History of Money, Banking, and Trade
A historical look at the development and evolution of money, banking, and trade. From the ancient civilizations to the present.
History of Money, Banking, and Trade
Episode 33. Phoenician Maritime Innovation
The remarkable story of the Phoenicians reveals how a small coastal civilization became the ancient world's greatest naval power through innovation rather than conquest. From their strategic position in the Levant, these master mariners created trade networks spanning the entire Mediterranean, developing sophisticated ships and pioneering navigational techniques that wouldn't be matched for millennia.
What truly set the Phoenicians apart was their commercial brilliance. They perfected the balance between trade and diplomacy, navigating complex relationships with successive empires from the Egyptians to the Persians and eventually the Romans. When Persia demanded they attack their own colony at Carthage, they refused despite the risk – demonstrating the unique bond between Phoenician settlements across the Mediterranean. This network of related trading cities created a commercial system unlike anything the ancient world had seen before.
The Phoenicians' most dramatic moment came during Alexander's legendary siege of Tyre in 332 BCE. After refusing Alexander's demand to sacrifice to Hercules in their city, the Tyrians faced one of history's most determined military campaigns. For seven months, Alexander's forces built a causeway to reach the island city while engaging in naval battles, artillery duels, and engineering innovations on both sides. The fall of Tyre and the brutal aftermath marked a turning point, as Phoenician cities subsequently remained loyal to Alexander and provided vital naval support for his campaigns.
Though they were slow to adopt coinage (continuing to use silver ingots long after coins became common elsewhere), the Phoenicians created something even more valuable – the alphabet that would transform commerce by democratizing literacy among merchants. Their understanding of markets, prices, and trade routes demonstrated sophisticated economic thinking centuries before formal economic theories existed.
Discover how these sea traders looked to distant lands for commercial opportunities rather than conquest, creating a legacy that influenced Mediterranean civilizations for centuries. Subscribe now to explore how the Phoenicians' commercial practices established foundations for Western trade that continue to resonate today.
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Welcome podcast listener. I am Mike D and this is the History of Money, banking and Trade podcast. My goal is to expand your knowledge of the history and evolution of trade, along with money, banking and credit, from ancient civilizations to present-day market innovations. I truly hope you find these episodes to be informative and entertaining. I have an MBA and around 20 years working in various financial roles, but I am not a historian. However, I find that if I study the history of financial changes, modern trade and complex finance is much easier to understand when we last left off.
Speaker 1:We were discussing how the Phoenicians transformed ancient commerce through strategic innovation and bold exploration. Their geographical position in the Levant allowed them to create an unprecedented trade networks spanning the entire Mediterranean and beyond, forever altering how goods and wealth moved across civilizations and beyond, forever altering how goods and wealth moved across civilizations. As such, they were the world's first master shipbuilders, as they developed sophisticated vessels that revolutionized maritime travel. Their merchant ships were optimized so that cargo capacity could be expanded, and their warships evolved from simple rowboats to multi-level bioreams and triremes featuring metal rams for naval combat. Greek observers, like Xenophon, marveled at their meticulous ship organization, where every item had its designated place for maximum efficiency during emergencies, an early example of logistic management that modern business would recognize. What truly distinguished Phoenician traders was their development of navigational techniques that transformed sea travel. Starting with cautious coastal journeys, they gradually mastered open water navigation using astronomical positioning with the Polestar as their primary guide. Their understanding of seasonal weather patterns and currents enabled long-distance voyages previously thought impossible. Their most remarkable achievement may have been circumnavigating Africa around 600 BCE a three-year journey where they planted and harvested wheat along their route. A three-year journey where they planted and harvested wheat along their route, a voyage that wouldn't be replicated for 2,000 years.
Speaker 1:The Phoenician commercial brilliance extended to their monetary policy, simply based on silver. The choice reflected silver's perfect balance of characteristics durability, divisibility, portability and appropriate scarcity. Their economic network connected regions such as Spain, which provided metals they had, egypt, which supplied fine linen, arabia, which traded spices and franken-spice, and Mesopotamia, which offered manufactured goods. Perhaps most significant was their creation of the 22-character alphabet that democratized literacy among merchants, forever changing how business could be documented and conducted. Now, despite all these great advances, from their sea exploration to their shipbuilding, to the creating of the alphabetabets, the fact is they were very small and they were unable to defend themselves against much larger hegemic powers.
Speaker 1:Therefore, they were often at the mercy of whatever ruler or civilization was the dominant power in the Near East, whether it was the Egyptians or the Assyriansrians or the Babylonians and the soon-to-be Persians. They would have to fall in line with whoever was in control, and soon enough, cyrus, the Great of Persia. Well, he just defeated the Babylonians and the Lydians in Anatolia, and he had just moved west to extend his empire. But things were obviously a lot different with regards to how Cyrus governed. First off, he didn't occupy Syria with his troops or place it under the control of the Persian governor. In addition, cyrus met with the Jewish leaders who were enslaved and were forcibly migrated to Babylon, and then freed them, and they were sent back to Judea and they were re-establishing themselves in the destroyed city of Jerusalem.
Speaker 1:Cyrus treated the Phoenicians quite well because he realized their potential as a naval and trade power. So not only could he call upon them to shuttle troops, he allowed them to expand their trade so that he could collect valuable tribute and resources. All the Phoenician city-states that had a monarchy had their monarchs restored as well. Tyre and Sidon saw the rebuilding of Jerusalem as a great business opportunity, and they went into a steep competition to supply the returned exiles with timber which they needed for rebuilding their temple in the city. The Jewish traders were able to send certain grains, wine and oil to Phoenicia. In fact, in reality, it sounds like this is the best they've been as far as trade relations had been in nearly 500 years.
Speaker 1:So while things were looking up for the Phoenicians, cyrus the Great died and was supplanted by his son, cambyses, in 529 BCE. His first line of business was he wanted to get to Egypt as quickly as possible to annex the kingdom of the pharaohs. In order to successfully launch his attack, he needed to secure the Levant. It appears that Cambyses, the new ruler of Persia, had finally made friendly overtures to the Phoenician states, which were obviously received favorably. Plus, they just saw how the Persians had treated their Jewish neighbors, so they probably had high expectations to begin with. As part of this new agreement, the Phoenicians agreed to place their fleet at the disposal of Persia. Persia agreed that they would not occupy any of their cities. In addition, the Phoenicians would require to pay a smallish tribute and therefore they would have governing independence and therefore would retain their monarchy, if they had a monarchy in their particular city-state.
Speaker 1:Now, at the time the Egyptians had controlled Cyprus. However, in Cyprus the majority of the population was Phoenician and for centuries had been connected politically to the Phoenician towns on the Asiatic mainland, especially that of Tyre and Sidon. The people of Cyprus probably felt like slaves, and the people of Cyprus were only too glad to see the opportunity of shaking off the Egyptian yoke. The Cyprins followed their Phoenician cousins and revolted from them, and when revolting from Egypt, they were kind of offering themselves of their own free will to Persia, of their own free will to Persia, with the use of the Phoenician ships. The rapid conquest of Egypt was kind of shocking, considering it only took the Assyrians 10 years and Nebuchadnezzar had taken 18 years.
Speaker 1:However, there was a little bit of a twist, because it appears that Cambyses also wanted to wage war against the Carthaginians. The Phoenicians absolutely refused to proceed against their own colonists. They basically explained to the Persians that hey, we have this solemn oath that we cannot go against, we will not attack our cousins. In fact, in reality it would be like almost asking a parent to destroy their own children. So the Phoenicians were really firm on this matter and according to Herodotus, he said that Cambyses. Well, he did not like it, herodotus further says, to force the war upon the Phoenicians because they had surrendered themselves to the Persians and because on the Phoenicians, because they had surrendered themselves to the Persians and because on the Phoenicians his entire sea service depended. In the end it worked and Cambyses dropped his plan to have the Phoenicians attack Carthage.
Speaker 1:Now Darius the Great came to the throne under mysterious means, for one, many people in the Persian Empire did not believe his lineage story, so many found this as an opportunity to break away. However, due to Darius' leadership, he was able to reunite his empire, and then he expanded it even further. From the standpoint of the Phoenicians, his expansion of the empire meant that they could extend their trade even further into places that they may not have been able to do prior to Darius, as he would have made trade safer from thieves. But in reality, it was an expansion of the royal road that proved to be a boon to long-distance trade. Darius expanded the Persian Empire from modern-day Armenia, through Turkey, through Syria, all the way down to Egypt, to Lebanon, jordan, you know, to the Levant, through all the way up through parts of Afghanistan, into parts of Central Asia and all the way into northern India by the time Darius came to the throne, prior empires had established a road system, especially the Assyrians. Now, a lot of people may not have realized this, but the old Assyrian empire so we're talking the period from around 1900 BCE.
Speaker 1:The Assyrians started to grow from a small little settlement into a major player in the near east from its trade networks. From their earliest beginnings, they started to establish safe roads. That was paramount to their long-term success. Therefore, they had gone to great lengths to create a highway that was able to crisscross the empire, which they had called the King's Road. It was an engineering marvel that stood the test of time, as it was used years later by Alexander the Great's army and beyond. This road included regional and local spurs that were equipped at regular intervals with relay stations and resting places, which helped facilitate the transport of people and, more importantly, goods. But it also helped expedite communications, as letters would have been able to be sent to various vassals and business contacts throughout this network of roads. All Assyrian governors had to do was maintain the road stations and the roads, especially the ones that were in the strategic positions within their provinces that served as the intersections of the Imperial Communications Network. It relied on mountain messengers and the exclusive transport animal that was used for this purpose was the mule, as it was always employed in pairs, a strategy intended to reduce the chance of the rider ever being left stranded with a lame animal.
Speaker 1:The Persians took the system that was already in place by the Assyrians, and they would have expanded it even further in size and scope. This road traveled due east through Cappadocia in central Anatolia, then passed over the Euphrates and Tigris rivers in northern Mesopotamia to Nineveh, where it turned south to Babylon. From here it would have split up into two paths, one traveling northeast through Akbatana and then along the Silk Road. Then the other continued east through the Persian capital, assusa, which would have been around 1,677 miles or just shy of 2,700 kilometers from Susa to Sardis. There would have been other roads that branched off and went out into India through Iran.
Speaker 1:These roads were an engineering marvel, as they would have had to traverse through deserts, mountains and even dense forests. They also made the roads high enough above the surrounding area so that they would have had a natural drainage system to the side of the road. Without that, trade would have been severely disrupted anytime a region got a decent amount of rain, because the roads would have easily got muddy and the carts and the people's feet would have got stuck in the mud. But there was also more to it. They also built rest stations and inns every 18 miles where travelers could eat and hydrate and sleep. Also, the traders or the messengers could switch to fresh horses or mules. Furthermore, the Persians had patrols along the way and ensured that the traders could safely move their goods throughout the empire without the fear of being robbed along the way.
Speaker 1:Now it's not 100% clear, but one has to presume that the Phoenician commerce must have been helped by the expansion of the royal road system. The reason being was they weren't just sea traders, they also had extensive overland routes that they utilized. In addition, darius expanded coinage in the Persian Empire. The uniform coinage would become known as the derricks, as they were called by the Greeks. Expanding gold and silver coinage in the Persian Empire, the uniform coinage would become known as the derricks, as they were called by the Greeks. Expanding gold and silver coinage was initially used to pay soldiers and government officials, and the local satraps also used coins to facilitate payments as well. These coins must have had a stimulus effect, as they would have been circulated throughout the empire and eventually through Phoenicia.
Speaker 1:However, despite coinage being used more and more throughout the Near East and in various Greek city-states, the Phoenicians were very slow to adopt and mint their own coins. In fact, it basically took them another 150 years after Lydians to mint their own coins, which didn't happen until around 365 BCE. So what they did was continue to do business as usual and accept ingots or credit as a form of payment. Would do is what people had done for a thousand years prior is they would have their counterparty sign a promissory note with a contract stipulating the settlement date and the type of commodity that they would accept in exchange. Typically they would accept silver as the preferred commodity, but it could be something else In any particular case. Maybe it would be grains in some circumstances, or maybe it was even gold, but typically they would want to see silver, and the silver would come in ingots. It wouldn't come in coinage.
Speaker 1:However, their Carthaginian cousins in North Africa had adopted coinage before the Phoenicians and the Levites only because they had to pay Sicilian mercenary soldiers who had only accepted coins as payment of which they had a stamp saying for the people of the camp. And this coin was used to pay these mercenary soldiers because the Carthaginians had got themselves in a long-term war to control Sicily. Because the Carthaginians had got themselves in a long-term war to control Sicily. Because the Carthaginians and the Greeks were trying to control the island. The Carthaginians felt that the island of Sicily was vital for their trade networks and since the Phoenicians, and then later the Carthaginians, had a history of never really becoming soldiers, they had to pay people to fight for them, so their mercenary soldiers wouldn't take coins. So they had to adapt to what the rest of the world was doing, and they had to start minting coins themselves. So eventually, the Phoenicians would mint their own coins themselves, and they did mint a fair number of coins. The coins of the state bore religious insignias and proclaimed the fact that the cities regarded themselves as under the protection of a certain god. So therefore it would have been relatively easy to determine where the coins had originated from. But the fact is, the Lydians and the Ionian Greeks were minting coins well before the Phoenicians were, with the Lydians starting it out and then the Ionian Greeks quickly picking up on it and adopting it almost instantly afterward.
Speaker 1:However, the Ionian Greeks were under the control of the Persians. The Ionian Greeks were starting to get restless with their arrangements and, as a result, they started to revolt from the Persians. This revolt was sort of like a wildfire as it expanded to the whole of Cyprus and, as a reminder, the bulk of the Cyprus cities were Phoenician colonies, despite the fact that these were Phoenicians. The Persians asked or more likely, required, the mainland Phoenician cities for naval forces to transport their army to the island. Unlike the Carthage idea, the Phoenicians complied with the Persian request. As ships were sent almost immediately, the Persian army easily defeated the people of Cyprus and thus Persia once more obtained possessions of the island Around 495 BCE.
Speaker 1:The Persians then went after the Ionian Greeks. Persians then went after the Ionian Greeks. Before they were able to lay siege to the city of Miletus, a combined fleet of 600 vessels, of which a vast amount were Phoenician, proceeded to set up a blockade. In the end, the decisive and complete victory was in large part due to the Phoenician's navy, but there was a steep price to pay, as they had lost a great number of their ships in the process. Therefore, it became obvious that to defeat the Greeks, the Phoenician navy would have to far outnumber the Greek navy if they were able to do battle in the Greek home turf. During one of the battles, the Phoenicians had captured an important admiral and turned him over to Darius, darius being Darius didn't execute him, but instead made him a naturalized Persian citizen.
Speaker 1:After the Ionian revolt was put down, the Phoenicians had a bit of a break and were able to rebuild part of the navy. However, people were getting in Darius' ear and started to convince him that he should carry on his conquest even further into the Greek mainland, since it was home to the great mineral deposits, including a vast amount of silver, and excellent harbors for its Phoenician navy. So, after much discussion with his generals and other top advisors, darius proceeded in with his plans to acquire Greece. In 492 BCE, darius sent his Phoenician navy to the Hellespont and unfortunately, the Phoenicians were met with severe weather and damaged many of their ships in the process. So therefore they had to retreat and rebuild. Some 12 years later, when Xerxes was officially the king of kings, he sent the Phoenicians to Greece, but once again Gaustorms broke up the navy, so it wasn't an ideal time to launch an attack, but nonetheless, the attack still went ahead.
Speaker 1:It was said that there were over 1200 ships, of which the Phoenician triremes were the most abundant and their best ships. Now, to be clear, it wasn't just the Phoenicians. The Egyptians also supplied around 200 ships, cyprus supplied about 150, and other Greek city states that had allied with Persia supplied ships as well. These ships were designed to not only patrol the harbors and coastline but, more importantly, they were to carry the combined Persian land army. I say combined because, since Persia had conquered so many territories, they would have required its vassals to supply troops as well. So when Persia was attacking a foreign army, it wasn't just the Persian troops, it was a combined force.
Speaker 1:At Salamis, the Phoenician navy would have squared off with the Athenian navy. At first the Phoenicians took the upper hand, and then the Athenians made a comeback and ended up sinking a number of ships and captured many others. As a result, a relatively small amount escaped and were unharmed. Xerxes was able to view the entire naval battle from a cliff off in the distance. Apparently, he was furious at what he was seeing and, as a result, he directly blamed the Phoenicians for the failure of the navy. What he ended up doing was he really scared the Phoenicians to the point that they just skipped town and sailed back to the Levant? Now this obviously would have strained the relationship and it sounds like this cooling off period lasted a good solid 15 years. So therefore, the Persians were unwilling to call on the Phoenicians, and the Phoenicians were unwilling to volunteer for any naval expeditions for the Persians. As such, we don't see any written records indicating that the Phoenicians were involved in any naval battles between the Greeks and the Persians during this time period. It wasn't until 465 BCE that we see the Phoenicians getting actively involved in the conflict, and the only reason why we do see this was because the Greeks were now being aggressors and would have sailed to Cyprus. So it's quite possible that the Phoenicians saw this as a defensive measure, maybe not so much to help an old ally, but in the end, it was the Athenians who came out on top and defeated Xerxes' son, who commanded a fleet consisting of the Phoenicians, Cyprins and the Cilicians. To make matters worse, the Athenians also defeated the Persian land army as well.
Speaker 1:As time went on, the Phoenicians had once again found their footing with the Persians, and thus were their main navy again. By around 405 BCE, the Persian military might started to go into decline. The Egyptians were the first to shake off the Persian yoke and once again reestablish themselves as an independent state, and while this was happening, it appears that the Phoenicians' loyalties were wavering as well. By the time we get to around 375 BCE, the Persians were trying to recover Egypt, but failed in their mission. And by the time we get to around 366, the satraps started to revolt. The Phoenicians saw the various satraps in western Anatolia refuse or at the very least reduce their tribute, and therefore some of the Phoenicians also joined in. Therefore they stopped paying tribute, just like the others. Then, in 361 BCE, the pharaoh of Egypt marched his troops up into Syria. But now the Phoenicians had either remained neutral or, at the very least, had just accepted the Egyptian encroachment into Syria.
Speaker 1:In the end, it really didn't work out for Egypt. They ended up abandoning their ploy of expanding its empire at the expense of the Persians, but the people of Sidon were still feeling aggrieved by the Persians and once again they revolted. This all came to a head when there was an alliance formed by Egypt and the Phoenicians, which also included Greek mercenary soldiers. This alliance was able to expel some of the Persian garrisons in and around the Levant region. Of course, the Persians weren't going to just go away, so eventually Artaxerxes III, or Ochus, the king of Persia, gathered about 300,000 foot soldiers and around 30,000 horses and about 300 triremes and marched west to recapture Phoenicia about 300 triremes and march west to recapture Phoenicia and Cyprus and Egypt.
Speaker 1:The story of Sidon was an interesting story because the king had spent time and money fortifying city walls. He also hired Greek mercenary soldiers, around 6,000 in total, to protect Sidon. Apparently, the king of Sidon saw this enormous Persian army that was heading toward the city and pretty much just freaked out. He immediately thought it was hopeless and took the most cowardly route possible as he tried to get a pardon from the Persian king by giving up all his citizens. The first action was to give up the top 100 citizens of the city, who were immediately cut down. It was said that as soon as the Persians entered the city, the first 500 citizens pleaded for their life but were immediately cut down as well. The remainder of the citizens would have locked themselves into their homes only to have them burnt to the ground. I'm not sure how accurate the numbers are, but it was said that about 40,000 people would have perished this way. The worst part was, when this was all done, the Persian king still had this Sidon king killed. So he sacrificed everybody for absolutely nothing, probably one of the most cowardly acts ever. Now, it's quite possible that even if they fought, they still would have been killed, but the fact that he gave everybody up right away to save his own skin says a lot about him. But, in fairness to this king, I'm sure there's a lot of leaders in today's society that would have done the same exact thing as him, and I'm sure many of you are thinking of the same people that I'm thinking of. Despite all this, sidon was able to recover and they rebuilt the city.
Speaker 1:So while Persia was in decline, the people in the north of Greece, the Macedonians, were a rising power Forever. It was the great battle between Athens and Sparta, and then later the Thebans defeated the Spartans, so it was the Athenians and the Thebans as who would be the local hegemon of the Greeks. However, the people of the north, the Macedonians, were, in fact, a rising power. At first, the people of Athens and Thebes viewed them as nothing more than barbarians. They weren't even Greek and, one of the great ironies of unintended consequences, during an invasion by Thebes, a young Philip II was captured himself and taken hostage. The idea of taking the kids of royals as hostage was a strategy that had been around for a very long time. By this point, the strategy was designed to ensure that the subjugated kingdom wouldn't rise up because, if they did, the king's sons would be executed. Therefore, as a diplomatic gesture to the people, to ensure peace between the kingdoms, philip was sent as a hostage to Thebes. As such, philip remained in Thebes for about three years. During this time, he was subjected to Theban philosophies and a general way of life in traditional Greek cities, but, more importantly, he learned military strategies from Epaminondas, the great Theban general, and it was through this general that he learned of the phalanx formation. When Philip returned to Macedonia in 365 BCE, he would have used this knowledge he gained in Thebes to improve the Macedonian army. He trained the soldiers to fight and perfect the phalanx. Philip's military battles and diplomatic tactics resulted in the expansion of his empire and domination over all of Greece.
Speaker 1:It sounds like the Persians were getting a little nervous with regards to Philip, but to their surprise and relief, he was killed by his bodyguard and lover. In fact, the Persians had operations already in place to deal with Philip, but once he was killed, they suspended the operations, since the threat was gone because his son, alexander was basically just a boy and as far as they were concerned, he really didn't pose much of a threat to the king of kings. But it sounds like reports were emerging that this young king, alexander, might be a small threat. So the Persians ordered the Lydians and the Phrygians to send troops north into an offensive measure. In addition, the Phoenicians were ordered to prepare a large fleet. Mind you, they were ordered to prepare, not get there yesterday, so there wasn't a sense of urgency. Get there yesterday, so there wasn't a sense of urgency. In hindsight, this was a major blunder, as a massive fleet from the Phoenicians should have been put in place as a blockade and there should have been a major reconnaissance mission put in place for intelligence gathering for basically every port in the northern Aegean. If the Phoenicians were already in place, they may have stopped Alexander from invading Europe. However, the fleet was finally mobilized and sent north, but weeks after Alexander had transported his massive army into Asia. So therefore the fleet arrived too late to save the city of Miletus.
Speaker 1:Menman of Rhodes was the Rhodian Greek commander in service of the Achaemenid Empire who was ultimately put in charge of the Greek-Persian fleets. Now, it's because he was Greek that this would cause Alexander to worry, since he would have been convinced that certain Greek cities that were not really on board with the Macedonians that they might actually ally with the Persians because they're allying with the Greek general. However, I think they kind of caught a break, because Medmen was ultimately put to death and therefore the Persians probably killed any chance of any serious internal revolts against the Greeks, against the Macedonians. Now, with regards to the Phoenicians, they weren't really much of a factor. Once Alexander was firmly established in Asia, he quickly realized that it was his land army that would be the most important and really only factor in his continued conquests. In fact, alexander disbanded his navy because he didn't want any embarrassments on the seas that could tarnish his reputation.
Speaker 1:Once Alexander started winning battle after battle, the decimated Persian army left a clear path to the Levant. After marching to Damascus, alexander personally led his army to Phoenicia. The Phoenicians were put in an impossible position For one. Alexander could have easily marched in and plundered their cities, enslaved the people and possibly burned everything to the ground. On the other hand, persia still had control of the navy, including all its ships and all its commanders. As such, as soon as Alexander arrived, nearly all the cities gave up almost immediately.
Speaker 1:Tyre, on the other hand, was an interesting case. At first, they gave up without a fight and had indicated to Alexander that they were going to comply with his demands out a fight, and had indicated to Alexander that they were going to comply with his demands. As far as the Phoenicians were concerned, they were under the impression that Alexander would just leave Tyre alone. Thus they wouldn't plunder, but instead Tyre would just turn over their navy and pay some sort of tribute. All in all, this sounds like a pretty reasonable plan. Tribute All in all, this sounds like a pretty reasonable plan, but for some crazy reason, alexander got this weird idea about what he wanted to do with Melkart.
Speaker 1:Now, melkart was the patron god of Tyre and, as a result, was one of the most important gods of Phoenicia and even Carthage and Cádiz, as he may have been central to the founding myths of various Phoenician colonies throughout the Mediterranean, many cities were thought to have been founded in one way or another and, more importantly, protected by Melkart. To give you an idea of his importance, he was closely identified with the Greek Hercules, so much so that he eventually became interchangeable with Hercules. On an annual basis, a spring celebration took place where there was the revival of Melkart's awakening. Of course, this is somewhat expected, as the death and rebirth of Aditi was a common motif copied over and over by various religious sects. In Christianity, it's basically known as Easter. If you're ever curious as to get a good idea as to how Melkart was portrayed, you can see him on the Tyrian shekel was portrayed. You can see him on the Tyrian shekel.
Speaker 1:So what Alexander wanted to do was he wanted to have Tyre perform a sacrifice in the city to Hercules, where Tyre was like. Well, no, thank you, that's just not happening because we are a Melkart city. Now, despite this, tyre did try to compromise, because they saw this as a ploy to occupy the city and refused. So instead, they offered Alexander the ability to sacrifice to Hercules in Old Tyre, which was built upon the mainland. Old Tyre held no strategic importance and it was undefended, and the Tyrian navy was stationed in the harbors of New Tyre, New Tyre being the island city. Alexander, on the other hand, viewed this refusal as declaring war.
Speaker 1:Tyre probably felt a bit full of themselves, since they had defended the city against every potential invader, including the feared Assyrians and Babylonians. The reason being was their powerful navy, which guarded the city, was about a half a mile or almost a full kilometer offshore. In addition, the walls of the city facing the landed side were extremely impressive, at about 150 feet or 46 meters in height. Of course, that height is debatable, but either way, they had spent centuries building and fortifying these walls and, as such, had withstood numerous potential sieges in the past. The first step in their preparation was to evacuate most of the women and children to their colony at Carthage, which meant they would have left behind around 40,000 people. Carthage also promised to send more ships and soldiers.
Speaker 1:Alexander could have easily abandoned the idea, knowing that this would have been a tough task, but he wanted to secure all the Phoenician cities before advancing onto Egypt. Alexander still had to worry about the Persians, as they weren't fully conquered, and he also knew that Tyre was their primary Persian fleet and he could not leave them behind because he would have threatened Alexander from the rear. Alexander also wanted to use some diplomacy to prevent a long and exhaustive siege, so he dispatched ambassadors to Tyre demanding their surrender. But instead of talks, they were executed and their bodies were hurled into the sea. So in January 332 BCE, after occupying Old Tyre, he began to construct a causeway across the channel towards the walls of Tyre using rocks, timbers and rubble taken from the buildings of the Old City.
Speaker 1:Initially the work progressed well and the water near the mainland was shallow. As they got closer, the water got much deeper, to the depth of about 18 feet or 5.5 meters. Work slowed to a snail's pace and they were harassed by arrows and other missile fire from the city walls. Elzer then constructed two siege towers from timber covered in rawhide and positioned them at the end of the causeway. Artillery engines at the top of these towers were able to return fire at the walls. Alexander, always leading from the front, spent much of his time on the causeway dispensing small gifts of money to his laborers. All the while, the Tyrians would send cauldrons filled with volatile flammable oil aboard a ship, light it on fire and then they would swim away safely. The tip of the mole became an inferno as the ship burnt, igniting the two towers. Then Tyrians in small rowboats rowed out from the city and landed on various points on the causeway, engaging the besiegers as they frantically attempted to douse the flames. Seed's engines were burnt and the palisades along the edge of the causeway were destroyed.
Speaker 1:While all this was happening, alexander was able to call in naval support and as such he sailed for Tyre. His flagship was on the right side of the fleet, and when the crew had a clear view of Tyre, the fleet halted and held station, allowing the full impact of their appearance to draw on the observers on the city walls. The Tyrians were caught off guard, as they had no idea until the moment that Alexander's fleet had grown considerably. They were now vastly outnumbered and the promised help from Carthage had failed to materialize. The Tyrians' only strategy was that they could use a blockade to the entrances to the two harbors. In addition, alexander was unable to get his ships close to the city itself because the Tyrians had hurled massive rocks onto the sea beneath the walls.
Speaker 1:The siege now entered what was possibly the most laborious and dangerous phase. Alexander's ships tied some of the boulders and towed them away from the city walls. In response, the Tyrians sailed out to cut the anchor cables of the besieging ships. Alexander armored some of his own vessels and used them as a screen in front of his siege ships, but Tyrian divers cut the cables of the anchored ships. Alexander then replaced rope cables with chains, so this was kind of like a back and forth.
Speaker 1:Throughout all this operations, both sides engaged in an artillery duel. The Tyrians poured cauldrons of red-hot sand over the walls onto the besieging ships. Then, in the northern harbor, 13 Tyrian ships manned with the finest oarsmen and mariners silently rowed out of the harbor into a single line. Most of the Cyprian ships blockading the harbor were undermanned and the Tyrian achieved total surprise, as two Cyprian ships were sunk and many were scattered. Alexander then bordered the ship and personally led a counterattack with five triremes and a number of quinqueremes for battle. Sailing around the island, he fell on the Tyrian flotilla, who immediately broke off their engagement and fled for the northern harbor.
Speaker 1:Alexander now brought his ships directly to the walls and began to pound them with battering arms. Greek forces at the northern end of the island attempted to make a breach, but failed. Alexander called it off and waited for three days before resuming his assault. While diversionary tactics occupied the defenders' attention, two ships with bridging equipment approached the southern end, of which Alexander himself was in command. The Macedonians managed to make their way onto the wall and soon the Macedonians were pouring in. They plundered and killed After a long and bitter siege. They were not inclined to be merciful. 6,000 Tyrians were slaughtered when the city was taken and another 2,000 were crucified on the beach. About 30,000 were sold into slavery. Amongst those spared were the king and his family. Macedonian losses amounted to about 400 slain. The siege commenced in January and ended in July. Alexander was able to make his sacrifice at Hercules, with Tyre subjugated.
Speaker 1:Alexander could return his attention to subduing Gaza and Egypt without the fear of being attacked in the rear by a naval power. The one thing about the Phoenicians was they were generally pretty loyal to whoever was the local hegemon, and Alexander was no different, as they steadfastly remained loyal after it had been conquered. In fact, after conquering Egypt, alexander requested Phoenicia to build and supply additional vessels. These vessels were used to sail down the Euphrates and into the Persian Gulf, where he established a great naval power to patrol and supply trade. He also used the Phoenician navy to sail down the Indus river in his attempt to conquer India.
Speaker 1:Now, it's a little off the subject, but Aristotle was supposedly one of Alexander's teachers. Now, aristotle was not a fan of coinage and money in general, due to its corruption capabilities. In particular, he was very concerned how coinage played an underlying role in the origins of a coup in the city of Rhodes around 391 BCE. Basically, what he saw was the city leaders needed to pay its constituents to attend public assemblies and serve on juries. If those people didn't attend, they would lose their influence. In other words, it felt like some kind of bribery. Well, when the money wasn't available, then they needed to find it from somewhere else. In this particular case, they took money from the funding that was supposed to go to paying for triremes, which was their warships. Well, some commanders were under the contract of the city to build triremes for the Rhodian Navy. Since money was diverted away, the commanders were not paid. They were unable, in turn, to pay their suppliers and laborers to build the ships. The workers and contractors turned around and sued the trireme commanders. To escape these lawsuits, the trireme commanders banded together and overthrew the democracy.
Speaker 1:One of the questions is well, how were these coins brought to the men in the first place? Well, the simple answer was it was slavery that made this all possible. Many of the slaves would come from the Phoenicians and even Carthage, as they were often POWs from various conflicts, of which they were forced to align themselves with Persia. And then, when they lost these battles, they were of course forced to work in the mines, producing even more silver and gold and copper. These mines, especially the Lorian mines near Athens, reportedly employed 10,000 to 20,000 of them. To be clear, they weren't all Phoenicians, as they were slaves from all parts of the known world.
Speaker 1:Jeffrey Ingram calls the resulting system a military coinage complex. However, that misses the slavery portion In his book Debt the First 5,000 Years. David Graebner thinks it should be called the Military Coinage Slavery Complex. David Grabner also noted that Alexander had to borrow money to pay his troops to conquer the Persian Empire. In order to do so, he plundered his conquered territories and melted down gold and silver to create his own coins. These coins were used to pay his creditors his own coins. These coins were used to pay his creditors.
Speaker 1:Now Alexander's army, which numbered around 120,000 men, required a half a ton of silver a day just for wages. Now, just a few moments ago I had mentioned the use of mines to produce silver for the coinage, and those mines were the slaves. Now it sounds like, since Tyre had put up a big fight, they ended up paying a steep price for that fight. Part of that price was the survivors of Tyre were sent to those mines. Part of that price was the survivors of Tyre were sent to those mines. So in the end, his armies not only destroyed Tyre, they also removed all the gold and silver reserves from Babylonia and Persian temples. He then melted down the gold and silver to make his own currencies and insisted all the taxes be paid in this new currency to his government. The result was to release. The accumulated worth of decades of silver, and gold was taken by Alexander and his army.
Speaker 1:However, the untimely death threw everything into chaos. Phoenicia and Syria were taken under control by Ptolemy after he deposed Laodicea and incorporated it into the Egyptian governments. In 314 BCE, antigonus attacked Phoenicia and forced Ptolemy to withdraw from Phoenicia. However, tyre had risen again a mere 18 years after Alexander had destroyed it and was once again a commercial powerhouse through its long-distance sea trade, with reconstructed walls that were manned by Egyptians. As such, tyre was the only city that put up any resistance to the invaders. Antigonus had rebuilt the Phoenician navy, then proceeded to a blockade from Sidon, byblos and Tripolis. After a 15-month blockade, supplies ran dry and Tyre had no choice but to surrender. Antigonus then passed on control of Phoenicia to his son, demetrius, but he couldn't hold onto it, as he lost it to Ptolemy in 278 BCE.
Speaker 1:The Ptolemies stayed clear of Phoenician commerce and therefore had a solid 70 years of peace where the various cities were once again able to re-establish dominance in long-distance trade. As they offered Phoenician traders a sense of safety, as they offered protection in the region from outside attacks. Attacks Ptolemy IV, who ruled Egypt from 222 to 205 BCE, brought up changes for the worst, because outside agitators viewed him as weak. Therefore, in 219 BCE, antiochus III drove the Egyptians out of Seleucia, the port of Antioch. The Phoenicians were caught right in the middle as their lands became ground zero where competing armies would meet up. Phoenicia then ended up being taken and retaken by competing armies.
Speaker 1:By 198 BCE, phoenicia had been officially taken under control by the Seleucids. In the end, this may have been a blessing in disguise for the Phoenicians, as the Egyptians were hell-bent on building up Alexandria as the international leader in long-distance trade. As such, I could see a scenario where the Ptolemies would have redirected resources away from Phoenicia and directed them directly towards Alexandria, which would have made sense because Alexandria was right in their own backyard and, of course, that was going to be their new hub, that they can send goods right out into the Mediterranean directly from Egypt. So therefore, alexandria would have been in direct competition with the Phoenicians and their Carthage cousins, and by all accounts, it appears that Tyre and Sidon saw the growing Alexandria influence and may have had some serious hard feelings, as much of their wealth that was generated by trade was now being directed away from them and into Alexandria. The Seleucid rulers could also see this as well, and therefore they made it a point to ensure that the Phoenicians were treated fairly and made sure to participate in person in their various religious festivals. In return, the Phoenicians were fiercely loyal to the Syro-Macedonian kingdom.
Speaker 1:Additionally, the Seleucid rulers allowed the Phoenicians to mint and issue their own coins In Byblos. Their coins depicted the murex, which was the shellfish that produced the expensive dyes that Phoenicia was known for. In Tyre, their coins depicted Melkart and an eagle on the side with the Phoenician letter between the legs and a palm branch on the shoulder. Sidon coins had evolved quite a bit. Originally it had a Phoenician ship on one side and the other would depend on who the king was that they were paying tribute to. But by the time we get to the Seleucid dynasty, the coins had a picture of Alexander the Great. The fact that Alexander was on the side on coins could kind of give you some insight as to how the Phoenicians were changing.
Speaker 1:It was during this period that Phoenicians were rapidly becoming more Hellenized, but they held on to their long-distance trade. The upper classes started to adopt Greek as their language and Greek names as well. The Phoenician religions were evolving as their deities started to commingle with Greek deities. The trades of each city continued as it always had been Tyre was known for its manufacture of purple dye, sidon was the best glass makers, but the general population continued to make a good living in the long-distance trade. In other words, it was the ancient equivalent of getting into a nice middle-class career.
Speaker 1:The tax collection was done by tax farming, whereas the wealthiest would bid to collect taxes, but they were known for their exploitation policies and often would have made well over 100% on their tax investment because they just didn't have a bureaucracy to handle the collection of taxes, which often meant that the average citizen, instead of paying a traditional tax to the state, whereas they knew what they're going to have to pay up front, would have paid an excessive amount of taxes because some person would have bid up their price and then use some kind of strong arm tactics and would have overcharged individuals instead of just having a small bureaucracy in place, and everybody would have been pretty much better off. But the kings oftentimes preferred the tax farming tactic because it was less risk for them, because they could get their taxes up front and wouldn't have to worry about individuals not paying their fair share. But in the end, the individual is actually going to pay more, and this isn't just the Phoenicians. Pretty much all the other ancient societies will use tax farming as a tool to collect taxation. Now, eventually, the Seleucid kingdom would be brought down because of poor government and greed, which led to an almost endless cycle of revolts and civil wars, which often led to assassinations. In other words, it was severely weakened and destabilized. Eventually, they felt they needed to invite its neighbor, the Armenians, to take over the role of governing. But while this was all happening, rome was strengthening and they were looking to the east. This all culminated with Rome making this area a Roman province, and they would have retained the name Syria. Pompey allowed the Phoenician cities of Tripolis, sidon and Tyre to become free cities and thus were able to maintain their own governments and therefore hold their own free elections. In fact, when Julius Caesar and even Mark Antony wrote to Sidon. He addressed the letters to the magistrates, council and peoples of Sidon.
Speaker 1:They viewed Phoenicia as an ally to the Roman Republic. They viewed Phoenicia as an ally to the Roman Republic. Having Rome as an ally was good for trade. For one, they were ruthless in patrolling the eastern Mediterranean and the Aegean for pirates and other unsavory people who were terrorizing the seas, up until the Romans had established a major presence. This was a severe tax that the traders had to pay. Pompey was notorious for destroying pirate fleets and even tracking them down on land. He single-handedly cleared much of the pirate problem from the Mediterranean and he cleared out many of the thieves from the overland trade routes as well. In addition, the Romans expanded their own road network and even added additional engineering by making the roads better for drainage.
Speaker 1:But there was also a downside to being an ally of Rome. For one, not all kingdoms were ready to give up their sovereignty to the Romans. So when Parthia wanted to rid the Romans from Western Asia, they attacked Roman allies in Syria and then marched down to Phoenicia and compelled all the cities, except for Tyre, to surrender and briefly come under the control of the Parthians. About three years the Parthians were driven out by the Romans three years. The Parthians were driven out by the Romans, but then the Phoenicians got caught in the middle of the Anthony-Augustus fight with Augustus. Feeling that the Phoenicians chose Anthony's side, in 20 BCE, augustus inflicted a severe punishment against Tyre and Sidon. In fact, the Ocassius has stated that they were enslaved by Augustus, meaning that they had lost their sovereignty.
Speaker 1:It appears that Claudius and Hadrian had reversed courses years later. Despite all this, phoenician nationality had all but disappeared by then. The old languages were no longer spoken. By the time Christianity had gained steam, all their old religious beliefs were no longer practiced. A writer during the age of Constantine stated that Tyre was a city full of wealthy merchants that still had great influence on all ports around the Mediterranean. However, even though the old Phoenicians had transformed largely into Greek and Latin, the region was still dominated by sea power traders up through the Crusades, as the region continued to flourish economically.
Speaker 1:And looking back at the Phoenicians, they were one of the most unique cultures of all time. They were probably the first sea power state the world had ever seen. In part, they occupied the Levantine coast, so that probably played a part. Then factor in their neighbors to the south. The Egyptians hated the sea. So the Phoenicians were ideally situated to step in and take advantage of the Egyptians' aversion to the sea. And they stepped in to become their long-distance sea traders. In fact, the priests and thieves were adamant about keeping their capital city away from the Nile Delta so they wouldn't be tempted by the sea and as dangerous foreigners and foreign ideas. The Phoenicians, like the Egyptians, knew the sea and long-distance trade meant new ideas of progress and change and challenged the cultural norms of the contemporary land powers. The philosophers and rulers alike feared the corrupting sea. The philosophers and rulers alike feared the corrupting sea as such. The Phoenicians were probably the first society to embrace this, and that's why they looked to the distant lands for trade, not conquest. They were excellent sailors, yet they never built an empire.
Speaker 1:There is something to be said about encountering foreign people that may have been more interested in trade than conquering foreign lands or islands. Now, it's quite possible that seeing foreigners come to their lands offering goods that they couldn't obtain locally had some kind of transformational effect, meaning it's possible that when they saw people for the first time that you could just simply exchange goods on a much larger scale without bloodshed. Therefore, industry could spring up in places that may have only been seeing farming or war prior to the Phoenicians. In addition to exchanging goods, they were able to exchange ideas. Goods, they were able to exchange ideas For one. They were responsible for development of the alphabet, of which the Greeks happily adopted, and they spread it like wildfire to other cultures near and far. On the other hand, they also had a reputation as being snake oil salesmen, because they became increasingly wealthy, while other locals were often stymied and therefore didn't see the riches like their Phoenician counterparts. But unfortunately, that is life Wealth is never evenly distributed. There will always be winners, while others don't get the same type of returns.
Speaker 1:Now, despite this, I'd argue that the Phoenicians trade network probably lifted the quality of life for the people that were ultimately in their trade networks. This would have been done by paying a low price in one place and then getting a better price somewhere else. It usually started at the local market, where merchants agreed on a value that would leave them some kind of profit in a remote market. So, in other words, they really understood local and foreign markets quite well. It didn't even need to be long distance trade either. They could buy fish in a local port and then sell it to people in the interior with a profit. Their ability at estimating prices was quite amazing, because they didn't have the ability to call someone or look at the prices on the internet. No, they just had to have great instincts on prices and behavior of prices. I'm not sure if it was an art or a science, but they seemed to understand it nonetheless. They may have been the first culture that learned how to anticipate fluctuations of goods, their values, and they instinctively understood the supply and demand curves based on things such as seasons and habits and the needs of the locals and the remote, authoritative values of goods in Egypt or the Achaemenid Persian Empire.
Speaker 1:With long-distance trade, the Phoenicians typically accepted ingots as payments. The merchants embraced them because they were easily quantifiable and their compact volume still represented a suitable value for large and remote transactions to the Mediterranean. So merchants had to travel long distances, so they wanted to have metals that had a good weight to value ratio, such as gold or silver, and therefore didn't want to have to carry heavy bulk of bronze. This set the standard that the Greeks would soon use afterward. In the end, the Phoenicians were a crucial stepping stone of a society that played a major part in shaping how cultures developed trade with each other as a foundational piece of Western society. But the Greeks would probably consider the Phoenicians a foundational piece to their society, especially when it comes to their alphabet and their long-distance trade.
Speaker 1:I want to thank you for taking your time to listen. I hope you found these episodes on Phoenicia to be enjoyable and entertaining and I hope you learned something new. Up next we'll discuss the Carthaginians, their Phoenician cousins. If you like what you hear and want to donate to the show, you can visit us at patreoncom slash history of money banking trade or you can visit our website at moneybankingtradecom. Also, you can help out the show a ton by leaving a five star review.
Speaker 1:Also, I started to make this show into video format. The show is a lot more formal format. The show is a lot more formal. You can like and subscribe at YouTube at Money Banking Trade. Also, I put out the first episode and a little inside baseball. I'm using a software that takes the script and uses an AI version of my voice and when I put it in it's kind of got a little bit screwy at certain points. I had to go in and fix it up and I deleted the first episode and reformat it and put it back in. Hopefully it sounds much better. I don't really like it too much, but I just wanted to add a different kind of option.
Speaker 1:Eventually I'd like to kind of learn how to of script and kind of outline. I try not to read word for word, I try to go a little bit off the top of my head and so that way it's a little bit more informal. I try not to make it seem like it's a documentary type thing, whereas with YouTube it's a lot more formalized and it's definitely not a conversation. So the feel of the podcast, the audio podcast and the YouTube format is much different. So it's a ton of work to kind of really change it up completely. But I kind of wanted to do it that way because I feel like if you're listening to audio it should be more relaxed setting, I guess, because the way I see it is like Dan Carlin I think is the best in the business and if you listen to him I feel like he's kind of having a conversation with you in a weird kind of way. And that's kind of how I envision this audio format to be, envision this audio format to be.
Speaker 1:But with a YouTube format, with a video format. I'm not so sure that that works, but if anybody has any ideas and they think that's how the video format should be, I'd be more than happy to produce it that way as well. So eventually, if I've kind of figured out how to do it, I will make some changes. But anyway, you can go to youtubecom at Money Banking Trade and you can check out the video yourself and you can help out the show by liking and subscribing as well there. It takes up a lot of time. I'll see if I continue with it. I may or may not, I'm not sure, but as for now I'd like to get out at least three or four more videos. We'll see. It is very, very time consuming, but we'll see, all right, well, thank you very much.
Speaker 1:Like I said, the next episode will be about Carthage and then after that I'm thinking I'll probably talk about China. China is going to be quite a few episodes and then after that I'll probably get into the Greeks. And then, when I get into the Greeks, I think I'm going to change up the format a little bit and kind of get into how I originally thought about how the show was going to be, thought about how the show was going to be. I was thinking initially that the show would be more based on money, trade and finance, where the first portions of the show were a lot more history involved, because I didn't want to be just talking about coins and trade and I want it to be a little bit more interesting.
Speaker 1:And also, too, because if you look at a lot of older Assyrian and Babylonian and regular Mesopotamian history, there's not a lot of color. So you really can't really do a great show talking about money, banking and trade because there isn't a lot of information on that. And if I did talk just about that a lot of information on that and if I did talk just about that, it might get a little boring. So I figured I would add a little bit more outside history with it and I try not to get too far out of scope, but a lot of times. Obviously I did, but when I get to the Greeks I think I might have a little bit more individual stories about different things that happened, especially with the Romans and whatnot. But, um, but that's that's probably the plan going forward, but uh, that obviously is subject to change. All right, I'll talk to you soon and you take care of yourself.
