Rule of Alexander the Great
The Persian Empire eventually fell to Alexander the Great, king of Macedonia.
He attacked Asia Minor, defeated the Persian troops in 333 B.C., and
advanced toward the Lebanese coast. Initially the Phoenician cities
made no attempt to resist, and they recognized his suzerainty. However,
when Alexander tried to offer a sacrifice to Melkurt, Tyre's god, the
city resisted.
Alexander besieged Tyre in retaliation in early 332 B.C. After six months
of resistance, the city fell, and its people were sold into slavery.
Despite his early death in 323 B.C., Alexander's conquest of the eastern
Mediterranean Basin left a Greek imprint
on the area. The Phoenicians, being a cosmopolitan people amenable to
outside influences, adopted aspects of Greek civilization with ease.
The Seleucid Dynasty
After Alexander's death, his empire was divided among his Macedonian
generals. The eastern part--Phoenicia, Asia Minor, northern Syria,
and Mesopotamia--fell to Seleucus I, founder of the Seleucid dynasty.
The southern part of Syria and Egypt fell to Ptolemy, and the European
part, including Macedonia, to Antigonus I. This settlement, however,
failed to bring peace
because Seleucus I and Ptolemy clashed repeatedly in the course of
their ambitious efforts to share in Phoenician prosperity. A final
victory of the Seleucids ended a forty-year period of conflict.
The last century of Seleucid rule was marked by disorder and dynastic
struggles. These ended in 64 B.C., when the Roman general Pompey added
Syria and Lebanon to the Roman Empire. Economic and intellectual activities
flourished in Lebanon during the Pax Romana. The inhabitants of the
principal Phoenician cities of Byblos, Sidon, and Tyre were granted
Roman
citizenship. These cities were centers of the pottery, glass, and
purple dye industries; their harbors also served as warehouses for
products imported from Syria, Persia, and India. They exported cedar,
perfume, jewelry, wine, and fruit to Rome. Economic prosperity led
to a revival in construction and urban development; temples and palaces
were built throughout the
country, as well as paved roads that linked the cities.
Upon the death of Theodosius I in A.D. 395, the empire was divided
in two: the eastern or Byzantine part with its capital at Constantinople,
and the western part with its capital at Rome. Under the Byzantine
Empire, intellectual and economic activities in Beirut, Tyre, and
Sidon continued to flourish for more than a century. However, in the
sixth century a series of earthquakes demolished the temples of Baalbek
and destroyed the city of Beirut, leveling its famous law school and
killing nearly 30,000 inhabitants. To these natural disasters were
added the abuses and corruption prevailing at that time in the empire.
Heavy tributes and religious dissension produced disorder and confusion.
Furthermore, the ecumenical councils of the fifth and sixth centuries
A.D. were unsuccessful in settling religious disagreements. This turbulent
period weakened the empire and made it easy prey to the newly converted
Muslim Arabs of the Arabian Peninsula.
|
