Phoenicia Sentence Examples

This age, with its regular maritime intercourse between the Aegean settlements, Phoenicia and the Delta, and with lines of caravans connecting Babylonia, North Syria, Arabia and Egypt, presents a remarkable picture of life and activity, in the centre of which lies Palestine, with here and there Egyptian colonies and some traces of Egyptian cults.

Alliance with Phoenicia gave the impulse to extended intercourse; trading expeditions were undertaken from the Gulf of Akaba, and Ahab built himself a palace decorated with ivory.

Hebrew religious institutions can be understood from the biblical evidence studied in the light of comparative religion; and without going afield to Babylonia, Assyria or Egypt, valuable data are furnished by the cults of Phoenicia, Syria and Arabia, and these in turn can be illustrated from excavation and from modern custom.

Israel was once more in league with Damascus and Phoenicia, and the biblical records must be read in the light of political history.

He also revived the old trading-connexions between Egypt and Phoenicia.

Throughout the Persian supremacy Palestine was necessarily influenced by the course of events in Phoenicia and Egypt (with which intercourse was continual), and some light may thus be indirectly thrown on its otherwise obscure political history.

Thus, when Cambyses, the son of Cyrus, made his great expedition against Egypt, with the fleets of Phoenicia and Cyprus and with the camels of the Arabians, it is highly probable that Palestine itself was concerned.

Heliodorus, prime minister of Seleucus Philopator, who succeeded Antiochus, arrived at Jerusalem in his progress through Coele-Syria and Phoenicia and declared the treasure confiscate to the royal exchequer.

The revolt thus became important enough to engage the attention of the governor of Coele-Syria and Phoenicia, if not of Lysias the regent himself.

The con flexion between Carthage and Phoenicia is more certain, and the ancient Abyssinian kingdom was founded by Semites from south Arabia.

He betook himself to Palestine, where his condemnation had not been acknowledged by the churches any more than it had been in Phoenicia, Arabia and Achaea.

Commagene (Kummukh), Cyrrhestica, Phoenicia, Palestine, &c. It is ineffective in history, especially on the south and east.

Owing to the high barrier which shuts off almost all Syria from the sea, and precipitates vapours mainly on the western slope, little of the land is highly productive without irrigation, except the narrow littoral strip which was the ancient Phoenicia, and the small deltas, such as that of Latakia (Laodicea).

The influence exercised at all times on Syrian art by the powerful neighbouring states is abundantly confirmed by all the recent finds which, in addition to our previous knowledge, show the action of the Aegean culture on Phoenicia and Palestine.

A specific Baal of the heavens appears to have been known among the Hittites in the time of Rameses II., and considerably later, at the beginning of the 7th century, it was the title of one of the gods of Phoenicia.

See further Phoenicia.

Corinth, however, was allowed to go on striking staters under Antigonus Gonatas; Ephesus, Cos and the greater cities of Phoenicia retained their right of coinage under Seleucid or Ptolemaic supremacy.

The preparation of pastils of incense has probably come down in a continuous tradition from ancient Egypt, Babylonia and Phoenicia.

Philo of Byblus makes it the most ancient city of Phoenicia, founded by Cronus, i.e.

Such a theory must be mythical in form, and, after gods have arisen, is likely to be a theogony (0E6s, god) as well as a cosmogony (Babylonia, Egypt, Phoenicia, Polynesia).

These letters came to the king from almost every part of western Asia, including Palestine and Phoenicia, Babylonia and Asia Minor.

Herodotus, who omits wholly the histories of Phoenicia, Carthage and Etruria, three of the most important among the states existing in his day, cannot have intended to compose a "universal history," the very idea of which belongs to a later age.

The Thamudaean inscriptions are locally nearer to Phoenicia, and the letters are more like the Phoenician; this character therefore appears to be the link connecting Phoenician with Sabaean writing.

The type must have been introduced either from Persia or from Phoenicia (Gaza).

If these situations can with difficulty find a place in our picture of Solomon's might, it is clear that some of them form the natural introduction to the subsequent history, when his death brought internal discontent to a head, when the north under Jeroboam refused allegiance to the south, and when the divided monarchy enters upon its eventful career by the side of the independent states of Edom, Damascus and Phoenicia.

The Sicilian modius here is 16/31, or slightly under 1/3 of the bath, and so probably a Punic variant of the 1/3 bath or saton of Phoenicia.

In coinage it is one of the commonest units in early times; from Phoenicia, round the coast to Macedonia, it is predominant (17); at a maximum of 230 (Ialysus), it is in Macedonia 224, but seldom exceeds 220 elsewhere, the earliest Lydian of the 7th century being 219, and the general average of coins 218.

In Phoenicia and Asia Minor the mina was specially made in the form with two breasts (44), 19 such weights averaging 5600 (=224); and thence it passed into Greece, more in a double value of 11,200 (=224).

From Phoenicia this naturally became the main Punic unit; a bronze weight from Iol (18), marked 100, gives a drachma of 56 or 57 (224-228); and a Punic inscription (18) names 28 drachmae = 25 Attic, and therefore 57 to 59 grains (228-236); while a probably later series of 8 marble disks from Carthage (44) show 208, but vary from 197 to 234.

The book in its fuller form was most probably written in the 2nd century B.C. The writer places his romance two centuries earlier, in the time of Ochus, as we may reasonably infer from the attack made by Holofernes and Bagoas on Judaea; for Artaxerxes Ochus made an expedition against Phoenicia and Egypt in 350 B.C., in which his chief generals were Holofernes and Bagoas.

Formed partly by alluvium carried down by perennial streams from the mountains of Lebanon and Galilee, and fringed by great sand-dunes which the sea throws up, Phoenicia is covered with a rich and fertile soil.

Thus 401vt came to mean a " date-palm "; but the date-palm is not in the least characteristic of Phoenicia, and can hardly grow there; 401vt in this sense has no connexion with the original meaning of Phoenician.

The towns of Phoenicia were For the Phoen.

The tablets which reveal this state of affairs are written in the language and script of Babylonia, and thus show indirectly the extent to which Babylonian culture had penetrated Palestine and Phoenicia; at the same time they illustrate the closeness of the relations between the Canaanite towns and the dominant power of Egypt.

This was the period of their development, and Tyre became the leading city of Phoenicia.

Between the withdrawal of the Egyptian rule in Syria and the western advance of Assyria there comes an interval during which the city-states of Phoenicia owned no suzerain.

From the time of Ethbaal onwards the independence of Phoenicia was threatened by the advance of Assyria.

In Phoenicia, as elsewhere, Assyrian rule created nothing and left nothing behind it but a record of barbarous conquest and extortion.

In the last crisis of the dying power of Assyria the Egyptians for a short time laid hands on Phoenicia; but after their defeat at the battle of Carchemish (605), the Chaldaeans became the masters of western Asia.

After the fall of Jerusalem he marched upon Phoenicia; Apries withdrew his army, and the siege of Tyre began.

Phoenicia passed from the Chaldaeans to the Persians (538), and at the same time Amasis (Ahmosi) II.

In the native inscriptions the chief of the city in Phoenicia itself and in Cyprus is always called king.

But federation on a larger scale was never possible in Phoenicia, for the reason that no sense of political unity existed to bind the different states together.

Phoenicia now became part of the fifth satrapy of the Persian Empire, and entered upon a spell of comparative peace and growing prosperity.

The city was distinguished by its cosmopolitan character; the satrap resided there when he came to Phoenicia, and the Persian monarch had his paradise outside the walls.

With the aid of Nectanebus of Egypt, who had grievances of his own to avenge, the Sidonians carried the rest of Phoenicia with them and drove the satraps of Syria and Cilicia out of the country.

Thus from the coins of Byblus we learn the names of four kings, 'El-pa'al, 'Az-ba'al (between 360 and 340 B.C.), Adar-melek, `Ain-el; from the coins of the other cities it is difficult 1 The naval expeditions against Greece in 480-449 and Sparta in 396-387 were mainly fitted out by Phoenicia.

The native inscriptions, however, now become available, though most of them belong to the period which follows, and only a few have been discovered in Phoenicia itself.

When Alexander the Great entered Phoenicia after the battle of Issus (333 B.C.), the kings were absent with the Persian fleet in the Aegean; but the cities of Aradus, Byblus and The Sidon welcomed him readily, the last-named showing special zeal against Persia.

During the wars of Alexander's successors Phoenicia changed hands several times between the Egyptian and the Syrian kings.

While the rest of Phoenicia passed under the 4 The date of this dynasty has been much disputed; but the reference to " the lord of kings " in the great inscr.

Phoenicia was incorporated into the Roman province of Syria; Aradus, Sidon, Tyre and Tripolis were confirmed in their rights of self-government and in the possession of their territories.

During the Macedonian period Greek influences had been steadily gaining ground in Phoenicia; relations with the Greek world grew closer; the native language fell into disuse, and from the beginning of the Roman occupation Greek appears regularly in inscriptions and on coins, though on the latter Phoenician legends do not .entirely vanish till the 2nd century A.D.; while the extent to which Hellenic ideas penetrated the native traditions and mythologies is seen in the writings of Philo of Byblus.

For the purposes of everyday life, however, the people spoke not Greek, but Aramaic. As elsewhere, the Roman rule tended to obliterate characteristic features of national life, and under it the native language and institutions of Phoenicia became extinct.

Meyer points out, the war between the Greeks and the Persians was mainly a contest between the sea-powers of Greece and Phoenicia.

At what period did Phoenicia first rise to be a power in the Mediterranean?

A large part of North-west Africa was colonized from Phoenicia; owing to these first settlers, and after them to the Carthaginians, the Phoenician language became the prevailing one, just as Latin and Arabic did in later times, and the country assumed quite a Phoenician character.

The art of Phoenicia is characterized generally by its dependence upon the art of the neighbouring races.

We read of his building an ivory palace and founding new cities, the effect perhaps of a share in the flourishing commerce of Phoenicia.'

It is not improbable that Assyria and Babylon, with their splendid rivers, the Euphrates and Tigris, may have taken the idea from the Nile, and that Carthage and Phoenicia as well as Greece and Italy may have followed the same example.

The Phoenician, whether from old Phoenicia or from Carthage, came from lands which were mere strips of sea-coast with a boundless continent behind them.

Even where there was no new foundation the older cities of Phoenicia and Syria became transformed from the overwhelming prestige of Hellenic culture.

St Paul changed there into a "ship of Phoenicia" on his way to Jerusalem in A.D.

The Egyptians had some traffic on the Mediterranean from very remote times, especially with Byblus in Phoenicia, the port for cedar-wood.

Papyrus rolls and fine linen were good merchandise in Phoenicia in the 10th century B.C. From the earliest times Egypt was dependent on.

In a series of five carefully planned campaigns he consolidated his conquests in southern Syria and secured the ports of Phoenicia (q.v).

The Ethiopian rule of the XXVth Dynasty was now firmly established, and the resources of the two countries together might have been employed in conquest in Syria and Phoenicia; but at this very time the Assyrian empire, risen to the highest pitch of military greatness, began to menace Egypt.

He entered Phoenicia with every prospect of success, but having offended Agesilaus he was dethroned in a military revolt which gave the crown to Nekhtnebf or Nectanebes II., the last native king of Egypt.

It had a good harbour, well situated for commerce with Phoenicia, Egypt and Cilicia, which was replaced in medieval times by Famagusta (Ammochostos), and is wholly silted now.

In Syria, the temple of Atargatis in Hierapolis was an immemorial resort of pilgrims. In Phoenicia, a similar significance was enjoyed by the shrine of Astarte, on the richly-watered source of the river Adonis, till, as late as the 4th century after Christ, it was destroyed by Constantine the Great.

The seaports (more especially in Syria, including Phoenicia), were well known to the pirates, traders and sea-powers of the Levant.

Its stability and the necessary furtherance of commerce, usual among Oriental kings, depended upon the attitude of the maritime coast (Philistia and Phoenicia), Edom, Moab, Ammon, Gilead and the Syrian states; and the biblical and external records for the next four centuries (to 586) frequently illustrate situations growing out of this interrelation.

The dynasty lasted nearly half a century, and is contemporary with the expansion of Phoenicia, and presumably therefore with some prominence of the south maritime coast.

Southern Asia Minor, Phoenicia, Ammon, the Syrian Desert and Israel (under Omri's son " Ahab the Israelite ") sent their troops to support Damascus which, in spite of the repeated efforts of tendency to identify them - was perhaps known in Palestine, as it certainly was in Egypt and among the Hittites.

Judah itself was next involved in an anti-Assyrian league (with Edom, Moab and Philistia), but apparently submitted in time; nevertheless a decade later (70r), after the change of dynasty in Assyria, it participated in a great but unsuccessful effort from Phoenicia to Philistia to shake off the yoke, and suffered disastrously.3 With the crushing blows upon Syria and Samaria the centre of interest moves southwards and the history is influenced by Assyria's rival Babylonia (under Marduk-baladan and his successors), by north Arabia and by Egypt.

Henceforth the history of Palestine is disconnected and fragmentary, and the few known events of political importance are isolated and can be supplemented only by inferences from the movements of Egypt, Philistia or Phoenicia, or from the Old Testament.

But one Simon, a Benjamite, who had become guardian of the temple, quarrelled with Onias about the city market, and reported to the governor of Coele-Syria and Phoenicia that the treasury was full of untold sums of money.

In 34 B.C. (for example) or earlier, Mark Antony gave Cleopatra the whole of Phoenicia and the coast of the Philistines south of Eleuthesus, with the exception only of Tyre and Sidon, part of the Arabian territory and the district of Jericho.

From Byzantium the special skill in this art was transmitted in the 9th and 10th centuries to the Rhenish provinces of Germany and to Italy, and thence to the whole of western Europe; in this way the 18th century smith who wrought the Hampton Court iron gates was the heir to the mechanical skill of the ancient metalworkers of Phoenicia and Greece.

As in Phoenicia, pressure created by the narrow limits of the home country coincided with an adventurous desire to seek new sources of wealth beyond seas; but very many Greek emigrations were caused by the expulsion of the inhabitants of conquered cities, or by the intolerable domination of a hated but triumphant faction within the native state.

Human sacrifices to Baal were common, and, though in Phoenicia proper there is no proof that the victims were burned alive, the Carthaginians had a brazen image of Baal, from whose downturned hands the children slid into a pit of fire; and the story that Minos had a brazen man who pressed people to his glowing breast points to similar rites in Crete, where the child-devouring Minotaur must certainly be connected with Baal and the favourite sacrifice to him of children.

These kings probably represent that " sea-power of Cyprus " which precedes that of Phoenicia in the Greek " List of Thalassocracies " preserved by Eusebius.

The ancient history of Sidon is discussed in the article Phoenicia.

In Asia Minor and Phoenicia we can clearly trace the progress of Hellenism, especially by the coinage.

It was of Asiatic origin, traces of it having been observed in Phoenicia and in the Punic colonies, but not in Egypt or Greece.

For the history of Tyre see PHOENICIA.

Eusebius accepted the small bishopric of Emesa (the modern Horns) in Phoenicia, but his powers as mathematician and astronomer led his flock to accuse him of practising sorcery, and he had to flee to Laodicea.

Caracalla made it a Roman colony, and later it became the capital of a small province, Phoenicia Libanesia or ad Libanum.

He wrote on Persia and Phoenicia in the 9th edition of the Ency.

Sphinxes have been found in Phoenicia, one at least being winged and another bearded.

Yet in the nature of the case there must have been a great store of local tradition accessible to some writers and at some periods.3 Interest is taken not in Phoenicia, Damascus or the northern tribes, but in the east and south, in Gilead, Ammon, Moab and Ishmael.

I i it seems to be used of Phoenicia, and in Zeph.

It is a plausible theory that in the conventional language of their inscriptions they preserved a number of geographical and religious phrases which, for them, had no clear meaning, and belonged properly to the land of their distant ancestors, Arabia.3 For their own traditions as to their origin see Phoenicia; we cannot venture to reject these altogether.

In the Egyptian inscriptions and in the Amarna tablets Amar and Amurru have a more limited meaning, being applied to the mountain-region east of Phoenicia, extending to the Orontes.

He offered to send the young scholar on an archaeological mission to Phoenicia.

Ochus (359-338), Egypt, Phoenicia and Cyprus were in revolt; the rising was quelled without mercy, and the details of the vengeance are valuable for the possible fate of Palestine itself.

In this way the kingdom of Jerusalem expanded until it came to embrace a territory stretching along the coast from Beirut (captured in IIIo 3) to el-Arish on the confines of Egypt - a territory whose strength lay not in Judaea, like the ancient kingdom of David, but, somewhat paradoxically (though commercial motives explain the paradox), in Phoenicia and the land of the Philistines.

The history of Tunisia begins for us with the establishment of the Phoenician colonies (see Phoenicia and Carthage).

For Sanchuniathon is a mere literary fiction; and Philo's treatment is vitiated by an obvious attempt to explain the whole system of religion on the principles of Euhemerus, an agnostic who taught the traditional mythology as primitive history, and turned all the gods and goddesses into men and women; and further by a patriotic desire to prove that Phoenicia could outdo Greece in the venerable character of its traditions, that in fact Greek mythology was simply a feeble and distorted version of the Phoenician.'

Aided by the Athenians and the Egyptian Hakor (Acoris), Evagoras extended his rule over the greater part of Cyprus, crossed over to Asia Minor, took several cities in Phoenicia, and persuaded the Cilicians to revolt.

In continuance of Cimon's policy, 200 ships were sent to support the Egyptian insurgents against Persia (459),' while detachments operated against Cyprus and Phoenicia.

He went on his way to occupy Syria and Phoenicia.

From Sidon, and later from its more famous rival Tyre, the merchant adventurers of Phoenicia explored and colonized the coasts of the Mediterranean and fared forth into the ocean beyond.