44

CHRONOLOGY.

Chapte* XI. The artificial chronologers have made Lycurgus, the le-giflator, as old as Iphitus, the reftorer of the olympiads ; andIphitus, 11 1 years older than the firft olympiad : and, to helpout the hypothefis, they have feignecl twenty-eight olympiadsolder than the firft olympiad, wherein Conebus was vicftor (').But thefe things vvere feigned, after the days of Thucydides andFlato : for Socrates died three years after the end of the Pelo-

* piato in ponnefian war, and Plato a introduceth him faying, that " the

Minoe,p.567. 1 ’ 1 1 J

Fidn. " inftitutions of Lycurgus vvere but of three hundred years

* Thucyd. I. « ftanding, or not much more." And b Thucydides, in the read-

ing followed by Stephanus, faith, that “ the Lacedaemonians had," from anclent times, ufed good laws, and been free from ty-“ ranny ; and that from the time that they had ufed one and the" fame adminiftration of their commonwealth, to the end of the“ Peloponnefian war, there vvere three hundred years ( 2 ) and a“ fevv more.” Count 300 years back from the end of the Pelo-ponnefian war, and they will place the legiflature of Lycurgusupon the 19th olympiad. And, according to Socrates, it might

* Avjien.1.14. |-, e U p 0n the 2 2d or 2 rd. Athenaeus c telis us out of ancient

p. o^.eun. 1 °

Ciuiai'. authors (Hellanicus, Sofimus, and Hieronymus) tliat Lycurgusthe legiflator was contemporary to Terpander the mufician ; andthat Terpander was the firft man who got the viftory in the Car-nea, in a folemnity of mufic inftituted in thofe feftivaJs in the26th olympiad ( 3 ). He overcame four times in thofe Pythiegames ( 4 ), and therefore lived at leaft till the 2 9th olympiadand beginning to flourifh in the days of Lycurgus, it is not like-ly that Lycurgus began to flourifh much before the i8th olym-piad. The name of Lycurgus being on the olympic difc, Arif-totle concluded thence, that Lycurgus was the companion ofIphitus, in reftoring the olympic games ( 5 ) : and this argument

might be the ground of the opinion of chronologers, that Ly-

§ xi.

(’) See S»r John Marlham, »?&•. XV.. 7 it. Olympia.

(*) The o!d Bafil edition of Hervngius has 400. So has Henry Stevens’s own edition, in theGreek text. So have the modern editions of Hudfon and Duker» And it does not appear by-their colledions of various readings, that any other number was to be found in any of the MSS.Stevens has taken no notice of the paflage in his notes. Therefore it feems probabis, that it isby iome acoidental miltake, that the number 300 appears in his Latin tranflation.

( 3 ) Athenajus telis us, from Hellanicus, that Terpander was the firit vidtor in the Carnea,-and, from Hieronymus, that he was contemporary with Lycurgus. But he mentions thefe ast.wo different opinions, both affigning a great antiquity,. but not the fame time, to Terpander.

(*) Plutarch de Muf. tom. II. p. 1132..

currus.