[506] Justin (xviii, 3) states that Sidon was the metropolis of Tyre, but the series of events which he recounts is confused and unintelligible. Strabo also, in one place, calls Sidon the μητρόπολις τῶν Φοινίκων (i, p. 40); in another place he states it as a point disputed between the two cities, which of them was the μητρόπολις τῶν Φοινίκων (xvi, p. 756). Quintus Curtius affirms both Tyre and Sidon to have been founded by Agênôr (iv, 4, 15). [507] See the interesting citations of Josephus from Dius and Menander, who had access to the Tyrian ἀναγραφαὶ, or chronicles (Josephus cont. Apion. i, c. 17, 18, 21; Antiq. J. x, 11, 1). [508] Joseph. Antiq. J. ix, 14, 2. [509] Diodor. xvi, 41; Skylax, c. 104. [510] Strabo, xvi, p. 756. The splendid temple of that great Phenician god (Melkarth) whom the Greeks called Hêraklês,[511] was situated in Tyre, and the Tyrians affirmed that its establishment had been coeval with the first foundation of the city, two thousand three hundred years before the time of Herodotus. This god is the companion and protector of their colonial settlements, and the ancestor of the Phœnico-Libyan kings: we find him especially at Carthage, Gadês, and Thasos.[512] Some supposed that they had migrated to their site on the Mediterranean coast, from previous abodes near the mouth of the Euphrates,[513] or on islands (named Tylus and Aradus) of the Persian gulf, while others treated the Mediterranean Phenicians as original, and the others as colonists. Whether such be the fact or not, history knows them in no other portion of Asia earlier than in Phenicia proper. [511] A Maltese inscription identifies the Tyrian Melkarth with Ἡρακλῆς (Gesenius, Monument. Phœnic. tab. vi). [512] Herodot. ii, 44; Sallust, Bell. Jug. c. 18; Pausan. x, 12, 2; Arrian, Exp. Al. ii, 16; Justin, xliv, 5; Appian, vi, 2. [513] Herodot. i, 2; Ephorus, Fragm. 40, ed. Marx; Strabo, xvi, pp. 766-784; Justin, xviii, 3. In the animated discussion carried on among the Homeric critics and the great geographers of antiquity, to ascertain where it was that Menelaus actually went during his eight years’ wandering (Odyss. iv, 85)— ... ἢ γὰρ πολλὰ παθὼν καὶ πόλλ᾽ ἐπαληθεὶς Ἠγαγόμην ἐν νηυσὶ, καὶ ὀγδοάτῳ ἔτει ἦλθον, Κύπρον, Φοινίκην τε, καὶ Αἰγυπτίους ἐπαληθεὶς, Αἰθίοπάς θ᾽ ἱκόμην, καὶ Σιδονίους, καὶ Ἐρεμβοὺς, καὶ Λιβύην, etc.