Carthage Must Be Destroyed

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Carthage Must Be Destroyed Page 45

by Richard Miles


  43 For studies of Polybius’ Histories see Champion 2004, Walbank 1957–79.

  44 Walbank 1985, 262–79.

  45 Ibid., 272, although one of the accusations that Polybius levelled at Timaeus was his own contemptuous treatment of other historians.

  46 Walbank 1957—79, I: 63–130; 1985, 77–98; Scuderi 2002, 277–84.

  47 Plutarch Pomp. 11.3–4.

  48 Harden 1939, 12. For other archaeological evidence of the burning down of the city see Docter et al. 2006, 75–6.

  49 Lancel 1995, 199–204.

  50 Huss 1985, 481—3.

  51 Lipiński 1988b, 169–74.

  52 Ibid.

  53 Dubuisson 1983; Starks 1999, 259–60.

  54 Bernal 1987, 352, 355.

  55 Like many Punic monuments, the monument has been extensively damaged by earthquakes and later urban development, but enough of it has survived for the building to be painstakingly re-created by archaeologists. The problem that any student of Punic architecture faces is the same as that of the literary scholar: a lack of material. Later Roman urban development and deliberate destruction have left little behind. The few remaining examples that have survived not only ancient but also modern vandalism tend to be located in North Africa on the eastern and western fringes of the Carthaginian territory. For the ongoing controversy over the origins of Leptis Magna, Oea and Sabratha see Longerstay 1995, 828–33. Nor was the Sabratha monument a one-off. A similar structure was excavated a mere 100 metres away from it in Sabratha, and another mausoleum has been found near Oran in western Algeria.

  56 Di Vita 1976.

  57 For instance the Aeolic style of capital with its scrolled volutes that resembled ram’s horns with a palm leaf in between, which had been long unfavoured in the Greek world, was from the fourth century BC very popular in Punic architecture (Lancel 1995, 311).

  58 Clothes = Maes 1989. Language = Thuillier 1982; Lancel 1995, 275–6. Literature = Cornelius Nepos Hann. 23.13.2; Dio 13.54.3. Philosophy = Diogenes Laertius Herillus 7.1.37.3.165; Iamblichus Pythagorean Life 27, 36.

  59 For a study of archaic Greece’s debt to Near Eastern cultures see Burkert 1992.

  CHAPTER 1 : FEEDING THE BEAST: THE PHOENICIANS AND THE DISCOVERY OF THE WEST

  1 Grayson 1991, 193—223. (Tr. in Melville et al. 2006, 288—9.)

  2 The Assyrian king Tiglathpileser I (r. 1114–1076 BC) had marched into Phoenicia and received a vast amount of tribute from the rulers of the city states there (Moscati 1968, 10).

  3 Kuhrt 1995, 483—7.

  4 Ibid., 473–8 on Assyrian annals and other historiographical sources. Liverani 1979, 297–317 and Reade 1979 on ideology and propaganda in Assyrian art. Kuhrt 1985, 501–23 on Assyrian imperial ideology and empire. Oded 1979 on the extensive use of deportation by Assyrian monarchs.

  5 Documents exist from as early as the fifteenth century BC recording how the Egyptian pharaoh Tuthmosis III, conscious of the lack of large trees in his homeland, marched his troops into Phoenicia and set about organizing annual wood shipments back to Egypt (Markoe 2000, 15).

  6 Aubet 2001, 6–13; Huss 1985, 5ff.; Gubel 2006, 86–7. It is likely that for the Greeks ‘Phoenicians’ meant the people not just of the Levantine coast but also of the states of northern Syria (Röllig 1992, 93). For recent attempts to distinguish between northern-Phoenician/Syrian and southern-Phoenician enterprises see Fletcher 2004; 2006, 187–92; Peckham 1998. I accept that the coastal cities of northern Syria were also involved in many of the same overseas enterprises as the Levantine states, so I have included them under the Phoenicians’ aegis.

  7 Aubet 2001, 144–58; Moscati 1968, 27—9. Some experts have argued that the dialect written and spoken in the northern cities of Byblos and Arvad was noticeably different from the Tyro-Sidonian dialect that predominated in the southern coastal region (Krahmalkov 2001, 7–9).

  8 Liverani 1990.

  9 Horden & Purcell 2000, 10–11. Harris (2005, 15) doubts the ubiquity of this name in the Near East.

  10 Ezekiel 27:4.

  11 Frankenstein 1979, 264.

  12 Kochavi 1992, 8—13.

  13 Aubet 2001, 105–14; Frankenstein 1979, 264–8.

  14 Isaiah 23:8; Ezekiel 26:16. Aubet 2001, 145–7.

  15 Kochavi 1992, 13–15.

  16 For a general study of Phoenician material culture see Markoe 2000, 143–66.

  17 Against whom spells dated to the seventh century BC have been found written in Phoenician (Clifford 1990, 58).

  18 Aubet 2001, 6–9.

  19 Moscati 1968, 83—4; Markoe 2000, 163–4.

  20 Aubet 2001, 39–43.

  21 2 Samuel, 5:10–11.

  22 Josephus JA 8.50–60.

  23 Ibid. 8. 58—60.

  24 Ibid. 8. 76—83.

  25 Josephus (ibid. 8.57) mentions grain, oil and wine.

  26 Frankenstein 1979, 268.

  27 Aubet 2001, 43—6.

  28 Handy 1994, 3.

  29 L’Heureux 1979, 69–79; Handy 1994, 65–102.

  30 Clifford 1990, 59–61. She is also known as Rabbat (RBT), ‘The Lady’ or ‘The Mother’ (Krahmalkov 2000, 441).

  31 In the Old Testament, the Tyrian king unsurprisingly earns himself a stern rebuke for attempting to elide the temporal and celestial worlds (Ezekiel 28:1–10).

  32 Josephus JA 8.144–6, citing Menander of Ephesus.

  33 Aubet 2001, 150–58; Lipiński 1970. Sacred prostitutes in the temple of Astarte also enacted the ceremony with their clients.

  34 Clifford 1990, 61.

  35 Ibid., 57.

  36 Herodotus 2.44.

  37 Nonnus Dion. 40.429–68.

  38 Ibid., 40.469–534. Other Greek authors also allude to a Tyrian myth that told of how the temple was built at the same time as the city was founded 2,300 years before (Herodotus 2.44).

  39 Herodotus 2.44. The emerald pillar is also mentioned in Pliny NH 37.75. Evidence from Tyre and Tyrian colonies across the Mediterranean strongly suggests that the twin pillars in the temple represented the olive tree and the eternal flames which appear in Nonnus’ foundation tale. Certainly the temple of Melqart at the Tyrian colony of Gades (Cadiz) housed a sacred fire which always burnt and a golden olive tree. It has been argued that the emerald column may have acted as a lighthouse (Katzenstein 1973, 87). However, evidence from other sites suggests that the columns were actually located inside the temple complex.

  40 Another Greek myth also attributed the discovery of Tyre’s greatest export, purple dye, to the god. It was said that while the god had been strolling along the shell-strewn seashore with his lover, the nymph Tyros, his dog had bitten into one of these molluscs. Quickly realizing the potential of his pet’s stained canines, Melqart had a robe dyed to a deep purple and presented it to Tyros as a gift. Another version of the same story had the dog brought before Phoenix, the legendary king of Tyre, who decreed that this purple dye should be manufactured and used as a badge of his royal office. Later Tyrians, shrewd businessmen that they were, would do much to market this story by putting a image of the murex and the purple-toothed dog on their coinage (Aubet 2001, 6–9).

  41 Cross 1972a, 36–42.

  42 Hiram and then Ithobaal would also take the title of ‘king of the Sidonians’ (CIS 56).

  43 Gras, Rouillard & Teixidor 1991, 136.

  44 Aubet 2001, 166–75.

  45 Ibid., 123–126. Much of this information comes from the Book of Ezekiel, a work written at a considerably later date in the sixth century BC, a period when Tyre no longer ruled the waves. There are sections of the text which many scholars now believe are part of an older document dating to the ninth and eighth centuries BC (Ezekiel 27:9–25; see Aubet 2001, 121–2 for these arguments).

  46 Aubet 2001, 50–51.

  47 Markoe 1992. Boardman (2004, 154—5) thinks that the perfume enterprise on Rhodes is more likely to be Greek, although he does not take enough account of the Levantine shape of the perfume flasks.

  48 Shaw & Shaw 2000; Boardman 198
0, 57ff. The considerable quantity of Levantine pottery discovered at the site suggests a great deal of trading activity between Kommos and Phoenicia.

  49 Coldstream 2003, 358–66. Röllig 1992, 95 for the idea that these were Phoenicians and other people from the Near East at Athens and Crete, fleeing the conquest of the Assyrian king Sargon II. Burkert 1992, 21–4 for the suggestion that these craftsmen probably travelled over with merchants. On different aspects of the orientalizing phenomenon in the archaic Mediterranean world see the assortment of essays in Riva & Vella (eds.) 2006.

  50 Copper ingots as well as considerable quantities of pottery from Cyprus were being exported to the Levantine coast from the fourteenth and thirteenth centuries BC. Cypriots are also listed as residents of the merchant quarters of Ugarit from this period (Kochavi 1992, 10–13).

  51 Aubet 2001, 147. An inscription records a Tyrian governor of ‘Carthage’ on Cyprus (CIS 56). However, it is as yet unclear whether Kition was in fact this Carthage or another, as yet undiscovered, site.

  52 Josephus JA 8.146. An early-ninth-century Cypriot inscription has been interpreted by one translator as a memorial to a Tyrian commander who boasts how his troops devastated the island (KAI 30, ll. 1–3). An even earlier inscription, from the twelfth century BC, found near Ghaza proclaims that the god Baal had devastated Cyprus and has been interpreted as showing a history of violent Phoenician intervention on the island (Cross 1980, 2—3).

  53 Karageorghis 1998.

  54 Aubet 2001, 155.

  55 Frankenstein 1979, 269.

  56 Postgate 1974.

  57 Postgate 1969; 1979, 200–214.

  58 Kuhrt 1995, 518–19.

  59 Russell 1991.

  60 Postgate 1979, 218; Aubet 2001, 90–92; Frankenstein 1979, 272—3.

  61 Frankenstein 1979, 286.

  62 Aubet 2001, 90–92.

  63 Frankenstein 1979, 273.

  64 Recent excavations in the south-western Spanish port of Huelva appear to provide strong evidence of Phoenician commercial activity in the ninth century (González de Canales, Serrano & Llompart 2006). For this view see Gubel 2006, 87; Fletcher 2006, 191. For scepticism towards precolonizing Phoenician activity in the central and western Mediterranean see Aubet 2001, 200–211; Van Dommelen 1998, 71—5.

  65 Giardino 1992; Van Dommelen 1998, 75—6.

  66 Van Dommelen 1998, 76—80.

  67 Stos-Gale & Gale 1992, 317–37.

  68 Fletcher’s (2004 & 2006) interesting thesis that such cooperation and incorporation into indigenous communities was the work of Sidonian merchants who would eventually be superseded by Tyrian colonizers is attractive but at the moment unproven.

  69 Ridgway 1992, 120.

  70 D’Oriano & Oggiano 2005. The settlement seems to have been abandoned in the late sixth century BC.

  71 Rendeli 2005, 92–7; Ridgway 2004, 16–19. There has been a long and increasingly rancorous debate over the exact nature of Euboean and Phoenician colonization, trade and interactions in the Mediterranean. For a sample of it see Snodgrass 1994; Papadopoulos 1997; S. Morris 1998; Ridgway 1994; 2000, 183–5; 2004, 22–8; Boardman 2005.

  72 Tandy 1997, 66–70.

  73 Niemeyer 1990.

  74 Nijboer 2005.

  75 Markoe 1992, 62—73. In contrast to the enormous appetite for silver in the Near East and Etruria, in Greece there is almost a complete absence of decorated silver work in the seventh century BC. Bronze would remain the precious metal most used for offerings at important Greek sanctuaries. A good deal of orientalizing silver work was produced in Etruria during this time, introducing Near Eastern designs and motifs as well as very particular smithing skills such as granulation, punch-work and filigree, which suggest the presence of Phoenician artisans in central Italy. An orientalizing tradition would become important in areas of Etruscan art (ibid., 78).

  76 Malkin 2002.

  77 Snodgrass 1971, 304–13; Chadwick 1976, 188–93.

  78 Popham, Sackett & Themelis (eds.) 1979. Many of the artefacts display clear Egyptian influences. There is no recorded Greek contact with Egypt until the seventh century BC. Another important factor is the lack of Euboean staging posts on the long and arduous journey across the open sea to the Levant.

  79 Niemeyer 1984, 19.

  80 Coldstream 1982; Hudson 1992, 138–9.

  81 Coldstream 1988. Considerable quantities of ninth-century-BC Euboean pottery have been discovered at Tyre (Bikai 1978).

  82 Strøm 1992, 48–9, 57–60. Particularly popular in Greece were large bronze cauldrons decorated with winged siren and bull-head attachments, many of which originally hailed from northern Syria (Muscarella 1992, 40–43). Others think that they are more likely to have been offerings from Levantine visitors. There is also some suggestion that these cauldrons may have been transported overland through Asia Minor rather than by sea (Röllig 1992, 97–102).

  83 There have been many attempts to prove that Al Mina was an Euboeancontrolled settlement (e.g. Boardman 2002 & 2005). However, although it is certainly the case that a large quantity of Greek pottery was found at Al Mina, the fact is that a far greater amount of Levantine material was also discovered there–although it never received the same attention as the Greek material, since archaeologists were excited by the possibility of having found evidence of one of the first Hellenic colonies in the Near East. Furthermore, the Greek pottery that has been found covers far too narrow a range to be evidence of a functioning Greek colony. The vast majority of the ceramics is made up of drinking vessels, which suggests that Al Mina was actually a centre for the import and export of luxury rather than subsistence goods (Tandy 1997, 65). There is a distinct possibility that at least some of the pots attributed to mainland Greece were the products of Phoeniciandominated Cyprus, where such ‘Greek’ styles were already being turned out. Clay analysis suggests that they may have been manufactured in eastern Cyprus. This would also explain the marked difference in quality between real Euboean skyphoi–deep drinking-cups with two handles and a low foot—and those from Al Mina. There is also a question over whether this particular form of skyphos was being produced during this period on the Greek mainland. There is every reason, therefore, to conclude that these were Near Eastern imitations of Greek pottery (Kearsley 1989). Thus, as we have seen in the West, Al Mina may actually show the real strength of an increasingly independent Phoenician Cyprus. Kearsley’s interpretation of the dating of the ‘Euboean skyphoi’ from Al Mina has been criticized by Popham & Lemos (1992, 154–5), who argue that many of them should be given a much earlier dating, putting the Euboeans at Al Mina by 800 BC. However, as Snodgrass (1994, 4—5) has pointed out, the vast majority of the so-called Euboean skyphoi from Al Mina are dated to after the mid eighth century BC. In fact the first evidence for Greek settlements in the Levant comes from Tell Sukas and Ras el-Bassit in the sixth century BC, but even that evidence is far from convincing (Waldbaum 1997). Furthermore, Al Mina contains none of the particular architectural characteristics associated with the Euboeans, such as thin-wood supported walls, tiled roofs and the apsidal plan (Luke 2003, 23–4). Even more tellingly, there is no evidence of Greek funerary practice in the settlement, or of Greek being spoken there. Only one potsherd has been found with a (poorly executed) Greek inscription upon it. Scholars who have recently studied it point out that the incompetence of the style suggests that the writer was inscribing a non-Greek name or phrase in unfamiliar letters. Analysis of the clay used in the potsherd also suggests that the vessel was not made in Al Mina (ibid., 12, 24). For a convincing set of arguments that Al Mina has to be understood within a north-Syrian context while more generally pointing out the dangers of seeing mercantile activity in the eastern Mediterranean as a bipolar division between Greeks and Phoenicians, see Hodos 2006, 25–88.

  84 S. Morris & Papadopoulos 1998.

  85 Kopcke 1992, 103–13. Burkert 1992 is the classic study on the relationship between Near Eastern and Greek culture. For the great influence that the Near East had on Gr
eek art see S. Morris 1992. The influence was particularly great on the development of Greek religion in the archaic period. Although a number of the major Greek deities can be traced back to the Mycenaean period, aspects of devotional ritual appear to have hailed directly from the Near East. These included hepatoscopy (the gleaning of omens from the livers of sacrificial victims), purification through blood sacrifice, ecstatic divination where the divinity spoke directly through the mouth of the priest or priestess, and the practice of attempting to soothe the spirits of the dead through gifts and offerings and sometimes invoking them to do others harm through magic spells (Burkert 1992, 46—82). Other fundamental aspects of Greek religious ritual also hailed from the Near East, including the tradition of banqueting at sanctuaries, the use of large altars for the incineration of offerings, and even the building of temples to house the gods and the representation of gods as cult statues (Strøm 1992, 55—6; Burkert 1992, 19–21). In regard to the temples, Kopcke (1992, 110—12) has made the important point that it was the idea of temples rather than the exact architectural/liturgical blueprint that the Greeks received from the Levant. They also adopted the practice of placing offerings in the foundations of religious buildings, which was popular among the Assyrians (Burkert 1992, 53–5). Outside the cultural sphere, some scholars have even speculated that some of the new city states that sprang up around Greece borrowed their political systems from the Phoenicians. Certainly the very particular constitutional set-up at Sparta appears to have been very similar to the governmental systems of the Phoenician cities (Drews 1979).

  86 Coldstream 1982, 269–72; Isserlin 1991; Einarson 1967.

  87 Hence the Greek words for their letters (alpha, beta, gamma, delta etc.) are also of Semitic origin (Burkert 1992, 28—9).

  88 It is generally agreed that the Greek alphabet came into existence in the early eighth century BC. However, some have tried to push this as far back as the fourteenth century BC (Bernal 1990). There is a wide collection of studies on the introduction of the alphabet into Greece in Baurain, Bonnet & Krings (eds.) 1991, 277–371. Greek letters appear at Athens, the Greek island of Naxos and Pithecusa by the mid eighth century BC (Burkert 1992, 26). However, there are some scholars who argue that in fact the Greek alphabet was formulated in the eleventh century BC from proto-Canaanite, the written language from which Phoenician was derived (Naveh 1980). As yet there is no evidence of any Greek writing before the eighth century BC. It was generally accepted by later Greeks that their alphabet had been derived from the Phoenician one, hence the name given to it: Phoinikeia grammata (‘Phoenician letters’).

 

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