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then ftated by Hipparchus. But it really went back a degree inGREEKs.feventy and two years, andeleven degrees in 792 years. Countthefe 7 9 2 years backward from the year of Nabonaffar 602, theyear from which we counted the 286 years, and the reckoningwill place the Argonautic expedition about 43 years after thedeath of Solomon. The Greeks have therefore made the Argo-nautic expedition about 300 years ancienter than the truth, andthereby given occafion to the opinion of the great Hipparchus,that the equinox went backward after the rate of only a degreein an hundred years.

XXXIX. Heliod telis us, that fixty days after the winter fol-ftice the ftar Ardfurus rofe juft at fun-fet (*): and thence it fol-lows, that Heliod flourilhed about an hundred years after thedeath of Solomon, or in tlie generation or age next after theTrojan war (*), as Heliod himfelf declares ( 3 ).

XL. From ali thefe circumftances, grounded upon the coarfeobfervations of the ancient aftronomers, we may reckon it cer-tain, that the Argonautic expedition was not earlier than thereign of Solomon. And if thefe aftronomical arguments be add-ed to the former arguments taken from the mean length of thereigns of kings, according to the courfe of nature ; from themali we may fafely conclude, that the Argonautic expedition wasafter the death of Solomon : and moft probably that it was about43 years after it.

place fixty days after the winter folftice. So that the conclufion from this p.iflage of Hefiodihould rather be, that he flourilhed in that very age whea the Greeks firft formed their fphere ;that is, according to Sir Ifaac Newton, ;n the age of the Argonautic expedition.

I take the truth to be, that before the retrograde motion of the equinoftial points was difco-vered, ali writers fpeak of the riiings and fettings of the ftars, as they were flated by the aftro-notners who firft formed the fphere. This is probable of Heliod in particular, if he lived fonear the age of the Argonautic expedition, and the beginning of the Greek fphere, as Sir IfascNewton fuppoies. No conchifion therefore is to be dnuvu, concerning the particular age of anylvriter, much older than Hipparchus,, from what he may fay of the pluenomena of the fphere ;unlefs it be certain, that he was a pradlical aftronomer, and lived at fueh a diftance of time fromthe beginning of the Greek aftronomy, as might produce fenfible changes in the feafons of therifmgs and fettings of the ftars. Snch writers might, indeed, without anyknowledge of the mo-tion of the equinoxes, defcribe the phaenomena according to their own obfervations, and imputethe difference, between what they faw and what their mafters had delivered, to the coarfenels ofthe firft obfervations.

When I fpeak of the appearances of the primitive fphere, I mean the appearauces in the Ia-titude of 40 degrees north, at that time when the vernai equinox was in . 6°. 27'. on thefphere of i6go.

• ( 3 ) Hjy. i in. 164—175.

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XLI.