Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 1.djvu/96

 76 HISTORY OF ART IN PHU.NICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES. feeling but disgust and horror in the rest of the civilized world. 1 The Phoenicians had been hardened to the practice by long" tradi- tion. Its commonest form was the sacrifice of first-born children, or more generally, of newly-born infants. It was a way of devot- ing first-fruits to heaven. At one time this custom was imported from Phoenicia into Judaea. The Bible speaks of children burnt in the fire, and passing through the fire in honour of Moloch, 2 that is of the solar or fire element worshipped by the Phoenicians under several different names/' The fervour with which they entered upon these holocausts was partly caused too by the idea that fire purifies all it touches, that it takes away every stain. It was by such complex sentiments as these that the Carthaginians were led to turn to these horrible sacrifices whenever they found themselves in a critical situation ; their fanaticism then blazed up afresh, and from the open palms of the gigantic statue of Baal-Hammon children of the noblest families rolled into the flames that played about its feet. The originality of the Phoenician religion lay chiefly in the violence of its rites and in the contrasts they presented. The voluptuous scenes which were being enacted hourly within the precincts of Astarte were immediately followed by paroxysms of barbarous devotion and by the murderous rites they provoked. 4 How much more truculent and passionate all this proves the Pruenicians to have been than such a people as the Egyptians, to say nothing of the Greeks. They were, in fact, merchants and sailors. There was no room in their lives either for literary and philosophic culture, or for those aesthetic pleasures which soften 1 PHILO speaks of human sacrifices as a rite peculiar to the Phoenician race (Fragm. Hist. Grac. t vol. iii. p. 570) ; but it would seem that, acting under Greek influence, the Syrians abandoned them at an early hour. There is nothing to suggest that the Tynans had recourse to them during the terrible siege by Alexander, when the religious sentiment of the people must have been excited to its highest pitch. 2 II. KINGS xvii. 31 : xxi. 6. 3 According to TERTUI.LIAN these sacrifices were still openly persevered 'in as late as the first century of our era (Apologia, cap. ix.). Their open celebration ceased only when the Roman Emperors, beginning with Tiberius, decreed the penalty ot death against any priest who should be accessory to them. 4 DIODORUS, xx. xiv. 5-6. JUSTIN, xviii. 6; PLUTARCH, De Superstitione, xiii. We could quote numerous passages to show with what energy the conscience ot the civilized world protested against these holocausts. We are told (JUSTIN, xix. i) that Darius and Gelo wished to compel the Carthaginians by treaty to renounce human sacrifices (PLUTARCH, De sera J T niiitis V'indicta, 6.