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.[455] The other towns—­Paltos, Balanea, Carnus,[456] 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[457] (ab.  B.C. 840), and glanced at even earlier in the Hebrew records, which tell of its inhabitants, the Giblites,[458] Gebal is found as a town of note in the time of Alexander the Great,[459] and again in that of Pompey.[460] 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.[461] It was an especially holy city, devoted in the early times to the worship of Beltis,[462] and in the later to that of Adonis.[463] The position is marked beyond all reasonable doubt by the modern Jebeil, 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,"[464] 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.[465] 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.[466] The date of its foundation, and its native Phoenician name, are unknown to us:  conjecture hovers between Hosah, Mahalliba, Uznu, and Siannu, maritime towns of Phoenicia known to the Assyrians,[467] but unmentioned by any Greek author.  The situation was a promontory, which runs out towards the north-west, in Lat. 34º 27’ nearly, for the distance of a mile, and is about half a mile wide.  The site is “well adapted for a haven, as a chain of seven small islands, running out to the north-west, affords shelter in the direction from which the most violent winds blow."[468] The remotest of these islands is ten miles distant from the shore.[469] We are told that the colonists who founded Tripolis did not intermix, but had their separate quarters of the town assigned to them, each surrounded by its own wall, and lying at some little distance one from the other.[470] There are no present traces of this arrangement, which seems indicative of distrust; but some remains have been found of a wall which was carried across the isthmus on the land side.[471] Tripolis is now Tarabolus.