The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 1: Chaldaea: The History, Geography, And Antiquities Of Chaldaea, Assyria, Babylon, Media, Persia, Parthia, And Sassanian or New Persian Empire; With Maps and Illustrations.Rawlinson, George
History
The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 1: Chaldaea: The History, Geography, And Antiquities Of Chaldaea, Assyria, Babylon, Media, Persia, Parthia, And Sassanian or New Persian Empire; With Maps and Illustrations.
The ordinary genealogies containing the name of Belus point in the same
direction, and serve more definitely to connect the Babylonians with the
Cushites of the Nile. Pherecydes, who is an earlier writer than
Herodotus, makes Agenor, the son of Neptune, marry Damno, the daughter of
Belus, and have issue Phoenix, Isaea, and Melia, of whom Melia marries
Danaus, and Isaea Aegyptus. Apollodorus, the disciple of Eratosthenes,
expresses the connection thus:--“Neptune took to wife Libya (or Africa),
and had issue Belus and Agenor. Belus married Anchinoe, daughter of
Nile, who gave birth to AEgyptus, Danaus, Cepheus, and Phineus. Agenor
married Telephassa, and had issue Europa, Cadmus, Phoenix, and Cilix.”
Eupolemus, who professes to record the Babylonian tradition on the
subject, tells us that the first Belus, whom he identifies with Saturn,
had two sons, Belus and Canaan. Canaan begat the progenitor of the
Phoenicians (Phoenix?), who had two sons, Chum and Mestraim, the
ancestors respectively of the Ethiopians and the Egyptians. Charax of
Pergamus spoke of AEgyptus as the son of Belus. John of Antioch agrees
with Apollodorus, but makes certain additions. According to him, Neptune
and Lybia had three children, Agenor, Belus, and Enyalius or Mars. Belus
married Sida, and had issue AEgyptus and Danaus; while Agenor married
Tyro, and became the father of five children--Cadmus, Phoenix, Syrus,
Cilix, and Europa.
Many further proofs might be adduced, were they needed, of the Greek
belief in an Asiatic Ethiopia, situated somewhere between Arabia and
India, on the shores of the Erythraean Sea. Herodotus twice speaks of
the Ethiopians of Asia, whom he very carefully distinguishes from those
of Africa, and who can only be sought in this position. Ephorus, as we
have already seen, extended the Ethiopians along the whole of the coast
washed by the Southern Ocean. Eusebius has preserved a tradition that,
in the reign of Amenophis III., a body of Ethiopians migrated from the
country about the Indus, and settled in the valley of the Nile. Hesiod
and Apollodorus, by making Memnon, the Ethiopian king, son of the Dawn
(Greek) imply their belief in an Ethiopia situated to the east rather
than to the south of Greece. These are a few out of the many similar
notices which it would be easy to produce from classical writers,
establishing, if not the fact itself, yet at any rate a full belief in
the fact on the part of the best informed among the ancient Greeks.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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