172 THE BIRTHPLACE OP ANCIENT 



introduction to the history of civilization. One of the oldest of ancient 

 records, the Phoenician History of Sanchoniatho, while commencing 

 with Phoenicia proper (Tyre, Sidon, Byblus, &c., which may have been 

 transported names from the original home on the Red Sea even there), 

 gradually leads the line of Cronus southward through Persea into 

 Egypt. This line has decided Indo-European affinities in Ouranos, 

 Atlas, Pontus, Nereus, Poseidon, Athene, Melcartus, &c. From a 

 consideration of the evidence aflForded in the traditions of the ancients, 

 the Abbe Banier decides that Syria, Palestine, Arabia and Egypt, were 

 the parts of the world first peopled, and from which civilization was 

 diffused over the earth.^^ Plato, in his Epinomis, thus speaks of the 

 origin of astronomical science : " The first who observed these things 

 was a barbarian who lived in an ancient country, where, on account of 

 the clearness of the summer season, they could first discern them ; 

 such are Egypt and Syria, where the stars are clearly seen, there being 

 neither rains nor clouds to hinder their sight; and because we are 

 more remote from this fine summer weather than the barbarians, we 

 came later to the knowledge of those stars." "" The following passage, 

 from the Rev. W. B. Galloway's book on Egypt, coincides most 

 thoroughly with what I have already stated in regard to the topography 

 of the first mythical period : " The conflagration of Phaethon, divested 

 of fable, is interpreted as that of Sodom by the author of an ancient 

 poem ascribed to Tertullian ; it is also regarded by the historians and 

 philosophers of antiquity as a physical fact. Plato in his Timaeus 

 mentions that a venerable Egyptian priest told Solon so, though asso- 

 ciating it with an erroneous physical theory. The Scholiast in the 

 Timseus connects it with the mention of the flood of Ogyges and 

 Deucalion, and with the period of the latter; and he informs us that 

 the conflagration was in Ethiopia, which we may construe vaguely as 

 some part of the subject territory of Cush, who, in early times may be 

 viewed as claiming patriarchal supremacy over all the tribes of Ham, 

 and thus over Canaan.^"" Even Egypt was called Ethiopia and Ogygia, 

 as we learn from Eustathius. Julius Africanus "gives the same general 

 designation of the locality ; and he too associates it with the period 



*8 Banier, i., 45. 



89 Costard, History of Astronomy, p. 113. 



i<'o Mr. Galloway must have forgotten the fact that Ethiopia and Southern Palestine are con- 

 founded in ancient story, as in the case of Cepheus, king of Ethiopia, whom we havg the 

 authority of Strabo, Mela, and other geographers, for making king of Joppa and the surround- 

 ing country. 



