Vaphres king of Egypt. In recompence of all this timber and stone, Solomon gave Hiram twenty thousand measures of wheat, and twenty measures of pure oil yearly. Eusebius out of Eupolemus, in the ninth book of his Preparation, the last chapter, hath left us a copy of Solomon's letter to Suron, (which was the same as Huram or Hiram,) king of Tyre, in these words.

REX Salomon Suroni, Tyri, Sydonis, atque Phoniciæ regi, amico paterno salutem. Scias me a Deo magno David patris mei regnum accepisse, cumque mihi pater præcepit, templum Deo qui terram creavit, condere, ut etiam ad te scriberem præcepit; scribo igitur, et peto a te ut artifices atque fabros ad ædificandum templum Dei mittere velis.'

KING Solomon to king Suron, of Tyre, Sidon, and Phoenicia, king, and my father's friend, sendeth greeting. You may understand that I have received of the great God of my father David, the kingdom; and when my father commanded me to build a temple to God, which created heaven and earth, he commanded also that I should write to you. I write therefore to you, and beseech you, that you would be pleased to send me artificers and carpenters to build the temple of God.

To which the king Suron made this answer.

SURON, Tyri, Sidonis, et Phoenicia rex, Salomoni regi salutem. Lectis literis gratias egi Deo, qui tibi regnum patris tradidit; et quoniam scribis fabros ministrosque ad condendum templum esse ⚫ tibi mittendos, misi ad te millia hominum octoginta, et architectum Tyrium hominem ex matre Ju6 dæa, virum in rebus architecturæ mirabilem. Curabis igitur ut necessariis non egeant, et templo 'Dei condito ad nos redeant.'

SURON of Tyre, Sidon, and Phoenicia, king, to king Solomon greeting. When I read your letters, I gave God thanks, who hath installed you in your father's kingdom. And because you write, that carpenters and workmen may be sent to build God's temple, I have sent unto you fourscore thousand men, and a master-builder, a Tyrian, born of a Jewish woman, a man admirable in building. You will be careful that all necessaries be provided for them; and when the temple of God is built, that they come home to us.

The copies of these letters were extant in Josephus's time, as himself affirmeth, and to be seen, saith he, tam in nostris quam in Tyriorum annali'bus,' as well in our own as in the Tyrian annals. But he delivereth them somewhat in different terms, as the reader may find in his antiquities. But were this intercourse between Solomon and Hiram either by message or by writing, it is somewhat otherwise delivered in the scriptures, than either Eupolemus, or Josephus set it down; but so, that in substance there is little difference between the one and the other.

The like letter, in effect, Solomon is said to have written to Vaphres king of Egypt, and was answered as from Hiram.

But whereas some commentators upon Solomon find, that Hiram king of Tyre, and Vaphres king of Egypt, gave Solomon the title ofRex magnus, and cite Eupolemon in Eusebius; I do not find any such addition of magnus in Eusebius, in the last chapter of that ninth book; neither is it in Josephus in the eighth book and second chapter of the Jews antiquities; it being a vain title used by some of the Assyrian and Persian kings, and used likewise by the Parthians, and many others after them, insomuch as in later times it grew common, and was usurped by

7 Joseph. Ant. 1. viii. c. 2. 8 1 Kings v. from v. 1. to v. 9.

mean persons, in respect of the great Hermes, the first who was honoured by that name for his noble qualities, as much or more than for his mighti

ness.

After the finishing and dedication of the temple and house of the Lord, Solomon fortified Jerusalem with a triple wall, and repaired Hazor, which had been the ancient metropolis of the Canaanites before Joshua's time; so did he Gaza of the Philistines; he built Berothon, Gerar, and the Millo, or munition of Jerusalem. For Pharaoh, (as it seemeth in favour of Solomon,) came up into the edge of Ephraim, and took Gerar, which place the Canaanites yet held, and put them to the sword and burnt their city. The place and territory he gave Solomon's wife for a dowry. And it is probable, that because Solomon was then busied in his magnificent buildings, and could not attend the war, that he entreated his father-in-law to rid him of these neighbours, which Pharaoh performed. But he thereby taught the Egyptians to visit those parts again before they were sent for; and in his son's Rehoboam's time, Sheshack, this man's successor, did sack Jerusalem itself.

Solomon also built Megiddo in Manasseh, on this side Jordan; and Balah in Dan; also Tadmor, which may be either Ptolemy's Thamoron in the desert of Judah, or as Josephus thinks Palmyra in the desert of Syria'; which Palmyra, because it stood on the utmost border of Solomon's dominion, to the north-east of Libanus, and was of David's conquest when he won Damascus, it may seem that Solomon therefore bestowed thereon the most cost, and fortified it with the best art that that age had. Josephus calls this place Thadamora ", by which name, saith he, given by Solomon, the Syrians as yet call it. Jerome, in his book of Hebrew places, calls

9 Joseph. Ant. 1. viii. c. ii. 4. viii Ant. c. ii.

10 Joseph. I. viii, Ant. c. ii!

11 Joseph

it Thermeth. In after-times, when it was rebuilt by Adrian the emperor, it was honoured with his name, and called Adrianopolis.

In respect of this great charge of building, Solo mon raised tribute throughout all his dominions; be sides an hundred and twenty talents of gold received from Hiram's servants. Solomon offered Hiram twenty towns in or near the upper Galilee; but be cause they stood in an unfruitful and marshy ground, Hiram refused them, and thereof was the territory cal ed Chabul. These towns, as it is supposed, lay in Galilee of the Gentiles, 'non quod, gentes ibi habitarent; 'sed quia sub ditione regis gentilis erat;' not that it was possessed by the Gentiles, (saith Nauclerus,) but because it was under the rule of a king that was a Gentile. Howsoever it were, it is true that Solomon, in his twenty-first year, fortified those places which Hiram refused. Further, he made a journey into Syria-Zobah, and established his tributes; the first and last war, (if in that expedition he were driven to fight,) that he made in person in all his life. He then visited the border of all his dominions, passing from Tadmor to the north of Palmyrena, and so to the deserts of Idumea, from whence he visted Ezion-gaber and Eloth, the uttermost place of the south of all his territories, bordering to the Red sea; which cities I have described in the story of Moses.

SECT. III.

Of Solomon's sending to Ophir, and of some seeming contradictions about Solomon's riches; and of Pineda's conceit of two strange passages about Africk. HERE Solomon prepared his fleet of ships for India, with whom Hiram joined in that voyage, and furnished him with mariners and pilots; the Tyrians being of all others the most expert seamen. From this part of Arabia which at this time belonged to Edom and was conquered by David, did the fleet.

pass to the East Indies, which was not far off, namely, to Ophir, one of the islands of the Moluccas, a place exceeding rich in gold ;-witness the Spaniards, who, notwithstanding all the abundance which they gather in Peru, do yet plant in those islands of the east at Manilla, and recover a great quantity from thence, and with less labour than they do in any one part of Peru, or New Spain.

The return which was made by these ships amounted to four hundred and twenty talents, but, in 2 Chron. viii., it is written, four hundered and fifty talents; whereof thirty went in expence for the charge of the fleet and wages of men ; and four hundred and twenty talents, (which make five and twenty hundred and twenty thousand crowns') came clear. And thus must those two places be reconciled. As for the place, 1 Kings x. 14., which speaketh of six hundred sixty and six talents of gold, that sum, as I take it, is of other receipts of Solomon's which were yearly, and which came to him, besides these profits from Ophir.

My opinion of the land of Ophir, that it is not Peru in America, (as divers have thought,) but a country in the East Indies; with some reason why at those times they could not make more speedy return to Jerusalem from the East Indies than in three years; and that Tharsis in scripture is divers times taken for the ocean,-hath been already declared in the first book '.

Only it remaineth, that I should speak somewhat of Pineda's strange conceits, who being a Spaniard of Bætica, would fain have Gades or Čalismalis, in old times called Tartessus, which is the south-west corner of that province, to be the Tharsis from whence Solomon fetched his gold; for no other reason, as it seems, but for love of his own country, and because of some affinity of sound between Tharsis and Tartessus. For, whereas it may seem strange

1 Chap. viii. Sect. X.