sometimes taller than the tree producing the myrrh." Modern authorities declare the frankincense-tree (_Boswellia thurifera_) to be still a native of Hadramaut;[968] and there is no doubt that the myrrh-tree (_Balsamodendron myrrha_) also grows there. If cinnamon and ca.s.sia, as the terms are now understood, do not at present grow in Arabia, or nearer to Phoenicia than Hindustan, it may be that they have died out in the former country, or our modern use of the terms may differ from the ancient one. On the other hand, it is no doubt possible that the Phoenicians imagined all the spices which they obtained from Arabia to be the indigenous growth of the country, when in fact some of them were importations.

Next to her spices, Arabia was famous for the production of a superior quality of wool. The Phoenicians imported this wool largely. The flocks of Kedar are especially noted,[969] and are said to have included both sheep and goats.[970] It was perhaps a native woollen manufacture, in which Dedan traded with Tyre, and which Ezekiel notices as a trade in "cloths for chariots."[971] Goat's hair was largely employed in the production of coverings for tents.[972] Arabia also furnished Phoenicia with gold, with precious stones, with ivory, ebony, and wrought iron.[973] The wrought iron was probably from Yemen, which was celebrated for its manufacture of sword blades. The gold may have been native, for there is much reason to believe that anciently the Arabian mountain ranges yielded gold as freely as the Ethiopian,[974] with which they form one system; or it may have been imported from Hindustan, with which Arabia had certainly, in ancient times, constant communication.

Ivory and ebony must, beyond a doubt, have been Arabian importations.

There are two countries from which they may have been derived, India and Abyssinia. It is likely that the commercial Arabs of the south-east coast had dealings with both.[975]

Of Phoenician imports into Arabia we have no account; but we may conjecture that they consisted princ.i.p.ally of manufactured goods, cotton and linen fabrics, pottery, implements and utensils in metal, beads, and other ornaments for the person, and the like. The nomadic Arabs, leading a simple life, required but little beyond what their own country produced; there was, however, a town population[976] in the more southern parts of the peninsula, to which the elegancies and luxuries of life, commonly exported by Phoenicia, would have been welcome.

The Phoenician trade with Babylonia and a.s.syria was carried on probably by caravans, which traversed the Syrian desert by way of Tadmor or Palmyra, and struck the Euphrates about Circesium. Here the route divided, pa.s.sing to Babylon southwards along the course of the great river, and to Nineveh eastwards by way of the Khabour and the Sinjar mountain-range. Both countries seem to have supplied the Phoenicians with fabrics of extraordinary value, rich in a peculiar embroidery, and deemed so precious that they were packed in chests of cedar-wood, which the Phoenician merchants must have brought with them from Lebanon.[977]

The wares furnished by a.s.syria were in some cases exported to Greece,[978] while no doubt in others they were intended for home consumption. They included cylinders in rock crystal, jasper, hemat.i.te, steat.i.te, and other materials, which may sometimes have found purchasers in Phoenicia Proper, but appear to have been specially affected by the Phoenician colonists in Cyprus.[979] On her part Phoenicia must have imported into a.s.syria and Babylonia the tin which was a necessary element in their bronze; and they seem also to have found a market in a.s.syria for their own most valuable and artistic bronzes, the exquisite embossed paterae which are among the most precious of the treasures brought by Sir Austen Layard from Nineveh.[980]

The nature of the Phoenician trade with Upper Mesopotamia is unknown to us; and it is not impossible that their merchants visited Haran,[981]

rather because it lay on the route which they had to follow in order to reach Armenia than because it possessed in itself any special attraction for them. Gall-nuts and manna are almost the only products for which the region is celebrated; and of these Phoenicia herself produced the one, while she probably did not need the other. But the natural route to Armenia was by way of the Coelesyrian valley, Aleppo and Carchemish, to Haran, and thence by Amida or Diarbekr to Van, which was the capital of Armenia in the early times.

Armenia supplied the Phoenicians with "horses of common and of n.o.ble breeds,"[982] and also with mules.[983] Strabo says that it was a country exceedingly well adapted for the breeding of the horse,[984]

and even notes the two qualities of the animal that it produced, one of which he calls "Nisaean," though the true "Nisaean plain" was in Media.

So large was the number of colts bred each year, and so highly were they valued, that, under the Persian monarchy the Great King exacted from the province, as a regular item of its tribute, no fewer than twenty thousand of them annually.[985] Armenian mules seem not to be mentioned by any writer besides Ezekiel; but mules were esteemed throughout the East in antiquity,[986] and no country would have been more likely to breed them than the mountain tract of Armenia, the Switzerland of Western Asia, where such surefooted animals would be especially needed.

Armenia adjoined the country of the Moschi and Tibareni--the Meshech and Tubal of the Bible. These tribes, between the ninth and the seventh centuries B.C., inhabited the central regions of Asia Minor and the country known later as Cappadocia. They traded with Tyre in the "persons of men" and in "vessels of bra.s.s" or copper.[987] Copper is found abundantly in the mountain ranges of these parts, and Xenophon remarks on the prevalence of metal vessels in the portion of the region which he pa.s.sed through--the country of the Carduchians.[988] The traffic in slaves was one in which the Phoenicians engaged from very early times.

They were not above kidnapping men, women, and children in one country and selling them into another;[989] besides which they seem to have frequented regularly the princ.i.p.al slave marts of the time. They bought such Jews as were taken captive and sold into slavery by the neighbouring nations,[990] and they looked to the Moschi and Tibareni for a constant supply of the commodity from the Black Sea region.[991]

The Caucasian tribes have always been in the habit of furnis.h.i.+ng slave-girls to the harems of the East, and the Thracians, who were not confined to Europe, but occupied a great part of Asia Minor, regularly trafficked in their children.[992]

Such was the extent of the Phoenician land trade, as indicated by the prophet Ezekiel, and such were, so far as is at present known, the commodities interchanged in the course of it. It is quite possible--nay, probable--that the trade extended much further, and certain that it must have included many other articles of commerce besides those which we have mentioned. The sources of our information on the subject are so few and scanty, and the notices from which we derive our knowledge for the most part so casual, that we may be sure what is preserved is but a most imperfect record of what was--fragments of wreck recovered from the sea of oblivion. It may have been a Phoenician caravan route which Herodotus describes as traversed on one occasion by the Nasamonians,[993] which began in North Africa and terminated with the Niger and the city of Timbuctoo; and another, at which he hints as lying between the coast of the Lotus-eaters and Fezzan.[994] Phoenician traders may have accompanied and stimulated the slave hunts of the Garamantians,[995] as Arab traders do those of the Central African nations at the present day.

Again, it is quite possible that the Phoenicians of Memphis designed and organised the caravans which, proceeding from Egyptian Thebes, traversed Africa from east to west along the line of the "Salt Hills," by way of Ammon, Augila, Fezzan, and the Tuarik country to Mount Atlas.[996] We can scarcely imagine the Egyptians showing so much enterprise. But these lines of traffic can be ascribed to the Phoenicians only by conjecture, history being silent on the subject.

The sea trade of the Phoenicians was still more extensive than their land traffic. It is divisible into two branches, their trade with their own colonists, and that with the natives of the various countries to which they penetrated in their voyages. The colonies sent out from Phoenicia were, except in the single instance of Carthage, trading settlements, planted where some commodity or commodities desired by the mother-country abounded, and were intended to secure to the mother-country the monopoly of such commodity or commodities. For instance, Cyprus was colonised for the sake of its copper mines and its timber; Cilicia and Lycia for their timber only; Thasos for its gold mines; Salamis and Cythera for the purple trade; Sardinia and Spain for their numerous metals; North Africa for its fertility and for the trade with the interior. Phoenicia expected to derive, primarily, from each colony the commodity or commodities which had caused the selection of the site. In return she supplied the colonists with her own manufactured articles; with fabrics in linen, wool, cotton, and perhaps to some extent in silk; with every variety of pottery, from dishes and jugs of the plainest and most simple kind to the most costly and elaborate vases and amphorae; with metal utensils and arms, with gold and silver ornaments, with embossed s.h.i.+elds and paterae, with fance and gla.s.s, and also with any foreign products or manufactures that they desired and that the countries within the range of her influence could furnish.

Phoenicia must have imported into Cyprus, to suit a peculiar Cyprian taste, the Egyptian statuettes, scarabs, and rings,[997] and the a.s.syrian and Babylonian cylinders, which have been found there. The tin which she brought from the Ca.s.siterides she distributed generally, for she did not discourage her colonists from manufacturing for themselves to some extent. There was probably no colony which did not make its own bronze vessels of the commoner sort and its own coa.r.s.er pottery.

In her trade with the nations who peopled the coasts of the Mediterranean, the Propontis, and the Black Sea, Phoenicia aimed primarily at disposing to advantage of her own commodities, secondarily at making a profit in commodities which she had obtained from other countries, and thirdly on obtaining commodities which she might dispose of to advantage elsewhere. Where the nations were uncivilised, or in a low condition of civilisation, she looked to making a large profit by furnis.h.i.+ng them at a cheap rate with all the simplest conveniences of life, with their pottery, their implements and utensils, their clothes, their arms, the ornaments of their persons and of their houses.

Underselling the native producers, she soon obtained a monopoly of this kind of trade, drove the native products out of the market, and imposed her own instead, much as the manufacturers of Manchester, Birmingham, and the Potteries impose their calicoes, their cutlery, and their earthenware on the savages of Africa and Polynesia. Where culture was more advanced, as in Greece and parts of Italy,[998] she looked to introduce, and no doubt succeeded in introducing, the best of her own productions, fabrics of crimson, violet, and purple, painted vases, embossed paterae, necklaces, bracelets, rings--"cunning work" of all manner of kinds[999]--mirrors, gla.s.s vessels, and smelling-bottles. At the same time she also disposed at a profit of many of the wares that she had imported from foreign countries, which were advanced in certain branches of art, as Egypt, Babylonia, a.s.syria, possibly India. The muslins and ivory of Hindustan, the shawls of Kashmir, the carpets of Babylon, the spices of Araby the Blest, the pearls of the Persian Gulf, the faence and the papyrus of Egypt, would be readily taken by the more civilised of the Western nations, who would be prepared to pay a high price for them. They would pay for them partly, no doubt, in silver and gold, but to some extent also in their own manufactured commodities, Attica in her ceramic products, Corinth in her "bra.s.s," Etruria in her candelabra and engraved mirrors,[9100] Argos in her highly elaborated ornaments.[9101] Or, in some cases, they might make return out of the store wherewith nature had provided them, Euboea rendering her copper, the Peloponnese her "purple," Crete her timber, the Cyrenaica its silphium.

Outside the Pillars of Hercules the Phoenicians had only savage nations to deal with, and with these they seem to have traded mainly for the purpose of obtaining certain natural products, either peculiarly valuable or scarcely procurable elsewhere. Their trade with the Scilly Islands and the coast of Cornwall was especially for the procuring of tin. Of all the metals, tin is found in the fewest places, and though Spain seems to have yielded some anciently,[9102] yet it can only have been in small quant.i.ties, while there was an enormous demand for tin in all parts of the old world, since bronze was the material almost universally employed for arms, tools, implements, and utensils of all kinds, while tin is the most important, though not the largest, element in bronze. From the time that the Phoenicians discovered the Scilly Islands--the "Tin Islands" (Ca.s.siterides), as they called them--it is probable that the tin of the civilised world was almost wholly derived from this quarter. Eastern Asia, no doubt, had always its own mines, and may have exported tin to some extent, in the remoter times, supplying perhaps the needs of Egypt, a.s.syria, and Babylon. But, after the rich stores of the metal which our own islands possess were laid open, and the Phoenicians with their extensive commercial dealings, both in the West and in the East, became interested in diffusing it, British tin probably drove all other out of use, and obtained the monopoly of the markets wherever Phoenician influence prevailed. Hence the trade with the Ca.s.siterides was constant, and so highly prized that a Phoenician captain, finding his s.h.i.+p followed by a Roman vessel, preferred running it upon the rocks to letting a rival nation learn the secret of how the tin-producing coast might be approached in safety.[9103] With the tin it was usual for the merchants to combine a certain amount of lead and a certain quant.i.ty of skins or hides; while they gave in exchange pottery, salt, and articles in bronze, such as arms, implements, and utensils for cooking and for the table.[9104]

If the Phoenicians visited, as some maintain that they did,[9105] the coasts of the Baltic, it must have been for the purpose of obtaining amber. Amber is thrown up largely by the waters of that land-locked sea, and at present especially abounds on the sh.o.r.e in the vicinity of Dantzic. It is very scarce elsewhere. The Phoenicians seem to have made use of amber in their necklaces from a very early date;[9106] and, though they might no doubt have obtained it by land-carriage across Europe to the head of the Adriatic, yet their enterprise and their commercial spirit were such as would not improbably have led them to seek to open a direct communication with the amber-producing region, so soon as they knew where it was situated. The dangers of the German Ocean are certainly not greater than those of the Atlantic; and if the Phoenicians had sufficient skill in navigation to reach Britain and the Fortunate Islands, they could have found no very serious difficulty in penetrating to the Baltic. On the other hand, there is no direct evidence of their having penetrated so far, and perhaps the Adriatic trade may have supplied them with as much amber as they needed.

The trade of the Phoenicians with the west coast of Africa had for its princ.i.p.al objects the procuring of ivory, of elephant, lion, leopard, and deer-skins, and probably of gold. Scylax relates that there was an established trade in his day (about B.C. 350) between Phoenicia and an island which he calls Cerne, probably Arguin, off the West African coast. "The merchants," he says,[9107] "who are Phoenicians, when they have arrived at Cerne, anchor their vessels there, and after having pitched their tents upon the sh.o.r.e, proceed to unload their cargo, and to convey it in smaller boats to the mainland. The dealers with whom they trade are Ethiopians; and these dealers sell to the Phoenicians skins of deer, lions, panthers, and domestic animals--elephants' skins also, and their teeth. The Ethiopians wear embroidered garments, and use ivory cups as drinking vessels; their women adorn themselves with ivory bracelets; and their horses also are adorned with ivory. The Phoenicians convey to them ointment, elaborate vessels from Egypt, castrated swine(?), and Attic pottery and cups. These last they commonly purchase [in Athens] at the Feast of Cups. These Ethiopians are eaters of flesh and drinkers of milk; they make also much wine from the vine; and the Phoenicians, too, supply some wine to them. They have a considerable city, to which the Phoenicians sail up." The river on which the city stood was probably the Senegal.

It will be observed that Scylax says nothing in this pa.s.sage of any traffic for gold. We can scarcely suppose, however, that the Phoenicians, if they penetrated so far south as this, could remain ignorant of the fact that West Africa was a gold-producing country, much less that, being aware of the fact, they would fail to utilise it.

Probably they were the first to establish that "dumb commerce" which was afterwards carried on with so much advantage to themselves by the Carthaginians, and whereof Herodotus gives so graphic an account.

"There is a country," he says,[9108] "in Libya, and a nation, beyond the Pillars of Hercules, which the Carthaginians are wont to visit, where they no sooner arrive than forthwith they unlade their wares, and having disposed them after an orderly fas.h.i.+on along the beach, there leave them, and returning aboard their s.h.i.+ps, raise a great smoke. The natives, when they see the sample, come down to the sh.o.r.e, and laying out to view so much gold as they think the wares are worth, withdraw to a distance. The Carthaginians upon this come ash.o.r.e again and look. If they think the gold to be enough, they take it and go their way; but if it does not seem to them sufficient, they go aboard s.h.i.+p once more, and wait patiently. Then the others approach and add to their gold, till the Carthaginians are satisfied. Neither party deals unfairly by the other: for they themselves never touch the gold till it comes up to the worth of their goods, nor do the natives ever carry off the goods until the gold has been taken away."

The nature of the Phoenician trade with the Canaries, or Fortunate Islands, is not stated by any ancient author, and can only be conjectured. It would scarcely have been worth the Phoenicians' while to convey timber to Syria from such a distance, or we might imagine the virgin forests of the islands attracting them.[9109] The large breed of dogs from which the Canaries derived their later name[9110] may perhaps have const.i.tuted an article of export even in Phoenician times, as we know they did later, when we hear of their being conveyed to King Juba;[9111] but there is an entire lack of evidence on the subject.

Perhaps the Phoenicians frequented the islands less for the sake of commerce than for that of watering and refitting the s.h.i.+ps engaged in the African trade, since the natives were less formidable than those who inhabited the mainland.[9112]

There was one further direction in which the Phoenicians pushed their maritime trade, not perhaps continuously, but at intervals, when their political relations were such as to give them access to the sea which washed Asia on the south and on the southeast. The nearest points at which they could embark for the purpose of exploring or utilising the great tract of ocean in this quarter were the inner recesses of the two deep gulfs known as the Persian and the Arabian. It has been thought by some[9113] that there were times in their history when the Phoenicians had the free use of both these gulfs, and could make the starting-point of their eastern explorations and trading voyages either a port on one of the two arms into which the Red Sea divides towards the north, or a harbour on the Persian Gulf near its north-western extremity. But the latter supposition rests upon grounds which are exceedingly unsafe and uncertain. That the Phoenicians migrated at some remote period from the sh.o.r.es of the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean may be allowed to be highly probable; but that, after quitting their primitive abodes and moving off nearly a thousand miles to the westward, they still maintained a connection with their early settlements and made them centres for a trade with the Far East, is as improbable a hypothesis as any that has ever received the sanction of men of learning and repute.

The Babylonians, through whose country the connection must have been kept up, were themselves traders, and would naturally keep the Arabian and Indian traffic in their own hands; nor can we imagine them as brooking the establishment of a rival upon their sh.o.r.es. The Arabians were more friendly; but they, too, would have disliked to share their carrying trade with a foreign nation. And the evidence entirely fails to show that the Phoenicians, from the time of their removal to the Mediterranean, ever launched a vessel in the Persian Gulf, or had any connection with the nations inhabiting its sh.o.r.es, beyond that maintained by the caravans which trafficked by land between the Phoenician cities and the men of Dedan and Babylon.[9114]

It was otherwise with the more western gulf. There, certainly, from time to time, the Phoenicians launched their fleets, and carried on a commerce which was scarcely less lucrative because they had to allow the nations whose ports they used a partic.i.p.ation in its profits. It is not impossible that, occasionally, the Egyptians allowed them to build s.h.i.+ps in some one or more of their Red Sea ports, and to make such port or ports the head-quarters of a trade which may have proceeded beyond the Straits of Babelmandeb and possibly have reached Zanzibar and Ceylon.

At any rate, we know that, in the time of Solomon, two harbours upon the Red Sea were open to them--viz. Eloth and Ezion-Geber--both places situated in the inner recess of the Elanitic Gulf, or Gulf of Akaba, the more eastern of the two arms into which the Red Sea divides.

David's conquest of Edom had put these ports into the possession of the Israelites, and the friends.h.i.+p between Hiram and Solomon had given the Phoenicians free access to them. It was the ambition of Solomon to make the Israelites a nautical people, and to partic.i.p.ate in the advantages which he perceived to have accrued to Phoenicia from her commercial enterprise. Besides sharing with the Phoenicians in the trade of the Mediterranean,[9115] he constructed with their help a fleet at Ezion-Geber upon the Red Sea,[9116] and the two allies conjointly made voyages to the region, or country, called Ophir, for the purpose of procuring precious stones, gold, and almug-wood.[9117] Ophir is, properly speaking, a portion of Arabia,[9118] and Arabia was famous for its production of gold,[9119] and also for its precious stones.[9120]

Whether it likewise produced almug-trees is doubtful;[9121] and it is quite possible that the joint fleet went further than Ophir proper, and obtained the "almug-wood" from the east coast of Africa, or from India.

The Somauli country might have been as easily reached as South-eastern Arabia, and if India is considerably more remote, yet there was nothing to prevent the Phoenicians from finding their way to it.[9122] We have, however, no direct evidence that their commerce in the Indian Ocean ever took them further than the Arabian coast, about E. Long. 55.

CHAPTER X--MINING

Surface gathering of metals, anterior to mining--Earliest known mining operations--Earliest Phoenician mining in Phoenicia Proper--Mines of Cyprus--Phoenician mining in Thasos and Thrace--in Sardinia--in Spain--Extent of the metallic treasures there--Phoenician methods not unlike those of the present day--Use of shafts, adits, and galleries--Roof of mines propped or arched--Ores crushed, pounded, and washed--Use of quicksilver unknown--Mines worked by slave labour.

The most precious and useful of the metals lie, in many places, so near the earth's surface that, in the earliest times, mining is unneeded and therefore unpractised. We are told that in Spain silver was first discovered in consequence of a great fire, which consumed all the forests wherewith the mountains were clothed, and lasted many days; at the end of which time the surface of the soil was found to be intersected by streams of silver from the melting of the superficial silver ore through the intense heat of the conflagration. The natives did not know what to do with the metal, so they bartered it away to the Phoenician traders, who already frequented their country, in return for some wares of very moderate value.[101] Whether this tale be true or no, it is certain that even at the present day, in what are called "new countries," valuable metals often show themselves on the surface of the soil, either in the form of metalliferous earths, or of rocks which s.h.i.+ne with spangles of a metallic character, or occasionally, though rarely, of actual ma.s.ses of pure ore, sometimes encrusted with an oxide, sometimes bare, bright, and unmistakable. In modern times, whenever there is a rush into any gold region--whether California, or Australia, or South Africa--the early yield is from the surface. The first comers scratch the ground with a knife or with a pick-axe, and are rewarded by discovering "nuggets" of greater or less dimensions; the next flight of gold-finders search the beds of the streams; and it is not until the supply from these two sources begins to fail that mining, in the proper sense of the term, is attempted.

The earliest mining operations, whereof we have any record, are those conducted by the Egyptian kings of the fourth, fifth and twelfth dynasties, in the Sinaitic region. At two places in the mountains between Suez and Mount Sinai, now known as the Wady Magharah and Sarabit-el-Khadim, copper was extracted from the bosom of the earth by means of shafts laboriously excavated in the rocks, under the auspices of these early Pharaohs.[102] Hence at the time of the Exodus the process of mining was familiar to the Hebrews, who could thus fully appreciate the promise,[103] that they were about to be given "a good land"--"a land whose stones were iron, and out of whose hills they might _dig bra.s.s_." The Phoenicians, probably, derived their first knowledge of mining from their communications with the Egyptians, and no doubt first practised the art within the limits of their own territory--in Lebanon, Casius, and Bargylus. The mineral stores of these regions were, however, but scanty, and included none of the more important metals, excepting iron. The Phoenicians were thus very early in their history driven afield for the supply of their needs, and among the princ.i.p.al causes of their first voyages of discovery must be placed the desire of finding and occupying regions which contained the metallic treasures wherein their own proper country was deficient.

It is probable that they first commenced mining operations on a large scale in Cyprus. Here, according to Pliny,[104] copper was first discovered; and though this may be a fable, yet here certainly it was found in great abundance at a very early time, and was worked to such an extent, that the Greeks knew copper, as distinct from bronze, by no other name than that of {khalkos Kuprios}, whence the Roman _aes Cyprium_, and our own name for the metal. The princ.i.p.al mines were in the southern mountain range, near Tamasus,[105] but there were others also at Amathus, Soli, and Curium.[106] Some of the old workings have been noticed by modern travellers, particularly near Soli and Tamasus,[107] but they have neither been described anciently nor examined scientifically in modern times. The ore from which the metal was extracted is called _chalcitis_ by Pliny,[108] and may have been the "chalcocite" of our present metallurgical science, which is a sulphide containing very nearly eighty per cent. of copper. The brief account which Strabo gives of the mines of Tamasus shows that the ore was smelted in furnaces which were heated by wood fires. We gather also from Strabo that Tamasus had silver mines.

That the Phoenicians conducted mining operations in Thasos we know from Herodotus,[109] and from other writers of repute[1010] we learn that they extended these operations to the mainland opposite. Herodotus had himself visited Thasos, and tells us that the mines were on the eastern coast of the island, between two places which he calls respectively aenyra and Coenyra. The metal sought was gold, and in their quest of it the Phoenicians had, he says, turned an entire mountain topsy-turvy.

Here again no modern researches seem to have been made, and nothing more is known than that at present the natives obtain no gold from their soil, do not seek for it, and are even ignorant that their island was ever a gold-producing region.[1011] The case is almost the same on the opposite coast, where in ancient times very rich mines both of gold and silver abounded,[1012] which the Phoenicians are said to have worked, but where at the present day mining enterprise is almost at a standstill, and only a very small quant.i.ty of silver is produced.[1013]

Sardinia can scarcely have been occupied by the Phoenicians for anything but its metals. The southern and south-western parts of the island, where they made their settlements, were rich in copper and lead; and the position of the cities seems to indicate the intention to appropriate these metals. In the vicinity of the lead mines are enormous heaps of scoriae, mounting up apparently to a very remote era.[1014] The scoriae are not so numerous in the vicinity of the copper mines, but "pigs" of copper have been found in the island, unlike any of the Roman period, which are perhaps Phoenician, and furnish specimens of the castings into which the metal was run, after it had been fused and to some extent refined. The weight of the pigs is from twenty-eight to thirty-seven kilogrammes.[1015] Pigs of lead have also been found, but they are less frequent.

But all the other mining operations of the Phoenicians were insignificant compared with those of which the theatre was Spain. Spain was the Peru of the ancient world, and surpa.s.sed its modern rival, in that it produced not only gold and silver, but also copper, iron, tin, and lead. Of these metals gold was the least abundant. It was found, however, as gold dust in the bed of the Tagus;[1016] and there were mines of it in Gallicia,[1017] in the Asturias, and elsewhere. There was always some silver mixed with it, but in one of the Gallician mines the proportion was less than three per cent. Elsewhere the proportion reached to ten or even twelve and a half per cent.; and, as there was no known mode of clearing the gold from it, the produce of the Gallician mine was in high esteem and greatly preferred to that of any other.

Silver was yielded in very large quant.i.ties. "Spain," says Diodorus Siculus,[1018] "has the best and most plentiful silver from mines of all the world." "The Spanish silver," says Pliny,[1019] "is the best." When the Phoenicians first visited Spain, they found the metal held in no esteem at all by the natives. It was the common material of the cheapest drinking vessels, and was readily parted with for almost anything that the merchants chose to offer. Much of it was superficial, but the veins were found to run to a great depth; and the discovery of one vein was a sure index of the near vicinity of more.[1020] The out-put of the Spanish silver mines during the Phoenician, Carthaginian, and Roman periods was enormous, and cannot be calculated; nor has the supply even yet failed altogether. The iron and copper of Spain are also said to have been exceedingly abundant in ancient times,[1021] though, owing to the inferior value of the metals, and to their wider distribution, but little is recorded with regard to them. Its tin and lead, on the other hand, as being metals found in comparatively few localities, receive not infrequent mention. The Spanish tin, according to Posidonius, did not crop out upon the surface,[1022] but had to be obtained by mining.

It was produced in some considerable quant.i.ty in the country of the Artabri, to the north of Lusitania,[1023] as well as in Lusitania itself, and in Gallicia;[1024] but was found chiefly in small particles intermixed with a dark sandy earth. Lead was yielded in greater abundance; it was found in Cantabria, in Baetica, and many other places.[1025] Much of it was mixed with silver, and was obtained in the course of the operations by means of which silver was smelted and refined.[1026] The mixed metal was called _galena_.[1027] Lead, however, was also found, either absolutely pure,[1028] or so nearly so that the alloy was inappreciable, and was exported in large quant.i.ties, both by the Phoenicians and the Carthaginians, and also by the Romans. It was believed that the metal had a power of growth and reproduction, so that if a mine was deserted for a while and then re-opened, it was sure to be found more productive than it was previously.[1029] The fact seems to be simply that the supply is inexhaustible, since even now Spain furnishes more than half the lead that is consumed by the rest of Europe. Besides the ordinary metals, Spain was capable of yielding an abundance of quicksilver;[1030] but this metal seems not to have attracted the attention of the Phoenicians, who had no use for it.

The methods employed by the Phoenicians to obtain the metals which they coveted were not, on the whole, unlike those which continue in use at the present day. Where surface gold was brought down by the streams, the ground in their vicinity, and such portions of their beds as could be laid bare, were searched by the spade; any earth or sand that was seen to be auriferous was carefully dug out and washed, till the earthy particles were cleared away, and only the gold remained. Where the metal lay deeper, perpendicular shafts were sunk into the ground to a greater or less depth--sometimes, if we may believe Diodorus,[1031] to the depth of half a mile or more; from these shafts horizontal adits were carried out at various levels, and from the adits there branched lateral galleries, sometimes at right angles, sometimes obliquely, which pursued either a straight or a tortuous course.[1032] The veins of metal were perseveringly followed up, and where faults occurred in them, filled with trap,[1033] or other hard rock, the obstacle was either tunnelled through or its flank turned, and the vein still pursued on the other side. As the danger of a fall of material from the roofs of the adits and galleries was well understood, it was customary to support them by means of wooden posts, or, where the material was sufficiently firm, to arch them.[1034] Still, from time to time, falls would occur, with great injury and loss of life to the miners. Nor was there much less danger where a mountain was quarried for the sake of its metallic treasures.

Here, too, galleries were driven into the mountain-side, and portions of it so loosened that after a time they detached themselves and fell with a loud crash into a ma.s.s of _debris_.[1035] It sometimes happened that, as the workings proceeded, subterranean springs were tapped, which threatened to flood the mine, and put an end to its further utilisation.

In such cases, wherever it was possible, tunnels were constructed, and the water drained off to a lower level.[1036] In the deeper mines this, of course, could not be done, and such workings had to be abandoned, until the invention of the Archimedes' screw (ab. B.C. 220-190), when the water was pumped up to the surface, and so got rid of.[1037]

But before this date Phoenicia had ceased to exist as an independent country, and the mines that had once been hers were either no longer worked, or had pa.s.sed into the hands of the Romans or the Carthaginians.

When the various ores were obtained, they were first of all crushed, then pounded to a paste; after which, by frequent was.h.i.+ngs, the non-metallic elements were to a large extent eliminated, and the metallic ones alone left. These, being collected, were placed in crucibles of white clay,[1038] which were then submitted to the action of a furnace heated to the melting point. This point could only be reached by the use of the bellows. When it was reached, the impurities which floated on the top of the molten metal were skimmed off, or the metal itself allowed, by the turning of a c.o.c.k, to flow from an upper crucible into a lower one. For greater purity the melting and skimming process was sometimes repeated; and, in the case of gold, the skimmings were themselves broken up, pounded, and again submitted to the melting pot.[1039] The use of quicksilver, however, being unknown, the gold was never wholly freed from the alloy of silver always found in it, nor was the silver ever wholly freed from an alloy of lead.[1040]