Under Persia

CHAPTER X

The Phœnician Rôle in the Persian Empire—How the Cities Traded Ships for Autonomy and Sidon Reached Its Golden Age

The Persian Empire, founded by Cyrus the Great in 539 BCE, was unlike the empires that had preceded it. The Assyrians and Babylonians ruled by terror: they deported rebellious populations, razed cities, and imposed their gods upon the conquered. The Persians, under the Achaemenid dynasty, ruled by accommodation. They permitted subject peoples to retain their languages, their religions, and their native institutions, provided they paid tribute and supplied troops for the imperial armies.

For the Phœnician cities, the Persian conquest was not a catastrophe but an opportunity. The Persians needed their navy. And for the first time, a great land empire offered the Phœnician cities a partnership that approached equality. The Persians could not build ships. They could not navigate. They could not sail the Mediterranean or the Red Sea. The Phœnicians could. The arrangement would last for two centuries. It would make Sidon the wealthiest city on the Levantine coast. It would place Tyrian admirals in command of the largest fleet the world had ever seen. And it would end in fire.

The Organisation of the Satrapy

The Phœnician cities were incorporated into the Fifth Satrapy, or the satrapy of Eber-Nari — "Beyond the River," that is, beyond the Euphrates. The satrapy included Syria, Phœnicia, Cyprus, and Palestine. The satrap was a Persian nobleman, but the day-to-day governance of the Phœnician cities remained in the hands of their native dynasties. Arvad, Byblus, Sidon, and Tyre were the principal cities. Sidon held the primacy for much of the period.

The Phœnician Fleet in the Persian Wars

The supreme expression of Phœnician naval power under Persian rule was the fleet that accompanied Xerxes I in his invasion of Greece in 480 BCE. Herodotus (7.89) records that the Phœnicians furnished three hundred ships — the largest, best-equipped, and most experienced contingent in the Persian navy. Herodotus names the commanders: Tetramnestus for Sidon, Matten for Tyre, and Merbalus for Arvad.

At the Battle of Artemisium, the Phœnician ships fought the Greek triremes to a standstill. At Salamis, later that same year, the Phœnician contingent formed the core of the Persian line.

Salamis: The Greek Account and the Phœnician Reality

The Greek account, preserved by Herodotus (8.83–96), is a masterpiece of propaganda. The Phœnician ships fought with great valour and skill. They were the first to engage the Greek line, and they sustained the heaviest losses. When the battle turned, it was not because of cowardice but because the Persian command structure was chaotic.

Herodotus (8.90) records what happened next:

"The Phœnicians were the first to break and flee. When Xerxes saw them fleeing, he blamed the Phœnicians for the loss of the battle, and he had some of their captains beheaded."

The Great King, enraged by defeat, executed his own admirals. The Phœnicians, who had sailed to Greece at his command, who had fought with courage against the Greek triremes, were made the scapegoats for a defeat that was not of their making. Salamis is a Greek victory. But the ships that the Greeks sank were Phœnician, and the blood that stained the water was Phœnician blood.

Correction of the Greek Account of Xerxes' Return

A further detail, recorded by Herodotus (8.118), illustrates the Greek habit of ridiculing Phœnician seamanship even as they borrowed it. Herodotus tells a story that after the Battle of Salamis, Xerxes fled by ship, and when the ship was in danger of sinking, the Phœnician crew advised the king to throw the passengers overboard to lighten the vessel — at which Xerxes bowed to the Phœnician captain but declared that he could not sacrifice his own men, and ordered the captain thrown overboard instead.

Gad Yaton: This story is self-evidently a fabrication. It is designed to portray the Phœnicians as treacherous and the Persian king as both cruel and just. It has no independent confirmation and contradicts the known practice of Phœnician seamanship, which valued the safety of the ship and crew above all else. The story is Greek slander, passed off as history. I do not credit it.

The Golden Age of Sidon

In the aftermath of the Persian Wars, Sidon emerged as the pre-eminent Phœnician city. The Eshmunazar sarcophagus, the longest Phœnician inscription ever found in Lebanon, records the achievements of King Eshmunazar II and the Persian king's reward for Sidonian loyalty:

"The Lord of Kings gave us Dor and Joppa, the mighty lands of Dagon, which are in the plain of Sharon, in accordance with the important deeds that we did. And we added them to the borders of the land, that they would belong to Sidon forever."

The temple of Eshmun, built by Eshmunazar II and his successors, still stands in the hills above Sidon. Its remains are among the finest surviving examples of Phœnician sacred architecture.

The Rebellion of Sidon

The golden age could not last. In the mid-fourth century BCE, Sidon, led by its king Tennes, rebelled against Persian rule. Artaxerxes III marched west with a large army and besieged Sidon. The Sidonians, despairing of mercy, set fire to their own city. Diodorus Siculus (16.45) writes that more than forty thousand perished in the flames — a figure likely exaggerated, but the destruction is confirmed by archaeology. The city was eventually rebuilt, but it never recovered its former glory.

The Eve of Alexander

In 336 BCE, a young Macedonian king crossed the Hellespont with an army of forty thousand men. Alexander, the son of Philip, would conquer the entire Persian Empire. And in 332 BCE, he would arrive at the gates of Tyre.

Sources for Chapter X: Herodotus, Histories 7.89, 8.83–96, 8.90, 8.118; Eshmunazar sarcophagus (KAI 14), Musée du Louvre; Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 16.41–45; Josephus, Against Apion I.156–159; A.T. Olmstead, History of the Persian Empire (1948); Josette Elayi, The History of Phoenicia (2013); H. Jacob Katzenstein, The History of Tyre (1973); María Eugenia Aubet, The Phoenicians and the West (2nd ed., 2001).