Of Palæ-Tyrus, or the continental Tyre, no satisfactory account can be given, since it has absolutely left no remains, and the classical notices on the subject are exceedingly scanty. At different periods of its history, its limits and extent probably varied greatly. Its position was nearly opposite the island, and in the early times it must have been, like the other coast towns, strongly fortified; but after its capture by Alexander the walls do not seem to have been restored, and it became an open straggling town, extending along the shore from the river Leontes (Litany) to Ras-el-Ain, a distance of seven miles or more. Pliny, who wrote when its boundary could still be traced, computed the circuit of Palæ-Tyrus and the island Tyre together at nineteen Roman miles, the circuit of the island by itself being less than three miles. Its situation, in a plain of great fertility, at the foot of the south-western spurs of Lebanon, and near the gorge of the Litany, was one of great beauty. Water was supplied to it in great abundance from the copious springs of Ras-el-Ain, which were received into a reservoir of an octagonal shape, sixty feet in diameter, and inclosed within walls eighteen feet in height, whence they were conveyed northwards to the heart of the city by an aqueduct, whereof a part is still remaining.
The most important city of Phoenicia towards the north was Arvad, or Aradus. Arvad was situated, like Tyre, on a small island off the Syrian coast, and lay in Lat. 34º 48´ nearly. It was distant from the shore about two miles and a half. The island was even smaller than that which formed the nucleus of Tyre, being only about 800 yards, or less than half a mile in length, by 500 yards, or rather more than a quarter of a mile in breadth. The axis of the island was from north-west to south-east. It was a bare rock, low and flat, without water, and without any natural soil. The iron coast was surrounded on three sides, the north, the west, and the south, by a number of rocks and small islets, which fringed it like the trimming of a shawl. Its Phoenician occupiers early converted this debatable territory, half sea half shore, into solid land, by filling up the interstices between the rocks with squared stones and a solid cement as hard as the rock itself, which remains to this day. The north-eastern portion, which has a length of 150 yards by a breadth of 125, is perfectly smooth and almost flat, but with a slight slope towards the east, which is thought to show that it was used as a sort of dry dock, on which to draw up the lighter vessels, for safety or for repairs. The western and southern increased the area for house-building. Anciently, as at Tyre, the houses were built very close together, and had several storeys, for the purpose of accommodating a numerous population. The island was wholly without natural harbour; but on the eastern side, which faced the mainland, and was turned away from the prevailing winds, the art and industry of the inhabitants constructed two ports of a fair size. This was effected by carrying out from the shore three piers at right angles into the sea, the central one to a distance of from seventy to a hundred yards, and the other two very nearly as far—and thus forming two rectangular basins, one on either side of the central pier, which were guarded from winds on three sides, and only open towards the east, a quarter from which the winds are seldom violent, and on which the mainland, less than three miles off, forms a protection. The construction of the central pier is remarkable. It is formed of massive blocks of sandstone, which are placed transversely, so that their length forms the thickness of the pier, and their ends the wall on either side. On both sides of the wall are quays of concrete.
The line of the ancient enceinte may still be traced around the three outer sides of the island. It is a gigantic work, composed of stones from fifteen to eighteen feet long, placed transversely, like those of the centre pier, and in two places still rising to the height of five or six courses (from thirty to forty feet). The blocks are laid side by side without mortar; they are roughly squared, and arranged generally in regular courses; but sometimes two courses for a while take the place of one. There is a want of care in the arrangement of the blocks, joints in one course being occasionally directly over joints in the course below it. The stones are without any bevel or ornamentation of any kind. They have been quarried in the island itself, and the beds of rock from which they were taken may be seen at no great distance. At one point in the western side of the island, the native rock itself has been cut into the shape of the wall, and made to take the place of the squared stones for the distance of about ten feet. A moat has also been cut along the entire western side, which, with its glacis, served apparently to protect the wall from the fury of the waves.
We know nothing of the internal arrangements of the ancient town beyond the fact of the closeness and loftiness of the houses. Externally Aradus depended on her possessions upon the mainland both for water and for food. The barren rock could grow nothing, and was moreover covered with houses. Such rainwater as fell on the island was carefully collected and stored in tanks and reservoirs, the remains of which are still to be seen. But the ordinary supply of water for daily consumption was derived in time of peace from the opposite coast. When this supply was cut off by an enemy Aradus had still one further resource. Midway in the channel between the island and the continent there burst out at the bottom of the sea a fresh-water spring of great strength; by confining this spring within a hemisphere of lead to which a leathern pipe was attached the much-needed fluid was raised to the surface and received into a vessel moored upon the spot, whence supplies were carried to the island. 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. Its name recalls the “Brathu” of Philo-Byblius and the “Martu” of the early Babylonian inscriptions, which was used as a general term by some of the primitive monarchs almost in the sense of “Syria.” The word is still preserved in the modern “M’rith” or “Amrith,” a name attached to some extensive ruins in the plain south-east of Aradus, which have been carefully examined by M. Renan. 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. Simyra appears as “Zimirra” in the Assyrian inscriptions, where it is connected with Arka, which was not far distant. Its exact site, which was certainly south of Amrith, seems to be fixed by the name Sumrah, which attaches to some ruins in the plain about a mile and a half north of the Eleutherus (Nahr-el-Kebir) and within a mile of the sea. 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.
Of the remaining Phoenician cities the most important seems to have been Gebal, or Byblus. Mentioned under the name of Gubal in the Assyrian inscriptions as early as the time of Jehu (ab. B.C. 840), and glanced at even earlier in the Hebrew records, which tell of its inhabitants, the Giblites, Gebal is found as a town of note in the time of Alexander the Great, and again in that of Pompey. The traditions of the Phoenicians themselves made it one of the most ancient of the cities; and the historian Philo, who was a native of the place, ascribes its foundation to Kronos or Saturn. It was an especially holy city, devoted in the early times to the worship of Beltis, and in the later to that of Adonis. The position is marked beyond all reasonable doubt by the modern Jebeïl, which retains the original name very slightly modified, and answers completely to the ancient descriptions. The town lies upon the coast, in Lat. 34º 10´ nearly, about halfway between Tripolis and Berytus, four miles north of the point where the Adonis river (now the Ibrahim) empties itself into the sea. There is a “small but well-sheltered port," formed mainly by two curved piers which are carried out from the shore towards the north and south, and which leave between them only a narrow entrance. The castle occupies a commanding position on a hill at a little distance from the shore, and has a keep built of bevelled stones of a large size. Several of them measure from fifteen to eighteen feet in length, and are from five to six feet thick. They were probably quarried by Giblite “stone-cutters,” but placed in their present position during the middle ages.
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.