The Golden Verses of Pythagoras — with commentary (1917)
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• Asiat. Research., t. ii., p. 140. The Brahmans say that their imperial dynasties, pontifical as well as laic, or solar and lunar, became extinguished a thousand years after the beginning of the Kali-youg, about 2000 B.C. It was at this epoch that India was divided into many independent sovereignties and that a powerful reformer of the cult appeared in Magadha, who took the surname of BvMha.
' Herod., 1. ii. This historian said that in the early times all Egypt was a morass, with the exception of the country of Thebes; that nothing was seen of the land, which one saw there at the epoch in which he was writing, beyond Lake Moeris; and that going up the river, during a seven days' journey, all seemed a vast sea. This same writer said in the beginning of book i., and this is very remarkable, that the Phoenicians had entered from the Red Sea into the Mediterranean, to establish themselves upon its shores, which they ■ would have been unable to do if the Isthmus of Suez had existed. See what Aristotle says on this subject, Meteorolog., 1. i., c. 14.
' Asiat, Research., t. iii., p. 321. The excerpts that Wilford has made from the Pourana, entitled Scanda, the God of War, prove that the Palis, called Philistines, on account of their same coimtry, Palis-sthan, going out from India, established themselves upon the Persian Gulf and, under the name of Phoenicians, came afterwards along the coast of Yemen, on the borders of the Red Sea, whence they passed into the Mediterranean Sea, as Herodotus said, according to the Persian traditions. This coincidence is of great historical interest.
The Essence and Form of Poetry 25 the septentrional, and both had broken with the Indians to whom they had formerly belonged. ' Tibet had adopted a particular cult and form of government. Persia had been subject to the empire of the Assyrians.^ At last the political ties which united all these states, and which once formed only a vast group under the domination of the Indian monarchs, had become relaxed or broken on all sides.
Egypt, long subject to the Philistines, known under the name of Shepherds, came at length to drive them out, and emerging from her lethargy prepared herself to seize the influence which Asia had allowed to escape.* Already the most warlike of her kings, Sethos, had extended his empire over both Libya and Arabia; Phoenicia and Assyria had been subjugated; he had entered triumphant into Babylon and was seated upon the throne of Belus.* He would not have hesitated to attempt the conquest of Greece, if he had been able as easily, to lead his army there ; but it was difficult for him to create a marine force, and above all to overcome the invincible repugnance that the Egyptians had for the sea. * Obliged to employ the Phoenicians, his ancient enemies, he was able to draw from them only mediocre service.
In spite of these obstacles and the stubbom resistance of the Greeks, he succeeded nevertheless in making some conquests and forming some partial settle-
' Niebuhr, Descript. de I' Arab., p. 164. Two powerful tribes became divided in Arabia at this epoch: that of the Himyarites, who possessed the meridional part, or Yemen, and that of the Koreishites, who occupied the septentrional part, or Hejaz. The capital of the Himyarites was called Dhofar; their kings took the title of Tobba and enjoyed an hereditary power. The Koreishites possessed the sacred city of Arabia, Mecca, where was found the ancient temple stiU venerated today by the Mussulmans.
» AsiaL Research., t. iii., p. ii.
3 Diodorus Siculus, 1. ii., 12. Strabo, 1. xvi. Suidas, art. Semiramis.
■•Phot., Cod., 44. Ex. Diodor., 1. xl. Syncell., p. 61. Joseph., Contr. Apion.
s H6rod., 1. ii. Diod. Siculus, 1. i., § 2.
'Diodor. Sicul., 1. i., §2. Delille-de-Salles, Hist, des Homm., Egypte, t. iii., p. 178.
26 The Golden Verses of Pythagoras ments. Athens, so celebrated later, was one of the principal ones. '
These events, these revolutions, calamitous in appearance, were in reality to produce great benefits. Greece, already impregnated with the learning of the Phoenicians, which she had obtained and elaborated, afterward received that of the Egyptians and elaborated it still further. A man bom in the heart of Thrace, but carried in his childhood into Egypt through the desire for knowledge, ^ returned to his country with one of the Egyptian colonies, to kindle there the new light. He was initiated into all the mysteries of religion and science: he surpassed, said Pausanias, all those who had preceded him, by the beauty of his verse, the sublimity of his chants, and the profoundness of his knowledge in the art of healing and of appeasing the gods. ^ This was Orpheus : he took this name from that of his doctrine* which aimed to cure and to save by knowledge.
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