Of the government and internal constitution of these states or cities, we know next to nothing, There were monarchs ruling over Sidon, Tyros, Byblus, Beryms, and Arndt's, for whose confirmation. however, the assent of the people was necessary in all cases. By the side of the king stood a powerful assembly, composed of represents lives of the old aristocratic families of the land, whose numbers differed at various per iods. When Tripolis was founded by Tyrus, Sidon, and Aradus, as a place of joint meeting for their hegemony, every one of these cities sent 100 senators to watch her spe eial interests at the common meeting; and the senate of Sidon seems, in the 4th c u.c., at least, to have consisted of 500-600 elders, some of whom were probably selected more for their wealth than for their noble lineage. The king sometimes combined in his person the office of high-priest. The turbulent seething muss of the people, consisting of the poorer families of Phenician descent, the immigrants of neighboring tribes, the strangers, and the whole incongruous mass of workmen, tradespeople, sailors, that have abounded in a commercial and maritime nation like the Phenicians, and out of whose midst must have arisen at times influential men enough—was governed, as far as we can learn, as " constitutionally" as possible. The unruly spirits were got rid of in Boman fashion somehow in the colonies, or were made silent by important places being intrusted to their care, under strict supervision from home. Only once or twice do we hear of violent popular outbreaks, in consequence of one of which it was mockingly said that Phenicia had lost all her aristocracy, and what existed of Phenicians was of the lowest birth, the offspring. of slaves. As the wealth of all the world accumulated more and more in the Plienician ports, luxury, and too great a desire to rest and enjoy their wealth in peace, induced the dauntless old pirates to intrust the guard of their cities to the mariners and mercenary soldiers, to Libyans and Lydians—" they of Persia and of Lud and of Phut," as Ezekiel has it; although the wild resistance which this small ter ritory offered in her single towns to the enormous armies of Assyria, Babylonia, and Greece, shows that the old spirit had not died out.
The sources for the early Phenician history are of the scantiest description. Of the annals and state documents which filled the archives of every large city, nothing has sur vived except a very doubtful record, which Sanchuniatho (q.v.) is said to have compiled, about 1250 B.C., in Phenician from official documents, and which was translated into Greek by Philo of Byblus, and a fragment of which is preserved by Eusebius. The Bible, principally Ezekiel, Menander of Ephesus, and Dins, a Phenician. Who wrote the history of Tyre from Tyrian annals, fragments of which are extant in Josephus and Syncellus, Horodolus, Diodorus, Justinus, and others, together with a very few notes scattered throughout the church fathers, contain the sum of all our information. Four sieat periods, however, are clearly distinguishable in the history of ancient Phenicia The first would comprise the earliest beginnings and the gradual development of the single states and tribes, from their immigration to the historical time when Sidon began to take the lead, or about 1500 B.C. The second period dates from the conquest of Pales tine by the Hebrews. Sidon had then become already the "first-born of .Kanitan," as Genesis has it, or "Sidon Pabbah," the great Sidon. -The flourishing state of its com merce and manufactures appears likewise from several passages in Homer. The silver vase proposed by Achilles as a prize in the funeral games in honor of Patroclus, was a work of the "skillful Sidoniansi" the garment Hecuba offers as a propitiatory gift to Minerva was the work of Sidoniau women. The gold-edged silver bowl given to
Telemachus by Menelaos. Hephaistos had received from the king of the Sidonians Ulysses is left on the island of Ithaca by the Phenicians, who sail away to "well-peopled Sidonia." The gradual ascendency of the rival city of Tyre marks the beginning of the third period, in which Phenicia reaches the height of its power, in which her ships covered all the seas, her cosrnmeree embraced the whole earth, and her innumerable colonies flourished.far and near. The first historically-recorded item of Tyre's activity is her foundation of Gades, a few years before that cf Utica, in 1100 B.C. The reason of the sudden greatness of Tyre is to be found in the defeat of the Sidonians by the king of "Askalon"—a term probably meant to represent the whole pentapolis of Philistia about the year 1209; in consequence of which, the principal families of Sidon "emi grated in their ships to Tyre, which (vis., the Island-city) they founded." In the 11th c., in the time of Samuel, " the princes of the Tyrians" are alrealy spoken of instead of the Sidonians, as the representatives of Phenicia. During the reigns of David and Solomon—under Hiram (980-917)—the friendliest relations existed between the two nations, both in the full bloom of their power. Each country needed what the other could supply. Hence their close alliance, which led even to common commercial enter prises in ships built by Solomon, the supercargoes of which belonged to him, while the mariners and pilots were Hirtn's.
By this time, Phenician colonization had reached its utmost extent. In the space of three centuries (1300-1000), the Phenieians had covered all the islands and coasts of the Mediterranean with their forts, their thetories, and their cities; and their ships, which plowed the main in all directions, everywhere found their own ports. They had colonized Cyprus, thus commanding the waters of the Levant and the coasts of Syria and Cilicia. Kithion, Amathus (Hamath), Karpasia, Paphos, with its magnificent tern pie of Ashera, Keryneia, and Lapothos, were some of their principal settlements in those regions. Northward, on 'the coast of Cilicia, they founded the cities of Myriandros, Tarsos, and Soloi. Migrating to the west, they took possession of Rhodes, Crete (cf. the myth of Zeus and Europe), Melos, Thera, Oliaros (near Paros). and Cythera, on the coast of the Pelopounesus. To the east of the zEgean, we find them at Erythrie, and further, as masters of the islands of Samothrace, Lemnos, and Thasos with its wealth of gold mines. The .Egean sea, with all its islands, being in their hands, they sailed thence further west, to Sicily, where they settled at Motye, on the extreme w. point; founded Rua Mulkitrth. in the s. (Hernelea Minoa); in the n., Machanath (Panormos, Palermo), and further, Melite (Malta) and Gaulas. They owned Caralis (Cagliari) in Sardinia. Minorca, lviza (Ehusos), Elba; on the opposite, or African coast, Iltppo. Utica, Iladrinnetusm Leptis, and some minor island states. 'From Sardinia and .finorea, the indefatigable mariners went still further w.—th•ough the strait of Gibraltar to 'hashish (the Cali fornia of those days) or Spain, where they founded Giateir or Cadiz. and in the s., Karteja, Mal aka, and Abdarach. From here, having colonized well-nigh the whole of the Spanish coast, they went northward to the tin islands (Scilly isles), and to Britain herself. And while they thus explored the regions of the Atlantic, their alliance with the lIebrews had permitted them to hind the way to the Indies by the lied sea.