lodge in trees; tree-trunks, sometimes leafy, sometimes bare and branchless (asherah), long continued to be living emblems of the local Astartes among the peoples of Southern Syria.  Side by side with these plant-gods we find everywhere, in the inmost recesses of the temples, at cross-roads, and in the open fields, blocks of stone hewn into pillars, isolated boulders, or natural rocks, sometimes of meteoric origin, which were recognised by certain mysterious marks to be the house of the god, the Betyli or Beth-els in which he enclosed a part of his intelligence and vital force.

* These are the “high places” (bamoth) so frequently referred to by the Hebrew prophets, and which we find in the country of Moab, according to the Mesha inscription, and in the place-name Bamoth-Baal; many of them seem to have served for Canaanitish places of worship before they were resorted to by the children of Israel.

The worship of these gods involved the performance of ceremonies more bloody and licentious even than those practised by other races.  The Baalim thirsted after blood, nor would they be satisfied with any common blood such as generally contented their brethren in Chaldaea or Egypt:  they imperatively demanded human as well as animal sacrifices.  Among several of the Syrian nations they had a prescriptive right to the firstborn male of each family;* this right was generally commuted, either by a money payment or by subjecting the infant to circumcision.**

* This fact is proved, in so far as the Hebrew people is concerned, by the texts of the Pentateuch and of the prophets; amongst the Moabites also it was his eldest son whom King Mosha took to offer to his god.  We find the same custom among other Syrian races:  Philo of Byblos tells us, in fact, that El-Kronos, god of Byblos, sacrificed his firstborn son and set the example of this kind of offering.

** Redemption by a payment in money was the case among the Hebrews, as also the substitution of an animal in the place of a child; as to redemption by circumcision, cf. the story of Moses and Zipporah, where the mother saves her son from Jahveh by circumcising him.  Circumcision was practised among the Syrians of Palestine in the time of Herodotus.

At important junctures, however, this pretence of bloodshed would fail to appease them, and the death of the child alone availed.  Indeed, in times of national danger, the king and nobles would furnish, not merely a single victim, but as many as the priests chose to demand.* While they were being burnt alive on the knees of the statue, or before the sacred emblem, their cries of pain were drowned by the piping of flutes or the blare of trumpets, the parents standing near the altar, without a sign of pity, and dressed as for a festival:  the ruler of the world could refuse nothing to prayers backed by so precious an offering, and by a purpose so determined to move him.  Such sacrifices were, however, the exception, and the shedding of their own blood by his priests sufficed, as a rule, for the daily wants of the god.  Seizing their knives, they would slash their arms and breasts with the view of compelling, by this offering of their own persons, the good will of the Baalim.**