divided; Aradus, Simyra, Sidon supported the rebellion; Ribhabad, the vassal of Byblus, and Abi-melech, king of Tyre, held out for Egypt; but while all the towns made professions of fidelity, they were scheming for their own interests, and in the end Egypt lost them all except Byblus. The tablets which reveal this state of affairs are written in the language and script of Babylonia, and thus show indirectly the extent to which Babylonian culture had penetrated Palestine and Phoenicia; at the same time they illustrate the closeness of the relations between the Canaanite towns and the dominant power of Egypt. After the reign of Amenophis IV. (1376-1366) that power collapsed altogether; but his successors attempted to recover it, and Ramses (Rameses) II. reconquered Phoenicia as far as Beirut, and carved three tablets on the rock beside the Nahr el-Kelb to commemorate his victories; under the XIXth and XXth Dynasties this seems to have remained the northern limit of the Egyptian Empire. But in the reign of Ramses III. (c. 1200) great changes began to occur owing to the invasion of Syria by peoples from Asia Minor and Europe, which ended in the establishment of the Philistines on the coast near Ashkelon. The successors of Ramses III. lost their hold over Canaan; the XXIst Dynasty no longer intervened in the affairs of Syria; but Sheshonk (Shishak), the founder of the XXIInd Dynasty, about 928 B.C. endeavoured to assert the ancient supremacy of Egypt (cf. 1 Kings xiv. 25 sqq.), but his successes were not lasting, and, as we learn from the Old Testament, the power of Egypt became henceforward practically ineffective. Not until 608 did a Pharaoh (Necho) lead an Egyptian army so far north, and he was defeated by Nebuchadrezzar. During the period which elapsed before the rise of the Assyrian power in Syria the Phoenicians were left to themselves. This was the period of their development, and Tyre became the leading city of Phoenicia.
Between the withdrawal of the Egyptian rule in Syria and the western advance of Assyria there comes an interval during Independence of Phoenicia. which the city-states of Phoenicia owned no suzerain. The history of this period is mainly a history of Tyre, which not only rose to a sort of hegemony among the Phoenician states, but founded colonies beyond the seas (below). From 970 to 772 B.C. the bare outline of events is supplied by extracts from two Hellenistic historians, Menander of Ephesus and Dius (largely dependent upon Menander), which have been preserved by Josephus, Ant. viii. 5, 3 and c. Ap. i. 17, 18. From the data given in these passages we learn that Hiram I., son of Abi-baal, reigned in Tyre from 970 to 936 B.C. He enlarged the island-town to the east, restored and enriched the temples, built new ones to Heracles (i.e. Melkarth or Melqarth) and Astarte, founded the feast of the awakening of Heracles in the month Peritius, and reduced the inhabitants of Utica to their allegiance. The Tyrian annals, moreover, alluded to the connexion between Hiram and Solomon. Before this time, indeed, the Phoenicians had no doubt lived on friendly terms with the Israelites[1] (cf. Judges v. 17; Gen. xlix. 13); but the two nations seem to have drawn closer in the time of Solomon. 2 Sam. v. 11, which brings David and Hiram together, probably antedates what happened in the following reign. For Solomon's palace and temple Hiram contributed cedar and fir trees as well as workmen, receiving in exchange large annual payments of oil and wine, supplies which Phoenicia must have drawn regularly from Israelite districts (1 Kings v. 9, 11; cf. Ezek. xxvii. 17; Ezr. iii. 7; Acts xii. 20; Jos. Ant. xiv. 10, 6); finally, in return for the gold which he furnished for the temple, Hiram received the grant of a territory in Galilee (Cabul, 1 Kings ix. 10-14).[2] This alliance between the two monarchs led to a joint expedition from Eziongeber on the Gulf of Akaba (strictly Aqăba) to Ophir (? on the east coast of Arabia, see Ophir) for purposes of trade. The list of Hiram's successors given by Josephus indicates frequent changes of dynasty until the time of Ithobal I. priest of Astarte, whose reign (887-855) marks a return to more settled rule. In contrast to Hiram I., king of Tyre, Ithobal or Ethbaal is styled in 1 Kings xvi. 31 “king of the Sidonians,” i.e. of the Phoenicians, showing that in the interval the kings of Tyre had extended their rule over the other Phoenician cities. Under Ethbaal further expansion is recorded; Botrys north of Byblus and Aoza in North Africa are said to have been founded by him; the more famous Carthage owed its origin to the civil discords which followed the death of Metten I. (820), his next successor but one. According to tradition, Metten's son Pygmalion (820-773) slew the husband of his sister Elissa or Dido; whereupon she fled and founded Carthage (q.v.) in Libya (813; Justin xviii. 4-6). At this point Josephus's extracts from Menander come to an end.
From the time of Ethbaal onwards the independence of Phoenicia was threatened by the advance of Assyria. So far Assyrian Rule, 876-605 B.C. back as 1100 B.C. Tiglath-pileser I. had invaded North Phoenicia, and in order to secure a harbour on the he occupied Arvad (Aradus); but no permanent occupation followed. In the 9th century, however, the systematic conquest of the west began. In 876 B.C. Assur-nazir-pal III. “washed his weapons in the great sea,” and exacted tribute from the kings of Tyre, Sidon, Byblus and other cities, including Arvad (Keilinschr. Bibliothek, i. 109). The inscriptions of his son Shalmaneser II. mention the taking of tribute from the Tyrians and Sidonians in 846 and again in 849; the Byblians are included at the latter date, and among the kings defeated at Karkar in 854 or 853 was Metten-baal, king of the Arvadites (ibid. pp. 141, 143, 173). Thus Shalmaneser completed the conquests of his predecessor on the Phoenician coast, and established a supremacy which lasted for over a hundred years and was acknowledged by occasional payments of tribute. In 741 Tiglath-pileser III. mentions on his tribute-lists “Ḥirûm of Tyre”; and here for the first time a piece of native evidence becomes available. The earliest Phoenician inscription at present known (CIS. i. 5 = NSI. No. 11) is engraved upon the fragments of a bronze bowl dedicated by a certain governor of Qarth-ḥadasht (or Karti-Hadasti, “New City,” i.e. Citium), “servant of Hiram king of the Sidonians to Baal of Lebanon.” It is to be noted that this Hiram II. was not only king of Tyre, as the Assyrian inscription calls him, but of Sidon too; and further, that by this time Tyre had established a colony in Cyprus (q.v.). In Tiglath-pileser's Philistine campaign of 734 Byblus and Aradus paid tribute, and an Assyrian chief officer (the Rab-shakeh) was sent to Tyre and extorted from the king, now Metten or Mattūn, the large sum of 150 talents of gold (KB. ii. 23). For the period which follows a certain amount of information is furnished by Menander (in Jos. Ant. ix. 14, 2). Elulaeus IX., in Assyrian Lulī, who ruled under the name of Pylas, was king of Tyre, Sidon, and other cities at this time (c. 725-690), and at the beginning of his reign suffered from an invasion by Shalmaneser IV. or Salampsas (Jos.); this was probably the expedition against Hoshea of Samaria in 725; “the king of Assyria . . . overran all Phoenicia, but soon made peace with them all and returned back.” In the reign of Sargon Phoenicia itself seems to have been left alone; but the inhabitants of Citium revolted, showing that the authority of Tyre in Cyprus had grown weak; and Sargon received the submission of seven Cyprian princes, and set up in Larnaca (probably in 709) the triumphal stele now in the Berlin Museum (Schrader, Cuneif. Inscr. and O. T., 2nd ed., vol. ii. p. 87). But Elulaeus, according to Menander, suppressed the revolt of Citium, and early in the reign of Sennacherib joined the league of Philistia and Judah,
- ↑ In Judges x. 12 (cf. v. 6, iii. 3) the Sidonians are mentioned among the oppressors of Israel; but there is no record of any invasion of Israel by the Phoenicians, and the statement is due to the post-exilic editor who introduced generalizations of ancient history into the book of Judges.
- ↑ Jos. Ant. viii. 3, 1, dates the building of Solomon's temple in the 11th year of Hiram, and 420 years after the foundation of Tyre. This gives a Tyrian era which began in 1198-1197 B.C., i.e. at the time when the Philistines settled on the coast of Canaan, an event which had considerable effect upon the cities of Phoenicia (above, Justin xviii. 3). In the Tyrian annals (Jos. c. Ap. i. 18) the reference was probably to the felling of timber in Lebanon for Hiram's temples; Josephus then misinterpreted this by 1 Kings v. 6.
