e, followed up
by marriages with the daughters of the land, led to the substitution of
the language, manners, and religion of the environing race for those of
their mother country. The Zakkala, who were not numerous, it is true,
lost everything, even to their name, and it was all that the Philistines
could do to preserve their own. At the end of one or two generations,
the "colts" of Palestine could only speak the Canaanite tongue, in which
a few words of the old Hellenic _patois_ still continued to survive.
Their gods were henceforward those of the towns in which they resided,
such as Marna and Dagon and Gaza,* Dagon at Ashdod,** Baalzebub at
Ekron,*** and Derketo in Ascalon;**** and their mode of worship, with
its mingled bloody and obscene rites, followed that of the country.

* Marna, "our lord," is mentioned alongside Baalzephon in a
list of strange gods worshipped at Memphis in the XIXth
dynasty. The worship of Dagon at Gaza is mentioned in the
story of Samson (Judges xvi. 21-30).

** The temple and statue of Dagon are mentioned in the
account of the events following the taking of the ark in 1
Sam. v. 1-7. It is, perhaps, to him that 1 Chron. x. 10
refers, in relating how the Philistines hung up Saul's arms
in the house of their gods, although 1 Sam. xxxi. 10 calls
the place the "house of the Ashtoreth."

*** Baalzebub was the god of Ekron (2 Kings i. 2-6), and his
name was doubtfully translated "Lord of Flies." The
discovery of the name of the town Zebub on the Tell el-
Amarna tablets shows that it means the "Baal of Zebub."
Zebub was situated in the Philistine plains, not far from
Ekron. Halevy thinks it may have been a suburb of that town.

**** The worship of Derketo or Atergatis at Ascalon is
witnessed to by the classical writers.

[Illustration: 294.jpg A PROCESSION OF PHILISTINE CAPTIVES AT
MEDINET-HABU]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Insinger.

Two things belonging to their past history they still retained--a clear
remembrance of their far-off origin, and that warlike temperament which
had enabled them to fight their way through many obstacles from the
shores of the AEgean to the frontiers of Egypt. They could recall
their island of Caphtor,* and their neighbours in their new home were
accustomed to bestow upon them the designation of Cretans, of which they
themselves were not a little pro