soon as a pretext offered itself, abandoned the policy of neutrality to
which his ancestors had adhered so firmly. He entered into an alliance
in 734 B.C. with Damascus, Israel and Philistia, secretly supported
and probably instigated by Egypt; then, when Israel was conquered and
Damascus overthrown, he delayed repairing his error till an Assyrian
army appeared before Tyre: he had then to pay the price of his temerity
by 120 talents of gold and many loads of merchandise (728 B.C.). The
punishment was light and the loss inconsiderable in comparison with
the accumulated wealth of the city, which its maritime trade was daily
increasing:* Mutton thought the episode was closed,** but the peaceful
policy of his house, having been twice interrupted, could not be
resumed.

*[For a description of the trade carried on by Tyre, cf.
Ezelc. xxvi., xxvii., and xxviii.---Tr.]

** Pygmalion having died about 774 B.C., and Hiram II. not
appearing till 742 B.C., it is probable that we should
intercalate between these two Kings at least one sovereign
whose name is still unknown.

Southern Phoenicia, having once launched on the stream of Asiatic
politics, followed its fluctuations, and was compelled henceforth to
employ in her own defence the forces which had hitherto been utilised
in promoting her colonial enterprises. But it was not due to the foolish
caprice of ignorant or rash sovereigns that Tyre renounced her former
neutral policy: she was constrained to do so, almost perforce, by the
changes which had taken place in Europe. The progress of the Greeks, and
their triumph in the waters of the Ægean and Ionian Seas, and the rapid
expansion of the Etruscan navy after the end of the ninth century, had