Emperor Hadrian considered Tyre to be a Mother City

by Damien F. Mackey “The emperor Hadrian also awarded Tyre the title of metropolis, "mother city". The gesture is significant, because it meant that by now, Tyre's official independence had become a dead letter”. Livius.org Taken from (202o): https://www.livius.org/articles/place/tyre/tyre-3/ Tyre (Phoenician צר, ṣūr, "rock"; Greek Τύρος; Latin Tyrus): port in Phoenicia and one of the main cities in the eastern Mediterranean. …. The Hellenistic Age Alexander died in 323, and civil war broke out between his successors, the "Diadochi". During a conference in Babylon, Phoenicia was first awarded to one Laomedon. The first round of civil wars was between Perdiccas, the champion of the unity of Alexander's empire, and Ptolemy, who aimed at independence, ruling from Alexandria in Egypt. In the spring of 320, it became clear that Perdiccas' ambitions were unrealistic, and after he had been killed, his admiral Attalus seized Tyre. …. In the late summer, during the Triparadisus Conference (perhaps at Baalbek), it became inevitable that the Empire would be divided. Immediately, Ptolemy seized the Phoenician towns. Together with Cyprus and the Cyrenaica, they were a protective belt around his main possession, Egypt. This was, however, a violation of the Triparadisus agreement, and it was obvious that another general, Antigonus the One-Eyed, would one day try to seize the important port for himself. In the Second Diadoch War (318-316) he got rid of some of his main opponents, and in 315, he attacked Ptolemy's possessions in Asia. In the early summer of 315, the siege of Tyre started; it fell after a long siege …. Still, Ptolemy continued to claim the city. In 301, Antigonus lost his life during the battle of Ipsus. The victors awarded Phoenicia to Seleucus I Nicator, but Antigonus' son Demetrius managed to keep Sidon and Tyre. …. In the end, it was Ptolemy who recaptured the city in 290. Tyre was still an important town, but it had, in the meantime, lost territory. More importantly, it was now a Greek city, with magistrates, a council, and a people's assembly. Similar institutions must have existed in the Phoenician period, but we no longer hear about the city's king. The city was also redesigned as a Greek city, with a colonnaded street and the "square building" (which may or may not have been used as assembly hall for the magistrates or council). The descendants of Ptolemy and the descendants of Seleucus, the Ptolemies and Seleucids, continued to quarrel about the Ptolemaic possessions in Asia ("Coele Syria"). At first, the Ptolemies were most successful, and the Zeno Papyri prove that Tyre was part of the Ptolemaic economic system, but in the Fifth Syrian War (202-195), the Seleucid king Antiochus III the Great expelled the Ptolemies and converted Syria, Phoenicia, and Palestine into Seleucid provinces. One remarkable result was that Hannibal, when he was forced to leave Carthage and decided to go to Carthage's mother-city Tyre, arrived in the Seleucid Empire. …. During his last years, he would use the Tyrian fleet to fight for Antiochus III. …. Tyre was now one of the main Seleucid centers, with a large trade network, which included Greek towns like Delphi, Delos, and Teos. This was the city of the poets Antipater and Meleager and the Stoic philosophers Antipater and Apollonius. Every five years, there was an official festival, coins were minted in Tyre, and when king Antiochus IV Epiphanes decreed the persecution of the Jews, the Tyrians were enthusiastic. …. Damien Mackey’s comment: We need to stop right here. According to my radically revised history, this Antiochus IV Epiphanes was the same person as the Grecophile emperor Hadrian. See e.g. my series: Antiochus ‘Epiphanes’ and Emperor Hadrian. Part One: “… a mirror image” (3) Hadrian's Reflection on Antiochus IV Hadrian, I believe, was a Seleucid Greek, not a Roman, emperor. We follow Livius.org now to Hadrian …. From a casual remark in the Acts of the Apostles … we learn that Tyre depended on Galilee for its food supply, and that in 44 CE, Tyre, still an independent city, was almost at war with the Jewish king Herod Agrippa. The connections between the Phoenician city and the Jews were close: Herod … built several monuments in Tyre. It comes as no surprise that there were Jews living in Tyre, and that Jesus visited the place … and it may have been the place where he cured a woman. …. Later, Paul visited the Christian community of Tyre. …. On the other hand, we learn about pogroms at the beginning of the Jewish War of 66, which prove that the relations between Jews and Tyrians could take a turn for the worse. Tyre was a center of Greek learning. Among its sons were the stoic philosopher Euphrates, the geographer Marinus, the orator Paul, and bishop Cassius, who played a role in the debate about the Easter date. …. Tyre was also the home town of the most famous sophists of Antiquity, Hadrian. He was called to occupy the imperial chair of oratory in Athens, where he started his inaugural address with the modest remark that once again, letters had come from Phoenicia. …. Marcus Aurelius promoted him to the chair of Greek oratory in Rome, where even people who did not understand Greek, visited the odeon to visit Hadrian's speeches. …. This was also the age of the great building projects. The Hippodrome, the City Baths, the Palaestra, an honorific arch dedicated to the emperor Hadrian, the pavement of the Mosaic Road, all these monuments can be dated to the second century. The emperor Hadrian also awarded Tyre the title of metropolis, "mother city". …. [End of quote] From Maccabees we learn that Antiochus Epiphanes (Hadrian) was indeed in Tyre: 2 Maccabees 4:18 “When the quadrennial games were being held at Tyre and the king was present …”. 2 Maccabees 4:44 “When the king came to Tyre, three men sent by the senate presented the case before him”. What is the point in all of this? Could emperor Antiochus-Hadrian (Epiphanes: ‘God Manifest’) have anything to do with Ezekiel 28’s ‘divine’, but ill-fated, King of Tyre?