TYRE, tir (Lat. Tyrus, from Gk. Topic, from Pluenician ,F,ar, rock). The most im portant city of ancient Phcenieia, situated on the Mediterranean coast about 50 miles south of Beirut (Map: Turkey in Asia, F 6). It de rived its, name from the double rock lying just of the coast, which was the site of the earliest settlement. At present this portion of the city is connected with the mainland by a causeway which goes back to the days of Alex ander the Great; before the Greek period, how ever, the older Tyre was an island divided by a natural canal into two parts. It has now been definitely ascertained that the old sanctuary to Melkart. the Baal or chief deity of Tyre. stood on the southwestern part of the little island, and with this determination the priority of the settlement of the island over the adjoining coast is also determined. From the island settlement the city grew until it included as a suburb the adjoining coast land, and after the union of island and coast the entire settlement was known as the city of 'Tyre. From a strategic point of view, the situation of Tyre was most favorable, while its admirable ports predestined it for the eommercial ride it was to play. Those ports were chiefly two, the `Sidonian port' and the `Egyptian harbor.' Whether Tyre or Sidon is the oldest settlement of Pluenieia is a question not easily answered. On the whole, the evidence is in favor of the latter, though the view formerly held, Which made Tyre an offshoot of Sidon, must be abandoned in the light of recent researches. Herod°tus records a tradition which traced the settlement of Tyre haul: to the twenty-eighth century B.B. The date may be somewhat. too early. though when Egypt began her campaigns for the possession of Western Asia under Thoth me, 1. (c.1510 rte.) Tyre was already a flour ishing and important centre. A new period of prosperity began for Tyre with the decline of Egyptian control (c.I400 u.c.), and though we know little of the history of the place for the next three centuries the important position which it occupied when Tiglathpileser 1. of Assyria (e. 1130 n.e.) opened his successful series of cam paigns to the West justifies the conclusion that in the interval Tyre more than maintained her supremacy over Sidon and surrounding dis tricts. It was a period of commercial exten sion, followed by a decline due to internal dis turbances. It was not until e. S70 B.C., that, so far as present knowledge goes, an Assyrian king, Asshurnasirpal, included Tyre and Sidon in his campaigns and obtained tribute from these two cities as well as from Byblos and Arvad. Among the kings of this period known to us from a list of Menander preserved by Josephus is Diram (me. 969-936), from whom Solomon, apparently as a vassal of Tyre, obtained material and work men for his building operations. (See thrum,
SotomoN.) After the clays of .Asshurnasirpal, the compact between Tyre and Assyria remained uninterrupted, with the exception of short in tervals. To save her commerce and her position of supremacy. Tyre preferred to pay tribute rather than risk an encounter at arms with As syria. In the days of Sennacherib (me. 705 6SI ), however, Tyre paid for a manifestation of independence by an encounter with the Assyrian monarch, which ended in a momentary defeat for the Assyrians. Tyre, however, was cut off from communieation with the coast, and after enduring a siege of five years, according to Menander's annals, was obliged to submit (c. 700 me.) 'Tyre recovered from this blow and entered into a combination with Egypt to resist the ad vance of Esarhaddon, the successor of Senna eherib, who had to content himself with receiving the homage of King Baal of Tyre without actu ally capturing the city; but Asshurhanipal, his successor, finally succeeded toward the end of his reign (B.C. 668-626) in forcing the city to surrender. Tyre became an Assyrian vassal. but her commercial position was unaffected, and the fall of Assyria (c. 607 n.c.) enabled her once more to assert her independence. A fatal blow was dealt her by Nebuchadnezzar IT. The city with stood a dire siege for thirteen years. At the end of that time (we. 572) her strength was exhaust ed, she yielded, and her old rival Sidon profited by the loss of trade which followed, to take up the superior position in the commercial world. The last native ruler of Tyre was lttobaal. lie was followed by governors appointed at the dictation of Babylonian rulers until the Persian conquest of Babylonia.
From that time on till the days of Alexander the Great the history of Tyre is that of a steady decline. It was taken by Alexander in B.C. 332 after a seven months' siege, and by Antigonus seventeen years later, after a siege of fourteen months. During the Roman period and in the Middle Ages it was still an important commer cial town. It was captured by the Crusaders un der Baldwin H. in 1124 and remained in the hands of the Christians till 1291, when it was taken and destroyed by „Malik al---kshraf, ruler of Egypt and Syria. It has never recovered its old importance. The present town (Ar. •fir) has about 6000 inhabitants and offers few attractions. Consult: Jeremias, Tyros bis zur Zeit Nebukad nezars (Leipzig, 1891) ; Kral], "Studios znr Geschichte des alter Aegyptens, iii., Tyros and Sidon," in Sitzungsberichte der kaiserlichen Aka denlie der Wissensehaften zu Wien, vol. exvi. (1888) ; Prutz, des Phiinizien (Leipzig, 1876); Lucas, Geschiehte der Stadt Tyros ;:ur Zcit dcr (Berlin, 1S96).