134 



PHOENICIA 



tlie names Baal, Kl, Kl-Elioun. Kiniinon, Moled,. 

 Adonai are traces (Max-Muller. Mfnrr <if Krlujion, 

 p. 177 ft tfjj.). Another trace is found in the ipia-i 

 universality of Baal and Ashtoreth, names which 

 mar be applied respectively to any god or any 

 goddess. llut the monotheistic state passed away 

 at a very early date, and a manifest |>olytheisni 

 ueeeodtMi it a |K)lythei.sin in which various g^*ls 

 and goddesses (<il i in i in !' til mi nth] were recognised 

 by .-very worshipper, as by the Carthaginian intro- 

 duced into his play of the" Pu-n uli by Plautus (v. 1, 

 line 1 ). 



of these gods the most prominent, lx>sides 

 Baal and Ashtoreth, wen- Melkarth, the spwial 



I of Tyre; Adonis, the god of Mylilus; Sydyk ; 



son ; Eshmun, with his brothers, the seven 

 Culiiri: ami Molech. Minor deitic-s were Zephon, 

 Tsad, Sakon, Aziz, ami I'a'am. In the decline of 

 i In- nation there wax a marked tendency to add to 

 tin- Pantheon by the introduction of foreign deities, 

 as Aminoii. (i-iii-, I'hlhah or I'tah, I'asht, anil 

 Athor from Egypt, Tanata from Syria. Nergalfrom 

 Assyria, and perlia]*. others. The notices are too 

 scanty to enable us to trace out in any detail tin- 

 nature. worship connected with thi> iKilythcistic 

 system, but it U certain that Baal ana Ashtoretli 

 represented, to a large extent, the HUH and moon, 

 while Dagon wa- a corn-god, Kshmun a hunter 

 god, Aziz probably a war god, and the Cabiri 

 artificer-gods, es|>eciallv MMUMOtod with shi|>s and 

 navigation. '1'he gods were worshipped with per- 

 petual sacrifice in their temples, with votive offer- 

 ing* and with festivals. A spring festival to 

 Melkarth. 'the liiuil of Tyre,' in the month 

 I'eritius (Joseph. .Int. ,1 ml. viii. 9, sect. 3), and an- 

 other to Ashtoretli called ' the brand-feast ' ( I.ucian, 

 De Den .Sym. sect. HM, are esi>ecially noticed. 

 Anciently it was not considered right to erect 

 statues to the gods in their temples; but the 

 praeti.-c was to represent them by conical pillars of 

 stone or wood (Tacit. Hint. ii. 3). Two terrible 

 rites particularly characterised the religion human 

 sacrifice and religious prostitution. A divine 

 original was found for the former of these, El 

 having in a time of groat danger immolated his 

 only son U|M>II an altar to avert the evil wherewith 

 tin- land was threatened. Henceforth such sacri- 

 fices were from time to time offered by the state 

 when great disasters seemed impending, and in- 

 dividuals appeased the divine anger against them- 

 selves by the oll'ering of their children. At 

 Carthage, we are told (Diod. Sic. xx. 14), an image 

 of Kl, made of metal, was heated to a glow by a 

 tile kindled within it. ami the victims, dc|x>sitcd 

 by their parents in il- arms, thence rolled into the 

 liery lap below. First-born, and es|M-cially only 

 nous, or virgin daughters, were deemed (H'culiarly 

 acceptable to tin' ili\ initii . The godhead, it was 

 thought, demanded the holiest ami most costly 

 gifts | M issible ; and this iilea, which lay at the root 

 of tin- child sacrifice, may be regarded as also ex- 

 plaining the prostitution of virgins in the temples 

 and groves of tin- '(^ucen of Heaven.' which was 

 certainly an established custom ( l,uc. fh- {ten Si/m, 



nect. II ;' F.llsch. I',/. fi,n*l,i,if. M,,</. Hi. .Vi, s.-ct! 3). 



The institution of the i.alli curried out the same 



. and added a final degradation to a system 

 otherwise sufficiently revolting. 



tin: < null fiin-iitinii.i. Two inventions 



connected with manufactures were especially 

 claimed by the Pho-nicians the invention of gl.i --. 

 and the discovery of the purple dye. (ilassissaid to 

 hivebeen di-,,%. ,,.,| accidentally on the IMneniriaii 

 count (iwe IJl.Ass); Imt as tfie Egyptians had 

 iimnufactmcd gloss for many centuries | H -forc the 

 I'lio-ni'-ians occupied the Mediterranean coast, and 

 as there wan a very early trade lictwcen Pho-nicia 

 and Egypt, it I" must probable that the I'hienicians 



liorrowed their glass-making from the Egyptians. 

 What was special to Phoenicia in respect of glass 

 was the excellent quality of the siliceous sand 

 near Sidon and in the Bay of Acre. Their gloss 

 was of three kinds, transparent colourless gl. 

 translucent coloured glass, and opaque coloured 

 glass, scarcely distinguishable from |xircelain. 

 The first they used chiefly for mirrors ( Plin. Hint. 

 \nt. xxxvi. 26); the second for beads, for imi- 

 tations of gems, and for littles, jugs, vases, and 

 amphone, which ore often of extraordinary beauty. 

 Opaque glass was employed in statues and statu- 

 ettes. The Phoenician purple dye was derived, prin- 

 cipally if not entirely, from two shell-fish which were 

 abundant in the Eastern Mediterranean, the Murex 

 tritnrultu and the Murex braiularis. From t hcse, by 

 careful treatment, a number of tints, varying from 

 blue, through violet and purple, to crimson and rose, 

 were produced, and, by dim-rent processes, rendered 

 at once brilliant and permanent. With the purple- 

 dye manufacture was closely connected the manu- 

 facture of textile fabrics, wherein the Pho-nicians 

 appear to have excelled. ' White wool ' from 

 Syria (Ezek. xxvii. 18) and Arabia (Hiiil. ver. -Jl ), 

 flax from Egypt, and silk from Persia furnished 

 the materials wliich were worked into stall's of excel- 

 lent quality by the Tyrian and Sidonian artisan-. 

 who, partly by the brilliancy of their dyes, part 1 y by 

 their skill in embroidery, obtained for those stulK 

 a precedence over the products of the looms of 

 Egypt and liabylon. Phoenicia also manufactured 

 on a large scale all manner of household utensils 

 and implements, partly in clay, partly in metal, 

 together with ornaments of various kinds, for the 

 purposes of the export trade which she carried on 

 with barbarous and semi-civilised countries. 



ffm-H/ntiiiii, Trade, and Colonie*: The Phoeni- 

 cians appear as navigators in the earliest (Jreek 

 ( Horn, i ill. xv. 415-484), and in some of the earliest 

 Hebrew (2 Cliron. ii. 16) notices. They wen- 

 regarded as familiar with the sea in times anterior 

 to the Trojan war ( Herod, i. 1). At first, no 

 doubt, their navigation was timid ami cautious. 

 But after a time they became bolder. They sailed 

 direct from headlanu to headland, and from their 

 own coast to Cyprus, a distance of ~>i miles ; they 

 continued their voyages during the night, and after 

 a while adventured themselves in the open sea, 

 directing their course by the Polar star, which they 

 found to mark approximately the true north in the 

 seas to which they had access. Their ships, though 

 small, according to our ideas, were well nuilt, and 

 admirably lined up and arranged (Xen. 'A'ci. 

 sect. 8). For trading tuirposes they employed ships 

 of a broad, round make (yoMoO, hut in war they 

 used galleys of a considerable length, which were 

 ordinarily impelled by oars, the rowers sitting on a 

 level, or else in two ranks, one aliove the other, or 

 sometimes in three. The earliest representations 

 of Plurmcinn vessels which have conn- down to us 

 are in the sculptures of Sargon and Sennacherib 

 (rirra 700 It.c.); those of the latter showing a 

 double tier of rowers. The crews of these- vessels 

 tlo not appeal to exceed the number of twenty live ; 

 but the Pho-nici.in war-galleys in the fleet of 

 Xerxes (480 H.c.) carried^ a crew of 200 sailors, 

 !>csides thirty men-at-arms (Herod, vii, 184). 

 Pho-nician trade was in part a land trade con- 

 ducted by travelling companies of merchants, in 

 part a trallic by sea. Of the land trade the best 

 account which we |M>SSCSS is that given in the '27th 

 chapter of F./ekiel (verses 13 -_>4), hy which it 

 ap|H-ars that this trallic extended over the greater 

 |>art of western Asia, including northern Syria, 

 Syria of Damascus, the land of Israel, Arabia, 

 Meso|Mitamia, Assyria, Babylonia, parts of 

 Armenia, and much of central Asia Minor. 

 Northern Syria furnished the Pho-niciaii merchants 



