The King of Tyre was the ruler of Tyre, the ancient Phoenician city-state in what is now Lebanon. The traditional list of 12 kings, with reigns dated to 990âÂÂ785 BC, is derived from the lost history of Menander of Ephesus as quoted by Josephus in Against Apion I. 116âÂÂ127. Josephus asserts that Menander had drawn his list from the chronicles of Tyre itself. Menander-Josephus also contains a list of 9 kings and judges, with reigns dated to 591âÂÂ532 BC in Against Apion I. 154âÂÂ160.
The dates for the reconstruction of Menander's Tyrian king list from Abibaal through Pygmalion are established in three places by three independent sources: a Biblical synchronism (Hiram's assistance to Solomon in building the Temple, from 967 BC onwards), an Assyrian record (tribute of Baal-Eser II/Balazeros II to Shalmaneser III in 841 BC), and a Roman historian (Pompeius Trogus, who placed the founding of Carthage or Dido's flight from her brother Pygmalion in the latter's seventh year of reign, in 825 BC, 72 years before the founding of Rome).
The Neo-Assyrian Empire established its control over the area and ruled through vassals who are named in Assyrian records.
Menander's Tyrian king list also described the period from Ithobaal III through Hiram III. Tyre regained independence with Assyria's demise, although Egypt controlled Tyre during some of the time afterwards. Eventually, Tyre fell under the control of the Neo-Babylonian Empire.
In the 560s the monarchy was overthrown, and an oligarchic government established, headed by "judges" or shoftim (cf. Carthage). The monarchy was restored with the ascension of Hiram III to the throne. Josephus mentions these judges in his treatise Against Apion (Book I, ç21), and which last judge (Hiram III) is said to have been contemporary with Cyrus the Great. According to Josephus, Hiram's reign extended to the fourteenth year of Cyrus', ascension to power in Babylon. Cyrus took control of Babylon on October 29, 539, therefore Hiram III's rule spanned from 551 to 532 BC.
After Alexander the Great conquered Tyre in 332 BC, the city alternated between Seleucid (Syrian Greek) and Ptolemaic (Egyptian Greek) rule. Phoenicia came under the rule of the Roman Republic in the 1st century BC.
The Kingdom of Tyre emerged in the early second millennium BCE as one of the leading Phoenician maritime powers and reached its height between the 10th and 8th centuries BCE, especially under King Hiram I, when it expanded trade networks across the Mediterranean and supplied cedar and craftsmen for monumental projects such as those attributed to Solomon in Jerusalem; from its strategic island stronghold, Tyre built a vast commercial empire and founded colonies, most famously Carthage, spreading Phoenician culture, navigation skills, and the lucrative production of purple dye extracted from murex shells. Although it maintained considerable autonomy, Tyre paid tribute to Assyria and later endured a long siege by Nebuchadnezzar II in the 6th century BCE, after which it came under Achaemenid Persian rule, contributing ships to the imperial navy until its dramatic conquest by Alexander the Great in 332 BCE, who built a causeway to capture the island city; subsequently incorporated into the Hellenistic kingdoms and then the Roman Empire in 64 BCE, Tyre flourished as a prosperous urban center known for trade, textiles, and culture before gradually declining in the medieval period, though its archaeological remains still testify to its former status as one of the most influential seafaring cities of the ancient Mediterranean world.