History of Phoenicia. George Rawlinson

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СКАЧАТЬ the Sporades and Cyclades the advance was easy to the islands of the Northern Ægean, Lemnos, Imbrus, Thasos, and Samothrace. The settlement of the Phoenicians in Thasos is attested by Herodotus, who says that the Tyrian Hercules (Melkarth) was worshipped there,572 and ascribes to the Phoenicians extensive mining operations on the eastern shores of the island between Ænyra and Coenyra.573 A Phoenician occupation of Lemnos, Imbrus, and Samothrace is indicated by the worship in those islands of the Cabeiri,574 who were undoubtedly Phoenician deities. Whether the Phoenicians passed from these islands to the Thracian mainland, and worked the gold-mines of Mount Pangæus in the vicinity of Philippi, may perhaps be doubtful, but such seems to have been the belief of Strabo and Pliny.575 Strabo also believed that there had been a Semitic element in the population of Euboea which had been introduced by Cadmus;576 and a Phoenician settlement in Boeotia was the current tradition of the Greek writers upon primitive times, whether historians or geographers.577

      The further progress of the Phoenician settlements northward into the Propontis and the Euxine is a point whereon different opinions may be entertained. Pronectus, on the Bithynian, and Amastris, on the Paphlagonian coast, have been numbered among the colonies of the Phoenicians by some;578 while others have gone so far as to ascribe to them the colonisation of the entire countries of Bithynia, Mariandynia, and Paphlagonia.579 The story of the Argonauts may fairly be held to show580 that Phoenician enterprise early penetrated into the stormy and inhospitable sea which washes Asia Minor upon the north, and even reached its deepest eastern recess; but it is one thing to sail into seas, and, landing where the natives seem friendly, to traffic with the dwellers on them—it is quite another thing to attempt a permanent occupation of portions of their coasts. To do so often provokes hostility, and puts a stop to trade instead of encouraging it. The Phoenicians may have been content to draw their native products from the barbarous tribes of Northern Asia Minor and Western Thrace—nay, even of Southern Scythia—without risking the collisions that might have followed the establishment of settlements.

      As with the Black Sea, so with the Adriatic, the commercial advantages were not sufficient to tempt the Phoenicians to colonise. From Crete and Cythera they sent their gaze afar, and fixed it midway in the Mediterranean, at the western extremity of the eastern basin, on the shores of Sicily, and the vast projection from the coast of North Africa which goes forth to meet them. They knew the harbourless character of the African coast west of Egypt, and the dangers of the Lesser and Greater Syrtes. They knew the fertility of the Tunisian projection, the excellence of its harbours, and the prolificness of the large island that lay directly opposite. Here were the tracts where they might expand freely, and which would richly repay their occupation of them. It was before the beginning of the eleventh century B.C.—perhaps some centuries before—that the colonisation of North Africa by the Phoenicians was taken in hand:581 and about the same time, in all probability, the capes and isles about Sicily were occupied,582 and Phoenician influence in a little time extended over the entire island.

      In North Africa the first colony planted is said to have been Utica. Utica was situated a little to the west of Carthage, at the mouth of the Mejerda or Bagradas river.583 It stood on a rocky promontory which ran out into the sea eastward, and partially protected its harbour. At the opposite extremity, towards the north, ran out another promontory, the modern Ras Sidi Ali-el-Mekki, while the mouth of the harbour, which faced to the south-east, was protected by some islands. At present the deposits of the Mejerda have blocked up almost the whole of this ancient port, and the rocky eminence upon which the city stood looks down on three sides upon a broad alluvial plain, through which the Mejerda pursues a tortuous course to the sea.584 The remains of the ancient town, which occupy the promontory and a peninsula projecting from it, include a necropolis, an amphitheatre, a theatre, a castle, the ruins of a temple, and some remains of baths; but they have nothing about them bearing any of the characteristics of Phoenician architecture, and belong wholly to the Roman or post-Roman period. The neighbourhood is productive of olives, which yield an excellent oil; and in the hills towards the south-west are veins of lead, containing a percentage of silver, which are thought to bear traces of having been worked at a very early date.585

      Near Utica was founded, probably not many years later, the settlement of Hippo-Zaritis, of which the name still seems to linger in the modern Bizerta. Hippo-Zaritis stood on the west bank of a natural channel, which united with the sea a considerable lagoon or salt lake, lying south of the town. The channel was kept open by an irregular flux and reflux, the water of the lake after the rainy season flowing off into the sea, and that of the sea, correspondingly, in the dry season passing into the lake.586 At the present time the lake is extraordinarily productive of fish,587 and the sea outside yields coral;588 but otherwise the advantages of the situation are not great.

      Two degrees further to the west, on a hill overlooking the sea, and commanding a lovely prospect over the verdant plain at its base, watered by numerous streams, was founded the colony of Hippo Regius, memorable as having been for five-and-thirty years the residence of St. Augustine. The Phoenicians were probably attracted to the site by the fertility of the soil, the unfailing supplies of water, and the abundant timber and rich iron ore of the neighbouring mountains.589 Hippo Regius is now Bona, or rather has been replaced by that town, which lies about a mile and a half north of the ancient Hippo, close upon the coast, in the fertile tract formed by the soil brought down by the river Seybouse. The old harbour of Hippo is filled up, and the remains of the ancient city are scanty; but the lovely gardens and orchards, which render Bona one of the most agreeable of Algerian towns, sufficiently explain and justify the Phoenician choice of the site.590

      In the same bay with Utica, further to the south, and near its inner recess, was founded, nearly three centuries after Utica, the most important of all the Phoenician colonies, Carthage. The advantages of the locality are indicated by the fact that the chief town of Northern Africa, Tunis, has grown up within a short distance of the site. It combined the excellences of a sheltered situation, a good soil, defensible eminences, and harbours which a little art made all that was to be desired in ancient times and with ancient navies. These basins, partly natural, partly artificial, still exist;591 but their communication with the sea is blocked up, as also is the channel which connected the military harbour with the harbours of commerce. The remains of the ancient town are mostly beneath the surface of the soil, but modern research has uncovered a portion of them, and brought to light a certain number of ruins which belong probably to the very earliest period. Among these are walls in the style called “Cyclopian,” built of a very hard material, and more than thirty-two feet thick, which seem to have surrounded the ancient Byrsa or citadel, and which are still in places sixteen feet high.592 The Roman walls found emplaced above these are of far inferior strength and solidity. An extensive necropolis lies north of the ancient town, on the coast near Cape Camart.

      Another early and important Phoenician settlement in these parts was Hadrumetum or Adrymes,593 which seems to be represented by the modern Soûsa. Hadrumetum lay on the eastern side of the great Tunisian projection, near the southern extremity of a large bay which looks to the east, and is now known as the Gulf of Hammamet. Its position was upon the coast at the edge of the vast plain called at present the “Sahel of Soûsa,” which is sandy, but immensely productive of olive oil. “Millions of olive-trees,” it is said, “cover the tract,"594 and the present annual exportation amounts to 40,000 hectolitres.595 Ancient remains are few, but the Cothon, or circular harbour, may still be traced, and in the necropolis, which almost wholly encircles the town, many sepulchral chambers have been found, excavated in the chalk, closely resembling in their arrangements those of the Phoenician mainland.

      South of Hadrumetum, at no great distance, was Leptis Minor, now Lemta. The gulf of Hammamet terminates southwards in the promontory of Monastir, between which and Ras Dimas is a shallow bay looking to the north-east. Here was the Lesser Leptis, so called to distinguish it from the larger city of the same name between the Lesser and the Greater Syrtis; it was, however, a considerable town, as appears from its remains. These lie along the coast for two miles and a half in Lat. 35º 43´, and include the ruins of an aqueduct, of a theatre, of quays, and of jetties.596 The neighbourhood is suited for the cultivation of the olive.

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