174 THE BIRTHPLACE OF ANCIENT 



connects it with the story of the giants (Titans as Thallus calls them), 

 but throws it back towards the flood, and he places it on the river 

 Eridanus, but he does not understand the right Eridanus, the Jordan. 

 The Titans are mentioned in Phoenician history as a race of men who 

 lived by agriculture and hunting. The name Ogyges, as connected 

 with the Titans or giants, may itself be suggestive of the neighbour- 

 hood of the Jordan, where, at a later period, the last survivor of the 

 remnant of the giants bore the name of "%, j'9'a?, " Og, the giant,'' ^"^ 

 (the spelling -j't3^7;<r survives only as a proper name of one of the giant 

 race)."^"'^ Minos, the first great lawgiver of Grreece, is frequently called 

 a Phoenician, while his descent from Cadmus through Europa (Cadmus 

 being placed midway between Egypt and Phoenicia), and the presence 

 of his name in Minois near Gaza, which is the border of the Chereth- 

 ites or Cretans, completely identify him with Palestine. We have the 

 authority of Pausanias for stating that the Hebrews shewed the grave 

 of Silenus, and that statues of him were dug up in Palestine; ^''^ and 

 that of Pliny to the fact that the nurse of Bacchus was buried at Beth- 

 shan or Scythopolis.^°® As interesting as these is the tradition that 

 Feridun of Persia, who lived a considerable time after the great destruc- 

 tion that preceded the reign of Gilshah or Ubul Muluk, founded Jeru- 

 salem in 1729 B.C.^°^ "Gentile and Jewish records," says Dean 

 Stanley, "combine in placing the earliest records of Phoenician civiliza- 

 tion by the Assyrian lake" (the Dead Sea).^"*^ The Hycsos or shep- 

 l^erd line of Egypt, who are made the authors of civilization, are 

 invariably derived from Phoenicia, Philistia and the borders of Pales- 

 tine and Arabia, to which region they are in part supposed to have 

 returned. The name '■'• Phoenician pastors" is the one by which they 

 are most frequently designated. 



The extracts and references given above tend to prove two things : 

 first, that the primitive civilization, of which records remain, is to be 

 found in the southern part of Palestine, whence it extended south- 

 westward into Egypt; and second, that this primitive civilization was 

 the work of a very mixed people, known as Phoenicians. I call the 



103 The name of Agag, common to the Amalekite kings of that region, who are niimhere 

 among the invaders of Egypt, comes nearer still. 

 10* Galloway, Egypt's Record, p. 463. 



105 Pausanii Geog., vl, 24, 6. 



106 Plinii, H. N., v., 16. 



107 Dabistan, i., 50. 



108 Stanley, Sinai and Palestine, 28 



