PRIMITIVE HISTORY OF THE lONIANS. 419 



meelite region of Jericlio on tlae east, and on tlie west by tlie similarly 

 Jeraclimeelite Rama, Jabneh or Jamnia, and Ekron. It embraced 

 Atarotli, Ono and Beth-Aven, Beth.-Shemesli, Janoah and Taanath, 

 Japlileti, and similar geographical designations, setting fortli Atarah, 

 Onam, Shammai, Jonathan, and Peleth. The brook Cherith, and 

 other traces of the Cherethites, still, as in the south, proclaim the 

 geographical connection of these Cretan or Kurd warriors with the 

 Ionian Pelethites/"® These Pelethites are mentioned in ii. Samuel 

 viii. 18, XV. 18, and xx. 7, 23, in the second quotation being united 

 with the Gittites or warriors of Gath. In a note to Wheeler's 

 edition of Russell's Connection of Sacred and Profane History, the 

 Greek form Pheleti is adduced as a probable original of the Latin 

 Yelites.^°' I- do not doubt that the Pelethites were represented 

 among the mercenary soldiers of the Greeks by the Peltasts. It is 

 no objection to this identification that Pel tastes originally denoted a 

 Thracian mercenary, for it will yet appear that the Thracian stock 

 contained a large Onite element. I would even go farther, and find 

 the same root in the Hoplites, one of the four Athenian tiibes, and 

 the heavy-armed soldiers of Greece. Their designation presents the 

 Japhleti form of Peleth's name, and their ancestor is appropriately 

 the son of Ion."" 



The third area inhabited by the descendants of Onam, in Palestine, 

 is that in the north occupied by the Geshurites. It is near the 

 Jerachmeelite region of Maachah, and the Maachathites are con- 

 stantly associated in Scripture with the northern Geshurites."^ It 

 was from these Geshurites that Syria received its Gentile name, 

 Aram being its Bible designation. Atargatis or Athara, the Syrian 

 goddess, is Atarah. In Samen and Adad, the names of Shammai 

 and Jadag were no doubt preserved. Syria was also called the 

 land of Sham or Shammai ; and Bryant shows that Sar, represent- 

 ing its eponym Abishur, entered largely into the nomenclature, 

 mythological, historical, and geographical, of the Syrians."^ As we 

 find in Gaza an lone of the Geshurite region of the south, so in that 



108 The Cherethites and Pelethites are constantly mentioned together in Scripture, hence the 

 German jjhrase, " Creti and Pleti." 

 103 Vol. ii. 173. 



110 The warriors of antiquity, probably the first who adopted military discipline, were the 

 Pelethites, and the connection of their name in after times with light and hea-i^-armed troops 

 was owing to local cii-cumstances. Hence Velites, Peltastes and Hoplites have one origin. 



111 Josh. xiii. 11. 



112 Bryant's Analysis, i. SO, 91. 



