Deleastartus

Deleastartus (Dalay-‘Ashtart)
King of Tyre
Reign	900 – 889 BC
Born	943 BC
Birthplace	Tyre, presumed
Died	889 or 888 BC
Predecessor	Astartus (‘Ashtart) 920 – 901 BC
Successor	Astarymus (Aserymus, ‘Astar-rom) 888 – 880 BC
Dynasty	“Dynasty of the four brothers”
Father	unknown
Mother	nurse of Abdastartus

Deleastartus (Dalay-‘Ashtart) was a king of Tyre and the second of four brothers who held the kingship. The information about him has been inferred from Frank M. Cross’s reconstruction of Josephus’s citation of the Phoenician author Menander of Ephesus, in Against Apion i.18.^[1] In the text as it now stands for the passage in Josephus/Menander, Astartus is the name and Deleastartus the patronymic of the second of the four brothers to receive the kingship, while the first brother, the one who killed Abdastartus to start the dynasty, is unnamed. Cross restores Astartus as the name of the first brother and posits the supposed patronymic as the name of the second. For a further explanation, see the Astarymus article. Cross’s reconstruction for these kings has been followed by William Barnes^[2] and is used in the present article.

A further overview of the chronology of Tyrian kings from Hiram I to Pygmalion, with a discussion of the importance of Dido’s flight from Tyre and eventual founding of Carthage for dating these kings, is found in the Pygmalion article.

See also

• List of Kings of Tyre
• Astarymus
• Pygmalion of Tyre

References

1. ^ F. M. Cross, “An Interpretation of the Nora Stone,” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 208 (Dec. 1972) 17, n. 11.
2. ^ William H. Barnes, Studies in the Chronology of the Divided Monarchy of Israel (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1991) 29-55.