I'm a bit on the fence about the Phoenicians. On the one hand, they were extremely important historically; on the other, for reenactment purposes it may be difficult to portray them because I can find no sources on Phoenician costume in the Achaemenid period.
Geographical definition and names
Phoenicia (Gk. Phoinikia) was the Greek name for the Levantine coast from about Gaza through the southern part of coastal Syria. The Phoenicians were a subset of Canaanites and it is uncertain whether they regarded themselves as a unified civilization, which together with the lack of centralized government, means that the history of Phoenicia is the history of many different cities. Essentially they comprised those Canaanites who had taken to seafaring and trading; as such, they were among the most important subjects of the Persian empire.
Phoinikia is Greek for "red land," in reference to the famous purple dye the Phoenicians exported. However, this name is probably adapted from an Egyptian word, Fnḥw, referring to Asians.
The Phoenicians probably didn't distinguish their land from the rest of Canaan, which was called Kn'n (probably to be read as "Kana'an"), either a native term meaning "lowlands" or from Hurrian Kinahhu, "purple land." Hecataeus of Miletus in the sixth century wrote that Phoenicia was formerly called Khna.
History
Phoenicia seems to have developed gradually from the early Bronze Age, and although destruction was widespread during the Bronze Age collapse, the main centers of Phoenician culture - Byblos, Sidon, Tyre and Gaza among them - show no sign of a major cultural break. In the early Iron Age these cities gained power through maritime trade and charted routes all around the Mediterranean, establishing colonies as far away as Gadir (modern Cadiz) in southwest Spain and Tingis (modern Tangier) on the Moroccan side of Gibraltar, as well as, most famously, Carthage in Tunisia.
Phoenicia's trade was built on third-party shipping, and on the export of goods like lumber (the prized cedars of Lebanon were used in the construction of Darius the Great's Susa palace and the Second Temple of Jerusalem) and the so-called Tyrian purple fabric.
This latter was dyed with excretions of murex sea snails collected on the coast, and because it was slow and labor-intensive to produce and the resulting color was both rich and resistant to fading, it was an incredibly valuable product (and remains so today). When the Achaemenids conquered the area, they assumed control of the flow of Tyrian purple cloth and hoarded it. Wearing Tyrian purple was a sign of royal favor.
It was in the early Iron Age, from about 1200 to 800 BC, that the Phoenician alphabet was adapted by various Mediterranean cultures, including the Greeks, Latins and Arameans, and thus became ancestral to most modern alphabetic scripts.
The power of Asiatic Phoenicia's city-states began to decline after 800 under repeated attacks from Assyria. After Assyria fell at the turn of the sixth century, the Levant was subjected to Babylonian rule. As such, it continued on as part of the Persian empire when Cyrus took Babylon in 539.
Achaemenid Phoenicia was divided into four administrative regions with capitals at Arwad, Byblos, Sidon and Tyre, Sidon being the most important. As under the Assyrians and Babylonians, native kings remained in Phoenicia as vassals to the Persian king. Unfortunately, the historical record becomes spotty because during Achaemenid times the Phoenicians began to rely on perishable papyrus documents rather than cuneiform.
By Herodotus' time, Phoenicia was grouped with Cyprus and Palaestina in the fifth tax district, paying a total of 350 silver talents yearly. This region appears to be the same as those known in old Akkadian records as Eber-Nāri, "Across the River"; the name continued to be used in Akkadian documents from the Achaemenid period.
The Persians relied heavily on Phoenician ships in war and trade. Herodotus says that the Phoenicians took part in Cambyses' expedition against Egypt and were "the most eager to fight" in the fleet sent to stop the Ionian Revolt (VI.6), throughout which their naval power proved important both at Lade in 494 and in the subsequent reconquest of Greek coastal cities.
According to Herodotus, the Phoenicians sent three hundred ships (a quarter of the armada) under the command of Tetramnestus of Sidon and Matten of Tyre. The Phoenicians would have played major roles at the battles of Artemisium and Salamis as well as the king's return to Asia.
Phoenicians acting at the empire's behest briefly relieved Samos of an Athenian blockade in 440 and supplied ships to Sparta in the Peloponnesian War. However, the Persian reliance on Phoenicia was also a liability: Attacks from the outside on Phoenician ports would cripple the empire's ability to project power. Thus Evagoras of Cyprus targeted and briefly captured Tyre during his personal war with Persia, and Nectanebo II sought to protect Egypt from imperial attack by instigating a rebellion in Sidon.
The great king at the time, Artaxerxes III, had been gathering an army at Sidon when the pharaoh sent a message to King Tennes of Sidon that he would assist the Sidonians if they revolted; he made good on this by dispatching 4,000 Greek mercenaries under Mentor of Rhodes (brother of the famous Memnon of Rhodes) in 350. The Phoenicians and Greeks defeated the Persian satraps sent to suppress them, and the rebellion spread to other towns. Artaxerxes led a massive counterattack by 346, and Tennes and Mentor surrendered. The great king retained Mentor as a mercenary but executed Tennes, and the Sidonians torched their own city.
Sidon was repopulated, and King Straton (Ph. Abdastart) initially supported Darius III during Alexander's invasion, sending ships to fight under Memnon in the Aegean. However, after the Battle of Issus, the empire's power was withdrawn from Phoenicia. Sidon and the other cities surrendered without a fight, but Hephaestus nonetheless deposed Straton and replaced him with Abdalonymus, who may have been a son of Tennes.
The lone holdout was Tyre. While the Tyrians would have surrendered like everyone else, Alexander had further demanded to be allowed to perform sacrifices in the temple of Melqart, a right belonging only to Tyre's native king. When he repeated his demands, the Tyrians executed his representatives. Alexander laid siege to the city in January of 332. The Tyrian women and children were evacuated to Carthage. Built on an island just off the coast and defended by its ships, Tyre proved difficult to take until Alexander secured control of the other Phoenician ships belonging to the former Persian navy. He then breached the city's walls and quickly overcame the defenders. Most of the surviving population were sold into slavery.
Macedonian control over Phoenicia was now complete. It was placed under the satrapy of Syria at the Partition of Babylon in 323, ruled by Laomedon of Mytilene. But three years later Ptolemy invaded from Egypt at the start of the Wars of the Diadochi. The land changed hands many times until again falling to the Ptolemaic empire in 286, where it remained for 89 years. During this time, the high priests of Ashtart in Sidon acted as the Ptolemies' client rulers.
In 197, Phoenicia, still as part of Syria, was taken by the Seleucids. However, rule began to crumble in the late second century, with Tyre and Sidon becoming independent. From 82-69 BC, Tigranes the Great of Armenia invaded and held the country, but was driven out by the Romans under Pompey the Great, who officially named Syria a Roman province five years later.
It is difficult to know when Phoenicia ceased to be recognized. The Canaanite languages in general were replaced by Aramaic from the Achaemenid period onward, though the process was gradual. To some extent, the modern Lebanese regard themselves as having Phoenician roots. In the western Mediterranean, variants of the Phoenician language (called Punic to distinguish them from mainland Phoenician) were spoken until perhaps around AD 600.
Language
Phoenician belonged to the Canaanite subgroup of Northwest Semitic and is similar to Biblical Hebrew.
The Phoenician alphabet was an abjad, similar to a syllabary but representing vowel sounds only implicitly. It may have been derived from proto-Sinaitic, a script attested from a handful of findings on the Sinai Peninsula dating to the early second millennium BC. It has been further theorized that proto-Sinaitic derives from Egyptian hieroglyphs. In any case, although Phoenician is the ancestor of most phonetic writing systems used today, it bears little physical resemblance to them.
Religion
Phoenicians followed the polytheistic traditions of other Canaanites. Their most important gods included El, the traditional supreme god of Semitic religions; his wife Ashtart, who was the Northwestern Semitic cognate of Akkadian Ishtar; and El's son Melqart, known as Ba'al Ṣūr or "Lord of Tyre." The Greeks called Melqart "Tyrian Heracles"; he may also be the Ba'al worshipped by Ahab in the Bible. Many other gods were worshipped in Phoenicia and the wider Canaanite region, including several imported from Egypt, like Isis.
Clothing
As mentioned, there seems to be little information about Phoenician clothing. However, it seems likely that they dressed in a manner similar to the "Syrians" at Persepolis, a topic covered in the Assyrian article.
Weapons
Herodotus describes Phoenician weapons as "helmets very close to the Greek in style," linen corslets, "shields without rims" and javelins. I can provide no further information or useful speculation.
Showing posts with label phoenicians. Show all posts
Showing posts with label phoenicians. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 3, 2013
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Peoples of the empire: The Cyprians
I am skipping Colchis because, interesting as it is, the information available to me is of very poor quality. On to Cyprus!
Geographical definition
Cyprus (Greek Kýpros) is a large island located off the south coast of Anatolia (specifically ancient Pamphylia) and rather farther west of Syria. So far as I know, the term has always referred to the whole island, so there is no need to speak of borders.
History
Cyprus has been inhabited for roughly 10-12,000 years and experienced waves of settlement during the Neolithic, Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. During the Archaic period, many Greeks and Phoenicians settled, and Herotodus claims that the population also partly descended from Ethiopians. The island's native political order, which existed more-or-less as it was through the Achaemenid period, consisted of independent city-states ruled by local kings. Cyprus had been under Assyrian rule in the 8th century and Egyptian in the 6th.
According to Xenophon, the Cyprian kings allied with Cyrus the Great and offered military aid in his conquests of Caria and Babylon. As a result, the city-states maintained autonomy and political continuity during Achaemenid rule. They minted their own coinage and a few, at Palaepaphos and Vouni, built palaces showing Persian influence.
Elsewhere, an interesting mix of architecture is seen: Most towns featured mudbrick houses and walls, while the Phoenician city Carpasia used mostly stone masonry. At the same time, religious sites were mostly Phoenician-style. Partly through the Phoenicians, Cyprus maintained links with Egypt, evidenced in the early 5th-century sarcophagus from Amathus decorated with sphinxes and reliefs of the Egyptian god Bes and Phoenician goddess Astarte, and other funerary steles featuring paired sphinxes.
During the Ionian Revolt, Onesilus of Salamis-in-Cyprus used the occasion to overthrow his brother, King Gorgus. Gorgus had been unwilling to take part in the revolt and joined the Persians. In 498, Onesilus persuaded nearly all the other kingdoms of the island to join the revolt, except for Amathus on the southern coast. Onesilus besieged the city until 497, at which time a Persian army under Artybius arrived to put down the rebellion and Onesilus requested and received help from Ionia. In the ensuing war, some Cyprians defected to the Persians; both Artybius and Onesilus were killed, but the rebellion failed. In spite of this, the basic political landscape of Cyprus remained unchanged.
Together, the Cyprian cities sent 150 ships to the second Persian invasion of Greece, comprising more than a tenth of the entire fleet, and were present at the Battle of Salamis.
In 410, Euagoras I (better-known by the modern form of his name, Evagoras) became king of Salamis. An ambitious politician, he curried favor with Athens in the last stages of the Peloponnesian War, and facilitated the alliance between Athens and his lord Artaxerxes II that led to the defeat of Sparta at Cnidus (394) during the Corinthian War between Athens and Sparta. However, within a few years, the Persians began to feel that strengthening Athens was unwise and the war had gone on long enough, and switched to supporting Sparta, making Salamis and Persia enemies. Nonetheless, over the next few years, Euagoras managed to gain control over most of Cyprus, invaded Phoenicia and captured several cities.
But in 387, the Athenians were forced by threats of Persian intervention to sign the Peace of Antalcidas, which ended the Corinthian War and required, among other terms, that Greece recognize Persian control of Cyprus. For the next 13 years, Euagoras fought the Persians alone except for periodic Egyptian support. The empire invaded in 385 with its general King Orontes I of Armenia and admiral Tiribazus, satrap of Sardis. Tiribazus destroyed Euagoras' fleet at the Battle of Citium, but the two imperial leaders were unable to take Salamis and had a falling-out that resulted in Tiribazus' recall to Persia. In 376, Euagoras negotiated a peace and was allowed to remain as a vassal king. However, he was assassinated by a eunuch only two years later. His son Nicocles succeeded him.
Cyprus launched one last revolt in 350, but it was defeated in 343 by the Hecatomnid prince Idrieus and a force of Greek mercenaries.
Following the Battle of Issus (333), the kingdoms of Cyprus defected to Alexander. The addition of Cyprian naval support helped Alexander maintain a sea route to Asia and doubtless accelerated the outcome of the war, as well as ensuring the Cyprians' political future by betting on Alexander's victory. Kings Phytagoras of Salamis, Androcles of Amathus and Pasikratis of Soloi participated in the Siege of Tyre (332), assaulting the northern harbor and providing engineers for the earthworks by which the Macedonians managed to invade the island city. In return, Alexander allowed the Cyprians to maintain their autonomy, although he abolished the individual currencies of the island as a symbol of his overlordship.
Cyprus was a front in the Wars of the Diadochi until 294, when it settled in the hands of the Ptolemies and would remain there until the Romans seized control in 58 BC under Cato the Younger. During the Hellenistic period, Cyprus, already heavily Hellenized in culture, lost the last vestiges of its pre-Greek native and Phoenician cultures.
Religion
Classical Cyprian religion was heavily influenced by the Phoenicians. The most popular deity was Astarte (Phoenician Ashtart), the Northwest Semitic cognate of Ishtar, whom the Greeks sometimes identified with Aphrodite. Other attested deities include Anat, Ba'al Melkart and the Egyptian Hathor, Thoth, Bes and Ptah.
Language
The native language of Cyprus, today klept as Eteocypriot ("original Cypriot"), is scarcely attested; it wasn't Greek, but what it was is pretty unclear despite a few bilingual inscriptions. Its use declined throughout the Classical period and it became extinct around the 4th century BC. It was written in the Cypriot syllabary, a descendent of Minoan Linear A.
Arcadocypriot Greek, a dialect possibly descended from Mycenaean Greek (and thus related more to Arcadian than any other dialects of mainland Greece or Asia Minor), became one of the primary languages on the island from the late Bronze Age onward. It was also written in the Cypriot syllabary. However, Evagoras I encouraged the use of the mainland Greek alphabet in favor of the syllabary and hastened its decline.
Phoenician, a Northwest Semitic language related to Hebrew, was also to be found in places like Carpasia and Citium (Kition) in the east. It was written in the Phoenician alphabet, a consonantal writing system ancestral to the Greek and Aramaic alphabets along with countless others, including this (Latin) alphabet.
Clothing
I can find no illustrations of Cyprians in Persian art. Herodotus says that "their princes wore turbans (mitrhsi; at a guess, I would interpret this as referring to diadems) wrapped around their heads, and the people wore tunics, but in all else they were like the Greeks." Thus you may want to consider Greek-style sandals and possibly cloaks for your Cyprian impression. I am unsure why Herodotus seems to distinguish "tunics" (kithonas) from Greek clothing. Possibly he means tunics of a different style from what Greeks commonly wore, such as sleeved ones in the Syrian style.
Weapons
Herodotus' description above refers to both clothing and arms. The heavy Greek influence on Cyprus almost certainly would extend to items like the Argive shield and doru with sauroter that were widespread in mainland Greece and Asia Minor.
Geographical definition
Cyprus (Greek Kýpros) is a large island located off the south coast of Anatolia (specifically ancient Pamphylia) and rather farther west of Syria. So far as I know, the term has always referred to the whole island, so there is no need to speak of borders.
History
Cyprus has been inhabited for roughly 10-12,000 years and experienced waves of settlement during the Neolithic, Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. During the Archaic period, many Greeks and Phoenicians settled, and Herotodus claims that the population also partly descended from Ethiopians. The island's native political order, which existed more-or-less as it was through the Achaemenid period, consisted of independent city-states ruled by local kings. Cyprus had been under Assyrian rule in the 8th century and Egyptian in the 6th.
According to Xenophon, the Cyprian kings allied with Cyrus the Great and offered military aid in his conquests of Caria and Babylon. As a result, the city-states maintained autonomy and political continuity during Achaemenid rule. They minted their own coinage and a few, at Palaepaphos and Vouni, built palaces showing Persian influence.
Elsewhere, an interesting mix of architecture is seen: Most towns featured mudbrick houses and walls, while the Phoenician city Carpasia used mostly stone masonry. At the same time, religious sites were mostly Phoenician-style. Partly through the Phoenicians, Cyprus maintained links with Egypt, evidenced in the early 5th-century sarcophagus from Amathus decorated with sphinxes and reliefs of the Egyptian god Bes and Phoenician goddess Astarte, and other funerary steles featuring paired sphinxes.
During the Ionian Revolt, Onesilus of Salamis-in-Cyprus used the occasion to overthrow his brother, King Gorgus. Gorgus had been unwilling to take part in the revolt and joined the Persians. In 498, Onesilus persuaded nearly all the other kingdoms of the island to join the revolt, except for Amathus on the southern coast. Onesilus besieged the city until 497, at which time a Persian army under Artybius arrived to put down the rebellion and Onesilus requested and received help from Ionia. In the ensuing war, some Cyprians defected to the Persians; both Artybius and Onesilus were killed, but the rebellion failed. In spite of this, the basic political landscape of Cyprus remained unchanged.
Together, the Cyprian cities sent 150 ships to the second Persian invasion of Greece, comprising more than a tenth of the entire fleet, and were present at the Battle of Salamis.
In 410, Euagoras I (better-known by the modern form of his name, Evagoras) became king of Salamis. An ambitious politician, he curried favor with Athens in the last stages of the Peloponnesian War, and facilitated the alliance between Athens and his lord Artaxerxes II that led to the defeat of Sparta at Cnidus (394) during the Corinthian War between Athens and Sparta. However, within a few years, the Persians began to feel that strengthening Athens was unwise and the war had gone on long enough, and switched to supporting Sparta, making Salamis and Persia enemies. Nonetheless, over the next few years, Euagoras managed to gain control over most of Cyprus, invaded Phoenicia and captured several cities.
But in 387, the Athenians were forced by threats of Persian intervention to sign the Peace of Antalcidas, which ended the Corinthian War and required, among other terms, that Greece recognize Persian control of Cyprus. For the next 13 years, Euagoras fought the Persians alone except for periodic Egyptian support. The empire invaded in 385 with its general King Orontes I of Armenia and admiral Tiribazus, satrap of Sardis. Tiribazus destroyed Euagoras' fleet at the Battle of Citium, but the two imperial leaders were unable to take Salamis and had a falling-out that resulted in Tiribazus' recall to Persia. In 376, Euagoras negotiated a peace and was allowed to remain as a vassal king. However, he was assassinated by a eunuch only two years later. His son Nicocles succeeded him.
Cyprus launched one last revolt in 350, but it was defeated in 343 by the Hecatomnid prince Idrieus and a force of Greek mercenaries.
Following the Battle of Issus (333), the kingdoms of Cyprus defected to Alexander. The addition of Cyprian naval support helped Alexander maintain a sea route to Asia and doubtless accelerated the outcome of the war, as well as ensuring the Cyprians' political future by betting on Alexander's victory. Kings Phytagoras of Salamis, Androcles of Amathus and Pasikratis of Soloi participated in the Siege of Tyre (332), assaulting the northern harbor and providing engineers for the earthworks by which the Macedonians managed to invade the island city. In return, Alexander allowed the Cyprians to maintain their autonomy, although he abolished the individual currencies of the island as a symbol of his overlordship.
Cyprus was a front in the Wars of the Diadochi until 294, when it settled in the hands of the Ptolemies and would remain there until the Romans seized control in 58 BC under Cato the Younger. During the Hellenistic period, Cyprus, already heavily Hellenized in culture, lost the last vestiges of its pre-Greek native and Phoenician cultures.
Religion
Classical Cyprian religion was heavily influenced by the Phoenicians. The most popular deity was Astarte (Phoenician Ashtart), the Northwest Semitic cognate of Ishtar, whom the Greeks sometimes identified with Aphrodite. Other attested deities include Anat, Ba'al Melkart and the Egyptian Hathor, Thoth, Bes and Ptah.
Language
The native language of Cyprus, today klept as Eteocypriot ("original Cypriot"), is scarcely attested; it wasn't Greek, but what it was is pretty unclear despite a few bilingual inscriptions. Its use declined throughout the Classical period and it became extinct around the 4th century BC. It was written in the Cypriot syllabary, a descendent of Minoan Linear A.
Arcadocypriot Greek, a dialect possibly descended from Mycenaean Greek (and thus related more to Arcadian than any other dialects of mainland Greece or Asia Minor), became one of the primary languages on the island from the late Bronze Age onward. It was also written in the Cypriot syllabary. However, Evagoras I encouraged the use of the mainland Greek alphabet in favor of the syllabary and hastened its decline.
Phoenician, a Northwest Semitic language related to Hebrew, was also to be found in places like Carpasia and Citium (Kition) in the east. It was written in the Phoenician alphabet, a consonantal writing system ancestral to the Greek and Aramaic alphabets along with countless others, including this (Latin) alphabet.
Clothing
I can find no illustrations of Cyprians in Persian art. Herodotus says that "their princes wore turbans (mitrhsi; at a guess, I would interpret this as referring to diadems) wrapped around their heads, and the people wore tunics, but in all else they were like the Greeks." Thus you may want to consider Greek-style sandals and possibly cloaks for your Cyprian impression. I am unsure why Herodotus seems to distinguish "tunics" (kithonas) from Greek clothing. Possibly he means tunics of a different style from what Greeks commonly wore, such as sleeved ones in the Syrian style.
Weapons
Herodotus' description above refers to both clothing and arms. The heavy Greek influence on Cyprus almost certainly would extend to items like the Argive shield and doru with sauroter that were widespread in mainland Greece and Asia Minor.
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