Natural

rivers is that of Adonis, which we fhall have occafion to mention anon.

The fea, on this coaft, formerly produced a quantity curiofities. of fuch fish, as, in an extraordinary manner, redounded to the profit of Tyre in particular; we mean the murex, with which they died the choiceft purple: and on the shore was a fand wherewith the firft and beft glass was made; a staple manufacture of this ancient country. To thefe particulars we fhall add a remarkable property of the river Adonis; at certain feafons, and upon certain occafions, it appears bloody. Hence was continued, at leaft, the fuperftitious ceremony performed in memory of Thammuz, or Adonis, yearly wounded. The caufe of this red appearance of the river was anciently known, and, by those who were not fo fuperftitious as the reft of their contemporaries and countrymen, afcribed to a kind of minium or red earth which it brought away, when fwelled to an unusual height. It is ftill subject to the same colour in the time of floods (U).

C

There are yet fome few remains of the ancient fplendor of this now defolate land. Thevenot tells us there are fine antiquities to be seen at Tyre, but does not specify them. Sandys could difcover nothing there but an heap of ruins. The most modern travellers are more particular. They take notice of the ruins of the metropolitan church, near which is a pillar of unusual dimenfions; which one reprefents as a triple, another as a double column, or two joined together. It is of granite, one entire block, fourfcore fect long (X).

Some veftiges of what Sidon once was, are to be seen among the gardens without the walls of the prefent city; fuch as beautiful columns, and other fragments of marble.

Here they pretend to fhew a monument of great antiquity, no lefs than the tomb of Zebulon, ftanding within a small chapel in a garden, and highly revered by the b Travels into the Levant, part iii. p. 168.

a Vide Luc. de Dea Syr. i. book ii. cap. 60.

Lib.

(U)"We faw-the water (of the river Adonis)-stained to a furprising rednefs, and obferved it had difcoloured the fea a great way into a reddish hue (6)."

(X) For further particu

lars, including a description of what are called Solomon's Cifterns, the reader may consult the travels of De Bruyn, La Roque, and Maundrell's Journey from Aleppo to Jerufalem.

(6) Maundrell, p. 34.

Jews,

Jews. This tomb is made of two ftones only; the one fuppofed to be at the head, and the other at the feet of the deceased. Their diftance. is better than ten of our feet; which they give out to have been the ftature of this patriarch d.

At Byblus, alfo, are many heaps of ruins, and fine pillars, fcattered up and down in the gardens near the prefent town. Finally, on the continent, a little fouthward of the isle of Aradus, whereon the city of that name anciently ftood, are feveral antiquities of a very extraordinary kind. The firft is a dike, thirty yards over at top, cut out of the firm rock. Its fides flope down, with ftairs cut also out of the rock, and defcending gradually from top to bottom. This dike ftretches in a direct line, east and west, more than a furlong, bearing continually the fame figure of ftairs, running in right lines all along its fides. It breaks off at laft at a flat marfhy ground, extending about two furlongs between it and the fea. A little to the fouthward of this dike, there is a court of fiftyfive yards fquare, cut also in the natural rock; the fides of which stand around it about three yards high, fupplying the place of walls. On three fides it is thus encompaffed, but to the northward it lies open. In the center of this area, a fquare, part of the rock is left ftanding, three yards high, and five and a half fquare: this ferves for a pedestal to a throne compofed of four large ftones, two at the fides, one at the back, and one at the top, in the manner of a tribunal, or canopy. This whole ftructure is about twenty feet high, and faces the open fide of the court. The ftone that forms the canopy is five yards and three quarters fquare, adorned with a handfome cornice. At the two innermost angles of the court, and likewife at the open fide are left pillars of the natural rock, three at each of the former, and two at the latter.

About half a mile to the fouthward of this court, and this throne, are two towers, supposed to be fepulchral monuments, for they ftand over an ancient burying-place. They are about ten yards diftant from each other, one in form, a cylinder, crowned by a multilateral pyramid, thirty-three feet high, including the pedeftal, which is ten feet high and fifteen fquare. The other is a long cone, discontinued at about the third part of its height, and, instead of ending in a point, wrought into an hemifpherical form. It ftands upon a pedestal fix feet high,

a Theven. Voy. au Levant. Sandys's Travels.

and

and fixteen feet fix inches fquare, adorned, at each angle, with the figure of a lion in a fitting posture, pretty much defaced, though the fculpture appears to have been but indifferent. Under-ground there are fquare chambers, of convenient height for a man, and long cells branching out from them, varioufly difpofed, of different lengths, wherein the dead bodies were depofited. These subterraneous chambers and cells are likewife cut out of the hard rock.

SE C T. II. :

Of the Antiquity, Government, Laws, Religion, Cuftoms, Arts, Learning and Trade of the Ancient Pha

nicians.

Antiquity. IT is univerfally allowed that the Phoenicians were Canaanites (Y) by defcent; nothing is plainer, or lefs contefted, and therefore it were time loft to prove it. We fhall only add that their blood must have been mixed with that of foreigners in process of time, as it happens in all trading places; and that many strange families must have fettled among them, who could confequently lay no claim to this remote origin, how much foever they may have been called Phoenicians, and reckoned of the fame defcent with the ancient proprietors.

Govern ment.

The Phoenicians were governed by kings, and their territory, as fmall a flip as it was, included feveral kingdoms; namely, thofe of Sidon, Tyre, Aradus, Berytus, and Byblus. In this particular they imitated and adhered to the primitive government of their forefathers, who, like the other Canaanites, were under many petty princes, to whom they allowed the fovereign dignity, referving to themselves the natural rights and liberties of mankind.

We have no particular system of the civil laws, and shall therefore pass to their religion.

The Phoenicians, being originally Canaanites, muft Religion, once, as well as the reft of their kindred, have had a knowlege of the true God, whom they probably called Baal, or Lord. But, by degrees, degenerating to the deification and worship of fuch as were once mortals like themfelves, they became perverfe and blind idolaters. The chief of their deities, in order as we find them in their own records, are thefe; Beelfamen, which, in Phoenician, is lord of heaven, thereby meaning the fun; Cronus, or Baal who is likely to have been the Baal-Berith, or the Cronus anciently worshipped at Berytus; Aftarte; Cronus, or Baal the fecond; Zeus Belus, or Baal (A); Apollo; Melicarthus, Melcartus, or Hercules . These are the gods we shall chiefly take notice of here; the rest we have spoken of at large in the antiquities and mythology of this people. We fhall only obferve, that it is almost certain, the Phoenician idolatry and fuperftition was not all their own; and that their fubjection to the Affyrians, Babylonians, Perfians, and Greeks, made great alterations in the whole fyftem of their religion.

How far they retained, or loft, a due fenfe and notion of the true God in this their multifarious idolatry, is hard to determine. It is reported of the Egyptians, that, amidst their endless polytheism, they ftill acknowleged one fupreme God; and fince the religion of the old Phonicians was in substance hardly different from that of the Egyptians (B), it is very probable, that their theory and

a Vide Selden de Diis Syr. Syntag. ii. cap. 7.

(A) Here we have no less than three Baals, who are faid to have been once mortal men, a circumstance which might fairly, induce one to think that the learned are mistaken in fuppofing the Phoenician god Baal, in general, reprefented the fun.

(B) Bishop Cumberland draws the following parallel between them, to fhew how nearly they were related.

1. Plutarch makes Ofiris the fon of Rhea, a wife of Cro

doctrine

nus; fo Sanchoniatho owns
Rhea married to Cronus.
2. Plutarch makes Ifis find,
at Byblus, a king called Mel-
cander, and that name is
plainly derived from the He-
brew Melec, or Moloch;
which title, the bishop thinks,
was appropriated eminently to
Cronus or Ham in old times.
3. The queen, whom Ifis
found at Byblus, Plutarch tells
us, is by fome called Astarte,
(or Afparte, as it is in the
Greek); which is the name of

one

doctrine agreed together, as well as their practice and traditions.

1

How they reprefented Beelfamen, we no where find. We are of opinion, that they did not reprefent him at all; for, meaning by him, in a more especial manner, the Sun, whom they had daily before their eyes in all his glory, it is likely they made their addreffes immediately to him, according to the ancient rite. There were many Baals. The Baal of Sidon was called Thalaffius, or the Sea Baal. There was Baal-Berith (C), and others, each reprefented, as we may fuppofe, under his proper attributes; but we know nothing particular of their idols. Baal is called fometimes a god, and fometimes a goddefs; and, on the other hand, Aftarte is fometimes termed a goddefs, and fometimes a god (D); but, by the Phoenician mythology the was indifputably a goddess; for there we find her mentioned as the mother of many children. She is particularly called the goddess of the Sidonians, and, in Hebrew, Afhtaroth (E). Some will have it, fhe was fo called, becaufe fhe was represented in the form of a fheep. But this is rejected as a groundless notion. She was certainly reprefented like Isis, with

a R. Kimch. apud

(D) This arose from the Hebrews knowing no diftinction of fex in the gods.

b Corinth. viii. 5. c Hefych. Selden de Diis Syr. Syntag. ii. cap. 2. one of Cronus's wives in Sanchoniatho. 4. Plutarch makes Typhon a contemporary with Cronus and his children; fo doth Sanchoniatho." When the whole is weighed on each fide, it must be allowed, that the ancient mythology of both was derived from the fame fource.

(C) This is a farther proof with us, that all the Baals of the Phoenicians were not intended for the fun. We here fee one denominated from the fea, a lord of the fea, as well as a lord of heaven; which feems to diftinguish them into two very different deities. We cannot help thinking, that they had different genealogies for, and traditions of, all their Baals.

(E) Afhtaroth, which fignifies flocks of sheep or goats. It is conjectured that men, in ancient times, being chiefly addicted to a paftoral life, and delighting chiefly in that employment, drew their favourite fimilies of beauty from thence. This is fuppofed to have been the reafon why Afhtaroth, or Aftarte, was fo called. It was first started by bishop Cumberland that her first name was Naamah. He tells us, that he could not think of Plutarch's Nemanus, Cronus's wife, but Naamah came into his mind.

COWS