As creators they are honored with orgies, with tumultuous feasts; as
destroyers, by human victims. Astoreth, the great goddess of Sidon,
whom they represented by the crescent of the moon and the dove, had
her cult in the sacred woods. Baal Moloch is figured at Carthage as a
bronze colossus with arms extended and lowered. When they wished to
appease him they laid children in his hands who fell at once into a
pit of fire. During the siege of Carthage by Agathocles the principal
men of the city sacrificed to Moloch as many as two hundred of their
children.
This sensual and sanguinary religion inspired other peoples with
horror, but they imitated it. The Jews sacrificed to Baal on the
mountains; the Greeks adored Astarte of Sidon under the name of
Aphrodite, and Baal Melkhart of Tyre under the name of Herakles.
PHOENICIAN COMMERCE
=Phoenicians Occupations.=--Crowded into a small territory, the
Phoenicians gained their livelihood mainly from commerce. None of the
other peoples of the East--the Egyptians, the Chaldeans, the
Assyrians, nor the barbarian tribes of the West (Spaniards, Gauls,
Italians) had a navy.
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