RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Phenioia
hour, and the plain with its sandy coast is one and a half miles broad. Modern Tyre, a town of some
6,000 inhabitants, lies on the northern 3. Tyre, side of a peninsula, while the ancient
Phenician city was situated on an island. The prophet Ezekiel, like the Assyrian King Asshurbanipal, describes Tyre as built " in the midst of the seas " (xxviii. 2, cf. xxvii. 3-A, xxvi. 4), and the name itself means " rock." The island on which Tyre lay would seem to be the present peninsula where the modern town is situated. Of the buildings of the ancient city little is known. According to Menander of Ephesus (cf. Josephus, Apion, i. 18; Ant., VIII. , v. 3), Hiram I., the contemporary of Solomon, rebuilt the old temples. Special mention is made of the temple of Heracles (Melkarth) and Astarte, while Herodotus (ii. 44) refers to the temple of Thasian Heracles, which is probably identical with the Agenorium of Arrian (Anabasis, ii. 25-26). According to Menander and Dius, Hiram extended the city to the east and there constructed the great square, or Eurychorum. The ancient city had two harbors, the Sidonian to the north, and the Egyptian to the south. The former is now choked with sand, and the latter has entirely disappeared. On the main land opposite the island lay a city called Old Tyre by Menander, Strabo, Pliny, and others. It would seem, however, that the city in question was really called Ushu, a name occurring in the Amarna Tablets and the Assyrian inscriptions, and probably in the Authu of Egyptian monuments. The patron deity of the city was Usoos, who was said to have been the first to sail the sea on a tree trunk, while his brother, Samemrumus, built huts of reed in Tyre (see Sanchuniathon). This legend seems to imply that the island city of Tyre was settled from the mainland. The accounts of " Old Tyre " vary so widely that it is uncertain whether one or more places are meant, or whether sites are referred to which belong to different periods. Ancient Tyre, which seems to have had an important suburb at Ras al-Ma'shuk, ceased to be an island city in consequence of the siege by Alexander the Great in 332, when he constructed a vast mole, four stadia long and two plethra wide, from the mainland to the eastern side of the island (cf. Arrian, Anabasis, ii. 17 sqq.; Diodorus Siculus, xvii. 40). The walls, said to be over 150 feet high, rendered the mole useless at first, but the Greek fleet bottled up the Tyrian ships in the harbors, whereupon the troops of Alexander were able to storm the relatively weaker ramparts on the south. In the taking of the city Arrian states that 8,000 fell, while 30,000 were sold as slaves, figures which imply a dense population. Tyre was not wholly destroyed, however, by the Greek conqueror, and in 316-315 it was besieged in vain by Antigonus for fourteen months. Coming under Seleucid control in 198, it apparently bought its autonomy in 126, later restricted by Augustus. On his journey from Miletus to Jerusalem Paul found Christians at Tyre (Acts xxi. 3-6), and a bishop of Tyre, Cassius, is mentioned at the Synod of Csesarea toward the end of the second century. The crusaders were in possession of the city 1124-91 a.d., after which the Sultan Malik al-Ashraf occupied the
place. The history of modern Tyre begins in 1766, when a sheik named Hanzar settled in the ruins and rebuilt them. After the destructive earthquake of 1837 the buildings were reconstructed by Ibrahim Pasha.
The coast north of Tyre resembles that of the
southern vicinity of the city. First the sandy shore,
then a level plain stretching inland for about a
mile, and then the beginning of the
4. Region plateau of Galilee. Almost two hours between north of Tyre is the mouth of the Nam- Tyre and al-Kasimiyah, after which the strip of
Sidon. coast narrows, while the foothills are rich in tombs of various periods. At the foot of the range are traces of the old Roman road from Tyre to Sidon. North of the Wadi abu'l- Aswad is a ruined site called 'Adlun, apparently the town of Ornithopolis, mentioned by Strabo as a Sidonian colony. An hour farther north a promontory and a village bear the name of Zarafand, the Zarephath of the Bible (I Kings xvii. 9-10; Obadiah 20; Sarepta, Luke iv. 26). The Crusaders made Zarephath an episcopal see, and the Wali al- Khidr is held to mark the abode of the prophet Elijah. From Zarafand the coast bends westward, the first great rivers from the western slope of the Lebanon being found in the Nahr al-Zaharani and the Nahr Sanik. The gardens now begin, and become more numerous and more beautiful the closer the traveler approaches Zaida, the ancient Sidon.
The modern city of Zaida is situated on a flat promontory between 200 and 300 yards wide, with a small rocky peninsula, 600 yards long. The northern quarter and a series of reefs and islands protect the inner harbor, while to the east-
5. Sidon. ward stretches the outer harbor, which
was used as an anchorage in summer. The peninsula bears the remains of ancient walls, and similar ruins are found on an island to the north of the harbor and on other reefs. The Phenician Sidon extended some 700 yards farther east than the modern town. The basalt sarcophagus of King Eshmunazar was discovered in 1855 ten minutes southeast of the city; in 1887, near the village of al-Halaliyah, seventeen magnificent Phenician and Greek sarcophagi were found, among them those of Tabnit, father of Eshmunazar, and the alleged sarcophagus of Alexander the Great. Excavations since 1900 have revealed a temple of Eshmun on the Nahr al-'Awali, also ancient aqueducts. In the Old Testament a " Great Sidon " is mentioned (Josh. xi. 8, xix. 28). This phrase is repeated on the Taylor cylinder with the words " Little Sidon " beside it, though the basis of the distinction is as yet unknown. The ancient city of Sidon was destroyed by Artaxerxes Ochus in 348 B.C. Yet after Alexander and during the Roman period Sidon remained an important city. Paul, on his way to Rome, found Christians there (Acts xxvii. 3), and the bishop of Sidon attended the Nicene Council of 325. Later the city declined and in 637-638 surrendered to the Mohammedans without resistance. During the crusades it was repeatedly taken and refortified, last by Louis IX. of France in 1253. Seven years later it was sacked by the Mongols, and in 1291 came under the control of Malik al-
Phenicia