Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/631

 PHOENICIA. denotes "king of the city," was peculiar to the Ty- rians. He appears in Greek mythology under the slightly altered appellation of Melicertes. Cicero (A^. D. iii. 16) calls the Tyriau Hercules the son of Jupiter and Asteria, that is of Baal and Ashtaroth. There was a festival at Tyre called " The Awakening of Hercules," which seems connected with his cha- racter as a sun-god. (Joseph. Ant. viii. 5.) In his temple at Gades there was no image, and his symbol was an ever-burning fire. Another Phoenician deity was Dagon, who had a fish's tail, and seems to have been identical with the Cannes of Babylonia. The Phoenician goddess Onca was identified by the Greeks with Athena. One of the gates of Thebes was named after her, and she was also wor- shipped at Corinth. (Euphor. op. Ste^ph. Byz. s. v. ; Hesych. s. v.; Tzetz. ad Lycoph. Cass. 658.) It is even probable that the Athena Polias of Athens was derived from Thebes. The Palladium of Troy was also of Phoenician origin. As might be expected among a maritime people, the Phoenicians had several marine deities, as Po- seidon, Nereus, and Pontus. Poseidon was wor- shipped at Berytus, and a marine Jupiter at Sidon. The present deities of navigation were, however, the Cabiri, the seat of whose worship was also at Bery- tus, and whose images, under the name of Pataeci, were placed on the prows of Phoenician ships. (Herod, iii. 37.) They were the sons of Hephaestos, or the Egyptian Phta, and were represented as ridi- culous little pigmaic figures. By the Greeks and Romans they were identified with their Anaces, Lares, and Penates. Aesculapius, who was iden- tified with the air, was their brother, and also had a temple at Berytus. (Paus. vii. 23. § 6.) We know but little of the religious rites and sacred festivities of the Phoenicians. They prac- tised circumcision, which they learned from the Egpytians ; but, owing to their intercourse with the Greeks, the rite does not seem to have been very strictly observed. (Herod, ii. 104; Aristoph. Av. 504.) We are nnable to trace their speculative opinions; but, as far as can be observed, they seem to have been material and atheistic, and, like the other Semitic nations, the Phoenicians had no idea of a future state of existence. VII. Manners, Literature, and Art. The commercial habits of the Phoenicians did not impair their warlike spirit, and Chariton (vii. 2) represents the Tyrians as ambitious of military glory. Their reputation for wisdom and enterprise peeps out in the jealous and often ironical bitterness with which they are spoken of by Hebrew writers. Their wealth and power was envied by their neigh- bours, who made use of their services, and abused them in return. (^Ezek. xxxviii. 2, 12; Isaiah, xxiii. 18.) The Greeks expressed their opinion of Phoenician subtlety by the proverb 2upoi nphs 4>oi- KiKas (Suid.), which may be rendered by our " Set a thief to catch a thief;" and their reputation for veracity was marked by the saying if/eva/xa ^otvi- KticSv, "a Phoenician lie." (Strab. iii. p. 170.) But a successful commercial nation is always liable to imputations of this description. In common, and sometimes in confusion, with Syria, Phoenicia was denounced by the Romans for the corruption of its morals, and as the nursery of mountebanks and mu- sicians. (Hor. iSa<. i. 2. 1; Juv. iii. 62, viii. 1.59; Athen. xv. 53.) The mimes of Tyre and Berytus PHOENICIA. 615 were renowned far and wide. (^Exj}. tot. Mnndi Hudson, Geogr. Mm. iii. p. 6.) Ancient authority almost unanimously attributes the invention of an alphabet to the Phoenicians. Lucan (Phars. iii. 220) ascribes the use of writing to them before the invention of the papyrus in Egypt. The Phoenician Cadmus was reputed to have intro- duced the use of writing among the lonians ; and Herodotus says that he saw the Cadmean letters at Thebes. (Herod, v. 58, 59; Plin. vii. 57; Diod. v. 24; Tac. Ann. xi. 14; Mela, i. 12, &c.) The in- scriptions found in Thera and Melos exhibit the oldest forms of Greek letters hitherto discovered ; and these islands were colonised by Phoenicians. No inscriptions have been found in Phoenicia itself ; but from several discovered in Phoenician colonies — none of which, however, are older than the fourth century B. c. — the Phoenician alphabet is seen to consist, like the Hebrew, of twenty-two letters. It was probably more scanty at first, since the Greek alphabet, which was borrowed from it, consisted originally of only sixteen letters (Plin. I. c.) ; and, according to Irenaeus (oc?i7. Baeres. ii. 41), the old Hebrew alphabet had only fifteen. The use of hieroglyphics in Egypt was, in all probability, older. (Ta& I. c.) The connection of this Phonetic system with the Phoe- nician alphabet cannot be traced with any certainty ; yet it is probable that the latter is only a more simple and practical adaptation of it. The names of the Phoenician letters denote some natural object, as aleph, an ox, beth, a house, daletk, a door, &c., whence it has been conjectured that the figures of these objects were taken to represent the sounds of the respective letters; but the resemblance of the forms is rather fanciful. Babylonian bricks, inscribed with Phoenician cha- racters, have long been known, and indicate the residence of Phoenicians at Babylon. In the recent discoveries at Nineveh other bricks have been found with inscriptions both in the Phoenician and cuneiform character. Phoenician inscriptions have also been discovered in Egypt, but in an Aramaean dialect. (Gesen. Mon. Phoen. lib. ii. c. 9.) The purest ex- amples of the Phoenician alphabet are found in the inscriptions of Malta, Athens, Cyprus, and Sardinia, and on the coins of Phoenicia and Sicily. The original literature of the Phoenicians has wholly perisjied, and even in Greek translations but little has been preserved. Their earliest works seem to have been chiefly of a philosophical and theological nature. Of their two oldest writers, Sanchoniatho and Mochus, or Moschus, of Sidon, accounts will be found in the Dictionary of Biography and My- thology, as well as a discussion of the question re- specting the genuineness of the remains attributed to the former; on which subject the reader may also consult Lobeck (^Aglaophamus, ii. p. 1264, sqq.), Orelli (Sanchoniathonis Fragm. p. xiii. sqq.), Creu- zer {Sijmholik, pt. i. p. 110, 3rd edit.), Movers {Die Phijnizier, i. p. 120, sqq.; and in the Jahr- biicher fur Theologie u. christl. Philosophic, 1836, vol. vii. pt. i.), and Kenrick {Phoenicia, ch. xi.). Later Phoenician writers are known only under Greek names, as Theodotus, Hypsicrates, Phiio- stratus, &c., and blend Greek legends with their native authorities. We learn from Josephus (c. Apion. i. 17) that there were at Tyre public re- cords, very carefully kept, and extending through a long series of years, upon which the later histories seem to have been founded; but unfortunately these have all perished. Thus we are deprived of the R Ii 4