P H I P H I 755 was asked to celebrate the victory of Blenheim, which he did in his favourite manner, but without conspicuous suc cess. The Blenheim, published in 1705, lacks, of course, the element of burlesque, and it is difficult to resist the impression that the poet must have felt himself restrained and hampered by the stern necessity of being seriously sublime, A year later (1706) Philips published, in two books, his didactic poem entitled Cyder, which is his most ambitious work and is written in imitation of Virgil s Georgics. While there is no denying the poet s admirable familiarity with his original, or his skilful employment of the Miltonic blank verse, or the sustained energy and grace of some of the episodes in the second part, or even his intimate knowledge of the minute details connected with the management of fruit, it cannot be said that the work is a notable contribution to English poetry. It is streaked with genius, but, like the Latin Ode to St John (and, for that matter, the author s other works as well), it is little more than the expression of a poetical scholar feeling his way outwards into life. Philips never got beyond the enjoyment of his pipe and his study, both of which figure prominently in all his poems. He was medi tating a still further work on the Last Day, when he was cut off by consumption, in 1708, at the early age of thirty- two. His friend Edmund Smith, himself a distinguished scholar and poet, wrote an elegy on the occasion, which Johnson says "justice must place among the best elegies which our language can show." Philips was buried at Hereford, and a monument to his memory, with an in scription from the pen of Atterbury, was erected between those of Chaucer and Drayton in Westminster Abbey. See Johnson s Lives of the Poets, including Smith s Prefatory Dis course ; Sewell s Life of Mr John Philips ; the Tatlcr, &c. PHILIPPUS, M. JULIUS, Roman emperor from 244 to 249 A.D., often called " Philip the Arab," was a native of Bostra or the Trachonitis, who, exchanging the predatory life of the Arabs who hung on the desert borders of the empire for Roman military service, rose to be praetorian pre fect in the Persian campaign of Gordian III., and, inspiring the soldiers to mutiny and to slay the young emperor, was raised by them to the purple (244). Of his reign little is known except that he celebrated the secular games with great pomp in 248. A rebellion broke out among the legions of Mcesia, and Decius, who was sent to quell it, was forced by the troops to put himself at their head. Philip was defeated near Verona and perished in or after the battle, leaving a very evil reputation. Eusebius knows a current opinion that Philip was a Christian ; Jerome and later writers state this as a fact. But at best his Christianity must have been merely nominal and had no effect on his life or reign. With Philip perished his son and colleague, then a boy of twelve, who is known as Philippus II. PHILISTINES (D*lt$B), the name of a people which, in the latter part of the age of the Judges and up to the time of David, disputed the sovereignty of Canaan with the Israelites (see ISRAEL, vol. xiii. p. 402 sq.). The Philistine country (flKvQ Palsestina ; the authorized version .still uses the word in this its original sense as equivalent to Philistia) embraced the rich lowlands on tlie Mediter ranean coast (the Shephelah) from somewhere near Joppa to the Egyptian desert south of Gaza, and was divided between five chief cities, Ashdod or AZOTUS (q.v.), GAZA (q.v.), and Askelon (Ashkelon, ASCALON, q.v.) on or near the coast, and GATH (q.v.) and EKRON (q.v.) inland. The five cities, of all of which except Gath the sites are known, 1 formed a confederation under five "lords" (Seranim). 2 1 Their modern names are Azdud, Ghazza, Askalan, Akir. 2 The word seren, pi. seranlm, means an axle, and seems to be ap plied metaphorically like the Arabic kotb. Ashdod was probably the foremost city of the confedera tion in the time of Philistine supremacy ; for it heads the list in 1 Sam. vi. 17, and it was to the temple of Dagon in Ashdod that the ark was brought after the battle of Aphek or Ebenezer (1 Sam. v. 1). Hebrew tradition recognizes the Philistines as immigrants into Canaan with in historical times, like the Israelites and the Aramaeans (Amos ix. 7), but unlike the Canaanites. They came, according to Amos, from Caphtor (comp. Jer. xlvii. 4), and Deut. ii. 23 relates that the Caphtorim from Caphtor dis placed an earlier race, the Avvfm, who were not city- dwellers like the Canaanites, but lived in scattered villages. The very name of Philistines probably comes from a Semitic root meaning " to wander " ; the Septuagint calls them AAAo</>vAot, " aliens." The date of their immigration cannot be determined with certainty. 3 We are scarcely en titled to take Gen. xxi., xxvi., as proving that the inhabit ants of Gerar in patriarchal times were identical with the later Philistines, and the other references in the Penta teuch and Joshua are equally inconclusive. The first real sign of the presence of the Philistines is when the Danites, who in the time of Deborah were seated on the sea-coast (Judges v. 17), were compelled obviously by the pressure of a new enemy to seek another home far north at the base of Mount Hermon (Judges xviii.). This marks the commencement of the period of Philistine aggression, when the foreigners penetrated into the heart of the Israelite country, broke up the old hegemony of Ephraim at the battle of Ebenezer, and again at the battle of Mount Gilboa destroyed the first attempt at a kingdom of all Israel. The highest power of the Philistines was after the death of Saul, when David, who still held Ziklag, and so was still the vassal of Gath, reigned in Hebron, and the house of Saul was driven across the Jordan. But these successes were mainly due to want of union and discipline in Israel, and when David had united the tribes under a new sceptre the Philistines were soon humbled. After the division of the kingdom the house of Ephraim appears to have laid claim to the suzerainty over Philistia, for we twice read of a siege of the border fortress of Gibbethon by the northern Israelites (1 Kings xv. 27, xvi. 15); but the Philistines, though now put on the defen sive, were able to maintain their independence. Philistia was never part of the land of Israel (2 Kings i. 3, viii. 2 ; Amos vi. 2), and its relations with the Hebrews were embittered by the slave trade, for which the merchants of Gaza carried on forays among the Israelite villages (Amos i. 6). On the other hand, the trading relations between Gaza and Edom (Amos, ut sup.) probably imply that in the 8th century Judah, which lay between the two, was open to Philistine commerce (comp. Isa. ii. 6) ; Judah under Uzziah had reopened the Red Sea trade, of which the Philistine ports were the natural outlet. 4 Soon, how ever, all the Palestinian states fell under the great empire of Assyria, and Tiglath-Pileser, in 734 B.C., subdued the Philistines as far as Gaza. But the spirit of the race was not easily broken ; they were constantly engaged in intrigues with Egypt, and had a share in every conspiracy and revolt against the great king. Of two of these revolts, first against Sargon in 711, and afterwards against Sennacherib on Sargon s death (705), a memorial is preserved in Isa. xx., xiv. 29 sq. In the latter revolt Hezekiah of Judah was also engaged ; it was to him that 3 For some Egyptian evidence, see PHOENICIA. 4 The Chronicler, who represents the relations of Judah and Philistia as generally unfriendly, makes Uzziah subdue the latter country as well as Edom, assuming perhaps that he was the fulfiller of the pro phecy in Amos i., in which, however, it is the Assyrians who are really pointed to as the ministers of divine justice. The old history has no trace of pretensions of Judah to sovereignty in Philistia till the time of Hezekiah. Comp. Wellhausen, Prolegomena, p. 217.
