Tyre, and that the site of Tyre was changed from continental to insular, in consequence of the taking of the continental Tyre by Nebuchadnezzar: the site remained unaltered, and the insular Tyrians became subject to him and his successors until the destruction of the Chaldæan monarchy by Cyrus. Hengstenberg’s Dissertation, De Rebus Tyriorum (Berlin, 1832), is instructive on many of these points: he shows sufficiently that Tyre was, from the earliest times traceable, an insular city; but he wishes at the same time to show, that it was also, from the beginning, joined on to the main land by an isthmus (pp. 10-25),—which is both inconsistent with the former position and unsupported by any solid proofs. It remained an island strictly so called, until the siege by Alexander: the mole, by which that conqueror had stormed it, continued after his day, perhaps enlarged, so as to form a permanent connection from that time forward between the island and the main land (Plin. H. N. v, 19; Strabo, xvi, p. 757), and to render the insular Tyrus capable of being included by Pliny in one computation of circumference jointly with Palæ-Tyrus, the main-land town. It may be doubted whether we know the true meaning of the word which the Greeks called Παλαι-Τύρος. It is plain that the Tyrians themselves did not call it by that name: perhaps the Phenician name which this continental adjacent town bore, may have been something resembling Palæ-Tyrus in sound, but not coincident in meaning. The strength of Tyre lay in its insular situation; for the adjacent main-land, whereon Palæ-Tyrus was placed, was a fertile plain, thus described by William of Tyre during the time of the Crusaders:— “Erat prædicta civitas non solum munitissima, sed etiam fertilitate præcipuâ et amœnitate quasi singularis: nam licet in medio mari sita est, et in modum insulæ tota fluctibus cincta; habet tamen pro foribus latifundium per omnia commendabile, et planitiem sibi continuam divitis glebæ et opimi soli, multas civibus ministrans commoditates. Quæ licet modica videatur respectu aliarum regionum, exiguitatem suam multâ redimit ubertate, et infinita jugera multiplici fœcunditate compensat. Nec tamen tantis arctatur angustiis. Protenditur enim in Austrum versus Ptolemaidem usque ad eum locum, qui hodie vulgo dicitur districtum Scandarionis, milliaribus quatuor aut quinque: e regione in Septentrionem versus Sareptam et Sidonem iterum porrigitur totidem milliaribus. In latitudinem vero ubi minimum ad duo, ubi plurimum ad tria, habens milliaria.” (Apud Hengstenberg, _ut sup._ p. 5.) Compare Maundrell, Journey from Aleppo to Jerusalem, p. 50, ed. 1749; and Volney, Travels in Egypt and Syria, vol. ii, pp. 210-226.