TYRE
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TYRE
country, were in no wiso eager to resume the yoke.
Finally, as King Itliobael had died during the siege,
regents had assumed the authority (Josephus, "Con-
tra App. ", I, 21) and caused many troubles, as did also
the diKaffrai, or Suffetes, elected for seven years.
The monarchj- was subsequently restored.
As the domination had passed from the Chaldeans to the Persians, Tyre, a vassal or rather an ally of the former, readily assumed the same relations with the latter and continued to prosper. The Tyrians with their numerous ships assisted Xerxes against the Greeks, who moreover were their commercial rivals, and Darius again.it Alexander the Great. The King of Tyre himself fought in the Persian fleet. Tyre re- fused submission to the Macedonian hero, as well as authorization to sacrifice to the god Melkart, whose temple was on the island; Alexander, taking offence, determined to capture the island at any cost. The siege lasted seven months. While the fleets of the submissive CjTfjriots and Phoenicians blockaded the two ports at north and south, Alexander, with mate- rials from PaLrtjTus, which he had just destroyed, built an enormous causeway 1908 feet long by about
197 feet wide which connected the island with the continent. He then laid siege to the ramparts of the city which on one side reached a height of 150 feet. T\Te was captured in 332; 6000 of its defenders were beheaded, 2000 crucified, more than 30,000 women, children, and servants sold as slaves. Although Alexander razed the walls, the city was restored very quickly, since seventeen years later it held out for fourteen months against Antigonus, father of Deme- trius Poliorcetes. From the power of Egypt, T\re in 287 passed under the dominion of the Seleucids in
198 B. c, obtaining self-government from them in 126 B. c. This year begins the era special to Tyre. Augustus was the first to rob it of its liberty (Dion Cassius, LIV, 7), for by his command its coins ceased to bear the inscription "autonomous". Various mon- uments were erected during the Roman period. Herod the Cireat built a temple and adorned the pub- lic places. A colony under Septimius Severus, Tyre subsequently became the capital of Phccnicia; at the time of St. Jerome it was regarded as the richest and greatest commercial city of the province (Comment, in Ezech., xxv\, 6; xxvii, 1). Its factory of purple cloth was foremost in the empire. It was a curious fact that under one of the predecessors of Diocletian, Dorotheus, a learned priest of Antioch, the master of Eusebius of Cai'sarea, was appointed director without having to renounce his religion (Eusebius, "H. E.", VII, 32).
In A. D. 613 the Jews of Tyro formed a vast con- spiracy against the Greek Empire, and subsequently ransomed from the troops of Chosrocs numerous cap- tive Christians in order to sacrifice them. In 638 the city fell into the hands of the Arabs. Baldwin I, King of Jerusalem, besieged it in vain from 29 Nov., till, till April, 1112. Baldwin II captured it, 27 June, 1124, after five months' siege and made it the seat of a count ship. When the crusaders lost the Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1187 by the defeat of Tiberias, Tjtc remained in the hands of the Franks and became one of their chief fortresses. There in 1210 John of Brienne was crowned king, and in 1225 his daughter Isabella was crowned queen. Tyre was captured in May, 1291, after the fall of Saint-Jean d'Acre, by the Mussulmans, who completely de- stroyed it, and it was never wholly restored after- wards. Occupied by the Turks in 1516 it has always belonged to tliem, save for a brief appearance of the French in 1799. It is now a caza of the vilayet of Beirut. The city has 0500 inhabitants, of whom 4000 are Mussulmans of various races, 200 Latin Catholics, 3.50 Maronites, 17.50 Melchite Catholics, 25 Protestants, and about 100 Jews. The Francis- cans, established since 1860, have a parochial church
and a school for boys, the Sisters of St. Joseph a school
for girls; two other CathoUc schools for boys are kept
by a Melchite priest and the religious of Saint-Sau-
veur; the Russians have a school and the American
Protestants have one for boys and one for girls.
Sour is no longer an island, but a peninsula; Alex-
ander's causeway has grown larger as a result of sand
formations, and is now an isthmus, one mile and a
quarter wide. There are still to be seen the medieval
city wall and a portion of the church of the Crusaders,
built by the Venetians and measuring 213 feet by
82 feet. It is generally regarded as containing (he
tomb of Conrad de Montferrat, slain in the street by
two members of the .sect of the Assassins (1192), and
the tomb of the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa
(d. 1190). However, a German deputation sent by
Bismarck in 1874 to conduct excavations discovered
nothing.
Among the glories of T>Te were: Ulpianus, the cele- brated jurisconsult, slain at Rome by the pretorians in 228; the neo-Platonic philosopher, Porj'hyry, whose true name was Malchus (b. 233; d. 304), the deter- mined enemy of the Christians, against whom he wrote a work in fifteen books; some hold that he was born not at Tyre, but at Balanaia; Origen, who was not born at TjTe, but who died there in 253 in conse- quence of the tortures which he underwent under Decius, and was buried in the church destroyed under Diocletian; St. Methodius, spoken of by St. Jerome as a martyr and Bishop of Tyre under Decius, was in reality Bishop of Olympus in Lycia, and died about 311; as for Dorotheus, a martyr and the author of a work on the Apostles and the seventy disciples, he never existed, and the work is a forgery compiled in the eighth century by a cleric of Byzantiimi.
Although the corruption of Tyre had become pro- verbial in the time of Christ (Matt., xi, 21 sq.; Luke, X, 13 sq.), there were Tyrians eager to hear the preach- ing of Jesus and who came as far as the vicinity of Tiberias to listen to Him (Mark, iii, 8; Luke, vi, 17). This is perhaps why Jesus went to the neighbourhood of Tyre to cure the sick and convert sinners (Matt., XV, 21-29; Mark, vii, 24-31). A Christian commu- nity was formed there at an early date, which St. Paul and St. Luke visited and where they remained seven days (Acts, xxi, 3-7). About 190 the Church in this city was directed by Bishop Cassius, who with the bishops of Ptolemais, Caesarea, and JEVia assisted at the council held in Palestine to deal with the Paschal controvensy (Eusebius, "H. E.", V, 25). About 2,50 we know of the Bishop Marinus mentioned in a letter of Dionysius of Alexandria (Euspb., op. cit., VII, 5). The community suffered greatly during the last per- secution. After the edict of Diocletian the church was burnt and was only rebuilt after religious peace had been obtained. It was Eu.sebius of Cjcsarea who pronounced the discourse at the dedication of the new basilica and who describes the oldest basilica known to us (op. cit., X, 4). Tyrannius, Bishop of Tyre, was captured and drowned at Antioch (op. cit., VllI, 13). Eusebius himself assisted in the amphitheatre of this city at the execution of five Christians of Egy])tian origin (op. cit., VIII, 7). In 1306 St. Ulpianus was shut up with a dog and an a,sp in a calfskin and thrown into the sea (Euscb., "De Martyr. Pala'stina-" V, 2). At Ca'sarea Maritima one of the first victims was St. Theodnsia, a young Tyrian girl of eighteen, who was horriblv tortured and then thrown into the sea on Easter Sunday, 2 April, 307 (Eu.seb., "H. E.", VII, i). In 311 a municipal decree forbidding Christians to stay in the city wa.s posted up in T\Te, together with a mes.'^age of congratulation from the Emperor Maximin (Eusebius, "H. E.", IX, vii). This did not prevent the Church of Tyre from subsisting and devel- oping aft er peace w.is grant ed t o t he discijiles of Christ .
Shortly afterwards Tyre furnished Ethiojiia with its first and greatest missionary, St. Fruraentius, who
