History of Phoenicia. George Rawlinson

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      Chapter IV—The Cities

       Table of Contents

      Importance of the cities in Phoenicia—Their names and relative eminence—Cities of the first rank—Sidon—Tyre— Arvad or Aradus—Marathus—Gebal or Byblus—Tripolis—Cities of the second rank—Aphaca—Berytus—Arka—Ecdippa—Accho— Dor—Japho or Joppa—Ramantha or Laodicea—Fivefold division of Phoenicia.

      Phoenicia, like Greece, was a country where the cities held a position of extreme importance. The nation was not a centralised one, with a single recognised capital, like Judæa, or Samaria, or Syria, or Assyria, or Babylonia. It was, like Greece, a congeries of homogeneous tribes, who had never been amalgamated into a single political entity, and who clung fondly to the idea of separate independence. Tyre and Sidon are often spoken of as if they were metropolitical cities; but it may be doubted whether there was ever a time when either of them could claim even a temporary authority over the whole country. Each, no doubt, from time to time, exercised a sort of hegemony over a certain number of the inferior cities; but there was no organised confederacy, no obligation of any one city to submit to another, and no period, as far as our knowledge extends, at which all the cities acknowledged a single one as their mistress.41 Between Tyre and Sidon there was especial jealousy, and the acceptance by either of the leadership of the other, even temporarily, was a rare fact in the history of the nation.

      According to the geographers, the cities of Phoenicia, from Laodicea in the extreme north to Joppa at the extreme south, numbered about twenty-five. These were Laodicea, Gabala, Balanea, Paltos; Aradus, with its dependency Antaradus; Marathus; Simyra, Orthosia, and Arka; Tripolis, Calamus, Trieris, and Botrys; Byblus or Gebal; Aphaca; Berytus; Sidon, Sarepta, and Ornithonpolis; Tyre and Ecdippa; Accho and Porphyreon; Dor and Joppa. Of the twenty-five a certain number were, historically and politically, insignificant; for instance, Gabala, Balanea, Paltos, Orthosia, Calamus, Trieris, Botrys, Sarepta, Ornithonpolis, Porphyreon. Sarepta is immortalised by the memory of its pious widow,42 and Orthosia has a place in history from its connection with the adventures of Trypho;43 but the rest of the list are little more than “geographical expressions.” There remain fifteen important cities, of which six may be placed in the first rank and nine in the second—the six being Tyre, Sidon, Aradus, Byblus or Gebal, Marathus, and Tripolis; the nine, Laodicea, Simyra, Arka, Aphaca, Berytus, Ecdippa, Accho, Dor, and Joppa. It will be sufficient in the present place to give some account of these fifteen.

      There are some grounds for considering Sidon to have been the most ancient of the Phoenician towns. In the Book of Genesis Sidon is called “the eldest born of Canaan,"44 and in Joshua, where Tyre is simply a “fenced city” or fort,45 it is “Great Zidon."46 Homer frequently mentions it,47 whereas he takes no notice of Tyre. Justin makes it the first town which the Phoenicians built on arriving at the shores of the Mediterranean.48 The priority of Sidon in this respect was, however, not universally acknowledged, since Tyre claims on some of her coins to have been “the mother-city of the Sidonians,"49 and Marathus was also regarded as a city of the very highest antiquity.410 The city stood in Lat. 33º 34´ nearly, on the flat plain between the mountains and the shore, opposite a small promontory which projects into the sea towards the west, and is flanked towards the north-west and north by a number of rocky islands. The modern town of Saïda stands close upon the shore, occupying the greater part of the peninsula and a portion of the plain on which it abuts; but the ancient city is found to have been situated entirely in the plain, and its most western traces are almost half a mile from the nearest point of the present walls.411 The modern Saïda has clustered itself about what was the principal port of the ancient town, which lay north of the promontory, and was well protected from winds, on the west by the principal island, which has a length of 250 yards, and on the north by a long range of islets and reefs, extending in a north-easterly direction a distance of at least 600 yards. An excellent roadstead was thus formed by nature, which art early improved into a small but commodious harbour, a line of wall being carried out from the coast northwards to the most easterly of the islets, and the only unprotected side of the harbour being thus securely closed. There is reason to believe that this work was completed anterior to the time of Alexander,412 and was therefore due to the Phoenicians themselves, who were not blind to the advantages of closed harbours over open roadsteads. They seem also to have strengthened the natural barrier towards the north by a continuous wall of huge blocks along the reefs and the islets, portions of which are still in existence.

      Besides this excellent harbour, 500 yards long by 200 broad, Sidon possessed on the southern side of the peninsula a second refuge for its ships, less safe, but still more spacious. This was an oval basin, 600 yards long from north to south, and nearly 400 broad from east to west, wholly surrounded by land on three sides, the north, the east, and the south, but open for the space of about 200 yards towards the west. In fine weather this harbour was probably quite as much used as the other; it was protected from all the winds that were commonly prevalent, and offered a long stretch of sandy shore free from buildings on which vessels could be drawn up.

      It is impossible to mark out the enceinte of the ancient town, or indeed to emplace it with any exactitude. Only scanty and scattered remains are left here and there between the modern city and the mountains. There is, however, towards the south an extensive necropolis,413 which marks perhaps the southern limits of the city, while towards the east the hills are penetrated by a number of sepulchural grottoes, and tombs of various kinds, which were also probably outside the walls. Were a northern necropolis to be discovered, some idea would be furnished of the extent of the city; but at present the plain has been very imperfectly examined in this direction. It is from the southern necropolis that the remarkable inscription was disinterred which first established beyond all possibility of doubt the fact that the modern Saïda is the representative of the ancient Sidon.414

      Twenty miles to the south of Sidon was the still more important city—the double city—of Tzur or Tyre. Tzur signifies “a rock,” and at this point of the Syrian coast (Lat. 33º 17´) there lay at a short distance from the shore a set of rocky islets, on the largest of which the original city seems to have been built. Indentations are so rare and so shallow along this coast, that a maritime people naturally looked out for littoral islands, as affording under the circumstances the best protection against boisterous winds; and, as in the north Aradus was early seized and occupied by Phoenician settlers, so in the south the rock, which became the heart of Tyre, was seized, fortified, covered with buildings, and converted from a bare stony eminence into a town. At the same time, or not much later, a second town grew up on the mainland opposite the isle; and the two together were long regarded as constituting a single city. After the time of Alexander the continental town went to decay; and the name of Palæ-Tyrus was given to it,415 to distinguish it from the still flourishing city on the island.

      The islands of which we have spoken formed a chain running nearly in parallel to the coast. They were some eleven or twelve in number. The southern extremity of the chain СКАЧАТЬ