37

CHRONQL OGY.

years from that return to the firft olympiad, Diodorus telis us,gjueks.that the times were computed from the kings of the Lacedoemo-

and Plutarch a telis us, that Apollodorus, EratofthenesA PIutarch -‘

a Plutarcb. iaLycurgo, futi

mans

and others, followed that computation : and fmce this reckoninginitio,'is ftill. received by chronologers, and was gathered by computingthe times from the kings of the Lacedaemonians, that is fromtheir numbcr; let us re-examine that computation.

VII. The Egyptians reckoned the reigns of kings equipollent togenerations of men, and three generations to an hundred years,as above ; and fo did the Greeks and Latines (*): and accord-ingly they have made their kings reign, one with another, thirty

and

(By the >»»«> trcgixi, I imagine the great work of Timaeus is intended, which bore that title.Vide § III. not. io.) For, fays he, Numa became king of Rome in the middle of the i6tholympird; And it was certainly after the 5oth that Pythagoras lived in Italy. (Dion. Hal. Ant.Rom. lib. 2.) Here then,, taking.the text of Dionyfius as it ftands, 33 olympiads and a half,that is 133. years, are made equivalent to four generations :. tvhich is at the rate of three gene-rations to a century. But it is certain, from the unanimous teftimony of the beft authors, thatPythagoras did not fettle in Italy earlier than the time of Tarquinius Superbus ; that is, not tillafter the 6oth olympiad. Hence the learned Valefius with good. reafon contends, that the textof Dionyfius is corrupt j and that iri>%xorv> fliould be This emendation being admit- -

ted, \ve fliall find 43 and a half olympiads, or 174 years equivalent to four entire generations,iu the eftimation of the writer of the ; r opi«i; which is at the rate of more than 43 years toa generation. But as the expreffion ria-a-a^i yrviais vVipo< does not imply, that the intervalwas precifely four generations, but that it rather exceeded fo many, than feli fhort of them ; Ithinkthe round number 40 may reaionably be taken for the number of years inTimseus’s valua-tion of a generation.

Dionyfius Halicatnaffenfis himfelf feems uniformly to: value a generation at 27, years.Rome, he fays, was built by Romulus 16 generations after the Trojan war. (Antiq. lib.1. c. 9. p. 8.) In another paffage, which I have already had occafion to produce (§ III. note13) he fays, Rome was built 432 years after the taking of Troy. Therefore 432 years withDionyfius are equivalent to 16 generations; which is at the rate of 27 years to a generation..In another place, fpeaking of the long duration of the Roman greatneis, hefays, “ From the -time that Rome became miftrefs of Italy, and conceived the high defign of grafping at univerfal ■deminion, having driven the Carthaginians, who had the chief naval force from the feas, and •having received the fubmiffion of Macedonia, which then feemed to be the ftrongeft of ali na-tions by land, having no longer any power to contend with either among Greeks or barbarians, ,fhe continues to tliis day, in the feventh generation, fovereign of the whole world.” (Ant. Rom.lib. 1. c. 3. p. 3.) Here, by this day, is to be underftood, as the fentence next preceding fliews,the i93d olympiad. In the 193«! olympiad, it feems, the feventh generation was fetting in from °that time, when Rome firft began to confider herfelf as the nation which was to give laws to theworld : and this the began to do, when the found the re was no where, among Greeks or bar- -barians, a power that might contend with her either byfea orland : that is, when, befides thatfhe had fubdued the whole of Italy, fit e had in the firft place ruined the naval power of the Car-thaginians, which was do ne in the firft Punic war; and had likewife extinguifiied the kingdom -of Macedonia, and made the ftrength of that great nation her own. When the had done alithis, then, and not before, commenced the period of Rome’s ambition and grandeur. Andthe feventh generation of that period commenced in the 193(1 olympiad. Now the kingdom of.Macedonia was extinguifiied, when Perfeus was conquered and made prifoner by Paulus iFmilius. ..With bis captivity, therefore, Dionyfius dates the commencement of Rome’s greatnefs. And .the interval between the captivity of that monarch and the 493(1 olympiad, according to him,contained fix compleat generations, and the beginning of a feventh. For that is the force of .

the