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HISTORY OF PHOENICIA
HISTORY OF PHOENICIA GEORGE RAWLINSON 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
The original text contains a number of characters that are not
available even in 8-bit Windows text. Where possible these have
been represented with a similar letter but some things e.g.
Hebrew script have been omitted.
The 8-bit version of this text includes Windows font characters.
These may be lost in 7-bit versions of the text or when viewed
with different fonts.
Greek text has been transliterated within brackets "{}" using an
Oxford English Dictionary alphabet table. Diacritical marks have
been lost. Ph?nician or other Semitic text has been replaced with
an ellipsis in brackets i.e. "{...}".
The numerous sketches and maps in the original have also been
omitted.
PREFACE
Histories of Ph?nicia or of the Ph?nicians were written towards the
middle of the present century by Movers and Kenrick. The elaborate
work of the former writer[1] 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[2] very scantily illustrated the ascertained
results of criticism and inquiry on the subject of the Ph?nicians 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 Ph?nician Art and its position in the history of artistic effort.
Researches are still being carried on both in Ph?nicia Proper and in
the Ph?nician dependency of Cyprus which are likely still further to
enlarge our knowledge with respect to Ph?nician Art and Arch?ology;
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[3] 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 "G?ographie 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 Ph?nicie" General Di
Cesnola's "Cyprus" A. Di Cesnola's "Salaminia" M. Ceccaldi's
"Monuments Antiques de Cypre" M. Daux's "Recherches sur les Emporia
Ph?niciens" the "Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum" M. Clermont-
Ganneau's "Imagerie Ph?nicienne" Mr. Davis's "Carthage and her
Remains" Gesenius's "Scriptur? Lingu?que Ph?nici? Monumenta"
Lortet's "La Syrie d'aujourd'hui" Serra di Falco's "Antichit? 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"[4] 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 PH?NICIA
CHAPTER I
THE LAND
Ph?nicia--Origin of the name--Spread of the name southwards--Real
length of Ph?nicia 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.
Ph?nic? or Ph?nicia 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 Ph?nicia or "the Land of Palms;" and the people who inhabited
it the Ph?nicians 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[1] and
though not now very frequent in the region which Strabo calls "the
Aradian coast-tract"[2] 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 ?gypti. 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 Ph?necia or Ph?nic?.
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. 34? 27? and Lat. 34? 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 Ph?nicia 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 Ph?nicians 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.[3] Thus at least eighty miles of coast-line
must be deducted from the 380 and the length of Ph?nicia 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 Ph?nicia the high ridge which forms the
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