During the wars of Alexander's successors Phoenicia changed hands several times between the Egyptian and the Syrian kings.
From the year 275 "the people of Tyre" reckoned their era (CIS.
i. 7 =NSI. No. 9, cf. 1o). The Tyrian coins of the period, stamped with native, Greek and Egyptian symbols, illustrate the traditional relations of the city and the range of her ambitions. A special interest attaches to these silver tetradrachms and didrachms because they were used by the Jews for the payment of the temple tax as "shekels of the sanctuary" (NSI. pp.
44).
Among the Phoenician states we know most about Sidon dur ing this period. The kingship was continued for a long time. The story goes that Alexander raised to the throne a member of the royal family, Abdalonymus, who was living in obscure poverty and working as a gardener (Justin, xi. 1o; Curt., iv. 1; Diod., xvii. 47 wrongly connecting the story with Tyre). In 312 Ptolemy, then master of Phoenicia, appointed his general Philocles king of the Sidonians, and a decree in honour of this king has been found at Athens (Michel, No. 387, cf. 1,261) ; but he cannot have reigned long. For at the end of the 4th and the beginning of the 3rd century we have evidence of a native dynasty in the important inscriptions of Tabnith, Eshmuneazar and Bod-tashtart, and in the series of inscriptions (repeating the same text) discov ered at Bostan esh-Shekh near Sidon (NSI. Nos. 4, 5, 6 and App. i.). With Bod-tashtart, so far as we know, the dynasty came to an end, say about 250 B.C.
After the death of Antiochus IV. Epiphanes in 164 B.C., the kingdom of the Seleucids began to collapse. Berytus was de stroyed by the usurper Trypho in 14o B.C. Tyre in 120 and Sidon in III received complete independence, and inaugurated new eras from these dates. Byblus and Tripolis fell into the hands of "tyrants" (Strabo, xvi. 2, 18; Jos., Ant., xiv. 3, 2) ; from 83-69 B.C. the entire kingdom was held by the Armenian Tigranes.
At last in 64 B.C. Pompey arrived upon the scene and established order out of chaos. Phoenicia was incorpo rated into the Roman province of Syria; Aradus, Sidon, Tyre and Tripolis were confirmed in their rights of self-government and in the possession of their territories. Under the beneficent govern ment of Rome the chief towns prospered and extended their trade; but the whole character of the country underwent a change. During the Macedonian period Greek influences had been steadily gaining ground in Phoenicia ; relations with the Greek world grew closer; the native language fell into disuse, and from the beginning of the Roman occupation Greek appears regularly in inscriptions and on coins, though on the latter Phoenician legends do not entirely vanish till the 2nd century A.D. ; while the extent to which Hellenic ideas penetrated the native traditions and my thologies is seen in the writings of Philo of Byblus. For the pur
poses of everyday life, however, the people spoke not Greek, but Aramaic. As elsewhere, the Roman rule tended to obliterate char acteristic features of national life, and under it the native language and institutions of Phoenicia became extinct.
The Phoenicians were essen tially a seafaring nation. Fearless and patient navigators, they ventured into regions where no one else dared to go, and, always with an eye to their monopoly, they carefully guarded the secrets of their trade routes and discoveries, and their knowledge of winds and currents. At the beginning of the 7th century B.C. a Phoenician fleet is said to have circumnavigated Africa (Herod., iv. 42). To the great powers Phoenician ships and sailors were indispensable ; Sennacherib, Psammetichus and Necho, Xerxes, Alexander, all in turn employed them for their transports and sea fights. Even when Athens had developed a rival navy Greek observers noted with admiration the discipline kept on board the Phoenician ships and the skill with which they were handled (Xen., Oec., viii.); all the Phoenician vessels from the round merchant-boat (yaiaos —after which the island of Gaulus, now Gozo, near Malta, was called) to the great Tarshish-ships, the "East-Indiamen" of the ancient world, excelled those of the Greeks in speed and equipment. As E. Meyer points out, the war between the Greeks and the Persians was mainly a contest between the sea-powers of Greece and Phoenicia. At what period did Phoenicia first rise to be a power in the Mediterranean? We are gradually approaching a solution of this obscure problem. Recent discoveries in Crete (q.v.) have brought to light the existence of a Cretan or "Minoan" sea-power of remote antiquity, and it is clear that a great deal of what used to be described as Phoenician must receive quite a different designation. The Minoan sea power was at last broken up by invaders from the north, and a Carian rule became dominant in the Aegean (Herod., i. 171; Thucyd., i. 4, 8). It was a time of disorder and conflict due to the immigration of new races into the ancient seats of civiliza tion, and it synchronized with the weakening of the power of Egypt in the countries which bordered on the eastern Mediter ranean. This was in the i 2th century B.C. The Tyrian trader saw that his opportunity was come, and the Aegean lay open to his merchant vessels. Where much is still obscure, all that seems certain is that the antiquity of Phoenicia as a sea- and trading power has been greatly exaggerated both in ancient and in modern times ; the Minoan power of Cnossus preceded it by many cen turies; the influence of Phoenicia in the Aegean cannot be carried back much earlier than the 12th century B.C.