History of Phoenicia

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HISTORY

OF

P H OE N I C I A

by George Rawlinson, M.A.



First Published 1889 by Longmans, Green, and Co.



Camden Professor of Ancient History in the University of Oxford

Canon of Canterbury

Corresponding Member of the Royal Academy of Turin




TO THE

CHANCELLOR, VICE-CHANCELLOR, and SCHOLARS

Of The

UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

This Work

His Last as Occupant of a Professorial Chair

Is Dedicated

As a Token of Respect and Gratitude

By The

CAMDEN PROFESSOR

Oct. 1 MDCCCLXXXIX



PREPARER'S NOTE

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using an Oxford English Dictionary alphabet table.
Diacritical marks have been lost. Phoenician or other
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i.e. "{...}".

The numerous sketches and maps in the original have also
been omitted.


PREFACE

Histories of Phoenicia or of the Phoenicians were written towards the
middle of the present century by Movers and Kenrick. The elaborate work
of the former writer[01] collected into five moderate-sized volumes
all the notices that classical antiquity had preserved of the Religion,
History, Commerce, Art, &c., of this celebrated and interesting nation.
Kenrick, making a free use of the stores of knowledge thus accumulated,
added to them much information derived from modern research, and was
content to give to the world in a single volume of small size,[02] very
scantily illustrated, the ascertained results of criticism and inquiry
on the subject of the Phoenicians up to his own day. Forty-four years
have since elapsed; and in the course of them large additions have been
made to certain branches of the inquiry, while others have remained very
much as they were before. Travellers, like Robinson, Walpole, Tristram,
Renan, and Lortet, have thrown great additional light on the geography,
geology, fauna, and flora of the country. Excavators, like Renan and the
two Di Cesnolas, have caused the soil to yield up most valuable remains
bearing upon the architecture, the art, the industrial pursuits, and the
manners and customs of the people. Antiquaries, like M. Clermont-Ganneau
and MM. Perrot and Chipiez, have subjected the remains to careful
examination and criticism, and have definitively fixed the character
of Phoenician Art, and its position in the history of artistic effort.
Researches are still being carried on, both in Phoenicia Proper and in
the Phoenician dependency of Cyprus, which are likely still further to
enlarge our knowledge with respect to Phoenician Art and Archaeology; but
it is not probable that they will affect seriously the verdict already
delivered by competent judges on those subjects. The time therefore
appeared to the author to have come when, after nearly half a century of
silence, the history of the people might appropriately be rewritten. The
subject had long engaged his thoughts, closely connected as it is with
the histories of Egypt, and of the "Great Oriental Monarchies," which
for thirty years have been to him special objects of study; and a work
embodying the chief results of the recent investigations seemed to him
a not unsuitable termination to the historical efforts which his
resignation of the Professorship of Ancient History at Oxford, and his
entrance upon a new sphere of labour, bring naturally to an end.

The author wishes to express his vast obligations to MM. Perrot and
Chipiez for the invaluable assistance which he has derived from their
great work,[03] and to their publishers, the MM. Hachette, for their
liberality in allowing him the use of so large a number of MM. Perrot
and Chipiez' Illustrations. He is also much beholden to the same
gentlemen for the use of charts and drawings originally published in
the "Geographie Universelle." Other works from which he has drawn either
materials or illustrations, or both, are (besides Movers' and Kenrick's)
M. Ernest Renan's "Mission de Phenicie," General Di Cesnola's "Cyprus,"
A. Di Cesnola's "Salaminia," M. Ceccaldi's "Monuments Antiques de
Cypre," M. Daux's "Recherches sur les Emporia Pheniciens," the
"Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum," M. Clermont-Ganneau's "Imagerie
Phenicienne," Mr. Davis's "Carthage and her Remains," Gesenius's
"Scripturae Linguaeque Phoeniciae Monumenta," Lortet's "La Syrie
d'aujourd'hui," Serra di Falco's "Antichita della Sicilia," Walpole's
"Ansayrii," and Canon Tristram's "Land of Israel." The difficulty has
been to select from these copious stores the most salient and noteworthy
facts, and to marshal them in such a form as would make them readily
intelligible to the ordinary English reader. How far he has succeeded in
doing this he must leave the public to judge. In making his bow to them
as a "Reader" and Writer "of Histories,"[04] he has to thank them for a
degree of favour which has given a ready sale to all his previous works,
and has carried some of them through several editions.

CANTERBURY: August 1889.





HISTORY OF PHOENICIA



CHAPTER I--THE LAND

Phoenicia--Origin of the name--Spread of the name
southwards--Real length of Phoenicia along the coast--
Breadth and area--General character of the region--The
Plains--Plain of Sharon--Plain of Acre--Plain of Tyre--Plain
of Sidon--Plain of Berytus--Plain of Marathus--Hilly
regions--Mountain ranges--Carmel--Casius--Bargylus--Lebanon--
Beauty of Lebanon--Rivers--The Litany--The Nahr-el-Berid--
The Kadisha--The Adonis--The Lycus--The Tamyras--The
Bostrenus--The Zaherany--The Headlands--Main
characteristics, inaccessibility, picturesqueness,
productiveness.

Phoenice, or Phoenicia, was the name originally given by the Greeks--and
afterwards adopted from them by the Romans--to the coast region of the
Mediterranean, where it faces the west between the thirty-second and the
thirty-sixth parallels. Here, it would seem, in their early voyagings,
the Pre-Homeric Greeks first came upon a land where the palm-tree was
not only indigenous, but formed a leading and striking characteristic,
everywhere along the low sandy shore lifting its tuft of feathery
leaves into the bright blue sky, high above the undergrowth of fig, and
pomegranate, and alive. Hence they called the tract Phoenicia, or "the
Land of Palms;" and the people who inhabited it the Phoenicians, or "the
Palm-tree people."

The term was from the first applied with a good deal of vagueness. It
was probably originally given to the region opposite Cyprus, from Gabala
in the north--now Jebili--to Antaradus (Tortosa) and Marathus (Amrith)
towards the south, where the palm-tree was first seen growing in rich
abundance. The palm is the numismatic emblem of Aradus,[11] and though
not now very frequent in the region which Strabo calls "the Aradian
coast-tract,"[12] must anciently have been among its chief ornaments. As
the Grecian knowledge of the coast extended southward, and a richer and
still richer growth of the palm was continually noticed, almost every
town and every village being embosomed in a circle of palm groves, the
name extended itself until it reached as far south at any rate as Gaza,
or (according to some) as Rhinocolura and the Torrens AEgypti. Northward
the name seems never to have passed beyond Cape Posideium (Possidi) at
the foot of Mount Casius, the tract between this and the range of Taurus
being always known as Syria, never as Phoenecia or Phoenice.

The entire length of the coast between the limits of Cape Possidi and
Rhinocolura is, without reckoning the lesser indentations, about 380
miles, or nearly the same as that of Portugal. The indentations of the
coast-line are slight. From Rhinocolura to Mount Carmel, a distance of
150 miles, not a single strong promontory asserts itself, nor is there a
single bay of sufficient depth to attract the attention of geographers.
Carmel itself is a notable headland, and shelters a bay of some size;
but these once passed the old uniformity returns, the line being again
almost unbroken for a distance of seventy-five miles, from Haifa to
Beyrout (Berytus). North of Beyrout we find a little more variety.
The coast projects in a tolerably bold sweep between the thirty-fourth
parallel and Tripolis (Tarabulus) and recedes almost correspondingly
between Tripolis and Tortosa (Antaradus), so that a deepish bay is
formed between Lat. 34º 27' and Lat. 34º 45', whence the line again runs
northward unindented for fifty miles, to beyond Gabala (Jebili).
After this, between Gabala and Cape Posideium there is considerable
irregularity, the whole tract being mountainous, and spurs from Bargylus
and Casius running down into the sea and forming a succession of
headlands, of which Cape Posideium is the most remarkable.

But while the name Phoenicia is applied geographically to this long
extent--nearly 400 miles--of coast-line, historically and ethnically
it has to be reduced within considerably narrower limits. A race, quite
distinct from that of the Phoenicians, was settled from an early date
on the southern portion of the west Asian coast, where it verges towards
Africa. From Jabneh (Yebna) southwards was Palestine, the country of the
Philistines, perhaps even from Joppa (Jaffa), which is made the boundary
by Mela.[13] Thus at least eighty miles of coast-line must be deducted
from the 380, and the length of Phoenicia along the Mediterranean shore
must be regarded as not exceeding three hundred miles.

The width varied from eight or ten miles to thirty. We must regard
as the eastern boundary of Phoenicia the high ridge which forms the
watershed between the streams that flow eastward toward the Orontes,
Litany, and Jordan, and those that flow westward into the Mediterranean.
It is difficult to say what was the _average_ width, but perhaps it may
be fairly estimated at about fifteen miles. In this case the entire area
would have been about 4,500 square miles.

The tract was one of a remarkably diversified character. Lofty mountain,
steep wooded hill, chalky slope, rich alluvial plain, and sandy shore
succeeded each other, each having its own charm, which was enhanced by
contrast. The sand is confined to a comparatively narrow strip along the
seashore,[14] and to the sites of ancient harbours now filled up. It is
exceedingly fine and of excellent silicious quality, especially in the
vicinity of Sidon and at the foot of Mount Carmel. The most remarkable
plains are those of Sharon, Acre, Tyre, Sidon, Beyrout, and Marathus.
Sharon, so dear to the Hebrew poets,[15] is the maritime tract
intervening between the highland of Samaria and the Mediterranean,
extending from Joppa to the southern foot of Carmel--a distance of
nearly sixty miles--and watered by the Chorseas, the Kaneh, and other
rivers. It is a smooth, very slightly undulating tract, about ten
miles in width from the sea to the foot of the mountains, which rise up
abruptly from it without any intervening region of hills, and seem to
bound it as a wall, above which tower the huge rounded masses of Ebal
and Gerizim, with the wooded cone, on which stood Samaria, nestling at
their feet.[16] The sluggish streams, several of them containing water
during the whole of the year, make their way across it between reedy
banks,[17] and generally spread out before reaching the shore into wide
marshes, which might be easily utilised for purposes of irrigation.
The soil is extremely rich, varying from bright red to deep black,
and producing enormous crops of weeds or grain, according as it is
cultivated or left in a state of nature. Towards the south the view over
the region has been thus described: "From Ramleh there is a wide view
on every side, presenting a prospect rarely surpassed in richness and
beauty. I could liken it to nothing but the great plain of the Rhine
by Heidelberg or, better still, to the vast plains of Lombardy, as seen
from the cathedral of Milan and elsewhere. In the east the frowning
mountains of Judah rose abruptly from the tract at their foot; while on
the west, in fine contrast, the glittering waves of the Mediterranean
Sea associated our thoughts with Europe. Towards the north and south,
as far as the eye could reach, the beautiful plain was spread out like a
carpet at our feet, variegated with tracts of brown from which the crops
had just been taken, and with fields still rich with the yellow of the
ripe corn, or green with the springing millet. Immediately below us
the eye rested on the immense olive groves of Ramleh and Lydda, and the
picturesque towers and minarets and domes of these large villages. In
the plain itself were not many villages, but the tract of hills and
the mountain-side beyond, especially in the north-east, were perfectly
studded with them, and as now seen in the reflected beams of the setting
sun they seemed like white villas and hamlets among the dark hills,
presenting an appearance of thriftiness and beauty which certainly would
not stand a closer examination."[18] Towards its northern end Sharon
is narrowed by the low hills which gather round the western flanks
of Carmel, and gradually encroach upon the plain until it terminates
against the shoulder of the mountain itself, leaving only a narrow beach
at the foot of the promontory by which it is possible to communicate
with the next plain towards the north.[19]

Compared with Sharon the plain of Acre is unimportant and of small
extent. It reaches about eight miles along the shore, from the foot of
Carmel to the headland on which the town of Acre stands, and has a width
between the shore and the hills of about six miles. Like Sharon it is
noted for its fertility. Watered by the two permanent streams of the
Kishon and the Belus, it possesses a rich soil, which is said to be at
present "perhaps the best cultivated and producing the most luxuriant
crops, both of corn and weeds, of any in Palestine."[110] The Kishon
waters it on the south, where it approaches Carmel, and is a broad
stream,[111] though easily fordable towards its mouth. The Belus
(Namaane) flows through it towards the north, washing Acre itself, and
is a stream of even greater volume than the Kishon, though it has but a
short course.

The third of the Phoenician plains, as we proceed from south to north,
is that of Tyre. This is a long but comparatively narrow strip, reaching
from the Ras-el-Abiad towards the south to Sarepta on the north, a
distance of about twenty miles, but in no part more than five miles
across, and generally less than two miles. It is watered about midway
by the copious stream of the Kasimiyeh or Litany, which, rising east of
Lebanon in the Buka'a or Coelesyrian valley, forces its way through the
mountain chain by a series of tremendous gorges, and debouches upon the
Tyrian lowland about three miles to the south-east of the present city,
near the modern Khan-el-Kasimiyeh, whence it flows peaceably to the sea
with many windings through a broad low tract of meadow-land. Other
rills and rivulets descending from the west flank of the great mountain
increase the productiveness of the plain, while copious fountains of
water gush forth with surprising force in places, more especially at
Ras-el-Ain, three miles from Tyre, to the south.[112] The plain is, even
at the present day, to a large extent covered with orchards, gardens,
and cultivated fields, in which are grown rich crops of tobacco, cotton,
and cereals.

The plain of Sidon, which follows that of Tyre, and is sometimes
regarded as a part of it,[113] extends from a little north of Sarepta to
the Ras-el-Jajunieh, a distance of about ten miles, and resembles that
of Tyre in its principal features. It is long and narrow, never more
than about two miles in width, but well-watered and very fertile. The
principal streams are the Bostrenus (Nahr-el-Auly) in the north, just
inside the promontory of Jajunieh, the Nahr-Sanik, south of Sidon, a
torrent dry in the summer-time,[114] and the Nahr-ez-Zaherany, two and
a half miles north of Sarepta, a river of moderate capacity. Fine
fountains also burst from the earth in the plain itself, as the
Ain-el-Kanterah and the Ain-el-Burak,[115] between Sarepta and the
Zaherany river. Irrigation is easy and is largely used, with the result
that the fruits and vegetables of Saida and its environs have the name
of being among the finest of the country.[116]

The plain of Berytus (Beyrout) is the most contracted of all the
Phoenician plains that are at all noticeable. It lies south, south-east,
and east of the city, intervening between the high dunes or sand-hills
which form the western portion of the Beyrout peninsula, and the skirts
of Lebanon, which here approach very near to the sea. The plain begins
at Wady Shuweifat on the south, about four miles from the town of
Beyrout, and extends northwards to the sea on the western side of
the Nahr Beyrout. The northern part of the plain is known as
Ard-el-Burajineh. The plain is deficient in water,[117] yet is
cultivated in olives and mulberries, and contains the largest olive
grove in all Syria. A little beyond its western edge is the famous
pine forest[118] from which (according to some) Berytus derived its
name.[119]

The plain of Marathus is, next to Sharon, the most extensive in
Phoenicia. It stretches from Jebili (Gabala) on the north to Arka
towards the south, a distance of about sixty miles, and has a width
varying from two to ten miles. The rock crops out from it in places and
it is broken between Tortosa and Hammam by a line of low hills running
parallel with the shore.[120] The principal streams which water it are
the Nahr-el-Melk, or Badas, six miles south of Jebili, the Nahr Amrith,
a strong running brook which empties itself into the sea a few miles
south of Tortosa (Antaradus), the Nahr Kuble, which joins the Nahr
Amrith near its mouth, and the Eleutherus or Nahr-el-Kabir, which
reaches the sea a little north of Arka. Of these the Eleutherus is the
most important. "It is a considerable stream even in summer, and in
the rainy season it is a barrier to intercourse, caravans sometimes
remaining encamped on its banks for several weeks, unable to
cross."[121] The soil of the plain is shallow, the rock lying always
near the surface; the streams are allowed to run to waste and form
marshes, which breed malaria; a scanty population scarcely attempts more
than the rudest and most inefficient cultivation; and the consequence is
that the tract at present is almost a desert. Nature, however, shows its
capabilities by covering it in the spring-time from end to end with a
"carpet of flowers."[122]

From the edges of the plains, and sometimes from the very shore of the
sea, rise up chalky slopes or steep rounded hills, partly left to nature
and covered with trees and shrubs, partly at the present day cultivated
and studded with villages. The hilly region forms generally an
intermediate tract between the high mountains and the plains already
described; but, not unfrequently, it commences at the water's edge, and
fills with its undulations the entire space, leaving not even a strip
of lowland. This is especially the case in the central region between
Berytus and Arka, opposite the highest portion of the Lebanon; and again
in the north between Cape Possidi and Jebili, opposite the more northern
part of Bargylus. The hilly region in these places is a broad tract
of alternate wooded heights and deep romantic valleys, with streams
murmuring amid their shades. Sometimes the hills are cultivated in
terraces, on which grow vines and olives, but more often they remain in
their pristine condition, clothed with masses of tangled underwood.

The mountain ranges, which belong in some measure to the geography of
Phoenicia, are four in number--Carmel, Casius, Bargylus, and Lebanon.
Carmel is a long hog-backed ridge, running in almost a straight line
from north-west to south-east, from the promontory which forms the
western protection of the bay of Acre to El-Ledjun, on the southern
verge of the great plain of Esdraelon, a distance of about twenty-two
miles. It is a limestone formation, and rises up abruptly from the side
of the bay of Acre, with flanks so steep and rugged that the traveller
must dismount in order to ascend them,[123] but slopes more gently
towards the south, where it is comparatively easy of access. The
greatest elevation which it attains is about Lat. 32º 4', where it
reaches the height of rather more than 1,200 feet; from this it falls
gradually as it nears the shore, until at the convent, with which the
western extremity is crowned, the height above the sea is no more than
582 feet. In ancient times the whole mountain was thickly wooded,[124]
but at present, though it contains "rocky dells" where there are "thick
jungles of copse,"[125] and is covered in places with olive groves and
thickets of dwarf oak, yet its appearance is rather that of a park
than of a forest, long stretches of grass alternating with patches of
woodland and "shrubberies, thicker than any in Central Palestine," while
the larger trees grow in clumps or singly, and there is nowhere, as in
Lebanon, any dense growth, or even any considerable grove, of forest
trees. But the beauty of the tract is conspicuous; and if Carmel means,
as some interpret, a "garden" rather than a "forest," it may be held
to well justify its appellation. "The whole mountain-side," says one
traveller,[126] "was dressed with blossoms and flowering shrubs and
fragrant herbs." "There is not a flower," says another,[127] "that I
have seen in Galilee, or on the plains along the coast, that I do not
find on Carmel, still the fragrant, lovely mountain that he was of old."

The geological structure of Carmel is, in the main, what is called "the
Jura formation," or "the upper oolite"--a soft white limestone, with
nodules and veins of flint. At the western extremity, where it overhangs
the Mediterranean, are found chalk, and tertiary breccia formed of
fragments of chalk and flint. On the north-east of the mountain, beyond
the Nahr-el-Mukattah, plutonic rocks appear, breaking through the
deposit strata, and forming the beginning of the basalt formation
which runs through the plain of Esdraelon to Tabor and the Sea of
Galilee.[128] Like most limestone formations, Carmel abounds in caves,
which are said to be more than 2,000 in number,[129] and are often of
great length and extremely tortuous.

Carmel, the great southern headland of Phoenicia, is balanced in a
certain sense by the extreme northern headland of Casius. Mount Casius
is, strictly speaking, the termination of a spur from Bargylus; but
it has so marked and peculiar a character that it seems entitled to
separate description. Rising up abruptly from the Mediterranean to the
height of 5,318 feet, it dominates the entire region in its vicinity,
and from the sea forms a landmark that is extraordinarily conspicuous.
Forests of fine trees clothe its flanks, but the lofty summit towers
high above them, a bare mass of rock, known at the present day as
Jebel-el-Akra, or "the Bald Mountain." It is formed mainly of the same
cretaceous limestone as the other mountains of these parts, and like
them has a rounded summit; but rocks of igneous origin enter into
its geological structure; and in its vegetation it more resembles the
mountain ranges of Taurus and Amanus than those of southern Syria and
Palestine. On its north-eastern prolongation, which is washed by the
Orontes, lay the enchanting pleasure-ground of Daphne, bubbling with
fountains, and bright with flowering shrubs, where from a remote
antiquity the Syrians held frequent festival to their favourite
deity--the "Dea Syra"--the great nature goddess.

The elevated tract known to the ancients as Bargylus, and to modern
geographers as the Ansayrieh or Nasariyeh mountain-region, runs at right
angles to the spur terminating in the Mount Casius, and extends from the
Orontes near Antioch to the valley of the Eleutherus. This is a distance
of not less than a hundred miles. The range forms the western boundary
of the lower Coelesyrian valley, which abuts upon it towards the east,
while westward it looks down upon the region, partly hill, partly
lowland, which may be regarded as constituting "Northern Phoenicia."
The axis of the range is almost due north and south, but with a slight
deflection towards the south-east. Bargylus is not a chain comparable
to Lebanon, but still it is a romantic and picturesque region. The lower
spurs towards the west are clothed with olive grounds and vineyards,
or covered with myrtles and rhododendrons; between them are broad open
valleys, productive of tobacco and corn. Higher up "the scenery becomes
wild and bold; hill rises to mountain; soft springing green corn gives
place to sterner crag, smooth plain to precipitous heights;"[130] and
if in the more elevated region the majesty of the cedar is wanting,
yet forests of fir and pine abound, and creep up the mountain-side, in
places almost to the summit, while here and there bare masses of rock
protrude themselves, and crag and cliff rise into the clouds that hang
about the highest summits. Water abounds throughout the region, which
is the parent of numerous streams, as the northern Nahr-el-Kebir, which
flows into the sea by Latakia, the Nahr-el-Melk, the Nahr Amrith, the
Nahr Kuble, the Nahr-el-Abrath, and many others. From the conformation
of the land they have of necessity short courses; but each and all of
them spread along their banks a rich verdure and an uncommon fertility.