as
having been leagued together in this attempt are the Danauna, the
Uashasha, the Zakkaru, the Shakalsha, and the Pulosathu, in alliance
with the North Syrian tribes. The Danauna are evidently the Danaoi,
or Argives, the same race which, under Achaean overlords, composed the
mass of the Greek army at the siege of Troy. As Danaos, the name-hero
of the race, was King of Rhodes and Argos, these sea-Danaoi may have
been Rhodian Argives. The Shakalsha are a more doubtful quantity,
having been variously identified with the Sikels of ancient Sicily
and with the Sagalassians of Pisidia. But the remaining tribes are
in all probability Cretans, fragments of the old Minoan Empire
which had collapsed two centuries before, and was now gradually
becoming disintegrated under the continued pressure from the north. The
Zakkaru have been connected by Professor Petrie with the coast-town
of Zakro, in Eastern Crete, and the identification, though not
absolutely certain, is at all events very probable. The Uashasha
have been associated by Mr. H. R. Hall with the town of Axos, in
Crete. There remain the Pulosathu, who are, almost beyond question,
the Philistines, so well known to us from their connection with
the rise of the Hebrew monarchy. The Hebrew tradition brought the
Philistines from Kaphtor, and Kaphtor is plainly nothing else than
the Egyptian Kefti, or Keftiu. In the Philistines, then, we have
the last organized remnant of the old Minoan sea-power. Thrown
back from the frontier of Egypt by the victory of Ramses III.,
they established themselves on the maritime plain of Palestine,
where perhaps the Minoans had already occupied trading-settlements,
and there formed a community consisting of five cities, governed by
five confederate tyrants. No doubt they brought under and held in
subjection the ancient Canaanite population of the district, whom
they would rule as the Normans ruled the inhabitants of Sicily.
In the district which they governed, and especially at Tell-es-Safi
(Gath), Messrs. Bliss and Macalister have discovered many specimens
of pottery which is obviously Cretan of the Third Late Minoan period,
together with ware which is local in the sense of having been
manufactured on the spot, but is quite certainly Late Minoan also
in its design and decoration.

So, then, the nation with which we have all been familiar from the
earliest days of childhood as the hated rival of the young Hebrew
state, whose wars with the Hebrews