Pygmalion of Tyre - Dating of Pygmalion

Dating of Pygmalion

Pygmalion’s dates are derived from Josephus’s Against Apion i.18, where Josephus quotes the Phoenician historian Menander as follows:

Pygmalion . . . lived fifty-six years, and reigned forty-seven years. Now, in the seventh year of his reign, his sister fled away from him, and built the city of Carthage in Libya.

Pygmalion’s dates, if this citation is to be trusted, are thus dependent on the date of the founding of Carthage. Here ancient classical sources given two possibilities: 825 BC or 814 BC. The 814 date is derived from the Greek historian Timaeus (c. 345-260 BC), and is the more commonly accepted year. The 825 date is taken from the writings of Pompeius Trogus (1st century BC), whose forty-four book Philippic History survives only in abridged form in the works of the Roman historian Justin. In a 1951 article, J. Liver argued that the 825 date has some credibility because, with it, the elapsed time between that date and the start of building of Solomon’s Temple, given as 143 years and 8 months in Menander/Josephus, agrees very closely with the date of approximately 967 BC for the start of Temple construction as derived from 1 Kings 6:1 (fourth year of Solomon) and the date given by most historians for the end of Solomon’s forty-year reign, i.e. 932 or 931 BC. If, however, the starting place is 814 BC, measuring back 143 or 144 years does not agree with this Biblical date.