Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/630

 614 PHOENICIA, of Ascalon, and the emigration of Its inhabitants, as already related, Tyre became dominant, and retained the supremacy till the Persian conquest. Confede- rations among the Phoenician cities for some common object were frequent, and are mentioned by Joshua as early as the time of Moses (xi.). Subsequently, the great council of the Phoenicians assembled on these occasions at Tripolis (Diod.xvi. 41), where, as we have already said, the three leading towns, Sidon, Tyre, and Aradus, had each its separate quarter; from which circumstance, the town derived its name. Aradus, however, does not appear to have obtained this privilege till a late period of Phoenician history, as in the time of Ezekiel it was subordinate to Tyre (xxvii. 8, sqq.) ; and Byblus, though it had its own king, and is sometimes men- tioned as furnishing mariners, seems never to have had a voice in the confederate councils. The popu- lation of Phoenicia consisted in great part of slaves. Its military force, as might be supposed from the nature of the country, was chiefly naval ; and in order to defend themselves from the attacks of the Assyrians and Persians, the Phoenicians were com- pelled to employ mercenary troops, who were perhaps mostly Africans. (Diod. I. c. Ezekiel, xxvii.) VI. Religion. The nature of the Phoenician religion can only be gathered fi-om incidental allusions in the Greek and Roman writers, and in the Scriptures. A few coins and idols have been found in Cyprus, but connected only with the local Phoenician religion in that island. The most systematic account will be found in the Praeparatio Evangelica of Eusebius, where there are extracts from Sanconiatho, professed to have been translated into Greek by Philo of Byblus. It would be too long to enter here into his fanciful cosmogony, which was of an atheistic nature, and was characterised chiefly by a personification of the elements. From the wind Kol-pia, and Baau, his wife, were produced Aeon and Protogonus, tlie first mortals. These had three sons, Light, Fire, and Flame, who produced a race of giants from whom the mountains were named, — as Casius, Libanus, Anti- libanus and Brathy, — and who with their descend- ants discovered tlie various arts of life. In later times a human origin was assigned to the gods, that is, they were regarded as deified men ; and this new theology was absurdly grafted on the old cosmogony. Eliun and his wife Beruth are their progenitors, who dwelt near Byblus. From Eliun descends Ouranos (Heaven), who weds his sister Ge (Earth), and has by her four sons, Ilus (or Cronos), Betutus, Dagon, and Atlas ; and thiee daughters, Astarte, Rliea, and Dione. Cronos, grown to man's estate, deposes his father, and puts to death his own son Sadid, and one of his daughters. Ouranos, returning from banishment, is treacherously put to death by Cronos, who afterwards travels about the world, establishing Athena in Attica and making Taut king of Egypt. (Kenrick, Phoen. p. 295.) B.aal and Ashtaroth, the two chief divinities of Phoenicia, were the sun and moon. The name of Baal was applied to Phoenician kings, and Belus is the first king of Assyria and Phoenicia. At a later period Baal became a distinct supreme God, and the sun obtained a separate worship (2 Kings, xxiii. 5). As the supreme god, the Greeks and Romans iden- tified him with their Zeus, or Jupiter, and not with Apollo. Bel or Baal was also identified with the planet Saturn. We find his name prefixed to that of other PHOENICIA. deities, as Baal-Phegor, the god of licentiousness, Baal-Zebub, the god of flies, &c. ; as well as to that of many places in which he had temples, as Baal- Gad, Baal-Hamon, &c. Groves on elevated places were dedicated to his worship, and human victims were sometimes offered to him as well as to Moloch. {Jerem. xix. 4, 5.) He was worshipped with fana- tical rites, his votaries crying aloud, and cutting themselves with knives and lancets. Ashtaroth or Astarte, the principal female divinity, was identified by the Greeks and Romans sometimes with Juno, sometimes with Venus, though properly and ori- ginally she represented the moon. The principal seat of her worship was Sidon. She was symbohsed by a heifer, or a figure with a heifer's head, and horns resembling the crescent moon. The name of Astarte was Phoenician (Ps. Lucian, de Dea Syr. c. 4) ; but she does not appear with that appellation in the early Greek writers, who regard Aphrodite, or Venus Urania, as the principal Phoenician god- dess. Herodotus (i. 105, 131, iii. 8) says that her worship was transferred from Ascalon, its oldest seat, to Cyprus and Cythera, and identifies her with the Babylonian Mylitta, the character of whose wor- ship was unequivocal. Her orginal image or sym- bol, like that of many of the oldest deities, was a conical stone, as in the case of the Paphian Venus (Tac. H. ii. 3.; Max. Tyr. Di^s. 38), of the Cybele of Pessinus (Liv. xxix. 11), and others. In Cyprus her worship degenerated into hcentiousness, but the Cyprian coins bear the primitive image of the conical stone. In Cartilage, on the contrary, she appeared as a virgin, with martial attributes, and was wor- shipped with severe rites. She must be distinguished from Atargatis, or Derceto, who had also a temple at Ascalon, and was represented as half woman, half fish. It is characteristic of the religion of the Phoenicians, that though they adored false gods, they were not so much idolaters as the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, since their temples had either no representation of the deity, or only a rude sym- bol. The worship of Astarte seems to have been first corrupted at Babylon. Adonis, who had. been wounded by the boar on Lebanon, was worshipped at Aphaca, about 7 miles E. of Byblus, near the source of the stream which bears his name, and which was said to be annually reddened with his blood. (Zosim.i. 58; Ps. Lucian, de Dea Syr. c. 9.) By the Phoenicians Adonis was also regarded as the sun, and his death typified the winter. His rites at Aphaca, when abolished by Constantine, were pol- luted with every species of abomination. (Euseb. V. Const, iii. 55.) Cronos, or Saturn, is said by the Greek and Latin writers to have been one of the principal Phoenician deities, but it is not easy to identify him. Human victims formed the most striking feature of his worship; but he was an epicure difEcult to please, and the most acceptable offering was an only child. (Porphyr. de Abs. ii. 56; Euseb. Laud. Const, i. 4.) His image was of bronze (Diod. xx. 14), and, according to the description of Diodorus, resembled that of Moloch or Milcom, the god of the Ammonites; but human sacrifices were offered to several Phoenician deities. The gods hitherto described were common to all the Phoenicians; Melkarth*, whose name literally backwards is, with the exception of the second and last letters, identical with Heracles.
 * It is singular that the name of Melcarth read