33

CHRONOLOGY.

tliG olympiads, and the genealogies and fucceffions of kings and Gre ek 6.prieftefles, and the poetical hiftories fuit with one another, ac-cording to the beft of his judgement (“): and where he left off,

Polybius began, and carried on the hiftory ("). Eratoftheneswrote above an hundred years after the death of Alexander theGreat ( I3 ) : he was followed by Apollodorus ( I4 ) ; and thefe twohave been followed ever fince by chronologers.

IV. But how uncertain their chronology is, and how doubtfulit was reputed by the Greeks of thofe times, may be underftoodby thefe paftages of Plutarch. “ Some reckon Lycurgus, faith" he, a contemporary to Iphitus, and to have been his compa-’ L * v ‘" nion in ordering the olympic feftivals, amongft whom was initio<

" Ariftotle the philofpher; arguing from the Olympic Life,which had the name of Lycurgus upon it. Others fupputing" the times by the kings of Lacedaemon, as Eratofthenes and" Apollodorus, affirm that he was not a few years older than the" firft olympiad.” He began to flourifh in the iyth or i8tholympiad ('), and at length Ariftotle made him as old as the firftolympiad ; and fo did Epaminondas, as he is cited by iElian (’)

and

Years.

From the taking of Troy to the returo of the Heraclida;, 60

From the returo of the Heraclida: to the fettlement of Ionia, 60

From the fettlement of Ionia to the guardianfhip of Lycurgus, t '9

From the guardianfhip of Lycurgus to the year next preceding the firft olympiad, jo8

From that year to the invafion of Xerxes, 297

From the invafion of Xerxes to the beginning of the Feloponnefian war, 48

From the beginning to the end of that war, 27

From the end of the Feloponnefian war to the battle of Leu&ra, 34

From the battle of Leuftra to the death of Philip, 35

From the death of Philip to the death of Alexander, 12

The numbers, as they ftand in Clemens, are happily confirmed by a pafTsge of Dionylius Ila-licarnaffenfis (p. 60) ; from which we leam, that the 4zad year from the taking of Troy was,according to the canons of Eratofthenes, the ift of the yth olympiad : which agrees with theClementine numbers.

( I+ ) This Apollodorus was the difciple of Panaetius, the Stoic philofopher ; and flourifhed inthe time of Ptolemy Phyfcon. (Voflius de Hift. Gr. lib. 1. c. 21. and Gale in Differt, d: Scriptori,bus Mytbologicis .) That he followed Eratofthenes in his iyftem of chronology, may be proba-bly collefted from thefe circumftances. They agreed concerning the interval bet.ween the takingof Troy and the return of the Heraclida:; both making it 80 years. (See the laft nete, and com-pare Diod. Sic. p. 4.) They agreed concerning the age of Homer. (See Clem. Alex. p. 141.)They agreed concerning the age of Lycurgus (Clemens, ibid.) and they took the fame methodto determine it. (Plutarch in Lycurg.) Apollodorus adopted Eratofthenes’s lift of the kings ofThebais. (Syncellus, p 91.)

§ IV.

(') Vid. infra, § XI.

(*) Epaminondas, as he rs cited by Ailian and Plutarch. agrees with thofe chronologers, who

Vor. V. F w-de