290 SMYTH — PERICLES AND APOLLONIUS. [Oct. 7, 



lived, who always solved the riddles which Solomon proposed. 

 Dion says Solomon sent riddles to Hiram and received some from 

 him. Whoever could not find the answers was to pay money to 

 him who was successful. Hiram failed and was obliged to pay a 

 heavy fine. However, he learned the answer to the riddle from 

 Abdemon, a Tyrian, who also gave other riddles to Solomon which 

 he could not answer, and so was compelled to forfeit to Hiram. 

 This Abdemon or his son is the Hiram Abi of the Bible, and in 

 two MSS. he is called 'Aftr^og. (It has been suggested that we have 

 here the original source of Biirger's ballad of the king and the 

 abbot of St. Gall, and of Schiller's Teilung der Erde.) 



At the end of the fifth century this history first appeared in 

 western literature. The decree of Damasus, or Gelasius, the first 

 index librorum prohibitorum, mentions among other notable books 

 the Contradictio Salof?ioms, which was withdrawn from the Canon 

 because of its deviation from the Scriptural narrative. The 

 Salomon- Marko If was in Germany in the tenth century, for it is 

 quoted by Notker, of St. Gall. It is not improbable that the 

 Proverbs in the St. Gall Rhetoric are taken from the St. Gall 

 Salomon-Markolf. In the twelfth century, Bp, William of Tyre 

 recognized the identity of the Salomon-Abdemon story with the 

 Salomon-Markolf story. By a change of names and localities a 

 second type of myths appeared, in which a princess is wooed by 

 riddles with risk of life to the unfortunate suitors. Here we ha/e 

 the Antiochus type. A very early indication of this condition is 

 to be found in Tatian, Oratio ad Grcecos, cap. 6d), where Salomon 

 and Hiram are shown to be brothers-in-law, and, according to the 

 Phoenician histories of Theodotus, Hypsicrates and Mochus, it is 

 reported that Chiram has given his daughter to Solomon in mar- 

 riage. 



The change of the scene of the history from Jerusalem to 

 Antioch points to the time when Jerusalem, conquered for the 

 second time, had ceased to exist, and had even disappeared as a 

 name, its site being occupied by a Roman colony, Aelia Capitolina, 

 while Antioch had become the chief city of Syria. The middle 

 link between Machal and Markolf is Marcol, the Hebraized name 

 of Mercury, which could only have become known to the Jews 

 after the Roman conquest of Palestine (see B. Stentz, Die Hirafn 

 Sage, Hands chrift fur Briider Meister, Berlin, 1871). 



The figures of Christian and pagan literature and mythology 



