Hellenistic Phoenicia

The Phoenicians have long been known for their trading, colonizing, and seafaring skills, but their history has too often seemed to stop short at the time of Alexander the Great. Alexander’s destruction of the city of Tyre, however, only marked a new stage in Phoenician history, not its end. During the next three centuries this numerically small people had to live in a violent world dominated by Greeks and Macedonians. Their cities were destroyed, their land was reduced in size, and then divided up among mutually hostile kings. Yet they survived and enjoyed long periods of peace in which they evidently prospered. This is the first full account of Hellenistic Phoenicia. Within the basic chronological framework of their political history, the study pursues the themes of trade and economic history and the Hellenization of the Phoenicians’ culture. The adaptation of the Phoenicians to life in the Hellenistic world shows a number of features common to that world as a whole, but also some which are distinctive to the Phoenicians themselves. A final chapter considers the changes in their role in the world outside their homeland.