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Rh charged itself into the neighbouring countries. Many, again, say that they were a race of Ethiopian origin, who in the time of King Cepheus were driven by fear and hatred of their neighbours to seek a new dwelling-place. Others describe them as an Assyrian horde, who, not having sufficient territory, took possession of part of Egypt, and founded cities of their own in what is called the Hebrew country, lying on the borders of Syria." In the last sentences there is a glimpse of some research. Had Tacitus peeped into the books of Genesis and Exodus, and then into Herodotus? For there is here an apparent allusion to the migration of Jacob and his sons into Egypt, to the departure from the land of Goshen, and to the shepherd kings.

Then we come to the boils and blains that so grievously afflicted the Egyptians, but which Tacitus saddles on the Hebrews. King Boccharis, warned by the oracle of Hammon, cleanses his realm and expels from his land this impure race "detested by the gods." It is a calumny of this kind that kindled the wrath of Josephus against Apion. Tacitus proceeds: "The people, who had been collected after diligent search, finding themselves left in a desert, sat for the most part in a stupor of grief, till one of the exiles, Moyses by name, warned them not to look for any relief from God or man, but to trust to themselves, taking for a heaven-sent leader that man who should first help them to be quit of their present misery. They agreed, and in utter ignorance began to advance at random. Nothing, however, distressed them so much as the scarcity of water, and they had sunk ready to perish