The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended · Isaac Newton
CHRONICLE
FROM THE First Memory of Things in _Europe_, TO THE Conquest of _Persia_ by _Alexander_ the Great. * * * * * The INTRODUCTION. The _Greek_ Antiquities are full of Poetical Fictions, because the _Greeks_ wrote nothing in Prose, before the Conquest of _Asia_ by _Cyrus_ the _Persian_. Then _Pherecydes Scyrius_ and _Cadmus Milesius_ introduced the writing in Prose. _Pherecydes Atheniensis_, about the end of the Reign of _Darius Hystaspis_, wrote of Antiquities, and digested his work by Genealogies, and was reckoned one of the best Genealogers. _Epimenides_ the Historian proceeded also by Genealogies; and _Hellanicus_, who was twelve years older than _Herodotus_, digested his History by the Ages or Successions of the Priestesses of _Juno Argiva_. Others digested theirs by the Kings of the _Lacedæmonians_, or Archons of _Athens_. _Hippias_ the _Elean_, about thirty years before the fall of the _Persian_ Empire, published a breviary or list of the Olympic Victors; and about ten years before the fall thereof, _Ephorus_ the disciple of _Isocrates_ formed a Chronological History of _Greece_, beginning with the return of the _Heraclides_ into _Peloponnesus_, and ending with the siege of _Perinthus_, in the twentieth year of _Philip_ the father of _Alexander_ the great: But he digested things by Generations, and the reckoning by Olympiads was not yet in use, nor doth it appear that the Reigns of Kings were yet set down by numbers of years. The _Arundelian_ marbles were composed sixty years after the death of _Alexander_ the great (_An._ 4. _Olymp._ 128.) and yet mention not the Olympiads: But in the next Olympiad, _Timæus Siculus_ published an history in several books down to his own times, according to the Olympiads, comparing the Ephori, the Kings of _Sparta_, the Archons of _Athens_, and the Priestesses of _Argos_, with the Olympic Victors, so as to make the Olympiads, and the Genealogies and Successions of Kings, Archons, and Priestesses, and poetical histories suit with one another, according to the best of his judgment. And where he left off, _Polybius_ began and carried on the history.
So then a little after the death of _Alexander_ the great, they began to set down the Generations, Reigns and Successions, in numbers of years, and by putting Reigns and Successions equipollent to Generations, and three Generations to an hundred or an hundred and twenty years (as appears by their Chronology) they have made the Antiquities of _Greece_ three or four hundred years older than the truth. And this was the original of the Technical Chronology of the _Greeks_. _Eratosthenes_ wrote about an hundred years after the death of _Alexander_ the great: He was followed by _Apollodorus_, and these two have been followed ever since by Chronologers. But how uncertain their Chronology is, and how doubtful it was reputed by the _Greeks_ of those times, may be understood by these passages of _Plutarch_. _Some reckon_, saith he, [1] Lycurgus _contemporary to _Iphitus_, and to have been his companion in ordering the Olympic festivals: amongst whom was _Aristotle_ the Philosopher, arguing from the Olympic Disc, which had the name of _Lycurgus_ upon it. Others supputing the times by the succession of the Kings of the _Lacedæmonians_, as _Eratosthenes_ and _Apollodorus_, affirm that he was not a few years older than the first Olympiad._ First _Aristotle_ and some others made him as old as the first Olympiad; then _Eratosthenes_, _Apollodorus_, and some others made him above an hundred years older: and in another place _Plutarch_ [2] tells us: _The congress of _Solon_ with _Croesus_, some think they can confute by Chronology. But an history so illustrious, and verified by so many witnesses, and (which is more) so agreeable to the manners of _Solon_, and so worthy of the greatness of his mind and of his wisdom, I cannot persuade my self to reject because of some Chronological Canons, as they call them: which hundreds of authors correcting, have not yet been able to constitute any thing certain, in which they could agree among themselves, about repugnancies_. It seems the Chronologers had made the Legislature of _Solon_ too ancient to consist with that Congress.
For reconciling such repugnancies, Chronologers have sometimes doubled the persons of men. So when the Poets had changed _Io_ the daughter of _Inachus_ into the _Egyptian Isis_, Chronologers made her husband _Osiris_ or _Bacchus_ and his mistress _Ariadne_ as old as _Io_, and so feigned that there were two _Ariadnes_, one the mistress of _Bacchus_, and the other the mistress of _Theseus_, and two _Minos's_ their fathers, and a younger _Io_ the daughter of _Jasus_, writing _Jasus_ corruptly for _Inachus_. And so they have made two _Pandions_, and two _Erechtheus's_, giving the name of _Erechthonius_ to the first; _Homer_ calls the first, _Erechtheus_: and by such corruptions they have exceedingly perplexed Ancient History. And as for the Chronology of the _Latines_, that is still more uncertain. _Plutarch_ represents great uncertainties in the Originals of _Rome_: and so doth _Servius_. The old records of the _Latines_ were burnt by the _Gauls_, sixty and four years before the death of _Alexander_ the great; and _Quintus Fabius Pictor_, the oldest historian of the _Latines_, lived an hundred years later than that King. In Sacred History, the _Assyrian_ Empire began with _Pul_ and _Tiglathpilaser_, and lasted about 170 years. And accordingly _Herodotus_ hath made _Semiramis_ only five generations, or about 166 years older than _Nitocris_, the mother of the last King of _Babylon_. But _Ctesias_ hath made _Semiramis_ 1500 years older than _Nitocris_, and feigned a long series of Kings of _Assyria_, whose names are not _Assyrian_, nor have any affinity with the _Assyrian_ names in Scripture.
The Priests of _Egypt_ told _Herodotus_, that _Menes_ built _Memphis_ and the sumptuous temple of _Vulcan_, in that City: and that _Rhampsinitus_, _Mœris_, _Asychis_ and _Psammiticus_ added magnificent porticos to that temple. And it is not likely that _Memphis_ could be famous, before _Homer_'s days who doth not mention it, or that a temple could be above two or three hundred years in building. The Reign of _Psammiticus_ began about 655 years before Christ, and I place the founding of this temple by _Menes_ about 257 years earlier: but the Priests of _Egypt_ had so magnified their Antiquities before the days of _Herodotus_, as to tell him that from _Menes_ to _Mœris_ (who reigned 200 years before _Psammiticus_) there were 330 Kings, whose Reigns took up as many Ages, that is eleven thousand years, and had filled up the interval with feigned Kings, who had done nothing. And before the days of _Diodorus Siculus_ they had raised their Antiquities so much higher, as to place six, eight, or ten new Reigns of Kings between those Kings, whom they had represented to _Herodotus_ to succeed one another immediately. In the Kingdom of _Sicyon_, Chronologers have split _Apis Epaphus_ or _Epopeus_ into two Kings, whom they call _Apis_ and _Epopeus_, and between them have inserted eleven or twelve feigned names of Kings who did nothing, and thereby they have made its Founder _Ægialeus_, three hundred years older than his brother _Phoroneus_. Some have made the Kings of _Germany_ as old as the Flood: and yet before the use of letters, the names and actions of men could scarce be remembred above eighty or an hundred years after their deaths: and therefore I admit no Chronology of things done in _Europe_, above eighty years before _Cadmus_ brought letters into _Europe_; none, of things done in _Germany_, before the rise of the _Roman_ Empire.
Ideas discussed in this chapter
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.