e--v*

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34 C tl R O N O L

chajter and Plutarch : and then Eratofthenes, Apollodorus, and theirTirst ’ followers, made him above an himdred years older. And in

»in Soi.me, another place Plutarch a telis us : “ The congrefs of Solon with

tora. I. p. 93.

" Croefus, fome think they can confute by chronology. But a“ hiftory fo illuftrious, and verified by fo manv witnefles, and," which is more, fo agreeable to the manners of Solon, and wor-" thy of the greatnefs of his mind, and of his wifdom, I can-" not perfuade myfelf to rejecft, becaufe of fome chronological“ canons, as they call them, which hundreds of authors cor-“ refting have not yet been able to conditote any tliing certain,." in which they could agree amongft themfelves about repug-" nancies.”

V. And as for the chronology of the Latines, that is ftill more

uncertain. Plutarch b reprefents great uncertainties in the originalsof Rome; and fo doth Servius c . The old records of the La-tines were burnt the Gauls an hundred and twenty -years

h Plutarch. inRomulo &Nuraa.c fn fEne’d.

, v. 678,

Diodor.

1. 1.

after

macie "Lycurgus above roo years older than the firft olympind. They make him fay (jRlian. Var.Ilift. lib. 13. c. 42, and Plutarch. in Apophthegm.,) that the tcrritory of the Ln;ed:emonhns bad.

been ffee from the devafrations of an cnemy for 500 years before his incurfions. Now from the

battleof Leuiftra to the beginning of the olympiads, the interval was only 406 years : but to theguardianfhip of Lycurgus, according to Eratofthenes, 514. See § IIT. Note 13.) Epaminondas

therefore, it he took the age of Lycurgus for the commenceruent of that long period of tranquil-

lity which Laconia enjoyed, mnft have been in that opinion, which Eratofthenes afterwardsmaintained. But little-ftrefs is to be laid on the evidence, which Epaminondas is to made to giveupon this queftion. The fpirit of his Apophthegm will be juft the fame, though the interval be-twcen him and Lycurgus be contrafted from five to three hundred years It is therefore notimpyibable, that whoever firft committed this Apophthegm towriting, might fit it with the, date,which liked him beft : and we can have no affurance, that the genuine opinion of Epaminondtuhath been faithfully tranfmitted to us.

§ V.

(’) That Rome was taken by the Gauls twenty years after the regiLige^ we learn fromthe exprefs teftimony of Dionyfius Halicarn. Antiq. lib. 1. c. 74, p. 60. From him aliawe learn, that this event was 64 years before the death of Alexander the Great. For heplaces it in the firll year of the y8ih olympiad: and Alexander died in the firft of the l 141L.That many ancient records, both public and private, periflied in the conflagration which the citythen underwent, is generally believed upon the authority of Livy, lib. 6. c. 1. It is to be re-membered, however, that Livy does not fay that all the public records periflied in that fi re; andthe greater probability may be, that all that were in being were preferved. They would be butfew, from the rudenefs of the Roman people in thofe early ages : and Livy, becaufe few wereto be found, might from that circumftance infer, without any pofitive evidence, that many hadbeen deftroyed. The reafons which incline me to this opinion are thefe :—The Gauls never werein polleffion of the Capitol, where the Romans kept their records, nor did they burn it. Whenthe refolution was taken of defending the Capitol, and abandoning the reft of the city to thecnemy, it was given in charge to the Flamens and Veftal virgins, to take the beft care they could

of whatever was moft facred in the templcs. Many things they packed in calks, and buried un-

der a chapel acljoining to the houfe of the Flamen Quirinalis; and the oeft they cchrrisd away in

1

carts