Azemilcus ('zmlk\) was the King of Tyre during its siege by Alexander the Great in 332 BC. Alexander had already peacefully taken Byblos and Sidon, and Tyre sent envoys to Alexander agreeing to do his bidding. His response was to declare that he wished to enter the city to sacrifice to Melqart, known to Alexander as the Tyrian Herakles. Azemilcus was with the Persian fleet at the time, and the Tyrians, unsure who would win the war, responded by saying that they would obey any other command but that neither Persians nor Macedonians could enter the city.[1] When Alexander finally captured the city, Azemilcus and various other notables, including envoys from Carthage, had taken refuge in the temple of Melqart, and Alexander spared their lives.
Azemilcus is mostly known by his coins, small 18mm silver staters featuring Melqart riding a hippocamp over the waves on one side and an owl with crook and the Phoenician letter Ayin for Azemilcus surrounded by a series of Phoenician numbers indicating the year of his reign. There are at least 15 known years that these coins were minted between 347 BC and 332 BC, and are some of the earliest dated ancient coins that can be ascribed to a particular ruler.[2]
Dido, also known as Elissa, was the legendary founder and first queen of the Phoenician city-state of Carthage, in 814 BC. In most accounts, she was the queen of the Phoenician city-state of Tyre who fled tyranny to found her own city in northwest Africa. Known only through ancient Greek and Roman sources, all of which were written well after Carthage's founding, her historicity remains uncertain. The oldest references to Dido are attributed to Timaeus, who was active around 300 BC, or about five centuries after the date given for the foundation of Carthage.
Hiram I was the Phoenician king of Tyre according to the Hebrew Bible. His regnal years have been calculated by some as 980 to 947 BC, in succession to his father, Abibaal. Hiram was succeeded as king of Tyre by his son Baal-Eser I. Hiram is also mentioned in the writings of Menander of Ephesus, as preserved in Josephus's Against Apion, which adds to the biblical account. According to Josephus, Hiram lived for 53 years and reigned 34.
Melqart was the tutelary god of the Phoenician city-state of Tyre and a major deity in the Phoenician and Punic pantheons. He may have been central to the founding-myths of various Phoenician colonies throughout the Mediterranean, as well as the source of several myths concerning the exploits of Heracles. Many cities were thought to be founded and protected by Melqart, no doubt springing from the original Phoenician practice of building a Temple of Melqart at new colonies. Similar to Tammuz and Adonis, he symbolized an annual cycle of death and rebirth.
The wars of Alexander the Great were a series of conquests that were carried out by Alexander III of Macedon from 336 BC to 323 BC. They began with battles against the Achaemenid Persian Empire, then under the rule of Darius III of Persia. After Alexander's chain of victories against Achaemenid Persia, he began a campaign against local chieftains and warlords that stretched as far from Greece as the region of Punjab in South Asia. At the time of his death, he ruled over most regions of Greece and the conquered Achaemenid Empire ; he did not, however, manage to conquer the Indian subcontinent in its entirety according to his initial plan. Despite his military accomplishments, Alexander did not provide any stable alternative to the rule of the Achaemenid Empire, and his untimely death threw the vast territories he conquered into a series of civil wars, commonly known as the Wars of the Diadochi.
The King of Tyre was the ruler of Tyre, the ancient Phoenician city in what is now Lebanon. The traditional list of 12 kings, with reigns dated to 990–785 BC, is derived from the lost history of Menander of Ephesus as quoted by Josephus in Against Apion I. 116–127. Josephus asserts that Menander had drawn his list from the chronicles of Tyre itself. Menander-Josephus also contains a list of 9 kings and judges, with reigns dated to 591–532 BC in Against Apion I. 154–160.
Astarte is the Hellenized form of the Ancient Near Eastern goddess ʿAṯtart. ʿAṯtart was the Northwest Semitic equivalent of the East Semitic goddess Ishtar.
The siege of Tyre was orchestrated by Alexander the Great in 332 BC during his campaigns against the Persians. The Macedonian army was unable to capture the city, which was a strategic coastal base on the Mediterranean Sea, through conventional means because it was on an island and had walls right up to the sea. Alexander responded to this problem by first blockading and besieging Tyre for seven months, and then by building a causeway and placing siege towers with catapults built on top at the end after his soldiers discovered that they could not extend it any further due to a steep drop under the surface of the water. This allowed him to breach the fortifications.
The ancient history of Cyprus shows a precocious sophistication in the Neolithic era visible in settlements such as at Choirokoitia dating from the 9th millennium BC, and at Kalavassos from about 7500 BC.
The history of ancient Lebanon traces the course of events related to the geographic area in the Eastern Mediterranean of what is now known as Lebanon from the beginning of antiquity to the beginning of Arab rule.
The city of Carthage was founded in the 9th century BC on the coast of Northwest Africa, in what is now Tunisia, as one of a number of Phoenician settlements in the western Mediterranean created to facilitate trade from the city of Tyre on the coast of what is now Lebanon. The name of both the city and the wider republic that grew out of it, Carthage developed into a significant trading empire throughout the Mediterranean. The date from which Carthage can be counted as an independent power cannot exactly be determined, and probably nothing distinguished Carthage from the other Phoenician colonies in Northwest Africa and the Mediterranean during 800–700 BC. By the end of the 7th century BC, Carthage was becoming one of the leading commercial centres of the West Mediterranean region. After a long conflict with the emerging Roman Republic, known as the Punic Wars, Rome finally destroyed Carthage in 146 BC. A Roman Carthage was established on the ruins of the first. Roman Carthage was eventually destroyed—its walls torn down, its water supply cut off, and its harbours made unusable—following its conquest by Arab invaders at the close of the 7th century. It was replaced by Tunis as the major regional centre, which has spread to include the ancient site of Carthage in a modern suburb.
The Tyre District is a district in the South Governorate of Lebanon.
The Persian Empire, including modern Lebanon, eventually fell to Alexander the Great, king of Macedonia. He attacked Asia Minor, defeated the Persian troops in 333 BC, and advanced toward the Lebanese coast. Initially the Phoenician cities made no attempt to resist, and they recognized his suzerainty. However, when Alexander tried to offer a sacrifice to Melqart, Tyre's god, the city resisted. Alexander besieged Tyre in retaliation in early 332 BC. After seven months of resistance, the city fell, and its people were sold into slavery. Despite his early death in 323 BC, Alexander's conquest of the eastern Mediterranean Basin left a Greek imprint on the area. The Phoenicians, being a cosmopolitan people amenable to outside influences, adopted aspects of Greek civilization with ease.
Tyrian shekels, tetradrachms, or tetradrachmas were coins of Tyre, which in the Roman Empire took on an unusual role as the medium of payment for the Temple tax in Jerusalem, and subsequently gained notoriety as a likely mode of payment for Judas Iscariot.
Ancient Carthage was an ancient Semitic civilisation based in North Africa. Initially a settlement in present-day Tunisia, it later became a city-state and then an empire. Founded by the Phoenicians in the ninth century BC, Carthage reached its height in the fourth century BC as one of the largest metropolises in the world. It was the centre of the Carthaginian Empire, a major power led by the Punic people who dominated the ancient western and central Mediterranean Sea. Following the Punic Wars, Carthage was destroyed by the Romans in 146 BC, who later rebuilt the city lavishly.
Phoenicia, or Phœnicia, was an ancient Semitic thalassocratic civilization originating in the coastal strip of the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily located in modern Lebanon. The territory of the Phoenicians extended and shrank throughout history, with the core of their culture stretching from Arwad in modern Syria to Mount Carmel in modern Israel, covering the entire coast of modern Lebanon. Beyond their homeland, the Phoenicians extended through trade and colonization throughout the Mediterranean, from Cyprus to the Iberian Peninsula.
Abdashtart I was a king of the Phoenician city-state of Sidon who reigned from 365 BC to 352 BC following the death of his father, Baalshillem II.
This article details the history of Tyre, Lebanon, one of the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world, having been continuously inhabited for over 4,700 years. Situated in the Levant on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, Tyre became the leading city of the Phoenician civilization in 969 BC with the reign of the Tyrian king Hiram I, the city of Tyre alongside its Phoenician homeland are also credited with numerous innovations in shipbuilding, navigation, industry, agriculture, and government. The Phoenician Tyrians' international trade network was based on its two ports and is believed to have fostered the economic, political, and cultural foundations of Classical Western civilization.
Phoenicia was an ancient Semitic-speaking thalassocratic civilization that originated in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily modern Lebanon. At its height between 1100 and 200 BC, Phoenician civilization spread across the Mediterranean, from Cyprus to the Iberian Peninsula.
Baalshillem I was a Phoenician King of Sidon, and a vassal of the Achaemenid Empire. He was succeeded by his son Abdamon to the throne of Sidon.
Baalshillem II was a Phoenician King of Sidon, and the great-grandson of Baalshillem I who founded the namesake dynasty. He succeeded Baana to the throne of Sidon, and was succeeded by his son Abdashtart I. The name Baalshillem means "recompense of Baal" in Phoenician.
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