The army of Nebuchadnezzar lay before Tyre thirteen years, and it was not taken till the fifteenth year after the captivity, in the year 573 before Christ; and when taken, it was so exhausted by the siege, or so deserted by the inhabitants, that the conqueror found nothing to reward him for his labours. *

Dr. Prideaux supposes this city to have been the old Tyre on the continent, and that the inhabitants took refuge on the island, when the new Tyre flourished again with almost the same vigour as its parent, till it was destroyed by Alexander in the year 332 before Christ, and 241 years after the reduction of it by the Babylonians.†

Herodotus, who wrote about 400 years before the Christian era, or between the invasions of Nebuchadnezzar and Alexander, mentions his visit to Tyre; but instead of his calling it "an island," as one might suppose he would have done, it is rather to be inferred from his mention of the temple of Hercules as in the town, that it was then on the continent, where the temple of Hercules, in which Alexander sacrificed, is always placed. The Tyrians appear to have followed, at that period, the worship of the Egyptians, with which nation they were closely allied in commerce at a still earlier period. ‡ When speaking of Hercules, as one of the most ancient deities of Egypt, the Greek historian says, "From my great desire to obtain information on this subject, I made a voyage to Tyre, in Phoenicia, where is a temple of Hercules, held in great veneration. This temple, as the priests affirmed, had been standing ever since the first building of the city, a period of two thousand three hundred years. I saw also at Tyre another temple consecrated to the Thasian Hercules." §

* Prideaux's Connect. of the Old and New Test. vol. i. p. 72.

+ Vincent's Periplus of the Eryth. Sea, vol. ii. p. 525.

Fine linen with broidered work from Egypt was that which thou spreadest forth to be thy sail; blue and purple from the isles of Elisha was that which covered thee. Ezekiel, c. xxvii. v. 7.

§ Herodotus. Euterpe 44.

In the temple of Hercules at Tyre were two pillars, one dedicated to fire, and the

Diodorus Siculus distinguishes between the continental and the insular Tyre in the most explicit terms. The latter was the Tyre besieged by Alexander, "who," he observes, "finding some difficulty in attacking it on that account, as the Tyrians had a very powerful fleet, he demolished Old Tyre, as it was then called, and with the stones brought from thence built a mole or causeway of two hundred feet in breadth, extending all the way from the continent to the island. The difficulties which impeded this work, and the determined perseverance with which it was carried on amidst obstacles of so formidable a kind, are admirably described by the historian; and the description of the various operations of the siege leave one in doubt whether the fearless valour of the Macedonians or the obstinate bravery of the Tyrians deserved most to be admired. *

Strabo speaks most decidedly of Tyrus as an island, and enumerates the principal features of its local positions, and its great

other to the clouds and the winds. The statue of this god is said to have been always accompanied by these pillars, to which they sometimes gave the name of limits or boundaries. (Herodotus, lib. i.) M. Baer, Essay upon the Atlantis, p. 47. To name one of these pillars was to mark or indicate a temple of Hercules; these pillars signified then likewise limits; they were limits or points of repose in the progress of this illustrious traveller. The temples of Hercules serve to denote his different stations. (Vol. i. p. 80.) M. Baer, in his search after the Atlantis, conceives these pillars of Hercules at the temple in Tyre to be those of which Plato speaks, when he says that this celebrated island was seated opposite to them in the Atlantic Sea, and not to be meant of the Straits of Gibraltar, as commonly supposed. M. Baer is therefore of opinion that Phoenicia and Judea form the Atlantis of Plato. He discovers certain resemblances between the names of the twelve sous of Jacob and the brothers of Atlas. Were we to suppose these relations of resemblance real, says M. Bailly, it would not be extraordinary. The Bible contains the most consistent and most faithfully preserved series of traditions. It is by far the purest source of history. But in spite of these resemblances, ingeniously stated and explained by M. Baer, we must not spend our time in Palestine; it is by no means there that we look for the termination of our enquiries. We ask for the island Atlantis. The country that lies between the Euphrates and the sea is not an island, and the words of Plato are far from being ambiguous on that point. - Ancient Hist. of Asia, and Remarks on the Atlantis of Plato by M. Bailly. 2 vols. 12mo. London, 1814. Vol. ii. p. 80-82.

Diodorus Siculus, 1. xvii. c. 4. A. C. 330.

celebrity at the period of his writing, which was full three centuturies after its siege. *

Pliny seems to have thought that the oldest Tyre was on the continent, and the most celebrated Tyre on an island, as will appear by his description : " Beyond Eedippa, and the Cape Album†, follows the noble city Tyrus, in old time an island, lying about three quarters of a mile within the deep sea, but now, by the great travail and devices wrought by Alexander the Great, at the siege thereof, joined to the firm ground, renowned for that out of it have come three other cities of ancient name; to wit, Leptis, Utica, and that great Carthage, which so long strove with the empire of Rome for the monarchy and dominion of the whole world; yea, and Gades, divided as it were, from the rest of the earth, were peopled from hence†; but now, at this day, all the glory and reputation thereof standeth upon the dye of purple and crimson colours. § The compass of it is nineteen miles, so ye

"Tyrus tota insula est, ac ferè eodem modo habitata, quo Aradus, ad continentem aggere eam adnectente, et cum Alexander eam obsideret. Portus duos habet, alterum clausum, alterum apertum, quem Egyptium vocant. Dicunt in ea domos altiores fieri, quàm Romæ, ideo etiam parum abfuit aliquando, quin tota urbs terræ motibus deleretur. Cladem accepit ab Alexandro expugnata. Has tamen calamitates omnes superavit, et se recollegit cùm navigationibus, qua re Phoenices semper aliis præstitere, tum purpururam captura Tyria enim purpura optima omnium perhibetur, ac piscatio ipsa proxima est; et cætera cuncta, quæ ad inficiendas vestes pertinent, in promptu sunt. At tametsi maxima hujus modi tinctorum multitudo civitatem reddit paulò dissolutiorem, tamen ob hanc copiam collocupletatur. Non solùm à regibus, sed à Romanis etiam libertate donati sunt, cum quidem paulo sumtu impetrarent, ut eorum votum Romani ratum haberent atque confirmarent. Colitur apud eos Hercules majorem in modum. Quantum classe potuerint, argumento evidenti est multitudo et magnitudo coloniarum ab iis deductarum. Dictum est de Tyrüs." - Strabo, the Latin version; Amsterdam, 1707. 2 vols. folio. B. 16. p. 757.

+ This Cape Album is the one still called Ras-el-Abiad, or the White Cape, by the Arabs.

M. Bailly, in his " Ancient History of Asia," says, "It appears from very probable computation, that we must refer the building of Tyre, as well as that of Thebes, in Egypt, to 2700 years before our era," (vol. ii. p. 83.) which agrees with Herodotus. § This purple was extracted from the vein of the purple fish, when they were taken of a large size and whole, and this was the best; but the smaller ones were taken out of the shells and ground in mills to obtain this dye, and though there were other

comprise Palætyrus within it. The very town itself taketh up twenty-two stadia. Near unto it are these towns, Luhydra, Sarepta, and Ornithon; also Sidon, where the fair and clear glasses be made, and which is the mother of the great Thebes in Beotia."*

Quintus Curtius, too, besides the assertion that he makes, which accords with Diodorus, of Alexander using the ruins of Palætyrus to construct the mole across the sea from the continent to the island of Tyre, mentions this older city in another place. He says, "When the ambassadors of Alexander signified to the Tyrians the desire of their monarch to sacrifice to the Tyrian Hercules, which they worshipped as the god from whom the Macedonian kings were descended, and in obedience of an oracle which had enjoined him to this act of devotion, they replied to him that there was a temple of Hercules without their city, in a place which they called the Old Tyre, and that he might make his sacrifice there." †

Arrian, the most accurate among all the historians of Alexander, gives us even the depth of the sea in the strait which occasioned the insular situation of the city. He says, "The sea that separated the island of Tyre from the continent had a clayey bottom, and was shoal near the shore, but as it approached the city it was about three fathoms in depth."‡ Quintius Curtius indeed calls this sea a very deep one, " præaltum mare."§ It was the rubbish

places where this purple was collected, that of Tyrus was by far the best. Nat. Hist. 1. ix. c. 36.

* Pliny, Nat. Hist. l. v. c. 19. + Quint. Curt. 1. iv. c. 2.

After the visit which Alexander paid to the temple of Jupiter Ammon, to consult the oracle there, his founding Alexandria, and settling the affairs of Egypt, he began his march of return to Phoenicia, in the beginning of the spring, having laid bridges over the Nile and all its canals near Memphis, (probably for the passage of horses, chariots, and all the pomp of his train,) and coming again to Tyre, where he met his fleet, he sacrificed a second time to the Tyrian Hercules, and exhibited the usual games in his honour. Arrian, 1. iii. c. 6.

De Exped. Alex. l. ii. c. 18.

§ Quint. Curt. l. iv. c. 2.

of old Tyre (thirty furlongs off), upon the continent, which supplied materials for the building of the mole constructed by Alexander, according to Curtius. * And this agrees with Diodorus.†

In the contentions for empire which followed the death of Alexander, and not quite thirty years after this memorable siege, Tyre was again invested by the fleet of Antigonus, against whom Ptolemy, Seleucus, Cassander, and Lysimachus, were all leagued in war. He at the first left before this city three thousand men, under the command of Andronicus, to besiege it, but when he had himself taken Joppa and Gaza, he returned to the camp, there to preside over the operations of it himself. It being determined at length to blockade the place by sea, this was done by his fleet for thirteen months, during which time the inhabitants were so reduced as to render up the city and receive a garrison of the troops of Antigonus into it for its defence.‡

About three years after this, and immediately following the battle fought at Gaza, between the combined armies of Ptolemy and Seleucus, against that of Demetrius, in which the latter was completely routed, Tyre was again invested by Ptolemy in person. Its garrison was then under the command of Andronicus, who rejected every offer made to him of wealth and power, and refused to betray the trust which Antigonus and Demetrius had reposed

* Quint. Curt. 1. iv. c. 2.

Yet the translator of Arrian himself evidently believed that the Tyre besieged by Nebuchadnezzar was the city on the island, and not that on the main land; for in animadverting on the hyperbolic style of Quintus Curtius, who says that the deep sea between it and the continent could not be filled up but by a miracle, and over which a whole province could scarcely find wood enough for a bridge, or stones enough to fill it up, he remarks, that it had been done before without a miracle, (Ezekiel, c. xxix. v. 18.) and that the same trouble, admitting no greater opposition, would do it again. This same writer observes on the disproportionate loss of the Macedonians in the siege of this place. The statement plainly shows to which party we owe the records or memoirs from whence all these histories were compiled. Justin, contrary to all other authorities, affirms that Tyre was taken by treachery. (L. xi. c. 10.) Elian reports that it was won by stratagem. Polynæus, that it was carried by storm. Rooke's Arrian, b. ii. c. 24. vol. i. p. 114. 8vo.

+ Diodorus Siculus, 1. xix. c. 4.