VIII.

MELKARTH-HERCULES, THE SON OF DEMARÛS.

(§ 19.)

THIS account is important in two ways. In the first place it confirms what we have assumed upon various other grounds, that he, "the King of the City," or "of the Fortress," or "of the Country," was the Greek Hercules secondly, that a Phoenician tradition connected him with Demarûs, the River-God.

IX.

DEMARUS GOES OVER TO URANOS AND ATTACKS PONTOS: END OF URANOS.

(§§ 20, 21.)

THE singular story of Uranos being deprived of his virility by Kronos in the thirty-second year of his reign belongs, as it now stands, to the latest cyclical epos, if it be not the invention of our author himself. The old tradition must have assigned to Uranos thirtytwo myriads of years, or at least 32,000. For the point in question here is the close of the Uranic Age, and therefore the last year of it must be the one here mentioned. Hesiod, we know, speaks of the tenth year.

The story itself, which is clearly allegorical, is given by Hesiod. We subjoin the continuation of the description of that act of violence which was commenced in an earlier page. (v. 178. seqq.)

“Then from his ambuscade the son stretched forth

His left hand, wielding in his right the sickle,

Huge, rough, with jagged teeth; and hastily

The organs of his father reaping off,

Threw them behind him: yet not all in vain
Did they fall from his hand; for Earth received
The drops of blood which trickled from the wound;
And when the cycling years had rolled away,
Strong Furies sprang from them, and mighty Giants
Gleaming in mail, and grasping in their hands

The mighty lances: and the Wood-nymphs, too,
By mortals Dryads named, teemed o'er the earth.
Then, having severed with his iron edge
The organs of his sire, he from the land
Hurled them away into the surging sea.
Long time they drifted on the boiling waves,
When lo! encircles the immortal parts

A whitening foam, in which a maiden breathed.
First towards Cythera's godlike coast she steered,
And thence to Cyprus' sea-girt island bore.”

With this account before us there is again no difficulty in unravelling the thought which is here allegorized. According to the general belief of the Semites, prior to the settlement of the order of time, the regular change of seasons, and the relative bounds assigned to the natural elements, there was a period of conflict between the powers, and consequently a period of desolation. The earth more especially was exposed to visitations of rain, to floods, and general devastation. Hence Uranos is represented in the mythical account as a God who torments the earth, and as an inhuman ruler. His exorbitant powers must be curtailed. This takes place at the sources or springs not far from the sea. There the last contest raged. Pontos, the ancient sea, which, in consequence of the harmony of the three brothers (elements), had as yet not been restrained by Poseidon, assists Uranos against Kronos the organizer, and for this purpose allies himself with the God Demarûs, who is named Zeus, i. e. Bel, consequently a Belide. The latter attempts to drive Pontos back, but he is put to flight.

Now as we know the river Demarûs, or Tamyras, which, flowing down from Lebanon falls into the sea between Berytus and Sidon, we should require no further evidence in favour of our interpretation.

But there is fortunately an extant explanation of the above story from a different quarter, which seems to confirm our view of it in a remarkable manner.

The river Belus, after running a short distance out of lake which lies at the foot of the mountain of Galilee called by the classics Kendebin, falls into the bay of Ptolemais (Akko). The shore consists of a sandy plain, upon which, as mentioned by Pliny and Tacitus (N. H. 36. 65., Hist. v. 7.), the Phoenicians discovered the art of making glass: the same spot whence, even in modern times, the sand was fetched, owing to its peculiar value in that manufacture. Strabo, however, extends the site of it (xvi. 2. 25.) by telling the same story of the whole of the sandy coast between Ptolemais and Sidon. Now the river Tamyras, the one evidently here alluded to, is not far from Sidon, to the northward. But the story, also told by Athenæus (viii. 2.) on the authority of Posidonius, that when the people of Ptolemais fought an unsuccessful battle there against Sarpedon, the general of Demetrius in the war against Typhon of Apamea, the waves of the sea suddenly broke in, and drove the flying enemy some into the sea and some into the abyss, is connected by Strabo with this beautiful bay of Ptolemais, which is surrounded by Mount Carmel. When the waves retreated, they found a mass of dead bodies and dead fish. Strabo's remark upon this is, that similar phenomena occur from time to time at Mons Kasius on the coast of Egypt.

May not the above myth have grown out of this natural event, which the Phoenicians conceived to be one of the struggles between the rivers and land and sea in the Uranic period? The river rushes violently against the sea, which drives it back, causing devastation and destruction to the land, and the inhabitants offer a thankoffering for their preservation. This was stated in the old myth as well as in other kindred myths, and Philo or his authorities made this ridiculous fable out of it.

Pliny says, in the passage alluded to, that "Belus was a deep river, the water of which was impure; but that the ceremonies connected with it were very sacred."

Josephus (B. J. ii. 10. 2.) mentions a Memnonium (i. e. a shrine dedicated to the Sun-God). All this refers to the festival of Adonis. When the water in the river of that name (Nahr-Ibrahim) near Byblus became red in consequence of the autumnal rains, this was a symbol of the mortal wound of the God; but the mixture of the fresh water with the sea was symbolical of the happy and productive union of Venus and Adonis. It was then called "the happily united Adonis-water." Hence the ceremony became deeply impressed upon the minds of the people, which explains why the inhabitants of Sur, Old Tyre, continue to celebrate to this day, in the month of October, "the festival of the marriage of the river and sea-water," by which ceremony it becomes purified.80

This is another proof that Philo did not invent the story, but grossly perverted the old tradition in order to make it ridiculous.

This is the close of the kosmogonical account, according to the tradition of Byblus. He then proceeds, in our third kosmogony, to record from the doctrines of the Tyrians and Sidonians, reminiscences some of which go still farther back to the historical, or human period of the earth; and with this the extracts of Eusebius from the first book of the Phoenician history of Philo conclude.

80 Movers, on the authority of Mariti and Volney, gives this account of it (Encyc. p. 422., comp. 401.): "At the beginning of October, the inhabitants of the present Sur celebrate a festival which they call the marriage of the river- and sea-water.' They go in procession, with singing and dancing, to the well near the gate of the city, and pour a bucket of sea-water into the well-water, which is thick at that season. They believe that this will have the effect of clarifying it, but know nothing more of this strange custom than that they follow the practice of their forefathers in celebrating the marriage of the river and sea-water, as they call it."

B.

THE RULE OF KRONOS AND HIS RACE OVER THE EARTII AND ITS INHABITANTS.

(Chap. V.)

INTRODUCTION.
(§ 1.)

EUSEBIUS Connects this section with the end of the previous narrative. The close of the previous chapter, however, is as follows:

["So numerous are the histories of Kronos, and such is the character of the domestic life of the men of his day, which have been so celebrated by the Greeks, and of whom it is said that they were 'the first and golden race of speaking men,' enjoying that perfect state of felicity which has been so highly extolled."-iv. § 22.]

This remark is made in mockery of the faith of the Greeks, and of Hesiod. He then gives, leaving out the intervening portion, another version of the reign of Kronos and the Kronidæ, as being the one which from its connexion with the history of Uranos, was contained in the preceding. There is no question whatever here about Uranos. Kronos (El) is the universal Lord of the children of men, and of the countries which he gives them, one to each people, together with their own especial God and ruler.

We can also specify the very locality to which this account refers, and thus get a certain clue to its explanation.

It is the El-mythology of the island of Tyre. Philo mentions it in the first instance as a simple annalist, (§ 2-8.); he then adds his own bitter remarks upon the Grecian mythologers and their distortion of the old