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Furthermore, since Simyra is indeed lost to me, and Yanhamu hath received Bit-Arti, he ought to send me provision of grain that I may defend the king’s city for him. Thou, oh king, speak to Yanhamu; ‘Behold, Rib-Addi is in thy hand, and all injury done to him falls on thee.’ ”
The town of Tunip sent a truly pathetic letter to Pharaoh from which we learn that Aziru had already taken Nii, was besieging Simyra in Phœnicia, and at the same time, by the aid of his creatures at Court, had succeeded in preventing the king from reinstating a prince of Tunip who had been sent into Egypt as a hostage.
Abi-milki, the Tyrian prefect, once informs the king, “Fire hath devoured the city of Ugarit; one half of it hath it destroyed and not the other.” Finally, a certain Yapakhi-Addi, after an unsuccessful attempt to get provisions into Rib-Addi’s city Simyra, reproachfully informs Yanhamu that Aziru has extended his dominions from Gebal to Ugarit.
The heart of that elder world beat strangely in one of the upper chambers where they came upon a little work-shop, strewn with unknown metals and tools and empty crucibles, and in their midst a rectangular metallic plate partly traced with a device of boughs, appearing, in one light, slightly fluorescent. "It is the work of the Princess Simyra, adôn," said Jarvo.
Simyra appears as "Zimirra" in the Assyrian inscriptions, where it is connected with Arka, which was not far distant. The other towns Paltos, Balanea, Carnus, and Enydra were in the more northern portion of the plain, as was also Antaradus, now Tortosa, where there are considerable remains, but of a date long subsequent to the time of Phoenician ascendancy.
Marathus was an ancient Phoenician town, probably one of the most ancient, and was always looked upon with some jealousy by the Aradians, who ultimately destroyed it and partitioned out the territory among their own citizens. The same fate befell Simyra, a place of equal antiquity, the home probably of those Zemarites who are coupled with the Arvadites in Genesis.
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.
Arka, or Arqa, the home of the Arkites of Genesis, can never have been a place of much consequence. It lies at a distance of four miles from the shore, on one of the outlying hills which form the skirts of Lebanon, in Lat. 34º 33, Long. 33º 44' nearly. The towns nearest to it were Orthosia, Simyra, and Tripolis.
This latter was a personal enemy of Rib-Hadad the governor of Gebal, whose letters to Khu-n-Aten form a considerable portion of the Tel el-Amarna collection. The authority of Rib-Hadad originally extended over the greater part of Phoenicia, and included the strong fortress of Zemar or Simyra in the mountains.
There remain fifteen important cities, of which six may be placed in the first rank and nine in the second the six being Tyre, Sidon, Aradus, Byblus or Gebal, Marathus, and Tripolis; the nine, Laodicea, Simyra, Arka, Aphaca, Berytus, Ecdippa, Accho, Dor, and Joppa. It will be sufficient in the present place to give some account of these fifteen.
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