Ailon judged Israel ten years. Abdon, or Labdon, judged eight years. Sampson judged Israel twenty years. This Sampson was the son of Manoah of the tribe of Dan, and his birth was foretold by an angel. He was a Nazarite, and he married a wife in Timnath ; and he proposed a riddle about a lion to guests, which was solved by the treachery of his wife. He burnt the corn crops of his enemies by tying fire to the tails of foxes. He slew a thousand men with the jawbone of an ass, which gave him water in Ramathlesbi. He carried the gates of Gazah to the mountain. At length, by the treachery of Dalilah his hair was cut, and he was blinded by the Philistines, and compelled to grind corn ; but when his hair grew again, he, in the temple of Dagon, slew more men when dying than he had slain while alive. CH. XVI.—Of therape of Helen—The Minotaur, the Centaurs, and other monsters of Belhrophon, Amphion, Ganymede, Danae, êçc. DuBiNG these years, in which the people of the Hebrews after the death of Jehu or Joshua, were subject under judges to the alternatives of humiliation and distress, of prosperity and comfort, Alexander, called also Paris, carried off Helen ; and the kingdom of the Argives was transferred to Mycenœ, where Agamemnon reigned. About the same time also some fables were invented, which are celebrated among the grarninfiarians. To wit, the fable of Triptolemus, that, he, at the command of Ceres, being borne on the wings of serpents, bore corn, as he flew, to the earth which as yet had none. The fable of the Minotaur : how that it was a beast shut up in a labyrinth, which when men had entered, they were in volved in inextricable wanderings, so that they could not escape. The fable of the Centaurs, that their nature was one com bined of that of horses and men. That of Tricerberus, that he is a three-headed dog in the shades below. That of Phrixus and his sister Helle, that they were borne on a ram, and so flew. That of the Gorgon, that she had serpents for hair, and turned those who beheld her into stone. Thatof Bellerophon, that he was borne on a flying horse, which was named Pegasus.