The History of Antiquity, Vol. II (of VI), Maximilian Wolfgang Duncker

 

 

.

THE HISTORY OF ANTIQUITY.

 

 

THE

HISTORY OF ANTIQUITY.

FROM THE GERMAN

OF

PROFESSOR MAX DUNCKER,

 

BY

EVELYN ABBOTT, M.A.,
FELLOW AND TUTOR OF BALLIOL COLLEGE, OXFORD.

 

VOL. II.

 

 

LONDON:
RICHARD BENTLEY & SON, NEW BURLINGTON STREET,
Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen.
1879.

 

 

CONTENTS.

ASSYRIA.

[Pg 1]

CHAPTER I.

THE STORY OF NINUS AND SEMIRAMIS.

About the middle course of the Tigris, where the mountain wall of the Armenian plateau steeply descends to the south, there is a broad stretch of hilly country. To the west it is traversed by a few water-courses only, which spring out of the mountains of Sindyar, and unite with the Tigris; from the east the affluents are far more abundant. On the southern shore of the lake of Urumiah the edge of the plateau of Iran abuts on the Armenian table-land, and then, stretching to the south-east, it bounds the river valley of the Tigris toward the east. From its vast, successive ranges, the Zagrus of the Greeks, flow the Lycus and Caprus (the Greater and the Lesser Zab), the Adhim and the Diala. The water, which these rivers convey to the land between the Zagrus and the Tigris, together with the elevation of the soil, softens the heat and allows olive trees and vines to flourish in the cool air on the hills, sesame and corn in the valleys between groups of palms and fruit-trees. The backs of the heights which rise to the east are covered by forests of oaks and nut trees. Toward the south the ground[Pg 2] gradually sinks—on the west immediately under the mountains of Sindyar, on the east below the Lesser Zab—toward the course of the Adhim into level plains, where the soil is little inferior in fertility to the land of Babylonia. The land between the Tigris and the Greater Zab is known to Strabo and Arrian as Aturia.[1] The districts between the Greater and Lesser Zab are called Arbelitis and Adiabene by western writers.[2] The region bounded by the Lesser Zab and the Adhim or the Diala is called Sittacene, and the land lying on the mountains rising further toward the east is Chalonitis. The latter we shall without doubt have to regard as the Holwan[3] of later times.

According to the accounts of the Greeks, it was in these districts that the first kingdom rose which made conquests and extended its power beyond the borders of its native country. In the old time—such is the story—kings ruled in Asia, whose names were not mentioned, as they had not performed any striking exploits. The first of whom any memorial is retained, and who performed great deeds, was Ninus, the king of the Assyrians. Warlike and ambitious by nature, he armed[Pg 3] the most vigorous of his young men, and accustomed them by long and various exercises to all the toils and dangers of war. After collecting a splendid army, he combined with Ariæus, the prince of the Arabs, and marched with numerous troops against the neighbouring Babylonians. The city of Babylon was not built at that time, but there were other magnificent cities in the land. The Babylonians were an unwarlike people, and he subdued them with little trouble, took their king prisoner, slew him with his children, and imposed a yearly tribute on the Babylonians. Then with a still greater force he invaded Armenia and destroyed several cities. Barzanes, the king of Armenia, perceived that he was not in a position to resist. He repaired with costly presents to Ninus and undertook to be his vassal. With great magnanimity Ninus permitted him to retain the throne of Armenia; but he was to provide a contingent in war and contribute to the support of the army. Strengthened by these means, Ninus turned his course to Media. Pharnus, king of Media, came out to meet him with a strong force, but he was nevertheless defeated, and crucified with his wife and seven children, and Ninus placed one of his own trusty men as viceroy over Media. These successes raised in Ninus the desire to subjugate all Asia as far as the Nile and the Tanais. He conquered, as Ctesias narrates, Egypt, Phœnicia, Cœle Syria, Cilicia, Lycia and Caria, Lydia, Mysia, Phrygia, Bithynia, and Cappadocia, and reduced the nations on the Pontus as far as the Tanais. Then he made himself master of the land of the Cadusians and Tapyrians, of the Hyrcanians, Drangians, Derbiccians, Carmanians, Chorasmians, Barcians, and Parthians. Beside these, he overcame Persia, and Susiana, and Caspiana, and many other small nations. But in spite of many efforts he failed to[Pg 4] obtain any success against the Bactrians, because the entrance to their land was difficult and the number of their men of war was great. So he deferred the war against the Bactrians to another opportunity, and led his army back, after subjugating in 17 years all the nations of Asia, with the exception of the Indians and Bactrians. The king of the Arabians he dismissed to his home with costly presents and splendid booty; he began himself to build a city which should not only be greater than any other then in existence, but should be such that no city in the future could ever surpass it. This city he founded on the bank of the Tigris,[4] in the form of an oblong, and surrounded it with strong fortifications. The two longer sides measured 150 stades each, the two shorter sides 90 stades each, so that the whole circuit was 480 stades. The walls reached a height of 100 feet, and were so thick that there was room in the gangway for three chariots to pass each other. These walls were surmounted by 1500 towers, each of the height of 200 feet. As to the inhabitants of the city, the greater number and those of the most importance were Assyrians, but from the other nations also any who chose could fix his dwelling here, and Ninus allotted to the settlers large portions of the surrounding territory, and called the city Ninus, after his own name.

When the city was built Ninus resolved to march against the Bactrians. He knew the number and[Pg 5] bravery of the Bactrians, and how difficult their land was to approach, and therefore he collected the armies of all the subject nations, to the number of 1,700,000 foot soldiers, 210,000 cavalry, and towards 10,600 chariots of war. The narrowness of the passes which protect the entrance to Bactria compelled Ninus to divide his army. Oxyartes, who at that time was king of the Bactrians, had collected the whole male population of his country, about 400,000 men, and met the enemy at the passes. One part of the Assyrian army he allowed to enter unmolested; when a sufficient number seemed to have reached the plains he attacked them and drove them back to the nearest mountains; about 100,000 Assyrians were slain. But when the whole force had penetrated into the land, the Bactrians were overcome by superior numbers and scattered each to his own city. The rest of the cities were captured by Ninus with little trouble, but Bactra, the chief city, where the palace of the king lay, he could not reduce, for it was large and well-provisioned, and the fortress was very strong.

When the siege became protracted, Onnes, the first among the counsellors of the king and viceroy of Syria, who accompanied the king on this campaign, sent for his wife Semiramis to the camp. Once when he was inspecting the flocks of the king in Syria, he had seen at the dwelling of Simmas, the keeper of these flocks, a beautiful maiden, and he was so overcome with love for her that he sought and obtained her as a wife from Simmas. She was the foster-child of Simmas. In a rocky place in the desert his shepherds had found the maiden about a year old, fed by doves with milk and cheese; as Simmas was childless he had taken the foundling as his child, and given her the name of Semiramis[Pg 6] Onnes took her to the city of Ninus. She bore him two sons, Hyapates and Hydaspes, and as she had everything which beauty requires, she made her husband her slave; he did nothing without her advice, and everything succeeded admirably. She also possessed intelligence and daring, and every other gift likely to advance her. When requested by Onnes to come to the camp, she seized the opportunity to display her power. She put on such clothing that it could not be ascertained whether she was a man or a woman, and this succeeded so well that at a later time the Medes, and after them the Persians also, wore the robe of Semiramis. When she arrived in the camp she perceived that the attack was directed only against the parts of the city lying in the plain, not against the high part and the strong fortifications of the citadel, and she also perceived that this direction of the attack induced the Bactrians to be careless in watching the citadel. She collected all those in the army who were accustomed to climbing, and with this troop she ascended the citadel from a deep ravine, captured a part of it, and gave the signal to the army which was assaulting the walls in the plain. The Bactrians lost their courage when they saw their citadel occupied, and the city was taken. Ninus admired the courage of the woman, honoured her with costly presents, and was soon enchained by her beauty; but his attempts to persuade Onnes to give up Semiramis to him were in vain; in vain he offered to recompense him by the gift of his own daughter Sosana in marriage. At length Ninus threatened to put out his eyes if he did not obey his commands. The terror of this threat and the violence of his own love drove Onnes out of his mind. He hung himself. Thus Semiramis came to the throne of Assyria. When Ninus had taken[Pg 7] possession of the great treasures of gold and silver which were in Bactra, and had arranged everything there, he led his army back. At Ninus Semiramis bore him a son, Ninyas, and at his death, when he had reigned 52 years, Ninus bequeathed to her the sovereign power. She buried his corpse in the royal palace, and caused a huge mound to be raised over the grave, 6000 feet in the circuit and 5400 feet high, which towered over the city of Ninus like a lofty citadel, and could be seen far through the plain in which Ninus lay.

As Semiramis was ambitious, and desired to surpass the fame of Ninus, she built the great city of Babylon, with mighty walls and towers, the two royal citadels, the bridge over the Euphrates, and the temple of Belus, and caused a great lake to be excavated to draw off the water of the Euphrates. Other cities also she founded on the Euphrates and the Tigris, and caused depôts to be made for those who brought merchandise from Media, Paraetacene, and the bordering countries. After completing these works she marched with a great army to Media and planted the garden near Mount Bagistanon. The steep and lofty face of this mountain, more than 10,000 feet in height, she caused to be smoothed, and on it was cut her picture surrounded by 100 guards; and an inscription was engraved in Syrian letters, saying that Semiramis had caused the pack-saddles of her beasts of burden to be piled on each other, and on these had ascended to the summit of the mountain. Afterwards she made another large garden near the city of Chauon, in Media,[5] and on a rock in the middle of it she erected rich and costly buildings, from which she surveyed the blooming[Pg 8] garden and the army encamped in the plain. Here she remained for a long time, and gave herself up to every kind of pleasure. She was unwilling to contract another marriage from fear of losing the sovereign power, but she lived with any of her warriors who were distinguished for their beauty. All who had enjoyed her favours she secretly put to death. After this retirement she turned her course to Egbatana, caused a path to be cut through the rocks of Mount Zagrus, and a short and convenient road to be made across them, in order to leave behind an imperishable memorial of her reign. In Egbatana she erected a splendid palace, and in order to provide the city with water she caused a tunnel to be made through the lofty mountain Orontes at its base, which conveyed the water of a lake lying on the other side of the heights into the city. After this she marched through Persia and all the countries of Asia which were subject to her, and caused the mountains to be cut through and straight and level roads to be built everywhere, while in the plains she at one place raised great mounds over her dead generals, and in another built cities on hills; and wherever the army was encamped eminences were raised for her tent so that she might overlook the whole. Of these works many are still remaining in Asia and bear the name of Semiramis. Then she subjugated Egypt,[6] a great part of Libya, and nearly the whole of Ethiopia, and finally returned to Bactra.

A long period of peace ensued, till she resolved to subjugate the Indians on hearing that they were the most numerous of all nations, and possessed the largest and most beautiful country in the world. For two years preparations were made throughout her whole[Pg 9] kingdom; in the third year she collected in Bactria 3,000,000 foot soldiers, 500,000 horsemen, and 100,000 chariots. Beside these, 100,000 camels were covered with the sewn skins of black oxen, and each was mounted by one warrior; these animals were intended to pass for elephants with the Indians. For crossing the Indus 2000 ships were built, then taken to pieces again, and the various parts packed on camels. Stabrobates, the king of the Indians, awaited the Assyrians on the bank of the Indus. He also had prepared for the war with all his power, and gathered together even a larger force from the whole of India. When Semiramis approached he sent messengers to meet her with the complaint that she was making war upon him though he had done her no wrong; and in his letter he reproached her licentious life, and calling the gods to witness, threatened to crucify her if victorious. Semiramis read the letter, laughed, and said that the Indians would find out her virtue by her actions. The fleet of the Indians lay ready for battle on the Indus. Semiramis caused her ships to be put together, manned them with her bravest warriors, and, after a long and stubborn contest, the victory fell to her share. A thousand ships of the Indians were sunk and many prisoners taken. Then she also took the islands and cities on the river, and out of these she collected more than 100,000 prisoners. But the king of the Indians, pretending flight, led his army back from the Indus; in reality he wished to induce the enemy to cross the Indus. As matters succeeded according to her wishes, Semiramis caused a large and broad bridge to be thrown skilfully over the Indus, and on this her whole army passed over. Leaving 60,000 men to protect the bridge, she pursued the Indians with the rest of her army, and sent on in front[Pg 10] the camels clothed as elephants. At first the Indians did not understand whence Semiramis could have procured so many elephants and were alarmed. But the deception could not last. Soldiers of Semiramis, who were found careless on the watch, deserted to the enemy to escape punishment, and betrayed the secret. Stabrobates proclaimed it at once to his whole army, caused a halt to be made, and offered battle to the Assyrians. When the armies approached each other the king of the Indians ordered his horsemen and chariots to make the attack. Semiramis sent against them her pretended elephants. When the cavalry of the Indians came up their horses started back at the strange smell, part of them dislodged their riders, others refused to obey the rein. Taking advantage of this moment, Semiramis, herself on horseback, pressed forward with a chosen band of men upon the Indians, and turned them to flight. Stabrobates was still unshaken; he led out his elephants, and behind them his infantry. Himself on the right wing, mounted on the best elephant, he chanced to come opposite Semiramis. He made a resolute attack upon the queen, and was followed by the rest of the elephants. The soldiers of Semiramis resisted only a short time. The elephants caused an immense slaughter; the Assyrians left their ranks, they fled, and the king pressed forward against Semiramis; his arrow wounded her arm, and as she turned away his javelin struck her on the back. She hastened away, while her people were crushed and trodden down by their own numbers; and at last, as the Indians pressed upon them, were forced from the bridge into the river. As soon as Semiramis saw the greater part of her army on the nearer bank, she caused the cables to be cut which held the bridge; the force of the stream tore the beams asunder, and many[Pg 11] Assyrians who were on the bridge were plunged in the river. The other Assyrians were now in safety, the wounds of Semiramis were not dangerous, and the king of the Indians was warned by signs from heaven and their interpretation by the seers not to cross the river. After exchanging prisoners Semiramis returned to Bactra. She had lost two-thirds of her army.

Some time afterwards she was attacked by a conspiracy, which her own son Ninyas set on foot against her by means of an eunuch. Then she remembered a prophecy given to her in the temple of Zeus Ammon during the campaign in Libya; that when her son Ninyas conspired against her she would disappear from the sight of men, and the honours of an immortal would be paid to her by some nations of Asia. Hence she cherished no resentment against Ninyas, but, on the contrary, transferred to him the kingdom, ordered her viceroys to obey him, and soon after put herself to death, as though, according to the oracle, she had raised herself to the gods. Some relate that she was changed into a dove, and flew out of the palace with a flock of doves. Hence it is that the Assyrians regard Semiramis as an immortal, and the dove as divine. She was 62 years old, and had reigned 42 years.

The preceding narrative, which is from Diodorus, is borrowed in essentials from the Persian history of Ctesias, who lived for some time at the Persian Court in the first two decades of the reign of Artaxerxes Mnemon (405-361 B.C.). On the end of Semiramis the account of Ctesias contained more details than the account of Diodorus. This is made clear by some fragments from Ctesias preserved by other writers. In Nicolaus of Damascus we are told that after the Indian war Semiramis marched through the land of the Medes. Here she visited a very lofty and[Pg 12] precipitous mountain, which could only be ascended on one side. On this she at once caused an abode to be built from which to survey her army.

While encamped here, Satibaras the eunuch told the sons of Onnes, Hyapates and Hydaspes, that Ninyas would put them to death if he ascended the throne; they must anticipate him by removing their mother and Ninyas out of the way, and possessing themselves of the sovereign power. Moreover, it was to their great dishonour to be spectators of the licentiousness of their mother, who, even at her years, daily desired every youth that came in her way. The matter, he said, was easy of accomplishment; when he summoned them to the queen (he was entrusted with this business) they could come to the summit of the mountain and throw their mother down from it. But it happened that behind the altar, near which they held this conversation, a Mede was lying, who overheard them. He wrote down everything on a skin and sent it to Semiramis. When she had read it she caused the sons of Onnes to be summoned, and gave strict orders that they should come in arms. Delighted that the deity favoured the undertaking, Satibaras fetched the young men. When they appeared Semiramis bade the eunuch step aside, and then she spoke to them: "You worthless sons of an honest and brave father have allowed yourselves to be persuaded by a worthless slave to throw down from this height your mother, who holds her empire from the gods, in order to obtain glory among men, and to rule after the murder of your mother and your brother Ninyas. Then she spoke to the Assyrians."[7] Here the fragment of Nicolaus breaks off. From the fragments of Cephalion we may gather that the sons of Onnes were put to death by[Pg 13] Semiramis. Yet Cephalion gave a different account of the death of Semiramis from Ctesias; according to him Ninyas slew her.[8] In Ctesias, as is clear from the account of Diodorus and other remains of Ctesias, nothing was spoken of beyond the conspiracy which Ninyas prepared against her.[9]

After the death of Semiramis, so Diodorus continues his narrative, Ninyas ruled in peace, for he by no means emulated his mother's military ambition and delight in danger. He remained always in the palace, was seen by no one but his concubines and eunuchs, took upon himself no care or trouble, thought only of pleasure and pastime, considered it the object of sovereign power to give himself up undisturbed to all sorts of enjoyment. His seclusion served to hide his excesses in obscurity; he seemed like an invisible God, whom no one ventured to offend even in word. In order to preserve his kingdom he put leaders over the army, viceroys, judges, and magistrates over every nation, and arranged everything as seemed most useful to himself. To keep his subjects in fear he caused each nation to provide a certain number of soldiers every year, and these were quartered together in a camp outside the city, and placed under the command of men most devoted to himself. At the end of the year they were dismissed and replaced by others to the same number. Hence his subjects always saw a great force in the camp ready to punish disobedience or defection. In the same way his descendants also reigned for 30 generations, till the empire passed to the Medes.[10] Slightly differing from this account, Nicolaus tells us that Sardanapalus—to whom in the order of succession the kingdom of Ninus and[Pg 14] Semiramis finally descended—neither carried arms nor went out to the hunting-field, like the kings in old times, but always remained in his palace. Yet even in his time the old arrangements were kept and the satraps of the subject nations gathered with the fixed contingent at the gate of the king.[11]

From what source is the narrative of Ninus and Semiramis derived? what title to credibility can be allowed it? Herodotus states that the dominion of the Assyrians in Asia was the oldest; their supremacy was followed by that of the Medes, and the supremacy of the Medes was followed by the kingdom of the Achæmenids. Herodotus too is acquainted with the name of Semiramis; he represents her as ruling over Babylon, and building wonderful dykes in the level land, which the river had previously turned into a lake.[12] Strabo tells of the citadels, cities, mountain-roads, aqueducts, bridges, and canals which Semiramis constructed through all Asia, and to Semiramis Lucian traces back the old temples of Syria.[13] We may assume in explanation that the tradition of Hither Asia has ascribed to the first king and queen of Assyria the construction of the ancient road over the Zagrus, of old dykes and aqueducts in the land of the Euphrates and Tigris, the building, not of Nineveh only, but also of Babylon, the erection of the great monuments of forgotten kings of Babylon,—as a fact, Assyrian kings built in Babylon also in the seventh century. We may find it conceivable that this tradition has gathered together and carried back to the time of the foundation all that memory retained of the acts of Assyrian rulers, the campaigns of conquest of a long series of warlike and mighty sovereigns, the sum total of the exploits[Pg 15] to which Assyria owed her supremacy. Yet against such an origin of this narrative doubts arise not easy to be removed. It is true that when this tradition explains the mode of life and the clothing of the kings of Asia, and the clothing of the Medes and Persians, from the example of Semiramis, who wore in the camp a robe, half male and half female (p. 6); when this tradition derives the inaccessibility of the kings of Asia and their seclusion in the palace from the fact that Ninyas wished to hide his excesses, and appear to his subjects as a higher being,—traits of this kind can be set aside as additions of the Greeks. To the Babylonians and Assyrians, the Medes and Persians, the life and clothing of their rulers could not appear contemptible or remarkable, nor their own clothing half effeminate, though the Greeks might very well search for an explanation of customs so different from their own, and find them in the example and command of Semiramis, and the example of Ninyas. And if in Herodotus the empire of the Assyrians over Asia appears as a hegemony of confederates,[14] this idea is obviously borrowed from Greek models. The opposite statement of the division of the Assyrian kingdom into satrapies, the yearly change of the contingents of troops, comes from Ctesias, who transferred the arrangements of the Persian kingdom, with which he was acquainted, to their predecessors, the kingdom of the Assyrians, or found this transference made in his authorities, Persian or Mede, and copied it.

Yet, after making as much allowance as we can for the amalgamating influence of native tradition, after going as far as we can in setting apart what may be due to the Greeks, how could such an accurate[Pg 16] narrative, so well acquainted with every detail of the siege of Bactra, and the battle on the Indus, have been preserved for many centuries in the tradition of Hither Asia, retained even after the overthrow of Assyria, and down to the date when curious Greeks, 200 years after the fall of Nineveh, reached the Euphrates and Tigris? We possess a positive proof that about this time, in the very place to which this tradition must have clung most tenaciously, within the circuit of the old Assyrian country, no remembrance of that mighty past was in existence. When, in the year 401 B.C., Xenophon with his 10,000 marched past the ruins of the ancient cities of the Assyrian kingdom, the ruins of Asshur, Chalah, and Nineveh, before Ctesias wrote, he was merely told that these were cities of the Medes which could not be taken; into one of them the queen of the Medes had fled before the Persian king, and the Persians, with the help of heaven, took and destroyed it when they gained the dominion over Media.[15] From the Assyrians, therefore, Herodotus and Ctesias could not have obtained the information given in their statements about Ninus and Semiramis, nor could their knowledge have come from the Babylonians. The tradition of Babylonia would never have attributed the mighty buildings of that city and land to the queen of another nation, to which Babylon had succumbed. Hence the account of the Greeks about Assyria and her rulers could only come from the Medes and Persians. But our narrative ascribes to Semiramis even the great buildings of the Median rulers, the erection of the royal citadel of Egbatana, the residence of the Median kings; the parks and rock sculptures of Media, even the rock figure on Mount Bagistanon (p. 7). This[Pg 17] sculpture in the valley of the Choaspes on the rock-wall of Bagistan (Behistun) is in existence. The wall is not 10,000 but only 1500 feet high. It is not Semiramis who is pourtrayed in those sculptures, but Darius, the king of Persia, and before him are the leaders of the rebellious provinces. It was the proudest monument of victory in all the history of Persia. Would a Persian have shown this to a Greek as a monument of Semiramis? It would rather be a Mede, who would wish to hide from the Greeks that Media was among the provinces a second time conquered and brought to subjection.

The difficulty of ascertaining the sources of our narrative is still further increased in no inconsiderable degree by the fact that the books of Ctesias are lost, and that Diodorus has not drawn immediately from them, but from a reproduction of Ctesias' account of Assyria. Yet the express references to the statements of Ctesias which Diodorus found in his authority, as well as fragments relating to the subject which have been elsewhere preserved, allow us to fix with tolerable accuracy what belongs to Ctesias in this narrative, and what Clitarchus, the renewer of his work, whom Diodorus had before him, has added.[16] It is Ctesias who[Pg 18] enumerates the nations which Ninus subdued (p. 3). With him Semiramis was the daughter of a Syrian and Derceto, who throws herself into the lake of Ascalon, and is then worshipped as a goddess there.[17] To Ctesias belongs the nourishment of the child Semiramis by the doves of the goddess, her rise from the shepherd's hut to the throne of Assyria. He represents her as raising the mountain or the tomb of Ninus; he ascribes to her the building of Babylon, its mighty walls and royal citadels, the aqueducts, and the great temple of Bel. He represented her as marching to the Indus[18] and afterwards towards Media; as making gardens there and building the road over the Zagrus. He represented her as raising the mounds over the graves[Pg 19] of her lovers;[19] he told of her sensuality, of the designs of her sons by the first marriage, and the plot of Ninyas; he recounted her end, which was as marvellous as her birth and her youth: she flew out of the palace up to heaven with a flock of doves. If the conquest of Egypt by Semiramis also belongs to Ctesias,[20] the march through Libya, and the oracle given to her in the oasis of Ammon, together with the version of her death, which rests on this oracle (she caused herself to disappear, i. e. put herself to death, in order to share in divine honours), belong to Clitarchus.

If, therefore, we may regard it as an established fact that our narrative has not arisen out of Assyrian or Babylonian tradition, that the views and additions of Greek origin introduced into it leave the centre untouched; if we have succeeded in discovering, to a tolerably satisfactory degree, the outlines of the narrative of Ctesias, the main question still remains to be answered: from what sources is this narrative to be derived? In the first attempt to criticise this account we find ourselves astonished by the certainty of the statements, the minute and, in part, extremely vivid descriptions of persons and incidents. Not only the great prince who founded the power of Assyria, and the queen whose beauty and courage enchanted him, are known to Ctesias in their words and actions. He can mention by name the man who nurtured Semiramis as a girl, and her first husband. He knows the names of the princes of the Arabs, Medes, Bactrians, and Indians with whom Ninus and Semiramis had to do. The number of the forces set in motion against Bactria and India are given accurately according to the weapon used. The arrangements of the battle beyond the Indus, the progress of the[Pg 20] fight, the wounds carried away by Semiramis, the exchange of prisoners, are related with the fidelity of an eye-witness. Weight is obviously laid on the fact that after Semiramis had conquered and traversed Egypt and Ethiopia, after her unbroken success, the last great campaign against the Indians fails because she attacked them without receiving any previous injury. The message which Stabrobates sends to her, the letter which he writes, the reproaches he makes upon her life, the minute details which Ctesias gives of the relation of Onnes to Semiramis, of the conspiracy of the sons by this marriage, who felt themselves dishonoured by the conduct of their now aged mother, of the letter of the Mede, whose fidelity discovered the plot to her, of the speeches which Semiramis made on this occasion, carry us back to a description at once vivid and picturesque. If we take these pictures together with the account of Ctesias about the decline of the Assyrian kingdom, in which also very characteristic details appear, if we consider the style and the whole tone of these accounts of the beginning and the end of the Assyrian kingdom, we cannot avoid the conclusion that Ctesias has either invented the whole narrative or followed a poetic source.

The first inference is untenable, because the whole narrative bears the colour and stamp of the East in such distinctness that Ctesias cannot have invented it, and, on the other hand, it contains so much poetry that if Ctesias were the author of these descriptions we should have to credit him with high poetic gifts. We are, therefore, driven to adopt the second inference—that a poetic source lies at the base of his account. If, as was proved above, neither Assyrian nor Babylonian traditions can be taken into consideration, Assyrian and Babylonian poems are by the same[Pg 21] reasoning put out of the question. On the other hand, we find in Ctesias' history of the Medes episodes of at least equal poetic power with his narrative of Ninus and Semiramis. Plutarch tells us that the great deeds of Semiramis were praised in songs.[21] It is certain that they could not be the songs of Assyria, which had long since passed away, but we find, on the other hand, that there were minstrels at the court of the Medes, who sang to the kings at the banquet; it is, moreover, a Mede who warns Semiramis against Hyapates and Hydaspes; and the other names in the narrative of Ctesias bear the stamp of the Iranian language. Further, we find, not only in the fragments of Ctesias which have come down to us, but also in the narratives of Herodotus and other Greeks concerning the fortunes of the Medes and Persians down to the great war of Xerxes against the Hellenes, remains and traces of poems which can only have been sung amongst the Medes and Persians. We have, therefore, good grounds for assuming that it was Medo-Persian poems which could tell the story of Ninus and Semiramis, and that this part of the Medo-Persian poems was the source from which Ctesias drew. It was the contents of these poems recounted to him by Persians or Medes which he no doubt followed in this case, as in his further narratives of Parsondes and Sparethra, of the rebellion and struggle of Cyrus against Astyages, just as Herodotus before him drew from such poems his account of the rebellion of the Magi, the death of Cambyses, and the conspiracy of the seven Persians.

After severe struggles the princes and people of the Medes succeeded in casting down the Assyrian empire from the supremacy it had long maintained; they conquered and destroyed their old and supposed[Pg 22] impregnable metropolis. If the tribes of the Medes had previously been forced to bow before the Assyrians, they took ample vengeance for the degradation. Hence the Median minstrels had a most excellent reason to celebrate this crowning achievement of their nation; it afforded them a most agreeable subject. If, in the earlier and later struggles of the Medes against Assyria, the bravery of individual heroes was often celebrated in song, these songs might by degrees coalesce into a connected whole, the close of which was the overthrow of the Assyrian empire. The Median poems which dealt with this most attractive material must have commenced with the rise of the Assyrian kingdom; they had the more reason for explaining and suggesting motives for this mighty movement, as it was incumbent on them to make intelligible the wreck of the resistance of their own nation to the onset of the Assyrians, and the previous subjection of Media. In these poems no doubt they described the cruelty of the conqueror, who crucified their king, with his wife and seven children (p. 3). The more brilliant, the more overpowering the might of Assyria, as they described it, owing to eminent sovereigns in the earliest times, the wider the extent of the empire, the more easily explained and tolerable became the subjection of the Medes, the greater the glory to have finally conquered. This final retribution formed the close; the striking contrast of the former exaltation and subsequent utter overthrow, brought about by Median power and bravery, formed the centre of these poems.

The prince of the Assyrians whose success is unfailing till he finds himself checked in Bactria, the woman of unknown origin found in the desert, fostered by herdsmen, and raised from the lowest to the most[Pg 23] elevated position,[22] who in bravery surpasses the bravest, who outdoes the deeds of Ninus, whose charms allure to destruction every one who approaches her, who makes all whom she favours her slaves in order to slay them, who without regard to her years makes every youth her lover, and is, nevertheless, finally exalted to the gods—are these forms due to the mere imagination of Medo-Persian minstrels, or what material lay at the base of these lively pictures?

The metropolis of the Assyrians was known to the Greeks as Ninus; in the inscriptions of the Assyrian kings it is called Ninua. From this the name of Ninus, the founder of the empire, as well as Ninyas, is obviously taken. In Herodotus[23] and the chronographers Ninus is the son of Belus, i. e. of Bel, the sky-god already known to us (I. 265). The monuments of Assyria show us that the Assyrians worshipped a female deity, which was at once the war-goddess and goddess of sexual love—Istar-Bilit. Istar was not merely the goddess of battles—bringing death and destruction, though also conferring victory; she was at the same time the goddess of sensual love. We have already learned to know her double nature. In turn she sends life, pleasure, and death. If Istar of Arbela was the goddess of battle, Istar of Nineveh was the goddess of love (I. 270). As the goddess of love, doves were sacred to her. In the temples of Syria there were statues of this goddess with a golden dove on the head; she was even invoked there under the name of Semiramis, a word which may mean High name, Name of the Height.[24]

Thus the Medo-Persian minstrels have changed the[Pg 24] form and legend of a goddess who was worshipped in Assyria, whose rites were vigorously cultivated in Syria, into a heroine, the founder of the Assyrian empire; just as in the Greek and German epos divine beings have undergone a similar change. This heroine is the daughter of a maiden who slays the youth whom she has made happy with her love, who gave her her daughter, i. e. she is the daughter of the goddess herself. Like her mother, the goddess, the daughter, Semiramis, inspires men with irresistible love, and thus makes them her slaves. At the same time, as a war-goddess, she surpasses all men in martial courage, and brings death to all who have surrendered to her. The origin of the goddess thus transformed into a heroine is unknown and supernatural; her characteristics are marvellous powers of victory and charms of love. The neighbourhood of Ascalon, where we found the oldest and most famous temples of the Syrian goddess of love (I. 360), was the scene of the origin of the miraculous child. The doves of the Syrian goddess nourish and protect her in the desert. She grows up in Syria, where the worship of the goddess of sexual love was widely spread. Whether Simmas, her foster-father, has arisen out of Samas, the sun-god of the Semites, and Onnes, the first husband of Semiramis, out of Anu, the god of Babel and Asshur, cannot indeed be decided. But in her relation to Onnes, whom her charm makes her slave, to whom she brings uninterrupted success, till in despair at her loss he takes his life, the Medo-Persian minstrels describe the glamour of love and the sensual pleasure, as well as the destruction which proceeds from her, in the liveliest and most forcible manner. Even after the Indian campaign she indulges her passions, and then puts those to death to whom she[Pg 25] grants her favours. In this life the poems found a motive for the plots of her sons, from which she was at first rescued by the fidelity of a Mede,—a trait which again reveals the origin of the poem. As Semiramis was a heroine merely, and not a goddess, to the minstrels, they could represent her overthrow, her defeat and wounds, on the Indus, which afterwards was the limit of the conquests of the Medians and Persians. At the end of her life the higher style reappears, the supernatural origin comes in once more. She flies out of the palace with the doves of Bilit, which protected her childhood. In Ctesias the goddess of Ascalon is Derceto,[25] and therefore later writers could maintain that the kings of Assyria, the descendants or successors of Semiramis, were named Dercetadæ.[26]

 

 

[Pg 26]

CHAPTER II.

THE BEGINNINGS OF THE ASSYRIAN KINGDOM.

To relegate Ninus and Semiramis with all their works and deeds to the realm of fiction may appear to be a startling step, going beyond the limits of a prudent criticism. Does not Ctesias state accurately the years of the reigns: Ninus reigned, according to his statement, 52 years; Semiramis was 62 years old, and reigned 42 years? Do not the chronographers assure us that in Ctesias the successors of Ninus and Semiramis, from Ninyas to Sardanapalus, the last ruler over Assyria, 34 kings, were enumerated, and the length of their reigns accurately given, and has not Eusebius actually preserved this list? Since, at the same time, we find out, through Diodorus and the chronographers, as well as through this list, that Ctesias fixed the continuance of the Assyrian kingdom at more than 1300 years, or more exactly at 1306, and the fall of the kingdom took place according to his reckoning in the year 883 B.C., Ninus must on these dates have ascended the throne in the year 2189 B.C. (883 + 1306), and the reign of Semiramis commenced in 2137 B.C. (883 + 1254). Eusebius himself puts the accession of Ninus at 2057 B.C.[27][Pg 27]

If in spite of these accurate statements we persist in refusing to give credit to Ctesias, Berosus remains, who, according to the evidence of the chronographers, dealt with the rule of Semiramis over Assyria. After mentioning the dynasty of the Medes which reigned over Babylon from 2458-2224 B.C., the dynasty of the Elamites (2224-1976 B.C.), of the Chaldæans (1976-1518 B.C.), and of the Arabs, who are said to have reigned over Babylon from the year 1518 to the year 1273 B.C., Berosus mentioned the rule of Semiramis over the Assyrians. "After this," so we find it in Polyhistor, "Berosus enumerates the names of 45 kings separately, and allotted to them 526 years. After them there was a king of the Chaldæans named Phul, and after him Sennacherib, the king of the Assyrians, whose son, Esarhaddon, then reigned in his place."[28] If we take these 45 kings for kings of Assyria, who ruled over this kingdom after Semiramis, then, by allowing the supplements of these series of kings previously mentioned (I. 247), the era of these 45 kings will begin in the year 1273 B.C. and end in 747 B.C., and the date of Semiramis will fall immediately before the year 1273 B.C. In the view of Herodotus, Ninus was at the head of the Assyrian empire, but not Semiramis. As already observed (p. 14), he mentions Semiramis as a queen of Babylon, and does not place her higher than the middle of the seventh century B.C.;[29] but he regards the dominion of Assyria over Upper Asia as commencing far earlier. Before the Persians the Medes ruled over Asia for 156 years; before them the Assyrians ruled for 520 years; the Medes were the first of the subject nations who rebelled against the Assyrians; the rest of the nations followed their example. As the Median empire fell before the attack[Pg 28] of the Persians in 558 B.C., the beginning of the Median empire would fall in the year 714 B.C. (558 + 156), and consequently the beginning of the Assyrian kingdom in the year 1234 B.C. (714 + 520), i. e. four or five decades later than Berosus puts the death of Semiramis. For the date of the beginning of the Assyrian dominion Herodotus and Berosus would thus be nearly in agreement. It has been assumed that the 45 kings whom the latter represents as following Semiramis were kings of Assyria, who ruled at the same time over Babylon, and were thus regarded as a Babylonian dynasty. This agreement would be the more definite if it could be supposed that, according to the view of Herodotus, the beginning of the 156 years which he gives to the Median empire was separated by an interval of some decades from the date of their liberation from the power of the Assyrians. In this case the empire of the Assyrians over Asia would not have commenced very long before the year 1273 B.C., and would have extended from that date over Babylonia. In complete contradiction to this are the statements of Ctesias, which carry us back beyond 2000 B.C. for the commencement of the Assyrian empire. They cannot be brought into harmony with the statements of Herodotus, even if the time allotted by Ctesias to the Assyrian empire (1306 years) is reckoned from the established date of the conquest of Nineveh by the Medes and Babylonians (607 B.C.). The result of such a calculation (607 + 1306) carries us back to 1913 B.C., a date far higher than Herodotus and Berosus give.

Is it possible in any other way to approach more closely to the beginning of the Assyrian kingdom, the date of its foundation, or the commencement of its conquests? We have already seen how the Pharaohs[Pg 29] of Egypt, after driving out the shepherds in the sixteenth and fifteenth centuries B.C., reduced Syria to subjection; how the first and third Tuthmosis, the second and third Amenophis, forced their way beyond Syria to Naharina. The land of Naharina, in the inscriptions of these kings, was certainly not the Aram Naharaim, the high land between the Euphrates and Tigris, in the sense of the books of the Hebrews. It was not Mesopotamia, but simply "the land of the stream (Nahar)." For the Hebrews also Nahar, i. e. river, means simply the Euphrates. It has been already shown that the arms of the Egyptians hardly went beyond the Chaboras to the east; and if the inscriptions of Tuthmosis III. represent him as receiving on his sixth campaign against the Syrians, i. e. about the year 1584 B.C., the tribute of Urn Assuru, i. e. of the chieftain of Asshur, consisting of 50 minæ of lapis-lazuli; if these inscriptions in the year 1579 once more mention among the tribute of the Syrians the tribute of this prince in lapis-lazuli, cedar-trunks, and other wood, it is still uncertain whether the chief of the Assyrians is to be understood by this prince. Had Tuthmosis III. really reached and crossed the Tigris, were Assuru Assyria, then from the description of this prince, and the payment of tribute in lapis-lazuli and cedar-trunks, we could draw the conclusion that Assyria in the first half of the sixteenth century B.C. was still in the commencement of its civilisation, whereas we found above that as early as the beginning of the twentieth century B.C. Babylonia was united into a mighty kingdom, and had made considerable advance in the development of her civilisation.

Our hypothesis was that the Semites, who took possession of the valley of the Euphrates, were immigrants from the south, from Arabia, and that this new[Pg 30] population forced its way by successive steps up the river-valley. We were able to establish the fact that the earliest governments among the immigrants were formed on the lower course of the Euphrates, and that the centre of the state in these regions slowly moved upwards towards Babel. We found, further, that Semitic tribes went in this direction as far as the southern slope of the Armenian table-land.[30] In this way the region on the Tigris, afterwards called Assyria, was reached and peopled by the Semites. With the Hebrews Asshur, beside Arphaxad and Aram, beside Elam and Lud, is the seed of Shem. "From Shinar" (i. e. from Babylonia), we are told in Genesis, "Asshur went forth and built Nineveh, and Rehoboth-Ir, and Chalah, and Resen between Nineveh and Chalah, which is the great city." There is no reason to call in question this statement that Assyria was peopled and civilised from Babylonia. Language, writing, and religion exhibit the closest relationship and agreement between Babylonia and Assyria.

On the west bank of the Tigris, some miles above the confluence of the Lesser Zab, at the foot of a ridge of hills, lie the remains of an ancient city. The stamps on the tiles of these ruins tell us that the name of the city was Asshur. Tiglath Pilesar, a king of Assyria, the first of the name, whose reign, though we cannot fix the date precisely, may certainly be put about the year 1110 B.C., narrates in his inscriptions: The temple of the gods Anu and Bin, which Samsi-Bin, the son of Ismidagon, built at Asshur 641 years previously, had fallen down; King Assur-dayan had caused the ruins to be removed without rebuilding it. For 60 years the foundations remained untouched; he, Tiglath[Pg 31] Pilesar, restored this ancient sanctuary. Tiles from this ruin on the Tigris, from this city of Asshur, establish also the fact that a prince named Samsi-Bin, son of Ismidagon, once ruled and built in this city of Asshur. They have the inscription: "Samsi-Bin, the son of Ismidagon, built the temple of the god Asshur."[31] Hence Samsi-Bin built temples in the city of Asshur to the god Asshur as well as to the gods Anu and Bin. His date falls, according as the 60 years of the inscription of Tiglath Pilesar, during which the temple of Anu and Bin was not in existence, are added to the space of 641 years or included in them, either about the year 1800 or 1740 B.C.; the date of his father Ismidagon about the year 1830 or 1770 B.C.

In any case it is clear that a place of the name of Asshur, the site of which is marked by the ruins of Kileh-Shergat, was inhabited about the year 1800 B.C., and that about this time sanctuaries were raised in it. The name of the place was taken from the god specially worshipped there. As Babel (Gate of El) was named after the god El, Asshur was named after the god of that name. The city was Asshur's city, the land Asshur's land. Beside the city of Asshur, about 75 miles up the Tigris, there must have been at the time indicated a second place of the name of Ninua (Nineveh), the site of which is marked by the ruins of Kuyundshik and Nebbi Yunus (opposite Mosul), since, according to the statement of Shalmanesar I., king of Assyria, Samsi-Bin built another temple here to the goddess Istar.[32] Ismidagon, as well as Samsi-Bin, is called in the inscription of Tiglath Pilesar I. "Patis of Asshur." The meaning of this title is not quite clear; the word is said to mean viceroy. If by this title a vice-royalty over the land[Pg 32] of Asshur is meant, we may assume that Assyria was a colony of Babylonia—that it was under the supremacy of the kings of Babylon, and ruled by their viceroys. But since at a later period princes of Assyria called themselves "Patis of Asshur," as well as "kings of Asshur," the title may be explained as meaning that the old princes of Assyria called themselves viceroys of the god of the land, of the god Asshur. Moreover, it would be strange that a colony of Babylonia, which was under the supremacy of that country, should make its protecting god a deity different from that worshipped in Babylonia.

From this evidence we may assume that about the year 1800 B.C. a state named Asshur grew up between the Tigris and the Lesser Zab. This state must have passed beyond the lower stages of civilisation at the time when the princes erected temples to their gods at more than one chief place in their dominions, when they could busy themselves with buildings in honour of the gods after the example of the ancient princes of Erech and Nipur, of Hammurabi, and his successors at Babylon. With this result the statements in the inscriptions of Tuthmosis III do not entirely agree. Two hundred years after the time of Ismidagon and Samsi-Bin they speak only of the chief of Asshur, and of tribute in lapis-lazuli and tree-trunks; but this divergence is not sufficient to make us affirm with certainty that the "Assuru" of Tuthmosis has no reference whatever to Assyria. If we were able to place the earliest formation of a state on the Lower Euphrates about the year 2500 B.C., the beginnings of Assyria, according to the inferences to be drawn from the evidence of the first Tiglath Pilesar and the tiles of Kileh-Shergat, could not be placed later than the year 2000 B.C.[Pg 33]

Beside Ismidagon and Samsi-Bin, the inscriptions of Tiglath Pilesar and the tiles of the ruins of Kileh-Shergat mention four or five other names of princes who belong to the early centuries of the Assyrian empire, but for whom we cannot fix any precise place. The date of the two kings, who on Assyrian tablets are the contemporaries of Binsumnasir of Babylon, Assur-nirar, and Nabudan, could not have been fixed with certainty if other inscriptions had not made us acquainted with the princes who ruled over Assyria in succession from 1460—1280 B.C.[33] From these we may assume that Assur-nirar and Nabudan must have reigned before this series of princes, i. e. before 1460 B.C., from which it further follows that from about the year 1500 B.C. onwards Assyria was in any case an independent state beside Babylon. We found above that the treaty which Assur-bil-nisi, king of Assyria, concluded about the year 1450 B.C. with Karaindas, king of Babylon, for fixing the boundaries, must have been preceded by hostile movements on the part of both kingdoms. We saw that Assur-bil-nisi's successor, Busur-Assur, concluded a treaty with the same object with Purnapuryas of Babylon, and that Assur-u-ballit, who succeeded Busur-Assur on the throne of Assyria, gave his daughter in marriage to Purnapuryas. In order to avenge the murder of Karachardas, the son of Purnapuryas by this marriage, who succeeded his father on the throne of Babylon, Assur-u-ballit invaded Babylonia and placed Kurigalzu, another son of Purnapuryas, on the throne. We might assume that about this time, i. e. about 1400 B.C., the borders of Assyria[Pg 34] and Babylonia touched each other in the neighbourhood of the modern Aker-Kuf, the ancient Dur-Kurigalzu.[34] Assur-u-ballit, who restored the temple of Istar at Nineveh which Samsi-Bin had built, was followed by Pudiel, Bel-nirar, and Bin-nirar.[35] The last tells us, on a stone of Kileh-Shergat, that Assur-u-ballit conquered the land of Subari, Bel-nirar the army of Kassi, that Pudiel subjugated all the land as far as the distant border of Guti; he himself overcame the armies of Kassi, Guti, Lulumi and Subari; the road to the temple of the god Asshur, his lord, which had fallen down, he restored with earth and tiles, and set up his tablet with his name, "on the twentieth day of the month Muhurili, in the year of Salmanurris."[36]

Bin-nirar's son and successor was Shalmanesar I., who ascended the throne of Assyria about 1340 B.C. We learnt above from Genesis, that "Asshur built the cities of Nineveh, Rehoboth-Ir, Resen and Chalah." Assur-nasirpal, who ruled over Assyria more than 400 years after Shalmanesar I., tells us that "Shalmanesar the mighty, who lived before him, founded the ancient city of Chalah."[37] It is thus clear that Assyria before the year 1300 B.C. obtained a third residence in addition to the cities of Asshur and Nineveh. Like Asshur and Nineveh, it lay on the banks of the Tigris, about 50 miles to the north of Asshur, and 25 to the south of Nineveh. It was not, however, like Asshur, situated on the western bank of the river, but on the eastern,[Pg 35] like Nineveh, a little above the junction of the Upper Zab, in a position protected by both rivers, and thus far more secure than Asshur. Shalmanesar also built in both the old residences of Asshur and Nineveh. Tiles of Kileh-Shergat bear the stamp, "Palace of Shalmanesar, son of king Bin-nirar."[38] His buildings in Nineveh are certified by an inscription, in which Shalmanesar says: "The temple of Istar, which Samsi-Bin, the prince who was before me, built, and which my predecessor Assur-u-ballit restored, had fallen into decay in the course of time. I built it up again from the ground to the roof. The prince who comes after me and sees my cylinder (p. 37), and sets it again in its place, as I have set the cylinder of Assur-u-ballit in its place, him may Istar bless; but him who destroys my monument may Istar curse and root his name and race out of the land."[39] In the same inscription Shalmanesar calls himself conqueror of Niri, Lulumi and Musri, districts for which—at any rate for the two last—we shall have to look in the neighbourhood of Nineveh, in the chain of the Zagrus. The son of Shalmanesar I. was Tiglath Adar; he completed the restoration of the temple of Istar at Nineveh, and fought with such success against Nazimurdas of Babylon that he placed on his seal this inscription: "Tiglath Adar, king of the nations, son of Shalmanesar, king of Asshur, has conquered the land of Kardunias." But he afterwards lost this very seal to the Babylonians, who placed it as a trophy in the treasure-house of Babylon (about 1300 B.C.).[40][Pg 36]

These are the beginnings of the Assyrian kingdom according to the indications of the monuments. After the series of kings from Assur-bil-nisi to Tiglath Adar, whose dates come down from about the year 1460 to about 1280 B.C., there is a gap in our knowledge of some decades. After this we hear at first of new struggles with Babylon. In these Belkudurussur of Assyria (about 1220 B.C.) lost his life. The Babylonians, led by their king, Binpaliddin, invaded Assyria with a numerous army in order to take the city of Asshur. But Adarpalbitkur, the successor of Belkudurussur, succeeded in forcing them to retire to Babylon.[41] Of Adarpalbitkur his fourth successor proudly declares that "he was the protector of the might of Asshur, that he put an end to his weakness in his land, that he arranged well the army of the land of Assyria."[42] His son, Assur-dayan (about 1180 B.C.) was able to remove the war again[Pg 37] into the land of Babylonia; he claims to have carried the booty from three places in Babylonia—Zab, Irriya and Agarsalu—to Assyria.[43] It was he who had carried away the ruins of the fallen temple which Samsi-Bin had built at Asshur to Anu and Bin, but had not erected it again. According to the words of his great-grandson, "he carried the exalted sceptre, and prospered the nation of Bel; the work of his hands and the gifts of his fingers pleased the great gods; he attained great age and long life."[44] Of Assur-dayan's son and successor, Mutakkil-Nebu (about 1160 B.C.), we only find that "Asshur, the great lord, raised him to the throne, and upheld him in the constancy of his heart."[45] Mutakkil-Nebu's son, Assur-ris-ilim (between 1150 and 1130 B.C.) had to undergo severe struggles against the Babylonians, who repeatedly invaded Assyria under Nebuchadnezzar I. At length Assur-ris-ilim succeeded in repulsing Nebuchadnezzar, and took from him 40 (50) chariots of war with a banner. Tiglath Pilesar, the son of Assur-ris-ilim, says of the deeds of his father, doubtless with extreme exaggeration, "he conquered the lands of the enemy, and subjugated all the hostile lands."[46]

The tiles of a heap of ruins at Asshur bear the inscription, "Tiglath Pilesar, the favoured of Asshur, has built and set up the temple of his lord the god Bin." At the four corners of the foundation walls of this building were discovered four octagonal cylinders of clay, about a foot and a half in height, on the inscriptions of which this king repeats the narrative of the deeds of the first five years of his life. He restored[Pg 38] the royal dwelling-places and the fortresses of the land which were in a bad condition, and planted again the forests of the land of Asshur; he renovated the habitation of the gods, the temples of Istar and Bilit in the city of Asshur. At the beginning of his reign Anu and Bin, his lords, had bidden him set up again the temple which Samsi-Bin had once built for them. This he accomplished; he caused the two great deities to enter into their high dwelling-places and rejoiced the heart of their great divinity. "May Anu and Bin grant me prosperity for ever, may they bless the work of my hands, may they hear my prayer and lead me to victory in war and in fight, may they subdue to my dominion all the lands which rise up against me, the rebellious nations and the princes, my rivals, may they accept my sacrificial offerings for the continuance and increase of my race; may it be the will of Asshur and the great gods to establish my race as firm as the mountains to the remotest days."[47]

These cylinders tell us of the campaign of Tiglath Pilesar. First he defeated 20,000 Moschi (Muskai) and their five kings. He marched against the land of Kummukh, which rebelled against him; even that part of the inhabitants which fled into a city beyond the Tigris which they had garrisoned he overcame after crossing the Tigris. He also conquered the people of Kurkhië (Kirkhië) who came to their help; he drove them into the Tigris and the river Nami, and took prisoner in the battle Kiliantaru, whom they had made their king; he conquered the land of Kummukh throughout its whole extent and incorporated it with Assyria.[48] After this he marched against the land of Kurkhië; next he crossed the[Pg 39] Lower Zab and overcame two districts there. Then he turned against the princes of the land of Nairi (he puts the number of these at 23); these, and the princes who came from the upper sea to aid them, he conquered, carried off their flocks, destroyed their cities, and imposed on them a tribute of 1200 horses and 2000 oxen. These battles in the north were followed by a campaign in the west. He invaded the land of Aram, which knew not the god Asshur, his lord;[49] he marched against the city of Karkamis, in the land of the Chatti; he defeated their warriors on the east of the Euphrates; he crossed the Euphrates in pursuit of the fugitives and there destroyed six cities. Immediately after this the king marched again to the East, against the lands of Khumani and Musri and imposed tribute upon them.

"Two-and-forty lands and their princes," so the cylinders inform us, "from the banks of the Lower Zab as far as the bank of the Euphrates, the land of the Chatti, and the upper sea of the setting sun, all these my hand has reached since my accession; one after the other I have subjugated them; I have received hostages from them and laid tribute upon them."[50] "This temple of Anu and Bin and these towers," so the inscription of the cylinders concludes, "will grow old; he who in the succession of the days shall be king in my place at a remote time, may he restore them and place his name beside mine, then will Anu and Bin grant to him prosperity, joy and success in his undertakings. But he who hides my tablets, and erases or destroys them, or puts his name in the place of mine, him will Anu and Bin curse, his throne will they bring down, and break the power of his dominion, and cause his army to flee; Bin will devote his land to destruction, and will spread over it poverty, hunger,[Pg 40] sickness, and death, and destroy his name and his race from the earth. On the twenty-ninth day of Kisallu, in the year of In-iliya-allik."[51]

In memory of his achievements against the land of Nairi, Tiglath Pilesar also set up a special monument. On a rock at one of the sources of the Eastern Tigris near Karkar we see his image hewn in relief. He wears the tall cap or kidaris; the hair and beard are long and curled; the robe falls in deep folds to the ancles. The inscription runs: "By the grace of Asshur, Samas and Bin, the great gods, my lords, I, Tiglath Pilesar, am ruler from the great sea of the west land (mat acharri) to the lake of the land of Nairi. Three times I have marched to the land of Nairi."[52] The first subjugation of this district could not, therefore, have been complete.

As this monument proves, Tiglath Pilesar's campaigns could not have ended with the fifth year of his reign. From the synchronistic tablets we can ascertain that he had to undergo severe struggles with the Babylonians. Marduk-nadin-akh of Babylon invaded Assyria, crossed the Tigris, and the battle took place on the Lower Zab. In the next year, according to the same tablets, Tiglath Pilesar is said to have taken the border-fortresses of Babylon, Dur-Kurigalzu, Sippara, Babili and Upi (Opis ?).[53] However this may be, Tiglath Pilesar in the end was at a disadvantage in his contest with the Babylonians. Sennacherib, king of Assyria, tells us, "The gods of the city Hekali, which Marduk-nadin-akh, king of the land of Accad, had taken in the time of Tiglath Pilesar, king of Asshur, and carried to Babylon 418 years previously, I have caused to be[Pg 41] brought back again from Babylon and put up again in their place." A Babylonian tablet from the tenth year of Marduk-nadin-akh of Babylon appears to deal with loans on conquered Assyrian territory.[54]

When Tiglath Pilesar ascended the throne about the year 1130 B.C. the empire of Assyria, as his inscriptions show, had not as yet made any extensive conquests beyond the circle of the native country. The Muskai, i. e. the Moschi, whom we have found on the north-western slopes of the Armenian mountains, against whom Tiglath Pilesar first fought, had forced their way, as the cylinders tell us, into the land of Kummukh.[55] As the inhabitants of the land of Kummukh are conquered on the Tigris and forced into it, while others escape over the Tigris and defend a fortified city on the further side of the river, as the land itself is then incorporated with Assyria, we must obviously look for it at no great distance to the north on both shores of the Upper Tigris. We shall hardly be in error, therefore, if we take this land to be the district afterwards called Gumathene, on the Tigris, which Ammianus describes as a fruitful and productive land, i. e. as the canton of Amida.[56] The next conflicts of Tiglath Pilesar took place on the Lower Zab, i. e. at the south-eastern border of the Assyrian country. Further to the south, on the Zagrus, perhaps in the district of Chalonitis, or between the Lower Zab and the Adhim, or at any rate to the east, we must look for the land of Khumani and the land of Musri. The image at Karkar, Tiglath Pilesar's monument of victory,[Pg 42] gives us information about the position of the land of Nairi. It comprises the mountain cantons between the Eastern Tigris and the upper course of the Great Zab, where that river traverses the land of Arrapachitis (Albak). The lake of the land of Nairi, to which the inscription of Karkar extends the rule of Tiglath Pilesar, and the upper sea from which auxiliaries come to the princes of the land of Nairi, are both, no doubt, Lake Van. The inhabitants of Nairi are not like those of the land of Kummukh, incorporated with Assyria, they have merely to pay a moderate tribute in horses and oxen. The campaign of Tiglath Pilesar against Karkamis (Karchemish) proves that the dominion of Assyria before his reign did not reach the Euphrates. He marches against the land of Aram and has then to fight with the army of Karchemish on this side, i. e. on the east side of the Euphrates; the results which he obtained on this campaign to the west of the Euphrates he does not himself rate very highly. We saw that in the end he remained at a disadvantage in his contest with Babylon. On the other hand, in campaigns which took place in years subsequent to the attempt against Karchemish, he must have forced his way to the west far beyond the Euphrates, in order to be able to boast on the monument at Karkar "that he ruled from the sea of Nairi as far as the great sea of the west land," i. e. to the Mediterranean. Hence we have to assume that he went forth from Karchemish westwards almost as far as the mouth of the Orontes. We should be more accurately informed on this matter if the fragment of an inscription on an obelisk beside an inscription of Assurnasirpal, who reigned more than 200 years after Tiglath Pilesar, could be referred to Tiglath Pilesar. The fragment speaks in the third person of the booty gained in[Pg 43] hunting by a king, which is given in nearly the same totals as the results of Tiglath Pilesar's hunts on his cylinders. These represent him as slaying 120 lions and capturing 800. The fragment speaks of 120 and 800 lions, of Amsi killed in Charran on the Chabor, of Rim whom the king slew before the land of Chatti at the foot of Mount Labnani (Lebanon), of a crocodile (nasukh) which the king of Musri sent as a present. The hunter, it is said, ruled from the city of Babylon, in the land of Accad, as far as the land of the west (mat acharri).[57]

According to the inscriptions on the cylinders the land of Aram lies to the east of the Euphrates; the city of Karchemish lies on the west bank in the land of the Chatti. The Chatti are the Hittites of the Hebrews, the Cheta of the Egyptians. We found that the inscriptions of Sethos and Ramses II. extended the name of the Cheta as far as the Euphrates (I. 151, 152). But although the kingdom of the Hittites had fallen two centuries before Tiglath Pilesar crossed the Euphrates, the name still clung to this region, as the inscriptions of Tiglath Pilesar and his successors prove, more especially to the region from Hamath and Damascus as far as Lebanon. The land of the west (mat acharri) in the strict sense is, of course, to the Assyrians, from their point of view, the coast of Syria. Whatever successes Tiglath Pilesar may have gained in this direction, they were of a transitory nature.

The first of his sons to succeed him was Assur-bel-kala, whose reign we may fix in the years 1100-1080 B.C. With three successive kings of Babylon, Marduk-sapik-kullat, Saduni (?), and Nebu-zikir-iskun, he[Pg 44] came into contact, peaceful or hostile. With the first he made a treaty of peace, with Saduni he carried on war, with Nebu-zikir-iskun he again concluded a peace, which fixed the borders. This was confirmed by intermarriage;[58] Assur-bel-kala married his daughter to Nebu-zikir-iskun, while the latter gave his daughter to Assur-bel-kala. Of the exploits of his successor, Samsi-Bin II. (1080-1060 B.C.), a second son of Tiglath Pilesar, we have no account.[59] We cannot maintain with certainty whether Assur-rab-amar, of whom Shalmanesar II. tells us that he lost two cities on the Euphrates which Tiglath Pilesar had taken,[60] was the direct successor of Samsi-Bin.

After this, for the space of more than 100 years (1040-930), there is again a gap in our knowledge. Not till we reach Assur-dayan II., who ascended the throne of Assyria about the year 930 B.C., can we again follow the series of the Assyrian kings downwards without interruption. This Assur-dayan II. is followed by Bin-nirar II., about 900; Bin-nirar, by Tiglath Adar II., who reigned from 889-883 B.C. He had to contend once more against the land of Nairi, i. e. against the region between the Eastern Tigris and the upper course of the Upper Zab. As a memorial of the successes which he gained here he caused his image to be carved beside that of Tiglath Pilesar in the rocks at Karkar (see below). Besides this, there is in existence from his time a pass, i. e. a small tablet, with the inscription, "Permission to enter into the palace of[Pg 45] Tiglath Adar, king of the land of Asshur, son of Bin-nirar, king of the land of Asshur."[61]

Neither at the commencement nor in the course of the history of Assyria do the monuments know of a king Ninus, a queen Semiramis, or of any warlike queen of this kingdom; they do not even mention any woman as standing independently at the head of Assyria. Once, it is true, we find the name Semiramis in the inscriptions in the form Sammuramat. Sammuramat was the wife of king Bin-nirar III., who ruled over Assyria from the year 810-781 B.C. On the pedestal of two statues, which an officer of this king, the prefect of Chalah, dedicated to the god Nebo, the inscription is: "To Nebo, the highest lord of his lords, the protector of Bin-nirar, king of Asshur, and protector of Sammuramat, the wife of the palace, his lady." The name of Ninyas is quite unknown to the monuments, and of the names of the 33 kings which Ctesias gives, with their names and reigns as successors of Ninyas down to the overthrow of the kingdom and Sardanapalus (p. 26),—unless we identify the last name in the list, that of Sardanapalus, with the Assurbanipal of the inscriptions, i. e. with the ruler last but one or two according to the records,—no single one agrees with the names of the monuments, which, moreover, give a higher total than six-and-thirty for the reigns of the Assyrian kings. The list of Ctesias appears to have been put together capriciously or merely invented; the lengths of the reigns are pure imagination, and arranged according to certain synchronisms.

Not less definite is the evidence of the monuments that the pre-eminence of Assyria over Upper Asia cannot have commenced in the year 2189 or 1913 B.C., as Ctesias asserts, or as may be assumed from his data,[Pg 46] nor in 1273, as has been deduced from the statements of Berosus, nor finally in the year 1234, according to Herodotus' statements (p. 27). Though we are able to find only approximately the dates of the kings of Assyria, whose names and deeds we have passed in review, the result is, nevertheless, that the power of Assyria in the fifteenth and fourteenth centuries did not go far beyond the native country—that her forces by no means surpassed those of Babylon—that precisely in the thirteenth and twelfth centuries B.C. the kingdom of Babylon was at least as strong as that of Assyria—that even towards the close of the twelfth century Tiglath Pilesar I. could gain no success against Babylon—that his successors sought to establish peaceful relations with Babylonia. There is just as little reason to maintain the period of 520 years which Herodotus allows for the Assyrian empire over Asia. This cannot in any case be assumed earlier than the date of Tiglath Pilesar I., who did at least cross the Euphrates and enter Northern Syria. The beginning of this empire would, therefore, be about 1130 B.C., not 1234 B.C. The date also which Herodotus gives for the close of this empire (before 700 B.C.) cannot, as will be shown, be maintained. According to this datum the decline and fall of Assyria must have began with the period in which, as a fact, she rose to the proudest height and extended her power to the widest extent. The period of 520 years can only be kept artificially by reckoning it upwards from the year 607 B.C., the year of the overthrow of the Assyrian empire; then it brings us from this date to 1127 B.C., i. e. to the time of Tiglath Pilesar I. But we saw that the conquests of Tiglath Pilesar did not extend very far, that his successes west of the Euphrates were of a transitory nature; in no case[Pg 47] could a dominion of Assyria over Babylon be dated from his reign.

The complete agreement of the Assyrian and Babylonian style and civilisation is proved most clearly by the monuments. The names of the princes of Assyria are formed analogously to those of the Babylonians; the names and the nature of the deities which the Assyrians and Babylonians worship are the same. In Assyria we meet again with Anu the god of the high heaven, Samas the sun-god, Sin the moon-god, Bin (Ramman) the god of the thunder; of the spirits of the planets Adar, the lord of Saturn, Nebo, the god of Mercury, and Istar, the lady of Venus, in her double nature of destroyer and giver of fruit, reappear. There is only one striking difference: the special protector of Assyria, Asshur, the god of the land, stands at the head of the gods in the place of El of the Babylonians. He it is after whom the land and the oldest metropolis is named, whose representatives the oldest princes of Assyria appear to have called themselves. The name of Asshur is said to mean the good or the kind;[62] which may even on the Euphrates have been an epithet of El, which on the Tigris became the chief name of the deity. As the ancient princes of Ur and Erech, of Nipur and Senkereh, as the kings of Babel—so also the kings of Assyria, as far back as our monuments allow us to go—built temples to their gods; like them they mark the tiles of their buildings with their names; like the kings of Babel, they cause inscriptions to be written on cylinders, intended to preserve the memory of their buildings and achievements, and then placed in the masonry of their temples. The language of the inscriptions of Assyria differs from those of the Babylonian inscriptions, as one dialect from another;[Pg 48] the system of writing is the same. The population of Assyria transferred their language and writing, their religious conceptions and modes of worship, from the Lower Euphrates to the Upper Tigris. If the princes of Erech, Nipur and Babylon had to repel the attacks of Elam, the Assyrian land, a region of moderate extent, lay under the spurs of the Armenian table-land, under the ranges of the Zagrus. The struggle against the tribes of these mountains, in the Zagrus and in the region of the sources of the Euphrates and the Tigris, and the stubborn resistance of these tribes appears to have strengthened the warlike powers of the Assyrians, and these ceaseless campaigns trained them to that military excellence which finally, after a period of exercise which lasted for centuries, won for them the preponderance over Mesopotamia and Syria, over Babylonia and Elam, no less than over Egypt.

 

 

[Pg 49]

CHAPTER III.

THE NAVIGATION AND COLONIES OF THE PHENICIANS.

At the time when Babylonia, on the banks of the Euphrates, flourished under the successors of Hammurabi in an ancient and peculiar civilisation, and Assyria was struggling upwards beside Babylonia on the banks of the Tigris, strengthening her military power in the Armenian mountains and the ranges of the Zagrus, and already beginning to try her strength in more distant campaigns, a Semitic tribe succeeded in rising into eminence in the West also, in winning and exerting a deep-reaching influence on distant and extensive lands. It was a district of the most moderate extent from which this influence proceeded, its dominion was of a different kind from that of the Babylonians and Assyrians; it grew up on an element which elsewhere appeared not a favourite with the Semites, and sought its points of support in settlements on distant islands and coasts. By this tribe the sea was actively traversed and with ever-increasing boldness; by circumspection, by skill, by tough endurance and brave ventures it succeeded in extending its dominion in ever-widening circles, and making the sea the instrument of its wealth and the bearer of its power.

On the coasts of Syria were settled the tribes of the Arvadites, Giblites and Sidonians (I. 344). Their[Pg 50] land extended from the mouth of the Eleutherus (Nahr el Kebir) in the north to the promontory of Carmel in the south. A narrow strip of coast under Mount Lebanon, from 10 to 15 miles in breadth and some 150 miles in length, was all that they possessed. Richly watered by the streams sent down from Lebanon to the sea, the small plains formed round their mouths and separated by the spurs of the mountain ranges are of the most abundant fertility. The Eleutherus is followed to the south by the Adonis (Nahr el Ibrahim), and this by the Lycus (Nahr el Kelb); then follow the Tamyras (Nahr Damur), the Bostrenus (Nahr el Auli[63]), the Belus (the Sihor Libnath of the Hebrews, now Nahr Naman), and lastly the Kishon. Above the shore rise hills clothed with date-palms, vines and olives; higher up on Lebanon splendid mountain pastures spread out, and above these we come to the vast forests (I. 338) which provide shade in the glowing heat, as Tacitus says,[64] and to the bright snow-fields which crown the summit of Lebanon. Ammianus speaks of the region under Lebanon as full of pleasantness and beauty. The upper slopes of the mountain furnish pasture and forests; in the rocks are copper and iron. The high mountain-range, which sharply divided the inhabitants of the coast from the interior (at a much later time, even after the improvements of the Roman Cæsars, there were, as there are now, nothing but mule-tracks across Lebanon[65]), lay behind the inhabitants of the coast, and before them lay the sea. At an early period they must have become familiar with that element. The name of the tribe which the Hebrew Scriptures call the "first-born of Canaan" means "fishermen." The places on the coast found[Pg 51] the sea the easiest means of communication. Thus the sea, so rich in islands, the long but proportionately narrow basin which lay before the Sidonians, Giblites and Arvadites, would soon attract to longer voyages the fishermen and navigators of the coast.

We found that the beginning of civilisation in Canaan could not be placed later than about the year 2500 B.C., and we must therefore allow a considerable antiquity to the cities of the Sidonians, Giblites, Arvadites, Zemarites and Arkites. The settlement on the site of Sidon was founded, no doubt, before the year 2000 B.C., and that on the site of Byblus cannot certainly be placed later than this period.[66] The campaigns which the Pharaohs undertook against Syria and the land of the Euphrates after the expulsion of the Shepherds could not leave these cities unmoved. If the Zemar of the inscriptions of Tuthmosis III. is Zemar (Simyra) near Aradus, and Arathutu is Aradus itself, the territories of these cities were laid waste by this king in his sixth campaign (about the year 1580 B.C.); if Arkatu is Arka, south of Aradus, this place must have been destroyed in his fifteenth campaign (about the year 1570 B.C.). Sethos I. (1440-1400 B.C.) subdued the land of Limanon (i. e. the region of Lebanon), and caused cedars to be felled there. One of his inscriptions mentions Zor, i. e. Tyre, among the cities conquered by him. The son and successor of Sethos I., Ramses II., also forced his way in the first decades of the fourteenth century as far as the coasts of the Phenicians. At the mouth of the Nahr el Kelb, between Sidon and Berytus, the rocks on the coast display the memorial which he caused to be set up in the second and third year of his reign in honour of the successes obtained in this region.[67] In the fifth[Pg 52] year of his reign Ramses, with the king of the Cheta' defeats the king of Arathu in the neighbourhood of Kadeshu on the Orontes, and Ramses III. about the year 1310 B.C., mentions beside the Cheta who attack Egypt the people of Arathu, by which name, in the one case as in the other, may be meant the warriors of Aradus.[68] If Arathu, like Arathutu, is Aradus, it follows, from the position which Ramses II. and III. give to the princes of Arathu, that beside the power to which the kingdom of the Hittites had risen about the middle of the fifteenth century B.C., and which it maintained to the end of the fourteenth,[69] the Phenician cities had assumed an independent position. The successes of the Pharaohs in Syria come to an end in the first decades of the fourteenth century. Egypt makes peace and enters into a contract of marriage with the royal house of the Cheta; the Syrians obtain even the preponderance against Egypt (I. 152), to which Ramses III. towards the end of the fourteenth century was first able to oppose a successful defence.

The overthrow of the kingdom of the Hittites, which succumbed to the attack of the Amorites (I. 348) soon after the year 1300 B.C., must have had a reaction on the cities of the Phenicians. Expelled Hittites must have been driven to the coast-land, or have fled thither, and in the middle of the thirteenth century the successes gained by the Hebrews who broke in from the East, over the Amorites, the settlement of the Hebrews on the mountains of the Amorites, must again have thrown the vanquished, i. e. the fugitives of this nation, towards the coast.

With this retirement of the older strata of the population of Canaan to the coast is connected the[Pg 53] movement which from this period emanates from the coasts of the Phenicians, and is directed towards the islands of the Mediterranean and the Ægean. It is true that on this subject only the most scanty statements and traces, only the most legendary traditions have come down to us, so that we can ascertain these advances only in the most wavering outlines. One hundred miles to the west off the coast of Phœnicia lies the island of Cyprus. On the southern coast of this island, which looked towards Phœnicia, stood the city of Citium, Kith and Chith in the inscriptions of the Phenicians, and apparently Kittii in those of the Assyrians. Sidonian coins describe Citium as a daughter of Sidon.[70] After this city the whole island is known among the Semites as Kittim and Chittim; this name is even used in a wider sense for all the islands of the Mediterranean.[71] The western writers state that before the time of the Trojan war Belus had conquered and subjugated the island of Cyprus, and that Citium belonged to Belus.[72] The victorious Belus is the Baal of the Phenicians. The date of the Trojan war is of no importance for the settlement of the Phenicians in Cyprus, for this statement is found in Virgil only. More important is the fact that the settlers brought the Babylonian cuneiform writing to Cyprus. This became so firmly rooted in use that even the Greeks, who set foot on the island at a far later time, scarcely before the end of the ninth century, adopted this writing, which here meanwhile had gone through a peculiar development, and had become a kind of syllabic-writing, and used it on coins[Pg 54] and in inscriptions even in the fifth century B.C.[73] The settlement of the Sidonians in Cyprus must therefore have taken place before the time in which the alphabetic writing, i. e. the writing specially known as Phenician, was in use in Syria, and hence at the latest before 1100 B.C. How long before this time the settlement of the Phenicians in Cyprus took place can, perhaps, be measured by the fact that the Cyprian alphabet is a simplification of the old Babylonian cuneiform writing. The simplified form would undoubtedly have been driven out by the far more convenient alphabetic writing of the Phenicians if the Cyprian writing had not become fixed in use in this island before the rise of the alphabetic writing. Further, since the Phenicians, as we shall see, set foot on the coast of Hellas from about the year 1200 B.C. onwards, we must place the foundation of the colonies on the coasts nearest them, the settlement in Cyprus, before this date, about the middle of the thirteenth century B.C.

What population the Phenicians found on Cyprus it is not possible to discover. Herodotus tells us that the first inhabitants of the island were Ethiopians, according to the statements of the Cyprians. It is beyond a doubt that not Citium only, but the greater part of the cities of the island were founded by the Phenicians, and that the Phenician element became the ruling element of the whole island.[74] It is Belus who is said to have conquered Cyprus, and to whom the city of Citium is said to belong; i. e. Citium worshipped the god Baal. At Amathus, to the west of Citium, on the south coast of the island, which was called the oldest city on Cyprus, and which nevertheless bears a distinctly Semitic name (Hamath), Adonis and Ashera-[Pg 55]Astarte were worshipped,[75] and these deities had also one of their oldest and most honoured seats of worship at Paphos (Pappa in the inscriptions), on the west coast. The Homeric poems represent Aphrodite as hastening to her altar at Paphos in Cyprus. Pausanias observes that the Aphrodite of Cyprus was a warlike Aphrodite,[76] and as the daughters of the Cyprians surrendered themselves to the foreign seamen in honour of this goddess,[77] it was the Astarte-Ashera of the Phenicians who was worshipped at Amathus and Paphos. The Zeus of the Cyprian city Salamis (Sillumi in the inscriptions of the Assyrians), to whom, according to the evidence of western writers, human sacrifices were offered, can only be Baal Moloch, the evil sun-god of the Phenicians. In the beginning of the tenth century B.C. the cities of Cyprus stood under the supremacy of the king of Tyre.[78] The island was of extraordinary fertility. The forests furnished wood for ship-building; the mountains concealed rich veins of the metal which has obtained the name of copper from this island.[79] Hence it was a very valuable acquisition, an essential strengthening of the power of Sidon in the older, and Tyre in the later, period.

Following Zeno of Rhodes, who wrote the history of his home in the first half of the second century B.C.,[80] Diodorus tells us: The king of the Phenicians, Agenor, bade his son Cadmus seek his sister Europa,[81] who had[Pg 56] disappeared, and bring back the maiden, or not return himself to Phœnicia. Overtaken by a violent storm, Cadmus vowed a shrine to Poseidon. He was saved, and landed on the island of Rhodes, where the inhabitants worshipped before all other gods the sun, who had here begotten seven sons and among them Makar. Cadmus set up a temple in Rhodes to Poseidon, as he had vowed to do, and left behind Phenicians to keep up the service; but in the temple which belonged to Athena at Cnidus in Rhodes he dedicated a work of art, an iron bowl, which bore an inscription in Phenician letters, the oldest inscription which came from Phœnicia to the Hellenes. From Rhodes Cadmus came to Samothrace, and there married Harmonia. The gods celebrated this first marriage by bringing gifts, and blessing the married pair to the tones of heavenly music.[82]

Ephorus says that Cadmus carried off Harmonia while sailing past Samothrace, and hence in that island search was still made for Harmonia at the festivals.[83] Herodotus informs us that Cadmus of Tyre, the son of Agenor, in his search for Europa, landed on the island of Thera, which was then called Callisto, and there left behind some Phenicians, either because the land pleased him or for some other reason. These Phenicians inhabited the island for eight generations before Theras landed there from Lacedæmon. The rest went to the island of Thasos and there built a temple to Heracles, which he had himself seen, and the city of Thasos. This took place five generations before Heracles the son of Amphitryon was born. After that Cadmus came to the land now called Bœotia, and the Phenicians who were with him inhabited the land and taught the[Pg 57] Hellenes many things, among others the use of writing, "which as it seems to me the Hellenes did not possess before. They learnt this writing, as it was used by the Phenicians; in the course of time the form of the letters changed with the language. From these Phenicians the Ionians, among whom they dwelt, learnt the letters, altered their form a little, and extended their use. As was right, they called them Phenician letters, since the Phenicians had brought them into Greece. I have myself seen inscriptions in Cadmeian letters (i. e. from the time of Cadmus) in the temple of Ismenian Apollo at Thebes."[84] According to the narrative of Hellanicus, Cadmus received an oracle, bidding him follow the cow which bore on her back the sign of the full moon, and found a city where she lay down. Cadmus carried out the command, and when the cow lay down wearied, where Thebes now stands, Cadmus built there the Cadmeia (the citadel of Thebes).[85] According to the statement of Pherecydes Cadmus also built the city of Thebes.[86] With Hecatæus of Miletus Cadmus passes as the discoverer of letters; according to others he also discovered the making of iron armour and the art of mining.[87]

The direction of the Phenician settlements, which proceeds in the Ægean sea from S.E. to N.W., cannot be mistaken in these legends. First Rhodes, then the Cyclades, then the islands on the Thracian coast, Samothrace and Thasos, were colonised; and at length, on the strait of Eubœa, the mainland of Hellas was trodden by the Phenicians, who are said to have gained precisely from this point a deep-reaching influence over[Pg 58] the Hellenes. The legend of Cadmus goes far back among the Greeks. In the Homeric poems the inhabitants of Thebes are "Cadmeians." The Thebaid praised "the divine wisdom of Cadmus;" in the poems of Hesiod he leads home Harmonia, "the daughter of Ares and Aphrodite," and Pindar describes how the Muses sang for "the divine Cadmus, the wealthiest of mortals, when in seven-gated Thebes he led the ox-eyed Harmonia to the bridal-bed."[88] Agenor, the father of Cadmus, is a name which the Greeks have given to the Baal of the Phenicians.[89] Cadmus himself, the wealthiest of mortals, who leads home the daughter of a god and a goddess,—who celebrates the first marriage at which the gods assemble, bring gifts and sing,—whose wife was worshipped as the protecting goddess of Thebes,[90]—whose daughters, Ino, Leucothea and Semele, are divine creatures, whom Zeus leads to the Elysian fields,[91]—can only be a god. He seeks the lost Europa, and is to follow the cow which bears the sign of the full moon. We know the moon-goddess of the Phenicians, who bears the crescent moon and cow's horns, the horned Astarte, who wears a cow's head, the goddess of battle and sensual desire, and thus the daughter of Ares and Aphrodite. "The great temple of Astarte at Sidon," so we find in the book of the Syrian goddess, "belongs, as the Sidonians say, to Astarte; but a priest told me that it was a temple of Europa, the sister of Cadmus." The meaning of the word Europa has been discussed previously (I. 371). Cadmus, who seeks the lost moon-goddess, who at length finds and overcomes her, and celebrates with her the holy marriage, is the Baal Melkarth of the Phenicians. The death-bringing[Pg 59] Istar-Astarte is changed into Bilit-Ashera, into the fruit-giving goddess;[92] the gloomy Europa changes into Harmonia, the goddess of union, birth and increase, yet not without leaving to her descendants deadly gifts. It is the myth of Melkarth and Astarte which the Greeks present to us in the story of Cadmus; with this myth they have connected the foundation of the Phenician settlements in Rhodes, Thera, Samothrace, Thasos and Bœotia; they have changed it into the foundation of these colonies. The name Cadmus means the man of the East; to the Hebrews the Arabs who dwelt to the east of them were known as Beni Kedem, i. e. sons of the East.[93] To the Greeks the Phenicians were men of the East, just as to the English of the thirteenth century the merchants of Lubeck were Easterlings. The citadel of Thebes, which the men of the East built, preserved the name of Cadmus the son of the East, and kept it alive among the Greeks.

What we can gather from Grecian legend is confirmed by some statements of historians and by traces which tell of settlements of the Phenicians. Thucydides informs us that the Phenicians colonised most of the islands of the Ægean.[94] Diodorus has already told us with regard to Rhodes that in the temples of this island were Phenician works of art and inscriptions, and that in Rhodes the sun-god and the seven children which he begot there were worshipped. In the number eight made by these deities we can hardly fail to recognise the eight great deities of the Phenicians; the sun-god at their head is the Baal of the Phenicians (I. 357). And if Diodorus mentions Makar among the seven sons of the sun-god of Rhodes,—if according to others Rhodes, like Cyprus,[Pg 60] was called Macaria,—Makar is a Greek form of the name Melkarth. We further learn that on the highest mountain summit in Rhodes, on Atabyris, Zeus was worshipped under the form of a bull, and that a human sacrifice was offered yearly to Cronos. In Atabyris we cannot fail to recognise the Semitic Tabor, i. e. the height. We found above that the Phenicians worshipped Baal under the form of a bull, and the Greeks are wont to denote Baal Moloch by the name of Cronos.[95] These forms of worship continued to exist even when at a later time Hellenic immigrants had got the upper hand in Rhodes. It was the Dorians who here met with resistance from the Phenicians at Camirus and Ialysus; they got the upper hand, but admitted Phenician families into their midst,[96] and continued their sacred rites. Diodorus informs us that the Phenicians whom Cadmus had left behind on Rhodes had formed a mixed community with the Ialysians, and that it was said that priests of their families had performed the sacred duties.[97] Even at a later time Rhodes stood in close relation with Phœnicia, especially with the city of Aradus.[98] Thus it happened that the colonies which the Rhodians planted in the seventh and sixth centuries in Sicily, Gela and Acragas, carried thither the worship of Zeus Atarbyrius. Zeus Atarbyrius was the protecting deity of Acragas, and human sacrifices were offered to his iron bull-image on the citadel of that city as late as the middle of the sixth century. The coins of Gela also exhibit a bull.[99] Of the island of Thera, Herodotus told us that the Phenicians colonised it and inhabited it for eight generations, i. e. for more[Pg 61] than 250 years according to his computation. Herodotus names the chief of the Phenicians whom Cadmus left behind on Thera; others speak of the two altars which he erected there.[100] The descendants of these Phenicians were found here by the Greek settlers from Laconia. It is certain that even in the third century B.C. the island worshipped the hero Phœnix.[101] Of the island of Melos we learn that it was occupied by Phenicians of Byblus, and named by them after their mother city;[102] the island of Oliaros near Paros was, on the other hand, according to Heraclëides Ponticus, occupied by the Sidonians.[103] Strabo informs us that Samothrace was previously called Melite (Malta); from its height (the island is a mountain rising high in the sea and covered with oak forests; the summit reaches 5000 feet) it obtained the name of Samos, "for high places are called Sami;"[104] as a matter of fact the stem of the word of this meaning, like the name Melite, belongs to the Phenician language. Ephorus has already told us (p. 56) that the Samothracians sought for Harmonia at their festivals; Diodorus represents Cadmus as celebrating the marriage with Harmonia on Samothrace as well as at Thebes, and we learn from Herodotus that the Cabiri, i. e. the great gods of the Phenicians, were worshipped on Samothrace; votive tablets of the island dating from Roman times still bear the inscription, "to the great gods," i. e. to the Cabiri.[105] The islands of Imbros and Lemnos also worshipped the Cabiri; Lemnos especially worshipped Hephæstus, who had a leading[Pg 62] place in this circle.[106] The island of Thasos is said, according to the statement of the Greeks, to have been called after a son of Phœnix, or Agenor, of the name of Thasos, who was consequently a brother of Cadmus. Herodotus saw on the island a temple which the Phenicians had built to Heracles, i. e. to Baal-Melkarth, and the mines which they had made on the coast opposite Samothrace; "they had overturned a great mountain in order to get gold from it."[107] Herodotus also tells us that the temple of Aphrodite Urania on the island of Cythera off the coast of Laconia was founded by the Phenicians, and Pausanias calls this temple the oldest and most sacred temple of Urania among the Hellenes; the wooden image in this temple exhibited the goddess in armour. Aphrodite Urania is with the Greeks the Syrian Aphrodite; if she was represented on Cythera in armour it is clear that she was worshipped there by the Phenicians as Astarte-Ashera, i. e. as the goddess of war and love.[108]

Not in the islands only, but on the coasts of Hellas also, the Phenicians have left traces of their ancient occupation, especially in the form of worship belonging to them. On the isthmus of Corinth Melicertes, i. e. Melkarth, was worshipped as a deity protecting navigation; Corinthian coins exhibit him on a dolphin.[109] Aphrodite, whose shrine stood on the summit of Acrocorinthus, was worshipped by prostitution like the Ashera-Bilit of the Phenicians. In Attica also, in the deme of Athmonon, there was a shrine of the goddess of Cythera, which king Porphyrion, i. e. the purple man, the Phenician, is said to have founded there at a very[Pg 63] ancient time "before king Actaeus."[110] At Marathon, where Heracles was worshipped, and of whom the name represents the Phenician city Marathus, rose a fountain which had the name Makaria, i. e. Makar,[111] the name of Melkarth, which we have already met with in Cyprus and Rhodes, and shall meet with again. More plainly still do the tombs lately discovered in Hymettus at the village of Spata attest the ancient settlement of the Phenicians on the Attic coast. These are chambers dug deeply into the rock after the Phenician manner, with horizontal roofs after the oldest fashion of Phenician graves; and shafts lead down to them from the surface. The ornaments and works in glass, ivory, gold and brass discovered here, which are made after Babylonian and Egyptian models, can only have been brought by the Phenicians.[112] The citadel of Thebes, as has been said, retains the name of Cadmus; the poetry of the Greeks praised the mighty walls, the seven gates of Thebes. We know the number seven of the great Phenician gods; we can prove that the seven gates were dedicated to the gods of the sun, the moon and the five planets;[113] and the Greeks have already admitted to us that they received the wearing of armour, the art of mining and masonry and finally their alphabet from Cadmus, i. e. from the Phenicians, the Cadmeans of Thebes.

In the Homeric poems Europa, the daughter of Phœnix, bears Minos to Zeus. The abode of Minos is the "great city" of Cnossus in Crete; he receives each nine years the revelations of his father Zeus; for his daughter Ariadne Dædalus adorns a dancing place at[Pg 64] Cnossus. After his death Minos carries in the under world the golden sceptre, and by his decisions puts an end to the contentions of the shades.[114] His descendants rule in Crete.[115] Later accounts tell us that Zeus in the form of a bull carried off Europa from Phœnicia, and bore her over the sea to Crete. The wife of her son Minos, Pasiphaë, then united with a bull which rose out of the sea, and brought forth the Minotaur, i. e. the Minos-bull, a man with a bull's head.[116] The son of Minos, Androgeos (earth-man) or Eurygyes (Broadland), was destroyed in Attica by the bull of Marathon, who consumed him in his flames.[117] To avenge the death of Androgeos Minos seized Megara, and blight and famine compelled the Athenians to send, in obedience to the command of Minos, seven boys and seven girls every ninth year to Crete, who were then sacrificed to the Minotaur.[118] Others narrate that Hephæstus had given Minos a man of brass, who wandered round the island and kept off foreign vessels, and clasped to his glowing breast all who were disobedient to Minos.[119] When Dædalus retired before the wrath of Minos from Crete to Sicily, Minos equipped his ships to bring him back; but he there found, according to Herodotus, a violent death.[120] The king of the Sicanians, so Diodorus tells us, gave him a friendly welcome, and caused a warm bath to be prepared, and then craftily suffocated him in it. The Cretans buried their king in a double grave; they laid the bones in a secret place, and built upon them a temple to Aphrodite, and as they could not return to Crete because the Cretans had burned their[Pg 65] ships, they founded the city Minoa in Sicily; but the tomb of Minos was shown in Crete also.[121]

A bull-god carries the daughter of Phœnix over the sea to Crete and begets Minos; a bull who rises out of the sea begets with Pasiphaë, i. e. the all-shining, the Minos-bull, to which in case of blight and famine boys and girls are sacrificed in the number sacred among the Semites; Androgeos succumbs to the heat of the bull of Marathon, an iron man slays his victims by pressing them to his glowing breast. These legends of the Greeks are unmistakable evidence of the origin of the rites observed in Crete from the coast of Syria, of the settlement of Phenicians in Crete. The bull-god may be the Baal Samim or the Baal Moloch of the Phenicians; Europa has already revealed herself to us as the moon-goddess of the Phenicians (p. 58); Pasiphaë is only another name for the same goddess, the lady of the nightly sky, the starry heaven. We know that on occasions of blight human sacrifices were offered to Baal Moloch, the fiery, consuming, angry sun-god, and that these sacrifices were burnt. Ister, a writer of the third century B.C., tells us quite simply; In ancient times children were sacrificed to Cronos in Crete.[122] Before the harbour of Megara lay an island of the name of Minoa; at the time of the summer heat before the corn was ripe, the Athenians offered peace-offerings at the Thargelia, "in the place of human sacrifices,"[123] that the consuming sun might not kill the harvest. The name of the island and this custom, as well as the flames of the bull of Marathon, prove that beside the worship of the Syrian goddess at Athmonon, and the worship of Melkarth at Marathon, the worship of Baal Moloch had penetrated as far as Megara and[Pg 66] Attica. Minos, the son of the sky-god, the husband of the moon-goddess, who from time to time receives revelations from heaven, and even after his death is judge of the dead, is himself a god; his proper name is Minotaur, a name taken from the form of the bull's image and the bull's head. When Baal Melkarth had found and overcome Astarte, after he had celebrated with her the holy marriage, he went to rest according to the Phenician myth in the waters of the western sea which he had warmed. The Phenicians were of opinion that the beams of the sun when sinking there in the far west had the most vigorous operation because of their greater proximity.[124] Minos goes to Sicily; there in a hot bath he ends his life, and over his resting-place rises the temple of Astarte-Ashera, with whom he celebrated his marriage in the west, and who by this marriage is changed from the goddess of war into the goddess of love. The tombs of Minos in Crete, Sicily, and finally at Gades, of which the Greeks speak, are in the meaning of the Phenician myth merely resting-places of the god, who in the spring wakes from his slumber into new power. The Greeks made Minos, who continued to live in the under-world, a judge in the causes of the shades, and finally a judge of the souls themselves. On the southern coast of Sicily, at the mouth of the Halycus, lay the city which the Greeks called Minoa or Heraclea-Minoa after Minos. To the Phenicians it was known as Rus Melkarth (p. 78), a title which proves beyond doubt that Minos was one of the names given by the Greeks to this god of the Phenicians.

The worship of Baal Moloch, which the Phenicians brought to Crete and the shores of Megara and Attica, was not all that the Greeks personified in the[Pg 67] form of Minos; they did not confine themselves to one side of the myth of Baal Melkarth. When Grecian colonists settled subsequently in Crete they found the cities of the Phenicians full of artistic capacity, and their life regulated by legal ordinances. Thus their legend could place the artist Dædalus, the discoverer and pattern of all art-industry, beside Minos, and refer to Minos the ordinances of the cities. Zeus himself had revealed these arrangements to him. At a later time the Greek cities of Crete traced their own institutions back to Minos; here and there they may perhaps have followed a Phenician model, or they may have given out that such a model had been followed. Plato represents Minos as receiving the wise laws which he introduced into Crete from Zeus. With Aristotle also Minos is the founder of the Cretan laws.[125] In the circle of the Cabiri the sky-god Baal Samim was the protector and defender of law (I. 377).

Lastly, Minos is with the Greeks at once the representation and expression of the dominion which the Phenicians exercised in ancient times over the islands of the Ægean sea, before the settlements of the Greeks obtained the supremacy over the islands and the ships of the Greeks took the lead in these waters. In the age of the Heroes, so Herodotus tells us, Minos established the first naval empire; the Carians, who inhabited the islands, he made his subjects; they did not indeed pay tribute, but they had to man his ships whenever necessary.[126] "The oldest king," says Thucydides, "of whom tradition tells us that he possessed a fleet was Minos. He ruled over the greatest part of the Greek sea and the Cyclades, which he colonised, driving out[Pg 68] the Carians and making his sons lords of the islands."[127] Minos, as a king ruling by law, is then said to have put an end to piracy.

The Phenicians could not certainly have left out of sight the largest of the islands, which forms the boundary of the Ægean sea; and the traditions of the Greeks can hardly go wrong if they make this island the centre of the naval supremacy of Minos, i. e. of the supremacy of the Phenicians over the Cyclades. Crete must have been the mainstay of their activity in the Ægean, just as Thebes was the point on the mainland where they planted the firmest foot. The title Minoa seems to lie at the base of the name of Minos, a title borne not only by the island off Megara and the city in Sicily, but also by two cities in Crete (one on the promontory of Drepanum, the other in the region of Lyctus), by some islands near Crete, a city in Amorgus, and a city in Siphnus. The name Minoa (from navah) could mean dwelling; it is certain evidence of a Phenician settlement. But the Phenicians have left traces of their existence in Crete beside the names Minos and Minoa and the forms of worship denoted by them. Coins of the Cretan cities Gortys and Phæstus exhibit a bull or a bull-headed man as a stamp. Near the Cretan city of Cydonia the Jardanus, i. e. the Jordan, falls into the sea; the name of the city Labana goes back to the Phenician word libanon, i. e. "white." Cnossus, the abode of Minos in Homer and Herodotus,[128] was previously named Kairatus; Karath in Phenician means city. Itanus, in Crete (Ethanath in the Semitic form), is expressly stated to be a foundation of the Phenicians.[129]

With regard to the state of civilisation reached by[Pg 69] Syria before the year 1500 B.C., we may draw some conclusions from the fact that not merely did the civilisation of Egypt influence the shepherds of Semitic race who ruled over Egypt at that period, but that Semitic manners and customs left behind traces in Egypt (I. 128). Hence we may assume that the Syrians carried their wine and their oil to the Nile at the time when their kinsmen ruled there (1950-1650 B.C.). The civilisation of Syria appears more clearly from the tributes imposed by Tuthmosis III. on Syria, which are here and there illustrated by the pictures accompanying the inscriptions of this Pharaoh. The burdens imposed on the Syrians consist not only of corn, wine, oil and horses; not only of gold, silver and iron, but also of arms and works of art, among which the pictures allow us to recognise carefully-decorated vessels. On the other hand, it is clear from the fact that the Babylonian weights and measures were in use in Syria at this time (I. 304) that the Syrians before this period were in lively intercourse with the land of the Euphrates, that even before the sixteenth century B.C. caravans must have traversed the Syrian deserts in every direction, and even then the Syrians must have exchanged the products of their land for Babylonian stuffs and the frankincense which the Arabians on their part carried to Babylon. The dependence of Syria on Egypt under the Tuthmosis and Amenophis can only have augmented the intercourse of the Syrians with the land of the Nile. Afterwards Sethos I. (1440-1400) caused wood to be felled on Lebanon; it must have been the places on the coast under Lebanon which carried to Egypt in their ships, along with the wine and oil of the coast and the interior, the wood so necessary there for building and exchanged it for the fabrics of Egypt. Wood for[Pg 70] building could not be conveyed on the backs of camels, and the way by sea from the Phenician towns to the mouths of the Nile was far easier and less dangerous than the road by land over rocky heights and through sandy deserts. Hence, as early as the fifteenth century B.C., we may regard the Phenician cities as the central points of a trade branching east and west, which must have been augmented by the fact that they conveyed not only products of the Syrian land to the Euphrates and the Nile, but could also carry the goods which they obtained in exchange in Egypt to Babylonia, and what they obtained beyond the Euphrates to Egypt. At the same time the fabrics of Babylon and Egypt roused them to emulation, and called forth an industry among the Phenicians which we see producing woven stuffs, vessels of clay and metal, ornaments and weapons, and becoming pre-eminent in the colouring of stuffs with the liquor of the purple-fish, which are found on the Phenician coasts. This industry required above all things metals, of which Babylonia and Egypt were no less in need, and when the purple-fish of their own coasts were no longer sufficient for their extensive dyeing, colouring-matter had to be obtained. Large quantities of these fish produced a proportionately small amount of the dye. Copper-ore was found in Cyprus, gold in the island of Thasos, and purple-fish on the coasts of Hellas. When the fall of the kingdom of the Hittites and the overthrow of the Amorite princes in the south of Canaan augmented the numbers of the population on the coast, these cities were no longer content to obtain those possessions of the islands by merely landing and making exchanges with the inhabitants. Intercourse with semi-barbarous tribes must be protected by the sword. Good harbours were needed where the ships could be sheltered from storm and bad[Pg 71] weather, where the crews could find safety from the natives, rest and fresh stores of water and provisions. Thus arose protecting forts on the distant islands and coasts, which received the ships of the native land. Under the protection of these intercourse could be carried on with the natives, and they were points of support for the collection of the fish and the sinking of mines.

In order to obtain the raw material necessary for their industry no less than to carry off the surplus of population, the Phenicians were brought to colonise Cyprus, Rhodes, Crete, Thera, Melos, Oliarus, Samothrace, Imbros, Lemnos and Thasos. In the bays of Laconia and Argos, in the straits of Eubœa,[130] purple-fish were found in extraordinary quantities. The Phenicians settled in the island of Cythera in the bay of Laconia, which, as Aristotle says, was once called Porphyrussa from its purple-fish,[131] and there erected that ancient temple to the oriental Aphrodite, Aphrodite in armour, just as in Attica in the deme of Athmonon they founded the temple of the Syrian Aphrodite and excavated the tombs on Hymettus.[132] Midway between the straits of Eubœa and the bay of Corinth, which abounded with purple-fish, rose the strong fortress of the Cadmeia, and on Acrocorinthus the shrine of Ashera.

Herodotus and Thucydides told us above (p. 67) that the Carians inhabited the islands of the Ægean sea. These were they whom Minos had made subject to his dominion. Beside this, we are informed more particularly that the Carians had possessed the island of Rhodes, which lay off their coast, and had dwelt on Chios and Samos (I. 571). What degree of civilisation[Pg 72] was reached by the population of the islands of the Ægean sea before the Phenicians came into relations with them may be inferred to some extent from the discoveries made in the island of Thera. In and beneath three layers of ashes and tufa caused by vast eruptions of the volcanos of this island have been discovered stone instruments, pottery of the most rudimentary kind, in part with the rudest indications of the human face and figure, and beside these weapons of copper and brass. In the upper layers of the tufa we find far better pottery decorated in the Phenician style. On Melos also, and in the tombs at Camirus in Rhodes, vessels of the same kind have been discovered; and, finally, in the highest of the layers at Thera are gold ornaments of the most various kinds, and ornaments of electron, i. e. of mixed gold and silver, all of a workmanship essentially non-Hellenic. From these facts we may draw the conclusion that the ships of the Phenicians brought to these inhabitants their earliest weapons in brass and copper, their pottery and ornaments; that the Carians of the islands, following these patterns, raised their own efforts to a higher stage, and that afterwards the Phenicians themselves settled in the islands and made themselves masters of them. Perhaps we may even go a step further. In the lower strata of the excavations at Hissarlik, on the Trojan coast, we find exactly the same primitive pottery, with the same indications of human forms, as in Thera, while in the refuse lying above this are idols and pottery adorned after Phenician patterns, which correspond exactly to the idols of Cyprus, as well as ornaments like those of Thera. Hence in this region also we may assume that the Phenicians gave the impulse and the example to the development of civilisation, and the more so as the name of the[Pg 73] city of Adramyttion on the Trojan coast repeats the name of a Phenician foundation on the coast of North Africa (Adrames, Hadrumetum), and even Strabo ascribes the worship of the Cabiri to some places on the Trojan coast.[133] Far more definite traces of the Phenician style and skill are in existence on the shore of the bay of Argos. The ancient tombs which have been recently discovered behind the lions' gate at Mycenæ are hewn in the rocks after the manner of the Phenicians. As in the ancient burying-places of the Phenicians, a perpendicular shaft forms the entrance to the sepulchral chambers; the corpses are laid in them without coffins, as was the most ancient custom in Phœnicia. The masks of beaten gold-leaf which were found on the faces of five or six of the corpses buried here are evidence of a custom which the Phenicians borrowed from the gilded faces of Egyptian coffins.[134] The corpses are covered with gold ornaments and other decorations. There is a large number of weapons and ornaments of gold, silver, copper, brass and glass in the tombs; the execution exhibits a technical skill sometimes more, sometimes less practised. The ornaments remind us of Babylonian and Assyrian patterns; the idols in burnt clay are in the Phenician style; the palm-leaves and palms, antelopes and leopards which frequently occur, point to regions of the East; the articles of amber and the ostrich egg can only have reached the bay of Argos in Phenician ships. Still there are grave reasons for refusing to believe that the persons buried in this tomb are princes of the Phenicians. The numerous pieces of armour show that the dead who rest here were buried with their armour, which is not the traditional custom either with regard to the Phenicians or the Hellenes, but which Thucydides quotes as a mark[Pg 74] of the tombs of the Carians.[135] We learn, moreover, even from the Homeric poems, that the Carians loved gold ornaments, and further, that the Greeks improved their armour after the pattern of the Carians (I. 572). As we also find the double axe of the Carian god, the "Zeus Stratius" as the Greeks called him, the "axe-god," the Chars-El in the Carian language (I. 573), on some ornaments of the tombs of Mycenæ, the supposition forces itself upon us that Carians from the western islands must have occupied the shore of the bay of Argos. In any case, the tombs of Mycenæ, both from their position and their contents, announce to us that the people who excavated them and placed their dead in them were dependent on the style and skill of the Phenicians.

Can we fix the time at which the Phenicians first set foot on the islands of Hellas? Herodotus tells us that Troy was taken in the third generation after the death of Minos.[136] If we put three full generations, according to the calculation of Herodotus, between the death of Minos and the conquest of Ilium, the first event took place 100 years before the second. Since, according to the data of Herodotus, the capture of Ilium falls in the year 1280 or 1260 B.C., Minos would have died in the year 1380 or 1360 B.C. The landing of the Phenicians on Thasos and the expedition of Cadmus from Phœnicia beyond the islands to Bœotia are placed by Herodotus five generations before Heracles, and Heracles is placed 900 years before his own time. If we reckon upwards from the year 450 or 430 B.C., Heracles lived about the year 1350 or 1330 B.C., and Cadmus five generations, i. e. 166⅔ years, before this date, or about the year 1516 or 1496 B.C.[137] On the island of Thera, Herodotus further remarks, the[Pg 75] Phenicians whom Cadmus left behind him there had dwelt for eight generations, i. e. 266⅔ years, before the Dorians came to the island.[138] Melos was also occupied by Dorians, who asserted in 416 B.C. that their community had been in existence 700 years,[139] according to which statement the Dorians came to Melos in the year 1116 B.C. With this event the Phenician rule over the island came to an end. If we assume that Thera, which is close by Melos, was taken from the Phenicians by the Dorians at the same time as the latter island, the eight generations given by Herodotus for the settlements of the Phenicians on Thera would carry us back to the year 1382 B.C. (1116 + 266⅔), a date which is certainly in agreement with his statement about the death of Minos, but contradicts the date given for Cadmus, who yet, according to the narrative of Herodotus, left behind the settlers on Thera and Thasos when he first sailed to Bœotia. Herodotus fixes dates according to generations and the genealogies of legend. The five generations which separated Cadmus from Heracles were for him, no doubt, Polydorus, Labdacus, Laius, Œdipus and Polynices; for the three generations between the death of Minos and the capture of Troy we find in Homer only two, Deucalion and Idomeneus.[140] But we can still find from Herodotus' calculations how far back the Greeks placed the beginning and the end of the empire of the Phenicians over their islands and coasts. Beyond this the chronographers do not give us any help. Eusebius and Hieronymus (Jerome) place the rape of Europa in the year 1429 or 1426 B.C.; the rule of Cadmus at Thebes in the year 1427 B.C. or 1319 (1316) B.C.; the settlement of the Phenicians on[Pg 76] Thera, Melos, and Thasos in the year 1415 B.C.; the beginning of the rule of Minos in the year 1410 B.C., or, according to another computation, in the year 1251 B.C.[141]

We can hardly obtain fixed points for determining the time of the settlements of the Phenicians in the Ægean sea. In the lower strata of the excavations at Hissarlik, on the coast of Troas, clay lentils have been found with Cyprian letters upon them.[142] Since the Greeks declared that they learnt their alphabet from the Phenicians and Cadmus, and since as a fact it is the alphabet of the Phenicians which lies at the root of the Greek, the Cyprian letters can only have been brought thither by Phenician ships from Cyprus before the discovery of the Phenician letters, or from the islands off the Trojan coast occupied by the Phenicians, from Lemnos, Imbros and Samothrace; otherwise they must have come to the Troad at a later time by Cyprian ships or settlers, a supposition which is forbidden by the antiquity of the other remains discovered with or near the lentils. Among the sons of Japheth, the representative of the northern nations, Genesis mentions Javan, i. e. the Ionian, the Greek; and enumerates the sons of Javan: Elisha, Tarshish, Chittim, and Dodanim or Rodanim—the reading is uncertain.[143] It is a question whether the genealogical table in Genesis belongs to the first or second text of the Pentateuch, i. e. whether it was written down in the middle of the eleventh or of the tenth century B.C. In any case it follows that in the beginning of the eleventh or tenth century B.C. the name and nation of the Ionians was known not only in the[Pg 77] harbour-cities of Phœnicia, but in the interior of Syria, and the inhabitants of the islands and of the northern coasts of the Mediterranean were reckoned in the stock of these Ionians. Chittim is, as was remarked above, primarily the island of Cyprus; the Rodanim are the inhabitants of Rhodes (Dodanim would have to be referred to Dodona); Elisha is Elis in the Peloponnese, or the island of Sicily, if the name is not one given generally to western coasts and islands;[144] Tarshish is Tartessus, i. e. the region at the mouth of the Guadalquivir. If Ezekiel mentions the purple which the Phenicians bring from "the isles of Elishah,"[145] the islands and coasts of the Ægean sea are plainly meant, on which the Phenicians collected the fish for their purple dye. This much is clear, that at least about the year 1000 B.C. not only the islands and coasts of the Ægean were known in Syria, but even then the name of the distant land of Tarshish was current in Syria. We shall further see that as early as 1100 B.C. Phenician ships had passed the straits of Gibraltar. Hence we may conclude that the Phenicians must have set foot on Cyprus about the year 1250 B.C., and on the islands and coasts of Hellas about the year 1200 B.C.

Thucydides observes that in ancient times the Phenicians had occupied the promontories of Sicily and the small islands lying around Sicily, in order to carry on trade with the Sicels.[146] Diodorus Siculus tells us that when the Phenicians extended their trade to the western ocean they settled in the island of Melite (Malta), owing to its situation in the middle of the sea and excellent harbours, in order to have a refuge for their ships. The island of Gaulus also, which lies close to Melite, is said to have been a colony of the Phenicians.[147][Pg 78] On the south-eastern promontory of Malta there was a temple of Heracles-Melkarth,[148] the foundation walls of which appear to be still in existence, and still more definite evidence of the former population of this island is given by the Phenician inscriptions found there. The island, like the mother-country, carried on weaving, and the products were much sought after in antiquity. On Gaulus also, a name mentioned on Phenician coins, are the remains of a Phenician temple. Between Sicily and the coast of Africa, where it approaches Sicily most nearly, lay the island of Cossyra, coins of which bear Phenician legends. Along with a dwarfish figure they present the name "island of the sons,"[149] i. e. no doubt, the children of the sun-god whom we met with in Rhodes. On the east coast of Sicily there lay, on a small promontory scarcely connected with the mainland (now Isola degli Magnisi), the city of Thapsos, the name of which reveals its founders; Tiphsach means coming over, here coming over to the mainland. In the same way the promontory of Pachynus (pachun means wart), further to the south, and the harbour of Phœnicus are evidence of Phenician colonisation. On the south coast of Sicily, not far from the mouth of the Halycus, the Phenicians built that city which is known to the Greeks as Makara and Minoa, or Heracleaminoa; the coins of the city present in Phenician characters the name Rus-Melkart, i. e. "head (promontory) of Melkarth."[150] Off the west coast of Sicily the Phenicians occupied the small island of Motye.[151] On this coast of the larger island, on Mount Eryx, which rises steeply out of a bald table land (2000 feet above the sea), they founded the city of Eryx, and on the summit[Pg 79] of the mount, 5000 feet high, they built a temple to the Syrian Aphrodite. In Diodorus it is Eryx the son of Aphrodite who builds this temple; Æneas then adorns it with many votive offerings, "since it was dedicated to his mother."[152] Virgil represents the temple as being founded on the summit of Eryx, near to the stars, in honour of Venus Idalia, i. e. the goddess worshipped at Idalion (Idial) on Cyprus by the immigrants from the East, who, with him, are the companions of Æneas.[153] The courtezans at this temple, the sensual character of the worship, and the sacred doves kept here (in a red one the goddess herself was supposed to be seen[154]), even without the Phenician inscriptions found there, would leave no doubt of its Syrian origin. The mighty substructure of the building is still in existence. Dædalus is said to have built it for the king of the Sicanians (p. 64). Beside the Syrian goddess, the Phenicians also worshipped here the Syrian god Baal Melkarth. According to the account of Diodorus, Heracles overcame Eryx in wrestling, and so took his land from him, though he left the usufruct of it to the inhabitants.[155] The kings of Sparta traced their origin to Heracles. When Dorieus, the son of Anaxandridas, king of Sparta, desired to emigrate in his anger that the crown had fallen to his brother Cleomenes, the oracle bade him retire to Eryx; the land of Eryx belonged to the Heraclids because their ancestor won it. The Carthaginians, it is true, did not acknowledge this right; Dorieus was slain, and most of those who followed him.[156] On the north coast of Sicily, Panormus (Palermo) and Soloeis were the[Pg 80] most important colonies of the Phenicians. Panormus, on coins of the Phenicians Machanath, i. e. the camp, worshipped the goddess of the sexual passion; Soloeis (sela, rock) worshipped Melkarth. In a hymn to Aphrodite, Sappho inquires whether she lingers in Cyprus or at Panormus.[157] Motye, Soloeis and Panormus were in the fifth century the strongest outposts of the Carthaginians in Sicily.[158]

On Sardinia also, as Diodorus tells us, the Phenicians planted many colonies.[159] The mountains of Sardinia contained iron, silver, and lead. According to the legend of the Greeks, Sardus, the son of Makeris, as the Libyans called Heracles, first came with Libyans to the island. Then Heracles sent his brother's son Iolaus, together with his own sons, whom he had begotten in Attica, to Sardinia. As Heracles had been lord of the whole West, these regions belonged of right to Iolaus and his companions. Iolaus conquered the native inhabitants, took possession of and divided the best and most level portion of the land which was afterwards known by the name of Iolaus; then he sent for Dædalus out of Sicily and erected large buildings, which, Diodorus adds, are still in existence; but in Sicily temples were erected to himself, and honour paid as to a hero, and a famous shrine was erected in Agyrion, "where," as Diodorus remarks of this his native city, "even to this day yearly sacrifices are offered."[160] Makeris, the supposed father of Sardus, is, like Makar, a form of the name Melkarth. If Sardinia and the whole West as well as Eryx is said to have belonged to Heracles, if Heracles sends out his nearest relations to Sardinia, if the artist[Pg 81] Dædalus is his companion here as he was the companion of Minos in Crete and Sicily, it becomes obvious that the temples of Baal Melkarth on the coasts of Sardinia and Sicily lie at the base of these legends of the Greeks, that it was the Phenicians who brought the worship of their god along with their colonies to these coasts, to which they were led by the wealth of the Sardinian mountains in copper. As we already ventured to suppose (I. 368), Iolaus may be an epithet or a special form of Baal.[161]

The legend of the Greeks makes Heracles, i. e. Baal Melkarth, lord of the whole West. As a fact, the colonies of the Phenicians went beyond Sardinia in this direction. Their first colonies on the north coast of Africa appear to have been planted where the shore runs out nearest Sicily; Hippo was apparently regarded as the oldest colony.[162] In the legends of the coins mentioned above (p. 53) Hippo is named beside Tyre and Citium as a daughter of Sidon. When a second Hippo was afterwards founded further to the west, opposite the south coast of Sardinia, at the mouth of the Ubus, the old Hippo got the name of "Ippoacheret," and among the Greeks "Hippon Zarytos," i. e. "the other Hippo."[163] Ityke (atak, settlement, Utica), on the mouth of the Bagradas (Medsherda), takes the next place after this Hippo, if indeed it was not founded before it. Aristotle tells us that the Phenicians stated that Ityke was built 287 years before Carthage,[164] and Pliny maintains that Ityke was founded 1178 years before his time.[165] As Carthage was founded in the year 846 B.C. (below, chap. 11),[Pg 82] Ityke, according to Aristotle's statement, was built in the year 1133 B.C. With this the statement of Pliny agrees. He wrote in the years 52-77 A.D., and therefore he places the foundation of Ityke in the year 1126 or 1100 B.C.

About the same time, i. e. about the year 1100 B.C., the Phenicians had already reached much further to the west. In his Phenician history, Claudius Iolaus tells us that Archaleus (Arkal, Heracles[166]), the son of Phœnix, built Gadeira (Gades).[167] "From ancient times," such is the account of Diodorus, "the Phenicians carried on an uninterrupted navigation for the sake of trade, and planted many colonies in Africa, and not a few in Europe, in the regions lying to the west. And when their undertakings succeeded according to their desire and they had collected great treasures, they resolved to traverse the sea beyond the pillars of Heracles, which is called Oceanus. First of all, on their passage through these pillars, they founded upon a peninsula of Europe a city which they called Gadeira, and erected works suitable to the place, chiefly a beautiful temple to Heracles, with splendid offerings according to the custom of the Phenicians. And as this temple was honoured at that time, so also in later times down to our own days it was held in great reverence. When the Phenicians, in order to explore the coasts beyond the pillars, took their course along the shore of Libya, they were carried away far into the Oceanus by a strong wind, and after being driven many days by the storm they came to a large island opposite Libya, where the fertility was so great and the climate so beautiful that it seemed by the abundance of blessings found there to be intended for the[Pg 83] dwelling of the gods rather than men."[168] Strabo says, the Gaditani narrated that an oracle bade the Tyrians send a colony to the pillars of Heracles. When those who had been sent reached the straits of Mount Calpe they were of opinion that the promontories which enclosed the passage, Calpe and the opposite headland of Abilyx in Libya,[169] were the pillars which bounded the earth, and the limit of the travels of Heracles, which the oracle mentioned. So they landed on this side of the straits, at the spot where the city of the Axitani (Sexi) now stands; but since the sacrifices were not favourable there they turned back. Those sent out after them sailed through the straits, and cast anchor at an island sacred to Heracles, 1500 stades beyond the pillars, opposite the city of Onoba in Iberia; but as the sacrifices were again unfavourable they also again turned home. Finally, a third fleet landed on a little island 750 stades beyond Mount Calpe, close to the mainland, and not far from the mouth of the Bætis. Here, on the east side of the island, they built a temple to Heracles; on the opposite side of the island they built the city of Gadeira, and on the extreme western point the temple of Cronos. In the temple of Heracles there were two fountains and "two pillars of brass, eight cubits in height, on which is recorded the cost of the building of this temple."[170] This foundation of Gades, which on the coins is called Gadir and Agadir, i. e. wall, fortification, the modern Cadiz, and without doubt the most ancient city in Europe which has preserved its name, is said to have taken place in the year[Pg 84] 1100 B.C.[171] If Ityke was founded before 1100 B.C. or about that time, we have no reason to doubt the founding of Gades soon after that date. Hence the ships of the Phenicians would have reached the ocean about the time when Tiglath Pilesar I. left the Tigris with his army, trod the north of Syria, and looked on the Mediterranean.

The marvellous and impressive aspect of the rocky gate which opens a path for the waves of the Mediterranean to the boundless waters of the Atlantic Ocean might implant in the Phenician mariners who first passed beyond it the belief that they had found in these two mountains the pillars which the god set up to mark the end of the earth; in the endless ocean beyond them they could easily recognise the western sea in which their sun-god went to his rest. That Gades, on the shore of the sea into which the sun went down, was especially zealous in the worship of Melkarth, that the descent of the god into the western ocean (the supposed death of Heracles[172]) and the awakening of the god with the sun of the spring were here celebrated with especial emphasis, is a fact which requires no explanation. The legends of the Hesperides, the daughters of the West, in whose garden Melkarth celebrates the holy marriage with Astarte (I. 371), of the islands of the blest in the western sea, appear to[Pg 85] have a local background in the luxuriant fertility and favoured climate of Madeira and the Canary islands.

The land off the coast of which Gades lay, the valley of the Guadalquivir, was named by the Phenicians Tarsis (Tarshish), and by the Greeks Tartessus. The genealogical table in Genesis places Tarsis among the sons of Javan. The prophet Ezekiel represents the ships of Tarshish as bringing silver, iron, tin and lead to Tyre. "The ships of Tarshish," so he says to the city of Tyre, "were thy caravans; so wert thou replenished and very glorious in the midst of the sea."[173] The Sicilian Stesichorus of Himera expresses himself in more extravagant terms. He sang of the "fountains of Tartessus (the Guadalquivir) rooted in silver." The Greeks represent the Tartessus, the river which brought down gold, tin, iron in its waters, as springing from the silver mountain,[174] and according to Herodotus the first Greek ship, a merchantman of Samos, which was driven about the year 630 B.C. by a storm from the east to Tartessus, made a profit of 60 talents.[175] Aristotle tells us that the first Phenicians who sailed to Tartessus obtained so much silver in exchange for things of no value that the ships could not carry the burden, so that the Phenicians left behind the tackle and even the anchor they had brought with them and made new tackle of silver.[176] Poseidonius says that among that people it was not Hades, but Plutus, who dwelt in the under-world. Once the forests had been burned, and the silver and gold, melted by an enormous fire, flowed out on the surface; every hill and mountain became a heap of gold and silver. On the north-west of this land the ground shone with silver, tin and[Pg 86] white gold mixed with silver. This soil the rivers washed down with them. The women drew water from the river and poured it through sieves, so that nothing but gold, silver and tin remained in the sieve.[177] Diodorus tells the same story of the ancient burning of the forests on the Pyrenees (from which fire they got their name), by which the silver ore was rendered fluid and oozed from the mountains, so that many streams were formed of pure silver. To the native inhabitants the value of silver was so little known that the Phenicians obtained it in exchange for small presents, and gained great treasures by carrying the silver to Asia and all other nations. The greed of the merchants went so far that when the ships were laden, and there was still a large quantity of silver remaining, they took off the lead from the anchors and replaced it with silver. Strabo assures us that the land through which the Bætis flows was not surpassed in fertility and all the blessings of earth and sea by any region in the world; neither gold nor silver, copper nor iron, was found anywhere else in such abundance and excellence. The gold was not only dug up, but also obtained by washing, as the rivers and streams brought down sands of gold. In the sands of gold pieces were occasionally found half-a-pound in weight, and requiring very little purification. Stone salt was also found there, and there was abundance of house cattle and sheep, which produced excellent wool, of corn and wine. The coast of the shore beyond the pillars was covered with shell-fish and large purple-fish, and the sea was rich in fish (the tunnies and the Tartessian murena so much sought after in antiquity),[178] which the ebb and flow of the tide brought up to the beach. Corn, wine, the best oil, wax, honey,[Pg 87] pitch and cinnabar were exported from this fortunate land.[179]

If the Phenicians were able in the thirteenth century to settle upon Cyprus and Rhodes, the islands of the Ægean and the coasts of Hellas, their population must have been numerous, their industry active, their trade lucrative. That subsequently in the twelfth century they also took into possession the coasts of Sicily, Sardinia and North Africa by means of their colonies is a proof that the request for the raw products and metals of the West was very lively and increasing in Syria and in Egypt, in Assyria and Babylonia. The market of these lands must have been very remunerative to the Phenicians in order to induce them to make their discoveries, their distant voyages and remote settlements. If the Phenicians about the year 1100 B.C. were in a position to discover the straits of Gibraltar, the fact shows us that they must have practised navigation for a long time. The horizon of the Greek mariner ended even in the ninth century in the waters of Sicily, and in the fifth century B.C. the voyage of a Greek ship from the Syrian coast to the pillars of Heracles occupied 80 days.[180] After the founding of Gades the Phenicians ruled over the whole length of the Mediterranean by their harbour fortresses and factories. Their ships crossed the long basin in every direction, and everywhere they found harbours of safety. They showed themselves no less apt and inventive in the arts of navigation than the Babylonians had shown themselves in technical inventions and astronomy; they were bolder and more enterprising than the Assyrians in the campaigns which the latter attempted at the time when the[Pg 88] Phenicians were building Gades; they were more venturesome and enduring on the water than their tribesmen the Arabians on the sandy sea of the desert. In the possession of the ancient civilisation of the East their mariners and merchants presented the same contrast to the Thracians and Hellenes, the Sicels, the Libyans and Iberians which the Portuguese and the Spaniards presented 2500 years later to the tribes of America.

 

 

[Pg 89]

CHAPTER IV.

THE TRIBES OF ISRAEL.

Not far removed from the harbour-cities, whose ships discovered the land of silver, which carried the natural wealth of the West to the lands of the Euphrates and Tigris, and the Nile, in order to exchange them for the productions of those countries, in part immediately upon the borders of the marts which united the East and the West, and side by side with them, dwelt the Israelites on the heights and in the valleys which they had conquered, in very simple and original modes of life.

Even during the war against the ancient population of Canaan, immediately after the first successes against the Amorites, they had, as we have seen, dropped any common participation in the struggle, any unity under one leader. According to their numbers and bravery, and the resistance encountered, the various tribes had won larger or smaller territories, better or inferior districts. Immigration and conquest did not lead among the Israelites to a combination of their powers under the supremacy of one leader, but rather to separation into clans and cantons, which was also favoured by the nature of the country conquered, a district lying in unconnected parts, and possessing no central region adapted for governing the whole. Thus, after the settlement, the life of the nation became[Pg 90] divided into separate circles according to the position and character of the mountain canton which the particular tribe had obtained, and the fortune which it had experienced. Even if there was an invasion of the enemy, the tribe attacked was left to defend itself as well as it could. It was only very rarely, and in times of great danger, that the nobles and elders of the whole land, and a great number of the men of war from all the tribes, were collected round the sacred ark at Shiloh, at Bethel, at Mizpeh, or at Gilgal for common counsel or common defence. But even when a resolution was passed by the nobles and elders and the people, individual tribes sometimes resisted, even by force of arms, the expressed will of the nation, or at least of a great part of the nobles and people, and the division of the tribes sometimes led even to open war.

Within the tribes also there was no fixed arrangement, no fixed means for preserving peace. The clans and families for the most part possessed separate valleys, glens, or heights. The heads of the oldest families were also the governors of these cantons, and composed the differences between the members of the clan, canton, or city by their decisions; while in other places bold and successful warriors at the head of voluntary bands made acquisitions, in which the descendants of the leader took the rank of elder and judge. Eminent houses of this kind, together with the heads of families of ancient descent, formed the order of nobles and elders; "who hold the judge's staff in their hands, and ride on spotted asses with beautiful saddles, while the common people go afoot."[181] If a tribe fell into distress and danger, the nobles and elders assembled and took counsel, while the people stood round, unless[Pg 91] some man of distinction had already risen and summoned the tribe to follow him. For the people did not adhere exclusively to the chief of the oldest family in the canton; nobles and others within, and in special cases without, the tribe, who had obtained a prominent position by warlike actions, or by the wisdom of their decisions, whose position and power promised help, protection and the accomplishment of the sentence, were invited to remove strife and differences, unless the contending persons preferred to help themselves. Only the man who could not help himself sought, as a rule, the decision of the elder or judge.

The names of some of the men whose decision was sought in that time have been preserved in the tradition of the Israelites. Tholah of the tribe of Issachar, Jair of the land of Gilead, Ebzan of Bethlehem in the tribe of Judah, Elon of the tribe of Zebulun, and Abdon of Ephraim, are all mentioned as judges of note. Of Jair we are told that he had 30 sons, who rode on 30 asses, and possessed 30 villages. Ebzan is also said to have had 30 sons and to have married 30 daughters; while Abdon had 40 sons and 30 grandsons, who rode on 70 asses.[182]

On the heights and table-lands of the districts east of the Jordan, in the land of Gilead, were settled the tribes of Reuben and Gad and a part of the tribe of Manasseh. At an early period they grew together, so that the name of the region sometimes represents the names of these tribes. Here the pastoral life and breeding of cattle remained predominant, as in the less productive districts on the west of the Jordan. But on the plains and in the valleys of the west the greater part of the settlers devoted themselves to the culture of the vine and agriculture. The walls of the ancient[Pg 92] cities were at first used as a protection against the attacks of robbers, or raids of enemies; the inhabitants, afterwards as before, planted their fields and vineyards outside the gates.[183] But the custom of dwelling together led to the beginnings of civic life, industrial skill, and common order. The trade of the Phenicians, which touched the land of the Hebrews here and there, and the more advanced culture of the cities of the coast, could not remain without influence on the Hebrews.

The religious feeling which separated the Israelites from the Canaanites was not more thoroughly effective than the community of blood and the contrast to the ancient population of the land in bringing about the combination and union of the Israelites. The religious life was as much without organisation as the civic; on the contrary, as the Israelites spread as settlers over a larger district, the unity and connection of religious worship which Moses previously established again fell to the ground. It is true, the sacred ark remained at Shiloh, five leagues to the north of Bethel, under the sacred tent in the land of the tribe of Ephraim. At this place a festival was held yearly in honour of Jehovah, to which the Israelites assembled to offer prayer and sacrifice. On other occasions also people went to Shiloh to offer sacrifice.[184] The priestly office in the sacred tent at the sacred ark remained with the descendants of Aaron, in the family of Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the eldest son of Aaron (I. 497). But with the settlement a number of other places of sacrifice had risen up beside the sanctuary at Shiloh. On the heights and under the oaks at Ramah in the land of Benjamin, at Mizpeh in the same district, as well as at Mizpeh beyond Jordan, where Jacob and[Pg 93] Laban had parted in peace,[185] at Bethel on the borders of the land of Ephraim and Benjamin, where Abraham sacrificed (between Bethel and Ai) and Jacob received the name of Israel;[186] finally at Gilgal on the east of Jordan, where Joshua lay encamped, and kept the passover, before he attacked Jericho, Jehovah was invoked. At these places also the firstlings of the fruits were offered; goats, rams, and bulls were offered, with or without the intervention of the priest, and inquiry made for the will of Jehovah without priestly help or intervention. Any one who set up an altar established a priest there, or hired a priest. For this purpose men were chosen who claimed to be of the race of Moses and Aaron, just as the service of the sacred ark at Shiloh was in the hands of this family; but men of other origin and tribes were not excluded even from the priesthood at the ark.[187]

In such a want of any defined and influential position of the priesthood, in the want of any church organisation, it was only the superior personal power of the priests at Shiloh which could protect the religious feeling and traditional custom against the influences of the new surroundings, and Canaanitish rites. Tradition, at any rate from the first third of the eleventh century B.C., had no good to tell of the morals of the priests at Shiloh. To those who came to bring an offering the servant of the priest said, "Give flesh to roast for the priest; he will not have it sodden but raw." If the person sacrificing replied, "We will burn only the fat, then take what you desire," the servant answered, "You must give it me now, and if you will not I shall take it by force." If the priest desired cooked flesh from the sacrifice, he sent his servant, who[Pg 94] struck with his three-pronged fork into the cauldron, and what he brought out was the priest's.

The religious views of the Israelites, not sufficiently represented among themselves, were the more exposed to the influence of the rites of the Canaanites, as these rites belonged to tribes of kindred nature and character. In this way it came about that the Canaanitish gods Baal and Astarte were worshipped beside Jehovah, the god of Israel, and that in one or two places the old worship was perhaps entirely driven out by these new gods. But even where this did not take place, it was owing to the example and impulse of the Syrian modes of worship that images were here and there set up on the altars of Jehovah. When the conception of the divine nature in the spirit of a nation passes beyond the first undefined feeling and intimation,—when it receives a plainer and more expressive shape in the minds of men, and the first steps of artistic and technical skill, or the example of neighbours, are coincident with this advance,—the general result is that men desire to see the ruling powers fixed in distinct forms, then the gods are presented in a realistic manner in visible forms and images. And thus it was among the Israelites. The command of Moses given in opposition to the images of Egypt (I. 354) was long since forgotten. Michah, a man of the tribe of Ephraim, caused a goldsmith to make a carved and molten image of Jehovah of 200 shekels of silver; and set it up in a temple on Mount Ephraim, establishing as a priest a Levite, the "descendant of Moses." When a part of Dan marched northwards in order to win for themselves abodes there, which they could not conquer from the Philistines, the men of Dan carried off this image along with the Levite and set it up in the city of Laish (Dan), which they took from the Sidonians (I. 371),[Pg 95] and the "grandson of Moses" and his descendants continued to be priests before this image.[188] At Nob also there was a gilded image of Jehovah, and many had Teraphim, or images of gods in the form of men, in their houses.[189]

Nothing important was undertaken before inquiry was made of the will of Jehovah. The inquiry was made as a rule by casting lots before the sacred tabernacle at Shiloh, before the altars and images of Jehovah,[190] or by questioning the priests and soothsayers. Counsel was also taken of these if a cow had gone astray, and they received in return bread or a piece of money.

Of the feuds which the tribes of Israel carried on at this time, some have remained in remembrance.[191] The concubine of a Levite, so we are told in the book of Judges, who dwelt on Mount Ephraim, ran away from her husband; she went back to her father, to Bethlehem in Judah. Her husband rose and followed her, pacified her, and then set out on his return. The first evening they reached the city of the Jebusites, but the Levite would not pass the night among the Canaanites (I. 500), and turned aside to Gibeah, a place in the tribe of Benjamin. Here no one received the travellers; they were compelled to remain in the street till an old man came home late in the evening from his work in the field. When he heard that the traveller was from Ephraim he received him into his house, for he was himself an Ephraimite, gave fodder to the asses of the Levite and his concubine,[Pg 96] and placed his attendant with his own servants. Then they washed their feet, and drank, and their hearts were merry. But the men of Gibeah collected round the house in the evening, pressed on the door, and demanded that the stranger from Ephraim should be given up to them; they wished to destroy him. In order to save himself the priest gave up to them his concubine, that they might satisfy their passions on her. The men of Gibeah abused her the whole night through, so that next morning she lay dead upon the threshold. The Levite went with the corpse to his home at Ephraim, cut it into twelve pieces with a knife, and sent a piece to each tribe. Every one who saw it said, "The like was never heard since Israel came out of Egypt." And the chiefs of the nation assembled and pronounced a curse upon him who did not come to Mizpah (in the land of Benjamin) that he should be put to death. Then all the tribes assembled at Mizpah, it is said about 400,000 men;[192] only from Jabesh in Gilead and the tribe of Benjamin no one came. The Levite told what had happened to him, and the tribes sent messengers to Benjamin, to bring the men of Gibeah. But the children of Benjamin refused, and assembled their men of war, more than 26,000 in number, and took up arms. Then the people rose up and said, "Cursed be he who gives a wife to Benjamin."[193] Every tenth man was sent back for supplies; the rest marched out against Benjamin. But "Benjamin was a ravening wolf, who ate up the spoil at morning and divided the booty in the evening;" they were mighty archers, and could throw with the left hand as well as the right.[194] They fought twice[Pg 97] at Gibeah with success against their countrymen. Not till the third contest did the Israelites gain the victory, and then only by an ambuscade and counterfeit flight. After this overthrow the whole tribe is said to have been massacred, the flocks and herds destroyed, and the cities burnt. Only 600 men, as we are told, escaped to the rock Rimmon on the Dead Sea. When the community again assembled at Bethel the people were troubled that a tribe should be extirpated and wanting in Israel; so they caused peace and a safe return to be proclaimed to the remainder of Benjamin. And when 12,000 men were sent out against Jabesh to punish the city because none of their inhabitants came to the gathering at Mizpeh, they were ordered to spare the maidens of Jabesh. In obedience to this command they brought 400 maidens back from Jabesh, and these were given to the Benjamites. But as this number was insufficient the Benjamites were allowed, when the yearly festival was held at Shiloh (p. 92), and the daughters of Shiloh came out to dance before the city, to rush out from the vineyards and carry off wives for themselves. Thus does tradition explain the non-execution of the decree that no Israelite should give his daughter to wife to a man of Benjamin, and the rescue of the tribe of Benjamin from destruction.[195]

Without unity and connection in their political and religious life, amid the quarrels and feuds of the tribes, families and individuals, when every one helped and avenged himself, and violence and cruelty abounded,—in the lawless condition when "every one in Israel did what was right in his own eyes,"—the Israelites[Pg 98] were in danger of becoming the prey of every external foe, and it was a question whether they could long maintain the land they had won. It was fortunate that there was no united monarchy at the head either of the Philistines or the Phenicians, that the latter were intent on other matters, as their colonies in the Mediterranean, while the cities of the Philistines, though they acquired a closer combination as early as the eleventh century B.C., or even earlier (I. 348), did not, at least at first, go out to make foreign conquests. But it was unavoidable that the old population, especially in the north, where they remained in the greatest numbers amongst the Israelites, should again rise and find strong points of support in the Canaanite princes of Hazor and Damascus; that the Moabites who lay to the east of the Dead Sea, the Ammonites, the neighbours of the land of Gilead, that the wandering tribes of the Syrian desert should feel themselves tempted to invade Israel, to carry off the flocks and plunder the harvests and, if they found no vigorous resistance, to take up a permanent settlement in the country. Without the protection of natural borders, without combination and guidance, as they were, the Israelites could only succeed in resisting such attacks when in the time of danger a skilful and brave warrior was found, who was able to rouse his own tribe, and perhaps one or two of the neighbouring tribes, to a vigorous resistance, or to liberation if the enemy was already in the land. It is the deeds of such heroes, and almost these alone, which remained in the memory of the Israelites from the first two centuries following their settlement; and these narratives, in part fabulous, must represent the history of Israel for this period.

Eglon, king of Moab, defeated the Israelites, passed over the Jordan, took Jericho, and here established[Pg 99] himself. With Gilead the tribe of Benjamin, which dwelt nearest to Jericho, at first must have felt with especial weight the oppression of Moab. For 18 years the Israelites are said to have served Eglon. Then Ehud, of the tribe of Benjamin, a reputed great grandson of the youngest son of Jacob, the father of the Benjamites, came with others to Jericho to bring tribute. When the tax had been delivered Ehud desired to speak privately with the king. Permission was given, and Ehud went with a two-edged sword in his hand, under his garment, to the king, who sat alone in the cool upper chamber. Ehud spoke: "I have a message from God to thee;" and when Eglon rose to receive the message Ehud smote him with the sword in the belly, "so that even the haft went in, and the fat closed over the blade, for the king of Moab was a very fat man. But Ehud went down to the court, and closed the door behind him." When the servants found the door closed they thought that the king had covered his feet for sleep. At last they took the key and found the king dead on the floor. But Ehud blew the trumpet on Mount Ephraim, assembled a host, seized the fords of Jordan, and slew about 10,000 Moabites, and the Moabites retired into their old possessions.[196]

Another narrative tells of the fortunes of the tribes of Naphtali, Zebulun, and Issachar, which were settled in the north, under Mount Hermon. Jabin, king of Hazor, had chariots of iron, and Sisera his captain was a mighty warrior, and for 20 years they oppressed the Israelites.[197] Deborah, the wife of Lapidoth, of the tribe of Issachar, dwelt in the land of Benjamin, between Bethel and Ramah, under the palm-tree; she could announce the will of Jehovah, and the people[Pg 100] came to her to obtain counsel and judgment. At her command Barak, the son of Abinoam, assembled the men of the tribes of Zebulun and Naphtali; assistance also came from Issachar, Manasseh, Ephraim and Benjamin. Sisera went forth with 900 chariots and a great host and the Israelites retired before him to the south of the brook Kishon. Sisera crossed the brook and came upon the Israelites in the valley of Megiddo; he was defeated, leapt from his chariot, and fled on foot and came unto the tent of Heber the Kenite. Jael, Heber's wife, met him and said, "Turn in, my lord, to me; fear not." When in his thirst he asked for water, she opened the bottle of milk and allowed him to drink, and when he lay down to rest she covered him with the carpet. Being wearied, he sank into a deep sleep. Then Jael softly took the nail of the tent and a hammer in her hand, and smote the nail through his temples so that it passed into the earth. When Barak, who pursued the fugitive, came, Jael said, "I will show thee the man whom thou seekest," and led him into the tent where Sisera lay dead on the ground.

Israel's song of victory is as follows: "Listen, ye kings; give ear, ye princes; I will sing to Jehovah, I will play on the harp of Jehovah, the king of Israel. There were no princes in Israel till I, Deborah, arose a mother in Israel. Arise, Barak; bring forth thy captives, thou son of Abinoam. Shout, ye that ride on she-asses, and ye that sit upon carpets, and ye that go on foot, and let the people come down into the plain, to the gates of the cities. Then I said, Go down, O people of Jehovah, against the strong; a small people against the mighty. From Ephraim they came and from Benjamin, from Machir (i. e. from the Manassites on the east of the lake of Gennesareth) the[Pg 101] rulers came, and the chiefs of Issachar were with Deborah, and Zebulun is a people which perilled his life to the death, and Naphtali on the heights of the field. On the streams of Reuben there was taking of counsel, but why didst thou sit still among the herds to hear the pipe of the herdsmen? Gilead also remained beyond Jordan, and Asher abode on the shore of the sea in his valleys, and Dan on his heights. The kings came, they fought at the water of Megiddo; they gained no booty of silver. Issachar, the support of Barak, threw himself in the valley at his heels. The brook Kishon washed away the enemy: a brook of battles is the brook Kishon. Go forth, my soul, upon the strong. Blessed above women shall Jael be, above women in the tent. He asked for water, she gave him milk; she brought him cream in a lordly dish. She put forth her hand to the nail, and her right hand to the workman's hammer, and she smote Sisera, she shattered and pierced his temples. Between her feet he lay shattered. The mother of Sisera looked from her window; she called through the lattice: 'Why linger his chariots in returning? why delay the wheels of his chariot?' Her wise maidens answered her; nay, she answered herself: 'Will they not find spoil and divide it; one or two maidens to each, spoil of broidered robes for Sisera?' So must all thine enemies perish, O Jehovah, but may those who love him be as the sun going forth in his strength." Whether this song was composed by Deborah, or by some other person in her name, it is certainly an ancient song of victory and contemporary with the events it celebrates.

The tribes of Israel also which were settled in the land of Gilead remembered with gratitude a mighty warrior who had once delivered them from grievous[Pg 102] oppression. The Ammonites, the eastern neighbours of the land of Gilead, oppressed "the sons of Israel who dwelt beyond Jordan" for 18 years, and marched over Jordan against Judah, Benjamin and the house of Ephraim. Then the elders of the land of Gilead bethought them of Jephthah (Jephthah means "freed from the yoke"), to whom they had formerly refused the inheritance of his father because he was not the son of the lawful wife, but of a courtezan. He had retired into the gorges of the mountain and collected round him a band of robbers, and done deeds of bravery. To him the elders went; he was to be their leader in fighting against the sons of Ammon. Jephthah said, "Have ye not driven me out of the house of my father? now that ye are in distress ye come to me." Still he followed their invitation, and the people of Gilead gathered round him at Mizpeh and made him their chief and leader. "If I return in triumph from the sons of Ammon," such was Jephthah's vow, "the first that meets me at the door of my house shall be dedicated to Jehovah, and I will sacrifice it as a burnt-offering." When he had asked the tribe of Ephraim for assistance in vain he set out against the Ammonites with the warriors of the tribes of Reuben, Gad and Manasseh, and overcame them in a great battle on the river Arnon. The Ephraimites made it a reproach against Jephthah that he had fought against the Ammonites without them; they crossed the Jordan in arms. But Jephthah said, "I was in straits, and my people with me; I called to you, but ye aided me not." He assembled the men of Gilead, defeated the Ephraimites, and came to the fords of the Jordan before the fugitives, so that more than 42,000 men of Ephraim are said to have been slain.

When he returned to his home at Mizpeh his[Pg 103] only daughter came to meet him joyfully, with her maidens and timbrels and dancing. Jephthah tore his garments and cried, "My daughter, thou hast brought me very low; I have opened my mouth to Jehovah and cannot take it back." "My father," she answered, "if thou hast opened thy mouth to Jehovah, do to me as thou hast spoken, for Jehovah has given thee vengeance on thine enemies, the Ammonites. But first let me go with my companions to the mountains, and there for two months bewail my virginity." This was done, and on her return Jephthah did to her according to his vow. And it was a custom in Israel for the maidens to lament the daughter of Jephthah for four days in the year. After this Jephthah is said to have been judge for six years longer beyond Jordan, i. e. to have maintained the peace in these districts.

Grievous calamity came upon Israel in this period from a migratory people of the Syrian desert, from the incursions of the Midians, who, like the Moabites and Ammonites, are designated in Genesis as a nation kindred to the Israelites, with whom Moses was said to have entered into close relations (I. 449, 468). Now the Midianites with other tribes of the desert attacked Israel in constant predatory incursions. "Like locusts in multitude," we are told, "the enemy came with their flocks and tents; there was no end of them and their camels. When Israel had sowed the sons of the East came up and destroyed the increase of the land as far as Gaza, and left no sustenance remaining, no sheep, oxen and asses. And the sons of Israel were compelled to hide themselves in ravines, and caves, and mountain fortresses."[198] For seven years Israel is said to have been desolated in this manner. Beside the[Pg 104] tribes of Issachar and Zebulun, between Mount Tabor and the Kishon, dwelt a part of the tribe of Manasseh. The family of Abiezer, belonging to this tribe, possessed Ophra. In an incursion of the Midianites the sons of Joash, a man of this family, were slain;[199] only Gideon, the youngest, remained. When the Midianites came again, after their wont, at the time of harvest, and encamped on the plain of Jezreel, and Gideon was beating wheat in the vat of the wine-press in order to save the corn from the Midianites, Jehovah aroused him. He gathered the men of his family around him, 300 in number.[200] When Jehovah had given him a favourable sign, and he had reconnoitred the camp of the Midianites, together with his armour-bearer Phurah, he determined to attack them in the night. He divided his troop into companies containing a hundred men; each took a trumpet and a lighted torch, which was concealed in an earthen pitcher. These companies were to approach the camp of the Midianites from three sides, and when Gideon blew the trumpet and disclosed his torch they were all to do the same. Immediately after the second night-watch, when the Midianites had just changed the guards, Gideon gave the signal. All broke their pitchers, blew their trumpets, and cried, "The sword for Jehovah and Gideon!" Startled, terrified, and imagining that they were attacked by mighty hosts, the Midianites fled. Then the men of Manasseh, Asher, Zebulun and Naphtali arose, and Gideon hastily sent messengers to[Pg 105] the Ephraimites that they should seize the fords of Jordan before the Midianites. The Ephraimites assembled and took two princes of the Midianites, Oreb (Raven) and Zeeb (Wolf). The Ephraimites strove with Gideon that he had not summoned them sooner. Gideon replied modestly, "Is not the gleaning of the grapes of Ephraim better than the vintage of Abiezer? Did not Jehovah give the princes of Midian into your hand? Could I do what ye have done?" He pursued the Midianites over the Jordan in order to get into his power their princes Zebah and Zalmunna, who had previously slain his brothers. When he passed the river at Succoth he asked the men of Succoth to give bread to his wearied soldiers. But the elders feared the vengeance of the Midianites, and said, "Are Zebah and Zalmunna already in thine hand, that we should give bread to thy men?" Gideon replied in anger, "If Jehovah gives them into my hand I will tear your flesh with the thorns of the wilderness and with briers." The inhabitants of Penuel on the Jabbok also, to which Gideon marched, refused to feed their countrymen; like those of Succoth, they feared the Midianites. Gideon led his army by the way of the dwellers in tents far away to Karkor. Here he defeated and scattered the 15,000 Midianites who had escaped, and captured the two princes. Then he turned back to Succoth and said to the elders, "See, here are Zebah and Zalmunna, for whom ye mocked me." He caused them to be seized, seventy-seven in number, and tore them to death with thorns and briers. The tower of Penuel he destroyed, and caused the inhabitants of the place to be slain. To the captured princes he said, "What manner of men were they whom ye once slew at Tabor?" And they answered, "As thou art, they looked like the sons of a king."[Pg 106] "They were my brethren, the sons of my mother," Gideon answered. "As Jehovah liveth, if ye had saved them alive I would not slay you. Stand up," he called to his first-born son Jether, "and slay them." But the youth feared and drew not his sword, for he was yet young. "Slay us thyself," said the prisoners, "for as the man is, so is his strength." This was done. When the booty was divided Gideon claimed as his share the golden ear-rings of the slain Midianites. They were collected in Gideon's mantle, and the weight reached 1700 shekels of gold, beside the purple raiment of the dead kings, and the moons and chains on the necks of the camels.

Gideon had gained a brilliant victory; no more is heard of the raids of the Midianites. Out of the booty he set up a gilded image (ephod) at Ophra.[201] He overthrew the altar of Baal and the image of Astarte in his city; and this, as is expressly stated, in the night (from which we must conclude that the inhabitants of Ophra were attached to this worship); and in the place of it he set up an altar to Jehovah on the height, and in the city another altar, which he called "Jehovah, peace." "Unto this day it is still in Ophra."

After the liberation of the land, which was owing to him, Gideon held the first place in Israel. We are told that the crown had been offered to him and that he refused it.[202] But if Gideon left 70 sons of his body by many wives, if we find that his influence descended to his sons, he must have held an almost royal position, in which a harem was not wanting. He died, as it[Pg 107] seems, in a good old age, and was buried in the grave of his fathers (after 1150 B.C.[203]).

The same need of protection which preserved Gideon in power till his death had induced some cities to form a league, after the pattern of the cities of the Philistines, for mutual support and security. Shechem, the old metropolis of the tribe of Ephraim, was the chief city of this league. Here on the citadel at Shechem the united cities had built a temple to Baal Berith, i. e. to Baal of the league, and established a fund for the league in the treasury of this temple. One of the 70 sons of Gideon, the child of a woman of Shechem, by name Abimelech, conceived the plan of establishing a monarchy in Israel by availing himself of Gideon's name and memory, the desire for order and protection from which the league had arisen, and the resources of the cities. At first he sought to induce the cities to make him their chief. Supported by them, he sought to remove his brothers and to take the monarchy into his own hands as the only heir of Gideon. A skilful warrior like Abimelech, who carried with him the fame and influence of a great father, must have been welcome to the cities as a leader and chief in such wild times. Abimelech spoke to the men of Shechem: "Consider that I am your bone and your flesh; which is better, that 70 men rule over you or I only?" Then the citizens of Shechem and the inhabitants of the citadel assembled under the oak of Shechem and made Abimelech their king, and gave him 70 shekels of silver from the temple of Baal Berith, "that he might be able to pay people to serve him." With these and the men of Shechem who followed[Pg 108] him he marched and slew all his brethren at Ophra in his father's house (one only, Jotham, escaped him), and Israel obeyed him. Abimelech seemed to have reached his object. Perhaps he might have maintained the throne thus won by blood had he not, three years afterwards, quarrelled with the cities which helped him to power. The cities rose against him. Abimelech with his forces went against the chief city, Shechem. The city was taken and destroyed, the inhabitants massacred. About 1000 men and women fled for refuge into the temple of Baal Berith in the citadel; Abimelech caused them to be burned along with the temple. Then he turned from Shechem to Thebez, some miles to the north. When he stormed the city the inhabitants fled into the strong tower, closed it, and went up on the roof of the tower. Abimelech pressed on to the door of the tower to set it on fire, when a woman threw a stone down from above which fell on Abimelech and broke his skull. Then the king called to his armour-bearer, "Draw thy sword and slay me, that it may not be said, A woman slew him." The youthful monarchy was wrecked on this quarrel of the citizens with the new king.

After this time Eli the priest at the sacred tabernacle, a descendant of Ithamar, the youngest son of Aaron,[204] is said to have been in honour among the Israelites. Not only was he the priest of the national shrine, but counsel and judgment were also sought from him. But Eli's sons, Hophni and Phinehas; did evil, and lay with the women who came to the sacred tabernacle to offer prayer and sacrifice.[205]

 

 

[Pg 109]

CHAPTER V.

THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE MONARCHY IN ISRAEL.

More than a century and a half had passed since the Israelites had won their land in Canaan. The greater part of the tribes, beside the breeding of cattle, were occupied with the cultivation of vines and figs, and regular agriculture; the minority had become accustomed to life in settled cities, and the earliest stages of industry; but the unity of the nation was lost, and in the place of the religious fervour which once accompanied the exodus from Egypt, the rites of the Syrian deities had forced their way in alongside of the worship of Jehovah. The division and disorganisation of the nation had exposed the Israelites to the attacks of their neighbours; the attempt of Abimelech to establish a monarchy in connection with the cities had failed; the anarchy still continued. Worse dangers still might be expected in the future. The forces of the Moabites, Midianites, and Ammonites were not superior to that of the Israelites, the attacks of the tribes of the desert were of a transitory nature; but what if the cities of the coast, superior in civilisation, art, and combined power, should find it convenient when the affairs of Israel were in this position to extend their borders to the interior, and Israel should be gradually subjugated from the coast? From the Phenicians there was nothing to fear: navigation and trade entirely occupied them;[Pg 110] from the beginning of the eleventh century their ships devoted their attention to discoveries in the Atlantic Ocean, beyond the straits of Gibraltar (p. 83). The case was different with the warlike cities of the Philistines. If the Philistines were behind the Israelites in the extent of their territory and dominion, their forces were held together and well organised by means of the confederation of the cities. Bounded to the west by the sea, and to the south by the desert, the only path open to them for extending their power was in the direction of the Hebrews. For a long time they had been content to put a limit upon the extension of the tribes of Judah and Dan, but in the first half of the eleventh century B.C. the condition of Israel appeared to the federation of the Philistines sufficiently inviting to induce them to pass from defence to attack. Their blows fell first on Judah, Simeon, and the part of Dan which had remained in the south on the borders of the Philistines; tribes which had hitherto been exempted from attack, whose territory had been protected by the deserts on the south, and the Dead Sea on the east. But now they were attacked from the direction of the sea. The struggle with the Philistines was not a matter of rapine and plunder, but of freedom and independence. The aim of the five princes of the Philistines (I. 348) was directed towards the extension of their own borders and their own dominion, and the war against the Israelites was soon carried on with vigour. The tribes of Judah and Dan were reduced to submission.[206] If the Israelites did not succeed in uniting their forces, if they could not repair what was neglected at the conquest, and had since been attempted in vain, the suppression of their independence, their religious and national life, appeared certain. The[Pg 111] question was whether the nation of Israel, accustomed to an independent and defiant life in small communities, and corrupted by it, possessed sufficient wisdom and devotion to solve the difficult task now laid upon it.

It was a melancholy time for Israel when the Philistines ruled over the south of the land. Later generations found some comfort for this national disgrace in the narratives of the strong and courageous Samson, the son of Manoah, of the tribe of Dan, whose deeds were placed by tradition in this period. He had done the Philistines much mischief, and slain many of them; even when his foolish love for a Philistine maiden finally brought him to ruin, he slew more Philistines at his death than in his life—"about 3000 men and women."[207] Whatever be the truth about these deeds, no individual effort could avail to save Israel when the Philistines seriously set themselves to conquer the northern tribes, unless the nation roused itself and combined all its forces under one definite head.[Pg 112]

The Philistines invaded the land of Ephraim with a mighty army, and forced their way beyond it northwards as far as Aphek, two leagues to the south of Tabor. At Tabor the Israelites assembled and attempted to check the Philistines, but they failed; 4000 Israelites were slain. Then the elders of Israel, in order to encourage the people, caused the ark of Jehovah to be brought from Shiloh into the camp. Eli, the priest at the sacred tabernacle, was of the age of 98 years. Hophni and Phinehas, his sons, accompanied the sacred ark, which was welcomed by the army with shouts of joy. In painful expectation Eli sat at the gate of Shiloh and awaited the result. Then a man of the tribe of Benjamin came in haste, with his clothes rent, and earth upon his head, and said, "Israel is fled before the Philistines, thy sons are dead, and the ark of God is lost." Eli fell backwards from his seat, broke his neck, and died. About 30,000 men are said to have fallen in the battle (about 1070 B.C.).[208][Pg 113]

At the sacred tabernacle at Shiloh Samuel the son of Elkanah had served under Eli. Elkanah was an[Pg 114] Ephraimite; he dwelt at Ramah (Ramathaim, and[Pg 115] hence among the Greeks Arimathia[209]). Samuel was born to him late in life, and, in gratitude that at last a son was given to her, his mother had dedicated him to Jehovah, and given him to Eli to serve in the sanctuary. Thus even as a boy Samuel waited at the sacrifices in a linen tunic, and performed the sacred rites. He grew up in the fear of Jehovah and became a seer, who saw what was hidden, a soothsayer, whom the people consulted in distress of any kind, and at the same time he announced the will of Jehovah, for Jehovah had called him, and permitted him to see visions, "so that he knew how to speak the word of God, which was rare in those days," and "Jehovah was with him and let none of Samuel's words fall to the ground."[210] After the crushing defeat at Aphek it devolved on Samuel to perform the duties of high priest. He summoned the people to Mizpeh in the tribe of Benjamin and prayed for Israel. Large libations of water were poured to Jehovah. When the Philistines advanced Samuel[Pg 116] sacrificed a sucking lamb (no doubt as a sin-offering), and burned it. "Then on that day Jehovah thundered mightily out of heaven over the Philistines, and confounded them so that they were defeated."

This victory remained without lasting results. On the contrary, the slavery of the Israelites to the Philistines became more extensive and more severe. In order to bring the northern tribes into the same subjection as the tribes of Dan, Judah, and Simeon, the Philistines established fortified camps at Michmash and Geba (Gibeah) in the tribe of Benjamin, as a centre from which to hold this and the northern tribes in check. The men of the tribes of Judah and Simeon had to take the field against their own countrymen. These arrangements soon obtained their object. All Israel on this side of the Jordan was reduced to subjection. In order to make a rebellion impossible, the Israelites were deprived of their arms; indeed, the Philistines were not content that they should give up the arms in their possession, they even removed the smiths from the land, that no one might provide a sword or javelin for the Hebrews. The oppression of this dominion pressed so heavily and with such shame on the Israelites that the books of Samuel themselves tell us, if the plough-shares, bills, and mattocks became dull, or the forks were bent, the children of Israel had to go down into the cities of the Philistines in order to have their implements mended and sharpened.[211]

At this period Samuel's activity must have been limited to leading back the hearts of the Israelites to the God who brought them out of Egypt; he must have striven to fill them with the faith with which he was himself penetrated, and the distress of the time would contribute to gain acceptance for his teaching[Pg 117] and his prescripts. The people sought his word and decision; he is said to have given judgment at Bethel, Gilgal, and Mizpeh. He gathered scholars and disciples round him, who praised Jehovah to the sound of harp and lute, flute and drum, who in violent agitation and divine excitement awaited his visions, and "were changed into other men."[212] From the position which tradition allots to Samuel, there can be no doubt that he brought the belief in and worship of the old god into renewed life, and caused them to sink deeper into the hearts of the Israelites. The oppression of his people by the Philistines he could not turn away, though he cherished a lively hope in the help of Jehovah.

The tribes on the east of the Jordan remained free from the dominion of the Philistines; yet for them also servitude and destruction was near at hand. The Ammonites were not inclined to let slip so favourable an opportunity. As the land on the west of the Jordan was subject to the Philistines, the tribes on the east would prove an easy prey. The Ammonites encamped before Jabesh in Gilead, and the inhabitants were ready to submit. But Nahash, the king of the Ammonites, as we are told, would only accept their submission on condition that every man in Jabesh put out his right eye. Then the elders of Jabesh sent messengers across the Jordan and earnestly besought their countrymen for help.

The tribe of Benjamin had to feel most heavily, no doubt, the oppression of the Philistines. In their territory lay the fortified camps of the enemy. Here, at Gibeah, dwelt a man of the race of Matri, Saul the son of Kish, the grandson of Abiel. Kish was a man of substance and influence; his son Saul was a courageous[Pg 118] man, of remarkable stature, "higher by a head than the rest of the nation." He was in the full strength of his years, and surrounded by valiant sons: Jonathan, Melchishua, Abinadab, and Ishbosheth. One day, "just as he was returning home from the field behind his oxen," he heard the announcement which the messengers of Jabesh brought. Himself under the enemy's yoke, he felt the more deeply what threatened them. His heart was fired at the shame and ruin of his people. Regardless of the Philistines, he formed a bold resolution; assistance must be given to those most in need. He cut two oxen in pieces, sent the pieces round the tribes,[213] and raised the cry, "Whoso comes not after Saul, so shall it be done to his oxen." The troop which gathered round him out of compassion for the besieged in Jabesh, and in obedience to his summons, Saul divided into three companies. With these he succeeded in surprising the camp of the Ammonites about the morning watch; he dispersed the hostile army and set Jabesh free.

Whatever violence and cruelty had been exercised since the settlement of the Israelites in Canaan, however many the feuds and severe the vengeance taken, however great the distress and the oppression, the nation, amid all the anarchy and freedom so helpless against an enemy, still preserved a healthy and simple feeling and vigorous power. And at this crisis the Israelites were not found wanting; Saul's bold resolution, the success in setting free the city in her sore distress, the victory thus won, the first joy and hope after so long a period of shame, gave the people the expectation of having found in him the man who was able to set them free from the dominion of the Philistines also, and restore independence, and law,[Pg 119] and peace. When the thank-offering for the unexpected victory, for the liberation of the land of Gilgal, was offered at Gilgal on the Jordan, as far as possible from the camp of the Philistines, "all the people went to Gilgal, and there made Saul king before Jehovah, and Saul and all the men of Israel rejoiced greatly" (1055 B.C.).

The heavy misfortunes which the land had experienced for a long time, the severe oppression of the dominion of the Philistines, had at length taught the majority that rescue could only come by a close connection and union of the powers of the tribes, and an established authority supreme over all. To check anarchy from within and oppression from without required a vigorous hand, a ruling will, and a recognised power. What the people could do to put an end to the disorganisation was now done, they had placed a man at the head whom they might expect to be a brave leader and resolute guide. The Israelites had used their sovereignty to give themselves a master, and might hope with confidence that by this step they had laid the foundations of a happier future which they might certainly greet with joy.[214][Pg 120]

Immediately after his election on the Jordan, Saul was firmly resolved to take up arms against the [Pg 121]Philistines for the liberation of the land. He turned upon their camp in the district of his own tribe. While he lay opposite the fortifications at Michmash, and thus held the garrison fast, his son Jonathan succeeded in conquering the detachment of the Philistines stationed at Geba. But the princes of the Philistines had no mind to look on at the union of Israel. They assembled, as we are told, an army of 3000 chariots, 6000 cavalry, and foot soldiers beyond number; with these the tribes of Judah and Simeon were compelled to take the field against their brethren.[215] Whether the numbers are correct or incorrect, the armament of the Philistines was sufficient to cause the courage of the Israelites to sink. Saul summoned the Israelites to the Jordan, to Gilgal, where he had been raised to be their chief. But in vain he caused the trumpets to be blown and the people to be summoned. The Israelites crept into the caves and clefts of the rock, and thorn-[Pg 122]bushes, into the towers and the cisterns, and fled beyond Jordan to find refuge in the land of Gilead. Only the king and his brave son Jonathan did not quail before the numbers or gallantry of the enemies, though only a small troop—it is said about 600 men—gathered round Saul. The great army of the Philistines had first marched to the fortified camp at Michmash, and from this point, after leaving a garrison behind, in which were the Israelites of Judah and Simeon, it separated into three divisions, in order to march through Israel in all directions and hold the country in subjection. One column marched to the west in the direction of Beth-horon, the second to the north towards Ophra, the third to the east towards the valley of Zeboim.[216] This division made it possible for Saul to attack. He turned upon that part of the army which was weakest and most insecure, the garrison at Michmash, and made an unexpected attack on the fortification. Jonathan ascended an eminence in the rear, while Saul attacked in the van. In the tumult of the attack the Hebrews in the camp of the Philistines joined the side of their countrymen, and Saul gained the fortification. The Philistines fled. The king knew what was at stake and strove to push the victory thus gained to the utmost.[217] Without resting, he urged his men to the pursuit of the fugitives. That none of his troop might halt or stray in order to take food, he said, "Cursed is the man who eats bread till the evening, till I have taken vengeance on mine enemies." Jonathan had not heard the command of his father, and as the pursuers passed through a wood in which wild honey lay scattered he ate a little of the honeycomb. For this he should have been put to death, because he was dedicated to Jehovah (I. 499).[Pg 123] But the warriors were milder than their customs. "Shall Jonathan die," cried the soldiers, "who has won this great victory in Israel? that be far from us: as Jehovah liveth, not a hair of his head shall fall to the ground, for he has wrought with God this day;" "and the people rescued Jonathan that he died not."[218]

This success encouraged the Israelites to come forth from their hiding-places and gather round their king. But only a part of the hostile army was defeated, and the Philistines were not so easily to be deprived of the sovereignty over Israel. "And the strife was hot against the Philistines so long as Saul lived," and "king Saul was brave and delivered Israel from the hand of the robbers," is the older of the two statements preserved in the Books of Samuel.

Saul had rendered the service which was expected by the Israelites when they elevated him: he had saved his nation from the deepest distress, from the brink of the most certain destruction. Without him the tribes beyond the Jordan would have succumbed to the Ammonites and Moabites, and those on this side of the river would at length have become obedient subjects of the Philistines. He found on his accession a disarmed, discouraged nation. By his own example he knew how to restore to them courage and self-confidence, and educate them into a nation familiar with war and skilled in it. The old military virtues of the tribe of Benjamin (p. 96) found in Saul their full expression and had a most beneficial result for Israel. The close community in which from old time the small tribe of Benjamin had been with the large tribe of Ephraim, by the side of which it had settled, was an advantage to Saul.[219] The strong position which he gained[Pg 124] by the recognition of these two tribes could not but have an effect on the others, and contribute with the importance of his achievements and the splendour of their results to gain firmness and respect for the young monarchy, and win obedience for his commands. In the ceaseless battles which he had to carry on he was mainly supported by his eldest son Jonathan, who stood beside him as a faithful brother in arms, and his cousin Abner, the son of Ner his father's brother, whom he made his chief captain. "And wherever Saul saw a mighty man and a brave he took him to himself."[220] Thus he formed around him a school of brave warriors. He appears to have kept 3000 warriors under arms in the district of Benjamin, and this formed the centre for the levy of the people.[221]

But the Israelites had not merely to thank the king they had set up for the recovery and vigorous defence of their independence and their territory; he was also a zealous servant of Jehovah. He offered sacrifice to Him, built altars, and inquired of Him by His priests, who accompanied him even on his campaigns.[222] He observed strictly the sacred customs; even after the battle the exhausted soldiers were not allowed to eat meat with blood in it. He was prepared to allow even his dearest son, whose life he had unconsciously devoted, to be put to death. He removed all magicians and wizards out of the land with great severity.[223] How earnestly he took up the national and religious opposition to the Canaanites is clear from his conduct to the Hivites of Gibeon, Chephirah, Beeroth, and[Pg 125] Kirjath-jearim, who had once made a league with Joshua, and in consequence had been allowed to remain among the Israelites (I. 494). "Saul sought to slay them in his zeal for Israel," and the Gibeonites afterwards maintained that Saul had sought to annihilate them, and his purpose was that they should be destroyed and exist no more in all the land of Israel.[224] The ark of the covenant, which had fallen into the hands of the Philistines at the battle of Aphek, was brought back to Israel in his reign. The possession of it, so the Hebrews said, had brought no good to the Philistines. They had set it up as a trophy of victory in the temple of Dagon at Ashdod. But the image of the god had fallen to pieces, and only the fish-tail was left standing (I. 272); the people of Ashdod had been attacked with boils, and their crops destroyed by mice. The same occurred at Gath, when the ark was brought there, and, in consequence, the city of Ekron had refused to accept it. Then the Philistines had placed the ark upon a wagon, and allowed the cows before it to draw it whither they would. They drew it to Beth-shemesh in the tribe of Judah. But when the people of Beth-shemesh looked on the ark a grievous mortality began among them, till the men of Kirjath-jearim (not far from Beth-shemesh) took away the ark, and Abinadab set it up in a house on a hill in his field, and established his own son Eleazar as guardian and priest (about 1045 B.C.[225]). The Books of the Chronicles[Pg 126] mention the gifts which Saul dedicated to the national sanctuary.[226]

As king of Israel, Saul remained true to the simplicity of his earlier life. Of splendour, courts, ceremonial, dignitaries, and harem we hear nothing. If not in the field he remained on his farm at Gibeah, with his wife Ahinoam,[227] his four sons, and his two daughters. Abner and other approved comrades in arms ate at his table. His elder daughter Merab he married to Adriel the son of Barzillai. Michal, the younger, he gave to a youthful warrior, David the son of Jesse, who had distinguished himself in the war against the Philistines, whom he had made his armour-bearer and companion of his table, entrusting him at the same time with the command of 1000 men of the standing army.[228] "What am I, what is the life and the house of my father in Israel, that I should become the son-in-law of the king? I am but a poor and lowly man." So David said, but Saul remained firm in his purpose.

Of Saul's later battles against the Philistines tradition has preserved only a few fragments, from which it is clear that the war was carried on upon the borders by plundering incursions, which were interrupted from time to time by greater campaigns.[229] But the preponderance of the Philistine power was broken. And Saul had not only to fight against these. "He fought on all sides," we are told, "against all the enemies of Israel, against Moab, and against the sons of Ammon, and against Edom, and against the kings of Zobah,[Pg 127] and whithersoever he turned he was victorious."[230] When the Amalekites from their deserts on the peninsula of Sinai invaded the south of Israel, and forced their way as far as Hebron, he defeated them there at Maon-Carmel,[231] and pursued them over the borders of Israel into their own land as far as the desert of Sur, "which lies before Egypt," and took Agag their king prisoner. It was a severe defeat which he inflicted on them.[232] "Saul's sword came not back empty," and "the daughters of Israel clothed themselves in purple," and "adorned their garments with gold" from the spoil of his victories.[233] The Israelites felt what they owed to the monarchy and to Saul.[234]

 

 

[Pg 128]

CHAPTER VI.

DAVID'S STRUGGLE AGAINST SAUL AND ISHBOSHETH.

The position which Samuel gained as a priest, seer, and judge after the death of Eli and his sons, and continued to hold under the sway of the Philistines must have undergone a marked change, owing to the establishment of the monarchy in Israel, though in the later text of the Books of Samuel it is maintained that "Samuel judged Israel till his death."[235] We know that Samuel had set up an altar to Jehovah at Ramathaim, his home and dwelling-place (p. 115), but it is not handed down that he had again set up there the sacred tabernacle and the worship at the sacred ark, though this may very well have been the case after the Philistines sent back the ark. Both the older and the later text of the two Books of Samuel represent him as in opposition to the monarchy. According to the later text, written from a prophetic point of view, Samuel had from the first opposed the establishment of the monarchy; and both the older and the more recent account know of a contention between Saul and Samuel. The former tells us: When Saul immediately after his election took up arms against the Philistines, and these marched out with their whole fighting power, and Saul gathered the Israelites at Gilgal, Samuel bade the king wait seven days till he came down to offer burnt-offering and[Pg 129] thank-offering. "And Saul waited seven days, but Samuel came not; the people were scattered. Then Saul said: Bring me the burnt-offering and the thank-offering. He offered the burnt-sacrifice, and when he had made an end Samuel came, and Saul went to greet him. And Samuel said, What hast thou done? Saul answered, When I saw that the people were scattered from me, and thou didst not come at the time appointed, and the Philistines were encamped at Michmash, I said, The Philistines will come down upon me to Gilgal, and I have not made supplication to Jehovah, so I forced myself and offered the burnt-sacrifice. Then Samuel said, Thou hast done foolishly; thou hast not observed the command of thy God which he commanded thee. Jehovah would have established thy kingdom over Israel for ever, but now thy kingdom shall not endure."[236] The more recent account puts the contention at a far later date. When Saul marched against the Amalekites Samuel bade him "curse" everything that belonged to Amalek, man and woman, child and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass. After the return of the victorious army Samuel came to Gilgal, and said, What meaneth this bleating of sheep and lowing of oxen in my ears? Saul answered, I have obeyed the voice of Jehovah and have gone the way which Jehovah sent me, and I have brought with me Agag the king of Amalek, and have "cursed" Amalek. But from the spoil the people have taken the best of what was "cursed," in order to sacrifice to Jehovah, thy God, at Gilgal. Samuel answered in the tone of Isaiah, Hath Jehovah delight in burnt-offerings and sacrifice? To obey is better than sacrifice. Saul confesses that he has sinned and transgressed the command of Jehovah and the word of Samuel, "for I[Pg 130] feared the people, and obeyed their voice. And now forgive me my sin, and turn with me, that I may entreat Jehovah. But Samuel said, I will not turn back with thee; because thou hast rejected the word of Jehovah he will reject thee from being king over Israel. Samuel turned to go, but Saul caught the hem of his garment and said, I have sinned, yet honour me before the elders of my people, and before Israel, and return with me, that I may offer prayer before Jehovah. Then Samuel turned behind Saul, and Saul offered prayer before Jehovah. And Samuel bade them bring Agag the king of Amalek before him, and said, As thy sword has made women childless, so shall thy mother be childless among women; and he hewed Agag in pieces before Jehovah at Gilgal. And Samuel went up to Ramathaim and saw Saul no more."[237] In the narrative of the first text Saul appears to be thoroughly justified by the most urgent necessity; in the narrative of the second text he acknowledges openly and completely that he has sinned. It may have been the case that Saul did not appear to Samuel sufficiently submissive to his utterances, which for him were the utterances of God; that he wished to see the rights and power of a king exercised in a different manner and in a different feeling from that in which Saul discharged his office.

More dangerous for Saul than any reproach or coldness on the part of Samuel was the contention which he had in the latter years of his reign with another man, whom he had himself raised to eminence—a strife which cost Saul the reward of his laborious and brave reign, and his house the throne; while Israel lost the fruits of great efforts, and the fortunes of the people were again put to the hazard.[Pg 131]

Of the family of Perez[238] of the tribe of Judah, David was the youngest (eighth) son of a man of some possessions, Jesse of Bethlehem. He was entrusted with the care and keeping of the sheep and goats of his father in the desert pastures on the Dead Sea, and his shepherd life had caused him to grow up in a rough school. It had made him hardy, it had given strength and suppleness to his body; he had gained a delight in adventure and unshaken courage in danger. In defence of the flocks he had withstood bears and ventured into conflict even with a lion. In the loneliness and silence which surrounded him he practised singing and playing; the severe and solemn nature of that region was adapted to impress great thoughts on his mind, to give force and elevation to his spirit. From such a school he came into the ranks of the warriors of Saul; the bold deeds which even in his youth he had performed against the Philistines induced Saul to make David one of "the brave," whom he took into his house (about 1040 B.C.).[239] He also made him one of his captains,[240] and frequently sent him out against the Philistines; in these inroads he fought with more success than other chieftains.[241] Thus David was a favourite in the eyes[Pg 132] of the people and the servants of the king, and Jonathan, Saul's eldest son, made a covenant with David, because "he loved him as his own soul."[242] In the house of Saul David was trusted and honoured before the other warriors; he was his armour-bearer and the chief of a troop of 1000 men. After Jonathan and Abner, David was nearest the king; he had the complete confidence of Saul, and at length became his son-in-law.[243]

Some years afterwards (about 1036 B.C.[244]), Saul conceived a suspicion of the man whom he had elevated to such a height. He imagined that his son-in-law intended to seize the throne from himself, or contest the succession with his son Jonathan. According to the older account it was jealousy of the military renown of David, which threatened to obscure his[Pg 133] own, that roused Saul against David;[245] according to the later, Saul feared the partiality which the people displayed towards David. He says to Jonathan, "So long as the son of Jesse lives, thou and thy kingdom will not continue."[246] According to the same account an evil spirit came over Saul, he was beside himself in the house and threw a spear at David, who played the harp.[247] David avoided the cast: he fled to Samuel at Ramathaim into the dwellings of the seers,[248] and from thence escaped to Achish, the prince of the Philistines of Gath.[249] In the older account also it is an evil spirit of Jehovah which comes over Saul, and causes him to thrust with his spear at David while he is playing the harp. David escapes into his house. At Saul's command the house is surrounded; and David is to be slain the next morning. But Michal, the daughter of Saul, David's wife, let him down from a window, and in his place she put the teraphim, i. e. the image of the deity, into the bed, covered it with a coverlet, laid the net of goat's hair on the face, and gave out that David was sick. David meanwhile flies to Nob (in the land of Benjamin), where was set up a gilded image of Jehovah, before which a company of priests served, and at their head Ahimelech, a great-grandson of Eli,[250] who had previously inquired of Jehovah for David.[251] Ahimelech gave David the sacred loaves, and a sword which was consecrated there, and from hence, according to this account, David escaped to Achish. Saul reproached his daughter for aiding David, and said,[Pg 134] "Why hast thou allowed my enemy to escape?" Then he gave her to wife to Phalti of Gallim.

We are not in a position to decide whether David really pursued ambitious designs; whether, as a matter of fact, he conspired with the priests against Saul and his house, as Saul assumed; whether Saul saw through his designs and plots, or suspected him without reason.[252][Pg 135] David was not content with escaping the anger and pursuit of Saul, with placing himself and his family in security. He repaired to the enemies of his land,[Pg 136] the Philistines, who would not have accepted at once an opponent who had done them grievous injury, if he had not openly broken with Saul and given them to suppose that henceforth he would support their struggle against Saul and Israel. Yet David did not bring his father and mother, on whom Saul could have taken vengeance, out of the land to Gath, where they might have been a pledge of his fidelity to the Philistines; he put them in the hands of the king of Moab, and also entered into relations with the king of the Ammonites.[253] It was probably with the consent of the Philistines that David returned from Gath into the land of Judah, and there threw himself into the wild regions by the Dead Sea, where he had previously pastured his father's sheep and goats, in order to bring his own tribe of Judah into arms against the king sprung from the small tribe of Benjamin.[254] The cave of Adullam was the place of gathering. His brothers, the whole house of his father, came, and a prophet of the name of Gad, "and all oppressed persons, and any one who had a creditor and was of a discontented spirit," and "David was their chief, and had under him 400 men."[255]

"Saul heard that all men knew about David and the men who were with him, and sent out to bring before him Ahimelech and the house of his father and all the priests of Nob." The king sat on the height near Gibeah under the tamarisk, with his spear in his hand and his servants round him. "Why hast thou conspired against me," he said to Ahimelech, "thou and the son of Jesse, that he has rebelled against me. Thou shalt die, and the house of thy father."[Pg 137] And he commanded his body-guard who stood near him: "Come up and slay the priests of Jehovah, their hand is with David." Then 85 men were slain who wore the linen tunic; and Nob, the city of the priests, Saul smote with the edge of the sword; one only, Abiathar, a son of Ahimelech, escaped with the image of Jehovah to David.[256]

David had no doubt calculated on greater success in the tribe of Judah. So long as his following was confined to four or six hundred men, he could only live a robber life with this troop. But by this course he would have roused against himself those whom he robbed, and strengthened the attachment to Saul. So he attempted to keep a middle path. He sent to Nabal, a rich man at Carmel near Hebron (p. 127), who possessed 3000 sheep and 1000 goats, a descendant of that Caleb who had once founded himself a kingdom here with his sword (I. 505), and bade his messengers say: David has taken nothing of thy flocks, send him therefore food for him and his people. But Nabal answered: "Who is David, and who is the son of Jesse? There are now many servants who run away from their masters." Then David set out in the night to fall upon Nabal's house and flocks. On the way Abigail, Nabal's wife, met him. In fear of the freebooters she had caused some slaughtered sheep, loaves, and pitchers of wine, some figs and cakes of raisins, to[Pg 138] be laid on asses in order to bring them secretly into David's camp. Praised be thy wisdom, woman, said David: by the life of Jehovah, if thou hadst not met me there would not have been alive at break of day a single male of Nabal and his house. Nabal died ten days after this incident. David saw that such a wealthy possession in this region could not but be advantageous. Saul's daughter was lost to him; he sent, therefore, some servants to Abigail to Carmel. They said, David has sent us to thee to take thee to him to wife. Abigail stood up, bowed herself with her face to earth, and said: Behold, thy handmaid is ready to wash the feet of the servants of thy master. Then she set out with five of her maids, and followed the servants of David and became his wife.[257] As a fact this marriage appears to have furthered the undertaking of David; the places in the south of Judah, Aroer, Hormah, Ramoth, Jattir, Eshtemod, and even Hebron, declared for him.[258] From this point David sought to force his way farther to the north, and possessed himself of the fortified town of Kegilah (Keilah).[259]

When Saul was told that David was in Kegilah, he said: God has delivered him into my hand in that he has shut himself up in a city with gates and bars.[Pg 139] He set out against Kegilah. David commanded Abiathar the priest, who had fled to him from Nob with the image of Jehovah, to bring the image, and David inquired of the image: Will the men of Kegilah deliver me and my followers into the hand of Saul? Jehovah, God of Israel, announce this to me. And Jehovah said, They will deliver thee.[260] Then David despaired of remaining in the city and fled; he retired again into the desert by the Dead Sea near Ziph and Maon. But Saul pursued and overtook him; nothing but a mountain separated David's troop from the king; David was already surrounded and lost, when the news was brought to Saul, "Hasten and come, for the Philistines are in the land." This was no doubt an incursion made by the Philistines in aid of the hardly-pressed rebels. Saul abandoned the pursuit and went against the Philistines: David called the mountain the rock of escape.[261] When the king had driven back the Philistines he took 3000 men out of the army to crush the rebellion utterly. David had retired farther to the east, on the shore of the Dead Sea, in the neighbourhood of Engedi, to the "rock of the goat," and there he was so closely shut in by Saul that he had to despair of remaining in Judah. He escaped with his troop to the Philistines: the rebellion was at an end.[262][Pg 140]

David's attempt to induce the tribe of Judah to fall away from Saul was entirely wrecked. Driven from the ground on which he had raised the standard of revolt, he no longer scrupled to enter formally into the service of the Philistines, and these must have welcomed the aid of a brave and skilful leader, who, though once their enemy, had already in Judah engaged the arms of Saul, the weight of which they had so often felt, and which had taken from them their dominion over Israel. Achish, king of Gath, to whom David again fled, was of opinion "that David had made himself to stink among his people, Israel, and would be his servant for ever;" and gave the border city Ziklag to be a dwelling for him and his band of freebooters.[263] David now settled as a vassal of Achish at Ziklag. At his command he was compelled to take the field, and also to deliver up a part of the spoil which he obtained.[264] Thus from the land of the Philis[Pg 141]tines, with his band, which here became strengthened by the discontented in Israel[265] who fled to him over the border, David carried on a petty war against Saul and his country. In these campaigns David was wise enough to spare his former adherents in Judah, the cities which had once declared for him, and his attacks were only directed against the adherents of Saul; in secret he even maintained his connection with his party in Judah, and to the elders of the cities which clung to him he sent presents out of the booty won in his raids and plundering excursions.[266]

David had already lived more than a year in Ziklag,[267] when the Philistines assembled all their forces against Saul. When the princes of the Philistines marshalled their army, and caused it to march past in troops, David and his men also came among the soldiers of Achish. Then the other princes said to Achish: What need of these Hebrews? Let not David go to the battle; he may become a traitor, and go over to his master, in order to win favour with Saul at the price of our heads. Achish trusted David, and said: He has already dwelt with me for a time, for years; to this day I have found nothing in him. But the[Pg 142] other princes insisted on their demand; perhaps they remembered the day of Michmash, when Saul had obtained his first victory over the Philistines with the aid of the Hebrews in their camp. When Achish announced to David that he could not accompany the army, he answered: What have I done, and what hast thou found in thy servant since I came to thee to this day, that I should not fight against the enemies of my king? In spite of his earnest desire, David was sent back.[268]

The army of the Philistines passed to the north, through the land of Ephraim, into the land of Issachar, and encamped at Shunem in the plain of Jezreel. On Mount Gilboa, over against them, Saul was encamped with the army of the Israelites.[269] The battle broke out, and the contest was severe. Saul saw his sons[Pg 143] Abinadab and Melchishua, and finally Jonathan himself, fall; the Israelites retired, and the archers of the enemy pressed on the king. Saul refused to fly, and survive the death of his sons and his first defeat. He called to his armour-bearer: Draw thy sword and slay me, that these uncircumcised may not come upon me and maltreat me. But the faithful comrade would not lift his hand against his master. Then Saul threw himself upon his sword, and the armour-bearer followed the example of the king. The army of the Israelites was scattered in every direction. The Philistines rejoiced when they found the corpse of Saul on Mount Gilboa. They took the armour from the dead king, and sent it round their whole land, that every one might be convinced that the dreaded leader of Israel was no longer living. Then the armour was laid up in the temple of Astarte. The Philistines cut off the head of the corpse and hung it up as a trophy in the temple of Dagon; the trunk and the corpses of the three sons of Saul were set up in the market-place of Beth-shan, not far from the field of battle, in order to show the Israelites that they had nothing more to hope from Saul and his race (1033 B.C.).[270]

Israel was benumbed with terror. The nurse let the young son of Jonathan, Mephibosheth, fall to the[Pg 144] ground when she heard the news of Gilboa. Many retired beyond the Jordan before the Philistines; others hastened to Ziklag, to place themselves under David's protection. But from Jabesh in Gilead, which Saul had once rescued from the most grievous distress, valiant men set out over the Jordan to Beth-shan. Here, at night, they took the corpses of Saul and his three sons from the market-place, brought them to Jabesh, and buried them under the tamarisk, and the inhabitants of Jabesh fasted and lamented seven days for Saul's death.[271] The Israelites had reason enough to sorrow and lament for Saul. From one of the songs of lamentation sung in these days it is convincingly clear what this man had done for them. "The gazelle, O Israel," so it was sung at that time, "is stricken on thy heights! Fallen are thy heroes! Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Ascalon, lest the daughter of the Philistine rejoice, lest the daughter of the uncircumcised triumph. Ye mountains of Gilboa, let there be no dew nor rain upon you, nor offerings of first-fruits! For there the shield of the mighty was cast away, the shield of Saul. From the blood of the slain, from the fat of the mighty, the bow of Jonathan turned not back, and the sword of Saul returned not empty. Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their death they were not divided. They were swifter than eagles, stronger than lions. Ye daughters of Israel, weep for Saul, who clothed you delicately in purple, and put ornaments of gold on your garments. How are the mighty fallen in battle."[272][Pg 145]

A single stroke had annihilated all that had been obtained in long and toilsome struggles. The Philistines were again masters on this side of Jordan as in the unhappy times before Saul. But in spite of the fall of the hero who had been the defence of Israel and the terror of the enemies, the monarchy remained, so firmly had Saul established it. Ishbosheth, the youngest son of Saul, had escaped the battle; with Abner, the general, he had found safety beyond the Jordan. Here he took up his abode at Machanaim, and the tribes on the other side of the Jordan recognised him as their king. Abner's sword was a strong support for Ishbosheth, and the adherence of the Israelites to Saul's family soon permitted him to force his way from Machanaim over the Jordan. Here, also, amid the arms of the Philistines, Ishbosheth was recognised as king. Thus Abner's courage and bravery succeeded in wresting the fruits of the victory at Gilboa from the Philistines, and liberating from their yoke first Ephraim and Benjamin, and then the whole region of the northern tribes.[273]

While Abner was engaged in preserving the remnants of Saul's dominion for his son, and in driving the Philistines out of the land, David looked after his own interests. The fresh terror of the overthrow at Gilboa had driven many Israelites to Ziklag. David's name stood high among the warriors of Israel, and protection against the Philistines was certain to be found with their vassal. The places in the tribe of Judah which[Pg 146] had formerly joined David now again resorted to him, and the tribe of Judah had previously been subject to the Philistines longer than any other, and was more accustomed to their dominion. As the tradition tells us, David inquired of Jehovah whether he should go from Ziklag into one of the cities of Judah, and Jehovah answered: Go to Hebron. This was done. "And the men of Judah there anointed David king of the house of Judah, for only the house of Judah adhered to David."[274] Thus David, after Saul's death, succeeded in the attempt which had failed in Saul's lifetime; he established an independent monarchy in the tribe of Judah. Here he ruled at Hebron at first quietly, under the protection of the Philistines.[275] But when Abner had again wrested the north and centre of the land from the hands of the Philistines, when Ishbosheth's rule again united the whole land as far as the tribe of Judah, he turned his arms not more against the Philistines than against their vassal at Hebron in order to complete the liberation of Israel.

"The strife was long between the house of Saul and the house of David,"—so runs the older account.[276] Of the events of this war between Judah and the rest of[Pg 147] the tribes, we only know that on a certain day Joab at the head of David's men, and Abner at the head of the men of Ishbosheth, strove fiercely at the pool of Gibeon, and Joab's brother Asahel was slain by Abner. For several years the war continued without any decisive result, till a division arose between Ishbosheth and Abner which gave David the advantage, and finally placed him on the throne of Saul. Ishbosheth appears to have become distrustful of Abner, to whom he owed everything. When Abner took Rizpah, the concubine of Saul, to himself, Ishbosheth thought that he intended in this way to establish a right to the throne, in order to wrest the dominion from himself, and did not conceal his anger.[277] Then Abner turned from the man he had exalted and entered into a secret negotiation with David. This was received with joy by David. Crafty as he was, he first demanded that his wife Michal, the daughter of Saul, whom Saul after David's rebellion had married to Phalti, should be sent back to him. David had found out the attachment of the Israelites to the house of Saul, and was no doubt of opinion that nothing would sooner help him to the throne than the renewed connection with Saul's family; if none of the descendants of Saul survived but this daughter he would be his legitimate heir. Abner sent Michal, and went himself to Hebron in order to arrange about the transfer of the kingdom. They were agreed; Abner had done his service. He was already on his way home to Machanaim, when Joab, the captain of David, called him back. He came, and Joab took him aside under the gate of Hebron, as though he had something to tell him in secret; instead, he thrust his sword through his body. David asserted his innocence and lamented Abner's death. Abner's body was buried[Pg 148] solemnly at Hebron. David followed the bier in sackcloth, but Joab remained unpunished.[278] He slew Abner because the latter had previously slain his brother Asahel at Gibeon; but this was done in honourable fight, not by assassination.

When the announcement of Abner's death came to Machanaim "Ishbosheth's hands were numbed, and all Israel was troubled." The Israelites lamented Abner's death. "Must Abner die as a godless man dieth?" they sang. "Thy hands were never bound, thy feet never fettered; thou hast fallen as a man falls before the children of iniquity."[279] The pillar of the kingdom was broken. Then two captains of the army of Ishbosheth, brothers of the tribe of Benjamin, hoped to gain favour with David. While Ishbosheth was resting at midday in his chamber on his bed, they entered unobserved into his house, cut off his head, and brought it hastily to Hebron to David. This murder carried David quickly to his goal, but he would not praise those who committed it; he caused them both to be executed.

The throne of Saul was empty. David, the husband of his daughter, was at the head of a not inconsiderable power; whom could the tribes who had obeyed Ishbosheth raise to the throne except him, if an end was to be put to the pernicious division, and the people were again to be united under one government? The elders of the tribes were intelligent enough to value rightly this position of affairs. Hence the people met together at Hebron; in full assembly David was raised to be king of Israel, and anointed by the elders.[280] Eight years had passed since Saul and his three elder[Pg 149] sons fell on Gilboa. All was full of joy, union, and hope that better times would come again after the end of the long strife (1025 B.C.).[281]

At length David stood at the goal which he had pursued steadfastly under many changes of fortune. But there were still some male descendants of Saul in existence. The Hivites of Gibeon cherished a deadly hatred to the race of Saul, because Saul's hand had been heavy upon them "in his zeal for the sons of Israel." David offered to "avenge the wrong which Saul had done to them."[282] They demanded, that as their land had borne no fruit for three years, seven men of the race of Saul should be given to them, that they might "hang them up before Jehovah at Gibeah," the dwelling-place of Saul. There were just seven male descendants of Saul remaining: two sons by Rizpah, his concubine, and five grandchildren, whom Merab, the eldest daughter of Saul, had borne to Adriel. These David took and "gave them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they hanged them up on the hill before Jehovah." There was still another descendant of Saul's remaining, Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan; but he was only 10 or 12 years of age, and was, moreover, lame of both feet, from the fall which he had suffered in the hands of his nurse. David also thought of the close friendship which he had contracted in earlier days with Jonathan; he gave to Mephibosheth Saul's land at Gibeah, and arranged that Saul and Jonathan's bones should be brought from Jabesh to Zelah, near Gibeah, and buried where Kish, Saul's father, lay. In the tribe of Benjamin, to which Saul belonged, and among those connected with his house, the acts of David to the house of Saul were not forgotten; they hated David, the "man of blood."

 

 

[Pg 150]

CHAPTER VII.

THE RULE OF DAVID.

At the cost of his nation, in collusion with the enemies of his land, and under the protection of the Philistines, David had paved the way to dominion over Israel. He had much to make good. He had to cause the way which led him to the throne to be forgotten, to heal the wounds which the long contention must have inflicted on his land, to surpass the great services which Saul had rendered to the Israelites by yet greater services, by more brilliant exploits, by more firmly-rooted institutions.

A brave warrior even in early years, David had been afterwards tested and strengthened by adventures and dangers of every kind; he had understood how to meet or escape even the most difficult situations. He had the inclination and power for great things, and was little scrupulous in the choice of the means which brought him most swiftly and completely to his object. His vision was clear and wide; clever, crafty, and quickly decided, he nevertheless knew how to wait when the object could not be obtained at the moment. It was his in an extraordinary measure to retain old comrades, to win new ones and attach them to himself. It was not his intention to be at the beck of the Philistines longer than he had need of them; with his elevation at Hebron came the moment for breaking[Pg 151] with them. He saw that they would not lose without a heavy price the preponderance in which his rebellion against Saul, his leadership in Judah, his struggle against Ishbosheth had again placed them; that their exasperation would be the deeper and more lasting because he had deceived the hopes which they had placed in him.

He began his reign with an undertaking which shows the certainty and width of his views. His dominion over the tribes of Simeon and Judah had been established for almost eight years, but over the northern tribes it was recent, and had to be confirmed. The remembrance of Saul was cherished most warmly in the tribe of Benjamin, which lay next to Judah on the north. In this land, not far from the northern border of Judah, was a city of the name of Jebus, inhabited by the Jebusites, a relic of the old population which at the time of the settlement the Benjaminites had not been able to overcome.[283] The city stood on steep heights, surrounded by deep gorges, which formed natural trenches; the walls of the eastern height on which the citadel stood, Mount Zion, were so strong that the Jebusites are said to have boasted that the blind and lame were sufficient to defend them. This city appeared to David excellently situated for protection against the Philistines and for his own royal abode; it had the faithful tribes of Judah and Simeon to the south, and was pushed forward like a fortification into the territory of Benjamin and the northern tribes. Nor was it useful only in establishing his dominion over Israel. Even in Saul's reign it had been difficult when an enemy invaded the open cantons of Israel to find time for assembling the fighting powers, the levy of the people; there had been no[Pg 152] fortified point on which the first shock of the enemy's onset broke, no city strongly fortified and of considerable size in which large numbers could find protection.

Soon after the assembly at Hebron, which had transferred to him the royal authority over all the tribes of Israel, David set himself to win this place. First he cut off the water from the city of the Jebusites, and then Joab with the veteran band of David succeeded in climbing the wall in a sudden attack. The inhabitants were spared; at any rate a part of them must have remained, for we afterwards find Jebusites in and about Jerusalem.[284]

The princes of the Philistines had begun to arm immediately upon the announcement of David's election to be king of all Israel.[285] David awaited their approach in the citadel of Zion which he had just conquered. The Philistines encamped before the city. When they were scattered in search of plunder in the valley of Rephaim David inquired of Jehovah whether he should go down against them. The answer was favourable. The Philistines were surprised and defeated. But they soon appeared a second time under the walls of Zion, and the oracle of Jehovah bade David not to go directly against them, but to turn aside under the balsam trees. If he heard the tops of the trees rustle he was to hasten on; that was the sign from God that he would go before him to smite the camp of the Philistines. So it befel. David gained a great victory and was enabled to pursue the Philistines as far as Gezer.[286] Yet the war was not decided, but still continued for a long time. Four battles took place on the borders near Gob and Gath, and many severe combats had to be fought with the Philistines. From all the traces[Pg 153] of tradition it is clear that this war was the most stubborn and dangerous of all that David had to wage. In Israel there were stories of the brave deeds of individual heroes which were accomplished in these battles: of Abishai, the brother of Joab, who saved the king in battle, when the mighty Philistine Ishbi thought to overcome him; of Elhanan, who slew Goliath of Gath; and of the deeds of Jonathan, the nephew of David, and Sibbechai against the Philistines.[287] At length David succeeded in "wresting the bridle out of the hand of the Philistines," and "breaking their horn in pieces;"[288] he drove them back to their old borders. They had suffered such serious blows that for a long time they abstained from all further attacks, after they had carried on warfare against the Hebrews for about 70 years. Yet even David, in spite of this success, made no serious attempt to advance the borders of Israel towards the sea, or to subjugate the cities of the Philistines.

When the most pressing danger from the Philistines was over, David turned his arms to the south and east, against the Amalekites, the Moabites, and Ammonites, who had once caused so much misery and disaster to Israel. Against the Amalekites Saul had already accomplished the main task (p. 127). David smote them with such effect that the name of the Amalekites is hardly once mentioned afterwards; the remainder of the race seem to have been amalgamated with the Edomites.[289] David had at a former time entered into connection with the king of Moab; when he fled from Saul he placed his parents under his protection. The[Pg 154] cause of the rupture is unknown; we only know that David utterly overthrew the Moabites and caused two-thirds of the prisoners to be put to death. It is said that they were compelled to lie down; they were then divided by a measuring cord into three parts, of which two were slain by iron threshing-carts being drawn over them, and only a third part were spared.[290] Nahash, the king of Ammon, with whom David had also previously been in relations (p. 136), was succeeded by his son Hanon. This prince insulted David's envoys, he caused their beards to be shaved off, and their garments to be cut away as high as the middle.

David sent Joab with the levy of the people against the Ammonites to avenge the insult. Hanon called on the king of Zobah—Saul had already had to fight against Zobah—and the rulers of Beth-Rehob, Maacah, and Tob in Syria for assistance. Hadad-Ezer of Zobah sent 20,000 men; from Tob came 12,000; from Maacah 1000. Joab divided his army, left his brother Abishai to oppose the Ammonites, and turned himself with picked men against the Syrians and defeated them before they could join the Ammonites.[291] After this defeat the Ammonites also retired before Abishai into their fortified city of Rabbath-Ammon on the Nahr-Ammon. But in the next spring Hadad-Ezer collected his whole force. David marched across the Jordan to meet the Syrians, and defeated Hadad-Ezer in a decisive battle at Helam; the Israelites carried off the chariots of the enemy for spoil; 1700 horsemen and 20,000 foot-soldiers were captured.[292] David followed up this victory and overran the cities of the king of Zobah, when the king of Damascus took the field in aid of Hadad-Ezer, and the Edomites invaded Judah from[Pg 155] the south. David remained in the field against the Syrians, and sent Joab with only a part of the army against the Edomites. In the salt valley, at the southern end of the Dead Sea, Joab and Abishai defeated the Edomites; 12,000 out of 18,000 are said to have fallen on this day.[293] In spite of this severe defeat the Edomites made a stubborn resistance. Joab, in continuous struggles which went on for six months, destroyed a great part of the male population (the son of the king of Edom was carried by the servants of his father to Egypt), and subjugated the rest of the inhabitants to the dominion of David. While Joab was fighting in Edom, David had defeated the men of Damascus and brought the war in the north to an end. Thoi, the king of Hamath, whom Hadad-Ezer had previously oppressed, entered into a league with David. Only the Ammonites still continued to resist. Joab was sent against them in the next year; he laid their land waste, and took one city after another. The captives were placed under saws and axes, and burnt in kilns, or slain like the Moabites under iron threshing-wagons. At length Joab could announce to David that Rabbath-Ammon, the chief city of the Ammonites, was reduced to extremities; the king must come to enter into the city. Rabbath was destroyed (about 1015 B.C.[294]); the inhabitants shared the fate of the other Ammonite cities. From the Syrian campaign David had brought back a trophy of 100 war-horses, copper vessels from the cities of Hadad-Ezer of Zobah which were captured,[Pg 156] and finally the golden shields which the commanders of this king had carried. From Rabbath he brought home the golden crown of the king of the Ammonites,—it is said to have been a Kikkar (I. 285) in weight and set with precious stones,—together with other utensils of silver and gold. The Moabites, the Ammonites, and Edomites were compelled to pay tribute. Garrisons were put in the strong places; even Damascus is said to have received a garrison of Israelites.[295]

After Saul had first saved Israel out of the hand of their oppressors, after these advantages were lost by the domestic strife, David had now formed the Israelites into a ruling nation from isolated tribes who had been so often and so long plundered by their enemies. He had come victorious out of the most severe struggles. With reason could Israel now sing: "Saul has slain his thousands, David his tens of thousands."

It was a rapid and brilliant transformation. David was master from the borders of Egypt, the north-east point of the Red Sea, to Damascus. He was not content with successfully establishing his rule for the moment by these great and brilliant deeds of arms; he intended to give it a solid support for the future. He employed the spoils of his victories in order to fortify more strongly and extend the city which he had chosen for his metropolis; it was now called the city of David, and afterwards Jerusalem.[296] On Zion, the citadel of Jerusalem, David caused a royal palace to be built. In the city the remnant of the Jebusites had been joined by inhabitants from the tribes of Judah and Benjamin. If David hoped to lessen the disaffection of the tribe of Benjamin by establishing a royal citadel in their land he had not calculated wrongly.[Pg 157] The sequel shows that Benjamin, which previously held to Ephraim, now stood fast by Judah.

In possession of a considerable and well-fortified metropolis, and a strong royal citadel, David was able to rule over Israel with greater safety and severity than Saul from his rural court at Gibeah. Moreover, David intended to create independent means and property for the crown, and kept together what he had won. From the tribute of the subjugated nations he formed a treasury, which was placed under the care of Asmaveth. In addition we hear of overseers of the royal gardens, oliveyards, vineyards, and sycamore plantations, and we learn that David kept flocks of small cattle, herds of oxen, and camels.[297]

The strongest support of the throne were his selected and thoroughly devoted troops of warriors. David was accompanied by a body-guard which was always with him (Saul had had round him some "runners"). It appears from the name, Pelethites and Cherethites, to have been entirely composed of foreigners; their leader was Benaiah.[298] The core of the army was formed not by this body-guard, but by the freebooters who once gathered round him in the cave of Adullam and at Ziklag, warriors tried often and in numerous battles. They remained in one body in Jerusalem, and were maintained by the king. This band—it was apparently about 600 men in number,[299] and in the ranks were also foreigners, Hittites, Ammonites, Moabites, and others, who formerly associated with David, or were attracted by the fame of his deeds—was called the troop of the mighty, "Gibborim;" accompanied by armour-bearers and servants, they took the field. They were[Pg 158] divided into three portions, under three leaders; at their head fought 30 selected heroes: Abishai, Joab's brother, was the captain.[300] As simple peasants, the Israelites had always fought on foot, without horses and horsemen; David, after the pattern of the Syrians, introduced chariots. Josheb Bassebet was the captain of the war-chariots.[301] Along with the Gibborim, the chariots were intended to give, as trained divisions, firmness and support to the levy of the whole people.

In order to regulate the levy, Joab, the chief captain, with some of his subordinates, was commanded to enumerate and write down all the fighting men from the Jabbok to Mount Hermon, and from Dan to Beersheba. Nine months and twenty days were required by the captains for this task. When the muster was completed, captains were appointed for hundreds and thousands; but in order that the whole mass of the people need not be called out on every campaign and every attack of the enemy,—in which hitherto, for the most part, only those who were eager for battle had engaged, while those who preferred peace and rest remained at home,—the whole number of the fighting men was divided into twelve portions, of which each, in number 24,000 men, was pledged to service for one month in the year. Each of these divisions had a separate captain. As occasion required, several of the divisions, or all, might be called out. If we may trust these accounts, Israel had at that time 300,000 fighting men, and consequently a population of about two millions.[302][Pg 159]

Hitherto the descendants of the oldest families, the heads of the tribes, the successors of those who in the conquest of the land had won for themselves separate localities and valleys, had enjoyed a pre-eminent position within the circle of the various tribes (p. 91). To them, or to brave warriors, the Israelites had gone,—to men who had become of importance owing to their possessions, and who had the reputation of passing sound judgments,—or to priests and soothsayers, when they sought for advice, protection, and justice. Since the establishment of the monarchy the king was the supreme judge. David exercised this office as Saul had done.[303] But though he retained the right of deciding in the last instance, David seems to have appointed the princes and judges of the tribes; he charged certain of his adherents with the duty of giving justice to the tribes and communities, although, of course, every man had the right of appeal from his decision to the decision of the king. Jurisdiction and administration not yet being separated, we may suppose that a regular government, which secured to the throne the execution of its will and of the orders given, was established by this means already in David's reign. We find that, beside the captains of the army,[Pg 160] the officers of the house and treasury, the king had a chancellor, a scribe, and overseer of the taxes. Ahithophel was the man on whose advice David mainly depended; his most trusted friend was Hushai; and in the last twenty years of his life the prophet Nathan enjoyed a high place in his favour.[304]

It was a marvellous career that lay behind David. He had grown up in a hardy youth; early approved as a brave warrior and skilful leader, he was then raised to the side of Saul and Jonathan; after this he experienced the most sudden reverse of fortune, and at length by very perplexed paths he reached the highest stage. On this he had been able to retrieve many mistakes; he came victorious out of every conflict. Saul's deeds were surpassed, and Israel was proud of the successes of David and the respect which he won for her. He had securely established his authority; it was founded so firmly that the crown must pass to his descendants. The religious feeling which impelled him to inquire of Jehovah before every undertaking, which brought him at an early period into connection with the seers and priests, could not but increase as he looked back upon the course of his life. Who had greater reason than he to be thankful to the God who protected him and guided him so marvellously, who saved him out of every danger and had raised him to such power and splendour? In early days singing and harp-playing had occupied the leisure of his shepherd life; gifted with poetic powers, he understood how to give a powerful expression to his gratitude towards Jehovah. After these great wars he is said to have sung: "Jehovah, my rock, my fortress, my shield; the horn of my salvation, my defence. I called on him who is worthy of praise, and[Pg 161] was delivered from my enemies. Out of his palace he heard my voice, and my cry came into his ears. Then the earth moved and quaked, and the foundations of the earth trembled, for he was wroth. Smoke rose out of his nostrils, and a consuming fire went from his mouth; coals burned forth from him. He bowed the heavens, and came down on the cherubim, and hovered on the wings of the wind. He made darkness his veil, the tempest and dark cloud his tabernacle. Jehovah thundered, and the Highest gave forth his voice, hail-stones and coals of fire. He shot forth his arrows and destroyed the enemy, the lightning fell and dispersed them. With thee, Jehovah, I went against hosts, and with my God I climbed over walls. Jehovah girded me with power; he gave me feet like harts' feet; he taught my hand the battle, so that my arm strung the iron bow. I pursued my enemies and overtook them, and turned not back till I had destroyed them; I shattered them in pieces that they could not rise up; I scattered them like dust before the wind; I cast them forth like dung. Thou, Jehovah, didst save me from the battles of the nations, and didst place me at their head; nations which I knew not serve me. At a rumour they obey me, and the sons of strangers flatter me; they sink away and tremble out of their castles. Praised be my protector, exalted be the God of my salvation."[305]

It was not in praise and thanksgiving only that David gave expression to the grateful feeling which filled him towards God; he had it much at heart to create a lasting abode and visible centre for the worship of Jehovah. For 20 years the sacred ark of Israel had remained at Kirjath-jearim, in the house of Abinadab, who had made one of his sons the custodian of it. David[Pg 162] determined to convey it into his metropolis, that it might there be in secure keeping, and receive proper reverence. It was placed on a new wagon; Abinadab's sons, Ahio and Uzzah, led it forth. On the way an evil omen occurred: the oxen which drew the wagon broke loose, the ark tottered, and Uzzah put out his hand to stay it. "Then the anger of Jehovah broke forth against Uzzah, and he smote him, and he died there before God." After this incident David feared to carry the ark further; it remained on the road, at the house of Obed-edom; and not until it was seen that it brought prosperity to the house of Obed-edom did David, three months after, again take it up and carry it to Jerusalem. In festal train the people accompanied it with "shouting and trumpets;" and David, clad in the linen tunic of the priests, "danced before Jehovah." "Lift up your heads, O ye gates, that the King of glory may come in," he is said to have sung. The tabernacle was already erected on Zion, and in it the ark of Jehovah was then placed; and "David sacrificed burnt offerings and thank offerings, and gave to all the people, to each man a measure of wine, a loaf of bread and a cake of raisins" (about 1020 B.C.[306]). Abiathar, the son of Ahimelech, of the house of Eli, of the race of Ithamar, of the tribe of Aaron, who had formerly fled to him with the image of Jehovah from[Pg 163] Nob and remained by his side, and beside him Zadok, of the house of Eleazar, of the tribe of Aaron, who had hitherto been high priest at the place of sacrifice at Gibeon,[307] were made by David the custodians of the new tabernacle, which he then adorned with the costly spoil of his victories. By bringing the ark of the covenant into his city he gave it a sacred pledge, the assurance of the protection and the grace of Jehovah. His city was the dwelling of Jehovah, the citadel of Zion the mount of God. David's new metropolis was thus at the same time raised to be the central point of the national worship, and in the fullest sense the metropolis of the land. Service before the ark of the covenant on Zion could not but throw into the shade the old places of sacrifice at Shiloh, Bethel, Gibeon, Gilgal, and Nob.

The erection of the sacred ark on Zion, the foundation of a central point for the worship, certainly met the wishes of the priests. Only by a strictly-regulated and dominant mode of worship, by centralising the service, could the priests hope to bring into vogue the arrangement of ritual which they regarded as the true method appointed by God. Relying on the importance of such a central point, on the authority of the crown, they could expect obedience to their regulations. David on his part would hardly fail to see what weight the influence of an allied priesthood could add to the strength of the throne.

What David did for Israel by the cultivation of religious song, by setting up the old national shrine in the new metropolis, by the dedication of it to be the abode of Jehovah has been of deep-reaching and even decisive influence for the fortunes of Israel and the course of her religious development. It is, of course,[Pg 164] beyond doubt that only a few of the Psalms which David is said to have sung can with certainty be traced back to him; but from the fact that the greater part of these poems could be ascribed to him, it follows with the greater certainty that he must have given a powerful impulse to the religious poetry of Israel, that the words of thankfulness and trust in God from the lips of the victorious royal minstrel had the greatest influence on the Israelites. This influence connected with the exaltation and worship of the national sacred relic at Zion gave a new life and firmer root to the belief of the Israelites, both in the direction of religious feeling and religious prescriptions. When the chief place of sacrifice was marked out indubitably by the sacred ark on Zion, and members of the oldest priestly family officiated there, it was natural that by degrees a considerable number of priests should collect there, in order to share and co-operate in the worship in the sacred tent, in the tabernacle. These priests were arranged according to their families or "houses;" the greater number claimed Eleazar, the third son of Aaron, as their progenitor, while the less claimed to be descended from Ithamar, the fourth son of Aaron.[308] The eyes of the priesthood were already turned from Hebron to the early history of the nation, to the correct mode of worship, as Aaron and Moses had formerly proclaimed and practised it, which since the settlement in Canaan had become almost forgotten and obsolete with priests and laymen, since different customs had come into use at different places of sacrifice. The service at the new and yet ancient shrine at Jerusalem must support the impulse to practise, here at any rate, the old correct customs in perfect purity as a pattern and example, to insist on the custom of Zion as pleasing[Pg 165] to God, and established by Moses, and to bring once more into authority and practice the true regulations of the sacrificial rites for the whole land. Agreement and union in the mode of worship would be most quickly and most thoroughly obtained if the place of the tabernacle could be shown to be the only correct place of sacrifice.

Though the Philistines had opposed the growth of the strength of Israel, the combination and arrangement of her powers, with perseverance and stubbornness, the cities of the Phenicians seem rather to have welcomed the establishment of a strict ruling authority in Israel, which preserved peace in the land and so made trade easier. Perhaps too they looked with pleasure on the formation of a power which could balance that of the Philistines, and prevent them from advancing as far as the gates of Tyre. At any rate Hiram, king of Tyre, who began to rule in that city in the year 1001 B.C.,[309] entered into friendly relations with David. He sent him Tyrian artisans, who adorned David's palace on Zion. The Israelites were not skilled in fine building. After this palace was completed we must look on David's house and court as splendid and numerous. There was the chancellor, the keeper of the treasury, the chief tax-gatherer, the scribe with his subordinates; there were singers, male and female, the body-guard, and the servants.[310] David had brought seven wives from Hebron to his new metropolis. Michal, the daughter of Saul, had borne no children to David; his eldest son, Amnon, was by Ahinoam of Jezreel; the second, Chileab, by Abigail, the widow of Nabal. When he ruled the tribe of Judah from Hebron he married a fourth wife, Maacah, the daughter of[Pg 166] Thalmai, prince of Geshur, in order, no doubt, to strengthen by this connection his power, then so weak. Maacah bore him a third son, Absalom, and a daughter, Tamar; his fifth wife, Haggith, bore a fourth son, Adonijah. In Jerusalem he took yet more wives and concubines into his house, who, besides these sons, bore seventeen sons and several daughters, beside Tamar. When his sons became men, the unavoidable consequences of the harem came to light: the mutual jealousy of the sons of the various wives, and the ambition of some of the wives to obtain the succession for their sons.

The establishment of the monarchy had brought a rich return to the Israelites. Under its guidance, not only had the enemies of the land been beaten back, but Israel had gained a leading place in Syria. Moreover, David had transformed the somewhat insecure leadership conferred on Saul by his election into a firm and deep-reaching supremacy; a mere name, a wavering authority, he had raised after the pattern of his neighbours into a strict rule, which could lead the people at will, and dispose of them at pleasure. This transformation had taken place so quickly, the enrolment of Israel in the forms of Syrian monarchy was carried out so thoroughly, that there could not fail to be a strong reaction. The new officers were oppressive; task-work for the king, levies of the army for muster and for service beyond the land, were to the Israelites new and very unwonted burdens. When external dangers had passed away with the humiliation of the neighbours, and the days of the old incursions, distresses, and oppressions were forgotten, it might very well happen that the Israelites felt the new arrangement of the community, the mode in which they were governed, to be a burden rather than a benefit. In the later years of the reign of[Pg 167] David a lively aversion to his rule was spread through all the tribes; and it is remarkable that it was most deeply felt in his own tribe of Judah, which had formerly exalted him in Hebron. On this feeling of the people, David's third son, Absalom, founded the plan of depriving his father of the sovereignty, in order to ascend the throne before it came to him by inheritance.[311]

Absalom, David's son by Maacah of Geshur, was a handsome man, without blemish from head to foot, adorned with a heavy growth of hair, and a favourite of the people, though the guilt of a foul deed lay upon him. The beauty of Tamar, the full sister of Absalom, had roused the passions of Amnon, the eldest son of David. He enticed her into his house by deceit, dishonoured her and thrust her in scorn into the street. As the king did not punish the crime, Absalom invited Amnon to his plot of Baal Hazor, to the sheep-shearing, and there caused him to be stabbed by his servants in order to avenge his sister's shame. After this he fled to his grandfather, the prince of Geshur. After three years' banishment he was allowed to return, but might not see his father's face; this was not permitted till two years after his return. Amnon was dead; Chileab, David's second son, died, as it seems, in this period. Absalom was now again received into favour, and became the legitimate heir to the throne.[Pg 168]

As a token of his claims, Absalom procured horses, and chariots and a retinue of 50 men. Early in the morning he was at the gates of Jerusalem; he inquired of every one whence he came, allowed no one to prostrate himself before him, but shook all by the hand and kissed them. If he heard that any one came for justice, he caused the matter to be told to him, and then said: Your cause is good, but you will not be heard; if I were judge in Israel you would certainly gain your rights. Four years after his return from Geshur, when Ahithophel, the most distinguished of David's counsellors, and Amasa, the son of a sister of David, had gone over to his side,[312] Absalom considered his prospects favourable. He sent trusty men to all the tribes with instructions to proclaim him king as soon as they understood that he was in Hebron. Under pretence of offering sacrifice at Hebron, which city perhaps looked with jealousy on the new metropolis, Absalom went from Jerusalem to Hebron. The tribes obeyed this signal for revolt; everywhere the people on this side Jordan declared for Absalom, and great numbers gathered round him. At their head he set out against Jerusalem, against his father.

David was completely taken by surprise. His own son now brought on him retribution for all that he had previously done to Saul. Clever and circumspect as the old king was, he seems to have found his master in his son. Not secure of the people even at Jerusalem, he could not venture to defend himself in his fortified metropolis; nothing remained but to retire in all haste. Yet even in this desperate position the cunning which had so often come to his aid in his varied life did not desert him. Absalom he feared little; his greatest terror was the counsels of Ahithophel. Hence he commanded[Pg 169] Hushai (p. 160) to remain behind, and in appearance to take Absalom's part, in order to counteract Ahithophel. If Absalom could be induced not to pursue his advantage immediately, and David could gain time to collect his adherents, much would be won. Abiathar and Zadok also, the high priests of the sacred tabernacle, who wished to share his flight, were bidden to remain in Jerusalem. Their position as priests was a sufficient protection for them; by means of their sons they were to furnish information of what took place in the city.[313] Accompanied by some of his wives and their children, by his most faithful adherents, the Gibborim, and the body-guard, David left the city in the early morning. Over the Kidron, along the Mount of Olives, he hastened eastwards to find protection beyond the Jordan. At Bahurim Shimei, a man of Benjamin, of the race of Matri, to which Saul belonged, saw from an eminence the flight of the king. He threw stones down upon him and said: May Jehovah bring upon thee all the blood of the house of Saul, in whose place thou hast become king; see, thou art now in calamity; away, thou man of blood. The body-guard wished to take the man and slay him, but David restrained them, and said: My son, who has come forth from my loins, is seeking my life; how much more a man of Benjamin; let him curse. Perhaps at this moment David's spirit was really broken; perhaps he did not wish that the people should be further roused by new acts of violence; in the sequel he showed that he had neither forgotten nor forgiven the words of Shimei.

On the same day Absalom marched into Jerusalem, and among those who greeted him he saw with astonishment Hushai, the ancient friend of his father. He believed Hushai's assurance that he wished to "serve[Pg 170] him whom Jehovah and all the men of Israel had chosen." Ahithophel considered the success which had been obtained, the rebellion which spread through the whole country on this side of the Jordan, and the possession of the strong metropolis and the palace without a blow, insufficient and indecisive. He saw the situation clearly, and was convinced that all would be lost if the king had time to collect round him his old adherents, his companions in victory. Filled with the conviction that the only way to obtain the end in view was to make an immediate use of the great advantages won by the surprise, he insisted that Absalom should at once set out in pursuit of David. The people which Absalom had led from Hebron were numerous, of these he wished to leave behind the burdensome multitude and select 12,000 for this expedition. Hushai opposed this proposal with great skill. Thou knowest thy father, he said to Absalom, he is a mighty warrior, like a bear deprived of her whelps in the forest, and his men are mighty and of fierce courage. He will not be encamped on the field, but will have concealed himself in one of the hiding-places. If any of our men fall it will be said, Absalom's men have been defeated, and all thy adherents will lose courage. Rather rouse all Israel, and march out at their head, that we may encamp against David like the sand of the sea, and none of his men may escape. Absalom followed this advice to his ruin. Yet Hushai was not certain that Ahithophel would not win over Absalom to his opinion, or go of his own will against David; so he sent his maid before the gate to the fuller's well (to the south of the city, where the valleys of Hinnom and Kidron join), where Jonathan, the son of Abiathar, and Ahimaaz, the son of Zadok, lay concealed (Absalom's men had not allowed them to leave the[Pg 171] gate), with instructions to them to hasten to the king and warn him not to encamp on this side of Jordan. Though watched by Absalom's guards and pursued, the two men came without disaster to David, who again set out in the night. When Ahithophel heard that the king was beyond Jordan he despaired of the undertaking; he saddled his ass, went to his own city, set his house in order and hung himself.

Absalom took formal possession of the sovereignty, and as a sign that he had broken for ever with his father and assumed the government, he took the royal harem into his possession. A tent was set up on the roof of the palace of Zion, under which Absalom lived with the ten concubines whom David had left behind in Jerusalem before the eyes of Israel. When this was done he raised the whole people to march against his father, and went with numerous troops to the Jordan. David was at Mahanaim, like Ishbosheth before him, eagerly busied with his army. It was due to the cunning arrangements made in the flight from Jerusalem that he had escaped without danger beyond Jordan, and was enabled to assemble his own adherents there while Absalom was calling out and collecting the whole army. From the Ammonites, whom he had treated so harshly, he seems nevertheless to have received support.[314]

While Absalom crossed the Jordan, David divided the forces he had at his disposal into three corps, the command of which he entrusted to Joab, his brother Abishai, and Ithai, a Philistine of Gath. He remained behind in Mahanaim, and bade the captains deal gently with Absalom in the event of victory. The armies met in the forest of Ephraim, not far from the Jordan. In spite of the superiority of the numbers opposed to them, the tried and veteran soldiers of David had the advantage[Pg 172] over the ill-armed and ill-organised masses of peasants. Absalom started back on his mule, fell into a thicket, and became entangled by his long hair in the branches of a large terebinth. He remained hanging while his mule ran away from under him. Joab found him in this position, and thrust his spear thrice through his heart. Either the fall of the hostile leader, the author of the rebellion, appeared a sufficient success to David's men, or the advantage gained over Absalom's army was not very great, or they found themselves too weak to follow it up. Joab led the army back to Mahanaim.

Though the rebellion had lost its leader by the fall of Absalom, it was far from being crushed. Absalom's captain, Amasa, the nephew of David, collected the masses of the rebellious army; the elders of the tribes, as well as the people, were ready to continue the struggle against David, though some were again inclined to accept their old king. If the tribes could be divided, and Amasa separated from the elders of Judah, the victory was almost certain. On this David built his plan. By means of the priests Abiathar and Zadok he caused it to be made known to the elders of Judah that the rest of the tribes had made overtures to him, to recognise him again as king, which was not the case;—would they be the last to lead back their own flesh and blood, their tribesman David? At the same time the priests were bidden to offer to Amasa the post of captain-general as the reward of his return, and this offer David confirmed with an oath: So might God do to him if Amasa were not captain all his days in the place of Joab.[315] The elders of Judah allowed themselves to be entrapped no less than Amasa, who little knew with whom he had to do. They sent a message to the king that he might return over the Jordan, and[Pg 173] went to meet him at Gilgal. David showed himself placable, and prepared to pardon the adherents of Absalom. Shimei, who had cursed him on his retirement from Jerusalem, went to meet him at the Jordan; and when the boat which carried David over reached the hither bank he fell at his feet. David promised not to slay him with the sword.[316] From Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan, who had declared for Absalom, he only took the half of Saul's inheritance.[317]

The remaining tribes were enraged at the tribe of Judah, partly because they had abandoned the common cause, partly because Judah had entirely appropriated the merit of bringing back the king. Their feelings were wavering: half were for submission, the others for continuing the resistance.[318] Then rose up a man of Benjamin, Sheba, the son of Bichri. "What part have we in David, what portion in the son of Jesse?" he cried to the waverers, caused the trumpets to be blown, and gave a new centre to rebellion and resistance. David commissioned Amasa to call out the warriors of Judah within three days and lead them to Jerusalem. While Amasa was occupied with carrying out this command, David sent Joab with the Gibborim and the body-guard against Sheba. At Gibeon Joab met Amasa. Is all well with thee, my brother? he said, and took him by the beard with his right hand to greet him, while with the left he thrust his sword through his body.[319] Thus, after he had been gained by deceptive promises, the dangerous man was removed as Abner had been before him. Sheba could not withstand the impetuous advance of Joab; the tribes submitted. Sheba's first resistance was made far in the[Pg 174] north at Dan, in the city of Abel-beth-maachah, and there he defended himself so stubbornly that a rampart was thrown up against the city and besieging engines brought up against the walls. When the walls were near upon falling, and the citizens saw destruction before them, they saved themselves by cutting off Sheba's head and sending it to Joab.[320] The reaction of the people against the new government, at the head of which Absalom, Amasa, and Sheba had successively placed themselves, was overcome.

Many years before, at the time when Joab was besieging Rabbath, the metropolis of the Ammonites, David had gone out on the roof of his house in Zion in the cool of the evening. This position overlooked the houses in the ravine which separated the citadel from the city. In one of these David saw a beautiful woman in her bath. This was Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah, a Hittite, who served in the troop of the "mighty." The king sent for her to his palace, and she soon announced to David that she was with child. David gave orders to Joab to send Uriah from the camp to Jerusalem. He asked him of the state of the war and the army, and then bade him go home to his wife, but Uriah lay before the gate of the palace. When David asked him on the next morning why he had not gone home to his house, he answered: Israel is in the field, and my fellows lie in the camp before Rabbath, and shall I go to my house to eat and drink and lie with my wife? Remain here, replied David; to-morrow morning I will let thee go. David invited him into the palace and made him drunken, but, as before, Uriah passed the night before the gate of the palace. Then, on the following day, David sent Uriah to the camp with a letter to Joab: Place Uriah in the thickest of the[Pg 175] battle, and turn away from him, that he may be smitten, and die. Soon after a messenger came from the camp and announced to the king: The men of Rabbath made a sally; we repulsed them, and drove them to the gate; then the bowmen shot at thy servants from the walls, and some of our men were slain, among them Uriah. David caused Bathsheba, when the time for mourning was over, to come into his harem, and after the death of her first child, she bore a second child, whom David called Solomon, i. e. the peaceful,[321] as the times of war were over with the capture of Rabbath and the subjugation of the Ammonites.

After Absalom's death the heir to the crown was Adonijah, the fourth son of David, whom Haggith had borne to him while at Hebron. Solomon was the seventh in the series of the surviving sons of David, and as yet quite young; yet Bathsheba attempted to place her son on the throne. One of the two high priests, Zadok, supported Bathsheba's views, as also Nathan the prophet, who acquired great influence with David in the last years of his reign. Both might expect a greater deference to priestly influence from the youthful Solomon than from the older and more independent Adonijah, and the more so if they assisted the young man to gain the throne against the legitimate successor. So Bathsheba prevailed upon David to swear an oath by Jehovah that Solomon should be his successor in the place of Adonijah.[322] But Adonijah did not doubt that the throne belonged to him, that all Israel was of the same conviction, and their eyes turned upon him.[323] If Zadok was in favour of Solomon's succession, Abiathar, the old and influential adherent of David, was for Adonijah, and what was[Pg 176] more important, the captain of the army, Joab, who had won David's best victories, also declared for him. On the other hand, Bathsheba's party won Benaiah, the captain of the body-guard, so that the power and prospects of both party were about equal.

When David, 70 years old, lay on his death-bed, Adonijah felt that he must anticipate his opponents. He summoned his adherents to meet outside the walls at the fuller's well (p. 170). Joab appeared with the leaders of the army, Abiathar came to offer sacrifice, and all the sons of David except Solomon. The sacrifice was already being offered, the sheep, oxen and calves were killed, the proclamation of Adonijah was to follow immediately after the sacrifice, when the intelligence was carried to the opposite party. Bathsheba and Nathan hastened to the dying king to remind him of his oath in favour of Solomon. He gave orders that Solomon should be placed on the mule which he always rode himself and that Zadok should anoint the youth under the wall of Zion eastwards of the city at the fount of Gihon. Then Benaiah with the body-guard was to bring him back into the city at once with the sound of trumpets, and lead him into the palace, in order to set him upon the throne there. This was done. Zadok took the horn of oil from the sacred tabernacle, and when the new ruler returned in solemn procession to the palace all the people cried with joy: Long live king Solomon. When Adonijah and his adherents heard the shouting from the city, and understood what had taken place, they gave up their cause for lost, and dispersed in dread in every direction. David rejoiced over this last success;[324] he called Solomon to his bedside, and said to him: "Do good to the sons of Barzillai the[Pg 177] Gileadite; he received me well when I fled over Jordan before thy brother Absalom. Shimei, who cursed me when I fled to Mahanaim, I have sworn not to slay; let him not go unpunished, and bring his grey hairs to the grave with blood. What Joab did to Abner and Amasa thou knowest; let not his grey hairs go down to the grave in peace."[325] David was buried in the grave which he had caused to be made on Zion, where the heights of the citadel meet the western height, on which the city lay.

Thus David had succeeded in healing the wounds which his ambition had inflicted in past days on Israel; he understood how to establish firmly the monarchy, and along with it the power and security of the state. He had given such an important impulse to the worship, to the religious poetry, and consequently to the religious life, of the Hebrews, that his reign has remained of decisive importance for the entire development of Israel. But beside these great successes and high merits lie very dark shadows. If we cannot but admire the activity and bravery, the wisdom and circumspection, which distinguish his reign, there stands beside these qualities not only the weakness of his later years, which caused him to make a capricious alteration in the succession, thereby endangering the work of his life; other actions, both of his earlier and later years, show plainly that in spite of religious feeling and sentiment he did not hesitate to set aside very fundamental rules of morality when it came to winning the object he had in view.

If even in his last moments he causes Joab to be put to death by the hand of his son, it may be[Pg 178] that this old servant, when he had taken the side of the other son in the succession, appeared very dangerous for the rule of the younger son. But Joab had rendered the greatest services to David, he had won for him the most brilliant victories; and if our account makes David give the murder of Abner and Amasa as the reason for that command, David had made no attempt to punish one deed or the other; on the contrary, he had gladly availed himself of at least the results and fruits of them. We must not indeed measure those days of unrestrained force and violent passion in hatred and love, in devotion and ambition, by the standard of our own tamer impulses; the manner of the ancient East, above all of the Semites, was too much inclined to the most bloody revenge. Yet David's instructions to destroy a man of no importance, whom he had once in a difficult position sworn to spare, out of the grave, by the hand of his son, goes beyond the limit of all that we can elsewhere find in those times and feelings.

 

 

[Pg 179]

CHAPTER VIII.

KING SOLOMON.

In the last hour of his life David had raised his favourite son to the throne. The young king was not much more than 20 years of age,[326] and the news of the death of the dreaded ruler of Israel could not but awaken among all who had felt the weight of his arm the hope of withdrawing themselves from the burden laid upon them. The son of the king of Edom, whom his father's servants had carried away in safety into Egypt, had grown up there under the protection of the Pharaoh; at the news of David's death he hastened to Edom to summon his people to freedom and the struggle against Israel. A captain of Hadad-Ezer of Zobah, whom David overthrew, Rezon by name, fled at that time into the desert, where he collected a troop round him and lived by plundering. Now he threw himself on Damascus, gained the city, and made himself prince. Moreover, the power of Solomon was not firmly established even in Israel; the people had expected the accession of Adonijah,[327] and though he[Pg 180] and his confederates retired at the first alarm, there was no lack of adherents. Serious dangers and commotions appeared to threaten the new reign. Adonijah had fled for refuge to the altar; he besought Solomon for a pledge not to slay him. Solomon promised to spare him if he remained quietly at home. Joab did not know what commands David had given Solomon in his dying hour, but he did know that Solomon would not forgive him for supporting Adonijah. He sought refuge in the tabernacle of Jehovah, and took hold of the horns of the altar in the tent. Solomon bade Benaiah cut him down. Benaiah hesitated to pollute the altar with blood; he reported that Joab could not be induced to leave the altar. The young king repeated his command, "Cut him down, and take from me and from the house of my father the blood of Abner and the blood of Amasa." So Joab was slain by Benaiah at the altar of the sacred tent, and buried "in his house in the desert." The high priest Abiathar escaped with his life. "I will not slay thee," so Solomon said to him, "because thou didst once suffer with my father." He banished him as a "man of death" to his inheritance at Anathoth. Zadok was henceforth sole high priest at the sacred tent. When Adonijah afterwards besought Solomon to give him one of the concubines of David, Abishag the Shunamite, to wife, Solomon thought that he sought to obtain the throne by this means. He commanded Benaiah to slay him on the spot. With the death of Adonijah his party lost their head and centre: it ceased to exist.

Solomon broke the rebellion of the Edomites not by his arms only, but also by withdrawing from them the support of Egypt. He sought the hand of the daughter of the king of Egypt and obtained it.[328] Thus he not[Pg 181] only withdrew from Edom their reliance on Egypt, he also obtained the active support of his father-in-law. The Edomites were defeated in battle by Solomon; Egyptian soldiers reduced Gezer for him.[329] On the other hand, Solomon could not defeat the new king of Damascus. Rezon maintained his place, and was an "adversary to Israel as long as Solomon lived."[330] Hence it is hardly possible that Solomon reduced the kingdom of Hamath, north of Damascus, to subjection, as the Chronicles assert;[331] on the other hand, it appears that the oasis of Tadmor, in the Syrian desert, north of Damascus, was gained, and the city of that name was founded and established there. Hence, even after the loss of Damascus, he had command of one of the roads to the Euphrates.[332] We may assume that Solomon retained the kingdom of David without any essential alteration in extent; that he, like his predecessor, held sway as far as the north-east point of the Red Sea; and that even if his rule did not extend, like David's, to the Euphrates, yet he possessed a predominant position in this direction. The connection in which Hiram king of Tyre stood with his father he not only maintained, but made it more close and more extensive.

With the close of the third year of the reign of Solomon the wars which the change on the throne kindled came to an end. It is said to have been David's intention in the last years of his reign to build a temple in the place of the sacred tent on Zion. As[Pg 182] soon as times of peace came Solomon set himself to carry out this purpose. Hiram of Tyre promised to deliver wood from the forests of Lebanon at a price, and to put at his disposal architects and moulders of brass. To the north of the palace which David had built on Zion the mountain, on which the citadel was, rose higher. Here the new temple was to be erected. The first task was to level the height; a terrace was raised upon it by removing some parts and filling up others, and building substructures; this terrace was intended to form the precincts and support the temple itself. The surrounding hills and the neighbourhood provided an ample supply of stones for building; stone of a better quality was quarried in Lebanon and carried down. The trees felled in Lebanon were carried to the coast, floated round the promontory of Carmel as far as Japho (Joppa), and again dragged up from this point to Jerusalem.[333] The vessels and the ornaments of brass intended for the temple were cast "in clay ground" beyond the Jordan, between Succoth and Zarthan, by the Tyrian Hiram.[334] A wall of huge stones, on which were built the dwellings of the priests, surrounded the temple precincts. The temple itself was a building of moderate dimensions, but richly adorned. A portico of 20 cubits in breadth and 10 cubits in depth, opening to the east, formed the entrance into the temple. Before this portico, after the Syrian manner, stood two pillars of brass, one called Jachin, the other Boaz. The temple, exclusive of the portico, was 60 cubits in length, 20 cubits in breadth, and 30 cubits in height. The breadth was limited by the unsupported span of the beams of the roof. On both sides of the temple itself leaned side-buildings, which rose to the height of half the main structure.[Pg 183] The front space of the temple was lighted by trellised openings over these side-buildings. This front space, which was the largest, and entered from the portico by a door of cypress wood, adorned with carved work overlaid with gold, was richly ornamented. The floor was laid with cypress wood overlaid with gold; the walls and the roof were covered with panels of cedar wood, which in richly-carved work displayed cherubs and palm-branches, so that not a stone could be seen in the interior. In this space of the temple—the "holy"—was an altar overlaid with gold for offering frankincense (for the smoke-offering), and a sacred table for the sacrificial bread. Nearer to the inner space of the temple—the "holy of holies"—were ten candlesticks, and further in a candlestick with seven branches. The holy of holies, i. e. the smaller inner space of the temple, which was intended to receive the sacred ark, was divided from the holy by a wall of cedar wood, in which was a double door of olive wood, hanging on golden hinges. Only the high priest could enter the holy of holies, the walls of which were covered with gold-leaf, and even from him the sight of the ark was hidden by a curtain of blue and red purple, and approach was barred by a golden chain. Immediately before the ark were two cherubs of carved olive wood overlaid with gold, 10 cubits high, with outspread wings, so that from the point of one wing to the point of the other was also a distance of 10 cubits.[335]

The sacrifices of animals were offered in the open air of the court in front of the temple. For this object a great altar of brass was erected in the middle of the court, 10 cubits in height and 20 in the square. Southward of this altar was placed a great basin, in[Pg 184] which the priests had to perform their ablutions and purifications; this was a much-admired work of the artisan Hiram, and called the sea of brass. Supported by twelve brazen oxen, arranged in four sets of three, and turned to the four quarters of the sky, the round bowl, which was of the shape of a lily broken open, measured five cubits in depth and 30 in circumference.[336] Beside this great basin five smaller iron bowls were set up on either side of the altar. These rested on wheels, and were adorned with cherubs and lions, palms and flowers, with the greatest skill. They were intended to serve for washing and purifying the animals and implements of sacrifice.

Solomon commenced the building of the temple in the second month of the fourth year of his reign (990 B.C.). After seven years and six months it was finished in the eighth month of the eleventh year of Solomon's reign (983 B.C.). The elders of all Israel, the priests and Levites, and all the people "from Hamath to the brook of Egypt," flocked to Jerusalem. In solemn pomp the sacred ark was drawn up to the temple height; oxen and sheep without number were sacrificed for seven days, and from that time forward the king offered a solemn sacrifice each year at the three great festivals in the new temple.[337]

The house which David had built for himself on Zion no longer satisfied the requirements of Solomon and his larger court. When the temple was finished he undertook the building of a new palace, which was carried out on such a scale that the completion occupied thirteen years.[338] The new palace was not built on[Pg 185] Zion, but on the western ridge, which supported the city to the west of Zion and David's palace. It consisted of several buildings, surrounded by courts and houses for the servants, and enclosed by a separate wall. The largest building was a house of stone three stories high, the stories and roof of which were supported by cedar pillars and beams of cedar; the length was 100, the breadth 50, and the height 30 cubits (about 50 feet). A balustrade or staircase in this house was made of sandal wood, which the ships of Ezion-geber had brought from Ophir.[339] On this building abutted three colonnades, the largest 50 cubits long and 30 broad; the third was the hall of the throne and of justice.[340] Here stood the magnificent throne of Solomon, "of which the like was never made in any kingdom," of ivory overlaid with gold. Six steps, on which were twelve lions, led up to it; beside the arms of the seat were also two lions.[341] Then followed the dwelling of Solomon, from which a separate stair-way was made leading up to the temple, together with the chambers for the wives of the king,—their number is given at 700, the number of the concubines at 300,[342]—and lastly a separate house for his Egyptian consort, who passed as the first wife, and was honoured and distinguished above the rest. In the four-and-twentieth year of Solomon's reign (970 B.C.) this building was brought to an end, "and the daughter of Pharaoh went up from the city of David into the house which Solomon had built for her."[343]

Solomon felt it incumbent on him to secure his land, and not merely to adorn the metropolis by splendid[Pg 186] buildings, but to make it inaccessible to attack. To protect northern Israel against Rezon and Damascus he fortified Hazor, whose king had once so grievously oppressed Israel, and Baalath; to protect the western border he fortified Megiddo, Gezer, and Beth-horon.[344] The defensive works which David had added to the old fortifications of the metropolis he enlarged and extended. The gorge which, running from north to south, divided the city of Jerusalem on the western height from the citadel of Zion on the east he closed towards the north by a separate fortification, the tower of Millo. By another fortification, Ophel, he protected a depression of Mount Zion between David's palace and the new temple, which allowed the citadel to be ascended from the east. The space over which the city had extended on the western height opposite the temple, in consequence of the growth of a suburb there towards the north, the lower city, he surrounded with a wall.[345] He raised the number of the chariots of war, which David had introduced, to 1400, for which 4000 horses were kept. He formed a cavalry force of 12,000 horses, he built stables and sheds for the horsemen and chariots. If we include the body-guard, the standing army which Solomon maintained may very well have reached 20,000 men.[346]

The excellent arrangement of his military means and forces must have contributed to make Israel respected and to preserve peace in the land. In Solomon's reign, so we are told in the Books of Kings, every one could dwell in peace under his own vine and his own fig tree.[347] This peace from without, united with the peace which the power and authority of the throne secured in the country, must have invigorated[Pg 187] trade, favoured industry, and considerably increased the welfare of Israel. The example of the court, the splendour and magnificence of which was not increased by buildings only, made the wealthy Israelites acquainted with needs and enjoyments hitherto unknown to their simple modes of life. If hitherto the Israelites had sold to the Phenicians wine and oil, the wool of their flocks, and the surplus products of their lands for utensils and stuffs, the finer manufactures of the Phenicians now found a demand in Israel. If the king of Israel was friendly to the Phenicians, he allowed them a road by land through his territories to Egypt; now that the Ammonites, Moabites and Edomites had been subjugated he could close or open the caravan road past Rabbath-Ammon, Kir Moab, and Elath to South Arabia (I. 320), and when Tadmor was in his hands he could permit or prohibit a road to the Euphrates beside that past Damascus. Solomon prohibited none of these; on the contrary, he promoted the intercourse of the merchants by erecting resting-places and warehouses on all the lines of traffic which crossed his dominions.[348] The exportation of chariots and war-horses from Egypt to Syria, which the Pharaoh no doubt permitted in an especial degree to his son-in-law, Solomon carried on by means of merchants commissioned by him.[349] Another trade undertaking, at once much more far-seeing, and promising far greater gains, he commenced in union with the king of Tyre. It was of great importance to the Phenicians to obtain an easier connection with South Arabia in the place of, or at least in addition to, the dangerous and very uncertain caravan routes past Damascus and Dumah (I. 320), or past Elath along the coast of the Red Sea, to South Arabia. The[Pg 188] circuit by Babylon was very distant, and not much more secure. The rule of Solomon over Edom pointed out the way, and secured the possibility of reaching South Arabia by the Red Sea. At Eziongeber, near Elath, Tyrian shipbuilders built the vessels which were to explore the coasts of South Arabia, the coasts of the land of gold. Guided by Phenician pilots, Phenicians and Israelites sailed into the unknown sea, and to unknown and remote corners of the earth. They succeeded not only in reaching the South Arabian coasts and the coasts of East Africa, but in passing beyond to Ophir, i. e., as it seems, to the mouths of the Indus. After an absence of three years the first expedition brought back gold in quantities, silver, ivory, sandal wood, precious stones, apes and peacocks. The profits of this expedition are said to have contributed as Solomon's share 420 Kikkars of gold, i. e. towards 20,000,000 thalers (about £3,000,000).[350]

With the increased sale of the products of the country, the improvement and security of the great routes of traffic, the entrance of Israel into the trade of the Phenicians, and the influx of a considerable amount of capital, money seems to have become very rapidly and seriously depreciated in price in Israel. Before the establishment of the monarchy a priest is said to have received 10 silver shekels, with food and clothing, for his yearly service at a sacred place.[351] The amount from which Abimelech is said to have maintained his retinue (p. 107) is placed at only 70 shekels of silver. Before the epoch of the monarchy the prophet received a quarter of a shekel as a return for his services. David purchased the threshing-floor of[Pg 189] Araunah at Zion with two oxen for 50 shekels of silver.[352] On the other hand, Solomon appears to have paid the keepers of his vineyards a yearly salary of 200 silver shekels, and in his time 150 shekels were paid for an Egyptian horse, and 600 shekels (500 thalers = £80) for a war-chariot.[353]

The prosperity of the land allowed Solomon to increase the income of the throne by taxation of the people. His income from the navigation to Ophir, from trade, from the royal demesnes, and the taxes of Israel is said to have brought in a yearly sum of 666 Kikkars of gold, i. e. about 30,000,000 of thalers (about £5,000,000).[354] He applied these revenues to the support of his army, to his fortifications, sheds, and splendid buildings, to the erection of the stations on the trade roads, and finally to the adornment of the court. "He built in Jerusalem, on Lebanon, and in the whole land of his dominion," say the Books of Kings.[355] We hear of conduits, pools and country houses of the king on Antilibanus; of vineyards and gardens at Baal-Hammon. The splendour of his court is described in extravagant terms. All the drinking-vessels and many other utensils in the palace at Jerusalem, and in the forest-house in Antilibanus, are said to have been of pure gold, and the servants were richly clad.[356] In a costly litter of cedar wood, of which the posts were of silver, the arms of gold, and the seat of purple, Solomon was conveyed to his vineyards and pleasure-houses in Antilibanus, surrounded by a retinue of 60 men chosen from the body-guard.[357] At solemn processions the body-guard carried 500 ornamented[Pg 190] shields: 200 were of pure gold,—for each 600 shekels were used,—300 of alloyed gold.[358] The number of male and female singers, of the servants for the king and crowded harem, and the kitchen, must have been very great, as may be inferred from the very considerable consumption of food and drink in the palace. From the court and from trade such an amount of gold flowed to Jerusalem that silver was in consequence depreciated.[359]

The new arrangement of state life, which was partly established, partly introduced, by Solomon, the leisure of peace, the close contact with Phœnicia and Egypt, the entrance of Israel into extensive trade, the increase of prosperity, the richer, more various, and more complicated conditions of life, the wider range of vision, could not be without their influence on the intellectual life of the Israelites. From this time an increased activity is displayed. They were impelled and forced to observation, comparison and consideration in quite another manner than before. The results of these new reflections grew into fixed rules, into proverbs and apophthegms. In this intellectual movement Solomon took a leading part. A man of poetical gifts like his father, he composed religious and other poems (1005 in number, according to the tradition). The impulse to knowledge and the sense of art which he excites must first have found room within himself; his vision, like his means, reached the furthest. Hence we have no reason to doubt that he was one of the wisest in his nation. "God," says the Book of Kings, "gave Solomon a spirit beyond measure, as the sand of the sea. And the wisdom of Solomon was greater than the wisdom of all the sons of the East, and the wisdom of Egypt. He was wiser than all men, and[Pg 191] he spoke of the trees, from the cedar on Lebanon to the hyssop which grows on the wall, and of the cattle and the birds, and the worms and the fishes."[360] Beside poetry and extensive knowledge of nature, in which he surpassed his wisest countrymen, Ethal and Heman, Chalcol and Darda, it was his keen observation, his penetrating knowledge of mankind, his experience of life which made the greatest impression. His proverbs and rules of life seemed to the Israelites so pointed and exhaustive that they attributed to Solomon the entire treasure of their gnomic wisdom, which was afterwards collected into one body. Among these proverbs scarcely any can with complete certainty be ascribed to Solomon, but the fact that all are attributed to him is a sufficient proof that Solomon possessed a very striking power in keen observation of human nature and human affairs, in the pregnant expression of practical experience, in combining its lessons into pointed and vigorous sentences.

As a proof of his acuteness and the calm penetration of his judicial decisions, the people used to narrate the story of the two women who once came before Solomon into the hall of justice. One said: I and that woman lived in one house, and each of us bore a male child. In the night the son of this woman died. She rose, laid her dead son at my breast, and took my living child to her bosom. When I woke I had a dead child in my arms; but in the morning I perceived that this child was not the son which I had borne. The other woman answered: No; the living boy is my son, and thine is the dead child. The king turned to his retinue and said: Cut the living child into two parts, and give half to one and half to the other. Then[Pg 192] tenderness for her child arose in the mother of the living child. I pray you, my lord, she said, give her the living child, but slay it not. And the king gave sentence: This is the mother, give her the child. It is further narrated that the fame of Solomon's wisdom reached even to distant lands, and kings set forth to hear it. From Arabia the queen of the Sabæans (Sheba, I. 315) is said to have come with a long train of camels, carrying spices, gold, and precious stones, in order to try Solomon with enigmas. And Solomon told her all that she asked, and solved all the enigmas, and nothing was hidden from him. When the queen perceived such wisdom, and saw the house which he had built, and the food on his table, and his counsellors, and his cup-bearers, and servants, and the burnt sacrifice which he offered in the house of Jehovah, she sent him 120 Kikkars of gold, and such an amount of spices as never afterwards came to Jerusalem. This narrative may not be without some foundation, in fact we saw above how old was the trade of Egypt and Syria with the land of frankincense. We shall afterwards find queens among the Arabians in the eighth and seventh centuries B.C.: Zabibieh, Samsieh, and Adijah, and even at the head of the tribes of the desert. To this day the East preserves the memory of the wise king Solomon, who, in their legends and stories, has at the same time become a great magician and exorcist.

However great the splendour of Israel in Solomon's reign, this advance was not without a darker side. The new paths in which Solomon led his people brought the Israelites comfort and opulence, the advantages and impulses of a higher civilisation and more active intellectual life. But with the splendour and luxury of the court, and the increasing wealth,[Pg 193] the old simplicity of manners disappeared. The land had to bear the burden of a rule which was completely assimilated to the forms of court life, and the mode of government established in Egypt and Syria, in Babylon and Assyria. The court, the army and the buildings required heavy sums and services, and these for the most part had to be paid and undertaken by the people. Solomon not only imposed on the tribes the maintenance of his standing troops, the cavalry and the chariots, he also demanded that they should support the court by contributions in kind. This service was not inconsiderable. Each day 30 Kor of fine and 60 Kor of ordinary meal were required, 10 stalled oxen, and 20 oxen from the pasture, and 100 head of small cattle. Besides this, deer and fallow-deer, gazelles and fed geese were supplied. The assistance which Hiram king of Tyre gave to Solomon's buildings, the wood from Lebanon, had to be paid for; each year 20,000 Kor of wheat and 20,000 Bath of oil and wine were sent to Tyre, and this the Israelites had to provide. Further, the people had to pay a regular yearly tax in money to the king.[361] Still more oppressive was the task-work for the buildings of the king. It is true that the remnant of the tribes subject to the Israelites, the Amorites, Hittites, Hivites and Jebusites, were taken chiefly for these tasks, for Solomon had compelled them to do constant task-work,[362] but the Israelites themselves were also employed in great numbers in the[Pg 194] building. Over each tribe of Israel Solomon placed an overseer of the task-work, and these overseers were all subordinate to Adoniram, the chief task-master. The Israelites summoned for these services are said to have had two months' rest after one month of work, and there was a regular system of release. In the years when the buildings were carried on with the greatest vigour, 80,000 workmen are said to have been engaged in felling wood in Lebanon, in quarrying and hewing stones under Tyrian artisans, while 70,000 others carried out the transport of this material. Though the workmen were constantly changed and the extension of the task was not unendurable, these burdens were unusual and certainly undesirable. In order to introduce regularity into the payments in kind and the taxes of the land, the country was divided into twelve districts,—no doubt on the basis of the territorial possessions of the tribes,—and over these royal officers were placed. Each district had to provide the requirements of the royal house for one month in the year. These overseers of the districts were subordinate to a head overseer, Azariah, the son of that Nathan to whom, next to his mother, Solomon owed the throne.[363] Yet in spite of all the services of subjects, in spite of all means of receipts, Solomon's expenditure was in excess of his income. When the settlement with Hiram followed the completion of the building of the temple and palace, it was found that Hiram had still 120 Kikkars of gold to receive. As Solomon could not pay the sum, he ceded to Tyre twenty Israelite places on the border. No doubt the king of Tyre was well pleased to complete and round off his territory on the mainland.[364][Pg 195]

The example of a lavish and luxurious court, the spectacle of a crowded harem, the influence and demeanour of these females, was not only injurious to the morals of the people, but to their religious conduct. If the national elevation of the Israelites under Saul and David had forced back the foreign rites which had taken a place after the settlement beside the worship of Jehovah, it is now the court which adopts the culture and manners of the Phenicians and Syrians, and by which the worship of strange gods in Israel again becomes prominent. Among the wives of the king many were from Sidon, Ammon, Moab and Edom. Solomon may have considered it wise to display tolerance towards the worship of the tributary nations, but it was going far beyond tolerance when the king, who had built such a richly-adorned and costly temple to the national god of Israel, erected, in order to please these women, altars and shrines to Astarte of Sidon, to Camus of the Moabites, and Milcom of the Ammonites.[365]

Yet the impulse which Solomon's reign gave to the worship of Jehovah was far the most predominant. It is true that the idea of raising a splendid temple to Jehovah in Jerusalem arose out of the model of the temple-service of the Phenicians and Philistines and their magnificent rites (I. 367), whereas the Israelites hitherto had known nothing but places for sacrifice on altars on the heights and under the oaks,—nothing but a sacred tent. The temple itself was an approximation to the worship of the Syrians; but it was at the same time the completion of the work begun by David. This building of the temple was the most[Pg 196] important of the acts of Solomon during his reign, and an undertaking, which in its origin was to some degree at variance with national feeling, not only contributed to the maintenance of the national religion, but also had very considerable influence upon its development. Solomon, after his manner, may have had the splendour and glory of the structure chiefly in view,—yet just as the monarchy comprised the political life of the nation, so did the specious, magnificent temple centralise the religious life of the nation, even more than David's sacred tent. By this the old places of sacrifice were forced into the shade, and even more rarely visited. The building of the temple increased the preponderance of the sacrifice offered in the metropolis. The priests of the altars in the country, who mostly lived upon their share in the sacrifices, turned to Jerusalem, and took up their dwelling in the city. Here they already found the priesthood, which had gathered round Abiathar and Zadok (p. 164). The union of a large number of priestly families at Jerusalem, under the guidance of the high priest appointed already by David, caused the feeling and the consciousness of the solid community and corporate nature of their order to rise in these men, while the priests had previously lived an isolated life, at the places of sacrifice among the people, and hardly distinguished from them, and thus they were led to a far more earnest and systematic performance of the sacred worship. It was easy to make use of the number of priests already in existence in order to give to the rites the richer and more brilliant forms which the splendour and dignity of the temple required. For this object the arrangements of the sacred service must be divided, and the sacred acts allotted to special sections of the priests at hand.[Pg 197]

The organisation of the priesthood needed for these divisions was naturally brought about by the fact that those entrusted with the office of high priest supposed themselves to be descendants of Aaron, and that even in David's reign these had been joined by the priests who claimed to be of the same origin. These families, the descendants of Eleazar and Ithamar, retained the essential arrangements of the sacrifice and the expiation, the priesthood in the stricter sense. Even the families, who side by side with these are said to have belonged to the race of Aaron, which, like Aaron, are said to have sprung from the branch of Kohath, were not any longer admitted to this service. The priestly families of this and other origin, which are first found at a later date in Jerusalem, who retained their dwelling outside Jerusalem, were united with the races of Gershom and Merari, and to them, as to the families of the race of Kohath which did not come through Aaron, were transferred the lesser services in the worship and in the very complicated ritual. Those men of these races who were acquainted with music and singing, together with such musicians as were not of priestly blood, were also divided into sections. They had to accompany the sacrifice and acts of religious worship with sacred songs and the harp. Others were made overseers of the sacred vessels and the dedicatory offerings, others set apart for the purification of the sanctuary and for door-keepers. All these services were hereditary in the combinations of families allotted to them. This organisation of the priesthood cannot have come into existence, as the tradition tells us, immediately after the completion of the temple; it can only have taken place as the effects of a splendid centre of worship in the metropolis of[Pg 198] the kingdom became more widely felt, and was finally brought to completion under the guidance of the priests attending on the sacred ark.[366]

Thus there was connected with the building of the temple by Solomon, not only the reunion of the families of the tribe of Levi—if these even previously had formed a separate tribe;—by means of adoption from all the families which for generations had been dedicated to the sacred rites, the formation and separation of the priestly order became perfect.[367] At first, without any independent position, this order was dependent on the protection of the monarchy, which built the temple for it, and the importance of the priests was increased with the splendour of the worship. At the head of the new order stood the priests of the ark of Jehovah, who had already, in earlier times, maintained a pre-eminent position, which was now increased considerably by the reform in the worship. But they also were dependent on the court, though they soon came to exercise a certain influence upon it. As David had made Zadok and Abiathar high priests, so Solomon removed Abiathar and transferred the highest priestly office to Zadok, of the branch of Eleazar. Far more important than the position of the priesthood at the court was the feeling and consciousness of the mission given to[Pg 199] them, of the duties and rights, to which the priesthood attained when combined in the new society. As they were at pains to practise a worship pleasing to Jehovah, they succeeded even before Solomon in discovering an established connection between the past and the present of the nation, in recognising the covenant which Jehovah had made with his people. From isolated records, traditions, and old customs they collected the law of ritual in the manner which they considered as established from antiquity, the observation of which was, from their point of view, the maintenance of the covenant into which Israel had entered with his God. This was the light in which, even in David's time, the fortunes of Israel appeared to the priests, and from this point of view they were recorded in the first decade of David's reign. The order which the priests required for the worship, its unity, centralisation and adornment, the exact obedience to the ritual which was considered by them true and pleasing to God, the position which the priesthood had now obtained, or claimed, appeared to them as already ordained and current in the time when Jehovah saved his people with a mighty arm, and led them from Egypt to Canaan. They had been thrust into the background and forgotten, owing to the guilt and backsliding of later times. Now the time was come to establish in power the true and ancient ordinances of Moses in real earnest, and to restore them. It was of striking ethical importance, that by these views the present was placed in near relation and the closest combination with a sublime antiquity, with the foundation of the religious ordinances. The impulse to religious feeling which arose out of these views and efforts found expression in a lyrical poetry of penetrating force. David had not only attempted simple songs, but also, as we have seen,[Pg 200] more extended invocations of Jehovah; and the skilled musical accompaniment which now came to the aid of religious song in the families of the musicians, must have contributed to still greater elevation and choice of expression. The intensity of religious feeling and its expression in sacred songs must also have come into contact more especially with that impulse which had hitherto been represented in the seers and prophets, who believed that they apprehended the will of Jehovah in their own breasts, and, in consequence of their favoured relation to him, understood his commands by virtue of internal illumination. All these impulses operated beyond the priestly order. In union with the lofty spiritual activity of the people, they led, in the first instance, to the result that in the last years of Solomon the annalistic account of the fortunes of the people and the record of the law was accompanied by a narrative of greater liveliness, of a deeper and clearer view of the divine and human nature (I. 386), which at the same time, in the fate of Joseph, gave especial prominence to the newly-obtained knowledge of Egyptian life, the service rendered by the daughter of the king of Egypt to the great leader of Israel in the ancient times, the blessing derived from the friendly relations of Israel and Egypt, and the distress brought upon Egypt by the breach with Israel.

 

 

[Pg 201]

CHAPTER IX.

THE LAW OF THE PRIESTS.

Out of the peculiar relation in which Israel stood from all antiquity to his God, out of the protection and prosperity which he had granted to the patriarchs and their seed, out of the liberation from the oppression of the Egyptians, which Jehovah had prepared for the Israelites with a strong arm, out of the bestowal of Canaan, i. e. the promise of Jehovah to conquer the land, which the Israelites had now possessed for centuries, there grew up in the circles of the priests, from about the time of Samuel, the idea of the covenant which Jehovah had made with the patriarchs, and through them with Israel. Jehovah had assured Israel of his protection and blessing; on the other hand, Israel had undertaken to serve him, to obey his commands, and do his will. If Israel lives according to the command of Jehovah, the blessing of his God will certainly be his in the future also; the reward of true service will not and cannot be withheld from him. The will of Jehovah which Israel has to obey, the law of Jehovah which he has to fulfil, was contained in the moral precepts, the rules of law, and rubrics for purification and sacrifice, the writing down of which in the frame-work of a brief account of the fortunes of the fathers, the slavery in Egypt, the liberation and the conquest of Canaan, on the basis of older sketches[Pg 202] of separate parts, was brought to a conclusion at Hebron, in the priestly families of the tribe of Aaron, about the first decade of David's reign (I. 385). In this writing were laid down the views held by the priesthood on the life pleasing to God, on the past of the nation and the priests, and of the correct mode of worship. It was the ideal picture of conduct in morals, law and worship which the priests strove after, which must in any case have existed in that great period when Jehovah spoke to the Israelites by the mouth of Moses. And, as a fact, the foundations of the moral law, the fundamental rules of law and customs of sacrifice, as we found above (I. 484), do go back to that time of powerful movement of the national feeling, of lofty exaltation of religious emotion against the dreary polytheism of Egypt.

It is doubtful, whether the families of the priests and sacrificial servants who traced back their lineage to Levi, the son of Jacob (p. 197), and were now united by David and Solomon for service at the sacred tabernacle, for sacrifice and attendance at the temple, had of antiquity formed a separate tribe, which afterwards became dispersed (I. 488),—or if this tribe first was united under the impression made by the idea of true priesthood, which those writings denoted as an example and pattern, and under the influence of the change introduced by the foundation of a central-point for the worship of Israel in the tabernacle of David, and then in the temple of Solomon, for the priestly families scattered through the land, by means of a gradual union of the priestly families; at all events, a position at least equal in dignity to the rest of the tribes ought to be found for the tribe of Levi, which knew the will and law of Jehovah, and the correct mode of sacrifice. It was not indeed possible in Israel to give the first[Pg 203] and most ancient place to the tribe of the priests, as has been done in other nations where a division of orders has crystallised into hereditary tribes. In the memory of the nation Reuben was the first-born tribe, i. e. the complex of the oldest families, the oldest element of the nation, and the importance of the tribes derived from Joseph and the tribe of Judah in and after the conquest of Canaan was so firmly fixed that the tribe of Levi could not hope to contend with them successfully in the question of antiquity. But what was wanting in rank of derivation could be made up by special blessings given by Jehovah, and by peculiar sanctity. According to an old conception the first-born male belonged to Jehovah. In the sketch of the fortunes of Israel and of the law, Jehovah says to Moses, he will accept the tribe of Levi in place of the first-born males of the people. The number of the first-born males of one month old of all the other tribes was taken—they reached 22,373; the number of all the men and boys down to the age of one month in the tribe of Levi was 22,000. These 22,000 Levites Jehovah took in the place of the first-born of the people, and the remaining 373 were ransomed from Jehovah at the price of five shekels of silver for each person.[368] Thus the Levites were raised by Jehovah to be the first-born tribe of Israel. Levi was the tribe which Jehovah had selected for his service, the chosen tribe of a chosen nation. Moses and Aaron were of this tribe, and if, instead of a few families who stood beside Moses when he led Israel out of Egypt, and restored the worship of the tribal deity, the whole tribe of Levi was represented as active in his behalf, and as a supporter of Moses, the consecration of age was not wanting to this tribe, and[Pg 204] reverence was naturally paid to it in return for such ancient services.

The Levites were not to busy themselves with care for their maintenance, they were not to work for hire, or possess any property; they were to occupy themselves exclusively with their sacred duties. Instead of inheritance Jehovah was to be their heritage.[369] It is true that the plan for the maintenance of the tribe of Levi, sketched in the first text on the occasion of the division of Canaan, the 48 cities allotted to them in the lands of the other twelve tribes (13 for the priests and 35 for the assistant Levites[370]), could never be carried out; yet claims might be founded on it. Moreover, the necessary means for support were supplied in other ways. The firstlings of corn, fruits, the vintage, the olive tree, were offered by being laid on the altar. No inconsiderable portion of other offerings was presented in the same manner. All these gifts could be applied by the priests to their own purposes.[371] But by far the most fruitful source of income for the priesthood was the tithe of the produce of the fields, which was offered according to an ancient custom to Jehovah as his share of the harvest. The law required that a tenth of corn, and wine, and oils, and of all other fruits, and the tenth head of all new-born domestic animals, should be given to the priests.[372] The statements of the prophets and the evidence of the historical books prove that the tithes were offered as a rule, though not invariably. As the Levites who were not priests had no share in the sacrifices, the law provided that the tithe should go to them, but the Levites were in turn to restore a tenth part of these tithes to the priests. Finally, the law required that a portion of[Pg 205] the booty taken in war should go to the Levites; that in all numberings of the people and levies each person should pay a sum to the temple for the ransom of his life.[373]

Only the descendants of Aaron could take part in the most important parts of the ceremonial of sacrifice. From his twenty-fifth or thirtieth year to his fiftieth every Levite was subject to the temple service.[374] The law prescribed a formal dedication, with purifications, expiations, sacrifices, and symbolical actions for the exercise of the lower as well as the higher priesthood, for the offering of sacrifice and the sprinkling of the blood as well as for the due performance of the door-keeping. At the dedication of a priest these ceremonies lasted for seven days, but the chief import of the ritual was to denote the future priest himself as a sacrifice offered to Jehovah. Only those might be dedicated who were free from any bodily blemish. "A blind man, or a lame, or he that hath a flat nose, or anything superfluous, or a man that is broken-footed, or broken-handed, or crook-backt, or a dwarf, or that hath a blemish in his eye, or be scurvy, or scabbed, or hath his stones broken shall not come nigh to offer the offering of the Lord made by fire."[375]

No priest was to make baldness on his head or shave off the corners of his beard, or make any cuttings in his flesh;[376] before the sacrifice he might not take wine or any intoxicating drink; he was required to devote himself to especial purity and cleanliness, and observe in a stricter degree the laws concerning food; he might not marry a widow or a woman divorced from her husband, still less a harlot; he was to avoid most[Pg 206] carefully any contact with a corpse: only in the case of his nearest relatives was this defilement allowed. The clothing of the priests was definitely prescribed. He must wear a robe of white linen (byssus), woven in one piece; and this robe was held together by a girdle of three colours, red, blue and white. The priest also wore a band of white linen round his head, and trousers of white linen in order that he might not discover his nakedness when he ascended the steps of the altar.[377]

The foremost place among the consecrated priests was occupied by the high priest. He alone had the right to enter the inner space of the sanctuary, the cell in which stood the ark of the covenant—the other priests could enter the outer space only; he alone could offer sacrifice in the name of the whole people, he alone could announce the will and oracle of Jehovah, and consecrate the priests. The ritual for the high priest was most strict. In the belief of the Hebrews the most accurate knowledge and the most careful circumspection was needed in order to offer an effective sacrifice and avoid arousing the anger of Jehovah by some omission in the rite, and if the law required of all priests that they should devote themselves to especial purity and holiness, this demand was made with peculiar severity upon the high priest. He might marry only with a pure virgin of the stock of his kindred; he must keep himself so far from all defilement that he might not touch the corpse even of his father and his mother; he might not, on any occasion, rend his garments in sorrow. The distinguishing garb of the high priest was a robe of blue linen, which on the edge was adorned with pomegranates and bells; the bells were intended, as the law says, to announce the coming of the priest to the God who dwelt in the[Pg 207] shrine of the temple, that the priest might not die.[378] Over this robe the high priest wore a short wrapper, the so-called ephod or shoulder-garment, and on his breast in front the tablet with the holy Urim and Thummim, by means of which he inquired of Jehovah, if the king or any one from the people asked for an oracle. The other priests also, at least in more ancient times, wore the ephod with the Urim and Thummim; but the ephod of the high priest was fastened on the shoulders by two precious stones, and the front side of his breastplate was made of twelve precious stones set in gold, on which were engraved the names of the twelve tribes. The head-band of the high priest was distinguished from that of the other priests by a plate of gold bearing the inscription, "Holy is Jehovah;" he might not even uncover his head.[379]

The mode of worship was regulated by the law in a systematic manner. Beside the Sabbath, on keeping which the law laid special stress, and regarded it as a symbol of the relation of Israel to Jehovah, the Israelites celebrated feasts at the new moon and the full moon,[380] and held three great national festivals in the year. These festivals marked in the first instance certain divisions of the natural year. Yet the first, the festival of spring, had from ancient times a peculiar religious significance. It has been remarked above that at the spring festival not only were the firstlings of the harvest, the first ears of corn, offered to the tribal God, but that also, as at the beginning of a new season of fertility, a sin offering, the vicarious sacrifice of a lamb, was made for the first-born which[Pg 208] were not offered. The spring festival was also the festival of the sparing of the first-born, the Passah or passover of Jehovah (I. 414). The priestly ordinance, which sought to give a definite historical cause for the customs of the festival, and to mark the favours which Jehovah had granted to his people, connects the old usages of this festival with the exodus from Egypt, and we have already seen how from this point of view old ceremonies of this festival were transformed, and new ones were added (I. 445). As the spring festival was kept in the first month of the Hebrew year, Nisan (March-April) (it began on the evening of the day after the new moon, at the rise of the full moon, when the sun is in the Ram), the exodus from Egypt was supposed to have taken place on the morning which followed this night. The Passah continued for seven days, in which, from the morning of the second day to the evening of the seventh, only unleavened bread could be eaten, i. e. the firstlings of the corn in their original form, and no business could be carried on. On each of the seven days of the feast, according to the law, two young bulls, a ram and seven yearling lambs were offered as a burnt offering for Israel in the temple, and besides these a goat, as a sin offering. The neglect of the festival, the eating of leavened bread on any of the days, was threatened by the law with extirpation from the community.[381] As the greater number of the tribes attained to a settled life and agriculture, the feast of the ripe fruits or harvest naturally rose to importance beside this festival of the earliest fruits. Seven full weeks after the commencement of the Passah, or six weeks after the end of it, the feast of new bread was celebrated. The sheaves were brought, the corn trodden[Pg 209] out, the first new meal prepared. According to the law, each house in Israel, i. e., no doubt, each which possessed land and flocks, had to bring two leavened firstling loaves of new wheaten meal and two yearling lambs as a thank offering. Before these were offered no one could eat bread made from the new corn.[382] The festival of autumn, which took place in the seventh month of the Hebrew year (September—October), from the fourteenth to the twenty-first day of the month, was merrier and of longer duration. It was the festival of the completion of the in-gathering, and of the vintage, and consequently can hardly go back beyond the time of the settlement in Canaan.[383] It was customary to erect arbours of palm leaves, willows, and oak branches, as was indeed necessary at a time when men were occupied in remote orchards and vineyards, and in these the feast was kept, unless it was preferred to keep it at some important place of sacrifice, in order to offer the thank offering there,[384] and in this case those who came to the feast also passed the day in tents or arbours. Like the feast of spring, the feast of tabernacles continued for seven days. According to the law, Israel was to offer 70 bulls, 14 rams, and seven times 14 lambs at this festival as a burnt offering. To this feast also a historical meaning was given; the tabernacles were erected to remind Israel of the fact that he had once dwelt in tents in the wilderness.

At these three festivals, "thrice in the year, all the males of Israel must appear before Jehovah."[385] Such was the law of the priests. It was the intention[Pg 210] of the priests that the three great festivals should be celebrated at the dwelling of Jehovah, i. e. at the tabernacle, and afterwards at the temple; hence at the great festivals the Israelites were to go to Jerusalem. But the strict carrying out of such a common celebration was opposed to the character of the festivals themselves. We saw that even when the sacred ark still stood at Shiloh, pilgrimages were made thither once a year at the festival of Jehovah. After the erection of the tabernacle and the temple this, no doubt, took place more frequently, and the numbers were greater. Yet the object of the priests could not be completely realised. The paschal festival was the redemption of the separate house, of each individual family. This meaning and object was very definitely stamped on the ritual. In a similar manner, the feast of the beginning of harvest and of the first fruits required celebration at home, on the plot of land, and this was still more the case with the festival of thanksgiving for the completed harvest.

Before the people rejoiced in the blessing of the completed harvest at the feast of tabernacles, all misdeeds which might have defiled the year to that time must be cancelled and removed by a special sacrifice. For this object the law on this occasion made a requirement never demanded at any other time. From the evening of the ninth to the evening of the tenth day there was not only a cessation of business, but a strict fast was kept. Every man among the people must subject himself to this regulation, and he who transgressed it was threatened with the loss of his life.[386] The high priest had first to cleanse himself and the other priests, and then the dwelling of Jehovah; for even the sanctuary might be defiled by the inadvertence of the[Pg 211] priests. When the high priest had bathed he must clothe himself in a coat and trousers of white linen, with a girdle and head-band of the same material, and offer a young bull as a sin offering. Bearing a vessel filled with the blood of this victim, and with the censer from the altar of incense in the interior of the sanctuary, which contained burning coals and frankincense, the high priest went alone into the holy of holies, behind the curtain before the ark of the covenant. Immediately on his entrance the clouds arising from the censer must fill the chamber, that the priest might not see the face of Jehovah over the cherubs and die. Then the high priest sprinkled the blood from the vessel seven times towards the ark, and when thus cleansed he turned back to the court of the sanctuary, in which two goats stood ready for sacrifice. He cast lots which of the two should be sacrificed to Jehovah and which to Azazel, the evil spirit of the desert. When the lot was cast, the high priest laid his hand on the head of the goat assigned to Azazel, confessed all the sins and transgressions of Israel on this goat, and laid them on his head, in order that he might carry them into the desert-land into which the goat was driven from the sanctuary. Then the high priest slew the other goat assigned to Jehovah, and, returning into the holy of holies, sprinkled with his blood the ark of the covenant for the second time, in order to purify the people. When the altar of incense, in the outer part of the sanctuary, had been sprinkled in a similar manner, the high priest declared that Jehovah was appeased. After a second bath he put on his usual robes, and offered three rams as burnt offerings for himself, the priesthood, and the nation.[387]

All sacrifices were to be offered at the tabernacle,[Pg 212] "before the dwelling of Jehovah;" and afterwards in like manner in the temple. The law of the priests threatened any one with death who sacrificed elsewhere.[388] The most essential regulations for the offering of sacrifice are perhaps the following:—Any one who intended to bring an offering must purify himself for several days. Wild animals could not be offered. In the Hebrew conception the sacrifice is the surrender of a part of a man's possessions and enjoyments. Hence only domestic offerings could be offered, because only these are really property. Cattle, sheep, and goats were the animals appointed for sacrifice. The poorer people were also allowed to offer doves. Each victim must be without blemish and healthy, and it must not be weakened and desecrated by labour. Before the animal was killed the sacrificer laid his hand on its head for a time; then he who offered the sacrifice, whether priest or layman, slew the victim, but only the priest could receive the warm blood in the sacrificial vessel. With this vessel in his hand the priest went round the altar and sprinkled the feet, the corners, and the sides of it with the blood of the victim. In the Hebrew conception the life of the victim was in its blood, and thus the sprinklings which were to be made with it form the most important part of the holy ceremony. From ancient times the burnt offering was the most solemn kind of sacrifice. Only male animals, and, as a rule, bulls and rams, could be offered as burnt offerings. When they had been slain and skinned these offerings were entirely burnt in the fire on the altar, without any part being enjoyed by the sacrificer or the priest, as was the case in other kinds of offerings; only the skin fell to the share of the priests. As the burnt offering[Pg 213] was intended to gain the favour of Jehovah, so were the sin offerings intended to appease his anger and blot out transgressions. For sin offerings female animals were used as a rule, as male animals for the burnt offerings,[389] but young bulls and he-goats were also offered as expiatory offerings for the whole people, and for oversights or transgressions of the priests in the ritual, and for sin offerings for princes. In sin offerings only certain parts of the entrails were burnt, the kidneys, the liver, and other parts; and in this sacrifice the priests sprinkled the blood on the horns of the altar; the flesh which was not burned belonged to the priests. In thank offerings and offerings of slaughter (so called because in these the slaying and eating of the victim was the principal matter) only the fat was burnt, the priests kept the breast and the right thigh,[390] the rest was eaten by the sacrificer at a banquet with the guests whom he had invited; but this banquet must be held at the place of sacrifice, on the same or at any rate on the following day. Drink offerings consisted of libations of wine, which were poured on and round the altar (libations of water are also mentioned, though not in the law, p. 115); the food offerings in fruits, corn, and white meal, which the priests threw into the fire of the altar; in bread and cookery, which, drenched with oil and sprinkled with salt and incense, was partly burned, and partly fell to the lot of the priests. Lastly, the incense offerings consisted in the burning of incense, which did not take place, like the other sacrifices, on the larger altar in the court of the sanctuary, but on the small altar, which stood in the space before the holy of holies of the tabernacle, and afterwards of the temple.[391][Pg 214]

According to the law, a service was to be continually going on in the dwelling of Jehovah. The sacred fire on the altar in the interior of the tabernacle was never to be quenched; before the holy of holies on the sacred table twelve unleavened loaves always lay sprinkled with salt and incense, as a symbolical and continual offering of the twelve tribes. Each Sabbath this bread was renewed, and the loaves when removed fell to the priests. Before the curtain of the holy of holies the candlestick with seven lamps was always burning, and every morning and evening the priests of the temple were to offer a male sheep as a burnt offering at the dwelling of Jehovah, and two sheep on the morning and evening of the Sabbath. The high priest had also to make an offering of corn every morning and evening.[392]

Beside the sacrifice, the law of the priests required the observance of a whole series of regulations for purity. It is not merely bodily cleanliness which these laws required of the Israelites, nor is it merely a natural abhorrence of certain disgusting objects which lies at the base of these prescriptions; it is not merely that to the simple mind physical and moral purity appear identical, that moral evil is conceived as a defilement of the body; nor are these regulations merely intended to place a certain restriction on natural states and impulses. These factors had their weight, but beside them all a certain side of nature and of the natural life was set apart as impure and unholy. The laws of purity among the Israelites are far less strict and comprehensive than those of the Egyptians and the Indians; but if we unite them with the ritual by which transgressions of[Pg 215] these rules were done away and made good, they form a system entering somewhat deeply into the life of the nation.

For the laity also the law required and prescribed cleanliness of clothing. Stuffs of two kinds might not be worn; pomegranates must be fixed on the corners of the robe. The field and vineyard might not be sown with two kinds of seed; nor could ox and ass be yoked together before the plough.[393] Certain animals were unclean, and these might not be eaten. The clean and permitted food was obtained from oxen, sheep, goats, and in wild animals from deer, wild-goats, and gazelles, and in fact from all animals which ruminate and have cloven feet. Unclean are all flesh-eating animals with paws, and more especially the camel, the swine, the hare, and the coney. Of fish, those only might be eaten which have fins and scales; all fish resembling snakes, like eels, might not be eaten. Most water-fowl are unclean; pigeons and quails, on the other hand, were permitted food. All creeping things, winged or not, with the exception of locusts, are forbidden.[394] Moreover, if the permitted animals were not slain in the proper manner their flesh was unclean; if it had "died of itself," or was strangled, or torn by wild beasts,[395] the use of the blood of the animal was most strictly forbidden, "for the life of all flesh is the blood;" even of the animals which might be eaten the blood must be poured on the earth and covered with earth.[396] As the eating of forbidden food made a man unclean, so also did all sexual functions of man or woman, and all diseases connected with these functions, including lying in child-bed. Every one was also unclean on whose body was "a[Pg 216] rising scab or bright spot," but above all the white leprosy rendered the sufferer unclean.[397] Finally, any contact with the corpse of man or beast, whether intentional or accidental, rendered a man unclean. The house in which a man died, with all the utensils, was unclean; any one who touched a grave or a human bone was tainted.[398]

The priestly regulations set forth in great detail the ceremonies, the washings and sacrifices, by which defilements were to be removed. The unclean person must avoid the sanctuary, and even society and contact with others, till the time of his purification, which in serious defilements can only begin after the lapse of a certain time. In the more grievous cases ordinary water did not suffice for the cleansing, but from the ashes of a red cow without blemish, which was slain as a sin offering and entirely burnt, the priest prepared a special water of purification with cedar wood and bunches of hyssop. The reception of healed lepers required the most careful preparations and most scrupulous manipulations.

Among the regulations of purity is reckoned the custom of circumcision, which was practised among the Israelites, and retained by the law. Yet the reason for this peculiar custom, which according to the regulations of the priests was performed on the eighth day after birth, the first day of the second week of life,[399][Pg 217] seems to lie in other motives rather than in the desire to remove a certain part of the male body which was regarded as unclean. We saw above that according to the old conception of the Israelites the firstborn must be ransomed from Jehovah, that the life of all boys, if it was to be secured, must be purchased from Jehovah (I. 414, 448). Hence, if we may follow the hint of an obscure narrative, it is not improbable that circumcision of the reproductive member was a vicarious blood-sacrifice for the life of the boy. When Moses returned from the land of Midian to Egypt—so we learn from the Ephraimitic text—"Jehovah met him in the inn, and sought to kill him. Then Zipporah took a sharp stone, and cut off the foreskin of her son, and cast it at his feet, and he departed from him."[400] To the Israelites circumcision was a symbol of their connection with the nation, of their covenant with Jehovah and selection by him.

The most important part of the purity of the people of Jehovah was their maintenance of his worship, the strict severance of Israel from the religion of their neighbours and community with them. It was now seen what influence living and mingling with the Canaanites had exercised in the national worship, and it was perceived what an attraction the Syrian rites had presented for centuries to the nation, and what a power they still had upon them. Hence even Moses was said to have given the command to destroy the altars and images of the Canaanites, to drive out all the Canaanites, and make neither covenant nor[Pg 218] marriage with them.[401] The law forbade sacrifices to Moloch under penalty of death; any one who did so was to be stoned. Those who made offerings to other gods than Jehovah were to be "accursed" (I. 499). Wizards were also to be stoned.[402] "Ye shall not round the corners of your heads, neither shalt thou mar the corners of thy beard. Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any mark upon you. Do not prostitute thy daughter to cause her to play the harlot."[403] All these are commands directed against the manners, funeral customs, and religious worship of the Canaanites. Strangers were not to be received into the community and people of Israel; nor could Israelites contract marriage with women who were not Israelites; it is only the later law which allows women captured in war to be taken into the marriage bed.[404] These are the "misanthropical" laws of the Jews of which Tacitus speaks with such deep aversion.

The law assigned a far-reaching religious influence to the priests. They alone could turn the favour of Jehovah towards his people by correct and effective sacrifices, and appease his wrath; they announced the will of Jehovah by his oracle; in regard to diseases and leprosy, they exercised police functions over the whole nation by means of the regulations for cleanliness and food; they could exclude any one at their discretion from the sacrifices and, consequently, from the community; and, in fine, they were in possession of the skill and knowledge with which the people were unacquainted. The priesthood arranged the chronology[Pg 219] and the festivals, they supervised weights and measures,[405] they knew the history of the people in past ages, and their ancient covenant with the God of the ancestors. From their knowledge of the ordinances of Jehovah followed the claim which the priests made to watch over the application of these ordinances in life, the administration of law and justice. But at first this claim was put forward modestly. The old regulations about the right of blood in the time-honoured observances of justice were added to the law of ritual when this was written down (I. 385, 484); they were modified here and there by the views of the priesthood, and in some points essentially extended; and now, like the ordinances for the places of sacrifice, mode of worship, and purification, they stood opposed in many regulations to real life as ideal but hardly practicable standards.

According to the view of the priests Jehovah was the true possessor of the land of Israel. He had given it to his people for tenure and use. From this conception the law derived very peculiar conclusions, which might be of essential advantage for retaining the property of the families in their hands, for keeping up the family and their possessions, on which the Hebrews laid weight, and for proprietors when in debt. To aid the debtor against the creditor, the poor against the rich, the labourer against him who gave the work, the slave against his master, is in other ways also the obvious object of the law.

As all work must cease on the seventh day, the day of Jehovah, so must there be a similar cessation in the seventh year, which is therefore called the Sabbath year. In every seventh year the Israelites were to allow the land which Jehovah had let to them to lie fallow, in honour of the real owner. In this year the[Pg 220] land was not sowed, nor the vine-trees cut, nor the wild beast driven from the field, every one must seek on the fallow what had grown there without culture. If this Sabbath of the seventh year was kept Jehovah would send such increase on the preceding sixth year that there should be no want.[406] When this period of seven fallow years had occurred seven times the circle appeared to be complete, and from this point of view the law ordained that at such a time everything should return to the original position. Hence, when the seventh Sabbath year was seven times repeated (in the year of Jubilee) not only was agriculture stopped, but all alienated property, with the buildings and belongings, went back to the original owner or his heirs.[407] The consequence was that properties were never really sold, but the use of them was assigned to others, and hence, even before the year of Jubilee, the owner could redeem his land by paying the value of the produce which would be yielded before the year of Jubilee.

But the priests were far from being able to carry out these extended requirements which proceeded from the sanctity of the Sabbath, and from the conception that the land of Israel belonged to Jehovah, and every family held their property from Jehovah himself, and which were intended to make plain the true nature of the property of the Israelites. It was an ideal picture which they set up, and hardly so much as an attempt was made to carry it out. They could reckon with more certainty on obedience to a law which ordained that no interest was to be taken from the poor, and no poor man's mantle was to be taken in pledge.[408] Nevertheless, the law of debt was[Pg 221] severe. If the debtor could not pay his debt before a fixed time the creditor was allowed to pay himself with the moveable and fixed property of the debtor; he could sell his wife and children, and even the debtor himself, as slaves, or use him as a slave in his own service.

For the legal process we find in the law no more than the regulation "that one witness shall not bear evidence against a man for his death," i. e. that one witness was not sufficient to establish a serious charge, that "injustice shall not be done in judgment, that the person of the small shall not be disregarded, nor the person of the great honoured;" "according to law thou shalt judge thy neighbour."[409] For every injury done to the person or property of another, the guilty shall make reparation. We know already the old ordinances which require life for life, eye for eye, and tooth for tooth (I. 485). Injury to property and possession was to be fully compensated; even the injury done by his beast was to be compensated by the master. Theft was merely punished by restoring four or five times the value of the stolen goods. If the thief could not pay this compensation he was handed over to the injured man as a slave. But any one who steals a man in order to keep him as a slave, or to sell him, was to be punished with death.[410] If a murder was committed, the avenger of blood, i. e. the nearest relative and heir of the murdered man, was to pursue the murderer and slay him, wherever he met him, as soon as it was established by two persons that he was really guilty. The law even forbade the avenger of blood to accept a ransom instead of taking the life of the guilty, because the land was desecrated by the blood of the murdered man, "and the land is not[Pg 222] cleansed from the blood spilt, save by the blood of the murderer." An exception was allowed only when one man slew another by accident, and without any fault of his own, and not out of hostility or hatred. In this case the slayer was to fly into one of the six cities which were marked out as cities of refuge.[411] From the elders of the city the pursuing avenger of blood was to demand the delivery of the slayer, and they were to decide whether the act was done from hatred and hostility, or was merely an accident. If the elders decided in favour of the first alternative, they were to give up the guilty into the hands of the avenger of blood, that he might die. In the other case, the slayer must remain in the city of refuge till the death of the high priest, and the avenger was free from the guilt of bloodshed if before that time he met him beyond the confines of the city of refuge and slew him.[412] The regulations of the priests even went so far as to lay down a rule that if a savage bull slew a man the bull was not only to be stoned, and not eaten as an unclean animal, but his master also must die, or at any rate pay a ransom, if he knew that the animal was savage, and yet did not control him.[413]

Among the people of the East the wealthier men did not content themselves with one wife. This custom prevailed in Israel also. The law of the priests did not oppose a custom which had an example and justification in the narratives of the patriarchs. The Israelites also followed the general custom of the East, in purchasing the wife from her father, and recompensing the father for the loss of a useful piece of property—for the two working hands which he lost[Pg 223] when he gave away his daughter from his house. Thus Jacob obtained the daughters of Laban by a service of 14 years. The price of a wife purchased for marriage from the father seems to have been from 15 to 50 shekels of silver (36s. to 125s.).[414] The conclusion of the marriage was marked by a special festivity, after which the bride was carried by her parents into the nuptial chamber. The prostitution of maidens in honour of the goddess of birth, so common among the neighbouring nations, was strictly forbidden by the book of the law. The daughter of a priest who began to prostitute herself was to be burnt with fire, because she thus "defiled not herself only, but also her father."[415] The man who seduced a virgin was compelled to purchase her for his wife, and even if her father would not give her to wife he was to pay him the usual purchase-money. Adultery was punished by the law with even greater severity than violations of chastity before marriage. The adulteress, together with the man who had seduced her into a violation of the marriage bond, were to be put to death.[416] If a man suspected his wife of unfaithfulness without being able to prove it against her a divine judgment was to decide the matter. The priest was to lead man and wife before Jehovah. Then he was to draw holy water in an earthen pitcher, and throw dust swept from the floor of the dwelling of Jehovah into this, and say to the woman, "If thou hast not offended in secret against thy husband, remain unpunished by this water of sorrow, that bringeth the curse; but if thou hast sinned, may this water go into thy body and cause thy thighs to rot,[Pg 224] and may Jehovah make thee a curse and an oath among thy people." The woman answered, "So be it;" and when the priest had dipped in the water a sheet written with the words of this curse, she was compelled to drink it.[417] Thus the woman was brought to confession, or was freed from the suspicion of her husband.

Marriages were forbidden not only with strange women, but also within certain degrees of relationship; in which were included not only those close degrees, to which there is a natural abhorrence, but also such as did not exclude marriage in other nations. In this matter the law of the priests proceeded from the sound view that marriage did not belong to a natural connection already in existence, but was intended to found a new relationship. Not only was marriage forbidden with a mother, with any wife or concubine of the father, with a sister, a daughter, or granddaughter, a widowed daughter-in-law; but also with an aunt on the father's or mother's side, with a stepsister, or sister by marriage, with a sister-in-law, or wife's sister so long as the wife lived.[418]

The husband purchased his wife as a chattel; hence in marriage she continued to live in entire dependence beside her husband. The husband could not commit adultery as against his wife; it was the right of another husband which was injured by the seduction of the wife. It rested with the husband to take as many wives as he chose beside his first wife, and as many concubines from his handmaids and female slaves as seemed good to him. The husband could put away his wife if she "found no favour in his eyes," while the wife, on her part, could not dissolve[Pg 225] the marriage, or demand a separation; she possessed no legal will. Like the wife, the children stood to the father in a relation of the most complete dependence. Nor only did he sell his daughters for marriage, he could give them as pledges, or even sell them as slaves, but not out of the land;[419] and though the father was not allowed to sell the son as a slave, he could turn him out of his house. Obedience and reverence towards parents were impressed strongly on children, even in the earliest regulations derived from the time of Moses. The son who curses his father or mother, or strikes them, must be put to death.[420] The first-born son is the heir of the house; after the death of the father he is the head of the family, and succeeds to his rights over the younger sons and the females. It is not clear whether the law allows any claims to the moveable inheritance to any of the sons besides the eldest, to whom the immoveable property passed absolutely; the sons of concubines and slaves had no right of inheritance if there were sons in existence by legitimate marriage. Daughters could only inherit if there were no sons. The heiress could not marry beyond the tribe, in order that the inheritance might at least fall to the lot of a tribesman. If there were neither sons nor daughters, the brother of the father was the heir, and then the uncles of the father.[421]

The law attempts to fix and ameliorate the position of day-labourers and slaves. "The hire of the labourer shall not remain with thee till the morrow."[422] The number of slaves appears to have been considerable. They were partly captives taken in war, and partly strangers purchased in the way of trade; partly He[Pg 226]brews who, when detected in thieving, could not pay the compensation, or who could not pay their debts, or Hebrew daughters sold by their parents. The marriages of slaves increased their number. The law required that slaves should rest on the Sabbath day;[423] and even the oldest regulations restrict the right of the master over the life of his slave by laying down the rule that the slave shall be free if his master has inflicted a severe wound upon him, and that the master must be punished if he has slain his slave.[424] The slave who was a born Israelite might be ransomed by his kindred, if they could pay the sum required.[425] The Hebrew slave was treated by his master as a hired labourer, and hind.[426] When the Hebrew slave had served six years his master was compelled to set him free without ransom in the seventh year. A Hebrew could only remain in slavery for ever when, after six years of service, he voluntarily declared that he wished to remain with his master; then, as a sign that he permanently belonged to the house of his master, his ear was pierced on the door-post with an awl.

 

 

[Pg 227]

CHAPTER X.

JUDAH AND ISRAEL.

The monarchy in Israel was established by the people to check the destruction and ruin with which the land and population were threatened by the incursions of the neighbours on the east, by the dangerous arms of the Philistines. The first attempt to set up a monarchy in connection with the cities of the land was soon wrecked and swept away, without leaving a trace behind. In spite of his support in the wishes of the great majority of the Israelites, the monarchy of Saul had not succeeded in establishing itself securely by its simple and popular conduct. It was not till the monarchy had fortified the royal city and palace, established a body-guard and standing troops, magistrates and tax-gatherers, and had entered into close relation with the priests, that it obtained security and permanence. It had indeed fulfilled its mission and saved Israel; it had won power, glory, and respect for the nation, and imparted to it lofty impulses of the most important kind. It had at the same time gone far beyond the intention of its foundation. It was now a Sultanate, which, by filling the land with Syrian trade and customs, and allowing the growth of Syrian modes of worship, threatened in one direction the nationality with the same dangers which it had removed in another.

The transformation which the manner of life in[Pg 228] Israel underwent during the reigns of David and Solomon was so thorough that even under David a reaction set in. If in the time before David and Solomon the Israelites had led an unrestrained life, they were now ruled by a severe monarchy. In the place of the patriarchal authority of the elders and heads of tribes, whose decisions they had formerly sought, came the rule of royal officers, who could exercise their power capriciously enough. If hitherto they had lived unmolested, every man on his own plot, beneath his vine and fig tree, they were now compelled to pay taxes and do task-work. After the burdens Solomon had laid upon the people, this reaction must have been stronger than at the time when Absalom's rebellion shattered the throne of his father. Moreover, Solomon's reign, though it lasted full 40 years, did not give the same impression of vigorous power as David's strong arm had done before him, and the monarchy was not so old, nor so firmly established as an institution, that the Israelites could not remember the times which preceded it.

No doubt the tribe of Judah could bear the new burdens, because it enjoyed the advantages of the new polity. The king belonged to this tribe; the temple and metropolis were in its territory. But the interests of the other tribes were the more deeply injured. Above all, the tribe of Ephraim must have felt itself degraded. In this tribe the memory of Joshua still lived, the remembrance of the conquest of the land; once it had held the foremost place, and on its soil the ark of Jehovah had stood. Now the pre-eminence was with Judah, the tribe which had long been subject to the Philistines; the sacred ark stood at Jerusalem, and the ancient places of sacrifice were neglected. Of the feeling of the tribe of Ephraim we[Pg 229] have indubitable evidence in an attempt at rebellion at the beginning of the last decade of the reign of Solomon; an attempt, it is true, which was quickly suppressed.[427]

When Solomon died, in the year 953 B.C., it was not the contests between his sons or the intrigues of the harem which now threatened the succession. Rehoboam, Solomon's eldest son, who was born to him by Naamah the Ammonite, was now in his forty-second year, and thus in the vigour of age. This vigour he needed. At the news of Solomon's death the people gathered to their old place of assembly at Shechem. This self-collected assembly showed that the majority of Israel were mindful of their right to elect the king. The greatest circumspection and tact were needed to avert the approaching storm. Rehoboam saw that he must not look idly on. He must either attempt to disperse the assembled multitude by force and maintain the crown by arms, or he must treat with it. Hence he set forth to Shechem, accompanied by the counsellors of his father. A deputation of the people met him, and said, "Thy father made our yoke grievous; now therefore make thou the grievous service of thy father, and his heavy yoke which he put upon us, lighter, and we will serve thee." Rehoboam promised to make an answer on the third day. He assembled his counsellors. The old men among them[Pg 230]—so all the older text of the Books of Kings tells us—advised compliance, and recommended him to speak kindly to the people; the younger, who had grown up with the new king, and were accustomed to flatter him, and desired unrestricted power over the people, urged him to reject strongly such claims and such rebellion. Rehoboam was foolish enough to follow advice which could not but be ruinous. Although he can hardly have said to the people the words which the Books of Kings put in his mouth—"My father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions,"—he rejected the demand of the Israelites. Then a cry arose in the assembly of the people, "We have no part in David, nor any inheritance in the son of Jesse; to your tents, O Israel!" When it was too late Rehoboam attempted to soothe the enraged multitude. He sent his task-master, Adoniram, to them, but the people slew the ill-chosen messenger by stoning him to death. Nothing remained for Rehoboam but to mount his chariot in haste and fly to Jerusalem.

The grievous distress which 100 years before had caused the nation at Gilgal to proclaim Saul king with one consent, and which after the death of Ishbosheth had united the tribes round David at Hebron, had long passed away. The danger which division had once brought upon Israel had faded into the distance, and was forgotten in the security which had prevailed in the last generations against the neighbours on every side. Nothing was thought of but the immediate evil and the coming oppression, if the monarchy went further on the lines on which it was treading. At the time of Solomon an Ephraimite named Jeroboam, the son of Nabath (Nebat) of Zereda, who is spoken of as "a brave man," was a second overseer[Pg 231] among the task-labourers. As he was skilful in the discharge of his duties, Solomon raised him to be the overseer of the task-work of his tribe. This office, which made him known to all his tribe, Jeroboam must have discharged in such a way as to gain the favour rather than the aversion of the tribesmen. We are told in a few words that "Jeroboam raised his hand against Solomon," and that "Solomon sought to slay him." Jeroboam escaped to Egypt, and found refuge with the Pharaoh Shishak (about 960 B.C.). Immediately after Solomon's death Jeroboam received a message from his tribesmen to return. Rehoboam's refusal to carry on a milder form of government decided the choice of Jeroboam as king. That choice declared sufficiently the degree of aversion which the multitude bore to the house of David and the monarchy at Jerusalem.

The chief city, the tribe of Judah, the tribe of Simeon, so long united in close connection with Judah, and a part of the tribe of Benjamin, whose land lay immediately at the gates of Jerusalem, remained true to the son of Solomon. From the tribe of Judah the rise and dominion of David had its commencement; to them that dominion was now returned, and was again confined within its early limits. The question was whether Rehoboam could achieve what his grandfather David had succeeded in doing—could regain the dominion over the whole land from Judah. Rehoboam thought, no doubt, that he could reduce by the power of his arms the tribes which had withdrawn themselves from his dominion. He armed and assembled the warriors of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin. If he soon abandoned this intention, the reason hardly lies in the warning of the prophet Semaiah, as the prophetic revision maintains in a passage interpolated into the annals,—we are told at the same time that[Pg 232] there had been "a contention between Rehoboam and Jeroboam from the first,"[428]—but in the fact that a mightier enemy came upon Rehoboam.

From the time when the Hebrews won their abode in Canaan, they had not been molested in any way from Egypt, where the rulers since the reign of Ramses III. rested quietly by the Nile. Solomon, as we saw (p. 180), entered into friendly relations with Egypt, and even into affinity. But in the later years of his reign a new dynasty ascended the throne of Egypt in the person of Shishak, which took up a different attitude. With him Jeroboam had found refuge from the pursuit of Solomon. It was to Jeroboam's interest, no less than Shishak's, that this connection should continue after Jeroboam became king of Israel. It is not improbable that Shishak made war upon Rehoboam in order to secure Jeroboam in his new dominion. Whether Jeroboam sought the help of Egypt or not, why should not Egypt have availed herself of the breach in the Israelitish kingdom which had reached such a height in Syria under David and Solomon, and forced her way even to the borders of Egypt? Why should she not establish the division and the weakness of Israel? At the same time, in all probability, a cheap reputation for military valour might be obtained, and the treasures of Solomon seized. In the year 949 B.C., the fifth year of Rehoboam's reign, the Pharaoh invaded Judah. He is said to "have come with 1200 chariots, and 60,000 horsemen; and the people who accompanied him from Egypt, Libya, and Ethiopia were beyond number." Rehoboam could not withstand the power of Shishak; one city after another, including Jerusalem, opened her gates to the Pharaoh. The glory of Solomon was past and gone.[Pg 233] Shishak took away the treasures of the temple and the royal palace, and the gold shields which Solomon had caused to be made for the body-guard. There was no thought of a lasting conquest and the subjugation of Syria; the object was merely to weaken, plunder, and reduce Judah. When this object was obtained the Pharaoh turned back to Egypt. On the outer walls of the temple of Karnak we may see the gigantic form of Shishak, who brandishes the weapon of victory over a crowd of conquered enemies; 133 bearded figures are to be seen, with their hands tied behind them, whom Ammon and Mut are leading before Shishak. The lower part of these figures is covered by the name-shields. They represent the places in the kingdom of Judah, which in equal number were taken or were taxed by the Pharaoh. Of these 133 name-shields about 100 are still legible, but few names are found among these which correspond to known places in Judæa. We may perhaps recognise Jehud, Ajalon, Beth-Horon, Gibeon, Beeroth, Rimmon in the north of Judah or in Benjamin; Engedi and Adullam in the east; Lachish, Adoraim, Mareshah, Kegilah (Keilah), and some other places in the centre of Judah. As there is scarcely one among these names which can with certainty be apportioned to the kingdom of Israel, the conclusion may naturally be drawn that the campaign was made with a favourable regard to Jeroboam, and was confined to Judah.[429][Pg 234]

It was a heavy blow which had befallen the little kingdom, and, what was still worse, Jeroboam could avail himself of it, and the Pharaoh could repeat his raid. Rehoboam saw that the only way to increase the power of resistance in his kingdom and prevent its overthrow was to strengthen the fortifications of the metropolis, and change all the larger towns in the land into fortresses. He carried this plan out, we are told, so far as he could, and provided them with garrisons, arms, supplies, and governors. Fifteen of these are mentioned in the Chronicles. The dominion over the Edomites, whom Saul fought with and David overcame, and who attempted in vain to break loose under Solomon, was maintained by Rehoboam.

After the brief reign of Abiam, the son of Rehoboam (932-929 B.C.), Asa, the brother of Abiam, ascended the throne of Judah. In his time, according to the Chronicles, Serah, the Cushite, invaded Judah with a great army, and forced his way as far as Maresa; but in the fifteenth year of his reign Asa defeated the Cushites, and sacrificed 700 oxen and 7000 sheep out of the booty to Jehovah at Jerusalem. The Books of the Kings know nothing but the fact that Asa was engaged in constant warfare with Baasha, the second successor of Jeroboam, king of Israel (925-901 B.C.).[430][Pg 235] Baasha forced his way as far as Ramah, i. e. within two leagues of Jerusalem. This place he took and fortified, and was now enabled to press heavily on the metropolis of Judah, by checking their trade and cutting off their supplies. Asa's military power does not seem to have been sufficient to relieve him from this intolerable position. He "took all the silver and gold that remained in the treasures of the house of Jehovah, and in the treasures of the king's house," and sent it to Benhadad, who was now king of Damascus in the room of Rezon the opponent of Solomon, and urged him to break his covenant with Baasha, and make war upon him that he might leave Judah at peace. Benhadad agreed to his request. He invaded Israel. As Jeroboam had summoned Egypt against Judah, Judah was now joined by Damascus against Israel. Baasha abandoned his war against Israel, and Asa caused the wood and the stones of the fortifications to be hastily [Pg 236]carried away from Ramah, and with this material he entrenched Gebah and Mizpeh against Israel.[431]

An addition in the first Book of Kings remarks that Asa removed the harlots and the idols out of the land, that he threw down the image of Astarte, which his mother had set up, and burnt it in the valley of the Kidron.[432] This was a healthy reaction against the foreign rites which had crept in in the last years of Solomon's reign. Asa's son Jehoshaphat (873-848 B.C.) went further in this direction. The remainder of the harlots were removed from the land; he entered into peaceful relations with Israel. The supremacy over the Edomites was maintained, and they were governed by viceroys of the king of Judah.[433] We find that the Edomites sent contingents to him; and his sway extended as far as the north-east point of the Red Sea. Here, at Elath, as in Solomon's time, great ships were built for the voyage to Ophir.[434]

The ten tribes who had set Jeroboam at their head were the mass of the people both in numbers and extent of territory. They might hope to carry on the kingdom, they preserved the name of Israel; while in the south there was little more than one powerful tribe separated from the rest. Shechem, the ancient metropolis of the tribe of Ephraim, the place at which the crown was transferred to Jeroboam, was the residence of the new king. When Jerusalem was no longer the chief metropolis of the kingdom, the temple there could not any longer be the place of worship for all the tribes. It would be nothing less then recognising the supremacy of Rehoboam if the tribes continued to go up to Jerusalem to the great sacrifices[Pg 237] and festivals. The places of worship for the new kingdom must be within its own borders. Jeroboam consecrated afresh the old place of sacrifice, Bethel, on the southern border of the territory of Ephraim, the place where Abraham had offered sacrifice, and Jacob had rested (I. 390, 408); and on the northern boundaries of his kingdom he consecrated the place of sacrifice at Dan, which the Danites had once founded on taking Laish from the Sidonians (p. 94). At both places he set up a golden calf to Jehovah, and instituted priests; and, as we are told, the Israelites came like one man to the feasts of Dan, and sacrificed at Bethel, where the sanctuary also contained a treasury. Of other actions of Jeroboam, we only know that he built, i. e. fortified, Peniel in the land beyond Jordan; no doubt in order to be able to maintain his supremacy over the Ammonites. The severe blow which had fallen on the kingdom of Judah by the incursion of Shishak secured him from any serious attack on the part of Rehoboam. The petty warfare on the borders of Judah and Israel naturally did not cease during his reign (p. 231).

Nadab, the son of Jeroboam (927-925 B.C.), marched against the Philistines in order to recover from them Gibbethon in the land of the southern Danites. Here in the camp at Gibbethon he was slain by Baasha, one of the captains of his army, and the whole race of Jeroboam was destroyed. Baasha ascended the throne, which Nadab had held for two years only. He took up his abode at Tirzah, a pleasantly-situated place north of Shechem.[435] The division of the kingdom of Israel and its consequent debility could not but appear a desirable event to the kingdom of Damascus, which, though overthrown by David, was restored by Rezon in Solomon's time (p. 179.) Attacks of Judah[Pg 238] on Israel could not be supported by Damascus, because they might lead to a reunion, and for the same reason Israel could not be allowed to subjugate Judah. This seems to have been the reason which induced Benhadad of Damascus to accede to the request of Asa, king of Judah, when Baasha had entrenched Ramah against Jerusalem. Benhadad's invasion of the north of Israel, the desolation of the district on the Upper Jordan and the lake of Genesareth,[436] gave relief to the oppressed kingdom of Judah (p. 235). Baasha's son Elah was slain at a banquet at Tirzah, after a short reign (901-899 B.C.), by Zimri, one of the captains of his army, who seized the crown. But the army of Israel, which was again encamped at Gibbethon, on hearing of what had taken place at Tirzah, elected Omri, their leader, king. Omri broke up the siege of Gibbethon, marched to Tirzah, and took the city. Zimri despaired of maintaining himself in the royal castle, and burnt himself in it. Yet Omri was not master of Israel. Half of the people joined Tibni, the son of Ginath. Omri gradually gained the upper hand, till Tibni's death decided the matter in his favour.

With the elevation of Omri (899-875 B.C.) a third dynasty ascended the throne of Israel, while in Judah the crown continued peacefully in the family of David. Like Baasha, Omri founded a new residence; he removed his seat from Tirzah to Mount Shomron, and here built the new city of that name (Samaria). Nothing is said of the wars of Omri against Judah. To Benhadad of Damascus he seems to have lost some towns in the land of Gilead.[437] That he ruled with address, vigour, and a strong hand is clear from the inscription on a monument which Mesha, king of Moab, caused to be erected in his city of Dibon (east of the Dead Sea). This tells us[Pg 239] that Omri and his son after him held Moab in subjection for 40 years; that not only was the city of Nebo garrisoned by the Israelites, but Omri even took Medabah, i. e. the region south of Nebo towards Dibon, and occupied it, and "oppressed Moab for a long time," because "Camos, the god of the Moabites, was angry at his land."[438] As Mesha regained his independence after the death of Ahab, the son of Omri, the more severe subjection of the Moabites by Omri must have begun in the year 893 B.C. Omri seems to have entered into friendly relations with Ethbaal, king of Tyre (917-885 B.C.), or his successor Balezor (885-877 B.C.).[439] Omri's authority and reputation must have been considerable, since even after the overthrow of his house, in the second half of the ninth century B.C., the kings of Assyria speak of the king of Israel as "the son of Omri," and the kingdom of Israel as the "house of Omri."

Ahab, Omri's son (875-853 B.C.), maintained the power which his father had won. The Books of Kings tell us that Mesha, king of Moab, sent him yearly the wool of 100,000 sheep and lambs,[440] and Mesha himself tells us that Omri was followed by his son, who also said, "I will oppress Moab;" and Israel "dwelt at Medabah for 40 years in the days of Omri and Ahab." That the Ammonites also were subject to Ahab seems a just conclusion from the inscriptions of Shalmanesar, king of Assyria.[441] With Tyre Ahab was in close connection. His wife Jezebel was the daughter of Ethbaal, king of Tyre, the aunt of Mutton, the contemporary king of Tyre (p. 268). He was on friendly terms with Judah, which began to rise again (as we saw)[Pg 240] under the rule of Jehoshaphat. Jehoram, the son of Jehoshaphat, was married to Athaliah, the daughter of Ahab and Jezebel.[442] On the vine-clad hills of Jezreel Ahab built himself a palace adorned with ivory, after the pattern of the Phenician princes.[443]

The rites of the neighbouring tribes, the worship of Astarte, Camos, and Milcom, which found their way into the Hebrew tribes, and even to Jerusalem in the last years of Solomon's reign, were again removed in Judah, as we have seen (p. 235), under the reigns of Asa and Jehoshaphat. For Israel the dedication of the places of worship at Bethel and Dan to Jehovah, which Jeroboam instituted, in spite of the erection of the image of Jehovah, marked a reaction against the rites of the Canaanites. But the connection into which Ahab entered with Tyre brought it about that the gods of the Phenicians were again looked on with reverence in Israel. Induced by Jezebel, his Tyrian wife, so we are told, Ahab caused a temple to be erected in Samaria, which his father had built, to Baal of Tyre, at which 450 priests maintained the worship; and a temple was also dedicated to Astarte, which gave occupation to 400 priests.[444]

It was an ancient custom among the Hebrews, as we have already found more than once, to inquire of Jehovah what should be done. In Israel the custom of thus making inquiry was more widely spread than in other nations. Before any undertaking inquiry was made of his will. Jehovah's voice decided the sentence in the judgment court. It was usual in all cases and times to appeal to the decision of Jehovah. Question and answer were made, as has been remarked, by the priests casting lots before the sacred ark, the altars, and the images[Pg 241] of Jehovah. If a criminal had to be discovered, the tribes and races came forward, and he was marked out by the lot cast before Jehovah. We saw that Saul inquired of Jehovah on his campaign (p. 124). David undertook nothing without inquiring of the image of Jehovah which he carried about with him (p. 139). If any one wished to mark out the wisdom of any advice, it was said, "It is as if Jehovah had answered." But beside the priests who cast the lots, there were men who saw into what was hidden, and knew the future. To these soothsayers men went as well as to the lot before Jehovah; they desired to know whether there would be rain or drought, where a lost beast was to be found; they inquired for remedies for disease. The soothsayers even pronounced sentences at law, and their sentence was then as the sentence of Jehovah. It was Jehovah who illuminated such men, and imparted to them a keener vision, a higher knowledge. They believed, as the people believed of them—and the belief was stronger as the religious feeling was more intense—that they stood in a nearer and closer relation to Jehovah. If they also foretold events for reward, yet they lived in the belief that they knew the will and the counsels of Jehovah, and in this conviction they gave advice and judgment; they were not only soothsayers, but seers. In such a conviction mere prediction passed into prophecy, i. e. into the revelation of the will of Jehovah by the mental certainty of the seer. In this position we found Samuel, who, from being a priest, had attained to a knowledge of the will of Jehovah; he was at once priest, soothsayer for hire, and prophet; i. e. he not only announced external matters still in the future, but also announced the just decision, the resolve pleasing to God. He gathered disciples round him, who praised Jehovah with harp[Pg 242] and lute, and waited to see his face, and became changed into other men (p. 117). Gad and Nathan, with whom David and Solomon took counsel, were men of this style and tone. With the loftier impulses which the religious life received both on the ritual and legal side, as well as on the side of religious feeling under David and Solomon, with the survey of the fortunes which Jehovah had prepared for his people, with the expression of intense devotion in that poetry to which David opened the way, the elevation of mind in the prophets must have been increased and extended; their views must have become deeper. In the kingdom of Israel, so far as our knowledge goes, the seers and prophets had made no protest against the worship of Jehovah under an image. But they came forward with decisive opposition to the worship of Baal and Astarte, the strange gods which Ahab and Jezebel had introduced into Samaria and Israel. Ahab decreed persecution against them, which strengthened instead of breaking the intensity of their faith, their adhesion and devotion to the God of the ancestors. They were driven to live in solitudes, deserts, ravines, and caves. On their privations, fasts, and lonely contemplations in the silence of the desert followed dreams and ecstatic visions. By these the close and favoured relation of the persecuted to the God of Israel became an established certainty. The power of prediction passed into the background as compared with this awakening by Jehovah, and the duty to strive, contend, and suffer for the worship of the God of the nation against strange gods. If a prophet who had lifted up his voice against the sacrifice to Baal was compelled to fly before the king into the desert, he was followed thither by eager associates, who had at heart the worship and service of Jehovah. These[Pg 243] listened to his words and promptings; these were his disciples. The numbers of the awakened and illuminated increased; amid danger and in privation their religious life became more earnest; their zeal for Jehovah and their hatred of the strange gods and their worshippers became deeper as the persecution fell heavier upon them. They became men of word and action.

Strengthened in this conflict for zealous struggles in behalf of the ancient Lord, oppressed and persecuted for their faithfulness to the God of Israel, their relation to him took the shape of an inward conviction of great force and intensity. Filled with their belief and the revelations which Jehovah had imparted to them, they came forward in the boldest manner to oppose the apostate kings; their zeal for Jehovah rose to the wildest fanaticism, which shrunk from no means of destroying the servants of the strange gods. To bring into light the force of their opposition to the wicked kings, and the power which Jehovah gives to his faithful servants, tradition has adorned with many miracles the lives of Elijah and Elisha, the men who in Ahab's time transformed the prognostications of the seers into a prophetic censure. Elijah is said to have ascended to heaven in a chariot of fire, and even the corpse of Elisha worked miracles.

At the urgent request of Jezebel, so we are told, Ahab gave orders that the prophets of Jehovah, who roused the people against him, should be driven out of the land or put to death.[445] Elijah retired from Thisbe in Gilead, first to the region of Jordan, and then to Zarephath (Sarepta) in the land of the Sidonians;[446] and finally he found a place of refuge in the ravines of Carmel, on the sea-shore. A girdle of skins surrounded his loins, and a mantle of hair covered his shoulders;[Pg 244] ravens were said to have brought bread and flesh to the hungry prophet in the desert.[447] It came to pass that there was a long drought in Israel. In this time of distress Elijah came forth from his hiding-place to point out the anger of Jehovah on the king and the people for their worship of Baal, and to proclaim relief if they returned to the God of Israel. He requested Ahab to gather the people and all the priests of Baal and Astarte to Carmel, and there Jehovah would send rain. To this request Ahab agreed. "How long will ye halt on both knees, and go after Jehovah as well as Baal," cried Elijah to the assembled multitude. "I alone am left of the prophets of Jehovah, and the prophets of Baal are 450 men. Give us then two bulls: one to me, and one to the priests of Baal. We will cut them in pieces and lay them on the wood, and the God who answers with fire shall be our God." The priests of Baal slew their bull, laid him on the wood, and called on Baal from morning to mid-day, and said, O Baal, hear us! But in vain. Meanwhile Elijah, so the narrative continues, built an altar of 12 stones, for the 12 tribes, and made a trench round it; cut the bull in pieces, and laid him on the wood of the altar, and thrice poured water over all. When he called on Jehovah—to make it known on that day that he was God in Israel, and Elijah was his servant—fire fell from heaven and consumed the burnt offering, and the wood, and the stones, and the altar. All the people fell on their faces, and Elijah said, Seize the prophets of Baal; let none of them escape. The people fell upon them; they were brought down from the mountain, and Elijah slew them at the brook Kishon. Then a little cloud was seen from Carmel rising out of the sea, of the size of a man's hand, and[Pg 245] Elijah said to the king, "Harness thy chariot and haste away, that the rain overtake thee not." The sky was quickly covered with black clouds, and heavy rain followed upon storms of wind. But Elijah ran before Ahab to his palace in Jezreel.[448] Of this narrative, which belongs to the prophetic revision of the annals, we may perhaps retain with certainty the facts that Elijah declared a severe famine and drought in the land to be the punishment of Jehovah for the worship of Baal; that the excited people slew the priests of Baal; that Ahab accorded to the prophets of Jehovah permission to return to their homes and liberty; and that the worship of Jehovah in Israel, which had been seriously threatened by those rites, regained the upper hand and decided victory, though it could not entirely drive out the worship of Baal.

The increase in the strength of Israel under Omri and Ahab, the connection into which Ahab entered with Jehoshaphat of Judah, the alliance between the two houses, must have appeared to Benhadad II., the king of Damascus, a serious matter for his own position. For this or for other reasons he broke with Ahab, and renewed the struggle which had gone on in Omri's time between Israel and Damascus. He invaded Israel with all his power: 32 kings were with him—such is the no doubt greatly exaggerated account. Ahab fell upon the Aramaeans while Benhadad was at a banquet, and though his army was only 7000 strong, he obtained a great victory. Then, as we are told in the prophetic revision of the Books of Kings, Benhadad's servants advised him to contend with the Israelites on the plain; their gods were gods of the hills, and therefore they had gained the victory. Benhadad came in the next year[Pg 246] with an army of Aramaeans, which filled the land. Nevertheless Ahab again defeated them at Aphek (eastward of Lake Merom), and so utterly overthrew them that Benhadad sent his servants with sackcloth about their loins, and halters round their heads, to Ahab to pray for mercy. This Ahab granted, and Benhadad in turn undertook to restore the cities which his father had taken from the father of Ahab, i. e. from Omri.

The princes of Syria had every reason to forget their hatred and make up their quarrels. Assurbanipal and Shalmanesar II., kings of Assyria, had attacked and subjugated the districts on the Euphrates, and established fortresses there. The former forced his way as far as the Orontes and the Amanus; the latter had already subjugated Cilicia. In the year 854 B.C. Shalmanesar II. left Nineveh in the spring, crossed the Euphrates, demanded tribute there, and then turned towards Damascus. He came upon Benhadad (Bin-hidri) of Damascus, to whom Ahab (Achabbu), king of Israel, as well as the king of Hamath, and the king of Aradus, together with some other Syrian kings, had brought up their forces. To the army of the Syrians Shalmanesar allowed more than 60,000 men—he enumerates 12 princes who combined to oppose him. Damascus furnished the strongest contingent, viz., 20,000 men and 1200 chariots; then came Israel, with 10,000 men and 200 chariots; and Hamath, with 10,000 men and 700 chariots. The armies met at Karkar. The king of Assyria claims the victory; he professes to have captured the chariots and horsemen of the Syrians, and to have cut down their leaders. According to one inscription 14,000 Syrians, according to two others 20,500, were left on the field. But Shalmanesar says nothing of the subjection of the[Pg 247] princes who fought against him, or of the payment of tribute by those who are said to be vanquished, or of conquered cities. Hence the truth is that the combined forces of the Syrians succeeded in repulsing the attack of the Assyrians. This was their victory, though they may not have obtained the victory on the field.[449][Pg 248]

When the danger threatened by the attack of Assyria passed away, the contention between Damascus and Israel broke out again. The Hebrew Scriptures tell us that Benhadad did not keep his promise, and did not restore the city of Ramoth in Gilead to Ahab. Ahab may have thought that he had the greater ground for complaint against Damascus, as he took upon himself the severe battle against Assyria, though it was Damascus, and not Israel, which stood in the direct line of danger. He united with Judah against Damascus, and sent a request to Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, to march out with him. Jehoshaphat answered, "I will go forth as thou goest; my people as thy people; my horses as thy horses;" and he came with his warriors to Samaria. Both kings sat on their seats at the gate, in order to review the army as it passed out; and the prophets of Jehovah, 400 in number, prophesied good things to them, and said, "Go forth against Ramoth in Gilead; Jehovah will give it into your hands." One only of these prophets, Michaiah, the son of Imlah, prophesied evil; Ahab, we are told, caused him to be thrown into prison till he should return in prosperity.[450] A battle took place in the neighbourhood of Ramoth in Gilead; Ahab was severely wounded by an arrow which passed be[Pg 249]tween the joints of his mail; he caused the wound to be bound up, and returned to the fight, in order not to discourage his warriors, and continued to stand upright in his chariot, though his blood flowed to the bottom of it, till the evening, when he died. When the soldiers heard of the death of the king the army dispersed in every direction. Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, escaped (853 B.C.).

The death of such a brave warrior as Ahab was a heavy blow to the kingdom of Israel. We are not told by what sacrifices Ahaziah, the son of Ahab and Jezebel, had to purchase peace; we only know that the Moabites revolted from Israel on the news of the death of Ahab, and that Mesha no longer paid the tribute which he and his father had paid to Omri and Ahab. In any case it was a great relief for Israel when Shalmanesar, king of Assyria, in the years 851 and 850 B.C., turned his arms against Hamath and Damascus.[451] In this way Ahaziah's younger brother, Joram, who succeeded him after a short reign (851-843 B.C.), was able to attempt to subjugate the Moabites anew. He called on Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, to go out with him, and Jehoshaphat said, "I am as thou art; my horses as thy horses," and raised not only the warriors of Judah, but those of Edom also. The attack was made from the land of the kingdom of Judah and Edom on the southern border of the Moabites. The Moabites were defeated, their cities destroyed, their fields laid waste, their wells filled up. Mesha threw himself into the fortress of Kir Harosheth, which is probably the later Kerak, to the south of the Arnon, not far from the east shore of the Dead Sea. The slingers of both kings surrounded the fortress, and cast stones against the walls. "And when the king of[Pg 250] Moab saw that the battle was too strong for him," and he had attempted in vain to break out, "he took his firstborn son, who would be king in his place, and sacrificed him as a burnt offering on the wall. And there was a great anger against Israel, and they returned from him, and went back into their own land" (849 B.C.).

Notwithstanding this fortunate beginning, the campaign against Moab, as is allowed even by the Books of Kings, was finally wrecked. This termination agrees with the statements of Mesha on the monument of Dibon. "Forty years," it says, "Israel dwelt in Medabah; Camos gave it back in my days. And the king of Israel built Ataroth, and I fought against the stronghold and took it, and took all the men captive, and brought them as a pleasing spectacle to Camos and Moab. And Camos said to me, Go and take Nebo from Israel; and I went in the night and fought against it from daybreak to mid-day; and I took it. It was devoted to destruction to Ashtor-Camos (I. 373); and I took from thence the furniture of Jehovah, and dragged them before Camos. And the king of Israel built Jahaz, and placed himself therein, in his contest against me, and Camos drove him out before me. I took from Moab 200 men, all the chiefs, and led them out to Jahaz, and took it, in order to unite it to Dibon. I built Karho,[452] the gates, the towers, and the royal palace. I built Aroer, and made the road over the Arnon. I built Beth Bamoth, which was destroyed. I built Bazor, and Beth Diblathaim, and Beth Baal-Meon. And Camos said to me, Go down to fight against Horonaim." Here our fragments of the inscription break off. We see that[Pg 251] Ahab's successors, Ahaziah and Joram, attempted to force Moab to submission by planting fortresses in the land; that they attempted to subjugate the Moabites from Ataroth, Nebo, and Jahaz. When this mode of warfare did not succeed, and the fortresses were destroyed, the great campaign was undertaken which in the end came to disaster, unless we were to place this campaign before the time when Joram built those fortresses.

It was impossible for Joram to entertain any further hopes of the subjugation of Moab when Benhadad, after escaping from the attack of Shalmanesar, turned upon him. The Israelites were unable to keep the field, and Joram was shut up in Samaria. The supplies failed, and the famine is said to have been so grievous in the city that an ass's head sold for 80 shekels, and the fourth part of a cab of dove's dung for five shekels, and mothers even laid their hands upon their own children. But Elisha, the favourite disciple of Elijah, is said to have urged them to hold out, and promised present help from Jehovah. Suddenly, in a single night, the army of the Aramaeans disappeared. They feared, so the prophetic revision of the annals relates, that the kings of the Hethites and the kings of Egypt had set out to the aid of Joram. As Shalmanesar of Assyria tells us that he marched in the year 846 B.C. with 120,000 men against Benhadad of Damascus and Irchulina of Hamath, we may assume that it was the approach of the Assyrians which induced Benhadad to raise the siege of Samaria, in order to meet the Assyrians with all his own forces and those of Hamath. Here again Shalmanesar announces a victory obtained over Benhadad and Irchulina of Hamath, and twelve princes, and again the victory is without results.

It was not to the power of Shalmanesar, but to[Pg 252] Elisha, the prophet of Israel, that Benhadad of Damascus succumbed. For what reason we know not, Elisha left Israel and went to Damascus. Benhadad lay sick. He sent his chosen servant Hazael with costly presents to Elisha to inquire if he would recover. Elisha answered, Say to him, thou shalt recover; but Jehovah has shown me that he will die. Hazael announced the message, and on the next day smothered the king, and placed himself on the throne of Damascus (844 B.C.). The new king at once resumed the war with Israel, and, as it would appear, not without the instigation of Elisha.[453]

Jehoshaphat of Judah had died a few years previously (848 B.C.). The crown passed to his son Jehoram, the brother-in-law of Joram. The Edomites, who had continued to follow Jehoshaphat into the field against Moab, revolted from him, and slew the Judæans who had settled in Edom,—these settlers may have been most numerous in the harbour city of Elath,—and placed themselves under a king.[454] Jehoram attempted to reduce them in vain; the fortune of war was against him; he was surrounded by the Edomites, and was compelled to force his way with his chariots of war by night through the army of the Edomites. The Philistines also pressed upon Jehoram, and carried away, even from Jerusalem, captives and precious things.[455] Jehoram's reign continued for four years. Yet the misfortunes of Judah do not seem to have been very heavy. Jehoram's son Ahaziah, the nephew of Joram of Israel, who came to the throne in the year 844 B.C., was soon after his accession in a position to aid his uncle against the men of Damascus. Both[Pg 253] kings encamped at Ramoth Gilead, in order to maintain the city against Hazael.[456] In the conflict Joram was wounded; he returned to Jezreel to be healed, and soon after Ahaziah left the camp at Ramoth in order to visit his uncle in his sickness.

To Elisha this seemed the most favourable moment for overthrowing the king of Israel, and he urged Jehu, the foremost captain in the Israelite army, to revolt against the wounded king. He sent one of his disciples to Ramoth with instructions to pour oil upon Jehu, with the words, "Jehovah says, I anoint thee to be king over Israel." The chiefs were sitting together at Ramoth when the messenger of Elisha entered. "I have a message for Jehu," he said; and poured the oil upon him with the words, "Jehovah, the God of Israel, anoints thee to be king over his people, and says, thou shalt destroy the house of thy master. I will avenge the blood of my prophets on Jezebel. The house of Ahab shall be destroyed, and I will cut off from Ahab what pisseth against the wall, and dogs shall eat Jezebel in Jezreel, and none shall bury her." The youth had scarcely uttered these words when he returned in haste. The chiefs and the servants asked in wonder, "Wherefore came this madman?" But when Jehu declared to them what had taken place, they hastily took off their mantles, and spread them before Jehu's feet; they blew trumpets and cried, "Jehu is king."

Jehu at once set out with a host to Jezreel, that no tidings might precede him. The watchmen of the tower told the king that a troop was coming in great haste, and apparently led by Jehu. Thinking that Jehu was bringing news of the army, the wounded Joram went to meet him with his guest, Ahaziah, king[Pg 254] of Judah. "Is it peace?" cried Joram to Jehu. "What peace," he replied, "while the whoredoms of thy mother Jezebel and her witchcrafts are so many?" In terror Joram cried out, "There is treachery, O Ahaziah," and turned his horses to escape by flight. But Jehu smote him with an arrow in the back through the shoulders, so that the point reached the heart. Joram fell dead from the chariot. Ahaziah escaped. From the window of her palace at Jezreel Jezebel saw the death of the king, her second son. By this her own fate was decided. But her courage failed not. As Jehu approached she called to him from the window, "Had Zimri peace, who slew his master?" Jehu made no answer, but called out, "Who is on my side?" Two or three eunuchs answered, "We are." Then Jehu commanded, "Throw the queen down." They threw the widow of Ahab out of the window, so that her blood was sprinkled on the wall and on Jehu's horses, and the ruthless murderer drove over the corpse. She had survived Ahab ten years. Jehu went into the palace, ate and drank, and sent a message to the elders of the tribes and the captains of the fortresses: "If ye are on my side and obey my voice, slay the sons of Ahab who are with you, and send their heads to Jezreel." The elders feared the murderer to whom Joram and Jezebel had succumbed, and did as he bade them. Seventy sons and grandsons of Ahab were slaughtered; their heads were thrown in two heaps before the palace at Jezreel by Jehu's orders. Then he spoke in scorn to the people, "I have slain one; but who slew all these?" Still unsatisfied with blood, he caused all the kindred of the royal house, all the councillors, friends, and priests of Joram to be slain (843 B.C.).

Jehu had caused the king of Judah to be closely[Pg 255] pursued on that day. At Jibleam the arrows of the pursuers reached Ahaziah; wounded to the death, he came to Megiddo, and there he died. Thus the prospect was opened to Jehu of becoming master of the kingdom of Judah also. With this object in view, he caused the brothers and relatives of the murdered Ahaziah to be massacred, so far as he could take them; in all they were 42 men.[457] But meanwhile the mother of the murdered Ahaziah, Athaliah, heard in Judah of the death of her son in Israel, and seized the reins of government there. She determined to retain them against every one; and on her side also destroyed all who stood in her way. She did not spare even her own grandsons, the sons of Ahaziah; it was with difficulty that the king's sister succeeded in saving Joash, the infant son of her brother.[458]

The prophets of Israel took no offence at the cruelties of Jehu, to which they had given the first impulse; according to the revision of the annals, they even proclaimed to him the word of Jehovah. "Because thou hast done what is right and good in my eyes, and hast executed upon the house of Ahab all that was in my heart, thy descendants shall sit upon the throne of Israel."[459] Jehu on his part was no less anxious to show his gratitude to the men to whom he owed his exaltation. He summoned the priests of Baal, and announced to them in craft, "Ahab served Baal a little, but Jehu shall serve him much;" and caused a great sacrifice to be made to Baal; all who remained absent should not live. Thus he collected all the servants and priests of Baal in the temple of the god at Samaria. The sacrifice began; Jehu came in person to take part in the[Pg 256] solemnity; when on a sudden 80 soldiers entered the temple and massacred them all. The two pillars before the temple were burnt, the image of Baal was thrown down, the temple was destroyed, and the place purified.[460]

A hundred and ten years had elapsed since the revolt of the ten tribes from the house of David and the division of Israel. During this time the two kingdoms had been at war, and had summoned strangers into the land against each other; even the connection into which they had entered in the last thirty years, and the close relations existing between Ahab and Joram of Israel and Jehoshaphat, Jehoram and Ahaziah of Judah had not been able to give more than a transitory firmness and solidity to the two kingdoms. In the kingdom of Judah the crown continued in the house of David; in Israel neither Jeroboam's nor Baasha's race had taken root. And now the house of Omri also was overthrown and destroyed by a ruthless murderer. With Jehu a third warrior had gained the crown of Israel by a violent hand, and a fourth dynasty sat upon the throne of Jeroboam.

It was a favourable circumstance for the new king of Israel that Shalmanesar II. of Assyria again made war upon Damascus. On the mountains opposite to the range of Lebanon, so Shalmanesar tells us, he defeated Hazael of the land of Aram, i. e. of Damascus, in the year 842 B.C.; he slew 16,000 of his warriors, and took 1121 war-chariots. After this he besieged him in Damascus, and destroyed his fortifications. Jehu could hardly think, as Ahab had done before him, of joining Damascus in resisting Assyria; his object was rather to establish the throne he had usurped by submission to and support from Assyria.[Pg 257] In this year, as Shalmanesar tells us, he sent tribute like Sidon and Tyre. On an obelisk in his palace at Chalah, on which Shalmanesar caused the annals of his victories to be written and a picture to be made of the offering of the tribute from five nations, we see him standing with two eunuchs behind him, one of whom holds an umbrella, while two others lead before him the deputies of Jehu. The first Israelite prostrates himself and kisses the ground before the feet of Shalmanesar; seven other Israelites bring jars with handles, cups, sacks, goblets, and staves. They are bearded, with long hair, with shoes on their feet, and round caps on their heads, the points of which fall slightly backwards. The under garment reaches almost to the ancles; the upper garment falls in two parts evenly before and behind from the shoulders to the hem of the under garment. The inscription underneath runs: "The tribute of Jehu (Jahua), the son of Omri (Chumri): bars of gold, bars of silver, cups of gold, ladles and goblets of gold, golden pitchers, lead, and spears: this I received."[461]

Though Jehu submitted to the Assyrians, the power and spirit of Hazael was not broken by his defeat or by the siege of Damascus. Shalmanesar speaks of a new campaign against the cities of Hazael in the year 839 B.C. He does not tell us that he has reduced Damascus, he merely remarks that Sidon, Tyre, and Byblus have paid tribute; and again, under the year 835 B.C. he merely notes in general terms that he has received the tribute of all the princes of the land of Chatti (Syria). Hazael remained powerful enough to take from Jehu, who, though a bloody and resolute murderer, was a bad ruler, all the territory on the east of the Jordan which Ahab and Joram had defended[Pg 258] with such vigour.[462] Under Jehoahaz, the son of Jehu (815-798 B.C.), the power of Israel sank lower and lower. Hazael, and after him his son, Benhadad III., pressed heavily upon him. Jehoahaz was compelled to purchase peace by further concessions;[463] his whole fighting force was reduced to 10 chariots of war, 50 horsemen, and 10,000 foot-soldiers, while Ahab had led 200 chariots into the field.

The devastation caused by Damascus in Israel was terrible. The Books of Kings represent Elisha as saying to Hazael, "The fortresses of Israel thou shalt set on fire, their young men thou shalt slay with the sword, their children thou shalt cut in pieces, and rip up their women with child;"[464] and in the prophet Amos we are told that the Damascenes had thrashed Israel with sledges of iron. In the prophecies of Amos, Jehovah says: "Therefore I will send fire into the house of Hazael, to consume the palaces of Benhadad, and break the bars of Damascus, and destroy the inhabitants of the valley of idols."[465]

The Assyrians brought relief to the kingdom of Israel. In the Books of the Kings we are told, "Jehovah gave Israel a saviour, so that they went out from under the hand of the Aramaeans (Syrians), and they dwelt in their tents as yesterday and the day before."[466] It was Bin-nirar III., king of Asshur, who threatened Damascus and Syria. In the year 803 B.C. the canon of the Assyrians notices a campaign of this king against Syria, and in his inscriptions he mentions that he had conquered Mariah, king of Damascus (who must have been the successor of Benhadad III.), and laid heavy tribute upon him.[467] Though Israel (the house of Omri), as well as Sidon, the Philistines, and [Pg 259]Edomites, had now to pay tribute to the conqueror of Damascus, yet in the last years of the reign of Jehoahaz the land was able to breathe again, and Joash, the grandson of Jehu (798-790 B.C.[468]), was able to retake from the enfeebled Damascus the cities which his father had lost,[469] and make the weight of his arms felt by the kingdom of Judah.

In Judah, as has been mentioned, Jehoram's widow, Athaliah, the mother of the murdered Ahaziah, had seized the throne (843 B.C.). She is the only female sovereign in the history of Israel. Athaliah was the daughter of Ahab of Israel and Jezebel of Tyre; like her mother, she is said to have favoured the worship of Baal. As the prophets of Israel had prepared the ruin of the house of Omri in Israel, the high priest of the temple at Jerusalem, Jehoiadah, now undertook to overthrow the daughter of this house in Judah. Ahaziah's sister had saved a son of Ahaziah, Joash, while still an infant, from his grandmother (p. 255). He grew up in concealment in the temple at Jerusalem, and was now seven years old. This boy the priest determined to place upon the throne. He won the captains of the body-guard, showed them the young Joash in the temple, and imparted his plan for a revolt. On a Sabbath the body-guard and the Levites formed a circle in the court of the temple. Jehoiadah brought the boy out of the temple and placed the crown upon his head; he was anointed, and the soldiers proclaimed him king to the sound of trumpets. The people agreed. Athaliah hastened with the cry of treason into the temple. But at Jehoiadah's command she was seized by the body-guard, taken from the temple precincts, and[Pg 260] slain in the royal palace. Then the boy was brought thither by the Levites and solemnly placed upon the throne. "And all the people of the land rejoiced, and the city was at rest," say the Books of Kings (837 B.C.).

The victory of the priesthood had the same result for Judah as the resistance of Elijah and the prophets against Ahab, and the overthrow of his house, had introduced in Israel, i. e. the suppression of the worship of Baal. The temple of Baal at Jerusalem was destroyed; the high priest of it, Mathan by name, was slain. Yet the number of the worshippers in Jerusalem must have been so considerable, and their courage so little broken, that it was thought necessary to protect the temple of Jehovah by setting a guard to prevent their attacks.[470] Jehoiadah continued to act as regent for the young king, and the prophecies of Joel, which have come down to us from this period,[471] prove that under this regency the worship of Jehovah became dominant, that the festivals and sacrifices were held regularly in the temple at Jerusalem, and that the ordinances of the priests were in full force. When Joash became ruler he carried on the restoration of the temple, which had fallen into decay, even more eagerly than the priesthood. His labours were interrupted. It was the time when Israel could not defend themselves against Damascus. Marching through Israel, Hazael invaded Judah, and besieged Jerusalem. Joash was compelled to ransom himself with all that his fathers, Jehoshaphat, Jehoram, and Ahaziah, had consecrated to Jehovah, and what he[Pg 261] himself had dedicated in the temple, and with the treasures of the royal palace.[472]

Like his father and his grandmother, Joash died by a violent death. Two of his servants murdered him (797 B.C.); but his son Amaziah kept the throne, and caused the murderers of his father to be executed. He commenced a war, for what reason we know not, with Israel, who was now fighting with success against Damascus. Joash of Israel defeated him at Bethshemesh; Amaziah was taken prisoner and his army dispersed. The king of Israel occupied Jerusalem, plundered the temple and the palace, and did not set the king of Judah free till the walls of Jerusalem were thrown down for a space of 400 cubits from the gate of Ephraim, i. e. the western gate of the outer city to the corner gate, at the north-west corner of Jerusalem, and the Judæans had given hostages to keep the peace for the future. Against the Edomites Amaziah contended with more success. He defeated them in the Valley of Salt; 10,000 Edomites are said to have been left on the field on that day. The result of the victory was the renewal of the dependence of Edom on Judah, though not as yet throughout the whole extent of the land. Amaziah also fell before a conspiracy. It was in vain that he escaped from the conspirators from Jerusalem to Lachish; they followed him and slew him there. But the people placed his son Uzziah (Azariah), though only 16 years old, on the throne of Judah (792 B.C.).[473]

 

 

[Pg 262]

CHAPTER XI.

THE CITIES OF THE PHENICIANS.

The voyages of the Phenicians on the Mediterranean; their colonies on the coasts and islands of that sea; their settlements in Cyprus, Rhodes, Crete, the islands of the Ægean, Samothrace, and Thasos, on the coasts of Hellas, on Malta, Sicily, and Sardinia; their establishments on the northern edge of Africa in the course of the thirteenth and twelfth centuries B.C.; their discovery of the Atlantic about the year 1100 B.C., have been traced by us already. Of the internal conditions and the constitution of the cities whose ships traversed the Mediterranean in every direction, and now found so many native harbours on the coasts and islands, we have hardly any information. We only know that monarchy existed from an ancient period in Sidon and Tyre, in Byblus, Berytus, and Aradus; and we are restricted to the assumption that this monarchy arose out of the patriarchal headship of the elders of the tribes. These tribes had long ago changed into civic communities, and their members must have consisted of merchant-lords, ship-owners, and warehousemen, of numerous labourers, artisans, sailors, and slaves. The accounts of the Hebrews exhibit the cities of the Philistines, the southern neighbours of the Phenicians on the Syrian coast, united by a league in the eleventh century B.C. The kings of the five cities of the[Pg 263] Philistines combine for consultation, form binding resolutions, and take the field in common. We find nothing like this in the cities of the Phenicians. Not till a far later date, when the Phenicians had lost their independence, were federal forms of government prevalent among them.

The campaigns of the Pharaohs, Tuthmosis III., Sethos, and Ramses II., did not leave the cities of the Phenicians untouched (I. 342). After the reign of Ramses III., i. e. after the year 1300 B.C., Syria was not attacked from the Nile; but the overthrow of the kingdom of the Hittites about this period, and the subjugation of the Amorites by the Israelites, forced the old population to the coast (about 1250 B.C.). One hundred and fifty years later a new opponent of Syria showed himself, not from the south, but from the east. Tiglath Pilesar I., king of Assyria (1130-1100 B.C.), forced his way over the Euphrates, and reached the great sea of the western land (p. 42). His successes in these regions, even if he set foot on Lebanon, could at most have reached only the northern towns of the Phenicians; in any case they were of a merely transitory nature.

The oldest city of the Phenicians was Sidon; her daughter-city, Tyre, was also founded at a very ancient period. We found that the inscriptions of Sethos I. mentioned it among the cities reduced by him. The power and importance of Tyre must have gradually increased with the beginning of a more lively navigation between the cities and the colonies; about the year 1100 B.C. her navigation and influence appears to have surpassed those of the mother-city. If Old Hippo in Africa was founded from Sidon, Tyrian ships sailed through the Straits of Gibraltar, discovered the land of silver, and founded Gades beyond the pillars.[Pg 264] Accordingly we also find that Tyre, and not Sidon, was mistress of the island of Cyprus.

According to the statements of the Greeks, a king of the name of Sobaal or Sethlon ruled in Sidon at the time of the Trojan war, i. e. before the year 1100 B.C.;[474] about the same time a king of the name of Abelbaal reigned in Berytus.[475] From a fragment of Menander of Ephesus, preserved to us by Josephus, it follows that after the middle of the eleventh century B.C. Abibaal was reigning in Tyre. A sardonyx, now at Florence, exhibits a man with a high crown on his head and a staff in his hand; in front of him is a star with four rays; the inscription in old Phenician letters runs, "Of Abibaal." Did this stone belong to king Abibaal?[476]

Hiram, the son of this king, ascended the throne of Tyre while yet a youth, in 1001 B.C. He is said to have again subjugated to his dominion the Kittians, i. e. the inhabitants of Citium, or the cities of Cyprus generally, who refused to pay tribute. What reasons and what views of advantage in trade induced Hiram to enter into relations with David in the last years of his reign, and unite these relations even more closely with Solomon, the successor of David, has been recounted above. It was this understanding which not only opened Israel completely to the trade of the Phenicians, but also procured to the latter secure and new roads through Israel to the Euphrates and Egypt, and made it possible for them to discover and use the road by sea to South Arabia. Thus, a good century after the founding of Gades, the commerce of the Phenicians reached the widest extension which it ever obtained. We saw that the Phenicians about the[Pg 265] year 990 B.C. went by ship from Elath past South Arabia to the Somali coast, and reached Ophir, i. e. apparently the land of the Abhira (i. e. herdsmen) on the mouths of the Indus.[477] The other advantages which accrued to Hiram from his connection with Israel were not slight. Solomon paid him, as has been said, 20,000 Kor of wheat and 20,000 Bath of oil yearly for 20 years in return for wood and choice quarry stones, and finally, in order to discharge his debt, had to give up 20 Israelitish towns on his borders.

Hiram had to dispose of very considerable resources; his receipts must have been far in excess of Solomon's. Of the silver of Tarshish which the ships brought from Gades to Tyre, of the gold imported by the trade to Ophir, of the profits of the maritime trade with the land of incense, a considerable percentage must have come into the treasury of the king, and he enjoyed in addition the payments of Solomon. In any case he had at his command means sufficient to enlarge, adorn, and fortify his city. Ancient Tyre lay on the seashore; with the growth of navigation and trade, the population passed over from the actual city to an island off the coast, which offered excellent harbours. On a rock near this island lay that temple of Baal Melkarth, the god of Tyre, to which the priests ascribed a high antiquity; they told Herodotus that it was built in the year 2750 B.C. (I. 345). Hiram caused this island to be enlarged by moles to the north and west towards the mainland, and protected these extensions by bulwarks. The circuit of the island was now 22 stades, i. e. more than two and a half miles; the arm of the sea, which separates the island from the mainland, now measured[Pg 266] only 2400 feet (three stades).[478] The whole island was surrounded with strong walls of masonry, which ran out sharply into the sea, and were washed by its waves, so that no room remained for the besieger to set foot and plant his scaling-ladders there. On the side of the island towards the mainland, where the docks were, these walls were the highest. Alexander of Macedon found them 150 feet high. The two harbours lay on the eastern side of the island—on the north-east and the south-east; on the north-east was the Sidonian harbour (which even now is the harbour of Sur); and on the south-east the Egyptian harbour. If the former was secured and closed by huge dams, the latter also was not without its protecting works, as huge blocks in the sea appear to show, though the dams here were no longer in perfect preservation even in Strabo's time. On the south shore of the island, eastward of the Egyptian harbour, lay the royal citadel; on the north-west side a temple of Baal Samim, the Agenorion of the Greeks. The rock which supported the temple of Melkarth appears to have been situated close to the city on the west.[479] This, like the temple of Astarte, was adorned and enlarged or restored by Hiram. For the roof he caused cedars of Lebanon to be felled. In the ancient shrine of the protecting deity of the city, the temple of Melkarth, he dedicated a great pillar of gold, which Herodotus saw there 500 years later beside an erect smaragdus,[Pg 267] which was so large that it gave light by night. This was perhaps a symbol of the light not overcome by the darkness.[480]

Hiram died after a reign of 34 years, in the fifty-third year of his life. His son Baleazar, who sat on the throne for seven years (967-960 B.C.), was succeeded by his son Abdastartus (i. e. servant of Astarte), who, after a reign of nine years (960-951 B.C.), fell before a conspiracy headed by the sons of his nurse. Abdastartus was murdered, and the eldest of the sons of his nurse maintained his dominion over Tyre for 12 years (951-939 B.C.). Then the legitimate dynasty returned to the throne. Of the brothers of the murdered Abdastartus, Astartus was the first to reign (939-927 B.C.), and after him Astarymus (927-918 B.C.), who was murdered by a fourth brother, Pheles. But Pheles could not long enjoy the fruits of his crime. He had only been eight months on the throne when he was slain by the priest of Astarte, Ethbaal (Ithobaal). With Pheles the race of Abibaal comes to an end (917 B.C.).

Ethbaal ascended the throne of Tyre, and was able to establish himself upon it. He is said to have built or fortified Bothrys in Lebanon, perhaps as a protection against the growing forces of Damascus.[481] In Israel, during Ethbaal's reign, as we have seen, Omri at the head of the army made himself master of the throne in 899 B.C., just as Ethbaal had usurped the throne of Tyre. Both were in a similar position. Both had to establish their authority and found their dynasty. Ethbaal's daughter was married to Ahab, the son of Omri. What were the results of this connection for Israel and Judah we have seen already.[Pg 268] To what a distance the power of Tyre extended in another direction is clear from the fact that Ethbaal founded Auza in the interior of Africa, to the south of the already ancient colony of Ityke (p. 82).[482] After a reign of 32 years Ethbaal was succeeded by his son Balezor (885-877 B.C.).[483] After eight years Balezor left two sons, Mutton and Sicharbaal, both under age. Yet the throne remained in the house of Ethbaal, and continued to do so even when Mutton died in the year 853 B.C., and again left a son nine years old, Pygmalion, and a daughter Elissa, a few years older, whom he had married to his brother Sicharbaal, the priest of the temple of Melkarth.[484] Mutton had intended that Elissa and Pygmalion should reign together, and thus the power really passed into the hands of Sicharbaal, the husband of Elissa. When Pygmalion reached his sixteenth year the people transferred to him the sovereignty of Tyre, and he put Sicharbaal, his uncle, to death, either because he feared his influence as the chief priest of the tutelary god of the city, or because, as we are told, he coveted his treasures (846 B.C.).[485]

Elissa fled from Tyre before her brother, as we are told, with others who would not submit to the tyranny of Pygmalion.[486] The exiles (we may perhaps suppose that they were members of old families, as it was apparently the people who had transferred the[Pg 269] throne to Pygmalion) are said to have first landed at Cyprus, then to have sailed to the westward, and to have landed on the coast of Africa, in the neighbourhood of Ityke, the old colony of the Phenicians, and there to have bought as much land of the Libyans as could be covered by the skin of an ox. By dividing this into very thin strips they obtained a piece of land sufficient to enable them to build a fortress. This new dwelling-place, or the city which grew up round this fortress, the wanderers called, in reference to their old home, Karthada (Karta hadasha), i. e. "the new city," the Karchedon of the Greeks, the Carthage of the Romans. The legend of the purchase of the soil may have arisen from the fact that the settlers for a long time paid tribute to the ancient population, the Maxyans, for their soil. The ox-hide and all that is further told us of the fortunes of Elissa, her resistance to the suit of the Libyan prince Iarbas,[487] her self-immolation in order to escape from this suit (Virgil made despised love the motive for this immolation), is due to the transference of certain traits from the myths of the horned moon-goddess, to whom the cow is sacred, the wandering Astarte, who also bore the name of Dido, and of certain customs in the worship of the goddess to Carthage; these also have had influence on the narrative of the flight of Elissa.[488]

The new settlement was intended to become an important centre for the colonies of the Phenicians in the West. The situation was peculiarly fortunate. Where the north coast of Africa approaches Sicily most nearly, the mountain range which runs along this coast, and forms the edge of the table-land in the interior, sinks down in gentle declivities, which thus[Pg 270] form water-courses of considerable length, to a fertile hill country still covered with olive-gardens and orange-forests. From the north the sea penetrates deeply into the land between the "beautiful promontory" (Ras Sidi Ali) and the promontory of Hermes (Ras Addar). On the western side of this bay a ridge of land runs out, which possesses excellent springs of water. Not far from the shore a rock rises steeply to the height of about 200 feet. On this was planted the new citadel, Byrsa, on which the wanderers erected a temple to their god Esmun (I. 377). This citadel, which is said to have been about 2000 paces (double paces) in the circuit,[489] was also the city round which at a later time grew up the lower city, at first on the south-east toward the shore, and then on the north-west toward the sea. The harbour lay to the south-east, under the citadel. Some miles to the north of the new settlement, on the mouth of the Bagradas (Medsherda), at the north-west corner of the bay, was Ityke, the ancient colony of the Phenicians, which had been in existence for more than two centuries when the new settlers landed on the shore of the bay; and not far to the south on the shore was Adrymes (Hadrumetum), another city of their countrymen, which Sallust mentions among the oldest colonies of the Phenicians.[490] The Carthaginians never forgot their affection for the ancient Ityke, by whose assistance, no doubt, their own settlement had been supported.[491][Pg 271]

The fragment which Josephus has preserved from the annals of the kings of Tyre ends with the accession of Pygmalion and the flight of Elissa. More than two centuries had passed since the campaign of Tiglath Pilesar I. to the Mediterranean, during which the cities of the Phenicians had suffered nothing from the arms and expeditions of the Assyrians. But when Balezor and Mutton, the son and grandson of Ethbaal, ruled over Tyre (885-853 B.C.), Assurbanipal of Assyria (883-859 B.C.) began to force his way to the west over the Euphrates. When he had reduced the sovereign of Karchemish to obedience by repeated campaigns, and had built fortresses on both banks of the Euphrates, he advanced in the year 876 B.C. to the Orontes, captured the marches of Lebanus (Labnana), and received tribute from the king of Tyre, i. e. from Mutton, from the kings of Sidon, of Byblus, and Aradus. According to the inscriptions, the tribute consisted of bars of silver, gold, and lead. Assurbanipal's successor, Shalmanesar II. of Assyria (859-823 B.C.), pushed on even more energetically to the west. After forcing Cilicia to submit, he attacked Hamath, and in the year 854, as we have seen, he defeated at Karkar the united kings of Hamath, Damascus, and Israel, who were also joined by Matinbaal, the king of Aradus. But Shalmanesar was compelled to undertake three other campaigns to Damascus (850, 849, and 846 B.C.) before he succeeded, in the year 842 B.C., in making Damascus tributary. As has been remarked, Israel did not any longer attempt the decision of arms, and sought to gain the favour of Assyria; like Tyre and Sidon, Jehu sent tribute to Shalmanesar. This payment of tribute was repeated perforce by Tyre, Sidon, and Byblus, in the years 839 and 835 B.C., in which Shalmanesar's armies again appeared in Syria.[Pg 272] Moreover, the inscriptions of Bin-nirar, king of Assyria (810-781 B.C.), tell us that Damascus, Tyre, Sidon, Israel, Edom, and the land of the Philistines had paid him tribute. It is obvious that the cities of the Phenicians would have been as a rule most willing to pay it. When Assyria had definitely extended her dominion as far as the Euphrates, it was in the power of the Assyrian king to stop the way for the merchants of those cities to Mesopotamia and Babylon, and thus to inflict very considerable damage on the trade of the Phenicians, which was for the most part a carrying trade between the East and West. What were the sums paid in tribute, even if considerable, when compared with such serious disadvantages?

Hitherto we have been able to observe monarchy in the patriarchal form of the head of the tribe, in the god-like position of the Pharaohs of Egypt, in the forms of a military principate, who ruled with despotic power over wide kingdoms, or in diminished copies of this original. It would be interesting to trace out and ascertain the changes which it had now to undergo at the head of powerful trading and commercial cities such as the Phenicians were. We have already seen that the principate of these cities was of great antiquity, that it remained in existence through all the periods of Phenician history, that it was rooted deeply enough to outlive even the independence of the cities. All more detailed accounts are wanting, and even inductions or comparisons with the constitution of Carthage in later times carry us little further. Not to mention the very insufficient accounts which we possess of this constitution, it was only to the oldest settlements of the Phenicians in Cyprus that the monarchy passed, at least it was only in these that it was able to maintain itself. The examination of these institutions of Carthage[Pg 273] is adapted to show us in contrast on the one hand to the tribal princes of the Arabians, and on the other to the monarchy of Elam, Babel, and Asshur—what forms the feeling and character of a Semitic community, in which the burghers had reached the full development of their powers, were able to give to their state, which at the same time was supreme over a wide region; but for the constitution of the Phenician cities scarcely any conclusions can be drawn from it.

Of the internal condition of the Phenician cities, the fragment of the history of Tyre in Josephus only enables us to ascertain that there was no lack of strife and bloodshed in the palaces of the kings, and that the priests of the tutelary deity must have been of importance and influence beside the king. But it follows from the nature of things that these city-kings could not have held sway with the same complete power as the military princes of the great kingdoms of the East. The development of independence among the burghers must have placed far closer limitations upon the will of the kings in these cities than was the case elsewhere in the East. The more lively the trade and industry of the cities, the more strongly must the great merchants and manufacturers have maintained against the kings the consideration and advancement of their own interests. For the maintenance of order and peace, of law and property in the cities they looked to the king, but they had also to make important demands before the throne, and were combined against it by community of interests. They were compelled to advance these independently if the king refused his consent. Isaiah tells us that the merchants of Tyre were princes. Ezekiel speaks of the grey-haired men, the "elders" of the city of[Pg 274] Byblus.[492] Of the later period we know with greater certainty that there was a council beside the kings, the membership in which may have belonged primarily to the chiefs of the old families, but also in part to the hereditary priests. Inscriptions of the cities belonging to Grecian times present the title "elders."[493] The families in the Phenician cities which could carry back their genealogy to the forefathers of the tribes which possessed land and influence before the fall of the Hittites, the incursions of the Hebrews, and the spread of trade had brought a mass of strangers into the city walls, would appear to have had the first claim to a share in the government; the heads of these families may at first have formed the council which stood beside the king. Yet it lies in the nature of great manufacturing and trading cities that the management of interests of this kind cannot be confined to the elders of the family or remain among the privileges of birth. Hence we may assume that the great trading firms and merchants could not long be excluded from these councils. In the fourth century B.C. the council of Sidon seems to have consisted of 500 or 600 elders.[494] Owing to the treasures of East and West which poured together into the cities of the Phenicians, life became luxurious within their walls. Men's efforts were directed to gain and acquisition; the merchants would naturally desire to enjoy their wealth. The lower classes of the closely-compressed population no doubt followed the example set them by the higher. From the multitude of retail dealers and artizans, the number of pilots and mariners who returned home eager for enjoyment after long voyages, men whose passions would be unbridled, a[Pg 275] turbulent population must have grown up, in spite of the numerous colonies into which the ambitious as well as the poor might emigrate or be sent with the certain prospect of a better position. We saw above that the people of Tyre are said to have transferred the rule to Pygmalion. For the later period it is certain that even the people had a share in the government.[495]

The hereditary monarchy passed, so far as we can see, from the mother-cities to the oldest colonies only, i. e. the cities in Cyprus. In the other colonies the chief officers were magistrates, usually two in number.[496] They were called Sufetes, i. e. judges. In Carthage these two yearly officers, in whose hands lay the supreme administration of justice, and the executive, formed with 30 elders the governing body of the city. It seems that these 30 men were the representatives of as many original combinations of families into which the old houses of the city were incorporated. The connection of the colonies and mother-cities, both in general and more especially where the colony could dispense with the protection of the mother-city, were far more mercantile and religious than political. The colonies worshipped the deities of the mother-cities, and gave them a share in their booty. We also find that descendants of priests who had emigrated from the mother-city stood at the head of the temples of the colonies. In Carthage, where the priests of Melkarth wore the purple robe, the office was hereditary in the family of Bithyas, who is said to have left Tyre with Elissa.[497]

We are acquainted with the gods of the Phenician cities, and the mode in which they worshipped them;[Pg 276] with El and Baal-Samim, Baal-Melkarth and Baal-Moloch, Adonis, Astarte and Ashera, with the rites of continence and mutilation, of sensual excess and prostitution, of sacrifice and fire-festival, which were intended to win their favour and grace. We observed that the protecting deities of the separate states had even before the days of Hiram been united in the system of the seven great gods, the Cabiri, at whose head was placed an eighth, Esmun, the supreme deity. We saw that in this system special meanings were ascribed to them in reference to the protection of peace and law, of industry and navigation; and we cannot doubt that with the riches which accumulated in the walls of the cities, with the luxury of life which these riches permitted, the lascivious and sensual side of the worship must have increased and extended.

The life led by the kings of the old Phenician cities is described as rich and splendid. We have already assumed that the princes of the Phenician cities had a rich share in the returns of trade, and indeed the fact can be proved from the Hebrew Scriptures for Hiram, king of Tyre. Ezekiel tells us, "The king of Tyre sits like a god in the seat of God, in the midst of the seas; he dwells as in Eden, in the garden of God. Precious stones are the covering of his palaces: the ruby, the topaz, the diamond, the chrysolite, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the carbuncle, the emerald, and gold; the workmanship of his ring-cases he bears upon him."[498] "His garments," we are told in a song of the Hebrews, "smell of myrrh, aloes, and cassia; in ivory palaces the sound of harps gladdens him. At his right hand stands the queen in gold of Ophir, in a garment of wrought gold: on broidered carpets she shall be[Pg 277] brought to him; the young maidens, her companions, follow her."[499]

Hosea calls Tyre "a plantation in a pleasant meadow."[500] Of the city itself Ezekiel says, "The architects have made her beauty perfect. All her planks (wainscot) were of cypress, and her masts of cedar of Lebanon; the rudders are of oaks of Bashan, the benches of ivory, set in costly wood from the island of Cyprus. For sails Tyre spreads out byssus and gay woofs; blue and red purple from the islands of Elisa formed their coverlets."[501] In the description of Strabo, more than 500 years later, Tyre appears less magnificent. The houses of the city were very high, higher than at Rome; the city still wealthy, owing to the trade in her two harbours and her purple factories, but the number of these made the city unpleasant. Strabo does not mention any considerable building in the city. Of Aradus he says, "The smallness of the rock on which the city lies, seven stades only in circuit, and the number of inhabitants caused every house to have many stories. Drinking-water had to be obtained from the mainland; on the island there were only wells and cisterns."[502]

Scarcely any striking remains of the ancient buildings of Phœnicia have come down to our time. The ancient temples enumerated in the treatise on the Syrian goddess have perished without a trace; the temple of Melkarth of Tyre, the great temple of Astarte at Sidon, the temple of Bilit (Ashera) at Byblus,[503] although they were certainly not of a character easy to[Pg 278] destroy. That the Phenicians were acquainted from very ancient periods with the erection of strong masonry was proved above. Not only have we the legend of the Greeks, that Cadmus taught them the art of masonry and built the famous walls of Thebes; we saw how Israel, about the year 1000 B.C., provided herself with masons, stone-cutters, and materials from Tyre. Hence we may also assume that the architecture of the temple and the royal palaces of Solomon described in the Books of Kings corresponded to the architecture of the Phenicians. The temples and palaces of the Phenicians consisted, therefore, of walls of large materials, roofed with beams of cedar; in the interior the materials were no doubt covered, as at Jerusalem, with planks of wood and ornaments of brass, "so that the stone was nowhere seen" (p. 183). Ezekiel has already told us that the planks of the roofs of the royal palace at Tyre were overlaid with gold and precious stones; and the Books of Kings showed us that even the floors were adorned with gold. All the remains of walls in Phœnicia that can be referred to an ancient period exhibit a style of building confined to the stone of the mountain range which hems the coast, and desirous of imitating the nature of the rocks. Blocks of large dimensions were used by preference; at first they were worked as little as possible, and fitted to each other, and the interstices between the great blocks were filled with smaller stones. Of this kind are the fragments of the walls which surround the rock on which the city of Aradus stood. Gigantic blocks, visible even now here and there, formed the dams of the harbours of Aradus, Sidon, Tyre, and Japho.[504] It was a step in advance that the blocks, while retaining the form in which they were quarried, were smoothed[Pg 279] at the joints in order to be fitted together more firmly, and a further step still that the blocks were hewn into squares, though at first the outer surfaces of the squares were not smoothed. So far as remains allow us to see, the detached structures were of a simple and massive character, in shape like cubes of vast dimensions; the walls, as is shown by the city wall of Aradus, were joined without mortar, and in the oldest times the buildings appear to have been roofed with monoliths. Cedar beams were not sought after till larger spaces had to be covered. Beside old water-basins hewn in the rock, and oil or wine presses of the same character, we have no remains of ancient Phenician temples but those on the site of Marathus (now Amrit), a city of the tribe of the Arvadites, to the south of Aradus, and in the neighbourhood of Byblus.[505] The bases of the walls which enclose the courts and water-basins of the temple of Marathus can still be traced, as well as the huge stones which formed the three cellæ, the innermost shrines of this temple. On either side of a back wall formed of similar materials heavy blocks protrude, and are roofed over, together with this wall, by a great monolith, which protected the sacred stone or the image of the deity.[506] This heavy style of the city walls, dams, temples, and royal castles did not prevent the Phenicians, any more than the Egyptians, from building the upper stories of the dwelling-houses of their cities in light wood-work.

By far the most important remains of ancient Phœnicia are the rock-tombs, which are found in great numbers and extent opposite to the islands of Tyre and Aradus, as well as at Sidon, Byblus, and among[Pg 280] the ruins of the other cities on the spurs of Lebanon; and which at Tyre especially spread out into wide burial-places, and several stories of tombs, one upon the other. In the same style we find to the west of the ruins of Carthage long walls of rocks hollowed out into thousands of tombs, and furnished with arched niches for the reception of the dead.[507] In the oldest period the Phenicians must have placed their dead in natural cavities of rock, and perhaps they erected a stone before them as a memorial. In Genesis Abraham buries Sarah in the cave of Machpelah, and Jacob sets up a stone on the grave of Rachel.[508] Afterwards the natural hollows were extended, and whole cavities dug out artificially for tombs. The tomb of David and the tombs of his successors were hewn in the rocks of the gorge which separated the city from the height of Zion (p. 177). The oldest of the artificial tombs in Phœnicia are doubtless those which consist of cubical chambers with horizontal hewn roofs. Round one or two large chambers lower oblong depressions are driven further in the rocks to receive the corpses. The entrance into these ancient chambers are formed by downward perpendicular shafts, at the bottom of which on two sides are openings into the chambers secured by slabs of stone laid before them. Shafts of this kind must be meant when the Hebrews say in a figure of the dead, "The mouth of the well has eaten him up." Later than the tombs of this description are those the entrance to which is on the level ground (which was then closed by a stone), which have roofs hewn in low arches, and side niches for the corpses. The arched chambers approached by steps leading downward, the walls of which are decorated after Grecian patterns on[Pg 281] the stone, or on stucco, must originate from the time of the predominance of Greek art, i. e. of the days of Hellenism. The oldest style of burial was the placing of the corpse in the cavity, the grave-chamber, and afterwards in the depression at the side of this. At a later time apparently the enclosure of the corpse in a narrow coffin of clay became common here, as in Babylonia. Coffins of lead have also been found in the rock-tombs of Phœnicia. But beside these, heavy oblong stone-coffins with a simple slab of stone as a lid were in use in ancient times; along with flat lids, lids raised in a low triangle are also found; later still, and latest of all, are coffins and sarcophagi adorned with acroteria and other ornaments of the Greek style.[509]

In the flat limestone rocks which run at a moderate elevation in the neighbourhood of Sidon, and contain the vast necropolis of that city, there is a cavern, now called Mogharet Ablun, i. e. the cave of Apollo. Beside the entrance, in a depression covered by a structure attached to the rock-wall (the rock-tombs were supplemented and extended by structures attached to the wall), was found a coffin of blackish blue stone, the form of which indicates the shape of the buried person after the manner of the mummy-coffins of Egypt, and displays in colossal relief the mask of the dead in Egyptian style, with an Egyptian covering for the head and beard on the chin; the band round the neck ends behind in two hawk's heads. The inscription in Phenician letters teaches us that this coffin contained Esmunazar, king of Sidon. Similar sarcophagi in stone, in part expressing the form even more accurately, seven or eight in number, have been discovered in other chambers of the burial-place of Sidon, and in the burial-places of Byblus and Anta[Pg 282]radus, but only in cubical, i. e. in more ancient chambers. Marble coffins of this kind have also been found in the Phenician colonies of Soloeis and Panormus in Sicily, and of the same shape in burnt earth in Malta and Gozzo. The Phenicians, therefore, came to imitate the coffins of the Egyptians. Similar imitation of Egyptian burial is proved by the gold plates found in Phenician chambers, which are like those with which we find the mouth closed in Egyptian mummies, and the discovery of golden masks in Phenician chambers,[510] which correspond to the gilding of the masks of the face of the innermost Egyptian coffins which immediately surround the linen covering. As the face-mask of the external coffin imitated the face of the dead in stone or in coloured wood, so also ought the inner gilded face to preserve the features of the dead. This imitation of the Egyptian style of burial among the Phenicians must go back to a great antiquity. It is true that Esmunazar of Sidon did not rule till the second half of the fifth or the beginning of the fourth century B.C.[511] Yet the shape and style of his coffin reminds us of older Egyptian patterns; it is most like the stone coffins of Egypt which have come down from the beginning of the sixth century. And if the ancient tombs opened at Mycenæ behind the lion's gate belong to Carians influenced by Phenician civilisation (p. 74), if golden masks are here found on the face of the dead, the Phenicians must have borrowed this custom from the Egyptians as early as the thirteenth century, if not even earlier.

The remains which have come down to us of the sculpture, jars, and utensils of Phœnicia exhibit the double influence which the art and industry of the[Pg 283] Phenicians underwent even at an early period. Agreeably to the close relations into which the Phenicians entered, on the one hand with Babel and Asshur, and on the other with Egypt, the effects of these two ancient civilisations meet each other on the coast of Syria. The arts of the kindred land of the Euphrates, the relations of which to Phœnicia were at the same time the older, naturally made themselves felt first. When Tuthmosis III. collected tribute in Syria at the beginning of the sixteenth century, the Babylonian weight was already in use there; the jars which were brought to this king as the tribute of Syria are carefully worked, but as yet adorned with very simple and recurring patterns of lines. On the other hand, the ornaments found in the tombs of Mycenæ, gold-plates, frontlets, and armlets, exhibit ornaments like those figured on the monuments of Assyria; and the objects found in the rock-tombs on Hymettus, at Spata, point even more definitely to Babylonian patterns: winged fabulous animals and battles of beasts (a lion attacking a bull or an antelope[512]) are formed in the manner of the Eastern Semites, which brings the form of the muscles into prominence. We may assume that the influence of Egypt began with the times of the Tuthmosis and Amenophis, and their supremacy in Syria, and slowly gathered strength. The heavy style of Phenician buildings would not be made lighter or more free by the architecture of Egypt, which also arose out of building in rock. The temples of Phœnicia adopted Egyptian symbols for their ornaments; the monoliths of the roofs of those three cellæ at Marathus exhibit the winged sun's-disk, the emblem at the entrance of Egyptian temples; the chests for the dead and masks for the mummies of the Egyptians were imitated in the rock-tombs of[Pg 284] Phœnicia. If the weaving of the Phenicians at first copied the ancient Babylonian patterns, they began under the stronger influence of Egypt to adorn their pottery and metal-work after Egyptian patterns. But they also combined the Babylonian and Egyptian elements in their art.[513] The oldest memorial of this combination is perhaps retained in that winged sphinx, which belongs to the time of the dominion of the shepherds in Egypt. In the graves on Hymettus pictures in relief of female winged sphinxes are found with clothed breasts and peculiar wings, in a treatment obviously already conventional. In Phœnicia itself are found reliefs of similar sphinxes, old men with a human face on either side of the tree of life, which meet us oftentimes in the monuments of Assyria. This combination, this use of Babylonian and Egyptian types and forms side by side, is seen most clearly on a large bowl found at Curium near Amathus, in Cyprus, and wrought with great care and skill.[514] It follows that the art of the Phenicians was essentially imitative and intended to furnish objects for trade. Of round works of sculpture we have only dwarfish deities (I. 378), the typical form of which was naturally retained, and a few lions coarsely wrought in the style of the plastic art of Babylon and Assyria.[515] The relation in which the lion stood to the god Melkarth naturally made the delineation of the lion a favourite object of Phenician art.

Phœnicia, though the home of alphabetical writing, has left us no more than two or three inscriptions, and Carthage has not left us a great number. Not that there was any lack of inscriptions in Phœnicia in ancient[Pg 285] days. We have heard already of ancient inscriptions at Rhodes, Thebes, and Gades. Job wishes that "his words might be graven on rocks for ever with an iron chisel and lead."[516] The inscriptions of Phœnicia have perished because they were engraved like those inscriptions of Gades, on plates of brass. Beside the inscription on the coffin of Esmunazar, king of Sidon, already mentioned, of a date about 400 B.C., only two or three smaller inscriptions have been preserved, which do not go beyond the second century B.C. In this inscription Esmunazar speaks in person; he calls himself the son of Tabnit, king of the Sidonians, son of Esmunazar, king of the Sidonians. With his mother, Amastarte, the priestess of Astarte, he had erected temples to Baal, Astarte, and Esmun. He beseeches the favour of the gods for himself and his land; he prays that Dor and Japho may always remain under Sidon; he declares that he wishes to rest in the grave which he has built and in this coffin. No one is to open the tomb or plunder it, or remove or damage this stone coffin. If any man attempts it the gods will destroy him with his seed; he is not to be buried, and after death will find no rest among the shades.[517]

There is scarcely any side of civilisation, any forms of technical art, the invention of which was not ascribed by the Greeks to the Phenicians. They were nearly all made known to the Greeks through the Phenicians; more especially the building of walls and fortresses, mining, the alphabet, astronomy, numbers, mathematics, navigation, together with a great variety of applications of technical skill. If the discovery of[Pg 286] alphabetic writing belongs to the Phenicians, the Babylonians were the instructors of the Phenicians in astronomy as well as in fixing measures and weights (I. 305). Yet this is no reason for contesting the statement of Strabo that the Sidonians were "eager inquirers into the knowledge of the stars and of numbers, to which they were led by navigation by night and the art of calculation."[518] In the same way the technical discoveries ascribed by the Greeks to the Phenicians were not all made in their cities; they carried on with vigour and skill what grew up independently among them as well as what they learnt from others. The making of glass was undoubtedly older in Egypt than in Phœnicia (I. 224). Egypt also practised work in metals before Phœnicia. Snefru and Chufu made themselves masters of the copper mines of the peninsula of Sinai before the year 3000 B.C. (I. 95), while the Phenicians can hardly have occupied the copper island off their coast (Cyprus) before the middle of the thirteenth century B.C. Artistic weaving and embroidery were certainly practised at a more ancient date in Babylonia than in the cities of the Phenicians. But all these branches of industry were carried on with success by the Phenicians. Sidon furnished excellent works in glass, which were accounted the best even down to a late period of antiquity. The dunes on the coast between Acco and Tyre, where is the mouth of the glass-river (Sihor Libnath),[519] provided the Phenician manufacturers with the earth necessary for the manufacture of glass. It was maintained that the most beautiful glass was[Pg 287] cast in Sarepta (Zarpath, i. e. melting), a city on the coast between Sidon and Tyre.[520]

The purple dyeing, i. e. the colouring of woofs by the liquor from fish, was discovered by the Phenicians. They were unsurpassed in this art; it outlived by many centuries the power and splendour of their cities. Trumpet and purple fish were found in great numbers on their coasts, and the liquor from these provided excellent dye. The liquor of the purple-fish, which comes from a vessel in the throat, is dark-red in the small fish, and black in the larger fish; the liquor of the trumpet-fish is scarlet. The fish were pounded and the dye extracted by decoction. By mixing, weakening, or thickening this material, and by adding this or that ingredient, various colours were obtained, through all the shades of crimson and violet down to the darkest black, in which fine woollen stuffs and linen from Egypt were dipped. The stuffs soaked in these colours are the purple cloths of antiquity, and were distinguished by the bright sheen of the colours. The Tyrian double-dyed cloth, which had the colour of curdled blood, and the violet amethyst purple were considered the most beautiful.[521] Three hundred pounds of the raw material were usually required to dye 50 pounds of wool.[522] When the purple stuffs began to be sought after, the fish collected on the coasts of Tyre, Sidon, and Sarepta were no longer sufficient. We saw how the ships of the Phenicians went from coast to coast in order to get fresh materials for the dye, and found them in great numbers on the shores of Cyprus, Rhodes, Crete, Cythera, and Thera; in the bays of Laconia and Argos, and in the straits of[Pg 288] Eubœa. Purple-fish were also collected on the greater Syrtis, in Sicily, the Balearic Isles, and coasts of Tarshish.[523] Even at a later period, when the art of dyeing with the purple-fish was understood and practised at many places in the Mediterranean Sea, the Tyrian purple still maintained its pre-eminence and fame. "Tyre," says Strabo, "overcame her misfortunes, and always recovered herself by means of her navigation, in which the Phenicians were superior to all others, and her purples. The Tyrian purple is the most beautiful; the fish are caught close at hand, and every other requirement for the dyeing is there in abundance."[524] A hundred years later Pliny adds "that the ancient glory of Tyre survived now only in her fish and her purples."[525] The consumption and expense of purple in antiquity was very great, especially in Hither Asia. At first the Phenician kings wore the purple robe as the sign of their rank; then it became the adornment of the princes of the East, the priests, the women of high rank, and upper classes. In the temples and palaces the purple served for curtains and cloths, robes and veils for the images and shrines. The kings of Babylon and Assyria, and after them the kings of Persia, collected stores of purple stuffs in their palaces. Plutarch puts the value of the amount of purple found by Alexander at Susa at 5000 talents.[526] In the West also the purple robe soon became the distinguishing garb of royalty and rank. Yet the Greeks and Romans of the better times, owing to the costliness of the material, contented themselves with the possession of borders or stripes of purple.

The weaving and embroidery of the Phenicians[Pg 289] apparently followed Assyrian and Babylonian patterns. They must also have made and exported ceramic ware and earthen vessels in large numbers at an ancient period, as is proved by the tributes brought to Tuthmosis III., the discoveries in Cyprus, Rhodes, Thera, and at Hissarlik. In the preparation of perfumes Sidon and Tyre were not equal to the Babylonians. It is true that their manufacturers supplied susinum and cyprinum of excellent quality, but they could not attain to the cinnamon or the nard ointment, nor to the royal ointment of the Babylonians.[527]

In mining the Phenicians were masters. In regard to the Phenician skill in this art, the Book of Job says, "The earth, from which comes nourishment, is turned up; he lays his hand upon the flint; far from the dealings of men he makes his descending shaft. No bird of prey knows the path; the eye of the vulture discovers it not; the wild beasts do not tread it. Through the rocks paths are made; he searches out the darkness and the night. Then his eye beholds all precious things. The stone of the rocks is the place of the sapphire and gold-dust. Iron is taken out of the mountains; stones are melted into brass, the drop of water is stopped, and the hidden is brought to light."[528] The Phenicians dug mines for copper, first on Lebanon and then in Cyprus. We saw that they afterwards, in the second half of the thirteenth century, opened out the gold treasures of Thasos in the Thracian Sea. Herodotus, who had seen their abandoned mines there (they lay on the south coast of Thasos), informed us that the Phenicians had entirely "turned over a whole mountain." Yet even in the fifth century B.C. the mines of[Pg 290] Thasos produced a yearly income of from two to three hundred talents. In Spain the Phenicians opened their mines in the silver mountain, i. e. in the Sierra Morena, above the lower course of the Baetis (the Guadalquivir);[529] their ships went up the stream as far as Sephela (perhaps Hispalis, Seville). The richest silver-mines lay above Sephela at Ilipa (Niebla); the best gold and copper mines were at Cotini, in the region of Gades.[530] Diodorus assures us that all the mines in Iberia had been opened by Phenicians and Carthaginians, and not one by the Romans. In the more ancient times the workmen here brought up in three days an Euboic talent of silver, and their wages were fixed at a fourth part of the returns. The mines in Iberia were carried down many stades in depth and length, with pits, shafts, and sloping paths crossing each other; for the veins of gold and silver were more productive at a greater depth. The water in the mines was taken out by Egyptian spiral pumps. Strabo observes that the gold ore when brought up was melted over a slow fire, and purified by vitriolated earth. The smelting-ovens for the silver were built high, in order that the vapour from the ore, which was injurious and even deadly, might pass into the air.[531]

The Phenicians also understood how to work skilfully the metals supplied by their mines. At the founding of Gades, which we had to place about the year 1100 B.C., iron pillars with inscriptions are mentioned which the settlers put up in the temple of Melkarth (p. 82). The brass work which the melter, Hiram of Tyre, executed for Solomon (p. 182) is evidence[Pg 291] of long practice in melting brass, and of skill in bringing into shape large masses of melted metal. The Homeric poems speak of Sidon as "rich in brass," and "skilful;" they tell us of large beaten bowls of brass and silver of Sidonian workmanship, "rich in invention." Even at a later period the goblets of Sidon were in request. Not only metal implements and vessels of brass and copper, molten and beaten, were furnished by the Phenicians; they must also have manufactured armour in large quantities, if we may draw any conclusion about armour from the tribute imposed on the Syrians by Tuthmosis III. It is easily intelligible of what value it must have been for the nations of the West to come into the possession of splendid armour and good weapons. Besides these are the ornaments found in great numbers, and of high antiquity, in the tombs of Spata and Mycenæ, and in the excavations at Hissarlik. In Homer, Phenician ships bring necklaces of gold and amber to the Greeks. At a later time the ornaments of the Phenicians and their alabaster boxes were sought after; the carved work in ivory and wood, with which they also adorned the prows and banks of oars of their ships, is praised by Ezekiel. They also knew how to set and cut precious stones; some seals have come down to us in part from an ancient date.[532]

In ship-building the Phenicians were confessedly superior; they are said to have discovered navigation.[533] The ancient forests of cedar and cypress which rose immediately above their shores supplied the best[Pg 292] wood, which resisted decay for an extraordinary length of time even in salt water. Much as the Phenicians used these forests in the course of a thousand years for building their ships, their palaces, and temples, as well as for exportation, they provided even in the third century B.C. a material which for extent, size, and beauty won the admiration of the Greeks.[534] The oldest ship of the Phenicians which continued through all time in use as a trading-vessel was the gaulos, a vessel with high prow and stern, both of which were similarly rounded. It was propelled by a large sail and by rowers, from 20 to 30 in number. Besides the gaulos, there was the long and narrow fifty-oar, which served for a merchantman and pirate-ship as well as for a ship of war, and after the discovery of the silver land the large and armed merchantman, the ship of Tarshish. Isaiah enumerates the ship of Tarshish among the costly structures of men.[535] Ezekiel compares Tyre to a proud ship of the sea. We know that the great transport-ships and merchantmen of the Phenicians and Carthaginians could take about 500 men on board. The Byblians were considered the best ship-builders. The keels of the ships, like the masts, were made of cedar; the oars were of oak, supplied by the oak forests of the table-land of Bashan. The mariners of Sidon and Aradus were considered the best rowers. The Greeks praise the strict and careful order on board a Phenician ship, the happy use of the smallest spaces, the accuracy in distributing and placing the lading, the experience, wisdom, activity, and safety of the Phenician pilots and officers.[536] Others commend the great sail and oar power of the Phenician ships. They could sail even against the wind, and make fortunate voyages in the stormy season of the[Pg 293] year. While the Greeks steered by the Great Bear, which, if a more visible, was a far more uncertain guide, the Phenicians had at an early time discovered a less conspicuous but more trustworthy guide in the polar star, which the Greeks call the "Phenician star." The Greeks themselves allow that this circumstance rendered the voyages of the Phenicians more accurate and secure. On an average the Phenician ships, which as a rule did not set out before the end of February, and returned at the end of October, accomplished 120 miles in 24 hours; but ships that were excellently built and equipped, and sufficiently manned, ran about 150 miles.[537] In the fifteenth century the galleys of Venice could run from 50 to 100 miles in the Mediterranean in the 24 hours. The excellence of the Phenician navy survived the independence of the cities. Inclination towards, and pleasure in navigation, as well as skill in it, were always to be found among the populations of those cities. The Phenician ships were by far the best in the fleets of the Persian kings.

 

 

[Pg 294]

CHAPTER XII.

THE TRADE OF THE PHENICIANS.

We found above at what an early period the migratory tribes of Arabia came into intercourse with the region of the Euphrates, and the valley of the Nile, how in both these places they purchased corn, implements, and weapons in return for their horses and camels, their skins and their wool, and the prisoners taken in their feuds. It was this exchange trade of the Arabian tribes which in the first instance brought about the intercourse of Syria with Babylonia and Egypt. Egypt like Babylonia required oil and wine for their population; metals, skins, and wool for their manufactures; wood for the building of houses and ships. For the Syrians and cities of the Phenicians the intercourse with the Arabians, and the lands of the Euphrates and Tigris, was facilitated by the fact that nations related to them in race and language dwelt as far as the border-mountains of Armenia and Iran and the southern coast of Arabia, and their trade with Egypt was facilitated in the same manner when Semitic tribes between 2000 and 1500 B.C. obtained the supremacy in Egypt and maintained it for more than three centuries. From the fact that Babylonian weights and measures were in use in Syria in the sixteenth century B.C., we may conclude that there must have been close trade relations between Syria and Babylonia from the year 2000 B.C.; and in the same manner in consequence of[Pg 295] the conquest of Egypt by the shepherds more active relations must have commenced between Syria and the land of the Nile, at a period not much later. The supremacy which Egypt afterwards obtained over Syria under the Tuthmosis and Amenophis must have rather advanced than destroyed this; thus Sethos, towards the year 1400, used his successes against the Cheta, i. e. the Hittites, to have cedars felled on Lebanon. We may assume that even before this time, after the rise of the kingdom of the Hittites, i. e. after the middle of the fifteenth century, the cities of the Phenicians were no longer content to exchange the products of Syria, wine, oil, and brass, the manufactures of their own growing industry, purple stuffs and weapons, with the manufactures of Egypt, linen cloths, and papyrus tissues, glass and engraved stones, ornaments and drugs, on the one hand, and on the other hand with the manufactures of Babylon, cloths, ointments, and embroidered stuffs: they also carried Egyptian fabrics to Babylon, and Babylonian fabrics to Egypt. The trade of Phœnicia with Egypt and Babylonia was no longer restricted to the exchange of Phenician-Syrian products and fabrics with those of Egypt and Babylon: it was at the same time a middle trade between those two most ancient seats of cultivation, between Egypt and Babylonia. It cannot have been any detriment to this trade of the Phenicians that a second centre of civic life sprang up subsequently on the central Tigris in the growing power of Assyria. In the ruins of Chalah (p. 34) Egyptian works of art have been dug up in no inconsiderable numbers. Herodotus begins his work with the observation that the Phenicians at an early period endeavoured to export and exchange Egyptian and Assyrian (i. e. Babylonian and Assyrian) wares.[Pg 296]

The sea lay open to the cities of the Phenicians for their intercourse with Egypt; for this route they were independent of the good will or aversion of the tribes and princes, who ruled in the south of Canaan; moreover the wood of Lebanon could not be carried by land to Egypt. We may certainly assume that the navigation of the Phenicians was enabled to obtain its earliest practice for further journeys by these voyages to that mouth of the Nile, which the Egyptians opened to foreign ships (I. 227). The free and secure use of the routes of the caravans to the Euphrates, and from this river to the Syrian coast, must have been obtained from the rulers of Syria, the princes of Hamath and Damascus, the migratory tribes of the Syrian desert, the princes whose dominions lay on the Euphrates; and would hardly be obtained without heavy payments. So much the more desirable was it, if the cities could enter into special relations with one or other of these princes, such as David and Solomon, who not only opened Israel to them, but also provided the routes with caravanserais and warehouses (p. 187). The trade-road to the Euphrates led from Sidon past Dan (Laish) in Israel to Damascus, hence northwards past Riblah and Emesa (Hems) to Hamath, from Hamath to Bambyke (Hierapolis) in the neighbourhood of the Euphrates, and then crossed over the river to Harran (I. 320). From Harran the caravans went down along the Belik to the Euphrates, then in the valley of the Euphrates to Babylon, or went eastwards past Nisibis (Nisib) to the Tigris. A shorter road to the Euphrates ran past Damascus and the oasis of Tadmor, and reached the river at Thipsach (Thapsacus) at the farthest bend to the west.[538]

We have already seen at what an early period the[Pg 297] trade with the land of frankincense, i. e. with South Arabia, grew up for Egypt, owing to the mutual intercourse of the Arabian tribes (I. 226). The first attempt of Egypt to open a communication by sea with South Arabia falls about the year 2300 B.C. At a period not later, other Arabian tribes must have carried the incense and spices of South Arabia to Elam, Ur and Nipur, and Babylon. Syria must have received the products of South Arabia first through Babylon, then by means of direct communication with the Arabs, and lastly by the special caravans of the Phenicians. We hear of two trade-roads to that land. One led past Damascus to the oasis of Duma (Dumat el Dshandal), and from thence through the interior of Arabia to the south; the other ran through Israel past Ashtaroth Karnaim, through the territories of the Ammonites, Moabites, and Edomites, to Elath, and thence led along the coast of the Arabian Gulf to the Sabæans (I. 320). From the Sabæans and the Chatramites even before the year 1500 B.C. the caravans brought not spices only and incense, but also the products of the Somali coast. The Sabæans traversed the Arabian Gulf and carried home the products of the coast of East Africa; the southwest coast of Arabia was no longer a place for producing and exporting frankincense and spices; it became the trading-place of the Somali coast, and before the year 1000 B.C. was also the trading-place for the products of India, which ships of the Indians carried to the shore of the Sabæans and Chatramites (I. 322). It must have been a considerable increase in the extent of the Phenician trade and the gains obtained from it, when the Phenicians were able to make such a fruitful use of their connection with South Arabia that it fell into their hands to provide Egypt, with her products,[Pg 298] and perhaps even Babylonia also. Their caravan trade with South Arabia must have been lively, and the impulse to extend it strong, as they induced king Solomon to allow them to attempt a connection by sea from Elath with South Arabia. By the foundation and success of the trade to Ophir, and the most remote places of the East which they reached, their commerce obtained its widest extent, and brought in the richest returns. With incense and balsam, there came to Tyre cinnamon and cassia, sandal-wood and ivory, gold and pearls from India, and the silk tissues of the distant East.[539]

The commerce of the Phenician cities comprised Egypt, Babylonia, and Assyria, it touched Mesopotamia and Armenia, the lands of the Moschi and Tibarenes, the silver and copper mines of the Chalybes on the Black Sea.[540] When on the opening of the communication by the Red Sea with South Arabia and the countries beyond, it gained the widest extent to the south and east, it had for a whole century past traversed the entire length of the Mediterranean to the Straits of Gibraltar. We saw above how the Phenicians steered to Cyprus, Rhodes, Crete, to the Ægean Sea, to the coasts of Hellas, in order to barter or dig up minerals, to collect purple-fish for their coloured stuffs, and how after the middle of the thirteenth century they began to plant settlements on these coasts. The request for minerals must have been so strongly felt in their own cities, in Egypt and the lands of the Euphrates, in the course of the twelfth century, that the ships of the Phenicians went farther and farther to the west in search of them, that Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica were reached and then colonised by them. At the same[Pg 299] time Ityke and Old Hippo were built on the coast of Africa. These supplied saltpetre, alum, and salt, skins of lions and panthers, horns of buffalos, ostrich eggs and feathers, slaves and ivory to the mother-cities. After this, about the year 1100 B.C., Gades was built on the shore of the Atlantic Ocean. The trade of the Phenicians now brought not only the products of Syria and the manufactures of their cities to Egypt and Babylonia; it was not merely a middle trade between those two lands, nor merely an independent trade and middle trade between South Arabia and the civilised countries; it mediated now between the East and the West, the products and manufactures of the near and distant East, and the natural products of the near and distant West, between the ancient civilisation of the East and the young life of the nations of the West. It was above all the metals of the West, the gold of the Thracian, the copper of the Italian islands, the silver of Tartessus, which the ships of the Phenicians carried into the harbours of the mother-cities: the nations of the West received in return weapons, and metal vases, ornaments, variegated cloths, and purple garments. The works of Babylonian and Egyptian style, the works which are found in the tombs of Caere, Clusium, Alsium, at Corneto and Praeneste, adorned in types at once Egyptian and Babylonian-Assyrian, like the implements and ornaments found in the tombs of Spata and Mycenæ, can only have come into the possession of the Etruscans, Latins, and Lucanians from intercourse with the Phenicians, the Phenician colonies of Sicily, or from the trade with Carthage.[541]

From Gades the Phenicians succeeded in forcing their way farther to the Atlantic Ocean. Phenician colonies were founded on the west coast of Africa.[Pg 300] Lixus, the oldest and most important of these (Lachash, now El Araish), at the mouth of the river of the same name (now Wadi el Ghos), is said to have been the seat of a famous sanctuary of Melkarth.[542] Strabo is of opinion that these colonies of the Phenicians beyond the pillars of Hercules were built soon after the Trojan war, i. e. about the year 1100 B.C.[543] Diodorus told us already how Phenician ships, steering to the coast of Libya in order to explore the sea beyond the pillars were carried away by a storm far into the ocean, and discovered a large island opposite Libya, which, from the pleasantness of the air and the abundance of blessings, seemed fitted to be the dwelling of the gods rather than men (p. 82). We can hardly doubt, therefore, that the Phenicians visited Madeira and the Canary Islands.

Tin was early known to the ancient world, and was indispensable for the alloy of copper, but it could only be found mixed with copper in the mines of the Chalybes and Tibarenes (the Tabal of the Assyrians, the Tubal of the Hebrews), whose name is found in Genesis in Tubal-cain, the first smith, the father of them that work in brass and iron (I. 539). Besides these, there were tin mines only in the lofty Hindukush, in the north-west of Iberia, and in the south-west of England.[544] Herodotus observes: Tin and amber come from the extreme western ends of Europe. He could not learn from any eye-witness whether there was a sea there, though he had taken much trouble in the matter. Pliny tells us: Midacritus first brought[Pg 301] tin from the island Kassiteris, i. e. the tin-island.[545] It was the Phenicians who obtained tin, and they did not obtain it from Iberia only: their ships sailed through the Bay of Biscay, they became acquainted with the shore of Brittany, which appears to have been known to them as Œstrymnis; they discovered the tin islands, i. e. the Channel Islands, the coast of Cornwall, and even the island of Albion.[546] The tin-islands or Kassiterides of the Greeks are the islands of the north-west ocean, known to the Phenicians, who procured tin from them.

The Homeric poems often mention amber, which, worked into ornaments, Phenician ships brought to the Greeks. Ornaments of amber are met with in the oldest tombs of Cumae, in the tombs at the Lion's Gate at Mycenæ.[547] Hence the Phenicians must have been in possession of amber as early as the eleventh century B.C. Amber was found not only on the shores of the Baltic, but also on the coast of the North Sea, between the mouth of the Rhine and the Elbe. We may therefore draw the conclusion that in the eleventh and tenth centuries B.C. they must have advanced far enough in the Channel towards the mouth of the Rhine, or beyond it, to obtain amber by exchange or collect it themselves, unless we assume an extensive intercourse between the Celts and Germans.[548]

The starting-point, harbour, and emporium for the trade in the West and the voyages beyond the pillars of Melkarth in the Atlantic Ocean was Gades. Long after the naval power of the Phenicians and Carthage[Pg 302] had perished, Gades remained a great, rich, and flourishing city of trade. Strabo describes it thus: "Situated on a small island not much more than a hundred stades in length, and scarce a stade in breadth, without any possessions on the mainland or the islands, this city sends out the most and largest ships, and seems to yield to no other city, except Rome, in the number of the inhabitants. But the greater part do not live in the city, but on ships."[549]

In the tenth century B.C. the navigation and trade of the Phenicians extended from the coasts of the Arabian Sea, from the Somali coast, and perhaps from the mouths of the Indus as far as the coast of Britain; from the coasts of Mauritania on the Atlantic to the Tigris, from Armenia to the Sabæans. Stretching out far in every direction, they had as yet suffered reverses in one region only, in the basin of the Ægean Sea. Their trade and intercourse was not indeed destroyed, but their mines, their colonies on the islands of this sea and the coasts of Hellas, were lost. Before Hiram ascended the throne of Tyre, the Phenicians, after teaching Babylonian weights and measures, the building of fortresses and walls, and mining to the Greeks, and bringing them their alphabet (p. 57), were compelled to retire before the increasing strength of the Greek cantons, not only from the coasts of Hellas, but also from the islands of the Ægean. The trade, however, with the Hellenes continued as before, in lively vigour, so far as the Homeric descriptions can be accepted as evidence. The most valuable possessions in the treasuries of the Greek princes are Sidonian works of art. Phenician ships often show themselves in Greek waters. When one of these merchantmen is anchored, the wares are set out in the ship, or under[Pg 303] tents on the shore, or the Phenicians offer them for sale in the nearest place. A Phenician vessel laden with all kinds of ornaments lands on an island; after the Phenicians have sold many wares they offer to the queen a necklace of gold and amber, and at the same time they carry off her son, and sell him on another island. A Phenician freights a ship to Libya, and persuades a Greek to go with him as overseer of the lading: he intended to sell him there as a slave. Along with these notices in the Homeric poems on the trade of the Phenicians, an account has also come down to us from an Eastern source. The prophet Joel, who prophesied about the year 830 B.C., says, in regard to the invasion of the Philistines in Judah, which took place about the year 845 B.C., and brought them to the walls of Jerusalem (p. 252); Tyre and Sidon, and all the regions of the land of the Philistines, have stolen the silver and gold of Jehovah, and carried the costly things into their temples; the sons of Judah and Jerusalem they sold to the sons of Javan (the Greeks), in order to remove them far from their land.[550]

For the colonies which the Phenicians had to give up on the Greek coasts and islands, they found a rich compensation in the strengthening and increase of their colonies on the west of the Mediterranean, on Sardinia, where they built Caralis (Cagliari) on the southern shore, on Corsica, on the north coast of Africa, where Carthage arose about the middle of the ninth century (p. 269), and on the shores of Iberia. But another loss which befell them in the East could not be made good so easily. After king Jehoshaphat's death (848 B.C.), even before the invasion of the Philistines,[Pg 304] the kingdom of Judah, as we saw (p. 252), lost the sovereignty over the Edomites. Hence the harbour-city of Elath was lost to the Phenicians also, and the Ophir trade at an end, a century and a half after it began. Though 50 years later, when Judah under Amaziah and Uzziah had reconquered the Edomites, and Elath was rebuilt, this navigation, as it seems, was again set in motion, this restoration was of no long continuance. After the middle of the eighth century the Phenicians were finally limited for their trade with the Sabæans to the caravan routes through Arabia.

A still more serious source of danger was the approach of the Assyrian power to the Syrian coast. In the course of the ninth century (from 876 B.C.), as has been remarked above, Assyrian armies repeatedly showed themselves in Syria, and their departure had repeatedly to be purchased by tribute. As this pressure increased, and the Assyrian rulers insisted on pushing forward the borders of their kingdom towards Syria as far as the shores of the Mediterranean, as the cities of the Phenicians became subject to a power the centre of which lay in the distant interior, the trade not to the East but to the West came into question, and it was doubtful whether the cities, when embodied in a great land-power, could retain Cyprus in subjection, and keep up the trade with Egypt, and the connection with their colonies in the West. The doubt became greater when, after the beginning of the eighth century B.C., a dangerous opposition rose in the Mediterranean, and a still more serious competition against the Phenicians. Not content with driving the Phenicians out of the Ægean Sea, with obtaining possession of the islands and the west coast of Asia Minor, the Hellenes spread farther and farther to the west. Already they had got[Pg 305] Rhodes into their hands; they were already settled off the coast of Syria, on the island of Cyprus, among the ancient cities of the Phenicians. Still more vigorous was the growth of their settlements to the west of the Mediterranean. After founding Cyme (Cumae) on the coast of Lower Italy, they built in Sicily, after the middle of the eighth century, in quick succession, Naxus (738 B.C.), Syracuse (735 B.C.), Catana (730 B.C.), and Megara (728 B.C.), to which were quickly added Rhegium, Sybaris, Croton, and Tarentum in Lower Italy (720-708 B.C.). Were the cities of the Phenicians in Sicily, Rus Melkarth, Motye, Panormus, Soloeis, and Eryx (p. 79), in a position to hold the balance against these rivals and their navigation? The injurious effects of the competition of a rival power by sea for the trade of the Phenicians must have increased when, in the seventh century, the cities of the Greeks in Sicily increased in number, and Egypt was opened to them about the middle of this century; when, in the year 630 B.C., the first Greek city, Cyrene, rose on the shore of Africa, and about the same time the Greeks entered into direct trade connections with Tartessus; when at the close of this century a Greek city was built on the shore of the Ligystian Sea, at the mouth of the Rhone, and soon after the settlements of the Greeks in Sicily and in the west of the Mediterranean began to multiply. While in this manner the field of Phenician trade was limited by the constant advance of the Greeks, the mother-cities, from the same period, the middle of the eighth century, had to feel the whole weight of the development of Assyrian power. And when this pressure ceased, in the second half of the seventh century, it was followed by the still more burdensome oppression of the Babylonian empire.[Pg 306]

Yet in spite of all hindrances and losses, a prophet of the Hebrews after the middle of the eighth century could say of Tyre, that "she built herself strongholds, and heaped up silver as the dust, and fine gold as the mire of the streets."[551] And Ezekiel at the beginning of the sixth century describes the trade of Tyre in the following manner: "Thou who dwellest at the entrance of the sea, who art the trader of the nations to many islands! On mighty waters thy rowers carry thee; thy trade goes out over all seas; thou satisfiest many nations; thou hast enriched the kings of the earth by the multitude of thy goods and wares. Thou art become mighty in the midst of the sea. All ships of the sea and their sailors were in thee to purchase thy wares. Persians and Libyans and Lydians serve in thee; they are thy warriors; they hang shield and helmet on thy walls: thy own warriors stand round on the walls, and brave men are on all thy towers. Syria is thy merchant, because of the number of the wares of thy skill; they make thy fairs with emeralds, purple, and broidered work, and fine linen, and coral, and agate. Damascus is thy merchant in the multitude of the wares of thy making, in the wine of Helbon, and white wool. Judah and the land of Israel were thy merchants; they traded in thy market wheat and pastry and honey. They of the house of Togarmah (Armenia) traded in thy fairs with horses and mules. Haran, Canneh, and Asshur, and Childmad were thy merchants in costly robes, in blue cloths and embroidered work, and chests of cedar-wood full of damasks bound with cords, in thy place of merchandise. Dedan (the Dedanites[552]) is thy merchant in horse-cloths for riding. Wedan brings tissues[Pg 307] to thy markets: forged iron, cassia, and calamus were brought to thy markets. Arabia and all the princes of Kedar are ready for thee with lambs, rams, and goats. The merchants of Sabæa and Ramah[553] traffic with thee; they occupied in thy fairs with the chief of all spices, and with all precious stones and gold. Javan (the Greeks), Tubal, and Mesech (the Tibarenes and Moschi) are thy merchants; they trade with silver, iron, tin, and lead. Many islands are at hand to thee for trade; they brought thee for payment horns of ivory and ebony. The ships of Tarshish are thy caravans in thy trade: so art thou replenished and mighty in the midst of the sea."[554]

 

 

[Pg 308]

CHAPTER XIII.

THE RISE OF ASSYRIA.

The campaigns which Tiglath Pilesar, king of Asshur, undertook towards the West about the end of the twelfth century, and which carried him to the Upper Euphrates and into Northern Syria, remained without lasting result. The position which Tiglath Pilesar then had won on the Euphrates was not maintained by his successors in any one instance. More than 200 years after Tiglath Pilesar we find Tiglath Adar II. (889-883 B.C.) again in conflict with the same opponents who had given his forefather such trouble—with the mountaineers of the land of Nairi, the district between the highland valley of Albak on the Greater Zab and the Zibene-Su, the eastern source of the Tigris. The son and successor of this Tiglath Adar, Assurnasirpal, was the first whom we see again undertaking more distant campaigns; the successful results of which are the basis of a considerable extension of the Assyrian power.

Assurnasirpal also chiefly directed his arms against the mountain-land in the north. On his first campaign he fought on the borders of Urarti, i. e. of the land of Ararat, the region of the Upper Araxes. In the second year of his reign (881 B.C.) he marched out of the city of Nineveh, crossed the Tigris, and imposed tribute on the land of Kummukh (Gumathene, p. 41), and the Moschi, in asses, oxen, sheep, and goats. In the third year he caused his image to be hewn in the place[Pg 309] where Tiglath Pilesar and Tiglath Adar his fathers had chosen to set up their images; he tells us that his own was engraved beside the others.[555] Only the image of Tiglath Pilesar I. is preserved at Karkar. Assurnasirpal received tribute from the princes of the land of Nairi—bars of gold and silver, iron, oxen and sheep; and placed a viceroy over the land of Nairi. But the subjugation was not yet complete; Assurnasirpal related that on a later campaign he destroyed 250 places in the land of Nairi.[556] He tells us further, that on his tenth campaign he reduced the land of Kirchi, took the city of Amida (now Diarbekr), and plundered it.[557] Below this city, on the bank of the Tigris at Kurkh (Karch), there is a stone tablet which represents him after the pattern of Tiglath Pilesar at Karkar (p. 40.)

Between these conflicts in the north lie campaigns to the south and west. In the year 879 B.C. he marched out, as he tells us, from Chalah. On the other bank of the Tigris he collected a heavy tribute, then he marched to the Euphrates, took the city of Suri in the land of Sukhi, and caused his image to be set up in this city. Fifty horsemen and the warriors of Nebu-Baladan, king of Babylon (Kardunias), had fallen into his hand, and the land of the Chaldæans had been seized with fear of his weapons.[558] We must conclude therefore that the king of Babylon had sent auxiliary troops to the prince of the land of Sukhi (whom the inscriptions call Sadudu). In the following year he occupied the region at the confluence of the Chaboras with the Euphrates, crossed the Euphrates on rafts, and conquered the inhabitants of the lands of Sukhi, Laki, and Khindani, which had marched out with 6000 men to meet him. On the banks of the Euphrates[Pg 310] he then founded two cities; that on the further bank bore the name of "Dur-Assurnasirpal," and that on the nearer bank the name of "Nibarti-Assur." During this time he pretends to have slain 50 Amsi (p. 43) on the Euphrates, and captured 20; to have slain 20 eagles and captured 20.[559] Then he turned against Karchemish, in the land of the Chatti (p. 43). In the year 876 B.C. he collected tribute in the regions of Bit Bakhian and Bit Adin in the neighbourhood of Karchemish, and afterwards laid upon Sangar, king of Karchemish, a tribute of 20 talents of silver, and 100 talents of iron. From Karchemish Assurnasirpal marched against the land of Labnana, i. e. the land of Lebanon. King Lubarna in the land of the Chatti submitted, and had to pay even heavier tribute than the king of Karchemish. Assurnasirpal reached the Orontes (Arantu), took the marches of Lebanon, marched to the great sea of the western land, offered sacrifice to the gods, and received the tribute of the princes of the sea-coasts, the prince of Tyre (Ssurru), of Sidon (Ssidunu), of Byblus (Gubli), and the city of Arvada (Aradus), "which is in the sea" (p. 277)—bars of silver, gold, and lead;—"they embraced his feet." Then the king marched against the mountains of Chamani (Amanus); here he causes cedars and pines to be felled for the temples of his gods, and the narrative of his exploits to be written on the rocks, and worshipped at Nineveh before the goddess Istar.[560]

According to the evidence of these inscriptions, Assurnasirpal established the supremacy of Assyria in the region of the sources of the Tigris. But even he does not appear to have gone much further than Tiglath Pilesar before him, for he also fought once on the borders of Armenia, i. e. of the land of Ararat, and[Pg 311] on the other hand forced his way as far as the upper course of the Eastern Euphrates. Against Babylon he undertook, so far as we can see, no offensive war; he was content to drive out of the field the auxiliaries which Nebu-Baladan of Babylon sent to a prince on the middle Euphrates without pursuing the advantage further. The most important results which he obtained were in the west. He gained the land of the Chaboras, and fixed himself firmly on the Euphrates above the mouth of that river. To secure the crossing he built a fortress on either side, and then forced his way from here to the mountain land of the Amanus, to the Orontes and Lebanon. For the first time the cities of the Phenicians paid tribute to the king on the banks of the Tigris; Arvad (Aradus), Gebal (Byblus), Sidon, and Tyre, where at this time, as we saw (p. 267), Mutton, the son of Ethbaal, was king.

Shalmanesar I., who reigned over Assyria about the year 1300 B.C., built, as we have remarked above, the city of Chalah (Nimrud), on the eastern bank of the Tigris above the confluence of the Greater Zab. The remains of the outer walls show that this city formed a tolerably regular square, and that the western wall ran down to the ancient course of the Tigris, which can still be traced. In the south-western corner of the city, on a terrace of unburnt bricks, rose the palaces of the kings and the chief temples. They were shut off towards the city by a separate wall. Nearly in the middle of this terrace on the river-side we may trace the foundation-works of a great building, called by our explorers the north-west palace. In the remains of this structure, on two surfaces on the upper and lower sides of a large stone, which forms the floor of a niche in a large room, is engraved an inscription of Assurnasirpal, and a second on a[Pg 312] memorial stone of 12 to 13 feet high. Inscriptions on the slabs of the reliefs with which the halls of the building were adorned repeat the text of these inscriptions in an abbreviated manner. They tell us that the ancient city of Chalah, which Shalmanesar the Great founded, was desolate and in ruins; Assurnasirpal built it up afresh from the ground;[561] he led a canal from the Greater Zab, and gave it the name of Patikanik;[562] traces and remains are left, which show us that the course of the canal from the Greater Zab led directly north to the city. Cedars, pines, and cypresses of Mount Chamani (Amanus) had he caused to be felled for the temples of Adar, Sin, and Samas, his lords.[563] He built temples at Chalah for Adar, Bilit, Sin, and Bin. He made the image of the god Adar, and set it up to his great divinity in the city of Chalah, and in the piety of his heart dedicated the sacred bull to this great divinity. For the habitation of his kingdom, and the seat of his monarchy, he founded and completed a palace. Whosoever reigns after him in the succession of days may he preserve this palace in Chalah, the witness of his glory, from ruin; may he not surrender it to rebels, may he not overthrow his pillars, his roof, his beams, or change it for another structure, or alter his inscriptions, the narrative of his glory. "Then will Asshur the lord and the great god exalt him, and give him all lands of the earth, extend his dominion over the four quarters of the world, and pour abundance, purity, and peace over his kingdom."[564]

The palace of Assurnasirpal at Chalah was a building about 360 feet in length and 300 feet in breadth. Two great portals guarded by winged lions with bearded human heads, the images or symbols of the god Nergal, led from the north to a long and propor[Pg 313]tionately narrow portico of 154 feet in length and 35 feet in breadth. In the south wall of this portico a broad door, by which stand two winged human-headed bulls, images of the god Adar, and hewn out of yellow limestone, opens into a hall 100 feet long and 25 broad. On the east and south sides also of the central court (the west side is entirely destroyed) lie two longer halls, and a considerable number of larger and smaller chambers. The height of the rooms appears to have been from 16 to 18 feet.[565] The walls of the northern portico were covered with slabs of alabaster to a height of 10 or 12 feet, on which were reliefs of the martial exploits of the king, his battles, his sieges, his hunting—he claims to have killed no fewer than 370 mighty lions, and to have taken 75 alive. The reliefs on the slabs of the second hall, which abuts on this, exhibit colossal forms with eagle heads. Above the slabs the masonry of the walls was concealed by tiles coloured and glazed, or by painted arabesques. Beside the fragments of this building a statue of the builder, Assurnasirpal, was discovered. On a simple base of square stone stands a figure in an attitude of serious repose, in a long robe, without any covering to the head, with long hair and strong beard, holding a sort of sickle in the right hand, and a short staff in the left.[566] On the breast we read, "Assurnasirpal, the great king, the mighty king, the king of the nations, the king of Asshur, the son of Tiglath Adar, king of Asshur, the son of Bin-nirar, king of Asshur. Victorious from the Tigris to the land of Labnana (Lebanon), to the great sea, he subjugated all lands from the rising to the setting of the sun."[567] An image in relief at the entrance of the west of the two temples which this king built, to the north of his palace, on the terrace of[Pg 314] Chalah (at the entrance to the first are two colossal winged lions with the throats open, and at the entrance of the second two wingless lions), exhibits the king with the Kidaris on his head, and his hand upraised; before the base of the relief stands a small sacrificial altar.[568] We have already mentioned the image of Assurnasirpal which he had engraved near Kurkh, and which is preserved there. According to inscriptions lately discovered, and not yet published, Assurnasirpal built a palace at Niniveh also, and restored the ancient temple of Istar, which Samsi-Bin formerly erected there (p. 31).[569]

The reign of Assurnasirpal gave the impulse to a warlike movement which continued in force long after his time, and extended the power of Assyria in every direction. His son, Shalmanesar II., who ascended the throne in 859 B.C., followed in the path of his father. In the first years of his reign he fought against Khubuskia, which, as we find from the inscriptions, was a district lying on the Greater Zab, against a prince of the land of Nairi (p. 41), against the prince of Ararat (Urarti), Arami, and received the tribute of the land of Kummukh (p. 41). He crosses the river Arzania—either the Arsanias (Murad-Su), the Eastern Euphrates, or the Arzen-Su (Nicephorius), which falls into the Tigris before it bends to the south—and takes the city of Arzaska in Urarti, i. e. perhaps Arsissa, on Lake Van.[570] These wars in the north were followed by battles on the Euphrates. He conquers the city of Pethor on this side of the Euphrates, and the city of Mutunu on the farther side, which Tiglath Pilesar had won, but Assur-rab-amar[Pg 315] had restored by a treaty to the king of Aram, and settled Assyrians in both places. Then he fought against a prince of the name of Akhuni, who resided at Tul Barsip on the Euphrates. Shalmanesar takes this city, transplants the inhabitants to Assyria, and calls it Kar-Salmanassar. He receives the tribute of Sangar, prince of Karchemish, against whom his father had fought, and finally took Akhuni himself prisoner.[571] Then he advances towards Chamani (to the Amanus), crosses the Arantu (Orontes); Pikhirim of the land of Chilaku (i. e. of Cilicia) is conquered by him.[572]

The next object of the arms of Shalmanesar was Syria, which he had merely touched on the north in passing by on the campaign against Cilicia. On a memorial stone which he set up at Kurkh, on the Upper Tigris, where we already found the image of Assurnasirpal,—the stone is now in the British Museum,—Shalmanesar tells us that in the year 854 B.C. he left Nineveh, marched to Kar-Salmanassar, and there received the tribute of Sangar of Karchemish, Kutaspi of Kummukh, and others. "From the Euphrates I marched forth, and advanced against the city of Halwan. They avoided a battle and embraced my feet. I received gold and silver from them as their tribute. I made rich offerings to Bin, the god of Halwan. From Halwan I set forth and marched against two cities of Irchulina of Hamath. Argana, his royal city, I took; his prisoners, the goods and treasures of his palace, I carried away; I threw fire upon his palaces. From Argana I marched forth to Karkar. I destroyed Karkar and laid it waste and burnt it with fire. Twelve hundred chariots, 1200 horsemen, 20,000 men[Pg 316] of Benhadad of Damascus;[573] 700 chariots, 700 horsemen, 10,000 men of Irchulina of Hamath; 200 (?2000) chariots, 10,000 men of Ahab of Israel; 500 men of the Guaeer; 1000 men of the land of Musri; 10 chariots, 10,000 men of the land of Irkanat; 200 men of Matinbaal of Aradus (Arvada); 200 men of the land of Usanat; 30 chariots and 10,000 men of Adonibal of Sizan; 1000 camels of Gindibuh of Arba;—hundred men of Bahsa of Ammon; these twelve princes rendered aid to each other, and marched out against me to contend with me in battle. Aided by the sublime assistance which Asshur my lord gave to me, I fought with them. From the city of Karkar as far as the city of Gilzana[574] (?) I made havoc of them. Fourteen thousand of their troops I slew; like the god Bin I caused the storm to descend upon them; during the battle I took their chariots, their horses, their horsemen, and their yoke-horses from them."[575] On the obelisk of black basalt found in the ruins of Chalah, Shalmanesar says quite briefly, "In my sixth campaign I went against the cities on the banks of Balikh (Belik) and crossed the Euphrates. Benhadad of Damascus, and Irchulina of Hamath, and the kings of the land of Chatti and the sea came down to battle with me. I conquered them; I overcame 20,500 of their warriors with my arms." The same statement is repeated in a third inscription, that of the bulls.[576]

The kings of Syria were defeated, but by no means subdued. Shalmanesar says nothing of their subjuga[Pg 317]tion and tribute (p. 246). The arms of Assyria were next turned in another direction. An illegitimate brother, Marduk-Belusati, had rebelled against Marduk-zikir-iskun, the son and successor of Nebu-Baladan of Babylon. Shalmanesar supported the first. During the second campaign against Marduk-Belusati the united troops of Marduk-zikir-iskun and Shalmanesar, or the latter alone, succeeded in defeating the rebels; Marduk-Belusati was captured and put to death with his adherents. Shalmanesar sacrificed at Babylon, Borsippa, and Kutha. He claims to have imposed tribute on the chiefs of the land of Kaldi (Chaldæa), and to have spread his fame to the sea.[577]

After this decisive success in Babylonia, Shalmanesar resumed the war against Damascus. For two years in succession he marched out against Benhadad of Damascus. In the year 851 he defeats Benhadad of Damascus, the king of Hamath, together with 12 kings from the shores of the sea.[578] Then the king tells us further: "For the ninth time (850 B.C.) I crossed the Euphrates. I conquered cities without number; I marched against the cities of the land of Chatti and of Hamath; I conquered 89 (79) cities. Benhadad of Damascus, 12 kings of the Chatti (Syrians), mutually confided in their power. I put them to flight." And further: "In the fourteenth year of my reign (846 B.C.) I counted my distant and innumerable lands. With 120,000 men of my soldiers I crossed the Euphrates. Meanwhile Benhadad of Damascus, and Irchulina of Hamath, with the 12 kings of the upper and lower sea, armed their numerous troops to march against me. I offered them battle, put them to flight, seized their chariots and their horsemen, and[Pg 318] and marched against the cities of Hazael of Damascus, took from them their baggage. In order to save their lives, they rose up and fled."[579] This victory also was without result. In vain Shalmanesar had marched four times against Damascus; in vain he led out on the last campaign 120,000 men against Syria. Not till some years afterwards, when Hazael, as we saw above (p. 252), killed Benhadad and acquired the throne of Damascus in his place, can Shalmanesar speak of a decisive campaign in Syria. "In the eighteenth year of my reign (842 B.C.) I crossed the Euphrates for the sixteenth time. Hazael (Chazailu) from the land of Aram trusted in the might of his troops, collected his numerous armies, and made the mountains of Sanir,[580] the summits of the mountains facing the range of Lebanon, his fortress. I fought with him and overthrew him; 16,000 of his warriors I conquered with my weapons; 1121 of his chariots, 410 of his horsemen, together with his treasures, I took from him. To save his life he fled away. I pursued him. I besieged him in Damascus, his royal city; I destroyed his fortifications. I marched to the mountains of Hauran; I destroyed cities without number, laid them waste, and burned them with fire: I led forth their prisoners without number. I marched to the mountains of the land of Bahliras, which lies hard by the sea: I set up my royal image there. At that time I received the tribute of the Tyrian and Sidonian land, of Jehu (Jahua), the son of Omri (Chumri), i. e. of Jehu, king of Israel."[581] Though Sidon, Tyre, and Israel paid tribute, the resistance of the Damascenes was still unbroken. Shalmanesar further informs us that (in the year 839 B.C.) he crossed the Euphrates for the twenty-first time,[Pg 319] But he does not say that he reduced them; he only asserts that he received the tribute of Tyre, Sidon, and Byblus, and then assures us, quite briefly, in the account, of his twenty-fifth campaign (835 B.C.), that he received "the tribute of all the princes of Syria" (of the land of Chatti).[582]

In the very first years of his reign Shalmanesar had contended against the prince Arami of Ararat, and against the land of Nairi, between the Eastern Tigris and the Greater Zab. The obedience of these regions was not gained. In the year 853 Shalmanesar again marched to the sources of the Tigris, erected his statue there, and laid tribute on the land of Nairi.[583] Twenty years later he sent the commander-in-chief of his army, Dayan-Assur, against the land of Ararat, at the head of which Siduri now stood, and not Arami. Dayan-Assur crossed the river Arzania (p. 314) and defeated Siduri (833 B.C.). On a farther campaign (in 830 B.C.) Dayan-Assur crosses the Greater Zab, invades the territory of Khubuskia (p. 314), fights against prince Udaki of Van, i. e. of the Armenian land round Lake Van, and from this descends into the land of the Parsua, which Shalmanesar himself had trodden seven years before. Here Dayan-Assur collected fresh tribute. On a third campaign (829 B.C.) Dayan-Assur received tribute from the land of Khubuskia, then invaded Ararat, and there plundered and burned 50 places.

Meanwhile Shalmanesar himself marched in the years 838 and 837 B.C. against the land of Tabal, i. e. against the Tibarenes, on the north-west offshoot of the Armenian mountains, advanced as far as the mines of the Tibarenes, and laid tribute on their 24 princes.[584] In[Pg 320] the next year he turns to the south-east, marches over the Lesser Zab, against the lands of Namri and Karkhar, which we must therefore suppose to have been between the Lesser Zab and the Adhim and Diala, on the spurs of the Zagrus. Yanzu, king of Namri, was taken captive, and carried to Assyria. Shalmanesar left the land of Namri, imposed tribute on the 27 princes of the land of Parsua, and turned to the plains of the land of Amadai, i. e. against Media (835 B.C.).[585] Two years afterwards. Shalmanesar climbed, for the ninth time, the heights of Amanus (Chamani), then he laid waste the land of Kirchi (831 B.C.), then marched once more against the land of Namri, there laid waste 250 places, and advanced beyond Chalvan (Chalonitis, Holwan).[586]

On the obelisk of black basalt, dug up at Chalah in the remains of the palace of Shalmanesar II. (the central palace of the explorers), we find beside the account of the deeds of the king five sculptures in relief, which exhibit payments of tribute. Of the picture which represents the payment of Jehu, of the kingdom of Israel, we have spoken at length above (p. 257). Above this, which is the second picture, on the highest or first, is delineated the payment from the land of Kirzan. The title tells us: "Tribute imposed on Sua of the land of Kirzan:[587] gold, silver, copper, lead, staves, horses, camels with two humps." As on the second strip the king is represented receiving the tribute of Israel; so on this strip also we see the leader of those who pay tribute prostrate on the ground before him; behind the leader are led a horse and two camels with double humps; then follow people carrying staves and kettles. The superscription of the third relief says: "Tribute imposed on the land of Mushri:[Pg 321] camels with two humps, the ox of the river Sakeya." On the picture we see two camels with double humps, a hump-backed buffalo, a rhinoceros, an antelope, an elephant, four large apes, which are led, and one little one, which is carried. The superscription of the fourth relief says: "Tribute imposed upon Marduk-palassar of the land of Sukhi:[588] silver, gold, golden buckets, Amsi-horns, staves, Birmi-robes, stuffs." The relief itself depicts a lion, a deer, which is clutched by a second lion, two men with kettles on their heads, two men who carry a pole, on which are suspended materials for robes, four men with hooked buckets or hooked scrips, two men with large horns on their shoulders, two men with staves, and lastly a man carrying a bag. The superscription of the fifth relief says, "Tribute imposed on Garparunda of the land of Patinai: silver, gold, lead, copper, objects made of copper, Amsi-horns, hard wood."[589] Under this we see a man raising his hands in entreaty, a man with a bowl with high cups on his head, two men with hooked buckets, carrying horns on their shoulders, one man with staves; after these two Assyrian officers, a man in a position of entreaty, two men with hooked buckets and horns, a man with two goblets, two men with hooked buckets and sacks on their shoulders, two men, of whom one holds a kettle, and the other carries a kettle on his head.

Assurnasirpal had already fought against the land of Sukhi. As he marches to the Euphrates in order to attack Sadudu, prince of Sukhi, as the king of Babylon sends auxiliaries to Sadudu at that time, and the land of Chaldæa is seized with terror after the conquest of the land of Sukhi, we must look for Sukhi on the[Pg 322] Middle Euphrates, below the mouth of the Chaboras. The tribute which, according to that inscription, Shalmanesar imposed on the prince of Sukhi, who has a name which may be compared with the names of the kings of Babylon,—gold, silver, robes, and stuffs,—does not contradict this assumption. Shalmanesar fought against the Patinai in the first year of his reign, according to the inscription of Kurkh. Shapalulme, the prince of the Patinai at that time, combined with Sangar of Karchemish and Akhuni of Tul-Barsip. Like these, the Patinai were vanquished, their cities were taken, 14,600 prisoners were carried away, and they were compelled to pay tribute. As Shalmanesar in order to reach the Patinai marches against them from Mount Amanus,[590] we must look for their abode on the Upper Euphrates, to the north of Karchemish, between the Euphrates and the Orontes. The tribute imposed on Garparunda of Patinai—gold, silver, copper, Amsihorns, hard wood—is not against this supposition. The land of Kirzan or Guzan we can only attempt to fix by the tribute paid—camels with double humps. This kind of camel is found on the southern shore of the Caspian Sea and Tartary, and we are therefore led to place Kirzan on the southern shore of the Caspian. The land of Mushri, the tribute of which consists of hump-backed buffaloes, i. e. Yaks (an animal belonging to the same district, Bactria and Tibet), camels with double humps, elephants, and rhinoceroses, and apes, must therefore be sought in eastern Iran, on the borders of the district of the Indus, whether it be that Shalmanesar really penetrated so far, or that the terror of his name moved East Iranian countries to send tribute to the warrior prince of Nineveh and Chalah.

Like his father, Shalmanesar resided at Chalah. On[Pg 323] the terrace of this city, to the south-east of the palace of his father, he built a dwelling-place for himself, and in this set up the obelisk, the inscriptions on which give a brief account of each year of his reign. In the ruins of this house two bulls also have been discovered, which are covered with inscriptions, which, together with the inscription of Kurkh on the Tigris, supplement or extend the statements of the obelisk. More considerable remains have come down to us of another building of Shalmanesar. Assurnasirpal had erected at Chalah two temples to the north of his palace. To the larger (western) of these two temples on the north-west corner of the terrace Shalmanesar added a tower, the ruins of which in the form of a pyramidal hill still overtop the uniform heap of the ruined palaces. On the foundation of the natural rock of the bank of the Tigris lies a square substructure (each of the sides measures over 150 feet) of 20 feet in height, built of brick and cased with stone. On this base rises a tower of several diminishing stories. In the first of these stories, immediately upon the platform, is a passage 100 feet long, 12 feet high, and 6 feet in breadth, which divides the storey exactly in the middle from east to west.

Two centuries after the fall of the Assyrian kingdom, Xenophon, marching up the Tigris with the 10,000, reached the ruins of Chalah. After crossing the Zapatus, i. e. the Greater Zab, he came to a large deserted city on the Tigris, the name of which sounded to him like Larissa (Chalah); it was surrounded by a wall about seven and a-half miles long. This wall had a substructure of stone masonry about 20 feet high; on this it rose, 25 feet in thickness, and built of bricks, to the height of 100 feet. Beside the city was a pyramid of stone, a plethron (100 feet) broad and[Pg 324] two plethra high; to these many of the neighbouring hamlets fled for refuge.[591] Shalmanesar's tower was broken, and by the fall of the upper parts had become changed into a pyramid. The sides of the tower Xenophon put at almost half their real size; the height of the ruins is still about 140 feet. That Shalmanesar also stayed at Nineveh is proved by the inscriptions; that he possessed a palace in the ancient city of Asshur is proved by the stamp of the tiles at Kileh Shergat.[592]

In a reign of 36 years Shalmanesar II. had gained important successes. In the north he had advanced as far as Lake Van, and the valley of the Araxes, the Tibarenes in the north-west, and the Cilicians in the west had felt the weight of his arms. He had directed his most stubborn efforts against the princes on the crossings over the Euphrates towards Syria, and towards the region of Mount Amanus and Syria itself. Damascus and Hamath were forced to pay tribute after a series of campaigns; Byblus, Sidon, and Tyre repeatedly paid tribute, and Israel after it had received a new master in Jehu. By Shalmanesar's successful interference in the contest for the crown in the civil war in Babylon, the supremacy of Asshur over Babel was at length obtained. The regions of the Zagrus had to pay tribute to Shalmanesar. He first trod the land of Media, and his successes were felt beyond Media as far as the southern shore of the Caspian Sea and East Iran.

In spite of the unwearied activity of Shalmanesar, in spite of his ceaseless campaigns and the important results gained by his weapons, his reign ended amid domestic troubles, caused by a rebellion of the native land. Shalmanesar's son and successor, Samsi-Bin III. (823-810 B.C.), tells us in an inscription found in the[Pg 325] remains of his palace, which he built in the south-east corner of the terrace of Chalah, that his brother Assurdaninpal set on foot a conspiracy against his father Shalmanesar, and that the land of Asshur, both the Upper and Lower, joined the rebellion. He enumerates 27 cities, among them Asshur itself, the ancient metropolis, and Arbela, which joined Assurdaninpal; but "with the help of the great gods" Samsi-Bin reduced them again to his power. Then he tells us of his campaigns in the north and east. In his first campaign the whole land of Nairi was subjugated—all the princes, 24 in number, are mentioned; the land of Van also paid tribute. The Assyrian dominion, asserts the king, stretched from the land of Nairi to the city of Kar-Salmanassar, opposite Karchemish (p. 315). Then he fought against the land of Giratbunda (apparently a region on the Caspian Sea, perhaps Gerabawend), took the king prisoner, and set up his own image in Sibar, the capital of Giratbunda,[593] and afterwards directed his arms against the land of Accad (Babylonia). When he had slain 13,000 men and taken 3000 prisoners, king Marduk-Balatirib marched out against him with the warriors of Chaldæa and Elam, of the lands of Namri (p. 320) and Aram. He defeated them near Dur-Kurzu, their capital: 5000 were left on the field, 2000 taken prisoners; 200 chariots of war and ensigns of the king remained in the hands of the Assyrians (819 B.C.). At this point the inscription breaks off; elsewhere we hear nothing of further successes against Babylonia, we only learn that Samsi-Bin in the eleventh and twelfth years of his reign (812 and 811 B.C.) again marched to Chaldæa and Babylon,[594] and we can only conclude from[Pg 326] the fact that the king of Babylon received help not only from Namri and Aram, but also from Elam, that the Assyrians under Samsi-Bin continued to advance, and that their power must by this time have appeared alarming to the Elamites also.

Bin-nirar III. (810-781 B.C.), the son and successor of Samsi-Bin, raised the Assyrian power still higher. Twice he marched out against the Armenian land on the shore of Lake Van; eight times he made campaigns in the land of the rivers, i. e. Mesopotamia. In the fifth year of his reign he went out against the city of Arpad in Syria; in the eighth against the "sea-coast," i. e. no doubt against the coast of Syria. The beginning of an inscription remains from which we can see the extent of the lands over which he ruled, or which he had compelled to pay tribute. "I took into my possession," so this fragment tells us, "from the land of Siluna, which lies at the rising of the sun, onwards; viz., the land of Kib, of Ellip, Karkas, Arazias, Misu, Madai (Media), Giratbunda throughout its whole extent, Munna, Parsua, Allabria, Abdadana, the land of Nairi throughout its whole extent, the land of Andiu, which is remote, the mountain range of Bilchu throughout its whole extent to the great sea which lies in the east, i. e. as far as the Caspian Sea. I made subject to myself from the Euphrates onwards: the land of Chatti (Aram), the western land (mat acharri) throughout its whole extent, Tyre, Sidon, the land of Omri (Israel) and Edom, the land of Palashtav (Philistæa) as far as the great sea to the setting of the sun. I imposed upon them payment of tribute. I also marched against the land of Imirisu (the kingdom of Damascus), against Mariah, the king of the land of Imirisu. I actually shut him up in Damascus, the city of his kingdom; great terror of Asshur came upon him; he embraced my feet, he became a subject; 2300 talents of[Pg 327] silver, 20 talents of gold, 3000 talents of copper, 5000 talents of iron, robes, carven images, his wealth and his treasures without number, I received in his palace at Damascus where he dwelt.[595] I subjugated all the kings of the land of Chaldæa, and laid tribute upon them; I offered sacrifice at Babylon, Borsippa, and Kutha, the dwellings of the gods Bel, Nebo, and Nergal."[596]

According to this king Bin-nirar not only maintained the predominance over Babylon which his grandfather had gained, but extended it: his authority reached from Media, perhaps from the shores of the Caspian Sea, to the shore of the Mediterranean as far as Damascus and Israel and Edom, as far as Sidon and Tyre and the cities of the Philistines. The Cilicians and Tibarenes who paid tribute to Shalmanesar are not mentioned by Bin-nirar in his description of his empire. So far as we can see, the centre of the kingdom was meanwhile extended and more firmly organised. Among the magistrates with whose names the Assyrians denote the years, at the time of Shalmanesar and his immediate successors the names of the commander-in-chief and three court officers are regularly followed by the names of the overseers of the districts of Rezeph (Resapha on the Euphrates), of Nisib (Nisibis on the Mygdonius, the eastern affluent of the Chaboras), of Arapha, i. e. the mountain-land of Arrapachitis (Albak); hence we may conclude that these districts were more closely connected or incorporated with the native land, and governed immediately by viceroys of the king. How uncertain the power and supremacy of Assyria was at a greater distance is on the other hand equally clear from the fact that Bin-nirar had to make no fewer than eight campaigns in the land of the streams, i. e. between [Pg 328]the Tigris and the Euphrates; that he marched four times against the land of Khubuskia in the neighbourhood of Armenia, and twice against the district of Lake Van, against which his father and grandfather had so often contended.

Bin-nirar III. also built himself a separate palace at Chalah, on the western edge of the terrace of the royal dwellings, to the south of the palace of his great grandfather Assurnasirpal. In the ruins of the temple which he dedicated to Nebo have been found six standing images of this deity, two of which bear upon the pedestal those inscriptions which informed us that the wife of Bin-nirar III. was named Sammuramat (p. 45). On a written tablet dated from the year of Musallim-Adar (i. e. from the year 793 B.C.), the eighteenth year of Bin-nirar, on which is still legible the fragment of a royal decree, we also find the double impress of his seal—a royal figure which holds a lion. A second document from the time of the reign of this prince, from the twenty-sixth year of his reign (782 B.C.), registers the sale of a female slave at the price of ten and a half minæ, and gives the name of the ten witnesses to the transaction.[597] The preservation of this document is the more important inasmuch as a notice in Phenician letters is written beside it. Hence we may conclude that even in the days of Bin-nirar III. the alphabetic writing was known as far as this point in the East, though the cuneiform alphabet was retained beside it, not only at that time, but down to 100 B.C., and indeed, to all appearance, down to the first century of our reckoning.[598]

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