The Phoenician Cities of Greek constitutions by kings—events for which in any case there is no
direct evidence.
It was long after the commencement of the ‘‘era of the people of Tyre’’
that they did gain a privilege from a king, namelyautonomia; the grant is at-
tested by Strabo, and the coins indicate a date of /..^41 A royal grant is
also mentioned in the case of Arados, from the Seleucid king Seleucus Cal-
linicus (–..); but the privilege mentioned is not recognition as a
Greek city but the right of asylum (Strabo,Geog. ). However the coins
of Arados, which begin in /.., date by an era of ..At any rate
whatever was being celebrated at Arados in the coining of tetradrachms be-
tween / and , it cannot have been Arados’ status as a purelyGreekcity,
since a large proportion are stamped in Phoenician letters; Greek lettering is
of course also found.^42
There are as yet no inscriptions from Arados itself from the Hellenis-
tic period. When we finally arrive at the earliest inscription from Arados
(IGLSVII, no. ), we are already in the reign of Augustus, /..; but
the inscription is bilingual, in Phoenician and Greek. The dedicant is a gym-
nasiarch, but bears a Phoenician name. The deities mentioned are Hermes
—on this occasion the name is transliterated into Phoenician in the form
’RM[..]—and Herakles/Melqart. This seems also to be the latest firmly dated
inscribed text in Phoenician. There is, however, one dedicatory Phoenician
inscription from a temple in Byblos, which may be of the first century..
(KAI, no. ). In the Roman period, so far as inscriptions reveal, the cities
of Phoenicia appear as entirely Greek. We may think for instance of the fa-
mous inscription of the Tyrian traders at Puteoli in.. (OGIS), with
their letter addressed to thearchontes(magistrates),boulē(council), anddēmos
(people) of the city, and with theacta(proceedings or decisions) of theboulē
which followed in response. None the less, two things are apparent in the
inscriptions; the persistence of Phoenician names, and the battery of distinc-
tive titles which the major cities claimed—‘‘hiera[holy],asylos[with the right
of asylum],autonomos,mētropolis[mother-city] of Phoenice and the cities of
Coele Syria.’’ Both features are attested for instance in the inscription put
up at Didyma (Ins. Didyma, no. ) by Tyre in honour of Julius Quadratus
of Pergamon; the ambassadors were called Marion son of Marion and Zoi-
los son of Bodas. The inscriptions thus both embody a claim to a glorious
past and reflect a local dispute for precedence which was to be long-lasting
even by the standards of the ancient world. For it was in../ that
. Strabo,Geog..ForthecoinsBMC PhoeniciaCXXV, –.
. See H. Seyrig, ‘‘Aradus et sa pérée sous les rois séleucides,’’Syria (): .