Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/633

 PHOENICIA. ii. 54 ; Horn. Od. xiv. 285.) The importation of cloths, trinkets, &c., in Phoenician ships, is con- stantly alluded to in the Homeric poems; but the Phoenicians are as constantly described as a crafty deceitful race, who were ever bent on entrapping the unwary. (//. vi. 290, sxiii. 743, &c.) It would be absurd, however, to suppose that they were always fraudulent in their deahngs. Ezekiel (xxvii.) draws a glowing picture of their commerce and of the splendour of their vessels. From his description we may gather the following particulars. The trade of the Phoenicians with the Erythraean sea, com- prised spices, myrrh, frankincense, precious stones, and gold-sand. The coast of Africa S. of Bab-el- Mandeh produced frankincense and spices superior to those of Arabia. The cotton garments mentioned by the prophet were probably Indian fabrics, and the " bright iron" Indian steel. Ezekiel mentions only linen as forming their trade with Egypt, but we know that they also drew their supplies of corn from thence. {Isaiah, xsiii. 3.) In return for these commodities, the Phoenicians supplied the Egyptians with wine, with asphalt for their embalmments, and probably with incense for their temples. (Herod, iii. 6; Diod. xix. 99.) Their traffic with Syria and Mesopotamia, besides the indigenous products of those countries, probably included Indian articles, which came by that route. Babylon, which is called by Ezekiel (xvii. 4) a city of merchants, must have been a place of great trade, and besides the traffic which it carried on by means of its canal communi- cation with the Tigris, had manufactures of its own, especially embroideries. With Nineveh also, while it flourished, the Phoenicians must have had an ex- tensive commerce. The neighbouring Judaea fur- nished them with wheat, grape-honey, oil, and balm; and from the pastoral nations of Arabia they pro- cured sheep and goats. Proceeding to more northern regions, we find Damascus supplying them with white wool and the precious wine of Helbon. Ar- menia and the countries bordering on the southern and eastern shores of the Euxine — the modern Georgia and Circassia — furnished horses, mules, and slaves ; also copper and the tunny fish. Phoenicia had undoubtedly great commercial intercourse with Greece, as is evident from the fact that the Grecian names for the principal objects of oriental commerce, especially spices and perfumes, were derived from the Phoenicians. (Herod, iii. 111.) In the time of Socrates a Phoenician vessel seems regularly to have visited the Peiraeeus. (Xenopli. Oecon. c. 8.) Tarshish, or Tartessus, the modern Andalusia, was the source whence the Phoenicians derived their silver, iron, tin, and lead. Silver was so abundant in this country that they substituted it fur the masses of lead which served as anchors. At a later period they procured their tin from Britain. They appear also to have traded on the NW. coast of Africa as far as Senegal, as well as to the fortunate Islands, or Canaries. They must also, of course, have carried on a great trade with their many colonies, which there will be occasion to enumerate in the following section. It is remarkable that Ezekiel always describes the nations as bringing their wares to the Phoenicians, and the latter are not mentioned as going forth to fetch them. The caravan trade must at that time have been in the hands of the nomad Syrian and Arabian tribes by whom the Phoenicians were surrounded, and the business of the latter consisted in distributing by voyages to the various coasts of the Mediterranean the articles PHOENICIA. 617 which Laa thus been brought to them overland. (Herod, i. 1.) At a later period, however, they seem to have themselves engaged in the caravan trade, and we have already mentioned their journeys in the track of Alexander. Their pedlars, or retail dealers, probably traversed Syria and Palestine from the earliest times. {Proverbs, xxxi. 24 ; Isaiuh, xxiii. 8.) In some foreign towns the Phoenicians had factories, or settlements for the purposes of trade. Thus the Tyrians had a fish-market at Jerusalem {Nehemiah, xiii. 16), chiefly perhaps for the salted tunnies which they brought from the Euxine. They had also a settlement at Memphis (Herod, ii. 112), and, after the close of the wars between the Greeks and Persians, at Athens, as already related, as well as in other places. In their original seats on the Persian Gulf the Phoenicians used only rafts (Plin. vii. 57) ; but on the coasts of the Mediterranean they constructed regular vessels. In their early voyages, which combined piracy with trade, they probably employed the penteconter, a long and swift vessel of 50 oars. (Com p. Herod, i. 1 63.) The trireme, or ship of war, and gaidos, or tub-like merchantman adapted for stowage, which took its name from a milk-pail, were later inventions. (Ibid. iii. 136.) The excel- lent arrangements of a Phoenician vessel are de- scribed in a passage of Xenophon before cited. {Oecon. 8 ; cf. Heliodor. v. 18 ; Isaiah, ii. 16.) We have already described the Pataeci, or figure-heads of their vessels. The Phoenicians were the first to steer by observation of the stars (Plin. vii. 56 ; Manil. i. 297, sqq.) ; and could thus venture out to sea whilst the Greeks and Romans were still creeping along the coast. Astronomy indeed had been pre- viously studied by the Egyptians and Babylonians, but the Phoenicians were the first who applied arithmetic to it, and thus made it practically useful. (Strab. xvi. 757.) Herodotus (iv. 42) relates a story that, at the instance of Neco, king of Egypt, a Phoenician vessel circumnavigated Africa, setting off from the Red Sea and returning by the Mediter- ranean ; and though the fother of history doubted the account himself, yet the details which he gives are in themselves so probable, and the assertion of the circumnavigators that they had the sun on their right hand, or to the N. of them, as must really have been the case, is so unlikely to have been in- vented, that there seems to be no good reason for doubting the achievement. (Comp. Rennell, Geogr. of Herodotus, p. 682, sqq. ; Grote, Hist, of Greece, iii. pp. 377, sqq.) IX. Colonies. The foundation of colonies forms so marked a feature in Phoenician history, that it is necessary to give a general sketch of the colonial system of the Phoenicians, although an account of each settlement appears under its proper head. Their position made them a commercial and maritime people, and the nature of their country, which would not admit of a great increase of inhabitants, led them to plant colonies. Before the rise of the maritime power of the Greeks they had the command of the sea for many centuries, and their colonisation thus proceeded without interruption. Their settlements, like those of the Greeks, were of the true nature of colonies, and not, like the Roman system, mere military occu- pations ; that is, a portion of the population migrated to and settled in these distant possessions. Hence they resembled our own colonies in America or