C- O N or L O G Y..

This breviary feems to have contained nothing more than a fiiortaccount of the vi£tors in every olympiad. Then a Ephorus, theedi? s!eph.°’ difciple of liberares, formed a chronological hiltory of Greece ( 8 );beginning with the retura of the Heraclidae into Peloponnefus,and ending with the ilege of Perinthus, in the twentieth year ofPhilip, the father of Alexander the Great, that is, eleven years.>- Poh b. p. before the fall of the Periian em pire : but b he digefted things bym ' B ' generations ( 9 ) ; and the reckoning by the olympiads, or by any

other aera, was not yet in ufe among the Greeks. The Arun-delian marbles were compofed fixty years after the death of Alex-ander the Great (An. 4. Olymp. 128.) and yet mention not theolympiads, nor any other ftanding aera; but reckon backwardsfrom the time then prefent. But chronology was now reducedto a reckoning by years ; and in the next olympiad ( I0 ), TimaeusSiculus improved it: for he wrote a hiftory in feveral books,down to his own times, according to the olympiads; comparingthe Ephori, the kings of Sparta, the archons of Athens, andthe prieftefles of Argos with the olympic vidors, fo as to rnake

the

of the compilation hath refpeft not to Phitarch’s age, but to the commencement of theolym-"piads. It is to be obferved, that Flutarch feems to fpeak of this work by hear-fay or tradition,as of one that he had not feen ; ip a< r>v iirwia* : which makes it probabie either that it-was

not extant in his time, or that it was in no efteem.

( s ) Not of Greece only, but an univerfal hiftory; as Diodorus (p. s;o\ and Polybius (p.379) both atteft. Polybius fays, that Ephorus was the firftwho undertook an univerfal hiftory.

( 9 ) 1 know not upon what authority this is faid: nor upon what authority Sir John Marfliamhas afferted, that Ephorus had gi-ven aliftof the kings of Sparta, and perhaps of the Ephori.

( 10 ) Various works of this Timteus are mentioned in antient authors. Three books of Syria,;ts cities and kings : Aftairs of Italy and Sicily in 8 books : Affairs of Greece and Sicily: A Collec-tion of Rhetorical Topies in 68 books : A Chronicle, or Olympic Viftors. See Suidas in Ti^aio;.A hiftory of thewars of the Romans with Pyrrhus of Epire yDionyf. Hal.p. 5.) And befides alithefe, what I fuppofe was his principal work, an Univerfal Hiftory (Kot>«> 'is&jiai. Dionyf. Hal,ihid.) That his hiftory came down to the 12yth olympiad, we have the exprefs teftimonyof Po-lybius, p. 6. Sir John Marfliam fays, that he could not find where it began. (Scc. XFI, tit. PrimaOlympia* vulgaris.) To me it feems probabie, that it began with the fabulous ages. For it appearsfrom Dionyf. Idal. p, 5 and 60) that Timaeus, in his Univerfal Hiftory, had treated of the anri-quities of the Roman ftory ; and from Diodorus Siculus (p. 139) that he had written of Her-culeas batrle with the Giants in the Rhlegrtean plains.

(”) Polyb. p. 1395. edit. Gronov. (“) Polyb. p. 6.

( T3 ). Eratosthenes was.called to the care of the Alexandrinlibrary by Ptolemy Euergetes. Hecontinued to flourifli ditring the reign of Philopator, and died in the reign of Epiphanes. (8ui-das Efaroahins and A*roa?u/nS“) Dionyfius Halicarnaflenfis fpeaks very highly of the chronogra-phic canons of Eratofthenes; and mentions a work of his own, in which, hefays, he had provedthem to be fottnd (Dionyf. Hal. p. 60.) It will not be improper to prefent the reader with afuccinft view of the general principies of the chronology of Eratofthenes from the Stromata ofClemens Alexandrinus (p. 145.)

7

32

Chapter

First.

* Diodor.

From