TYRE
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TYRE
cunning as they were successful, and fearfully galling to the besiegers. At last Tyre fell under a furious double attack, and, provoked by their desperate resist- ance even after the town was already taken, the sol- diery tired it and massacred an immense number of the inhabitants. In accordance with the barbarous policy of ancient times, 30,000 of its inhabitants, including slaves, free females, and free children, were sold as slaves (Arrian, iv, 24, 9; Uiodorus, xvii, 4t)). Alexander re- placed the population bv new colonists, chiefly Carians, and soon again the exceptionally favorable position of the place regained for it part of its ancient prosperity, though its trade is said to have suftered by the viciiuty and rivalry of Alexandria.
9. Ptolemy had, after Alexander's death, annexed Phoenicia to his kingdom; but when, in B.C. 315, An- tigonus returned from Babylonia, he easily expelled bis garrisons from all the Phoenician cities save Tyre, which only surrendered after an eighteen months' siege. Tiie boundaries of its territory at that period were : Sarepta to the north, the "Tyriau Ladder' to the south, autl Kcdes and Baka in (ialilce to the east. Under the IMaceilonian successors of Alexander, it shared the fort- unes of the Seleucidie, who bestowed on it many privi- leges; and there are still in existence coins of that eijoch with a Phieniciau and Greek inscription (Eckhel,
Greek Coin of Tyre.
Docfr. Xitmmorum Vet. iii. 379, etc.; Gesenius, Monum. r/iaii. p. ■262-264, and Tab. 34).
10. Beyond this nothing particular is known of Tyre from this time forth to the time of the civil wars of Pome — with which empire Pha?nicia had been incorpo- rated together with Syria by Pompey — when Cassius divided Syria into small provinces and sold thetn sep- arately. Tyre for a short period thus became a princi- jialit}' again with a king of her own. Under the Ro- mans it thus at first continued to enjoy a kind of free- dom ; for.Josephus mentions that when Cleopatra press- ed Antony to include Tyre and Sidon in a gift of Phoe- nician and Jewish territory wliich he made to her, he steadily refused, knowing them to liave been " free cit- ies from their ancestors" (Ant. xv, 4, 1). Subsequently, however, on the arrival of Augustus in the East (A.D. 20), he is said to have deprived the two cities of their liberties for seditious conduct (tSovXwcraTO, Dion Cas- sius, Ixiv, 7). Still the prosperity of Tyre in the time of Augustus was undeniably great. Strabo gives an ac- count of it at that period (xvi, 2, 23), and speaks of the great wealth which it derived from the dyes of the cel- ebrated Tyrian purple, wliich, as is well known, were extracted from shell-fish found on tlie coast, belonging to a species of tlie genus Murex. In the days of Eze- kiel.tlie Tyrians had imported purple from the Pelopon- nesus; but they had since learned to extract the dye for themselves; and they had the advantage of having shell-iish on their coast better adapted for this purpose even than those on the Lacedajmonian coast (Pausanias, iii, 21, 6). Strabo adds that the great number of dye- ing-works rendered the city unpleasant as a place of residence. He further speaks of the houses as consist- ing of many stories, even of more than in the houses at Pome — which is precisely what might be expected in a prosperous fortitied city of limited area, in which ground-rent would be high. Plinj- the Elder gives ad- ditional information respecting the city, for in describ-
ing it he says that the circumference of the city proper (i. e. the city on the peninsula) was twenty-two stadia, while that of the whole city, including Palaityrus, was nineteen Poman miles (ffisf. Kaf.v, 17). Tlie accounts of Strabo and Pliin' have a peculiar interest in this re- spect, that they tend to convey an idea of what the city must have been when visited" by Christ (iMatt. xv, 21*; Mark vii, 24). It was perhaps more jiopidoiis tliau Je- rusalem ; and if so, it was undoubtedly the largest city which he is known to have visited. It was not much more than thirty miles distant from Nazareth, where Christ mainly lived as a carpenter's son during the greater part of his life (Matt, ii, 23; iv, 12, 13, 18; Mark vi, 3). We may readily conceive that he may often have gone to Tyre wliile yet unknown to the world; and, whatever uncertainty there may be as to the ex- tent to which the Greek language was likely to be spoken at Nazareth, at Tyre and in its neigliborhood there must have been excellent opportunities for con- versation in that language, with which he seems to have been acquainted (Mark vii, 26). At an early pe- riod a Christian community was formed there (Acts xxi, 3, 7). It was early the seat of a Christian bishopric, and Cassius, bishop of Tyre, is named as having been present at the Council of Cresarea towards the close of the 2d century (Reland. Puhestina, p. 1054).
For a long time Tyre retained her manufactures and trade, though a mere shadow of what these once had been. Chiefly with reganl to her dyeing produce Hadrian granted Tyre the title of metropoHs, and it formed the principal naval station on tlie Tyrian coast. Once again it was fired in A.D. 193, when it took part with Septimius Severus against Pescennius Niger in their contest for the crown, and Severus gratefully bestowed upon the place, which he jieopled with his third legion, the title of colony and the Jus Italicutn. Such was its elastic vitality that at the time of Con- staiitine it again equalled all the Eastern cities in wealtli and commercial pros|>crity. Jerome, in the 4th century, calls it the noblest and most beautiful city of Phoenicia, and expresses his astonishment at the ap- parent nonfullllment of the prophecy which threatened its eternal desolation ('"'AVc cvdijicaheris ullru' videtur facere qua3stionem, quomodo iion sit aBdificata? quam hodie cernimus Phoenices nobilissitnam et pulcherri- mam civitatem").