Читать книгу The Sea: Its Stirring Story of Adventure, Peril, & Heroism (Vol. 1-4). The History of Sea Voyages, Discovery, Piracy and Maritime Warfare онлайн

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The Phœnicians were, past all cavil, the most distinguished navigators of the ancient world, their capital, Tyre, being for centuries the centre of commerce, the “mart of nations.” Strange to say, this country, whose inhabitants were the rulers of the sea in those times, was a mere strip of land, whose average breadth never exceeded twelve miles, while its length was only 225 miles from Aradus in the north to Joppa in the south. Forced by the unproductiveness of the territory, and blessed with one or two excellent harbours, and an abundant supply of wood from the mountains of Lebanon, the Phœnicians soon possessed a numerous fleet, which not only monopolised the trade of the Mediterranean, but navigated Solomon’s fleets to the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean, establishing colonies wherever they went. Herodotus states that a Phœnician fleet, which was fitted out by Necho, King of Egypt, even circumnavigated Africa, and gives details which seem to place it within the category of the very greatest voyages. Starting from the Red Sea, they are stated to have passed Ophir, generally supposed to mean part of the east coast of Africa, to have rounded the continent, and, entering the Mediterranean by the Pillars of Hercules, our old friends the Rocks of Gibraltar and Ceuta, to have reached Egypt in the third year of their voyage. Solomon, too, dispatched a fleet of ships from the Red Sea to fetch gold from Ophir. Diodorus gives at great length an account of the fleet said to be built by this people for the great Queen Semiramis, with which she invaded India. Semiramis was long believed by many to be a mythical personage; but Sir Henry Rawlinson’s interpretations of the Assyrian inscriptions have placed the existence of this queen beyond all doubt. In the Assyrian hall of the British Museum are two statues of the god Nebo, each of which bears a cuneiform inscription saying that they were made for Queen Semiramis by a sculptor of Nineveh. The commerce of Phœnicia must have been at its height when Nebuchadnezzar made his attack on Tyre. Ezekiel gives a description of her power about the year B.C. 588, when ruin was hovering around her. “Tyre,” says the prophet, “was a merchant of the people for many isles.” He states that her ship-boards were made of fir-trees of Senir; her masts of cedars from Lebanon; her oars of the oaks of Bashan; and the benches of her galleys of ivory, brought out of the isles of Chittim.