30 C HRONOLOGY-

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Cha-ter years older than the firft olympiad; which is above 680 yearsolder than the trutk : and to make out this reckoning, his fol-lowers have encreafed the reignsof kings in length and num-Py!hi* Ch ’ de ^ er * flutareh a telis us, that the philofophers anciently deli-Oracuiis.tom. vered their opinions in verfe; as Orpheus, Hefiod, Parmenides,' p ' 4 ° 2 ' Xenophanes, Empedocles, Thales; but afterwards left off theuse ot' verses; and that Ariftarehus, Timoeharis, Ariftillus, tlip-parchus, did not make aftronomy the more contemptible, by de-scribi ng it in prose, aster Euxodus, Heliod, and Thales, hadb Piutarch.in wrote of k in verfe. Solon wrote b in verfe ; and ali the Seven«• ApUifiXog! Wife Men were addicledto poetry, as (') Anaximenes c affirmed.Thaietlwn). Till tliofe days ( 3 ) the Greeks wrote only in verfe; and while they

1. p. 24.

d Hin. nat.hili. I. 7.c. 55.

* ,Ib. 1. 5.

c. 29.

f Cont. A-

wiit?Hudion.' were b.ut a little before the expedition of the Perfians againft the

Greeks :

at Argos; but not for the nnmberof years, between'Ogyges and the firft olympiad. This AfricanusJecms to have dctermined for himfeif, and he alledges npthing for it but his own calculations.

(') Pkobakt.y that Anaximenes of Lampfacus., v.ho is mentir.ned by Diodorus Siculus, andothernntieiu wrilers, as the author of a vvoik enritied n^ilai 'l<o?iai. It was a hiftory, which be-gan with a Thcogony and the firll race of mtn ; and was carried down to the battle of Mantineaand 'he death of Epaminondas. It cnuliftcd of ! 2 books, which comprized, faith Diodorus (p.504) almOit all the affairs both of Greeks and barbarians. See Meurjtus in Chalcitium.

( 3 ) Strabo mentions Cadmus, Pherecydes, and Hecatseus, as the firfi profe writers. Of thefe

Cadmus was probably contemporary with Halyattes, the fatherof Croeius; and therefore fome-vvhat earlier than the beginning of the Perfian monarchy. (See Voffius de IIid. Gr. lib. 4. c. i.) ,

Uecataeus was foinewhat later; being .pontemporaiy with Darius, the ion of Hyftafpes. Phere-cydes of Scyros flouriflied in the jgth olympiad, according to Diogenes Laertius; therefore inthe time of Cyrus, the founder of the Perfian monarchy. This Pherecydes was probably a differ-.ctit peric-n fram the preceptor of Pythagoras. See Sabnajius Exerdt. PUn f. 594, e Jit. Uitra Tiajctf.tra trajeci,.

( 4 ) That Epimenides the genealoger was a different perfon from the Cretan philofopher, welearn from Diogenes Laertius (Toni. 1 . p. 74) who aicribes, liowever, forne writings in profe tothe pbilqfopher. I knovv not upon what ground Voffius took up his opinion, that there weretw-Ojgqnealogers of this narae. Diogenes Laertius, the only author that he cites for .it, fays no,ft:eh thing.

( 5 ) Vid. Voff. de Hift. Gr. lib. 1. c. 1.

C) Thucydides defines the time when the Peloponnefian vvafcommenced by the Athenianarchon, the Spartan Ephorus, andtheyearof the prieilefs of Juno at Aigos. And the fcholiafticmarks upon the pla:e, that the Argives kept the reckoning of their time by the fucceffion of

the

did fo, there could be no chronology, nor any other hiflory,than sudi as was mixed with jhoetieal fancies. Pliny d , in reck-oning up the inventors of things, telis us, that Pherecydes Sy-rius taught to compofe difeourfes in profe, in the reign of Cy-rus; and Cadmus Milefius, to write hiftory. And in * anotherplace he faith, that Cadmus Milefius was the firft that wrote inprofe. Jofephus telis us f, that Cadmus Milefius and Acufilaus