5. After the siege of Tyre by the Assyrians (which must have taken place not long after B.C. 721), Tyre remained a powerfid state with its own kings (.Jer. xxv, 22; xxvii, 3; Ezek. xxviii, 2-12), remarkable for its wealth, with territory on the mainland, and protected by strong fortifications ( ver-. 5; xxvi, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, xxvii, 11; Zech. ix, 3). Our knowledge of its condi- tion thenceforward until the siege by Nebuchadnezzar depends entirely on various notices oi" it by tlie Hebrew prophets; but some of these notices arc singularly full, and especially the twenty-seventh chapter of Ezekiel furnishes us, on some points, with details such as have scarcely come down to us respecting any one city of an- tiquity, excepting Rome and Athens. One point espe-
cially arrests the attention, that Tyre, like its splendid daughter, Carthage, employed mercenary soldiers (Ezek. xxvii, 10, 11). This has been the general tendency in commercial cities on account of the high wages which may be obtained by artisans in a thriving community, compared with the ordinary pay of a soldier, and Tyre had been unable to resist the demoralizing temptation. In its service there were Plioenicians from Arvad, .^Ethi- opians obtained through the commerce of Egypt, and hardy mountaineers from Persia. This is the first time that I he name of Persia occurs in the remains of ancient literature, before its sons founded a great monarchy on the ruins of the ChakUean empire. Independently, however, of this fact respecting Tyrian mercenary sol- diers, Ezekiel gives interesting details respecting the trade of Tyre. On this head, without attemi)ting to exhaust the subject, a few leading points may be no- ticed. The first question is as to the countries from which Tyre obtained the ]irccious metals, and it ap- pears that its gold came I'rom Arabia by the Persian Gulf (v, 22), just as in the time of Solomon it came from Arabia bj^ the Red Sea. See Ophir. Whether the Arabian merchants, whose wealth was proverbial in Roman classical times (Horace, Od. i, 29, 1), obtained their gold by traffic with Africa or India, or whether it was the product of their own country, is uncertain ; but so far as the latter alternative is concerned, the point will probably be cleared up in the progress of geological knowledge. On the other hand, the silver, iron, lead, and tin of Tyre came from a very different quarter of the world, viz. from the south of Spain, where the Phosnicians had established their settlement of Tar- shish, or Tartessus. As to copper, we should have pre- sumed that it was obtained from the valuable mines in Cyprus; but it is mentioned here in conjunction with Javan, Tubal, and Meshech, which points to the dis- tricts on the south of the Black Sea, in the neighbor- hood of Armenia, in the southern line of the Caucasus, between the Black Sea and the Caspian. The country whence Tyre was supplied with wheat was Palestine. It may be added that the value of Palestine as a wheat country to Tyre was greatly enhanced by its proximity, as there was scarcely a part of the kingdom of Israel on the west of the river Jordan which was distant more than a hundred miles from that great commercial city. The extreme points in the kingdom of Judah would be somewhat more distant, but the wheat probably came from the northern part of.Palestine. Tyre likewise ob- tained from Palestine oil, honey, and balm, but not wine apparently, notwithstanding the abundance of grapes and wine in Judah ((Jen. xlix, 11). Tlie wine was im- ported from Damascus, and was called wine of Ilelbon, which was probably not the product of the country ad- joining tlie celebrated city of that name, but came from the neighborhood of Damascus itself (see Porter, Uaiul- hook for Syria, ii, 495; comp. Athenteus, i, .")!). The Bedawin Arabs supplied Tyre with lambs and rams and goats, for the rearing of which their mode of life was so well adapted. Egypt furnished linen for sails, and doubtless for other purposes, and the dyes from shell- fish, which afterwards became such a source of profit to the Tyrians, were imported from the Peloponnesus (comp. the Luconicas purpuras of Horace, Od. ii, 18, 7, and Pliny, ix, 40). Lastly, from Dedan, in the Persian (iulf. an island occupied possibly by a PhaMucian colony, horns of ivory and ebony were imported, which must originally have been obtained from India (Ezek. xxvii). See CoMMEUCK.
6. When the iron grasp of Assyria began to relax, the Chalda?o-Egyptian contest brought still greater miseries upon that unfortunate Syro-Phoenician coast, and Phoe- nicia, still nominally ruled by Tyre. The Phoenicians, it would ap|)ear, had allied themselves to the Egyptians, who under Psammetichus had seized upon Philistia, and were about to assist Pharaoh-Xecho in his further con- quest of the Tyro-Palestinian states. When, therefore, at Carchemish, the Egyptians had been defeated by this
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