Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 1.djvu/46

26 HISTORY OF ART IN PIKKNICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES. general direction of the movement. The captains of those two great cities were the earliest to press on towards the setting sun, till first the pillars of Hercules and afterwards still more distant points were left astern of their ships. We know very little of the institutions of the Phoenician cities ; we know practically nothing of their political and social life. So far as we can guess they had a political system analogous to those of several cities of modern Europe in which similar ambitions and habits of life found a place, such as Genoa, Venice and the Hanse towns. Wherever the exigencies of a great maritime commerce tend to concentrate capital in a few hands, and to enable the more capable citizens to accumulate huge fortunes, there we always find a powerful aristocracy. This aristocracy sometimes leaves an appearance of power to popular assemblies or hereditary princes, but by right of its great wealth and superior intelligence it always keeps the reality of power in its own hands. Between such cities as those we have named, the chief difference lies in the varying exclusiveness of the aristocracy by which they are ofoverned. In some it closes its ranks to new-comers and o tends to oligarchy ; in others it opens them and welcomes a certain measure of democracy. It is difficult to say to which side Sidon and Tyre inclined. We are better informed, or rather we are a little less ill informed, as to the great African colony of Tyre, Carthage, and perhaps we may venture to assume that the daughter inherited a good deal of the mother's constitution. In the light of such an analogy we should say that the system of the Phoenician cities tended strongly to oligarchy. The inscriptions and the Greek historians, tell us, however, that they had kings. At Arvad we find a dynasty in which the names of Aniel and Jerostratus alternate with each other. At Sidon there was an ancient royal family whose origin must have been coeval with that of the city ; its reign was interrupted more than once ; but at moments of crisis its existence was remembered, and some member of the ancient house was sought out to put an end to intestine quarrels and the contests of pretenders. The life of Tyre seems to have been more troubled than that of Sidon. Tradition has handed down to us the names of several of her kings, but as a rule she seems, like the Carthaginians and the Jews before the time of Saul, to