(8) Colonies. In this period were founded the African colonies, Carthage, Utica, and Leptis. These colonies kept up a frequent intercourse with the mother country, but were not politically dependent. This preserved Phcenicia from the usual stagnation of Oriental states. The civi:iza tion of the Phcenicians had a great influence upon other nations. Their voyages are described in Greek mythology as the expeditions of the Ty rian Hercules. The course of the Tyrian Hercules was not marked like that of other conquerors— viz. Medes and Assyrians—by ruined cities, and devastated countries, but by flourishing colonies, by agriculture, and the arts of peace.
(9) Religion. According to the Plicenician ieligion the special object of worship was the vital power in nature. which is either producing or destroying. The productive powq- of nature. again, is either procreative. masculine, or recep tive, feminine. These fundamental ideas are rep resented by the Phcenician gods, who appear un der a great variety of names, because these leading ideas may be represented in many different ways.
We need not here entcr into details concern ing the Phcenician gods, as the principal of them have been noticed under their names. (See BAAL; ASHTORETH.) It suffices to state generally, that the procreative principle was worshiped as Baal, lord, and as the sun. The rays •of the sun are, however, not only procreative, but destructive; and this destructive power is especially repre sented in the Ammonitish fire-god Moloch. Thus Baal represented both the generative and the de structive principles of nature; in which latter ca pacity the Hebrews worshiped him by human sac rifice (z Kings xviii :28; Jer. xix:5). He was the tutelary god of Tyre, and hence had the name of Melkar, equivalent to Melech-kereth. 'king of the city,' whom the Greeks called the Tyrian Her cules.
Of Baaltis or Astarte, which are usually identi fied, although they seem to have been originally different, we shall here add nothing to what has been already stated under ASHTORETH.
Besides these principal deities, the Phcenicians worshiped seven kabirinz, 'mighty ones, whose numbers corresponded with the seven planets. These kabirim were considered as protectors of men in using the powers of nature, especially navigation. With these seven kabirim was associated Esmun (the eighth), representing the sky full of fixed stars, surrounding the seven planets, the refresh ing air and the warmth of life. Many Phcenician names are compounded with Esmun. Hence we infer that he was frequently worshiped (comp. Gesen. Mon. Phccn. p. 136, sq.). G. B.
(10) Present Condition. Phcenicia is now a land of ruins, the whole shore from the "Ladder of Tyre" northward, according to Porter, being strewn with them. "Heaps of hewn stones and quantities of marble tesserm lay in my path, while broken shafts and mounds of rubbish were seen to the right and left, .here crowning a cliff, there washed by the waves. One thing I specially no ticed: from the time I left Achzib till I reached the fountains (of Tyre) I did not see a human being; a mournful and solitary silence reigns along Phcenicia's coast." (Giant Cities, p. 277.) Stanley writes in a similar strain: "There is one point of view in which this whole coast is spe cially remarkable. 'A mournful and solitary si lence now prevails along the shore which once re sounded with the world's debate.' This sentence, with which Gibbon solemnly closes his chapter on the Crusades, well sums up the general im pression still left by the six days' ride from Bei rut to Ascalon ; and it is no matter of surprise that in this impression travelers have felt a re sponse to the strains in which Isaiah and Ezekiel foretold the desolation of Tyre and Sidon. In one sense, and that the highest, this feeling is just. The Phoenician power which the prophets denounced has entirely perished." (Sinaz and Palestine, p. 266.)