PHOENICIA, in ancient geography, the name given to that part of the seaboard of Syria which extends from the Eleutherus (Nahr el-Kebir) in the north to Mt. Carmel in the south, a dis tance of rather more than two degrees of latitude. These limits, however, were exceeded at various times; thus, north of the Eleu therus lay Aradus and Marathus, and south of Carmel the border sometimes included Dor and even Joppa. The harbours which played so important a part in antiquity are nearly all silted up, and, with the exception of Beirut, afford no safe anchorage for the large vessels of modern times. Sidon, Tyre and Aradus, though now connected with the mainland, were built originally upon islands; the Phoenicians preferred such sites, because they were convenient for shipping and easily defended against attack.
The chief towns of ancient Phoenicia, as we know of them from the Amarna tablets (15th century B.c.) and from Egyptian, Assyrian and the Old Testament documents, were the following: Acco (now Acre or tAkka, Judg. i. 31), Achzib (now ez-Zib, ibid.), Ahlab (in Assyrian Mahalliba, ibid.)—three towns on the coast south of Tyre, Kanah (Josh. xix. 28), Tyre (Phoen. Sea-, now Sur), Zarephath or Sarepta (I Kings xvii. 9 [now Sarafand]), Sidon (now Saida), Berytus (Biruta in Egyptian, Biruna in the Amarna tablets, now Beirut), Byblus (in Phoen. and Hebr. Gebal, now Jebeil), Arka, 8om. north of Sidon (Gen. x. 17, now `Arka), Sin (Assyr. Siannu, ibid.) Simyra (Gen. x. 18, now Sumra), Marathus (now Amrit) not important till the Macedonian period, Arvad or Aradus (in Phoen. Arwad, now Ruad, Gen. x. 18; Ezek. xxvii. 8, I I), the most northerly of the great Phoenician towns.
By settling along the Syrian coast they developed a strangely un-Semitic love for the sea, and advanced on different lines from the other Canaanites who occupied the interior. They called them
selves Canaanites and their land Canaan; such is their name in the Amarna tablets, KinaNii and Kinalini; and with this agrees the statement assigned to Hecataeus (Fr. hist. gr., i. 17) that Phoenicia was formerly called Xva. (Cling) a name which Philo of Byblus adopts into his mythology by making "Chna who was afterwards called Phoinix" the eponym of the Phoenicians (Fr. hist. gr., iii. 569). In the reign of Antiochus IV. and his succes sors the coins of Laodicea of Libanus bear the legend "Of Lao dicea which is in Canaan" (Cooke, North-Semitic Inscriptions, quoted as NSI., No. 149 B 8) ; the Old Testament also sometimes denotes Phoenicia and Phoenicians by "Canaan" and "Canaanites" (Isa. xxiii. I I ; Obad. 20; Zeph. i. 11), though the latter names generally have a more extended sense. But "Sidonians" is the usual designation both in the Old Testament and in the Assyrian monuments (Sidunnu) ; and even at the time of Tyre's greatest ascendancy we read of Sidonians and not Tyrians in the Old Testament and in Homer; thus Ethbaal, king of Tyre ( Jos., Ant., viii. 13, 2) is called king of the Sidonians in I Kings xvi. 31. In the Homeric poems we meet with Sidonioi, Sidonie (Od., iv. 618; vi. 29o, Od., xiii. 285; //., vi. 291) and Phoinikes, Phoinike (Od., xiii. 272, XlV. 288 seq., etc.), and both terms together (Od., iv. 83 seq., II., xxiii. 743 seq.). And the Phoenicians them selves used Sidonians as a general name ; thus in one of the oldest Phoenician inscriptions (CIS., i. 5=NSI., No. 1), Hiram II., king of Tyre in the 8th century, is styled "king of the Si donians." But among the Greeks "Phoenicians" was the name most in use, Phoinikes (plur. of Phoinix) for the people and Phoinike for the land (Cf. PHOENIX). The former was probably the older word and may be traced to phoinos="blood-red"; the Canaanite sailors were spoken of as the "red men" on account of their sunburnt skin.