452 PHCEBUS PHCENICIA be destroyed with the exception of Abae, that the inhabitants should be scattered into vil- lages, that no village should contain more than 50 dwellings, and that the inhabitants should repay to the temple the treasure they had taken, contributing each year 50 talents. The operations of the war which Philip afterward carried on against the Thebans and Athenians were principally in Phocis, and its people fought at the battle of Chseronea on the side of Greek independence. Phocis now forms with Phthiotis a nomarchyof the kingdom of Greece. (See PHTHIOTIS.) PHOEBUS. See APOLLO. PHOENICIA (Gr. fcom'/c?, from Qoivt!-, a palm tree, or from the same word as signifying red), the name given by the Greek and Roman wri- ters to the narrow region between the hills of northern Palestine and the Lebanon mountains of Syria on the east and the Mediterranean on the west. By the Phoenicians themselves their country was called K'na'an (Canaan), lowland. Its northern boundary in a political sense was near Aradus in lat. 34 52' N., and its southern S. of Mt. Oarmel, about lat. 32 30' ; its length was about 180 m., and its general breadth from 10 to 12 m. including the mountain slopes; area, less than 2,000 sq. m. From Aradus (the Arvad of the Scriptures) to Tripolis the coast forms a bay into which several rivers fall hav- ing a short course from the mountains; the principal of them is the Nahr el-Kebir (the ancient Eleutherus). Tripolis (now Tarablus) stands on a promontory half a mile broad and extending a mile into the sea. A chain of seven small islands running out N. W. protects its harbor from the prevalent winds. S. of Tripolis a low range of chalk hills borders so closely on the sea that there is no room for a road between them. Further S. they recede a little from the sea, and on a narrow strip stands Batrun, the ancient Botrys; and still further S., on a hill by the shore, stood the city called Byblus by the Greeks (the Gebal of the Hebrews, now Jebail). A little S. of Byb- lus is the river Ibrim, the ancient Adonis, which was said to be annually changed into blood, and which still assumes in summer a red color derived perhaps from the ferru- ginous sands of the mountains from which it flows. A few miles further S. stood Bery- tus (now Beyrout), in a plain extending south- ward 12 m. to the mouth of the river Damur (the ancient Tamyras), beyond which the hills again press closely on the sea for several miles. There, on the slope of a small promontory, is seen the site of Sidon (now Saida), the oldest and one of the most famous of the cities of Phoenicia. The plain is prolonged as far as Sarepta (the Zarephath of the Old Testament), 8 m. to the south, whence it again widens and continues as far as Tyre, with an average width of about 2m.; near that city it widens to 5 m. ; 8 m. S. of Tyre (Sur) it terminates in the White promontory (Ras el-Abiad), rising per- pendicularly from the sea to the height of 300 ft. The road here, which in some places hangs over the water, was cut through the rock, it is said, by Alexander the Great. Originally it appears to have been ascended by steps, and was therefore called the Tyrian climax, or staircase. Eighteen m. further S. Acre or Ac- ca (the Accho of the Hebrews and the Ptole- mais of the Greeks) stands on the N. projec- tion of a bay which is about 8 m. across and is terminated on the south by the promon- tory of Carmel. A few miles southward was Dor, a town of considerable magnitude, next to which at no great distance the important city of Csesarea was built by Herod the Great. Near this place, K". or S. of it according to different views, the Phoenician territory ter- minated. The vicinity of the Nile affects the , coast of Phoenicia even as far N. as Tyre and Sidon. The set of the currents carries regu- larly to the eastward the alluvial matter which the river pours into the sea, and deposits it on the coast, so that towns formerly maritime have become inland, and harbors are filled up. (See LEBANON, PALESTINE, and SYRIA.) Though the Phoenicians appear to have dwelt on the coast of Syria at the earliest dawn of history, they always considered themselves as colonists. Herodotus says they came from the Erythraean sea, that is, that part of the Indian ocean which washes the shores of Arabia and Persia, to the Mediterranean, " and having set- tled in the country which they now occupy, immediately undertook distant voyages ; and, carrying cargoes both of Egyptian and Assyrian goods, visited, among other places, Argos." In his essay " On the Early Migrations of the Pho3- nicians," in his edition of Herodotus, George Rawlinson says : "The migration of the Phoe- nicians, at a very early time, from the shores of the southern sea to the coast of the Medi- terranean, has been contemptuously ridiculed by some writers, while by others it has been regarded as a fact scarcely admitting of ques- tion. The authority of Herodotus, of Strabo, of Trogus Pompeius, of Pliny, of Dionysius Pe- riegetes, of Solinus, and of Stephen, is quoted in favor of the movement ; while against it can only be urged the difficulty of the remo- val, and the small value of half a dozen Greek and Roman authorities in respect of a fact admitted to be of so very remote an anti- quity." Bochart, Heeren, and Movers decide against the notion of a migration, while Ken- rick, Lenormant, and Schrader maintain it. The last named, in an essay on the presump- tive cradle of the Semitic races (Zeitschrift der MorgenlandiscJien GesellscJiaft, 1873), sup- poses that the Phoenicians once occupied the coasts of Arabia and Persia, and, trafficking with the principal cities of Babylonia, followed the course of the Euphrates and Tigris, and crossed over to the Mediterranean coast by the usual road across Palmyra. Rawlinson says : " On the whole it may be concluded that the Canaanites and Phoenicians were two distinct races, the former being the original
