Poole, Reginald S.: Horae Aegypticae: or, the chronology of ancient Egypt: discovered from astronomical and hieroglyphic records upon its monuments, including many dates found in coeval inscriptions from the period of the building of the Great Pyramid to the times of the Persians ; and illustrations of the history of the first nineteen dynasties, shewing the order of their succession, from the monuments (London, 1851)

Sect. IV.J

ORIGIN OF THE SHEPHERDS.

187

Respecting the origin of Cadmus and the colonists
of his time, Strabo* tells us, that the Euboeans were
Arabs who passed over with Cadmus ; and Agathar-
chidesf and Diodorus Siculus| relate, that a tribe of
Arabs called by the former Dedebae, and by the latter
Debae, were very hospitable to the Boeotians and Pelo-
ponnesians, from a mythos concerning Hercules, which,
Diodorus says, they had preserved in a tradition. This
reminds us of what is said in the first Book of Mac-
cabees ; that the Lacedaemonians claimed affinity with
the Jews. It seems to me, that, although it is not to
be inferred that these Arabs mentioned by Diodorus
and Agatharchides were of the same race as the Pelo-
ponnesians and Boeotians, yet, probably, their progeni-
tors left Egypt together, or during the same period;
and this view is, I think, strengthened by the case of
the Jews and Lacedaemonians; for it is highly probable
that the Lacedaemonians supposed the Jews to have
been of a kindred origin with themselves from a tradi-
tion relating that the progenitors of both nations left
Egypt about the same time. In saying this I do not
allude to the Bible-narrative ; but it is worthy of re-
mark that the people called in our version " a mixed
multitude," who went out from Egypt with the Israel-
ites are called in the Hebrew original by a name which
I have no doubt signifies Arabs. (Compare Jer. XXV.
24.) Upon the whole it appears to me evident that
some of the Shepherds were Arabs, and I have already
shewn that some of them were Phoenicians.

* Geog. lib. x., p. 447.

f De Rubr. Mar., p. 59, ap. Hudson.

I Bibl. Hist. 1. iii., c. 44.