bius calls Labotes, and sets him in the thirteenth year of Solomon 5.

In the tenth year of Achestratus, Androclus, the third son of Codrus, assisted by the Iones, built Ephesus in Caria, who after the adjoining of the isle of Samos to his territory, was slain by the Carians, whose country he usurped. He was buried, (saith Pausanias,) in one of the gates of Ephesus, called Magnetes, his armed statue being set over him. Strabo reports, that after Androclus had subdued the Ionians, (the next province to Ephesus, on the sea coast of Asia the less,) he enlarged his dominions upon the Æolus, which joineth to Ionia; and that his posterity governed the cities of Ephesus and Erythree, by the name of Basilidæ, in Strabo's own time. Of the expedition of the Iones, how they came hither out of Peloponnesus, I have spoken already, upon occasion of the return of the Heraclidæ into Peloponnesus, wherein, with the Dores, they expelled the Achæi, and inhabited their places in that land; though this of the Iones succeeded that of the Heraclidæ a hundred years.

8

The city of Ephesus became exceeding famous; first, for the temple of Diana' therein built; which had in length four hundred and twenty-five foot, and two hundred and twenty in breadth, sustained with a hundred and twenty-seven pillars of marble, of seventy foot high; whereof twenty-seven were most curiously graven, and all the rest of choice marble polished, the work being first set out by Ctesiphon of Gnossos. Secondly, it became renowned by being one of the first that received the Christian faith, of which Timothy was bishop; to whom, and to the Ephesians, St. Paul wrote his epistles so intituled. The other city, possessed by Androclus in Æolis, was also universally spoken of, by reason of Sibylla,

5 Euseb. in Chron. the river Mæander. ch, ix. 1. post medium.

6 The east gate of Ephesus towards Magnesia upon 7 Arist l. v. pol. c. vi. 8 See Ch. in this 17. 9 Plin. l. ii. c. lix. and 1. vii. c. xxxvii,

surnamed Erythræa; who lived seven hundred and forty years before Christ was born. St. Augustine avoweth that a Roman proconsul shewed him, in an ancient Greek copy, certain verses of this prophetess; which began, (as St. Augustine changed them into Latin,) in these words ;-Jesus Christus Dei Filius Salvator: Jesus Christ, Son of God, the Saviour. About the time that Joab besieged Rabbah in Moab, Vaphres began to govern in Egypt, the same that was father-in-law to Solomon, whose epistles to Solomon, and his to Vaphres, are remembered by Eusebius out of Polemon. In the twenty-first of David, was the city of Magnesia in Asia the less founded, the same which is seated upon the river Meander, where Scipio gave the great overthrow to Antiochus. In this territory are the best horses of the lesser Asia bred, whereof Lucan:

Et Magnetis equis, Minyæ gens cognita remis.

2

About the same time, Cuma in Campania was built by the inhabitants of Chalcis in Euboea, according to Servius 1°, with whom Strabo joineth the Cumæans of Æolis, saying, that to the one of these people the government was given, with condition that the other should give name to the city. Of this Cuma was Ephorus, the famous scholar of Isocrates.

Eusebius and Cassiodorus find the building of Carthage at this time, to wit, in the thirty-first year of David, but much mistaken. For the father of Dido was Metinus the son of Badezor, brother to Jezabel, who married Achab king of Israel; and between the death of David, and the first of Achab, there were wasted about ninety-five years.

In this time also Acastus lived, the second of the Athenian princes after Codrus, of which there were thirteen in descent before the state changed into a magistracy of ten years. Some writers" make it

10 Serv. in Æneid. iii. Strabo, l. v. Hom. and Strab. i. 14.

11 Euseb. in Chron. Herod in vit.

probable, that the Eolians, led by Graus, the grand-nephew of Orestes, possessed the city and island of Lesbos about this time. In the thirty-second year of David, Hiram began to reign in Tyre, according to Josephus, who saith, that in his twelfth year Solomon began the work of the temple. But it is a familiar error in Josephus to misreckon times, which in this point he doth so strangely, as if he knew not how at all to cast any account. For it is manifest that Hiram sent messengers, and cedars, to David, soon after his taking of Jerusalem, which was in the very beginning of David's reign over Israel, when as yet he had reigned only seven years in Hebron13, over the house of Judah. Wherefore it must needs be that Hiram had reigned above thirty years before Solomon, unless more credit should be given to those Tyrian records, which are cited by Josephus, than to the plain words of scripture contradicting them. For that it was the same Hiram which lived both with David and with Solo. mon, the scriptures make plainly manifest.

CHAP. XVIII.

OF SOLOMON.

SECT. I.

Of the establishing of Solomon; of birthright; and of the cause of Adonijah's death, and of Solomon's wisdom.

SOLOMON, who was brought up under the prophet Nathan, began to reign over Judah and Israel, in the year of the world 2991. He was called Solomon by the appointment of God. He was also called Jedediah, or Theophilus, by Nathan, because the Lord loved him.

Hiram, king of Tyre, after Solomon's anointing, dispatched embassadors towards him, congratulating his establishment; a custom between princes very ancient. Whence we read that David did in like sort salute Hanum' king of the Ammonites, after his obtaining the kingdom.

The beginning of Solomon was in blood, though his reign was peaceable. For soon after David's death he caused his brother Adonijah to be slain by Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, taking occasion from Adonijah's desiring, by Bathsheba, that the young maid Abishag, who lay in David's bosom in his latter days, to keep him warm, might be given to him. Whatsoever he pretended, it was enough that Adonijah was his elder brother, and sought the kingdom contrary to the will of David, whom God in

12 Sam. x

clined towards Solomon. And yet it is said, that a word is enough to the wise, and he that sees but the claw, may know whether it be a lion or not; so it may seem that to the quick-sighted wisdom of Solomon, this motion of Adonijah's was a demonstration of a new treason. For they which had been concubines to a king, might not after be touched but by a king; whence Achitophel* wished Absalom to take his father's concubines as a part of the royalty. And David after that wrong, determining to touch them no more, did not give them to any other, but shut them up, and they remained widowed until their death3. And this it seems was the depth of Ishbosheth's quarrel against Abner, for having his father's concubine. And some signification of this custom may seem too in the words of God by Nathan to David: 'I have given thee thy master's house and thy master's wives' and in the words of Saul, upbraiding Jonathan, that he had chosen David to the shame of the nakedness of his mother 4. Hereunto perhaps was some reference to this purpose of Adonijah, to marry with her that was always present with David in his latter days, and who belike knew all that was past, for the conveying of the kingdom to Solomon. There might be divers farther occasions, as either that he would learn such things by her as might be for the advantage of his ambition, or that he would persuade her to forge some strange tale about David's last testament, or any thing else that might prejudice the title of Solo

mon.

As for the right of an elder brother, which Adoni. jah pretended, though generally it agreed both with the law of nations, and with the customs of the Jews; yet the kings of the Jews were so absolute, as they did therein, and in all else, what they pleased. Some examples also they had, (though not of kings,)

2 2 Sam. xvi. 21, 3 2 Sam. xx. 3. 4 1 Sam. xx. 20. 5 1. Kings ii. 15. 6 Deut. xxi. 15. Filium exose agnoscito dando ei portionem duorum ; nam ipsius est jus primogenitorum. 1 Reg. i. 17. aud 20, 29, 31. 1 Kings i. 20, 27.