The History of Antiquity, Vol. 2 (of 6). Duncker Max

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СКАЧАТЬ there was a temple of Heracles-Melkarth,148 the foundation walls of which appear to be still in existence, and still more definite evidence of the former population of this island is given by the Phenician inscriptions found there. The island, like the mother-country, carried on weaving, and the products were much sought after in antiquity. On Gaulus also, a name mentioned on Phenician coins, are the remains of a Phenician temple. Between Sicily and the coast of Africa, where it approaches Sicily most nearly, lay the island of Cossyra, coins of which bear Phenician legends. Along with a dwarfish figure they present the name "island of the sons,"149 i. e. no doubt, the children of the sun-god whom we met with in Rhodes. On the east coast of Sicily there lay, on a small promontory scarcely connected with the mainland (now Isola degli Magnisi), the city of Thapsos, the name of which reveals its founders; Tiphsach means coming over, here coming over to the mainland. In the same way the promontory of Pachynus (pachun means wart), further to the south, and the harbour of Phœnicus are evidence of Phenician colonisation. On the south coast of Sicily, not far from the mouth of the Halycus, the Phenicians built that city which is known to the Greeks as Makara and Minoa, or Heracleaminoa; the coins of the city present in Phenician characters the name Rus-Melkart, i. e. "head (promontory) of Melkarth."150 Off the west coast of Sicily the Phenicians occupied the small island of Motye.151 On this coast of the larger island, on Mount Eryx, which rises steeply out of a bald table land (2000 feet above the sea), they founded the city of Eryx, and on the summit of the mount, 5000 feet high, they built a temple to the Syrian Aphrodite. In Diodorus it is Eryx the son of Aphrodite who builds this temple; Æneas then adorns it with many votive offerings, "since it was dedicated to his mother."152 Virgil represents the temple as being founded on the summit of Eryx, near to the stars, in honour of Venus Idalia, i. e. the goddess worshipped at Idalion (Idial) on Cyprus by the immigrants from the East, who, with him, are the companions of Æneas.153 The courtezans at this temple, the sensual character of the worship, and the sacred doves kept here (in a red one the goddess herself was supposed to be seen154), even without the Phenician inscriptions found there, would leave no doubt of its Syrian origin. The mighty substructure of the building is still in existence. Dædalus is said to have built it for the king of the Sicanians (p. 64). Beside the Syrian goddess, the Phenicians also worshipped here the Syrian god Baal Melkarth. According to the account of Diodorus, Heracles overcame Eryx in wrestling, and so took his land from him, though he left the usufruct of it to the inhabitants.155 The kings of Sparta traced their origin to Heracles. When Dorieus, the son of Anaxandridas, king of Sparta, desired to emigrate in his anger that the crown had fallen to his brother Cleomenes, the oracle bade him retire to Eryx; the land of Eryx belonged to the Heraclids because their ancestor won it. The Carthaginians, it is true, did not acknowledge this right; Dorieus was slain, and most of those who followed him.156 On the north coast of Sicily, Panormus (Palermo) and Soloeis were the most important colonies of the Phenicians. Panormus, on coins of the Phenicians Machanath, i. e. the camp, worshipped the goddess of the sexual passion; Soloeis (sela, rock) worshipped Melkarth. In a hymn to Aphrodite, Sappho inquires whether she lingers in Cyprus or at Panormus.157 Motye, Soloeis and Panormus were in the fifth century the strongest outposts of the Carthaginians in Sicily.158

      On Sardinia also, as Diodorus tells us, the Phenicians planted many colonies.159 The mountains of Sardinia contained iron, silver, and lead. According to the legend of the Greeks, Sardus, the son of Makeris, as the Libyans called Heracles, first came with Libyans to the island. Then Heracles sent his brother's son Iolaus, together with his own sons, whom he had begotten in Attica, to Sardinia. As Heracles had been lord of the whole West, these regions belonged of right to Iolaus and his companions. Iolaus conquered the native inhabitants, took possession of and divided the best and most level portion of the land which was afterwards known by the name of Iolaus; then he sent for Dædalus out of Sicily and erected large buildings, which, Diodorus adds, are still in existence; but in Sicily temples were erected to himself, and honour paid as to a hero, and a famous shrine was erected in Agyrion, "where," as Diodorus remarks of this his native city, "even to this day yearly sacrifices are offered."160 Makeris, the supposed father of Sardus, is, like Makar, a form of the name Melkarth. If Sardinia and the whole West as well as Eryx is said to have belonged to Heracles, if Heracles sends out his nearest relations to Sardinia, if the artist Dædalus is his companion here as he was the companion of Minos in Crete and Sicily, it becomes obvious that the temples of Baal Melkarth on the coasts of Sardinia and Sicily lie at the base of these legends of the Greeks, that it was the Phenicians who brought the worship of their god along with their colonies to these coasts, to which they were led by the wealth of the Sardinian mountains in copper. As we already ventured to suppose (I. 368), Iolaus may be an epithet or a special form of Baal.161

      The legend of the Greeks makes Heracles, i. e. Baal Melkarth, lord of the whole West. As a fact, the colonies of the Phenicians went beyond Sardinia in this direction. Their first colonies on the north coast of Africa appear to have been planted where the shore runs out nearest Sicily; Hippo was apparently regarded as the oldest colony.162 In the legends of the coins mentioned above (p. 53) Hippo is named beside Tyre and Citium as a daughter of Sidon. When a second Hippo was afterwards founded further to the west, opposite the south coast of Sardinia, at the mouth of the Ubus, the old Hippo got the name of "Ippoacheret," and among the Greeks "Hippon Zarytos," i. e. "the other Hippo."163 Ityke (atak, settlement, Utica), on the mouth of the Bagradas (Medsherda), takes the next place after this Hippo, if indeed it was not founded before it. Aristotle tells us that the Phenicians stated that Ityke was built 287 years before Carthage,164 and Pliny maintains that Ityke was founded 1178 years before his time.165 As Carthage was founded in the year 846 B.C. (below, chap. 11), Ityke, according to Aristotle's statement, was built in the year 1133 B.C. With this the statement of Pliny agrees. He wrote in the years 52-77 A.D., and therefore he places the foundation of Ityke in the year 1126 or 1100 B.C.

      About the same time, i. e. about the year 1100 B.C., the Phenicians had already reached much further to the west. In his Phenician history, Claudius Iolaus tells us that Archaleus (Arkal, Heracles166), the son of Phœnix, built Gadeira (Gades).167 "From ancient times," such is the account of Diodorus, "the Phenicians carried on an uninterrupted navigation for the sake of trade, and planted many colonies in Africa, and not a few in Europe, in the regions lying to the west. And when their undertakings succeeded according to their desire and they had collected great treasures, they resolved to traverse the sea beyond the pillars of Heracles, which is called Oceanus. First of all, on their passage through these pillars, they founded upon a peninsula of Europe a city which they called Gadeira, and erected works suitable to the place, chiefly a beautiful temple to Heracles, with splendid offerings according to the custom of the Phenicians. And as this temple was honoured at that time, so also in later times down to our own days it was held in great reverence. When the Phenicians, in order to explore the coasts beyond the pillars, took their course along the shore of Libya, they were carried away far into the Oceanus by a strong wind, and after being driven many days by the storm they came to a large island opposite Libya, where the fertility was so great and the climate so beautiful that it seemed by the abundance of blessings found there to be intended for the dwelling of the gods rather than men."168 Strabo says, the Gaditani narrated that an oracle bade the Tyrians send a colony СКАЧАТЬ