Sydyk, "Justice," or, the "Just One,"[1166] whose name corresponds to the Hebrew Zadok or Zedek, appears in the Phoenician mythology especially as the father of Esmun and the Cabeiri. Otherwise he is only known as the son of Magus (!) and the discoverer of salt.[1167] It is perhaps his name which forms the final element in Melchizedek, Adoni-zedek,[1168] and the like. We have no evidence that he was really worshipped by the Phoenicians.

Esmun, on the other hand, the son of Sydyk, would seem to have been an object of worship almost as much as any other deity. He was the special god of Berytus,[1169] but was honoured also in Cyprus, at Sidon, at Carthage, in Sardinia, and elsewhere.[1170] His name forms a frequent element in Phoenician names, royal and other:—e.g. Esmun-azar, Esmun-nathan, Han-Esmun, Netsib-Esmun, Abd-Esmun, &c. According to Damascius,[1171] he was the eighth son of Sydyk, whence his name, and the chief of the Cabeiri. Whereas they were dwarfish and misshapen, he was a youth of most beautiful appearance, truly worthy of admiration. Like Adonis, he was fond of hunting in the woods that clothe the flanks of Lebanon, and there he was seen by Astronoe, the Phoenician goddess, the mother of the gods (in whom we cannot fail to recognise Astarte), who persecuted him with her attentions to such an extent that to escape her he was driven to the desperate resource of self-emasculation. Upon this the goddess, greatly grieved, called him Paean, and by means of quickening warmth brought him back to life, and changed him from a man into a god, which he thenceforth remained. The Phoenicians called him Esmun, "the eighth," but the Greeks worshipped him as Asclepius, the god of healing, who gave life and health to mankind. Some of the later Phoenicians regarded him as identical with the atmosphere, which, they said, was the chief source of health to man.[1172] But it is not altogether clear that the earlier Phoenicians attached to him any healing character.[1173]

The seven other Cabeiri, or "Great Ones," equally with Esmun the sons of Sydyk, were dwarfish gods who presided over navigation,[1174] and were the patrons of sailors and ships. The special seat of their worship in Phoenicia Proper was Berytus, but they were recognised also in several of the Phoenician settlements, as especially in Lemnos, Imbrus, and Samothrace.[1175] Ships were regarded as their invention,[1176] and a sculptured image of some one or other of them was always placed on every Phoenician war-galley, either at the stern or stem of the vessel.[1177] They were also viewed as presiding over metals and metallurgy,[1178] having thus some points of resemblance to the Greek Hephaestus and the Latin Vulcan. Pigmy and misshapen gods belong to that fetishism which has always had charms for the Hamitic nations; and it may be suspected that the Phoenicians adopted the Cabeiri from their Canaanite predecessors, who were of the race of Ham.[1179] The connection between these pigmy deities and the Egyptian Phthah, or rather Phthah-Sokari, is unmistakable, and was perceived by Herodotus.[1180] Clay pigmy figurines found on Phoenician sites[1181] very closely resemble the Egyptian images of that god; and the coins attributed to Cossura exhibit a similar dwarfish form, generally carrying a hammer in the right hand.[1182] An astral character has been attached by some writers to the Cabeiri,[1183] but chiefly on account of their number, which is scarcely a sufficient proof.

Several Greek writers speak of a Phoenician goddess corresponding to the Grecian Athene,[1184] and some of them say that she was named Onga or Onca.[1185] The Phoenician remains give us no such name; but as Philo Byblius has an "Athene" among his Phoenician deities, whom he makes the daughter of Il, or Kronos, and the queen of Attica,[1186] it is perhaps best to allow Onca to retain her place in the Phoenician Pantheon. Philo says that Kronos by her advice shaped for himself out of iron a sword and a spear; we may therefore presume that she was a war-goddess (as was Pallas-Athene among the Greeks), whence she naturally presided over the gates of towns,[1187] which were built and fortified for warlike purposes.

The worship of a goddess, called Tanath or Tanith, by the later Phoenicians, is certain, since, besides the evidence furnished by the name Abd-Tanith, i.e. "Servant of Tanith,"[1188] the name Tanith itself is distinctly read on a number of votive tablets brought from Carthage, in a connection which clearly implies her recognition, not only as a goddess, but as a great goddess, the principal object of Carthaginian worship. The form of inscription on the tablets is, ordinarily, as follows:—[1189]

"To the great [goddess], Tanith, and To our lord and master Baal-Hammon. The offerer is ...., Son of ...., son of ...."

Tanith is invariable placed before Baal, as though superior to him, and can be no other than the celestial goddess (Dea coelestis), whose temple in the Roman Carthage was so celebrated.[1190] The Greeks regarded her as equivalent to their Artemis;[1191] the Romans made her Diana, or Juno, or Venus.[1192] Practically she must at Carthage have taken the place of Ashtoreth. Apuleius describes her as having a lunar character, like Ashtoreth, and calls her "the parent of all things, the mistress of the elements, the initial offspring of the ages, the highest of the deities, the queen of the Manes, the first of the celestials, the single representative of all the gods and goddesses, the one divinity whom all the world worships in many shapes, with varied rites, and under a multitude of names."[1193] He says that she was represented as riding upon a lion, and it is probably her form which appears upon some of the later coins of Carthage, as well as upon a certain number of gems.[1194] The origin of the name is uncertain. Gesenius would connect it at once with the Egyptian Neith (Nit), and with the Syrian Anaitis or Tanaitis;[1195] but the double identification is scarcely tenable, since Anaitis was, in Egypt, not Neith, but Anta.[1196] The subject is very obscure, and requires further investigation.

Baaltis, or Beltis, was, according to Philo Byblius, the daughter of Uranus and the sister of Asthoreth or Astarte.[1197] Il made her one of his many wives, and put the city of Byblus, which he had founded, under her special protection.[1198] It is doubtful, however, whether she was really viewed by the Phoenicians as a separate goddess, and not rather as Ashtoreth under another name. The word is the equivalent of {...}, "my lady," a very suitable title for the supreme goddess. Beltis, indeed, in Babylonia, was distinct from Ishtar;[1199] but this fact must not be regarded as any sufficient proof that the case was the same in Phoenicia. The Phoenician polytheism was decidedly more restricted than the Babylonian, and did not greatly affect the needless multiplication of divinities. Baaltis in Phoenicia may be the Beltis of Babylon imported at a comparatively late date into the country, but is more probably an alternative name, or rather, perhaps, a mere honorary title of Ashtoreth.[11100]

The chief characteristic of the third period of the Phoenician religion was the syncretistic tendency,[11101] whereby foreign gods were called in, and either identified with the old national divinities, or joined with them, and set by their side. Ammon, Osiris, Phthah, Pasht, and Athor, were introduced from Egypt, Tanith from either Egypt or Syria, Nergal from Assyria, Beltis (Baaltis) perhaps from Babylon. The worship of Osiris in the later times appears from such names as Abd-Osir, Osir-shamar, Melek-Osir, and the like,[11102] and is represented on coins with Phoenician legends, which are attributed either to Malta or Gaulos.[11103] Osiris was, it would seem, identified with Adonis,[11104] and was said to have been buried at Byblus;[11105] which was near the mouth of the Adonis river. His worship was not perhaps very widely spread; but there are traces of it at Byblus, in Cyprus, and in Malta.[11106] Ammon was identified with Baal in his solar character,[11107] and was generally worshipped in conjunction with Tanith, more especially at Carthage.[11108] He was represented with his head encircled by rays, and with a perfectly round face.[11109] His common title was "Lord" {...}, but in Numidia he was worshipped as "the Eternal King" {...}.[11110] As the giver of all good things, he held trees or fruits in his hands.[11111]

The Phoenicians worshipped their gods, like most other ancient nations, with prayer, with hymns of praise, with sacrifices, with processions, and with votive offerings. We do not know whether they had any regularly recurrent day, like the Jewish Sabbath, or Christian Sunday, on which worship took place in the temples generally; but at any rate each temple had its festival times, when multitudes flocked to it, and its gods were honoured with prolonged services and sacrifices on a larger scale than ordinary. Most festivals were annual, but some recurred at shorter intervals; and, besides the festivals, there was an every day cult, which was a duty incumbent upon the priests, but at which the private worshipper also might assist to offer prayer or sacrifice. The ordinary sacrificial animals were oxen, cows, goats, sheep, and lambs; swine were not offered, being regarded as unclean;[11112] but the stag was an acceptable victim, at any rate on certain occasions.[11113] At all functions the priests attended in large numbers, habited in white garments of linen or cotton, and wearing a stiff cap or mitre upon their heads:[11114] on one occasion of a sacrifice Lucian counted above three hundred engaged in the ceremony.[11115] It was the duty of some to slay the victims; of others to pour libations; of a third class to bear about pans of coal on which incense could be offered; of a fourth to attend upon the altars.[11116] The priests of each temple had at their head a Chief or High Priest, who was robed in purple and wore a golden tiara. His office, however, continued only for a year, when another was chosen to succeed him.[11117]

Ordinarily, sacrifices were offered, in Phoenicia as elsewhere, singly, and upon altars; but sometimes it was customary to have a great holocaust. Large trees were dug up by the roots, and planted in the court of the temple; the victims, whether goats, or sheep, or cattle of any other kind, were suspended by ropes from the branches; birds were similarly attached, and garments, and vessels in gold and silver. Then the images of the gods belonging to the temple were brought out, and carried in a solemn procession round the trees; after which the trees were set on fire, and the whole was consumed in a mighty conflagration.[11118] The season for this great holocaust was the commencement of the spring-time, when the goodness of Heaven in once more causing life to spring up on every side seemed to require man's special acknowledgment.

Hymns of praise are spoken of especially in connection with this same Spring-Festival.[11119] Votive offerings were continually being offered in every temple by such as believed that they had received any benefit from any god, either in consequence of their vows, or prayers, or even by the god's spontaneous action. The sites of temples yield numerous traces of such offerings. Sometimes they are in the shape of stone stelae or pillars, inscribed and more or less ornamented,[11120] sometimes of tablets placed within an ornamental border, and generally accompanied by some rude sculptures;[11121] more often of figures, either in bronze or clay, which are mostly of a somewhat rude character. M. Renan observes with respect to these figures, which are extremely numerous:—"Ought we to see in these images, as has been supposed, long series of portraits of priests and priestesses continued through several centuries? We do not think so. The person represented in these statues appears to us to be the author of a vow or of a sacrifice made to the divinity of the temple . . . Vows and sacrifices were very fleeting things; it might be feared that the divinity would soon forget them. An inscription was already recognised as a means of rendering the memory of a vow more lasting; but a statue was a momento still more—nay, much more efficacious. By having himself represented under the eyes of the divinity in the very act of accomplishing his vow, a man called to mind, as one may say, incessantly the offering which he had made to the god, and the homage which he had rendered him. An idea of this sort is altogether in conformity with the materialistic and self-interested character of the Phoenician worship, where the vow is a kind of business affair, a matter of debtor and creditor account, in which a man stipulates very clearly what he is to give, and holds firmly that he is to be paid in return . . . We have then, in these statues, representations of pious men, who came one after another to acquit themselves of their debt in the presence of the divinity; in order that the latter should not forget that the debt was discharged, they set up their images in front of the god. The image was larger or smaller, more or less carefully elaborated, in a more or less valuable material, according to the means of the individual who consecrated it."[11122]

Thus far there was no very remarkable difference between the Phoenician religious system and other ancient Oriental worships, which have a general family likeness, and differ chiefly in the names and number of the deities, the simplicity or complication of the rites, and the greater or less power and dignity attached to the priestly office. In these several respects the Phoenician religion seems to have leant towards the side of simplicity, the divinities recognised being, comparatively speaking, few, priestly influence not great, and the ceremonial not very elaborate. But there were two respects in which the religion was, if not singular, at any rate markedly different from ordinary polytheisms, though less in the principles involved than in the extent to which they were carried out in practice. These were the prevalence of licentious orgies and of human sacrifice. The worship of Astarte was characterised by the one, the worship of Baal by the other. Phoenician mythology taught that the great god, Il or El, when reigning upon earth as king of Byblus, had, under circumstances of extreme danger to his native land, sacrificed his dearly loved son, Ieoud, as an expiatory offering. Divine sanction had thus been given to the horrid rite; and thenceforth, whenever in Phoenicia either public or private calamity threatened, it became customary that human victims should be selected, the nobler and more honourable the better, and that the wrath of the gods should be appeased by taking their lives. The mode of death was horrible. The sacrifices were to be consumed by fire; the life given by the Fire God he should also take back again by the flames which destroy being. The rabbis describe the image of Moloch as a human figure with a bull's head and outstretched arms;[11123] and the account which they give is confirmed by what Diodorus relates of the Carthaginian Kronos. His image, Diodorus says,[11124] was of metal, and was made hot by a fire kindled within it; the victims were placed in its arms and thence rolled into the fiery lap below. The most usual form of the rite was the sacrifice of their children—especially of their eldest sons[11125]—by parents. "This custom was grounded in part on the notion that children were the dearest possession of their parents, and, in part, that as pure and innocent beings they were the offerings of atonement most certain to pacify the anger of the deity; and further, that the god of whose essence the generative power of nature was had a just title of that which was begotten of man, and to the surrender of their children's lives . . . Voluntary offering on the part of the parents was essential to the success of the sacrifice; even the first-born, nay, the only child of the family, was given up. The parents stopped the cries of their children by fondling and kissing them, for the victim ought not to weep; and the sound of complaint was drowned in the din of flutes and kettledrums. Mothers, according to Plutarch,[11126] stood by without tears or sobs; if they wept or sobbed they lost the honour of the act, and their children were sacrificed notwithstanding. Such sacrifices took place either annually or on an appointed day, or before great enterprises, or on the occasion of public calamities, to appease the wrath of the god."[11127]

In the worship of Astarte the prostitution of women, and of effeminate men, played the same part that child murder did in the worship of Baal. "This practice," says Dr. Doellinger,[11128] "so widely spread in the world of old, the delusion that no service more acceptable could be rendered a deity than that of unchastity, was deeply rooted in the Asiatic mind. Where the deity was in idea sexual, or where two deities in chief, one a male and the other a female, stood in juxtaposition, there the sexual relation appeared as founded upon the essence of the deity itself, and the instinct and its satisfaction as that in men which most corresponded with the deity. Thus lust itself became a service of the gods; and, as the fundamental idea of sacrifice is that of the immediate or substitutive surrender of a man's self to the deity, so the woman could do the goddess no better service than by prostitution. Hence it was the custom [in some places] that a maiden before her marriage should prostitute herself once in the temple of the goddess;[11129] and this was regarded as the same in kind with the offering of the first-fruits of the field." Lucian, a heathen and an eye-witness, tells us[11130]—"I saw at Byblus the grand temple of the Byblian Venus, in which are accomplished the orgies relating to Adonis; and I learnt the nature of the orgies. For the Byblians say that the wounding of Adonis by the boar took place in their country; and, in memory of the accident, they year by year beat their breasts, and utter lamentations, and go through the orgies, and hold a great mourning throughout the land. When the weeping is ended, first of all, they make to Adonis the offerings usually made to a corpse; after which, on the next day, they feign that he has come to life again, and hold a procession [of his image] in the open air. But previously they shave their heads, like the Egyptians when an Apis dies; and if any woman refuse to do so, she must sell her beauty during one day to all who like. Only strangers, however, are permitted to make the purchase, and the money paid is expended on a sacrifice which is offered to the goddess." "In this way," as Dr. Doellinger goes on to say, "they went so far at last as to contemplate the abominations of unnatural lust as a homage rendered to the deity, and to exalt it into a regular cultus. The worship of the goddess [Ashtoreth] at Aphaca in the Lebanon was specially notorious in this respect."[11131] Here, according to Eusebius, was, so late as the time of Constantine the Great, a temple in which the old Phoenician rites were still retained. "This," he says, "was a grove and a sacred enclosure, not situated, as most temples are, in the midst of a city, and of market-places, and of broad streets, but far away from either road or path, on the rocky slopes of Libanus. It was dedicated to a shameful goddess, the goddess Aphrodite. A school of wickedness was this place for all such profligate persons as had ruined their bodies by excessive luxury. The men there were soft and womanish—men no longer; the dignity of their sex they rejected; with impure lust they thought to honour the deity. Criminal intercourse with women, secret pollutions, disgraceful and nameless deeds, were practised in the temple, where there was no restraining law, and no guardian to preserve decency."[11132]

One fruit of this system was the extraordinary institution of the Galli. The Galli were men, who made themselves as much like women as they could, and offered themselves for purposes of unnatural lust to either sex. Their existence may be traced in Israel and Judah,[11133] as well as in Syria and Phoenicia.[11134] At great festivals, under the influence of a strong excitement, amid the din of flutes and drums and wild songs, a number of the male devotees would snatch up swords or knives, which lay ready for the purpose, throw off their garments, and coming forward with a loud shout, proceed to castrate themselves openly. They would then run through the streets of the city, with the mutilated parts in their hands, and throw them into the houses of the inhabitants, who were bound in such case to provide the thrower with all the apparel and other gear needful for a woman.[11135] This apparel they thenceforth wore, and were recognised as attached to the worship of Astarte, entitled to reside in her temples, and authorised to take part in her ceremonies. They joined with the priests and the sacred women at festival times in frenzied dances and other wild orgies, shouting, and cutting themselves on the arms, and submitting to be flogged one by another.[11136] At other seasons they "wandered from place to place, taking with them a veiled image or symbol of their goddess, and clad in women's apparel of many colours, and with their faces and eyes painted in female fashion, armed with swords and scourges, they threw themselves by a wild dance into bacchanalian ecstasy, in which their long hair was draggled through the mud. They bit their own arms, and then hacked themselves with their swords, or scourged themselves in penance for a sin supposed to have been committed against the goddess. In these scenes, got up to aid the collection of money, by long practice they contrived to cut themselves so adroitly as not to inflict on themselves any very serious wounds."[11137]

It is difficult to estimate the corrupting effect upon practice and morals of a religious system which embraced within it so many sensual and degrading elements. Where impurity is made an essential part of religion, there the very fountain of life is poisoned, and that which should have been "a savour of life unto life"—a cleansing and regenerating influence—becomes "a savour of death unto death"—an influence leading on to the worst forms of moral degradation. Phoenician religion worked itself out, and showed its true character, in the first three centuries after our era, at Aphaca, at Hierapolis, and at Antioch, where, in the time of Julian, even a Libanius confessed that the great festival of the year consisted only in the perpetration of all that was impure and shameless, and the renunciation of every lingering spark of decency.[11138]

A vivid conception of another world, and of the reality of a life after death, especially if connected with a belief in future rewards and punishments, might have done much, or at any rate something, to counteract the effect upon morals and conduct of the degrading tenets and practices connected with the Astarte worship; but, so far as appears, the Phoenicians had a very faint and dim conception of the life to come, and neither hoped for happiness, nor feared misery in it. Their care for the preservation of their bodies after death, and the provision which in some cases they are seen to have made for them,[11139] imply a belief that death was not the end of everything, and a few vague expressions in inscriptions upon tombs point to a similar conviction;[11140] but the life of the other world seems to have been regarded as something imperfect and precarious[11141]—a sort of shadowy existence in a gloomy Sheol, where was neither pleasure nor pain, neither suffering nor enjoyment, but only quietness and rest. The thought of it did not occupy men's minds, or exercise any perceptible influence over their conduct. It was a last home, whereto all must go, acquiesced in, but neither hoped for nor dreaded. A Phoenician's feelings on the subject were probably very much those expressed by Job in his lament:—[11142]

"Why died I not from the womb? Why gave I not up the ghost at my birth? Why did the knees prevent me? or why the breasts that I should suck? For now should I have lain still and been quiet; I should have slept, and then should I have been at rest; I should have been with the kings and councillors of the earth, Who rebuilt for themselves the cities that were desolate. I should have been with the princes that had much gold, And that filled their houses with silver . . . There they that are wicked cease from troubling, There they that are weary sink to rest; There the prisoners are in quiet together, And hear no longer the voice of the oppressor: There are both the great and small, and the servant is freed from his master."

Still their religion, such as it was, had a great hold upon the Phoenicians. Parents gave to their children, almost always, religious names, recognising each son and daughter as a gift from heaven, or placing them under the special protection of the gods generally, or of some single divinity. It was piety, an earnest but mistaken piety, which so often caused the parent to sacrifice his child—the very apple of his eye and delight of his heart—that so he might make satisfaction for the sins which he felt in his inmost soul that he had committed. It was piety that filled the temples with such throngs, that brought for sacrifice so many victims, that made the worshipper in every difficulty put up a vow to heaven, and caused the payment of the vows in such extraordinary profusion. At Carthage alone there have been found many hundreds of stones, each one of which records the payment of a vow;[11143] while other sites have furnished hundreds or even thousands of ex votos—statues, busts, statuettes, figures of animals, cylinders, seals, rings, bracelets, anklets, ear-rings, necklaces, ornaments for the hair, vases, amphorae, oenochoae, paterae, jugs, cups, goblets, bowls, dishes, models of boats and chariots—indicative of an almost unexampled devotion. A single chamber in the treasury of Curium produced more than three hundred articles in silver and silver-gilt;[11144] the temple of Golgi yielded 228 votive statues;[11145] sites in Sardinia scarcely mentioned in antiquity have sufficed to fill whole museums with statuettes, rings, and scarabs. If the Phoenicians did not give evidence of the depth of their religious feeling by erecting, like most nations, temples of vast size and magnificence, still they left in numerous places unmistakable proof of the reality of their devotion to the unseen powers by the multiplicity, and in many cases the splendour,[11146] of their votive offerings.



CHAPTER XII—DRESS, ORNAMENTS, AND SOCIAL HABITS

Dress of common men—Dress of men of the upper classes— Treatment of the hair and beard—Male ornaments—Supposed priestly costume—Ordinary dress of women—Arrangement of their hair—Female ornaments—Necklaces—Bracelets—Ear- rings—Ornaments for the hair—Toilet pins—Buckles—A Phoenician lady's toilet table—Freedom enjoyed by Phoenician women—Active habits of the men—Curious agate ornament—Use in furniture of bronze and ivory.

The dress of the Phoenician men, especially of those belonging to the lower orders, consisted, for the most part, of a single close-fitting tunic, which reached from the waist to a little above the knee.[0121] The material was probably either linen or cotton, and the simple garment was perfectly plain and unornamented, like the common shenti of the Egyptians. On the head was generally worn a cap of one kind or another, sometimes round, more often conical, occasionally shaped like a helmet. The conical head-dresses seem to have often ended in a sort of top-knot or button, which recalls the head-dress of a Chinese Mandarin.

Where the men were of higher rank, the shenti was ornamented. It was patterned, and parted towards the two sides, while a richly adorned lappet, terminating in uraei, fell down in front.[0122] The girdle, from which it depended, was also patterned, and the shenti thus arranged was sometimes a not inelegant garment. In addition to the shenti, it was common among the upper classes to wear over the bust and shoulders a close-fitting tunic with short sleeves,[0123] like a modern "jersey;" and sometimes two garments were worn, an inner robe descending to the feet, and an outer blouse or shirt, with sleeves reaching to the elbow.[0124] Occasionally, instead of this outer blouse, the man of rank has a mantle thrown over the left shoulder, which falls about him in folds that are sufficiently graceful.[0125] The conical cap with a top-knot is, with persons of this class, the almost universal head-dress.

Great attention seems to have been paid to the hair and beard. Where no cap is worn, the hair clings closely to the head in a wavy compact mass, escaping however from below the wreath or diadem, which supplies the place of a cap, in one or two rows of crisp, rounded curls.[0126] The beard has mostly a strong resemblance to that affected by the Assyrians, and familiar to us from their sculptures. It is arranged in three, four, or five rows of small tight curls,[0127] and extends from ear to ear around the cheeks and chin. Sometimes, however, in lieu of the many rows, we find one row only, the beard falling in tresses, which are curled at the extremity.[0128] There is no indication of the Phoenicians having cultivated mustachios.

For ornaments the male Phoenicians wore collars, which were sometimes very elaborate, armlets, bracelets, and probably finger-rings. The collars resembled those of the Egyptians, being arranged in three rows, and falling far over the breast.[0129] The armlets seem to have been plain, consisting of a mere twist of metal, once, twice, or thrice around the limb.[1210] The royal armlets of Etyander, king of Paphos, are single twists of gold, the ends of which only just overlap: they are plain, except for the inscription, which reads Eteadoro to Papo basileos, or "The property of Etyander, king of Paphos."[1211] Men's bracelets were similar in character. The finger-rings were either of gold or silver, and generally set with a stone, which bore a device, and which the wearer used as a seal.[1212]

The most elaborate male costume which has come down to us is that of a figure found at Golgi, and believed to represent a high priest of Ashtoreth. The conical head-dress is divided into partitions by narrow stripes, which, beginning at its lower edge, converge to a point at top. This point is crowned by the representation of a calf's or bull's head. The main garment is a long robe reaching from the neck to the feet, "worn in much the same manner as the peplos on early Greek female figures." Round the neck of the robe are two rows of stars painted in red, probably meant to represent embroidery. A little below the knee is another band of embroidery, from which the robe falls in folds or pleats, which gather closely around the legs. Above the long robe is worn a mantle, which covers the right arm and shoulder, and thence hangs down below the right knee, passing also in many folds from the shoulder across the breast, and thence, after a twist around the left arm, falling down below the left knee. The treatment of the hair is remarkable. Below the rim of the cap is the usual row of crisp curls; but besides these, there depend from behind the ears on either side of the neck three long tresses. The feet of the figure are naked. The right hand holds a cup by its foot between the middle and fore-fingers, while the left holds a dove with wings outspread.[1213]

Women were, for the most part, draped very carefully from head to foot. The nude figures which are found abundantly in the Phoenician remains[1214] are figures of goddesses, especially of Astarte, who were considered not to need the ornament, or the concealment of dress. Human female figures are in almost every case covered from the neck to the feet, generally in garments with many folds, which, however, are arranged very variously. Sometimes a single robe of the amplest dimensions seems to envelop the whole form, which it completely conceals with heavy folds of drapery.[1215] The long petticoat is sleeved, and gathered into a sinus below the breasts, about which it hangs loosely. Sometimes, on the contrary, the petticoat is perfectly plain, and has no folds.[1216] Occasionally a second garment is worn over the gown or robe, which covers the left shoulder and the lap, descending to the knees, or somewhat lower.[1217] The waist is generally confined by a girdle, which is knotted in front.[1218] There are a few instances in which the feet are enclosed in sandals.[1219]

The hair of women is sometimes concealed under a cap, but generally it escapes from such confinement, and shows itself below the cap in great rolls, or in wavy masses, which flow off right and left from a parting over the middle of the forehead.[1220] Tresses are worn occasionally: these depend behind either ear in long loose curls, which fall upon the shoulders.[1221] Female heads are mostly covered with a loose hood, or cap; but sometimes the hair is merely encircled by a band or bands, above and below which it ripples freely.[1222]

Phoenician women were greatly devoted to the use of personal ornaments. It was probably from them that the Hebrew women of Isaiah's time derived the "tinkling ornaments of the feet, the cauls, the round tires like the moon, the chains, the bracelets, and the mufflers, the bonnets and the ornaments of the legs, and the head-bands, and the tablets, and the ear-rings, the rings and nose-jewels, the changeable suits of apparel, and the mantles, and the wimples, and the crisping pins, the glasses, and the fine linen, and the hoods, and the vails,"[1223] which the prophet denounces so fiercely. The excavations made on Phoenician sites have yielded in abundance necklaces, armlets, bracelets, pendants to be worn as lockets, ear-rings, finger-rings, ornaments for the hair, buckles or brooches, seals, buttons, and various articles of the toilet such as women delight in.

Women wore, it appears, three or four necklaces at the same time, one above the other.[1224] A string of small beads or pearls would closely encircle the neck just under the chin. Below, where the chest begins, would lie a second string of larger beads, perhaps of gold, perhaps only of glass, while further down, as the chest expands, would be rows of still larger ornaments, pendants in glass, or crystal, or gold, or agate modelled into the shape of acorns, or pomegranates, or lotus flowers, or cones, or vases, and lying side by side to the number of fifty or sixty. Several of the necklaces worn by the Cypriote ladies have come down to us. One is composed of a row of one hundred and three gold beads, alternately round and oval, to the oval ones of which are attached pendants, also in gold, representing alternately the blossom and bud of the lotus plant, except in one instance. The central bead of all has as its pendant a human head and bust, modelled in the Egyptian style, with the hair falling in lappets on either side of the face, and with a broad collar upon the shoulders and the breast.[1225] Another consists of sixty-four gold beads, twenty-two of which are of superior size to the rest, and of eighteen pendants, shaped like the bud of a flower, and delicately chased.[1226] There are others where gold beads are intermixed with small carnelian and onyx bugles, while the pendants are of gold, like the beads; or where gold and rock-crystal beads alternate, and a single crystal vase hangs as pendant in the middle; or where alternate carnelian and gold beads have as pendant a carnelian cone, a symbol of Astarte.[1227] Occasionally the sole material used is glass. Necklaces have been found composed entirely of long oval beads of blue or greenish-blue glass; others where the colour of the beads is a dark olive;[1228] others again, where all the component parts are of glass, but the colours and forms are greatly varied. In a glass necklace found at Tharros in Sardinia, besides beads of various sizes and hues, there are two long rough cylinders, four heads of animals, and a human head as central ornament. "Taken separately, the various elements of which this necklace is composed have little value; neither the heads of the animals, nor the bearded human face, perhaps representing Bacchus, are in good style; the cylinders and rounded beads which fill up the intermediate spaces between the principal objects are of very poor execution; but the mixture of whites, and greys, and yellows, and greens, and blues produces a whole which is harmonious and gay."[1229]

Perhaps the most elegant and tasteful necklace of all that have been discovered is the one made of a thick solid gold cord, very soft and elastic, which is figured on the page opposite.[1230] At either extremity is a cylinder of very fine granulated work, terminating in one case in a lion's head of good execution, in the other surmounted by a simple cap. The lion's mouth holds a ring, while the cap supports a long hook, which seems to issue from a somewhat complicated knot, entangled wherein is a single light rosette. "In this arrangement, in the curves of the thin wire, which folds back upon itself again and again, there is an air of ease, an apparent negligence, which is the very perfection of technical skill."[1231]

The bracelets worn by the Phoenician ladies were of many kinds, and frequently of great beauty. Some were bands of plain solid gold, without ornament of any kind, very heavy, weighing from 200 to 300 grammes each.[1232] Others were open, and terminated at either extremity in the head of an animal. One, found by General Di Cesnola at Curium in Cyprus,[1233] exhibited at the two ends heads of lions, which seemed to threaten each other. The execution of the heads left nothing to be desired. Some others, found in Phoenicia Proper, in a state of extraordinary preservation, were of similar design, but, in the place of lions' heads, exhibited the heads of bull, with very short horns.[1234] A third type aimed at greater variety, and showed the head of a wild goat at one end, and that of a ram at the other.[1235] In a few instances, the animal representation appears at one extremity of the bracelet only, as in a specimen from Camirus, whereof the workmanship is unmistakably Phoenician, which has a lion's head at one end, and at the other tapers off, like the tail of a serpent.[1236]

A pair of bracelets in the British Museum, said to have come from Tharros, consist of plain thin circlets of gold, with a ball of gold in the middle. The ball is ornamented with spirals and projecting knobs, which must have been uncomfortable to the wearer, but are said not to be wanting in elegance.[1237]

There are other Phoenician bracelets of an entirely different character. These consist of broad flat bands, which fitted closely to the wrist, and were fastened round it by means of a clasp. Two, now in the Museum of New York, are bands of gold about an inch in width, ornamented externally with rosettes, flowers, and other designs in high relief, on which are visible in places the remains of a blue enamel.[1238] Another is composed of fifty-four large-ribbed gold beads, soldered together by threes, and having for centre a gold medallion, with a large onyx set in it, and with four gold pendants.[1239] A third bracelet of the kind, said to have been found at Tharros, consists of six plates, united by hinges, and very delicately engraved with patterns of a thoroughly Phoenician character, representing palms, volutes, and flowers.[1240]

But it is in their earrings that the Phoenician ladies were most curious and most fanciful. They present to us, as MM. Perrot and Chipiez note, "an astonishing variety."[1241] Some, which must have been very expensive, are composed of many distinct parts, connected with each other by chains of an elegant pattern. One of the most beautiful specimens was found by General Di Cesnola in Cyprus.[1242] There is a hook at top, by which it was suspended. Then follows a medallion, where the workmanship is of singular delicacy. A rosette occupies the centre; around it are a set of spirals, negligently arranged, and enclosed within a chain-like band, outside of which is a double beading. From the medallion depend by finely wrought chains five objects. The central chain supports a human head, to which is attached a conical vase, covered at top: on either side are two short chains, terminating in rings, from which hang small nondescript pendants: beyond are two longer chains, with small vases or bottles attached. Another, found in Sardinia, is scarcely less complicated. The ring which pierced the ear forms the handle of a kind of basket, which is covered with lines of bead-work: below, attached by means of two rings, is the model of a hawk with wings folded; below the hawk, again attached by a couple of rings, is a vase of elegant shape, decorated with small bosses, lozenges, and chevrons.[1243] Other ear-rings have been found similar in type to this, but simplified by the omission of the bird, or of the basket.[1244]

An entirely different type is that furnished by an ear-ring in the Museum of New York brought from Cyprus, where the loop of the ornament rises from a sort of horse-shoe, patterned with bosses and spirals, and surrounded by a rough edging of knobs, standing at a little distance one from another.[1245] Other forms found also in Cyprus are the ear-ring with the long pendant, which has been called "an elongated pear,"[1246] ornamented towards the lower end with small blossoms of flowers, and terminating in a minute ball, which recalls the "drops" that are still used by the jewellers of our day; the loop which supports a crux ansata;[1247] that which has attached to it a small square box, or measure containing a heap of grain, thought to represent wheat;[1248] and those which support fruit of various kinds.[1249] An ear-ring of much delicacy consists of a twisted ring, curved into a hook at one extremity, and at the other ending in the head of a goat, with a ring attached to it, through which the hook passes.[1250] Another, rather curious than elegant, consists of a double twist, ornamented with lozenges, and terminating in triangular points finely granulated.[1251]

Ornaments more or less resembling this last type of ear-ring, but larger and coarser, have given rise to some controversy, having been regarded by some as ear-rings, by others as fastenings for the dress, and by a third set of critics as ornaments for the hair. They consist of a double twist, sometimes ornamented at one end only, sometimes at both. A lion's or a griffin's head crowns usually the principal end; round the neck is a double or triple collar, and below this a rosette, very carefully elaborated. In one instance two griffins show themselves side by side, exhibiting their heads, their chests, their wings, and their fore-paws or hands; between them is an ornament like that which commonly surmounts Phoenician stelae; and below this a most beautiful rosette.[1252] The fashioning shows that the back of the ornament was not intended to be seen, and favours the view that it was to be placed where a mass of hair would afford the necessary concealment.

The Phoenician ladies seem also to have understood the use of hair-pins, which were from two to three inches long, and had large heads, ribbed longitudinally, and crowned with two smaller balls, one above the other.[1253] The material used was either gold or silver.

To fasten their dresses, the Phoenician ladies used fibulae or buckles of a simple character. Brooches set with stones have not at present been found on Phoenician sites; but in certain cases the fibulae show a moderate amount of ornament. Some have glass beads strung on the pin that is inserted into the catch; others have the rounded portion surmounted by the figure of a horse or of a bird.[1254] Most fibulae are in bronze; but one, found in the treasury of Curium, and now in the Museum of New York, was of gold.[1255] This, however, was most probably a votive offering.

It is impossible at present to reproduce the toilet table of a Phoenician lady. We may be tolerably sure, however, that certain indispensable articles would not be lacking. Circular mirrors, either of polished metal, or of glass backed by a plate of tin or silver, would undoubtedly have found their place on them, together with various vessels for holding perfumes and ointments. A vase in rock crystal, discovered at Curium, with a funnel and cover in gold, the latter attached by a fine gold chain to one of its handles,[1256] was doubtless a fine lady's favourite smelling bottle. Various other vessels in silver, of a small size,[1257] as basins and bowls beautifully chased, tiny jugs, alabasti, ladles, &c., had also the appearance of belonging rather to the toilet table than to the plate-basket. Some of the alabasti would contain kohl or stibium, some salves and ointments, others perhaps perfumed washes for the complexion. Among the bronze objects found,[1258] some may have been merely ornaments, others stands for rings, bracelets, and the like. One terra-cotta vase from Dali seems made for holding pigments,[1259] and raises the suspicion that Phoenician, or at any rate Cyprian, beauties were not above heightening their charms by the application of paint.

Women in Phoenicia seem to have enjoyed considerable freedom. They are represented as banqueting in the company of men, sometimes sitting with them on the same couch, sometimes reclining with them at the same table.[1260] Occasionally they delight their male companion by playing upon the lyre or the double pipe,[1261] while in certain instances they are associated in bands of three, who perform on the lyre, the double pipe, and the tambourine.[1262] They take part in religious processions, and present offerings to the deities.[1263] The positions occupied in history by Jezebel and Dido fall in with these indications, and imply a greater approach to equality between the sexes in Phoenicia than in Oriental communities generally.

The men were, for Orientals, unusually hardy and active. In only one instance is there any appearance of the use of the parasol by a Phoenician.[1264] Sandals are infrequently worn; neck, chest, arms, and legs are commonly naked. The rough life of seamen hardened the greater number; others hunted the wild ox and the wild boar[1265] in the marshy plains of the coast tract, and in the umbrageous dells of Lebanon. Even the lion may have been affronted in the great mountain, and if we are unable to describe the method of its chase in Phoenicia, the reason is that the Phoenician artists have, in their representations of lion hunts, adopted almost exclusively Assyrian models.[1266] The Phoenician gift of facile imitation was a questionable advantage, since it led the native artists continually to substitute for sketches at first hand of scenes with which they were familiar, conventional renderings of similar scenes as depicted by foreigners.

An ornament found in Cyprus, the intention of which is uncertain, finds its proper place in the present chapter, though we cannot attach it to any particular class of objects. It consists of a massive knob of solid agate, with a cylinder of the same both above and below, through which a rod, or bar, must have been intended to pass. Some archaeologists see in it the top of a sceptre;[1267] others, the head of a mace;[1268] but there is nothing really to prove its use. We might imagine it the adornment of a throne or chair of state, or the end of a chariot pole, or a portion of the stem of a candelabrum. Antiquity has furnished nothing similar with which to compare it; and we only say of it, that, whatever was its purpose, so large and so beautiful a mass of agate has scarcely been met with elsewhere.[1269] The cutting is such as to show very exquisitely the veining of the material.

Bronze objects in almost infinite variety have been found on Phoenician sites,[1270] but only a few of them can have been personal ornaments. They comprise lamps, bowls, vases, jugs, cups, armlets, anklets, daggers, dishes, a horse's bit, heads and feet of animals, statuettes, mirrors, fibulae, buttons, &c. Furniture would seem to have been largely composed of bronze, which sometimes formed its entire fabric, though generally confined to the ornamentation. Ivory was likewise employed in considerable quantities in the manufacture of furniture,[1271] to which it was applied as an outer covering, or veneer, either plain, or more generally carved with a pattern or with figures. The "ivory house" of Ahab[1272] was perhaps so called, not so much from the application of the precious material to the doors and walls, as from its employment in the furniture. There is every probability that it was the construction of Phoenician artists.



CHAPTER XIII—PHOENICIAN WRITING, LANGUAGE, AND LITERATURE

The Phoenician alphabet—Its wide use—Its merits—Question of its origin—Its defects—Phoenician writing and language— Resemblance of the language to Hebrew—In the vocabulary— In the grammar—Points of difference between Phoenician and Hebrew—Scantiness of the literature—Phoenician history of Philo Byblius—Extracts—Periplus of Hanno—Phoenician epigraphic literature—Inscription of Esmunazar—Inscription of Tabnit—Inscription of Jehav-melek—Marseilles inscription—Short inscriptions on votive offerings and tombs—Range of Phoenician book-literature.

The Phoenician alphabet, like the Hebrew, consisted of twenty-two characters, which had, it is probable, the same names with the Hebrew letters,[0131] and were nearly identical in form with the letters used anciently by the entire Hebrew race. The most ancient inscription in the character which has come down to us is probably that of Mesha,[0132] the Moabite king, which belongs to the ninth century before our era. The next in antiquity, which is of any considerable length, is that discovered recently in the aqueduct which brings the water into the pool of Siloam,[0133] which dates probably from the time of Hezekiah, ab. B.C. 727-699. Some short epigraphs on Assyrian gems, tablets, and cylinders belong apparently to about the same period. The series of Phoenician and Cilician coins begins soon after this, and continues to the time of the Roman supremacy in Western Asia. The soil of Phoenicia Proper, and of the various countries where the Phoenicians established settlements or factories, as Cyprus, Malta, Sicily, Sardinia, Southern Gaul, Spain, and North Africa, has also yielded a large crop of somewhat brief legends, the "inscription of Marseilles"[0134] being the most important of them. Finally there have been found within the last few years, in Phoenicia itself, near Byblus and Sidon, the three most valuable inscriptions of the entire series—those of Jehavmelek, Esmunazar and Tabnit—which have enabled scholars to place the whole subject on a scientific basis.

It is now clear that the same, or nearly the same, alphabet was in use from a very early date over the greater part of Western Asia—in Phoenicia, Moab, Judaea, Samaria, Lycia, Caria, Phrygia, &c.—that it was adopted, with slight alterations only, by the Etruscans and the Greeks, and that from them it was passed on to the nations of modern Europe, and acquired a quasi-universality. The invention of this alphabet was, by the general consent of antiquity, ascribed to the Phoenicians;[0135] and though, if their claim to priority of discovery be disputed, it is impossible to prove it, their practical genius and their position among the nations of the earth are strong subsidiary arguments in support of the traditions.

The Phoenician alphabet, or the Syrian script, as some call it,[0136] did not obtain its general prevalence without possessing some peculiar merits. Its primary merit was that of simplicity. The pictorial systems of the Egyptians and the Hittites required a hand skilled in drawing to express them; the cuneiform syllabaries of Babylonia, Assyria, and Elam needed an extraordinary memory to grasp the almost infinite variety in the arrangement of the wedges, and to distinguish each group from all the rest; even the Cypriote syllabary was of awkward and unnecessary extent, and was expressed by characters needlessly complicated. The Phoenician inventor, whoever he was, reduced letters to the smallest possible number, and expressed them by the simplest possible forms. Casting aside the idea of a syllabary, he reduced speech to its ultimate elements, and set apart a single sign to represent each possible variety of articulation, or rather each variety of which he was individually cognisant. How he fixed upon his signs, it is difficult to say. According to some, he had recourse to one or other of previously existing modes of expressing speech, and merely simplified the characters which he found in use. But there are two objections to this view. First, there is no known set of characters from which the early Phoenician can be derived with any plausability. Resemblances no doubt may be pointed out here and there, but taking the alphabet as a whole, and comparing it with any other, the differences will always be quite as numerous and quite as striking as the similarities. For instance, the writer of the article on the "Alphabet" in the "Encyclopaedia Britannica" (1876) derives the Phoenician letters from letters used in the Egyptian hieratic writing,[0137] but his own table shows a marked diversity in at least eleven instances, a slight resemblance in seven or eight, a strong resemblance in no more than two or three. Derivation from the Cypriote forms has been suggested by some; but here again eight letters are very different, if six or seven are similar. Recently, derivation from the Hittite hieroglyphs has been advocated,[0138] but the alleged instances of resemblance touch nine characters only out of the twenty-two. And real resemblance is confined to three or four. Secondly, no theory of derivation accounts for the Phoenician names of their letters, which designate objects quite different from those represented by the Egyptian hieroglyphs, and equally different from those represented by the Hittite letters. For instance, the Egyptian a is the ill-drawn figure of an eagle, the Phoenician alef has the signification of "ox;" the b of the Egyptians is a hastily drawn figure of a crane, the Phoenician beth means "a house."

On the whole, it seems most probable that the Phoenicians began with their own hieroglyphical system, selecting an object to represent the initial sound of its name, and at first drawing that object, but that they very soon followed the Egyptian idea of representing the original drawing in a conventional way, by a few lines, straight or curved. Their hieroglyphic alphabet which is extant is an alphabet in the second stage, corresponding to the Egyptian hieratic, but not derived from it. Having originally represented their alef by an ox's head, they found a way of sufficiently indicating the head by three lines {...}, which marked the horns, the ears, and the face. Their beth was a house in the tent form; their gimel a camel, represented by its head and neck; their daleth a door, and so on. The object intended is not always positively known; but, where it is known, there is no difficulty in tracing the original picture in the later conventional sign.

The Phoenician alphabet was not without its defects. The most remarkable of these was the absence of any characters expressive of vowel sounds. The Phoenician letters are, all of them, consonants; and the reader is expected to supply the vowel sounds for himself. There was not even any system of pointing, so far as we know, whereby, as in Hebrew and Arabic, the proper sounds were supplied. Again, several letters were made to serve for two sounds, as beth for both b and v, pe for both p and f, shin for both s and sh, and tau for both t and th. There were no forms corresponding to the sounds j or w. On the other hand, there was in the alphabet a certain amount of redundancy. Tsade is superfluous, since it represents, not a simple elemental sound, but a combination of two sounds, t and s. Hence the Greeks omitted it, as did also the Oscans and the Romans. There is redundancy in the two forms for k, namely kaph and koph; in the two for t, namely teth and tau; and in the two for s, namely samech and shin. But no alphabet is without some imperfections, either in the way of excess or defect; and perhaps we ought to be more surprised that the Phoenician alphabet has not more faults than that it falls so far short of perfection as it does.

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

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

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

The Phoenician numerals, so far as they are known to us, are identical, or nearly identical, with the Hebrew. 'Ahad {...} is "one;" shen {...}, "two;" shalish {...}, "three;" arba {...}, "four;" hamesh {...}, "five;" eshman {...}, "eight;" 'eser {...}, "ten;" and so on. Numbers were, however, by the Phoenicians ordinarily expressed by signs, not words the units by perpendicular lines: for "one," for "two," for "three," and the like; the tens by horizontal ones, either simple, {...}, or hooked at the right end, {...}; twenty by a sign resembling a written capital n, {...}; one hundred by a sign still more complicated, {...}.

The grammatical inflexions, the particles, the pronouns, and the prepositions are also mostly identical. The definite article is expressed, as in Hebrew, by h prefixed. Plurals are formed by the addition of m or th. The prefix eth {...} marks the accusative. There is a niphal conjugation, formed by prefixing n. The full personal pronouns are anak {...} = "I" (compare Heb. {...}); hu {...}, "he" (compare Heb. {...}); hi {...}, "she" (compare Heb. {...}); anachnu, "we" (compare Heb. {...}); and the suffixed pronouns are -i, "me, my;" -ka, "thee, thy;" -h (pronounced as -oh or -o), "him, his" (compare Heb. {...}); -n "our," perhaps pronounced nu; and -m, "their, them," pronounced om or um (compare Heb. {...}). Vau prefixed means "and;" beth prefixed "in;" kaph prefixed "as;" lamed prefixed "of" or "to;" 'al {...} is "over;" ki {...} "because;" im {...}, "if;" hazah, zath, or za {...}, "this" (compare Heb. {...}); and ash {...}, "who, which" (compare Heb. {...}). Al {...} and lo {...} are the negatives (compare Heb. {...}). The redundant use of the personal pronoun with the relative is common.

Still, Phoenician is not mere Hebrew; it has its own genius, its idioms, its characteristics. The definite article, so constantly recurring in Hebrew, is in Phoenician, comparatively speaking, rare. The quiescent letters, which in Hebrew ordinarily accompany the long vowels, are in Phoenician for the most part absent. The employment of the participle for the definite tenses of the verb is much more common in Phoenician than in Hebrew, and the Hebrew prefix m is wanting. The ordinary termination of feminine singular nouns is -th, not -h. Peculiar forms occur, as ash for asher, 'amath for 'am ("people"), zan for zah ("this"), &c. Words which in Hebrew are confined to poetry pass among the Phoenicians into ordinary use, as pha'al ({...}, Heb. {...}), "to make," which replaces the Hebrew {...}.[1311]

"It is strange," says M. Renan, "that the people to which all antiquity attributes the invention of writing, and which has, beyond all doubted, transmitted it to the entire civilised world, has scarcely left us any literature."[1312] Certainly it is difficult to give the name of literature either to the fragments of so-called Phoenician works preserved to us in Greek translations, or to the epigraphic remains of actual Phoenician writing which have come down to our day. The works are two, and two only, viz. the pretended "Phoenician History" of Sanchoniathon, and the "Periplus" of Hanno. Of the former, it is perhaps sufficient to say that we have no evidence of its genuineness. Philo of Byblus, who pretends that he translated it from a Phoenician original, though possibly he had Phoenician blood in his veins, was a Greek in language, in temperament, and in tone of thought, and belonged to the Greece which is characterised by Juvenal as "Graecia mendax." It is impossible to believe that the Euemerism in which he indulges, and which was evidently the motive of his work, sprang from the brain of Sanchoniathon nine hundred years before Euemerus existed. One is tempted to suspect that Sanchoniathan himself was a myth—an "idol of the cave," evolved out of the inner consciousness of Philo. Philo had a certain knowledge of the Phoenician language, and of the Phoenician religious system, but not more than he might have gained by personal communication with the priests of Byblus and Aphaca, who maintained the old worship in, and long after, his day. It is not clear that he drew his statements from any ancient authorities, or from books at all. So far as the extant fragments go, a smattering of the language, a very moderate acquaintance with the religion, and a little imagination might readily have produced them.

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

Again, "From the wind, Colpia, and his wife Bahu (Heb. {...}), which is by interpretation 'Night,' were born AEon and Protogonus, mortal men so named; of whom one, viz. AEon, discovered that life might be sustained by the fruits of trees. Their immediate descendants were called Genos and Genea, who lived in Phoenicia, and in time of drought stretched forth their hands to heaven towards the sun; for him they regarded as the sole Lord of Heaven, and called him Baal-samin, which means 'Lord of Heaven' in the Phoenician tongue, and is equivalent to Zeus in Greek. And from Genos, son of AEon and Protogonus, were begotten mortal children, called Phos, and Pyr, and Phlox (i.e. Light, Fire, and Flame). These persons invented the method of producing fire by rubbing two pieces of wood together, and taught men to employ it. They begat sons of surprising size and stature, whose names were given to the mountains whereof they had obtained possession, viz. Casius, and Libanus, and Antilibanus, and Brathy. From them were produced Memrumus and Hypsuranius, who took their names from their mothers, women in those days yielding themselves without shame to any man whom they happened to meet. Hypsuranius lived at Tyre, and invented the art of building huts with reeds and rushes and the papyrus plant. He quarrelled with his brother, Usous, who was the first to make clothing for the body out of the skins of the wild beasts which he slew. On one occasion, when there was a great storm of rain and wind, the trees in the neighbourhood of Tyre so rubbed against each other that they took fire, and the whole forest was burnt; whereupon Usous took a tree, and having cleared it of its boughs, was the first to venture on the sea in a boat. He also consecrated two pillars to Fire and Wind, and worshipped them, and poured upon them the blood of the animals which he took by hunting. And when the two brothers were dead, those who remained alive consecrated rods to their memory, and continued to worship the pillars, and to hold a festival in their honour year by year."[1314]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Having taken in water there, we sailed forward during five days near the land, until we came to a large bay, which our interpreter informed us was called 'the Western Horn.' In this was a large island, and in the island a salt-water lake, and in this another island, where, when we had landed, we could discover nothing in the daytime except trees; but in the night we saw many fires burning, and heard the sound of pipes, cymbals, drums, and confused shouting. We were then afraid, and our diviners ordered us to abandon the island. Sailing quickly away thence, we passed by a country burning with fires and perfumes; and streams of fire supplied thence fell into the sea. The country was untraversable on account of the heat. So we sailed away quickly from there also, being much terrified; and, passing on for four days, we observed at night a country full of flames. In the middle was a lofty fire, larger than the rest, which seemed to touch the stars. When day came, we discovered it to be a huge hill, called 'the Chariot of the Gods.' On the third day after our departure thence, after sailing by streams of fire, we arrived at a bay, called 'the Southern Horn;' at the bottom of which lay an island like the former one, having a lake, and in the lake another island full of savage people, far the greater part of whom were women, whose bodies were hairy, and whom our interpreters called 'gorillae.' Though we pursued the men, we could not catch any of them; but all escaped us, climbing over the precipices, and defending themselves with stones. Three women were, however, taken; but they attacked their conductors with their teeth and nails, and could not be prevailed upon to accompany us. So we killed them, and flayed them, and brought their skins with us to Carthage. We did not sail further on, our provisions failing us."

The style of this short work, though exceedingly simple and inartificial, is not without its merits. It has the directness, the perspicuity, and the liveliness of Caesar's Commentaries or of the Duke of Wellington's Despatches. Montesquieu[1317] says of it:—"Hanno's Voyage was written by the very man who performed it. His recital is not mingled with ostentation. Great commanders write their actions with simplicity, because they receive more honour from facts than words." If we may take the work as a specimen of the accounts which Phoenician explorers commonly gave of their travels in unknown regions, we must regard them as having set a pattern which modern travellers would do well to follow. Hanno gives us facts, not speculations—the things which he has observed, not those of which he has dreamt; and he delivers his facts in the fewest possible words, and in the plainest possible way. He does not cultivate flowers of rhetoric; he does not unduly spin out his narrative. It is plain that he is especially bent on making his meaning clear, and he succeeds in doing so.

The epigraphic literature of the Phoenicians, which M. Renan considers to supply fairly well the almost complete loss of their books,[1318] scarcely deserves to be so highly rated. It consists at present of five or six moderately long, and some hundreds of exceedingly short, inscriptions; the longer ones being, all of them, inscribed on stones, the shorter on stones, vases, paterae, gems, coins, and the like. The longest of all is that engraved on the sarcophagus of Esmunazar, king of Sidon, discovered near the modern Saida in the year 1855, and now in the museum of the Louvre. This has a length of twenty-two long lines, and contains 298 words.[1319] It is fairly legible throughout; and the sense is, for the most part, fairly well ascertained, though the meaning of some passages remains still more or less doubtful. The following is the translation of M. Renan:—

"In the month of Bul (October), in the fourteenth year of the reign of King Esmunazar, king of the Sidonians, son of King Tabnit, king of the Sidonians, King Esmunazar, king of the Sidonians, spake, saying—I am snatched away before my time, the child of a few days, the orphan son of a widow; and lo! I am lying in this coffin, and in this tomb, in the place which I have built. I adjure every royal personage and every man whatsoever, that they open not this my chamber, and seek not for treasures there, since there are here no treasures, and that they remove not the coffin from my chamber, nor build over this my chamber any other funeral chamber. Even if men speak to thee, listen not to their words; since every royal personage and every other man who shall open this funeral chamber, or remove the coffin from this my chamber, or build anything over this chamber—may they have no funeral chamber with the departed, nor be buried in tombs, nor have any son or descendant to succeed to their place; but may the Holy Gods deliver them into the hand of a mighty king who shall reign over them, and destroy the royal personage or the man who shall open this my funeral chamber, or remove this coffin, together with the offspring of the royal personage or other man, and let them not have either root below, or any fruit above, or glory among such as live beneath the sun. Since I am snatched away before my time, the child of a few days, the orphan son of a widow, even I.

"For I am Esmunazar, king of the Sidonians, the son of King Tabnit, king of the Sidonians, and the grandson of Esmunazar, king of the Sidonians, and my mother is Am-Ashtoreth, priestess of our lady Ashtoreth, the queen, the daughter of King Esmunazar, king of the Sidonians—and it is we who have built the temples of the gods, the temple of Ashtoreth in Sidon on the shore of the sea, and have placed Ashtoreth in her temple to glorify her; and we too have built the temple of Esmun, and set the sacred grove, En Yidlal, in the mountain, and made him (Esmun) dwell there to glorify him; and it is we who have built temples to the [other] deities of the Sidonians, in Sidon on the shore of the sea, as the temple of Baal-Sidon, and the temple of Asthoreth, who bears the name of Baal. And for this cause has the Lord of Kings given us Dor and Joppa, and the fertile cornlands which are in the plains of Sharon, as a reward for the great things which I have done, and added them to the boundaries of the land, that they may belong to the Sidonians for ever. I adjure every royal personage, and every man whatsoever, that they open not this my chamber, nor empty my chamber, nor build aught over this my chamber, nor remove the coffin from this my chamber, lest the Holy Gods deliver them up, and destroy the royal personage, or the men [who shall do so], and their offspring for ever."[1320]

The inscription on the tomb of Tabnit, Esmunazar's father, found near Beyrout in 1886, is shorter, but nearly to the same effect. It has been thus translated:—"I, Tabnit, priest of Ashtoreth, and king of Sidon, lying in this tomb, say—I adjure every man, when thou shalt come upon this sepulchre, open not my chamber, and trouble me not, for there is not with me aught of silver, nor is there with me aught of gold, there is not with me anything whatever of spoil, but only I myself who lie in this sepulchre. Open not my chamber, and trouble me not; for it would be an abomination in the sight of Ashtoreth to do such an act. And if thou shouldest open my chamber, and trouble me, mayest thou have no posterity all thy life under the sun, and no resting-place with the departed."[1321]

A stele of a Byblian king, Jehavmelek, probably somewhat more ancient than these,[1322] bears an inscription of a different kind, since it is attached to a votive offering and not to a sepulchre. The king represents himself in a bas-relief as making an offering to Beltis or Ashtoreth, and then appends an epigraph, which runs to fifteen long lines,[1323] and is to the following effect:—"I am Jehavmelek, king of Gebal, the son of Jahar-baal, and the grandson of Adom-melek, king of Gebal, whom lady Beltis of Gebal has made king of Gebal; and I invoke my lady Beltis of Gebal, because she has heard my voice. And I have made for my lady Beltis of Gebal the brazen altar which is in this temple, and the golden carving which is in front of this my carving, and the uraeus of gold which is in the middle of the stone over the golden carving. And I have made this portico, with its columns, and the capitals that are upon the columns, and the roof of the temple also, I, Jehavmelek, king of Gebal, have made for my lady Beltis of Gebal, because, whenever I have invoked my lady Beltis of Gebal, she has heard my voice, and been good to me. May Beltis of Gebal bless Jehavmelek, king of Gebal, and grant him life, and prolong his days and his years over Gebal, because he is a just king; and may the lady Beltis of Gebal obtain him favour in the sight of the Gods, and in the sight of the people of foreign lands, for ever! Every royal personage and every other man who shall make additions to this altar, or to this golden carving, or to this portico, I, Jehavmelek, king of Gebal, set may face against him who shall so do, and I pray my lady Beltis of Gebal to destroy that man, whoever he be, and his seed after him."[1324]

The inscription of Marseilles, if it had been entire, would have been as valuable and interesting as any of these; but, unfortunately, its twenty-one lines are in every case incomplete, being broken off, or else illegible, towards the left. It appears to have been a decree emanating from the authorities of Carthage, and prescribing the amount of the payments to be made in connection with the sacrifices and officials of a temple of Baal which may have existed either at Marseilles or at Carthage itself. To translate it is impossible without a vast amount of conjecture; but M. Renan's version[1325] seems to deserve a place in the present collection.

INSCRIPTION OF MARSEILLES

"The temple of Baal . . . Account of the payments fixed by those set over the payments, in the time of our lords, Halats-Baal, the Suffes, the son of Abd-Tanith, the son of Abd-Esmun, and of Halats-Baal, the Suffes, the son of Abd-Esmun, the son of Halts-Baal, and of their colleagues:—For an ox, whether as burnt sacrifice, or expiatory offering, or thank offering, to the priests [shall be given] ten [shekels] of silver on account of each; and, if it be a burnt sacrifice, they shall have besides this payment three hundred weight of the flesh; and if the sacrifice be expiatory, [they shall have] the fat and the additions, and the offerer of the sacrifice shall have the skin, and the entrails, and the feet, and the rest of the flesh. For a calf without horns and entire, or for a ram, whether as burnt sacrifice, or expiatory offering, or thank offering, to the priests [shall be given] five [shekels] of silver on account of each; and if it be a burnt sacrifice, they shall have, besides this payment, a hundred weight and a half of the flesh; and if the sacrifice be expiatory, they shall have the fat and the additions, and the skin, and entrails, and feet, and the rest of the flesh shall be given to the offerer of the sacrifice. For a he-goat, or a she-goat, whether as a burnt sacrifice, or expiatory offering, or thank offering, to the priests [shall be given] one [shekel] and two zers of silver on account of each; and if it be an expiatory sacrifice, they shall have, besides this payment, the fat and the additions; and the skin, and entrails, and feet, and the rest of the flesh shall be given to the offerer of the sacrifice. For a sheep, or a kid, or a fawn (?), whether as burnt sacrifice, or expiatory offering, or thank offering, to the priests [shall be given] three-fourths of a shekel of silver and . . . zers, on account of each; and if it be an expiatory sacrifice, they shall have, besides this payment, the fat and the additions; and the skin, and the entrails, and the feet, and the rest of the flesh [13shall be given] to the offerer of the sacrifice. For a bird, domestic or wild, whether as thank offering, or for augury, or for divination, to the priests [shall be given] three-fourths of a shekel of silver and two zers on account of each, and the flesh shall be for the offerer of the sacrifice. For a bird, or for the holy first-fruits, or for the offering of a cake, or for an offering of oil, to the priests [shall be given] ten zers of silver on account of each, and . . . In every expiatory sacrifice that shall be offered before the deities, to the priests [shall be given] the fat and the additions, and in the sacrifice of . . . For a meat offering, or for milk, or for fat, or for any sacrifice which any man shall offer as an oblation, to the priests [there shall be given] . . . For every offering that a man shall offer who is poor in sheep, or poor in birds, [there shall be given] to the priests nothing at all. Every native, and every inhabitant, and every feaster at the table of the gods, and all the men who sacrifice . . . those men shall make a payment for every sacrifice, according to that which is prescribed in [this] writing . . . Every payment which is not prescribed in this tablet shall be made proportionally to the rate fixed by those set over the payments in the time of our lords, Halats-Baal, the son of Abd-Tanith, and Halats-Baal, the son of Abd-Esmun, and their colleagues. Every priest who takes a payment beyond the amount prescribed in this tablet shall be fined . . . And every offerer of a sacrifice who shall not pay [the amount] prescribed, beyond the payment which [is here fixed, he shall pay] . . ."

Of the shorter inscriptions of the Phoenicians, by far the greater number were attached either to votive offerings or to tombs. Some hundreds have been found of both classes, but they are almost wholly without literary merit, being bald and jejune in the extreme, and presenting little variety. The depositor of a votive offering usually begins by mentioning the name and title, or titles, of the deity to whom he dedicates it. Then he appends his own name, with the names of his father and grandfather. Occasionally, but rarely, he describes his offering, and states the year in which it was set up. Finally, he asks the deity to bless him. The following are examples:—

INSCRIPTION OF UM-EL-AWAMID

"To the lord Baal-Shamaim, [the vow] which was vowed by Abdelim, son of Mattan, son of Abdelim, son of Baal-Shomar, of the district of Laodicea. This gateway and doors did I make in fulfilment of it. I built it in the 180th year of the Lord of Kings, and in the 143rd year of the people of Tyre, that it might be to me a memorial and for a good name beneath the feet of my lord, Baal-Shamaim, for ever. May he bless me!"[1326]

INSCRIPTION ON A CIPPUS FROM CARTHAGE

"To the lady Tanith, and to our master, the lord Baal-Hammon; the offerer is Abd-Melkarth, the Suffes, son of Abd-Melkarth, son of Hanno."[1327]

INSCRIPTION ON A CIPPUS FOUND IN MALTA

"To our lord Melkarth, the lord of Tyre. The offerer is thy servant, Abd-Osiri, and my brother, Osiri-Shomar, both [of us] sons of Osiri-Shomar, the son of Abd-Osiri. In hearing their voice, may he bless them."[1328]

INSCRIPTION ON A MARBLE ALTAR, BROUGHT FROM LARNAKA

"On the sixth day of the month Bul, in the twenty-first year of King Pumi-yitten, king of Citium and Idalium, and Tamasus, son of King Melek-yitten, king of Citium and Idalium, this altar and these two lions were given by Bodo, priest of Reseph-hets, son of Yakun-shalam, son of Esmunadon, to his lord Reseph-hets. May he bless [him]."[1329]

INSCRIPTION ON A MARBLE TABLET FOUND IN CYPRUS

"On the seventh day of the month . . . in the thirty-first year of the Lord of Kings, Ptolemaeus, son of Ptolemaeus . . . which was the fifty-seventh year of the Citians, when Amarat-Osiri, daughter of . . . son of Abd-Susim, of Gad'ath, was canephora of Asinoe Philadelphus, these statues were set up by Bathshalun, daughter of Maryichai, son of Esmunadon, to the memory of his grandsons, Esmunadon, Shallum, and Abd-Reseph, the three sons of Maryichai, son of Esmunadon, according to the vow which their father, Maryichai, vowed, when he was still alive, to their lord, Reseph-Mikal. May he bless them!"[1330]

There is a little more variety in the inscriptions on tombstones. The great majority, indeed, are extremely curt and dry, containing scarcely anything beyond the name of the person who is buried in the tomb, or that together with the name of the person by whom the monument is erected; e.g. "To Athad, the daughter of Abd-Esmun, the Suffes, and wife of Ger-Melkarth, the son of Ben-hodesh, the son of Esmunazar"[1331]; or "This monument I, Menahem, grandson of Abd-Esmun, have erected to my father, Abd-Shamash, son of Abd-Esmun"[1332]; or "I, Abd-Osiri, the son of Abd-Susim, the son of Hur, have erected this monument, while I am still alive, to myself, and to my wife, Ammat-Ashtoreth, daughter of Taam, son of Abd-melek, [and have placed it] over the chamber of my tomb, in perpetuity."[1333] But, occasionally, we get a glimpse, beyond the mere dry facts, into the region of thought; as where the erector of a monument appends to the name of one, whom we may suppose to have been a miser, the remark, that "the reward of him who heaps up riches is contempt;"[1334] or where one who entertains the hope that his friend is happier in another world than he was upon earth, thus expresses himself—"In memory of Esmun. After rain, the sun shines forth;"[1335] or, again, where domestic affection shows itself in the declaration concerning the departed—"When he entered into the house that is so full [of guests], there was grief for the memory of the sage, the man that was hard as adamant, that bore calamities of every sort, that was a widower through the death of my mother, that was like a pellucid fountain, and had a name pure from crime. Erected in affection by me his son to my father."[1336]

With respect to the extent and range of the Phoenician book literature, the little that can be gathered from the notices remaining to us in the Greek and Roman writers is the following. In Phoenicia Proper there were historical writers at least from the time of Hiram, the contemporary of David, who wrote the annals of their country in a curt dry form somewhat resembling that of Kings and Chronicles.[1337] The names of the kings and the length of their reigns were carefully recorded, together with some of the more remarkable events belonging to each reign; but there was no attempt at the philosophy of history, nor at the graces of composition. In some places, especially at Sidon, philosophy and science were to a certain extent cultivated. Mochus, a Sidonian, wrote a work on the atomic theory at a very early date, though scarcely, as Posidonius maintained,[1338] one anterior to the Trojan war. Later on, the Sidonian school specially affected astronomy and arithmetic, in which they made so much progress that the Greeks acknowledged themselves their debtors in those branches of knowledge.[1339] It is highly probable, though not exactly capable of proof, that the Tyrian navigators from a very remote period embodied in short works the observations which they made in their voyages, on the geography, hydrography, ethology, and natural history of the counties, which were visited by them. Hanno's "Periplus" may have been composed on a model of these earlier treatises, which at a later date furnished materials to Marinus for his great work on geography. It was, however, in the Phoenician colony of Carthage that authorship was taken up with most spirit and success. Hiempsal, Hanno, Mago, Hamilcar, and others, composed works, which the Romans valued highly, on the history, geography, and "origines" of Africa, and also upon practical agriculture.[1340] Mago and Hamilcar were regarded as the best authorities on the latter subject both by the Greeks and Romans, and were followed, among the Greeks by Mnaseas and Paxamus,[1341] among the Romans by Varro and Columella.[1342] So highly was the work of Mago, which ran to twenty-eight books, esteemed, that, on the taking of Carthage, it was translated into Latin by order of the Roman Senate.[1343] After the fall of Carthage, Tyre and Sidon once more became seats of learning; but the Phoenician language was discarded, and Greek adopted in its place. The Tyrian, Sidonian, Byblian and Berytian authors, of whom we hear, bear Greek names:[1344] and it is impossible to say whether they belonged, in any true sense, to the Phoenician race. Philo of Byblus and Marinus of Tyre are the only two authors of this later period who held to Phoenician traditions, and, presumably, conveyed on to later ages Phoenician ideas and accumulations. If neither literature nor science gained much from the work of the former, that of the latter had considerable value, and, as the basis of the great work of Ptolemy, must ever hold an honourable place in the history of geographical progress.



CHAPTER XIV—POLITICAL HISTORY



1. Phoenicia, before the establishment of the hegemony of Tyre.

Separate autonomy of the Phoenician cities—No marked predominance of any one or more of them during the Egyptian period, B.C. 1600-1350—A certain pre-eminence subsequently acquired by Aradus and Sidon—Sidonian territorial ascendancy—Great proficiency of Sidon in the arts—Sidon's war with the Philistines—Her early colonies—Her advances in navigation—Her general commercial honesty—Occasional kidnapping—Stories of Io and Eumaeus—Internal government— Relations with the Israelites.

When the Phoenician immigrants, in scattered bands, and at longer or shorter intervals, arrived upon the Syrian coast, and finding it empty occupied it, or wrested it from its earlier possessors, there was a decided absence from among them of any single governing or controlling authority; a marked tendency to assert and maintain separate rule and jurisdiction. Sidon, the Arkite, the Arvadite, the Zemarite, are separately enumerated in the book of Genesis;[0141] and the Hebrews have not even any one name under which to comprise the commercial people settled upon their coast line,[0142] until we come to Gospel times, when the Greeks have brought the term "Syro-Phoenician" into use.[0143] Elsewhere we hear of "them of Sidon," "them of Tyre,"[0144] "the Giblites,"[0145] "the men of Arvad,"[0146] "the Arkites," "the Sinites," "the Zemarites,"[0147] "the inhabitants of Accho, of Achzib, and Aphek,"[0148] but never of the whole maritime population north of Philistia under any single ethnic appellation. And the reason seems to be, that the Phoenicians, even more than the Greeks, affected a city autonomy. Each little band of immigrants, as soon as it had pushed its way into the sheltered tract between the mountains and the sea, settled itself upon some attractive spot, constructed habitations, and having surrounded its habitations with walls, claimed to be—and found none to dispute the claim—a distinct political entity. The conformation of the land, so broken up into isolated regions by strong spurs from Lebanon and Bargylus, lent additional support to the separatist spirit, and the absence in the early times of any pressure of danger from without permitted its free indulgence without entailing any serious penalty. It is difficult to say at what time the first settlements took place; but during the period of Egyptian supremacy over Western Asia, under the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties (ab. B.C. 1600-1350), we seem to find the Phoenicians in possession of the coast tract, and their cities severally in the enjoyment of independence and upon a quasi-equality. Tyre, Sidon, Gebal, Aradus, Simyra, Sarepta, Berytus, and perhaps Arka, appear in the inscriptions of Thothmes III,[0149] and in the "Travels of a Mohar,"[1410] without an indication of the pre-eminence, much less the supremacy, of any one of them. The towns pursued their courses independently one of another, submitting to the Egyptians when hard pressed, but always ready to reassert themselves, and never joining, so far as appears, in any league or confederation, by which their separate autonomy might have been endangered. During this period no city springs to any remarkable height of greatness or prosperity; material progress is, no doubt, being made by the nation; but it is not very marked, and it does not excite any particular attention.