The Oxford Handbook of the Phoenician and Punic Mediterranean

by Carolina Lopez-Ruiz

  An isolated piece of information concerns Itto-Baal, a ninth-century king of Tyre, who, according to Josephus (AJ 8.324, after Menander), would have founded Botrys (modern Batroun) to the north of Byblos. The absence of context prevents any historical evaluation of this foundation.

  Josephus also reproduced two lists of Tyrian kings. One, borrowed from Menander of Ephesus, listed the kings who ruled in the tenth and ninth centuries bce (Ap. 1.116–26), and the other, also considered to derive from Menander, recorded the kings of the first half of the sixth century bce (Ap. 1.155–60). These texts are unfortunately corrupt and almost hopelessly amendable. They do not offer more than a rough chronological framework. A good discussion of the problems raised by the first list is given by Jan Dochhorn 2001 (see more recently Lipiński 2006: 166–74; Heinige 2009; Kokkinos 2013). The second list has attracted less attention (e.g., Katzenstein 1973: 325–29; Lipiński 2006: 197–201).

  A United Kingdom of Tyre and Sidon?

  It is possible that the southern group, Tyre and Sidon, formed a political unit for some time (Katzenstein 1973: 130–35; Bunnens 1979: 295–99), despite the doubts raised by Philip J. Boyes (2012). This is supported by three observations:

  1. There are instances where Tyre and Sidon form a group. For instance, they sent delegates to the inauguration of Ashurnasirpal II’s palace at Kalhu (RIMA 2, A.0.101.30, 143–47). Two of the bronze bands which decorated Shalmaneser III’s gates at Balawat showed the delivery of tribute by people that the epigraphs designated as Tyrians and Sidonians, and the pictures showed them coming from an island, which cannot be but Tyre (Schachner 2007: 225).

  2. Elsewhere the king of Tyre is shown as having authority over Sidon. Qurdi-Aššur-lamur, governor of Simirra, reported to Tiglath-pileser III that Hiram had cut a cultic object in a temple of Sidon and wanted to transport it to Tyre (SAA 19, No. 23). This Hiram is well known as king of Tyre in Tiglath-pileser’s inscriptions (PNA 2/I, 474). He therefore exerted some kind of control over Sidon. On the other hand, a bowl purchased at Limassol in the nineteenth century ce bears an inscription mentioning “Hiram, king of the Sidonians” (KAI 31). This Hiram is almost surely the same Hiram as the one mentioned in Tiglath-pileser’s inscriptions. He could therefore bear the title “king of the Sidonians.” Actually, Qurdi-Aššur-lamur said that Matenni, presumably the king who succeeded Hiram on the throne of Tyre (PNA 2/II: 750), had organized the delivery of the tribute, and the writer added that all the Sidonians should come and meet him to dispatch the tribute to the king (SAA 19, No. 24). Later on, Sennacherib presented Lulî as king of Sidon (PNA 2/II: 668–69), but described his dominion as extending as far south as Akko. He also said that Lulî tried to escape from Tyre (RINAP 3/1, Text 46: 18–19) and, in the summaries of his campaigns, he boasted that he had conquered Tyre without mention of Sidon (RINAP 3/1, Texts 4: 15–17). Here again the center must have been at Tyre, but Sennacherib put the emphasis on Sidon because he had not been able to conquer the island of Tyre.

  3. There is an argumentum ex silentio. No king of Sidon is unequivocally known before the seventh century bce, at the time of Esarhaddon, when Abdi-Milkutti was king of Sidon (PNA 1/I: 7) and Baalu king of Tyre (PNA 1/II: 242–43).

  An alternative explanation, which would consider “Sidonian” as synonymous with “Phoenician,” is less likely because there is no indication that a collective name had ever been applied, before the Greeks, to the people we call “Phoenicians.” We do not know when this political union came into being. It seems to have already existed in the ninth century and must have lasted until the turn of the eighth and seventh centuries bce. The accomplishments for which Tyre was celebrated in antiquity would have been realizations of this united kingdom.

  Phoenicia’s Maritime Expansion as Seen from Home

  Phoenician cities were acting as business centers in trade relations between all parts of the ancient world. Vivid descriptions of Tyre and Sidon’s commercial relations are given by Isaiah 23 and Ezekiel 27, but probably the best known effect of these relations is the impact Phoenicia had on central and western Mediterranean countries (Bunnens 1979; Aubet 1993; Pappa 2013).

  First Ventures

  Written evidence concerning the first Phoenician expansion in the Mediterranean is related to Hiram I’s expeditions to Tarshish (1 Kgs 10:21–22; 2 Chr 9:21), a place faraway in the Mediterranean, often identified with Tartessos in Spain (López-Ruiz 2009; Montenegro and Del Castillo 2016), and to Ophir (1 Kgs 9:26–28; 1 Kgs 10:11–12; 2 Chr 8:17–18; 2 Chr 9:10), a place that some would also situate in the Mediterranean (Lipiński 2004: 189–223). The critical evaluation of these enterprises is difficult, however, as they are inextricably associated with the diplomatic relations Hiram would have had with Solomon (Beitzel 2010; González de Canales et al. 2010; Lipiński 2010). No external evidence exists to corroborate them, and the quotations Josephus made of Menander and Dios do not allude to them. However, we must observe that archaeology does not contradict them (Beitzel 2010; González de Canales 2014: 560–61). Furthermore, in the ninth century bce, Itto-Baal I would have founded Auza, a place otherwise unknown, in Libya (J., AJ 8.324, after Menander; Lipiński 2006: 178–79), but this, again, is unverifiable.

  We are on even shakier ground with the story of the foundation of Carthage. According to the Sicilian historian Timaeus, Elissa, sister of the king of Tyre Pygmalion, who had assassinated her husband, fled from Tyre and, after a stop in Cyprus, founded Carthage in Libya, where she was called Dido (Bunnens 1979: 368–74; Lemaire 2010). This Pygmalion is mentioned by Josephus as the last king of his first king list. The problem is that the name “Pygmalion” is difficult to explain in Phoenician (Dochhorn 2005: 95–99) and seems more at home in Cyprus (Müller 1988). On the other hand, the story of Elissa/Dido looks more like a foundation legend than genuine history, and may have been created when Carthage had risen to the status of a regional power. It is therefore quite possible that Elissa/Dido and Pygmalion had no historical reality and that Pygmalion was inserted in Josephus’s Tyrian king list because of the fame Carthage always had in antiquity. (On early Carthage, cf. chapter 11, this volume).

  The date of this event is also unsure (Bunnens 1979: 317–20; Lemaire 2010: 56–57; Kokkinos 2013: 49–52). The most commonly accepted date, 814 bce, has its origin in Timaeus’s history, where it is said that both Carthage and Rome were founded in the thirty-eighth year before the first Olympiad—that is, in 814/813 bce (D.H. 1.74.1; Kokkinos 2013: 49–51). The joint mention of Rome and Carthage raises suspicion as to its historicity. We must remember that Classical historians had little reliable information for the times before ca. 600 bce and tended to build chronologies by generational reckoning. Actually, the year 814/813 bce was 333 years (i.e., ten generations of 33 1/3 years) earlier than the assumed alliance between Carthage and the Persians, which would have been concluded at the time of the battles of Himera and Salamis in 480 bce. This date is thus very probably artificial.

  This case is not isolated. The foundation dates of Gades (Gadir) in Spain and Utica in Libya, in 1104 and 1101 bce, respectively, also look artificial. They both find their origin in the link that some ancient authors made between the first Phoenician ventures in the Mediterranean and the turmoil that would have followed the fall of Troy. More specifically, these dates were associated with the tradition concerning the “return of the Heraclids” two generations after Troy’s capture (Bunnens 1979: 316–17). That being said, archaeological data emerging in recent years from Iberia (Huelva, Cádiz) and Carthage have pushed back to the ninth century the main foundations in the west, with contacts starting earlier (see chapter 6, this volume).

  Metropolis and Colonies

  There are indications that the ties between Phoenicia and the new foundations were never entirely broken. We find an echo of them in an inscription of Esarhaddon, who says that all the kings from Yadnana (Cyprus) (and) Yaman (Greece?) to Tarsisi (assuredly Tarshish rather than Tarsus) bowed down to his feet (RINAP 4, Text 60: 10’). Esarhaddo
n could not have made such a claim had he not conquered Phoenicia before. Similarly, according to Josephus quoting Megasthenes (AJ 10.227; Ap. 1.144), Nebuchadnezzar II would have subdued the greater part of Libya and Iberia, an achievement only possible if the conquest of Phoenicia implied that of its colonies. (For axis linking Tyre to Gadir and Carthage, see chapter 39, this volume).

  Phoenicians in the Northeast Corner of the Mediterranean

  Associated with Phoenician maritime expeditions was their interest, also attested by archaeology (Lehmann 2008b), in the countries bordering the northeast corner of the Mediterranean—that is, bordering the first segment of the maritime route leading to the west.

  Assyrian evidence might point to a possible Phoenician presence on the North Syrian coast (Kestemont 1972, 1983: 59–67, 1985: 135; Peckham 2014: 112, 114–17, 339–46). For instance, when Ashurnasirpal II reached the Mediterranean and before he climbed Mount Amanus, most Phoenician cities, from Tyre to Arwad, paid tribute (RIMA 2, A.0.101.1: 84–92). In whatever place the tribute was delivered, it cannot have been far from Mount Amanus, somewhere on the northern Syrian coast. Shalmaneser III, following the combined evidence of his inscriptions (RIMA 3, A.102.2: ii 5–7, A.0.102.5: 4) and of the bronze decoration he had placed at a temple gate at Balawat (Schachner 2007: 38–39, 225–227, plates 3 and 14), may also have collected the tribute of Tyre and Sidon in North Syria. As Guy Kestemont (1972) has observed, in one instance the epigraph specified that the tribute was delivered by boat. Much later, the famous “seascape relief” from Sargon II’s palace at Khorsabad, which showed timber delivered to a hilly place by boats bypassing two island-cities (Fontan 2001), is evidence for Phoenicians transporting logs by boat to a place on the North Syrian coast. In the late fifth century bce, Xenophon still mentioned a Phoenician ἐμπόριον at Myriandros near Alexandretta (Anab. 1.4.6).

  Farther north was Cilicia, where a number of Phoenician inscriptions were found (Lipiński 2004: 110–43; Peckham 2014: 175–83, 207–18). Some local rulers even adopted the Phoenician language, often on a par with Luwian, for their own inscriptions. These inscriptions must be considered alongside Assyrian reports associating Phoenician cities with Cilicia. In 715 bce, Sargon II made a clear association between Tyre and Cilicia (called Que) when he said that he defeated Ionians who were attacking the people of these two regions (Fuchs 1993: Ann. 117–19; Zyl. 21). Later on, at the time of Esarhaddon, Abdi-Milkutti, king of Sidon, made an alliance with Sanda-uarri of Kundu and Sisu, two cities of Cilicia (RINAP 4, Text 1: iii 20–38, Text 2: 43–56, Text 3: ii 1’–9’, Text 6: ii 38’–49’).

  Opposite Cilicia was Cyprus, which became a kind of backyard and sanctuary for Phoenicia (Lipiński 2004: 42–76; Smith 2008; Peckham 2014: 124–69). It is quite possible that Hiram I of Tyre already held sway over Kition if the restoration of this city’s name in two texts of Josephus is accepted (AJ 8.146; Ap. 1.119; Lipiński 2006: 174–76, understands “Akko” instead). At any rate, an early connection between Cyprus and Phoenicia is attested by a Phoenician inscription of unknown provenance, which is dated, paleographically, to ca. 900 bce (Masson and Sznycer 1972: 13–20; Peckham 2014: 70–71). Phoenician influence on Cyprus took the form of political subordination for at least part of the island (Smith 2008). The previously mentioned inscription on a bowl, assumed to be from Limassol, was carved for a governor of Qart-hadasht, who was “servant of Hiram (II) king of the Sidonians.” “Qart-hadasht” means “New City,” as Carthage in North Africa. This “New City,” also known from Assyrian inscriptions (Bagg 2007: 195–96), must have been a foundation of the assumed Tyro-Sidonian kingdom, possibly Kition. Confused reports from both Josephus (AJ 9.283–87, after Menander) and Sargon II’s inscriptions (Fuchs 1993: Ann. 393–98; Na’aman 1998 and 2001) may record one or two uprisings of Cypriote cities against the king of Tyre in the second half of the eighth century bce. Whatever the reconstruction of events, it is in Cyprus that Lulî, king of the Sidonians, took refuge when Sennacherib invaded Phoenicia in 701 bce and probably also Abdi-Milkutti when he was attacked by Esarhaddon. (For the Phoenicians in Cyprus, see also chapter 30, this volume).

  A Phoenician presence—which took a political aspect only on Cyprus—seems thus to be perceptible in the northeast corner of the Mediterranean.

  neighboring powers

  Geography, as we saw, tended to channel the political relations of the Phoenician cities with inland powers. Northern Phoenicia was more oriented toward Hamath, and those of southern Phoenicia toward Israel and, farther east, Damascus, although maritime communications allowed economic relations to bypass these constraints.

  Northern Syria

  North Syria must have held a special place in Phoenicia’s political and economic relations (Kestemont 1972, 1983, 1985). Not only was it home to prosperous kingdoms but it was also the only access to Mesopotamian centers.

  A stele, dating from the ninth century bce, was found at Brej to the north of Aleppo. It was carved with the image of a god and an Aramaic inscription saying that it was dedicated to Melqart, the god of Tyre, by Bar-Hadad son of Atar-shumki, assumed to be a king of Bit Agusi (KAI 201; Puech 1992). This is evidence for peaceful contacts between Tyre and Bit Agusi/Arpad, possibly through North Syrian harbors.

  Hamath played a more political role in Phoenicia’s foreign relations. A great coalition led by Damascus and Hamath opposed Shalmaneser III’s progression at Qarqar in 853 bce. The coalition included cities of the Syrian littoral, such as Usnatu and Siannu, and northern Phoenician cities, such as Irqanatu and Arwad, possibly also Byblos. These cities were certainly there because they were associated with Hamath. As to southern Phoenicia, it was absent from the coalition despite, as we shall see, the possible association between Tyre and Ahab of Israel, who sent an important contingent to the allied forces. More than a century later, in 738 bce, Tiglath-pileser III conquered a series of cities, which he defined as cities of Hamath (RINAP 1, Text 43: ii 16–24). They included settlements of the northern Syrian coast as well as from northern Phoenicia, namely Simirra and Arqa (RINAP 1, Texts 14: 5–6, 35: ii 9′–16′). In 720 bce, Sargon II crushed a rebellion of Hamath, in which Simirra participated (Fuchs 1993: Prunk. 33). The close relationship between northern Phoenicia and Hamath seems thus to have survived Shalmaneser’s efforts to break it.

  The Euphrates region might also have attracted Phoenician attention (Kestemont 1985: 137–39). We saw that Tyre and Sidon sent delegates to the ceremonies of the inauguration of Ashurnasirpal’s palace at Kalhu, but as Kestemont (1985: 138) has noted, the list of guests, which was obviously arranged in geographical order, placed them between Hatti—that is, the part of Syria in the vicinity of Carchemish, and Gurgum, the region around modern Marash—as if they had belonged to a region close to the Euphrates. Furthermore, Shalmaneser III, after he had conquered Til Barsib on the Euphrates in 856 bce, received tribute from the “kings of the seashore” and kings of the Euphrates banks when he was still in the city (RIMA 3, A.0.102.2: ii 39–40). The “kings of the seashore” must have included Tyre and Sidon. This time the Phoenician cities were not even threatened. A likely conclusion is that they had interests in the Euphrates region. Lastly, Yariris, a ruler of Carchemish in the eighth century bce, claimed knowledge of several languages—among them a language defined as sù+ra/i-wa/i/ni-ti (URBS) (Hawkins 2000: I, KARKAMIŠ II.24:19). According to some scholars (Lipiński 2004: 115–16), this is a reference to the language of the city of Tyre. This interpretation, if confirmed, would give further evidence for contacts between the Euphrates region and the Phoenician metropolis.

  Southern Syria–Palestine

  Phoenician cities must have had commercial, and possibly also political, relations with Philistia, situated on the maritime route to Egypt (Peckham 2014: 196–200, 332–38), but we lack evidence to illustrate it. We can only mention a letter of Qurdi-Aššur-lamur, governor of Simirra under Tiglath-pileser III, who forbade the Sidonians from selling timber to Philistia and Egypt (SAA 19, No. 22, obv. 23–
rev. 2) and the treaty imposed by Esarhaddon on Baal of Tyre, allowing trade with Philistia (SAA 2, No. 5, rev. iii 19′). Archaeological finds may occasionally allow a glimpse into such contacts.

  But most of the information concerns Israel (on this, see chapter 42, this volume). Hiram I of Tyre is especially famous for his supposed alliance with David and Solomon. The relevant biblical texts, usually assigned to the Deuteronomistic school, have been the subject of much debate and their very historicity has been questioned because the general situation in tenth-century bce Israel would not have been propitious to large-scale projects (e.g., Liverani 2003: 113; Finkelstein and Silberman 2006: 173–75). Actually, we may doubt that David had the time and resources to launch an ambitious architectural program (2 Sam 5:11). As for Solomon, even if we can note that his relations with Hiram conformed to Near Eastern diplomatic practices, especially as evidenced by the Late Bronze Age Amarna correspondence, this does not prove they were historically established (Bunnens 1976).

  Here is the story. Hiram, after an exchange of letters with Solomon, would have concluded an agreement (berît) with him. This agreement should not be considered as a formal economic treaty but, rather, as a kind of alliance, as other examples of berît between kings show (1 Kgs 15:18–20; 2 Chr 16:2–4; 1 Kgs 20:34; Ezek 17:13). Hiram and Solomon would have cooperated in two fields. The first concerned the building of the Jerusalem temple (1 Kgs 5:1–18; 2 Chr 1:3–11). Hiram would have sent cedar logs and craftsmen to Solomon who, in turn, would have delivered wheat and oil to the Tyrian king. The second field was, as we have seen, joint maritime expeditions. Two more episodes are extremely unlikely. One is the tradition concerning a craftsman by the name of Hiram/Huram or Hiram/Huram-abi, who prepared bronze artifacts and decoration for the temple of Solomon (1 Kgs 7:13–51; 2 Chr 2:7, 13–14). The story might have aimed at lowering Hiram’s status by reducing it to that of a foreign servant of Solomon, which was awkwardly amalgamated with the main story. The other episode is the story of the twenty cities of Galilee offered by Solomon to Hiram who refused them, after which they were called “land of Kabul” (1 Kgs 9:10–14). The story sounds as an aetiological explanation of a local place name, probably preserved in the toponym Kabul (Lehmann 2008a), which Josephus understood as meaning “not pleasing” (AJ 8.141).