A- a trading nation they w< re ready sometime- to lake
ad\ antage of the ignorant and ravage trihes with which
they hail. red. and they cared nothing lor law or right on the high sea-, w here no power could control or pun- ish; so that I lysses uses the phrase 4>oiVi£ aviip aira- 7/;\or liSwc, TpuiKrqc, "a I 'Imi li.ian man knowing d. ceii iid things crafty" (id. xiv. 285). lie term "Canaan," "Canaanite," or ••man of Canaan." the na- tive name of the Phoenician, i- sometimes rendered " merchant" in tin- English version ( l-a. xxiii, 8 ; Zepb.
i. 1 I ; Job xli. 6; l'rov. xxxi. J I : Zecb. xiv. 21 : lies.
xii. 7; Ezek. xvii, l>. "Phoenician" and "merchant"
were thus interchangeable terms; so that 'Ivn/. yiVo-
PHOENICIA
155
PHOENICIA
jua; means, " I become a trader." But the phrase seems to have sunk in moral meaning, and trader was but an- other name for a huckslerer, or a pedler going from house to house, as in Prov. xxxi, 24. Nay, the prophet Hosea (xii, 7) says, "He is a Canaanite," or "Phoeni- cian," or " as for Canaan, the balances of deceit are in his hand: he loveth to oppress. And Ephraim said, Yet am I become rich, I have found me out substance." A common proverb expressive of fraud matching fraud was 2i»po( npoQ QoiviKat;. No coined money of Phoe- nicia is extant prior to its subjugation by the Greeks. The standard seems to have been the same as the Jew- ish; the shekel being equal to the Attic tetradrachm ; and the zuz, which occurs on the tablet of Marseilles, being of the value of a denarius. On the same tablet keseph (silver) occurs, with the probable ellipse of " shekel," as in Hebrew. Foreign silver money ("17) is also there referred to. Among the antiquities dug up in Nin- eveh are several bronze weights in the form of lions ; having both cuneiform legends with the name of Sennacherib, and also Phoenician or cursive She- mitic inscriptions (Layard, Nin. and Bub. p. 601). The cor was a Phoenician measure, the same as the Hebrew chomer, and holding ten Attic metret£e,each metretes being equal to about ten and a half gallons. The arithmetical notation was carried out by making simple strokes for the units; 10 was a horizontal stroke or a semicircle, and 100 was a special sign, the unit strokes added to it denoting additional hundreds (Ge- senii Monumenta Phoenicia, p. 85).
It appears almost incredible how, with the compara- tively small knowledge of natural science which we must at tribute to them, the Phoenicians could t h us on their frail rafts traverse the wide seas almost from one end of the globe to the other, with apparently no more difficulty than their inland caravans, their chapmen and dealers, found in traversing the neighboring countries. Yet it must not, on the other hand, be forgotten that theirs appears to have been an uncommon knowledge of as- tronomy and physical geography — witness their almost scientifically planned voyage of discovery under Hiram —and that, above all, an extraordinary amount of prac- tical sense, of boldness, shrewdness, unscrupulousness, untiring energy, and happy genius, went far to replace some of the safe contrivances with which modern dis- coveries have made our mariners familiar. These qual- ities also made and kept them the unrivalled masters of ancient commerce and navigation. They were, moreover, known rather to destroy their own ships and endanger their lives than let others see their secret way and enterprise ; and it would be very surprising if theirs had not been also the greatest discoveries, the greatest riches and splendor and power for many a long century, though they owned but a small strip of country at home. Well might Tyre once say, "I am of perfect beauty" ( Kzek. xxvii. 3), and the prophet address Si- don, " Behold, thou art wiser than Daniel, there is no secret they can hide from thee : with thy wisdom and thine understanding thou hast gotten thee riches, and hast gotten gold and silver into thy treasures : by tin- great wisdom and by thy traffic hast thou increased thy riches, and thine heart is lifted up because of thy riches" (xxviii, 3-5). There can, indeed, not be fancied a fuller and more graphic account of the state of Phoeni- cia, especially as regards her commercial relations, than the two chapters of Ezekiel (xxvii and xxviii) contain- ing the lamentation on Tyre : which, indeed, form our chief information on this point.
In regard to Phoenician trade, as connected with the Israelites, the following points are worthy of notice. (1.) Up to the time of David, not one of the twelve
tribes seems to have possessed a single harbor on the sea-coast: it was impossible, therefore, that they could become a commercial people. It is true that according to Judg. i. 31, combined with Josh, xix, 20, Accho or Acre, with its excellent harbor, had been assigned to the tribe of Asher : but from the same passage in Judges it seems certain that the tribe of Asher did not really ob- tain the possession of Acre, which continued to be held by the Canaanites. However wistfully, therefore, the Israelites might regard the wealth accruing to their neighbors the Phoenicians from trade, to vie with them in this respect was out of the question. But from the time that David had conquered Edom, an opening for trade was afforded to the Israelites. The command of Ezion-geber, near Elath, in the land of Edom, enabled them to engage in the navigation of the Bed Sea. As they were novices, however, at sailing, as the naviga- j tion of the Red Sea, owing to its currents, winds, and rocks, is dangerous even to modern sailors, and as the Phoenicians, during the period of the independence of Edom, were probably allowed to trade from Ezion-ge- ber, it was politic in Solomon to permit the Phoenicians of Tyre to have docks and build ships at Ezion-geber on condition that his sailors and vessels might have the benefit of their experience. The results seem to have been strikingly successful. The Jews and Phoenicians made profitable voyages to Ophir in Arabia or India, whence gold was imported into Juda?a in large quantities; and once in three years still longer voyages were made, by vessels which may possibly have touched at Ophir, though their imports were not only gold, but likewise silver, ivory, apes, and peacocks (1 Kings x, 22). See Tarshish. There seems at the same time to have been a great direct trade with the Phoenicians for cedar-wood (ver. 27), and generally the wealth of the kingdom reached an unprecedented point. If the union of the tribes had been maintained, the whole sea-coast of Pal- estine would have afforded additional sources of revenue through trade; and perhaps even ultimately the "great plain of Sidou" itself might have formed part of the united empire. But if any possibilities of this kind existed, they were destroyed by the disastrous secession of the ten tribes ; a heavy blow from which the Hebrew race has never yet recovered during a period of nearly 3000 years.