* The name Babylon comes probably from Banbonu, Barbonu, Babonu—­a term which, under the form Hat-Banbonu, served to designate a quarter of Heliopolis, or rather a suburban village of that city.  Troja was, as we have seen, the ancient city of Troiu, now Turah, celebrated for its quarries of fine limestone.  The narratives collected by the historians whom Diodorus consulted were products of the Saite period, and intended to explain to Greeks the existence on Egyptian territory of names recalling those of Babylon in Chaldaea and of Homeric Troy.

** A very ancient tradition identifies Ramses II. with the Pharaoh “who knew not Joseph” (Exod. i. 8).  Recent excavations showing that the great works in the east of the Delta began under this king, or under Seti II. at the earliest, confirm in a general way the accuracy of the traditional view:  I have, therefore, accepted it in part, and placed the Exodus after the death of Ramses II.  Other authorities place it further back, and Lieblein in 1863 was inclined to put it under Amenothes III.

The Egyptians set over them taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens.  And they built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithom and Raamses.  But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew.  And they were “grieved because of the children of Israel."* A secondary version of the same narrative gives a more detailed account of their condition:  “They made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in mortar and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field."** The unfortunate slaves awaited only an opportunity to escape from the cruelty of their persecutors.

* Exod. i. 11, 12.  Excavations made by Naville have brought to light near Tel el-Maskhutah the ruins of one of the towns which the Hebrews of the Alexandrine period identified with the cities constructed by their ancestors in Egypt:  the town excavated by Naville is Pitumu, and consequently the Pithom of the Biblical account, and at the same time also the Succoth of Exod. xii. 37, xiii. 20, the first station of the Bne-Israel after leaving Ramses.

     ** Exod, i. 13, 14.

The national traditions of the Hebrews inform us that the king, in displeasure at seeing them increase so mightily notwithstanding his repression, commanded the midwives to strangle henceforward their male children at their birth.  A woman of the house of Levi, after having concealed her infant for three months, put him in an ark of bulrushes and consigned him to the Nile, at a place where the daughter of Pharaoh was accustomed to bathe.  The princess on perceiving the child had compassion on him, adopted him, called him Moses—­saved from the waters—­and had him instructed in all the knowledge of the Egyptians.  Moses had already attained forty years of age, when he one day encountered an Egyptian smiting a Hebrew, and slew him in his anger, shortly afterwards fleeing