Phoenicia in the Roman Empire

This chapter traces the history of Phoenicia from the advent of Rome in Syria at the beginning of the first century bce to the foundation of the Christian empire of Byzantium in the fourth century ce. It focuses on the establishment of Roman rule and its impact on society, culture, and religion. Special attention is paid to the establishment of Roman rule and its impact on society, culture, and religion. The focus is on provincial institutions and cities, which provided a basis for the new order. However, side trails are also taken to assess the flowering of Hellenism and the revival of local traditions in the light of the Romanization of Phoenicia and its hinterland.

Phoenicia Under the Achaemenid Empire

This chapter covers several aspects of Achaemenid Phoenicia, including literary sources, epigraphy, numismatics, and material culture. Achaemenid Phoenicia was characterized by a continuity of material culture from the Neo-Babylonian period. The extant sources—literary, epigraphic, and numismatic—evince a conglomerate of independent city-states characterized by expressions of compliance with the central Achaemenid authorities while pursuing their own economic and political goals, with Sidon as the most preeminent metropolis. The end of the period in the fourth century bce saw the gradual disintegration of the Phoenician loyalties to the Achaemenids and a pivot toward the Aegean in political and economic aspects.

Religion

Phoenician polytheism—its structure and rites—is not completely unknown to us. There were mythological traditions common to the area, as well as a structure common to the pantheons of the Phoenician cities. At the top there is a divine couple consisting of a male god and a goddess, his spouse, and a divine assembly. The same basic structure is detectable in the Punic world, Carthage and elsewhere, although with differences and innovations. In turn, every Phoenician city had its own tutelary deities: the diversification of gods and cults was a powerful means of cultural identity and identification. As for Phoenician mythology, a theme emerges from available sources, which ultimately dates back to the Late Bronze Age, as exemplified by Ugaritic Baal: Among the ceremonies, particularly important was a solemn feast, called egersis (“awakening”) in Greek sources, which commemorated annually Milqart’s death and return to life. The chapter also discusses the tophet and its rites, both bloody and not, related to the fulfilment of vows concerning severe individual or collective crises, which in some cases involved the sacrifice of children to the gods.

Phoenician Literature

There was, without a doubt, a Phoenician and Punic literature. Very little of it is extant, but we have enough of it to gauge the great loss. Lacking the advantage of its own manuscript tradition and later cultures devoted to it, Phoenician literature was not systematically preserved, unlike that of the Greeks, Romans, and Israelites. What we have are small pieces that surface among the Classical literary corpus. Despite these unfavorable conditions, an impressive range of literary genres is attested, concentrated in particular genres. Some of this literature aligned with broader ancient Near Eastern tradition: cosmogony, foundation stories, historical records, and other areas that correspond with Phoenician expertise (travel accounts or itineraries, agricultural treatises). Other genres were likely adopted through Greek influence (narrative histories, philosophy). Moreover, from Hellenistic times onward, works by Phoenician authors had to be written and transmitted in Greek in order to survive. Nonetheless, the chapter cautions that we should not lightly categorize them as merely “Greek” literature, at least in the cases in which we know the authors are Phoenicians (including Carthaginians) writing about Phoenician matters.

The Alphabet and its Legacy

The alphabet employed by the Phoenicians was the inheritor of a long tradition of alphabetic writing and was itself adapted for use throughout the Mediterranean basin by numerous populations speaking many languages. The present contribution traces the origins of the alphabet in Sinai and the Levant before discussing different alphabetic standardizations in Ugarit and Phoenician Tyre. The complex adaptation of the latter for representation of the Greek language is described in detail, then some brief attention is given to likely—Etruscan and other Italic alphabets—and possible (Iberian and Berber) descendants of the Phoenician alphabet. Finally, it is stressed that current research does not view the Phoenician and other alphabets as inherently simpler, more easily learned, or more democratic than other writing systems. The Phoenician alphabet remains, nevertheless, an impressive technological development worthy, especially by virtue of its generative power, of detailed study ranging from paleographic and orthographic specifications to social and political contextualization.

Carthage after the Punic Wars and the Neo-Punic Legacy

This chapter provides a brief introduction to how the historiographical development of Roman studies, since mid-twentieth century decolonization, has altered our understanding of the developments which took place in North Africa following the destruction of Carthage in 146 bce. The reader is introduced to literary, epigraphic, and archaeological sources of evidence, which have traditionally been used to argue for either cultural change or continuity. After an initial examination of the immediate aftermath of the Third Punic War, Roman land appropriation and taxation, the focus is on sources of evidence usually described as “Punic,” “neo-Punic” or “Late Punic,” covering the spheres of municipal institutions, language use, and religious and funerary rituals. The vibrant multiculturalism and regional diversity of the Mediterranean and especially North Africa, both before and after the Roman conquest, is the dominant theme. This is used to shift emphasis away from grand explanatory paradigms based on essentialist identity categories, and toward a more nuanced picture of the complex and multivariate processes of cultural development and integration.

Ibiza

The formation of a Semitic society based on the island of Ibiza was the result of the superimposition, during the Archaic period, of two distinct elements: eastern Phoenicians and Punics. During the fifth and fourth centuries bce, Punic Ibiza reached its maximum economic and demographic development, possibly because of its role as a crucial agent of Carthaginian policy toward Iberian communities in the mainland and the Balearic Islands. After the Second Punic War, all defeated Punic states that sided with Carthage were left under the dominion of the Roman Republic. In the case of Punic Ibiza, the author proposes a process with three main steps: first, a deditio after the Second Punic War; second, a federation agreement, which could have taken place possibly after the Sertorian episode, in the year 81 bce; and third, the municipalization after the decree promulgated by Vespasianus in 74 ce, which converted Hispanic towns that were still peregrinae, like Ibiza, into municipalities ruled by the Latin Law.

Sicily

Thucydides reports that the Phoenicians were present throughout Sicily and traded with the Sicels. A tangible Phoenician presence in Sicily, as expressed by pottery, is attested only at the end of the eighth century bce. The earliest hypothetical Phoenician settlements of Solunt and Panormus are still almost unknown. This earliest phase is associated in particular with the city of Motya, where pottery and a few other finds testify to it. The Punic phase of the island is much clearer, with almost all indications coming from Motya and Selinus, which were not built over in Roman times. The Pfeilertempel, as emerged from Motya, could be regarded as the prototype for the Phoenician temple in Sicily. In turn, it is possible to recognize a characteristic type of temple of Punic Sicily, as particularly shown at Selinus, These shrines, as well as other elements of the Punic settlements like the houses, the fortifications, or the necropoleis, in particular from the fourth century bce onwards, are evidence of an advanced degree of Hellenization, framed within a Mediterranean koine.

Cyprus

This chapter concentrates on the Phoenician presence in the island of Cyprus in the Iron Age (from the eleventh until the end of the fourth century bce). After a brief overview, it addresses the question of identification of the Cypriot Qarthadasht and the issue of a supposed Phoenician colonization in Cyprus. The political and cultural history of the Cypro-Phoenician kingdom of Kition also receives particular attention. At the same time, the widespread and multifaceted aspects of Phoenician presences on the island are underlined: Phoenician presence was not confined to Kition and Phoenician influence did not exclusively spread in the island from Kition.

Levantine Art in the “Orientalizing” Period

The “Orientalizing period” represents a scholarly designation used to describe the eighth and seventh centuries bce when regions in Greece, Italy, and farther west witnessed a flourishing of arts and cultures attributed to contact with cultural areas to the east—in particular that of the Phoenicians. This chapter surveys Orientalizing as an intellectual and historiographic concept and reconsiders the role of purportedly Phoenician arts within the existing scholarly narratives. The Orientalizing period should be understood as a construct of nineteenth- and twentieth-century scholarship that was structured around a false dichotomy between the Orient (the East) and the West. The designation “Phoenician” has a similarly complex historiographic past rooted in ancient Greek stereotyping that has profoundly shaped modern scholarly interpretations. This chapter argues that the luxury arts most often credited as agents of Orientalization—most prominent among them being carved ivories, decorated metal bowls, and engraved tridacna shells—cannot be exclusively associated with a Phoenician cultural origin, thus calling into question the primacy of the Phoenicians in Orientalizing processes. Each of these types of objects appears to have a much broader production sphere than is indicated by the attribute as Phoenician. In addition, the notion of unidirectional influences flowing from east to west is challenged, and instead concepts of connectivity and networking are proposed as more useful frameworks for approaching the problem of cultural relations during the early part of the first millennium bce.