TIRO (Hebrew-Phoenician Şor, Şor; cf. şor “rock”; Greek Topoç; modern Şur). — Principal city of Phoenicia.
The origins of the seafaring city of T. perhaps go back to settlements of fishermen (who had come from Sidon?) at the beginning of the third millennium; very ancient traces, of unknown origin, have been found farther inland.
T. soon entered into commercial relations with Egypt, as local remains and references in hieroglyphic texts show, and this continued throughout the city’s period of splendor, between the fourteenth and seventh centuries B.C. In the age of el-‘Amâmah, Egypt’s influence over T., commercial more than political, was very strong; later the city governed itself and achieved ever greater development in comparison with its rival Sidon. Various industries flourished in the city, including large-scale enterprises, especially in metallurgy, goldsmithing, weaving, and dyeing; excavations have brought to light traces of the installations, although these can be known better from Byblos, where the remains have been better preserved. The Tyrian colonies scattered throughout the Mediterranean (Carthage, Hippo, Bizerte, Utica, Cádiz), and apparently also beyond the Pillars of Hercules (Tharsis), were major outlets for the distribution of manufactured goods. Thus navigation is only one aspect of T.’s grand civilization. Apart from the reference to T. in Ios. 19, 29 (cf. II Sam. 24, 7) concerning the division of Canaan, where it is said that Asher’s northwestern boundary reaches “as far as the fortified city of T.” 9, 10, according to the Septuagint, “as far as the spring of T.,” that is, Râs el-‘Ajn, 3 km. south of the city, where there are ancient artesian wells and an aqueduct, T. enters the biblical horizon precisely as an industrial and artistic center, from the Hiram (v.) and of Solomon Hiram (v.).
Later biblical references to T. acquire literary and moralizing contours: a pleased, though indirect, allusion to its splendor (Ps. 45, 13: its gifts for royal nuptials; ibid. 87, 4: among the peoples who pay homage to Zion); harsh reproach for the capture and trade of slaves, which unfortunately were not absent from the range of Phoenician exports (Am. 1, 9-10; Icel 4, 4-5); and a prophetic judgment on the sorrowful end of the proud city (Is. 23; Ez. 26-28). Ezekiel gives a splendid description of magnificent T., its commerce, and its harbor, portraying the city itself as a ship, more for an allegorical than a realistic purpose, as the personification of pride, insult toward other peoples and God (in Ezekiel’s time T., which had had to defend itself repeatedly against Assyrian invasions, was in decline), but with reference to the city’s actual history and that of its colonies.
In the Persian and Hellenistic periods, T.’s importance declined; there nevertheless remained the great memory of its former power, ordinarily in association with Sidon, as the Gospel allusions show (Mt. 11, 21-22; 15, 21; Mc. 3, 8; 7, 24, 31; Lc. 6, 17; 10, 13 onward), together with a certain amount of activity in its harbor (Act. 21, 3-7).
It was an episcopal see from apostolic times. Origen died there, and St. Athanasius was condemned there (335). After falling to the Arabs (638), it shared the fate of Syria (under the caliphs of Damascus, then of Baghdad, and later the Selâügi). The stronghold again acquired some importance during the time of the Crusades; conquered by Baldwin II (1124), it became the seat of a Latin bishopric, whose holder was the celebrated hermit William; abandoned, however, after the fall of St. John of Acre (1291), it declined into a small center, inhabited mostly by fishermen, today perhaps numbering approximately 9,000.
T. is currently the seat of: 1) a Melkite bishopric since 1683, with 10 parishes, 9 priests, and 7,945 faithful among 102,500 inhabitants; 2) a Maronite bishopric since 1838, previously a vicariate from 15 August 1819, with 22 churches, 20 of them parishes, 25 priests, and 11,561 faithful.
Nella grande persecuzione caddero il vescovo Tyrannios (Eusebio, Hist. eccl., VIII, 13), il martire Ulpiano (id., De martyr. Palaestin., 5, 1), la martire Teodosia (ibid., 7, 1). Il Martirologio geronimiano, al 24 luglio attribuisce alla città di T. la martire Cristina (v.). Eusebio fu presente in T. ai crudeli tormenti ai quali furono sottoposti molti cristiani; ricorda che quelli esposti alle fiere aizzate contro di loro, rimasero illesi, come cinque egiziani che vennero poi sgozzati e gettati in mare (Hist. eccl., VIII, 8).
In T. Eusebio trovò affissa una tavola di bronzo con la copia della lettera inviata dall'imperatore Massimino Daia per congratularsi con le città che avevano emanato decreti contro i cristiani (ibid., IX, 7).
Il dotto prete antiocheno Doroteo, di cui fu uditore Eusebio di Cesarea, ca. la fine del sec. III venne nominato dall'Imperatore amministratore della tintoria della porpora in T. (ibid., VII, 32). Da Eusebio, nel discorso per la consacrazione della nuova chiesa di T. da lui dedicato al vescovo di T. Paolino, il nuovo edificio viene chiamato « la più bella chiesa di tutta la Fenicia » (ibid., VIII, 7). Tra le stoffe prezioso donate dai papi alle chiese di Roma sono spesso ricordate quelle « Tyrea »; Adriano I (772-95) ne offrì 65 alla basilica di S. Pietro e 20 per ciascun titolo o parrocchia (Lib. Pont., I, pp. 499, 504). Di T. FRUMENZIO, SANTO (v.), apostolo dell'Abissinia.
Nel 1845 furono eseguiti scavi e si ritrovò un battistero a cui si accedeva mediante due scale opposte (S. N. Seppz, Meerfahrt nach Tyres zur Ausgrabung der Kathedrale mit Barbarossa's Grab, Lipsia 1879, pp. 210, 217). Dalle fonti è nota la chiesa ottagona della Theotokos. Alcuni musaici decorativi d'età bizantina sono a Parigi
nel Museo del Louvre. T. è oggi anche sede titolare arcivescovile di rito latino. Enrico Josi