summed up together, that these shepherds, as they are here
called, who were no other than our forefathers, were delivered
out of Egypt, and came thence, and inhabited this country, three
hundred and ninety-three years before Danaus came to Argos;
although the Argives look upon him (12) as their most ancient
king Manetho, therefore, hears this testimony to two points of
the greatest consequence to our purpose, and those from the
Egyptian records themselves. In the first place, that we came out
of another country into Egypt; and that withal our deliverance
out of it was so ancient in time as to have preceded the siege of
Troy almost a thousand years; but then, as to those things which
Manetbo adds, not from the Egyptian records, but, as he confesses
himself, from some stories of an uncertain original, I will
disprove them hereafter particularly, and shall demonstrate that
they are no better than incredible fables.

17. I will now, therefore, pass from these records, and come to
those that belong to the Phoenicians, and concern our nation, and
shall produce attestations to what I have said out of them. There
are then records among the Tyrians that take in the history of
many years, and these are public writings, and are kept with
great exactness, and include accounts of the facts done among
them, and such as concern their transactions with other nations
also, those I mean which were worth remembering. Therein it was
recorded that the temple was built by king Solomon at Jerusalem,
one hundred forty-three years and eight months before the Tyrians
built Carthage; and in their annals the building of our temple is
related; for Hirom, the king of Tyre, was the friend of Solomon
our king, and had such friendship transmitted down to him from
his forefathers. He thereupon was ambitious to contribute to the