triumph of one of the Pharaohs over a negro chief, probably designed to be the type of his nation. It is evident that the figure exhibits the usual characteristics of the negro features as strongly as they are found at the present day. C.

SOWER. The parable of the sower describes very rccurately the mode in which that agricultural operation is performed in Palestine. Great care is necessary to preserve the seed from the flocks of starlings and other birds, as it was not usually covered over by harrowing. Isaiah mentions "sowing beside all waters," which probably alludes to the extensive cultivation of waterplants for fattening cattle in Egypt. Some, however, are of opinion that he refers to the cultivation of rice. C.

SPAIN, an important country in the south-west of Europe. Anciently it included the kingdom of Portugal, and comprehended the whole of the Peninsula; being bounded on the west by the Atlantic Ocean, on the south and east by the Mediterranean Sea, and on the north by the lofty chain of Pyrenean mountains which separate it from France. By the ancients Spain was called Iberia and Hispania; in the Old Testament, however, it is denominated Tarshish, from the city of that name in South-western Spain, on the banks of the Guadalquiver, which is termed by Aristotle, and other ancient authors, Tartessus (TaрTηoσos). There has been a great deal of controversy as to the true position of the Tarshish of the Bible; but there appears to be abundant evidence to support the hypothesis maintained by Heeren, Michaëlis, and some of the best British scholars and Biblical critics, that Spain was the celebrated emporium to which the Hebrews and Phoenicians traded. Spain was the richest country of the ancient world in the precious metals; it is scarcely credible that the Phoenicians, who colonized the northern shores of Africa, established settlements on various parts of the Mediterranean, and pushed their commerce beyond the pillars of Hercules, could have remained ignorant of a country equally celebrated for the various productions of its teeming soil as for its mineral riches, "where fruits of fragrance blush on every tree." It is related by Diodorus, that the Phoenicians, taking advantage of the ignorance of the Spaniards with regard to the immense wealth which was hid in the bowels of their land, first took from them those precious treasures in exchange for commodities of little value; afterwards the colonists instructed the natives in metallurgy.

We are informed in Genesis 10. 45, that one of the grandsons of Japheth was called Tarshish; and after the mention of his brothers Kittim and Dodanim, it is added, “By these were the isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands:" it is, therefore, probable that Spain was originally colonized by emigrants from Cilicia, in Asia Minor, where, according to Josephus, the descendants of Tarshish had originally settled. The riches of Spain are celebrated by Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Isaiah: "Silver spread into plates is brought from Tarshish." (Jer. 10.9.) "Silver," observes Heeren, "was certainly the principal, but could scarcely be the only object obtained. Gold, lead, and iron ore were discovered; and besides these, tin mines were opened by the Phoenicians on the northern coast of Spain beyond Lusitania. All these metals are mentioned by the prophet Ezekiel as the produce of the Spanish mines: Tarshish (Spain) traded with thee (Tyre), because of the multitude of thy goods; silver, iron, tin, and lead it gave thee in exchange for thy wares. That, in addition to the mines, the Phoenicians were attracted to Spain by the great fertility of the southern part of the country, is proved by the direct testimony of

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ancient writers. Spain was regarded as the only country which was at once rich in metals, in corn, wine, oil, wax, fine wool, and fruits, which under its mild and benignant sky attain to the highest perfection. Their superabundance naturally suggested the invention of pickles and preserves. The trade in saltpetre was a branch of the earliest commerce of Spain." There is frequent mention of the ships engaged in the Spanish "The ships of Tarshish trade by the sacred writers. did sing of thee (Tyre) in thy market; and thou wast replenished and made very glorious in the midst of the seas. If Tarshish were situated in the eastern seas, it is difficult to understand how its ships could have sailed into the port of Tyre, on the Mediterranean. The Bible itself, however, affords us direct proof that Tarshish was situated in the west, for when Jonah attempted to fly to Tarshish, he embarked on board a ship bound thither, at a noted sea-port on the Mediterranean: "But Jonah rose up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord, and went down to Joppa; and he found a ship going. to Tarshish; so he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord." (Jonah 1. 3.) King Solomon, it is recorded, constructed "a navy of ships in Ezion-geber, which is beside Eloth, on the shore of the Red Sea, in the land of Edom;" and Hiram, king of Tyre, his ally and personal friend, sent with the servants of Solomon "shipmen that had knowledge of the sea," to navigate them; but this fleet must not be confounded with the combined Jewish and Phoenician navy in the western waters, which is mentioned in the chapter following that to which we have referred, (1Kings 9. 26; 10. 22:) "For the king had at sea a navy of Tarshish with the navy of Hiram (sailing, we may presume, from the port of Tyre): once in three years came the navy of Tarshish, bringing gold and silver, ivory, and apes, and peacocks." From the facts, then, that Tarshish was situated in the west, that the productions of Spain corresponded with the commodities of Tarshish as described by the Prophets, that Spain was certainly known for its valuable mines to the Phoenicians and the Carthaginians, and that a lake, a city, and river, in the south of Spain, near the Guadalquiver, were called Tartessus, we are justified in concluding that Spain was the country described in the Old Testament as one of the great sources. of Tyrian wealth.

Immediately after the foundation of Carthage by Queen Dido, about 846 years before Christ, the colonists appear to have turned their attention to Spain, justly called "the Peru of the ancient world." They at first formed commercial stations there; by degrees they acquired territory; and it appears from the treaty concluded between the republics of Rome and Carthage, after the expulsion of the Tarquins (B.C. 509), that the Carthaginians were then the masters of the northern coast of Africa, and the island of Sardinia; possessing the Balearic isles, besides considerable parts of Sicily and Spain, from whence they drew recruits for their armies. The Phoenicians had built about twenty towns on the coast of Spain, including Gades (Cadiz), Medina Sidonia (named after Sidon), and Malaga; but their descendants, the Carthaginians, reduced the whole country to subjection, with the exception of the mountainous districts of Biscay and Asturias. On the breaking out of the first Punic war, the Carthaginians were obliged to withdraw their army from Spain; but after its termination the country was again conquered by the Carthaginian general, Hamilcar Barca, the father of the great Hannibal. During the interval, the Romans had formed an alliance with the cities of Saguntum and Ampurias; and Hasdrubal, the son-in-law of Hamilcar,

on founding the new capital called Carthagena, or New Carthage, signed a treaty, binding himself not to pass the river Iberus (Ebro), nor attack the Saguntines. Hasdrubal having fallen by the hand of an assassin, Hannibal was entrusted with the command; and the violation of the treaty, by an attack upon Saguntum, was the occasion of the second Punic war. During that war, Spain was the battle-ground between the Romans and the Carthaginians. The Romans, who proclaimed themselves the liberators of the Spanish nation, were victorious on several occasions; but their army was cut to pieces near Tarragona, and the two Scipios slain. Three successive generals, who succeeded to the command of the fresh armies sent into Spain, were covered with disgrace. The younger Publius Cornelius Scipio, however, soon revenged his father's death, and restored the honour of the Roman arms. Spain was completely wrested from the Carthaginians, and from this time the country was regarded as a province of Rome, divided into Hispania, Citerior and Ulterior; Carthage being, at the conclusion of the second Punic war, deprived of all her possessions out of Africa, and her fleet being surrendered into the hands of the victors, who soon afterwards levelled Carthage to the ground.

Under the Roman proconsuls several insurrections took place; but for some centuries after the contests between Cæsar and Pompey, it was a tranquil and prosperous dependency. In the reign of Tiberius we find, from the writings of Columella, a native of Gades, that the mines and fisheries of Spain furnished an inexhaustible source of wealth; flax and hemp were produced in large quantities; cordage was made from the fibres of the genista, or broom; the wool of its sheep was universally esteemed; and honey and wax of the best quality were obtained in abundance. Spain was at this time divided into three governments:-Lusitania, comprising Portugal; Bætica, to which Grenada and Andalusia now correspond; and Tarraconensis, which included the remainder of the Peninsula. Originally the language spoken in Spain was a branch of the Celtic; the Phoenicians and Carthaginians introduced their tongue, which was cognate to the Syriac; but at the fall of the commonwealth, the Latin language, which forms the basis of the modern Spanish, had obtained nearly general diffusion. The Romans, too, abolished the worship of Moloch, which they found there, and established in its stead the religion of Italy.

Medal of Spain.

Spain was one of the countries to which the Apostles at an early period of the preaching of Christianity directed their attention. It is perhaps doubtful whether Spain was actually visited by an Apostle; but the Gospel was certainly published there in the apostolic age. St. Paul, in the 15th chapter of his Epistle to the Romans, twice expresses his fixed determination to travel into Spain: writing from Corinth, he says, "Whensoever I take my journey into Spain, I will come to you:

for I trust to see you in my journey, and to be brought on my way thitherward by you, if first I be somewhat filled with your company. But now I go unto Jerusalem to minister unto the saints, &c.; when therefore I have performed this, and have sealed to them this fruit, I will come by you into Spain." We are left in ignorance whether St. Paul ever had an opportunity of carrying his intention into effect. St. Denis, the Areopagite, sent one of his disciples from France into Spain, and Eugenius was so far successful, that a Christian Church was founded in Toledo, under his pastoral care. Irenæus, bishop of Lyons, A. D. 184, alludes to the Churches of Spain in his day; and among the fathers of the primitive Church are reckoned Basilides and Martialis, bishops in Spain. The religion of Christ at length spread over the Peninsula.

In the year 409, the Goths, who had poured in resistless myriads from the forests of Germany upon the Roman states, burst into Spain, and completely over-ran the country to the rock of Gibraltar. "The situation of Spain," observes Gibbon, in his history of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, "separated on all sides from the enemies of Rome by the sea, by the mountains, and by intermediate provinces, had secured the long tranquility of that remote and sequestered country; and we may observe as a sure symptom of domestic happiness, that in a period of four hundred years, Spain furnished very few materials to the history of the Roman empire. The footsteps of the barbarians, who in the reign of Gallienus had penetrated beyond the Pyrenees, were soon obliterated by the return of peace; and in the fourth century of the Christian æra, the cities of Emerita or Merida, of Corduba, Seville, Braxara, and Tarragona, were numbered with the most illustrious of the Roman world. The various plenty of the animal, vegetable, and the mineral kingdoms was improved and manufactured by the skill of an industrious people; and the peculiar advantages of naval stores contributed to support an extensive and profitable trade. The arts and sciences flourished under the protection of the emperors. As long as the defence of the mountains was intrusted to the hardy and faithful militia of the country, they successfully repelled the frequent attempts of the barbarians. But no sooner had the national troops been compelled to resign their posts to the Honorian bands, in the service of Constantine, than the gates of Spain were treache rously betrayed to the public enemy about ten months before the sack of Rome by the Goths." The Goths once more introduced Paganism into Spain; but the energy of the Christian religion vanquished the victors, and in three centuries we find the Goths among the champions of the Cross.

In the year A. D. 632, the impostor Mohammed died; before the end of the century his followers had conquered all Arabia, Persia, Syria, Egypt, and Northern Africa the shores of the Atlantic Ocean. In the month of July, 710, a Saracen army of fifteen thousand men landed at Tarifa, the ancient Tartesium; Spain having been described to the caliph Walid as "Syria, in soil and air; Yemen, in climate; India, in spices and flowers; Hedjaz, in fruits and grain; Cathay, in mines; and Aden for useful coasts; full of cities and magnificent monuments of its ancient kings, and of the Greeks, that wise people." Spain, which had in turn been conquered and occupied by Carthaginians, Romans, and Goths, now fell into the hands of the Saracens, or Moors: the faith of Jesus was almost superseded in the country; the Christian worship having been altogether abolished about the twelfth century, in the kingdoms of Cordova, and Seville, of Valencia, and Grenada. The Christians at first were confined to a small portion of the north-west;

wielded with one hand when occasion required. The pikes of the Greek phalangites were longer, but it is doubtful whether they were more effective weapons. In the time of the Trojan war they must have been shorter than the Egyptian spears, for we are told that the same weapon was used indifferently as a javelin and a pike.

The Egyptian spearmen were regularly drilled and taught to march with steps measured by sound of trumpet. The prophet Jeremiah (ch. 46,) intimates that the Libyans and Ethiopians formed the strength of the Egyptian heavy-armed infantry; but the spearmen represented in the preceding engraving belong to a native corps. See ARMS.

SPICE, SPICERY. Any aromatic drug possessed of hot and pungent qualities, as ginger, pepper, nutmegs, cinnamon, cloves, cassia, frankincense, calamus, myrrh, &c. The ancients seasoned their meats with spices, a circumstance to which Ezekiel alludes in his prophecy against Jerusalem, (Ezek. 24. 10;) they also used them to flavour their wine; thus the bride declares that Solomon should drink of "spiced wine," (Cant. 8. 2;) they employed them to perfume their beds and clothes; thus the tempter says, "I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon." (Prov. 8. 17.) The bodies of the dead were embalmed with spices; of which we find examples in 2Chronicles 16. 14; Jeremiah 34. 5; and Mark 16. 1. We learn from the Book of Genesis, (37. 25,) that the Arabs were the principal traders in spices, and that their merchants supplied Egypt. C.

SPIDER, way accabish. This well-known insect is only twice mentioned in Scripture: Job describing the state of the wicked, says (8. 14),

His confidence shall deceive him,

And his house prove weak as a spider's web.

Not unlike this is the sentiment of the Persian poet, quoted by the Turkish conqueror on the capture of Constantinople:

The spider holds the veil in the palace of Cæsar,
The owl stands sentinel on the dome of Afrasiab.

Isaiah (59. 5,) merely alludes to the inutility of the spider's web for the purposes of manufacture: " They weave the web of the spider; of their webs no garments shall be made."

A different word, DD shemamah, has been rendered "spider" by our translators in Proverbs 30. 28, "The spider taketh hold with her hands, and is in kings' palaces;" but most commentators are agreed that the animal to which reference is made in this passage is a species of lizard very common in Oriental houses. T.

SPIKENARD, 772 nard. The nardostachys, a highly aromatic plant, growing in the East, supplied the extract, or unguent, called spikenard, which was highly valued by the nations of antiquity. It is mentioned in Canticles, and was probably first brought to Palestine during the reign of Solomon, the only one of the Hebrew sovereigns who patronised foreign commerce. According to St. John (12. 3,) a pound of ointment of spikenard, in the time of Christ, was worth three hundred denarii, a clear proof that it could not have been a native production of Syria. C.

SPIN. The task of spinning was a favourite domestic occupation with the ladies of antiquity, as it was once with those of our own islands, where unmarried

ladies are still called spinsters. In Egypt, spinning was a staple manufacture, large quantities of yarn being exported to other countries, as for instance to Palestine in the time of Solomon. The spindles were generally of

M

Egyptian Spinning.

wood, and they increased their force in turning by having the circular head made of gypsum or some species of composition; in some instances, the spindles appear to have been of a light plaited work, made of rushes or palm-leaves, stained of various colours, and furnished with a loop of the same materials for securing the yarn after it was wound. In Homer's pictures of domestic life, we find the lady of the mansion superintending the labour of her servants, and sometimes using the distaff herself. Her spindle, made of some precious material, richly ornamented, her beautiful work-basket, or rather vase, and the wool dyed of some bright hue to render it worthy of being touched by aristocratic fingers, are ordinary accompaniments of a lady of rank, both in the Egyptian paintings and Grecian poems. This shows how appropriate was the present which the Egyptian queen Alcandra gave to the Spartan Helen, who was not less famous for her beauty than for her skill in embroidery. After Polybius had given his presents to Menelaus, who stopped at Egypt on his return from Troy,

Alcandra, consort of his high command,
A golden distaff gave to IIelen's hand;
And that rich vase, with living sculpture wrought,
Which heap'd with wool the beauteous Philo brought,
The silken fleece empurpled for the loom,
Rivall'd the hyacinth in vernal bloom.-Odyssey IV.

SPIRIT. See SOUL, and HOLY GHOST.

C.

SPOUSE, sponsa, "promised" or "betrothed." In Palestine, the ceremony of betrothal preceded the marriage by several months, but the vows then interchanged were as legally binding as those pronounced when the union was completed. During the interval between betrothal and marriage, the future bridegroom sent presents of various kinds to the lady, while she and her family are understood to be engaged in preparing various articles of furniture, dress, and ornament for the bridal. The Jews allowed a longer interval between the two ceremonies than any other ancient nation; but, at the same time, showed a greater anxiety for the consummation of the nuptials after promises had been once interchanged. Any one whose marriage was thus pending was free from the obligation of military law: "What man is there that hath betrothed a wife, and hath not taken her? Let him go and return unto his house, lest he die in the battle, and another man take her." (Deut. 20. 7.) It was considered the greatest possible disgrace if a woman refused to fulfil her final engagement, or proved unchaste during the probationary period. On the other hand, if the bridegroom repudiated his bride before the day of marriage, her character would be ruined for ever. These circumstances are very strongly set forth in the 1st chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel, and are important