of the Red Sea, for writing down their merchandise, and keeping their accounts, and guiding their ships in the night by the Stars, and building ships; and that they were propagated from Arabia Petraea into Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Asia minor, and Europe, much about one and the same time; the time in which David conquered and dispersed those merchants:  for we hear nothing of Letters before the days of David, except among the posterity of Abraham; nothing of Astronomy, before the Egyptians under Ammon and Sesac applied themselves to that study, except the Constellations mentioned by Job, who lived in Arabia Petraea among the merchants; nothing of the trade of Carpenters, or good Architecture, before Solomon sent to Hiram King of Tyre, to supply him with such Artificers, saying that there were none in Israel_ who could skill to hew timber like the Zidonians_.

Diodorus [266] tells us, that the Egyptians_ sent many colonies out of Egypt into other countries; and that Belus, the son of Neptune and Libya, carried colonies thence into Babylonia, and seating himself on Euphrates, instituted priests free from taxes and publick expences, after the manner of Egypt, who were called Chaldaeans, and who after the manner of Egypt, might observe the Stars_:  and Pausanias [267] tells us, that the Belus_ of the Babylonians had his name from Belus an Egyptian, the son of Libya_:  and Apollodorus; [268] that Belus_ the son of Neptune and Libya, and King of Egypt, was the father of AEgyptus and Danaus_, that is, Ammon:  he tells us also, that Busiris_ the son of Neptune and Lisianassa [Libyanassa] the daughter of Epaphus, was King of Egypt_; and Eusebius calls this King, __Busiris_ the son of Neptune, and of Libya the daughter of Epaphus_.  By these things the later Egyptians seem to have made two Belus’s, the one the father of Osiris, Isis, and Neptune, the other the son of Neptune, and father of AEgyptus and Danaus:  and hence came the opinion of the people of Naxus, that there were two Minos’s and two Ariadnes, the one two Generations older than the other; which we have confuted.  The father of AEgyptus and Danaus was the father of Osiris, Isis, and Typhon; and Typhon was not the grandfather of Neptune, but Neptune himself.