43
the
chronology
of
ancient kingdoms
amended.
CHAP. I.
Of the Chronology of the First Ages of
the Greeks.
All Nations, before they began to keep
exact accounts of Time, have been prone
to raise their Antiquities; and this hu
mour has been promoted, by the Con
tentions between Nations about their Originals.
Herodotus Herod. l. 2 tells us, that the Priests of Egypt
reckoned from the Reign of Menes to that of
Sethon, who put Sennacherib to flight, three
hundred forty and one Generations of men, and
as many Priests of Vulcan, and as many Kings
of44of Egypt: and that three hundred Generations
make ten thousand years; for, saith he, three Ge
nerations of men make an hundred years: and
the remaining forty and one Generations make
1340 years: and so the whole time from the
Reign of Menes to that of Sethon was 11340
years. And by this way of reckoning, and al
lotting longer Reigns to the Gods of Egypt
than to the Kings which followed them, Hero
dotus tells us from the Priests of Egypt, that
from Pan to Amosis were 15000 years, and
from Hercules to Amosis 17000 years. So also
the Chaldæans boasted of their Antiquity; for
Callisthenes, the Disciple of Aristotle, sent Astro
nomical Observations from Babylon to Greece,
said to be of 1903 years standing before the
times of Alexander the great. And the Chaldæans
boasted further, that they had observed the Stars
473000 years; and there were others who made
the Kingdoms of Assyria, Media and Damascus,
much older than the truth.
Some of the Greeks called the times before
the Reign of Ogyges, Unknown, because they
had No History of them; those between his
flood and the beginning of the Olympiads, Fa
bulous, because their History was much mixed
with Poetical Fables: and those after the begin
ning of the Olympiads, Historical, because their
History45History was free from such Fables. The fabu
lous Ages wanted a good Chronology, and so
also did the Historical, for the first 60 or 70
Olympiads.
The Europeans, had no Chronology before the
times of the Persian Empire: and whatsoever
Chronology they now have of ancienter times,
hath been framed since, by reasoning and conje
cture. In the beginning of that Monarchy, A
cusilaus made Phoroneus as old as Ogyges and his
flood, and that flood 1020 years older than the
first Olympiad; which is above 680 years older
than the truth: and to make out this reckon
ing his followers have encreased the Reigns of
Kings in length and number. Plutarch Plutarch.
de Pythiæ
Oraculo. tells us
that the Philosophers anciently delivered their
Opinions in Verse, as Orpheus, Hesiod, Parmeni
des, Xenophanes, Empedocles, Thales; but after
wards left off the use of Verses; and that Ari
starchus, Timocharis, Aristillus, Hipparchus, did
not make Astronomy the more contemptible by
describing it in Prose; after Eudoxus, Hesiod, and
Thales had wrote of it in Verse. Solon wrote Plutarch. in
Solon in
Verse, and all the Seven Wise Men were addicted
to Poetry, as Anaximenes Apud Di
og. Laert. in
Solon p. 10. affirmed. 'Till those
days the Greeks wrote only in Verse, and while
they did so there could be no Chronology, nor
any other History, than such as was mixed with
poetical46poetical fancies. Pliny, Plin. nat.
hist. l. 7.
c. 56. in reckoning up the
Inventors of things, tells us, that Pherecydes
Syrius taught to compose discourses in Prose in
the Reign of Cyrus, and Cadmus Milesius to
write History. And in Ib. l. 5.
c. 29. another place he saith
that Cadmus Milesius was the first that wrote in
Prose. Josephus tells us Cont. A
pion. sub
initio. that Cadmus Milesius
and Acusilaus were but a little before the expe
dition of the Persians against the Greeks: and
Suidas In Ἀκυ
σίλαος. calls Acusilaus a most ancient Historian,
and saith that he wrote Genealogies out of ta
bles of brass, which his father, as was reported,
found in a corner of his house. Who hid them
there may be doubted: For the Greeks Joseph.
cont. Ap.
l. 1. had no
publick table or inscription older than the Laws
of Draco. Pherecydes Atheniensis, in the Reign of
Darius Hystaspis, or soon after, wrote of the An
tiquities and ancient Genealogies of the Atheni
ans, in ten books; and was one of the first Eu
ropean writers of this kind, and one of the best;
whence he had the name of Genealogus; and by
Dionysius Dionys.
l. 1. initio. Halicarnassensis is said to be second to
none of the Genealogers. Epimenides, not the
Philosopher, but an Historian, wrote also of the
ancient Genealogies: and Hellanicus, who was
twelve years older than Herodotus, digested his
History by the Ages or Successions of the
Priestesses of Juno Argiva. Others digested theirs
by47by those of the Archons of Athens, or Kings
of the Lacedæmonians. Hippias the Elean pub
lished a Breviary of the Olympiads, supported by
no certain arguments, as Plutarch Plutarch.
in Numa. tells us: he
lived in the 105th Olympiad, and was derided
by Plato for his Ignorance. This Breviary seems
to have contained nothing more than a short
account of the Victors in every Olympiad.
Then Diodor.
l. 16. p. 550.
Edit. Steph. Ephorus, the disciple of Isocrates, formed
a Chronological History of Greece, beginning
with the Return of the Heraclides into Peloponne
sus, and ending with the Siege of Perinthus, in
the twentieth year of Philip the father of Alex
ander the great, that is, eleven years before the
fall of the Persian Empire: but Polyb. p.
379. B. he digested
things by Generations, and the reckoning by
the Olympiads, or by any other Æra, was not
yet in use among the Greeks. The Arundelian
Marbles were composed sixty years after the
death of Alexander the great (An. 4. Olymp. 128.)
and yet mention not the Olympiads, nor any
other standing Æra, but reckon backwards from
the time then present. But Chronology was now
reduced to a reckoning by Years; and in the
next Olympiad Timæus Siculus improved it: for
he wrote a History in several books, down to his
own times, according to the Olympiads; com
paring the Ephori, the Kings of Sparta, the Ar
chons48chons of Athens, and the Priestesses of Argos
with the Olympic Victors, so as to make the
Olympiads, and the Genealogies and Successions
of Kings and Priestesses, and the Poetical Histo
ries suit with one another, according to the best
of his judgment: and where he left off, Poly
bius began, and carried on the History. Era
tosthenes wrote above an hundred years after the
death of Alexander the great: He was followed
by Apollodorus; and these two have been fol
lowed ever since by Chronologers.
But how uncertain their Chronology is, and
how doubtful it was reputed by the Greeks of
those times, may be understood by these passages
of Plutarch. Some reckon Lycurgus, saith he,
In vita
Lycurgi,
sub initio. contemporary to Iphitus, and to have been his
companion in ordering the Olympic festivals, amongst
whom was Aristotle the Philosopher; arguing from
the Olympic Disc, which had the name of Lycurgus
upon it. Others supputing the times by the Kings of
Lacedæmon, as Eratosthenes and Apollodorus,
affirm that he was not a few years older than the
first Olympiad. He began to flourish in the 17th
or 18th Olympiad, and at length Aristotle made
him as old as the first Olympiad; and so did
Epaminondas, as he is cited by Ælian and Plutarch:
and then Eratosthenes, Apollodorus, and their fol
lowers, made him above an hundred years older.
And 49
And in another place Plutarch In Solone. tells us: The
Congress of Solon with Crœsus, some think they
can confute by Chronology. But a History so illu
strious, and verified by so many witnesses, and
which is more, so agreeable to the manners of So
lon, and worthy of the greatness of his mind, and of
his wisdom, I cannot persuade my self to reject be
cause of some Chronological Canons, as they call them,
which hundreds of authors correcting, have not yet
been able to constitute any thing certain, in which they
could agree amongst themselves, about repugnancies.
As for the Chronology of the Latines, that
is still more uncertain. Plutarch Plutarch. in
Romulo &
Numa. represents great
uncertainties in the Originals of Rome, and so
doth Servius In Æneid.
7. v. 678.. The old Records of the Latines
were burnt Diodor.
l. 1. by the Gauls, an hundred and
twenty years after the Regifuge, and sixty four
years before the death of Alexander the great:
and Quintus Fabius Pictor, Plutarch.
in Romulo. the oldest Historian
of the Latines, lived an hundred years later than
that King, and took almost all things from
Diocles Peparethius, a Greek. The Chronolo
gers of Gallia, Spain, Germany, Scythia, Swede
land, Britain and Ireland are of a date still later;
for Scythia beyond the Danube had no letters,
'till Ulphilas their Bishop formed them; which
was about six hundred years after the death of
Alexander the great: and Germany had none 'till
it50it received them, from the western Empire of
the Latines, above seven hundred years after the
death of that King. The Hunns, had none in
the days of Procopius, who flourished 850 years
after the death of that King: and Sweden and
Norway received them still later. And things
said to be done above one or two hundred years
before the use of letters, are of little credit.
Diodorus, Lib. I. in
Proæm. in the beginning of his History tells
us, that he did not define by any certain space the
times preceding the Trojan War, because he had
no certain foundation to rely upon: but from the
Trojan war, according to the reckoning of Apollo
dorus, whom he followed, there were eighty years
to the Return of the Heraclides into Peloponnesus;
and that from that Period to the first Olympiad,
there were three hundred and twenty eight years,
computing the times from the Kings of the
Lacedæmonians. Apollodorus followed Eratosthenes,
and both of them followed Thucydides, in reckon
ing eighty years from the Trojan war to the Return
of the Heraclides: but in reckoning 328 years
from that Return to the first Olympiad, Diodorus
tells us, that the times were computed from the
Kings of the Lacedæmonians; and Plutarch Plutarch.
in Lycurgo
sub initio. tells
us, that Apollodorus, Eratosthenes and others fol
lowed that computation: and since this reckon
ing is still received by Chronologers, and was gathered51gathered by computing the times from the Kings
of the Lacedæmonians, that is from their number,
let us re-examinreexamine that Computation.
The Egyptians reckoned the Reigns of Kings
equipollent to Generations of men, and three
Generations to an hundred years, as above; and
so did the Greeks and Latines: and accordingly
they have made their Kings Reign one with
another thirty and three years a-piece, and a
bove. For they make the seven Kings of Rome
who preceded the Consuls to have Reigned 244
years, which is 35 years a-piece: and the first
twelve Kings of Sicyon, Ægialeus, Europs, &c.
to have Reigned 529 years, which is 44 years
a-piece: and the first eight Kings of Argos,
Inachus, Phoroneus, &c. to have Reigned 371
years, which is above 46 years a-piece: and
between the Return of the Heraclides into Pelo
ponnesus, and the end of the first Messenian
war, the ten Kings of Sparta in one Race; Eu
rysthenes, Agis, Echestratus, Labotas, Doryagus,
Agesilaus, Archelaus, Teleclus, Alcamenes, and
Polydorus: the nine in the other Race; Procles,
Sous, Eurypon, Prytanis, Eunomus, Polydectes,
Charilaus, Nicander, Theopompus: the ten Kings
of Messene; Cresphontes, Epytus, Glaucus, Isthmi
us, Dotadas, Sibotas, Phintas, Antiochus, Euphaes,
Aristodemus: and the nine of Arcadia; Cypselus,
Olæas, 52Olæas, Buchalion, Phialus, Simus, Pompus, Ægi
neta, Polymnestor, Æchmis, according to Chro
nologers, took up 379 years: which is 38
years a-piece to the ten Kings, and 42 years
a-piece to the nine. And the five Kings of the
Race of Eurysthenes, between the end of the first
Messenian war, and the beginning of the Reign
of Darius Hystaspis; Eurycrates, Anaxander, Eu
rycrates II, Leon, Anaxandrides, Reigned 202
years, which is above 40 years a-piece.
Thus the Greek Chronologers, who follow
Timæus and Eratosthenes, have made the Kings of
their several Cities, who lived before the times of
the Persian Empire, to Reign about 35 or 40
years a-piece, one with another; which is a length
so much beyond the course of nature, as is not
to be credited. For by the ordinary course of
nature Kings Reign, one with another, about
eighteen or twenty years a-piece: and if in
some instances they Reign, one with another, five
or six years longer, in others they Reign as
much shorter: eighteen or twenty years is a
medium. So the eighteen Kings of Judah who
succeeded Solomon, Reigned 390 years, which
is one with another 22 years a-piece. The
fifteen Kings of Israel after Solomon, Reigned
259 years, which is 17 years a-piece. The eighteen Kings of Babylon, Nabonassar &c. Reigned53ed 209 years, which is 11 years a-piece. The ten Kings of Persia; Cyrus, Cambyses, &c. Reigned 208 years, which is almost 21 years a piece. The sixteen Successors of Alexander the great, and of his brother and son in Syria; Seleucus, Antiochus Soter, &c. Reigned 244 years, after the breaking of that Monarchy into various Kingdoms, which is 15 years a-piece. The eleven Kings of Egypt; Ptolomæus Lagi, &c. Reigned 277 years, counted from the same Period, which is 25 years a-piece. The eight in Macedonia; Cassander, &c. Reigned 138 years, which is 17 years a-piece. The thirty Kings of England; William the Conqueror, William Rufus, &c. Reigned 648 years, which is 21 years a-piece. The first twenty four Kings of France; Pharamundus, &c. Reigned 458 years, which is 19 years a-piece: the next twenty four Kings of France; Ludovicus Balbus, &c. 451 years, which is 18 years a-piece: the next fifteen, Philip Valesius, &c. 315 years, which is 21 years a-piece: and all the sixty three Kings of France, 1224 years, which is 19 years a-piece. Generations from father to son, may be reckoned one with another at about 33 or 34 years a-piece, or about three Generations to an hundred years: but if the reckoning proceed by the eldest sons, they are shorter, so that three of them may be reckoned54reckoned at about 75 or 80 years: and the Reigns of Kings are still shorter, because Kings are succeeded not only by their eldest sons, but sometimes by their brothers, and sometimes they are slain or deposed; and succeeded by others of an equal or greater age, especially in elective or turbulent Kingdoms. In the later Ages, since Chronology hath been exact, there is scarce an instance to be found of ten Kings Reigning any where in continual Succession above 260 years: but Timæus and his followers, and I think also some of his Predecessors, after the example of the Egyptians; have taken the Reigns of Kings for Generations, and reckoned three Generations to an hundred, and sometimes to an hundred and twenty years; and founded the Technical Chronology of the Greeks upon this way of reckoning. Let the reckoning be reduced to the course of nature, by putting the Reigns of Kings one with another, at about eighteen or twenty years a-piece: and the ten Kings of Sparta by one Race, the nine by another Race, the ten Kings of Messene, and the nine of Arcadia, above mentioned, between the Return of the Heraclides into Peloponnesus, and the end of the first Messenian war, will scarce take up above 180 or 190 years: whereas according to Chronologers they took up 379 years.
For 55
For confirming this reckoning, I may add another argument. Euryleon the son of Ægeus, Pausan. l. 4. c. 13. p. 28. & c. 7. p. 296 & l. 3. c. 15. p. 245. commanded the main body of the Messenians in the fifth year of the first Messenian war, and was in the fifth Generation from Oiolicus the son of Theras, the brother-in-law of Aristodemus, and tutor to his sons Eurysthenes and Procles, as Pausanias Pausan. l. 4. c. 7. p. 296. relates: and by consequence, from the return of the Heraclides, which was in the days of Theras, to the battle which was in the fifth year of this war, there were six Generations, which, as I conceive, being for the most part by the eldest sons, will scarce exceed thirty years to a Generation; and so may amount unto 170 or 180 years. That war lasted 19 or 20 years: add the last 15 years, and there will be about 190 years to the end of that war: whereas the followers of Timæus make it about 379 years, which is above sixty years to a Generation.
By these arguments, Chronologers have lengthned the time, between the return of the Heraclides into Peloponnesus and the first Messenian war, adding to it about 190 years: and they have also lengthned the time, between that war and the rise of the Persian Empire. For in the Race of the Spartan Kings, descended from Eurysthenes; after Polydorus, reigned Herod. l. 7. these Kings, Eury- 56Eurycrates, Anaxander, Eurycratides, Leon, Anaxandrides, Clomenes, Leonidas, &c. And in the other Race descended from Procles; after Theopompus, reigned Herod. l. 8. these, Anaxandrides, Archidemus, Anaxileus, Leutychides, Hippocratides, Ariston, Demaratus, Leutychides II. &c. according to Herodotus. These Kings reigned 'till the sixth year of Xerxes, in which Leonidas was slain by the Persians at Thermopylæ; and Leutychides II. soon after, flying from Sparta to Tegea, died there. The seven Reigns of the Kings of Sparta, which follow Polydorus, being added to the ten Reigns above mentioned, which began with that of Eurysthenes; make up seventeen Reigns of Kings, between the return of the Heraclides into Peloponnesus and the sixth year of Xerxes: and the eight Reigns following Theopompus, being added to the nine Reigns above mentioned, which began with that of Procles, make up also seventeen Reigns: and these seventeen Reigns, at twenty years a-piece one with another, amount unto three hundred and forty years. Count these 340 years upwards from the sixth year of Xerxes, and one or two years more for the war of the Heraclides, and Reign of Aristodemus, the father of Eurysthenes and Procles; and they will place the Return of the Heraclides into Peloponnesus, 159 years after the death57death of Solomon, and 46 years before the first Olympiad, in which Coræbus was victor. But the followers of Timæus have placed this Return two hundred and eighty years earlier. Now this being the computation upon which the Greeks, as you have heard from Diodorus and Plutarch, have founded the Chronology of their Kingdoms, which were ancienter than the Persian Empire; that Chronology is to be rectified, by shortening the times which preceded the death of Cyrus, in the proportion of almost two to one; for the times which follow the death of Cyrus are not much amiss.
The Artificial Chronologers, have made Lycurgus, the legislator, as old as Iphitus, the restorer of the Olympiads; and Iphitus, an hundred and twelve years, older than the first Olympiad: and, to help out the Hypothesis, they have feigned twenty eight Olympiads older than the first Olympiad, wherein Coræbus was victor. But these things were feigned, after the days of Thucydides and Plato: for Socrates died three years after the end of the Peloponnesian war, and Plato Plato in Minoe. introduceth him saying, that the institutions of Lycurgus were but of three hundred years standing, or not much more. And Thucyd. l. 1. p. 13. Thucydides, in the reading followed by Stephanus, saith, that the Lacedæmonians, had from ancient times used good laws, 58laws, and been free from tyranny; and that from the time that they had used one and the same administration of their commonwealth, to the end of the Peloponnesian war, there were three hundred years and a few more. Count three hundred years back from the end of the Peloponnesian war, and they will place the Legislature of Lycurgus upon the 19th Olympiad. And, according to Socrates, it might be upon the 22d or 23d. Athenæus Athen. l. 14 p. 605. tells us out of ancient authors (Hellanicus, Sosimus and Hieronymus) that Lycurgus the Legislator, was contemporary to Terpander the Musician; and that Terpander was the first man who got the victory in the Carnea, in a solemnity of music instituted in those festivals in the 26th Olympiad. He overcame four times in those Pythic games, and therefore lived at least 'till the 29th Olympiad: and beginning to flourish in the days of Lycurgus, it is not likely that Lycurgus began to flourish, much before the 18th Olympiad. The name of Lycurgus being on the Olympic Disc, Aristotle concluded thence, that Lycurgus was the companion of Iphitus, in restoring the Olympic games: and this argument might be the ground of the opinion of Chronologers, that Lycurgus and Iphitus were contemporary. But Iphitus did not restore all the Olympic games. He Pausan. l. 5. c. 8. restored indeed the Racing in59in the first Olympiad, Coræbus being victor. In the 14th Olympiad, the double stadium was added, Hypænus being victor. And in the 18th Olympiad the Quinquertium and Wrestling were added, Lampus and Eurybatus, two Spartans, being victors: And the Disc was one of the games of the Quinquertium. Pausan. l. 6. c. 19. Pausanias tells us that there were three Discs kept in the Olympic treasury at Altis: these therefore having the name of Lycurgus upon them, shew that they were given by him, at the institution of the Quinquertium, in the 18th Olympiad. Now Polydectes King of Sparta, being slain before the birth of his son Charillus or Charilaus, left the Kingdom to Lycurgus his brother; and Lycurgus, upon the birth of Charillus, became tutor to the child; and after about eight months travelled into Crete and Asia, till the child grew up, and brought back with him the poems of Homer; and soon after published his laws, suppose upon the 22d or 23d Olympiad; for he was then growing old: and Terpander was a Lyric Poet, and began to flourish about this time; for Plutarch. de Musica. Clemens Strom. l. 1. p. 308. he imitated Orpheus and Homer, and sung Homer's verses and his own, and wrote the laws of Lycurgus in verse, and was victor in the Pythic games in the 26th Olympiad, as above. He was the first who distinguished the modes of60of Lyric music by several names. Ardalus and Clonas soon after did the like for wind music: and from henceforward, by the encouragement of the Pythic games, now instituted, several eminent Musicians and Poets flourished in Greece: as Archilochus, Eumelus Corinthius, Polymnestus, Thaletas, Xenodemus, Xenocritus, Sacadas, Tyrtæus, Tlesilla, Rhianus, Alcman, Arion, Stesichorus, Mimnermnus, Alcæus, Sappho, Theognis, Anacreon, Ibycus, Simonides, Æschylus, Pindar, by whom the Music and Poetry of the Greeks were brought to perfection.
Lycurgus, published his laws in the Reign of Agesilaus, the son and successor of Doryagus, in the Race of the Kings of Sparta descended from Eurysthenes. From the Return of the Heraclides into Peloponnesus, to the end of the Reign of Agesilaus, there were six Reigns: and from the same Return to the end of the Reign of Polydectes, in the Race of the Spartan Kings descended from Procles, there were also six Reigns: and these Reigns, at twenty years a-piece one with another, amount unto 120 years; besides the short Reign of Aristodemus, the father of Eurysthenes and Procles, which might amount to a year or two: for Aristodemus came to the crown, as Herod. l. 6. c. 52. Herodotus and the Lacedæmonians themselves affirmed. The times of the deaths of Agesi- 61Agesilaus and Polydectes are not certainly known: but it may be presumed that Lycurgus did not meddle with the Olympic games before he came to the Kingdom; and therefore Polydectes died in the beginning of the 18th Olympiad, or but a very little before. If it may be supposed that the 20th Olympiad was in, or very near to the middle time between the deaths of the two Kings Polydectes and Agesilaus, and from thence be counted upwards the aforesaid 120 years, and one year more for the Reign of Aristodemus; the reckoning will place the Return of the Heraclides, about 45 years before the beginning of the Olympiads.
Iphitus, who restored the Olympic games, Pausan. l. 5. c. 4. was descended from Oxylus, the son of Hæmon, the son of Thoas, the son of Andræmon: Hercules and Andræmon married two sisters: Thoas warred at Troy: Oxylus returned into Peloponnesus with the Heraclides. In this return he commanded the body of the Ætolians, and recovered Elea; Pausan. l. 5. c. 1, 3, 8. Strabo, l. 8, p. 357. from whence his ancestor Ætolus, the son of Endymion, the son of Aethlius, had been driven by Salmoneus the grandson of Hellen. By the friendship of the Heraclides, Oxylus had the care of the Olympic Temple committed to him: and the Heraclides, for his service done them, granted further upon oath that the country of the62the Eleans should be free from invasions, and be defended by them from all armed force: And when the Eleans were thus consecrated, Oxylus restored the Olympic games: and after they had been again intermitted, Iphitus their King Pausan. l. 5. c.4. restored them, and made them quadrennial. Iphitus is by some reckoned the son of Hæmon, by others the son of Praxonidas, the son of Hæmon: but Hæmon being the father of Oxylus, I would reckon Iphitus the son of Praxonidas, the son of Oxylus, the son of Hæmon. And by this reckoning the Return of the Heraclides into Peloponnesus will be two Generations by the eldest sons, or about 52 years, before the Olympiads.
Pausanias Pausan. l. 5. c.18. represents that Melas the son of Antissus, of the posterity of Gonussa the daughter of Sicyon, was not above six Generations older than Cypselus King of Corinth; and that he was contemporary to Aletes, who returned with the Heraclides into Peloponnesus. The Reign of Cypselus began An. 2, Olymp. 31, according to Chronologers; and six Generations, at about 30 years to a Generation, amount unto 180 years. Count those years backwards from An. 2, Olymp. 31, and they will place the Return of the Heraclides into Peloponnesus 58 years before the first Olympiad. But it might not be so63so early, if the Reign of Cypselus began three or four Olympiads later; for he reigned before the Persian Empire began.
Hercules the Argonaut was the father of Hyllus; the father of Cleodius; the father of Aristomachus; the father of Temenus, Cresphontes, and Aristodemus, who led the Heraclides into Peloponnesus: and Eurystheus, who was of the same age with Hercules, was slain in the first attempt of the Heraclides to return: Hyllus was slain in the second attempt, Cleodius in the third attempt, Aristomachus in the fourth attempt, and Aristodemus died as soon as they were returned, and left the Kingdom of Sparta to his sons Eurysthenes and Procles. Whence their Return was four Generations later than the Argonautic expedition: And these Generations were short ones, being by the chief of the family, and suit with the reckoning of Thucydides and the Ancients, that the taking of Troy was about 75 or eighty years before the return of the Heraclides into Peloponnesus; and the Argonautic expedition one Generation earlier than the taking of Troy. Count therefore eighty years backward from the Return of the Heraclides into Peloponnesus to the Trojan war, and the taking of Troy will be about 76 years after the death of Solomon: And the Argonautic expedition, which was one Generation earlier,64earlier, will be about 43 years after it. From the taking of Troy to the Return of the Heraclides, could scarce be more than eighty years, because Orestes the son of Agamemnon was a youth at the taking of Troy, and his sons Penthilus and Tisamenus lived till the Return of the Heraclides.
Æsculapius and Hercules were Argonauts, and Hippocrates was the eighteenth inclusively by the father's side from Æsculapius, and the nineteenth from Hercules by the mother's side: and because these Generations, being taken notice of by writers, were most probably by the principal of the family, and so for the most part by the eldest sons; we may reckon about 28 or at the most about 30 years to a Generation. And thus the seventeen intervals by the father's side, and eighteen by the mother's, will at a middle reckoning amount unto about 507 years: which counted backwards from the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, at which time Hippocrates began to flourish, will reach up to the 43d year after the death of Solomon, and there place the Argonautic expedition.
When the Romans conquered the Carthaginians, the Archives of Carthage came into their hands: And thence AppionAppian , in his history of the Punic wars, tells in round numbers that Car thage 65thage stood seven hundred years: and Solin. c. 30. Solinus adds the odd number of years in these words: Adrymeto atque Carthagini author est a Tyro populus. Urbem istam, ut Cato in Oratione Senatoria autumat; cum rex Hiarbas rerum in Libya potiretur, Elissa mulier extruxit, domo Phænix, & Carthadam dixit, quod Phænicum ore exprimit civitatem novam; mox sermone verso Carthago dicta est, quæ post annos septingentos triginta septem exciditur quam fuerat extructa. Elissa was Dido, and Carthage was destroyed in the Consulship of Lentulus and Mummius, in the year of the Julian Period 4568; from whence count backwards 737 years, and the Encænia or Dedication of the City, will fall upon the 16th year of Pygmalion, the brother of Dido, and King of Tyre. She fled in the seventh year of Pygmalion, but the Æra of the City began with its Encænia. Now Virgil, and his Scholiast Servius, who might have some things from the archives of Tyre and Cyprus, as well as from those of Carthage, relate that Teucer came from the war of Troy to Cyprus, in the days of Dido, a little before the Reign of her brother Pygmalion; and, in conjunction with her father, seized Cyprus, and ejected Cinyras: and the Marbles say that Teucer came to Cyprus seven years after the destruction of Troy, and built Salamis; and Apollodorus, that Cinyras married Metharme the daughter66ter of Pygmalion, and built Paphos. Therefore, if the Romans, in the days of Augustus, followed not altogether the artificial Chronology of Eratosthenes, but had these things from the records of Carthage, Cyprus, or Tyre; the arrival of Teucer at Cyprus will be in the Reign of the predecessor of Pygmalion: and by consequence the destruction of Troy, about 76 years later than the death of Solomon.
Dionysius Halicarnassensis Dionys. l. 1. p. 15. tells us, that in the time of the Trojan war, Latinus was King of the Aborigines in Italy, and that in the sixteenth Age after that war, Romulus built Rome. By Ages he means Reigns of Kings: for after Latinus he names sixteen Kings of the Latines, the last of which was Numitor, in whose days Romulus built Rome: for Romulus was contemporary to Numitor, and after him Dionysius and others reckon six Kings more over Rome, to the beginning of the Consuls. Now these twenty and two Reigns, at about 18 years to a Reign one with another, for many of these Kings were slain, took up 396 years; which counted back from the consulship of Junius Brutus and Valerius Publicola, the two first Consuls, place the Trojan war about 78 years after the death of Solomon.
The expedition of Sesostris was one Generation earlier than the Argonautic expedition: for in67in his return back into Egypt he left Æetes in Colchis, and Æetes reigned there 'till the Argonautic expedition; and Prometheus was left by Sesostris with a body of men at Mount Caucasus, to guard that pass, and after thirty years was released by Hercules the Argonaut: and Phlyas and Eumedon, the sons of the great Bacchus, so the Poets call Sesostris, and of Ariadne the daughter of Minos, were Argonauts. At the return of Sesostris into Egypt, his brother Danaus fled from him into Greece with his fifty daughters, in a long ship; after the pattern of which the ship Argo was built: and Argus, the son of Danaus, was the master-builder thereof. Nauplius the Argonaut was born in Greece, of Amymone, one of the daughters of Danaus, and of Neptune, the brother and admiral of Sesostris: And two others of the daughters of Danaus married Archander and Archilites, the sons of Achæus, the son of Creusa, the daughter of Erechtheus King of Athens: and therefore the daughters of Danaus were three Generations younger than Erechtheus; and by consequence contemporary to Theseus the son of Ægeus, the adopted son of Pandion, the son of Erechtheus. Theseus, in the time of the Argonautic expedition, was of about 50 years of age, and so was born about the 33d year of Solomon: for he stole Helena Apollon. Argonaut. l. 1. v. 101. just before that expedition, being then 50 years old,68old, and she but seven, or as some say ten. Pirithous the son of Ixion helped Theseus to steal Helena, and then Plutarch. in Theseo. Theseus went with Pirithous to steal Persephone, the daughter of Aidoneus, or Orcus, King of the Molossians, and was taken in the action: and whilst he lay in prison, Castor and Pollux returning from the Argonautic expedition, released their sister Helena, and captivated Æthra the mother of Theseus. Now the daughters of Danaus being contemporary to Theseus, and some of their sons being Argonauts, Danaus with his daughters fled from his brother Sesostris into Greece about one Generation before the Argonautic expedition; and therefore Sesostris returned into Egypt in the Reign of Rehoboam. He came out of Egypt in the fifth year of Rehoboam, Diodor. l. 1. p. 35. and spent nine years in that expedition, against the Eastern Nations and Greece; and therefore returned back into Egypt, in the fourteenth year of Rehoboam. Sesac and Sesostris were therefore Kings of all Egypt, at one and the same time: and they agree not only in the time, but also in their actions and conquests. God gave Sesac ממלכות הארצות the Kingdoms of the lands, 2 Chron. xii. Where Herodotus describes the expedition of Sesostris, Josephus Joseph. Antiq. l. 4. c. 8 tells us that he described the expedition of Sesac, and attributed his actions to Sesostris, erring only in the name of the King. Corruptions of names are frequent in69in history: Sesostris was otherwise called Sesochris, Sesochis, Sesoosis, Sethosis, Sesonchis, Sesonchosis. Take away the Greek termination, and the names become Sesost, Sesoch, Sesoos, Sethos, Sesonch: which names differ very little from Sesach. Sesonchis and Sesach differ no more than Memphis and Moph, two names of the same city. Josephus Contra Apion. l. 1. tells us also, from Manetho, that Sethosis was the brother of Armais, and that these brothers were otherwise called Ægyptus and Danaus; and that upon the return of Sethosis or Ægyptus, from his great conquests into Egypt, Armais or Danaus fled from him into Greece.
Egypt was at first divided into many small Kingdoms, like other nations; and grew into one monarchy by degrees: and the father of Solomon's Queen, was the first King of Egypt, who came into Phœnicia with an Army: but he only took Gezir, and gave it to his daughter. Sesac, the next King, came out of Egypt with an army of Libyans, Troglodites and Ethiopians, 2 Chron. xii. 3. and therefore was then King of all those countries; and we do not read in Scripture, that any former King of Egypt, who Reigned over all those nations, came out of Egypt with a great army to conquer other countries. The sacred history of the Israelites, from the days of Abraham to the days of Solomon, admits70mits of no such conqueror. Sesostris reigned over all the same nations of the Libyans, Troglodites and Ethiopians, and came out of Egypt with a great army to conquer other Kingdoms. The Shepherds reigned long in the lower part of Egypt, and were expelled thence, just before the building of Jerusalem and the Temple; according to Manetho; and whilst they Reigned in the lower part of Egypt, the upper part thereof was under other Kings: and while Egypt was divided into several Kingdoms, there was no room for any such King of all Egypt as Sesostris; and no historian makes him later than Sesac: and therefore he was one and the same King of Egypt with Sesac. This is no new opinion: Josephus discovered it when he affirmed that Herodotus erred, in ascribing the actions of Sesac to Sesostris, and that the error was only in the name of the King: for this is as much as to say, that the true name of him who did those things described by Herodotus, was Sesac; and that Herodotus erred only in calling him Sesostris; or that he was called Sesostris by a corruption of his name. Our great Chronologer, Sir John Marsham, was also of opinion that Sesostris was Sesac: and if this be granted, it is then most certain, that Sesostris came out of Egypt in the fifth year of Rehoboam to invade the nations, and returned back into Egypt 71Egypt in the 14th year of that King; and that Danaus then flying from his brother, came into Greece within a year or two after: and the Argonautic expedition being one Generation later than that invasion, and than the coming of Danaus into Greece, was certainly about 40 or 45 years later than the death of Solomon. Prometheus stay'd on Mount Caucasus Hygin. Fab. 144. thirty years, and then was released by Hercules: and therefore the Argonautic expedition was thirty years after Prometheus had been left on Mount Caucasus by Sesostris, that is, about 44 years after the death of Solomon.
All nations, before the just length of the Solar year was known, reckoned months by the course of the moon; and years by the Gen. i. 14. & viii. 22. Censorinus c. 19. & 20. Cicero in Verrem. Geminus c. 6. returns of winter and summer, spring and autumn: and in making Calendars for their Festivals, they reckoned thirty days to a Lunar month, and twelve Lunar months to a year; taking the nearest round numbers: whence came the division of the Ecliptic into 360 degrees. So in the time of Noah's flood, when the Moon could not be seen, Noah reckoned thirty days to a month: but if the Moon appeared a day or two before the end of the month, Cicero in Verrem. they began the next month with the first day of her appearing: and this was done generally, 'till the Egyptians of Thebais found the length of the72the Solar year. So Diodor. l. 1. Diodorus tells us that the Egyptians of Thebais use no intercalary months, nor subduct any days [from the month] as is done by most of the Greeks. And Cicero in Verrem. Cicero, est consuetudo Siculorum cæterorumque Græcorum, quod suos dies mensesque congruere volunt cum Solis Lunæque ratione, ut nonnumquam siquid discrepet, eximant unum aliquem diem aut summum biduum ex mense [civili dierum triginta] quos illi ἐξαιρεςίμους dies nominant. And Proclus, upon Hesiod's τριακὰς mentions the same thing. And Gem. c. 6. Geminus: Πρόθεσις γαρ ἠν τοις ἀρχαίοις, τους μὲν μηνας ἄγειν κατὰ σελήνην, τοὺς δὲ ἐνιαυτοὺς καθ᾽ ἥλιον. Τὸ γαρ ὑπὸ των νόμων, καί των χρησμων παραγγελλόμενον, τὸ θύειν κατὰ γ', ἤγουν τὰ πάτρια, μηνας, ἡμέρας, ἐνιαυτοὺς τουτο διέλαβον ἅπαντες οἱ Ἕλληνες τωι τους μὲν ἑνιαυτοὺς συμφώνως ἄγειν τωι ἡλίωιη τὰς δὲ ἥμέρας καὶ τοὺς μηνας τηι σελήνη. ἔστι δὲ τὸ μὲν καθ᾽ ἥλιον ἄγειν τοὺς ἐνιαυτοὺς, τὸ περὶ τὰς ἀυτὰς ὥρας του ἐνιαυτου τὰς ἀυτὰς θυσίας τοις θεοις ἐπιτελειθαι, καὶ τὴν μὲν ἐαρινὴν θυσίαν διὰ παντὸσ κατὰ τὸ ἔαρ συντελειθαιη τὴν δὲ θερινὴν, κατὰ τὸ θέροση ὁμοίως δὲ καὶ κατὰ τοὺς λοιποὺς καιροὺς του ἔτους τὰς ἀυτὰς θυσίας πιπτειν. Τουτο γαρ ὑπέλαβον προσηνὲς, καὶ κεχαρισμένον εἱναι τοις θεοις. Τουτο δ᾽ ἄλλως ὀυκ ἂν73ἂν δύναιτο γενέσθαι, εἰ μὴ αἱ τροπαὶ, καὶ αἱ ἰσημερίαι περὶ τοὺς ἀυτοὺς τόπους γίγνοιντο. Τὸ δὲ κατὰ σελήνην ἄγειν τὰς ἡμέρας, τοιουτόν ἐςτιη τὸ ἀκολούθως τοις της ςελήνης φωτισμοις τὰς προσηγορίας των ἡμερων γίνεσθαι. ἀπὸ γαρ των της σελήνης φωτισμων ἁι προσηγορίαι των ἡμερων κατωνομάσθησαν. Ἐν ἡι μὲν γὰρ ἡμέραι νέα ἡ σελήνη φαίνεται, κατὰ συναλοιφὴν νεομηνία προςηγορεύθηη ἐν ἡι δὲ ἡμέραι τὴν δευτέραν φάσιν ποιειται, δευτέραν προσηγόρευσανη τὴν δὲ κατὰ μέσον του μηνὸς γινομένην φάσιν τησ σελήνης, ἀπὸ ἀυτου του συμβαίνοντος διχομηνίαν ἐκάλεσαν. καί καθόλου δὲ παςασ τὰς ἡμέρας ἀπὸ των της σελήνης φωτισματων προσωνόμασαν. ὅθεν καὶ τὴν τριακοστὴν του μηνὸς ἡμέραν ἐσχάτην ὀυσαν ἀπὸ ἀυτου του συμβαίνοντος τριακάδα ἐκάλεσαν. Propositum enim fuit veteribus, menses quidem agere secundum Lunam, annos vero secundum Solem. Quod enim a legibus & Oraculis præcipiebatur, ut sacrificarent secundum tria, videlicet patria, menses, dies, annos; hoc ita distincte faciebant universi Græci, ut annos agerent congruenter cum Sole, dies vero & menses cum Luna. Porro secundum Solem annos agere, est circa easdem tempestates anni eadem sacrificia Diis perfici, & vernum sacrificium semper in vere consummari, æstivum autem in æstate: similiter 74similiter & in reliquis anni temporibus eadem sacrificia cadere. Hoc enim putabant acceptum & gratum esse Diis. Hoc autem aliter fieri non posset nisi conversiones solstitiales & æquinoctia in iisdem Zodiaci locis fierent. Secundum Lunam vero dies agere est tale ut congruant cum Lunæ illuminationibus appellationes dierum. Nam a Lunæ illuminationibus appellationes dierum sunt denominatæ. In qua enim die Luna apparet nova, ea per Synalœphen, seu compositionem νεομηνία, id est, Novilunium appellatur. In qua vero die secundam facit apparitionem, eam secundam Lunam vocarunt. Apparitionem Lunæ quæ circa medium mensis fit, ab ipso eventu διχομηνίαν, id est medietatem mensis nominarunt. Ac summatim, omnes dies a Lunæ illuminationibus denominarunt. Unde etiam tricesimam mensis diem, cum ultima sit, ab ipso eventu τριακάδα vocarunt.
The ancient Calendar year of the Greeks consisted therefore of twelve Lunar months, and every month of thirty days: and these years and months they corrected from time to time, by the courses of the Sun and Moon, omitting a day or two in the month, as often as they found the month too long for the course of the Moon; and adding a month to the year, as often as they found the twelve Lunar months too short for the return of the four seasons. Cleobulus, Apud Laertium, in Cleobulo. one of the seven wise men of Greece, alluded75alluded to this year of the Greeks, in his Parable of one father who had twelve sons, each of which had thirty daughters half white and half black: and Thales Apud Laertium, in Thalete. Plutarch. in Solone. called the last day of the month τριακάδα, the thirtieth: and Solon counted the ten last days of the month backward from the thirtieth, calling that day ενην καὶ νέαν, the old and the new, or the last day of the old month and the first day of the new: for he introduced months of 29 and 30 days alternately, making the thirtieth day of every other month to be the first day of the next month.
To the twelve Lunar months Censorinus c. 18. Herod. l. 2. prope initium. the ancient Greeks added a thirteenth, every other year, which made their Dieteris; and because this reckoning made their year too long by a month in eight years, they omitted an intercalary month once in eight years, which made their Octaeteris, one half of which was their Tetraeteris: And these Periods seem to have been almost as old as the religions of Greece, being used in divers of their Sacra. The Apollodor l. 3. p. 169. Strabo l. 16. p. 476. Homer. Odyss. Τ. v. 179. Octaeteris was the Annus magnus of Cadmus and Minos, and seems to have been brought into Greece and Crete by the Phænicians, who came thither with Cadmus and Europa, and to have continued 'till after the days of Herodotus: for in counting the length of76of seventy years Herod. l. 1., he reckons thirty days to a Lunar month, and twelve such months, or 360 days, to the ordinary year, without the intercalary months, and 25 such months to the Dieteris: and according to the number of days in the Calendar year of the Greeks, Demetrius Phalereus had 360 Statues erected to him by the Athenians. But the Greeks, Cleostratus, Harpalus, and others, to make their months agree better with the course of the Moon, in the times of the Persian Empire, varied the manner of intercaling the three months in the Octaeteris; and Meton found out the Cycle of intercaling seven months in nineteen years.
The Ancient year of the Latines was also Luni-solar; for Plutarch Plutarch. in Numa. tells us, that the year of Numa consisted of twelve Lunar months, with intercalary months to make up what the twelve Lunar months wanted of the Solar year. The Ancient year of the Egyptians was also Luni-solar, and continued to be so 'till the days of Hyperion, or Osiris, a King of Egypt, the father of Helius and Selene, or Orus and Bubaste: For the Israelites brought this year out of Egypt; and Diodorus tells Diodor. l. 3. p. 133. us that Ouranus the father of Hyperion used this year, and Diodor. l. 1. p. 13. that in the Temple of Osiris the Priests appointed thereunto filled 360 Milk Bowls every day: I think he means one Bowl every77every day, in all 360, to count the number of days in the Calendar year, and thereby to find out the difference between this and the true Solar year: for the year of 360 days was the year, to the end of which they added five days.
That the Israelites used the Luni-solar year is beyond question. Their months began with their new Moons. Their first month was called Abib, from the earing of Corn in that month. Their Passover was kept upon the fourteenth day of the first month, the Moon being then in the full: and if the Corn was not then ripe enough for offering the first Fruits, the Festival was put off, by adding an intercalary month to the end of the year; and the harvest was got in before the Pentecost, and the other Fruits gathered before the Feast of the seventh month.
Simplicius in his commentary Apud Theodorum Gazam de mentibus. on the first of Aristotle's Physical Acroasis, tells us, that some begin the year upon the Summer Solstice, as the People of Attica; or upon the Autumnal Equinox, as the People of Asia; or in Winter, as the Romans; or about the Vernal Equinox, as the Arabians and People of Damascus: and the month began, according to some, upon the Full Moon, or upon the New. The years of all these Nations were therefore Luni-78Luni-solar, and kept to the four Seasons: and the Roman year began at first in Spring, as I seem to gather from the Names of their Months, Quintilis, Sextilis, September, October, November, December: and the beginning was afterwards removed to Winter. The ancient civil year of the Assyrians and Babylonians was also Luni-solar: for this year was also used by the Samaritans, who came from several parts of the Assyrian Empire; and the Jews who came from Babylon called the months of their Luni-solar year after the Names of the months of the Babylonian year: and Berosus Apud Athenæum, l. 14. tells us that the Babylonians celebrated the Feast Sacæa upon the 16th day of the month Lous, which was a Lunar month of the Macedonians, and kept to one and the same Season of the year: and the Arabians, a Nation who peopled Babylon, use Lunar months to this day. Suidas Suidas in Σάροι. tells us, that the Sarus of the Chaldeans contains 222 Lunar months, which are eighteen years, consisting each of twelve Lunar months, besides six intercalary months: and when Herod. l. 1. Cyrus cut the River Gindus into 360 Channels, he seems to have alluded unto the number of days in the Calendar year of the Medes and Persians: and the Emperor Julian Julian. Or: 4. writes, For when all other People, that I may say it in one word, accommodate their months to79to the course of the Moon, we alone with the Egyptians measure the days of the year by the course of the Sun.
At length the Egyptians, for the sake of Navigation, applied themselves to observe the Stars; and by their Heliacal Risings and Settings found the true Solar year to be five days longer than the Calendar year, and therefore added five days to the twelve Calendar months; making the Solar year to consist of twelve months and five days. Strabo Strabo l. 17. p. 816. and Diodor. l. 1. p. 32. Diodorus ascribe this invention to the Egyptians of Thebes. The Theban Priests, saith Strabo, are above others said to be Astronomers and Philosophers. They invented the reckoning of days not by the course of the Moon, but by the course of the Sun. To twelve months each of thirty days they add yearly five days. In memory of this Emendation of the year they dedicated the Plutarch de Osiride & Iside. Diodor. l. 1. p. 9. five additional days to Osiris, Isis, Orus senior, Typhon, and Nephthe the wife of Typhon, feigning that those days were added to the year when these five Princes were born, that is, in the Reign of Ouranus, or Ammon, the father of Sesac: and in Hecatæus apud Diodor. l. 1. p. 32. the Sepulchre of Amenophis, who Reigned soon after, they placed a Golden Circle of 365 cubits in compass, and divided it into 365 equal parts, to represent all the days in the year, and noted upon80upon each part the Heliacal Risings and Settings of the Stars on that day; which Circle remained there 'till the invasion of Egypt by Cambyses King of Persia. 'Till the Reign of Ouranus, the father of Hyperion, and grandfather of Helius and Selene, the Egyptians used the old Lunisolar year: but in his Reign, that is, in the Reign of Ammon, the father of Osiris or Sesac, and grandfather of Orus and Bubaste, the Thebans began to apply themselves to Navigation and Astronomy, and by the Heliacal Risings and Settings of the Stars determined the length of the Solar year; and to the old Calendar year added five days, and dedicated them to his five children above mentioned, as their birth days: and in the Reign of Amenophis, when by further Observations they had sufficiently determined the time of the Solstices, they might place the beginning of this new year upon the Vernal Equinox. This year being at length propagated into Chaldæa, gave occasion to the year of Nabonassar; for the years of Nabonassar and those of Egypt began on one and the same day, called by them Thoth, and were equal and in all respects the same: and the first year of Nabonassar began on the 26th day of February of the old Roman year, seven hundred forty and seven years before the Vulgar Æra of Christ, and81and thirty and three days and five hours before the Vernal Equinox,, according to the Sun's mean motion; for it is not likely that the Equation of the Sun's motion should be known in the infancy of Astronomy. Now reckoning that the year of 365 days wants five hours and 49 minutes of the Equinoctial year; the beginning of this year will move backwards thirty and three days and five hours in 137 years: and by consequence this year began at first in Egypt upon the Vernal Equinox, according to the Sun's mean motion, 137 years before the Æra of Nabonassar began; that is, in the year of the Julian Period 3830, or 96 years after the death of Solomon: and if it began upon the next day after the Vernal Equinox, it might begin four years earlier; and about that time ended the Reign of Amenophis: for he came not from Susa to the Trojan war, but died afterwards in Egypt. This year was received by the Persian Empire from the Babylonian; and the Greeks also used it in the Æra Philippæa, dated from the Death of Alexander the great; and Julius Cæsar corrected it, by adding a day in every four years, and made it the year of the Romans.
Syncellus tells us, that the five days were added to the old year by the last King of the Shepherds: and the difference in time between the82the Reign of this King, and that of Ammon, is but small; for the Reign of the Shepherds ended but one Generation, or two, before Ammon began to add those days. But the Shepherds minded not Arts and Sciences.
The first month of the Luni-solar year, by reason of the Intercalary month, began sometimes a week or a fortnight before the Equinox or Solstice, and sometimes as much after it. And this year gave occasion to the first Astronomers, who formed the Asterisms, to place the Equinoxes and Solstices in the middles of the Constellations of Aries, Cancer, Chelæ, and Capricorn. Achilles Tatius Isagoge Sect. 23, a Petavio edit. tells us, that some antiently placed the Solstice in the beginning of Cancer, others in the eighth degree of Cancer, others about the twelfth degree, and others about the fifteenth degree thereof. This variety of opinions proceeded from the precession of the Equinox, then not known to the Greeks. When the Sphere was first formed, the Solstice was in the fifteenth degree or middle of the Constellation of Cancer: then it came into the twelfth, eighth, fourth, and first degree successively. Eudoxus, who flourished about sixty years after Meton, and an hundred years before Aratus, in describing the Sphere of the Ancients, placed the Solstices and Equinoxes in the middles of the Constellations of Aries, Cancer,83Cancer, Chelæ, and Capricorn, as is affirmed by Hipparch. ad Phænom. l.2. Sect. 3. a Petavio edit. Hipparchus Bithynus; and appears also by the Description of the Equinoctial and Tropical Circles in Aratus, Hipparch. ad Phænom. l. 1. Sect. 2. who copied after Eudoxus; and by the positions of the Colures of the Equinoxes and Solstices, which in the Sphere of Eudoxus, described by Hipparchus, went through the middles of those Constellations. For Hipparchus tells us, that Eudoxus drew the Colure of the Solstices, through the middle of the great Bear, and the middle of Cancer, and the neck of Hydrus, and the Star between the Poop and Mast of Argo, and the Tayl of the South Fish, and through the middle of Capricorn, and of Sagitta, and through the neck and right wing of the Swan, and the left hand of Cepheus; and that he drew the Equinoctial Colure, through the left hand of Arctophylax, and along the middle of his Body, and cross the middle of Chelæ, and through the right hand and fore-knee of the Centaur, and through the flexure of Eridanus and head of Cetus, and the back of Aries a-cross, and through the head and right hand of Perseus.
Now Chiron delineated σχήματα ὀλύμπου the Asterisms, as the ancient Author of Gigantomachia, cited by Strom. 1. p. 306, 352. Clemens Alexandrinus informs us: for Chiron was a practical Astronomer, as may be84be there understood also of his daughter Hippo: and Musæus, the son of Eumolpus and master of Orpheus, and one of the Argonauts, Laertius Proem. l. 1. made a Sphere, and is reputed the first among the Greeks who made one: and the Sphere it self shews that it was delineated in the time of the Argonautic expedition; for that expedition is delineated in the Asterisms, together with several other ancienter Histories of the Greeks, and without any thing later. There's the golden RAM, the ensign of the Vessel in which Phryxus fled to Colchis; the BULL with brazen hoofs tamed by Jason; and the TWINS, CASTOR and POLLUX, two of the Argonauts, with the SWAN of Leda their mother. There's the Ship ARGO, and HYDRUS the watchful Dragon; with Medea's CUP, and a RAVEN upon its Carcass, the Symbol of Death. There's CHIRON the master of Jason, with his ALTAR and SACRIFICE. There's the Argonaut HERCULES with his DART and VULTURE falling down; and the DRAGON, CRAB and LION, whom he slew; and the HARP of the Argonaut Orpheus. All these relate to the Argonauts. There's ORION the son of Neptune, or as some say, the grandson of Minos, with his DOGS, and HARE, and RIVER, and SCORPION. There's the story of85of Perseus in the Constellations of PERSEUS, ANDROMEDA, CEPHEUS, CASSIOPEA and CETUS: That of Callisto, and her son Arcas, in URSA MAJOR and ARCTOPHYLAX: That of Icareus and his daughter Erigone in BOOTES, PLAUSTRUM and VIRGO. URSA MINOR relates to one of the Nurses of Jupiter, AURIGA to Erechthonius, OPHIUCHUS to Phorbas, SAGITTARIUS to Crolus the son of the Nurse of the Muses, CAPRICORN to Pan, and AQUARIUS to Ganimede. There's Ariadne's CROWN, Bellerophon's HORSE, Neptune's DOLPHIN, Ganimede's EAGLE, Jupiter's GOAT with her KIDS, Bacchus's ASSES, and the FISHES of Venus and Cupid, and their Parent the SOUTH FISH. These with DELTOTON, are the old Constellations mentioned by Aratus: and they all relate to the Argonauts and their Contemporaries, and to Persons one or two Generations older: and nothing later than that Expedition was delineated there Originally. ANTINOUS and COMA BERENICES are novel. The Sphere seems therefore to have been formed by Chiron and Musæus, for the use of the Argonauts: for the Ship Argo was the first long ship built by the Greeks. Hitherto they had used round vessels of burden, and86and kept within sight of the shore; and now, upon an Embassy to several Princes upon the coasts of the Euxine and Mediterranean Seas, Apollodor. l. 1. c. 9. Sect. 16. by the dictates of the Oracle, and consent of the Princes of Greece, the Flower of Greece were to sail with Expedition through the deep, in a long Ship with Sails, and guide their Ship by the Stars. The People of the Island Corcyra Suidas in Ἀναγαλλίς. attributed the invention of the Sphere to Nausicaa, the daughter of Alcinous, King of the Pheaces in that Island: and it's most probable that she had it from the Argonauts, who Apollodor. l. 1. c. 9. Sect. 25. in their return home sailed to that Island, and made some stay there with her father. So then in the time of the Argonautic Expedition, the Cardinal points of the Equinoxes and Solstices were in the middles of the Constellations of Aries, Cancer, Chelæ, and Capricorn.
In the end of the year of our Lord 1689 the Star called Prima Arietis was in ♈ . 28°. 51'. 00", with North Latitude 7°. 8'. 58". And the Star called ultima caudæ Arietis was in ♉ . 19°. 3'. 42", with North Latitude 2°. 34'. 5". And the Colurus Æquinoctiorum passing through the point in the middle between those two Stars did then cut the Ecliptic in ♉ . 6°. 44': and by this reckoning the Equinox in the end of the year 1689 was gone back 36°. 44'. since the Argonautic 87Argonautic Expedition: Supposing that the said Colure passed through the middle of the Constellation of Aries, according to the delineation of the Ancients. The Equinox goes back fifty seconds in one year, and one degree in seventy and two years, and by consequence 36°. 44'. in 2645 years, which counted back from the end of the year of our Lord 1689, or beginning of the year 1690, will place the Argonautic Expedition about 25 years after the Death of Solomon: but it is not necessary that the middle of the Constellation of Aries should be exactly in the middle between the two Stars called prima Arietis and ultima Caudæ: and it may be better to fix the Cardinal points by the Stars, through which the Colures passed in the primitive Sphere, according to the description of Eudoxus above recited. By the Colure of the Equinoxes, I mean a great Circle passing through the Poles of the Equator, and cutting the Ecliptic in the Equinoxes in an Angle of 66 degrees, the complement of the Sun's greatest Declination; and by the Colure of the Solstices I mean a great Circle passing through the same Poles, and cutting the Ecliptic at right Angles in the Solstices: and by the Primitive Sphere, that which was in use before the motions of the Equinoxes and Solstices were known: now the88the Colures passed through the following Stars, according to Eudoxus.
In the back of Aries is a Star of the sixth magnitude, marked ν by Bayer: in the end of the year 1689, and beginning of the year 1690, its Longitude was ♉ . 9°. 38'. 45", and North Latitude 6°. 7'. 56": and the Colurus Æquinoctiorum drawn though it, according to Eudoxus, cuts the Ecliptic in ♉ . 6°. 58'. 57". In the head of Cetus are two Stars of the fourth Magnitude, called ν and ξ by Bayer: in the end of the year 1689 their Longitudes were ♉ . 4°. 3'. 9". and ♉ . 3°. 7'. 37", and their South Latitudes 9°. 12'. 26". and 5°. 53'. 7": and the Colurus Æquinoctiorum passing in the mid way between them, cuts the Ecliptic in ♉ . 6°. 58'. 51". In the extreme flexure of Eridanus, rightly delineated, is a Star of the fourth Magnitude, of late referred to the breast of Cetus, and called ρ by Bayer; it is the only Star in Eridanus through which this Colure can pass; its Longitude, in the end of the year 1689, was ♈ . 25°. 22'. 10". and South Latitude 25°. 15'. 50". and the Colurus Æquinoctiorum passing through it, cuts the Ecliptic in ♉ . 7°. 12'. 40". In the head of Perseus, rightly delineated, is a Star of the fourth Magnitude, called τ by Bayer; the Longitude of this Star, in the end of the year 1689891689, was ♉ . 23°. 25'. 30", and North Latitude 34°. 20'. 12": and the Colurus Æquinoctiorum passing through it, cuts the Ecliptic in ♉ . 6°. 18'. 57". In the right hand of Perseus, rightly delineated, is a Star of the fourth Magnitude, called η by Bayer; its Longitude in the end of the year 1689, was ♉ . 24°. 25'. 27", and North Latitude 37°. 26'. 50": and the Colurus Æquinoctiorum passing through it cuts the Ecliptic in ♉ . 4°. 56'. 40": and the fifth part of the summ of the places in which these five Colures cut the Ecliptic, is ♉ . 6°. 29'. 15": and therefore the Great Circle which in the Primitive Sphere according to Eudoxus, and by consequence in the time of the Argonautic Expedition, was the Colurus Æquinoctiorum passing through the Stars above described; did in the end of the year 1689, cut the Ecliptic in ♉ . 6°. 29'. 15": as nearly as we have been able to determin by the Observations of the Ancients, which were but coarse.
In the middle of Cancer is the South Asellus, a Star of the fourth Magnitude, called by Bayer δ; its Longitude in the end of the year 1689, was ♌ . 4°. 23'. 40". In the neck of Hydrus, rightly delineated, is a Star of the fourth Magnitude, called δ by Bayer; its Longitude in the end of the year 1689, was ♌ . 5°. 59'. 3". Between90Between the poop and mast of the Ship Argo is a Star of the third Magnitude, called ι by Bayer; its Longitude in the end of that year, was ♌ . 7°. 5'. 31". In Sagitta is a Star of the sixth Magnitude, called θ by Bayer; its Longitude in the end of the same year 1689, was ♒ . 6°. 29'. 53". In the middle of Capricorn is a Star of the fifth Magnitude, called η by Bayer; its Longitude in the end of the same year was ♒ . 8°. 25'. 55": and the fifth part of the summ of the three first Longitudes, and of the complements of the two last to 180 Degrees; is ♌ . 6°. 28'. 46". This is the new Longitude of the old Colurus Solstitiorum passing through these Stars. The same Colurus passes also in the middle between the Stars η and κ, of the fourth and fifth Magnitudes, in the neck of the Swan; being distant from each about a Degree: it passeth also by the Star κ, of the fourth Magnitude, in the right wing of the Swan; and by the Star ο, of the fifth Magnitude, in the left hand of Cepheus, rightly delineated; and by the Stars in the tail of the South-Fish; and is at right angles with the Colurus Æquinoctiorum found above: and so it hath all the characters, of the Colurus Solstitiorum rightly drawn.
The 91
The two Colures therefore, which in the time of the Argonautic Expedition cut the Ecliptic in the Cardinal Points, did in the end of the year 1689 cut it in ♉ . 6°. 29'; ♌ . 6°. 29'; ♏ . 6°. 29'; and ♒ . 6°. 29'; that is, at the distance of 1 Sign, 6 Degrees and 29 Minutes from the Cardinal Points of Chiron; as nearly as we have been able to determin from the coarse observations of the Ancients: and therefore the Cardinal Points, in the time between that Expedition and the end of the year 1689, have gone back from those Colures one Sign, 6 Degrees and 29 Minutes; which, after the rate of 72 years to a Degree, answers to 2627 years. Count those years backwards from the end of the year 1689, or beginning of the year 1690, and the reckoning will place the Argonautic Expedition, about 43 years after the death of Solomon.
By the same method the place of any Star in the Primitive Sphere may readily be found, counting backwards one Sign, 6°. 29'. from the Longitude which it had in the end of the year of our Lord 1689. So the Longitude of the first Star of Aries in the end of the year 1689 was ♈ . 28°. 51'. as above: count backward 1 Sign, 6°. 29'. and its Longitude, counted from the Equinox in the middle of the Constellation of Aries, in the time of the Argo- 92Argonautic expedition, will be ♓ . 22°. 22': and by the same way of arguing, the Longitude of the Lucida Pleiadum in the time of the Argonautic Expedition will be ♈ . 19°. 26'. 8": and the Longitude of Arcturus ♍ . 13°. 24'. 52": and so of any other Stars.
After the Argonautic Expedition we hear no more of Astronomy 'till the days of Thales: He Laert. in Thalete. Plin. l. 2. c. 12. revived Astronomy, and wrote a book of the Tropics and Equinoxes, and predicted Eclipses; and Pliny Plin. l. 18. c. 23. tells us, that he determined the Occasus Matutinus of the Pleiades to be upon the 25th day after the Autumnal Equinox: and thence Petav. Var. Diss. l. 1. c. 5. Petavius computes the Longitude of the Pleiades in ♈ . 23°. 53': and by consequence the Lucida Pleiadum had, since the Argonautic Expedition, moved from the Equinox 4°. 26'. 52": and this motion, after the rate of 72 years to a Degree, answers to 320 years: count these years back from the time in which Thales was a young man fit to apply himself to Astronomical Studies, that is from about the 41st Olympiad, and the reckoning will place the Argonautic Expedition about 44 years after the death of Solomon, as above: and in the days of Thales, the Solstices and Equinoxes, by this reckoning, will have been in the middle of the eleventh Degrees of the Signs. But Thales, in93in publishing his book about the Tropics and Equinoxes, might lean a little to the opinion of former Astronomers, so as to place them in the twelfth Degrees of the Signs.
Meton and Euctemon, Petav. Doct. Temp. l. 4. c. 26. in order to publish the Lunar Cycle of nineteen years, observed the Summer Solstice in the year of Nabonassar 316, the year before the Peloponnesian war began; and Columella Columel. l. 9. c. 14. Plin. l. 18. c. 25. tells us that they placed it in the eighth Degree of Cancer, which is at least seven Degrees backwarder than at first. Now the Equinox, after the rate of a Degree in Seventy and two years, goes backwards seven Degrees in 504 years: count backwards those years from the 316th year of Nabonassar, and the Argonautic Expedition will fall upon the 44th year after the death of Solomon, or thereabout, as above. And thus you see the truth of what we cited above out of Achilles Tatius; viz. that some anciently placed the Solstice in the eighth Degree of Cancer, others about the twelfth Degree, and others about the fifteenth Degree thereof.
Hipparchus the great Astronomer, comparing his own Observations with those of former Astronomers, concluded first of any man, that the Equinoxes had a motion backwards in respect of the fixt Stars: and his opinion was, that94that they went backwards one Degree in about an hundred years. He made his observations of the Equinoxes between the years of Nabonassar 586 and 618: the middle year is 602, which is 286 years after the aforesaid observation of Meton and Euctemon; and in these years the Equinox must have gone backwards four degrees, and so have been in the fourth Degree of Aries in the days of Hipparchus, and by consequence have then gone back eleven Degrees since the Argonautic Expedition; that is, in 1090 years, according to the Chronology of the ancient Greeks then in use: and this is after the rate of about 99 years, or in the next round number an hundred years to a Degree, as was then stated by Hipparchus. But it really went back a Degree in seventy and two years, and eleven Degrees in 792 years: count these 792 years backward from the year of Nabonassar, 602, the year from which we counted the 286 years, and the reckoning will place the Argonautic Expedition about 43 years after the death of Solomon. The Greeks have therefore made the Argonautic Expedition about three hundred years ancienter than the truth, and thereby given occasion to the opinion of the great Hipparchus, that the Equinox went backward after the rate of only a Degree in an hundred years.
Hesiod 95
Hesiod tells us that sixty days after the winter Solstice the Star Arcturus rose just at Sunset: and thence it follows that Hesiod flourished about an hundred years after the death of Solomon, or in the Generation or Age next after the Trojan war, as Hesiod himself declares.
From all these circumstances, grounded upon the coarse observations of the ancient Astronomers, we may reckon it certain that the Argonautic Expedition was not earlier than the Reign of Solomon: and if these Astronomical arguments be added to the former arguments taken from the mean length of the Reigns of Kings, according to the course of nature; from them all we may safely conclude that the Argonautic Expedition was after the death of Solomon, and most probably that it was about 43 years after it.
The Trojan War was one Generation later than that Expedition, as was said above, several Captains of the Greeks in that war being sons of the Argonauts: and the ancient Greeks reckoned Memnon or Amenophis, King of Egypt, to have Reigned in the times of that war, feigning him to be the son of Tithonus the elder brother of Priam, and in the end of that war to have come from Susa to the assistance of Priam. Amenophis was therefore of the same age96 6696 age with the elder children of Priam, and was with his army at Susa in the last year of that war: and after he had there finished the Memnonia, he might return into Egypt, and adorn it with Buildings, and Obelisks, and Statues, and die there about 90 or 95 years after the death of Solomon; when he had determined and settled the beginning of the new Egyptian year of 365 days upon the Vernal Equinox, so as to deserve the Monument above-mentioned in memory thereof.
Rehoboam was born in the last year of King David, being 41 years old at the Death of Solomon, 1 Kings xiv. 21. and therefore his father Solomon was probably born in the 18th year of King David's Reign, or before: and two or three years before his Birth, David besieged Rabbah the Metropolis of the Ammonites, and committed adultery with Bathsheba: and the year before this siege began, David vanquished the Ammonites, and their Confederates the Syrians of Zobah, and Rehob, and Ishtob, and Maacah, and Damascus, and extended his Dominion over all these Nations as far as to the entring in of Hamath and the River Euphrates: and before this war began he smote Moab, and Ammon, and Edom, and made the Edomites fly, some of them into Egypt with their King Hadad, then a little child,97 child; and others to the Philistims, where they fortified Azoth against Israel; and others, I think, to the Persian Gulph, and other places whither they could escape: and before this he had several Battles with the Philistims: and all this was after the eighth year of his Reign, in which he came from Hebron to Jerusalem. We cannot err therefore above two or three years, if we place this Victory over Edom in the eleventh or twelfth year of his Reign; and that over Ammon and the Syrians in the fourteenth. After the flight of Edom, the King of Edom grew up, and married Tahaphenes or Daphnis, the sister of Pharaoh's Queen, and before the Death of David had by her a son called Genubah, and this son was brought up among the children of Pharaoh: and among these children was the chief or first born of her mother's children, whom Solomon married in the beginning of his Reign; and her little sister who at that time had no breasts, and her brother who then sucked the breasts of his mother, Cant. vi. 9. and viii. 1, 8: and of about the same Age with these children was Sesac or Sesostris; for he became King of Egypt in the Reign of Solomon, 1 Kings xi. 40; and before he began to Reign he warred under his father, and whilst he was very young, conquered Arabia, Troglodytica and Libya, and then98then invaded Ethiopia; and succeeding his father Reigned 'till the fifth year of Asa: and therefore he was of about the same age with the children of Pharaoh above-mentioned; and might be one of them, and be born near the end of David's Reign, and be about 46 years old when he came out of Egypt with a great Army to invade the East: and by reason of his great Conquests, he was celebrated in several Nations by several Names. The Chaldæans called him Belus, which in their Language signified the Lord: the Arabians called him Bacchus, which in their Language signified the great: the Phrygians and Thracians called him Ma-fors, Mavors, Mars, which signified the valiant: and thence the Amazons, whom he carried from Thrace and left at Thermodon, called themselves the daughters of Mars. The Egyptians before his Reign called him their Hero or Hercules; and after his death, by reason of his great works done to the River Nile, dedicated that River to him, and Deified him by its names Sihor, Nilus and Ægyptus; and the Greeks hearing them lament 0 Sihor, Bou Sihor, called him Osiris and Busiris. Arrian Arrian. l. 7. tells us that the Arabians worshipped only two Gods, Cœlus and Dionysus; and that they worshipped Dionysus for the glorvglory of leading his Army into India. The99The Dionysus of the Arabians was Bacchus, and all agree that Bacchus was the same King of Egypt with Osiris: and the Cœlus, or Uranus, or Jupiter Uranius of the Arabians, I take to be the same King of Egypt with His father Ammon, according to the Poet:
Quamvis Æthiopum populis, Arabumque beatis Gentibus, atque Indis unus sit Jupiter Ammon.
I place the end of the Reign of Sesac upon the fifth year of Asa, because in that year Asa became free from the Dominion of Egypt, so as to be able to fortify Judæa, and raise that great Army with which he met Zerah, and routed him. Osiris was therefore slain in the fifth year of Asa, by his brother Japetus, whom the Egyptians called Typhon, Python, and Neptune: and then the Libyans, under Japetus and his son Atlas, invaded Egypt, and raised that famous war between the Gods and Giants, from whence the Nile had the name of Eridanus: but Orus the son of Osiris, by the assistance of the Ethiopians, prevailed, and Reigned 'till the 15th year of Asa: and then the Ethiopians under Zerah invaded Egypt, drowned Orus in Eridanus, and were routed by Asa, so that Zerah could not recover himself. Zerah was succeeded by Amenophis,100phis, a youth of the Royal Family of the Ethiopians, and I think the son of Zerah: but the People of the lower Egypt revolted from him, and set up Osarsiphus over them, and called to their assistance a great body of men from Phænicia, I think a part of the Army of Asa; and thereupon Amenophis, with the remains of his father's Army of Ethiopians, retired from the lower Egypt to Memphis, and there turned the River Nile into a new channel, under a new bridge which he built between two Mountains; and at the same time he built and fortified that City against Osarsiphus, calling it by his own name, Amenoph or Memphis: and then he retired into Ethiopia, and stayed there thirteen years; and then came back with a great Army, and subdued the lower Egypt, expelling the People which had been called in from Phænicia: and this I take to be the second expulsion of the Shepherds. Dr. Castel In Moph. tells us, that in Coptic this City is called Manphtha; whence by contraction came its Names Moph, Noph.
While Amenophis staid in Ethiopia, Egypt was in its greatest distraction: and then it was, as I conceive, that the Greeks hearing thereof contrived the Argonautic Expedition, and sent the flower of Greece in the Ship Argo to persuade the Nations upon the Sea Coasts of the Euxine and101and Mediterranean Seas to revolt from Egypt, and set up for themselves, as the Libyans, Ethiopians and Jews had done before. And this is a further argument for placing that Expedition about 43 years after the Death of Solomon; this Period being in the middle of the distraction of Egypt. Amenophis might return from Ethiopia, and conquer the lower Egypt about eight years after that Expedition, and having settled his Government over it, he might, for putting a stop to the revolting of the eastern Nations, lead his Army into Persia, and leave Proteus at Memphis to govern Egypt in his absence, and stay some time at Susa, and build the Memnonia, fortifying that City, as the Metropolis of his Dominion in those parts.
Androgeus the son of Minos, upon his overcoming in the Athenæa, or quadrennial Games at Athens in his youth, was perfidiously slain out of envy: and Minos thereupon made war upon the Athenians, and compelled them to send every eighth year to Crete seven beardless Youths, and as many young Virgins, to be given as a reward to him that should get the Victory in the like Games instituted in Crete in honour of Androgeus. These Games seem to have been celebrated in the beginning of the Octaeteris, and the Athenæa in the beginning of the Tetraeteris, then brought102brought into Crete and Greece by the Phænicians: and upon the third payment of the tribute of children, that is, about seventeen years after the said war was at an end, and about nineteen or twenty years after the death of Androgeus, Theseus became Victor, and returned from Crete with Ariadne the daughter of Minos; and coming to the Island Naxus or Dia, Euanthes apud Athenæum, l. 67. p. 296. Ariadne was there relinquished by him, and taken up by Glaucus, an Egyptian Commander at Sea, and became the mistress of the great Bacchus, who at that time returned from India in Triumph; and Hyginus Fab. 14. by him she had two sons, Phlyas and Eumedon, who were Argonauts. This Bacchus was caught in bed in Phrygia with Venus the mother of Æneas, according Homer. Odyss. l. 8. v. 292. to Homer; just before he came over the Hellespont, and invaded Thrace; and he married Ariadne the daughter of Minos, according to Hesiod Hesiod. Theogon. v. 945.: and therefore by the Testimony of both Homer and Hesiod, who wrote before the Greeks and Egyptians corrupted their Antiquities, this Bacchus was one Generation older than the Argonauts; and so being King of Egypt at the same time with Sesostris, they must be one and the same King: for they agree also in their actions; Bacchus invaded India and Greece, and after he was routed by the Army of Perseus, and the war was composed, the Greeks 103Greeks did him great honours, and built a Temple to him at Argos, and called it the Temple of the Cresian Bacchus, because Ariadne was buried in it, as Pausanias Pausan. l. 2. c. 23. relates. Ariadne therefore died in the end of the war, just before the return of Sesostris into Egypt, that is, in the 14th year of Rehoboam: She was taken from Naxus upon the return of Bacchus from India, and then became the Mistress of Bacchus, and accompanied him in his Triumphs; and therefore the expedition of Theseus to Crete, and the death of his father Ægeus, was about nine or ten years after the death of Solomon. Theseus was then a beardless young man, suppose about 19 or 20 years old, and Androgeus was slain about twenty years before, being then about 20 or 22 years old; and his father Minos might be about 25 years older, and so be born about the middle of David's Reign, and be about 70 years old when he pursued Dædalus into CreteSicily : and Europa and her brother Cadmus might come into Europe, two or three years before the birth of Minos.
Justin, in his 18th book, tells us: A rege Ascaloniorum expugnati Sidonii navibus appulsi Tyron urbem ante annum * * Trojanæ cladis condiderunt: And Strabo, Strabo l. 16. that Aradus was built by the men who fled from Zidon. Hence Isa. xxiii.2. 12. Isaiah calls Tyre 104Tyre the daughter of Zidon, the inhabitants of the Isle whom the Merchants of Zidon have replenished: and 1 Kings v. 6 Solomon in the beginning of his Reign calls the People of Tyre Zidonians. My Servants, saith he, in a Message to Hiram King of Tyre, shall be with thy Servants, and unto thee will I give hire for thy Servants according to all that thou desirest: for thou knowest that there is not among us any that can skill to hew timber like the Zidonians. The new Inhabitants of Tyre had not yet lost the name of Zidonians, nor had the old Inhabitants, if there were any considerable number of them, gained the reputation of the new ones for skill in hewing of timber, as they would have done had navigation been long in use at Tyre. The Artificers who came from Zidon were not dead, and the flight of the Zidonians was in the Reign of David, and by consequence in the beginning of the Reign of Abibalus the father of Hiram, and the first King of Tyre mentioned in History. David in the twelfth year of his Reign conquered Edom, as above, and made some of the Edomites, and chiefly the Merchants and Seamen, fly from the Red Sea to the Philistims upon the Mediterranean, where they fortified Azoth. For Steph. in Azoth. Stephanus tells us: Ταύτην ἔκτιςεν ἕις των ἐπανελθόντων ἀπ᾽ Ερυθρας θαλάσσης φευγάδων: One of the Fugi tives 105tives from the Red Sea built Azoth: that is, a Prince of Edom, who fled from David, fortified Azoth for the Philistims against him. The Philistims were now grown very strong, by the access of the Edomites and Shepherds, and by their assistance invaded and took Zidon, that being a town very convenient for the Merchants who fled from the Red Sea: and then did the Zidonians fly by Sea to Tyre and Aradus, and to other havens in Asia Minor, Greece, and Libya, with which, by means of their trade, they had been acquainted before; the great wars and victories of David their enemy, prompting them to fly by Sea: for Conon. Narrat. 37. they went with a great multitude, not to seek Europa as was pretended, but to seek new Seats, and therefore fled from their enemies: and when some of them fled under Cadmus and his brothers to Cilicia, Asia minor, and Greece; others fled under other Commanders to seek new Seats in Libya, and there built many walled towns, as Nonnus Nonnus Dionysiac l. 13 v. 333 & sequ. affirms: and their leader was also there called Cadmus, which word signifies an eastern man, and his wife was called Sithonis a Zidonian. Many from those Cities went afterwards with the great Bacchus in his Armies: and by these things, the taking of Zidon, and the flight of the Zidonians under Abibalus, Cadmus, Cilix, Thasus, Memblia rius, 106rius, AlymnusAtymnus, and other Captains, to Tyre, Aradus, Cilicia, Rhodes, Caria, Bithynia, Phrygia, Calliste, Thasus, Samothrace, Crete, Greece and Libya, and the building of Tyre and Thebes, and beginning of the Reigns of Abibalus and Cadmus over those Cities, are fixed upon the fifteenth or sixteenth year of David's Reign, or thereabout. By means of these Colonies of Phœnicians, the people of Caria learnt sea-affairs, in such small vessels with oars as were then in use, and began to frequent the Greek Seas, and people some of the Islands therein, before the Reign of Minos: for Cadmus, in coming to Greece, arrived first at Rhodes, an Island upon the borders of Caria, and left there a Colony of Phœnicians, who sacrificed men to Saturn, and the Telchines being repulsed by Phoroneus, retired from Argos to Rhodes with Phorbas, who purged the Island from Serpents; and Triopas, the son of Phorbas, carried a Colony from Rhodes to Caria, and there possessed himself of a promontory, thence called Triopium: and by this and such like Colonies Caria was furnished with Shipping and Seamen, and called Athen. l. 4. c. 23. Phœnice. Strabo and Herodotus Strabo. l. 10. p. 661. Herod. l. 1. tell us, that the Cares were called Leleges, and became subject to Minos, and lived first in the Islands of the Greek Seas, and went thence into Caria, a country possest before by some of the107the Leleges and Pelasgi: whence it's probable that when Lelex and Pelasgus came first into Greece to seek new Seats, they left part of their Colonies in Caria and the neighbouring Islands.
The Zidonians being still possessed of the trade of the Mediterranean, as far westward as Greece and Libya, and the trade of the Red Sea being richer; the Tyrians traded on the Red Sea in conjunction with Solomon and the Kings of Judah, 'till after the Trojan war; and so also did the Merchants of Aradus, Arvad, or Arpad: for in the Persian Gulph Strabo. l. 16. were two Islands called Tyre and Aradus, which had Temples like the Phœnician; and therefore the Tyrians and Aradians sailed thither, and beyond, to the Coasts of India, while the Zidonians frequented the Mediterranean: and hence it is that Homer celebrates Zidon, and makes no mention of Tyre. But at length, 2 Chron. xxi.8, 10. & 2 Kings. viii.20, 22. in the Reign of Jehoram King of Judah, Edom revolted from the Dominion of Judah, and made themselves a King; and the trade of Judah and Tyre upon the Red Sea being thereby interrupted, the Tyrians built ships for merchandise upon the Mediterranean, and began there to make long Voyages to places not yet frequented by the Zidonians; some of them going to the coasts of Afric beyond the Syrtes, and building Adrymetum, Carthage, Lep tis, 108tis, Utica, and Capsa; and others going to the Coasts of Spain, and building Carteia, Gades and Tartessus; and others going further to the Fortunate Islands, and to Britain and Thule. Jehoram Reigned eight years, and the two last years was sick in his bowels, and before that sickness Edom revolted, because of Jehoram's wicked Reign: if we place that revolt about the middle of the first six years, it will fall upon the fifth year of Pygmalion King of Tyre, and so was about twelve or fifteen years after the taking of Troy: and then, by reason of this revolt, the Tyrians retired from the Red Sea, and began long Voyages upon the Mediterranean; for in the seventh year of Pygmalion, his Sister Dido sailed to the Coast of Afric beyond the Syrtes, and there built Carthage. This retiring of the Tyrians from the Red Sea to make long Voyages on the Mediterranean, together with the flight of the Edomites from David to the Philistims, gave occasion to the tradition both of the ancient Persians, and of the Phœnicians themselves, that the Phœnicians came originally from the Red Sea to the coasts of the Mediterranean, and presently undertook long Voyages, as Herodotus Herod. l: 1. initio,& l. 7. circa medium. relates: for Herodotus, in the beginning of his first book, relates that the Phœnicians coming from the Red Sea to the Medi- 109Mediterranean, and beginning to make long Voyages with Egyptian and Assyrian wares, among other places came to Argos, and having sold their wares, seized and carried away into Egypt some of the Grecian women who came to buy them; and amongst those women was Io the daughter of Inachus. The Phœnicians therefore came from the Red Sea, in the days of Io and her brother Phoroneus King of Argos, and by consequence at that time when David conquered the Edomites, and made them fly every way from the Red Sea; some into Egypt with their young King, and others to the Philistims their next neighbours and the enemies of David. And this flight gave occasion to the Philistims to call many places Erythra, in memory of their being Erythreans or Edomites, and of their coming from the Erythrean Sea; for Erythra was the name of a City in Ionia, of another in Libya, of another in Locris, of another in Bœotia, of another in Cyprus, of another in Ætolia, of another in Asia near Chius; and Erythia Acra was a promontory in Libya, and Erythræum a promontory in Crete, and Erythros a place near Tybur, and Erythini a City or Country in Paphlagonia: and the name Erythea or Erythræ was given to the Island Gades, peopled by Phœnicians. So Solinus, Solin. c. 23, Edit. Salm. In capite Bæticæ insula a continenti septin gentis 110gentis passibus memoratur quam Tyrii a rubro mari profecti Erytheam, Pœni sua lingua Gadir, id est sepem nominarunt. And Pliny, Plin. l. 4. c. 22. concerning a little Island near it; Erythia dicta est quoniam Tyrii Aborigines eorum, orti ab Erythræo mari ferebantur. Among the Phœnicians who came with Cadmus into Greece, there were Strabo. l. 9. p. 401. & l. 10. p. 447. Arabians, and Herod. l. 5. Erythreans or Inhabitants of the Red Sea, that is Edomites; and in Thrace there settled a People who were circumcised and called Odomantes, that is, as some think, Edomites. Edom, Erythra and Phœnicia are names of the same signification, the words denoting a red colour: which makes it probable that the Erythreans who fled from David, settled in great numbers in Phœnicia, that is, in all the Sea-coasts of Syria from Egypt to Zidon; and by calling themselves Phœnicians in the language of Syria, instead of Erythreans, gave the name of Phœnicia to all that Sea-coast, and to that only. So Strabo: Strabo. l. 1. p. 42. Οἱ μὲν γὰρ καὶ τοὺς Φοίνικας, καὶ τοὺς Σιδονίους τοὺσ καθ᾽ ἡμας ἀποίκους ἑιναι των ἐν τωι Ωκεανωι φασι, προστιθέντες καὶ διὰ τί Φόινικες ἐκαλουντο, ὅτι καὶ ἡ θάλαττα ἐρυθρά. Alii referunt Phœnices & Sidonios nostros esse colonos eorum qui sunt in Oceano, addentes illos ideo vocari Phœnices [puniceos] quod mare rubrum sit.
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Strabo Strabo. l. 1. p. 48. mentioning the first men who left the Sea-coasts, and ventured out into the deep, and undertook long Voyages, names Bacchus, Hercules, Jason, Ulysses and Menelaus; and saith that the Dominion of Minos over the Sea was celebrated, and the Navigation of the Phœnicians who went beyond the Pillars of Hercules, and built Cities there, and in the middle of the Sea-coasts of Afric, presently after the war of Troy. These Phœnicians Bochart. Canaan. l. 1. c. 34. were the Tyrians, who at that time built Carthage in Afric, and Carteia in Spain, and Gades in the Island of that name without the Straights; and gave the name of Hercules to their chief Leader, because of his labours and success, and that of Heraclea to the city Carteia which he built. So Strabo: Strabo. l. 3. p. 140. Ἐκπλέουςιν ὀυν ἐκ της ἡμετέρας θαλάττης ἐις τὴν ἔξω, δεξιόν ἐστι τουτοη καὶ πρὸσ ἀυτὸ Κάλπη [Καρτηία] Vid. Phil. Transact. No 359. πόλις ἐν τεττάρακοντα σταδίοις ἀξιόλογος καὶ παλαιὰ, ναὺσταθμόν ποτε γενομένη των Ιβήρωνη ἔνιοι δὲ καὶ Ηρακλέους κτίσμα λέγουσιν ἀυτὴν, ὡν ἐςτι καὶ Τιμοσθένηση ὅς φησι καὶ Ηρακλείαν ὀνομάζεσθαι τὸ παλαιόνη δείκνυσθαί τε μέγαν περίβολον, καὶ νεωσοίκους. Mons Calpe ad dextram est e nostro mari foras navigantibus, & ad quadraginta inde stadia urbs Carteia vetusta ac memorabilis, olim statio navibus Hispanorum. Hanc ab Hercule quidam conditam aiunt, inter quos est Timosthenes, qui eam112eam antiquitus Heracleam fuisse appellatam refert, ostendique adhuc magnum murorum circuitum & navalia. This Hercules, in memory of his building and Reigning over the City Carteia, they called also Melcartus, the King of Carteia. Bochart Canaan, l. 1. c. 34. p. 682. writes, that Carteia was at first called Melcarteia, from its founder Melcartus, and by an Aphæresis, Carteia; and that Melcartus signifies Melec Kartha, the King of the city, that is, saith he, of the city Tyre: but considering that no ancient Author tells us, that Carteia was ever called Melcarteia, or that Melcartus was King of Tyre; I had rather say that Melcartus, or Meleccartus, had his name from being the Founder and Governor or Prince of the city Carteia. Under Melcartus the Tyrians sailed as far as Tartessus or Tarshish, a place in the Western part of Spain, between the two mouths of the river Bœtis, and there they Aristot. de Mirab. met with much silver, which they purchased for trifles: they sailed also as far as Britain before the death of Melcartus; for Plin. l. 7. c. 56. Pliny tells us, Plumbum ex Cassiteride insula primus apportavit Midacritus: And Bochart Canaan. l. 1. c. 39. observes that Midacritus is a Greek name corruptly written for Melcartus; Britain being unknown to the Greeks long after it was discovered by the Phœnicians. After the death of Melcartus, they Philostratus in vita Apollonii l. 5. c. 1. apud Photium. built a Temple to him in the Island Gades, and adorned it with113with the sculptures of the labours of Hercules, and of his Hydra, and the Horses to whom he threw Diomedes, King of the Bistones in Thrace, to be devoured. In this Temple was the golden Belt of Teucer, and the golden Olive of Pygmalion bearing Smaragdine fruit: and by these consecrated gifts of Teucer and Pygmalion, you may know that it was built in their days. Pomponius derives it from the times of the Trojan war; for Teucer, seven years after that war, according to the Marbles, arrived at Cyprus, being banished from home by his father Telamon, and there built Salamis: and he and his Posterity Reigned there 'till Evagoras, the last of them, was conquered by the Persians, in the twelfth year of Artaxerxes Mnemon. Certainly this Tyrian Hercules could be no older than the Trojan war, because the Tyrians did not begin to navigate the Mediterranean 'till after that war: for Homer and Hesiod knew nothing of this navigation, and the Tyrian Hercules went to the coasts of Spain, and was buried in Gades: so Arnobius Arnob. l. 1.; Tyrius Hercules sepultus in finibus Hispaniæ: and Mela, speaking of the Temple of Hercules in Gades, saith, Cur sanctum sit ossa ejus ibi sepulta efficiunt. Carthage Bochart. in Canaan. l. 1. c. 24. paid tenths to this Hercules, and sent their payments yearly to Tyre: and thence it's probable that this Hercules went to the coast of Afric,114Afric, as well as to that of Spain, and by his discoveries prepared the way to Dido: Orosius Oros. l. 5. c. 15. Florus l. 3. c. 1. Sallust. in Jugurtha. and others tell us that he built Capsa there. Josephus tells of an earlier Hercules, to whom Hiram built a Temple at Tyre: and perhaps there might be also an earlier Hercules of Tyre, who set on foot their trade on the Red Sea in the days of David or Solomon.
Tatian, in his book against the Greeks, relates, that amongst the Phœnicians flourished three ancient Historians, Theodotus, Hysicrates and Mochus, who all of them delivered in their histories, translated into Greek by Latus, under which of the Kings happened the rapture of Europa; the voyage of Menelaus into Phœnicia; and the league and friendship between Solomon and Hiram, when Hiram gave his daughter to Solomon, and furnished him with timber for building the Temple: and that the same is affirmed by Menander of Pergamus. Josephus Antiq. l. 8. c. 2, 5. & l. 9. c. 14. lets us know that the Annals of the Tyrians, from the days of Abibalus and Hiram, Kings of Tyre, were extant in his days; and that Menander of Pergamus translated them into Greek, and that Hiram's friendship to Solomon, and assistance in building the Temple, was mentioned in them; and that the Temple was founded in the eleventh year of Hiram: and by the testimony of Menander and the ancient115cient Phœnician historians, the rapture of Europa, and by consequence the coming of her brother Cadmus into Greece, happened within the time of the Reigns of the Kings of Tyre delivered in these histories; and therefore not before the Reign of Abibalus, the first of them, nor before the Reign of King David his contemporary. The voyage of Menelaus might be after the destruction of Troy. Solomon therefore Reigned in the times between the raptures of Europa and Helena, and Europa and her brother Cadmus flourished in the days or David. Minos, the son of Europa, flourished in the Reign of Solomon, and part of the Reign of Rehoboam: and the children of Minos, namely Androgeus his eldest son, Deucalion his youngest son and one of the Argonauts, Ariadne the mistress of Theseus and Bacchus, and Phædra the wife of Theseus; flourished in the latter end of Solomon, and in the Reigns of Rehoboam, Abijah and Asa: and Idomeneus, the grandson of Minos, was at the war of Troy: and Hiram succeeded his father Abibalus, in the three and twentieth year of David: and Abibalus might found the Kingdom of Tyre about sixteen or eighteen years before, when Zidon was taken by the Philistims; and the Zidonians fled from thence, under the conduct of Cadmus and other commanders, to seek new seats116seats. Thus by the Annals of Tyre, and the ancient Phœnician Historians who followed them, Abibalus, Alymnus, Cadmus, and Europa fled from Zidon about the sixteenth year of David's Reign: and the Argonautic Expedition being later by about three Generations, will be about three hundred years later than where the Greeks have placed it.
After Navigation in long ships with sails, and one order of oars, had been propagated from Egypt to Phœnicia and Greece, and thereby the Zidonians had extended their trade to Greece, and carried it on about an hundred and fifty years; and then the Tyrians being driven from the Red Sea by the Edomites, had begun a new trade on the Mediterranean with Spain, Afric, Britain, and other remote nations; they carried it on about an hundred and sixty years; and then the Corinthians began to improve Navigation, by building bigger ships with three orders of oars, called Triremes. For Thucyd. l. 6. initio. Euseb. Chr. Thucydides tells us that the Corinthians were the first of the Greeks who built such ships, and that a ship-carpenter of Corinth went thence to Samos, about 300 years before the end of the Peloponnesian war, and built also four ships for the Samians; and that 260 years before the end of that war, that is, about the 29th Olympiad, there was a fight117fight at sea between the Corinthians and the Corcyreans, which was the oldest sea-fight mentioned in history. Thucydides tells us further, that the first colony which the Greeks sent into Sicily, came from Chalcis in Eubœa, under the conduct of Thucles, and built Naxus; and the next year Archias came from Corinth with a colony, and built Syracuse; and that Lamis came about the same time into Sicily, with a colony from Megara in Achaia, and lived first at Trotilum, and then at Leontini, and died at Thapsus near Syracuse; and that after his death, this colony was invited by Hyblo to Megara in Sicily, and lived there 245 years, and was then expelled by Gelo King of Sicily. Now Gelo flourished about 78 years before the end of the Peloponnesian war: count backwards the 78 and the 245 years, and about 12 years more for the Reign of Lamis in Sicily, and the reckoning will place the building of Syracuse about 335 years before the end of the Peloponnesian war, or in the tenth Olympiad; and about that time Eusebius and others place it: but it might be twenty or thirty years later, the antiquities of those days having been raised more or less by the Greeks. From the colonies henceforward sent into Italy and Sicily came the name of Græcia magna.
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Thucydides Thucyd. ib. tells us further, that the Greeks began to come into Sicily almost three hundred years after the Siculi had invaded that Island with an army out of Italy: suppose it 280 years after, and the building of Syracuse 310 years before the end of the Peloponnesian war; and that invasion of Sicily by the Siculi will be 590 years before the end of that war, that is, in the 27th year of Solomon's Reign, or thereabout. Hellanicus Apud Dionys. l. 1. p. 15. tells us, that it was in the third Generation before the Trojan war; and in the 26th year of the Priesthood of Alcinoe, Priestess of Juno Argiva: and Philistius of Syracuse, that it was 80 years before the Trojan war: whence it follows that the Trojan war and Argonautic Expedition were later than the days of Solomon and Rehoboam, and could not be much earlier than where we have placed them.
The Kingdom of Macedon Herod. l. 8. c. 137. was founded by Caranus and Perdiccas, who being of the Race of Temenus King of Argos, fled from Argos in the Reign of Phidon the brother of Caranus. Temenus was one of the three brothers who led the Heraclides into Peloponnesus, and shared the conquest among themselves: he obtained Argos; and after him, and his son Cisus, the Kingdom of Argos became divided among the posterity of Temenus, until Phidon reunited it, expelling119ling his kindred. Phidon grew potent, appointed weights and measures in Peloponnesus, and coined silver money; and removing the Pisæans and Eleans, presided in the Olympic games; but was soon after subdued by the Eleans and Spartans. Herodotus Herod. l. 8. reckons that Perdiccas was the first King of Macedon; later writers, as Livy, Pausanias and Suidas, make Caranus the first King: Justin calls Perdiccas the Successor of Caranus; and Solinus saith that Perdiccas succeeded Caranus; and was the first that obtained the name of King. It's probable that Caranus and Perdiccas were contemporaries, and fled about the same time from Phidon, and at first erected small principalities in Macedonia, which, after the death of Caranus, became one under Perdiccas. Herodotus Herod. l. 8. c. 139. tells us, that after Perdiccas Reigned Aræus, or Argæus, Philip, Æropus, Alcetas, Amyntas, and Alexander, successively. Alexander was contemporary to Xerxes King of Persia, and died An. 4. Olymp. 79, and was succeeded by Perdiccas, and he by his son Archelaus: and Thucydides Thucyd. l. 2. prope finem. tells us that there were eight Kings of Macedon before this Archelaus: now by reckoning above forty years a-piece to these Kings, Chronologers have made Phidon and Caranus older than the Olympiads; whereas if we should reckon their Reigns at120at about 18 or 20 years a-piece one with another, the first seven Reigns counted backwards from the death of this Alexander, will place the dominion of Phidon, and the beginning of the Kingdom of Macedon under Perdiccas and Caranus, upon the 46th or 47th Olympiad, or thereabout. It could scarce be earlier, because Leocides the son of Phidon, and Megacles the son of Alcmæon, at one and the same time courted Agarista, the daughter of Clisthenes King of Sicyon, as Herodotus Herod l. 6. c. 127. tells us; and the Amphictyons, by the advice of Solon, made Alcmæon, and Clisthenes, and Eurolycus King of Thessaly, commanders of their army, in their war against Cirrha; and the Cirrheans were conquered An. 2. Olymp. 47. according to the Marbles. Phidon therefore and his brother Caranus were contemporary to Solon, Alcmæon, Clisthenes, and Eurolycus, and flourished about the 48th and 49th Olympiads. They were also contemporary in their later days to Crœsus; for Solon conversed with Crœsus, and Alcmæon entertained and conducted the messengers whom Crœsus sent to consult the Oracle at Delphi, An. 1. Olymp. 56. according to the Marbles, and was sent for by Crœsus, and rewarded with much riches.
But the times set down in the Marbles before the Persian Empire began, being collected by reckon-121reckoning the Reigns of Kings equipollent to Generations, and three Generations to an hundred years or above; and the Reigns of Kings, one with another, being shorter in the proportion of about four to seven; the Chronology set down in the Marbles, until the Conquest of Media by Cyrus, An. 4, Olymp. 60, will approach the truth much nearer, by shortening the times before that Conquest in the proportion of four to seven. So the Cirrheans were conquered An. 2, Olymp. 47, according to the Marbles, that is 54 years before the Conquest of Media; and these years being shortened in the proportion of four to seven, become 31 years; which subducted from An. 4, Olymp. 60, place the Conquest of Cirrha upon An. 1, Olymp. 53: and, by the like correction of the Marbles, Alcmæon entertained and conducted the messengers whom Crœsus sent to consult the Oracle at Delphi, An. 1, Olymp. 58; that is, four years before the Conquest of Sardes by Cyrus: and the Tyranny of Pisistratus, which by the Marbles began at Athens, An. 4, Olymp. 54, by the like correction began An. 3, Olymp. 57; and by consequence Solon died An. 4, Olymp. 57. This method may be used alone, where other arguments are wanting; but where they are not wanting, the best arguments are to be preferred.
Iphitus 122
Iphitus Strabo. l. 8. p. 355. presided both in the Temple of Jupiter Olympius, and in the Olympic Games, and so did his Successors 'till the 26th Olympiad; and so long the victors were rewarded with a Tripos: but then the Pisæans getting above the Eleans, began to preside, and rewarded the victors with a Crown, and instituted the Carnea to Apollo; and continued to preside 'till Phidon interrupted them, that is, 'till about the time of the 49th Olympiad: for Pausan. l. 6. c. 22. in the 48th Olympiad the Eleans entered the country of the Pisæans, suspecting their designs, but were prevailed upon to return home quietly; afterwards the Pisæans confederated with several other Greek nations, and made war upon the Eleans, and in the end were beaten: in this war I conceive it was that Phidon presided, suppose in the 49th Olympiad; for Pausan. l. 5. c. 9. in the 50th Olympiad, for putting an end to the contentions between the Kings about presiding, two men were chosen by lot out of the city Elis to preside, and their number in the 65th Olympiad was increased to nine, and afterwards to ten; and these judges were called Hellenodicæ, judges for or in the name of Greece. Pausanias tells us, that the Eleans called in Phidon and together with him celebrated the 8th Olympiad; he should have said the 49th Olympiad: but Herodotus tells us, that123that Phidon removed the Eleans; and both might be true: the Eleans might call in Phidon against the Pisæans, and upon overcoming be refused presiding in the Olympic games by Phidon, and confederate with the Spartans, and by their assistance overthrow the Kingdom of Phidon, and recover their ancient right of presiding in the games.
Strabo Strabo. l. 8. p. 358. tells us that Phidon was the tenth from Temenus; not the tenth King, for between Cisus and Phidon they Reigned not, but the tenth from father to son, including Temenus. If 27 years be reckoned to a Generation by the eldest sons, the nine intervals will amount unto 243 years, which counted back from the 48th Olympiad, in which Phidon flourished, will place the Return of the Heraclides about fifty years before the beginning of the Olympiads, as above. But Chronologers reckon about 515 years from the Return of the Heraclides to the 48th Olympiad, and account Phidon the seventh from Temenus; which is after the rate of 85 years to a Generation, and therefore not to be admitted.
Cyrus took Babylon, according to Ptolomy's Canon, nine years before his death, An. Nabonass. 209, An. 2, Olymp. 60: and he took Sardes a little before, namely An. 1, Olymp. 59, as Scaliger collects from Sosicrates: Crœsus was124was then King of Sardes, and Reigned fourteen years, and therefore began to Reign An. 3, Olymp. 55. After Solon had made laws for the Athenians, he obliged them upon oath to observe those laws 'till he returned from his travels; and then travelled ten years, going to Egypt and Cyprus, and visiting Thales of Miletus: and upon His Return to Athens, Pisistratus began to affect the Tyranny of that city, which made Solon travel a second time; and now he was invited by Crœsus to Sardes; and Crœsus, before Solon visited him, had subdued all Asia Minor, as far as to the River Halys; and therefore he received that visit towards the latter part of his Reign; and we may place it upon the ninth year thereof, An. 3, Olymp. 57: and the legislature of Solon twelve years earlier, An. 3, Olymp. 54: and that of Draco still ten years earlier, An. 1, Olymp. 52. After Solon had visited Crœsus, he went into Cilicia and some other places, and died Phanias Eph. ap. Plut. in vita Solonis. in his travels: and this was in the second year of the Tyranny of Pisistratus. Comias was Archon when Solon returned from his first travels to Athens; and the next year Hegestratus was Archon, and Solon died before the end of the year, An. 3, Olymp. 57, as above: and by this reckoning the objection of Plutarch above mentioned is removed.
We 125
We have now shewed that the Phœnicians of Zidon, under the conduct of Cadmus and other captains, flying from their enemies, came into Greece, with letters and other arts, about the sixteenth year of King David's Reign; that Europa the sister of Cadmus, fled some days before him from Zidon and came to Crete, and there became the mother of Minos, about the 18th or 20th year of David's Reign; that Sesostris and the great Bacchus, and by consequence also Osiris, were one and the same King of Egypt with Sesac, and came out of Egypt in the fifth year of Rehoboam to invade the nations, and died 25 years after Solomon; that the Argonautic expedition was about 43 years after the death of Solomon; that Troy was taken about 76 or 78 years after the death of Solomon; that the Phœnicians of Tyre were driven from the Red Sea by the Edomites, about 87 years after the death of Solomon, and within two or three years began to make long voyages upon the Mediterranean, sailing to Spain, and beyond, under a commander whom for his industry, conduct, and discoveries, they honoured with the names of Melcartus and Hercules; that the return of the Heraclides into Peloponnesus was about 158 years after the death of Solomon; that Lycurgus the Legislator Reigned at Sparta, and gave the three Discs to the126the Olympic treasury, An. 1, Olymp. 18, or 273 years after the death of Solomon, the Quinquertium being at that time added to the Olympic Games; that the Greeks began soon after to build Triremes, and to send Colonies into Sicily and Italy, which gave the name of Græcia magna to those countries; that the first Messenian war ended about 350 years after the death of Solomon, An. 1, Olymp. 37; that Phidon was contemporary to Solon, and presided in the Olympic Games in the 49th Olympiad, that is, 397 years after the death of Solomon; that Draco was Archon, and made his laws, An. 1, Olymp. 52; and Solon, An. 3, Olymp. 54; and that Solon visited Crœsus Ann. 3, Olymp. 57, or 433 years after the death of Solomon; and Sardes was taken by Cyrus 438 years, and Babylon by Cyrus 443 years, and Echatane by Cyrus 445 years after the death of Solomon: and these periods being settled, they become a foundation for building the Chronology of the antient times upon them; and nothing more remains for settling such a Chronology, than to make these Periods a little exacter, if it can be, and to shew how the rest of the Antiquities of Greece, Egypt, Assyria, Chaldæa, and Media may suit therewith.
Whilst 127
Whilst Bacchus made his expedition into India, Theseus left Ariadne in the Island Naxus or Dia, as above, and succeeded his father Ægeus at Athens; and upon the Return of Bacchus from India, Ariadne became his mistress, and accompanied him in his triumphs; and this was about ten years after the death of Solomon: and from that time reigned eight Kings in Athens, viz. Theseus, Menestheus, Demophoon, Oxyntes, Aphidas, Thymætes, Melanthus, and Codrus; these Kings, at 19 years a-piece one with another, might take up about 152 years, and end about 44 years before the Olympiads: then Reigned twelve Archons for life, which at 14 or 15 years a-piece, the State being unstable, might take up about 174 years, and end An. 2, Olymp. 33: then reigned seven decennial Archons, which are usually reckoned at seventy years; but some of them dying in their Regency, they might not take up above forty years, and so end about An. 2, Olymp. 43, about which time began the Second Messenian war: these decennial Archons were followed by the annual Archons, amongst whom were the Legislators Draco and Solon. Soon after the death of Codrus, his second Son Neleus, not bearing the Reign of his lame brother Medon at Athens, retired into Asia, and was followed by his younger128younger brothers Androcles and Cyaretus, and many others: these had the name of Ionians, from Ion the son of Xuthus, who commanded the army of the Athenians at the death of Erechtheus, and gave the name of Ionia to the country which they invaded: and about 20 or 25 years after the death of Codrus, these new Colonies, being now Lords of Ionia, set up over themselves a common Council called Panionium, and composed of Counsellors sent from twelve of their cities, Miletus, Myus, Priene, Ephesus, Colophon, Lebedus, Teos, Clazomenæ, Phocæa, Samos, Chios, and Erythræa: and this was the Ionic Migration.
Vid. Dionys. Halicarnass. l. 1. p. 44, 45. When the Greeks and Latines were forming their Technical Chronology, there were great disputes about the Antiquity of Rome: the Greeks made it much older than the Olympiads: some of them said it was built by Æneas; others, by Romus, the son or grandson of Æneas; others, by Romus, the son or grandson of Latinus King of the Aborigines; others, by Romus the son of Ulysses, or of Ascanius, or of Italus: and some of the Latines at first fell in with the opinion of the Greeks, saying that it was built by Romulus, the son or grandson of Æneas. Timæus Siculus represented it built by Romulus, the grandson of Æneas, above an hundred years before the129the Olympiads; and so did Nævius the Poet, who was twenty years older than Ennius, and served in the first Punic war, and wrote the history of that war. Hitherto nothing certain was agreed upon, but about 140 or 150 years after the death of Alexander the Great, they began to say that Rome was built a second time by Romulus, in the fifteenth Age after the destruction of Troy: by Ages they meant Reigns of the Kings of the Latines at Alba, and reckoned the first fourteen Reigns at about 432 years, and the following Reigns of the seven Kings of Rome at 244 years, both which numbers made up the time of about 676 years from the taking of Troy, according to these Chronologers; but are much too long for the course of nature: and by this reckoning they placed the building of Rome upon the sixth or seventh Olympiad; Varro placed it on the first year of the Seventh Olympiad, and was therein generally followed by the Romans; but this can scarce be reconciled to the course of nature: for I do not meet with any instance in all history, since Chronology was certain, wherein seven Kings, most of whom were slain, Reigned 244 years in continual Succession. The fourteen Reigns of the Kings of the Latines, at twenty years a-piece one with another, amount130mount unto 280 years, and these years counted from the taking of Troy end in the 38th Olympiad: and the Seven Reigns of the Kings of Rome, four or five of them being slain and one deposed, may at a moderate reckoning amount to fifteen or sixteen years a-piece one with another: let them be reckoned at seventeen years a-piece, and they will amount unto 119 years; which being counted backwards from the Regifuge, end also in the 38th Olympiad: and by these two reckonings Rome was built in the 38th Olympiad, or thereabout. The 280 years and the 119 years together make up 399 years; and the same number of years arises by counting the twenty and one Reigns at nineteen years a-piece: and this being the whole time between the taking of Troy and the Regifuge, let these years be counted backward from the Regifuge, An. 1, Olymp. 68, and they will place the taking of Troy about 74 years after the death of Solomon.
When Sesostris returned from Thrace into Egypt, he left Æetes with part of his army in Colchis, to guard that pass; and Phryxus and his sister Helle fled from Ino, the daughter of Cadmus, to Æetes soon after, in a ship whose ensign was a golden ram: Ino was therefore alive in the fourteenth year of Rehoboam, the year in which Sesostris 131Sesostris returned into Egypt; and by consequence her father Cadmus flourished in the Reign of David, and not before. Cadmus was the father of Polydorus, the father of Labdacus, the father of Laius, the father of Oedipus, the father of Eteocles and Polynices who slew one another in their youth, in the war of the seven Captains at Thebes, about ten or twelve years after the Argonautic Expedition: and Thersander, the son of Polynices, warred at Troy. These Generations being by the eldest sons who married young, if they be reckoned at about twenty and four years to a Generation, will place the birth of Polydorus upon the 18th year of David's Reign, or thereabout: and thus Cadmus might be a young man, not yet married, when he came first into Greece. At his first coming he sail'd to Rhodes, and thence to Samothrace, an Island near Thrace on the north side of Lemnos, and there married Harmonia, the sister of Jasius and Dardanus, which gave occasion to the Samothracian mysteries: and Polydorus might be their son, born a year or two after their coming; and his sister Europa might be then a young woman, in the flower of her age. These Generations cannot well be shorter; and therefore Cadmus, and his son Polydorus, were not younger than we have reckoned them: nor can they be much longer, without132without making Polydorus too old to be born in Europe, and to be the son of Harmonia the sister of Jasius. Labdacus was therefore born in the end of David's Reign, Laius in the 24th year of Solomon's, and Oedipus in the seventh of Rehoboam's, or thereabout: unless you had rather say, that Polydorus was born at Zidon, before his father came into Europe; but his name Polydorus is in the language of Greece.
Polydorus married Nycteis, the daughter of Nycteus a native of Greece, and dying young, left his Kingdom and young son Labdacus under the administration of Nycteus. Then Epopeus King of Ægialus, afterwards called Sicyon, stole Antiope the daughter of Nycteus, Pausan. l. 2. c. 6. and Nycteus thereupon made war upon him, and in a battle wherein Nycteus overcame, both were wounded and died soon after. Nycteus left the tuition of Labdacus, and administration of the Kingdom, to his brother Lycus; and Epopeus or, as Hyginus Hygin. Fab. 7 & 8. calls him, Epaphus the Sicyonian, left his Kingdom to Lamedon, who presently ended the war, by sending home Antiope: and she, in returning home, brought forth Amphion and Zethus. Labdacus being grown up received the Kingdom from Lycus, and soon after dying left it again to his administration, for his young son Laius. When Amphion and Zethus were about twenty years133years old, at the instigation of their mother Antiope, they killed Lycus, and made Laius flee to Pelops, and seized the city Thebes, and compassed it with a wall; and Amphion married Niobe the sister of Pelops, and by her had several children, amongst whom was Chloris, the mother of Periclymenus the Argonaut. Pelops was the father of Plisthenes, Atreus, and Thyestes; and Agamemnon and Menelaus, the adopted sons of Atreus, warred at Troy. Ægisthus, the son of Thyestes, slew Agamemnon the year after the taking of Troy; and Atreus died just before Paris stole Helena, which, according to Homer. Iliad. Ω. Homer, was twenty years before the taking of Troy. Deucalion the son of Minos, Hygin. Fab. 14 was an Argonaut; and Talus another son of Minos, was slain by the Argonauts; and Idomeneus and Meriones the grandsons of Minos were at the Trojan war. All these things confirm the ages of Cadmus and Europa, and their posterity, above assigned, and place the death of Epopeus or Epaphus King of Sicyon, and birth of Amphion and Zethus, upon the tenth year of Solomon; and the taking of Thebes by Amphion and Zethus, and the flight of Laius to Pelops, upon the thirtieth year of that King, or thereabout. Amphion might marry the sister of Pelops, the same year, and Pelops come into Greece three or four years before that flight, or about the 26th year of Solomon.
In 134
In the days of Erechtheus King of Athens, and Celeus King of Eleusis, Ceres came into Attica; and educated Triptolemus the son of Celeus, and taught him to sow corn. She Homer. Odys. Ε. Diodor. l. 5. p. 237. lay with Jasion, or Jasius, the brother of Harmonia the wife of Cadmus; and presently after her death Erechtheus was slain, in a war between the Athenians and Eleusinians; and, for the benefaction of bringing tillage into Greece, the Eleusinia Sacra were instituted to her Diodor. l. 1. p.17. with Egyptian ceremonies, by Celeus and Eumolpus; and a Sepulchre or Temple was erected to her in Eleusine, and in this Temple the families of Celeus and Eumolpus became her Priests: and this Temple, and that which Eurydice erected to her daughter Danae, by the name of Juno Argiva, are the first instances that I meet with in Greece of Deifying the dead, with Temples, and Sacred Rites, and Sacrifices, and Initiations, and a succession of Priests to perform them. Now by this history it is manifest that Erechtheus, Celeus, Eumolpus, Ceres, Jasius, Cadmus, Harmonia, Asterius, and Dardanus the brother of Jasius, and one of the founders of the Kingdom of Troy, were all contemporary to one another, and flourished in their youth, when Cadmus came first into Europe. Erechtheus could not be much older, because his daughter Procris convers'd with Minos King of Crete; and his grandson135son Thespis had fifty daughters, who lay with Hercules; and his daughter Orithyia was the mother of Calais and Zetes, two of the Argonauts in their youth; and his son Orneus Pausan. l. 2. c. 25. was the father of Peteos the father of Menestheus, who warred at Troy: nor much younger, because his second son Pandion, who with the Metionides deposed his elder brother Cecrops, was the father of Ægeus, the father of Theseus; and Metion, another of his sons, was the father of Eupalamus, the father of Dædalus, who was older than Theseus; and his daughter Creusa married Xuthus, the son of Hellen, and by him had two sons, Achæus and Ion; and Ion commanded the army of the Athenians against the Eleusinians, in the battle in which his grandfather Erechtheus was slain: and this was just before the institution of the Eleusinia Sacra, and before the Reign of Pandion the father of Ægeus. Erechtheus being an Egyptian procured corn from Egypt, and for that benefaction was made King of Athens; and near the beginning of his Reign Ceres came into Attica from Sicily, in quest of her daughter Proserpina. We cannot err much if we make Hellen contemporary to the Reign of Saul, and to that of David at Hebron; and place the beginning of the Reign of Erechtheus in the 25th year, the coming of Ceres into Attica in the 30th year, and the dispersion136persion of corn by Triptolemus about the 40th year of David's Reign; and the death of Ceres and Erechtheus, and institution of the Eleusinia Sacra, between the tenth and fifteenth year of Solomon.
Teucer, Dardanus, Erichthonius, Tros, Ilus, Laomedon, and Priamus Reigned successively at Troy; and their Reigns, at about twenty years a-piece one with another, amount unto an hundred and forty years: which counted back from the taking of Troy, place the beginning of the Reign of Teucer about the fifteenth year of the Reign of King David; and that of Dardanus, in the days of Ceres, who lay with Jasius the brother of Dardanus: whereas Chronologers reckon that the six last of these Kings Reigned 296 years, which is after the rate of 49 years a-piece one with another; and that they began their Reign in the days of Moses. Dardanus married the daughter of Teucer, the Son of Scamander, and succeeded him: whence Teucer was of about the same age with David.
Upon the return of Sesostris into Egypt, his brother Danaus not only attempted his life, as above, but also commanded his daughters, who were fifty in number and had married the sons of Sesostris, to slay their husbands; and then fled with his daughters from Egypt, in a long ship137ship of fifty oars. This Flight was in the fourteenth year of Rehoboam. Danaus came first to Lindus, a town in Rhodes, and there built a Temple, and erected a Statue to Minerva, and lost three of his daughters by a plague which raged there; and then sailed thence with the rest of his daughters to Argos. He came to Argos therefore in the fifteenth or sixteenth year of Rehoboam: and at length contending there with Gelanor the brother of Eurystheus for the crown of Argos, was chosen by the people, and Reigned at Argos, while Eurystheus Reigned at Mycenæ; and Eurystheus was born Apollodor. l. 2. Sect. 5. the same year with Hercules. Gelanor and Eurystheus were the sons of Sthenelus, by Nicippe the daughter of Pelops; and Sthenelus was the son of Perseus, and Reigned at Argos, and Danaus, who succeeded him at Argos, was succeeded there by his son in law Lynceus, and he by his son Abas; that Abas who is commonly, but erroneously, reputed the father of Acrisius and Prætus. In the time of the Argonautic expedition Castor and Pollux were beardless young men, and their sisters Helena and Clytemnestra were children, and their wives Phæbe and Ilaira were also very young: all these, with the Argonauts Lynceus and Idas, were the grandchildren of Gorgophone, the daughter of Perseus, the son of Danae, the daughter of Acrisius and Eurydice;138rydice; and Perieres and Oebalus, the husbands of Gorgophone, were the sons of Cynortes, the son of Amyclas, the brother of Eurydice. Mestor or Mastor, the brother of Sthenelus, married Lysidice, another of the daughters of Pelops: and Pelops married Hippodamia, the daughter of Evarete, the daughter of Acrisius. Alcmena, the mother of Hercules, was the daughter of Electryo; and Sthenelus, Mestor and Electryo were brothers of Gorgophone, and sons of Perseus and Andromeda: and the Argonaut Æsculapius was the grandson of Leucippus and Phlegia, and Leucippus was the son of Perieres, the grandson of Amyclas the brother of Eurydice, and Amyclas and Eurydice were the children of Lacedæmon and Sparta: and Capaneus, one of the seven Captains against Thebes, was the husband of Euadne the daughter of Iphis, the son of Elector, the son of Anaxagoras, the son of Megapenthes, the son of Prætus the brother of Acrisius. Now from these Generations it may be gathered that Perseus, Perieres and Anaxagoras were of about the same age with Minos, PeleusPelops, Ægeus and Sesac; and that Acrisius, Prætus, Eurydice, and Amyclas, being two little Generations older, were of about the same age with King David and Erechtheus; and that the Temple of Juno Argiva was built about the same time with the Temple of Solomon; the same being139ing built by Eurydice to her daughter Danae, as above; or as some say, by Pirasus or Piranthus, the son or successor of Argus, and great grandson of Phoroneus: for the first Priestess of that Goddess was Callithea the daughter of Piranthus; Callithea was succeeded by Alcinoe, about three Generations before the taking of Troy, that is about the middle of Solomon's Reign: in her Priesthood the Siculi passed out of Italy into Sicily: afterwards Hypermnestra the daughter of Danaus became Priestess of this Goddess, and she flourished in the times next before the Argonautic expedition: and Admeta, the daughter of Eurystheus, was Priestess of this Juno about the times of the Trojan war. Andromeda the wife of Perseus, was the daughter of Cepheus an Egyptian, the son of Belus, according to Herod l. 7. Herodotus; and the Egyptian Belus was Ammon: Perseus took her from Joppa, where Cepheus, I think a kinsman of Solomon's Queen, resided in the days of Solomon. Acrisius and Prætus were the sons of Abas: but this Abas was not the same man with Abas the grandson of Danaus, but a much older Prince, who built Abæa in Phocis, and might be the Prince from whom the island Eubœa Bochart. Canaan part. 2. cap. 13. was anciently called Abantis, and the people thereof Abantes: for Apollonius Rhodius Apollon. Argonaut. l. 1. v. 77. tells us, that the Argonaut Canthus was the son of Canethus, and140and that Canethus was of the posterity of Abas; and the Commentator upon Apollonius tells us further, that from this Abas the inhabitants of Eubœa were anciently called Abantes. This Abas therefore flourished three or four Generations before the Argonautic expedition, and so might be the father of Acrisius: the ancestors of Acrisius were accounted Egyptians by the Greeks, and they might come from Egypt under Abas into Eubœa, and from thence into Peloponnesus. I do not reckon Phorbas and his son Triopas among the Kings of Argos, because they fled from that Kingdom to the Island Rhodes; nor do I reckon Crotopus among them, because because he went from Argos, and built a new city for himself in Megaris, as Conon. Narrat. 13. Conon relates.
We said that Pelops came into Greece about the 26th year of Solomon: he Pausan. l. 5. c. 1. Apollodor. l. 1. c. 7. came thither in the days of Acrisius, and in those of Endymion, and of his sons, and took Ætolia from Aetolus. Endymion was the son of Aëthlius, the son of Protogenia, the sister of Hellen, and daughter of Deucalion: Phrixus and Helle, the children of Athamas, the brother of Sisyphus and Son of Æolus, the son of Hellen, fled from their stepmother Ino, the daughter of Cadmus, to Æetes in Colchis, presently after the return of Sesostris into Egypt: and Jason the Argonaut was the son of Æson, the son of Cretheus, the son of Æolus, the son of141of Hellen: and Calyce was the wife of Aëthlius, and mother of Endymion, and daughter of Æolus, and sister of Cretheus, Sisyphus and Athamas: and by these circumstances Cretheus, Sisyphus and Athamas flourished in the latter part of the Reign of Solomon, and in the Reign of Rehoboam: Aëthlius, Æolus, Xuthus, Dorus, Tantalus, and Danae were contemporary to Erechtheus, Jasius and Cadmus; and Hellen was about one, and Deucalion about two Generations older than Erechtheus. They could not be much older, because Xuthus the youngest son of Hellen Pausan. l. 7. c. 1. married Creusa the daughter of Erechtheus; nor could they be much younger, because Cephalus the son of Deioneus, the son of Æolus, the eldest son of Hellen, Pausan. l. 1. c. 37. & l. 10. c. 29. married Procris the daughter of Erechtheus; and Procris fled from her husband to Minos. Upon the death of Hellen, his youngest son Xuthus Pausan. l. 7. c. 1. was expelled Thessaly by his brothers Æolus and Dorus, and fled to Erechtheus, and married Creusa the daughter of Erechtheus; by whom he had two sons, Achæus and Ion, the youngest of which grew up before the death of Erechtheus, and commanded the army of the Athenians, in the war in which Erechtheus was slain: and therefore Hellen died about one Generation before Erechtheus.
Sisyphus therefore built Corinth about the latter end142end of the Reign of Solomon, or the beginning of the Reign of Rehoboam. Upon the flight of Phrixus and Helle, their father Athamas, a little King in Bœotia, went distracted and slew his son Learchus; and his wife Ino threw her self into the sea, together with her other son Melicertus; and thereupon Sisyphus instituted the Isthmia at Corinth to his nephew Melicertus. This was presently after Sesostris had left Æetes in Colchis, I think in the fifteenth or sixteenth year of Rehoboam: so that Athamas, the son of Æolus and grandson of Hellen, and Ino the daughter of Cadmus, flourished 'till about the sixteenth year of Rehoboam. Sisyphus and his successors Ornytion, Thoas, Demophon, Propodas, Doridas, and Hyanthidas Reigned successively at Corinth, 'till the return of the Heraclides into Peloponnesus: then Reigned the Heraclides, Aletes, Ixion, Agelas, Prumnis, Bacchis, Agelas II, Eudamus, Aristodemus, and Telestes successively about 170 years, and then Corinth was governed by Prytanes or annual Archons about 42 years, and after them by Cypselus and Periander about 48 years more.
Celeus King of Eleusis, who was contemporary to Erechtheus, Hesych. in Κράναος. was the son of Rharus, the son of Cranaus, the successor of Cecrops; and in the Reign of Cranaus, Deucalion fled with his sons143sons Hellen and Amphictyon from the flood which then overflowed Thessaly, and was called Deucalion's flood: they fled into Attica, and there Deucalion died soon after; and Pausanias tells us that his Sepulchre was to be seen near Athens. His eldest son Hellen succeeded him in Thessaly, and his other son Amphictyon married the daughter of Cranaus, and Reigning at Thermopylæ, erected there the Amphictyonic Council; and Acrisius soon after erected the like Council at Delphi. This I conceive was done when Amphictyon and Acrisius were aged, and fit to be Counsellors; suppose in the latter half of the Reign of David, and beginning of the Reign of Solomon; and soon after, suppose about the middle of the Reign of Solomon, did Phemonoë become the first Priestess of Apollo at Delphi, and gave Oracles in hexameter verse: and then was Acrisius slain accidentally by his grandson Perseus. The Council of Thermopylæ included twelve nations of the Greeks, without Attica, and therefore Amphictyon did not then Reign at Athens: he might endeavour to succeed Cranaus, his wife's father, and be prevented by Erechtheus.
Between the Reigns of Cranaus and Erechtheus, Chronologers place also Erichthonius, and his son Pandion; but I take this Erichthonius and this his son Pandion, to be the same with Erech- 144Erechtheus and his son and successor Pandion, the names being only repeated with a little variation in the list of the Kings of Attica: for Erichthonius, he that was the son of the Earth, nursed up by Minerva, is by Homer called Erechtheus; and Themistius Themist. Orat. 19. tells us, that it was Erechtheus that first joyned a chariot to horses; and Plato Plato in Alcib. 1. alluding to the story of Erichthonius in a basket, saith, The people of magnanimous Erechtheus is beautiful, but it behoves us to behold him taken out: Erechtheus therefore immediately succeeded Cranaus, while Amphictyon Reigned at Thermopylæ. In the Reign of Cranaus the Poets place the flood of Deucalion, and therefore the death of Deucalion, and the Reign of his sons Hellen and Amphictyon, in Thessaly and Thermpolyæ, was but a few years, suppose eight or ten, before the Reign of Erechtheus.
The first Kings of Arcadia were successively Pausan. l. 8. c. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Pelasgus, Lycaon, Nyctimus, Arcas, Clitor, Æpytus, Aleus, Lycurgus, Echemus, Agapenor, Hippothous, Æpytus II, Cypselus, Olæas, &c. Under Cypselus the Heraclides returned into Peloponnesus, as above: Agapenor was one of those who courted Helena; he courted her before he reigned, and afterwards he went to the war at Troy, and thence to Cyprus, and there built Paphos. Echemus slew Hyllus the son of Hercules. Ly curgus, 145curgus, Cepheus, and Auge, were Pausan. l. 8. c. 4. Apollon. Argonaut. l. 1. v. 161. the children of Aleus, the son of Aphidas, the son of Arcas, the son of Callisto, the daughter of Lycaon: Auge lay with Hercules, and Ancæus the son of Lycurgus was an Argonaut, and his uncle Cepheus was his Governour in that Expedition; and Lycurgus stay'd at home, to look after his aged father Aleus, who might be born about 75 years before that Expedition; and his grandfather Arcas might be born about the end of the Reign of Saul, and Lycaon the grandfather of Arcas might be then alive, and dye before the middle of David's Reign; and His youngest son Oenotrus, the Janus of the Latines, might grow up, and lead a colony into Italy before the Reign of Solomon. Arcas received Pausan. l. 8. c. 4. bread-corn from Triptolemus, and taught his people to make bread of it; and so did Eumelus, the first King of a region afterwards called Achaia: and therefore Arcas and Eumelus were contemporary to Triptolemus, and to his old father Celeus, and to Erechtheus King of Athens; and Callisto to Rharus, and her father Lycaon to Cranaus: but Lycaon died before Cranaus, so as to leave room for Deucalion's flood between their deaths. The eleven Kings of Arcadia, between this Flood and the Return of the Heraclides into Peloponnesus, that is, between the Reigns of Lycaon and Cypselus, after the rate of about twenty years146years to a Reign one with another, took up about 220 years; and these years counted back from the Return of the Heraclides, place the Flood of Deucalion upon the fourteenth year of David's Reign, or thereabout.
Herodotus Herod. l. 5. c. 58. tells us, that the Phœnicians who came with Cadmus brought many doctrines into Greece: for amongst those Phœnicians were a sort of men called Curetes, who were skilled in the Arts and Sciences of Phœnicia, above other men, and Strabo l. 10. p. 464, 465, 466. settled some in Phrygia, where they were called Corybantes; some in Crete, where they were called Idæi Dactyli; some in Rhodes, where they were called Telchines; some in Samothrace, where they were called Cabiri; some in Eubœa, where, before the invention of iron, they wrought in copper, in a city thence called Chalcis; some in Lemnos, where they assisted Vulcan; and some in Imbrus, and other places: and a considerable number of them settled in Ætolia, which was thence called the country of the Curetes; until Ætolus the son of Endymion, having slain Apis King of Sicyon, fled thither, and by the assistance of his father invaded it, and from his own name called it Ætolia: and by the assistance of these artificers, Cadmus found out gold in the mountain Pangæus in Thrace, and copper at Thebes; whence copper ore is still called Cadmia. Where they settled they wrought first147first in copper, 'till iron was invented, and then in iron; and when they had made themselves armour, they danced in it at the sacrifices with tumult and clamour, and bells, and pipes, and drums, and swords, with which they struck upon one another's armour, in musical times, appearing seized with a divine fury; and this is reckoned the original of music in Greece: so Solinus Solin. Polyhist. c. 11. Studium musicum inde cæptum cum Idæi Dactyli modulos crepitu & tinnitu æris deprehensos in versificum ordinem transtulissent: and Isidor. originum. lib. xi. c. 6. Isidorus, Studium musicum ab Idæis Dactylis cæptum. Apollo and the Muses were two Generations later. Clemens Clem. Strom. l. 1. calls the Idæi Dactyli barbarous, that is strangers; and saith, that they reputed the first wise men, to whom both the letters which they call Ephesian, and the invention of musical rhymes are referred: it seems that when the Phœnician letters, ascribed to Cadmus, were brought into Greece, they were at the same time brought into Phrygia and Crete, by the Curetes; who settled in those countries, and called them Ephesian, from the city Ephesus, where they were first taught. The Curetes, by their manufacturing copper and iron, and making swords, and armour, and edged tools for hewing and carving of wood, brought into Europe a new way of fighting; and gave Minos an148an opportunity of building a Fleet, and gaining the dominion of the seas; and set on foot the trades of Smiths and Carpenters in Greece, which are the foundation of manual trades: the Pausan. l. 9. c. 11. fleet of Minos was without sails, and Dædalus fled from him by adding sails to his vessel; and therefore ships with sails were not used by the Greeks before the flight of Dædalus, and death of Minos, who was slain in pursuing him to Sicily, in the Reign of Rehoboam. Dædalus and his nephew Talus, in the latter part of the Reign of Solomon, invented the chip-ax, and saw, and wimble, and perpendicular, and compass, and turning-lath, and glew, and the potter's wheel; and his father Eupalamus invented the anchor: and these things gave a beginning to manual Arts and Trades in Europe.
The Strabo l. 10. p. 472, 473. Diodor. l. 5. c. 4. Curetes, who thus introduced Letters, and Music, and Poetry, and Dancing, and Arts, and attended on the Sacrifices, were no less active about religious institutions, and for their skill and knowledge and mystical practices, were accounted wise men and conjurers by the vulgar. In Phrygia their mysteries were about Rhea, called Magna Mater, and from the places where she was worshipped, Cybele, Berecynthia, Pessinuntia, Dindymene, Mygdonia, and Idæa Phrygia: and in Crete, and the Terra Curetum, they were149were about Jupiter Olympius, the son of the Cretan Rhea: they represented, Strabo l. 10. p. 468. 472. Diodor. l. 5. c. 4. that when Jupiter was born in Crete, his mother Rhea caused him to be educated in a cave in mount Ida, under their care and tuition; and Lucian de sacrificiis. Apollod. l. 1. c. 1. sect. 3. & c. 2. sect. 1. that they danced about him in armour, with great noise, that his father Saturn might not hear him cry; and when he was grown up, assisted him in conquering his father, and his father's friends; and in memory of these things instituted their mysteries. Bochart Boch. in Canaan. l. 1. c. 15. brings them from Palestine, and thinks that they had the name of Curetes from the people among the Philistims called Crethim, or Cerethites: Ezek. xxv. 16. Zeph. ii. 5. 1 Sam. xxx. 14, for the Philistims conquered Zidon, and mixed with the Zidonians.
The two first Kings of Crete, who reigned after the coming of the Curetes, were Asterius and Minos; and Europa was the Queen of Asterius, and mother of Minos; and the Idæan Curetes were her countrymen, and came with her and her brother Alymnus into Crete, and dwelt in the Idæan cave in her Reign, and there educated Jupiter, and found out iron, and made armour: and therefore these three, Asterius, Europa, and Minos, must be the Saturn, Rhea and Jupiter of the Cretans. Minos is usually called the son of Jupiter; but this is in relation to the150the fable, that Jupiter in the shape of a bull, the Ensign of the Ship, carried away Europa from Zidon: for the Phœnicians, upon their first coming into Greece, gave the name of Jao-pater, Jupiter, to every King: and thus both Minos and his father were Jupiters. Echemenes, an ancient author cited by Athenæus, Athen. l. 13. p. 601. said that Minos was that Jupiter who committed the rape upon Ganimede; though others said more truly that it was Tantalus: Minos alone was that Jupiter who was most famous among the Greeks for Dominion and Justice, being the greatest King in all Greece in those days, and the only legislator. Plutarch Plutarch in Theseo. tells us, that the people of Naxus, contrary to what others write, pretended that there were two Minos's, and two Ariadnes; and that the first Ariadne married Bacchus, and the last was carried away by Theseus: but Homer Il. Ν. & Ξ. & Odys. Λ. & Τ. Homer, Hesiod, Thucydides, Herodotus, and Strabo, knew but of one Minos; and Homer describes him to be the son of Jupiter and Europa, and the brother of Rhadamanthus and Sarpedon, and the father of Deucalion the Argonaut, and grandfather of Idomeneus who warred at Troy, and that he was the legislator of Hell: Herodotus Herod. l. 1. makes Minos and Rhadamanthus the sons of Europa, contemporary to Ægeus: and Apollod. l. 3. c. 1. Hygin. Fab. 40, 41, 42, 178. Apollodorus and Hyginus say, that Minos, the father151father of Androgeus, Ariadne and Phædra, was the son of Jupiter and Europa, and brother of Rhadamanthus and Sarpedon.
Lucian Lucian. de DeaSyriaDea Syria. lets us know that Europa the mother of Minos was worshipped by the name of Rhea, in the form of a woman sitting in a chariot drawn by lions, with a drum in her hand, and a Corona turrita on her head, like Astarte and Isis; and the Cretans Diodor. l. 5. c. 4, anciently shewed the house where this Rhea lived: and Argonaut. l. 2. v. 1236. Apollonius Rhodius tells us, that Saturn, while he Reigned over the Titans in Olympus, a mountain in Crete, and Jupiter was educated by the Curetes in the Cretan cave, deceived Rhea, and of Philyra begot Chiron: and therefore the Cretan Saturn and Rhea, were but one Generation older than Chiron, and by consequence not older than Asterius and Europa, the parents of Minos; for Chiron lived 'till after the Argonautic Expedition, and had two grandsons in that Expedition, and Europa came into Crete above an hundred years before that Expedition: Lucian Lucian. de sacrificiis. tells us, that the Cretans did not only relate, that Jupiter was born and buried among them, but also shewed his sepulchre: and Porphyry Porphyr. in vita Pythag. tells us, that Pythagoras went down into the Idæan cave, to see his sepulchre: and Cicero, Cicero de Nat. Deor. l. 3. in numbering three Jupiters, saith, that the third was the Cretan Jupiter,152Jupiter, Saturn's son, whose sepulchre was shewed in Crete: and the Scholiast upon Callimachus Callimac. Hymn 1. v. 8. lets us know, that this was the sepulchre of Minos: his words are, Ἐν Κρήτη ἐπὶ τωι τάφωι του Μίνωος ἐπεγέγραπτο, ΜΙΝΩΟС ΤΟΥ ΔΙΟС ΤΑΦΟС. τωι χρόνωι δὲ του Μίνωος ἀπηλείφθη, ὥστε περιλειφθηναι, ΔΙΟС ΤΑΦΟС. ἐκ τούτου ὀυν ἔχειν λέγουσι Κρητες τὸν τάφον του Διὸς. In Crete upon the Sepulchre of Minos was written, Minois Jovis sepulchrum: but in time Minois wore out, so that there remained only, Jovis sepulchrum, and thence the Cretans called it the Sepulchre of Jupiter. By Saturn, Cicero, who was a Latine, understood the Saturn so called by the Latines: for when Saturn was expelled his Kingdom he fled from Crete by sea, to Italy; and this the Poets exprest by saying, that Jupiter cast him down to Tartarus, that is, into the Sea: and because he lay hid in Italy, the Latines called him Saturn; and Italy, Saturnia, and Latium, and themselves Latines: so Cypr. de Idolorum vanitate. Cyprian; Antrum Jovis in Creta visitur, & sepulchrum ejus ostenditur: & ab eo Saturnum fugatum esse manifestum est: unde Latium de latebra ejus nomen accepit: hic literas imprimere, hic signare nummos in Italia primus instituit, unde ærarium Saturni vocatur; & rusticitatis hic cultor fuit, inde falcem ferens senex pingitur: and Minutius Felix; Saturnus 153Saturnus Creta profugus, Italiam metu filii sævientis accesserat, & Jani susceptus hospitio, rudes illos homines & agrestes multa docuit, ut Græculus & politus, literas imprimere, nummos signare, instrumenta conficere: itaque latebram suam, quod tuto latuisset, vocari maluit Latium, & urbem Saturniam de suo nomine. * * Ejus filius Jupiter Cretæ excluso parente regnavit, illic obiit, illic filios habuit; adhuc antrum Jovis visitur, & sepulchrum ejus ostenditur, & ipsis sacris suis humanitatis arguitur: and Tertullian; Tert. Apologet. c. 10. Quantum rerum argumenta docent, nusquam invenio fideliora quam apud ipsam Italiam, in qua Saturnus post multas expeditiones, postque Attica hospitia consedit, exceptus ab Jano, vel Jane ut Salii volunt. Mons quem incoluerat Saturnius dictus: civitas quam depalaverat Saturnia usque nunc est. Tota denique Italia post Oenotriam Saturnia cognominabatur. Ab ipso primum tabulæ, & imagine signatus nummus, & inde ærario præsidet. By Saturn's carrying letters into Italy, and coyning money, and teaching agriculture, and making instruments, and building a town, you may know that he fled from Crete, after letters, and the coyning of money, and manual arts were brought into Europe by the Phœnicians; and from Attica, after agriculture was brought into Greece by Ceres; and so could not be older than Asterius, and Europa, and her brother154ther Cadmus: and by Italy's being called Oenotria, before it was called Saturnia, you may know that he came into Italy after Oenotrus, and so was not older than the sons of Lycaon. Oenotrus carried the first colony of the Greeks into Italy, Saturn the second, and Evander the third; and the Latines know nothing older in Italy than Janus and Saturn: and therefore Oenotrus was the Janus of the Latines, and Saturn was contemporary to the sons of Lycaon, and by consequence also to Celeus, Erechtheus, Ceres, and Asterius: for Ceres educated Triptolemus the son of Celeus, in the Reign of Erechtheus, and then taught him to plow and sow corn: Arcas the son of Callisto, and grandson of Lycaon, received corn from Triptolemus, and taught his people to make bread of it; and Procris, the daughter of Erechtheus, fled to Minos the son of Asterius. In memory of Saturn's coming into Italy by sea, the Latines coined their first money with his head on one side, and a ship on the other. Macrobius Macrob. Saturnal. lib. 1. c. 7. tells us, that when Saturn was dead, Janus erected an Altar to him, with sacred rites as to a God, and instituted the Saturnalia, and that humane sacrifices were offered to him; 'till Hercules driving the cattle of Geryon through Italy, abolished that custom: by the human sacrifices you may know that Janus was155was of the race of Lycaon; which character agrees to Oenotrus. Dionysius Halicarnassensis tells us further, that Oenotrus having found in the western parts of Italy a large region fit for pasturage and tillage, but yet for the most part uninhabited, and where it was inhabited, peopled but thinly; in a certain part of it, purged from the Barbarians, he built towns little and numerous, in the mountains; which manner of building was familiar to the ancients: and this was the Original of Towns in Italy.
Pausanias Pausan. l. 5. c. 7, vid. et. c. 13. 14. & l. 8. c. 2. tells us that the people of Elis, who were best skilled in Antiquities, related this to have been the Original of the Olympic Games: that Saturn Reigned first and had a Temple built to him in Olympia by the men of the Golden Age; and that when Jupiter was newly born, his mother Rhea recommended him to the care of the Idæi Dactyli, who were also called Curetes: that afterwards five of them, called Hercules, Pœonius, Epimedes, Jasius, and Ida, came from Ida, a mountain in Crete, into Elis; and Hercules, called also Hercules Idæus, being the oldest of them, in memory of the war between Saturn and Jupiter, instituted the game of racing, and that the victor should be rewarded with a crown of olive; and there erected an altar to Jupiter Olympius, and called these156these games Olympic: and that some of the Eleans said, that Jupiter contended here with Saturn for the Kingdom; others that Hercules Idæus instituted these games in memory of their victory over the Titans: for the people of Arcadia Pausan. l. 8. c. 29. had a tradition, that the Giants fought with the Gods in the valley of Bathos, near the river Alpheus and the fountain Olympias. Diodor. l. 5. p. 183. Before the Reign of Asterius, his father Teutamus came into Crete with a colony from Olympia; and upon the flight of Asterius, some of his friends might retire with him into their own country, and be pursued and beaten there by the Idæan Hercules: the Eleans said also that Clymenus the grandson of the Idæan Hercules, about fifty years after Deucalion's flood, coming from Crete, celebrated these games again in Olympia, and erected there an altar to Juno Olympia, that is, to Europa, and another to this Hercules and the rest of the Curetes; and Reigned in Elis 'till he was expelled by Endymion, Pausan. l. 5. c. 8. 14. who thereupon celebrated these games again: and so did Pelops, who expelled Ætolus the son of Endymion; and so also did Hercules the son of Alcmena, and Atreus the son of Pelops, and Oxylus: they might be celebrated originally in triumph for victories, first by Hercules Idæus, upon the conquest of Saturn and the Titans; and then by Clymenus, upon157upon his coming to Reign in the Terra Curetum; then by Endymion, upon his conquering Clymenus; and afterwards by Pelops, upon his conquering Ætolus; and by Hercules, upon his killing Augeas; and by Atreus, upon his repelling the Heraclides; and by Oxylus, upon the return of the Heraclides into Peloponnesus. This Jupiter, to whom they were instituted, had a Temple and Altar erected to him in Olympia, where the games were celebrated, and from the place was called Jupiter Olympius: Olympia was a place upon the confines of Pisa, near the river Alpheus.
In the Herod. l. 2. c. 44. Island Thasus, where Cadmus left his brother Thasus, the Phœnicians built a Temple to Hercules Olympius, that Hercules, whom Cicero Cic. de natura Deorum. lib. 3. calls ex Idæis Dactylis; cui inferias afferunt. When the mysteries of Ceres were instituted in Eleusis, there were other mysteries instituted to her and her daughter and daughter's husband, in the Island Samothrace, by the Phœnician names of Dii Cabiri Axieros, Axiokersa, and Axiokerses, that is, the great Gods Ceres, Proserpina and Pluto: for Diodor. p. 223. Jasius a Samothracian, whose sister married Cadmus, was familiar with Ceres; and Cadmus and Jasius were both of them instituted in these mysteries. Jasius was the brother of Dardanus, and158and married Cybele the daughter of Meones King of Phrygia, and by her had Corybas; and after his death, Dardanus, Cybele and Corybas went into Phrygia, and carried thither the mysteries of the mother of the Gods, and Cybele called the goddess after her own name, and Corybas called her priests Corybantes: thus Diodorus; but Dionysius saith Dionys. l. 1. p. 38, 42. that Dardanus instituted the Samothracian mysteries, and that his wife Chryses learnt them in Arcadia, and that Idæus the son of Dardanus instituted afterwards the mysteries of the mother of the gods in Phrygia: this Phrygian Goddess was drawn in a chariot by lions, and had a corona turrita on her head, and a drum in her hand, like the Phœnician Goddess Astarte, and the Corybantes danced in armour at her sacrifices in a furious manner, like the Idæi Dactyli; and Lucian Lucian. de saltatione. tells us that she was the Cretan Rhea, that is, Europa the mother of Minos: and thus the Phœnicians introduced the practice of Deifying dead men and women among the Greeks and Phrygians; for I meet with no instance of Deifying dead men and women in Greece, before the coming of Cadmus and Europa from Zidon.
From these originals it came into fashion among the Greeks, κτεριζειν, parentare, to celebrate the159the funerals of dead parents with festivals and invocations and sacrifices offered to their ghosts, and to erect magnificent sepulchres in the form of temples, with altars and statues, to persons of renown; and there to honour them publickly with sacrifices and invocations: every man might do it to his ancestors; and the cities of Greece did it to all the eminent Greeks: as to Europa the sister, to Alymnus the brother, and to Minos and Rhadamanthus the nephews of Cadmus; to his daughter Ino,and her son Melicertus; to Bacchus the son of his daughter Semele, Aristarchus the husband of his daughter Autonoe, and Jasius the brother of his wife Harmonia; to Hercules a Theban, and his mother Alcmena; to Danae the daughter of Acrisius; to Æsculapius and Polemocrates the son of Machaon; to Pandion and Theseus Kings of Athens, Hippolytus the son of Theseus, Pan the son of Penelope, Proserpina, Triptolemus, Celeus, Trophonius, Castor, Pollux, Helena, Menelaus, Agamemnon, Amphiaraus and his son Amphilochus, Hector and Alexandra the son and daughter of Priam, Phoroneus, Orpheus, Protesilaus, Achilles and his mother Thetis, Ajax, Arcas, Idomeneus, Meriones, Æacus, Melampus, Britomartis, Adrastus, Iolaus, and divers others. They Deified their dead in divers manners, according160cording to their abilities and circumstances, and the merits of the person; some only in private families, as houshold Gods or Dii Pænates; others by erecting gravestones to them in publick, to be used as altars for annual sacrifices; others, by building also to them sepulchres in the form of houses or temples; and some by appointing mysteries, and ceremonies, and set sacrifices, and festivals, and initiations, and a succession of priests for performing those institutions in the temples, and handing them down to posterity. Altars might begin to be erected in Europe a little before the days of Cadmus, for sacrificing to the old God or Gods of the Colonies, but Temples began in the days of Solomon; for Arnob. adv. gent. l. 6. p. 131. Æacus the son of Ægina, who was two Generations older than the Trojan war, is by some reputed one of the first who built a Temple in Greece. Oracles came first from Egypt into Greece about the same time, as also did the custom of forming the images of the Gods with their legs bound up in the shape of the Egyptian mummies: for Idolatry began in Chaldæa and Egypt, and spread thence into Phœnicia and the neighbouring countries, long before it came into Europe; and the Pelasgians propagated it in Greece, by the dictates of the Oracles: 161Oracles. The countries upon the Tigris and the Nile being exceeding fertile, were first frequented by mankind, and grew first into Kingdoms, and therefore began first to adore their dead Kings and Queens: hence came the Gods of Laban, the Gods and Goddesses called Baalim and Ashtaroth by the Canaanites, the Dæmons or Ghosts to whom they sacrificed, and the Moloch to whom they offered their children in the days of Moses and the Judges. Every City set up the worship of its own Founder and Kings, and by alliances and conquests they spread this worship, and at length the Phœnicians and Egyptians brought into Europe the practice of Deifying the dead. The Kingdom of the lower Egypt began to worship their Kings before the days of Moses; and to this worship the second commandment is opposed: when the Shepherds invaded the lower Egypt, they checked this worship of the old Egyptians, and spread that of their own Kings: and at length the Egyptians of Coptos and Thebais, under Misphragmuthosis and Amosis, expelling the Shepherds, checked the worship of the Gods of the Shepherds, and Deifying their own Kings and Princes, propagated the worship of twelve of them into their conquests; and made them more universal than the false Gods of any other nation had been before, so as to be called162called, Dii magni majorum gentium. Sesostris conquered Thrace, and Amphictyon the son of Prometheus brought the twelve Gods from Thrace into Greece: Herodotus Herod. l. 2. initio. tells us that they came from Egypt; and by the names of the cities of Egypt dedicated to many of these Gods, you may know that they were of an Egyptian original: and the Egyptians, according to Diodorus, Diodor. l. 1. p. 8. usually represented, that after their Saturn and Rhea, Reigned Jupiter and Juno, the parents of Osiris and Isis, the parents of Orus and Bubaste.
By all this it may be understood, that as the Egyptians who Deified their Kings, began their monarchy with the Reign of their Gods and Heroes, reckoning Menes the first man who reigned after their Gods; so the Cretans had the Ages of their Gods and Heroes, calling the first four Ages of their Deified Kings and Princes, the Golden, Silver, Brazen, and Iron Ages. Hesiod Hesiod. opera. v. 108. describing these four Ages of the Gods and Demi-Gods of Greece, represents them to be four Generations of men, each of which ended when the men then living grew old and dropt into the grave, and tells us that the fourth ended with the wars of Thebes and Troy: and so many Generations there were, from the coming of the Phœnicians and Curetes with Cadmus and Europa into163into Greece unto the destruction of Troy. Apollonius Rhodius saith that when the Argonauts came to Crete, they slew Talus a brazen man, who remained of those that were of the Brazen Age, and guarded that pass: Talus was reputed Apollon. Argonaut. l. 4. v. 1643. the son of Minos, and therefore the sons of Minos lived in the Brazen Age, and Minos Reigned in the Silver Age: it was the Silver Age of the Greeks in which they began to plow and sow Corn, and Ceres, that taught them to do it, flourished in the Reign of Celeus and Erechtheus and Minos. Mythologists tell us that the last woman with whom Jupiter lay, was Alcmena; and thereby they seem to put an end to the Reign of Jupiter among mortals, that is to the Silver Age, when Alcmena was with child of Hercules; who therefore was born about the eighth or tenth year of Rehoboam's Reign, and was about 34 years old at the time of the Argonautic expedition. Chiron was begot by Saturn of Philyra in the Golden Age, when Jupiter was a child in the Cretan cave, as above; and this was in the Reign of Asterius King of Crete: and therefore Asterius Reigned in Crete in the Golden Age; and the Silver Age began when Chiron was a child: if Chiron was born about the 35th year of David's Reign, he will be born in the Reign of Asterius, when Jupiter was a child in the Cretan cave,164cave, and be about 88 years old in the time of the Argonautic expedition, when he invented the Asterisms; and this is within the reach of nature. The Golden Age therefore falls in with the Reign of Asterius, and the Silver Age with that of Minos; and to make these Ages much longer than ordinary generations, is to make Chiron live much longer than according to the course of nature. This fable of the four Ages seems to have been made by the Curetes in the fourth Age, in memory of the first four Ages of their coming into Europe, as into a new world; and in honour of their country-woman Europa, and her husband Asterius the Saturn of the Latines, and of her son Minos the Cretan Jupiter, and grandson Deucalion, who Reigned 'till the Argonautic expedition, and is sometimes reckoned among the Argonauts, and of their great grandson Idomeneus who warred at Troy. Hesiod tells us that he himself lived in the fifth Age, the Age next after the taking of Troy, and therefore he flourished within thirty or thirty five years after it: and Homer was of about the same Age; for he Vita Homeri Herodoto adfer. lived sometime with Mentor in Ithaca, and there learnt of him many things concerning Ulysses, with whom Mentor had been personally acquainted: now Herodotus, the oldest Historian of the Greeks now extant, Herod. l. 2. tells us that165that Hesiod and Homer were not above four hundred years older than himself, and therefore they flourished within 110 or 120 years after the death of Solomon; and according to my reckoning the taking of Troy was but one Generation earlier.
Mythologists tell us, that Niobe the daughter of Phoroneus was the first woman with whom Jupiter lay, and that of her he begat Argus, who succeeded Phoroneus in the Kingdom of Argos, and gave his name to that city; and therefore Argus was born in the beginning of the Silver Age: unless you had rather say that by Jupiter they might here mean Asterius; for the Phœnicians gave the name of Jupiter to every King, from the time of their first coming into Greece with Cadmus and Europa, until the invasion of Greece by Sesostris, and the birth of Hercules, and particularly to the fathers of Minos, Pelops, Lacedæmon, Æacus, and Perseus.
The four first Ages succeeded the flood of Deucalion; and some tell us that Deucalion was the son of Prometheus, the son of Japetus, and brother of Atlas: but this was another Deucalion; for Japetus the father of Prometheus, Epimetheus, and Atlas, was an Egyptian, the brother of Osiris, and flourished two generations after the flood of Deucalion.
I 166
I have now carried up the Chronology of the Greeks as high as to the first use of letters, the first plowing and sowing of corn, the first manufacturing of copper and iron, the beginning of the trades of Smiths, Carpenters, Joyners, Turners, Brick-makers, Stone-cutters, and Potters, in Europe; the first walling of cities about, the first building of Temples, and the original of Oracles in Greece; the beginning of navigation by the Stars in long ships with sails; the erecting of the Amphictyonic Council; the first Ages of Greece, called the Golden, Silver, Brazen and Iron Ages, and the flood of Deucalion which immediately preceded them. Those Ages could not be earlier than the invention and use of the four metals in Greece, from whence they had their names; and the flood of Ogyges could not be much above two or three ages earlier than that of Deucalion: for among such wandering people as were then in Europe, there could be no memory of things done above three or four ages before the first use of letters: and the expulsion of the Shepherds out of Egypt, which gave the first occasion to the coming of people from Egypt into Greece, and to the building of houses and villages in Greece, was scarce earlier than the days of Eli and Samuel; for Manetho tells us, that when they were forced167forced to quit Abaris and retire out of Egypt, they went through the wilderness into Judæa, and built Jerusalem: I do not think, with Manetho, that they were the Israelites under Moses, but rather believe that they were Canaanites; and upon leaving Abaris mingled with the Philistims their next neighbours: though some of them might assist David and Solomon in building Jerusalem and the Temple.
Saul was made King 1 Sam. ix.16. & xiii.5. 19, 20., that he might rescue Israel out of the hand of the Philistims, who opressed them; and in the second year of his Reign, the Philistims brought into the field against him thirty thousand chariots, and six thousand horsemen, and people as the sand which is on the sea shore for multitude: the Canaanites had their horses from Egypt; and yet in the days of Moses all the chariots of Egypt, with which Pharaoh pursued Israel, were but six hundred, Exod. xiv. 7. From the great army of the Philistims against Saul, and the great number of their horses, I seem to gather that the Shepherds had newly relinquished Egypt; and joyned them: the Shepherds might be beaten and driven out of the greatest part of Egypt, and shut up in Abaris by Misphragmuthosis in the latter end of the days of Eli; and some of them fly to the Philistims, and strengthen them against Israel, in the last year of Eli; and from the Phi listims 168listims some of the Shepherds might go to Zidon, and from Zidon, by sea to Asia minor and Greece: and afterwards, in the beginning of the Reign of Saul, the Shepherds who still remained in Egypt might be forced by Tethmosis or Amosis, the son of Misphragmuthosis, to leave Abaris, and retire in very great numbers to the Philistims; and upon these occasions several of them, as Pelasgus, Inachus, Lelex, Cecrops, and Abas, might come with their people by sea from Egypt to Zidon and Cyprus, and thence to Asia minor and Greece, in the days of Eli, Samuel and Saul, and thereby begin to open a commerce by sea between Zidon and Greece, before the revolt of Edom from Judæa, and the final coming of the Phœnicians from the Red Sea.
Pelasgus Reigned in Arcadia, and was the father of Lycaon, according to Pherecydes Atheniensis, and Lycaon died just before the flood of Deucalion; and therefore his father Pelasgus might come into Greece about two Generations before Cadmus, or in the latter end of the days of Eli: Lycaon sacrificed children, and therefore his father might come with his people from the Shepherds in Egypt, and perhaps from the regions of Heliopolis, where they sacrificed men, 'till Amosis abolished that custom. Misphragmuthosis the father of Amosis, drove the Shepherds out169out of a great part of Egypt, and shut the remainder up in Abaris: and then great numbers might escape to Greece; some from the regions of Heliopolis under Pelasgus, and others from Memphis and other places, under other Captains: and hence it might come to pass that the Pelasgians were at the first very numerous in Greece, and spake a different language from the Greek, and were the ringleaders in bringing into Greece the worship of the dead.
Inachus is called the son of Oceanus, perhaps because he came to Greece by sea: he might come with his people to Argos from Egypt in the days of Eli, and seat himself upon the river Inachus, so named from him, and leave his territories to his sons Phoroneus, Ægialeus, and Phegeus, in the days of Samuel: for Car the son of Phoroneus built a Temple to Ceres in Megara, and therefore was contemporary to Erechtheus. Phoroneus Reigned at Argos, and Aegialeus at Sicyon, and founded those Kingdoms; and yet Ægialeus is made above five hundred years older than Phoroneus by some Chronologers: but Clem. Al. Strom. 1. p. 321. Acusilaus, Plin. l. 7. Anticlides and Plato in Timæo. Plato, accounted Phoroneus the oldest King in Greece, and Apollodor. l. 3. c. 1. Apollodorus tells us, Ægialeus was the brother of Phoroneus. Ægialeus died without issue, and after him Reigned Europs, Telchin, Apis, Lamedon, Sicyon, Polybus, Adrastus, and Aga- 170Agamemnon, &c. and Sicyon gave his name to the Kingdom: Herodotus Herod. l. 2. saith that Apis in the Greek Tongue is Epaphus; and Hyginus, Hygin. Fab. 7. that Epaphus the Sicyonian got Antiopa with child: but the later Greeks have made two men of the two names Apis and Epaphus or Epopeus, and between them inserted twelve feigned Kings of Sicyon, who made no wars, nor did any thing memorable, and yet Reigned five hundred and twenty years, which is, one with another, above forty and three years a-piece. If these feigned Kings be rejected, and the two Kings Apis and Epopeus be reunited; Ægialeus will become contemporary to his brother Phoroneus, as he ought to be; for Apis or Epopeus, and Nycteus the guardian of Labdacus, were slain in battle about the tenth year of Solomon, as above; and the first four Kings of Sicyon, Ægialeus, Europs, Telchin, Apis, after the rate of about twenty years to a Reign, take up about eighty years; and these years counted upwards from the tenth year of Solomon, place the beginning of the Reign of Ægialeus upon the twelfth year of Samuel, or thereabout: and about that time began the Reign of Phoroneus at Argos; Apollodorus Apollodor. l. 3. c. 6. calls Adrastus King of Argos; but Homer Homer. Il. Γ. vers 572. tells us, that he Reigned first at Sicyon: he was in the first war against Thebes. Some place Janiscus and171and Phæstus between Polybus and Adrastus, but without any certainty.
Lelex might come with his people into Laconia in the days of Eli, and leave his territories to his sons Myles, Eurotas, Cleson, and Polycaon in the days of Samuel. Myles set up a quern, or handmill to grind corn, and is reputed the first among the Greeks who did so: but he flourished before Triptolemus, and seems to have had his corn and artificers from Egypt. Eurotas the brother, or as some say the son of Myles, built Sparta, and called it after the name of his daughter Sparta, the wife of Lacedæmon, and mother of Eurydice. Cleson was the father of Pylas, the father of Sciron, who married the daughter of Pandion the son of Erechtheus, and contended with Nisus the son of Pandion and brother of Ægeus, for the Kingdom; and Æacus adjudged it to Nisus. Polycaon invaded Messene, then peopled only by villages, called it Messene after the name of his wife, and built cities therein.
Cecrops came from Sais in Egypt to Cyprus, and thence into Attica: and he might do this in the days of Samuel, and marry Agraule the daughter of Actæus, and succeed him in Attica soon after, and leave his Kingdom to Cranaus in the Reign of Saul, or in the beginning of172of the Reign of David: for the flood of Deucalion happened in the Reign of Cranaus.
Of about the same age with Pelasgus, Inachus, Lelex, and Actæus, was Ogyges: he Reigned in Bœotia, and some of his people were Leleges: and either he or his son Eleusis built the city Eleusis in Attica, that is, they built a few houses of clay, which in time grew into a city. Acusilaus wrote that Phoroneus was older than Ogyges, and that Ogyges flourished 1020 years before the first Olympiad, as above; but Acusilaus was an Argive, and feigned these things in honour of his country: to call things Ogygian has been a phrase among the ancient Greeks, to signify that they are as old as the first memory of things; and so high we have now carried up the Chronology of the Greeks. Inachus might be as old as Ogyges, but Acusilaus and his followers made them seven hundred years older than the truth; and Chronologers, to make out this reckoning, have lengthened the races of the Kings of Argos and Sicyon, and changed several contemporary Princes of Argos into successive Kings, and inserted many feigned Kings into the race of the Kings of Sicyon.
Inachus had several sons, who Reigned in several parts of Peloponnesus, and there built Towns; as Phoroneus, who built Phoronicum, afterwards called173called Argos, from Argus his grandson; Ægialeus, who built Ægialea, afterwards called Sicyon, from Sicyon the grandson of Erechtheus; Phegeus, who built Phegea, afterwards called Psophis, from Psophis the daughter of Lycaon: and these were the oldest towns in Peloponnesus: then Sisyphus, the son of Æolus and grandson of Hellen, built Ephyra, afterwards called Corinth; and Aëthlius, the son of Æolus, built Elis: and before them Cecrops built Cecropia, the cittadel of Athens; and Lycaon built Lycosura, reckoned by some the oldest town in Arcadia; and his sons, who were at least four and twenty in number, built each of them a town; except the youngest, called Oenotrus, who grew up after his father's death, and sailed into Italy with his people, and there set on foot the building of towns, and became the Janus of the Latines. Phoroneus had also several children and grand-children, who Reigned in several places, and built new towns, as Car, Apis, &c. and Hæmon, the son of Pelasgus, Reigned in Hæmonia, afterwards called Thessaly, and built towns there. This division and subdivision has made great confusion in the history of the first Kingdoms of Peloponnesus, and thereby given occasion to the vain-glorious Greeks, to make those kingdoms much older than they really were: but by all the reckonings above-174abovementioned, the first civilizing of the Greeks, and teaching them to dwell in houses and towns, and the oldest towns in Europe, could scarce be above two or three Generations older than the coming of Cadmus from Zidon into Greece; and might most probably be occasioned by the expulsion of the Shepherds out of Egypt in the days of Eli and Samuel, and their flying into Greece in considerable numbers: but it's difficult to set right the Genealogies and Chronology of the Fabulous Ages of the Greeks, and I leave these things to be further examined.
Before the Phœnicians introduced the Deifying of dead men, the Greeks had a Council of Elders in every town for the government thereof, and a place where the elders and people worshipped their God with Sacrifices: and when many of those towns, for their common safety, united under a common Council, they erected a Prytaneum or Court in one of the towns, where the Council and People met at certain times, to consult their common safety, and worship their common God with sacrifices, and to buy and sell: the towns where these Councils met, the Greeks called δημοι, peoples or communities, or Corporation Towns: and at length, when many of these δημοι for their common175common safety united by consent under one common Council, they erected a Prytaneum in one of the δημοι for the common Council and People to meet in, and to consult and worship in, and feast, and buy, and sell; and this δημος they walled about for its safety, and called την πολιν the city: and this I take to have been the original of Villages, Market-Towns, Cities, common Councils, Vestal Temples, Feasts and Fairs, in Europe: the Prytaneum, πυρος ταμειον, was a Court with a place of worship, and a perpetual fire kept therein upon an Altar for sacrificing: from the word ‛Εστια, fire, came the name Vesta, which at length the people turned into a Goddess, and so became fire-worshippers like the ancient Persians: and when these Councils made war upon their neighbours, they had a general commander to lead their armies, and he became their King.
So Thucydides Thucyd. l. 2. p. 110. & Plutarch. in Theseo. tells us, that under Cecrops and the ancient Kings, untill Theseus; Attica was always inhabited city by city, each having Magistrates and Prytanea: neither did they consult the King, when there was no fear of danger, but each apart administred their own common-wealth, and had their own Council, and even sometimes made war, as the Eleusinians with Eumolpus did against Erechtheus: but 176but when Theseus, a prudent and potent man obtained the Kingdom, he took away the Courts and Magistrates of the other cities, and made them all meet in one Council and Prytaneum at Athens. Polemon, as he is cited by Strabo. l. 9. p. 396. Strabo, tells us, that in this body of Attica, there were 170 δημοι, one of which was Eleusis: and Philochorus Apud Strabonem, l. 9. p. 397. relates, that when Attica was infested by sea and land by the Cares and Bœoti, Cecrops the first of any man reduced the multitude, that is the 170 towns, into twelve cities, whose names were Cecropia, Tetrapolis, Epacria, Decelia, Eleusis, Aphydna, Thoricus, Brauron, Cytherus, Sphettus, Cephissia, and Phalerus; and that Theseus contracted those twelve cities into one, which was Athens.
The original of the Kingdom of the Argives was much after the same manner: for Pausanias Pausan. l. 2. c. 15. tells us, that Phoroneus the son of Inachus was the first who gathered into one community the Argives, who 'till then were scattered, and lived every where apart; and the place where they were first assembled was called Phoronicum, the city of Phoroneus: and Strabo Strabo. l. 8. p. 337. observes, that Homer calls all the places which he reckons up in Peloponnesus, a few excepted, not cities but regions, because each of them consisted of a convention of many δημοι, free towns177towns, out of which afterward noble cities were built and frequented: so the Argives composed Mantinæa in Arcadia out of five towns, and Tegea out of nine; and out of so many was Heræa built by Cleombrotus, or by Cleonymus: so also Ægium was built out of seven or eight towns, Patræ: out of seven, and Dyme out of eight; and so Elis was erected by the conflux of many towns into one city.
Pausanias Pausan. l. 8. c. 1. 2. tells us, that the Arcadians accounted Pelasgus the first man, and that he was their first King; and taught the ignorant people to built houses, for defending themselves from heat, and cold, and rain: and to make them garments of skins; and instead of herbs and roots, which were sometimes noxious, to eat the acorns of the beech tree; and that his son Lycaon built the oldest city in all Greece: he tells us also, that in the days of Lelex the Spartans lived in villages apart. The Greeks therefore began to build houses and villages in the days of Pelasgus the father of Lycaon, and in the days of Lelex the father of Myles, and by consequence about two or three Generations before the Flood of Deucalion, and the coming of Cadmus; 'till then Plin. l. 7. c. 56. they lived in woods and caves of the earth. The first houses were of clay, 'till the brothers Euryalus and Hyperbius taught178taught them to harden the clay into bricks, and to build therewith. In the days of Ogyges, Pelasgus, Æzeus, Inachus and Lelex, they began to build houses and villages of clay, Doxius the son of Cœlus teaching them to do it; and in the days of Lycaon, Phoroneus, Ægialeus, Phegeus, Eurotas, Myles, Polycaon, and Cecrops, and their sons, to assemble the villages into δημοι, and the δημοι into cities.
When Oenotrus the son of Lycaon carried a Colony into Italy, he Dionys. l. 1. p. 10. found that country for the most part uninhabited; and where it was inhabited, peopled but thinly: and seizing a part of it, he built towns in the mountains, little and numerous, as above: these towns were without walls; but after this Colony grew numerous, and began to want room, they expelled the Siculi, compassed many cities with walls, and became possest of all the territory between the two rivers Liris and Tibre: and it is to be understood that those cities had their Councils and Prytanea after the manner of the Greeks: for Dionysius Dionys. l. 2. p. 126. tells us, that the new Kingdom of Rome, as Romulus left it, consisted of thirty Courts or Councils, in thirty towns, each with the sacred fire kept in the Prytaneum of the Court, for the Senators who met there to perform Sacred Rites, after the manner179manner of the Greeks: but when Numa the successor of Romulus Reigned, he leaving the several fires in their own Courts, instituted one common to them all at Rome: whence Rome was not a compleat city before the days of Numa.
When navigation was so far improved that the Phœnicians began to leave the sea-shore, and sail through the Mediterranean by the help of the stars, it may be presumed that they began to discover the islands of the Mediterranean, and for the sake of trafic to sail as far as Greece: and this was not long before they carried away Io, the daughter of Inachus, from Argos. The Cares first infested the Greek seas with piracy, and then Minos the son of Europa got up a potent fleet, and sent out Colonies: for Diodorus Diodor l. 5. p. 224. 225. 240. tells us, that the Cyclades islands, those near Crete, were at first desolate and uninhabited; but Minos having a potent fleet, sent many Colonies out of Crete, and peopled many of them; and particularly that the island Carpathus was first seized by the soldiers of Minos: Syme lay waste and desolate 'till Triops came thither with a Colony under Chthonius: Strongyle or Naxus was first inhabited by the Thracians in the days of Boreas, a little before the Argonautic Expedition: Samos was at first desert, and inhabited only180only by a great multitude of terrible wild beasts, 'till Macareus peopled it, as he did also the islands Chius and Cos. Lesbos lay waste and desolate 'till Xanthus sailed thither with a Colony: Tenedos lay desolate 'till Tennes, a little before the Trojan war, sailed thither from Troas. Aristæus, who married Autonoe the daughter of Cadmus, carried a Colony from Thebes into Cæa, an island not inhabited before: the island Rhodes was at first called Ophiusa, being full of serpents, before Phorbas, a Prince of Argos, went thither, and made it habitable by destroying the serpents, which was about the end of Solomon's Reign; in memory of which he is delineated in the heavens in the Constellation of Ophiuchus. The discovery of this and some other islands made a report that they rose out of the Sea: in Asia Delos emersit, & Hiera, & Anaphe, & Rhodus, saith Ammian. l. 17. c. 7. Ammianus: and Plin. l. 2. c. 87. Pliny; claræ jampridem insulæ, Delos & Rhodos memoriæ produntur enatæ, postea minores, ultra Melon Anaphe, inter Lemnum & Hellespontum Nea, inter Lebedum & Teon Halone, &c.
Diodorus Diodor. l. 5. p. 202. 204. tells us also, that the seven islands called Æolides, between Italy and Sicily, were desert and uninhabited 'till Lipparus and Æolus, a little before the Trojan war, went thither from Italy, and peopled them: and that Malta and Gaulus or Gaudus on the other side of Sicily, were181were first peopled by Phœnicians; and so was Madera without the Straits: and Homer writes that Ulysses found the Island Ogygia covered with wood, and uninhabited, except by Calypso and her maids, who lived in a cave without houses; and it is not likely that Great Britain and Ireland could be peopled before navigation was propagated beyond the Straits.
The Sicaneans were reputed the first inhabitants of Sicily: they built little Villages or Towns upon hills, and every Town had its own King; and by this means they spread over the country, before they formed themselves into larger governments with a common King: Philistus Apud Diodor. l. 5. p. 201. saith that they were transplanted into Sicily from the River Sicanus in Spain; and Dionysius Dionys. l. 1. p. 17., that they were a Spanish people who fled from the Ligures in Italy; he means the Ligures Dionys. l. 1. p. 33. 34. who opposed Hercules when he returned from his expedition against Geryon in Spain, and endeavoured to pass the Alps out of Gaul into Italy. Hercules that year got into Italy, and made some conquests there, and founded the city Croton; and Dionys. ib. after winter, upon the arrival of his fleet from Erythra in Spain, sailed to Sicily, and there left the Sicani: for it was his custom to recruit his army with conquered people, and after they had assisted him in making182ing new conquests to reward them with new seats: this was the Egyptian Hercules, who had a potent fleet, and in the days of Solomon sailed to the Straits, and according to his custom set up pillars there, and conquered Geryon, and returned back by Italy and Sicily to Egypt, and was by the ancient Gauls called Ogmius, and by Egyptians Ptol. Hephæst. l. 2. Nilus: for Erythra and the country of Geryon were without the Straits. Dionysius Dionys. l. 2. p. 34. represents this Hercules contemporary to Evander.
The first inhabitants of Crete, according to Diodorus Diodor. l. 5. p. 230. were called Eteocretans; but whence they were, and how they came thither, is not said in history: then sailed thither a Colony of Pelasgians from Greece; and soon after Teutamus, the grandfather of Minos, carried thither a Colony of Dorians from Laconia, and from the territory of Olympia in Peloponnesus: and these several Colonies spake several languages, and fed on the spontaeous fruits of the earth, and lived quietly in caves and huts, 'till the invention of iron tools, in the days of Asterius the son of Teutamus; and at length were reduced into one Kingdom, and one People, by Minos, who was their first law-giver, and built many towns and ships, and introduced plowing and sowing, and in whose days the Curetes conquered his father's friends in Crete and Peloponnesus. The Curetes 183Curetes Ister apud Porphyr. abst. l. 2. s. 56. sacrificed children to Saturn and according to Bochart Bochart. Canaan. l. 1. c. 15. were Philistims; and Eusebius saith that Crete had its name from Cres, one of the Curetes who nursed up Jupiter: but whatever was the original of the island, it seems to have been peopled by Colonies which spake different languages, 'till the days of Asterius and Minos, and might come thither two or three Generations before, and not above, for want of navigation in those seas.
The island Cyprus was discovered by the Phœnicians not long before; for Eratosthenes Apud Strabonem. lib. 14. p. 684. tells us, that Cyprus was at first so overgrown with wood that it could not be tilled, and that they first cut down the wood for the melting of copper and silver, and afterwards when they began to sail safely upon the Mediterranean, that is, presently after the Trojan war, they built ships and even navies of it: and when they could not thus destroy the wood, they gave every man leave to cut down what wood he pleased, and to possess all the ground which he cleared of wood. So also Europe at first abounded very much with woods, one of which, called the Hercinian, took up a great part of Germany, being full nine days journey broad, and above forty long, in Julius Cæsar's days: and yet the Europeans had been cutting down their woods, to184to make room for mankind, ever since the invention of iron tools, in the days of Asterius and Minos.
All these footsteps there are of the first peopling of Europe, and its Islands, by sea; before those days it seems to have been thinly peopled from the northern coast of the Euxine-sea by Scythians descended from Japhet, who wandered without houses, and sheltered themselves from rain and wild beasts in thickets and caves of the earth; such as were the caves in mount Ida in Crete, in which Minos was educated and buried; the cave of Cacus, and the Catacombs in Italy near Rome and Naples, afterwards turned into burying-places; the Syringes and many other caves in the sides of the mountains of Egypt; the caves of the Troglodites between Egypt and the Red Sea, and those of the Phaurusii in Afric, mentioned by Strabo. l. 17. p. 828. Strabo; and the caves, and thickets, and rocks, and high places, and pits, in which the Israelites hid themselves from the Philistims in the days of Saul, 1 Sam. xiii. 6. But of the state of mankind in Europe in those days there is now no history remaining.
The antiquities of Libya were not much older than those of Europe; for Diodorus Diodor. l. 3. p. 132. tells us, that Uranus the father of Hyperion, and grandfather185father of Helius and Selene, that is Ammon the father of Sesac, was their first common King, and caused the people, who 'till then wandered up and down, to dwell in towns: and Herodotus Herod. l. 1. tells us, that all Media was peopled by δημοι, towns without walls, 'till they revolted from the Assyrians, which was about 267 years after the death of Solomon: and that after that revolt they set up a King over them, and built Ecbatane with walls for his seat, the first town which they walled about; and about 72 years after the death of Solomon, Benhadad King of Syria 1 King. xx.16. had two and thirty Kings in his army against Ahab: and when Joshuah conquered the land of Canaan, every city of the Canaanites had its own King, like the cities of Europe, before they conquered one another; and one of those Kings, Adonibezek, the King of Bezek, had conquered seventy other Kings a little before, Judg. i. 7. and therefore towns began to be built in that land not many ages before the days of Joshuah: for the Patriarchs wandred there in tents, and fed their flocks where-ever they pleased, the fields of Phœnicia not being yet fully appropriated, for want of people. The countries first inhabited by mankind, were in those days so thinly peopled, that Genes. xiv. Deut ii.9. 12. 19.- - -22. four Kings from the coasts of Shinar and Elam invaded and spoiled186spoiled the Rephaims, and the inhabitants of the countries of Moab, Ammon, Edom, and the Kingdoms of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboim; and yet were pursued and beaten by Abraham with an armed force of only 318 men, the whole force which Abraham and the princes with him could raise: and Egypt was so thinly peopled before the birth of Moses, that Pharaoh said of the Israelites; Exod. i.9. 22. behold the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we: and to prevent their multiplying and growing too strong, he caused their male children to be drowned.
These footsteps there are of the first peopling of the earth by mankind, not long before the days of Abraham; and of the overspreading it with villages, towns and cities, and their growing into Kingdoms, first Smaller and then greater, until the rise of the Monarchies of Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Media, Persia, Greece, and Rome, the first great Empires on this side India. Abraham was the fifth from Peleg, and all mankind lived together in Chaldea under the Government of Noah and his sons, untill the days of Peleg: so long they were of one language, one society, and one religion: and then they divided the earth, being perhaps, disturbed by the rebellion of Nimrod, and forced to leave off building187building the tower of Babel: and from thence they spread themselves into the several countries which fell to their shares, carrying along with them the laws, customs and religion, under which they had 'till those days been educated and governed, by Noah, and his sons and grandsons: and these laws were handed down to Abraham, Melchizedek, and Job, and their contemporaries, and for some time were observed by the judges of the eastern countries: so Job Job xxxi.11. tells us, that adultery was an heinous crime, yea an iniquity to be punished by the judges: and of idolatry he Job xxxi.26. saith, If I beheld the sun when it shined, or the moon walking in brightness, and my heart hath been secretly inticed, or my mouth hath kissed my hand, this also were an iniquity to be punished by the judge: for I should have denied the God that is above: and there being no dispute between Job and his friends about these matters, it may be presumed that they also with their countrymen were of the same religion. Melchizedek was a Priest of the most high God, and Abraham voluntarily paid tythes to him; which he would scarce have done had they not been of one and the same religion. The first inhabitants of the land of Canaan seem also to have been originally of the same religion, and to have continued in it 'till the death of Noah, and the days of188of Abraham; for Jerusalem was anciently 1 Chron. xi.4. 5. Judg. i.21. 2 Sam v.6. called Jebus, and its people Jebusites, and Melchizedek was their Priest and King: these nations revolted therefore after the days of Melchizedek to the worship of false Gods; as did also the posterity of Ismael, Esau, Moab, Ammon, and that of Abraham by Keturah: and the Israelites themselves were very apt to revolt: and one reason why Terah went from Ur of the Chaldees, to Haran in his way to the land of Canaan; and why Abraham afterward left Haran, and went into the land of Canaan, might be to avoid the worship of false Gods, which in their days began in Chaldea, and spread every way from thence; but did not yet reach into the land of Canaan. Several of the laws and precepts in which this primitive religion consisted are mentioned in the book of Job, chap. i. ver. 5, and chap, xxxi, viz. not to blaspheme God, nor to worship the Sun or Moon, nor to kill, nor steal, nor to commit adultery, nor trust in riches, nor oppress the poor or fatherless, nor curse your enemies, nor rejoyce at their misfortunes: but to be friendly, and hospitable and merciful, and to relieve the poor and needy, and to set up Judges. This was the morality and religion of the first ages, still called by the Jews, The precepts of the sons of Noah: this was the religion189ligion of Moses and the Prophets, comprehended in the two great commandments, of loving the Lord our God with all our heart and soul and mind, and our neighbour as our selves: this was the religion enjoyned by Moses to the uncircumcised stranger within the gates of Israel, as well as to the Israelites: and this is the primitive religion of both Jews and Christians, and ought to be the standing religion of all nations, it being for the honour of God, and good of mankind: and Moses adds the precept of being merciful even to brute beasts, so as not to suck out their blood, nor to cut off their flesh alive with the blood in it, nor to kill them for the sake of their blood, nor to strangle them; but in killing them for food, to let out their blood and spill it upon the ground, Gen. ix. 4, and Levit. xvii. 12, 13. This law was ancienter than the days of Moses, being given to Noah and his sons long before the days of Abraham: and therefore when the Apostles and Elders in the Council at Jerusalem declared that the Gentiles were not obliged to be circumcised and keep the law of Moses, they excepted this law of abstaining from blood, and things strangled as being an earlier law of God, imposed not on the sons of Abraham only, but on all nations, while they lived together in Shinar under190der the dominion of Noah: and of the same kind is the law of abstaining from meats offered to Idols or false Gods, and from fornication. So then, the believing that the world was framed by one supreme God, and is governed by him; and the loving and worshipping him, and honouring our parents, and loving our neighbour as our selves, and being merciful even to brute beasts, is the oldest of all religions: and the Original of letters, agriculture, navigation, music, arts and sciences, metals, smiths and carpenters, towns and houses, was not older in Europe than the days of Eli, Samuel and David; and before those days the earth was so thinly peopled, and so overgrown with woods, that mankind could not be much older than is represented in Scripture.