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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 (See Siege of Tyre (332 BC)). 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
The Argead Dynasty, also known as the Temenid Dynasty, came to control Phoenicia under the Conquerer Alexander the Great. The Argead Dynasty ruled Phoenicia until the death of Alexander in June 323 BCE. Known for his spreading of Greek culture, Alexander brought many elements of Hellenism with him during his reign over Phoenicia. Alexander's conquest of Phoenicia began during his attack on the Persian Empire. Emboldened by a victory over the Persian army at the Granicus River (334 BCE), Alexander went on to take the entirety of Asia Minor. [1] To further cripple Persian forces, Alexander turned his attention towards coast cities, as taking control of them would deprive the Persians of naval bases. This brought Alexander into contact with the Phoenicians, as they were large contributors to the Persian navy. However, the Phoenicians desired freedom from Persian control, so many were quick to surrender to the armies of Macedonia, as Alexander has promised conquered cities freedom and self-determination should they surrender to him. [1]
In 332 BCE, Alexander came into contact with the city of Tyre. [2] Unlike other Phoenician cities, Tyre did not surrender control to Alexander. Upon reaching the city, envoys told they Macedonians that while they would not give up control of the city, they would submit to his demands. Alexander wished to make a sacrifice to the Greek god Heracles in the city's temple of Melqart, who is considered the Phoenician counterpart to Heracles, as his arrival coincided with a festival held to honor Heracles. [3] The Tyrians, worried that the dedication to a Hellenistic god would both dishonor the god Melqart as well as signal a challenge to the sovereignty of the city, denied Alexander's request, offering him to make a sacrifice outside of the city. [2] In an effort to maintain neutrality, the city of Tyre declared that they would not allow neither Macedonians nor Persians inside the city during the festival. Upset by the sudden denial, Alexander decided to besiege the city.
While Tyre's lack of hospitality was the direct cause, Alexander's decision to attack the city stemmed from many considerations. By allowing the city to remain independent, Alexander would not possess total control of the Mediterranean coast, thereby providing his newly conquered territories with a weak spot, should the Persians deploy naval vessels. [2] Secondly, by leaving the city after being spurned, his reputation as a conqueror would come into question, as he would have been successfully repelled by a much smaller force. [2] This instance could, in some instances, be enough to spark rebellions to his power in discontented areas. Finally, by taking Tyre, Alexander would have conquered the whole of Phoenicia, further proving his status as a conqueror and also completely cutting off the Persians from access to the Mediterranean sea while simultaneously depriving them of their largest contributor to their navy.
After a seven month siege which involved the building of a isthmus (see Siege of Tyre (332 BC)), the Macedonians captured the city. [2] What followed was the slaughter of many Tyrian citizens, as some put up resistance from within the walls. Following the subjugation of Tyre, Alexander performed his sacrifice to Heracles within the city's temple of Melqart, signifying his total control over the city. With the Alexander taking Tyre, Phoenicia fell into the control of the Argead Dynasty.
Following the establishment of control over Phoenicia, the Argead Dynasty began to spread Hellenism within the territory. This primarily took the form of various Greek rituals and festivals, which were practiced and held within cities like Tyre – 331, the year after the siege on Tyre, was a particularly notable year for festivities with various competitions being held within the city. [4] These rituals served to further reinforced the Hellenistic culture on the Phoenicians by making typical Greek activities, such as dramatic contests, commonplace with in the territory.
Despite the reinforcement of Greek culture in cities like Tyre, there was no apparent effort to completely remake Phoenicia under the control of Alexander. Unlike other conquered territories, the main Phoenician cities were not renamed or refounded by their new Hellenistic leaders, and instead kept their traditional Phoenician names. [5] The Greek language, while incorporated into the territory, never completely, replaced the Phoenician language, and the two seemed to coexist within the society. On a similar note, many Phoenician religious traditions and cults were discovered to have survived the rule of the Argead Dynasty, as many of these cults began to incorporate elements of Greek cults, thereby blending the two cultures into one. [5] This blend of Phoenician and Greek culture is also seen throughout the society at the time, such as the designs of coins – which featured both Phoenician and Greek inscriptions. [5] Later on, these coins would depict both figures which originated from Phoenician mythology and those from Greek mythology, combined with Greek lettering. One instance of this was the depiction of the Greek hero Cadmus, who was known as a prince of Phoenicia, on various coins. [5]
After Alexander's death, his empire was divided among his Macedonian generals. The eastern part—Phoenicia, Asia Minor, northern Syria, and Mesopotamia fell to Seleucus I, founder of the Seleucid dynasty. The southern part of Syria and Egypt fell to Ptolemy I Soter, and the European part, including Macedonia, to Antigonus I. This settlement, however, failed to bring peace because Seleucus I and Ptolemy clashed repeatedly in the course of their ambitious efforts to share in Phoenician prosperity. A final victory of the Seleucids ended a forty-year period of conflict.
The last century of Seleucid rule was marked by disorder and dynastic struggles. These ended in 64 BC, when the Roman general Pompey added Syria and Lebanon to the Roman Empire.
The Antigonid dynasty was a Macedonian Greek royal house which ruled the kingdom of Macedon during the Hellenistic period. Founded by Antigonus I Monophthalmus, a general and successor of Alexander the Great, the dynasty first came to power after the Battle of Salamis in 306 BC and ruled much of Hellenistic Greece from 294 until their defeat at the Battle of Pydna in 168 BC, after which Macedon came under the control of the Roman Republic.
Sidon or Saida is the third-largest city in Lebanon. It is located in the South Governorate, of which it is the capital, on the Mediterranean coast. Tyre to the south and Lebanese capital Beirut to the north are both about 40 kilometres away. Sidon has a population of about 80,000 within city limits, while its metropolitan area has more than a quarter-million inhabitants.
This article concerns the period 339 BC – 330 BC.
Year 333 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Dictatorship of Rufinus. The denomination 333 BC for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.
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.
Tylos was the Greek exonym of ancient Bahrain in the classical era, during which the island was a center of maritime trade and pearling in the Erythraean Sea. The name Tylos is thought to be a Hellenisation of the Semitic Tilmun. From the 6th to 3rd century BC Bahrain was part of the Persian Empire. After the conquest of Persia by Alexander the Great, his admiral Nearchus led an expedition which discovered the island, and serving under Nearchus was Androsthenes of Thasos, who left an extensive account of the island in Periplus of India, the source of many subsequent writers, including the contemporary botanist Theophrastus, who states that the island was a rich source of cotton and timber.
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.
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 Alexander Sarcophagus is a late 4th century BC Hellenistic stone sarcophagus from the Royal necropolis of Ayaa near Sidon, Lebanon. It is adorned with high relief carvings of Alexander the Great and scrolling historical and mythological narratives. The work is considered to be remarkably well preserved, and has been used as an exemplar for its retention of polychromy. It is currently in the holdings of the Istanbul Archaeology Museum.
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 Tyre District is a district in the South Governorate of Lebanon.
During the Middle Assyrian Empire and the Neo-Assyrian Empire, Phoenicia, what is today known as Lebanon and coastal Syria, came under Assyrian rule on several occasions.
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. 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.
Eshmunazar II was the Phoenician king of Sidon. He was the grandson of Eshmunazar I, and a vassal king of the Persian Achaemenid Empire. Eshmunazar II succeeded his father Tabnit I who ruled for a short time and died before the birth of his son. Tabnit I was succeeded by his sister-wife Amoashtart who ruled alone until Eshmunazar II's birth, and then acted as his regent until the time he would have reached majority. Eshmunazar II died prematurely at the age of 14. He was succeeded by his cousin Bodashtart.
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 expanded and contracted 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.
Tyre, in Lebanon, is 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.
Stasander was a Soloian general in the service of Alexander the Great. Upon Alexander's death he became the satrap of Aria and Drangiana. He lost control of his satrapies after being defeated by the Antigonids in the Wars of the Diadochi.
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.
This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain : Lebanon Country Study (1987) of the Library of Congress Country Studies project; specifically from Chapter 1: Historical Setting, by Afaf Sabeh McGowen