Chapter III (2)

Thucydides observes that in ancient times the Phenicians had occupied the promontories of Sicily and the small islands lying around Sicily, in order to carry on trade with the Sicels.[146] Diodorus Siculus tells us that when the Phenicians extended their trade to the western ocean they settled in the island of Melite (Malta), owing to its situation in the middle of the sea and excellent harbours, in order to have a refuge for their ships. The island of Gaulus also, which lies close to Melite, is said to have been a colony of the Phenicians.[147] On the south-eastern promontory of Malta there was a temple of Heracles-Melkarth,[148] the foundation walls of which appear to be still in existence, and still more definite evidence of the former population of this island is given by the Phenician inscriptions found there. The island, like the mother-country, carried on weaving, and the products were much sought after in antiquity. On Gaulus also, a name mentioned on Phenician coins, are the remains of a Phenician temple. Between Sicily and the coast of Africa, where it approaches Sicily most nearly, lay the island of Cossyra, coins of which bear Phenician legends. Along with a dwarfish figure they present the name "island of the sons,"[149] _i.e._ no doubt, the children of the sun-god whom we met with in Rhodes. On the east coast of Sicily there lay, on a small promontory scarcely connected with the mainland (now Isola degli Magnisi), the city of Thapsos, the name of which reveals its founders; _Tiphsach_ means coming over, here coming over to the mainland. In the same way the promontory of Pachynus (_pachun_ means wart), further to the south, and the harbour of Phoenicus are evidence of Phenician colonisation. On the south coast of Sicily, not far from the mouth of the Halycus, the Phenicians built that city which is known to the Greeks as Makara and Minoa, or Heracleaminoa; the coins of the city present in Phenician characters the name Rus-Melkart, _i.e._ "head (promontory) of Melkarth."[150] Off the west coast of Sicily the Phenicians occupied the small island of Motye.[151] On this coast of the larger island, on Mount Eryx, which rises steeply out of a bald table land (2000 feet above the sea), they founded the city of Eryx, and on the summit of the mount, 5000 feet high, they built a temple to the Syrian Aphrodite. In Diodorus it is Eryx the son of Aphrodite who builds this temple; AEneas then adorns it with many votive offerings, "since it was dedicated to his mother."[152] Virgil represents the temple as being founded on the summit of Eryx, near to the stars, in honour of Venus Idalia, _i.e._ the goddess worshipped at Idalion (Idial) on Cyprus by the immigrants from the East, who, with him, are the companions of AEneas.[153] The courtezans at this temple, the sensual character of the worship, and the sacred doves kept here (in a red one the goddess herself was supposed to be seen[154]), even without the Phenician inscriptions found there, would leave no doubt of its Syrian origin. The mighty substructure of the building is still in existence. Daedalus is said to have built it for the king of the Sicanians (p. 64). Beside the Syrian goddess, the Phenicians also worshipped here the Syrian god Baal Melkarth. According to the account of Diodorus, Heracles overcame Eryx in wrestling, and so took his land from him, though he left the usufruct of it to the inhabitants.[155] The kings of Sparta traced their origin to Heracles. When Dorieus, the son of Anaxandridas, king of Sparta, desired to emigrate in his anger that the crown had fallen to his brother Cleomenes, the oracle bade him retire to Eryx; the land of Eryx belonged to the Heraclids because their ancestor won it. The Carthaginians, it is true, did not acknowledge this right; Dorieus was slain, and most of those who followed him.[156] On the north coast of Sicily, Panormus (Palermo) and Soloeis were the most important colonies of the Phenicians. Panormus, on coins of the Phenicians Machanath, _i.e._ the camp, worshipped the goddess of the sexual passion; Soloeis (_sela_, rock) worshipped Melkarth. In a hymn to Aphrodite, Sappho inquires whether she lingers in Cyprus or at Panormus.[157] Motye, Soloeis and Panormus were in the fifth century the strongest outposts of the Carthaginians in Sicily.[158]

On Sardinia also, as Diodorus tells us, the Phenicians planted many colonies.[159] The mountains of Sardinia contained iron, silver, and lead. According to the legend of the Greeks, Sardus, the son of Makeris, as the Libyans called Heracles, first came with Libyans to the island. Then Heracles sent his brother's son Iolaus, together with his own sons, whom he had begotten in Attica, to Sardinia. As Heracles had been lord of the whole West, these regions belonged of right to Iolaus and his companions. Iolaus conquered the native inhabitants, took possession of and divided the best and most level portion of the land which was afterwards known by the name of Iolaus; then he sent for Daedalus out of Sicily and erected large buildings, which, Diodorus adds, are still in existence; but in Sicily temples were erected to himself, and honour paid as to a hero, and a famous shrine was erected in Agyrion, "where," as Diodorus remarks of this his native city, "even to this day yearly sacrifices are offered."[160] Makeris, the supposed father of Sardus, is, like Makar, a form of the name Melkarth. If Sardinia and the whole West as well as Eryx is said to have belonged to Heracles, if Heracles sends out his nearest relations to Sardinia, if the artist Daedalus is his companion here as he was the companion of Minos in Crete and Sicily, it becomes obvious that the temples of Baal Melkarth on the coasts of Sardinia and Sicily lie at the base of these legends of the Greeks, that it was the Phenicians who brought the worship of their god along with their colonies to these coasts, to which they were led by the wealth of the Sardinian mountains in copper. As we already ventured to suppose (I. 368), Iolaus may be an epithet or a special form of Baal.[161]

The legend of the Greeks makes Heracles, _i.e._ Baal Melkarth, lord of the whole West. As a fact, the colonies of the Phenicians went beyond Sardinia in this direction. Their first colonies on the north coast of Africa appear to have been planted where the shore runs out nearest Sicily; Hippo was apparently regarded as the oldest colony.[162] In the legends of the coins mentioned above (p. 53) Hippo is named beside Tyre and Citium as a daughter of Sidon. When a second Hippo was afterwards founded further to the west, opposite the south coast of Sardinia, at the mouth of the Ubus, the old Hippo got the name of "Ippoacheret," and among the Greeks "Hippon Zarytos," _i.e._ "the other Hippo."[163] Ityke (_atak_, settlement, Utica), on the mouth of the Bagradas (Medsherda), takes the next place after this Hippo, if indeed it was not founded before it. Aristotle tells us that the Phenicians stated that Ityke was built 287 years before Carthage,[164] and Pliny maintains that Ityke was founded 1178 years before his time.[165] As Carthage was founded in the year 846 B.C. (below, chap. 11), Ityke, according to Aristotle's statement, was built in the year 1133 B.C. With this the statement of Pliny agrees. He wrote in the years 52-77 A.D., and therefore he places the foundation of Ityke in the year 1126 or 1100 B.C.

About the same time, _i.e._ about the year 1100 B.C., the Phenicians had already reached much further to the west. In his Phenician history, Claudius Iolaus tells us that Archaleus (Arkal, Heracles[166]), the son of Phoenix, built Gadeira (Gades).[167] "From ancient times," such is the account of Diodorus, "the Phenicians carried on an uninterrupted navigation for the sake of trade, and planted many colonies in Africa, and not a few in Europe, in the regions lying to the west. And when their undertakings succeeded according to their desire and they had collected great treasures, they resolved to traverse the sea beyond the pillars of Heracles, which is called Oceanus. First of all, on their passage through these pillars, they founded upon a peninsula of Europe a city which they called Gadeira, and erected works suitable to the place, chiefly a beautiful temple to Heracles, with splendid offerings according to the custom of the Phenicians. And as this temple was honoured at that time, so also in later times down to our own days it was held in great reverence. When the Phenicians, in order to explore the coasts beyond the pillars, took their course along the shore of Libya, they were carried away far into the Oceanus by a strong wind, and after being driven many days by the storm they came to a large island opposite Libya, where the fertility was so great and the climate so beautiful that it seemed by the abundance of blessings found there to be intended for the dwelling of the gods rather than men."[168] Strabo says, the Gaditani narrated that an oracle bade the Tyrians send a colony to the pillars of Heracles. When those who had been sent reached the straits of Mount Calpe they were of opinion that the promontories which enclosed the passage, Calpe and the opposite headland of Abilyx in Libya,[169] were the pillars which bounded the earth, and the limit of the travels of Heracles, which the oracle mentioned. So they landed on this side of the straits, at the spot where the city of the Axitani (Sexi) now stands; but since the sacrifices were not favourable there they turned back. Those sent out after them sailed through the straits, and cast anchor at an island sacred to Heracles, 1500 stades beyond the pillars, opposite the city of Onoba in Iberia; but as the sacrifices were again unfavourable they also again turned home. Finally, a third fleet landed on a little island 750 stades beyond Mount Calpe, close to the mainland, and not far from the mouth of the Baetis. Here, on the east side of the island, they built a temple to Heracles; on the opposite side of the island they built the city of Gadeira, and on the extreme western point the temple of Cronos. In the temple of Heracles there were two fountains and "two pillars of brass, eight cubits in height, on which is recorded the cost of the building of this temple."[170] This foundation of Gades, which on the coins is called Gadir and Agadir, _i.e._ wall, fortification, the modern Cadiz, and without doubt the most ancient city in Europe which has preserved its name, is said to have taken place in the year 1100 B.C.[171] If Ityke was founded before 1100 B.C. or about that time, we have no reason to doubt the founding of Gades soon after that date. Hence the ships of the Phenicians would have reached the ocean about the time when Tiglath Pilesar I. left the Tigris with his army, trod the north of Syria, and looked on the Mediterranean.

The marvellous and impressive aspect of the rocky gate which opens a path for the waves of the Mediterranean to the boundless waters of the Atlantic Ocean might implant in the Phenician mariners who first passed beyond it the belief that they had found in these two mountains the pillars which the god set up to mark the end of the earth; in the endless ocean beyond them they could easily recognise the western sea in which their sun-god went to his rest. That Gades, on the shore of the sea into which the sun went down, was especially zealous in the worship of Melkarth, that the descent of the god into the western ocean (the supposed death of Heracles[172]) and the awakening of the god with the sun of the spring were here celebrated with especial emphasis, is a fact which requires no explanation. The legends of the Hesperides, the daughters of the West, in whose garden Melkarth celebrates the holy marriage with Astarte (I. 371), of the islands of the blest in the western sea, appear to have a local background in the luxuriant fertility and favoured climate of Madeira and the Canary islands.

The land off the coast of which Gades lay, the valley of the Guadalquivir, was named by the Phenicians Tarsis (Tarshish), and by the Greeks Tartessus. The genealogical table in Genesis places Tarsis among the sons of Javan. The prophet Ezekiel represents the ships of Tarshish as bringing silver, iron, tin and lead to Tyre. "The ships of Tarshish," so he says to the city of Tyre, "were thy caravans; so wert thou replenished and very glorious in the midst of the sea."[173] The Sicilian Stesichorus of Himera expresses himself in more extravagant terms. He sang of the "fountains of Tartessus (the Guadalquivir) rooted in silver." The Greeks represent the Tartessus, the river which brought down gold, tin, iron in its waters, as springing from the silver mountain,[174] and according to Herodotus the first Greek ship, a merchantman of Samos, which was driven about the year 630 B.C. by a storm from the east to Tartessus, made a profit of 60 talents.[175] Aristotle tells us that the first Phenicians who sailed to Tartessus obtained so much silver in exchange for things of no value that the ships could not carry the burden, so that the Phenicians left behind the tackle and even the anchor they had brought with them and made new tackle of silver.[176] Poseidonius says that among that people it was not Hades, but Plutus, who dwelt in the under-world. Once the forests had been burned, and the silver and gold, melted by an enormous fire, flowed out on the surface; every hill and mountain became a heap of gold and silver. On the north-west of this land the ground shone with silver, tin and white gold mixed with silver. This soil the rivers washed down with them. The women drew water from the river and poured it through sieves, so that nothing but gold, silver and tin remained in the sieve.[177] Diodorus tells the same story of the ancient burning of the forests on the Pyrenees (from which fire they got their name), by which the silver ore was rendered fluid and oozed from the mountains, so that many streams were formed of pure silver. To the native inhabitants the value of silver was so little known that the Phenicians obtained it in exchange for small presents, and gained great treasures by carrying the silver to Asia and all other nations. The greed of the merchants went so far that when the ships were laden, and there was still a large quantity of silver remaining, they took off the lead from the anchors and replaced it with silver. Strabo assures us that the land through which the Baetis flows was not surpassed in fertility and all the blessings of earth and sea by any region in the world; neither gold nor silver, copper nor iron, was found anywhere else in such abundance and excellence. The gold was not only dug up, but also obtained by washing, as the rivers and streams brought down sands of gold. In the sands of gold pieces were occasionally found half-a-pound in weight, and requiring very little purification. Stone salt was also found there, and there was abundance of house cattle and sheep, which produced excellent wool, of corn and wine. The coast of the shore beyond the pillars was covered with shell-fish and large purple-fish, and the sea was rich in fish (the tunnies and the Tartessian murena so much sought after in antiquity),[178] which the ebb and flow of the tide brought up to the beach. Corn, wine, the best oil, wax, honey, pitch and cinnabar were exported from this fortunate land.[179]

If the Phenicians were able in the thirteenth century to settle upon Cyprus and Rhodes, the islands of the AEgean and the coasts of Hellas, their population must have been numerous, their industry active, their trade lucrative. That subsequently in the twelfth century they also took into possession the coasts of Sicily, Sardinia and North Africa by means of their colonies is a proof that the request for the raw products and metals of the West was very lively and increasing in Syria and in Egypt, in Assyria and Babylonia. The market of these lands must have been very remunerative to the Phenicians in order to induce them to make their discoveries, their distant voyages and remote settlements. If the Phenicians about the year 1100 B.C. were in a position to discover the straits of Gibraltar, the fact shows us that they must have practised navigation for a long time. The horizon of the Greek mariner ended even in the ninth century in the waters of Sicily, and in the fifth century B.C. the voyage of a Greek ship from the Syrian coast to the pillars of Heracles occupied 80 days.[180] After the founding of Gades the Phenicians ruled over the whole length of the Mediterranean by their harbour fortresses and factories. Their ships crossed the long basin in every direction, and everywhere they found harbours of safety. They showed themselves no less apt and inventive in the arts of navigation than the Babylonians had shown themselves in technical inventions and astronomy; they were bolder and more enterprising than the Assyrians in the campaigns which the latter attempted at the time when the Phenicians were building Gades; they were more venturesome and enduring on the water than their tribesmen the Arabians on the sandy sea of the desert. In the possession of the ancient civilisation of the East their mariners and merchants presented the same contrast to the Thracians and Hellenes, the Sicels, the Libyans and Iberians which the Portuguese and the Spaniards presented 2500 years later to the tribes of America.

FOOTNOTES:

[63] Robinson, "Palestine," 3, 710.

[64] Tac. "Hist." 5, 6.

[65] Renan, "Mission de Phenicie," p. 836.

[66] Vol. i. pp. 344, 345.

[67] Vol. i. p. 151.

[68] Vol. i. p. 153.

[69] Vol. i. p. 344.

[70] The legend runs, "From the Sidonians, Mother of Kamb, Ippo, Kith(?), Sor," Movers, "Phoeniz." 2, 134.

[71] Isaiah xxiii. 1, 19; Jeremiah ii. 10; Ezekiel xxvii. 6; Joseph. "Antiq." 1, 6, 1.

[72] Virgil, "AEn." 1, 619, 620.

[73] Brandis, "Monatsberichte Berl. Akad." 1873, s. 645 ff.

[74] Herod. 7, 90.

[75] Stephan. Byz. [Greek: Amathous].

[76] "Odyss." 8, 362; Tac. "Annal." 2, 3; Pausan. 1, 14, 6; Pompon. Mela, 2, 7.

[77] Vol. i. p. 359.

[78] Joseph. "in Apion." 1, 18; "Antiq." 8, 5, 3, 9, 14, 2.

[79] Movers, "Phoeniz." 2, 239, 240.

[80] Diod. 5, 56.

[81] In Homer Europa is not the daughter of Agenor but of Phoenix ("Il." 14, 321), just as Cadmus, Thasos, and Europa are sometimes children of Agenor and sometimes of Phoenix. In Hdt. 1, 2 it is Cretans who carry off Europa, the daughter of the king of Tyre.

[82] Diod. 4, 2, 60; 5, 56, 57, 58, 48, 49.

[83] Ephor. Frag. 12, ed. Mueller.

[84] Herod. 4, 147; 2, 45, 49; 5, 58, 59.

[85] Frag. 8, 9, ed. Mueller.

[86] Frag. 40-42, 43-45, ed. Mueller.

[87] Frag. 163, ed. Mueller.

[88] "Theog." 937, 975; Pind. "Pyth." 3, 88 _seqq._

[89] Movers, "Phoeniz." 1, 129, 131.

[90] Plut. "Pelop." c. 19.

[91] Pind. "Olymp." 2, 141.

[92] Vol. i. 271.

[93] Movers, "Phoeniz." 1, 517.

[94] Thac. 1, 8.

[95] Vol. i. 363, 364.

[96] Athenaeus, p. 360.

[97] Diod. 5, 58.

[98] Boeckh. C. I. G. 2526.

[99] Hefter, "Goetterdienste auf Rhodos," 3, 18; Welcker, "Mythologie," 1, 145; Brandis, "Munzwesen," s. 587.

[100] Schol. Pind. "Pyth." 4, 88; Pausan. 3, 1, 7, 8; Steph. Byz. [Greek: Membliaros].

[101] Boeckh. C. I. G. 2448.

[102] Herod. 4, 147; Steph. Byz. [Greek: Melos].

[103] Steph. Byz. [Greek: Oliaros].

[104] Strabo, pp. 346, 457, 472; Diod. 5, 47.

[105] Vol. i. 378; Herod. 2, 51; Conze, "Inseln des Thrakischen Meeres," _e.g._ s. 91.

[106] Strabo, p. 473; Steph. Byz. [Greek: Imbros]; vol. i. 378.

[107] Herod. 2, 44; 6, 47.

[108] Herod. 1, 105; Pausan. 1, 14, 7; 3, 23, 1.

[109] Pausan. 10, 11, 5; Boeckh, "Metrologie," s. 45.

[110] Pausan. 1, 2, 5; 1, 14, 6, 7.

[111] Strabo, p. 377; Pausan. 1, 32, 5.

[112] [Greek: ATHENAION s' g'], 1877, and below, chap. xi.

[113] Brandis, "Hermes," 2, 275 ff. I cannot agree in all points with the deductions of this extremely acute inquiry.

[114] "Il." 14, 321; 18, 593; "Odyss." 19, 178; 11, 568.

[115] "Odyss." 11, 523.

[116] Diod. 4, 60.

[117] Serv. ad "AEneid." 6, 30.

[118] Hesych. [Greek: ep' Eurugun agon]; Plut. "Thes." c. 15; Diod. 4, 65.

[119] Apollodor. 1, 9, 26; Suidas, [Greek: Sardonios gelos].

[120] Herod. 7, 110.

[121] Diod. 4, 76-78; Schol. Callim. "Hymn. in Jovem," 8.

[122] Istri frag. 47, ed. Mueller.

[123] Istri frag. 33, ed. Mueller.

[124] Muellenhoff, "Deutsche Alterthumskunde," i. 222.

[125] Plato, "Minos," pp. 262, 266, 319, 321; "De. Legg," _init._; Aristot. "Pol." 2, 8, 1, 2; 7, 9, 2.

[126] Herod. 1, 171; 3, 122; 7, 169-171.

[127] Herod. 1, 4.

[128] Herod. 3, 122.

[129] Strabo, p. 476; Steph. Byz. [Greek: Itanos].

[130] Pausan. 3, 21, 6.

[131] Aristotle, in Steph. Byz. [Greek: Kythera].

[132] Above, p. 63.

[133] Strabo, p. 479.

[134] Below, chap. 11.

[135] Thuc. 1, 8.

[136] Herod. 7, 171.

[137] Herod. 2, 44, 145.

[138] Herod. 4, 147.

[139] Thuc. 5, 112.

[140] Herod. 5, 89; "Il." 13, 451; "Odyss." 19, 178.

[141] Euseb. "Chron." 2, p. 34 _seqq._ ed. Schoene. Even in Diodorus, 4, 60, we find two Minoses, an older and a younger.

[142] Lenormant, "Antiq. de la Troade," p. 32.

[143] Genesis x. 2-4: 1 Chron. i. 5-7.

[144] Kiepert, "Monatsberichte Berl. Akad." 1859.

[145] Ezek. xxvii. 7.

[146] Thuc. vi. 2.

[147] Diod. v. 12.

[148] Ptolem. 4, 3, 47.

[149] _Ai benim_; Movers, "Phoeniz." 2, 355, 359, 362.

[150] Heracl. Pont. frag. 29, ed. Mueller; Gesen. "Monum." p. 293; Olshausen, "Rh. Mus." 1852, S. 328.

[151] Thuc. 6, 2.

[152] Diod. 4, 83.

[153] "AEn." 5, 760.

[154] Diod. 4, 83; Strabo, p. 272; Athenaeus, p. 374; Aelian, "Hist. An." 4, 2; 10, 50.

[155] Diod. 4, 23.

[156] Herod. 5, 43.

[157] Steph. Byz. [Greek: Solous]. Sapphon. frag. 6, ed. Bergk; it is possible that Panormus on Crete may be meant.

[158] Thuc. 6, 2.

[159] Diod. 5, 35.

[160] Diod. 4, 24, 29, 30; 5, 15; Arist. "De mirab. ausc." c. 104; Pausan. 10, 17, 2.

[161] Movers ("Phoeniz." 1, 536) assumes that Iolaus may be identical with Esmun (I. 377).

[162] Sallust, "Jugurtha," 19, 1.

[163] Movers, _loc. cit._ s. 144.

[164] "De mirab. ausc." c. 146.

[165] "Hist. nat." 16, 79.

[166] Arkal or Archal may mean "fire of the All," "light of the All."

[167] Etym. Magn. [Greek: Gadeira].

[168] Diod. 5, 19, 20.

[169] On the meaning given in Avienus ("Ora marit") of Abila as "high mountain," and Calpa as "big-bellied jar," cf. Muellenhoff, "Deutsche Alterthumsk," 1, 83.

[170] Strabo, pp. 169-172. Justin (44, 5) represents the Tyrians as founding Gades in consequence of a dream. In regard to the name cf. Avien. "Ora marit," 267-270.

[171] Movers, "Phoeniz." 2, 622. Strabo (p. 48) puts the first settlements of the Phenicians in the midst of the Libyan coast and at Gades just after the Trojan war, Velleius (1, 2, 6, in combination with 1, 8, 4), in the year 1100 B.C. Cf. Movers, _loc. cit._ S. 148, note 90. The Greeks called both land and river Tartessus. The pillars of the Tyrian god "Archaleus," are with them the pillars of their "Heracles," which he sets up as marks of his campaigns. Here, opposite the mouth of the Tartessus, they place the island Erythea, _i.e._ the red island on which the giant Geryon, _i.e._ "the roarer," guards the red oxen of the sun: Erythea is one of the islands near Cadiz; Muellenhoff, Deutsche "Alterthumsk:" 1, 134 ff.

[172] Sall. "Jugurtha," c. 19.

[173] Ezek. xxvii. 12, 25.

[174] In Strabo, p. 148; Muellenhoff, _loc. cit._ 1, 81.

[175] Herod. 4, 152.

[176] "De mirab. ausc." c. 147.

[177] In Strabo, p. 148.

[178] Aristoph. "Ranae," 475.

[179] Diod. 5, 35; Strabo, p. 144 _seqq._

[180] Scylax, "Peripl." c. 111.