** 1 Kings xx. 34.  No names are given in the text, but
     external evidence proves that they were cities of Persea,
     and that Ramoth-gilead was one of them.

[Illustration:  432.jpg THE HILL OF SAMARIA]

     Drawn by Boudier, from photograph No. 2G of the Palestine
     Exploration Fund.

He even set apart a special quarter in Samaria for the natives of Damascus, where they could ply their trades and worship their gods without interference.  It was a kind of semi-vassalage, from which he was powerless to free himself unaided:  he realised this, and looked for help from without; he asked and obtained the hand of Jezebel, daughter of Bthbaal, King of the Sidonians, for Ahab, his heir.  Hiram I., the friend of David, had carried the greatness of Tyre to its highest point; after his death, the same spirit of discord which divided the Hebrews made its appearance in Phoenicia.  The royal power was not easily maintained over this race of artisans and sailors:  Baalbazer, son of Hiram, reigned for six years, and his successor, Abdastart, was killed in a riot after a still briefer enjoyment of power.  We know how strong was the influence exercised by foster-mothers in the great families of the Bast; the four sons of Abda-start’s nurse assassinated their foster-brother, and the eldest of them usurped his crown.  Supported by the motley crowd of slaves and adventurers which filled the harbours of Phoenicia, they managed to cling to power for twelve years.  Their stupid and brutal methods of government produced most disastrous results.  A section of the aristocracy emigrated to the colonies across the sea and incited them to rebellion; had this state of things lasted for any time, the Tyrian empire would have been doomed.  A revolution led to the removal of the usurper and the restoration of the former dynasty, but did not bring back to the unfortunate city the tranquillity which it sorely needed.  The three surviving sons of Baalbezer, Methuastarfc, Astarym, and Phelles followed one another on the throne in rapid succession, the last-named perishing by the hand of his cousin Ethbaal, after a reign of eight months.  So far, the Israelites had not attempted to take advantage of these dissensions, but there was always the danger lest one of their kings, less absorbed than his predecessors in the struggle with Judah, might be tempted by the wealth of Phoenicia to lay hands on it.  Ethbaal, therefore, eagerly accepted the means of averting this danger by an alliance with the new dynasty offered to him by Omri.*

* 1 Kings xvi. 31, where the historian has Hebraicised the Phonician name Ittobaal into “Ethbaal,” “Baal is with him.”  Izebel or Jezebel seems to be an abbreviated form of some name like Baalezbel.

The presence of a Phonician princess at Samaria seems to have had a favourable effect on the city and its inhabitants.  The tribes of Northern and Central