Phenicia (Hastings' Dictionary)

i. Sources. fi, The Country— (a) Its extent and natural features. (δ) Its history. (c) Greater Phanicia, fii. The People. iv. The Alphabet and Language. v. Constitution and Government. vi. Civilization and Commerce. vii. Religion— (a) The deities. (6) Sacred objects and cultus. i. SourcEs.—The sources of our knowledge of Pheenician history and civilization are contained in—(a) Inscriptions in the Phenician language. These are very numerous, amounting to some thousands.

They have been found in Phenicia itself and in Cyprus, Egypt, Greece, the islands of Melita, Gaulos, Sicily, Cossura, Sardinia, and Corsica, as well as in Africa, Italy, France, and Spain.

Whilst these are invaluable for the restora- tion of the language (especially such as have Greek transliterations and translations appended), unfor- tunately very few are of historical interest, few are of any length, few have been found in Pheenicia itself, and, with one exception, none are earlier than the Persian period. The oldest known is CIS No. 5.

This is on the fragments of a bowl discovered in Cyprus (‘in insula Cypro, casu [ut poeeunel reperta’) but belonging to a temple of a‘al not far from Sidon, and on paleographical grounds is assigned to the 9th cent. B.c. It mentions a ‘ Hiram, king of the Sidonians,’ but it remains uncertain to which of the kings of this name it refers. The remaining inscriptions consist mostly of dedications and memorials on tombs, with two or three pertaining to sacrifices.

Their chief value lies in the names of kings they con- tain, and in the proper names containing names of gods.* (δ) The Egyptian hieroglyphic and Babylono- Assyrian cuneiform inscriptions contain many references to the land of Phoenicia, and give some idea of its relation to foreign powers from the 16th cent. B.c. to the Persian period. The Tel el-Amarna tablets give a glimpse into contem- porary history which is valuable and probably characteristic.

Much, however, remains to be done in the classification and identification of the eographical names in the cuneiform inscriptions. a the Egyptian much has been done by W. Max Miiller.+ (c) References to the Phenicians, and especially to Tyre and Sidon with their dependencies, in the Old Testament.—These occur in writings extend- ing over a period of about four centuries (9th to 5th cent. B.c.)

They consist partly of short notes ethnographical (more properly geographical) as in Gn 10; archeological or geogra’ hice, as in Dt 3°, Jos 13"; historical, as in 1 5 and 16; or relating to religion, as in 1 K 115. In addition to these the longer any in the books of Isaiah (ch. 23), Jeremiah (chs. 25. 27. 47), and Ezekiel (chs.

26-32) give a striking picture of the com- merce and civilization of the chief Pheenician “ὙΠῸ Phoenician inscriptions are collected in the Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum, pt. i. vols. i. and ii., Paris, 1881-99. Further details as to some of them, and two or three new and recently discovered inscriptions, will be found in the Oriental Journals of Germany, Vienna, Paris; in the Revue d’Assyrio- logie, vol. v. No. 1, and other journals.

ἡ The references to Phenicia in the Egyptian inscriptions will be best found in Flinders Petrie’s History of Egypt, Brugsch’s Egypt under the Pharaohs, and W. Max Miller's Asien und ἡ tang The Tel el-Amarna tablets are edited by Winckler, The Tell el-Amarna Letters. A very useful com- ndium with much valuable comment is contained in Flinders etrie’s Syria and Egypt from the Tell el-Amarna Letters, London, 1898.

The best collection of Babylonian and Assyrian inscriptions is in Schrader’s Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek vols. 1. -ἰἶν. PHENICIA cities at the time when these prophecies were written.* (d) Greek writings.—For fragments of two of the most important writings on Pheenician history we are indebted to Josephus, Eusebius, and others whose writings we have, who may have taken them from the exe yelatenue writer Alexander Polyhistor.

Menandros of Ephesus, who seems to have flourished about the 2nd cent. B.c., wrote a history or chronicle of some at least of the Pheenician cities. The first fragment (in Josephus, c. Ap. i. 18 and in part also in Ant. VUI. v. 3) con- tains Tyrian annals, with a list of kings from the early part of the 10th cent. B.c. to the founding of Carthage at the close of the 9th century. A second fragment (Ant. IX. xiv. 2) tells of a siege of Tyre under Shalmaneser, and a third (c. Ap. i.

21), usually ascribed to Menandros, though he is not explicitly mentioned as the author, gives further chronology and list of kings from a siege of Tyre under Nebuchadnezzar to the accession of Cyrus to the throne of Persia. Three other smaller pieces are of minor importance, i ‘ j jos, an otherwise unknown writer, is quoted in Jos. 6. Ap. i. 17 as having written an accurate history of Phenicia. The extract given tells of Hiram the contemporary of Solomon.

Two or three other authors are mentioned in Greek litera- ture as writers on Phenician history, but their works have perished.—Quite different in character from the works mentioned seems to have been the Pheenician history of Philo Byblios, a writer of the end of the Ist cent. A.D. His work professed to be a translation of the writing of a Phenician named Sanchuniathon who lived in the period be- fore the Trojan war.

The portions of his work pecerved for us by Eusebius show him to have en a euhemerist, who in his description of the gods and his cosmogony has used Pheenician material, but has so adapted it to suit his own views that his work can be used only after most searching criticism. — Besides the above works, there are references in Greek writings too numerous to be mentioned here. The Jiiad mentions ‘Sidon,’ ‘Sidonians,’ and ‘Pheenicians,’ and the Odyssey the same, with the addition of ‘ Pheenicia.

’ ero- dotus tells of Phenician legends and commerce, and many writers after him have incidental notices of this land and people.—Of Roman writers, one deserves mention. In the prologue to the 18th book of Justin’s epitome of the history of Pompeius Trogus (about the beginning of the Christian era) occur the words, ‘Inde (continentur) origines Phenicum et Sidonis et Velie Carthaginisque res geste in excessu dict.’ The only section that remains is in Justin, xviii. 3 ff.

, and was prob- ae beara from a work of Timagenes (Ist cent. B.C.) (e) Archeological remains.—Underground Phe- For a complete list of OT ern kel referring to Phoenicia, see the Concordances 8. ‘Sidon,’ ‘Sidonians,’ ‘Tyre,’ ‘ Arvad,’ Gebal,’ and consult the table in Gn 10; see also CANAAN in vol. i. p. 847. Tyre and Sidon are mentioned in the NT by the Synoptists, Mt 1121.22 1621, Mic 88 724. 31, Lic 438 617 1013-14, and in Ac 1220 213-7 273. In Mk 728 the adjective Συροφοινίκισσα occurs.

ἡ The fragments of Menandros are collected in Miller's lrag- menta Historicorum m, vol. iv. p. 445 ff., but to Miiller’s list must be added the paragraph contained in Jos. Ant. 1x. xiv. 2, and it should be noticed that a part of the first piece is repeated in Ant. vin. v. 8, It will be observed that Josephus says that Menandros wrote of the ‘kings of the Greeks and the Barbarians.’ The f ent of Dios is contained in the same volume (Fraq. Hist. Gr. iv.

898), where the author is identified With Ailios Dios; but this is very doubtful. The remains of Philo Byblios are collected, id. iii. 560 ff. The value of his work has been much discussed by scholars. A good essay on the subject is that of W. Baudissin in his Studien zur semitischen Religionsgeschichte, vol. i. pp. 1-46. His conclusion is that Philo has taken his material from various sources—some Semitic—and given to it the name of a inan of antiquity.

Sanchuniathon is a genuine Phenician name. In any case the work as a whole represents Phanician religion in its decline, not in ite origin. PHGNICIA nicia is still almost entirely unexplored, though a beginning has now been made at Sidon. Scattered about, however, on the surface of the ancient Pheenician land are remains of walls, fortifications, temples, and tombs, which help to tell the story of bygone days.

Of the colonies, Cyprus and Car- thage have yielded a large number of articles (vases, statuettes, ete. etc.), which throw light on the arts and daily life of the people. Coins also, and seals, though not in large numbers, are now to be found in museums (see below under ‘ Civiliza tion and Commerce’). ii. THE CouNTRY.—(a) Extent and natural features.

Although the Pheenicians inhabited cities as far north as Myriandos (in the Gulf of Alexandretta) and as far south as Jaffa (see below) in the Persian period, the earlier Phcenician terri- tory may be said roughly to have been bounded on the north by the river Orontes or Mt. Casius, and on the south by Mt. Carmel. On the east the limits are entirely unknown, but the Bargylos and Lebanon ranges seem to form natural bound- aries on that side.

Colonists from Sidon, however, appear to have pushed their way as far inland as the neighbourhood of the sources of the Jordan (Jg 18). The land thus consisted of two distinct regions: (1) The hill-country, i.e. the slopes of Bargylos (Nusaireyah) and Lebanon. Both these ranges extend from N. to S.: the former from Antioch to the river Eleutheros, the latter from this point to the mountains of N. Galilee and Hermon.

They are of limestone, with many other formations, and in some parts reach a height of over 10,000 ft. The scenery is magnificent, espe- cially in the great gorges where the rivers pass down into the plains. The vegetation is luxuriant for a long distance up the slopes, and the many flourishing villages on the side of the Lebanon facing the sea to-day, tell us of one part of Pheenician life which has vanished almost entirely from its history.

The chief rivers are the Eleu- theros, which separates Bargylos from Lebanon ; the Adonis, famous in history ; and the Lycos, at the mouth of which still remain the well-kncwn Egyptian and Assyrian inscriptions. But besides these there are many small streams which pour down from every mountain slope, full in the rainy season, empty in the dry, and for this very reason affecting both commercial and military movements.

(2) The plains are best known as containing nearly all the cities that have left their mark in Pheenician history. The extreme north is a mere strip of land between the mountains and the sea, and the first great plain is that extending for about 60 miles south from Gabala, with a width varying from 2 to 10 miles, and containing the cities of Arvad and Simyra.

The next piece of open country is that from the Lycos river to a few miles below Beyrfit, then follow the plains of Sidon, about 10 miles long and 2 broad, Tyre about 20 miles long and from 1 mile to 5 miles broad, and Acre about 8 miles long and 6 broad. These plains as well as the hilly slopes were famous for their cultivation, and there are traces to-day, in the remains that are found, of the industries that were carried on in them.

But they owe their fame mostly to the fact that they are the highways along which the trade of the East came to the West. The inscriptions at the mouth of the Lycos, the annals of Egypt and Assyria, and the descriptions of the OT prophets, all bear witness to the constant traffic and frequent in- vasions that were made possible by this low-lying coast-land of Pheenicia.

_ A description of the old Phosnician territory at the present time may be read in Renan, Mission de Phénicie ; Walpole, The Aa ; Réclus, ? Asie Antérieure ; and Baedeker’s Palestine and Syria. PHENICIA (δ) History of the country.—The earliest histor- ical mention of the Pheenician land is in the older Egyptian inscriptions, where it appears under the name of Dahe (or Zahi).* Between B.c. 1587 and 1562 Aahmes reached it in his northern conquests.

He also mentions a people called the Fenkhu as workers in his quarries. Thothmes I. (1541-16) overran the whole length of Syria as far as the Euphrates. Thothmes ΠΙ. (1503-1449) in his 23rd Mees records a victory over the Fenkhu and other yrians; in his 29th year another campaign to Retennu, Tunep, Arvad, and Zahi, with much Phenician soil ; in his 30th year a campaign to Kedesh, Simyra, and Arvad; and in his 34th year & campaign which brought tribute from Zahi, Retennu, and Asi (Cyprus).

In the reign of Amenophis II. (1414-1379) Egyptian power seems to have been at its highest, and Phenicia, with the rest of Syria, was entirely subject toit. The next reign, that of Amenophis Iv. (or Akhenaten, 1379-66), is one of decay.

The discovery of the Tel el-Amarna tablets has given us a rather fuller insight into the relation of Pheenicia to Egypt than we have had hitherto, for some of the letters con- tained in these tablets are from or to Egyptian governors and others in Pheenician cities. Thus we have mention of Abimilki of Tyre, Amunira of Beyrfit, Khaib, commissioner of Simyra, Ribaddi of Gubla, Shutatna of Akko, Zimrida of Zidon, etc.

Nearly all the letters tell the same story of attacks from without and rebellion within, and rove that whether Phenicia now made a stand or independence or became a prey to other rising empires, it was at this time passing from Egyptian dominion. The Egyptians still made raids into Pheenician territory or marched through it (cf. the inscription of Ramses I.

at the mouth of the river Lycos) to attack other enemies, and Phenicians pobenly still paid tribute from time to time to We have no details of the history of the land at this time. We know, however, that it never formed one united kingdom. Its history is the history of its cities. Of these, Arvad seems to have enjoyed a pre-eminence in the earliest times, and more certainly Sidon a little later. The whole ΒΡῈ was sometimes known to foreigners as the idonians. The era of Tyre began about B.C.

1197 (according to Jos. Ané. VII. iii. 1); but Arvad and Sidon were still independent cities in the 9th cent.: in the 8th Tyre seems to bear rule over Sidon, Akko, and other cities. Later, Diodorus Siculus (xvi. 41) mentions a united council of men of Arvad, Tyre, and Sidon at Tripolis (native name unknown). This development of the government * W. Max Miiller suggests that this name may be connected with the root Lay; ‘to be beautiful,’ jon ‘to act well’; cf.

nay *to shine’ (Asien und Europa, p. 176). This name begins to into the ackaround in the 12th cent., and is almost forgotten in the Ptolemaic period. Kaft or Keft (in the inscription of Thothmes 111. etc.) is frequently taken to indicate the Phwnician coast (cf. Sayce in article CANAAN), but Miller (p. 337 ff.) argues strongly for its representing Cilicia.

Canaan is a geographical term denoting the low land, and seems to have been used by the Phosnicians themselves at one time to denote their land (see Canaan), The name Φοινίκη given by the Greeks (it occurs in Odyss. iv. 83) has given rise to much discussion. It seems to have been used (like ‘EdAas) for the land where Phonicians dwelt, whether at home or abroad ; thus ah ae (Tro. 221) uses it for Oarthage.

The older derivations of the name Φοίνικες Phoenicians) from ¢eig, the bird (‘ phanix’), or a palm,’ are fanciful and secondary. Some derive the word from ¢oives, brownish-red,’ as denoting the colour of the skin (Pietschmann, Geach. d. Phimizier, Bs 18), a root which reappears in the Latin Poenus (" Punic’ of Carthaginians). Some (cf. CANAAN and Ed. Meyer, . d, Alterthums, §§ 180, 190, etc.)

refer both these names back to the word ‘ Fenkhu,’ which ap in the inscrip- tion of Thothmes ut, at Karnak. To this Miiller objects (p. 208 ff.), that this word was originally only an Egyptian term used in a general sense for the northern barbarians. Finally, Ed. Glaser (Punt und die sildarabischen Reiche, 1899) has revived the view that the name is connected with the ‘ Punt’ or Powen-at=Poen-at) of the Egyptian inscriptions, a part of uth Arabia and East Africa. gypt.

΄ PHCENICIA 857 of cities was not without foreign intervention. The Egyptians had scarcely ceased troubling them when they were brought face to face with danger from a new quarter. It is possible that as early as 1140 Nebuchadnezzar 1. of Babylonia invaded their country (cf. Winckler, Geschichte Babyloniens und Assyriens, p. 95 and note 18). Tiglath-pileser I. (c. 1100) also seems to have reached the Mediter- ranean coast near Arvad. In the 9th cent.

Assur- nazirpal raided the country, as did his successor, Shalmaneser 11., who received tribute from Tyre and Sidon and Byblos (Gebal), as well as from Jehu king of Israel; and Mattanbaal king of Arvad fought with Ahab at the battle of Karkar (854). In the 8th cent. the cuneiform inscriptions record tribute received by Tiglath-pileser m1. from Arvad, Tyre, and Gebal; and Menander tells of a siege of Tyre by Shalmaneser Iv. which lasted for five years.

In the following century Sargon, Sen- nacherib, and Esarhaddon all sent their armies to Phenicia, and the last named even to Idalion in Cyprus; and in the 6th cent. the new Baby- lonian empire continued the work of Assyria in the famous siege of Tyre by Nebuchadnezzar. With the rise of the Persian empire came a change which greatly benefited the Phenicians. Cyrus seems to have left them alone, and about this time they again supplied the Jews with materials for building their temple (Ezr 37).

Cambyses enrolled them in a satrapy with Cyprus, Syria, and Palestine, and thus received from them their share of tribute; but was friendly to them, and depended on them entirely for his navy (cf. Herod. 111. 19); nor did he attempt force against them even when they refused to give him ships wherewith to attack Carthage.

The Pheenician fleet continued to do apie service for the Persians, especially against the reeks, until 351, when Sidon, under Tabnit, re- volted; but Ochus soon brought Pheenicia back to obedience, and its cities continued to flourish under their native kings until after the battle of Issus they fell into the hands of Alexander the Great, Tyre only after suflering a long siege and a cruel punishment.

After Alexander’s death, Pheenicia fell with Syria to Laomedon, then in 320 to Ptolemy Lagi, and in 314 to Antigonus. In 287 it again passed to the Ptolemies, who held it until 198, when it became part of the Seleucid empire. During all this period Greek manners and customs and language were largely introduced into the country.

Finally, after it had shared with Syria in the many vicissitudes of the Seleucid power, in 65 Rome took possession, and Pheenicia was included in the province of Syria under a pro- consul or pro-pretor, though Tyre, Sidon, and Tripolis remained free cities with their own elected magistrates and council (ef. Ac 12"), In Mk 73 Ὁ a woman of this country is called a Syro-pheenician ; in Mt 15"-* the older name ‘ Canaanitish’ is used.

For this section, see, further, the Literature cited in the notes to ‘ Sources,’ above. (c) Greater Phenicia.—A sketch of the history of Pheenicia would be incomplete without a notice of the many ports, especially in the Mediterranean, where its people settled, and from which came many of those articles of commerce which made them renowned. Some of these settlements can be traced back to the 15th cent. B.c. There may have been some before that time; but records fail us.

In some of these places the Phoenicians seem to have had real colonies, in others merely ‘ fac- tories,’ where their traders received the wares of the neighbouring country to export them to their own land. Cyprus was very early settled by them, and although the Greeks afterwards took much of the island, the towns of Kition and Idalion flour- ished up to Roman times (see Cyprus).

The islands of the ASgean Sea (including Crete, Rhodos, Kythsra, and many others) were occupied by them —as many scholars hold—even in pre-Homeric times (cf. Bérard, ‘Les Phéniciens et les potmes Homériques,’ in Revue de Vhistoire des Religions, xxxix. 173-228 and 419-460).

The advance of the Greeks, and consequent expulsion of the Pheenicians from these islands, seems to have led to an in- creased interest in the settlements in the West Mediterranean, some of which, at least, had been founded long before. Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, Malta, Gaulos, Tarshish, and Gades in Spain, various places in N. Africa, including the famous Carthage, were settled by them, and were in con- stant communication with the home country.

Many of these settlements have been assigned by history and tradition to certain Pheenician cities, e.g. Utica and Carthage to Tyre, and Carthage itself seems to have established new trading ports on the opposite coast of the Mediterranean. (For settlements outside the Mediterranean, see para- graph in small type below). ΜῈ ii. THE PEOPLE.—The origin of the Phoenician people is wrapped in mystery. According to their own traditions of the 5th cent. B.c.

, they dwelt formerly by the Erythreean Sea (Herod. vii. 89 ; cf. i. 1), te. the Indian Ocean, including the Persian Gulf. This tradition is repeated by other classical authors—Strabo, Justin, Pliny, e¢ al. Justin en- larges the story by a statement that an earthquake was the cause of their movement, and that they dwelt then near the ‘ Assyrian lake’ (XVIII. iii. 2) ; and Strabo (who in I. ii. 35 regards the story of the migration as untrustworthy) says (in XVI. iii.

4) that in the Persian Gulf are two islands—Turos and Arados—whose temples resemble those of the Phenicians, and that the inhabitants of these islands say that the Phcenician islands are named after them, and their towns are settlements from themselves. Sayce (note to Herod. i.

1) suggests that the similarity of names gave rise to the whole legend, and points out that the names are really different, as according to Ptolemy and Pliny the real name of the island in the Persian Gulf was Tylos, while the Pheenician city Tyre was Ἂς, and the Phenician Arados was properly Arvad. Fail- ing historical evidence, we are led to such testimony as we can get from language, anthropology, and religion.

his is avowedly incomplete at the present time; but the material available shows the Pheenicians of the Syrian coast to have been a Semitic people, who took part in the great migration to the West which at different times sent also the Aramans to Syria and the Hebrews and their kin to Palestine.

It has long been known that the activity of the Phonicians was not confined to the islands and coasts of the Mediterranean, and it has been suspected that the Phoenicians of the Syrian coast were perhaps only one branch of a race which had settle- ments in other parts of the Semitic world.

A work entitled, Punt und die siidarabischen Reiche, by Eduard Glaser, the famous traveller in South Arabia, appeared in the end of 1899, in which evidence has been gathered from the records of Egypt and the South Arabian fnscriptions to show that these conjec- tures are supported by history. According to Glaser, the land of Punt, so often mentioned in Egyptian inscriptions, was a large part of the coasts of East Africa and South Arabia. Thence the Egyptians obtained incense, gold, etc.

From this land were established several colonies, including Mashonaland and Socotra. But the remains in the former place are evidently Phenician, various signs indicate the identity of the races inhabiting the land of Punt, and the name itself is identical with ‘ Phenician.

’ Thus we must in future speak of two branches of the Phnician people,a Northern on the coasts of Syria, and a Southern (of the same race, language, and origin as the Northern) which left the Erythrean Gulf at a very early period, and ceased from that time to influence the other members of the race. The confirmation or otherwise of this theory must depend on earner evidence of the Babylonian and 8. Arabian ptions. iv. ALPHABET AND LANGUAGE.

—(a) The Phe- nician alphabet is purely consonantal, and consists of 22 charasters, written from right to left. Tra- PHENICIA dition says that this was the first alphabet in vented— ‘Pheenices primi, fama si creditur, aus! Mansuram rudibus vocem signare figuris.'

—(Lucan), It is, however, generally recognized that the in- vention consists in the taking over of signs used originally by other peoples to denote syllables, and the adaptation of these to denote simple sounds, together with the simplification of what were originally pictorial or hieroglyphic characters.

Together with this we must recognize that some letters were not taken over directly, but were formed by slight modifications of those thus re- ceived (thus the sign for the monet aspirate ᾧ is formed from that of the simple A by the addition of a stroke to the left). Various opinions are held as to the originalsource. Until lately the favourite view has been that the Phcenicians borrowed their characters from the Egyptian.

This was also held in ancient times, and is mentioned in Tacitus— ‘Primi per figuras animalium Agyptii sensus mentis effingebant . . et literarum semet inven- tores perhibent; inde Pheenicas, quia mari pre- pollebant, intulisse Gracie gloriamque adeptos, tamquam Teppererint que μὲν eetea (Ann. xi. 14). Supporters of this opinion are divided as to whether the Pheenician characters were derived directly from the hieroglyphs or from the hieratic writing.

Much has been written of late to show that the Babylono-Assyrian cuneiform is the real source of the Pheenician alphabet. This opinion was also held in early times. Pliny says, ‘ Litteras semper arbitror Assyriis fuisse, sed alii apud Aigyptios a Mercurio, ut Gellius, alii apud Syros repertas volunt’ (Nat. Hist. vii. § 37). The widespread use of the cuneiform characters about the time to which is assigned the invention of the Pheenician alphabet, is used to support this hypothesis.

A third view held by some corresponds in some degree with the last mentioned by Pliny, and derives the Phenician characters from the Cypriote, which are connected with the so-called Hittite characters. This opinion is altogether too undeveloped at Peeeene to be judged properly. Nor is it easy to ecide as to the Egyptian and Assyrian theories, The selection of the characters to which the Pheenician are referred seems arbitrary, and a succession of intermediate formsis wanting.

Either view seems to be historically possible, neither proved. The Phenician alphabet like most others, seems to have only incompletely represented the sounds of the language. Two words beginning in Pheenician with the same letter are represented in Greek by different letters, s=Tupos, x= Σιδών.

These characters are identical with those found on the Siloam inscription in Juda and the Moabite Stone, and on early Jewish coins, and may thus be called Canaanitish (in the large sense) as well as Phenician. The early Greek alphabet was also derived from the Pheenician (cf. Herod. v. 58), though soon altered in many ways to suit the needs of the Greek language.

(6) The language of Pheenicia is pure Semitic, and belongs to the same branch of that family as the Hebrew, the Moabitish, and the Semitic glosses in the Tel el-Amarna letters, forming with these (and probably other dialects of which we have no remains) the so-called Canaanitish group. The materials for an exact comparison with Hebrew are wanting. The inscriptions (with the single exception of CJS i. 5, see above under ‘ Sources’) are later than the 6th cent.

, and mostly of the 4th and later, when the language h probably suffered a certain amount of decay. The Punic passages in Plautus are of the end of the 3rd cent., and can be used only with care (cf. Néldeke, Die semitischen Sprachen, p. 25f.), and the vowel letters in the inscriptions are rare. The consonante PHCENICIA are the same as in Hebrew, but many words were probably, pronounced with different vowel sounds rom those used in the same words in Hebrew.

The wau conversive with the imperfect, so familiar in Hebrew, is wanting in the Phenician, which, on the other hand, seems to have formed a kind of luperfect with kan (CIS 93). Words, too, that ame rare or poetical in Hebrew were in common use in Phenician. The later language shows the same weakening and confusion of gutturals that marks late Hebrew. LirzraTurE.—On the Phonician alphabet see de Rougé, Memoires sur Vorigine égyptienne de Valphabet phénicien, 1874 ; Deecke, ‘‘ Ursprung d.

altsemitischen Alphabets aus d. neu- gsm Keilschrift,’ in ZDMG xxxi. 102{f.; and cf. Zimmern, 4d. |. 667 ff.; Isaac Taylor’s, The Alphabet 2, where the Egyptian ΠΕΣ is accepted ; Ball, ‘Origin of the Phonician Alphabet,’ in PSBA, 1893, 892-408; Berger, L’écriture dans lantiquité. Conder, in The Bible and the East, p. 74 ff., supports the Cypriote origin. riba inesciyeoese enonllented in the French ΟἹ ; the words in them are collected in Bloch’s Phenicisches Glossar (Berlin, 1891); and esp.

by Lidzbarski, Handbuch d. nordsemitischen Epi ΠΡΙ Ε Vihear 1898), The wordsin Plautus are discussed ἘΠῚ ildemeister in Ritschl’s edition of Plautus, vol. ii. fasc. 5 ¢ pzig, 1884). A fuller discussion of these by Prof. D. 5 argoliouth will appear in a forthcoming number of the Classical Review. The only grammar of Phosnician is Schréder’s Phaeni- zische Grammatik (Halle, 1869). Of., further, article on Lanavaae or OT. vy. CONSTITUTION AND GOVERNMENT.

—The Phe- nicians never appear in history as one united people under one government. Their pouGee! history Tesolves i into the history of their chief cities. Naturally a quiet and unwarlike people (Jg 187), the country folk were probably content with the simpler forms of local or pecsisecbal government usual among Eastern ples, depending for help in time of need upon the city that was nearest to them or which they had originally left as settlers.

In the cities the government was more conven- tional. Kings of Sidon, Tyre, Gebal, Kition, and Idalion are mentioned in the OT, in foreign records, and on the Phenician inscriptions. From Menander’s list of the kings of Tyre we can see that the monarchic power remained in the same family, except when revolutions broke the order of succession.

As to the constitution of the court circle, we can only gather from our knowledge of Carthage, and of the Semitic states bordering on Pheenicia, that there existed an aristocracy which probably owed its existence in early times to pro- minent position in the tribes. In some of the cities a body of ten chiefs (Justin, xvii. 6. 1) seems to have been prominent in international business. This seems to have been part of a larger council of a hundred men.

Of the organization of the traders, the most important part of the population, we know nothing. A tradition in Justin (xviii. 3) seems to indicate the presence of a large slave pulation. Among the different cities it was inevitable that one or another should gain some pre-eminence over the others, This is historically proved by the fact that at one time Sidon gave its name to the Pheenician people as a whole, while in OT times Tyre evidently had some kind of supre- macy.

For the Persian period Diodorus Siculus (xvi. 41) mentions a federal government with head- quarters at Tripolis, where Arvad, Sidon, and Tyre held a common council. Even when under the sway of foreign powers, the chief Phcenician cities seem to have always maintained a large amount of self-government in internal affairs; and under the Romans we know that Sidon, Tyre, and Tripolis retained the rank of ‘ free cities,’ with the right to appoint their own councils and magistrates. vi.

CIVILIZATION AND COMMERCE.—The people were originally, in all probability, largely agri- cultural. The inscription of Thothmes ΠῚ. men- tions among the spoil of Phoenicia, ‘ good bread and various bread, corn in grain, flour. . and all good fruits of the land.

’ But though the agri- PHCENICIA 8598 cultural class doubtless existed throughout ita history, it soon yielded in importance to those of the Manufacturers, merchants, and seamen, who received raw material from various parts of the known world, and sent it forth again in new and more useful or more beautiful forms, or contented themselves with simply acting as intermediaries with profit to themselves.

Their navigation, origin- ally taken up for business purposes, became later a great source of influence and probably of wealth to them, when they provided a navy for their Persian Tulers. Phoenicia was eens mercantile, and was warlike only when commercial life was threatened. Situated on the only part of the Syrian coast that had any pretence to natural harbours, and hemmed in he lofty mountains on the north and east, its people naturally turned to the sea.

And so the sea soon carried their ships ; its shells gave them their valuable dyes, and its sand the material for their glass. The meeting of the land trade-routes from Asia and Africa, and of the sea-routes from all parts of the Medi- terranean, made alike the history and the civiliza- tion of Phenicia.

The land-routes existed for natural reasons; the sea-routes were due to the skill and enterprise of the sailors who pushed their way from island to island, and cape to cape, until they reached the southern capes of Spain, and passed through the Straits of Gibraltar. Yet the people do not seem to have been very original or inventive, and their chief merit seems to have been rather the power of adapting and fitting for commercial purposes the arts they learned from others.

They had, too, the advantage of being able to collect in one place the products of many lands, and thus of producing an effect on the imagination of peoples which gave them a glory not all their own. Glass was one of the manu- factured articles for which they gained much credit, and tradition came to ascribe its invention to them (Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxxvi. 65); but it had been made ‘from time immemorial’ in Egypt, and the art of making it was probably taken by the Pheenicians from that country.

The dyed wares of Pheenicia were renowned throughout the ancient world, and the abundance of the murezx on their coasts (see COLOURS in vol. i. p. 457) gave full cueeranity, for the production of the most brilliant colours then known; but the art of dyeing prob- ably came from Babylonia. Their weaving and embroidery were alike famous and sought after ; but we are still ignorant as to how much progress in these arts was due to native workers.

Gold, silver, iron, tin, and lead were imported by them long before the days of Ezekiel, and were wrought into forms of beauty that were known to the Homeric poems (Jl. xxiii. 740 ff; Odyss. iv. 618) ; but their artistic forms show undoubted marks of large foreign influence. Amber, it is now known, was dug in Pheenicia itself, but was also probably received by the ordinary trade-routes BS the Baltic, and objects made of it have been found in the ruins of Mycene.

The artistic side of Pheenician life (with a rather large commercial appearance in it) is well repre- sented in the various objects which have been dug up or discovered in Pheenicia itself, but more ex- tensively in Cyprus and Carthage and a few more of the old Pheenician colonies. The pottery dis- covered belongs mostly to the Greco-Roman times, and most of its excellences seem to be due to foreign influence.

Earlier specimens, supposed to be Pheenician, are both of the painted and incised varieties, but are not at all remarkable. The metal-work is more interesting, and the statuettes of bronze are curious if not particularly beautiful. The bronze bowls of Cyprus and the celebrated cup (discovered at Preneste) of silver, overlaid 860 PHGNICIA PH ENICIA a — with gold, with figures in low-relief, alike bear witness to the influence of Egyptian and Assyrian art.

The same applies to the seals and cylinders, which do not usually show a very fine finish, and are generally of serpentine, sometimes of glass, etc. The chief feature of this sculpture was the application of colour to give emphasis to certain parts of the figure. Their architecture is only partially known to us from very imperfect remains. A marked feature in their building is the employ- ment of the natural solid rock, as far as possible.

This is the case with the old walls of Sidon, much of the funeral architecture, and the famous mono- lith house of Amrith. There seems to have been no vault in Pheenician architecture, the roof being terraced, as in Syria at the present day. The columns, cornices, and other decorations are almost entirely foreign, largely Egyptian. The tombs were in caves, and sarcophagi were used, and sometimes massive monuments like the so-called ‘Hiram’s tomb’ towered above the burying-place.

The architecture of their temples was probably Egyptian. That in all these arts the Phenicians were reputed to be skilful workmen we know from the OT account of the relations between Solomon and Hiram of Tyre. A namesake of the Pheenician king made for the temple at Jerusalem the two great pillars of bronze, the molten sea, and other objects of beauty and utility (1 K 7ff.)

To recon- struct these from the descriptions given has been a desire of many writers on ancient art, but there is and must be much uncertainty as to the details of the work. See art. PILLAR. The only meta/ found in Phenicia itself was iron, but the abundance of minerals in some of their colonies soon made the Phenicians expert miners. Cyprus contained large quantities of copper, and the island gave its name to this metal.

The Sar- dinian settlements were apparently due to the search after copper and lead. The mines of Thasos were known to Herodotus (vi. 47), and the Spanish colonies were perfect storehouses of gold, silver, copper, tin, iron, and lead.

e attention given to navigation naturally gave rise to a large industry in the art of shipbuilding, and it is possible to trace on the Assyrian sculptures and Pheenician vases and coins the development from the rude and small boats first used to the large and well-fitted vessels used in later times, and so warmly eulogized by Xenophon in the Giconomica (§ 8).

The art of navigation, too, as distinct from the usual hugging of the shore and sailing in the daytime only, seems to have been developed if not invented by these people, to whom the Polar star was known. ‘The ships of the sea, with their mariners,’ occupy the first place in Ezekiel’s description of the pride of Tyre (ch. 27).

From this description by Ezekiel we can easily understand that the private life of the Phenician traders was one of great lux Many of the articles of commerce, in which they traded, found their way into the homes of the people. Little is known of their ppaate life, but there are indica- tions that behind the outward show of wealth and civilization lay a selfish and even cruel spirit.

The traffic in slaves was no unimportant part of their commerce, and for the sake of it they would forget ‘the covenant of brethren’ (Am 1°), Commerce was the life and soul of the people, and the faults as well as the virtues of a purely commercial people marked the Pheenician race (cf. Is 23, etc.) =. best be studied in Renan, Mission de Phénicie; Perrot et Pp Cypre’; Mevsiless A. P. di Cesnola, δι vii. RELIGION.

—The religion of the Phcenicians was polytheistic, nor so far as we can go back do we find any traces of its ever having been mono- theistic. In the Tel el-Amarna tablets the Phoe nician names contain the names of several of the gods; in the OT, too, the ba‘alim (plur.) are men- tioned. The origins of the gods are unknown. The statements of Philo Byblios in this matter are useless, for everything is made to serve his own euhemerism.

The view that Baal was the name of an originally one and only god—and that the sun-god—has been shown to be more than doubtful (see art. BAAL). Even the later identification by the Greeks of certain Pheenician gods with their own tells us nothing of their origin and previous his- tory. As Ed. Meyersays (Gesch. αἰ. Alt. §192, note), ‘It should never be forgotten that of the Phe- nician religion we know very little (recht wenig), of the Phenician mythology proper, nothing at all.

’ It is a striking fact that one goddess ‘Tanith,’ is mentioned about 2000 times in Cartha- ginian inscriptions, and we know nothing either as to the meaning of the name or the nature of her being. Without attempting to explain the nature of each individual god, it seems clear, however, that some at least took their origin in the worship of the powers of nature (cf.

the ‘ Ba‘al of heavens,’ the worship of Eshmun and Adonis, the feasts of the seasons of the year, the veneration of objects of nature, etc. [see below]). In this respect they fall in line with other Semitic peoples. Another determining feature in their worship seems to have been their social organization. The existence of various tribes among the Pheenicians has often been asserted, and is in itself very probable, but there is no evidence for it.

On the ther hand, the city has played a part, larger than in the histery of any country, except perhaps the history of Italy in the Middle Ages. That each city had a god of its own is evident. Sometimes he was simply called the Baal of that city (see BAAL), some- times he had a name of his own (as Melkarth, the Ba'al of Tyre).

Beyond the actuating power of these two factors—reverence for the powers of nature, and the bond of city life—it is difficult, if not impossible, to go in the present state of our knowledge of the early gods of Phenicia. <A strik- ing feature in the names of the gods is the presence of so many appellatives in the names of the best- known (thus Baal, ‘possessor’; "Adon, ‘lord’; Milk, ‘king,’ ete.) Another characteristic is the recognition of female as well as male deities.

By the side of Ba‘al is Ba‘alat (as early as the Tel el- Amarna tablets ‘ Ba‘alat 8a Gubla’), with Milk is Milkat, with Elis Elat (see CIS 243, 244); but it does not follow that because the masculine and feminine forms of the same words are used, that there is necessarily any special relation between the god and goddess represented by them.

A closer relation between two gods seems to be indicated by the compounding of two divine names, as in Milk- ‘ashtart, Ba‘almelkart, Zadmelkarth, Zadtanith, etc.; but whether this has any political or doctrinal significance is uncertain. n later times Pheenician cities, like other peoples of the ancient world, introduced foreign gods into theirtemples.

Egypt especially furnished its share, and Babylonian deities are not wanting ; while in regard to the other nations around them (other Canaanites, Arameeans, etc.), it is often difficult to say whether one has borrowed from the others, or all have received them from a common stock. In Greek times the identification of their own gods with Greek deities did much to change the nature and worship of both.

The relation of the individual (we have no evi- dence of the tribal relation prominent in Arabia, and undoubtedly present among the early Israelitey ῬΗ(ΕΝΊΟΙΑ οἵ. TRIBE) to the god is expressed by the various words expressing dependence on or relation to, prefixed to names of gods to form names of per- sons, 6.0. 73y ‘servant of’ (which occurs with the name of nearly every Phenician god known); τῶν ‘man of’; 73 ‘branch, member of’ (see Bloch, Phen. Gloss.

8 19, note) ; -*n (for nx) ‘ brother of’ ; —3 ‘client of’; and once or twice -38 and “3 ν ‘father, or my father is’... Women’s names are also formed by prefixing the following and similar words to the divine names “na ‘daughter of’; -nnx and -nn ‘sister of’; "τὸν ‘handmaid of’; “nwnx ‘ bride of.’ (a) Thedeities.—Altogetherabout50names of gods are known from the Phen. inscriptions (see Lidz- barski, 152 ff.) Of many of these we know nothing but the name.

Among the most important are the following (in the order of the Phen. alphabet) :— IN (Gr. “Adwus, cf. Heb. ὙΠῈ), originally an appellative. A god in Byblos, then in Cyprus, where he was also joined with Eshmun. Origen and Jerome identify him with Tammuz (Ezk 8"), who was really a Babylonian god. In some places he is joined with Osiris. For the probable mean- ing of the Adonis feast, see Baudissin, Studien zur sepitischen Religionsgeschichte, ii. 188, note. ἐξ (cf. Heb.

5x) occurs in several proper names, but it is still doubtful whether it stands for a par- ticular god. Philo of Byblos says that he was the chief god of Byblos, but had neither temple nor cultus. The feminine form nx occurs on two Carthaginian inscriptions as the name of a goddess with priests of her own. jows (called by the Greeks ’AckAjmos) is not mentioned in the OT, but was worshipped in Sidon, Berytos, Carthage, Cyprus, ete.

; and his name occurs frequently in proper names, and compounded with Melkarth (cf. Ed. Meyer in Roscher’s Lexikon d. Griechischen u. Romischen Mythologie, i. 1385 f.) by (Gr. Βάαλ, Βῆλος, Βήλ, and in proper names Βάλ) was worshipped also by the Israelites, Philis- tines, and probably by Moabites. He appears in Palmyrene inscriptions as 1 and $2. He was prob- ably also indigenous in Arabia (Néldeke in ZDMG xl. 174), and is evidently connected with the Baby- lonian Bel. See BAAL.

The feminine form nby3 (Gr. BaaArls, Βῆλτις) occurs in the Tel el-Amarna tablets as Ba‘alat §a Gubla. It is as goddess of the same place that she is mentioned four times in CJS 1. It seems also to be present in the OT place-names ndy3, Ia n2y3, and nidya. 33 appears in Pheenician inscriptions only in proper names, but occurs as a god in Is 65", in the 32 5920 of Jos 1557, and in Ezr 2", also in Aramaic (ZDMG xlii. 474), in Arabia (Wellhausen, Reste d. Arab. Heidertums?

, 146), and probably in Pal- myrene, but is unknown to the Babylonians. He was a god of Fortune (see art. GAD); but the city- od Τύχη of Greek inscriptions and coins from Syria, with whom he has been generally identified, is regarded by Banudissin (Herzog-Hauck, vi. 334 f.) as referring more probably to Atergatis. bp, originally an appellative,—cf. Molech and Milcom of the Ammonites (see MOLECH),—is men- tioned in the Tel el-Amarna tablets in the names Abi-milki, Di-milki, ‘Abd-milki, etc.

, and in many names in the Phoenician inscriptions. A goddess ΠΡΟ is also found in Carthage, Hadrumet, and Sardinia. maipbp (=mp-7bn ‘ city-king’) is not mentioned in the Or, but was the Ba'al of Tyre, and was iden- tified by the Greeks with Ἡρακλῆς (so in CJS 122, c. 180 B.c.) His temple, according to a tradition in Herodotus (ii. 44); was founded about B.

c, 2740, His name is also found in Cyprus, Malta, and PHENICIA 861 Carthage, and in such proper names as Hamilkar, and is preserved in the Greek Μελικέρτης. In com- ound names of deities he occurs with Eshmiun, Zad, and Resheph (see Ed. Meyer in Roscher’s Lexikon, ii. 2650 ff.) j3D occurs in the proper names 2073, }2072y, and 1n320, Which last is also the name Σαγχουνιάθων of Philo’s fictitious authority.

nay (in the Greek part of CJS 95 represented by *A@nva) is met with in the OT in the place-names Beth-anoth (Jos 15), Beth-anath (Jos 19%, Jg 133), and Anathoth (Jer 1, etc.) As a goddess of war she was known and honoured by the Egyptians in the 17th and 18th dynasties, having, according to Meyer (ZDMG xxxi. 718 f.), been taken over from the Hittites. A connexion with the Babyloniay Anatu is not proved. nanwy (Gr. ᾿Ασταρτη), identified by the Greeka with ’Agpodirn. See ASHTORETH.

ἫΝ seems to be connected with the Heb. vs ‘to hunt, fish,’ but occurs only in names of men and of compound deities. Ww occurs in ΣΟΡΕΣ names of Cyprus, and meets us in Egypt as Rashpu, and is ascribed by Meyer, like Anath (see above), to the Hittites. It seems, however, more natural tc connect the name with the Hebrew word for ‘flame,’ and to look upon the deity as a god of storms or lightning. This seems, too, to be confirmed by the combination ἢ yn in CIS 10 (ef. Driver, Deut.

68, with references). mon was the great goddess of Carthage; but though her name occurs some 2000 times in in- scriptions, we are ignorant of her nature and origin. Except in two or three inscriptions she is always αὐ τ δι bya 15 ‘face οἵ Ba‘al. A compound deity ninvs occurs in some inscriptions. As has been noticed in the case of ‘Anat and Resheph, it is possible that some of the gods already mentioned were taken from other peoples.

In the later period this borrowing certainly took place, and in the inscriptions we find the Babylonian Nergal, the Egyptian Isis, Osiris, Absit (e.g. Bastu, ef. Bubastis, Bok 3017), Horus, and Ptah. In some eases a Phoenician god was joined with a foreign one, as in Melekosir (so Jeremias), but the first part of the name may be only appellative. (b) Sacred objects and cultus.

—As in other Sem- itic religions of Western Asia, the most prominent objects of nature had an idea of sanctity attached to them. Whether as themselves containing spirits, who had power over men, or simply as the greatest gifts of the gods, they were regarded with feelings of awe. High places (mp3) were chosen for their temples and altars as being especi- ally near the deity ; and it was on Carmel (which was known to be sacred in the time of Tacitus, cf. Hist. ii.

78) that the priests of Baal offered with Elijah (1 K 18). Im Greek and Roman writers there are many memories of the earlier sanctity of various Pheenician mountains, from Mt. Casius to Carmel. Waters, too, were regarded with venera- tion, and some were particularly associated with certain gods, and even named after them (as the Adonis). Springs and rivers, two sources of life in the East, were regarded with peculiar reverence. Trees, too, we find sacred, especially to certain goddesses.

The cypress, myrtle, and palm were closely associated with Astarte. ‘This specializa- tion is, however, probably only a development frora an earlier form of nature-worship. The ordinary worship of the Phenician might be offered in any place in the open air, but was most natural on high places, with trees, and often with a sacred stream. Among these surroundings was built an altar with an eshera beside it, and on it the sacrifice was offered. But there is mention in history of temples (e.g.

the temple of Melkarth 862 PHENIX at Tyre); and one would naturally expect that those who did so much for the temple of Jerusalem should have had great sanctuaries of their own. Yet it is very doubtful whether the temple ever layed a very important part in the worship of heenicia, or was ever much more than a prominent adornment of a city. Sacrifices were usual, and human life was offered in the fire and human blood on the altars, but apparently only on important ocersions.

Various animals, both tame and wild, were offered, and products of the field as well as flesh. Sacred prostitution was also a form of offering common to many acts of Phenician wor- ship. Vows were made in time of difficulty or danger, and votive offerings (statuettes, tablets, ete.) were common. Feasts, too, were often associ- ated with religious rites. Priests and priestesses officiated, and the king himself was sometimes (if not always) a priest. LrreraTurE.

—The articles Tyre, ΒΙΡῸΝ, TARSHISH, etc., in this Dictionary, as well as articles on several of the gods by Ed. Meyer in Roscher’s Lexikon, by Baudissin in Herzog’s Real- encyclopedie’, and by various writers in this Dictionary, and in the Encyclopedia Biblica; Baethgen, Beitrdge zur semttischen Religionsgeschichte, especially pp. 16-65, with Noldeke’s review in ZDMG xiii. 470ff.; Baudissin, Studien zur semitischen Religionsgeschichte, i. and ii. ; Jeremias in de la Saussaye’s Lehrbuch ἃ.

Rel, eschichte2, i, 221 ff.; Orelli, Allgemeine Religionsgeschichte ; Tiele, Geschiedenis van den Godsdienst in de Oudheid (Amsterdam, 1893), i. 245 ff.; Ed. Meyer, ‘Ueber einige semitische Gotter,’ in ZDMG xxxi. 716ff.; Hoffmann, Ueber einige phinikische Inschriften (Gottingen, 1889); Hommel, Die altisraelitische Ueberlieferung, p. 219 ff. [AHT' p. 219ff.]; and the following :— GeNERAL LiTERATURE.

—In addition to the works mentioned and quoted in the different sections of this article, the following are the most important general writings on the subject : Movers, Die Phonizier (a new edition has long been promised, and should become the standard work); Pietschmann, Geschichte der Pheenizier (in Oncken’s series); Kenrick, Phenicia; Raw- linson, History of Phenicia (and a smaller volume in the ‘Story of the Nations’ series): the sections dealing with the Phenicians in the Histories of antiquity of Duncker, Ed.

Meyer, and Maspero; cf. Meltzer, Geschichte der Karthager. G. W. THATCHER. PHENIX (Φοίνιξ, AV Phenice) was a good har- bour on the south coast of Crete. When the corn- ship from Alexandria, bound for either Puteoli or the Portus Augustus beside Ostia at the mouth of the Tiber,* on which St.

Paul was sailing from Myra towards Italy, had been detained so Jong on the voyage that it was considered too late in the season to risk the passage across the open sea from Crete to the southern coast of Italy, it was resolved to winter in Crete. When the resolution was come to, the ship was lying in Fair Havens, near the middle of the south coast. The question then arose, where should the ship lie up?

The centurion, who evidently had the supreme authority,+ called a council to advise him on this question ; and the opinion of both captain and sailing-master was that they should seek an opportunity and make for the harbour of Phenix.

Paul, whose opinion was also asked (as, though a prisoner, he was treated with much consideration, being a Roman whose appeal to the emperor had been allowed by the procurator governing Palestine, and being also an experienced and practised traveller), strongly urged that they should stay where they were. There must have been good reasons on both sides.

The experienced sailors had some ground for their opinion: presumably Phenix was a better and safer harbour, and quite probably also it was * At that period more probably the former. + That this was so, and that the centurion had authority even over the captain, results from the character of the imperial service (the ship belonged, of course, to one of the imperial corn fleets), in which the military service ranked higher than the naval, and yet was not strictly divided from it.

But the cen- turion exercised his authority with the penalty of severe punishment before him, if he mismanaged; and he therefore would necessarily ask advice on the point of where to winter, and in purely nautical matters would bays the captain and the sailing-master free in their own departments. See Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller, p. 3241.

PHCENTX recognized as being the proper plac to winter in, if one of the many ships engaged in that trade had to spend the stormy season on that part of their long voyage (as must have been often the case). On the other hand, Paul dreaded the voyage to Phenix, which therefore must have been some distance away. Winds from the north strike with terrifie force on the sea a little south from Crete (though the waters immediately on the coast are protected by the lofty mountains).

The danger, then, would be greatest in crossing the great open- ing of the gulf of Messaria, which begins a few wiles west of Fair Havens. It is obvious, there- fore, that Phcenix is to be looked for somewhere on the other, or western, side of that gulf.

The centurion, as was right and almost obli- gatory in his situation,” took the advice of the experts; and, when the opportunity of a mild south wind was given, they set sail; but in at- tempting to run across the gulf of Messaria, they were caught by a tremendous north-easterly gale, which swoo me down on them from Mount Ida, and narrowly escaped after a terrible voyage of many days across the open sea. Phenix is described by Strabo (p.

475) as being a settlement (κατοικία, denoting a large flourishing village,t originally a settlement of colonists or κάτοικοι) On an isthmus. The passage is very obscure, owing to a lacuna; but apparently what Strabo describes as the isthmus was a narrow part of the island of Crete, between the northern and the southern sea, with a small town, Amphimalla, on the northern coast, and Phenix on the southern.

Apparently he considered Pheenix as a settlement in the territory of Lampa or Lappa, a Cretan city of importance, striking coins (Φοίνικα τὸν Λαμπέων). Now the situation of Lappa is practically certain ; it was situated in the inner country, where Crete is narrow for a space, before it broadens out again to its western end, at a site called Pélis, On the southern coast of this narrower part of Crete, Pheenix must be sought.

Nearly due south from Lappa there is a village, Loutré, with a harbour, described as the safest harbour on the south coast of Crete. Captain Sprat, an experienced surveyor and sailor, was fully convinced, after an explora- tion of the south coast, that Loutré must be Pheenix, ‘because it is the only harbour west of Fair Havens in which a vessel of any size} could find any shelter during the winter months.

’ James Smith, who defends this view by very convincing arguments, quotes several even stronger assertions of the superiority of Loutré to all other harbours on the south coast. There is some evidence that the tradition of the ancient name remains among the Greeks of the place (Smith’s Voyage and Ship- wreck of St. Paul, ed. 3, p. 250 ff., ire I. and IL.; also p. 86 ff.) Ptolemy (iii. 17. 3) describes both a harbour Phenikous and a town near the south coast called Phenix.

His frequent vagueness and want of accuracy make him an unreliable authority ; but he places the town and harbour evidently in this part of Crete (see further, below). Pheenice (7.e. Phoenix) is mentioned as a bishop- ric in the earlier Notitie, viii. and ix.;§ and Hierocles gives it in his list of Cretan cities. ΑἹ] three authorities speak of it as beside a place Aradena (or Ariadne, Not. ix.): the phrase Φοίνιξ ἤτοι Apadéva denotes that two distinct places were united as a single bishopric.

Now Aradena still retains its ancient name as Aradhena, a place * See the preceding note. t See Buresch, Aus Lydien, p. 2f. { The ship which is concerned in the question was large, being able to accommodate 268 of a crew and passengers, and a cargo of corn from Alexandria for Rome. § In Not. vii., which is the oldest krtown, there is a lacuna of about 200 names, among which were the “retan bishoprics. απ νι τ Oe, Ν .- PHENIX which is not much more than a mile from Loutré. Again, Stephanus Byz.

mentions Aradena (’Apadjv) as a city of Crete which is also called Anopolis ; and about two miles north of Loutré there is a village on high ground with ruins which is called still Anapolis. This is ῬΤΟΡΕΝΙΣ to be identified with the Phenix which Ptolemy distinguishes from the harbour, while Aradhena and Loutré foeenee constitute his harbour Phcenikous, and three were united in a single bishopric.

Again, Hierocles (whose order in enumeration is commonly a very good guide) mentions the island of CAUDA or Ganda (he uses the form Κλαῦδος) next to Phenix. Now that island is only a few miles due south of Loutré. Finally, an inscription placed here in the reign of Trajan shows that an imperial ship was epenaling so long a time at this point of its course between Alexandria and Italy that there was time to erect some considerable work, whose nature is not specified.

There can hardly be any doubt that the ship was lying up for the winter, and the imperial freedman who was in authority on the ship employed the crew at some useful work on shore. The sailing-master, gubernator (compare κυβερνήτης, Ac 274), and the ship’s sign, parasemum compare παράσημον, Ac 28"), are both mentioned. ee Smith, Voyage and Shipwreck, 261. Thus we see that Loutré was beside a harbour where at least occasionally the large ships of that Egyptian corn service wintered.

he identification of Loutré as the harbour called Phoenix in Ac 27" seems beyond dispute, if these accounts of travellers and explorers rest on a sufficiently minute examination of the coast. But the identification is encumbered by one serious difficulty. The harbour of Phcenix is described in Acts as looking towards the south-west and the north-west, #.e.

auparently as opening towards the west, with a mouth just so wide that the entrance extends up towards north-west and down towards south-west. But the harbour of Loutré opens towards the east, looking between north-east and south-east. In this difficulty there seem to be only three alternatives open. 1. The harbour of Loutré is formed by a very narrow isthmus connecting a broader peninsula with the mainland ; and there is a harbour on each side of the isthmus.

As the isthmus runs out south from the mainland, one of these harbours looks east, viz. Loutré, while the other looks west. Bishop Wordsworth has sug- gested that the western harbour may be the ancient Phenix, and has pointed out that on the Admiralty chart the name Phinika is given to it.

Obviously, most of the arguments for identifying Loutré as Phenix would apply equally well to this western harbour, which is separated from the other only by a narrow isthmus, and is almost equally near Aradhena and Anapolis. The only difficulty lies in the ve sitive assertions that Loutré is the only well-sheltered harbour ; and certainly the chart represents the western harbour as more widely open.

Still it is distinctly desirable that the western harbour should be more closely and critically examined.

Sprat, indeed, can hard] have failed to do so, and his weighty authority is almost conclusive (though not quite); but the rest of the evidence depends much on the statements of residents in Loutré; and every traveller knows how prone the Greeks are to emphasize too strongly the arguments which support the identification of their own town with an ancient place of fame; their very love and respect for antiquities lead them to exaggerate the ane of their home.

The conclusion must be that Wordsworth’s sug- gestion is not absolutely disproved, though the evidence accessible at present is against it. Among PHRYGIA other things one desiderates careful examination as to whether the coast-line has been modified during eighteen centuries, and whether there are any traces of the western harbour having been used in ancient times. 2.

James Smith suggests that the words of Ac 27 βλέποντα κατὰ Λίβα καὶ κατὰ XGpov, do not mean, as is commonly thought, ‘looking towards south- west and north-west,’ but ‘looking in the direction in which the south-west and north-west winds blow’ (i.e. towards north-east and south-east).

His rendering is distinctly against the analogy of Greek literary expression ; but, considering how little is known of Greek technical sailor language, one cannot feel quite certain that the rendering is absolutely impossible. 3. It has been pointed out* that Luke did not actually visit Phenix (for the ship never went there), but merely speaks on report: his authority was the argument used by the captain and the sailing-master of the vessel in the council which the centurion called.

Naturally these arguments were reported to him by Paul; and, even if Luke were wrong, his mistake would prove, not want of observation of a place which he had seen, but misapprehension of the description of a place strange to him, after that description has passed through an intermediate channel. If (as was often the case) the expression of sailors differed from that of literary Greek and of the ordinary landsman, an error might have thus been produced without any one being conscious of it.

The case, therefore, must be pronounced unde- cided until Sprat’s statement (weighty as it is) is confirmed by new and careful examination; but the balance of evidence is strong that Loutré is Pheenix ; and in that case the third alternative is Derhape least improbable, though the second is not proved to be impossible. W. M. Ramsay. PHOROS (opis)=Parosh; 1 Es δ᾽ 8 (Β Φαρές, AV Pharez), 9:5.