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PHCENICIA P H CE N I C I A
The Greek genealogic poetry provided the Phcenicians with The long prevailing derivation of the name Phcenicia from the
an eponym-Phcenix king of Sidon,-who was identified with a Egyptian Punt (Lepsius), a land that was located by older
Cretan god and hero Phoinix, whose daughter Europa, origin- writers in S. Arabia, is quite impossible. The Egyptian Punt
al1.y a Bceotian and Cretan goddess, thus became a Sidonian is the incense-bearing Somali-coa5t in Africa whose inhabitants
princess. For what reason Cadmus, the son of Agenor the (Eg. Punti, Lepsius wrongly PUM) have dothing whatever to
eponym and founder of the Cadmeia of Thehes, was made the do with Pceni, Qoiurrss.
brother of Phcenix we do not know: he had at any rate, The Phoenicians themselves reckoned their land to
nothing to do with Phmnicia. At a still later'time Cadmus
became the brother of Europa which resulted in the latter's Canaan (for the evidence, see CANAAN, I), and with
becoming the daughter of Aienor, and her father Phcenix perfect justice. They are, in fact, a branch of the
becoming her brother. A further analysis of this legend does Canaanites, which, at the beginning of the time
not belong here; cp Meyer, (;A 2933 The Latin Pcenus is historidly known to us (about 1500 B.c.), had occupied
prohahly rather a contraction of ' Phoinix' than an older form
without the suffix.
many places on the coast, while the intermediate region
Kaft, which frequently occurs in the Egyptian inwas
still in the hands of an Amorite population (cp
scriptions of the New Empire, passed for a long time
AMORITES, CANAAN).^
as another old name for Phoenicia; %OW~K~ is thus
One evidence of this is supplied by the Phcenician
rendered in the hieroglyphic text in the bilingual decree
language, which differs only dialectically from the other
of Canopus. There are cogent reasons, however, for
Canaanite dialects known to us (Hebrew and Moabite) ;
rejecting this view, and seeking for Kaft outside the
see WRITING. Though it exhibits in many instances a
younger vocabulary (e.g., in>, to give, ih, God), it has
Semitic world, perhaps in Cilicia (cp CAPHTOR, 4).
The name may be connected with the enigmatical name
frequently retained older grammatical forms and words
JAPHETH [q.~.], and the Gk. 'I&mros (the name of a
which in Hebrew have become obsolete.2
Cilician god, in Steph. Byz., S.V. "AGaua and 'Ayx~dXq).
In fact it was simply the difference between the
In the OT the Phcenicians generally are named
conditions of life of the coast-land and those of the
nm*x, Sidonians; for instance Itoba'al, king of Tyre,
interior, that gradually separated the Phcenicians from
is called ' King of the Sidonians' in I K. 1631 ; cp
their fellows who had settled farther inland-much in
the same way
Judg.1061~ 187 rK.5~0
as the Dutch were severed from the other
111533 zK.2313; and in
the genealcgy of the nations, Gen. 101s (cp Judg. 33=
N. Germans. Their different historical development,
Josh. 134-6). In the same way King Hiram 11. of
and above all the occupation of Palestine by the
Tyre is called in an inscription pnx ~SD, ' King of the
Israelites, enlarged the breach.
Sidonians,' and on coins of the time of Antiochus IV.
As to the age of the Phcenician tawns we possess no
Tyre is called ojlx ow, ' the metropolis of the Sidonians
information. for of course no historical value attaches to
'
-Le., Phcenicians. In Homer the Phoenicians are
3. Commence- the statement of Africanus (in Synoften
called ZdJvm (Il. 6290 Od.
merit of the cellus, 31) that the Phcenicians said
15118 4618), their
land Zdovlq (11.6291 Od. 1328s) ; but %OiVlK€S is also
they had a historical tradition reaching
history.
back for 20.0oo years. Far more
found (IZ. 23 743 f: ; Od. 13 272 14 288 j? 15 415 8).
Both names occur together in the celebrated verses
moderate is the assertion -of Herodotus (244) that,
concerning Menelaus' wanderings (Od. 4845 ). The
according to native tradition, Tyre and its temple of
Hercules had been founded 2300 years previouslyname
of the town Sidon is found in Od. 15425. From
the fact that Sidon, not Tyre, is mentioned, we must
Le., about 2730 B.C. Even in this, however, no one
not draw political conclusions as some have done;
will venture to find a real tradition. According to
through the influence of the ethnic name 'Sidonian'
another statement the founding of Tyre was much later.
the name of Sidon was familiar to the Greeks at an
Justin (182) relates that for a long time after their
earlier time than that of Tyre, although the latter was
immigration (see above, § 2) and the founding of Sidon
then much the more important. Roman poets, too,
the Phcenicians lived on the coast, but that being then
overcome
frequently we ' Sidonius' (as a synonym for ' Pcenus ')
(ezpugRati) by the king of Ashkelon, they
in the sense of ' Phcenician' (cp Ovid, Fasf. 3108 etc. ).
took to their ships, and founded Tyre the year before
A precise definition of Phcenicia can hardly be given.
the fall of Troy. To what year the latter event is
assigned here cannot be gathered from the context ; but
The boundaries assigned by Herodotus, Scylax, Straho,
when we find in Menander of Ephesus, the historian
Pliny, and Ptolemy vary greatly. The last-mentioned
(v. 154) reckons Phoenicia from the Eleutherus to the
of Tyre, a Tyrian era that begins in the year 1198-7
B.c.
brook Chorseas S. of Dor. Accepting this view, we
(Jos. Ant.viii.31, 5 62, c. A$. i. 18. 8 126; and
may describe Phcenicia as the coast-land at the foot of
thence Eus. a. Ah. 745) we may regard it as almost
certain that this is the epoch intended. Now it was at
Lebanon and of the hill-country of Galilee down to
this time that there occurred the great movement among
Carmel. Marathus and Arados, however, lie N. of
the nations which resulted in the occupation of Ashkelon
this territory, and in the S. the border is fluctuating
and arbitrary. The impossibility of fixing a definite
and the neighbouring places by the PHILISTINES (q.~.)
boundary line between the Phcenicians and the other
and also affected the Phcenician cities (see 5 5). It
is possible, therefore, that the statement of Justin
Canaanites is specially obvious in the more remote
and Menander's era preserve a recollection of these
times before the settlement of the Israelites and the
Philistines. The limits above assigned correspond
events. On the other hand, the date may rest simply
roughly to the name Zuhi
on some chronological combination no longer known
by which the Egyptians at
to us. It is, at any rate, historically certain from
the time of their conquests designated the Phcenician
the Amarna tablets that, in the fifteenth century, the
coast (cp WMM, As. II. BUY. 1768). The origin of
island-city of Tyre was already extant, and one of the
this name is unknown.
most powerful cities of Phcenicia.
Herodotiis relates that the Phcenicians, as they them-
Whether the lists of Phcenician kings mentioned by later
selves declare, were originally settled upon the ' Red ' I .
writers (Tatian, adv. Crrpc. 37 ; Porphyry ap. Eus. Prrp). a.
a. origin and Sea, and came thence to the Syrian x. 9 12, from Sanchuniathon) possessed any value for the older
nationality. coast (1 I 7 89): The ' Red ' Sea is of
period, is uncertain. If there were any historical lists going
course the Indian Ocean. more esDeci- 1 This is probable on the following ground. As late as the
ally the Persian Gulf. It would seem therefore-that last millennium B.c., new Phcenician towns were planted upon
the northern foot of Lebanon-Fbtrys under Hiram I. of Tyre,
there once was a Phoenician tradition which, like that Triplis probably not until the time of the Persians. How to
in the OT, made their ancestors immigrants from account for the existence of a (much mutilated) Phcenician
Babylonia.
inscription in N. S ria two hours W. of Zenjirli (Winckler
AOfi 1305), is not ccar. The inscription belongs to the tim;
* The story was afterwards further embellished : support for about 750-700 B.C.
it was found in the names of the islands Tylos and Arados of a C Stade 'Erneute Priifung des zwischen dem Pbcen. u.
Bahrein on the Persian Gulf (Straho, xvi. 3 4 zJ). On the story Heb. %esteheAde Venvandtschaftsgrades,' in Morgenlandisch
of Trogus Pompeius, see SODOM AND GOMORRAH.
30. rschungcn, 1874.
3731
3732