Tyre

Phoenicia

Tyre (Arabic Sur) is a city on the coast of southern Lebanon and was one of the chief ports of ancient Phoenicia; the Hebrew Bible describes its king Hiram supplying cedar for Solomon's Temple. Alexander the Great took it in 332 BCE after building a causeway to the island city. Under Rome it produced Greek writers such as the geographer Marinus, the orator Maximus and probably the Neoplatonist Porphyry. It became a Christian see whose cathedral was dedicated around 315 with a sermon by Eusebius, and Origen is said to have died there. Arab forces took Tyre in 640; it fell to the Crusaders in 1124 and to the Mamluks in 1291.

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