Phoenicia

"It seems really as if the Phoenician coast was further away from us than the Iranian plateau. ... That the Phoenicians occupied Carthage and possessed half Tunisia only concerns Africa. That the Carthaginians in their turn conquered Spain and three-quarters of Sicily is [all right because they are] only, as we say, Africa. But when we find Phoenician traces at Marseilles, Praeneste, Kythera, Salamis Thasos and Samothrace, in Boiotia and in Lakonia at Rhodes and in Crete we do not want, as in Africa, real occupations; we only talk about temporary landings or simple trading posts ... If we go as far as pronouncing the words fortresses or Phoenician possessions we hasten to add that they were only coastal establishments ... This European chauvinism becomes a veritable fanaticism when it is not in Gaul, Etruria, Lucania or Thrace but in Greece that we meet the stranger. ... We see, nevertheless, from their material and tangible monuments that the Greeks ... were the pupils of Phoenicia and Egypt, and we see that they borrowed from the Semitic Orient right up to their alphabet; yet we recoil with some shock at the sacrilegious hypothesis that their institutions, their customs, their religions, their rituals, their ideas, their literature and all their primitive civilization could also be inherited from the Orient."

"May blessings be upon the head of Cadmus, or the Phoenician, or whoever it was that invented books!"

"Had it not been for waves of continental invaders, Assyrians, Babylonians and Persians and the destruction of Phoenician libraries, we may have been talking more of our debt to Phoenicians and Greeks rather than Greeks only, but Greece was to survive due to its geography and tenacity of its people."

"Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead, Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell And the profit and loss. A current under sea Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell He passed the stages of his age and youth Entering the whirlpool. Gentile or Jew O you who turn the wheel and look to windward, Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you."

"These Phoenicians who came with Cadmus and of whom the Gephyraeans were a part brought with them to Hellas, among many other kinds of learning, the alphabet, which had been unknown before this, I think, to the Greeks. As time went on the sound and the form of the letters were changed. At this time the Greeks who were settled around them were for the most part Ionians, and after being taught the letters by the Phoenicians, they used them with a few changes of form. In so doing, they gave to these characters the name of Phoenician, as was quite fair seeing that the Phoenicians had brought them into Greece."

"Of late a decided reaction has set in against the popular theory of the great influence exercised by the Phoenicians on Greece, which is perfectly justifiable, but it is not always to the point. The real reason why people contest the existence of Phoenicians in Greece is that they object to make the Greeks indebted to Phoenicia for anything of importance. We believe we have proved that the widespread influence ascribed to them ... originates solely in caprice. But why should there be a reluctance to admit the existence of mere settlements of Phoenicians in Greece, when supported by historical criteria which are considered valid in other cases? Phoenicians were once there, but their influence was inconsiderable."

"Then began he to upbraid the cities wherein most of his mighty works were done, because they repented not: "Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works, which were done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judgment, than for you.""

"And king Solomon sent and fetched Hiram out of Tyre. He was a widow’s son of the tribe of Naphtali, and his father was a man of Tyre, a worker in brass: and he was filled with wisdom, and understanding, and cunning to work all works in brass. And he came to king Solomon, and wrought all his work."

"Quinquireme of Nineveh from distant Ophir Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine, With a cargo of ivory, And apes and peacocks, Sandalwood, cedarwood, and sweet white wine."

"The Carthaginians, like the Phoenicians from which they came, appear to have been a people who were hard and sad, sensual and greedy, and adventurous without heroism. ... at Carthage too the religion was atrocious and full of frightful practices."

"And the daughter of Tyre shall be there with a gift."

"And Hiram king of Tyre sent messengers to David, and cedar trees, and carpenters, and masons: and they built David an house."

"The Sidonians are said by historians to excel in various kinds of art, as the words of Homer also imply. Besides, they cultivate science and study astronomy and arithmetic, to which they were led by the application of numbers (in accounts) and night sailing, each of which (branches of knowledge) concerns the merchant and seaman; in the same manner the Egyptians were led to the invention of geometry by the mensuration of ground, which was required in consequence of the Nile confounding, by its overflow, the respective boundaries of the country. It is thought that geometry was introduced into Greece from Egypt, and astronomy and arithmetic from Phœnicia. At present the best opportunities are afforded in these cities of acquiring a knowledge of these, and of all other branches of philosophy.If we are to believe Poseidonius, the ancient opinion about atoms originated with Mochus, a native of Sidon, who lived before the Trojan times. Let us, however, dismiss subjects relating to antiquity. In my time there were distinguished philosophers, natives of Sidon, as Boethus, with whom I studied the philosophy of Aristotle, and Diodotus his brother. Antipater was of Tyre, and a little before my time Apollonius, who published a table of the philosophers of the school of Zeno, and of their writings."

"The Phoenicians, inhabiting an arid coast, made themselves the agents of exchange between peoples. Their vessels spread throughout the Mediterranean. They began to reveal nation to nation, astronomy, navigation and geography perfected each other. The coasts of Greece and Asia Minor were filled with colonies ... From the mixtures of these independent colonies with the ancient peoples of Greece and with the remains of successive barbarian invasions the Greek nation was formed ... by these multiple mixtures this rich language was formed, expressive and sonorous, the language for all the arts."

"Thou madest self-sufficiency thy rule, Eschewing haughty wealth, O godlike Zeno, With aspect grave and hoary brow serene. A manly doctrine thine: and by thy prudence With much toil thou didst found a great new school, Chaste parent of unfearing liberty, And if thy native country was Phoenicia, What need to slight thee? Came not Kadmos thence, Who gave to Greece her books and art of writing?"