(Demothenes, Strabo, Pausanias); a country of Greece, contained between Boeotia to the east and Locris to the west, but extending formerly from the Sinus Corinthiacus on the south to the sea of Euboea on the north, and, according to Dionysius, as far as Thermopylae; but reduced afterwards to narrower bounds. Phoenifer, the people; Phocius, the epithet. (Justin); Bellum Phocium, the sacred war which the Thebans and Philip of Macedon carried on against them for plundering the temple at Delphi; and by which Philip paved the way to the sovereignty of all Greece, (Justin.) Its greatest length was from north to south, that is, from $38^\circ 45'$ to $39^\circ 20'$, or about 35 miles; but very narrow from east to west, not extending to 30 miles, that is, from $23^\circ 10'$ to $23^\circ 40'$ at the widest, but about 23 miles towards the Corinthian bay, and much narrower still towards the north. This country is generally allowed to have taken its name from Phocus the son of Ornytion, a native of Corinth; but having been soon after invaded by the Eginetæ, under the conduct of another Phocus, who was the son of Eacus king of Enopia, the memory of the first infensibly gave way to that of the second.

In Phocis there were many celebrated mountains, such as Cythæron, Helicon, and Parnassus. The last two we have already noticed in the order of the alphabet. Cythæron was consecrated to the muses as well as the other two, and was consequently much celebrated by the poets. Both it and Helicon contend with mount Parnassus for height and magnitude. There were no remarkable rivers in Phocis except Cephalus, which runs from the foot of Parnassus northward, and empties itself in the Findus, which was near the boundary of that kingdom. It had several very considerable cities; such as Cyrra, Crissa, and Anticyra, which, according to Ptolemy, were on the sea coasts; and Pythia, Delphi, Daulis, Elatia, Ergothenia, and Baulia, which were inland towns. Elatia was the largest and richest after Delphi.

Deucalion was king of that part of Phocis which lies about Parnassus, at the time that the Cecrops flourished in Attica; but the Phocians afterwards formed themselves into a commonwealth, to be governed by their general assemblies, the members of which were chosen from among themselves, and were changed as often as occasion required. Of the history of the Phocians but little is known till the time of the holy war, of which we have the following account in the Ancient Universal History.

The Phocians having presumed to plough the territories of the city of Cyrra, consecrated to the Delphic god, were summoned by the other Grecian states before the court of the Amphictyons, where a considerable fine was imposed upon them for their sacrilege. They refused to pay it, on pretence that it was too large; and at the next assembly their dominions were adjudged confiscated to the use of the temple. This second sentence exasperated the Phocians still more; who, at the instigation of one Philomelus, or, as he is called by Plutarch, Philomedes, seized upon the temple, plundered it of its treasure, and held the sacred depositum for a considerable time. This second crime occasioned another assembly of the Amphictyons, the result of which was a formal declaration of war against the Phocians. The quarrel being become more general, the several states took part in it according to their inclinations or interest. Athens, Sparta, and some others of the Peloponnesians, declared for the Phocians; and the Thebans, Thessalians, Locrians, and other neighbouring states, against them. A war was commenced with great fury on both sides, and styled the holy war, which lasted ten years; during which the Phocians, having hired a number of foreign troops, made an obstinate defence, and would in all probability have held out much longer had not Philip of Macedon given the finishing stroke to their total defeat and punishment. The war being ended, the grand council assembled again, and imposed an annual fine of 60 talents upon the Phocians, to be paid to the temple, and continued till they had fully repaired the damage it had sustained from them; and, till this reparation should be made, they were excluded from dwelling in walled towns, and from having any vote in the grand assembly. They did not, however, continue long under this heavy sentence: their known bravery made their assistance so necessary to the rest, that they were glad to remit it; after which remission they continued to behave with their usual courage and resolution, and soon obliterated their former guilt.

We cannot finish this article without mentioning more particularly Daulis, rendered famous, not so much for its extent or richness, as for the stature and prowess of its inhabitants; but still more for the inhuman repast which was served up to Tereus king of Thrace by the women of this city, by whom he was soon after murdered for the double injury he had done to his sister-in-law Philomela, daughter of Pandion king of Athens. See PHILOMELA.

PHŒBUS, one of the names given by ancient mythologists to the Sun, Sol, or Apollo. See APOLLO.

PHŒNICIA, or more properly PHŒNICÆ, the ancient name of a country lying between the 34th and 36th degrees of north latitude; bounded by Syria on the north and east, by Judæa on the south, and by the Mediterranean on the west. Whence it borrowed its name is not absolutely certain. Some derive it from one Phoenix; others from the Greek word phoenix, signifying a palm or date, as that tree remarkably abounded in this country. Some again suppose that Phœnec is originally a translation of the Hebrew word Edom, from the Edomites who fled thither in the days of David. By the contraction of Canaan it was also called... Phoenicia, called Chna, and anciently Rhabbothin and Colpis (A). The Jews commonly named it Canaan; though some part of it, at least, they knew by the name of Syrophoenice (B). Bochart tells us that the most probable etymology is Phene Anak, i.e., "the descendants of Anak." Such were the names peculiar to this small country; though Phoenice was sometimes extended to all the maritime countries of Syria and Judaea, and Canaan to the Philistines, and even to the Amalekites. On the contrary, these two names, and the rest, were most generally swallowed up by those of Palestine and Syria (C).

There is some disagreement among authors with respect to the northern limits of this country. Ptolemy makes the river Eleutherus the boundary of Phoenice to the north; but Pliny, Mela, and Stephanus, place it in the island of Aradus, lying north of that river. Strabo observes, that some will have the river Eleutherus to be the boundary of Seleucis, on the side of Phoenice and Coele-syria. On the coast of Phoenice, and south of the river Eleutherus, stood the following cities: Simyrna, Orthosia, Tripolis, Botrys, Byblus, Palaebyblus, Berytus, Sidon, Sarepta, Tyrus, Palae-tyrus.

Phoenice extended, according to Ptolemy, even beyond mount Carmelus; for that geographer places in Phoenice not only Ecdippa and Ptolemais, but Sycaminum and Dera, which stand south of that mountain. These, however, properly speaking, belonged to Palestine. We will not take upon us to mark out the bounds of the midland Phoenice. Ptolemy reckons in it the following towns: Arca, Palaebyblus (Old Byblus), Gabala, and Caeseria Paneae. This province was considerably extended in the times of Christianity; when, being considered as a province of Syria, it included not only Damascus but Palmyra also.

The soil of this country is good, and productive of many necessaries for food and clothing. The air is wholesome, and the climate agreeable. It is plentifully watered by small rivers; which, running down from mount Libanus, sometimes swell to an immoderate degree, either increased by the melting of the snows on that mountain, or by heavy rains. Upon these occasions they overflow, to the great danger and hinderance of the traveller and damage of the country. Among these rivers is that of Adonis.

It is universally allowed that the Phoenicians were Canaanites (D) by descent; nothing is plainer or less contested, and therefore it were time lost to prove it. Phoenicia. We shall only add, that their blood must have been mixed with that of foreigners in process of time, as it happens in all trading places; and that many strange families must have settled among them, who could consequently lay no claim to this remote origin, how muchsoever they may have been called Phoenicians, and reckoned of the same descent with the ancient proprietors.

The Phoenicians were governed by kings; and their territory, as small as it was, included several kingdoms; namely, those of Sidon, Tyre, Aradus, Berytus, and Byblus. In this particular they imitated and adhered to the primitive government of their forefathers; who, like the other Canaanites, were under many petty princes, to whom they allowed the sovereign dignity, referring to themselves the natural rights and liberties of mankind. Of their civil laws we have no particular system.

With regard to religion, the Phoenicians were the most gross and abominable idolaters. The Baal-berith, Baalzebub, Baalsamen, &c. mentioned in Scripture, were some of the Phoenician gods; as were also the Moloch, Ashtaroth, and Thammuz, mentioned in the sacred writings.—The word Baal, in itself an appellative, was no doubt applied to the true God, until he rejected it on account of its being so much profaned by the idolaters. The name was not appropriated to any particular deity among the idolatrous nations, but was common to many; however, it was generally imagined that one great God presided over all the rest. Among the Phoenicians this deity was named Baal-samen; whom the Hebrews would have called Baal-schemim, or the God of heaven. In all probability this was also the principal Carthaginian deity, though his Punic name is unknown. We have many religious rites of the Carthaginians handed down to us by the Greek and Roman writers; but they all bestowed names of their own gods upon those of the Carthaginians, which leads us to a knowledge of the correspondence between the characters of the Phoenician and European deities. The principal deity of Carthage, according to Diodorus Siculus, was Chronus or Saturn. The sacrifices offered up to him were children of the best families. Our author also tells us, that the Carthaginians had a brazen statue or colossus of this god, the hands of which were extended in act to receive, and bent downwards in such a manner, that the child laid thereon.

(A) This last name is a translation of the first. Rabbotsen is in Hebrew a great gulph or bay. From rabbotsen, by changing the Hebrew t into the Greek t, comes rabboten; and, with a little variation, rabbothin. Koar, colpos, is Greek also for a bay or gulph; whence it appears that colpis or colpites is a translation of rabbothin.

(B) Bochart supposes that the borderers, both upon the Phoenician and Syrian side, were called by the common name of Syrophoenicians, as partaking equally of both nations.

(C) Or rather Phoenice, Palestine, and Syria, were promiscuously used for each other, and particularly the two former. Phoenice and Palestine, says Stephanus Byzantinus, were the same. As for Syria, we have already observed, that in its largest extent it sometimes comprehended Phoenice and Coele-syria. Herodotus plainly confounds these three names; we mean, uses one for the other indifferently.

(D) Bochart insinuates that the Canaanites were ashamed of their name, on account of the curse denounced on their progenitor, and terrified by the wars so vigorously and successfully waged on them by the Israelites, purely because they were Canaanites; and that therefore, to avoid the ignominy of the one and the danger of the other, they abjured their old name, and changed it for Phoenicians, Syrians, Syrophoenicians, and Assyrians. Heidegger conjectures also that they were ashamed of their ancestor Canaan. Phoenicia, thereon immediately fell down into a hollow where there was a fiery furnace. He adds also, that this inhuman practice seemed to confirm a tradition, handed down to the Greeks from very early antiquity, viz. that Saturn devoured his own children.

The goddess Caelis, or Urania, was held in the highest veneration by the Carthaginians. She is thought to have been the same with the queen of heaven mentioned in Jeremiah, the Juno Olympia of the Greeks. According to Hesychius, the same word applied in the Punic language both to Juno and Venus: Nay, the ancient Greeks frequently confound Juno, Venus, and Diana or the moon, all together; which is to be attributed to the Egyptians and Phoenicians, from whom they received their system of religion; who seem in the most ancient times to have had but one name for them all. Besides these there were several other deities of later date, who were worshipped among the Phoenicians, particularly those of Tyre, and consequently among the Carthaginians also. These were Jupiter, Apollo, Mars, and Bacchus. Jupiter was worshipped under the name of Belus or Baal. To him they addressed their oaths; and placed him for the most part, as there is reason to believe, at the head of their treaties. The same name was also given to the other two, whence they were frequently mistaken for one another. Apollo or the sun went either by this name simply, or by others of which this made a part.

The Carthaginian superstition, however, was not confined to these deities alone. They worshipped also the fire, air, and other elements; and had gods of rivers, meads, &c. Nay, they paid divine honours to the spirits of their heroes, and even to men and women themselves while yet in life; and in this adoration Hannibal the Great had for some time a share, notwithstanding the infamous conduct of his countrymen towards him at last. In order to worship these gods with more conveniency on all occasions, the Carthaginians had a kind of portable temples. These were only covered chariots, in which were some small images representing their favourite deities; and which were drawn by oxen. They were also a kind of oracle; and their responses were understood by the motion impressed upon the vehicle. This was likewise an Egyptian or Libyan custom; and Tacitus informs us that the ancient Germans had something of the same kind. The tabernacle of Moloch is thought to have been a machine of this kind; and it is not improbable that the whole was derived from the tabernacle of the Jews in the wilderness.

Besides all the deities above-mentioned, we still find another, named the Demon or Genius of Carthage, mentioned in the treaty made by Philip of Macedon and Hannibal. What this deity might be, we know not; however, it may be observed, that the pagan world in general believed in the existence of demons, or intelligences who had a kind of middle nature between gods and men, and to whom the administration of the world was in a great measure committed. Hence it is no wonder that they should have received religious honours. For when once mankind were possessed with the opinion that they were the ministers of the gods, and trusted with the dispensation of their favours, as well as the infliction of their punishments, it is natural to suppose that they would be desirous of making their addresses to them. See Astarte and Polytheism.

Herodotus supposes the Phoenicians to have been circumcised; but Josephus affirms, that none of the nations included under the vague name of Palestine and Syria used that rite, the Jews excepted; so that if the Phoenicians had anciently that custom, they came in time to neglect it, and at length wholly laid it aside. They abstained however from the flesh of swine.

Much is said of their arts, sciences, and manufactures; but as what we find concerning them is couched in general terms only, we cannot descant on particulars. The Sidonians, under which denomination we comprehend the Phoenicians in general, were of a most happy genius. They were from the beginning addicted to philosophical exercises of the mind; insomuch that a Sidonian, by name Mocthus, taught the doctrine of atoms before the Trojan war; and Abomenus of Tyre puzzled Solomon by the subtlety of his questions. Phoenice continued to be one of the seats of learning, and both Tyre and Sidon produced their philosophers of later ages; namely, Boethus and Diodatus of Sidon, Antipater of Tyre, and Appollonius of the same place; who gave an account of the writings and disciples of Zeno. For their language, see Philology, p. 61. As to their manufactures, the glass of Sidon, the purple of Tyre, and the exceeding fine linen they wove, were the product of their own country, and their own invention; and for their extraordinary skill in working metals, in hewing timber and stone; in a word, for their perfect knowledge of what was solid, great, and ornamental in architecture—we need only put the reader in mind of the large share they had in erecting and decorating the temple at Jerusalem under their king Hiram. Their fame for taste, design, and ingenious invention, was such, that whatever was elegant, great, or pleasing, whether in apparel, vessels, or toys, was distinguished by way of excellence with the epithet of Sidonian.

The Phoenicians were likewise celebrated as merchants, navigators, and planters of colonies in foreign parts. As merchants, they may be said to have engrossed all the commerce of the western world: as navigators, they were the boldest, the most experienced, and greatest discoverers, of the ancient times: they had for many ages no rivals. In planting colonies they exerted themselves so much, that, considering their habitation was little more than the slip of ground between mount Libanus and the sea, it is surprising how they could furnish such supplies of people, and not wholly depopulate their native country.

It is generally supposed that the Phoenicians were induced to deal in foreign commodities by their neighbourhood with the Syrians, who were perhaps the most ancient of those who carried on a considerable and regular trade with the more eastern regions: and this conjecture appears probable at least; for their own territory was but small, and little able to afford any considerable exports, if we except manufactures: but that their manufactures were always considerable till they began to turn all the channels of trade into their own country, it is hard to believe. In Syria, which was a large country, they found store of productions of the natural growth of that soil, and many choice and useful commodities brought from the east. Thus, having Phoenicia, a safe coast, with convenient harbours, on one side, and excellent materials for ship-building on the other; perceiving how acceptable many commodities that Syria furnished would be in foreign parts, and being at the same time, perhaps, shown the way by the Syrians themselves, who may have navigated the Mediterranean—they turned all their thoughts to trade and navigation, and by an uncommon application soon eclipsed their masters in that art.

It were in vain to talk of the Edomites, who fled hither in David's time; or to inquire why Herodotus supposes the Phoenicians came from the Red Sea: their origin we have already seen. That some of the Edomites fled into this country in the days of David, and that they were a trading people, is very evident: what improvements they brought with them into Phoenice, it is hard to say; and by the way, it is as difficult to ascertain their numbers. In all probability they brought with them a knowledge of the Red Sea, and of the south parts of Arabia, Egypt, and Ethiopia; and by their information made the Phoenicians acquainted with those coasts; by which means they were enabled to undertake voyages to those parts, for Solomon, and Pharaoh Necho, king of Egypt.

Their whole thoughts were employed on schemes to advance their commerce. They affected no commerce but that of the sea; and seemed to aim at nothing but the peaceful enjoyment of their trade. They extended to all the known parts they could reach; to the British isles, commonly understood by the Cassiterides; to Spain, and other places in the ocean, both within and without the Straits of Gibraltar; and, in general, to all the ports of the Mediterranean, the Black Sea, and the Lake Maeotis. In all these parts they had settlements and correspondents, from which they drew what was useful to themselves, or might be so to others; and thus they exercised the three great branches of trade, as it is commonly divided into importation, exportation, and transportation, in full latitude. Such was their sea-trade; and for that which they carried on by land in Syria, Mesopotamia, Assyria, Babylonia, Persia, Arabia, and even in India, it was of no less extent, and may give us an idea of what this people once was, how rich and how deservedly their merchants are mentioned in Scripture as equal to princes. Their country was, at that time, the great warehouse, where every thing that might either administer to the necessities or luxury of mankind was to be found; which they distributed as they judged would be best for their own interest. The purple of Tyre, the glass of Sidon, and the exceeding fine linen made in this country, together with other curious pieces of art in metals and wood, already mentioned, appear to have been the chief and almost only commodities of Phoenice itself. Indeed their territory was so small, that it is not to be imagined they could afford to export any of their own growth; it is more likely that they rather wanted than abounded with the fruits of the earth.

Having thus spoken in general terms of their trade, we shall now touch upon their shipping and some things remarkable in their navigation. Their larger embarkations were of two sorts; they divided them into round ships or gauli; and long ships, galley, or triremes. When they drew up in line of battle, the gauli were disposed at a small distance from each other in the wings, or in the van and the rear: their triremes were contracted together in the centre. If, at any time, they observed that a stranger kept them company in their voyage, or followed in their track, they were sure to get rid of him if they could, or deceive him if possible; in which policy they went so far, as to venture the loss of their ships, and even their lives; so jealous were they of foreigners, and so tenaciously bent on keeping the whole trade to themselves. In order to discourage other nations from engaging in commerce, they practised piracy, or pretended to be at war with such as they met when they thought themselves strongest. This was but a natural stroke of policy in people who grasped at the whole commerce of the then known world. We must not forget here the famous fishery of Tyre, which so remarkably enriched that city in particular. See Astronomy, n°7, Ophir, and Tyre.