Despite their prevalence in ancient history, and their role in the spread of the alphabet, there is very little surviving Phoenician literature. There was certainly Phoenician literature, but it was written on perishable papyrus, which has not survived the ages. The library of Carthage, which would have housed many works of Phoenician literature, such as the agricultural writings of Mago of Carthage, was destroyed, although some works found their way to the library of king Juba of Mauretania (Ammianus Marcellinus, 22.15.8). What Phoenician literature that does survive does so thanks to quotations from later writers, such as that of Sanchuniathon, which was quoted by Philo of Byblos, whose own work survives in quotations in works by Eusebius. Similarly, Marinus of Tyre, a Greco-Phoenician historian active in the late first and…
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Ancient History (Digital) - 1 Issue, AH 53