troops, commanded by general Buonaparte, who was obliged to raise the siege, after failing in his twelfth assault.

The canton of the tribe of Nephtali, the only one that remains to be described, lay between Lebanon, to the north, and the canton of Zebulon and the sea of Cinnereth to the south; and between the canton of the tribe of Asher to the west, and the river Jordan to the east. (Josh. xix. 34.)

In this canton lay ABEL-BETH-MAACHAH, whither Sheba, the son of Bichri, fled, when pursued by the troops of David. (2 Sam. xx. 14.) Eighty years afterwards this city was taken and ravaged by Benhadad. (1 Kings xv. 20.) About two hundred years after this, it was taken and its inhabitants carried away captive to Syria, by Tiglath-pileser. (2 Kings xv. 29.) It was rebuilt and became the capital of the canton of Abilene. In it also lay KEDESH-the residence of Barak, who, in conjunction with Deborah, routed the forces of Jabin, king of Hazor.

LECTURE XIV.

CANAAN.

ITS DIVISION.

UNDER SOLOMON-UNDER REHOBOAM-IN THE TIME

OF OUR LORD.

IN our last lecture, we described the Division of Canaan which was made under the administration of Joshua; in the present, we shall describe those which were made at several distinct periods, subsequently to that administration. The first of those divisions is

ITS DIVISION UNDER SOLOMON.

This was into provinces, under separate governors; a description of which, together with a list of the names of the governors by whom they were administered, is contained in 1 Kings iv. 7—19. This division does not appear to have disturbed, or at all to have interfered with, that made by Joshua. Solomon had come into possession of all the dominion promised by God to Abraham; for he reigned from the river Euphrates, on the east, to the land of the Philistines, on the Mediterranean, on the west, and to Egypt, on the south. The extent of country over which he reigned thus pre

cluding the possibility of his administering justice to it personally, he divided it into districts or provinces, and appointed a lieutenant, or viceroy, over each province.

But the dominions Solomon had acquired included in them the separate kingdoms of Syria, Damascus, Moab, and Ammon, which, as a mark of their subjection to him, were required to pay an annual tribute; to superintend the collection of this tribute and to forward it to the king's exchequer; also to superintend the collection of the taxes levied on the twelve tribes, and, in like manner, to forward them to the exchequer, was another, if not the principal, reason of this division and appointment.

In the dominions of Solomon, among other places not already noticed by us, occurs TADMOR, which, from its situation, must have been a place of some importance even in his days. It lay in the Syrian desert, and according to Major Rennell, in north lat. 34° 24', and east long. 38° 20′, ninety geographical miles from the nearest point to the north of the Euphrates, upwards of one hundred miles from the nearest eastern point of the same river, one hundred and nine miles from Baalbec, two hundred east of the Mediterranean, and one hundred and fifty south-east of Aleppo. It was built originally by Solomon. It is famous for the splendour and magnificence of its porticoes, temples, and palaces, which have been repeatedly examined by the curious and the learned. It is now in ruins. Josephus assures us that this city is the same as was afterwards called Palmyra by the Greeks and Romans ; and we are informed that it is still designated Tadmor by the Arabs. The name Tadmor, as well as that of Palmyra, had a reference to the multitude of palmtrees by which this city was surrounded, the city having been built in a fertile oasis about ten miles in extent, in the midst of a desert; and hence it is called "Tad

mor in the Wilderness." (1 Kings ix. 18; 2 Chron. viii. 4.)

Nothing is recorded of Tadmor in the Scriptures, except the mere fact of its foundation by Solomon. An ancient historian mentions casually that Tadmor was taken and destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, before he laid siege to Jerusalem. It afterwards submitted successively to the Persians, to Alexander the Great, and to the Seleucidæ. When the Romans marched into the Syrian desert, and the Parthians made an effort to stop the progress of their conquests in the east, Palmyra became a frontier, and, as it stood in the midst of a vast sandy desert, in which armies which might attempt to reduce it by force could not well subsist, it was permitted, as Pliny and Appian inform us, to remain a kind of free state; and when it was united to the Roman empire, it was declared a free city. Mark Antony, about forty years before the Christian era, attempted to plunder it, on the pretence that its inhabitants had not observed a just neutrality between the Romans and Parthians; but he was disappointed of the rich spoil he expected from it, as the inhabitants had time to remove their wealth beyond the Euphrates. Pliny mentions it as the intermediate emporium of the eastern trade in his time; and, in that character, it absorbed the wealth of the Romans and the Parthians, who, notwithstanding their mutual hostilities, agreed in coveting the luxuries of India. These appear to have come at that period exclusively to the Palmyrenes, who dispersed them to the various nations subject to the Romans and Parthians. Under the Roman emperors, it arrived at the height of its glory, until its governor, named Oudenatus, having gained some victories over the Persians, stood forward as the rival of imperial Rome and her legions. He was soon basely murdered by one of his own family; but his queen Zenobia followed his footsteps, proclaimed herself em

press of Palmyra and the East, and rendered herself formidable to all the neighbouring nations.

But her dignity and power did not long continue; the emperor Aurelian marched a well-disciplined army against her; she was attacked and defeated, and compelled to retire within the walls of Palmyra. The siege was so unexpectedly tedious that Aurelian offered terms of capitulation, which, though highly favourable to the besieged, were indignantly rejected by Zenobia, who declared that she would only cease to reign with her life. She did not, however, long adhere to this resolution. Seeing nothing except defeat or death in prospect, she fled; but she had not reached the Euphrates when she was overtaken and inade prisoner. This princess, yielding to her fears, fixed an indelible stain upon her character, otherwise justly renowned and glorious, by basely purchasing her own life at the expense of her friends. Among those whom the Roman conqueror devoted to death on this occasion, was the incomparable and elegant Greek writer Longinus, who had acted as secretary to Zenobia. Palmyra was consigned to the plundering rapacity of the soldiers; and though its celebrated temple was repaired, it sunk into decay.

In the sixth century the emperor Justinian fortified and placed a garrison in Palmyra, after it had been for some time deserted; and from this period the city gradually fell into ruin and desolation.

At present, and for some centuries preceding, it has had no other inhabitants than a small tribe of Arabs, who claim the property of the district, and whose wretched hovels, established in the peristyle court of the great temple, exhibit a striking contrast of misery and magnificence; while the ruins remind the spectator of the unavoidable fate which has attended these noble monuments of human genius.*

* Vide Fleming's Scripture Gazetteer.