[295] The Hebrew name for Tyre is _Tsor_ (rock). In Isa. xxiii. 4 it is called the fortress of the sea; and in ver. 8, “Tsor, the crowning one,” because Tyre gave rulers to the Phoenician cities and colonies. Valuable information about the power, trade, and customs of Tyre is derived from Ezek. xxvi-xxviii.; and we learn the fact that she employed mercenaries like her colony Carthage (Ezek. xxvii. 10, 11). In the classical writers the name is corrupted into _Tyrus_, and sometimes into _Sarra_. Tyre was unsuccessfully besieged for five years by Shalmaneser. It was also besieged for thirteen years by Nebuchadnezzar, and in the end an alliance was formed, by which the Tyrians retained their own king as a vassal of the king of Babylon. This arrangement was continued under the kings of Persia. [296] _Curtius_ (iv. 7) tells us that the envoys also brought to Alexander a golden wreath, together with abundant supplies for his army. [297] This king must have brought home his ships for the defence of Tyre, for he was in the city when it was captured. See chap. 24. [298] The Phoenician god _Melkarth_ (lord of the city), whom the Syrians called _Baal_ (lord), was supposed to be identical with the Grecian Heracles, or Hercules, who was the mythical ancestor of the Macedonian kings. _Curtius_ (iv. 7) tells us that Alexander affirmed he had been ordered by an oracle to sacrifice in Tyre to Heracles. Gesenius informs us that a Maltese inscription identifies the Tyrian Melkarth with Heracles. [299] Who was the son of Labdacus. [300] See _Herodotus_, ii. 43, 44. [301] The district comprising all the south-west of Spain outside the pillars of Heracles, or Straits of Gibraltar, was called Tartessis, of which the chief city was Tartessus. Here the Phoenicians planted colonies, one of which still remains under the name of Cadiz. The Romans called the district Baetica, from the principal river, the Baetis or Guadalquivir. The Hebrew name for this region is _Tarshish_, of which Tartessus is the Greek form. Tarshish was the station for the Phoenician trade with the West, which extended as far as Cornwall. The Tyrians fetched from this locality silver, iron, lead, tin, and gold (Isa. xxiii. 1, 6, 10, lxvi. 19; Jer. x. 9; Ezek. xxvii. 12, xxxviii. 13). Martial, Seneca, and Avienus, the first two of whom were Spaniards, understood Tartessus to stand for the south-west of Spain and Portugal. The word Tarshish probably means _sea-coast_, from the Sanscrit _tarischa_, the sea. Ovid (_Met._, xiv. 416); _Martial_, viii. 28; _Silius_, xiii. 673. [302] Of Miletus. Herodotus knew his writings well, but they have not come down to us. See _Herod._ (ii. 143; v. 36 and 125). [303] The Iberians were originally called Tibarenes, or Tibari. They dwelt on the east of the Black Sea, and west of Colchis, whence they emigrated to Spain. This nation is called _Tubal_ in the Hebrew Bible; in Isa. lxvi. 19 the Iberians of western Europe are referred to.