The History of Antiquity Volume Ii Part 17

[435] Song of Solomon vi. 4.

[436] 1 Kings xv. 20.

[437] 1 Kings xx. 34.

[438] Noldeke, "Inschrift des Mesa."

[439] _Infra_, chap. xi.

[440] 2 Kings iii. 4.

[441] The inscription of Kurkh enumerates in the army of the Syrians at Karkar men from Ammon under Bahsa, the son of Ruchub (Rehob); Schrader, "Keilinschriften und A. T." s. 95.

[442] 2 Kings viii. 18.

[443] 1 Kings xxi. 1; xxii. 39; 2, ix. 15 ff.

[444] 1 Kings xvi. 31-33; xviii. 19; 2, iii. 2.

[445] 1 Kings xviii. 4-13, 17; xix. 10-14.

[446] 1 Kings xvii. 9, 10.

[447] 2 Kings i. 8; 1, xvii. 4-6.

[448] 1 Kings xviii. 17-46.

[449] The objections which have been made against the a.s.sumption that the king of Damascus and Achabbu, against whom and their confederates Shalmanesar fought at Karkar, according to the monument of Kurkh (col.

2), were Benhadad II. of Damascus of the Books of Kings and Ahab of Israel are untenable. Shalmanesar II. marches four times against a king of Damascus; subsequently, four years after his last war with this king, he marches against a second king of Damascus, whose name in the inscriptions is indubitably Chazailu. In the Books of Kings Benhadad, Ahab's contemporary and opponent, is overthrown by Hazael, who becomes king of Damascus in Benhadad's place. Thus we obtain a certain basis for identifying the Benhadad overthrown by Hazael with the prince of Damascus against whom Shalmanesar fought four times. Hence on the reading of the name of this opponent of Shalmanesar in the inscriptions I cannot place special weight, especially as the a.s.syrian symbol for the deity in the name in question is well known to have more than one signification. If a further objection is made, that Ahab cannot have combined with Damascus against a.s.syria, but rather with a.s.syria against Damascus, in order to get rid of that opponent, the answer is that Ahab had reduced Damascus before Shalmanesar's first march against the city.

Ahab had released Benhadad under a treaty (1 Kings xx. 34), and they "were at peace three years" (1 Kings xxii. 3). Hence at this moment Ahab was not in need of the a.s.sistance of a.s.syria. That free leagues are altogether inconceivable among the Syrian princes of that time is an a.s.sumption contradicted by numerous statements in the Egyptian monuments of Tuthmosis III., of Ramses II. and III., and yet more numerous statements in the a.s.syrian inscriptions. Not much weight can be allowed to the late and very general statements of Nicolaus in Josephus. If Nicolaus (Joseph. "Antiq." 7, 5, 2) calls the opponent of David Hadad, the Books of Kings do not mention the name of the king of Damascus against whom David contends. If he maintains that the grandson of Benhadad I., the third of the name, desolated Samaria, it is rather Benhadad I. of the Books of Kings, who was not the son and grandson of a Benhadad, but the son of Tabrimmon, and grandson of Hesjon, who first laid Samaria waste (1 Kings xv. 18-20). A second Benhadad contends with Ahab, who certainly may have been a grandson of the first, but certainly cannot have been the grandson of the opponent of David. If Nicolaus further tells us, that after Benhadad I. his descendants ruled for 10 generations, and each of them along with the throne received the name of Benhadad, this is contradicted by the Books of Kings, not merely in the genealogy of the first Benhadad of those books, but also in the fact that in them Benhadad II., the contemporary of Ahab and Jehoram, is overthrown by Hazael, who then in a long reign over Damascus inflicts severe injury on Israel and Judah. Hazael is followed in the Books of Kings by Benhadad III. That "Achabbu from the land of Sir'lai" is correctly read in the inscription of Kurkh is an ascertained fact.

[450] The prophetic revision explains the overthrow of Ahab by the fact that he had spared Benhadad in the previous war, when Jehovah had delivered him into his hand.

[451] Ninth and tenth year of Shalmanesar II.

[452] According to Noldeke, "Inschrift des Mesa," the upper city of Dibon.

[453] 1 Kings xix. 15; 2, viii. 7-15.

[454] Joel iv. 19; Amos i. 11, 12.

[455] 2 Chron. xxi. 16-18; Amos i. 6; cf. _infra_, p. 260. n. 2.

[456] 2 Kings ix. 14.

[457] 2 Kings x. 12-14.

[458] 2 Kings xi. 1-3.

[459] 2 Kings x. 30. "To the fourth generation" may have been added by the revision _post eventum_.

[460] 2 Kings x. 18-27.

[461] E. Schrader, "Keilinschriften und A. T." s. 105.

[462] 2 Kings x. 32.

[463] 2 Kings xiii. 25.

[464] 2 Kings viii. 12.

[465] Amos i. 3.

[466] 2 Kings xiii. 5.

[467] See below, p. 326.

[468] Of this date and the time of Amaziah I shall treat in the first chapter of Book IV.

[469] 2 Kings xiii. 25.

[470] 2 Kings xi. 3-20.

[471] They fall about 830 B.C. The minority of the king is clear, and the verses iv. 4 ff. points to the incursion of the Philistines into Judah, mentioned p. 252.

[472] 2 Kings xii. 17, 18. The occurrence is recorded after the twenty-third year of Joash, and the twenty-third year was 815 B.C.

[473] The subjugation of Edom can only have taken place after the year 803 B.C., _i.e._ after the march of Bin-nirar II. to the sea-coast.

Bin-nirar enumerates Edom among the tribute-paying tribes of Syria. On this and on the date of Uzziah's accession, cf. Book IV. chap. 2.

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 aegean, Samothrace, and Thasos, on the coasts of h.e.l.las, 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 const.i.tution of the cities whose s.h.i.+ps 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 a.s.sumption that this monarchy arose out of the patriarchal heads.h.i.+p of the elders of the tribes. These tribes had long ago changed into civic communities, and their members must have consisted of merchant-lords, s.h.i.+p-owners, and warehous.e.m.e.n, 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 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 Hitt.i.tes 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 a.s.syria (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 surpa.s.sed those of the mother-city. If Old Hippo in Africa was founded from Sidon, Tyrian s.h.i.+ps sailed through the Straits of Gibraltar, discovered the land of silver, and founded Gades beyond the pillars. 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]