48 THEOPHILUS G. PINCHES, LL.D., M.R.A.S., ON THE 
misty and fabulous, whereas the Phoenicians were familiar with 
those straits 1,000 years before our era. Again, Samson the 
Danite, by his gigantic streugth, his rending of a lion with his 
mere hands, and his pulling down by the sheer force of his 
shoulders the pillars that upheld the Philistine theatre, was the 
prototype of the Phoenician and the Greek Hercules combined. 
What then more likely than that if the Danites went to settle in 
Greece they should bring the story of their hero with them and 
call themselves his children, suffering him then or thereafter to 
take a Grecian name and to have his feats augmented by many a 
Grecian fable. That they did settle there is confirmed by Homer, 
who applies the term Danaot sometimes to the Greek army at 
large, sometimes to the inhabitants of Argolis, a state just north 
of Lacedzmon in the Peloponnesus, and having the brother of the 
King of Sparta for its ruler. 
There is another proof that the story of Samson had spread 
round the Mediterranean in the annual custom of sending foxes 
into the circus at Rome with torches tied to their backs, a custom 
which Ovid can explain only by saying that an obscure country boy 
had once set corn-fields on fire in a somewhat similar way (Fasti 
IV, 681 et seq.). 
The Rev. F. A. Watker, D.D.—I think it will be agreed by all 
present that so many religions have been touched on, and so many 
centuries referred to, and so many different nations, that we 
scarcely know which to remark on first, Mr. Pinches’ paper has 
been so prolific of interest in every respect. 
With regard to the last subject, I think Mr. Pinches is quite 
right in saying that Dan disappeared almost altogether after the 
time of Solomon. It is a notable fact tuat in the Book of the 
Revelation, when all the sons of the patriarch Jacob have been 
named, apparently the name of Dan nowhere occurs. 
Then the last speaker referred to some relation between the 
Spartans and the Maccabees. There is some mysterious connec- 
tion between the Spartans and the Eastern Nations. Creesus, 
King of Lydia, was in the habit of consulting the oracles of Greece 
that were held in best repute. The Dorian Hexapolis, situate on 
the coast of Western Asia, would further facilitate intercourse 
between the Spartan and Oriental, and perhaps we are only 
partially acquainted with the various points of contact. As an 
instance, when visiting the ruins of Sardis, I learned that a part of 
