Two hours afterwards he came back with several other men, half-naked as himself, and armed with lances and rudely-made bows. When within about a hundred paces of us, they stopped and waved some boughs of myrtle. I ordered my men to do the same, and then I advanced to meet them, making Hanno accompany me, and display some pieces of red cloth and strings of glass beads. Gradually the savages gained courage and were induced to approach, and at last to enter our tent. There was one of them who seemed to be a sort of chief, and acted as spokesman; he first pointed to the sky and ejaculated, "Britomartis;" and then to the mountains, saying "Phalasarna, Phalasarna." It was evidently not the first time he had come in contact with Phœnicians, for as soon as he caught sight of our ships he cried "Sidon! Sidon!" and touching our tunics, he called them "kitons."
We gave him an old kitonet, and distributed a quantity of glass beads amongst his followers, who brought us in return a couple of wild goats, and some partridges, which they called "hamalla."
Towards evening another of their number, an old man, came to us; he wore a kitonet under his goat's skin and had on an old pair of sandals. He could speak a little Phœnician, and succeeded in making us understand that he was of the race of the Cydonians, who had been the original possessors of the island, until the Phrygians and the Leleges had made war upon them and forced them to take refuge, east and west, where the mountains were most inaccessible. The whole of the coast, and the central highland, as well as the fertile valleys of the north and south, were now occupied by the conquerors, who had subsequently been joined by a colony of Dorians, so that, altogether, the Cydonians were being gradually exterminated. I now comprehended how it was that I, who had always approached Crete from the north by way of Caria and Rhodes, had never seen any inhabitants except Dorians; whilst other Phœnician captains who had landed on the eastern extremity of the island—where they had discovered some insignificant mines, and opened a small traffic in the ore—had always transacted business with the Cydonians.
The old man likewise informed us that his people had a town, up in the mountains, called Phalasarna; also that their goddess was Britomartis, which in their language signifies "the gentle virgin." He was delighted with the wine which I gave him; and on receiving, as a present, a couple of lance-heads and a necklace of enamelled earthen beads, he promised to get us next day as much fresh meat as we wanted.
Upon its growing dark, the barbarians retired to their mountains. Hannibal took the precaution of doubling the number of his sentinels, but we were quite undisturbed throughout the night.
In the morning the Cydonians returned and brought some goats. They are not in any way an agricultural people, and consequently could not provide us with either corn or vegetables, but they brought us a quantity both of wild fruit and wild honey. I showed them a picture of an ox, and tried to make them know that that was the animal I wanted them to get me, but they explained that they had none of their own upon the mountains, and that such an animal had been quite unknown upon the island until it was introduced by the Phrygians.
Pointing in the evening to the crescent moon, the barbarians told me that it was Britomartis, their goddess of the chase. Chryseis said she knew this goddess by the name of Artemis, from which I drew the inference that the Cydonians might have taught her worship to the Dorians, who would have made her known to the Ionians. The offerings that are accustomed to be made in her honour are hinds and deer; and I have heard it said that young men have been sacrificed as victims on her altar; but this is mere tradition, and I do not pretend to state it as a fact. I feel quite certain, for my own part, that although this goddess is the moon, she is not identical with our goddess Ashtoreth, otherwise she would not have been content only to encourage them to hunt, but would have taught them the science of navigation.
The Cydonians are also acquainted with the god of the Phrygian tribes of the Curetes and the Corybantes, who have a city called Cnossus in the island, where they have built a temple. This god is a white bull, although sometimes he is known to take the form of a man. The Dorians affirm of him that he is the primitive god of the country, but the Cydonians protest against this statement, and maintain that he was imported hither by the Curetes. I myself had never heard of the god. I cannot believe that he is either the Apis of the Egyptians or our own great Moloch. Chryseis asserts that she knows him by the name of Zeus, and believes that once upon a time he crossed the strait between the Black Sea and the Sea of Ionia, carrying a fair maiden on his back. He is said to be a fine and majestic creature, and the Phrygians of Crete honour him with dances, howlings, and the music of tambourines: his priests are of the tribe of the Corybantes, the progeny of Corybis. It was mentioned by Chryseis that a bull had once married a queen of the island, named Pasiphae, by whom he had a strange offspring, half-man, half-bull; but the monster was destroyed, she thought, by some Dorian or Ionian King. I can hardly persuade myself that this bull was Zeus; and I am rather inclined to suspect that the whole story is a fable, depicting some victory gained by the Ionians over the mixed Phrygian tribes that had made good their settlement upon the island.
I openly avowed my own conviction that this god was not our own god Moloch. Moloch was far more powerful than any god of the Ionians; he was much too mighty to permit foreigners to triumph over his own people. It was quite possible that the Phrygians had not honoured their bull-god Zeus as they were bound, and he, in anger, had abandoned them to their conquerors; but this was not like Moloch; no, he was not Moloch.
"Gods! gods!" cried Chamai, who had overheard the tenor of our talk; "who are all these gods? There is one only God; and El is His thrice-holy name. Another name He has, but that we are forbidden to pronounce. In His sight Moloch, Zeus, Artemis, Melkarth, all are nothing. Chemosh could not defend the Moabites against our hosts; Dagon could not protect the Philistines of Gaza and of Askelon; Nisroch could not lead the Syrians at Zobah on to victory; Adrammelech was impotent to gain a triumph at Damascus; and Baalim could not prevail in behalf of the Amalekites. They all are nothing. It is the Almighty El, the Lord of hosts, the Maker of the heaven and the earth, that is the only God. He has brought us out of Egypt; He has established us in our goodly lands. He is the God invisible and true, the God of vengeance and of power."