Porphyry to admit that simple and concrete criteria offered by language use provide
no answer. There is no conclusive evidence that Phoenician was still spoken
or written in Tyre in the third century, or that an older Phoenician litera-
ture, whatever its content might have been, could still be read in its original
Phoenician.
The search for traces of the local languages in fact produces results which
are quite clear and are generally characteristic of the two provinces of Ro-
man Syria: Syria Coele (the northern section, with a south-eastern extension
down the Euphrates to Dura-Europos); and Syria Phoenice, which extended
eastwards from the traditionally Phoenician coast, to include Emesa, Damas-
cus, and Palmyra, and (it seems) reached the Euphrates south of Dura. With
the exception of Palmyra (and, in a different way, the Euphrates zone, includ-
ing Dura), the evidence for current use of Semitic languages is confined to
the appearance in Greek transliteration of individual names for places, indi-
viduals and deities. Examples of the latter are the divine name ‘‘Zeus Mad-
bachos’’ (Zeus the altar), found in the limestone massif of northern Syria, and
‘‘Elagabalos/us’’ as the name of a deity at Emesa, certainly derived from the
name of the deity ’LH’GBL, attested in Palmyrene script within the Palmy-
rene zone.
This general limitation has to be borne in mind when we look at two items
of evidence which might suggest a knowledge of Phoenician by Porphyry.
The first is the report quoted in Eusebius’Praeparatio Evangelica, speaking of
works of Phoenician theology: ‘‘They offer guarantees of their propositions
from the appellations of the gods still prevailing to this day in the cities and
villages of Phoenicia and the explanations of the mysteries celebrated among
each people.’’^13 The first problem with the passage is that (as so often) it is not
clear whether the final comment comes from Eusebius himself or is quoted
from Porphyry. None the less, in either case it is highly significant. The ref-
erence to the ‘‘appellations of the gods,’’ it is true, implies no more than what
is visible throughout the Near East, the reproduction in Greek (and often
Latin) transliteration of divine names of Semitic origin. But the reference to
the interpretation of ‘‘mysteries’’ enacted in the cities and villages of Phoe-
nicia does imply the persistence of distinctive local cult forms, beliefs, and
tradition. If this is valid, we still, however, lack any access to these.
The other, much-quoted, item, is the evidence on the successive forms of
name used by Porphyry, beginning with his own testimony in hisLifeof Plo-
tinus. Here he describes himself as ‘‘Porphyrios, Tyrian,’’ but later goes into
. Eusebius,Praep. Ev.,,.