Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 1.djvu/36

 1 6 HISTOXY 01- AKT IN PIKKNK i. AND i rs DEPENDENCIES. assigned. But no chronology that cm be called certain or even very probable can be given for the early years of Phoenicia, any more than for those of Egypt or Chalchea. 1 All that we can affirm with certainty is that when the great Theban Pharaohs began their Syrian wars, the Phoenicians were already in possession of the Syrian coast and had founded most of those cities whose names are encountered in their history (see Fig. 4)." Taking them in their order from north to south these were Aradus or Arvad (Ruad). Marath (Ann-it), Simyra, Arka, Gebal, the Byblos of the Greeks (Gcbeyl Berytos (Bey rout], Sidon (Satdii), Sarepta (Sarfend), Tyre (Sour], Accho (Acre or St. Jean (f Acre), and Joppa (Jaffa)- All these sites were so well chosen that hardly one of them is now deserted. Even when the country was most completely disorganized by wars of race and religion, by fanaticism and by bad government, nearly all these cities kept their inhabitants. Except at Beyrout their population is, of course, very far from being what it was in antiquity, but it has never fallen so low that Tyre and Sidon, Acre and Joppa have ceased to be markets of some importance and the chief towns of their districts. Still more significant is it that during the twenty centuries which have seen that stretch of coast pass under so many masters, not a single new centre of urban life and commerce, not a town that can be called modern, has been established. The ancient cities of the C.maanites are still all the country possesses and they are known to the modern world by names in which two thousand years have worked but little change. The national tradition, preserved in cosmogonic form by Sanchoniathon, made Berytos and Gebal the two oldest es- tablishments on the coast/' Gebal, indeed, boasted of being the 1 According to HKROUOTUS, the Syrians, when they received the visit of the historian, told him that their town had been inhabited and their temple of Hercules built for 2,300 years, which would place the founding of the city about the middle of the twenty eighth century r,.c. From this statement, however, we may bj permitted to take off something for local vanity. Tyre had become the most important city in Phoenicia, and it would endeavour to exaggerate its age in order to make people forget, if possible, that Sidon had reason to boast of a greater antiquity and of a more venerable premiership. 2 This map and the next (fig. 10) are borrowed from M. MASTERO'S Hiatoire ancienne. We have introduced some slight changes into them which our readers will readily understand when they remember the different aims of our work and M. Maspero's history. 3 Upon Sanchoniathon and his translator. Philo of Byblos. as well as upon the