Tyrannus, in Greek mythology, was one of the Pterulaida'. who were slain in the contest against the sons of f'.lcctryon.
Tyrbenus, in Greek mvtluilogv, was a surname of Apollo.
Tyre (Heb. Tsor, ^i:J [or lis, 1 Kings v, 1 ; Psa. Ixxxiii, 7; Ixxxvii, 4; Ezek. xxvi, 15; xxvii, 3, 8, 32; xxviii. Pi; Hos. ix, 13; Zech. ix, 3; the form likewise found in inscriptions, Gesenins, Monum. I'kan. p. "201] ; Sept., New Test., Joseph us, and other writers, Trpof; A. V. " Tyrus" [q. \\] in Jer., Ezek. [usually], and the minor prophets [except Joel] ; see also Tvuian), a cel- ebrated commercial city of antiquity (.(osh. xix, 29; 2 Sam. xxiv, 7; Isa. xxiii, 1; Ezek. xxvi, 15; xxvii, 2, etc.), situated in Phoenicia, on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, in latitude 33^ 17' N. ( Smythe, Mediterranean, Y). Aid's). (The following account of it is principally based upon the articles in Kitto and Smith, s. V.) See Ph(Enicia.
I. The Name. — Its Hebrew name, Tsur, signifies a rock, which well agrees with the site of Sur, the mod- ern town on a rocky peninsula, formerly an island. From the word "TsOr" were derived two names of the city, in which the first letters differed from each other, though both had a feature of their common parent: 1st, the Aramaic word Tura (X^IJ ), whence the (Jreek word Ti/ros. probably pronounced Tyros, which finally prevailed in Latin, and, with slight changes, in the modern Languages of the West; and, 2d, Sara, or Surra, which occurs in Plautus (True, ii, 6, 58, "purpuram ex Sara tibi attuli"), and which is familiar to scholars through the well-known line of Virgil, " Ut gemma bi- bat, et Sarrano dormiat ostro" {Georg. ii, (>Oij; comp. Anl. Gell. xiv, (> ; Silius Italicus, xv, 203; Juvenal, x, 30). According to a passage of Probus (ad Virg. Georg. ii, 115), as quoted by Grote {Hist, of Greece, iii, 353), the form "Sara" would seem to have occurred in one of the (Jreek epics now lost, which passed under the name of Homer. Certainly this form accords best with the modern Arabic name of <S'«7-.
I I. Ancient Relations. — 1. Old Tyre. — There is no <loubt that, previous to the siege of the cit\' by Al- exander the Great, Tyre was situated on an island ; but, according to the tradition of the inhabitants, if we may believe Justin (xi, 10), there was a city on the mainland before there was a city on the island; and the tradition receives some color from the name of PaliE- tj-rns, or Old Tyre, which was borne in Greek times by a city- on the continent, thirty stadia to the south (Stral)o xii, 11, 24). But a difficulty arises in supposing that Pal:\?tyrus was built before Tyre, as the word Tyre evidently means "a rock," and few- persons who have
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visited the site of Pahc- tyrus can seriously sup- pose that any took on the surface there c;ui have given rise to the name. Ti> escape tliis difficulty, Hengstenherg makes the suggestion that Paketyrus meant Tyre that formerly ex- isted, "qua; quondam fuit;" and that the name was introduced after the destruction of the great- er part of it by Nebu- chadnezzar, to distin- guish it from that part of Tyre which continued to be in existence {I)e Rebus Tt/rioi-um, p. 2tj). Mo- vers, justly deeming this explanation unlikely, suggests that the orig- inal inhabitants of the city on the mainland possessed tiie island as part of their territory, and named their city frpm the characteristic features of the island, though tlie island itself was not then inhabited ( Das phOnizische A Iter- ?/(«;», II, i, 173). Thisex- jdanation is possible; but other explanations are equally possible. For example, the Phoenician name of it may have been the Old City: and this may have been translated " Palaetyrus" in Greek. Or, if the in- habitants of the main- land migrated to the island, they may after- wards, at some time or other, have given to the city which they left the name of Old Tyre, without its being necessarily implied that the city had ever borne simply the name of Tyre. Or some accidental circumstance, now beyond the reach of conjecture, may have led to the name. This again would tally with the remark of Grote, who observes (loc. cit.) that perhaps the Phaniician name which the city on the mainland bore may have been something resembling Paketyrus in sound, but not coincident in meaning. It is important, however, to bear in mind that this question regarding Patetyrus is merely ar- chreological, and that nothing in Biblical history is affected by it. Nebuchadnezzar necessarily besieged the portion of the city on the mainland, as he had no vessels with which to attack the island; but it is rea- sonably certain that, in the time of Isaiah and Ezekiel the heart or core of the city was on the island. The city of Tyre was consecrated to Hercules (Melkarth), who was the principal object of worship to the inhab- itants (Quintus Curtius, iv, 2; Sirabo, xvi, 757); and Arrian, in his History, says that the temple on the isl- and was the most ancient of all temples within the memory of mankind (ii, Ki). It cannot be doidjted, therefore, that the island had long been inhabited. With this agree the expressions as to Tyre being "in the midst of the seas" (Ezek. xxvii, 25, 26); and even the threat against it that it should be made like the top of a rock to spread nets upon (see Des Vignoles, Chi-onolofjie de Vhistoire Sainfe [Berlin. 1738], ii, 25). As, however, the space on the island was limited, it is