Phoenician
Ships, Navigation and Commerce
Phoenician
Ships,
Navigation and Commerce
Earliest
navigation by means of rafts and canoes
The first
attempts of the Phoenicians to navigate the sea which washed their coast
were probably as clumsy and rude as those of other primitive nations.
They are said to have voyaged from island to island by means of rafts.1 When they reached
the shores of the Mediterranean, it can scarcely have been long ere
they constructed boats for fishing and coasting purposes, though no
doubt such boats were of a very rude construction. Probably, like other
races, they began with canoes, roughly hewn out of the trunk of a tree.
The torrents which descended from Lebanon would from time to time bring
down the stems of fallen trees in their flood-time; and these, floating
on the Mediterranean waters, would suggest the idea of navigation. They
would, at first, be hollowed out with hatchets and adzes, or else with
fire; and, later on, the canoes thus produced would form the models
for the earliest efforts in shipbuilding. The great length, however,
would soon be found unnecessary, and the canoe would give place to the
boat, in the ordinary acceptation of the term. There are models of boats
among the Phoenician remains which have a very archaic character,2
and may give us some idea of the vessels in which the Phoenicians of
the remoter times braved the perils of the deep. They have a keel, not
ill shaped, a rounded hull, bulwarks, a beak, and a high seat for the
steersman. The oars, apparently, must have been passed through interstices
in the bulwark.
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Model
of a very primitive boat
From this
rude shape the transition was not very difficult to the bark represented
in the sculptures of Sargon,3 which is probably a Phoenician one.
Here four rowers, standing to their oars, impel a vessel having for
prow the head of a horse and for stern the tail of a fish, both of them
rising high above the water. The oars are curved, like golf or hockey-sticks,
and are worked from the gunwale of the bark, though there is no indication
of rowlocks. The vessel is without a rudder; but it has a mast, supported
by two ropes which are fastened to the head and stern. The mast has
neither sail nor yard attached to it, but is crowned by what is called
a "crow's nest"--a bell-shaped receptacle, from which a slinger
or archer might discharge missiles against an enemy.4
Phoenician
vessel of the time of Sargon
A vessel
of considerably greater size than this, but of the same class --impelled,
that is, by one bank of oars only--is indicated by certain coins, which
have been regarded by some critics as Phoenician, by others as belonging
to Cilicia.5 These have a low bow, but an elevated stern; the prow
exhibits a beak, while the stern shows signs of a steering apparatus;
the number of the oars on each side is fifteen or twenty. The Greeks
called these vessels triaconters or penteconters. They are represented
without any mast on the coins, and thus seem to have been merely row-boats
of a superior character.
Phoenician
biremes in the time of Sennacherib
About the
time of Sennacherib (B.C. 700), or a little earlier, some great advances
seem to have been made by the Phoenician shipbuilders. In the first
place, they introduced the practice of placing the rowers on two different
levels, one above the other; and thus, for a vessel of the same length,
doubling the number of the rowers. Ships of this kind, which the Greeks
called "biremes," are represented in Sennacherib's sculptures
as employed by the inhabitants of a Phoenician city, who fly in them
at the moment when their town is captured, and so escape their enemy.6
The ships are of two kinds. Both kinds have a double tier of rowers,
and both are guided by two steering oars thrust out from the stern;
but while the one is still without mast or sail, and is rounded off
in exactly the same way both at stem and stern, the other has a mast,
placed about midship, a yard hung across it, and a sail close reefed
to the yard, while the bow is armed with a long projecting beak, like
a ploughshare, which must have been capable of doing terrible damage
to a hostile vessel. The rowers, in both classes of ships, are represented
as only eight or ten upon a side; but this may have arisen from artistic
necessity, since a greater number of figures could not have been introduced
without confusion. It is thought that in the beaked vessel we have a
representation of the Phoenician war-galley; in the vessel without a
beak, one of the Phoenician transport.7
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Phoenician
pleasure vessels and merchant ships
A painting
on a vase found in Cyprus exhibits what would seem to have been a pleasure-vessel.8
It is unbeaked, and without any sign of oars, except two paddles for
steering with. About midship is a short mast, crossed by a long spar
or yard, which carries a sail, closely reefed along its entire length.
The yard and sail are managed by means of four ropes, which are, however,
somewhat conventionally depicted. Both the head and stern of the vessel
rise to a considerable height above the water, and the stern is curved,
very much as in the war- galleys. It perhaps terminated in the head
of a bird.
According
to the Greek writers, Phoenician vessels were mainly of two kinds, merchant
ships and war-vessels.9 The merchant ships were of a broad, round
make, what our sailors would call "tubs," resembling probably
the Dutch fishing-boats of a century ago. They were impelled both by
oars and sails, but depended mainly on the latter. Each of them had
a single mast of moderate height, to which a single sail was attached;10
this was what in modern times is called a "square sail," a
form which is only well suited for sailing with when the wind is directly
astern. It was apparently attached to the yard, and had to be hoisted
together with the yard, along which it could be closely reefed, or from
which it could be loosely shaken out. It was managed, no doubt, by ropes
attached to the two lower corners, which must have been held in the
hands of sailors, as it would have been most dangerous to belay them.
As long as the wind served, the merchant captain used his sail; when
it died away, or became adverse, he dropped yard and sail on to his
deck, and made use of his oars.
Merchant
ships had, commonly, small boats attached to them, which afforded a
chance of safety if the ship foundered, and were useful when cargoes
had to be landed on a shelving shore.11 We have no means of knowing
whether these boats were hoisted up on deck until they were wanted,
or attached to the ships by ropes and towed after them; but the latter
arrangement is the more probable.
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Superiority
of the Phoenician war-galleys
The war-galleys
of the Phoenicians in the early times were probably of the class which
the Greeks called triaconters or penteconters, and which are represented
upon the coins. They were long open rowboats, in which the rowers sat,
all of them, upon a level, the number of rowers on either side being
generally either fifteen or twenty-five. Each galley was armed at its
head with a sharp metal spike, or beak, which was its chief weapon of
offence, vessels of this class seeking commonly to run down their enemy.
After a time these vessels were superseded by biremes, which were decked,
had masts and sails, and were impelled by rowers sitting at two different
elevations, as already explained. Biremes were ere long superseded by
triremes, or vessels with three banks of oars, which are said to have
been invented at Corinth,12 but which came into use among the Phoenicians
before the end of the sixth century B.C.13 In the third century B.C.
the Carthaginians employed in war quadriremes, and even quinqueremes;
but there is no evidence of the employment of either class of vessel
by the Phoenicians of Phoenicia Proper.
The superiority
of the Phoenician ships to others is generally allowed, and was clearly
shown when Xerxes collected his fleet of twelve hundred and seven triremes
against Greece. The fleet included contingents from Phoenicia, Cyprus,
Egypt, Cilicia, Pamphylia, Lycia, Caria, Ionia, Æolis, and the
Greek settlements about the Propontis.14 When it reached the Hellespont,
the great king, anxious to test the quality of his ships and sailors,
made proclamation for a grand sailing match, in which all who liked
might contend. Each contingent probably--at any rate, all that prided
themselves on their nautical skill--selected its best vessel, and entered
it for the coming race; the king himself, and his grandees and officers,
and all the army, stood or sat along the shore to see: the race took
place, and was won by the Phoenicians of Sidon.15 Having thus tested
the nautical skill of the various nations under his sway, the great
king, when he ventured his person upon the dangerous element, was careful
to embark in a Sidonian galley.16
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Excellence
of the arrangements
A remarkable
testimony to the excellence of the Phoenician ships with respect to
internal arrangements is borne by Xenophon, who puts the following words
into the mouth of Ischomachus, a Greek:17 "I think that the best
and most perfect arrangement of things that I ever saw was when I went
to look at the great Phoenician sailing-vessel; for I saw the largest
amount of naval tackling separately disposed in the smallest stowage
possible. For a ship, as you well know, is brought to anchor, and again
got under way, by a vast number of wooden implements and of ropes and
sails the sea by means of a quantity of rigging, and is armed with a
number of contrivances against hostile vessels, and carries about with
it a large supply of weapons for the crew, and, besides, has all the
utensils that a man keeps in his dwelling-house, for each of the messes.
In addition, it is laden with a quantity of merchandise which the owner
carries with him for his own profit. Now all the things which I have
mentioned lay in a space not much bigger than a room which would conveniently
hold ten beds. And I remarked that they severally lay in a way that
they did not obstruct one another, and did not require anyone to search
for them; and yet they were neither placed at random, nor entangled
one with another, so as to consume time when they were suddenly wanted
for use. Also, I found the captain's assistant, who is called 'the look-out
man,' so well acquainted with the position of all the articles, and
with the number of them, that even when at a distance he could tell
where everything lay, and how many there were of each sort, just as
anyone who has learnt to read can tell the number of letters in the
name of Socrates and the proper place for each of them. Moreover, I
saw this man, in his leisure moments, examining and testing everything
that a vessel needs when at sea; so, as I was surprised, I asked him
what he was about, whereupon he replied--'Stranger, I am looking to
see, in case anything should happen, how everything is arranged in the
ship, and whether anything is wanting, or is inconveniently situated;
for when a storm arises at sea, it is not possible either to look for
what is wanting, or to put to right what is arranged awkwardly.'"
Patæci
Phoenician
ships seem to have been placed under the protection of the Cabeiri,
and to have had images of them at their stem or stern or both.18 These
images were not exactly "figure-heads," as they are sometimes
called. They were small, apparently, and inconspicuous, being little
dwarf figures, regarded as amulets that would preserve the vessel in
safety. We do not see them on any representations of Phoenician ships,
and it is possible that they may have been no larger than the bronze
or glazed earthenware images of Phthah that are so common in Egypt.
The Phoenicians called them /pittuchim/, "sculptures,"19
whence the Greek {pataikoi} and the French /fétic../p>
Early
navigation cautious, increasing boldness
The navigation
of the Phoenicians, in early times, was no doubt cautious and timid.
So far from venturing out of sight of land, they usually hugged the
coast, ready at any moment, if the sea or sky threatened, to change
their course and steer directly for the shore. On a shelving coast they
were not at all afraid to run their ships aground, since, like the Greek
vessels, they could be easily pulled up out of reach of the waves, and
again pulled down and launched, when the storm was over and the sea
calm once more. At first they sailed, we may be sure, only in the daytime,
casting anchor at nightfall, or else dragging their ships up upon the
beach, and so awaiting the dawn. But after a time they grew more bold.
The sea became familiar to them, the positions of coasts and islands
relatively one to another better known, the character of the seasons,
the signs of unsettled or settled weather, the conduct to pursue in
an emergency, better apprehended. They soon began to shape the course
of their vessels from headland to headland, instead of always creeping
along the shore, and it was not perhaps very long before they would
venture out of sight of land, if their knowledge of the weather satisfied
them that the wind might be trusted to continue steady, and if they
were well assured of the direction of the land that they wished to make.
They took courage, moreover, to sail in the night, no less than in the
daytime, when the weather was clear, guiding themselves by the stars,
and particularly by the Polar star,20 which they discovered to be
the star most nearly marking the true north. A passage of Strabo21
seems to show that--in the later times at any rate--they had a method
of calculating the rate of a ship's sailing, though what the method
was is wholly unknown to us. It is probable that they early constructed
charts and maps, which however they would keep secret through jealousy
of their commercial rivals.
The Phoenicians
for some centuries confined their navigation within the limits of the
Mediterranean, the Propontis, and the Euxine, land- locked seas, which
are tideless and far less rough than the open ocean. But before the
time of Solomon they had passed the Pillars of Hercules, and affronted
the dangers of the Atlantic.22 Their frail and small vessels, scarcely
bigger than modern fishing-smacks, proceeded southwards along the West African coast, as far as the tract watered
by the Gambia and Senegal, while northwards they coasted along Spain,
braved the heavy seas of the Bay of Biscay, and passing Cape Finisterre,
ventured across the mouth of the English Channel
to the Cassiterides. Similarly, from the West African shore, they boldly
steered for the Fortunate Islands (the Canaries), visible from certain
elevated points of the coast, though at 170 miles distance. Whether
they proceeded further, in the south to the Azores, Madeira, and the
Cape de Verde Islands, in the north to the coast of Holland, and across
the German Ocean to the Baltic, we regard as uncertain. It is possible
that from time to time some of the more adventurous of their traders
may have reached thus far; but their regular, settled, and established
navigation did not, we believe, extend beyond the Scilly Islands and
coast of Cornwall to the north-west, and to the south-west Cape Non
and the Canaries. Some theories suggest that the Phoenicians reached
the Americas (including Brazil).
Extent
of the Phoenician land commerce
The commerce
of the Phoenicians was carried on, to a large extent, by land, though
principally by sea. It appears from the famous chapter of Ezekiel23
which describes the riches and greatness of Tyre in the sixth century
B.C., that almost the whole of Western Asia was penetrated by the Phoenician
caravans, and laid under contribution to increase the wealth of the
Phoenician traders.
Witness
of Ezekiel
"Thou,
son of man, (we read) take up a lamentation for Tyre, and say unto her,
O thou that dwellest at the entry of the sea, Which art the merchant
of the peoples unto many isles, Thus saith the Lord God, Thou, O Tyre,
hast said, I am perfect in beauty. Thy borders are in the heart of the
sea; Thy builders have perfected thy beauty. They have made all thy
planks of fir-trees from Senir; They have taken cedars from Lebanon
to make a mast for thee Of the oaks of Bashan have they made thine oars;
They have made thy benches of ivory, Inlaid in box-wood, from the isles
of Kittim. Of fine linen with broidered work from Egypt was thy sail,
That it might be to thee for an ensign; Blue and purple from the isles
of Elishah was thy awning. The inhabitants of Zidon and of Arvad were
thy rowers; Thy wise men, O Tyre, were in thee--they were thy pilots.
The ancients of Gebal, and their wise men, were thy calkers; All the
ships of the sea, with their mariners, were in thee, That they might
occupy thy merchandise. Persia, and Lud, and Phut were in thine army,
thy men of war; They hanged the shield and helmet in thee; They set
forth thy comeliness. The men of Arvad, with thine army, were upon thy
walls round about; And the Gammadim were in thy towers; They hanged
their shields upon thy walls round about; They have brought to perfection
thy beauty. Tarshish was thy merchant by reason of the multitude of
all kinds of riches; With silver, iron, tin, and lead, they traded for
thy wares. Javan, Tubal, and Meshech, they were thy traffickers; They
traded the persons of men, and vessels of brass, for thy merchandise.
They of the house of Togarmah traded for thy wares, With horses, and
with chargers, and with mules. The men of Dedan were thy traffickers;
many isles were the mart of thy hands; They brought thee in exchange
horns of ivory, and ebony. Syria was thy merchant by reason of the multitude
of thy handiworks; They traded for thy wares with emeralds, purple,
and broidered work, And with fine linen, and coral, and rubies. Judah,
and the land of Israel, they were thy traffickers; They traded for thy
merchandise wheat of Minnith, And Pannag, and honey, and oil, and balm.
Damascus was thy merchant for the multitude of thy handiworks; By reason
of the multitude of all kinds of riches; With the wine of Helbon, and
white wool. Dedan and Javan traded with yarn for thy wares; Bright iron,
and cassia, and calamus were among thy merchandise. Dedan was thy trafficker
in precious cloths for riding; Arabia, and all the princes of Kedar,
they were the merchants of thy hand, In lambs, and rams, and goats,
in these were they thy merchants. The traffickers of Sheba and Raamah,
they were thy traffickers; They traded for thy wares with chief of all
spices, And with all manner of precious stones, and gold. Haran, and
Canneh, and Eden, the traffickers of Sheba, Asshur and Chilmad, were
thy traffickers: They were thy traffickers in choice wares, In wrappings
of blue and broidered work, and in chests of rich apparel, Bound with
cords, and made of cedar, among thy merchandise. The ships of Tarshish
were thy caravans for they merchandise; And thou wast replenished, and
made very glorious, in the heart of the sea. Thy rowers have brought
thee into great waters; The east wind hath broken thee in the heart
of the sea. Thy reaches, and thy wares, thy merchandise, thy mariners,
and thy pilots, Thy calkers, and the occupiers of thy merchandise, With
all the men of war, that are in thee, Shall fall into the heart of the
seas in the day of thy ruin. At the sound of thy pilot's cry the suburb's
shall shake; And all that handle the oar, the mariners, and all the
pilots of the sea, They shall come down from their ships, they shall
stand upon the land, And shall cause their voice to be heard over thee,
and shall cry bitterly, And shall cast up dust upon their heads, and
wallow in the ashes; And they shall make themselves bald for thee, and
gird them with sackcloth, And they shall weep for thee in bitterness
of soul with bitter mourning. And in their wailing they shall take up
a lamentation for thee, And lament over thee saying, Who is there like
Tyre, Like her that is brought to silence in the midst of the sea? When
thy wares went forth out of the seas, thou filledst many peoples; Thou
didst enrich the kings of the earth with thy merchandise and thy riches.
In the time that thou was broken by the seas in the depths of the waters,
Thy merchandise, and all thy company, did fall in the midst of thee,
And the inhabitants of the isles are astonished at thee, And their kings
are sore afraid, they are troubled in their countenance, The merchants
that are among the peoples, hiss at thee; Thou art become a terror;
and thou shalt never be any more."
Wares
imported, caravans
Translating
this glorious burst of poetry into prose, we find the following countries
mentioned as carrying on an active trade with the Phoenician metropolis:--Northern
Syria, Syria of Damascus, Judah and the land of Israel, Egypt, Arabia,
Babylonia, Assyria, Upper Mesopotamia,24 Armenia,25 Central Asia
Minor, Ionia, Cyprus, Hellas or Greece,26 and Spain.27 Northern
Syria furnishes the Phoenician merchants with /butz/, which is translated
"fine linen," but is perhaps rather cotton,28 the "tree-wool"
of Herodotus; it also supplies embroidery, and certain precious stones,
which our translators have considered to be coral, emeralds, and rubies.
Syria of Damascus gives the "wine of Helbon"--that exquisite
liquor which was the only sort that the Persian kings would condescend
to drink29 --and "white wool," the dainty fleeces of the
sheep and lambs that fed on the upland pastures of Hermon and Antilibanus.
Judah and the land of Israel supply corn of superior quality, called
"corn of Minnith"-- corn, i.e. produced in the rich Ammonite
country30--together with /pannag/, an  unknown substance, and honey, and
balm, and oil. Egypt sends fine linen, one of her best known products31--sometimes,
no doubt, plain, but often embroidered with bright patterns, and employed
as such embroidered fabrics were also in Egypt,32 for the sails of
pleasure-boats. Arabia provides her spices, cassia, and calamus (or
aromatic reed), and, beyond all doubt, frankincense,33 and perhaps
cinnamon and ladanum.34 She also supplies wool and goat's hair, and
cloths for chariots, and gold, and wrought iron, and precious stones,
and ivory, and ebony, of which the last two cannot have been productions
of her own, but must have been imported from India or Abyssinia.35
Babylonia and Assyria furnish "wrappings of blue, embroidered work,
and chests of rich apparel."36 Upper Mesopotamia partakes in
this traffic.37 Armenia gives horses and mules. Central Asia Minor
(Tubal and Meshech) supplies slaves and vessels of brass, and the Greeks
of Ionia do the like. Cyprus furnishes ivory, which she must first have
imported from abroad.38 Greece Proper sends her shell-fish, to enable
the Phoenician cities to increase their manufacture of the purple dye.39
Finally, Spain yields silver, iron, tin, and lead--the most useful of
the metals--all of which she is known to have produced in abundance.40
Description
of the land trade
With the
exception of Egypt, Ionia, Cyprus, Hellas, and Spain, the Phoenician
intercourse with these places must have been carried on wholly by land.
Even with Egypt, wherewith the communication by sea was so facile, there
seems to have been also from a very early date a land commerce. The
land commerce was in every case carried on by caravans. Western Asia
has never yet been in so peaceful and orderly condition as to dispense
prudent traders from the necessity of joining together in large bodies,
well provisioned and well armed, when they are about to move valuable
goods any considerable distance. There have always been robber-tribes
in the mountain tracts, and thievish Arabs upon the plains, ready to
pounce on the insufficiently protected traveller, and to despoil him
of all his belongings. Hence the necessity of the caravan traffic. As
early as the time of Joseph-- probably about B.C. 1600--we find a /company/
of the Midianites on their way from Gilead, with their camels bearing
spicery, and balm, and myrrh, going to carry it down to Egypt.41 Elsewhere
we hear of the "travelling /companies/ of the Dedanim,"42
of the men of Sheba bringing their gold and frankincense;43 of a multitude
of camels coming up to Palestine with wood from Kedar and Nebaioth.44
Heerenis entirely justified in his conclusion that the land trade of
the Phoenicians was conducted by "large companies or caravans,
since it could only have been carried on in this way."45
The nearest
neighbours of the Phoenicians on the land side were the Jews and Israelites,
the Syrians of Damascus, and the people of Northern Syria, or the Orontes
valley and the tract east of it. From the Jews and Israelites the Phoenicians
seem to have derived at all times almost the whole of the grain which
they were forced to import for their sustenance. In the time of David
and Solomon it was chiefly for wheat and barley that they exchanged
the commodities which they exported,46 in that of Ezekiel it was primarily
for "wheat of Minnith;"47 and a similar trade is noted on
the return of the Jews from the captivity,48 and in the first century
of our era.49 But besides grain they also imported from Palestine
at some periods wine, oil, honey, balm, and oak timber.50 Western
Palestine was notoriously a land not only of corn, but also of wine,
of olive oil, and of honey, and could readily impart of its superfluity
to its neighbour in time of need. The oaks of Bashan are very abundant,
and seem to have been preferred by the Phoenicians to their own oaks
as the material of oars.51 Balm, or basalm, was a product of the land
of Gilead,52 and also of the lower Jordan valley, where it was of
superior quality.53
From the
Damascene Syrians we are told that Phoenicia imported "wine of
Helbon" and "white wool."54 The "wine of Helbon"
is reasonably identified with that {oinos Khalubonios} which is said
to have been the favourite beverage of the Persian kings.55 It was
perhaps grown in the neighbourhood of Aleppo.56 The "white wool"
may have been furnished by the sheep that cropped the slopes of the
Antilibanus, or by those fed on the fine grass which clothes most of
the plain at its base. The fleece of these last is, according to Heeren,57
"the finest known, being improved by the heat of the climate, the
continual exposure to the open air, and the care commonly bestowed upon
the flocks." From the Syrian wool, mixed perhaps with some other
material, seems to have been woven the fabric known, from the city where
it was commonly made,58 as "damask."
According
to the existing text of Ezekiel,59 Syria Proper "occupied in
the fairs" of Phoenicia with cotton, with embroidered robes, with
purple, and with precious stones. The valley of the Orontes is suitable
for the cultivation of cotton; and embroidered robes would naturally
be produced in the seat of an old civilisation, which Syria certainly
was. Purple seems somewhat out of place in the enumeration; but the
Syrians may have gathered the /murex/ on their seaboard between Mt.
Casius and the Gulf of Issus, and have sold what they collected in the
Phoenician market. The precious stones which Ezekiel assigns to them
are difficult of identification, but may have been furnished by Casius,
Bargylus, or Amanus. These mountains, or at any rate Casius and Amanus,
are of igneous origin, and, if carefully explored, would certainly yield
gems to the investigator. At the same time it must be acknowledged that
Syria had not, in antiquity, the name of a gem-producing country; and,
so far, the reading of "Edom" for "Aram," which
is preferred by many,60 may seem to be the more probable.
The commerce
of the Phoenicians with Egypt was ancient, and very extensive. "The
wares of Egypt" are mentioned by Herodotus as a portion of the
merchandise which they brought to Greece before the time of the Trojan
War.61 The Tyrians had a quarter in the city of Memphis assigned to
them,62 probably from an early date. According to Ezekiel, the principal
commodity which Egypt furnished to Phoenicia was "fine linen"63--especially
the linen sails embroidered with gay patterns, which the Egyptian nobles
affected for their pleasure-boats. They probably also imported from
Egypt natron for their glass-works, papyrus for their documents, earthenware
of various kinds for exportation, scarabs and other seals, statuettes
and figures of gods, amulets, and in the later times sarcophagi.64
Their exports to Egypt consisted of wine on a large scale,65 tin almost
certainly, and probably their peculiar purple fabrics, and other manufactured
articles.
The Phoenician
trade with Arabia was of especial importance, since not only did the
great peninsula itself produce many of the most valuable articles of
commerce, but it was also mainly, if not solely, through Arabia that
the Indian market was thrown open to the Phoenician traders, and the
precious commodities obtained for which Hindustan has always been famous.
Arabia is /par excellence/ the land of spices, and was the main source
from which the ancient world in general, and Phoenicia in particular,
obtained frankincense, cinnamon, cassia, myrrh, calamus or sweet-cane,
and ladanum.66 It has been doubted whether these commodities were,
all of them, the actual produce of the country in ancient times, and
Herodotus has been in some degree discredited, but perhaps without sufficient
reason. He is supported to a considerable extent by Theophrastus, the
disciple of Aristotle, who says:67 "Frankincense, myrrh, and
cassia grow in the Arabian districts of Saba and Hadramaut; frankincense
and myrrh on the sides or at the foot of mountains, and in the neighbouring
islands. The trees which produce them grow sometimes wild, though occasionally
they are cultivated; and the frankincense-tree grows sometimes taller
than the tree producing the myrrh." Modern authorities declare
the frankincense-tree (/Boswellia thurifera/) to be still a native of
Hadramaut;68 and there is no doubt that the myrrh-tree (/Balsamodendron
myrrha/) also grows there. If cinnamon and cassia, as the terms are
now understood, do not at present grow in Arabia, or nearer to Phoenicia
than Hindustan, it may be that they have died out in the former country,
or our modern use of the terms may differ from the ancient one. On the
other hand, it is no doubt possible that the Phoenicians imagined all
the spices which they obtained from Arabia to be the indigenous growth
of the country, when in fact some of them were importations.
Next to
her spices, Arabia was famous for the production of a superior quality
of wool. The Phoenicians imported this wool largely. The flocks of Kedar
are especially noted,69 and are said to have included both sheep and
goats.70 It was perhaps a native woollen manufacture, in which Dedan
traded with Tyre, and which Ezekiel notices as a trade in "cloths
for chariots."71 Goat's hair was largely employed in the production
of coverings for tents.72 Arabia also furnished Phoenicia with gold,
with precious stones, with ivory, ebony, and wrought iron.73 The wrought
iron was probably from Yemen, which was celebrated for its manufacture
of sword blades. The gold may have been native, for there is much reason
to believe that anciently the Arabian mountain ranges yielded gold as
freely as the Ethiopian,74 with which they form one system; or it
may have been imported from Hindustan, with which Arabia had certainly,
in ancient times, constant communication. Ivory and ebony must, beyond
a doubt, have been Arabian importations. There are two countries from
which they may have been derived, India and Abyssinia. It is likely
that the commercial Arabs of the south-east coast had dealings with
both.75
Of Phoenician
imports into Arabia we have no account; but we may conjecture that they
consisted principally of manufactured goods, cotton and linen fabrics,
pottery, implements and utensils in metal, beads, and other ornaments
for the person, and the like. The nomadic Arabs, leading a simple life,
required but little beyond what their own country produced; there was,
however, a town population76 in the more southern parts of the peninsula,
to which the elegancies and luxuries of life, commonly exported by Phoenicia,
would have been welcome.
The Phoenician
trade with Babylonia and Assyria was carried on probably by caravans,
which traversed the Syrian desert by way of Tadmor or Palmyra, and struck
the Euphrates about Circesium. Here the route divided, passing to Babylon
southwards along the course of the great river, and to Nineveh eastwards
by way of the Khabour and the Sinjar mountain-range. Both countries
seem to have supplied the Phoenicians with fabrics of extraordinary
value, rich in a peculiar embroidery, and deemed so precious that they
were packed in chests of cedar-wood, which the Phoenician merchants
must have brought with them from Lebanon.77 The wares furnished by
Assyria were in some cases exported to Greece,78 while no doubt in
others they were intended for home consumption. They included cylinders
in rock crystal, jasper, hematite, steatite, and other materials, which
may sometimes have found purchasers in Phoenicia Proper, but appear
to have been specially affected by the Phoenician colonists in Cyprus.79
On her part Phoenicia must have imported into Assyria and Babylonia
the tin which was a necessary element in their bronze; and they seem
also to have found a market in Assyria for their own most valuable and
artistic bronzes, the exquisite embossed pateræ which are among
the most precious of the treasures brought by Sir Austen Layard from
Nineveh.80
The nature
of the Phoenician trade with Upper Mesopotamia is unknown to us; and
it is not impossible that their merchants visited Haran,81 rather
because it lay on the route which they had to follow in order to reach
Armenia than because it possessed in itself any special attraction for
them. Gall-nuts and manna are almost the only products for which the
region is celebrated; and of these Phoenicia herself produced the one,
while she probably did not need the other. But the natural route to
Armenia was by way of the Cœlesyrian valley, Aleppo and Carchemish,
to Haran, and thence by Amida or Diarbekr to Van, which was the capital
of Armenia in the early times.
Armenia
supplied the Phoenicians with "horses of common and of noble breeds,"82
and also with mules.83 Strabo says that it was a country exceedingly
well adapted for the  breeding of the horse,84 and even notes the two qualities
of the animal that it produced, one of which he calls "Nisæan,"
though the true "Nisæan plain" was in Media. So large
was the number of colts bred each year, and so highly were they valued,
that, under the Persian monarchy the Great King exacted from the province,
as a regular item of its tribute, no fewer than twenty thousand of them
annually.85 Armenian mules seem not to be mentioned by any writer
besides Ezekiel; but mules were esteemed throughout the East in antiquity,86
and no country would have been more likely to breed them than the mountain
tract of Armenia, the Switzerland of Western Asia, where such surefooted
animals would be especially needed.
Armenia
adjoined the country of the Moschi and Tibareni--the Meshech and Tubal
of the Bible. These tribes, between the ninth and the seventh centuries
B.C., inhabited the central regions of Asia Minor and the country known
later as Cappadocia. They traded with Tyre in the "persons of men"
and in "vessels of brass" or copper.87 Copper is found abundantly
in the mountain ranges of these parts, and Xenophon remarks on the prevalence
of metal vessels in the portion of the region which he passed through--the
country of the Carduchians.88 The traffic in slaves was one in which
the Phoenicians engaged from very early times. They were not above kidnapping
men, women, and children in one country and selling them into another;89
besides which they seem to have frequented regularly the principal slave
marts of the time. They bought such Jews as were taken captive and sold
into slavery by the neighbouring nations,90 and they looked to the
Moschi and Tibareni for a constant supply of the commodity from the
Black Sea region.91 The Caucasian tribes have always been in the habit
of furnishing slave-girls to the harems of the East, and the Thracians,
who were not confined to Europe, but occupied a great part of Asia Minor,
regularly trafficked in their children.92
Such was
the extent of the Phoenician land trade, as indicated by the prophet
Ezekiel, and such were, so far as is at present known, the commodities
interchanged in the course of it. It is quite possible-- nay, probable--that
the trade extended much further, and certain that it must have included
many other articles of commerce besides those which we have mentioned.
The sources of our information on the subject are so few and scanty,
and the notices from which we derive our knowledge for the most part
so casual, that we may be sure what is preserved is but a most imperfect
record of what was--fragments of wreck recovered from the sea of oblivion.
It may have been a Phoenician caravan route which Herodotus describes
as traversed on one occasion by the Nasamonians,93 which began in
North Africa and terminated with the Niger and the city of Timbuctoo;
and another, at which he hints as lying between the coast of the Lotus-eaters
and Fezzan.94 Phoenician traders may have accompanied and stimulated
the slave hunts of the Garamantians,95 as Arab traders do those of
the Central African nations at the present day. Again, it is quite possible
that the Phoenicians of Memphis designed and organised the caravans
which, proceeding from Egyptian Thebes, traversed Africa from east to
west along the line of the "Salt Hills," by way of Ammon,
Augila, Fezzan, and the Tuarik country to Mount Atlas.96 We can scarcely
imagine the Egyptians showing so much enterprise. But these lines of
traffic can be ascribed to the Phoenicians only by conjecture, history
being silent on the subject.
Sea
trade of Phoenicia
1. With her
own colonies
The sea
trade of the Phoenicians was still more extensive than their land traffic.
It is divisible into two branches, their trade with their own colonists,
and that with the natives of the various countries to which they penetrated
in their voyages. The colonies sent out from Phoenicia were, except
in the single instance of Carthage, trading settlements, planted where
some commodity or commodities desired by the mother-country abounded,
and were intended to secure to the mother-country the monopoly of such
commodity or commodities. For instance, Cyprus was colonised for the
sake of its copper mines and its timber; Cilicia and Lycia for their
timber only; Thasos for its gold mines; Salamis and Cythera for the
purple trade; Sardinia and Spain for their numerous metals; North Africa
for its fertility and for the trade with the interior. Phoenicia expected
to derive, primarily, from each colony the commodity or commodities
which had caused the selection of the site. In return she supplied the
colonists with her own manufactured articles; with fabrics in linen,
wool, cotton, and perhaps to some extent in silk; with every variety
of pottery, from dishes and jugs of the plainest and most simple kind
to the most costly and elaborate vases and amphoræ; with metal
utensils and arms, with gold and silver ornaments, with embossed shields
and pateræ, with faïnce and glass, and also with any foreign
products or manufactures that they desired and that the countries within
the range of her influence could furnish. Phoenicia must have imported
into Cyprus, to suit a peculiar Cyprian taste, the Egyptian statuettes,
scarabs, and rings,97 and the Assyrian and Babylonian cylinders, which
have been found there. The tin which she brought from the Cassiterides
she distributed generally, for she did not discourage her colonists
from manufacturing for themselves to some extent. There was probably
no colony which did not make its own bronze vessels of the commoner
sort and its own coarser pottery.
2. With foreigners,
Mediterranean and Black Sea trade
In her
trade with the nations who peopled the coasts of the Mediterranean,
the Propontis, and the Black Sea, Phoenicia aimed primarily at disposing
to advantage of her own commodities, secondarily at making a profit
in commodities which she had obtained from other countries, and thirdly
on obtaining commodities which she might dispose of to advantage elsewhere.
Where the nations were uncivilised, or in a low condition of civilisation,
she looked to making a large profit by furnishing them at a cheap rate
with all the simplest conveniences of life, with their pottery, their
implements and utensils, their clothes, their arms, the ornaments of
their persons and of their houses. Underselling the native producers,
she soon obtained a monopoly of this kind of trade, drove the native
products out of the market, and imposed her own instead, much as the
manufacturers of Manchester, Birmingham, and the Potteries impose their
calicoes, their cutlery, and their earthenware on the savages of Africa
and Polynesia. Where culture was more advanced, as in Greece and parts
of Italy,98 she looked to introduce, and no doubt succeeded in introducing,
the best of her own productions, fabrics of crimson, violet, and purple,
painted vases, embossed pateræ, necklaces, bracelets, rings--"cunning
work" of all manner of kinds99 --mirrors, glass vessels, and
smelling-bottles. At the same time she also disposed at a profit of
many of the wares that she had imported from foreign countries, which
were advanced in certain branches of art, as Egypt, Babylonia, Assyria,
possibly India. The muslins and ivory of Hindustan, the shawls of Kashmir,
the carpets of Babylon, the spices of Araby the Blest, the pearls of
the Persian Gulf, the faïence and the papyrus of Egypt, would be
readily taken by the more civilised of the Western nations, who would
be prepared to pay a high price for them. They would pay for them partly,
no doubt, in silver and gold, but to some extent also in their own manufactured
commodities, Attica in her ceramic products, Corinth in her "brass,"
Etruria in her candelabra and engraved mirrors,100 Argos in her highly
elaborated ornaments.101 Or, in some cases, they might make return
out of the store wherewith nature had provided them, Eubœa rendering
her copper, the Peloponnese her "purple," Crete her timber,
the Cyrenaica its silphium.
North
Atlantic trade
Outside
the Pillars of Hercules the Phoenicians had only savage nations to deal
with, and with these they seem to have traded mainly for the purpose
of obtaining certain natural products, either peculiarly valuable or
scarcely procurable elsewhere. Their trade with the Scilly Islands and
the coast of Cornwall was especially for
the procuring of tin. Of all the metals, tin is found in the fewest
places, and though Spain seems to have yielded some anciently,102
yet it can only have been in small quantities, while there was an enormous
demand for tin in all parts of the old world, since bronze was the material
almost universally employed for arms, tools, implements, and utensils
of all kinds, while tin is the most important, though not the largest,
element in bronze. From the time that the Phoenicians discovered the
Scilly Islands--the "Tin Islands" (Cassiterides), as they
called them --it is probable that the tin of the civilised world was
almost wholly derived from this quarter. Eastern Asia, no doubt, had
always its own mines, and may have exported tin to some extent, in the
remoter times, supplying perhaps the needs of Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon.
But, after the rich stores of the metal which our own islands possess
were laid open, and the Phoenicians with their extensive commercial
dealings, both in the West and in the East, became interested in diffusing
it, British tin probably drove all other out of use, and obtained the
monopoly of the markets wherever Phoenician influence prevailed. Hence
the trade with the Cassiterides was constant, and so highly prized that
a Phoenician captain, finding his ship followed by a Roman vessel, preferred
running it upon the rocks to letting a rival nation learn the secret
of how the tin-producing coast might be approached in safety.103 With
the tin it was usual for the merchants to combine a certain amount of
lead and a certain quantity of skins or hides; while they gave in exchange
pottery, salt, and articles in bronze, such as arms, implements, and
utensils for cooking and for the table.104
If the
Phoenicians visited, as some maintain that they did,105 the coasts
of the Baltic, it must have been for the purpose of obtaining amber.
Amber is thrown up largely by the waters of that land-locked sea, and
at present especially abounds on the shore in the vicinity of Dantzic.
It is very scarce elsewhere. The Phoenicians seem to have made use of
amber in their necklaces from a very early date;106 and, though they
might no doubt have obtained it by land-carriage across Europe to the
head of the Adriatic, yet their enterprise and their commercial spirit
were such as would not improbably have led them to seek to open a direct
communication with the amber-producing region, so soon as they knew
where it was situated. The dangers of the German Ocean are certainly
not greater than those of the Atlantic; and if the Phoenicians had sufficient
skill in navigation to reach Britain and the Fortunate Islands, they
could have found no very serious difficulty in penetrating to the Baltic.
On the other hand, there is no direct evidence of their having penetrated
so far, and perhaps the Adriatic trade may have supplied them with as
much amber as they needed.
Trade
with the West Coast of Africa and the Canaries
The trade
of the Phoenicians with the west coast of Africa had for its principal
objects the procuring of ivory, of elephant, lion, leopard, and deer-skins,
and probably of gold. Scylax relates that there was an established trade
in his day (about B.C. 350) between Phoenicia and an island which he
calls Cerne, probably Arguin, off the West
African coast. "The merchants," he says,107 "who
are Phoenicians, when they have arrived at Cerne, anchor their vessels
there, and after having pitched their tents upon the shore, proceed
to unload their cargo, and to convey it in smaller boats to the mainland.
The dealers with whom they trade are Ethiopians; and these dealers sell
to the Phoenicians skins of deer, lions, panthers, and domestic animals--elephants'
skins also, and their teeth. The Ethiopians wear embroidered garments,
and use ivory cups as drinking vessels; their women adorn themselves
with ivory bracelets; and their horses also are adorned with ivory.
The Phoenicians convey to them ointment, elaborate vessels from Egypt,
castrated swine(?), and Attic pottery and cups. These last they commonly
purchase in Athens at the Feast of Cups. These Ethiopians are eaters
of flesh and drinkers of milk; they make also much wine from the vine;
and the Phoenicians, too, supply some wine to them. They have a considerable
city, to which the Phoenicians sail up." The river on which the
city stood was probably the Senegal.
It will
be observed that Scylax says nothing in this passage of any traffic
for gold. We can scarcely suppose, however, that the Phoenicians, if
they penetrated so far south as this, could remain ignorant of the fact
that West Africa was a gold-producing country, much less that, being
aware of the fact, they would fail to utilise it. Probably they were
the first to establish that "dumb commerce" which was afterwards
carried on with so much advantage to themselves by the Carthaginians,
and whereof Herodotus gives so graphic an account. "There is a
country," he says,108 "in Libya, and a nation, beyond the
Pillars of Hercules, which the Carthaginians are wont to visit, where
they no sooner arrive than forthwith they unlade their wares, and having
disposed them after an orderly fashion along the beach, there leave
them, and returning aboard their ships, raise a great smoke. The natives,
when they see the sample, come down to the shore, and laying out to
view so much gold as they think the wares are worth, withdraw to a distance.
The Carthaginians upon this come ashore again and look. If they think
the gold to be enough, they take it and go their way; but if it does
not seem to them sufficient, they go aboard ship once more, and wait
patiently. Then the others approach and add to their gold, till the
Carthaginians are satisfied. Neither party deals unfairly by the other:
for they themselves never touch the gold till it comes up to the worth
of their goods, nor do the natives ever carry off the goods until the
gold has been taken away."
The nature
of the Phoenician trade with the Canaries, or Fortunate Islands, is
not stated by any ancient author, and can only be conjectured. It would
scarcely have been worth the Phoenicians' while to convey timber to
Syria from such a distance, or we might imagine the virgin forests of
the islands attracting them.109 The large breed of dogs from which
the Canaries derived their later name110 may perhaps have constituted
an article of export even in Phoenician times, as we know they did later,
when we hear of their being conveyed to King Juba;111 but there is
an entire lack of evidence on the subject. Perhaps the Phoenicians frequented
the islands less for the sake of commerce than for that of watering
and refitting the ships engaged in the African trade, since the natives
were less formidable than those who inhabited the mainland.112
Trade
in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean
There was
one further direction in which the Phoenicians pushed their maritime
trade, not perhaps continuously, but at intervals, when their political
relations were such as to give them access to the sea which washed Asia
on the south and on the southeast.
That the Phoenicians migrated at some remote period to the Mediterranean may be allowed to be highly
probable; but that, after quitting their primitive abodes and moving
off nearly a thousand miles to the westward, they still maintained a
connection with their early settlements and made them centres for a
trade with the Far East, is as improbable a hypothesis as any that has
ever received the sanction of men of learning and repute. The Babylonians,
through whose country the connection must have been kept up, were themselves
traders, and would naturally keep the Arabian and Indian traffic in
their own hands; nor can we imagine them as brooking the establishment
of a rival upon their shores. The Arabians were more friendly; but they,
too, would have disliked to share their carrying trade with a foreign
nation. And the evidence entirely fails to show that the Phoenicians,
from the time of their arrival to the Mediterranean, ever launched a
vessel in the Persian Gulf, or had any connection with the nations inhabiting
its shores, beyond that maintained by the caravans which trafficked
by land between the Phoenician cities and the men of Dedan and Babylon.114
It was
otherwise with the more western gulf. There, certainly, from time to
time, the Phoenicians launched their fleets, and carried on a commerce
which was scarcely less lucrative because they had to allow the nations
whose ports they used a participation in its profits. It is not impossible
that, occasionally, the Egyptians allowed them to build ships in some
one or more of their Red Sea ports, and to make such port or ports the
head-quarters of a trade which may have proceeded beyond the Straits
of Babelmandeb and possibly have reached Zanzibar and Ceylon. At any
rate, we know that, in the time of Solomon, two harbours upon the Red
Sea were open to them--viz. Eloth and Ezion-Geber--both places situated
in the inner recess of the Elanitic Gulf, or Gulf of Akaba, the more
eastern of the two arms into which the Red Sea divides. David's conquest
of Edom had put these ports into the possession of the Israelites, and
the friendship between Hiram and Solomon had given the Phoenicians free
access to them. It was the ambition of Solomon to make the Israelites
a nautical people, and to participate in the advantages which he perceived
to have accrued to Phoenicia from her commercial enterprise. Besides
sharing with the Phoenicians in the trade of the Mediterranean,115
he constructed with their help a fleet at Ezion-Geber upon the Red Sea,116
and the two allies conjointly made voyages to the region, or country,
called Ophir, for the purpose of procuring precious stones, gold, and
almug-wood.117 Ophir is, properly speaking, a portion of Arabia,118
and Arabia was famous for its production of gold,119 and also for
its precious stones.120 Whether it likewise produced almug-trees is
doubtful;121 and it is quite possible that the joint fleet went further
than Ophir proper, and obtained the "almug-wood" from the
east coast of Africa, or from India. The Somauli country might have
been as easily reached as South-eastern Arabia, and if India is considerably
more remote, yet there was nothing to prevent the Phoenicians from finding
their way to it.122 We have, however, no direct evidence that their
commerce in the Indian Ocean ever took them further than the Arabian
coast.
Credits:
- The
illustrations of Phoenician ships were provided by kind courtesy of
Cedarland, the History of Lebanon (the section on Phoenician history is here).
- The
sea battle on the top of the page is an illustration of the battle
of Salamis.
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Phoenician Encyclopedia -- Phoenicia, A Bequest Unearthed (Desktop Version)
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Contact: Salim George Khalaf, Byzantine Phoenician Descendent
Salim is from Shalim, Phoenician god of dusk, whose place was Urushalim/Jerusalem
"A Bequest Unearthed, Phoenicia" — Encyclopedia Phoeniciana |
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This site has been online for more than 21 years.
We have more than 420,000 words.
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DATE (Christian and Phoenician):
,
year 4758 after the foundation of Tyre |
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