572 MEDIEVAL HISTORY. [Part V. 



lished the whole of the Greek MS., with a Latin version by 

 himself, he was never prevailed upon to exhibit the original 

 parchments, alleging that he had been compelled to restore 

 them to the convent. The assailants of Wagenfeld accuse him 

 of wilful deception ; but the jDrobability is that the document 

 which he translated is one of those inventions of the Middle 

 Ages, in which history and geography were strangely confounded 

 with imagination and romance ; and that it is an attempt to 

 restore the lost books of Philo Byblius, as Philo himself is 

 more than suspected to have invented the history which he 

 professed to have translated from Sanchoniathon. (See Eescii 

 and Gtruber's Encyclo'pmdia, 1847 ; Mover's Phoenician His- 

 tory, vol. i. p. 117.) 



In books vii. and viii., Sanchoniathon gives an account of 

 an island in the Indian seas explored by Tyrian naviga- 

 tors, the description of which is evidently copied from the early 

 Greek writers who had visited Taprobane, and the name 

 which is assigned to it, " the Island of RachiusJ^ is borrowed 

 from Pliny. The period of their visit is fixed by Sanchoni- 

 athon shortly after the conquest of Cittium, in Cyprus, by the 

 Phoenicians ; an event which occurred when Hiram reigned at 

 Tyre, and Solomon at Jerusalem. The narrative is given as 

 follows (book vii. ch. v. p. 150) : " So Bartophas died the 

 next day, having exercised imperial authority for six years." 

 (Ch. V.) " And on his death they chose Joramus, the son of 

 Bartophas, king, whom the Tyrians styled Hierbas, and who 

 reigned fifty-seven years. He having collected seventy-nine 

 long ships, sent an expedition against Cittium." . . . (Ch. vi.) 

 " At this time, Obdalius, king of the island of Mylite, sent all 

 his forces to assist the Tyrians at Cittium ; and when it came 

 to the knowledge of the barbarians who inhabited Tonga, that 

 the island was denuded of men and ships, they invaded it under 

 the command of Plusiacon, the son-in-law of Obdalius, and 

 having slain him and many of his people, they plundered the 

 country, and gave the city to the flames." (Ch. vii.) " And 

 Joramus directed all the eparchs in the cities and islands to 

 make out and send to Tyre descriptions of the inhabitants, 

 their ships, their arms, their horses, their scythe-bearing 

 chariots, and their property of all kinds ; and he ordered them 

 to send to distant countries persons competent to draw up nar- 

 ratives of the same kind, and to record them all in a book. In 

 this manner he obtained accurate geographical descriptions of 



