enjoyed under Hiram. Few actual facts are known which can enlighten us
as to the activity which prevailed under Eth-baal: we know, however,
that he rebuilt the small town of Botrys, which had been destroyed in
the course of some civil war, and that he founded the city of Auza in
Libyan territory, at the foot of the mountains of Aures, in one of the
richest mineral districts of modern Algeria.**

* Eth-baal II., who, according to the testimony of the
native historians, belonged to the royal family of Tyre, is
called King of the Sidonians in the Bible (1 Kings xvi. 31),
and the Assyrian texts similarly call Elulai King of the
Sidonians, while Menander mentions him as King of Tyre. It
is probable that the King of Sidon, mentioned in the Annals
of Shal-maneser III. side by side with the King of Tyre, was
a vassal of the Tyrian monarch.

** The two facts are preserved in a passage of Menander. I
admit the identity of the Auza mentioned in this fragment
with the Auzea of Tacitus, and with the _Colonia Septimia
Aur. Auziensium_ of the Roman inscriptions the present
Aumale.

In 876 B.C. Assur-nazir-pal had crossed the Lebanon and skirted the
shores of the Mediterranean: Eth-baal, naturally compliant, had loaded
him with gifts, and by this opportune submission had preserved his
cities and country from the horrors of invasion.*

* The King of Tyre who sent gifts to Assur-nazir-pal is not
named in the Assyrian documents: our knowledge of Tyrian
chronology permits us with all probability to identify him