Phoenician civilization did really die out; rather, the Phoenicians were absorbed into the empires of conquering nations. Assyria had begun threatening Phoenicia as early as 868 B. C., but when the Assyrian monarch Tiglath-Pileser attempted to capture Tyre in 734 b. c., he ran into trouble.
Because the city was built on an island about a mile offshore, it was a mighty fortress; in fact its name means “rock.” After two years, the Assyrians finally captured Tyre, but they did not attempt to turn the region into a province (PRAH-vints) of their empire—not yet, at least.
In 701 B. C., Sennacherib led another Assyrian invasion of Phoenicia. He drove out the king of Tyre, replacing him with a vassal (VAH-sul), and conquered the other important cities of Phoenicia, including Sidon. A later king of Tyre attempted a revolt against the Assyrians, and this action resulted in the destruction of Sidon in 677 b. c. Still Tyre remained rebellious, protected by its location. The Assyrians tried once more to capture it, but they had troubles of their own at home and eventually lost their empire to the Babylonians. Finally in 587 b. c., the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar conquered Tyre.
Just as Babylonia replaced Assyria as the dominant power in the region, the Persians replaced Babylonia in about 539 B. c. As part of the Persian Empire, the Phoenician fleet helped wage war on the Greeks. Later, the armies of Alexander the Great conquered the Persians' empire, and Phoenicia passed into Greek hands in 333 b. c. Like much of the Middle East, it then fell under the Seleucid Empire before becoming part of the Roman province of Syria in 64 B. C.
World History
