The last line of the previous quotation,--viz., and Hiram and Solomon "made a _league_ together," may have reference to a fact mentioned by Tatian, who followed the records of three Phœnician historians,--viz., that Hiram gave his _daughter_ [we think his _sister_] in marriage to King SOLOMON, and that it was through her influence that he was seduced to worship Astartē, the Tyrian Goddess. This record by Tatian is apparently supported by Scripture itself. "But King Solomon loved many strange women together [besides] with the daughter of Pharaoh [Egypt], women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, and _Sidonians_" [Tyrians.] * * * "And it came to pass when Solomon was old that his wives turned away his heart after _other gods_." * * * "_For Solomon went after Ashtoreth_ [Astartē] _the goddess of the Sidonians_" [Tyrians.] "And likewise did he for all his _strange wives_, which burnt incense and _sacrificed unto their gods_." [1 Kings xi.] The King of Israel having broken his nation's law by marrying out of his kingdom,--as by his union with a daughter of Egypt,--it would naturally appear to him to be no increase of the misdemeanor by intermarrying with a Tyrian Princess; and believing that this event must have been some years subsequent to the building of The Temple, we have, therefore, hazarded the date at 1000 B. C. The wealth expended by SOLOMON in the building The Temple,--his Palaces,--and that attending his household, had greatly impoverished the national treasury, and led to excessive taxation; and this was the chief cause (after his death) of the Rebellion of the Ten Tribes from their brethren at Jerusalem, when those taxes were to be continued.