10 The Forest of the Ancients. 
some parts, as Mount Lebanon and Syria, generalization 
in this respect is dangerous. 
We know, however, that by the 11th century before 
Christ in Palestine, Asia Minor and Greece, especially 
in the neighborhood of thriving cities, the forest cover 
had vanished to a large extent and building timber for 
the temples at Tyre and Sidon had to be brought long 
distances from Mount Lebanon, whose wealth of cedar 
was also freely drawn upon for ship timber and other 
structures. The exploitation of this mountain forest, 
although about 465 B. C. Artaxerxes I, having recog- 
nized the pending exhaustion, had attempted to regulate 
the cutting of timber, had by 333 B. C. progressed to 
such an extent that Alexander the Great found at least 
the south slope exhausted and almost woodless. 
The destruction by axe and fire of the celebrated for- 
ests of Sharon, Carmel and Bashan is the theme of the 
prophet Isaiah about 590 B. C.; and the widespread 
devastation of large forest areas during the Jewish wars 
is depicted by Josephus. In Greece the Persian wars 
are on record as causes of widespread forest destruction. 
Yet in other parts, as on the island of Cyprus, which, 
originally densely wooded, had rapidly lost its forest 
wealth during Cleopatra’s time through the develop- 
ment of mining and metallurgical works, ship building 
and clearing for farms, the kings seemed to have been 
able to protect the remnants for a long time, so that 
respectable forest cover exists even to date. 
The Romans seem to have had still a surplus of ship 
timber at their command in the third and second cen- 
turies before Christ, when they did not hesitate to burn 
the warships of the Carthaginians (203 B. C.) and of 
