Adonis Diaries

Illustrious and immortal personalities: The Phoenician masters…

Masters in architecture, engineering, cosmology, astronomy, philosophy, literature, history writing, agriculture, viticulture, food preservation, textile, dying…

1. Mochos the Sidonian, the geographer who wrote “Sacred Annals”.

Poseidonius believed that the concept of Atoms originated with Mochus

The Greek geographer Strabo (1st century AD) wrote:

“The Sidonians are skilled in beautiful arts, philosophy, sciences, astronomy, arithmetic… These sciences have come to the Greek and Egytians from the Phoenicians…”

2. Sanchuniaton of Berytus (Beirut)  wrote “Phoenicia History” and is credited as the “Father of History“, centuries before Herodotus

3. Pythagoras mother was Phoenician and she sailed from the island of Samus to Lebanon Afka Temple in order for her son to receive the lustral consecration (baptized according to the rite that is still performed in Lebanon).

4. At least 11 tragic plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides have subject matter and characters featuring Phoenician connection and references. These plays appeal to the loftiest and noblest virtues of the soul.

5. Clitomachus-Asdrubal (called Hasdrubal of Carthage) chaired Plato Academy in Athens

6. Philodemus of Gadara wrote “On Music”

7. Porphyrius of Tyre  wrote “Treatise on the soul” and the commentaries on “The Dialogue of Plato“.  He was for Plotinus, Aristotle and Homer what Plato Plato was to Socrates.

8. The French Combes-Dounou (1802) translated the 43 essays of Maximus of Tyre (70-130 AD)

9. Herrenius Philo of Byblos wrote “On cities and their famous men”,  “On Books”, and “History of Adrian”

10. Appolonius of Tyre (60 BC) is the stoic philosopher who provided a “Tabulated account of the philosophers of the school of Zeno and their books”

11. Mago of Carthage wrote the masterful 28 volumes on agriculture “Treatise on Agriculture” and considered by the Romans as the “Father of Agriculture”

12. Longinus wrote “On the Sublime”

13. Nonnus wrote “Dionysiaca”

14. Melodious Romanos is considered the “Pindar of rhythmic poetry”

15. Nemesianus of Carthage wrote “Nautica”

16. Lucius Apuleinus of Madaura (125-180 AD) wrote fables in “Psyche” and “The Golden Ass”

17. Thales of Miletus was born and raised in one of Phoenicia city-State on the coast of current Turkey.

18. The Phoenicians built the city-State of Thebes in Greece, 3 centuries before Athens existed. This famous city generated the illustrious Amphion, Hesiod, Corinna, Pindar, Epaminondas, Plutarch…

19. Three out of the 7 Greek Wise-men were Phoenicians, and among them was Thales of Miletus.

The Pre-Homeric poetry was discovered in Ras Shamra (ancient city of Ugarit). Cyrus Gordon wrote in 1929:

“The greatest literature discovered since deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphs and Mesopotamian cuneiform…”

Actually, the mythical stories in Homers’s work were Phoenician stories in how they discovered the seas and oceans

Note: Read “6,000 years of peaceful contribution to mankind” by late Charles Corm