DECLINE OF THE PHENICIANS. — GROWTH OF CARTHAGE.
The preceding sketch of that important system of foreign
nations,—Phenicians, Assyrians, and Egyptians,—who occupied the
south-eastern portion of the (οἰκουμένη) inhabited world of an early
Greek, brings them down nearly to the time at which they were all
absorbed into the mighty Persian empire. In tracing the series of
events which intervened between 700 B. C., and 530 B. C., we observe
a material increase of power both in the Chaldæans and Egyptians, and
an immense extension of Grecian maritime activity and commerce,—but
we at the same time notice the decline of Tyre and Sidon, both in
power and traffic. The arms of Nebuchadnezzar reduced the Phenician
cities to the same state of dependence as that which the Ionian
cities underwent half a century later from Crœsus and Cyrus, while
the ships of Milêtus, Phôkæa, and Samos gradually spread over all
those waters of the Levant which had once been exclusively Phenician.
In the year 704 B. C., the Samians did not yet possess a single
trireme,[639] down to the year 630 B. C. not a single Greek vessel
had yet visited Libya; but when we reach 550 B. C., we find the Ionic
ships predominant in the Ægean, and those of Corinth and Korkyra in
force to the west of Peloponnesus,—we see the flourishing cities of
Kyrênê and Barka already rooted in Libya, and the port of Naukratis
a busy emporium of Grecian commerce with Egypt. The trade by land,
which is all that Egypt had enjoyed prior to Psammetichus, and which
was exclusively conducted by Phenicians, is exchanged for a trade
by sea, of which the Phenicians have only a share, and seemingly a
smaller share than the Greeks; and the conquest by Amasis of the
island of Cyprus, half-filled with Phenician settlements and once the
tributary dependence of Tyre, affords one mark of the comparative
decline of that great city. In her commerce with the Red sea and the
Persian gulf she still remained without a competitor, the schemes
of the Egyptian king Nekôs having proved abortive; and even in the
time of Herodotus, the spices and frankincense of Arabia were still
brought and distributed only by the Phenician merchant.[640] But
on the whole, both her political and industrial development are
now cramped by impediments, and kept down by rivals, not before
in operation; and the part which she will be found to play in the
Mediterranean, throughout the whole course of this history, is one
subordinate and of reduced importance.
[639] Thucyd. i, 13.
[640] Herodot. iii, 107.
The course of Grecian history is not directly affected by
these countries, yet their effect upon the Greek mind was very
considerable, and the opening of the Nile by Psammetichus constitutes
an epoch in Hellenic thought. It supplied their observation with a
large and diversified field of present reality, while it was at the
same time one great source of those mysticizing tendencies which
corrupted so many of their speculative minds. But to Phenicia and
Assyria, the Greeks owe two acquisitions well deserving special
mention,—the alphabet, and the first standard and scale of weight,
as well as coined money. Of neither of these acquisitions can we
trace the precise date. That the Greek alphabet is derived from the
Phenician, the analogy of the two proves beyond dispute, though we
know not how or where the inestimable present was handed over, of
which no traces are to be found in the Homeric poems.[641] The
Latin alphabet, which is nearly identical with the most ancient
Doric variety of the Greek, was derived from the same source,—also
the Etruscan alphabet, though—if O. Müller is correct in his
conjecture—only at second-hand, through the intervention of the
Greek.[642] If we cannot make out at what time the Phenicians
made this valuable communication to the Greeks, much less can we
determine when or how they acquired it themselves,—whether it be of
Semitic invention, or derived from improvement upon the phonetic
hieroglyphics of the Egyptians.[643]
[641] The various statements or conjectures to be found in Greek
authors (all comparatively recent) respecting the origin of the
Greek alphabet, are collected by Franz, Epigraphicê Græca, s.
iii, pp. 12-20: “Omnino Græci alphabeti ut certa primordia sunt
in origine Phœniciâ, ita certus terminus in litteraturâ Ionicâ
seu Simonideâ. Quæ inter utrumque a veteribus ponuntur, incerta
omnia et fabulosa.... Non commoramur in iis quæ de litterarum
origine et propagatione ex fabulosâ Pelasgorum historiâ (cf.
Knight, pp. 119-123; Raoul Rochette, pp. 67-87) neque in iis
quæ de Cadmo narrantur quem unquam fuisse hodie jam nemo
crediderit.... Alphabeti Phœnicii omnes 22 literas cum antiquis
Græcis congruere, hodie nemo est qui ignoret.” (pp. 14-15.) Franz
gives valuable information respecting the changes gradually
introduced into the Greek alphabet, and the erroneous statements
of the Grammatici as to what letters were original, and what were
subsequently added.
Kruse also, in his “Hellas,” (vol. i, p. 13, and in the first
Beylage, annexed to that volume,) presents an instructive
comparison of the Greek, Latin, and Phenician alphabets.
The Greek authors, as might be expected, were generally much
more fond of referring the origin of letters to native heroes
or gods, such as Palamêdês, Promêtheus, Musæus, Orpheus, Linus,
etc., than to the Phenicians. The oldest known statement (that
of Stêsichorus, Schol. ap. Bekker. Anecdot. ii, p. 786) ascribes
them to Palamêdês.
Both Franz and Kruse contend strenuously for the existence and
habit of writing among the Greeks in times long anterior to
Homer: in which I dissent from them.
[642] See O. Müller, Die Etrusker (iv, 6), where there is much
instruction on the Tuscan alphabet.
[643] This question is raised and discussed by Justus Olshausen,
Ueber den Ursprung des Alphabetes (pp. 1-10), in the Kieler
Philologische Studien, 1841.
Besides the letters of the alphabet, the scale of weight and that
of coined money passed from Phenicia and Assyria into Greece. It
has been shown by Boeckh, in his “Metrologie,” that the Æginæan
scale,[644]—with its divisions, talent, mna, and obolus,—is identical
with the Babylonian and Phenician: and that the word _mna_, which
forms the central point of the scale, is of Chaldæan origin. On
this I have already touched in a former chapter, while relating the
history of Pheidôn of Argos, by whom what is called the Æginæan scale
was first promulgated.
[644] See Boeckh, Metrologie, chs. iv, v, vi; also the preceding
volume of this History.
In tracing, therefore, the effect upon the Greek mind of early
intercourse with the various Asiatic nations, we find that, as
the Greeks made up their musical scale, so important an element
of their early mental culture, in part by borrowing from Lydians
and Phrygians,—so also their monetary and statical system, their
alphabetical writing, and their duodecimal division of the day,
measured by the gnomon and the shadow, were all derived from
Assyrians and Phenicians. The early industry and commerce of these
countries was thus in many ways available to Grecian advance, and
would probably have become more so, if the great and rapid rise of
the more barbarous Persians had not reduced them all to servitude.
The Phenicians, though unkind rivals, were at the same time examples
and stimulants to Greek maritime aspiration; and the Phenician
worship of that goddess whom the Greeks knew under the name of
Aphroditê, became communicated to the latter in Cyprus, in Kythêra,
in Sicily,—perhaps also in Corinth.
The sixth century B. C., though a period of decline for Tyre and
Sidon, was a period of growth for their African colony Carthage,
which appears during this century in considerable traffic with the
Tyrrhenian towns on the southern coast of Italy, and as thrusting
out the Phôkæan settlers from Alalia in Corsica. The wars of the
Carthaginians with the Grecian colonies in Sicily, so far as they
are known to us, commence shortly after 500 B. C., and continue at
intervals, with fluctuating success, for two centuries and a half.
The foundation of Carthage by the Tyrians is placed at different
dates, the lowest of which, however, is 819 B. C.: other authorities
place it in 878 B. C., and we have no means of deciding between
them. I have already remarked that it is by no means the oldest of
the Tyrian colonies; but though Utica and Gadês may have been more
ancient than Carthage,[645] the latter greatly outstripped them in
wealth and power, and acquired a sort of federal preëminence over
all the Phenician colonies on the coast of Africa. In those later
times when the dominion of the Carthaginians had reached its maximum,
it comprised the towns of Utica, Hippo, Adrumêtum, and Leptis,—all
original Phenician foundations, and enjoying probably, even as
dependents of Carthage, a certain qualified autonomy,—besides a great
number of smaller towns planted by themselves, and inhabited by a
mixed population called Liby-Phenicians. Three hundred such towns,—a
dependent territory covering half the space between the lesser and
the greater Syrtis, and in many parts remarkably fertile,—a city said
to contain seven hundred thousand inhabitants, active, wealthy, and
seemingly homogeneous,—and foreign dependencies in Sicily, Sardinia,
the Balearic isles, and Spain,—all this aggregate of power, under
one political management, was sufficient to render the contest of
Carthage even with Rome for some time doubtful.
[645] Utica is said to have been founded 287 years earlier than
Carthage; the author who states this, professing to draw his
information from Phenician histories (Aristot. Mirab. Auscult. c.
134). Velleius Paterculus states Gadês to be older than Utica,
and places the foundation of Carthage B. C. 819 (i, 2, 6). He
seems to follow in the main the same authority as the composer of
the Aristotelic compilation above cited. Other statements place
the foundation of Carthage in 878 B. C. (Heeren, Ideen über den
Verkehr, etc., part ii, b. i, p. 29). Appian states the date of
the foundation as fifty years before the Trojan war (De Reb.
Punic. c. 1); Philistus, as twenty-one years before the same
event (Philist. Fragm. 50, ed. Göller); Timæus, as thirty-eight
years earlier than the 1st Olympiad (Timæi Fragm. 21, ed. Didot);
Justin, seventy-two years earlier than the foundation of Rome
(xviii, 6).
The citation which Josephus gives from Menander’s work, extracted
from Tyrian ἀναγραφαὶ, placed the foundation of Carthage 143
years after the building of the temple of Jerusalem (Joseph.
cont. Apion. i, c. 17-18). Apion said that Carthage was founded
in the first year of Olympiad 7 (B. C. 748), (Joseph. c. Apion.
ii, 2.)
But by what steps the Carthaginians raised themselves to such a
pitch of greatness we have no information, and we are even left
to guess how much of it had already been acquired in the sixth
century B. C. As in the case of so many other cities, we have a
foundation-legend, decorating the moment of birth, and then nothing
farther. The Tyrian princess Dido or Elisa, daughter of Belus,
sister of Pygmalion king of Tyre, and wife of the wealthy Sichæus
priest of Hêraklês in that city,—is said to have been left a widow
in consequence of the murder of Sichæus by Pygmalion, who seized the
treasures belonging to his victim. But Dido found means to disappoint
him of his booty, possessed herself of the gold which had tempted
Pygmalion, and secretly emigrated, carrying with her the sacred
insignia of Hêraklês: a considerable body of Tyrians followed her.
She settled at Carthage on a small hilly peninsula joined by a narrow
tongue of land to the continent, purchasing from the natives as much
land as could be surrounded by an ox’s hide, which she caused to be
cut into the thinnest strip, and thus made it sufficient for the
site of her first citadel, Byrsa, which afterwards grew up into the
great city of Carthage. As soon as her new settlement had acquired
footing, she was solicited in marriage by several princes of the
native tribes, especially by the Gætulian Jarbas, who threatened war
if he were refused. Thus pressed by the clamors of her own people,
who desired to come into alliance with the natives, yet irrevocably
determined to maintain exclusive fidelity to her first husband, she
escaped the conflict by putting an end to her life. She pretended to
acquiesce in the proposition of a second marriage, requiring only
delay sufficient to offer an expiatory sacrifice to the manes of
Sichæus: a vast funeral pile was erected, and many victims slain upon
it, in the midst of which Dido pierced her own bosom with a sword,
and perished in the flames. Such is the legend to which Virgil has
given a new color by interweaving the adventures of Æneas, and thus
connecting the foundation legends of Carthage and Rome, careless
of his deviation from the received mythical chronology. Dido was
worshipped as a goddess at Carthage until the destruction of the
city:[646] and it has been imagined with some probability that she
is identical with Astartê, the divine patroness under whose auspices
the colony was originally established, as Gadês and Tarsus were
founded under those of Hêraklês,—the tale of the funeral pile and
self-burning appearing in the religious ceremonies of other Cilician
and Syrian towns.[647] Phenician religion and worship was diffused
along with the Phenician colonies throughout the larger portion of
the Mediterranean.
[646] “Quamdiu Carthago invicta fuit, pro Deâ culta est.”
(Justin. xviii, 6; Virgil, Æneid, i, 340-370.) We trace this
legend about Dido up to Timæus (Timæi Frag. 23, ed. Didot):
Philistus seems to have followed a different story;—he said that
Carthage had been founded by Azor and Karchêdôn (Philist. Fr.
50). Appian notices both stories (De Reb. Pun. 1): that of Dido
was current both among the Romans and Carthaginians: of Zôrus (or
Ezôrus) and Karchêdôn, the second is evidently of Greek coinage,
the first seems genuine Phenician: see Josephus cont. Apion. i,
c. 18-21.
[647] See Movers, Die Phönizier, pp. 609-616.
The Phôkæans of Ionia, who amidst their adventurous voyages
westward established the colony of Massalia, (as early as 600 B.
C.) were only enabled to accomplish this by a naval victory over
the Carthaginians,—the earliest example of Greek and Carthaginian
collision which has been preserved to us. The Carthaginians were
jealous of commercial rivalry, and their traffic with the Tuscans and
Latins in Italy, as well as their lucrative mine-working in Spain,
dates from a period when Greek commerce in those regions was hardly
known. In Greek authors, the denomination Phenicians is often used
to designate the Carthaginians, as well as the inhabitants of Tyre
and Sidon, so that we cannot always distinguish which of the two is
meant; but it is remarkable that the distant establishment of Gadês,
and the numerous settlements planted for commercial purposes along
the western coast of Africa, and without the strait of Gibraltar,
are expressly ascribed to the Tyrians.[648] Many of the other
Phenician establishments on the southern coast of Spain seemed to
have owed their origin to Carthage rather than to Tyre. But the
relations between the two, so far as we know them, were constantly
amicable, and Carthage, even at the period of her highest glory,
sent Theôri with a tribute of religious recognition to the Tyrian
Hêraklês: the visit of these envoys coincided with the siege of the
town by Alexander the Great. On that critical occasion, the wives
and children of the Tyrians were sent to find shelter at Carthage:
two centuries before, when the Persian empire was in its age of
growth and expansion, the Tyrians had refused to aid Kambysês with
their fleet in his plans for conquering Carthage, and thus probably
preserved their colony from subjugation.[649]
[648] Strabo, xvii, p. 826.
[649] Herodot. iii, 19.