Chiron lived till the Argonautic Expedition & two of his grandchildren Selamon & Peleus were in that expedition, & therefore he might be then about 80 years old & so be born in the reign of Asterius & Europa, & not before. therefore the Cretan Saturn & Rhea were but one generation older then Chiron. Minos was that Iupiter who was famous among the Greeks for justice & dominion, & who according to Echemenes an ancient author cited by bb Athen. l. xiii. p. 601. Athenæus, committed the rape upon Ganimede. Lucian cc Lucian in Sacrificijs. tells us that the Cretans did not only relate that Iupiter was born & buried among them but also shewed his sepulchre. And Porphyrius dd Porphyr. in vita Pythag. that Pythagoras went down into the Idæan cave to see his sepulchre. And Cicero ee Cic. de nat. Deor. l. 3. in numbring three Iupiters saith that the third was the Cretan Iupiter Saturn's son whose sepulchre was shewn in Crete, & the Scholiast upon ff Ode 1 in Iovem v. 8. Callimachus lets us know that this was the sepulchre of Minos. ☉ ☉ Ejus verba sunt Ε᾽ν Κρήτη ἐπὶ τῷ τάφῳ τοῦ Μίνωος ἐπεγεγραπτο ΜÍΝΩΟΣ ΤΟΥ ΔΙΟΣ ΤΑΦΟΣ. τῶ χρόνῳ δὲ τὸ Μίνωος ἀπηλείφθη ὤστε περιλειφθ ῆναι, Διὸς τάφος. ἐκ τούτου, οὐκ ἔχειν λέγουσι Κρῆτες τὸν τάφον τοῦ Διός. By Saturn Cicero who was a Latine understood the Saturn so called by the Latines. For when Saturn was expelled his kingdome, he fled from Crete by sea into Italy. And because he lay hid in Italy the Latines called him Saturn & Italy Saturnia & Latium & themselves Latines. Antrum Iovis in Creta et SepulchumSepulchrum ejus ostenditur et ab eo fugatum esse Saturnum fugatum esse manifestum est; inde Latium de latebra ejus nomen accepit. Hic literas imprimere et signare nummos in Italia primus instituit. Cyprian. de Idolorum vanitate. By his carrying letters into Italy you may know that he reigned in Crete after letters were brought into Europe by the Phænicians, & so could not be older then Asterius & Europa. The Latines in memory of his coming into Italy by sea, coyned their first money with his head on one side & a ship on the other.

About the same time that the worship of Rhea & Saturn was instituted in Phrygia & Italy, the worship of Ceres was instituted in Attica & Samothrace. And from these originals it came there into fashion κτερίζειν parentare to celebrate the funerals of dead parents with festivals & invocations & sacrifices offered to their Ghosts, & to erect magnificent sepulchres in the form of temples with Altars & Statues to persons of renown, & there to honour them with sacrifices & invocations. Every man might do it to his ancestors & the Greeks did it to all the eminent Greeks, as to Minos & Rhadamanthus the nephews of Cadmus, to Ino his daughter & Melicertes the son of Ino, to Bacchus the son of his daughter Semele, Aristæus the husband of his daughter Autonoe, Iasion the brother of his wife Harmonia, Hercules the son of a Theban & his mother Alcmena, Æsculapius the son of Apollo or Orus, Machaon the son of Æsculapius & Palemocrates the son of Machaon; to Pandion & Theseus kings of Athens, Hippolytus the son of Theseus, Pan the son of Penelope, Proserpina, Triptolemus, Celeus, Trophonius, Castor, Pollux, Helena, Menelaus, Agamemnon, Amphiaraus & his son Amphilochus, Hector & Alexandra the son & daughter of Priam, Phoroneus, Orpheus, Protesilaus, Achilles & his mother Thetis, Ajax, Arcas, Idomeneus, Merion, Æacus, Melampus, Britomartis, Adrastus, Iolaus, & divers others. They deified their dead in divers manners according to their abilities & circumstances & the merits of the persons, some only in private families as houshold Gods or Dij penates, 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, & some by appointing mysteries & ceremonies & set sacrifices & festivals & initiations & a succession of Priests for observing & performing those institutions in the Temples & handing them down to posterity. Altars might begin to be erected in Europe a little before the days of Cadmus, but Temples began a little after. For aa Arnob. adv. Gentes l. 6. p. 191. Æacus the son of322r of Ægina, who was two generations older then the Trojan war, was one of the first, some say the first, who built a Temple in Greece. Oracles came into Greece about the same time, as did also the custome of forming the images of the Gods with their leggs bound up in the shape of the Egyptian mummies. But Idolatry began in Egypt & Chaldea & spread thence into the neighbouring countries long before it came into Europe. Such were The countries upon the Tigris & Nile being exceeding fertile were first frequented by mankind & grew first into kingdoms & thereupon first began to adore their dead Kings & Queens. Hence came the Gods of Laban, the Gods & Goddesses called Baalim & Asteroth by the Canaanites, the Dæmons or Ghosts of dead men to whom they sacrificed, & the Moloch to whom they offered their children in the days of Moses & the Iudges. Every city & kingdom set up the worship of its own kings & by alliances & conquest they spread this worship, & at length Sesostris by conquest spread the worship of the Gods of Egypt into all his conquests & made them more famous & universal then the Gods of any other kingdome had been before so as to be called Dij magni majorum gentium. He conquered Thrace & Amphictyon brought the twelve Gods from Thrace into Greece. By the names of the cities of Egypt dedicated to many of these Gods, & by their hieroglyphical symbols you may know that they were of an Egyptian original.]

For in those days the writing of the Thebans & Ethiopians was in hieroglyphicks. And this way of writing seems to have spread into the lower Egypt before the days of Moses. For thence came the worship of their Gods in the various shapes of birds beasts & fishes forbidden in the second commandment. Now this emblematical way of writing gave occasion to the Thebans & Ethiopians who in the days of Samuel David Solomon & Rhehobam conquered Egypt & the nations round about & erected a great Empire, to represent & signify their conquering Kings & Princes not by writing down their names but by making various hieroglyphical figures; as by painting Ammon with Ramms horns to signify the king who conquered Libya a country abounding with sheep, his father Amosis with a sith to signify that king who conquered the lower Egypt a country abounding with corn, his son Osiris by an Ox because he taught the conquered nations to plow with oxen, & Bacchus with bulls horns for the same reason, & with grapes because he taught the nations to plant vines & upon a Tiger because he subdued India; Orus the son of Osiris with a harp to signify the Prince who was eminently skilled on that instrument; Iupiter upon an Eagle to signify the sublimity of his dominion, & with a thunderbolt to represent him a warrior; Venus in a chariot drawn with two Doves to represent her amorous & lustfull; Neptune with a Trident to signify the commander of a fleet composed of three squadrons; Thoth with a dogs head & wings at his cap & feet & a Caduceus writhen about with two serpents to signify a man of craft & an Embassador who reconciled two contending nations; Pan with a pipe & the leggs of a Goat to signify a man delighted in piping and dancing; & Hercules with pillars & a club because Sesostris set up pillars in all his conquests & in the reign of his father Ammon fought against the Libyans333r Libyans with clubs. So aa Hygin. Fab. 274 Hyginus: Afri et Ægyptij primum fustibus dimicaverunt, postea Belus Neptuni filius gladio belligeratus est, unde bellum dictum. This is that Hercules who (according to bb Apud Athenæum l. ix. p. 392 Eudoxus) was slain by Typhos, & who (according to cc Ptol. l. 2. Ptolomæus Hephæstion) was called Nilus, & who conquered Gerion with his three sons in Spain & set up the famous pillars at the straits mouth called Hercules his pillars. For dd l. 3. pag. 145 Diodorus mentioning three Hercules, the Egyptian the Tyrian & the son of Alcmena, saith that the oldest was flourished among the Egyptians, & having conquered a great part of the world, set up the pillar in Afric. And ee Vas. Chron. Hispan. cap. 10. Vasæus: that Osiris called also Dionysius came from Egypt into Spain & conquered Gerion, & was the first who brought Idolatry into Spain. Strabo ff Strabo l. 16, p. 776 tells us that the Ethiopians called Megabares fought with clubs. And some of the Greeks did so till the times of the Trojan war. Now from this Hieroglyphical way of writing it came to pass that upon the division of Egypt into Nomes by Sesostris, the great men of the kingdom to whom the Nomes were dedicated were represented in their sepulchres, or Temples of the Nomes by various hieroglyphicks as by an Ox, a Cat, a Dog, a Cebus, a Goat, a Lyon, a Scarabæus, an Ichneumen, a Crocodile, a Hippopotamus, an Oxyrinchus, an Ibis, a Crow, a Hawke, a Leek, & were worshipped by the Nomes in the shape of these creatures.

1Pausanias aa Pausan. l. 4. c. 23 tells us that the Belus of the Babylonians had his name from Belus an Egyptian the son of Libye. 3This is that Belus the son of Libye who first made war with the sword & from whom war was called bellum, as above. 2And Ammianus ff Amm. l. 24. sub medio. that the ancient Belus built the Castel or Palace in Babylon.Pausanias a tells us that the Belus of the Babylonians had his name from Belus an Egyptian the son of Libye. And Ammianus f that the ancient Belus built the Castel or Palace in Babylon. This is that Belus the son of Libye who first made war with the sword & from whom war was called bellum, as above. Its probable therefore that Sesac left a colony at Babylon wchwhich after his death set up his worship there under the name of Belus & erected to him the Palace & the Temple of Belus on the east side of the river Euphrates. And this is confirmed by the name of Sesac bb Ier. 25.26 & 51.41. sometimes given to Babylon in Scripture, & by this kings cc Plin. l. 6. c. 26. setting on foot the observation of the stars at Babylon, a study which began in Egypt by in the reign of his father Ammon & was propagated from thence in his own reign into Afric Europe & Asia by conquest. For the sphere of the Greeks being was formed by Chiron & that of the Libyans by Atlas a little before the Argonautic Expedition. & the sphere of the Chaldeans might be as ancient as their Astronomy that is, about the same time that Belus set on foot Astronomy at Babylon. The Temple of this Belus was a square building of two furlongs on each side encompassing a square court & had in the middle of the court a Pyramid or solid Tower a furlong square & a furlong high with seven retractions which made it appear like eight Towers standing upon one another, & in the eighth Tower was a Chappel with a bed & a golden Table kept by a woman after the manner of the Egyptians in the Temple of Iupiter Ammon at Thebes. They went up to the top of it by steps on the out side & there observed the stars. The Babylonians imitated the Egyptians also in their sacred rites344r rites & mysteries & immunity of their Priests from taxes & in the form of their Astronomical year. All which were remains of an Egyptian dominion in Chaldea. For the Egyptians reigned over Susa in the neighbourhood of Chaldea till after the times of the Trojan war.

Diodor. l. 3. c. 4.The Atlantides related that Ouranus was their first king & reduced them from a salvage course of life & caused them to dwell in towns & cities & to use & lay up the fruits of the earth & that he reigned over a great part of the world & by his wife Titæa had eighteen children among which were Hyperion & Basilea the parents of Helio & Selene; that the brother of Hyperion slew him & drowned his son Helio in the Nile, & divided his kingdom amongst themselves; & the country bordering upon the ocean fell by lot to Atlas, from whom the people were called Atlantides. By Vranus Hyperion, Basilea, Helio & Selene I understand Ammon, Osiris, Isis, Orus and Bubaste. And by the sharing of the kingdom of Hyperion among his brothers the Titans, I understand the division of the earth among the Gods mentioned in the poem of Solon.

For Solon having travelled into Egypt & conversed with the Priests of Sais about their antiquities, wrote a poem of what he had learnt, but did not finish it. And this Poem fell into the hands of Plato,Plato in Timæo et Critia. out of it that at the mouth of the straits near Hercules pillars, there was an island called Atlantis, the people of which nine thousand years before the days of Solon reigned over Libya as far as Egypt & over Europe as far as the Tyrrhene sea. And all this force collaected into bodyone body invaded Egypt & Greece & whatever was conteined within the pillars of Hercules but was resisted & stopt by the Athenians & other Greeks, & thereby the rest of the nations not yet conquered, were preserved. He saith also that in those days the Gods [having finished their conquests] divided the whole earth amongst themselves partly into larger partly into smaller portions & instituted Temples & sacred rites to themselves, & that the island of Al Atlantis fell to the lot of Neptune who made his eldest son Atlas king of the whole island, a part of which was called Gadir, & that in the history of the said wars mention was made of Cecrops, Erechtheus Erechthonius, Erisichthon & others before Theseus, & also of the weomen who warred with the men & of the habit & statue of Minerva, the study of war in those days being common to men & weomen. By all these circumstances it is manifest that these Gods were the Dij magni majorum gentium & lived between the age of Cecrops & Erechtheus Theseus, & that the wars which Sesostris made upon the nations by sea & land & the resistance he met with in Greece, & the following invasion of Egypt by Neptune, are here described, & how the captains of Sesostris shared his conquests amongst themselves as the captains of Alexander the great did his conquests long after: & instituting Temples & Priests & sacred rites to themselves caused the nations to worship them after death as Gods: & that the island Gadir or Gades with all Libya as far as Egypt fell to the lot of him who after death was deified by the name of Neptune. For in that island HomerHomer. Odyss. 1 & 5. places Calypso the daughter of Atlas presently after the Trojan war, when Vlysses being shipwrackt escaped thither. Homer calls it the Ogygian island, & places it 18 or 20 days sail westward from Pheacia or Corcyra: & so many35345r so many days sail Gades is from Corscyra, recconing with the ancients a thousand stadia to a days sail. This island is by Homer described a small one destitute of shipping & cities & inhabited only by Calypso & her weomen who dwelt in a cave in the midst of a wood, there being no men in the island to assist Vlysses in building a ship new ship, & to accompany him thence. And the time when the Gods made war & shared the earth & caused themselves to be worshipped as Gods, is by Solon limited to the age of Neptune the father of Atlas & grandfather of Calypso, & so was but two generations before the destruction of Troy. This is that Neptune who with Apollo or Orus, fortified Troy with a wall in the reign of Laomedon the father of Priamus, & left many natural children in Greece some of which were Argonauts & others were contemporary to the Argonauts; & therefore he flourished one generation before the Argonautic Expedition, & by consequence about 400 years before Solon went into Egypt. But the Priests of Egypt in those 400 years had magnified the stories & antiquity of their Gods so exceedingly as to make them nine thousand years older then Solon, & the island of Atlantis bigger then all Afric & Asia together, & full of people. And because in the days of Solon this great island did not appear they pretended that it was sunk into the sea with all its people. Thus great was the vanity of the Priests of Egypt in magnifying their antiquities.

The Cretans affirmed aa Apud Diodor l. 5. c. 4. that Neptune was the first man who set out a fleet having obteined this Prefecture of Saturn [the father of Iupiter Neptune & Pluto] whence posterity recconed things done in the sea to be under his government, & mariners honoured him with sacrifices. The invention of tall ships with sails pp Pamphus apud Pausan. l. 7. c. 21. is also ascribed to him. He was first worshipped in Afric as Herodotus bb Herod. l. 2. c. 50 affirms, & therefore reigned over that province. For his eldest son Atlas who succeeded him, was not only lord of the island Atlantis, but also reigned over a great part of Afric giving his name to the people called Atlantij & to the mountain Atlas & the Atlantic ocean. The cc Plutarch in Iside outmost parts of the earth & promontories & whatever bordered upon the sea & was washed by it, the Egyptians called Neptys, & on the coasts of Marmorica & Cyrene Bochart & Arius Montanus place the Naphtuim, a people sprung from Misraim Gen. 10.13. And thence Neptune & his wife Neptys might have their names, the words Neptune, Neptys & Naphtuim signifying the king queen & people of the sea coasts. He & his son Atlas are celebrated for making in the ancient fables for making war upon the Gods of Egypt: as where Lucian dd Lucian de saltatione saith that Corinth being full of fables tells the fight of Sol & Neptune, that is of Apollo & Python or Orus & Typhon; & where Agatharcides ff Agatharc. apud Photium. relates how the Gods of Egypt fled from the Giants till the Titans came in & saved them by putting Neptune to flight; & where gg Hygin. Fab. 150 Hyginus tells the war between the Gods of Egypt & the Titans commanded by Atlas. The Titans are the posterity of Titæa some of which under Hercules assisted the Gods, others under Neptune & Atlas warred against them: for which reason, saith hh Plutarch in Iside. Plutarch, the Priests of Egypt abominated the sea & had Neptune in no honour. By Hercules I understand here the General of the forces of Thebais & Ethiopia whom the Gods or great men of Egypt called to their assistance against the Giants or great men of Libya who had slain Osiris & invaded Egypt. For ii Diodor. l. 1. c. 1 p. 10. Diodorus saith that when Osiris made his expedition over the world, he left his kinsman Hercules General of his forces over all his dominions, & Antæus governour366r governour of Libya & Ethiopia. Antæus reigned over all Afric to the Atlantic ocean & built Tingis or Tangiers. PindarPindar. Pyth. Ode 9. tells us that he reigned at Irasa a town of Libya where Cyrene was afterwards built. He invaded Ægypt & Thebais: for he was beaten by Hercules & the Ægyptians near Antæa or Antæopolis a town of Thebais, & DiodorusDiodor. l. 1. p. 12 tells us that this town had its name from Antæus whom Hercules slew in the age of Osiris. Hercules overthrew him several times & every time he grew stronger by recruits from Libya his mother earth. But Hercules at length intercepted his recruits & slew him & took the Libyan world from his successor Atlas, & & made Atlas pay tribute out of his golden Orchard the kingdom of Libya. Whence its probable that Antæus was one of the names of Neptune the father of Atlas & Neptune the name by which Antæus was deified. For it was usual in those days to deify men by new names. So sesacSesac was deified in several countries by the several names of Osiris, Bacchus, Dionysus, Belus, Mars & Hercules; Ino & her son Melicertes by the names of Leucothea & Palæmon; Thoas Calycopis & Gingris by the names of Vulcan Venus & Adonis; Alcæus the son of Alcmena by the name of Hercules; the son of Semele by the name of Bacchus; & Romulus by the name of Quirinus. Some tell us that Antæus was the son of Neptune, but in his age dominion & actions he seems to agree with Neptune himself, unless you say that he governed Afric by land while Neptune commanded at sea. The invasion of Egypt by Antæus Ovid has relation unto where he makes Hercules say – Sævoque alimenta parentis Antæo eripui. But Hercules intercepted his recruits & at length slew him. In these wars Hercules took the Libyan world from Atlas & made Atlas pay tribute out of his golden Orchard the kingdom of Afric. Antæus & Atlas were both of them sons of Neptune, both of them reigned over all Libya & Afric between mount Atlas & the Mediterranean to the very Ocean, both of them invaded Ægypt & contended with Hercules in the wars of the Gods: & therefore they are but two names of one & the same man. And even the name Atlas in the oblique cases seems to have been compounded of the name Antæus & some other word put before it. The invasion of Egypt by Antæus Ovid hath relation unto where he makes Hercules say – sævoque alimenta parentis Antæo eripui. This war was at length composed by the intervention of Mercury who in memory thereof was said to reconcile two contending serpents by casting his Embassadors rod between them. And thus much concerning the ancient state of Egypt Libya & Greece described by Solon.

During the reign of Sesac Ieroboam being in subjection to Egypt set up the Gods of Egypt in Dan & Bethel, & Israel was without a teaching Priest, & without law, & the nations were in great adversity. For in those times there was no peace to him that went out nor to him that went in came in but great vexations were upon all the inhabitants of the countries. And nation was destroyed of nation & city of city: for God did vex them sore. 2 Chron. xv.3, 5, 6. But in the fift year of Asa the land of Iudah became quiet from war & had quiet ten years, & Asa took away the Altars of strange Gods & brake down the images & built the fenced cities of Iudah with walls & towers & gates & barrs having rest on every side, & got up an army of 580000 men with which in the 15th year of his reign he met Zerah the Ethiopian who came out against him with an army of a thousand thousand Ethiopians & Libyans. The way of the Libyans was through Egypt, & therefore Zerah was now lord of Egypt. They fought at Maresha near Gerar between Egypt & Iudea, & Zerah was beaten so that he could not recover himself. And from all this I seem to gather that Osiris or Sesac was slain in the fift year of Asa, & thereupon Egypt fell into civil wars, being invaded by the Libyans & defended by the Ethiopians for a time, & afterwards becoming subject to the Ethiopians who slew Orus the son & successor of Sesac, drowning him in the Nile, & seized his kingdome. By these civil wars of Egypt the land of Iudah had rest ten years. Sesostris reigned long, Manetho saith 48 years, & therefore377r therefore he began his reign about the 17th year of Solomon or not long after & his son Orus was drowned & Egypt subdued by the Ethiopians before the 15th year of Asa. For PlinyPlin. l. 6. c. 29. tells us: Ægyptiorum bellis attrita est. Æthiopia vicissim imperitando serviendoque clara et potens, etiam usque ad Trojana bella Memnone regnante. Ethiopia might reign over the upper part of Egypt as far as Thebes till Ammon or his father or grandfather conquered it: for Homer places Thebes in Ethiopia. Then it served Ægypt till the death of Sesac & no longer: for HerodotusHerod. l. 2. c. 110 tells us that he alone enjoyed the Empire of Ethiopia. Then the Ethiopians by the death of their Governour Hercules became free & under Zerah became lords of Egypt & Libya.

When Asa by his victory over Zerah became safe from Egypt, he assembled all the people & they offered sacrifices out of the spoiles, & entred into a covenant upon oath to seek the Lord; & lieu of the vessels taken away by Sesac he brought into the house of the Lord the things which he & his father had dedicated, the gold & the silver & the vessels. 2 Chron. 15.

When Zerah was beaten so that he could not recover himself the aa Manetho apud Ioseph. cont. Apion. p. 1052, 1053. people of the lower Egypt revolted from the Ethiopians, called in to their assistance 200000 Iews, & under the conduct of one Osarsiphus a Priest of Egypt caused the Ethiopians, now under Memnon, to retire to Memphys, where he turned the river into a new channel, built a bridge over it, & fortified that pass, & then went back into Æthiopia, But after 13 years Memnon with his young son Ramesses came down with an army from Ethiopia, conquered the lower Egypt, & drove out the Iews. And this action the Egyptian writers & their followers call the second expulsion of the shepherds, taking Osarsiphus for Moses. Manetho saith that the shepherds kept Egypt 513 years. Count backwards those years from the expulsion of the Iews, & the kingdom of the shepherds in Egypt will begin about six or eight years after the expulsion of the Canaanites by Ioshua.

Tithonus a beautifull youth the elder brother of Priam went into Ethiopia; being carried thither, I think, among many captives by Sesostris: & the Greeks before the days of Hesiod feigned that Memnon was his son. Memnon therefore in the opinion of those ancient Greeks feigned that he was one generation younger than Tithonus & was born after the return of Sesostris into Egypt. He is said to have lived very long, & so might dye about 90 or 100 years after Solomon as we recconed above. His mother (called Cissia by Æschylus) in a statue erected to her in Egypt aa Diodor. l. 1. c. 4. p. 31. was represented the daughter the wife & the mother of a king, & therefore he was the son of a king: which makes it probable that Zerah whom he succeeded in the kingdom might be his father.

Herod. l. 2.Historians agree that Menes reigned in Egypt next after the Gods & built Memphys in the old channel of the Nile after he had turned the river. He built it over against the place where Gran Cairo now stands, called by the Arabian historians Mesir. He built only the body of the Temple of Vulcan & his successors Ramesses or Rhampsinitus, Mœris, Asychis, & Psammiticus built the western northern eastern & southern Porticos thereof. Psammiticus who built the last Portico of this Temple reigned three hundred years after the victory of Asa over Zerah, & it is not likely that this Temple could be above three hundred years in building, or388r or that any Menes could be king of all Egypt before the expulsion of the Shepherds. The last of the Gods of Egypt was Orus with his mother Isis & sister Bubaste & Secretary Thoth & Vnkle Typhon & the king who reigned next after all their deaths was Memnon or Amenophis called by the Egyptians Amenoph, & therefore he is Menes. For the names Amenoph or Menoph & Menes do not much differ. And from Amenoph the city Memphys said to be built by Menes had its Egyptian names Meph, Noph, Menoph or Menuf as it is still called by the Arabian historians. The fortifying of this place against Osarsiphus gave occasion to the building of it.

In the time of the revolt of the lower Egypt under Osarsiphus, & the retirement of Amenophis into Ethiopia, the Amphictyonic Council sent the flower of Greece in the ship Argo to Æetes, Prometheus, & other Princes on the coasts of the Euxine & the Mediterranean seas. ‡‡ In the time of the revolt of the lower Æypt under Osarsiphus, & the retirement of Amenophis into Æthiopia the Greeks built the ship Argo, & sent in it the flower of Greece to Æetes at Colchos & to many other Princes on the coasts of the Euxine & Mediterranean seas. And this ship was built after the pattern of an Egyptian ship with 50 oars in wchwhich Danaus with his 50 daughters a few years before came from Egypt into Greece, & was the first long ship with sails built by the Greeks. And such an improvement of navigation with a designe to send the flower of Greece to all the many Princes upon the sea coasts of the Euxine & Mediterranean seas, was too great an undertaking to be set on foot without the concurrence of the Princes & States of Greece & the approbation of the Amphictyonic Council This Council always met upon state affairs – – – This Council did not concern themselves in trifles. They always met upon state affairs for the welfare of Greece & therefore sent the Argonauts upon an Embassy to the said Princes, & for concealing their designs made the fable of the golden fleece. And probably their designe was to notify the distraction of Egypt to the said Princes & perswade them to take that opportunity to revolt & set up for themselves, And thus ended the great Empire of Egypt & make a league wthwhich the Greeks. ☉ For they policy ☉Strabo l. 1. p. 48.For they Argonauts went through the kingdom of Colchos by land to the Armenians & through Armenia to the Medes: which could not have been done if they had not made friendship with the nations through which they passed. They visited also Laomedon king of the Trojans, Phineus king of the Thracians, Cizicus king of the Doleans, Lycus king of the Mariandini, & the coasts of Mysia & Taurica Chersonesus Apollon. Argon. l. 4.& the nations upon the Tanais & the people about Byzantium & the coasts of Epire Corcyra Melita, Italy, Sicily, Sardinia & Gallia upon the Mediterranean & from thence they crossed the sea to AfricPindar. Pyth. Ode 4. & there conferred with Eurypylus King of Cyrene. And Strabo tells usStrabo l. 1. p. 21, 45, 46. that in Armenia & Media & the neighbouring places there were frequent monuments of the Expedition of Iason, as also about Sinope & its sea-coasts & Propontis & the Hellespont & in the Mediterranean. And a message of the Amphictyonic Council sent by the flower of Greece to soo many nations could be on no other account then state policy. And we hear no more of any of these nations being subject to Egypt