WORSHIP OF ASTARTE AND TANATH.

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Punic epigraphy.* The document was found near the ruins of the temple of Baal, the plan of which has been satisfactorily. made out. It was situated on the northern slope of the Byrsa, at the extremity of the street of Moloch (Vicus Saturni), which led up to it from the Forum. Its form was circular, with an extreme diameter of 200 feet. Four concentric rings, each composed of twelve detached piers, supported doubtless a dome-shaped roof, and formed three galleries around a circular chamber twenty-. nine feet in diameter.† The temple was undoubtedly the chief sanctuary of Carthage. That it was the depository of archives and other important documents, we learn from the celebrated Voyage of Hanno round the north-west coast of Africa, the title of which expressly states that it was dedicated in the temple of Cronus. Magnificent accounts are given of the wealth deposited in this and the other Carthaginian temples. The Punic element in Roman Carthage was strong enough to revive the horrible rites of Baal; and in spite of imperial edicts, Tertullian tells us that infants were publicly sacrificed to Saturn till the proconsulship of Tiberius, who crucified the priests on the same trees under the shadow of which they had perpetrated their crimes. We learn from this allusion that the rites of Baal were practised at Carthage, as in Syria, in dense groves around his temple, the gloom of which increased the sense of mystic horror, and veiled them from the outer world. The same cruelties were still perpetrated under their shades, in spite of the example just recorded, till, at a time when Paganism was making a last convulsive effort to regain its power, the Council of Carthage petitioned the emperors Arcadius and Honorius, that the relics of idolatry, not only in the form of images, but in all places, groves, and trees whatsoever, might be utterly destroyed (A.D. 399).

The second in rank of the Phoenician deities was Ashtoreth, or "Astarte, queen of heaven, with crescent horns," the impersonation of the Moon, as Baal was of the Sun. Like him, she was identified, in her different attributes, with various Greek and Roman divinities: with Juno, as the supreme goddess; with Mi

* He gives a translation, with the frank acknowledgment that many points are of doubtful interpretation, in Carthage and her Remains, pp. 296, 297.

A passing allusion may suffice for the reference which Dr. Davis traces in this plan to the astronomical character of the worship of Baal (whom the Greeks identified with Cronus, the god of time); the circular form indicating the year (the Roman annus, a ring), the four rings of piers the four seasons, the twelve piers in each the months, and their total number (12 × 4 48) the weeks in the lunar year. This title is applied to the goddess by Jeremiah, vii. 18.

nerva, as the patroness of the arts; with Ceres, as the bounteous giver of the fruits of the earth; and, in the gross Oriental development of the like idea, with the Venus, misnamed heavenly, whose worship we have already seen marking the track of Phoenician colonization. From being regarded as the source of every earthly blessing the character in which her name appears upon the Punic inscriptions-her service soon degenerated into those unutterable abominations which the Fathers, especially of the African Church, describe as coming under their own notice. The transport of her worship from Phoenicia to Carthage is supposed to be alluded to in the legend of Dido, who is even called by the name of Astroarché.

Another goddess, bearing some resemblance to Astarte in her attributes, is frequently mentioned on the Punic votive tablets. Her name, Tanath,* seems to connect her with the Persian and Armenian goddess Tanaïs. Nor is it surprising that such a deity should be honoured at Carthage, if we accept the tradition, which was derived by Sallust from the Punic records, that the Phoenician colonists found an Asiatic population already settled in North Africa. Her worship would be easily adopted by the new settlers, from her resemblance to their own Astarte, and as a politic concession to the natives. How popular it became is proved by the occurrence of her name on the majority of the votive tablets that have been discovered at Carthage.

The third name, frequently associated with these, is that of Ashmon, the Asclepius or Esculapius of the Greeks and Romans. In the fragment of the pseudo-Sanchuniathon, he is made the son of Sydyc (the Just), the grandson of Cronus and Astarte, and the eighth brother of the seven Cabiri, to whom was committed the custody of the sacred books and mysteries. The attributes which he had in common with Esculapius, as the Healer, appear to have formed but one aspect of his wider character as the protector and defence of men; and it was in that character that his temple formed the stronghold and citadel of Carthage. It may be doubted whether it was so from the beginning, and whether his worship was not first introduced, or at least brought into prominence, at the time of some great national calamity.

* The name seems to be preserved in that of Tunis, a city sacred to her, as Sicca Venerea was to the same goddess under her Roman appellation. The name of the goddess may perhaps also be traced in that of the river Tanaïs, and her worship in the rites of the Tauric Artemis in the Crimea. She has also been identified with the Artemis Anaïtis of the Lydians.

This tradition will be presently noticed more particularly.

MELCARTH, THE TYRIAN HERCULES.

385

The votive tablets discovered at Carthage prove that the aid of Ashmon was invoked in seasons of personal and family danger, and it is interesting to find among his devotees some of the greatest names in Carthaginian history-though we cannot identify the individuals who dedicated the tablets-Hanno, the son of Akbar, and a son of Hannibal. His temple, the site of which has already claimed our notice, was rebuilt when Carthage was repeopled by Augustus, and became one of the chief ornaments of the Roman city.

To these divinities must be added Melcareth or Melcarth, the tutelary deity of Carthage, as of the mother city.* Like Ashmon, he has on the votive inscriptions a rank secondary to that of Baal and Astarte; and the exploits ascribed to him by the Phonician traditions are those of an adventurous demigod and benefactor to mankind, like Hercules, with whom he was identified by the Greeks. Melcarth was the inventor of the Tyrian purple, by seeing the stain on the mouth of a dog that had fed on the shellfish which yield the colour. He too was the great navigator, who first tempted the dangers of the Atlantic, and brought home tin from the Cassiterides. His chief seat was at Tyre, and his worship was the connecting link between that great metropolis and all her colonies. We read of victorious Carthaginian generals sending the tithe of their booty to the temple of Hercules at Tyre; and we have evidence of the piety with which the relation was acknowledged, in the aid sent by Carthage to Tyre during the siege by Nebuchadnezzar, and in her reception of the fugitives from the mother city on the eve of its capture by Alexander. In that renowned temple Herodotus saw two pillars, the one of the purest gold, the other of a stone resembling emerald, which emitted an extraordinary brilliancy in the night.† Second only to this in fame and splendour, was his temple at Gades, where the demigod was said to have been buried. In the latter temple there was certainly no statue, nor is there distinct mention of one at Tyre. At Carthage we read of the priest of Melcarth,

* This character is indicated by his name, according to the commonly-accepted etymology of Bochart, Melech-Cartha, i. e. King of the City. Dr. Davis prefers Melech-Ereth, i. e. King of Earth or the Land, marking his power as complementary to that of Baal and Astarte, the king and queen of heaven, and also designating him as lord of the Phoenician fatherland. The same writer regards the Phoenician religion as based on the conception of a tripartite deity, represented by the sun, moon, and stars (the emblem of the triangle, ▲, occurs on Punic bas-reliefs), with Melcarth uniting them all. Some of the classical writers confound this deity with Moloch.

Herod. ii. 44.

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clothed in all the pomp of an embroidered purple robe, garlands. and a crown of gold, ministering with bare feet and shaven head, and preserving the sacred fire which had been transported from the mother city. But we have no mention of a temple of the god; for the whole city appears to have been regarded as his temple. It seems, indeed, to have been long before the Phoenicians admitted visible forms of any of their deities. The name of this divinity is preserved in that of Hamilcar. None of the other Punic deities are important enough to demand a separate notice. Hero-worship seems to have been practised at Carthage, for a tablet has been found with the inscription “BaalHanno."

The votive and other tablets so often referred to present an important collection of materials for the study of the Phoenician language. Besides those discovered in the strictly Punic ruins, many have been preserved by the use of the materials of the ancient city in the Roman edifices. No less than a hundred were disinterred by Dr. Davis, who also purchased for our government a large collection of Punic, Numidian, and Libyan inscriptions found in the interior. Other Phoenician inscriptions are scattered through the museums of Europe. Several of these are bi-lingual, in Punic and Latin, at once confirming the statements of the African fathers, that the Carthaginian was still a living language under the Roman empire, and holding out the prospect of the complete deciphering of the inscriptions. The successful efforts already made show what results may be obtained from sources apparently trivial. The Roman comedian Plautus, who flourished at the time of the Second Punic War, wrote a play entitled Panulus. A Carthaginian, Hanno, is made to speak in an unintelligible dialect, which was assumed to be a mere gibberish, like that put by Aristophanes into the mouth of the Persian ambassador at Athens. The great Scaliger, guided by the testimony of Augustin and Jerome to the resemblance of Punic and Hebrew, conjectured that this unknown tongue was nothing else than Punic, a view confirmed by later Hebrew scholars. That their interpretations of the passage are but partly satisfactory is not wonderful, when we consider the chances against the purity of Plautus's Punic. With the help of bi-lingual inscriptions, and the proper names on the Phoenician coins, the alphabet has not only been deciphered, but proved to be identical with the Hebrew alphabet

* The name is that of Melcarth, with the definite article prefixed, which Gesenius interprets as the [gift] of Melcarth.

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THE STORY OF DIDO.

387

in its most ancient form. "We are now," says Dr. Davis, "in a position, with the assistance of a moderate knowledge of Hebrew and the other cognate languages, to translate, and that with a great degree of certainty, any Phoenician inscription. The real difficulties still encountered consist in the similarity of letters, and in the various forms of the same letter, as well as in the nonseparation of words, which was a universal practice in composition among the Carthaginians and among the Phoenicians in Asia."*

Such are the materials we now possess for a knowledge of the city and people that almost succeeded in crushing Rome. It remains to review the course of their history down to the commencement of the great conflict in which, as Livy says, the victors were the nearer to destruction. The slender remnants of the native Phoenician records, preserved by Josephus and Justin, are insufficient to dispel the mythical obscurity in which the genius of Virgil has shrouded the origin of Carthage. Indeed the story so familiar to the readers of the Eneid is, in its main points, but an amplification of the Phoenician traditions.† The outlines of the wellknown story need only be glanced at. In the course of the long confusion which followed the brilliant reign of Hiram at Tyre, a sacerdotal dynasty of kings was founded by Ethbaal, the father of Jezebel. His grandson, who is variously called Belus or Agenor or Mutgo, left a son and daughter, Pygmalion and Dido, or Elissa. § Dido was married to her uncle Acerbas or Sichæus, a priest of Melcarth, whom Pygmalion murdered for the sake of his enormous wealth. But the king's crime was in vain, for Dido escaped with the treasures, and was accompanied in her flight by several malcontents belonging to noble Tyrian families. After touching at Cyprus, where eighty maidens were carried off, to provide her followers with wives, her fleet sailed to the gulf so often referred to on the coast of Africa, where the citadel called Byrsa was built on the ground purchased from the outwitted natives. The new colony was rapidly increased by the addition of settlers from Utica and

* A collection of ninety Punic inscriptions has been published by the Trustees of the British Museum, under the editorship of Mr. Vaux. The inscriptions have been first transcribed into the Hebrew character, and then translated into Latin.

It seems not unreasonable to suppose that Virgil would have some means of becoming acquainted with those Punic books, of which we have already seen that Sallust made use. See p. 347.

§ This is no doubt her genuine Phoenician name, being one of the numerous proper names derived from El (God). It is used three or four times by Virgil, and is adopted by Pope in the line

"Eliza, stretch'd upon the funeral pyre."