LITMIR.BIZ

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of the Phoenician people—Industry

       and perseverance—Audacity in enterprise—Pliability and

       adaptability—Acuteness of intellect—Business capacity—

       Charge made against them of bad faith—Physical

       characteristics.

      The Phoenician people are generally admitted to have belonged to the group of nations known as Semitic. This group, somewhat irrelevantly named, since the descent of several of them from Shem is purely problematic, comprises the Assyrians, the later Babylonians, the Aramæans or Syrians, the Arabians, the Moabites, the Phoenicians, and the Hebrews. A single and very marked type of language belongs to the entire group, and a character of homogeneity may, with certain distinctions, be observed among all the various members composing it. The unity of language is threefold: it may be traced in the roots, in the inflections, and in the general features of the syntax. The roots are, as a rule, bilateral or trilateral, composed (that is) of two or three letters, all of which are consonants. The consonants determine the general sense of the words, and are alone expressed in the primitive writing; the vowel sounds do but modify more or less the general sense, and are unexpressed until the languages begin to fall into decay. The roots are, almost all of them, more or less physical and sensuous. They are derived in general from an imitation of nature. “If one looked only to the Semitic languages,” says M. Renan,31 “one would say, that sensation alone presided over the first acts of the human intellect, and that language was primarily nothing but a mere reflex of the external world. If we run through the list of Semitic roots, we scarcely meet with a single one which does not present to us a sense primarily material, which is then transferred, by transitions more or less direct and immediate, to things which are intellectual.” Derivative words are formed from the roots by a few simple and regular laws. The noun is scarcely inflected at all; but the verb has a marvellous wealth of conjugations, calculated to express excellently well the external relations of ideas, but altogether incapable of expressing their metaphysical relations, from the want of definitely marked tenses and moods. Inflections in general have a half-agglutinative character, the meaning and origin of the affixes and suffixes being palpable. Syntax scarcely exists, the construction of sentences having such a general character of simplicity, especially in narrative, that one might compare it with the naïve utterances of an infant. The utmost endeavour of the Semites is to join words together so as to form a sentence; to join sentences is an effort altogether beyond them. They employ the {lexis eiromene} of Aristotle,32 which proceeds by accumulating atom on atom, instead of attempting the rounded period of the Latins and Greeks.

      The common traits of character among Semitic nations have been summed up by one writer under five heads:—1. Pliability combined with iron fixity of purpose; 2. Depth and force; 3. A yearning for dreamy ease; 4. Capacity for the hardest work; and 5. Love of abstract thought.33 Another has thought to find them in the following list:—1. An intuitive monotheism; 2. Intolerance; 3. Prophetism; 4. Want of the philisophic and scientific faculties; 5. Want of curiosity; 6. Want of appreciation of mimetic art; 7. Want of capacity for true political life.34 According to the latter writer, “the Semitic race is to be recognized almost entirely by negative characteristics; it has no mythology, no epic poetry, no science, no philosophy, no fiction, no plastic arts, no civil life; everywhere it shows absence of complexity; absence of combination; an exclusive sentiment of unity."35 It is not very easy to reconcile these two views, and not very satisfactory to regard a race as “characterised by negatives.” Agreement should consist in positive features, and these may perhaps be found, first, in strength and depth of the religious feeling, combined with firm belief in the personality of the Deity; secondly, in dogged determination and “iron fixity of purpose;” thirdly, in inventiveness and skill in the mechanical arts and other industries; fourthly, in “capacity for hard work;” and, fifthly, in a certain adaptability and pliability, suiting the race for expansion and for commerce. All these qualities are perhaps not conspicuous in all the branches of the Semites, but the majority of them will be found united in all, and in some the combination would seem to be complete.

      It is primarily on account of their language that the Phoenicians are regarded as Semites. When there are no historical grounds for believing that a nation has laid aside its own original form of speech, and adopted an alien dialect, language, if not a certain, is at least a very strong, evidence of ethnic character. Counter-evidence may no doubt rebut the prima facie presumption; but in the case of the Phoenicians no counter-evidence is producible. They belong to exactly that geographic zone in which Semitism has always had its chief seat; they cannot be shown to have been ever so circumstanced as to have had any inducement to change their speech; and their physical character and mental characteristics would, by themselves, be almost sufficient ground for assigning them to the type whereto their language points.

      The place which the Phoenicians occupy within the Semitic group is a question considerably more difficult to determine. By local position they should belong to the western, or Aramaic branch, rather than to the eastern, or Assyro-Babylonian, or to the southern, or Arab. But the linguistic evidence scarcely lends itself to such a view, while the historic leads decidedly to an opposite conclusion. There is a far closer analogy between the Palestinian group of languages—Phoenician, Hebrew, Moabite, and the Assyro-Babylonian, than between either of these and the Aramaic. The Aramaic is scanty both in variety of grammatical forms and in vocabulary; the Phoenician and Assyro-Babylonian are comparatively copious.36 The Aramaic has the character of a degraded language; the Assyro-Babylonian and the Phoenician are modelled on a primitive type.37 In some respects Phoenician is even closer to Assyro-Babylonian than Hebrew is—e.g. in preferring at to ah for the feminine singular termination.38

      The testimony of history to the origin of the Phoenicians is the following. Herodotus tells us that both the Phoenicians themselves, and the Persians best acquainted with history and antiquities, agreed in stating that the original settlements of the Phoenician people were upon the Erythræan Sea (Persian Gulf), and that they had migrated from that quarter at a remote period, and transferred their abode to the shores of the Mediterranean.39 Strabo adds that the inhabitants of certain islands in the Persian Gulf had a similar tradition, and showed temples in their cities which were Phoenician in character.310 Justin, or rather Trogus Pompeius, whom he abbreviated, writes as follows:—“The Syrian nation was founded by the Phoenicians, who, being disturbed by an earthquake, left their native land, and settled first of all in the neighbourhood of the Assyrian Lake, and subsequently on the shore of the Mediterranean, where they built a city which they called Sidon on account of the abundance of the fish; for the Phoenicians call a fish sidon."311 The “Assyrian lake” of this passage is probably the Bahr Nedjif, or “Sea of Nedjif,” in the neighbourhood of the ancient Babylon, a permanent sheet of water, varying in its dimensions at different seasons, but generally about forty miles long, and from ten to twenty broad.312 Attempts have been made to discredit this entire story, but the highest living authority on the subject of Phoenicia and the Phoenicians adopts it as almost certainly true, and observes:—“The tradition relative to the sojourn of the Phoenicians on the borders of the Erythræan Sea, before their establishment on the coast of the Mediterranean, has thus a new light thrown upon it. It appears from the labours of M. Movers, and from the recent discoveries made at Nineveh and Babylon, that the civilisation and religion of Phoenicia and Assyria were very similar. Independently of this, the majority of modern critics admit it as demonstrated that the primitive abode of the Phoenicians ought to be placed upon the Lower Euphrates, in the midst of the great commercial and maritime establishments of the Persian Gulf, agreeable to the unanimous witness of all antiquity."313

      If we pass from the probable origin of the Phoenician people, and their place in the Semitic group, to their own special characteristics, we shall find ourselves upon surer ground, though even here there are certain points which are debateable. The following is the account of their general character given by a very high authority, and by one who, on the whole, may be regarded as an admirer:—

      “The Phoenicians form, in some respects, the most important fraction of the whole group of antique nations, notwithstanding that they sprang from the most obscure and insignificant families. This fraction, when settled, was constantly exposed to inroad by new tribes, was utterly conquered and subjected by utter strangers when it had taken a great place among the nations,

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