Its exact site, which was certainly south of Amrith, seems to be fixed by the name Sumrah, which attaches to some ruins in the plain about a mile and a half north of the Eleutherus (Nahr-el-Kebir) and within a mile of the sea.[455] The other towns--Paltos, Balanea, Carnus,[456] and Enydra--were in the more northern portion of the plain, as was also Antaradus, now Tortosa, where there are considerable remains, but of a date long subsequent to the time of Phoenician ascendancy.
Of the remaining Phoenician cities the most important seems to have been Gebal, or Byblus.

Mentioned under the name of Gubal in the Assyrian inscriptions as early as the time of Jehu[457] (ab.

B.C.

840), and glanced at even earlier in the Hebrew records, which tell of its inhabitants, the Giblites,[458] Gebal is found as a town of note in the time of Alexander the Great,[459] and again in that of Pompey.[460] The traditions of the Phoenicians themselves made it one of the most ancient of the cities; and the historian Philo, who was a native of the place, ascribes its foundation to Kronos or Saturn.[461] It was an especially holy city, devoted in the early times to the worship of Beltis,[462] and in the later to that of Adonis.[463] The position is marked beyond all reasonable doubt by the modern Jebeil, which retains the original name very slightly modified, and answers completely to the ancient descriptions.

The town lies upon the coast, in Lat.