[586-532 B.C.]

Jerusalem with joy: the gate which barred the nations was broken, another commercial route was opened up. But according to Menander, in 587 Nebuchadrezzar had already begun to blockade Ithobaal II in his island. Tyre resisted longer than ever before, and Ithobaal II did not surrender for thirteen years (574), and probably then only because he was compelled to do so by the straits to which the isolation from the mainland and the cessation of all industries had reduced his subjects. The town was neither taken by storm nor plundered and ruined. Ithobaal's family had to remove to Babylon, so that in case Baal II, to whom Nebuchadrezzar gave Tyre in fee, should prove insubordinate, the Babylonians might not want for pretenders to the crown. To frighten the Pharaohs from further attempts to interfere, Nebuchadrezzar undertook a campaign against Egypt (in 568). The Tyrians remained docile. Nabonidus still called Gaza the southernmost landmark of his kingdom.

The reign of Baal II, which lasted ten years (to 564), was followed by an interregnum, a period in which Tyre was not under kings, but under judges, suffets—that is, rulers who could lay claim to no sort of legal right. Thus Tyre was in a state of anarchy. Finally a party prevailed, which sent for a legitimate king from Babylon, namely Maharbaal (Greek Merbalos), who reigned four years. He was succeeded by his brother Hiram (III), who was also fetched from Babylon. The annals of Tyre place the transference of power into the hands of Cyrus, the Persian, in the fourteenth year of the twenty years' reign of Hiram III (538 B.C.). As a matter of course, when Babylon fell into the hands of the Persians, Phoenicia, like the rest of Syria, also changed masters. It seems as though the wearisome siege of Tyre, under Nebuchadrezzar, and the period of anarchy which followed it, had stifled in the Tyrians the last remains of the desire for independence. Hiram's passive demeanour may have been determined by doubt of the safety of his own throne, if not by considerations respecting his kinsmen who had remained at Babylon, and dread of the nomination of a rival king by Cyrus; and if Hiram possessed some of the hereditary wisdom of the former princes of Tyre, who appeared even to Ezekiel as in their way "wiser than Daniel," he may also have recognised in the Persians the people to whom belonged the future in southwestern Asia.

The modest extent of Phoenicia did not, from the first, correspond to the inordinate number and distant position of the colonies, which the Phonicians, chiefly for the sake of the successful preservation of their commercial interests, had been obliged to establish on foreign shores. The loss in internal strength and able-bodied population thus inflicted on the mother country, was not compensated by the treasures laid up in that mother country itself, whose surroundings permitted of no extension of territory, and whose own prosperity would have been permanently hazarded by any attempt at an aggressive increase of power. And if, in many instances, the despatch of emigrants may have disposed of an excess of population, nothing could prevent the colonies from becoming, in course of time, more and more estranged from the interest of the mother city, and attaining a position in which they were entirely dependent on their own resources. To sail from the Syrian coast to Gades (Cadiz), took eighty days in the time of the Greeks, and before that probably much longer, and it was necessary to traverse the whole of the Mediterranean. Even if Phoenicia had been spared the continual pressure of the exigencies of war, it would still have been impossible permanently to maintain the dominion over the colonies in their entire extent, and to prevent the development of independence. But the

very period in which the Phoenicians had most to suffer from attacks of the Assyrians, when the inhabitants of Tyre had to confine themselves to the defence of their citadel in the sea, coincides with the time in which the Hellenes founded their colonies in Sicily. The immediate connection with the Phoenicians of the west was thus lost. The latter were now compelled to defend themselves against the adversary with their own arms, and, as it were, with a complete change of front. At the same time, in the beginning of the seventh century, according to all appearance, there arose in the land of Tarshish a native dynasty, whose representative in legend is the long-lived king, Arganthonius, who is supposed to have attained the considerable age of one hundred and fifty years, and the rulers of this dynasty no longer exclusively favoured the commerce of the Phoenicians. When, about the year 690, the merchant Chalæus of Samos, arrived there, he was able unmolested to sell so much silver, that he is said to have made sixty talents by the transaction, and his example was imitated, especially by Phoenician seamen. Wherever the Hellenic merchant or seaman was admitted, he began to cast the Phonician into the shade, and when, in the reign of Psamthek I, Egypt made herself more than ever accessible to foreign intercourse, it was not the Phoenicians but the Hellenes who derived the most advantages from the fact, although it may be true that, at Neku's bidding, the Phoenician seamen were the first who attempted the circumnavigation of Africa, and successfully accomplished it. In Cilicia, even before the Persian epoch, Hellenic civilisation had begun to be generally adopted, and about the same time at which Phoenicia became subject to Cyrus, the towns of Cyprus, which had long been for the most part Hellenic, passed, though only temporarily, under the supremacy of Egypt. From this date down to the time of Alexander the Great, the history of Phoenicia forms a part of the history of the Persian empire, while from the middle of the seventh century B.C. the history of the Phoenicians of the west, merges more and more in that of the city which there constituted herself the energetic mistress of the colonies; that history is connected in the closest fashion with the destinies of Carthage.d

ALTHOUGH Tyre does not appear to have lost its independence in its wars with Nebuchadrezzar, it was impossible that it should endure a siege of thirteen years without great injury to its prosperity. At the commencement of the Babylonian war it was evidently at the head of the Phoenician states; the people of Sidon and Aradus furnished its fleet with mariners and soldiers; the artisans of Byblus wrought in its dockyards. But from this time the pre-eminence of the Tyrians is lost. Aahmes II dispossessed them of Cyprus, though a family of Tyrian origin seems to have acquired the sovereignty in Salamis, which they retained till deprived of it by Evagoras. We do not find any mention made of the Phoenician naval states, as forming a part of the alliance into which the Babylonians, Lydians, and Egyptians entered, for the purpose of resisting the danger which threatened them all from the rising power of Cyrus. But whether they were connected during this time with Babylon, or, as is more probable, with Egypt, whose power had revived under Aahmes II, they would be equally in opposition to the policy of Persia; and it was as a preparatory step towards obtaining possession of the seacoast, that Cyrus secured himself an ally in Palestine, by showing the Jews other marks of favour, and allowing them to rebuild Jerusalem, in doing which they availed themselves of the aid of Sidon and Tyre in felling timber on Lebanon. Without this security, it would have been very impolitic in Persia to allow the fortification of a place of such natural strength as Jerusalem.

During the whole of his reign we find no mention made of his employing the Phoenician navy in his enterprises, which indeed were exclusively military. Towards its close he unquestionably meditated an expedition against Egypt; but his attention was drawn off to the nomadic nations on his north-eastern frontier, in warfare with whom he lost his life. Xenophon indeed attributes to him the conquest of Cyprus, Phoenicia, and Egypt, in his Cyropædia; but his assertion has not obtained credit. Cambyses, his son, almost immediately undertook an expedition against Egypt, in which he employed the naval forces of the Phoenicians. Both Cyprus and Phoenicia gave themselves up unresistingly to the power which was evidently destined to inherit the ascendency in Western Asia, previously possessed by Babylon. When the conquest of Egypt was effected, he wished to attack Carthage; but the Phoenicians refused, alleging the religious obligations which forbade them to take part

[525-466 B.C.] in a war against their own descendants. Cambyses had no means of compelling them; he had no fleet of his own; they had given themselves up, by preference rather than necessity, to the Persians. The Cyprians had not the same motive as the Phoenicians for refusing to act against Carthage; but the strength of the naval armament lay in the Phoenician ships, and Cambyses desisted from his project.

In the more perfect organisation, both of its revenues and its forces, which the Persian monarchy owed to Darius, the navy of Phoenicia became a regular and very important part of the public power. By its means Darius made himself master of the islands on the coast of Asia Minor. Along with Palestine and Cyprus it formed the fifth of the twenty nomes into which his empire was divided, and they paid jointly a tribute of 350 talents-just half the money-tribute which was levied from Egypt. Although these nomes are called by the general name of satrapies, and had each a separate governor, it does not appear that the internal constitution of the several kingdoms was disturbed; at least, in Phoenicia and in Cyprus the native princes continued to reign.

The commercial prosperity of Tyre and Sidon remained unimpaired, except by the rivalry of their own colonies of Carthage and Cadiz; for the Persians, like the Turks and Tartars, never became themselves a maritime power. The rich traffic of Arabia and the East still passed through the hands of the Phoenicians, and their manufactories of purple and glass were in full activity. Throughout the long struggle between Greece and Persia, which began with the burning of Sardis, the Phoenicians constituted the naval strength of the Persian armaments. The Cilician and Egyptian troops, destined for the reduction of Cyprus, were conveyed to that island in Phoenician ships. In the conflict by sea and land which subsequently took place, the Phoenician fleet was defeated by that of the Ionian Greeks; but the Persians having been at the same time successful by land, the revolt was suppressed, and Cyprus, after a year's independence, returned to its subjection. The Persian commanders proceeded from the conquest of Cyprus to attack the Ionian cities themselves. A naval force of 600 vessels was assembled for the reduction of Miletus, the city of Aristagoras, by whom the Ionian revolt had been instigated, among which the Phoenicians were conspicuous for their zeal and bravery. In the sea-fight off the island of Lade, opposite to Miletus, they defeated the Ionians, who were deficient in naval training and discipline, and weakened by the defection of the greater part of the Samians. The conquest of Miletus speedily followed; and the Phœnician fleet, having subdued the islands of Asiatic Greece, crossed over to the Thracian Chersonesus. Miltiades, afterwards the conqueror of Marathon, narrowly escaped capture by one of their vessels, and his son Metiochus fell into their hands. It was no doubt by means of the Phoenician fleet, as well as that of the Ionians, that the islands of the Ægean were reduced, and the land forces of Persia conveyed to Marathon, though no specific mention is made of them in the subsequent operations.

When Xerxes carried out the project of a renewed invasion of Greece, which Darius had been prevented by death from executing, we find the Phonicians bearing a conspicuous part among the naval forces which he assembled for that purpose. To them, in conjunction with the Egyptians, was committed the construction of the bridges of boats, by which the Hellespont was passed. The Phoenicians were also engaged in the construction of the canal, by which Xerxes cut through the isthmus which joins Mount Athos to the mainland, thus avoiding the fate which had befallen the fleet of

[466-390 B.C.]

Mardonius. They alone had sufficient experience in works of this kind to make the sides of their excavation a gradual slope; the other nations who were employed in it dug perpendicularly down, and increased their own labour by the falling in of the sides. Before crossing the Hellespont, Xerxes mustered his troops near Abydos, and caused his naval forces to try their skill and speed against each other by a contest in the Straits, in which the Phoenicians of Sidon were victorious over the Greeks as well as over the other barbarians. They furnished to the armament which assembled at Doriscus and the mouth of the Hebrus, 300 ships; the Egyptians sending 200, and the people of Cyprus 150. The names of their several commanders, probably their kings, have been preserved by Herodotus; Tetranestus the son of Anysus the Sidonian; Mapen the son of Sirom the Tyrian; and Merbaal the son of Agbaal the Aradian.

We do not hear again of the Phoenician navy, until the Athenians, who had been left predominant in Greece and at the head of her naval confederacy, transferred the war to Cyprus and the coast of Cilicia. When the Persian generals, Artabazus and Megabyzus, mustered their troops in Cilicia for the reconquest of Egypt, they marched through Syria and Phoenicia, gathering the naval forces of this latter country on their way. After the main body of the Athenians had surrendered in the island Prosopitis, a reinforcement of fifty triremes, which had sailed into the Mendesian mouth of the Nile, in ignorance of what had happened, was attacked by the Phoenician fleet and almost entirely destroyed. The Athenians being thus threatened with the loss of their ascendency in the eastern part of the Mediterranean, Cimon, the conqueror at the Eurymedon, was sent with a fleet of two hundred triremes to occupy Cyprus. He attacked Citium, but died before it was reduced; his successor, Anaxicrates, hearing of the approach of a Phoenician and Cilician armament, sailed out to meet them, and defeated them off Salamis in Cyprus. Many of their ships were sunk, a hundred with their crews taken, and the remnant pursued to the coast of Phoenicia. This success, however, was not followed up by the Athenians, who returned almost immediately to their own country.

The Egyptians having revolted from Persia and set Amyrtæus [AmenRut] on the throne in the year 405, endeavoured to possess themselves of Phoenicia, the great source of the naval power of Persia; but their plan was frustrated by this return of the Phoenician fleet. We next find them mentioned (394 B.C.) as auxiliaries of Athens in the destruction of the naval superiority which Sparta had gained by the battle of Egospotami. Persia, which had aided Sparta in the Peloponnesian war, faithful to its policy of distracting Greece by siding with the weaker party, and alarmed at the progress of Agesilaus in Asia Minor, raised by its emissaries a war in Greece, which occasioned the recall of the Spartan king. At the same time Pharnabazus collected a naval armament from Cyprus and Phoenicia to attack the Spartan fleet at Cnidus. The Athenian forces were commanded by Conon, and in the battle which ensued, the Spartans were defeated at sea with the loss of fifty triremes and many of the crews, who after swimming ashore were made prisoners by the land forces. The victorious fleets pursued their way to Greece, and being left by Pharnabazus under the command of Conon, assisted in rebuilding the walls of Athens.

From this time it appears probable that more intimate and permanent relations were established between Phoenicia, and Athens. Phoenicians settled there, and had their own places of worship and interment. The cities of Phoenicia were involved in the consequences of the war