Tyre is, in Scripture, called “the daughter of Sidon,” and very appropriately; for the Tyrians were, in the first instance, a colony from Sidon. It was built two hundred and forty years before the building of Jerusalem.

The king of Tyre assisted Solomon in procuring wood for his temple, and artisans wherewith to build it. Thus it is stated, in the Book of Chronicles:—

“3. And Solomon sent to Huram, the king of Tyre, saying, As thou didst deal with David my father, and didst send him cedars to build him an house to dwell therein, even so deal with me.

“4. Behold, I build an house to the name of the Lord my God, to dedicate it to him, and to burn before him sweet incense, and for the continual shewbread, and for the burnt offerings morning and evening, on the sabbaths, and on the new moons, and on the solemn feasts of the Lord our God. This is an ordinance for ever to Israel.

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“7. Send me now therefore a man cunning to work in gold, and in silver, and in brass, and in iron, and in purple, and crimson, and blue, and that can skill to grave with the cunning men that are with me in Judah and in Jerusalem, whom David my father did provide.

“8. Send me also cedar-trees, fir-trees, and algum-trees, out of Lebanon; for I know that thy servants can skill to cut timber in Lebanon; and, behold, my servants shall be with thy servants.

“9. Even to prepare me timber in abundance: for the house which I am about to build shall be wonderful great.

“10. And, behold, I will give to thy servants, the hewers that cut timber, twenty thousand measures of beaten wheat, and twenty thousand measures of barley, and twenty thousand baths of wine, and twenty thousand baths of oil.

“11. Then Huram the king of Tyre answered in writing, which he sent to Solomon, Because the Lord hath loved his people, he hath made thee king over them.

“12. Huram said moreover, Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, that made heaven and earth, who hath given to David the king a wise son, endued with prudence and understanding, that might build an house for the Lord, and an house for his kingdom.

“13. And now I have sent a cunning man, endued with understanding, of Huram my father’s,

“14. The son of a woman of the daughters of Dan; and the father was a man of Tyre, skilful to work in gold, and in silver, [Pg 481] in brass, in iron, in stone, and in timber, in purple, in blue, and in fine linen, and in crimson; also to grave any manner of graving, and to find out every device which shall be put to him, with thy cunning men, and with the cunning men of my lord David thy father.

“15. Now therefore the wheat, and the barley, the oil, and the wine, which my lord hath spoken of, let him send unto his servants:

“16. And we will cut wood out of Lebanon, as much as thou shalt need: and we will bring it to thee in floats by sea to Joppa; and thou shalt carry it up to Jerusalem.”

Various are the opinions concerning the origin of Tyre, and the date when it was founded. Herodotus (lib. ii. c. 44) says, that he was told by the priests of Tyre, that the temple of Hercules was as ancient as the city, which had been built two thousand three hundred years. According to this account, Tyre was founded about the year two thousand seven hundred and sixty before the Christian era; four hundred and sixty-nine years after the deluge, according to the Septuagint293.

Before the captivity of the Jews in Babylon, Tyre was the greatest maritime city in the world; its situation and industry having raised it to the sovereignty of the sea. From the extreme parts of India, Persia, and Arabia, to the western coast; from Ethiopia and Egypt on the south, to Scythia on the north, all nations contributed to the increase of its power, splendour, and wealth. Every thing that was useful, and all that was curious, magnificent, and precious, were there to be sold. Every article of commerce was brought to its markets.

This state of prosperity swelled the pride of the Tyrians to a very exorbitant extent. “She delighted,” we are told, “to consider herself as Queen of Cities; a queen, whose head is adorned with a diadem; whose correspondents are illustrious princes; whose rich traders dispute for superiority with kings; who sees every maritime power, either as her allies or her dependents; and who made herself necessary or formidable to all nations.” Such was the pride of Tyre, when Nebuchadnezzar marched up against her.

Her fate had been foretold by the denunciations of Ezekiel.

“I am against thee, O Tyrus, and will cause many nations to come up against thee, as the sea causes her waves to come up. And they shall destroy the walls of Tyrus, and break down her towers. It shall be a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea; and her daughters shall be slain by the sword.” The prophet then discloses who shall be the instrument of all this destruction. “I will bring upon Tyrus Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, a king of kings, with horses, and with chariots, and with horsemen, and companies of much people.” “He shall set his engines of war against thy walls, and with his axes he shall break down thy towers.” “With the hoofs of thy horses shall he tread down all thy streets; he shall slay thy people with the sword, and thy strong garrisons shall go down to the ground.” “And they shall make a spoil of thy riches, and make a prey of thy merchandise; and they shall break down thy walls, and destroy thy pleasant houses; and they shall lay thy stones, and thy timber, and thy dust, in the midst of the water.” “I will cause the noise of thy songs to cease; and the sound of thy harps shall be no more heard.” “Thou shalt be a place to hang nets upon; and shalt be built no more.” “Though thou be sought for, thou shall not be found.”

The pride of the Tyrians may be estimated by the splendour of their ships. These were frequently of cedar; their benches of ivory; fine embroidered linens of Egypt were used for sails; and their canopies were of scarlet and purple silk294. Its trade may be in some degree imagined, from what is stated as having been brought to her markets;—gold, silver, iron, tin, brass, and lead; slaves295; horses, horsemen, and mules; sheep and goats; horn, ivory, and ebony; emeralds, purple, and broidered work; fine linen, and coral, and agate;—wheat, honey, oil, and bales of wares, wine, and wool; cassia and calamus; cloths for chariots; all manner of spices and precious stones. All these articles were to be destroyed. “Thy riches and thy merchandise, thy mariners and thy pilots, thy calkers, and the occupiers of thy merchandise, and all thy men of war that are in thee, and in all thy company which is in the midst of thee, shall fall into the midst of the seas, in the days of thy ruin.”

The Prophet then goes on to prophesy how all the nations shall mourn for her fall. “Shall not the isles shake at the sound of thy fall, when the wounded cry; when the slaughter is made in the midst of thee? All the princes of the sea shall come down from their thrones, and lay away their robes, and put off their embroidered garments; they shall clothe themselves with trembling; they shall sit upon the ground, and shall tremble at every moment, and shall be astonished at thee.”

Tyre was besieged by Nebuchadnezzar, in the twenty-first year of his reign; Ithobel being its king. After seven years he made himself master of it; not without his troops suffering incredible hardships; insomuch that, as Ezekiel had predicted, “every head was made bald and every head was peeled.” Previous, however, to the taking of it, a multitude of its inhabitants quitted the city, and took up their abode, with the greatest part of their effects, in the neighbouring island296, half a mile from the shore; and in that spot they laid the foundation of a new city. When, therefore, Nebuchadnezzar took possession of the town, he found little in it to reward him for the trouble, danger, and expense he had been at during the siege, which lasted thirteen years. He rased the city to the foundations, and it was afterwards known only as a village, by the name of PalÆ-Tyrus (ancient Tyre): the new one rose to greater power than the former one.

The new town, nevertheless, was not remitted of misfortune; for the inhabitants were made slaves of, compelled to admit a foreign yoke, and this for the space of seventy years. After the expiration of that time, they were restored, according to the prophecy of Isaiah,297 to the possession of their ancient privileges, with the liberty of having a king of their own, and that liberty they enjoyed till the time of Alexander.

At that period Tyre had again become an exceedingly large city; and because of the vast commerce she carried on with all nations, she was called “Queen of the Sea.” She boasted of having first invented navigation, and taught mankind the art of braving the waves and wind. Her happy situation, the extent and conveniency of her ports, the character of her inhabitants, who were not only industrious, laborious, and patient, but extremely courteous to strangers, invited thither merchants from all parts of the then-known world: so that it might be considered, not so much as a city belonging to any particular nation, as the common city of all nations, and the centre of their commerce.

Tyre had now for some time risen from the desolation, into which she had fallen: but with prosperity came pride, and vain-glory; luxury and voluptuousness. Another prophet, therefore, foretold to her a second ruin. She was now “the crowning city,” whose merchants were princes, and whose traffickers were styled “the honourable of the earth.”

Tyre had profited nothing from the first lesson: Another destruction, therefore, was denounced against her. This was to come from Chittim (Macedonia). Tyre was careless of this threat. Defended by strong fortifications, and surrounded on all sides by the sea, she feared nothing; neither God nor man. Isaiah, therefore, brings to her recollection the ruin, that had befallen them in the days of Nebuchadnezzar; and the destruction which had afterwards fallen on Babylon itself. “The inhabitants had raised pompous palaces, to make their names immortal; but all those fortifications had become but as dens for wild beasts to revel in.” “The Lord hath purposed it to stain all the pride of all glory, and to bring into contempt all the honourable of the earth.” “The Lord hath given a commandment against the merchant city, to destroy the strong-holds thereof.” “Thou shalt no more rejoice, thou virgin daughter of Zidon.” This fall was to come, as we have already said, from Macedon.

Alexander besieged Tyre seven months;298 during which time he erected vast mounds of earth, plied it with his engines, and invested it on the side next the sea with two hundred galleys. When the Tyrians saw this fleet, they were astonished; because it greatly exceeded what they had any reason to expect. They had had in contemplation to send most of their women and children, with all the men, who were past the military age, to Carthage: but, confident in their strength, they had delayed doing so; and now they could not spare ships or seamen to transport them.

A vessel coming from Sidon, they seized upon the crew, led them to a part of the wall, from which they could have a full view of the besieging army, then maliciously put them to death, and threw their dead bodies over the wall. This greatly enraged the Macedonian: and he soon after took possession of the city. According to Plutarch, the siege terminated in the following manner:—Alexander had permitted his main body to rest themselves, after some great fatigues they had undergone, and ordered only some small parties to keep the Tyrians in play. In the mean time, Aristander, his principal soothsayer, offered sacrifices; and one day, upon inspecting the entrails of the victims, he boldly asserted, amongst those about him, that the city would be taken that month. As the day happened to be the last of the month, this prediction was received with great ridicule. Alexander perceiving the soothsayer to be disconcerted, and having always made a point of bringing the prophecies of his soothsayers to completion, he gave orders that the day should not be called the thirtieth, but the twenty-eighth of the month. At the same time he called out his forces by sound of trumpet, and made a much more vigorous assault than he at first intended. The attack was violent, and those who were left in the camp, quitted it to have a share in it, and to support their fellow soldiers; insomuch that the Tyrians were forced to give in; and the city was taken that very day; seven thousand being slain.299

The king, with many of the principal men, took refuge in the temple of Hercules. The lives and liberties of these were spared; but all others taken, to the number of thirteen thousand,300 were sold to slavery for the benefit of the conquering army. To the eternal ignominy of the conqueror, too, all the children and women were made slaves of, and all the young men, that survived the battle, to the amount of two thousand, were crucified along the sea-shore. The annals of no nation exhibit an atrocity equal to this! The city was burned to the ground.

In reference to this stout defence of the Tyrians against so accomplished a warrior as Alexander, and their maritime enterprises, a highly eminent scholar has made the following remarks301:—“Let us contemplate all these great things, as completed by the efforts of a single city, which, possibly, did not possess a territory of twenty miles in circumference, which sustained a siege of thirteen years against all the power of Babylon; and another of eight months against Alexander, in the full career of his victories; and then judge whether a commercial spirit debases the nature of man, or whether any single city, recorded in history, is worthy to be compared with Tyre.”

The buildings were spacious and magnificent; above all, the temples of Jupiter, Hercules, and Astarte. These were built by Huram. The walls were one hundred and fifty feet high, proportionably broad, and firmly built of large blocks of stone, bound together with white plaster.

When the conqueror had satiated his vengeance, he rebuilt it, and planted it anew with people, drawn from the neighbouring parts; chiefly that he might, in future times, be called the founder of Tyre.

In the year 313 B. C. this new city sustained a siege against Antigonus; for soon after the death of Eumenes, Antigonus formed designs against Tyre, Joppa, and Gaza. The two last soon submitted; but Tyre gave him great trouble. Being master of all the other ports on the Phoenician coasts, he caused a vast number of trees to be cut down on Mount Libanus,—cedars and cypress trees of great height and beauty; and these were conveyed to the different ports, where he commanded a number of ships to be built, and where he employed in that object several thousand men. With these, and other ships he received from Rhodes, Cyprus, and other places, he made himself master of the sea. Tyre was, therefore, reduced to great extremities. The fleet of Antigonus cut off all communication of provisions, and the city was soon after compelled to capitulate. It was no longer than nineteen years before this event, that Alexander had destroyed this city in a manner as made it natural to believe it would require whole ages to re-establish it; and yet, in so short a time as that we speak of, it became capable of sustaining this new siege, which lasted more than as long again as that of Alexander. This circumstance discovers the great resources derived from commerce; for this was the only expedient by which Tyre rose out of its ruins, and recovered most of its former splendour.

Isaiah had foretold that Tyre should lie in obscurity and oblivion for seventy years302. This term being expired, it recovered its former credit; and, at the same time, recovered again its former vices. At length, according to another passage in the same prophecy303, converted by the preaching of the Christians, it became a holy and religious city.

After this period it belonged to several masters, till the time when it was taken possession of by Antiochus the Great, B. C. 218.

Afterwards it became subject to the SeleucidÆ. It was then sold to a Roman, named Marion, whose wealth was so great, that he was enabled to purchase the whole principality. It was still in repute in the time of Christ, and is, therefore, several times mentioned in the New Testament.

“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.”—Matthew, ch. xi. ver. 21.

“And from Jerusalem, and from Idumea, and from beyond Jordan; and they about Tyre and Sidon, a great multitude, when they had heard what great things he did, came to him.”—Mark, ch. iii. ver. 8. Luke, ch. vi. ver. 17.

“And Herod was highly displeased with them of Tyre and Sidon; but they came with one accord to him, and having made Blastus, the king’s chamberlain, their friend, desired peace, because their country was nourished by the king’s country.”—Acts, ch. xi. ver. 20.

Tyre, in the time of Pliny:—“Tyrus, in the olden time an island, lying almost three quarters of a mile within the deep sea; but now, through the skill and labour of Alexander at the siege of it, joined to the main land. It is greatly renowned; for out of it have come three other cities of ancient name;—viz., Leptis, Utica, and that great Carthage, which so long strove with the empire of Rome, for the monarchy and dominion of the whole world. Not only these, but the Gades, divided, as it were, from the rest of the earth, were peopled from thence. Now, all its glory and reputation arise out of its dye purple and crimson colours. The compass of it is nineteen miles, if PalÆ-tyrus be included in it.”

There was a style of architecture called Tyrian; and of this order Sir C. Wren supposes was the theatre; by the fall of which, Samson made so great a slaughter of the Philistines. “In considering what this fabric must be,” says he304, “that could at one pull be demolished, I conceive it an oval amphitheatre, the scene in the middle, where a vast roof of cedar-beams, resting round upon the walls, centered all upon one short architrave, that united two cedar pillars in the middle. One pillar would not be sufficient to unite the ends of at least one hundred beams that tended to a centre; therefore, I say, there must be a short architrave resting upon two pillars, upon which all the beams tending to the centre of the amphitheatre might be supported. Now, if Samson, by his miraculous strength, pressing upon one of these pillars, moved it from its basis, the whole roof must of necessity fall.” The most observable monument of the Tyrian style is the sepulchre of Absalom, over against Jerusalem, in the valley of Jehosaphat.

When Tyre fell into the hands of the Romans, it did not cease to be a flourishing city. It was made the metropolis of a province by the emperor Hadrian, who repaired its fortifications, and gave it all the advantages of a Roman colony.

About A. D. 639, it fell from the dominion of Rome into the hands of the Saracens, who remained a considerable time in possession of it.

On this capture most of the inhabitants emigrated to Acre. It still remains, we are told by Mr. Addison, in nearly the same state in which they abandoned it, with the addition of about a hundred new stone buildings, occupying a small space to the north of the peninsula contiguous to the port. Many parts of the double wall, which encompassed the island, are still visible, and attest the strength of its ancient foundations. The isthmus is so completely covered with sand, washed up by the sea, on either side, that none but those, acquainted with the history of Tyre, would suppose it to be the work of man. The peninsula is about a mile long, and half a mile broad; and its surface is covered with the foundations of buildings, now nearly all in ruins. On the western side, where the ground is somewhat more elevated than the rest, is a citadel, which Mr. Addison naturally supposes, occupies the site of the ancient one. On the eastern side, he goes on to observe, are the remains of a Gothic church, built by the crusaders, of materials belonging to the temple of Jupiter Olympus, which was destroyed by Constantine the Great, or that of Hercules, the tutelary deity of the ancient Tyrians. Of this only part of the choir remains. The interior is divided into three aisles, separated by rows of columns of red granite; of a kind nowhere else known in Syria. At the extremities of the two branches of the cross were two towers, the ascent to which was by a spiral staircase, which still remains entire. Djezzar, who stripped all this country to ornament his mosque at Acre, wished to carry them away; but his engineers were not able even to move them. This is supposed to have been the cathedral, of which Eusebius speaks, calling it the most magnificent temple in Phoenicia, and in which the famous William of Tyre was the first archbishop.

In the second century, it became a bishop’s see; and St. Jerome says, that in his time it was not only the most famous and beautiful city of Phoenicia, but a mart for all the nations of the world. It was dependent upon the patriarch of Antioch; but the see had no less than fourteen suffragans.

In 1112, Tyre was besieged by the crusaders; also again in 1124. It was successfully attacked by Saladin, in 1192; but in 1291, Kabil, sultan of the Mamelukes, obtained it by capitulation, and rased its forts.

Tyre is now called Sur or Sour. For this name several explanations have been given. We shall select the most probable, and these are by Volney, and Dr. Shaw. “In the name Sour,” says Volney, “we recognise that of Tyre, which we receive from the Latin; but if we recollect, that the y was formerly pronounced ou; and observe, that the Latins have substituted the t for ? of the Greeks, and that the ? had the sound of th, in the word think, we shall be less surprised at the alteration. This has not happened among the Orientals, who have always called this place ‘Tsour,’ and ‘Sour.’”

Dr. Shaw gives a different interpretation:—“All the nations of the Levant call Tyre by its ancient name Sur, from whence the Latins seem to have borrowed their Sarra. Sur, I find, layeth claim to a double interpretation, each of them very natural; though its rocky situation will prevail, I am persuaded, with every person who seeth this peninsula, beyond the Sar, or purple fish, for which it might afterwards be in such esteem. The purple fish (the method, at least, of extracting the tincture,) hath been wanting for many ages; however, amongst a variety of other shells, the Purpura of Rondeletius is very common upon the sea shore.”

“The Arabians,” says Mr. Drummond, “have always called Tyre Al Sur, the palm-tree. (Gol. in voce.) Hence, perhaps, the Greeks gave the name of Phoenix to this tree, as being the natural production of Phoenice; and as being the common emblem both of the Phoenicians and of their colonists. It may have happened, then, that ancient Tyre, which was situated in a plain, may have been called Al Sur, as the place where the palm-tree flourished.”

Perhaps another explanation may be still more probable. Sanchoniathon, as reported by Philo Byllius, tells us that Tyre was first inhabited by Hyp-sour-anios, and that it then consisted of sheds, built up with canes, rushes, and papyri. From the middle of this, perhaps, comes the present name, Hyp-sour-anois.

The palaces of Tyre were for a long period supplanted by miserable hovels. Poor fishermen inhabited their vaulted cellars; where, in ancient times, the treasures of the world were stored. “This city,” says Maundrell, “standing in the sea upon a peninsula, promises, at a distance, something very magnificent. But when you come to it, you find no similitude of that glory, for which it was so renowned in ancient times. On the north side it has an old Turkish ungarrisoned castle; besides which, you see nothing here but a mere Babel, of broken walls, pillars, vaults, &c.: there not being so much as one entire house left. The present inhabitants are only a few poor wretches, harbouring themselves in the vaults, and chiefly subsisting upon fishing; who seem to be preserved, in this place by Divine Providence, as a visible argument, how God has fulfilled his word concerning Tyre.”

Sour, till lately, was a village in the pachalic of Saide or of Acre; situate on a peninsula, which projects from the shore, in the form of a mallet with an oval head. The isthmus which joins it to the continent is of pure sand. That part of the island which lies between the village and the sea, that is, the western side, was laid out in gardens, beset with weeds. The south side is sandy, and covered with rubbish. The whole village did not contain more than fifty families, having huts for houses, crumbling to pieces.

Dr. Shaw says, that in his time, notwithstanding Tyre was the chief maritime power of Syria, he could not perceive the least token of either Cothon or harbour, that could, at any time, have been of any extraordinary capacity. Coasting ships, indeed, says he, still find a tolerably good shelter from the northerly winds, under the southern shore; but they are obliged immediately to retire, when the winds change to the west or south; so there must, therefore, have been a better station than this for security and reception. In the N. N. E. part likewise of the city, are seen traces of a safe and commodious basin; but, at the same time, so small as not to exceed forty yards in diameter. Neither could it have enjoyed a larger area. Yet this port, small as it is at present, is notwithstanding so choked up with sand and rubbish, that even the boats of the poor fishermen, who visit this once renowned emporium, can be admitted only with great difficulty. The sea, however, which usually destroys solid structures, has not only spared, but enlarged and converted into a solid isthmus, the mound by which Alexander joined the isle of Tyre to the continent.

A recent traveller, however, says, “that in the angle on which was seated the royal palace, there are still to be seen a number of fallen granite pillars, and other vestiges of architectural grandeur; but of the temples of the Tyrian and the Thracian Hercules, of Saturn, of Apollo, and of their other deities, I am not aware that sufficient remains are to be traced to confirm the positions assigned to them. The causeway of Alexander is still perfect, and is become like a natural isthmus, by its being covered over with sand. The hill, on which is placed the temple of the Astrochitonian Hercules, is now occupied by a Mohammedan faqueer’s tomb, around which are no ruins that indicate a work of grandeur destroyed. The ruins of PalÆ-tyrus, near to Ras-el-ain, were not observed by me, although we crossed the brook there; and the Syrian sepulchres, which are said to be to the northward of the town, I did not hear of. On approaching the modern Sour, whether from the hills, from the north or from the south, its appearance has nothing of magnificence. On entering the town, it is discovered to have been walled; the portion towards the isthmus still remaining, and being entered by an humble gate; while that on the north side is broken down, showing only detached fragments of circular towers, greatly dilapidated.” “They do not reach beyond the precincts of the present town; thus shutting out all the range to the northward of the harbour, which appears to have been composed of the ruins of former buildings.” “The tower to the south-east is not more than fifty feet square, and about the same height. It is turreted to the top, and has small windows and loop-holes on each of its sides. A flight of steps leads up to it from without, and its whole appearance is like that of the Saracenic buildings in the neighbourhood of Cairo.”

Sour has greatly risen of late years. It now contains eight hundred dwellings, substantially built of stone; most of which have courts, walls, and various conveniences, attached to them; besides smaller habitations for the poor. There are, also, one mosque, three Christian churches, three bazaars, and a bath. This intelligence is furnished by Mr. Buckingham, who was there in the earlier part of 1816. He adds also, that the population amounts, at the lowest computation, from five to six thousand; three-fourths of which are Arab catholics, and the remainder Turks and Arab moslems.

In Tyre was interred the well-known Frederic the First, surnamed Barbarossa (A. D. 1190)305.