account fabricated after the actual origin (814-813 B.C.) of the great
Punic city had been forgotten. Thus weakened, Tyre could less than ever
think of opposing the ambitious designs of Assyria: Pygmalion took no
part in the rebellions of the petty Syrian kings against Samsî-rammân,
and in 803 B.C. he received his suzerain Rammân-nirâri with the
accustomed gifts, when that king passed through Phoenicia before
attacking Damascus. Pygmalion died about 774 B.C., and the names of his
immediate successors are not known;* it may be supposed, however, that
when the power of Nineveh temporarily declined, the ties which held Tyre
to Assyria became naturally relaxed, and the city released herself from
the burden of a tribute which had in the past been very irregularly
paid.

* The fragment of Menander 'which has preserved for us the
list of Tyrian kings from Abî-baal to Pygmalion, was only
quoted by Josephus, because, the seventh year of Pygmalion's
reign corresponding to the date of the foundation of
Carthage,--814--813 B.C. according to the chronological
system of Timssus,--the Hebrew historian found in it a fixed
date which seemed to permit of his establishing the
chronology of the kings of Israel and Judah on a trustworthy
basis between the reign of Pygmalion and Hiram I., the
contemporary of David and Solomon.

The yoke was reassumed half a century later, at the mere echo of the
first victories of Tiglath-pileser III.; and Hiram II., who then reigned
in Tyre, hastened to carry to the camp at Arpad assurances of his
fidelity (742 B.C.). He gave pledges of his allegiance once more in 738
B.C.; then he disappears, and Mutton II. takes his place about 736 B.C.
This king cast off, unhappily for himself, his hereditary apathy, and as