Syria Author:Lewis Gaston Leary Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III THE CITY OF SATURN '' A ND behold, I am now in Beirut." Thus f- wrote Prince Rib-addi to his royal mas- ter, Pharaoh Amenhotep, thirty-three ce... more »nturies ago; and when the Tell el-Amarna Letters were sent from Syria to Egypt, about 1400 B. C., Beirut had long been one of the chief commercial cities of the eastern Mediterranean. According to a Greek tradition, it was founded in the Golden Age by the Titan Kronos, or Saturn, the father of Zeus. The tutelary deity of the seaport, however, was Po-. seidon (Neptune), another son of Saturn, who is represented on its coins driving his sea-horses, or standing on the prow of a ship with his trident in one hand and a dolphin in the other. The authentic history of the city begins with the records of its conquerors. Rameses II. of Egypt and Sennacherib of Assyria commemorated their successful Syrian campaigns by inscriptions still existing on the cliffs of the Dog River, just north of Beirut. Centuries later, Alexander the Great marched his conquering army through the city, Pompey added it to the Roman Em- pire, and Augustus visited here his son-in-law, the local governor. It was in Beirut that Herod the Great appeared as the accuser of his two sons, who were thereupon convicted of conspiracy and put to death by strangling. Vespasian passed through its streets in triumphal progress on his way to assume the imperial crown, and in its immense amphitheater Titus celebrated his capture of Jerusalem by a magnificent series of shows and gladiatorial contests. During the First Crusade, Baldwin, Count of Flanders and ruler of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, wrested the city from the Moslems after a long siege and put its inhabitants to the sword. Seventy years later, the greatest of all Saracen leaders, Saladin, recaptured the...« less