Kingdoms of the Levant - Phoenician Colonies

By about 2000 BC those city states were appearing, following the arrival across the previous millennium of Semitic-speaking groups from the south to intermix into this farming culture and re-energise it. The resultant Canaanite people became the Phoenicians of the first millennium BC.

They were those Canaanites who still occupied the Mediterranean coastal strip following the climate-induced social collapse of around 1200 BC. Hittites and Egyptians who had previously vied for dominance in the Levant were less fortunate. Both civilisations collapsed, and only Egypt was able to reform, albeit in a generally weakened format.

The Phoenicians flourished though, and seemingly from an early stage during the short dark age which followed the collapse. As that gradually faded, city states were able to re-emerge, often under very different guises.

Phoenicians traded, explored, found new resources and markets, and quickly prospered. They went on to create a network of trading posts across the Mediterranean, both in Europe and Africa. They also progressed into the Black Sea and may potentially have reached Britain via the Straits of Gibraltar (primarily for its tin resources). Many of their seasonal trading posts gradually turned into permanent settlements and then port cities, a maritime trading empire.

After reaching a zenith of exploration and settlement in the ninth century BC, Phoenician civilisation in the eastern Mediterranean slowly declined in the face of foreign influence and imperial conquest. Its colonies though continued to thrive, often within loose alliances with their sister colonies or as part of the growing influence and reach of Carthage, the greatest of the colonies.

The first textual account of the Phoenicians during the Iron Age comes from Assyria's Tiglath-Pileser I, who recorded his campaign against them between 1114-1076 BC. Seeking access to high quality Phoenician cedar wood, he describes his act of exacting tribute from the leading cities at the time, Gebal and Sidon.

The Twenty-First dynasty Egyptian priest, Wenamun, describes his efforts to procure cedar wood for a religious temple which was constructed between 1075-1060 BC. His account appears somewhat to contradict the bluster of Tiglath-Pileser I, describing Gebal and Sidon as impressive and powerful coastal cities. Perhaps they paid off the Assyrian king in return for a quiet life, but their cities hardly appeared war-ravaged.

Nevertheless, during the period of increasingly antagonistic Assyrian domination and certainly during the Persian era, many Phoenicians left to settle elsewhere in the Mediterranean, particularly farther west.

Carthage was a popular destination as, by this point, it was an established and prosperous empire which spanned north-west Africa, areas of Iberia where they had several coastal colonies and a degree of internal control over some of the Iberian tribes, and also areas of the Italian coastline.

Indeed, the mainland Phoenicians continued to exhibit an air of protectionism over their former colony-turned-empire, with Tyre going so far as to defy an order by Cambyses II to sail against them. Herodotus claims this prevented the Persians from capturing Carthage.

The Tyrians escaped direct punishment because they had peacefully acceded to Persian rule and were relied upon to sustain Persian naval power. Even so, the city's privileged status was transferred to its principal rival, Sidon.

Unlike the Phoenicians - and for that matter their former Persian rulers - when the Greeks took over under Alexander the Great they were notably indifferent to foreign cultures, if not hostile. Alexander's empire had a policy of Hellenisation in which Greek culture, religion, and sometimes language were spread or imposed across conquered peoples. The Phoenicians got off rather lightly in the face of this practice, with no apparent organised effort being made against them.

As for their former colonies, these endured as trading city states, initially under the command of transplanted Phoenicians and their descendants, later under Greek or Roman control until the entire Mediterranean was a Roman sea (and see feature link for a complete list of colonies).

Near East Kingdoms

Ancient Levantine States

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