Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/842

 806 PHOENICIA ence, as appears even from the many Phoenician loan-words for stuffs, utensils, writing materials, and similar things connected with trade. 1 From the Phoenicians the Greeks derived their weights and measures ; yu,m, the Hebrew maneh, became a familiar Greek word. From Phoenicia too they had the alphabet which unanimous tradition con nects with the name of Cadmus, founder of Thebes. Hence Cadmus has been taken to mean &quot; eastern &quot; (from mp), and Thebes viewed as a Phoenician colony ; but the Greeks did not speak Phoenician, and the Phoenicians would not call themselves Easterns. Further, an inland colony of Phoenicians is highly improbable ; and all other traces seem to connect Cadmus with the north. But the Cadmeans, who traced their descent to Cadmus, colonized Thera, and it was they who, mingling with the Phoenicians left on the island, learned the alphabet. It was in Thera, where the oldest Greek inscriptions have been found, that the inven tion of letters was ascribed to the mythic ancestor, and that he was made out to be a Phoenician. We now know better than we did a few years ago how much the oldest Greeks depended before the migrations on the movements of Eastern civilization, and can well believe that the Phoe nicians played a very important part in this connexion. Thus in the tombs of Mycenae we find Phoenician idols, objects of amber, and an ostrich egg side by side with rich jewels of gold, Oriental decoration, and images of Eastern plants and animals ; thus too the rock-tombs of Hymettus closely resemble those of Phoenicia ; and above all we find on the Isthmus of Corinth, that most ancient seat of com merce, the worship of the Tyrian Melkarth under the name of Melicertes. Yet with all these proofs of a lively trade there is no trace of Phoenician settlements on the Greek mainland and the central islands of the yEgean ; but in the north Thasus was occupied for the sake of its gold mines (Herod., vi. 47), and so probably was Galepsus on the opposite Thracian coast (Harpocr., s.v.), where also it was Phoenicians (Strabo, xiv. p. 680 ; from Callisthenes) who opened the gold mines of Pangteus. Beyond these points their settlements in this direction do not seem to have extended ; the Tyrians, indeed, according to Ezekiel, traded in slaves and bronze-ware with the Greeks of Pontus (Javan), the Tibareni (Tubal), and Moschi (Meshech); but all supposed traces of actual settlements on these coasts prove illusory, and Pronectus on the Gulf of Astacus, which Stephanus attributes to the Phoenicians, lies so isolated that it was perhaps only a station of their fleet in Persian times. The great centre of Phoenician colonization was the western half of the Mediterranean and the Atlantic coasts to the right and left of the straits. In especial the trade with Tarshish, that is, the region of the Tartessus (Guadal quivir), was what made the commercial greatness of the Phoenicians ; for here they had not only profitable fisheries (tunny and mursena) but above all rich mines of silver and other metals, to which the navigable rivers Guadiana and Guadalquivir gave easy access. The untutored natives had little idea of the value of the metals ; for long there was no competition, and so the profits were enormous ; it was said that even the anchors were of silver in ships re turning from Spain (Diod., v. 35). Next the Phoenicians ventured farther on the ocean and drew tin from the mines of north-west Spain or the richer deposits of Cornwall; the tin islands (Cassiterides) were reached from Brittany, and are always distinguished from the British mainland, so that the old view which makes them the Scilly Islands is probably right. The tin was supposed to be produced where it was exchanged, a very common case. 2 Amber too was brought in very early times from the farthest north ; amber ornaments are often mentioned by Homer, 1 See A. Miiller, in Beitr. z. K. d. indoy. 8pr. t i. 273 sq. 2 See Lit. CentrU., 1871, p. 528. and have been found in the oldest tombs of Cumaj and in those by the Lion gate at Mycenae. The Phoenicians can hardly have fetched the amber themselves from the Baltic or even from the North Sea (where it scarcely can have ever been common) ; it came to them by two trade routes, one from the Baltic to the Adriatic, the other up the Rhine and down the Rhone. But indeed a deposit of amber has been found in the Lebanon not far from Sidon, 3 and perhaps the Phoenicians worked this and only concealed, after their manner, the origin of the precious ware. Cer tainly the ancients knew of Syrian amber, and knew also that amber could be dug from the ground. 4 The rich trade with Spain led to the colonization of the west (Diod., id stipra). Strabo (i. 48) dates the settlements beyond the Pillars of Hercules soon after the Trojan War, in the time, that is, of Tyre s first expansion. Lixus in Maure- tania was older than Gades (Pliny, xix. 63) and Gades a few years older than Utica (Veil., i. 2), which again was founded 1101 B.C. (Pseudo-Arist., Mir. ausc., 134; Bocchus, in Plin., xvi. 216). Most of the African colonies were no doubt younger; we have dates for Aoza (887-855, Men- ander) and Carthage (814, Timaeus). Here, as generally in like cases, the farthest points were settled first and the need for intermediate stations to secure connexion was felt later. The colonization was carried out on a great scale. Ophelas (Strabo, xvii. 826) may exaggerate when he speaks of 300 cities on the Mauretanian coast beyond the Pillars of Hercules ; but the colonists and the Cartha ginians after them stamped west Africa with a thoroughly Phoenician character, and their language was dominant, at least in the cities, far beyond the limits of their nation ality, just as was the case with Latin and Arabic in later times. It is most likely that so great a mass of colonists was not wholly drawn from the narrow bounds of Phoenicia, but that the inland Canaanites, pushed back by Hebrews and Philistines, furnished many recruits ; the supposed testimonies to this fact, however, are late, and certainly apocryphal. Surveying the great settlements of the Phoenicians from east to west, we find them first in Sicily, occupying, in a way typical of the commencement of all their settlements, projecting headlands and neighbouring islets, from which they traded with the Siculi (Thucyd., vi. 2). Their chief seat seemingly was Macara (Hera- elides, Polit., 29), on the south coast, mppD tJH on coins, Heraclea Minoa of the Greeks. Before the Greeks they retired to the north coast, where they held Motye, Panormus, and Soloeis, supported by their alliance with and influence over the Elymi, and by the neighbourhood of Carthage, which here and elsewhere succeeded to the heritage of Tyre, and gave protection to the Phoenician colonies. The islands between Sicily and Africa Melite, with its excellent harbour and commanding position on the naval highway, Gaulus, and Cossura were also occupied (Diod., v. 12), and a beginning was made with the colonization of Sardinia (ib., v. 35), where Caralis is said to be a Tyrian foundation (Claudian, B. Gild., 520) ; but real sovereignty over this island and Corsica was first exercised by the Carthaginians. 5 It is uncertain if Plwnician trade with and influence on the Etruscans is older than the political alliance of the latter with Carthage ; there were, at least, no Phoenician colonies in Italy. On the east coast of Spain Barcino (Auson., Ejnst., xxiv. 68) and Old Carthage (Ptol., ii. 6, 64) are settlements apparently older than the Spanish empire of Carthage, but their origin is not therefore necessarily Phoenician, especially as Old Carthage lies in land ; they may date from the conflicts of Carthage and the Massa- liotes. In Tartessus, on the other hand, or Turdetania, as it was called later, all the important coast towns were Phoenician (Strabo, iii. 151, 156 sq., 169 sq.) Abdera, Sex (which was regarded as one of the oldest of the Tyrian settlements in Spain), Malaca, Cartcia, and, most famous of all, Gades, with its most holy shrine of Hercules ; it lay on an islet which had not even drinking water, but the posi tion was a commanding one. Still farther off lay Onoba, where the Tyrians are said to have settled before they were in Gades. In Africa the most easterly settlement was Great Leptis, which is the only colony ascribed to Sidonians, driven from their home by 3 Fraas, Drei Mon. im Lib., p. 94, and Aus dem Orient, ii. 60 sq. 4 Pliny, N.H., xxxvii. 37, 40, reading with Detlefsen ere humo. 5 The Greeks of the 6th century had a very fantastic idea of the value of these islands (Herod., i. 170, v. 106, 124).