Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/845

 PHOENICIA 809 two suffets presumably one for the island and one for Old Tyre after which an elected king, Balatorus, ruled for a year (557-556). The next two kings (556-532) were brought from Babylon. Under the second of these, Hiram III., Phoenicia passed in 538 from the Chaldseans to the Persians ; at the same time Amasis of Egypt occupied Cyprus (Herod., ii. 182). There seems to have been no struggle, the great siege and the subsequent civil disorders had exhausted Tyre completely, and the city now becomes second to Sidon. Accordingly about this time Carthage asserted her independence ; the political activity of Hanno the Great, the real founder of the Carthaginian state, falls in the years 538-52 1. 1 Of Hanno it is said that he made his townsmen Africans instead of Tyrians (Dio Chrys., Or., xxv. 7). The old dependence was changed for a mere relation of piety. Constitution. As Carthage was of old a republic, and its constitution underwent many changes, it is not safe to infer from the two Carthaginian suffets that Tyre also stood in the oldest time under two such magistrates. All Canaanite analogy speaks for kingship in the several cities as the oldest form of Phoenician government. The royal houses claimed descent from the gods, and the king could not be chosen outside their members (Curt., iv. 1, 17). The land belonged to the king, who was surrounded by much splendour (Ezek. xxviii. 13), but the highly-devel oped independent activity of the citizens limited his actual power more than in ordinary Oriental realms ; it was pos sible for war or peace to be decided at Tyre in the king s absence, and in Sidon against his will (Arrian, ii. 15, 16; Curt., iv. 1, 16). In Tyre the high priest of Hercules was the second man in the state (Just., xviii. 4, 5), and so the office was by preference given to a kinsman of the king. The sovereign had a council of elders, who in Sidon were in number a hundred ; of these the most distinguished were the ten First whom we find at Marathus and Carthage (Diod., ii. 628; Just., xviii. 6, 1), originally, it may be supposed, heads of the most noble houses. The third estate was the people ; the freemen, however, were much outnumbered by the slaves, as we have seen in Tyre. Under the Persians there was a federal bond between the cities, which we may suppose to be due to that great organizer Darius I. The federation comprised Sidon, Tyre, and Aradus Sidon being chief and contributed 300 triremes to the Persian fleet (Herod., vii. 96-99) ; the con tingents of the lesser towns were under the command of the great cities, which probably had the rule in other matters also. This holds for Marathus, Sigon, Mariamme, which belonged to Aradus (Arr., ii. 13), even for Byblus also, which had its own kings in the Persian period, and seems from the number of its coins and inscriptions to have been very flourishing. We know the names of sixteen kings of Sidon, ten of Byblus, eight of Aradus, but none of Berytus in historical times ; presumably it formed with Byblus a single kingdom, and in later times the capital was moved to the latter. Tripolis was a bond of three cities, Sidonian, Tyrian, and Aradian, a stadium distant from one another (Diod., xvi. 41). Here sat the federal council under the kings of the three leading states, who were accompanied to Tripolis by their senators (probably 300 in all). Among the chief concerns of this council were the relations to the Persian Government, which was represented at the meetings. Under Persian Rule. Phoenicia, Palestine, and Syria formed the fifth satrapy, paying a tribute of .99,296. The Phoenicians were favoured subjects for the sake of 1 This date is got from Justin, who in xix. 1, 1 says of his Mago the same thing that others say of Hanno ; for the defeat spoken of in xviii. 7, 1 is the battle against the Phocteans in 538, and the war with a Spartan prince in Sicily (xix. 1, 7) is the war with Dorieus (510). Taking into account the eleven years of Hasdrubal s dictator ship we get Hanno s date as above. their indispensable fleet; and having also common interests against Greece they were amongst the most loyal subjects of the empire. Sidon, as we have seen, was now the chief city ; its king at the time of the expedition of Xerxes was Tetramnestus. Among his descendants was the youthful Eshmun azar, whose inscription on the great sarcophagus in Egyptian style now in the Louvre, taken with other notices, enables us to make out the following fragment of a genealogical table with much probability. 2 Eslnnvm azar I. I I Tabnit I. = Ammashtart (priestess of Astarte). I ! Eshrauriazar II. Straton I. (Bod ashtart; C.I.S., No. 4). Tabnit II. (T^j)- I Straton II. Reckoning back from Straton II., and remembering that Eshmun azar II. died as a minor under the regency of his mother, we may place the death of the latter c. 400 B.C. ; the gift of Dor and Jap ho, which he received from the great king, may have been a reward for fidelity in the rebellion of the younger Cyrus. Certainly it was not Eshmun azar who led the eighty ships that joined Conon in 396 (Diod., xiv. 79), an event which may have been the beginning of the friendly relations between Sidon and Athens, indicated in a decree of &quot; proxenia &quot; for Straton I. (C. I. Gr., No. 87). Tyre was then quite weak ; between 391 and 386 it was stormed by Evagoras of Salamis (Isocr., Paneg., 161, and Evag., 23, 62; Diod., xv. 2), who had already made the Greek element dominant over the Phoe nician in Cyprus. Straton was friendly with Evagoras s son Nicocles; they rivalled one another in debauchery, and both found an unhappy end through their implication in the great revolt of the satraps (Ath., xii. 531). When Tachos entered Phoenicia Straton joined him, and on his failure (361) was about to fall into the hands of the foe when his wife slew him first and then herself (Jerome, ii. 1, 311 Vail.). A new revolt of Sidon against Persia took place under Tennes II. on account of insults offered to the Sidonians at the federal diet at Tripolis. Again they joined the Egyptian Nectanebus II., carried the rest of Phoenicia with them, and with the aid of Greek mercenaries from Egypt drove the satraps of Syria and Cilicia out of Phoe nicia. Tennes, however, whose interests were not identical with those of the citizens at large, betrayed his people and opened the city to Artaxerxes III. The Sidonians, to the number of 40,000, are said to have burned themselves and their families within their houses (345 B.C., Diod., xvi. 41-45). Tennes himself was executed after he had served the ends of the great king. The Periphcs ascribed to Scylax ( 104) describes the respective possessions of Tyre and Sidon in the year before this catastrophe ; Sidon had the coast from Leontopolis to Ornithopolis, an Aradus near the later Sycaminon, and Dor; Tyre had Sarepta and Exope (?) in the district of the later Calamon, farther south a town seemingly called Cirtha, and, strangely enough, the important Ascalon. Tyre now again for a short time took the first place. When, however, Alexander entered Phoeni cia after Issus and the kings were absent with the fleet, Aradus, Byblus, and Sidon joined him, the last-named showing special zeal against Persia. The Tyrians also offered submission, but refused to allow Alexander to enter the city and sacrifice in the temple of Hercules. Alexander was determined to make an example of the first sign of opposition that did not proceed from Persian officials, and 2 See for details Gutschmid, in Jahrbb. f. Phil. u. Padag., 1857, p. 613 sq. XVIII. 102