ABOUT TYROS
Tyros is an island of the Thassa, 400 pasangs west of Port Kar and one hundred pasangs south of Cos. It's capitol city is Kasra. Another major city is Tentium. As the western border of known Gor, those who have first knowledge refer to the waters beyond it as 'the World's End'. To those Goreans with second knowledge, who are taught that Gor is spheroid, the expression is merely a figure of speech.
Tyros is a rugged mountainous island known for it's vart caves. The varts are trained to be used as weapons. The island of Tyros is known for its great fleets of raiding ships. It is similar in certain respects to the ancient Earth island of Crete. Tyros is also known for growing red olives and cherries.


SOME QUOTES FROM THE BOOKS
'Port Kar, crowded, squalid, malignant, is sometimes referred to as the Tarn of the Sea. Her name is a synonym in Gorean for cruelty and piracy. The fleets of tarn ships of Port Kar are the scourge of Thassa, beautiful, lateen-rigged galleys that ply the trade of plunder and enslavement from the Ta-Thassa Mountains of the southern hemisphere of Gor to the ice lakes of the North; and westward even beyond the terraced island of Cos and the rocky Tyros, with its labyrinths of vart caves.' Raiders of Gor Page 6

'Only Cos and Tyros had fleets to match those of Port Kar. And they, almost of tradition, did not care to engage their fleets with hers.' Raiders of Gor Page 106


'Clitus, after returning to our quarters, had left and returned with four musicians, bleary-eyed, routed from their mats well past the Twentieth Hour, but, lured by the jingling of a pair of silver tarsks, ready to play for us, past the dawn if need be. We soon had them drunk as well and though it did not improve their playing, I was pleased to see them join with us in our festivities, helping us to make our feast. Clitus, too, had brought two bottles of Ka-la-na wine, a string of eels, cheese of the Verr, and a sack of red olives from the groves of Tyros.' Raiders of Gor Page 106

'With the tip of my tongue I touched her lips. Some slave cosmetics are flavored. "Does Master enjoy my taste?" she asked. "The lipstick is flavored," I said. "I know," she said. "It reminds me of the cherries of Tyros," I said. "I do not know what the flavor is," she said, "but it is lovely, is it not?" "Yes," I said. "Taste your slave again," she begged. I kissed her. My hands were hard on her arms. "Kiss it from my mouth, ruthlessly, owning me, Master!" she begged. "Oh," she cried, my hands so hard on her arms. But then I put her from me.' Beasts of Gor pg. 349

'Some years ago Tyros and Cos joined fleets for war on Port Kar, but in a significant naval battle the two ubarates were defeated. Port Kar lacked the power and shipping to follow up its victory. Tyros and Cos, and Port Kar, remain to this day in a state of war with respect to one another.' Slavegirl of Gor

'To get a better figure, particularly since the above figures are themselves approximations, let us say that Port kar houses in the neighborhood of five thousand ships. As mentioned above, the naval strengths of Cos and Tyros are, individually, comparable. It is, of course, true that not all of these some five thousand ships are war ships. My estimation would be that approximately fifteen hundred only are the long ships, the ram-ships, those of war. On the other hand, whereas the round ships do not carry rams and are much slower and less maneuverable than the long ships, they are not inconsequential in a naval battle, for their deck areas and deck castles can accommodate springals, small catapults, and chain-slings onagers, not to mention numerous bowmen, all of which can provide a most discouraging and vicious barrage, consisting normally of javelins, burning pitch, fiery rocks and crossbow quarrels. A war ship going into battle, incidentally, always takes its mast down and stores its sail below decks. The bulwarks and deck of the ship are often covered with wet hides.' Raiders of Gor Page 133

'There islands, with occasional free ports on the coast, north and south of the Gorean equator, such as Lydius and Helmutsport, and Schendi and Bazi, make possible the commerce between Cos and Tyros, and the mainland, and its cities, such as Ko-ro-ba, Thentis, Tor, Ar, Turia, and many others. On these voyages my cargos were varied. I did not, however, in this early period, because of the cost, purchase cargos of great value. Accordingly I did not carry, in these first voyages, any abundance of precious metals or jewels; not did I carry rugs or tapestries, or medicines, or silks or ointments, or perfumes or prize slaves, or spices or cannisters of colored table salts. In these first voyages I was content, quite, to carry tools and stone, dried fruit, dried fish, bolts of rep-cloth, tem-wood, Tur-wood and Ka-la-na stock, and horn and hides. I did once carry, however, a hold of chained slaves, and, another time, a hold filled with the furs of the northern sea sleen. The latter cargo was the most valuable carrried in these first four voyages. Each of these cargos I managed to sell at considerable profit. Twice we had been scouted by pirates from Tyros, in their green ships, painted to resemble the sea, but neither of them had chosen ot engage us. We gathered that, seeing how low we sat in the water, they assumed our cargo to be one of bulk goods and departed, doubtless having higher hopes for gain upon the sea. It is scarely worth the risk of crew and ship, unless desperate, to win a hold filled with lumber or stone.' Raiders of Gor Page 137-38

'Both lie some four hundred pasangs west of Port Kar, Tyros to the south of Cos, separated by some hundred pasangs from her. Tyros is a rugged island, with mountains. She is famed for her vart caves, and indeed, on the island, trained varts, batlike creatures, some the size of small dogs, are used as weapons.' Raiders of Gor Page 139

'The possibility of peace on Thassa was an attractive one to me, a merchant. If Cos and Tyros could be convinced to make peace, and it could be held, my fortunes would considerably increase. Cos and Tyros themselves are important markets, not to mention their allies, and the ports and cities either affiliated with Cos and Tyros, or favorable to them. Further, even if my mission failed, I would be richer by a galley, and that a ram-ship of heavy class, the most redoubtalbe naval weapon on gleaming Thassa. There were risks, of course, but I had taken them into account. I would not go as a fool to Cos and Tyros.' Raiders of Gor Page 167

'I put to them, the Ubars of Cos and Tyros, as well as I could, the proposals of the Council of Captains of Port Kar, that there would be concord, and doubtless an opening of commerce, between the two Ubarates and the maligned city in the Vosk’s delta, my own Port Kar. As I spoke, the Ubar of Cos, Lurius of Jad, and the Ubar of Tyros, Chenbar of Kasra, the Sea Sleen, who was visiting Lurius on matters of state, sat unspeaking upon their thrones. They asked no questions. They merely regarded me. Kasra is the capitol of Tyros; its only other major city is Tentium.' Raiders of Gor Page 173

'I brought with me fifty-eight ships: the flagship of the treasure fleet, Vivina bound at its prow, the Dorna, the other twenty-nine ships which had composed my original fleet, and, as prizes, laden with wealth which might have been the ransom of cities, a full twenty-seven of the thirty round ships of the fabulous treasure fleet of Cos and Tyros. And bound at the prow of the first forty ships, following the flagship, beginning with the Dorna, and then the tarn ships and the first ten and largets of the captured round ships, was a high-born beauty, once intended to be the maiden of Cos’s Ubara, now, like herseld, destined only for the brand and collar of a slave girl.' Raiders of Gor Page 214-15

'"Who are you?" he asked. "I am the Lady Vivina of Kasra!" she cried. "No," he said, "you are a slave." "No!" she said, shaking her head. "Yes," he said, "and I, too, am a slave." And then, to our surprise, holding her head in his hands, he kissed her gently on the lips. She looked at him, tears in her eyes. Raised as she had been, in the sequestered quarters of high-born women in palace of Tyros in Kasra, I supposed it was perhaps the first time that the lips of a man had touched hers. Doubtless she had expected to receieve that kiss standing in the swirling love silks of the Free Companion, beneath golden love lamps, beside the couch of the Ubar of Cos; but it was not in the white, marbled palace of the Ubar of Cos that that kiss was to take place; and it was not to be receieved as a Ubara from the lips of a Ubar; that kiss wa to be taken place in Port Kar, in the holding of her enemies, under barbaric torchlight, before the table of her master; and she was not to wear the love silks of a Free Companion and Ubara but the brief, wretched garment of a Kettle Slave, and a collar that proclaimed her slave girl; and the lips would be those of a slave which touched hers, those themselves of a slave.' Raiders of Gor Page 234-35

'How rich a joke it was, to have enslaved the girl who would have been Ubara of Cos, to have put her to work in my kitchens, to have given the use of her to a mere slave boy! This story would soon be told in all the ports of Thassa and all the cities of Gor! How shamed would be Tyros and Cos, enemies of my city, Port Kar! How delicious is the defeat of the enemies! How glorious is power, success, triumph! Raiders of Gor' Page 236

'"What would be your estimate of the size of the fleet of Cos and Tyros," I asked Tab. He did not hesitate. "Four thousand ships," he said. "Tarn ships?" I asked. "All," he said. His surmise agreed closely with the reports of my spies. The fleet would consist, according to my information, of forty-two hundred ships, twenty-five hundred from Cos and seventeen hundred from Tyros. Of the forty-two hundred, fifteen hundred would be galleys heavy class, two thousand medium-clas galleys, and seven hundred light galleys. A net, a hundred pasangs wide, was closing on Port Kar.' Raiders of Gor Page 248

' "A ship must be built," said Samos, "A ship different from any other." I looked at him. "One that can sail beyond the world’s end," he said. This was an expression, in the first knowledge, for the sea some hundred pasangs west of Cos and Tyros, beyond which the ships of Goreans do not go, or if go, do not return. Samos, of course, knew as well as I the limitations of the first knowledge. he knew, as well as I, that Gor was spheriod. I did not know why men did not traverse the seas far waest of Cos and Tyros. Telima, too, of course, having been educated through the second knowledge in the house of Samos, knew that "world’s end" was, to the educated Gorean, a figurative expression. Yet, in a sense, the Gorean world did end there, as it also, in a sense, eneded with the Voltai ranges to the east. They were the borders, on the east and west, of known Gor. To the far south and north, there was, as far as men knew, only the winds and the snows, driven back and forth, across the bleak ice.'Raiders of Gor Page 312



This page was last modified on the 15th of February 2002