Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XIII.djvu/467

 PH(ENICIA 453 occupants of the country, and the latter being immigrants at a comparatively recent date." Yet the Sidonians, Arvadites, and other Ca- naanites of Scripture were undoubtedly the Phoenicians of classical writers. Eusebius says the Phoenicians called their country Cna, and St. Augustine says the Carthaginians spoke of themselves as Chanani, though ancient Egyp- tian inscriptions show that Phoenicia was also called Keft or Kaft. The original inhabitants of Phoenicia were probably Hamites, as stated in Genesis, but on being surrounded by Se- mitic races, by Aramaeans to the north and east, and by Hebrews to the south, or over- powered by Semitic immigrants from the shores of Arabia, they gradually adopted the Semitic tongue, and forgot their own Hamitic lan- guage. Like all ancient seafaring peoples, the Phoenicians in the early stages of their com- merce committed piracy and engaged in the slave trade. But though Europe suffered from their piracy, it is certain that from their visits she received the rudiments of her civilization. The use of alphabetical characters was clearly derived from Phoenicia by all ancient European and by several oriental nations. The choicest works of art known to the earlier Greeks came from Sidon ; the produce of its looms furnished the most costly offering to the gods ; and its trinkets adorned the persons of the Grecian women. The Phoenicians traded where trade was profitable, and concealed from others the course they pursued to reach the distant coun- tries to which their traffic extended. Thus, though they had supplied tin and amber for several centuries to the Greeks, Herodotus, who had visited Tyre itself, could obtain only very vague accounts of the countries in which they were produced. The master of a Phoe- nician merchantman bound for the land which produced tin, perceiving himself followed by a Roman ship which had been sent to learn the way, ran his vessel on the rocks to lead the rival craft to destruction ; and on his re- turn home the government remunerated him for the loss. In the Mediterranean sea they had taken possession of Cyprus, and made Paphos and Amathus their chief settlements. They occupied Rhodes until the arrival of the Dorians, and the islands of Thera, Melos, Paros, Oliarus, and Cythera, whence the whole of Greece derived the cult of Aphrodite. From the island of Thasos, where they had valu- able gold mines, and from Samothrace, which from them received its peculiar worship, they carried on a large trade with Thrace. In Crete they established the colonies of Itanus and Lampe. Their settlements on the Bospo- rus and Pontus, however, they relinquished very early to the Greeks. They had seized all the promontories of Sicily, in which they founded Eryx and Panormus (Palermo), and the adjacent islands. Malta, Gozo, and Comi- no were also in their possession, and on Cos- syra (now Pantellaria) was developed an inde- pendent Phoenician state of considerable mari- time power. The coasts of Sardinia were dotted with Phoenician settlements, and they were in mercantile connection with the towns of Etruria. Corsica, the Baleares, and other islands served as stations for the trade with Spain, of which they occupied the S. W. por- tion, including Tartessus (Tarshish) and Gades (Gadira, Cadiz), and which in the beginning of the 6th century B. C. was controlled by the Carthaginians. The Phoenician factories on the banks of the rivers Garonne and Rhone, in Gaul, grew into important cities, the founda- tion of which, like that of Massilia, was sub- sequently ascribed to Hellenic colonists. The shores of north Africa were early visited and peopled by the Phoenicians. Though Carthage seems to have been founded only in the be- ginning of the 9th century B. C., long before that time they had in Africa the trading posts Leptis Magna, (Ea, Sabrata, Gichthis, Tacape, Macomades, Capsa, Thala, Sufetula, Thebeste, Almedera, Sicca Veneria, Cirta, Utica, Hippo, and Auzea. In fact, from the Syrtis Major to the island of Cerne (now Arguin, W. of Mo- rocco), the land was full of Phoenician facto- ries, and on the Atlantic coast a series of towns extended down to the Lixus. The intercourse and intermixture with the Libyans gave rise to the Libyo-Phcenician race. It is not known how far they penetrated into the interior of Africa, but there are good reasons for suppo- sing that they reached Timbuctoo and the Ni- ger, and possibly Lake Tchad. Dan, Hamath, Myriandrus, Tarsus, and Laodicea to the north, and Joppa, Ascalon, Casium, Elath, and Ezion- geber to the south of their own territory, were also stations of Phoenician trade. The Phoeni- cians occupied the Bahrein islands in the Per- sian gulf. The situation of Ophir has not been determined. (See OPHIK.) Commerce with eastern Asia was carried on principally by car- avans, which passed to and through the Tigris and Euphrates valley by three main routes. One of them touched Dan and Hamath, another Palmyra, and a third crossed directly the Syri- an desert to the mouths of the rivers. By way of the Red sea the Phoenicians visited the east- ern coasts of Africa. There is little doubt that they traded also with far eastern Asia and even with China. They visited also the lands bordering on the Caucasus, the Black sea, and the sea of Azov. It is a disputed point wheth- er they went by sea to the British islands and other parts of northern Europe, or obtained tin, amber, and other products of those regions from the trading posts established in the inte- rior and the south of Europe. The commerce of Phoenicia appears to have reached its height about the 8th century B. C. Ezekiel (chap, xxvii.) draws a vivid picture of the commercial splendor of Tyre at the end of the 7th century, at which period its trade directly or indirectly embraced the whole known world. For their shipping Lebanon afforded inexhaustible sup- plies of timber, and from Cyprus they obtained everything else that was necessary for fitting