of Ishmael, the offspring of Abraham. It is unnecessary, however, to enter into this history, as Arabia was not incorporated with the Persian empire, and only assumed historical importance in later times, when it sent forth the religion of Mohammed over the East.
Syria. The Semitic or Aramaic population overspreading Syria—which
name is generally applied to the country lying between the Euphrates and
Arabian desert on the east, and the Mediterranean on the west—had early
divided itself into various independent states or kingdoms, which ultimately
resolved themselves, it would appear, into three. These were Ph[oe]nicia,
a narrow strip of coast-land, extending from Mount Carmel to the river
Eleutheros; Palestine, or the Holy Land, including the country south of
Ph[oe]nicia, between the Arabian desert and the Mediterranean, as well as
the inland district lying between Mount Carmel and Mount Herman ;
and Syria Proper, whose capital was Damascus, and which, when the
power of the Damascan kings was at its highest, included all the country
except Palestine and Ph[oe]nicia. Syrian history possesses no independent
importance; we pass, therefore, to the history of the Ph[oe]nician and Jewish
nations.
The Ph[oe]nicians. Ph[oe]nicia was an exceedingly small country, its
length being only about 120 miles, and its breadth nowhere greater than
20 miles. Indeed it may be described as a mere slip of coast-land, sufficiently
large to accommodate a range of port towns, such as a merchant people
required. The most northern of these Ph[oe]nician cities was Aradus,
situated on a small island; the most southern was the famous Tyre; and
between the two were situated many others, of which the chief were Sidon,
Berytus, Tripolis, and Byblus. The greater part of the population was
contained in these cities, the rural population being small in proportion.
Originally, Ph[oe]nicia was divided into a number of little states or communities, each having a town for its metropolis, with a hereditary king of its own; and ere the country was restricted by the formation of the Jewish nation, the number of these Ph[oe]nician or Canaanitish principalities must have been considerable. The Ph[oe]nicians were a fragment of the Canaanites of Scripture; and doubtless in the annals of the separate Ph[oe]nician towns, such as Tyre, Sidon, and Aradus, were preserved record from the Ph[oe]nician point of view, of many of those ancient transactions which are related in the Scriptural account of the settlement of the Jews in Canaan. Without going back, however, into the remoter period of Ph[oe]nician history, one of the questions connected with which is, whether Tyre (founded, it was said, B. C. 2700) or Sidon was the more ancient town, let us give a summary view of the nature of the Ph[oe]nician civilization at the period of its highest celebrity—namely, from B. C. 1200 to B. C. 700, at which time we find Tyre exercising a presiding influence over the other Ph[oe]nician communities.
The Ph[oe]nicians were the great trading nation of antiquity. Situated at so convenient a point on the Mediterranean, it devolved on them to transport to the sea-shore the commodities of the East, brought to them overland by Arabian and Egyptian caravans, and from the sea-shore to distribute them among the expecting nations of the west. Nor were they without valuable products of their own. The sand of their coasts was particu-
