Note 88 — Chapter III

We can see no reason for supposing Tarsus the “Tarshish” of the Bible. It did not export the kind of produce entrusted to the “ships of Tarshish,” while the notices of it in the Bible (Gen. x. 4; 1 Chron. i. 7; Psalm lxxiv.; Isaiah lxvi. 19), imply a town or territory in the far west, whence, only, some of these products (as tin), so far as we know, were then obtainable. Hence we find the Phœnicians sailing thither in “long ships” (Ezek. xxvii. 12, xxviii. 13; Jerem. x. 9); while the Roman writers, as Ovid (Met. xiv. 416), Silius Italicus (iii. 399), and Claudian (Epist. iii. v. 14), evidently use the name Tartessus as synonymous with “West.” On the whole, it is most likely that Tartessus in Spain (considered loosely as a district rather than as a town) represents the Biblical Tarshish, and that “ships of Tarshish” is a term equivalent with “Indiamen.”