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But after a while Antiochus, the son of Cyzicenus, who was called Pius, came to Aradus, and put the diadem on his own head, and made war with Seleucus, and beat him, and drove him out of all Syria.
Towards the mainland it was defended by a triple line of wall still to be traced, and on the sea-side by blocks of enormous strength, which are said to resemble those on the western side of the island of Aradus. In Roman times the town, under the name of Neapolis, attained a vast size, and was adorned with magnificent edifices, of which there are still numerous remains.
These were Laodicea, Gabala, Balanea, Paltos; Aradus, with its dependency Antaradus; Marathus; Simyra, Orthosia, and Arka; Tripolis, Calamus, Trieris, and Botrys; Byblus or Gebal; Aphaca; Berytus; Sidon, Sarepta, and Ornithonpolis; Tyre and Ecdippa; Accho and Porphyreon; Dor and Joppa.
Most opportunely it happened that, either shortly before Alexander's arrival or immediately afterwards, the ships of Sidon, Aradus, and Byblus, which had been serving with the Persian naval force in the AEgean, had been required by their respective commanders to proceed homewards, and, to the number of eighty, had sailed into the harbour of Sidon.
A flight of steps cut in the rock leads down from the monument to a sepulchral chamber, which, however, contains neither sepulchral niche nor sarcophagus. But the most striking of the Phoenician sepulchral monuments are to be found in the north of Phoenicia, and not in the south, in the neighbourhood, not of Tyre and Sidon, but of Marathus and Aradus.
The phenomenon still continues, though the modern inhabitants are too ignorant and unskilful to profit by it. On the mainland Aradus possessed a considerable tract, and had a number of cities subject to her. Of these Strabo enumerates six, viz. Paltos, Balanea, Carnus which he calls the naval station of Aradus Enydra, Marathus, and Simyra. Marathus was the most important of these.
At Aradus and at Sidon, similarly, the town walls are formed in many places of native rock, squared and smoothed, up to a certain height, after which courses of stone succeed each other in the ordinary fashion.
Tyre, Sidon, Gebal, Aradus, Simyra, Sarepta, Berytus, and perhaps Arka, appear in the inscriptions of Thothmes III, and in the "Travels of a Mohar," without an indication of the pre-eminence, much less the supremacy, of any one of them.
Tripolis, situated halfway between Byblus and Aradus, was not one of the original Phoenician cities, but was a joint colony from the three principal settlements, Tyre, Sidon, and Aradus.
Persia, moreover, encouraged Phoenicia to establish an internal organisation of her own, and, under her suzerainty, Tyre, Sidon, and Aradus were united by federal bonds, and had a common council, which met at Tripolis, probably of three hundred members. This council debated matters in which Phoenicia generally was interested, and, in times of disturbance, decided questions of peace and war.
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