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

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СКАЧАТЬ nine years before any troubles broke out. Then, however, a time of disturbance supervened. Four of his foster-brothers conspired against Abd-Ashtoreth, and murdered him. The eldest of them seized the throne, and maintained himself upon it for twelve years, when Astartus, perhaps a son of Baal-azar, became king, and restored the line of Hiram. He, too, like his predecessor, reigned twelve years, when his brother, Aserymus, succeeded him. Aserymus, after ruling for nine years, was murdered by another brother, Pheles, who, in his turn, succumbed to a conspiracy headed by the High Priest, Eth-baal, or Ithobal.14111 Thus, while the period immediately following the death of Hiram was one of tranquillity, that which supervened on the death of Abd-Astartus, Hiram’s grandson, was disturbed and unsettled. Three monarchs met with violent deaths within the space of thirty-four years, and the reigning house was, at least, thrice changed during the same interval.

At length with Ithobal a more tranquil time was reached. Ithobal, or Eth-baal, was not only king, but also High Priest of Ashtoreth, and thus united the highest sacerdotal with the highest civil authority. He was a man of decision and energy, a worthy successor of Hiram, gifted like him with wide-reaching views, and ambitious of distinction. One of his first acts was to ally himself with Ahab, King of Israel, by giving him his daughter, Jezebel, in marriage,14112 thus strengthening his land dominion, and renewing the old relations of friendship with the Hebrew people. Another act of vigour assigned to him is the foundation of Botrys, on the Syrian coast, north of Gebal, perhaps a defensive movement against Assyria.14113 Still more enterprising was his renewal of the African colonisation by his foundation of Aüza in Numidia,14114 which became a city of some importance. Ithobal’s reign lasted, we are told, thirty-two years. He was sixty-eight years of age at his death, and was succeeded by his son, who is called Badezor, probably a corruption of Balezor, or Baal-azar14115—the name given by Hiram to his son and successor. Of Badezor we know nothing, except that he reigned six years, and was succeeded by his son Matgen, perhaps Mattan,14116 a youth of twenty-three.

With Matgen, or Mattan, whichever be the true form of the name, the internal history of Tyre becomes interesting. It appears that two parties already existed in the state, one aristocratic, and the other popular.14117 Mattan, fearing the ascendancy of the popular party, married his daughter, Elisa, whom he intended for his successor, to her uncle and his own brother, Sicharbas, who was High Priest of Melkarth, and therefore possessed of considerable authority in his own person. Having effected this marriage, and nominated Elisa to succeed him, Mattan died at the early age of thirty-two, after a reign of only nine years.14118 Besides his daughter, he had left behind him a son, Pygmalion, who, at his decease, was but eight or nine years old. This child the democratic party contrived to get under their influence, proclaimed him king, young as he was, and placed him upon the throne. Elisa and her husband retired into private life, and lived in peace for seven years, but Pygmalion, being then grown to manhood, was not content to leave them any longer unmolested. He murdered Sicharbas, and endeavoured to seize his riches. But the ex-Queen contrived to frustrate his design, and having possessed herself of a fleet of ships, and taken on board the greater number of the nobles, sailed away, with her husband’s wealth untouched, to Cyprus first, and then to Africa.14119 Here, by agreement with the inhabitants, a site was obtained, and the famous settlement founded, which became known to the Greeks as “Karchêdon,” and to the Romans as “Carthago,” or Carthage. Josephus places this event in the hundred and forty-fourth year after the building of the Temple of Solomon,14120 or about B.C. 860. This date, however, is far from certain.

It appears to have been in the reign of Ithobal that the first contact took place between Phoenicia and Assyria. About B.C. 885, a powerful and warlike monarch, by name Asshur-nazir-pal, mounted the throne of Nineveh, and shortly engaged in a series of wars towards the south, the east, the north, and the north-west.14121 In the last-named direction he crossed the Euphrates at Carchemish (Jerablus), and, having overrun the country between that river and the Orontes, he proceeded to pass this latter stream also, and to carry his arms into the rich tract which lay between the Orontes and the Mediterranean. “It was a tract,” says M. Maspero,14122 “opulent and thickly populated, at once full of industries and commercial; the metals, both precious and ordinary, gold, silver, copper, tin (?), iron, were abundant; traffic with Phoenicia supplied it with the purple dye, and with linen stuffs, with ebony and with sandal-wood. Asshur-nazir-pal’s attack seems to have surprised the chief of the Hittites in a time of profound peace. Sangar, King of Carchemish, allowed the passage of the Euphrates to take place without disputing it, and opened to the Assyrians the gates of his capital. Lubarna, king of Kunulua, alarmed at the power of the enemy, and dreading the issue of a battle, came to terms with him, consenting to make over to him twenty talents of gold, a talent of silver, two hundred talents of tin, a hundred of iron, 2,000 oxen, 10,000 sheep, a thousand garments of wool or linen, together with furniture, arms, and slaves beyond all count. The country of Lukhuti resisted, and suffered the natural consequences—all the cities were sacked, and the prisoners crucified. After this exploit, Asshur-nazir-pal occupied both the slopes of Mount Lebanon, and then descended to the shores of the Mediterranean. Phoenicia did not await his arrival to do him homage: the kings of Tyre, Sidon, Gebal, and Arvad, ‘which is in the midst of the sea,’ sent him presents. The Assyrians employed their time in cutting down cedar trees in Lebanon and Amanus, together with pines and cypresses, which they transported to Nineveh to be used in the construction of a temple to Ishtar.”

      The period of the Assyrian subjection, which commenced with this attack on the part of Asshur-nazir-pal, will be the subject of the next section. It only remains here briefly to recapitulate the salient points of Phoenician history under Tyre’s first supremacy. In the first place, it was a time of increased daring and enterprise, in which colonies were planted upon the shores of the Atlantic Ocean, and trade extended to the remote south, the more remote north, and the still more remote north-east, to the Fortunate Islands, the Cassiterides, and probably the Baltic. Secondly, it was a time when the colonies on the North African coast were reinforced, strengthened, and increased in number; when the Phoenician yoke was rivetted on that vast projection into the Mediterranean which divides that sea into two halves, and goes far to give the power possessing it entire command of the Mediterranean waters. Thirdly, it was a time of extended commerce with the East, perhaps the only time when Phoenician merchant vessels were free to share in the trade of the Red Sea, to adventure themselves in the Indian Ocean, and to explore the distant coasts of Eastern Africa, Southern Arabia, Beloochistan, India and Ceylon. Fourthly, it was a time of artistic vigour and development, when Tyre herself assumed that aspect of splendour and magnificence which thenceforth characterised her until her destruction by Alexander, and when she so abounded in æsthetic energy and genius that she could afford to take the direction of an art movement in a neighbouring country, and to plant her ideas on that conspicuous hill which for more than a thousand years drew the eyes of men almost more than any other city of the East, and was only destroyed because she was felt by Rome to be a rival that she could not venture to spare. Finally, it was a time when internal dissensions, long existing, came to a head, and the state lost, through a sudden desertion, a considerable portion of its strength, which was transferred to a distant continent, and there steadily, if not rapidly, developed itself into a power, not antagonistic indeed, but still, by the necessity of its position, a rival power—a new commercial star, before which all other stars, whatever their brightness had been, paled and waned—a new factor in the polity of nations, whereof account had of necessity to be taken; a new trade-centre, which could not but supersede СКАЧАТЬ