The middle class consisted of farmers, merchants, class people, and fisherman. The lowest class consisted of slaves and servants. Ancient Phoenicia was governed by kings. However, merchants were more powerful than kings most of the time because merchants had more money than most kings and because they made more public affairs.
The reason why merchants had more money was because the merchants were the ones that actually traveled and traded with other countries. Map of Ancient Phoenician Empire. The royal houses chose the king, and non-royal people could not vote. What was the Phoenician government like?
December 12, Off By idswater. Table of Contents. Category Other. These coastal cities were hemmed in on the inland side by the Lebanon Mountains. Roman ruins on the site of Carthage, Tunis, Tunisia The only obvious opportunity for expansion and economic gain was by sea; and over the centuries the Phoenician trading posts and colonies spread west across the Mediterranean. The largest and most prosperous of all the Phoenician-founded city-states was Carthage in present-day Tunisia.
At its zenith, Carthage nearly conquered its greatest rival: The Roman Republic. The Minoans on Crete had blocked entrance into the Aegean, controlling all trade in that area, and perhaps even monopolizing trade further west. The Canaanite coastal towns were usually governed by Egypt, and one of their principal businesses was providing wood the famed cedars of Lebanon and provisions like wine to the Nile region.
Phoenician trade routes Minoan territory had been taken over by the Mycenaeans prior to BCE, and the subsequent fall of that culture during the catastrophic events at the end of the 13th century BCE removed most of the constraints on Mediterranean and Aegean trade for surviving civilizations. The Phoenicians were the most aggressive of those attempting to fill the void.
Their cities were well positioned for this enterprise, being located literally in the center of the known world. The Aegean, Mesopotamia, and Egypt were all roughly equidistant to the west, east, and south. For any of the three regions to trade with another, the easiest route was through the Phoenician city-states.
In the face of repeated assaults or heavy tribute payments, the Tyrians adopted the strategy of establishing colonies to the west.
These settlements were removed from the grasp of their Eastern overlords, helping with the exploitation of metals and trade in the western Mediterranean. Over the next years, Carthage grew rapidly in size and power.
Much of its wealth came from highly productive ore mines of Spain. Carthage fought for control of the Western Mediterranean first with the Greeks and then with the Romans. Purple Dye or Spiny Murex sea snails The early Phoenician economy was built on timber sales, woodworking, glass manufacturing, the shipping of goods like wine exports to Egypt , and the making of dye. Phoenician dyes ranging in color from a pink to a deep purple were made from the secretions of the carnivorous murex sea snail.
In Rome, this highly coveted dye was called Tyrian Purple after the Phoenician city of Tyre where it was made and it was worth quite literally more than its weight in gold. Phoenician merchants may have traded for tin as far north as Cornwall Lizard Point, Cornwall, England, UK Gradually the Phoenician city-states became centers of maritime trade and manufacturing.
Having limited natural resources, they imported raw materials and fashioned them into more valuable objects that could be shipped profitably, such as jewelry, ivory carvings discovered at sites in Mesopotamia metalwork, furniture found in tombs on Cyprus , housewares, and specialty items like painted ostrich eggs. They borrowed techniques and styles from all corners of the world that they touched as traders.
Sixty years later, a study of this beautiful work using isotopic analysis concluded that the gold came from a nearby Spanish mine; but it was also determined that the ornaments were crafted using Phoenician techniques. In a 2,year-old Phoenician wreck was discovered off the coast of Malta that had carried a shipment of grinding stones made of lava rock and scores of amphorae. We can only hope that more discoveries will be made revealing new secrets about this culture. Modern sculpture of Herodotus Born c.
The ancient Greek historian Herodotus wrote that, in bygone days, the Phoenicians taught the Greeks of Boeotia the writing system that would eventually become the Greek alphabet. He also noted that Phoenician traders brought frankincense to the Aegean; and taught the Greeks the word for an exotic spice: cinnamon. Antique engraving of Phoenician funerary monuments, Necropolis of Amrit, Syria The Phoenician religion was polytheistic, and their gods required sacrifices to forestall disaster, especially Baal, the God of Storms, and his consort Tanit.
The Bible, Roman and Greek accounts tell of child sacrifices practiced regularly by the Phoenicians, which many modern historians believed were merely an ancient form of anti-Phoenician propaganda.
Ancient Carthaginian tombstones, Tunis, Tunisia But macabre Phoenician cemeteries tophets have been unearthed containing multiple funerary urns holding the remains of infants. Gravestone bearing the sign of Tanit, ancient cemetery, Carthage, Tunisia These urns have stelae slabs bearing inscriptions praising the gods—inscriptions that some historians argue prove the children contained within had been willingly sacrificed to deities.
The veracity of child sacrifice in ancient Carthage, however, is still hotly debated amongst scholars. We might never know if the tophets contained the remains of children who died of natural causes, or the pitiful bodies of sacrificial victims. Vintage engraving of Hannibal Barca speaking to the Carthaginian Assembly Most of the information we have about Phoenician government comes from contemporary accounts of the Carthaginians. Their system can best be classified as a sort of oligarchical republic.
Two chief magistrates called suffetes were chosen by the noble families or perhaps elected by a popular vote to preside for one year over a Senate made up of the Carthaginian aristocracy. The Senate, a body that was beholden to the fundamental dictates of the constitution, was responsible for drafting new laws, handling foreign affairs and finance; and instructing appointed military leaders like the powerful Hannibal Barca who was dramatically recalled from his campaign in Italy by the Carthaginian Senate after the Romans invaded Africa.
A view of the ruins of ancient Byblos in Lebanon overlooking the Mediterranean Sea There is little archaeological evidence revealing the architecture of the Phoenicians compared to their contemporaries the Greeks or Romans because so many of their cities were destroyed in ancient times and now lie buried under modern structures.
What we do know is most Phoenician citadels were situated on coastal promontories near salt flats or lagoons. An artificial protected inner harbor called a cothon was a unique feature of many Phoenician city-states; and the most famous of these man-made harbors was built in Carthage. Phoenician cities were usually surrounded by curtain walls protecting urban areas, sanctuaries, public buildings and workshops.
For men in general think that magistrates should be chosen not only for their merit, but for their wealth: a man, they say, who is poor cannot rule wellhe has not the leisure.
If, then, election of magistrates for their wealth be characteristic of oligarchy, and election for merit of aristocracy, there will be a third form under which the constitution of Carthage is comprehended; for the Carthaginians choose their magistrates, and particularly the highest of themtheir kings and generalswith an eye both to merit and to wealth.
But we must acknowledge that, in thus deviating from aristocracy, the legislator has committed an error. Nothing is more absolutely necessary than to provide that the highest class, not only when in office, but when out of office, should have leisure and not disgrace themselves in any way; and to this his attention should be first directed. Even if you must have regard to wealth, in order to secure leisure, yet it is surely a bad thing that the greatest offices, such as those of kings and generals, should be bought.
The law which allows this abuse makes wealth of more account than virtue, and the whole state becomes avaricious. For, whenever the chiefs of the state deem anything honorable, the other citizens are sure to follow their example; and, where virtue has not the first place, their aristocracy cannot be firmly established.
Those who have been at the expense of purchasing their places will be in the habit of repaying themselves; and it is absurd to suppose that a poor and honest man will be wanting to make gains, and that a lower stamp of man who has incurred a great expense will not. Wherefore they should rule who are able to rule best.
And even if the legislator does not care to protect the good from poverty, he should at any rate secure leisure for them when in office. It would seem also to be a bad principle that the same person should hold many offices, which is a favorite practice among the Carthaginians, for one business is better done by one man. The government of the Carthaginians is oligarchical, but they successfully escape the evils of oligarchy by enriching one portion of the people after another by sending them to their colonies.
This is their panacea and the means by which they give stability to the state. Accident favors them, but the legislator should be able to provide against revolution without trusting to accidents. As things are, if any misfortune occurred, and the bulk of the subjects revolted, there would be no way of restoring peace by legal methods. Aristotle on the Carthaginian State. It is a general opinion that the Carthaginians live under a polity which is excellent and in many respects superior to all others, while there are some points in which it most resembles the Lacedaemonian.
The fact is that these three polities, the Cretan, the Lacedaemonian and the Carthaginian have a sort of family likeness and differ widely from all others, and not a few of their institutions are excellent. It may be inferred that a polity is well ordered, when the commons are ever loyal to the political system, and no civil conflict worth speaking of has arisen, nor has anyone succeeded in making himself tyrant.
The points in which the Carthaginian polity resembles the Lacedaemonian are that the common meals of the Clubs correspond to the Phiditia and the office of the Hundred-and-Four to the Ephoralty, with this advantage that the Hundred-and-Four are elected for their personal merit, whereas the Ephors are taken from any ordinary people, and lastly the Kings and Senators in the one to the Kings and Senators in the other. It is a point of superiority in the Carthaginian polity that the Kings do not belong to a separate family and this one of no particular merit, and that, although they must belong to one of certain distinguished families, they succeed to the throne by election and not by seniority.
For as the Kings are constituted the supreme authorities in important matters, the result is that, if they are worthless persons, they do serious injury and in fact have done it to the Lacedaemonian State. Of the points which may fairly be censured as deviations from the best polity nearly all are common to the three polities mentioned above; whereas those which are censurable as offending against the primary conception of an Aristocracy or a Polity which the State proposes to itself are errors partly on the side of Democracy and partly of Oligarchy.
For instance, it is within the competence of the Kings and the Senate, provided that they are unanimous, to decide whether business shall or shall not be brought before the Commons; although, if they disagree, it is necessarily referred to the Commons. On the other hand, whenever they submit business to the Commons, the popular assembly is thereby empowered not merely to listen to all the resolutions of the government, but it has authority also to pronounce judgment upon them, and anyone who chooses is at liberty to object to the proposals - which is not the case in the Lacedaemonian and Cretan polities.
So far the polity of Carthage is democratical. But there is an oligarchical element in the power of cooption enjoyed by the Pentarchies, which are boards of high and various authority, in their right of electing the Hundred who are the highest officers of State and in their tenure of official power for a longer period than any other board of officers, as their power begins before they actually enter upon office and continues after they have actually gone out of it.
The unpaid character of the Pentarchies, their appointment by other means than by lot, and other similar features of the polity may be regarded as aristocratical; so too is the rule by which all cases alike are tried by certain fixed boards of magistrates, instead of being divided among different boards as at Lacedaemon. The point in which the Carthaginian system departs most widely from Aristocracy on the side of Oligarchy is in the popular idea that wealth as well as merit deserves to be considered in the election of officers of State, as it is impossible for a poor man to enjoy the leisure necessary for the proper performance of official duties.
Assuming then that election by wealth is oligarchical and election by merit aristocratical, we may reckon as a third method the one which obtains in the constitutional system of the Carthaginians who in the election of officers of State generally and especially of the highest officers, viz. This departure from the principles of Aristocracy must be regarded as an error of the legislator.
It is a point of primary importance to provide in the first instance that the best citizens, not only during their period of office but in all their private life, may be able to enjoy leisure and be free from degrading duties.
But granting that it is right to have regard not only to merit but also to affluence as a means of securing leisure, we may still censure the arrangement by which at Carthage the highest offices of State, viz. The effect of such a law is that wealth is more highly esteemed than virtue, and the whole State is avaricious.
Whenever the ruling class regards a thing as honourable, the opinion of the citizens generally is sure to follow suit. No polity however can be permanently aristocratical where merit is not held in supreme honour. Nor is it unreasonable that people, if they pay for the privilege, should get the habit of making their official status a source of pecuniary profit, when they have been put to heavy expenses in order to hold it.
If a poor man of good character will aspire to be the gainer by his office, the same will be true, a fortiori, of one whose character stands lower, as is the case with the purchaser of official power, when he has already been put to great expense. It follows that the offices of State ought to be in the hands of the persons who are able to fill them best. But even if the legislator did not trouble himself about the poverty of the higher class of citizens, it would be worth while to make provision for their leisure at least during the time that they hold office.
Another objectionable point is the concentration of several offices in the same hands, which is a favourite plan of the Carthaginians. For a single work is best performed by a single person. It is the legislator's business to secure this division of labour and not appoint the same man to be flute-player and cobbler.
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