[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 proud.**

* Jer. xlvii. 4 calls them “the remnant of the isle of Caphtor;” Amos (ix. 7) knew that the Lord had brought “the Philistines from Caphtor;” and in Dent. ii. 23 it is related how “the Caphtorim which came forth out of Caphtor destroyed the Avvim, which dwelt in villages as far as Gaza, and dwelt in their stead.”  Classical tradition falls in with the sacred record, and ascribes a Cretan origin to the Philistines; it is suggested, therefore, that in Gen. x. 14 the names Casluhim and Caphtorim should be transposed, to bring the verse into harmony with history and other parts of Scripture.

** In an episode in the life of David (1 Sam. xxx. 14), there is mention of the “south of the Cherethites,” which some have made to mean Cretans—­that is to say, the region to the south of the Philistines, alongside the territory of Judah, and to the “south of Caleb.”  Ezelc. xx. 16 also mentions in juxtaposition with the Philistines the Cherethites, and “the remnant of the sea-coast,” as objects of God’s vengeance for the many evils they had inflicted on Israel.  By the Cherethims here, and the Cherethites in Zoph. ii. 5, the Cretans are by some thought to be meant, which would account for their association with the Philistines.

Gaza enjoyed among them a kind of hegemony, alike on account of its strategic position and its favourable situation for commerce, but this supremacy was of very precarious character, and brought with it no right whatever to meddle in the internal affairs of other members of the confederacy.  Each of the latter had a chief of its own, a Seren,* and the office of this chief was hereditary in one case at least—­Gath, for instance, where there existed a larger Canaanite element than elsewhere, and was there identified with that of “melek,"** or king.

* The sarne plishtim figure in the narrative of the last Philistine campaign against Saul (1 Sam. xxix. 2-4, 7, 9).  Their number, five, is expressly mentioned in 1 Sam. vi. 4, 16-18, as well as the names of the towns over which they ruled.

     ** Achish was King of Gath (1 Sam. xxi. 10, 12, xxvii. 2),
     and probably Maoch before him.