[568] ‘In Judæâ rivus Sabbatis omnibus siccatur’ (Pliny, xxxi. 18). The idea doubtless arose from the intermittent springs (Siloam, &c.) about Jerusalem. Josephus (B. J. viii. 5, § 1) makes his Sabbatic R. break the Jewish Sabbath (Saturday) by flowing only on that day and resting during the other six. Hence the fabled Sabbation, whose flood of huge rocks and sand-waves, sixty to two hundred cubits high, issued from the ‘Garden of Eden.’ It still hems in the ten ‘Lost Tribes,’ and is believed by the Druzes.
[569] I quote from Phœnician Inscriptions, by the Rev. Dunbar I. Heath, not from the far more poetical version of the Duc de Luynes.
[570] My friend Prof. Socin holds that St. Meklar of Tyre conserves the cultus of Melkarth.
[571] Perhaps from the Egyptian Ur, old, ancient, original.
[572] The modern Persians, and, indeed, Persian history and legend, know nothing of this wild legend.
[573] A terra-cotta relief in the British Museum shows Chrysaor (Χρυσάωρ) springing from Medusa’s neck.
[574] Joppa, according to tradition (Pliny, v. 14), was built by Kepheus, king of the Æthiopians, and was his capital before ‘the Deluge.’ The same author tells us that Andromeda’s chains were there shown, and that the monster’s skeleton (some fish cast ashore upon the harbour reef?) was brought to Rome by the Curule Ædile M. Æmil. Scaurus the younger, who held office in Syria (ix. 4). The bones were upwards of forty feet long, the backbone one foot and a half thick, and the ribs higher than those of the Indian elephant (a cachelot?). Ajasson declared that the remains should have been sent to those who show in their collections the weapon with which Cain slew Abel. Pausanias (second century) saw the Lydda streamlet red with blood, where Perseus had bathed after killing the ‘Ketos.’ At Joppa St. Jerome was shown the traditional rock in which holes had been worn by Andromeda’s fetters. The spot is now clean forgotten—at least, all my inquiries failed to find it. The testimony is of the highest character; unfortunately it testifies to impossibilities—all monsters are ‘contradictory beings.’ The Ketos, whale or shark (Canis Carcharias), is evidently the same that swallowed Hercules and Jonah.
[575] Mgr. Bianchini very improperly translates Harpé by ‘glaive,’ and other writers absurdly use ‘scymitar.’ They could hardly better describe what it was not.
[576] The bronze Perseus of Benvenuto Cellini in the Loggie dell’ Orgagna of Florence holds a falx-Sword or falchion.
[577] Hence possibly the town Arsúf; and (the Isle of) Seripho, where Perseus was worshipped.