given them by late Phoenician colonists. Some have &een in them the Hyksos driven to Syria. Without en- teriug any further into these most difficult, and, in the absence of all trustworthy information, more than vague speculations, so much appears certain, that many immi- grations of Shemitic branches into Phoenicia, at differ- ent periods and from different parts, must have taken place, and that these gradually settled into the highly civilized nationality which we find constituted as early as the time of Abraham (Gen. xii, 6, tX=then, already; comp. Aben-Ezra, ad loc, and Spinoza, Tract. Theol.- Pol. ch. viii). It would be extremely vain to venture an opinion on the individuality of the different tribes that, wave-like, rushed into the country from various sides, at probably widely distant dates. The only ap- parently valuable tradition on the subject seems con- tained in the above-quoted passage of Gen. x, 15-18. But there is one point which can be proved to be in the highest degree probable, and which has peculiar interest as bearing on the Jews, viz. that the Phoenicians were of the same race as the Canaanites. This remarkable fact, which, taken in connection with the language of the Phoenicians, leads to some interesting results, is ren- dered probable by the following circumstances : 1st. The native name of Phoenicia, as already pointed out, was Canaan, a name signifying "lowland." This was well given to the narrow slip of plain between the Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea, in contrast to the elevated mountain range adjoining; but it would have been in- appropriate to that part of Palestine conquered by the Israelites, which was undoubtedly a hill-country (see Movers, Das Phonizische A Uerthum, i, 5) ; so that, when it is known that the Israelites at the time of their inva- sion found in Palestine a powerful tribe called the Ca- naanites, and from them called Palestine, the land of Canaan, it is obviously suggested that the Canaanites came originally from the neighboring plain, called Ca- naan, along the sea-coast. 2d. This is further confirmed through the name in Africa whereby the Carthaginian Phoenicians called themselves, as attested by Augustine, who states that the peasants in his part of Africa, if asked of what race they were, would answer, in Punic or Phoenician, "Canaanites" {Opera Omnia, iv, 1235; K.rposit. Epist. ad Rom. § 13). 3d. The conclusion thus suggested is strongly supported by the tradition that the names of persons and places in the land of Canaan — not only when the Israelites invaded it, but likewise previously, when "there were yet but a few of them," and Abraham is said to have visited it — were Phoenician or Hebrew : such, for example, as Abimelek, " father of the king" (Gen. xx, 2) ; Melchizedek, " king of right- eousness" (xiv, 18); Kirjath-sepher, "city of the book" (Josh, xv, 15). As above observed, in Greek writers also occurs the name \vcl f°r Phoenicia (comp. Gesenii Thesaurus Lingua, Hebraicaz [Leips. 1839], ii, 696, and Gesenii Monumenta Phoenicia, p. 570 sq.). The dialect of the Israelites perhaps resembled more the Aramaean, and that of the Phoenicians more the Arabic ; but this difference was nearly effaced when both nations resided in the same country, and had frequent intercourse with each other. Concerning the original country of the Phoenicians and their immigration into Canaan, comp. especially Bertheau, Zur Gesck.ich.t6 <1< r Israeliten (Got- tingen, 1840), p. 152-186, and Lengerke, Kanaan, \'<dks- und Religionsgeschichle Israels (Kbnigsberg, 184-1). i, 182 sq.
2. Government. — Two principal divisions existed an- ciently among these Canaanites: these were those of the interior of Palestine, and the tribes inhabiting the sea-coast, Phoenicia proper. By degrees three special tribes, more powerful than the rest, formed, as it were, the nucleus around which the multitude of minor ones gathered and became one nationality, viz. the inhabi- tants of Sidon, of Tyre, and of Aradus. Three principal elements are to be distinguished, according to classical evidence (Cato, comp. Sen: adjEn. iv. 082), in the con-
stitution of Phoenician states: 1. The aristocracy, con- sisting of certain families of noble lineage, which were divided into tribes (13323), families (iin£;L"}3, Phcen. "1311), and ge?ites (~12X n"1-), the last generally of the number of 300 in each state or colony. Out of the "tribes" were elected thirty jirincipes (Phcen. ^1), who formed a supreme senate ; besides which there existed another larger representative assembly of 300 members, chosen from the gentes. 2. The lower estates of the people, or " plebs" itself, who do not seem to have had their recognised special representatives, but by constant opposition, which sometimes broke out in open violence, held the nobles in check. 3. The kingdom, at first he- reditary, afterwards became elective. Nor must the priesthood be forgotten ; one of the most powerful ele- ments in the Phoenician commonwealth, and which in some provinces even assumed, in the person of the high- priest, the supreme rule. There wras a kind of federal union between the different states, which, according to their importance, sent either their kings or their judges, at the head of a large number of their senators, to the general councils of the nation, held at stated periods either at Sidon or Tyre. The colonies were governed much as the home-country, except that local affairs and the executive were intrusted to two (annual, as it would seem) judges (D^^SV^J, suffetes) elected by the senate — an institution which for some time also replaced the monarchical form in Tyre. When Tripolis was founded by Tyre, Sidon, and Aradus, as a place of joint meet- ing for their hegemony, every one of these cities sent 100 senators to watch her special interests at the com- mon meeting; and the senate of Sidon seems, in the 4th century B.C., at least, to have consisted of 500 to 600 elders, some of whom were probably selected more for their wealth than for their noble lineage. The king sometimes combined in his person the office of high- priest. The turbulent seething mass of the people, consisting of the poorer families of Phoenician descent, the immigrants of neighboring tribes, the strangers, and the whole incongruous mass of workmen, trades- people, sailors, that must have abounded in a commer- cial and maritime nation like the Phoenicians, and out of whose midst must have arisen at times influential men enough — was governed, as far as we can learn, as "constitutionally" as possible. The unruly spirits were got rid of in Roman fashion somehow in the colonies, or were made silent by important places being intrusted to their care, under strict supervision from home. Only once or twice do we hear of violent popular outbreaks, in consequence of one of which it was mockingly said that Phoenicia had lost all her aristocracy, and what existed of Phoenicians was of the lowest birth, the off- spring of slaves. As the wealth of all the world accu- mulated more and more in the Phoenician ports, luxury, and too great a desire to rest and enjoy their wealth in peace, induced the dauntless old pirates to intrust the guard of their cities to the mariners and mercenary sol- diers, to Libyans and Lydians — " they of Persia and of Lud and of Phut," as Ezekiel has it; although the wild resistance which this small territory offered in her sin- gle towns to the enormous armies of Assyria, Babylo- nia and Greece shows that the old spirit had not died out. The smaller states were sometimes so much op- pressed by Tyre that they preferred rather to submit to external enemies (comp. Heeren, Ideen, etc., p. 15 sq. ; Beck, Anleitung zur genaueren Kenntniss der Welt- und Volkergeschichte, p. 252 sq., and 581 sq.).