The Greatest Empires & Civilizations of the Ancient East: Egypt, Babylon, The Kings of Israel and Judah, Assyria, Media, Chaldea, Persia, Parthia & Sasanian Empire. George Rawlinson
by mortal man. These heroes did to death a host of Medes \ Near Cyprus, and then captured with their crews \ Five score Phoenician vessels; at the news All Asia groaned, hard hit by such brave deeds.
It is scarcely necessary to follow further in detail the services which Phoenicia rendered to Persia as her submissive and attached ally. For the space of about seventy-five years from the date of the engagement at the Eurymedon (B.C. 465-390), the Phoenicians continued to hold the first place among the Persian naval states, and to render their mistress effective help in all her naval enterprises. They protected Cyprus and Egypt from the Athenian attacks, bore their part in the war with Amyrtæus and Inaros, and more than once inflicted severe blows upon the Athenian navy.14314 It was his command of a Phoenician fleet amounting to nearly a hundred and fifty triremes which enabled Tissaphernes to play so influential a part in Asia Minor during the later years of the Peloponnesian war. It was the presence of their ships at Cnidus which, in B.C. 394, turned the scale between Athens and Sparta, enabling the Athenians to recover the naval supremacy which they had lost at Ægos-Potami. It was the appearance of a Phoenician fleet in Greek waters14315 which, in the following year, gave an opportunity to the Athenians to rebuild their “Long Walls,” alarmed Sparta for her own safety, and extorted from her fears—in B.C. 387—the agreement known as “the Peace of Antalcidas.” Persia owed to her Phoenician subjects the glory of recovering complete possession of Asia Minor, and of being accepted as a sort of final arbiter in the quarrels of the Grecian states. From B.C. 465 to B.C. 392 Phoenicia served Persia with rare fidelity, never hesitating to lend her aid, and never showing the least inclination to revolt.
It was probably under these circumstances, when Athens owed the recovery of her greatness in no small measure to the Phoenicians, that those relations of friendship and intimacy were established between the two peoples of which we have evidence in several inscriptions. Phoenicians settled in Attica, particularly at Phalerum and the Piræus, and had their own places of worship and interment. Six sepulchral inscriptions have been found, either in Athens itself or at the Piræus,14316 five of them bilingual,14317 which mark the interment in Attic soil of persons whose nationality was Phoenician. They had monuments erected over them, generally of some pretension, which must have obtained as much respect as the native tombstones, since otherwise they could not have endured to our day. There is also at the Piræus an altar,14318 which a Phoenician must have erected and dedicated to a Phoenician god, whom he worshipped on Attic soil apparently without let or hindrance. The god’s name is given as “Askum-Adar,” a form which does not elsewhere recur, but which is thought to designate the god elsewhere called Sakon, who corresponded to the Grecian Hermes.14319 Moreover, there is evidence of the Phoenicians having worshipped two other deities in their Attic abodes, one a god who corresponded to the Greek Poseidon and the Roman Neptune, the other the Babylonian and Assyrian Nergal. Among the lost orations of Deniarchus was one delivered by that orator on the occasion of the suit between the people of Phalerum and the Phoenician inhabitants of the place with respect to the priesthood of Poseidon;14320 and a sepulchral monument at the Piræus was erected to Asepta, daughter of Esmun-sillem, of Sidon, by Itten-bel, son of Esmun-sibbeh, high priest of the god Nergal.14321 It appears further from the Greek inscription, edited by Böckh,14322 that about this time (B.C. 390-370) a decree was promulgated by the Council βόγλη of Athens whereby the relation of Proxenia was established between Strato (Abd-astartus), king of Sidon, and the Athenian people, and all Sidonians sojourning in Attica were exempted from the tax usually charged upon foreign settlers, from the obligation of the Choregia, and from all other contributions to the state.
The power of Persia began about this time to decline, and the Phoenicians seem to have wavered in their allegiance. In B.C. 406 or 405 Egypt shook off the Persian yoke, and established her independence under a native sovereign.14323 Soon afterwards, probably in B.C. 392 or 391, Evagoras, a Cypriot Greek, who claimed descent from Teucer, inaugurated a revolution at Salamis in Cyprus, where he slew the Phoenician monarch, Abdemon, who held his throne under Persia, and, himself mounting the throne, proceeded to reduce to subjection the whole island.14324 Vast efforts were made to crush him, but for ten years he defied the power of Persia, and maintained himself as an independent monarch.14325 Even when finally he made his submission, it was under an express stipulation that he should retain his royal dignity, and be simply bound to pay his tribute regularly, and to render such obedience as subject kings commonly paid to their suzerain.14326
In the course of his resistance to Persia, it is beyond question that Evagoras received a certain amount of support from Phoenicia; but the circumstances under which the support was given was doubtful. According to Isocrates,14327 he equipped a large fleet, and attacked the Phoenicians on the mainland with so much vigour as even to take the great city of Tyre by assault; but Diodorus says nothing of the attack, and it is conjectured that the contagion of revolt, which certainly affected, more or less, Cyprus, Cilicia, Caria, and some of the Syrian Arabs,14328 spread also thus early to Phoenicia, and that “the surrender of Tyre was a voluntary defection."14329 In that case, we must view Phoenicia, or at any rate a portion of it, as having detached itself from Persia, about B.C. 390, sixty years before the final break-up of the Empire.
But the disaffection of Phoenicia does not become open and patent until about thirty years later. The decline of Persia had continued. In B.C. 375 an attempt to recover Egypt, for which a vast armament had been collected under Pharnabazus and Iphicrates, completely failed.14330 Nine years afterwards, in B.C. 366, the revolt of the satraps began. First Ariobarzanes, satrap of Phrygia, renounced his allegiance, and defended himself with success against Autophradutes, satrap of Lydia, and Mausolus, native king of Caria under Persia. Then Aspis, who held a part of Cappadocia, revolted and maintained himself by the help of the Pisidians, until he was overpowered by Datames. Next Datames himself, satrap of the rest of Cappadocia, understanding that the mind of the Persian king was poisoned against him, made a treaty with Ariobarzanes, and assumed an independent attitude in his own province. Finally, in B.C. 362, there seems to have been something like a general revolt of the western provinces, in which the satraps of Mysia, Phrygia, and Lydia, Mausolus prince of Caria, and the peoples of Lycia, Pisidia, Pamphylia, Cilicia, and Syria participated.14331 Then, if not earlier, Phoenicia openly threw in her lot with the disaffected;14332 refused her tribute like the others, and joined her forces with theirs. Nor, when the rebellion collapsed, did she at once return to her allegiance. When Tachos, native king of Egypt, in B.C. 361, having secured the services of Agesilaus and Chabrias, advanced boldly into Syria, with the object of enlarging his own dominions at the expense of Persia, he was received with favour by the Phoenicians, who were quite willing to form a portion of his empire. But the rebellion of Nectanebo forced Tachos to relinquish his projects,14333 and the dominion over the Phoenician cities seems to have reverted to Persia without any effort on her part.
In this condition matters remained till