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King
Local Time: 10:22
Local Date: October 31, 2010
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: A bleak and barren rock
Posts: 2,743
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Phoenicia/ Carthage
Just in case one hasn't been written yet, here's my description of Phoenicia and it's possible special unit. I'm still working on a history of Carthage, but I think Phoenicia and Carthage should both be the same civilization.THE PHOENICIANS
CAPITAL: Tyre
LEADERS: Hiram the Great (of Tyre), Hannibal Barca, or Hamilcar Barca
(both of Carthage). (f) Princess Dido of Tyre, Princess Jezebel of Tyre.
SPECIAL UNIT: A quinquireme, 5 decks of rowers, a nasty looking metal prow,
fit to sink any second class ship. Most dangerous thing on the Ancient
Mediterranean.
CITIES: (PHOENICIA) Tyre, Byblos, Sidon, Tripoli, Tarshish, Berytus,
Arwad, Zarephath, Jubeil, Acco, Ugarit, Ophir, Marisa, Shechem, Aradus,
Ashdod (COLONIES) (CYPRUS) Enkomi, Kition, Curium, Paphos, Amathus,
(RHODES) Lindos, (SICILY) Cossrya, Motya, Panormus, Lilybaeum, (MALTA) Melita,
(SARDINIA) Sulci, Olbia, Caralis, Nora, Bitia, Tharrus, (BALEARICS) Ebusus,
(SPAIN) Lucentum, Carthago Nova, Abdera, Toscanos, Malaca, Gades, (N.
AFRICA) Carthage, Utica, Leptis Magna, Djerba, Sabratha, Thapsus,
Hadrumetum, Hippo Repis, Rachgoun, Tingis, and
Lixus.
THE PHOENICIAN HISTORY. Though the coast of what is now
Lebanon has always been inhabited since as far as history has been recorded,
the earliest Phoenician city, Byblos (near present-day Beirut) was probably
first settled around 5000 BC by a group of weary individuals who claimed to
be “descendants of the Dorian Kings from Heracles”. Very early on the
Phoenicians seem to have been using their brains, for they created the first
Alphabet in history, the numerals of which were the basis for those of the
English language. By 2700 BC (around the time Tyre was taken over by
Phoenicia) Byblos was perhaps the greatest trade center on the
Mediterranean, they were the ones who, for example, sold cedar wood to the
Egyptians (who must have loved the smell, for they paid a bundle for it) who
in turn gave them papyrus, which the Phoenicians traded to Greece, who then
lovingly called all books ‘Byblos’, and so the word ‘Bible’ was born.
The greatest Phoenician city, Tyre (Tyrus in Latin or Zor in Hebrew, home to
Marinas, who designated the latitude-longitude lines, and Zeno the great
philosopher and founder of the Stoic School) was actually taken over by guys
from Byblos around 2700 BC, and by that time it was already a good sized city
(Herodotus claims it was built in the 28th Century), and at the same time the
third largest city in Phoenicia, Sidon was built. It had once been an ancient
burial ground, and among the tombs found in the area was that of the
Assyrian King Eshmunazar. However, all of these cities were un-unified city
states. Thus when the Babylonians attacked the Phoenicians were quickly
conquered. The Babylonians were kicked out by Egyptians in 1800 BC
(probably so they could get their cedar wood) who held it until 1400 BC when
they, in turn, were booted out of Phoenicia by the Phoenicians themselves,
sick and tired of Egyptian rule, and seeing an easy chance to revolt when the
Hittites made such nuisance that Egyptian armies in Phoenicia were called
away. The happier, independent Phoenicians then began to rebuild their
culture, forming a federation of the city-states in the fourth largest city of
Phoenicia, Tripoli. It was around 1100 BC when the Phoenicians emerged as a
truly great commercial and sea power.
Of all of their trade items, the purple dye which they made from crushed
murex shells was their most popular. In fact the word Phoenicia is
derived from the Greek word for ‘purple’. Other popular trade items included
brightly coloured glass beads and blue and yellow glass vases. Cedar wood
(and later cypress wood) were also popular trade items. When Tyre began it’s
colonization and expansion the slave trade became a smaller trade avenue,
and when the colonization reached North Africa ivory joined the list as well.
The naval might of Phoenicia also helped increase the trading, as the
Mediterranean was at Phoenicia’s golden age dominated by the powerful
quinquiremes and the smaller biremes.
King Hiram the Great (reign 969-936 BC) of Tyre, Phoenicia’s greatest ruler,
was an expansionist and a builder. One of the first things he accomplished
when he ascended to the throne of Tyre was to connect the city with the
island just a little way off the coast by filling in the sea between them, thus
expanding the city by a quarter. Tyre under his rule was on very good terms
with the Israelites during the reigns of both Kings David and Solomon (who
was even married to one of Hiram’s daughters), and even assisting in the
construction of Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem by sending architects and
cedar wood. Still later the hated King Ahab of Israel married King Motto of
Tyre’s daughter Jezebel (who is one of the most justly disliked people who
ever lived). Hiram also sent colonies to the islands of Cyprus, Crete, and
Rhodes, to Anatolia, Sicily, Corsica and Sardinia, the Balearic Islands,
Spain, and north Africa (founding Carthage).
Finally, in 574 BC, when it appeared that Phoenicia’s power could only
escalate, something very unexpected happened, the Chaldean Empire of
Nebuchadnezzar II (of Babylon) took Tyre in a 13 year siege. The Phoenicians
then began offering child sacrifices to Baal and the rest of their menagerie
of gods and goddesses in order to save the rest of their empire (which didn’t
help their population rate), but this didn’t really help much as soon Babylon
controlled all of Phoenicia. However, the might of Babylon was in it’s twilight
years and they were destroyed by the new Persian empire under King Cyrus
(and the dumber of Nebuchadnezzar’s successors).
About 200 years later, the more “Persianized” Phoenicians were in danger
yet again. Persia had just been freshly squashed by the ancient world’s
most powerful reprobate, Alexander the Great, King of Macedonia, and now
the little conqueror’s army was advancing towards the Phoenician coast.
Byblos, Sidon, Tripoli, and Arwad all surrendered to big Al without a fight,
but Tyre stood firm against him. Unable to storm Tyre, Alexander besieged it
for the following 7 months, but to no avail. Loosing more men then he
wished, poor (angry) Alexander ordered that siege engines be brought up and
his men to use them for the purposes for which they were constructed, and
the city fell. Half the city was destroyed and the 30,000 residents were either
massacred or sold as slaves, this truly was the end of the Phoenician empire
(or at least the Phoenician part of the Phoenician empire...). The “Phoenicians”
became Greco-Hellenized, and when Rome took over in 64 BC, even the
named ‘Phoenicia’ was erased. (As an interesting note, it was Phoenicia
and her colonies in Sicily, Spain, Cyprus, and North Africa that were the
first parts of the Roman Empire to become overwhelmingly Christian.)
Phoenicia’s most powerful (and most famous) colony was that of Carthage,
which existed in North Africa in what is now called Morocco. King Hiram
ordered the building of Carthage near the older Phoenician city of Utica on
the Mediterranean coast. According to legend Carthage (or as it was actually
called by the Phoenicians, Kar-Hadasht) was built at the end of the 9th
Century BC as a trading post by Princess Dido. The legend is that the local
African ruler told her that she could claim as much land as an ox-hide could
cover. Dido, bright lady, ordered the hide to be cut into very thin strips so
that she could claim huge pieces of territory, using the strips as a border.
SPECIAL UNIT HISTORY: When the Babylonians and Egyptians were
kicked out in 1400 BC, the Phoenicians began re-assembling their
civilization, and one of the new additions was a great navy. The greatest
sailors of the ancient world, Phoenicians would be famous for, among other
things, the circling by Admiral Hanno of the whole of the continent of Africa
in 600 BC. The powerful military vessels, greatest among which was the fast,
huge, and powerful quinquireme were constructed to subdue the inhabitants
of the countries which they then took over and colonized. The quinquireme
was long and tall, with 5 decks of rowers and huge, bronze prows at the bow
with which they could ram anything that got in their way!
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I wanted to write something myself and this seems to contain pretty much everything I wanted to include myself (maybe I'll have some more comments when I have more time). Well, everything except Carthaginian history but you already said you're working on that, I'll be very interested in reading that too.
You actualy found the name of their colony on Malta! I searched forever for that but couldn't find it.
