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SECTION I.

THE PHOENICIAN, ASSYRIAN, AND BABYLONIAN SYNCHRONISMS WITH THE HISTORY OF EGYPT.

A.

THE PHOENICIAN SYNCHRONISMS.

1. THE POINTS OF CONTACT AND THE POINTS OF CONTROVERSY.

Down to the present time neither the historical monuments nor the chronicles of either nation have furnished us with a direct synchronism between any Phoenician and Egyptian events. Ramses III. conquered Tyre; but nobody has told us in what year of Old Tyre the conquest was made. We cannot, however, avoid making a few observations upon the Phoenician dates on the present occasion, because they may possibly supply, or at least be supposed to supply, arguments against our view of the very high antiquity of the commencement of People-history. We hope, however, that they will strengthen our assumption, by proving its absolute necessity. There was an era both of ancient and modern Tyre, and there were registers in the temples of that city of the third millennium B. C. Out of these Menander of Ephesus compiled a historical narrative, extracts from which, as given by Josephus, will be found in our "Appendix of Authorities." But there is, besides this, a more special authority as to modern Tyre (the Tyre of the thirteenth century). Our determination of the date of Solomon is an important point for Egyptian history in two particulars, both for the computation

backwards and forwards. We have, in one case, the son of that monarch brought into contact with the Egyptian conqueror; in the other, the building of the Temple calls upon us to settle the question how long a period has intervened between the Exodus and that event. We assumed the building to have been commenced some ten years later than the ordinary computation. Since that, Movers, the most recent investigator of Phoenician history, for whose soundness as a critic the highest respect must be entertained, has felt compelled to place it 45 years later still than is ordinarily computed, and he accordingly disputes the date I have assigned to Solomon. The only argument advanced against me seems to be the assertion that the determination of the date of Hiram necessitates the adoption of his view, which, as we shall see forthwith, is founded on a mistake. The other charge against me is pretty much of the same character, namely, that I have made arbitrary alterations in the "Canon" of Manetho. This is the name which Movers gives even now to the Lists made by Africanus and Eusebius out of Manetho, which rarely agree with each other; and in which, even in the New Empire, there are many gaps, in the 20th Dynasty for instance, where all the names of the Ramessides are omitted. This is a view of the case for which I certainly was not prepared. Any one at all conversant with hieroglyphical research must be aware that, in spite of the devastation of so many centuries, the extant contemporary monuments furnish us with dates of reigns higher than those transmitted in the Lists. These, he thinks, can be got over by supposing there to have been collateral reigns in these instances, some of which I have myself admitted. But he forgets that I have only done so twice in the 12th Dynasty, and in the computation of the length of the reign of Tuthmosis III. But in both of these cases it was the monuments themselves, and the contradictory entries in the records, which justified me,

Does he seriously

and indeed compelled me to do so. mean to argue that we are bound to adhere to the 150 or 153 years assigned by the Epitomists to the dynasty of the Psammetici, when the sepulchral inscription of a man who lived during it, and who states his age in years, months, and days, as well as the number of years the kings reigned in whose time he was born and died, makes it 159 or 160, instead of the 150 or 153, not of Manetho's "Canon," which is unfortunately lost, but of two Lists which contradict each other, and are evidently full of errors of transcription? Fortunately we have now a sacred Apis who gives still more decisive evidence against Movers. But his chronology is in a most unfortunate plight, for I find that even my own calculation is too low, as the following researches will show. The year of the building of Solomon's Temple (969 in Movers) I no longer make 1003, but 1014, which very nearly agrees with the chronology generally adopted.

This difference of opinion, however, shall not deter me, before I test his system, from expressing the high respect I entertain for his sound Phoenician researches, to which I am so much indebted, and for which I have great pleasure in offering my thanks, both as regards the chronology and mythology.

II. THE DATE OF THE FOUNDATION OF CARTHAGE.

Ir might, indeed, seem as though the assumption, about which there is no doubt, that Carthage was founded in the year 813 or 814, was at variance with all our previous Jewish chronology. It is, however, rendered certain, both from concurrent testimony and from concordant calculations.

Aristotle says that Utica was built 287 years before Carthage. Pliny states (likewise from native sources of information) that the shrine at Utica was consecrated

1178 years before his time, that is, in the year 1100 B.C., or a year later. Putting the two notices together, we must come to the conclusion that Carthage was built in 813 or 814 B.C. (1199-287).

The well-known statement in Justin (xviii. 3.) also brings us to one of these two years. When, according to the few extant MSS., he says 72 years before the building of Rome, this computation, which makes it 825 or 826, would only be so far deserving of attention as to induce us to see whether we must decide in favour of 813 or 814. It cannot weaken the authority of the two other writers, or create any doubt in our minds.

If the informant of Pompeius Trogus is to be relied upon, and if he did not miscalculate, he certainly could not have written LXXII, but LXII: 753+62 makes 815, which may very easily have arisen from some other mode of computing the dates which were to be compared. In calculations of this kind, which depend upon a comparison of native and foreign eras, a difference of one year is no difference at all. The entry in Justin, when thus interpreted and corrected, certainly gives the preference to 814 over 813, and we therefore assume that 814 B. C. is the year of the commencement of the Carthaginian era.

What makes the whole calculation so important for our chronology, however, is this, that Josephus has given extracts from Menander's Phoenician Annals, in which the flight of Elissa from Tyre seems to be placed in the seventh year of the reign of her cruel brother Pygmalion, the king of that country. The whole passage is full of difficulties, but its immense importance to us consists, as will be apparent forthwith, in its giving the following synchronism-the 4th year of Solomon = 11th (or 12th) year of Hirom.

In Menander's Annals of Phoenician history, extracted from the primeval registers of Tyre, Solomon and Hirom are mentioned as contemporaries. Now,