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
in the Napoleonic attempt on Egypt, and in the comparatively recent expedition of Ibrahim Pasha. It had a small port of its own to the south-east of the promontory on which it stood, which, like the other ports of the ancient Phoenicia, is at the present time almost wholly sanded up.485 But its roadstead was of more importance than its port, and was used by the Persians as a station for their fleet, from which they could keep watch on Egypt.486
South of Accho and south of Carmel, close upon the shore, which is here low and flat, was Dor, now Tantura, the seat of a kingdom in the time of Joshua,487 and allotted after its conquest to Manasseh.488 Here Solomon placed one of his purveyors,489 and here the great Assyrian monarch Tiglath-pileser II. likewise placed a “governor,” about B.C. 732, when he reduced it.490 Dor was one of the places where the shell-fish which produced the purple dye were most abundant, and remained in the hands of the Phoenicians during all the political changes which swept over Syria and Palestine to a late period.491 It had fallen to ruin, however, by the time of Jerome,492 and the present remains are unimportant.
The extreme Phoenician city on the south was Japho or Joppa. It lay in Lat. 32º 2´, close to the territory of Dan,493 but continued to be held by the Phoenicians until the time of the Maccabees,494 when it became Jewish. The town was situated on the slope of a low hill near the sea, and possessed anciently a tolerable harbour, from which a trade was carried on with Tartessus.495 As the seaport nearest to Jerusalem, it was naturally the chief medium of the commerce which was carried on between the Phoenicians and the Jews. Thither, in the time of Solomon, were brought the floats of timber cut in Lebanon for the construction of the Temple and the royal palace; and thither, no doubt, were conveyed “the wheat, and the barley, and the oil, and the wine,” which the Phoenicians received in return for their firs and cedars.496 A similar exchange of commodities was made nearly five centuries later at the same place, when the Jews returned from the captivity under Zerubbabel.497 In Roman times the foundation of Cæsaræa reduced Joppa to insignificance; yet it still, as Jaffa or Yáfa, retains a certain amount of trade, and is famous for its palm-groves and gardens.
Joppa towards the south was balanced by Ramantha, or Laodicea, towards the north. Fifty miles north of Aradus and Antaradus (Tortosa), in Lat. 35º 30´ nearly, occupying the slope of a hill facing the sea, with chalky cliffs on either side, that, like those of Dover, whiten the sea, and with Mount Casius in the background, lay the most northern of all the Phoenician cities in a fertile and beautiful territory.498 The original appellation was, we are told, Ramantha,499 a name intended probably to mark the lofty situation of the place;4100 but this appellation was forced to give way to the Greek term, Laodicea, when Seleucus Nicator, having become king of Syria, partially rebuilt Ramantha and colonised it with Greeks.4101 The coins of the city under the Seleucidæ show its semi-Greek, semi-Phoenician character, having legends in both languages. One of these, in the Phoenician character, is read as l’Ladika am b’Canaan, i.e. “of Laodicea, a metropolis in Canaan,” and seems to show that the city claimed not only to be independent, but to have founded, and to hold under its sway, a number of smaller towns.4102 It may have exercised a dominion over the entire tract from Mount Casius to Paltos, where the dominion of Aradus began. Laodicea is now Latakia, and is famous for the tobacco grown in the neighbourhood. It still makes use of its ancient port, which would be fairly commodious if it were cleared of the sand that at present chokes it.4103
It has been said that Phoenicia was composed of “three worlds” with distinct characteristics;4104 but perhaps the number of the “worlds” should be extended to five. First came that of Ramantha, reaching from the Mons Casius to the river Badas, a distance of about fifty miles, a remote and utterly sequestered region, into which neither Assyria nor Egypt ever thought of penetrating. Commerce with Cyprus and southern Asia Minor was especially open to the mariners of this region, who could see the shores of Cyprus without difficulty on a clear day. Next came the “world” of Aradus, reaching along the coast from the Badas to the Eleutherus, another stretch of fifty miles, and including the littoral islands, especially that of Ruad, on which Aradus was built. This tract was less sequestered than the more northern one, and contains traces of having been subjected to influences from Egypt at an early period. The gap between Lebanon and Bargylus made the Aradian territory accessible from the Coelesyrian valley; and there is reason to believe that one of the roads which Egyptian and Assyrian conquest followed in these parts was that which passed along the coast as far as the Eleutherus and then turned eastward and north-eastward to Emesa (Hems) and Hamath. It must have been conquerors marching by this line who set up their effigies at the mouth of the Nahr-el-Kelb, and those who pursued it would naturally make a point of reducing Aradus. Thus this second Phoenician “world” has not the isolated character of the first, but shows marks of Assyrian, and still more of early Egyptian, influence. The third Phoenician “world” is that of Gebal or Byblus. Its limits would seem to be the Eleutherus on the north, and on the south the Tamyras, which would allow it a length of a little above eighty miles. This district, it has been said, preserved to the last days of paganism a character which was original and well marked. Within its limits the religious sentiment had more intensity and played a more important part in life than elsewhere in Phoenicia. Byblus was a sort of Phoenician Jerusalem. By their turn of mind and by the language which they spoke, the Byblians or Giblites seem to have been, of all the Phoenicians, those who most resembled the Hebrews. King Jehavmelek, who probably reigned at Byblus about B.C. 400, calls himself “a just king,” and prays that he may obtain favour in the sight of God. Later on it was at Byblus, and in the valleys of the Lebanon depending on it, that the inhabitants celebrated those mysteries of Astarte, together with that orgiastic worship of Adonis or Tammuz, which were so popular in Syria during the whole of the Greco-Roman period.4105 The fourth Phoenician “world” was that of Tyre and Sidon, beginning at the Tamyras and ending with the promontory of Carmel. Here it was that the Phoenician character developed especially those traits by which it is commonly known to the world at large—a genius for commerce and industry, a passion for the undertaking of long and perilous voyages, an adaptability to circumstances of all kinds, and an address in dealing with wild tribes of many different kinds which has rarely been equalled and never exceeded. “All that we are about to say of Phoenicia,” declares the author recently quoted, “of its rapid expansion and the influence which it exercised over the nations of the West, must be understood especially of Tyre and Sidon. The other towns might furnish sailors to man the Tyrian fleet or merchandise for their cargo, but it was Sidon first and then (with even more determination and endurance) Tyre which took the initiative and the conduct of the movement; it was the mariners of these two towns who, with eyes fixed on the setting sun, pushed their explorations as far as the Pillars of Hercules, and eventually even further."4106 The last and least important of the Phoenician