in alliance with Egypt and Ethiopia, which aimed at throwing off the oppressive tyranny of Assyria; as usual, however, the city-states of Phoenicia could not combine even against a common foe, and several broke away from Tyre, so Menander tells us, and sided with Assyria. In the great campaign of 701 Sennacherib came down upon the revolting provinces; he forced Lulī, king of Sidon, to fly for refuge to Cyprus, took his chief cities, and set up Tuba’lu (Ethbaal) as king, imposing a yearly tribute (K B. ii. 91). The blockade of Tyre by sea, significantly passed over in Sennacherib’s inscription, is described by Menander. The island-city proved to be impregnable, but it was the only possession left of what had been the extensive kingdom of Elulaeus. Sennacherib, however, so far accomplished his object as to break up the combination of Tyre and Sidon, which had grown into a powerful state.[1] At Sidon the successor of Ethbaal was Abd-milkath; in alliance with a Cilician chief he rebelled against Esarhaddon about the year 678, with disastrous consequences. Sidon was annihilated; Abd-milkath fell into the hands of Esarhaddon, who founded a new Sidon on the mainland, peopled it with foreigners, and called it after his own name. The old name, however, survived in popular usage; but the character of the city was changed, and till the time of Cyrus the kingdom of Sidon ceased to exist (K B. ii. 125 seq., 145, K A T.3 88). Tyre also came in for its share of hardship. Elulaeus was followed by Baal, who in 672 consented to join Tirhaka, the Ethiopian king of Egypt, in a rebellion against Assyria. Esarhaddon, on his way to Egypt for the second time, determined to deal out punishment; he blockaded Tyre, and raised earthworks on the shore and cut off the water-supply; but he did not capture the city itself. His monument found at Zenjirli represents the great king holding Baal of Tyre and Tirhaka of Egypt by cords fastened in their lips,[2] there is no evidence, however, that he actually took either of them prisoner. Early in the reign of Assur-bani-pal Tyre was besieged again (668), but Assur-bani-pal succeeded no better than his predecessors. Nevertheless Baal submitted in the end, along with the princes of Gebal and Arvad, Manasseh of Judah, and the other Canaanite chiefs; in the island of Cyprus the Assyrians carried all before them (K B. ii. 149 seq., 169, 173). On his return from the Arabian campaign Assur-bani-pal severely punished the rebellious inhabitants of Ushu (Palaetyrus) and Akko, and transported the survivors to Assyria (ibid. 229). In Phoenicia, as elsewhere, Assyrian rule created nothing and left nothing behind it but a record of barbarous conquest and extortion. An interesting sidelight is thrown upon this period by the list of the Thalassocracies in the Chronicon of Eusebius (p. 226, ed. Schoene), which places the 45 years of the sea-power of Phoenicia at a date which, with much probability, may be conjectured to lie between 709, when Cyprus submitted to Sargon, and 664, when Egypt threw off the rule of Assyria. If this dating is correct, and the Phoenician sea-power was at its height during these years, we can understand why Tyre gave so much trouble to the Assyrian kings.[3]
In the last crisis of the dying power of Assyria the Egyptians for a short time laid hands on Phoenicia; but after their defeat at the battle of Carchemish (605), the Chaldaeans became the masters of western Asia. Jeremiah’s allusion (xxv. 22) in 604 to the approaching downfall The Neo-Babylonian Period, 605–538 B.C. of the kings of Tyre and Sidon and the coast-land beyond the sea, i.e. the Phoenician settlements on the Mediterranean, seems to imply that the Phoenician states recovered some measure of independence; if they did it cannot have lasted long. In 588 Apries (Pharaoh Hophra) made an attempt to displace the Chaldaean supremacy; he defeated Tyre and Sidon, and terrorized the other cities into submission (Herod. ii. 161; Diod. Sic. i. 68). Some of the Phoenician chiefs, among them Ithobal II., the new king of Tyre, while forced to yield to a change of masters, were bold enough to declare their hostility to the Babylonians. This state of affairs did not escape the vigilance of Nebuchadrezzar. After the fall of Jerusalem he marched upon Phoenicia; Apries withdrew his army, and the siege of Tyre began. For thirteen years the great merchant city held out (585–573; Jos. c. Ap. i. 21; cf. Ezek. xxvi. 1 seq.). Ezekiel says that Nebuchadrezzar and his host had no reward for their heavy service against Tyre, and the presumption is that the city capitulated on favourable terms; for Ithobal’s reign ends with the close of the siege, and the royal family is subsequently found in Babylon. The king appointed by Nebuchadrezzar was Baal II. (574–564), after whose death a republic was formed under a single suffete or “judge” (shōfēt). Josephus (loc. cit.) is again our authority for the changes of government which followed until the monarchy was revived. At length under Hiram III. Phoenicia passed from the Chaldaeans to the Persians (538), and at the same time Amasis (Aḥmosi) II. of Egypt occupied Cyprus (Herod. ii. 182). There seems to have been no struggle; the great siege and the subsequent civil disorders had exhausted Tyre, and Sidon took its place as the leading state. About this time, too, Carthage made an effort for independence under Hanno the Great (538–521), the real founder of its fortunes; the old dependence upon Tyre was changed for a mere relation of piety observed by the annual sending of delegates (θεωροί) to the festival of Melkarth (Arrian ii. 24; Polyb. xxxi. 20, 12). The disasters and humiliations which befell Tyre during this and the foregoing period might suggest that its prosperity had been seriously damaged. But Tyre always counted for more in commerce than in politics; and in the year 586, just before the great siege, Ezekiel draws a vivid picture (ch. xxvii.) of the extent and splendour of its commercial relations. Even when cut off from its possessions on the mainland the city itself was not captured; its seafaring trade went on; and though by degrees the colonies were lost, yet the ties of race and sentiment remained strong enough to bind the Phoenicians of the mother-country to their kindred beyond the seas.
Constitution.—At this point it is convenient to mention what little is known about the constitution of the Phoenician states. All Canaanite analogy speaks for kingship as the oldest form of Phoenician government. In the native inscriptions the chief of the city in Phoenicia itself and in Cyprus is always called king. The royal houses claimed divine descent,[4] and the king could not be chosen outside their members. His power, however, was limited by the wealthy merchant families, who possessed great influence in public affairs; thus it was possible for war or peace to be decided at Tyre in the king’s absence, or at Sidon against his will (Arrian ii. 15 and 16; Curtius iv. 1, 15). The priest of Melkarth at Tyre was the second man in the kingdom. Associated with the prince was a council of elders; such was the case at Gebal (Byblus) from the earliest times to the latest (Ezek. xxvii. 9); at Sidon this council consisted of 100 members (Diod. xvi. 45), perhaps also at Tyre.[5] Inscriptions of the 3rd and 2nd centuries B.C. mention a Rab (chief) in Sidon, Cyprus and Gaulus (Gozo); what his position was it is difficult to say; in the colonies he may have been a district governor. During Nebuchadrezzar’s time, as we have seen, a republic took the place of the monarchy at Tyre, and the government was administered by a succession of suffetes (judges); they held office for short terms, and in one instance two ruled together for six years. Much later, in the 3rd century B.C., an inscription from Tyre mentions a suffete (NSI. No. 8) without adding more to our knowledge. Carthage, of course was governed by two suffetes, and these officers are frequently named in connexion with the Carthaginian colonies (NSI. p. 115 seq.); but we must be careful not to draw the inference that Phoenicia itself had any such magistrates. Under the Persians a federal bond was formed comprising Sidon, Tyre and Aradus, whose duty it
was to contribute 300 triremes to the Persian fleet (Herod. vii. 89),- ↑ The above interpretation of Menander and the Assyian evidence is based upon Ed. Meyer, Ency. Bib. col. 3755. For a different explanation see Landau, Beitr. z. Altertumsk. d. Or. vol. i., followed by Winckler, Altor. Forsch. ii. 65 sqq.; these scholars take Menander to refer to the later war of Esarhaddon and Assur-bani-pal against Baal of Tyre.
- ↑ See the facsimile in Ausgrabungen in Sendschirli (Berlin, 1893), and p. 17 for the above interpretation of it.
- ↑ John L. Myres, Journ. Hell. Studies (1906), xxvi. 84 seq., criticizing Winckler, Der Alte Orient (1905), vol. vii. pt. 2.
- ↑ So the Babylonians, Canaanites (e.g. in the case of the Nephilim, Gen. vi. 2), Arabs, Greeks, traced the descent of heroic families to the gods. W. R. Smith, Kinship and Marriage, p. 206; S. I. Curtis’s Primitive Sem. Rel. To-day (London, 1902), p. 112 seq.
- ↑ An inscr. from Tyre ma be read, “‘Abd ba‘al chief of the Hundred,” NSI. p. 129; Clermont-Ganneau, Recueil d'arch. or. ii. 294 seq.
