On the Pantheon of Tyre

Abstract

IN the collapse of the ancient Phoenician civilization, the Phoenician literature, of which, if we may believe classical authors, there was considerable, has entirely perished. The comparatively few inscriptions which have been brought to light in recent years, consisting as they do of votive and temple inscriptions and grave stones, can hardly be dignified with the name of literature. These inscriptions, however, such as they are, shed some light on the character of the Phoenician civilization and religion. From the most famous of Phoenician cities, Tyre, almost no inscriptions have been taken, and none which throws any light upon its religion. To study the pantheon of Tyre, therefore, fragments of information must be pieced together from many outside sources. That the Baal of Tyre was called Melqart (king of the city), we learn from the Phoenician portion of a bilingual inscription from Malta (CIS. 122). The Greek portion of the same inscription shows that Melqart was identified with the Greek Herakles. The temple of Melqart under this Greek name is mentioned by Herodotus (II, 44), and by Dion and Menander as quoted by Josephus (Antiquities, VIII, 5, 3 and Contra Apion, I, 18). We should naturally expect from the analogy of other Phoenician pantheons that Ashtart would be worshipped together with Melqart, and the quotations made from Dion and Menander vouch for this also, as does a quotation from Sanchoniathon preserved in the Praeparatio Evangelica of Eusebius (ed. Dindorf, 1, 10, 31). All this is clear. The puzzling part of the problem comes when one endeavors to discover whether the pantheon extended bevond these two deities. Sanchoniathon, as quoted by Eusebius, states that Astarte, the greatest, Zeus Demarous and Adodos ruled over the country by the consent of Kronos. As this statement occurs in connection with the statement that Astarte settled in the holy Island of Tyre, I had inferred in an article published in the Journal of this Society that this statement referred to Tyre and that it afforded ground for the