tributed what had never belonged to him, giving to his daughter Athena the kingdom of Attica in Greece, and to his friend Taautus, or Hermes, the whole of Egypt. In a later age these stories were allegorized, and the first kings of Phoenicia came in time to be worshipped as gods.

The history of the country, as told by the Greeks, makes Agenor, the son of Neptune, its first king. He was succeeded by his son Phoenix, from whom the name of the country was derived. The next king, after a long interval, was Phalis, who flourished in the time of the Trojan war, and fought on the side of the Greeks. After him the records are silent again, and we are obliged to turn to the Hebrew account where it takes up the narrative. This starts by asserting that Phoenicia, even in the earliest times, did not exist as a single empire, but was only a knot of several states, each of which had a distinct king and government, though all acted in concert in carrying out great schemes of national aggrandizement. The principal of these states were Sidon, Tyre, and Aradus; and of these Tyre was at one time the most powerful.

Sidon, the first-mentioned state, was founded in B.C. 598, by a person bearing the same name, and said to be of the line of Canaan. The next king spoken of is Tetramnestus, who reigned in B.C. 481, and assisted Xerxes in his expedition against Greece. Another king, Teunes, is mentioned, who ruled when Darius Ochus occupied the Persian throne. He is said to have assisted Nectabanus, king of Egypt, in his attempt to shake off the yoke of Persia, which drew down upon him the anger of the Persian king, the result of which was that Teunes, after much degradation and perfidy on his part, was killed, and all Phoenicia brought temporarily under the Persian yoke. In the reign of Strato (B.c. 333), Sidon, freeing herself from Persia, submitted to Alexander, upon which Strato, who had opposed the movement, was deprived of his crown, which was conferred on a poor man named Ballonymus, who was found working in a garden as a common labourer.

The appointment of one of themselves as king was received by the people with great joy, and Ballonymus remained faithful to the last, both to his countrymen and to the Macedonians.

The first king of Tyre, by the Hebrew account, was Abihal, who reigned in B.C. 1056, and was contemporary with David, and probably arrayed against him. He was succeeded by his son Hiram, who maintained a close friendship with David, and assisted Solomon in building the temple of the Lord, and in equipping his fleets, and also gave him a daughter in marriage. Hiram was succeeded by his son Baleazar, who was followed by some princes whose reigns were only distinguished by assassinations and usurpations. In B.c. 962, Ithobal, the chief priest of Astarté, was raised to the throne. He is spoken of as both king of Tyre and Sidon, from which it would appear that Sidon was subject to Tyre long before she assumed a distinct existence. The next king, after two intermediate reigns, was Pygmalion, in whose reign his widowed sister Elishá, otherwise called Dido, is said to have fled from Tyre and established herself in Carthage, on the coast of Africa, to prevent her brother from seizing on the immense riches which were left to her by her husband. In the reign of Elulæus (B.c. 717), Tyre became involved in a war with the Assyrians, and was besieged; but held out for five years, after which the siege was raised. Nebuchadnezzar again laid siege to the city in B.C. 585, and took it after thirteen years, in B.C. 572, when unable to get at the wealth of the Tyrians, he razed their capital to the ground. The royal post was now abolished, and Tyre was for a few years governed by a board of judges. The kings who succeeded were all tributaries to the Assyrians, and after them to the Persians; and one of them, Marten, served in the navy of Xerxes, against the Greeks. The people of Tyre in the meantime devoted themselves with great spirit and perseverance to the erection of a new city in place of their old one, and this had a long era of peace to mature the greatness it attained.

In the reign of Azelmic, in B.C. 333, the new city was besieged by Alexander the Great, on admittance into it having been refused to him; and, being taken in seven months, it was burnt to the ground, and the inhabitants either destroyed or enslaved.

The history of Aradus is but very slightly known, the name of three kings only having come down to us-viz., Arbal; his son Narbal, who served in the Persian fleet under Xerxes, against the Greeks; and Gerostratus, who served under Darius Codomanus against Alexander, but soon found it to his interest to make his submission to the Macedonian.

The account of Sanchoniatho, which we have noticed, does not in any way allude to the deluge, which seems to have swept over all the countries in the immediate neighbourhood of Phoenicia. The ecclesiastical writers conclude from this that the Phoenician records must have been tampered with, at least to the extent implied by the omission, though the object of so corrupting them is not clearly explained. They attribute the act to an anxiety on the part of the Phoenician historians to conceal all evidence of the great judgment which overtook the race of Cain; but they do not say why it should have become necessary to conceal such evidence at all. They next go on, by manipulations of divers kinds-such as the rearrangement of generations and the conversion of names-to make the rest of the Phoenician version accord with what is stated in the Hebrew records, being unwilling, apparently, to allow two dissimilar accounts to stand in regard to one of the very centres of Judaism. This patchwork, however, has not satisfied all parties; and the bolder commentators find it safer altogether to reject the history of Sanchoniatho as idle conjecture. The age and authority of that writer, however, must always command respect; and his evidence on some points at least is of very great value. It goes to establish, first, that, like China, Assyria, Egypt, and other countries, Phoenicia also had a set of first parents exclusively her own, by whom the country was peopled; and

secondly, that the country was not visited by the flood,both points of great importance as regards our present inquiry. In time, Phoenicia does appear to have been colonised by the Canaanites and others; but there was apparently full and sufficient previous peopling of it from within.

The history of the early civilisation of the Phoenicians is well known-their days of greatest glory being those of Solomon, when they engrossed all the trade of the world. They made some remarkable voyages in the service of that king himself, and one long voyage all round Africa in the service of Necho II. of Egypt. Their position as merchants and navigators was simply this: The products of all Asia came to their country for further transport westward; but the sea intervened, and a seafaring people only could pass on the trade further. The benefit to them was too great to be overlooked, and they took advantage of the necessity of their position to become the best mariners of the ancient world. But something more was wanted. What England found out in a subsequent age in extending her trade to India, Phoenicia discovered in her daynamely, that the development of trade needed the protection of settlements; and settlements were accordingly established by them all along the shores of the Mediterranean, in the Euxine and the Baltic Seas, and even in the Persian Gulf-by force, where force was found necessary, but without resort to it where it was not absolutely required. The islands of Cyprus, Sicily, and the Balearics, also belonged to them. But they betrayed no thirst for conquest in the excitement which led them on. They avoided contests with other powers, and retired from the coasts of the Egean Sea and from Sicily before the Greeks, risking the opprobrium of weakness and cowardice rather than entangle themselves with what would have impaired their usefulness. No nation of the ancient world did greater service to the cause of civilisation. They carried it with them-that is, such civilisation as then existed-wherever they went, teaching many things, and,

among others, the use of letters, to the savages of Europe, at least fifteen hundred years before the birth of Christ. Embarking from the Red Sea, they sailed round Africa by doubling the Cape of Good Hope; while, piercing through the Pillars of Hercules, they visited the coast of Britain, and even the shores of the Baltic. The most remarkable of their colonies was Carthage, which soon grew as powerful as the mother state, and was then cheerfully given up. This affords one of the most interesting spectacles that the history of the world affords.

Syria.

Syria was named after Cyrus, the son of Agenor; but the Hebrews called it Aram, after the youngest son of Shem. Authors are not agreed as to the exact bounds of this country, which differed very much at different times, being more or less extensive as it became more or less famous. One thing is certain, that, like Phoenicia, it was originally composed of distinct states, which again had different names at different times. The country was mostly a level campaign, and the soil of it was exceedingly fertile, the whole having always been regarded as a pleasant garden, abounding in all things required for the comfort and convenience of man. Of remarkable peculiarities, the famous cedars of Lebanon belonged to it, and also the magnificent ruins of Baalbeck and Palmyra, which were the haltingplaces of the extensive commerce that was carried on through the country in ancient times.

The very ancient history of Syria is not well known. The principal states into which it was divided were Zobah, Damascus, Hamath, and Geshur. The first king of Zobah whose name has come down to us was Rehob. His son, Hadadezer, was contemporaneous with David, and was remarkable for his unfortunate wars with him. The kingdom of Zobah being overthrown by David, that of Darose upon its ruins. Rezon, who had served under Hadadezer and deserted

mascus

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him, founded this new

H