Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 1.djvu/39

ORIGIN OF THE PHCENICIANS. 19 oldest city in the world ; it had been built, according to the story, by the god El, at the beginning of time. At first the natives of Gebal seem to have exercised a real authority over the rest of the Phoenicians, 1 but owing to events which now escape us a city farther to the south, Sidon, soon rose to the first rank ; in Genesis Sidon is already spoken of as the first-born of Canaan. 2 In the beginning it was no more than a village of fishermen, as its name Tsidon, " a fishery," proves. "It was at first confined to the southern slope of a small promontory jutting out obliquely towards the south-west. The famous harbour is formed by a low chain of rocks running parallel to the shore for some hundreds of yards and touching the northern extremity of the peninsula. The neighbouring plain is well provided with water and covered with those gardens which have given to the town the sobriquet of the flowery Sidon." Sidon soon had two rivals, Arvad on the north and Tyre on the south. Arvad was built on an island at some distance from the main land. "It is," says Strabo, " a rock beaten on all sides by the sea, and about seven stades in circumference. It is entirely covered with dwellings, and the population is still so thick that the houses are all many stories high. The inhabitants are provided with drinking water partly by cisterns, partly by a supply brought from the opposite coast." In the centre of the channel between the island and main land there was a strong spring bubbling up through the sea water. In times of siege, when the cisterns had been emptied, the inhabitants turned to this spring and obtained supplies of water from it by the help of skilful divers. 5 The people of Arvad made themselves masters of the strip of coast that faced their island ; Gabala, Paltos, Karne, Marath and Simyra were dependent upon them, and it would seem that for a time value of those fragments which have come down to our time, see M. KENAN'S Memoire sur /' Origine etle Caractcre rentable deF Histoire phcnicienne quiporte le Norn de Sanchoniathon (Memoires de F Academic des Inscriptions, new series, 1868, vol. xxiii. part ii.). Sanchoniathon (Sanchon Jathon = "the god Sanchon has given") must have written in Phoenician, in the time of the Seleucidae, about the second or third century before our era. He must therefore have been a contemporary, or little removed from it, of Manetho and Berosus-^about the time of Hadrian. Philo must have made a free translation of the work of Sanchoniathon into Greek. 1 MOVERS, Die Phonizer. vol. ii. part i. pp. 1-4. 2 Genesis x. 15. 3 MASPERO, Histoire ancienne, p. 190. 4 STRABO, xvi. ii. 13. 5 Strabo gives a description of the way in which this feat was performed.