Phceni'cia (Goiviien),*. country whose inhabitants necessarily held important and intimate relation-, not only to the Hebrews, but to all antiquity. (The follow- ing account of it is founded on that contained in Kilto's Cyclopaedia, with large additions from other sources.)
I. The Land. 1. Name. "Phoenlce" was uot the
name by w hich its native inhabitants called it. but was given to it by the Greeks, who called those merchants who came from thai coasl of the Mediterranean Sea which runs parallel with Mount Lebanon tpoivueeg. In Cicero i lh rin. iv. 20) there occurs the doubtful read- ing Phoenicia I comp. the Vulgate in Numb, .xxxiii. 51 ). However, this latter form of the name has come into
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Map of Coast near Lutro.
PHOENICIA
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PHOENICIA
general use (comp. Gesenii Monumenta Phoenicia [Leips. 1837], p. 338; Forbiger, llandbuch der alien Geographic [ibid. 1842-1844], p. 659 sq.). This name has been variously derived. It is possibly from Phoenix the son of Agenor and the brother of Cadmus. It perhaps arose from the circumstance that the chief article of the com- merce of these merchants was (pot voc, purple. The word <pot vuc means blood-red, and is probably related to (povoc, murder. This derivation of the name is alluded to by Strabo (i, 42). Others imagine as naturally that the color does not give name to the people, but is named after them: as our damask, from Damascus; or our "calico," from Calicut. The term, as an epithet of color, may also apply, as Kenrick supposes, to the sun- burnt complexion of the people. But after all, in the opinion of others, a Greek derivation may not be admis- sible, for the name may be original or Shemitic— though it is ridiculous in Scaliger, Fuller, and Glassius to iden- tify it with 53C, " to live luxuriously," in allusion to the results of Phoenician wealth and merchandise. Strabo, however, maintains that the Phoenicians were called QoiviKtv, because they resided originally on the coasts of the Red Sea. Bochart, in his Canaan (i, 1), derives the name from the Hebrew p33J "Ca, sons of Anal: . Reland, in his Palosslina ex Monumentis Yeteribus II- lustrata, derives it from <poivit„ palm-tree; and this is the etymology now generally acquiesced in. The palm- tree is seen, as an emblem, on some coins of Aradus, Tyre, and Sidon ; and there are now several palm-trees within the circuit of modern Tyre, and along the coast at vari- ous points ; but the tree is not at the present day one of the characteristic features of the country. The native name of Phoenicia was Kendan (Canaan) or Kna, signi- fying Lowland, so named in contrast to the adjoining Aram, i. e. Highland, the Hebrew name of Syria. The name Kenaan is preserved on a coin of Laodicea of the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, whereon Laodicea is styled "a mother city in Canaan," "J5332 CX X-lxbb. Knd or Chnd (Xva) is mentioned distinctly by Herodian the grammarian as the old name of Phoenicia. Hence, as Phoenicians or Canaanites were the most powerful of all tribes in Palestine at the time of its invasion by Joshua, the Israelites, in speaking of their own territory as it was before the conquest, called it " the land of Canaan." See Canaan.
In the O. T. the word Phoenicia does not occur, as might be expected from its being a Greek name. In the Apocrypha it is not defined, though spoken of as being, with Coele-Syria, under one military commander (2 Mace, iii, 5, 8; viii, 8; x, 11; 3 Mace, iii, 15). In the N. T. the word occurs only in three passages, Acts xi, 19 ; xv, 3 ; xxi, 2 ; and not one of these affords a clew as to how far the writer deemed Phoenicia to ex- tend. On the other hand, Josephus possibly agreed with Strabo ; for he expressly says that Caesarea is situated in Phoenicia (Ant. xv, 9, 6) ; and although he never makes a similar statement respecting Joppa, yet he speaks, in one passage, of the coast of Syria, Phoenicia, and Egypt, as if Syria and Phoenicia exhausted the line of coast on the Mediterranean Sea to the north of Egvpt ( War, iii, 9, 2).
The Phoenicians in general are sometimes called Sidonians (comp. Gesenii Monumenta Phoenicia, ii, 267 sq. ; Thesaurus Linguae Hebraicee, under the word '("IT'S). Justinus (xviii, 3) alludes to the etymology of this name : " A city being built which they called Sidon, from the abundance of fishes ; for the Phoenicians call a fish sidon." This statement is not quite correct. But the root T1S, which in Hebrew means only to catch beasts and birds, can also be employed in Arabic when the catching of fishes is spoken of. This root occurs also in the Ara- maic, in the signification of both hunting and fishing (comp. the art. Zidon).
2. Extent. — Phoenicia in general is the name applied to a country on the coast of Syria, bounded by the Med-
iterranean Sea on the west and Lebanon on the east; Syria and Judaea forming its northern and southern limits respectively, situated between about 34- to 36c K. lat., and 45° to 36° E. long. Yet the extent of its territory varied so considerably at different times that the geographical definitions of the ancient writers differ in a very remarkable manner. Thus, while in Gen. x, 19 Canaan does not reach northwards beyond Sidon— a place which in early times gave the name to the whole people (a^a^iS, "JIT'S "GOV, Dent., Judg.)— and Byb- lus and Berytus are considered as lying beyond it (Gen. x, 15 sq. ; Josh, xiii, 5), it comprised in the Persian period (Herod, iii, 91) Posidium, as high as 35° 52'. Later still (Pliny, Strabo, Ptolemy) the Eleutherus (34° 60'), and subsequently (Mela, Stephanus) the island of Aradus (34° 70'), were considered its utmost northern limits. To the south it was at times Gaza (Gen. x. 19 ; Zeph. ii, 5; Herod., Philo, Eustath.), at others Egypt (Numb, xxiv, 5 ; Josh, xv, 4, 47 ; Strabo, Procop., etc. ) ; and, from the Macedonian period chiefly, Caesarea is mentioned as its extreme point. Eastward the coun- try sometimes comprised parts of Syria and Palestine, beyond the mountain-ridges of the former and the hill- chains of the latter.