Page:History of Greece Vol III.djvu/285

 TYlflAN JIKRAKLKS. 269 promontories of Libanus and Anti-Libanus touched the sea along the Phenician coast, and those mountainous ranges, while thej rendered a large portion of the very confined area unfit for cul- tivation of corn, furnished what was perhaps yet more indispen- sable, abundant supplies of timber for ship-building : the entire want of all wood in Babylonia, except the date-palm, restricted the Assyrians of that territory from maritime traffic on the Persian gulf. It appears, however, that the mountains of Lebanon also afforded shelter to tribes of predatory Arabs, who continually infested both the Phenician territory and the rich neighboring plain of Coelo-Syria. 1 The splendid temple of that great Phenician god (Melkarth) whom the Greeks called Herakles,' 2 was situated in Tyre, and the Tyrians affirmed that its establishment had been coeval with the first foundation of the city, two thousand three hundred years before the time of Herodotus. This god is the companion and protector of their colonial settlements, and the ancestor of the Phoenico-Lib- yan kings : we find him especially at Carthage, Gades, and Tha- sos. 3 Some supposed that they had migrated to their site on the Mediterranean coast, from previous abodes near the mouth of the Euphrates, 4 or on islands (named Tylus and Aradus) of the 1 Strobo, xvi, p. 756. 2 A Maltese inscription identifies the Tyrian Melknrth with 'HpaK?,7/j (Gesenius, Monument. Phcenic. tab. vi). 3 Hcrodot. ii, 44; Sallust, Bell. Jug. c. 18; Pansan. x, 12, 2 : Arrian, Exp. Al. ii, 16; Justin, xliv, 5 : Appian, vi. 2. Justin, xviii, 3. In the animated discussion carried on among the Homeric critics and the great geographers of antiquity, to ascertain where it was that Menelaus actually went during his eight years' wandering (Odyss iv. 85) ?} yap 7roA?,,(i TTW&UV Kal Tro/l 'Hya}'6/i7?v iv vqval, Kal oydodra ITEL KvTTpov, ^oiviKrjv Tf, Kal Aiywirrio AiiSJoTraf r 1 iKofiTjv, Kal 2i6oviovf, Kal 'Ep Kal AijBvTjv, etc. one idea started was, that he had visited these Sidonians in the Persian gulf, or in the Erythraean sea (Strabo, i. p. 42). The various opinions which Strabo quotes, including those of Eratosthenes and Krates. as well as his own comments, are very curious. Krates supposed that Menelaus had passed the straits of Gibraltar and circumnavigated Libya to ./Ethiopia and
 * Herodot. i, 2 ; Ephorus, Fragm. 40, ed. Marx ; Strabo, xvi, pp. 766-784 ;