III. Literature. — 1. Orii/iiial I!< mains. — With the ex- ception of Greek and Latin, no language was so widely known and spoken throughout antiquity as the Phoeni- cian ; and monuments of it have been found, and con- tinue to be found, almost all over the ancient world. We can only vaguely speculate on its early history and its various phases, so long as our materials yield so little information on that point. Its decline seems to date from the 8th century B.C., when Aramaisms crept in in overwhelming numbers. Finally, the close contact with, and the everywhere preponderating influence of the Greeks, superseded— chiefly after Alexander's time — the ancient language almost completely; and even coins with Phcenician legends occur not later than the 2d century B.C.
An important Phcenician literature seems to have been extant as late as the 1st century A.D., but it has disappeared from the face of the earth. After the sec- ond half of the 3d century the language had vanished entirely in the country itself, and Jerome, who lived in Palestine, mentions the Punic, but never the Phoenician. In the West it survived to a much later period. In Mauritania and Numidia it remained, in a corrupted form, the reigning tongue as late as the 4th century A.D.; and Augustine draws his explanations of Scrip- ture from the Punic current in the 5th century. There was a translation of the whole Bible into Punic made for the use of the Punic churches; and in and near Tripolis it was the language of the common people up to a late period. From the 6th century, however, it rapidly died out, chiefly in consequence of the Vandals, Goths, Moors, and other foreign tribes overrunning the country, and ingrafting their own idioms upon it.
The literature of Phoenicia, in its original form, has, as we have said, perished entirely. What traces and fragments we have of it have survived in Greek trans- lations. But from even these small remnants we can
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easily imagine the extreme antiquity, and the high importance and vast extent ofthese productions, which, at Bret, seem to have been chiefly of a theological or theogonical nature. Their authors are the gods them- selves, and the writings are only accessible to the priests, and to those initiated in the mysteries. Prom nral explanations of these exalted personages Bprang a new branch of sacred literature, of which those - of cosmogony mentioned ahove are derived. To the linrarv age ofTaaut, Cadmus, Ophion, Esmun, etc.. succeeded 'llialii.ni. I>iris. Sanchoniatho, and Mo- chus, who founded the schools of priests and prophets. These cultivated the sciences, chiefly the occult cues. magic, and the like. Nearest to the sacred literature stands didactic poetry, somewhat related to the Orphic, whose chief representatives are Sido, Jopas, etc. I he erotic poetry is characterized a- of a very sensuous nat- ure, both in Phoenicia and the colonies. Of historians are mentioned Mochus, Hypsikrates (Sanchoniatho?) Theodotus, Philostratus, Menander, and others; but these arc mere Greek versions of their Phoenician names, and absolutely nothing has been preserved of their writings. Punic literature is .also frequently men- ti d ii\ Greek and Roman writers. Geography, his- tory, agriculture, were the fields chiefly cultivated by
tin lonists of Carthage and the West generally.
The monuments that have come down to us. and which not only have enabled us to judge for ourselves of the religion, the language, and the manners of the Phoenicians, are either original, as legends on coins and lapidary inscriptions, or at second hand, as Phoenician proper nouns and texts imbedded in the works of an- eieui classical or sacred writers. The principal and ever-growing source for our information, however, is the monumental inscriptions, of whose existence, till the mi Idle of the 18th century, nothing was known. The most numerous Phoenician remnants have been disco\ ered in the colonies. Richard Pococke first found, on the site of ancient < !itium i Larnaka of to-day I, thir- tv-one i noi thirty-three, as generally stated) Phoenician inscriptions, which he deposited at Oxford (published by Swinton, 17.">n). Malta. Sardinia. Carthage, Algiers, Tripoli-. Athens. Marseilles, have each yielded a consid- erable number, so that altogether we are now in the possession of about one hundred and twenty monu- ments, either votive tablets or tomb inscriptions. The latest and most remarkable are ihose now in the British Museum, discovered at Carthage a few years ago by X. D insisting of votive' tablet-, a (doubtful) tomb- stone, and a sacrificial tariff, which completes another stone found some years ago at Marseilles of the same nature: both setting forth the an nt oftaxes, or rath- er the proportionate share the priest was entitled to re- ceive for each sacrifice. An- other exceedingly valuable (trilingual) inscription, refer- ring to the gift of an altar vowed to Eshmun-Asklepios,
has lately been discovered ill Sardinia (see below I. ( hie of the most important historical monuments i> the sarcophagus of Eshmanasar II. king of Si- don i ~on ofTennes? I, found at 'lyre in 1855, the age of which has variously been conjectured between the I lth century B.C. i l'.« aid | a most incongruous
indeed the 7th ( llit-
zig i, the 6th | due I >e Luj nes |,
and the lth i bevy 1. of which
we shall add the commence- ment, literally translated :