The Greatest Empires & Civilizations of the Ancient East: Egypt, Babylon, The Kings of Israel and Judah, Assyria, Media, Chaldea, Persia, Parthia & Sasanian Empire. George Rawlinson
Чтение книги онлайн.

Читать онлайн книгу The Greatest Empires & Civilizations of the Ancient East: Egypt, Babylon, The Kings of Israel and Judah, Assyria, Media, Chaldea, Persia, Parthia & Sasanian Empire - George Rawlinson страница 132

СКАЧАТЬ 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

       Table of Contents

       Table of Contents

      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 Eumæus—Internal government— Relations with the Israelites.