Sais, and Memphis; the secrets of
the Assyrian sorcerers, mystagogues, and epopts, and of the fatidicae of
Baktria and Persepolis; and he had become convinced that their knowledge
was but the knowledge of mortals.

Also did he seek for wisdom in the occult rites of ancient pagan faiths,
and for that reason visited idol-temples and offered up oblations to the
mighty Baal-Lebanon, who was honoured under the name of Melkart,--the
god of creation and destruction, the patron of navigation in Tyre and
Sidon,--called Ammon in the Oasis of Sibakh, where his idol would nod his
head to indicate the routes to festal processions; called Bel by the
Chaldaeans, and Moloch by the Canaanites. He also bowed down before his
spouse,--the dread and passionate Astarte, who bore in other temples the
names of Ishtar, Isaar, Baaltis, Ashera, Istar-Belet, and Atargatis.
He libated holy oil and burnt incense before Isis and Osiris of
AEgypt,--sister and brother, joined in wedlock while still in the womb
of their mother and there conceiving the god Horus; and before Derketo,
the pisciform Tyrian goddess; and before Anubis of the dog's head, the
god of embalming; and before the Babylonian Cannes; and Dagon of the
Philistines; and the Assyrian Abdenago; and Utsabu, the Ninevehian idol;
and the sombre Kybele; and Bel Marduk, the patron of Babylon,--the god of
the planet Jupiter; and the Chaldaean Or,--the god of eternal fire; and
the mystic Omorca, the first mother of the gods, whom Bel had cloven in
two parts, creating heaven and earth out of them, and out of her head,
men; and the king bowed down also before the goddess Anaitis, in whose
honour the virgins of Phoenicia, Lydia, Armenia and Persia gave up
their bodies to passers-by, as a sacred offering, at the threshold of
temples.

But the king found in the pagan rites nought save drunkenness, night
orgies, lechery, incest, and lusts contrary to nature; and in their
dogmas he perceived vain discourse and deception. But he forbade none
of his subjects to offer up sacrifices to a favourite god, and he
even built upon the Mount of Olives an idol-temple for Chemosh, the
abomination of Moab, at the supplication of the beautiful, pensive
Ellaan, the Moabite, the then favorite wife of the king. One thing
only could not Solomon abide and pursued with death,--the bringing
of children in sacrifice.

And he saw in his seekings that that which befalleth the sons of men
befalleth beasts, even one thing befa