CHAP. I. (continued 2)

After Navigation in long ships with sails, and one order of oars, had been propagated from Egypt to Phœnicia and Greece, and thereby the Zidonians had extended their trade to Greece, and carried it on about an hundred and fifty years; and then the Tyrians being driven from the Red Sea by the Edomites, had begun a new trade on the Mediterranean with Spain, Afric, Britain, and other remote nations; they carried it on about an hundred and sixty years; and then the Corinthians began to improve Navigation, by building bigger ships with three orders of oars, called Triremes. For ^[118] Thucydides tells us that the Corinthians were the first of the Greeks who built such ships, and that a ship-carpenter of Corinth went thence to Samos, about 300 years before the end of the Peloponnesian war, and built also four ships for the Samians; and that 260 years before the end of that war, that is, about the 29th Olympiad, there was a fight at sea between the Corinthians and the Corcyreans which was the oldest sea-fight mentioned in history. Thucydides tells us further, that the first colony which the Greeks sent into Sicily, came from Chalcis in Eubœa, under the conduct of Thucles, and built Naxus; and the next year Archias came from Corinth with a colony, and built Syracuse; and that Lamis came about the same time into Sicily, with a colony from Megara in Achaia, and lived first at Trotilum, and then at Leontini, and died at Thapsus near Syracuse; and that after his death, this colony was invited by Hyblo to Megara in Sicily, and lived there 245 years, and was then expelled by Gelo King of Sicily. Now Gelo flourished about 78 years before the end of the Peloponnesian war: count backwards the 78 and the 245 years, and about 12 years more for the Reign of Lamis in Sicily, and the reckoning will place the building of Syracuse about 335 years before the end of the Peloponnesian war, or in the tenth Olympiad; and about that time Eusebius and others place it: but it might be twenty or thirty years later, the antiquities of those days having been raised more or less by the Greeks. From the colonies henceforward sent into Italy and Sicily came the name of Græcia magna.

Thucydides ^[119] tells us further, that the Greeks began to come into Sicily almost three hundred years after the Siculi had invaded that Island with an army out of Italy: suppose it 280 years after, and the building of Syracuse 310 years before the end of the Peloponnesian war; and that invasion of Sicily by the Siculi will be 590 years before the end of that war, that is, in the 27th year of Solomon's Reign, or thereabout. Hellanicus ^[120] tells us, that it was in the third Generation before the Trojan war; and in the 26th year of the Priesthood of Alcinoe, Priestess of Juno Argiva: and Philistius of Syracuse, that it was 80 years before the Trojan war: whence it follows that the Trojan war and Argonautic Expedition were later than the days of Solomon and Rehoboam, and could not be much earlier than where we have placed them.

The Kingdom of Macedon ^[121] was founded by Caranus and Perdiccas, who being of the Race of Temenus King of Argos, fled from Argos in the Reign of Phidon the brother of Caranus. Temenus was one of the three brothers who led the Heraclides into Peloponnesus, and shared the conquest among themselves: he obtained Argos; and after him, and his son Cisus, the Kingdom of Argos became divided among the posterity of Temenus, until Phidon reunited it, expelling his kindred. Phidon grew potent, appointed weights and measures in Peloponnesus, and coined silver money; and removing the Pisæans and Eleans, presided in the Olympic games; but was soon after subdued by the Eleans and Spartans. Herodotus ^[122] reckons that Perdiccas was the first King of Macedon; later writers, as Livy, Pausanias and Suidas, make Caranus the first King: Justin calls Perdiccas the Sucessor of Caranus; and Solinus saith that Perdiccas succeeded Caranus; and was the first that obtained the name of King. It's probable that Caranus and Perdiccas were contemporaries, and fled about the same time from Phidon, and at first erected small principalities in Macedonia, which, after the death of Caranus, became one under Perdiccas. Herodotus ^[123] tells us, that after Perdiccas Reigned Aræus, or Argæus, Philip, Æropus, Alcetas, Amyntas, and Alexander, successively. Alexander was contemporary to Xerxes King of Persia, and died An. 4. Olymp. 79, and was succeeded by Perdiccas, and he by his son Archelaus: and Thucydides ^[124] tells us that there were eight Kings of Macedon before this Archelaus: now by reckoning above forty years a-piece to these Kings, Chronologers have made Phidon and Caranus older than the Olympiads; whereas if we should reckon their Reigns at about 18 or 20 years a-piece one with another, the first seven Reigns counted backwards from the death of this Alexander, will place the dominion of Phidon, and the beginning of the Kingdom of Macedon under Perdiccas and Caranus, upon the 46th or 47th Olympiad, or thereabout. It could scarce be earlier, because Leocides the son of Phidon, and Megacles the son of Alcmæon, at one and the same time courted Agarista, the daughter of Clisthenes King of Sicyon, as Herodotus ^[125] tells us; and the Amphictyons, by the advice of Solon, made Alcmæon, and Clisthenes, and Eurolycus King of Thessaly, commanders of their army, in their war against Cirrha; and the Cirrheans were conquered An. 2. Olymp. 47. according to the Marbles. Phidon therefore and his brother Caranus were contemporary to Solon, Alcmæon, Clisthenes, and Eurolycus, and flourished about the 48th and 49th Olympiads. They were also contemporary in their later days to Crœsus; for Solon conversed with Crœsus, and Alcmæon entertained and conducted the messengers whom Crœsus sent to consult the Oracle at Delphi, An. 1. Olymp. 56. according to the Marbles, and was sent for by Crœsus, and rewarded with much riches.

But the times set down in the Marbles before the Persian Empire began, being collected by reckoning the Reigns of Kings equipollent to Generations, and three Generations to an hundred years or above; and the Reigns of Kings, one with another, being shorter in the proportion of about four to seven; the Chronology set down in the Marbles, until the Conquest of Media by Cyrus, An. 4, Olymp. 60, will approach the truth much nearer, by shortening the times before that Conquest in the proportion of four to seven. So the Cirrheans were conquered An. 2, Olymp. 47, according to the Marbles, that is 54 years before the Conquest of Media; and these years being shortened in the proportion of four to seven, become 31 years; which subducted from An. 4, Olymp. 60, place the Conquest of Cirrha upon An. 1, Olymp. 53: and, by the like correction of the Marbles, Alcmæon entertained and conducted the messengers whom Crœsus sent to consult the Oracle at Delphi, An. 1, Olymp. 58; that is, four years before the Conquest of Sardes by Cyrus: and the Tyranny of Pisistratus, which by the Marbles began at Athens, An. 4, Olymp. 54, by the like correction began An. 3, Olymp. 57; and by consequence Solon died An. 4, Olymp. 57. This method may be used alone, where other arguments are wanting; but where they are not wanting, the best arguments are to be preferred.

Iphitus ^[126] presided both in the Temple of Jupiter Olympius, and in the Olympic Games, and so did his Successors 'till the 26th Olympiad; and so long the victors were rewarded with a Tripos: but then the Pisæans getting above the Eleans, began to preside, and rewarded the victors with a Crown, and instituted the Carnea to Apollo; and continued to preside 'till Phidon interrupted them, that is, 'till about the time of the 49th Olympiad: for ^[127] in the 48th Olympiad the Eleans entered the country of the Pisæans, suspecting their designs, but were prevailed upon to return home quietly; afterwards the Pisæans confederated with several other Greek nations, and made war upon the Eleans, and in the end were beaten: in this war I conceive it was that Phidon presided, suppose in the 49th Olympiad; for ^[128] in the 50th Olympiad, for putting an end to the contentions between the Kings about presiding, two men were chosen by lot out of the city Elis to preside, and their number in the 65th Olympiad was increased to nine, and afterwards to ten; and these judges were called Hellenodicæ, judges for or in the name of Greece. Pausanias tells us, that the Eleans called in Phidon and together with him celebrated the 8th Olympiad; he should have said the 49th Olympiad; but Herodotus tells us, that Phidon removed the Eleans; and both might be true: the Eleans might call in Phidon against the Pisæans, and upon overcoming be refused presiding in the Olympic games by Phidon, and confederate with the Spartans, and by their assistance overthrow the Kingdom of Phidon, and recover their ancient right of presiding in the games.

Strabo ^[129] tells us that Phidon was the tenth from Temenus; not the tenth King, for between Cisus and Phidon they Reigned not, but the tenth from father to son, including Temenus. If 27 years be reckoned to a Generation by the eldest sons, the nine intervals will amount unto 243 years, which counted back from the 48th Olympiad, in which Phidon flourished, will place the Return of the Heraclides about fifty years before the beginning of the Olympiads, as above. But Chronologers reckon about 515 years from the Return of the Heraclides to the 48th Olympiad, and account Phidon the seventh from Temenus; which is after the rate of 85 years to a Generation, and therefore not to be admitted.

Cyrus took Babylon, according to Ptolomy's Canon, nine years before his death, An. Nabonass. 209, An. 2, Olymp. 60: and he took Sardes a little before, namely An. 1, Olymp. 59, as Scaliger collects from Sosicrates: Crœsus was then King of Sardes, and Reigned fourteen years, and therefore began to Reign An. 3, Olymp. 55. After Solon had made laws for the Athenians, he obliged them upon oath to observe those laws 'till he returned from his travels; and then travelled ten years, going to Egypt and Cyprus, and visiting Thales of Miletus: and upon His Return to Athens, Pisistratus began to affect the Tyranny of that city, which made Solon travel a second time; and now he was invited by Crœsus to Sardes; and Crœsus, before Solon visited him, had subdued all Asia Minor, as far as to the River Halys; and therefore he received that visit towards the latter part of his Reign; and we may place it upon the ninth year thereof, An. 3, Olymp. 57: and the legislature of Solon twelve years earlier, An. 3, Olymp. 54: and that of Draco still ten years earlier, An. 1, Olymp. 52. After Solon had visited Crœsus, he went into Cilicia and some other places, and died ^[130] in his travels: and this was in the second year of the Tyranny of Pisistratus. Comias was Archon when Solon returned from his first travels to Athens; and the next year Hegestratus was Archon, and Solon died before the end of the year, An. 3, Olymp. 57, as above: and by this reckoning the objection of Plutarch above mentioned is removed.

We have now shewed that the Phœnicians of Zidon, under the conduct of Cadmus and other captains, flying from their enemies, came into Greece, with letters and other arts, about the sixteenth year of King David's Reign; that Europa the sister of Cadmus, fled some days before him from Zidon and came to Crete, and there became the mother of Minos, about the 18th or 20th year of David's Reign; that Sesostris and the great Bacchus, and by consequence also Osiris, were one and the same King of Egypt with Sesac, and came out of Egypt in the fifth year of Rehoboam to invade the nations, and died 25 years after Solomon; that the Argonautic expedition was about 43 years after the death of Solomon; that Troy was taken about 76 or 78 years after the death of Solomon; that the Phœnicians of Tyre were driven from the Red Sea by the Edomites, about 87 years after the death of Solomon, and within two or three years began to make long voyages upon the Mediterranean, sailing to Spain, and beyond, under a commander whom for his industry, conduct, and discoveries, they honoured with the names of Melcartus and Hercules; that the return of the Heraclides into Peloponnesus was about 158 years after the death of Solomon; that Lycurgus the Legislator Reigned at Sparta, and gave the three Discs to the Olympic treasury, An. 1, Olymp. 18, or 273 years after the death of Solomon, the Quinquertium being at that time added to the Olympic Games; that the Greeks began soon after to build Triremes, and to send Colonies into Sicily and Italy, which gave the name of Græcia magna to those countries; that the first Messenian war ended about 350 years after the death of Solomon, An. 1, Olymp. 37; that Phidon was contemporary to Solon, and presided in the Olympic Games in the 49th Olympiad, that is, 397 years after the death of Solomon; that Draco was Archon, and made his laws, An. 1, Olymp. 52; and Solon, An. 3, Olymp. 54; and that Solon visited Crœsus Ann. 3, Olymp. 57, or 433 years after the death of Solomon; and Sardes was taken by Cyrus 438 years, and Babylon by Cyrus 443 years, and Echatane by Cyrus 445 years after the death of Solomon: and these periods being settled, they become a foundation for building the Chronology of the antient times upon them; and nothing more remains for settling such a Chronology, than to make these Periods a little exacter, if it can be, and to shew how the rest of the Antiquities of Greece, Egypt, Assyria, Chaldæa, and Media may suit therewith.

Whilst Bacchus made his expedition into India, Theseus left Ariadne in the Island Naxus or Dia, as above, and succeeded his father Ægeus at Athens; and upon the Return of Bacchus from India, Ariadne became his mistress, and accompanied him in his triumphs; and this was about ten years after the death of Solomon: and from that time reigned eight Kings in Athens, viz. Theseus, Menestheus, Demophoon, Oxyntes, Aphidas, Thymætes, Melanthus, and Codrus; these Kings, at 19 years a-piece one with another, might take up about 152 years, and end about 44 years before the Olympiads: then Reigned twelve Archons for life, which at 14 or 15 years a-piece, the State being unstable, might take up about 174 years, and end An. 2, Olymp. 33: then reigned seven decennial Archons, which are usually reckoned at seventy years; but some of them dying in their Regency, they might not take up above forty years, and so end about An. 2, Olymp. 43, about which time began the Second Messenian war: these decennial Archons were followed by the annual Archons, amongst whom were the Legislators Draco and Solon. Soon after the death of Codrus, his second Son Neleus, not bearing the Reign of his lame brother Medon at Athens, retired into Asia, and was followed by his younger brothers Androcles and Cyaretus, and many others: these had the name of Ionians, from Ion the son of Xuthus, who commanded the army of the Athenians at the death of Erechtheus, and gave the name of Ionia to the country which they invaded: and about 20 or 25 years after the death of Codrus, these new Colonies, being now Lords of Ionia, set up over themselves a common Council called Panionium, and composed of Counsellors sent from twelve of their cities, Miletus, Myus, Priene, Ephesus, Colophon, Lebedus, Teos, Clazomenæ, Phocæa, Samos, Chios, and Erythræa: and this was the Ionic Migration.

^[131] When the Greeks and Latines were forming their Technical Chronology, there were great disputes about the Antiquity of Rome: the Greeks made it much older than the Olympiads: some of them said it was built by Æneas; others, by Romus, the son or grandson of Æneas; others, by Romus, the son or grandson of Latinus King of the Aborigines; others, by Romus the son of Ulysses, or of Ascanius, or of Italus: and some of the Latines at first fell in with the opinion of the Greeks, saying that it was built by Romulus, the son or grandson of Æneas. Timæus Siculus represented it built by Romulus, the grandson of Æneas, above an hundred years before the Olympiads; and so did Nævius the Poet, who was twenty years older than Ennius, and served in the first Punic war, and wrote the history of that war. Hitherto nothing certain was agreed upon, but about 140 or 150 years after the death of Alexander the Great, they began to say that Rome was built a second time by Romulus, in the fifteenth Age after the destruction of Troy: by Ages they meant Reigns of the Kings of the Latines at Alba, and reckoned the first fourteen Reigns at about 432 years, and the following Reigns of the seven Kings of Rome at 244 years, both which numbers made up the time of about 676 years from the taking of Troy, according to these Chronologers; but are much too long for the course of nature: and by this reckoning they placed the building of Rome upon the sixth or seventh Olympiad; Varro placed it on the first year of the Seventh Olympiad, and was therein generally followed by the Romans; but this can scarce be reconciled to the course of nature: for I do not meet with any instance in all history, since Chronology was certain, wherein seven Kings, most of whom were slain, Reigned 244 years in continual Succession. The fourteen Reigns of the Kings of the Latines, at twenty years a-piece one with another, amount unto 280 years, and these years counted from the taking of Troy end in the 38th Olympiad: and the Seven Reigns of the Kings of Rome, four or five of them being slain and one deposed, may at a moderate reckoning amount to fifteen or sixteen years a-piece one with another: let them be reckoned at seventeen years a-piece, and they will amount unto 119 years; which being counted backwards from the Regifuge, end also in the 38th Olympiad: and by these two reckonings Rome was built in the 38th Olympiad, or thereabout. The 280 years and the 119 years together make up 399 years; and the same number of years arises by counting the twenty and one Reigns at nineteen years a-piece: and this being the whole time between the taking of Troy and the Regifuge, let these years be counted backward from the Regifuge, An. 1, Olymp. 68, and they will place the taking of Troy about 74 years after the death of Solomon.

When Sesostris returned from Thrace into Egypt, he left Æetes with part of his army in Colchis, to guard that pass; and Phryxus and his sister Helle fled from Ino, the daughter of Cadmus, to Æetes soon after, in a ship whose ensign was a golden ram: Ino was therefore alive in the fourteenth year of Rehoboam, the year in which Sesostris returned into Egypt; and by consequence her father Cadmus flourished in the Reign of David, and not before. Cadmus was the father of Polydorus, the father of Labdacus, the father of Laius, the father of Oedipus, the father of Eteocles and Polynices who slew one another in their youth, in the war of the seven Captains at Thebes, about ten or twelve years after the Argonautic Expedition: and Thersander, the son of Polynices, warred at Troy. These Generations being by the eldest sons who married young, if they be reckoned at about twenty and four years to a Generation, will place the birth of Polydorus upon the 18th year of David's Reign, or thereabout: and thus Cadmus might be a young man, not yet married, when he came first into Greece. At his first coming he sail'd to Rhodes, and thence to Samothrace, an Island near Thrace on the north side of Lemnos, and there married Harmonia, the sister of Jasius and Dardanus, which gave occasion to the Samothracian mysteries: and Polydorus might be their son, born a year or two after their coming; and his sister Europa might be then a young woman, in the flower of her age. These Generations cannot well be shorter; and therefore Cadmus, and his son Polydorus, were not younger than we have reckoned them: nor can they be much longer, without making Polydorus too old to be born in Europe, and to be the son of Harmonia the sister of Jasius. Labdacus was therefore born in the end of David's Reign, Laius in the 24th year of Solomon's, and Oedipus in the seventh of Rehoboam's, or thereabout: unless you had rather say, that Polydorus was born at Zidon, before his father came into Europe; but his name Polydorus is in the language of Greece.

Polydorus married Nycteis, the daughter of Nycteus a native of Greece, and dying young, left his Kingdom and young son Labdacus under the administration of Nycteus. Then Epopeus King of Ægialus, afterwards called Sicyon, stole Antiope the daughter of Nycteus, ^[132] and Nycteus thereupon made war upon him, and in a battle wherein Nycteus overcame, both were wounded and died soon after. Nycteus left the tuition of Labdacus, and administration of the Kingdom, to his brother Lycus; and Epopeus or, as Hyginus ^[133] calls him, Epaphus the Sicyonian, left his Kingdom to Lamedon, who presently ended the war, by sending home Antiope: and she, in returning home, brought forth Amphion and Zethus. Labdacus being grown up received the Kingdom from Lycus, and soon after dying left it again to his administration, for his young son Laius. When Amphion and Zethus were about twenty years old, at the instigation of their mother Antiope, they killed Lycus, and made Laius flee to Pelops, and seized the city Thebes, and compassed it with a wall; and Amphion married Niobe the sister of Pelops, and by her had several children, amongst whom was Chloris, the mother of Periclymenus the Argonaut. Pelops was the father of Plisthenes, Atreus, and Thyestes; and Agamemnon and Menelaus, the adopted sons of Atreus, warred at Troy. Ægisthus, the son of Thyestes, slew Agamemnon the year after the taking of Troy; and Atreus died just before Paris stole Helena, which, according to ^[134] Homer, was twenty years before the taking of Troy. Deucalion the son of Minos, ^[135] was an Argonaut; and Talus another son of Minos, was slain by the Argonauts; and Idomeneus and Meriones the grandsons of Minos were at the Trojan war. All these things confirm the ages of Cadmus and Europa, and their posterity, above assigned, and place the death of Epopeus or Epaphus King of Sicyon, and birth of Amphion and Zethus, upon the tenth year of Solomon; and the taking of Thebes by Amphion and Zethus, and the flight of Laius to Pelops, upon the thirtieth year of that King, or thereabout. Amphion might marry the sister of Pelops, the same year, and Pelops come into Greece three or four years before that flight, or about the 26th year of Solomon.

[Sidenode p: Hygin. Fab. 14.]

In the days of Erechtheus King of Athens, and Celeus King of Eleusis, Ceres came into Attica; and educated Triptolemus the son of Celeus, and taught him to sow corn. She ^[136] lay with Jasion, or Jasius, the brother of Harmonia the wife of Cadmus; and presently after her death Erechtheus was slain, in a war between the Athenians and Eleusinians; and, for the benefaction of bringing tillage into Greece, the Eleusinia Sacra were instituted to her ^[137] with Egyptian ceremonies, by Celeus and Eumolpus; and a Sepulchre or Temple was erected to her in Eleusine, and in this Temple the families of Celeus and Eumolpus became her Priests: and this Temple, and that which Eurydice erected to her daughter Danae, by the name of Juno Argiva, are the first instances that I meet with in Greece of Deifying the dead, with Temples, and Sacred Rites, and Sacrifices, and Initiations, and a succession of Priests to perform them. Now by this history it is manifest that Erechtheus, Celeus, Eumolpus, Ceres, Jasius, Cadmus, Harmonia, Asterius, and Dardanus the brother of Jasius, and one of the founders of the Kingdom of Troy, were all contemporary to one another, and flourished in their youth, when Cadmus came first into Europe. Erechtheus could not be much older, because his daughter Procris convers'd with Minos King of Crete; and his grandson Thespis had fifty daughters, who lay with Hercules; and his daughter Orithyia was the mother of Calais and Zetes, two of the Argonauts in their youth; and his son Orneus ^[138] was the father of Peteos the father of Menestheus, who warred at Troy: nor much younger, because his second son Pandion, who with the Metionides deposed his elder brother Cecrops, was the father of Ægeus, the father of Theseus; and Metion, another of his sons, was the father of Eupalamus, the father of Dædalus, who was older than Theseus; and his daughter Creusa married Xuthus, the son of Hellen, and by him had two sons, Achæus and Ion; and Ion commanded the army of the Athenians against the Eleusinians, in the battle in which his grandfather Erechtheus was slain: and this was just before the institution of the Eleusinia Sacra, and before the Reign of Pandion the father of Ægeus. Erechtheus being an Egyptian procured corn from Egypt, and for that benefaction was made King of Athens; and near the beginning of his Reign Ceres came into Attica from Sicily, in quest of her daughter Proserpina. We cannot err much if we make Hellen contemporary to the Reign of Saul, and to that of David at Hebron; and place the beginning of the Reign of Erechtheus in the 25th year, the coming of Ceres into Attica in the 30th year, and the dispersion of corn by Triptolemus about the 40th year of David's Reign; and the death of Ceres and Erechtheus, and institution of the Eleusinia Sacra, between the tenth and fifteenth year of Solomon.

Teucer, Dardanus, Erichthonius, Tros, Ilus, Laomedon, and Priamus Reigned successively at Troy; and their Reigns, at about twenty years a-piece one with another, amount unto an hundred and forty years: which counted back from the taking of Troy, place the beginning of the Reign of Teucer about the fifteenth year of the Reign of King David; and that of Dardanus, in the days of Ceres, who lay with Jasius the brother of Dardanus: whereas Chronologers reckon that the six last of these Kings Reigned 296 years, which is after the rate of 49⅓ years a-piece one with another; and that they began their Reign in the days of Moses. Dardanus married the daughter of Teucer, the Son of Scamander, and succeeded him: whence Teucer was of about the same age with David.

Upon the return of Sesostris into Egypt, his brother Danaus not only attempted his life, as above, but also commanded his daughters, who were fifty in number and had married the sons of Sesostris, to slay their husbands; and then fled with his daughters from Egypt, in a long ship of fifty oars. This Flight was in the fourteenth year of Rehoboam. Danaus came first to Lindus, a town in Rhodes, and there built a Temple, and erected a Statue to Minerva, and lost three of his daughters by a plague which raged there; and then sailed thence with the rest of his daughters to Argos. He came to Argos therefore in the fifteenth or sixteenth year of Rehoboam: and at length contending there with Gelanor the brother of Eurystheus for the crown of Argos, was chosen by the people, and Reigned at Argos, while Eurystheus Reigned at Mycenæ; and Eurystheus was born ^[139] the same year with Hercules. Gelanor and Eurystheus were the sons of Sthenelus, by Nicippe the daughter of Pelops; and Sthenelus was the son of Perseus, and Reigned at Argos, and Danaus, who succeeded him at Argos, was succeeded there by his son in law Lynceus, and he by his son Abas; that Abas who is commonly, but erroneously, reputed the father of Acrisius and Prætus. In the time of the Argonautic expedition Castor and Pollux were beardless young men, and their sisters Helena and Clytemnestra were children, and their wives Phœbe and Ilaira were also very young: all these, with the Argonauts Lynceus and Idas, were the grandchildren of Gorgophone, the daughter of Perseus, the son of Danae, the daughter of Acrisius and Eurydice; and Perieres and Oebalus, the husbands of Gorgophone, were the sons of Cynortes, the son of Amyclas, the brother of Eurydice. Mestor or Mastor, the brother of Sthenelus, married Lysidice, another of the daughters of Pelops: and Pelops married Hippodamia, the daughter of Evarete, the daughter of Acrisius. Alcmena, the mother of Hercules, was the daughter of Electryo; and Sthenelus, Mestor and Electryo were brothers of Gorgophone, and sons of Perseus and Andromeda: and the Argonaut Æsculapius was the grandson of Leucippus and Phlegia, and Leucippus was the son of Perieres, the grandson of Amyclas the brother of Eurydice, and Amyclas and Eurydice were the children of Lacedæmon and Sparta: and Capaneus, one of the seven Captains against Thebes, was the husband of Euadne the daughter of Iphis, the son of Elector, the son of Anaxagoras, the son of Megapenthes, the son of Prætus the brother of Acrisius. Now from these Generations it may be gathered that Perseus, Perieres and Anaxagoras were of about the same age with Minos, Pelops, Ægeus and Sesac; and that Acrisius, Prætus, Eurydice, and Amyclas, being two little Generations older, were of about the same age with King David and Erechtheus; and that the Temple of Juno Argiva was built about the same time with the Temple of Solomon; the same being built by Eurydice to her daughter Danae, as above; or as some say, by Pirasus or Piranthus, the son or successor of Argus, and great grandson of Phoroneus: for the first Priestess of that Goddess was Callithea the daughter of Piranthus; Callithea was succeeded by Alcinoe, about three Generations before the taking of Troy, that is about the middle of Solomon's Reign: in her Priesthood the Siculi passed out of Italy into Sicily: afterwards Hypermnestra the daughter of Danaus became Priestess of this Goddess, and she flourished in the times next before the Argonautic expedition: and Admeta, the daughter of Eurystheus, was Priestess of this Juno about the times of the Trojan war. Andromeda the wife of Perseus, was the daughter of Cepheus an Egyptian, the son of Belus, according to ^[140] Herodotus; and the Egyptian Belus was Ammon: Perseus took her from Joppa, where Cepheus, I think a kinsman of Solomon's Queen, resided in the days of Solomon. Acrisius and Prætus were the sons of Abas: but this Abas was not the same man with Abas the grandson of Danaus, but a much older Prince, who built Abæa in Phocis, and might be the Prince from whom the island Eubœa ^[141] was anciently called Abantis, and the people thereof Abantes: for Apollonius Rhodius ^[142] tells us, that the Argonaut Canthus was the son of Canethus, and that Canethus was of the posterity of Abas; and the Commentator upon Apollonius tells us further, that from this Abas the inhabitants of Eubœa were anciently called Abantes. This Abas therefore flourished three or four Generations before the Argonautic expedition, and so might be the father of Acrisius: the ancestors of Acrisius were accounted Egyptians by the Greeks, and they might come from Egypt under Abas into Eubœa, and from thence into Peloponnesus. I do not reckon Phorbas and his son Triopas among the Kings of Argos, because they fled from that Kingdom to the Island Rhodes; nor do I reckon Crotopus among them, because because he went from Argos, and built a new city for himself in Megaris, as ^[143] Conon relates.

We said that Pelops came into Greece about the 26th year of Solomon: he ^[144] came thither in the days of Acrisius, and in those of Endymion, and of his sons, and took Ætolia from Aetolus. Endymion was the son of Aëthlius, the son of Protogenia, the sister of Hellen, and daughter of Deucalion: Phrixus and Helle, the children of Athamus, the brother of Sisyphus and Son of Æolus, the son of Hellen, fled from their stepmother Ino, the daughter of Cadmus, to Æetes in Colchis, presently after the return of Sesostris into Egypt: and Jason the Argonaut was the son of Æson, the son of Cretheus, the son of Æolus, the son of Hellen: and Calyce was the wife of Aëthlius, and mother of Endymion, and daughter of Æolus, and sister of Cretheus, Sisyphus and Athamas: and by these circumstances Cretheus, Sisyphus and Athamas flourished in the latter part of the Reign of Solomon, and in the Reign of Rehoboam: Aëthlius, Æolus, Xuthus, Dorus, Tantalus, and Danae were contemporary to Erechtheus, Jasius and Cadmus; and Hellen was about one, and Deucalion about two Generations older than Erechtheus. They could not be much older, because Xuthus the youngest son of Hellen ^[145] married Creusa the daughter of Erechtheus; nor could they be much younger, because Cephalus the son of Deioneus, the son of Æolus, the eldest son of Hellen, ^[146] married Procris the daughter of Erechtheus; and Procris fled from her husband to Minos. Upon the death of Hellen, his youngest son Xuthus ^[147] was expelled Thessaly by his brothers Æolus and Dorus, and fled to Erechtheus, and married Creusa the daughter of Erechtheus; by whom he had two sons, Achæus and Ion, the youngest of which grew up before the death of Erechtheus, and commanded the army of the Athenians, in the war in which Erechtheus was slain: and therefore Hellen died about one Generation before Erechtheus.

Sisyphus therefore built Corinth about the latter end of the Reign of Solomon, or the beginning of the Reign of Rehoboam. Upon the flight of Phrixus and Helle, their father Athamas, a little King in Bœotia, went distracted and slew his son Learchus; and his wife Ino threw her self into the sea, together with her other son Melicertus; and thereupon Sisyphus instituted the Isthmia at Corinth to his nephew Melicertus. This was presently after Sesostris had left Æetes in Colchis, I think in the fifteenth or sixteenth year of Rehoboam: so that Athamas, the son of Æolus and grandson of Hellen, and Ino the daughter of Cadmus, flourished 'till about the sixteenth year of Rehoboam. Sisyphus and his successors Ornytion, Thoas, Demophon, Propodas, Doridas, and Hyanthidas Reigned successively at Corinth, 'till the return of the Heraclides into Peloponnesus: then Reigned the Heraclides, Aletes, Ixion, Agelas, Prumnis, Bacchis, Agelas II, Eudamus, Aristodemus, and Telestes successively about 170 years, and then Corinth was governed by Prytanes or annual Archons about 42 years, and after them by Cypselus and Periander about 48 years more.

Celeus King of Eleusis, who was contemporary to Erechtheus, ^[148] was the son of Rharus, the son of Cranaus, the successor of Cecrops; and in the Reign of Cranaus, Deucalion fled with his sons Hellen and Amphictyon from the flood which then overflowed Thessaly, and was called Deucalion's flood: they fled into Attica, and there Deucalion died soon after; and Pausanias tells us that his Sepulchre was to be seen near Athens. His eldest son Hellen succeeded him in Thessaly, and his other son Amphictyon married the daughter of Cranaus, and Reigning at Thermopylæ, erected there the Amphictyonic Council; and Acrisius soon after erected the like Council at Delphi. This I conceive was done when Amphictyon and Acrisius were aged, and fit to be Counsellors; suppose in the latter half of the Reign of David, and beginning of the Reign of Solomon; and soon after, suppose about the middle of the Reign of Solomon, did Phemonoë become the first Priestess of Apollo at Delphi, and gave Oracles in hexameter verse: and then was Acrisius slain accidentally by his grandson Perseus. The Council of Thermopylæ included twelve nations of the Greeks, without Attica, and therefore Amphictyon did not then Reign at Athens: he might endeavour to succeed Cranaus, his wife's father, and be prevented by Erechtheus.

Between the Reigns of Cranaus and Erechtheus, Chronologers place also Erichthonius, and his son Pandion; but I take this Erichthonius and this his son Pandion, to be the same with Erechtheus and his son and successor Pandion, the names being only repeated with a little variation in the list of the Kings of Attica: for Erichthonius, he that was the son of the Earth, nursed up by Minerva, is by Homer called Erechtheus; and Themistius ^[149] tells us, that it was Erechtheus that first joyned a chariot to horses; and Plato ^[150] alluding to the story of Erichthonius in a basket, saith, The people of magnanimous Erechtheus is beautiful, but it behoves us to behold him taken out: Erechtheus therefore immediately succeeded Cranaus, while Amphictyon Reigned at Thermopylæ. In the Reign of Cranaus the Poets place the flood of Deucalion, and therefore the death of Deucalion, and the Reign of his sons Hellen and Amphictyon, in Thessaly and Thermpolyæ, was but a few years, suppose eight or ten, before the Reign of Erechtheus.

The first Kings of Arcadia were successively Pelasgus, Lycaon, Nyctimus, Arcas, Clitor, Æpytus, Aleus, Lycurgus, Echemus, Agapenor, Hippothous, Æpytus II, Cypselus, Olæas, &c. Under Cypselus the Heraclides returned into Peloponnesus, as above: Agapenor was one of those who courted Helena; he courted her before he reigned, and afterwards he went to the war at Troy, and thence to Cyprus, and there built Paphos. Echemus slew Hyllus the son of Hercules. Lycurgus, Cepheus, and Auge, were ^[151] the children of Aleus, the son of Aphidas, the son of Arcas, the son of Callisto, the daughter of Lycaon: Auge lay with Hercules, and Ancæus the son of Lycurgus was an Argonaut, and his uncle Cepheus was his Governour in that Expedition; and Lycurgus stay'd at home, to look after his aged father Aleus, who might be born about 75 years before that Expedition; and his grandfather Arcas might be born about the end of the Reign of Saul, and Lycaon the grandfather of Arcas might be then alive, and dye before the middle of David's Reign; and His youngest son Oenotrus, the Janus of the Latines, might grow up, and lead a colony into Italy before the Reign of Solomon. Arcas received ^[152] bread-corn from Triptolemus, and taught his people to make bread of it; and so did Eumelus, the first King of a region afterwards called Achaia: and therefore Arcas and Eumelus were contemporary to Triptolemus, and to his old father Celeus, and to Erechtheus King of Athens; and Callisto to Rharus, and her father Lycaon to Cranaus: but Lycaon died before Cranaus, so as to leave room for Deucalion's flood between their deaths. The eleven Kings of Arcadia, between this Flood and the Return of the Heraclides into Peloponnesus, that is, between the Reigns of Lycaon and Cypselus, after the rate of about twenty years to a Reign one with another, took up about 220 years; and these years counted back from the Return of the Heraclides, place the Flood of Deucalion upon the fourteenth year of David's Reign, or thereabout.

Herodotus ^[153] tells us, that the Phœnicians who came with Cadmus brought many doctrines into Greece: for amongst those Phœnicians were a sort of men called Curetes, who were skilled in the Arts and Sciences of Phœnicia, above other men, and ^[154] settled some in Phrygia, where they were called Corybantes; some in Crete, where they were called Idæi Dactyli; some in Rhodes, where they were called Telchines; some in Samothrace, where they were called Cabiri; some in Eubœa, where, before the invention of iron, they wrought in copper, in a city thence called Chalcis some in Lemnos, where they assisted Vulcan; and some in Imbrus, and other places: and a considerable number of them settled in Ætolia, which was thence called the country of the Curetes; until Ætolus the son of Endymion, having slain Apis King of Sicyon, fled thither, and by the assistance of his father invaded it, and from his own name called it Ætolia: and by the assistance of these artificers, Cadmus found out gold in the mountain Pangæus in Thrace, and copper at Thebes; whence copper ore is still called Cadmia. Where they settled they wrought first in copper, 'till iron was invented, and then in iron; and when they had made themselves armour, they danced in it at the sacrifices with tumult and clamour, and bells, and pipes, and drums, and swords, with which they struck upon one another's armour, in musical times, appearing seized with a divine fury; and this is reckoned the original of music in Greece: so Solinus ^[155] Studium musicum inde cœptum cum Idæi Dactyli modulos crepitu & tinnitu æris deprehensos in versificum ordinem transtulissent: and ^[156] Isidorus, Studium musicum ab Idæis Dactylis cœptum. Apollo and the Muses were two Generations later. Clemens ^[157] calls the Idæi Dactyli barbarous, that is strangers; and saith, that they reputed the first wise men, to whom both the letters which they call Ephesian, and the invention of musical rhymes are referred: it seems that when the Phœnician letters, ascribed to Cadmus, were brought into Greece, they were at the same time brought into Phrygia and Crete, by the Curetes; who settled in those countries, and called them Ephesian, from the city Ephesus, where they were first taught. The Curetes, by their manufacturing copper and iron, and making swords, and armour, and edged tools for hewing and carving of wood, brought into Europe a new way of fighting; and gave Minos an opportunity of building a Fleet, and gaining the dominion of the seas; and set on foot the trades of Smiths and Carpenters in Greece, which are the foundation of manual trades: the ^[158] fleet of Minos was without sails, and Dædalus fled from him by adding sails to his vessel; and therefore ships with sails were not used by the Greeks before the flight of Dædalus, and death of Minos, who was slain in pursuing him to Sicily, in the Reign of Rehoboam. Dædalus and his nephew Talus, in the latter part of the Reign of Solomon, invented the chip-ax, and saw, and wimble, and perpendicular, and compass, and turning-lath, and glew, and the potter's wheel; and his father Eupalamus invented the anchor: and these things gave a beginning to manual Arts and Trades in Europe.

The ^[159] Curetes, who thus introduced Letters, and Music, and Poetry, and Dancing, and Arts, and attended on the Sacrifices, were no less active about religious institutions, and for their skill and knowledge and mystical practices, were accounted wise men and conjurers by the vulgar. In Phrygia their mysteries were about Rhea, called Magna Mater, and from the places where she was worshipped, Cybele, Berecynthia, Pessinuntia, Dindymene, Mygdonia, and Idæa Phrygia: and in Crete, and the Terra Curetum, they were about Jupiter Olympius, the son of the Cretan Rhea: they represented, ^[160] that when Jupiter was born in Crete, his mother Rhea caused him to be educated in a cave in mount Ida, under their care and tuition; and ^[161] that they danced about him in armour, with great noise, that his father Saturn might not hear him cry; and when he was grown up, assisted him in conquering his father, and his father's friends; and in memory of these things instituted their mysteries. Bochart ^[162] brings them from Palestine, and thinks that they had the name of Curetes from the people among the Philistims called Crethim, or Cerethites: Ezek. xxv. 16. Zeph. ii. 5. 1 Sam. xxx. 14, for the Philistims conquered Zidon, and mixed with the Zidonians.

The two first Kings of Crete, who reigned after the coming of the Curetes, were Asterius and Minos; and Europa was the Queen of Asterius, and mother of Minos; and the Idæan Curetes were her countrymen, and came with her and her brother Alymnus into Crete, and dwelt in the Idæan cave in her Reign, and there educated Jupiter, and found out iron, and made armour: and therefore these three, Asterius, Europa, and Minos, must be the Saturn, Rhea and Jupiter of the Cretans. Minos is usually called the son of Jupiter; but this is in relation to the fable, that Jupiter in the shape of a bull, the Ensign of the Ship, carried away Europa from Zidon: for the Phœnicians, upon their first coming into Greece, gave the name of Jao-pater, Jupiter, to every King: and thus both Minos and his father were Jupiters. Echemenes, an ancient author cited by Athenæus, ^[163] said that Minos was that Jupiter who committed the rape upon Ganimede; though others said more truly that it was Tantalus: Minos alone was that Jupiter who was most famous among the Greeks for Dominion and Justice, being the greatest King in all Greece in those days, and the only legislator. Plutarch ^[164] tells us, that the people of Naxus, contrary to what others write, pretended that there were two Minos's, and two Ariadnes; and that the first Ariadne married Bacchus, and the last was carried away by Theseus: but ^[165] Homer, Hesiod, Thucydides, Herodotus, and Strabo, knew but of one Minos; and Homer describes him to be the son of Jupiter and Europa, and the brother of Rhadamanthus and Sarpedon, and the father of Deucalion the Argonaut, and grandfather of Idomeneus who warred at Troy, and that he was the legislator of Hell: Herodotus ^[166] makes Minos and Rhadamanthus the sons of Europa, contemporary to Ægeus: and ^[167] Apollodorus and Hyginus say, that Minos, the father of Androgeus, Ariadne and Phædra, was the son of Jupiter and Europa, and brother of Rhadamanthus and Sarpedon.

Lucian ^[168] lets us know that Europa the mother of Minos was worshipped by the name of Rhea, the form of a woman sitting in a chariot drawn by lions, with a drum in her hand, and a Corona turrita on her head, like Astarte and Isis; and the Cretans ^[169] anciently shewed the house where this Rhea lived: and ^[170] Apollonius Rhodius tells us, that Saturn, while he Reigned over the Titans in Olympus, a mountain in Crete, and Jupiter was educated by the Curetes in the Cretan cave, deceived Rhea, and of Philyra begot Chiron: and therefore the Cretan Saturn and Rhea, were but one Generation older than Chiron, and by consequence not older than Asterius and Europa, the parents of Minos; for Chiron lived 'till after the Argonautic Expedition, and had two grandsons in that Expedition, and Europa came into Crete above an hundred years before that Expedition: Lucian ^[171] tells us, that the Cretans did not only relate, that Jupiter was born and buried among them, but also shewed his sepulchre: and Porphyry ^[172] tells us, that Pythagoras went down into the Idæan cave, to see sepulchre: and Cicero, ^[173] in numbering three Jupiters, saith, that the third was the Cretan Jupiter, Saturn's son, whose sepulchre was shewed in Crete: and the Scholiast upon Callimachus ^[174] lets us know, that this was the sepulchre of Minos: his words are, Εν Κρητη επι τωι ταφωι του Μινωος επεγεγραπτο, ΜΙΝΩΟΣ ΤΟΥ ΔΙΟΣ ΤΑΦΟΣ. τωι χρονωι δε του Μινωος απηλειφθη, ‛ωστε περιλειφθηναι, ΔΙΟΣ ΤΑΦΟΣ. εκ τουτου ουν εχειν λεγουσι Κρητες τον ταφον του Διος. In Crete upon the Sepulchre of Minos was written Minois Jovis sepulchrum: but in time Minois wore out so that there remained only, Jovis sepulchrum, and thence the Cretans called it the Sepulchre of Jupiter. By Saturn, Cicero, who was a Latine, understood the Saturn so called by the Latines: for when Saturn was expelled his Kingdom he fled from Crete by sea, to Italy; and this the Poets exprest by saying, that Jupiter cast him down to Tartarus, that is, into the Sea: and because he lay hid in Italy, the Latines called him Saturn; and Italy, Saturnia, and Latium, and themselves Latines: so ^[175] Cyprian; Antrum Jovis in Creta visitur, & sepulchrum ejus ostenditur: & ab eo Saturnum fugatum esse manifestum est: unde Latium de latebra ejus nomen accepit: hic literas imprimere, hic signare nummos in Italia primus instituit, unde ærarium Saturni vocatur; & rusticitatis hic cultor fuit, inde falcem ferens senex pingitur: and Minutius Felix; Saturnus Creta profugus, Italiam metu filii sævientis accesserat, & Jani susceptus hospitio, rudes illos homines & agrestes multa docuit, ut Græculus & politus, literas imprimere, nummos signare, instrumenta conficere: itaque latebram suam, quod tuto latuisset, vocari maluit Latium, & urbem Saturniam de suo nomine. * * Ejus filius Jupiter Cretæ excluso parente regnavit, illic obiit, illic filios habuit; adhuc antrum Jovis visitur, & sepulchrum ejus ostenditur, & ipsis sacris suis humanitatis arguitur: and Tertullian; ^[176] Quantum rerum argumenta docent, nusquam invenio fideliora quam apud ipsam Italiam, in qua Saturnus post multas expeditiones, postque Attica hospitia consedit, exceptus ab Jano, vel Jane ut Salii volunt. Mons quem incoluerat Saturnius dictus: civitas quam depalaverat Saturnia usque nunc est. Tota denique Italia post Oenotriam Saturnia cognominabatur. Ab ipso primum tabulæ, & imagine signatus nummus, & inde ærario præsidet. By Saturn's carrying letters into Italy, and coyning money, and teaching agriculture, and making instruments, and building a town, you may know that he fled from Crete, after letters, and the coyning of money, and manual arts were brought into Europe by the Phœnicians; and from Attica, after agriculture was brought into Greece by Ceres; and so could not be older than Asterius, and Europa, and her brother Cadmus: and by Italy's being called Oenotria, before it was called Saturnia, you may know that he came into Italy after Oenotrus, and so was not older than the sons of Lycaon. Oenotrus carried the first colony of the Greeks into Italy, Saturn the second, and Evander the third; and the Latines know nothing older in Italy than Janus and Saturn: and therefore Oenotrus was the Janus of the Latines, and Saturn was contemporary to the sons of Lycaon, and by consequence also to Celeus, Erechtheus, Ceres, and Asterius: for Ceres educated Triptolemus the son of Celeus, in the Reign of Erechtheus, and then taught him to plow and sow corn: Arcas the son of Callisto, and grandson of Lycaon, received corn from Triptolemus, and taught his people to make bread of it; and Procris, the daughter of Erechtheus, fled to Minos the son of Asterius. In memory of Saturn's coming into Italy by sea, the Latines coined their first money with his head on one side, and a ship on the other. Macrobius ^[177] tells us, that when Saturn was dead, Janus erected an Altar to him, with sacred rites as to a God, and instituted the Saturnalia, and that humane sacrifices were offered to him; 'till Hercules driving the cattle of Geryon through Italy, abolished that custom: by the human sacrifices you may know that Janus was of the race of Lycaon; which character agrees to Oenotrus. Dionysius Halicarnassensis tells us further, that Oenotrus having found in the western parts of Italy a large region fit for pasturage and tillage, but yet for the most part uninhabited, and where it was inhabited, peopled but thinly; in a certain part of it, purged from the Barbarians, he built towns little and numerous, in the mountains; which manner of building was familiar to the ancients: and this was the Original of Towns in Italy.

Pausanias ^[178] tells us that the people of Elis, who were best skilled in Antiquities, related this to have been the Original of the Olympic Games: that Saturn Reigned first and had a Temple built to him in Olympia by the men of the Golden Age; and that when Jupiter was newly born, his mother Rhea recommended him to the care of the Idæi Dactyli, who were also called Curetes: that afterwards five of them, called Hercules, Pœonius, Epimedes, Jasius, and Ida, came from Ida, a mountain in Crete, into Elis; and Hercules, called also Hercules Idæus, being the oldest of them, in memory of the war between Saturn and Jupiter, instituted the game of racing, and that the victor should be rewarded with a crown of olive; and there erected an altar to Jupiter Olympius, and called these games Olympic: and that some of the Eleans said, that Jupiter contended here with Saturn for the Kingdom; others that Hercules Idæus instituted these games in memory of their victory over the Titans: for the people of Arcadia ^[179] had a tradition, that the Giants fought with the Gods in the valley of Bathos, near the river Alpheus and the fountain Olympias. ^[180] Before the Reign of Asterius, his father Teutamus came into Crete with a colony from Olympia; and upon the flight of Asterius, some of his friends might retire with him into their own country, and be pursued and beaten there by the Idæan Hercules: the Eleans said also that Clymenus the grandson of the Idæan Hercules, about fifty years after Deucalion's flood, coming from Crete, celebrated these games again in Olympia, and erected there an altar to Juno Olympia, that is, to Europa, and another to this Hercules and the rest of the Curetes; and Reigned in Elis 'till he was expelled by Endymion, ^[181] who thereupon celebrated these games again: and so did Pelops, who expelled Ætolus the son of Endymion; and so also did Hercules the son of Alcmena, and Atreus the son of Pelops, and Oxylus: they might be celebrated originally in triumph for victories, first by Hercules Idæus, upon the conquest of Saturn and the Titans, and then by Clymenus, upon his coming to Reign in the Terra Curetum; then by Endymion, upon his conquering Clymenus; and afterwards by Pelops, upon his conquering Ætolus; and by Hercules, upon his killing Augeas; and by Atreus, upon his repelling the Heraclides; and by Oxylus, upon the return of the Heraclides into Peloponnesus. This Jupiter, to whom they were instituted, had a Temple and Altar erected to him in Olympia, where the games were celebrated, and from the place was called Jupiter Olympius: Olympia was a place upon the confines of Pisa, near the river Alpheus.

In the ^[182] Island Thasus, where Cadmus left his brother Thasus, the Phœnicians built a Temple to Hercules Olympius, that Hercules, whom Cicero ^[183] calls ex Idæis Dactylis; cui inferias afferunt. When the mysteries of Ceres were instituted in Eleusis, there were other mysteries instituted to her and her daughter and daughter's husband, in the Island Samothrace, by the Phœnician names of Dii Cabiri Axieros, Axiokersa, and Axiokerses, that is, the great Gods Ceres, Proserpina and Pluto: for ^[184] Jasius a Samothracian, whose sister married Cadmus, was familiar with Ceres; and Cadmus and Jasius were both of them instituted in these mysteries. Jasius was the brother of Dardanus, and married Cybele the daughter of Meones King of Phrygia, and by her had Corybas; and after his death, Dardanus, Cybele and Corybas went into Phrygia, and carried thither the mysteries of the mother of the Gods, and Cybele called the goddess after her own name, and Corybas called her priests Corybantes: thus Diodorus; but Dionysius saith ^[185] that Dardanus instituted the Samothracian mysteries, and that his wife Chryses learnt them in Arcadia, and that Idæus the son of Dardanus instituted afterwards the mysteries of the mother of the gods in Phrygia: this Phrygian Goddess was drawn in a chariot by lions, and had a corona turrita on her head, and a drum in her hand, like the Phœnician Goddess Astarte, and the Corybantes danced in armour at her sacrifices in a furious manner, like the Idæi Dactyli; and Lucian ^[186] tells us that she was the Cretan Rhea, that is, Europa the mother of Minos: and thus the Phœnicians introduced the practice of Deifying dead men and women among the Greeks and Phrygians; for I meet with no instance of Deifying dead men and women in Greece, before the coming of Cadmus and Europa from Zidon.

From these originals it came into fashion among the Greeks, κτεριζειν, parentare, to celebrate the funerals of dead parents with festivals and invocations and sacrifices offered to their ghosts, and to erect magnificent sepulchres in the form of temples, with altars and statues, to persons of renown; and there to honour them publickly with sacrifices and invocations: every man might do it to his ancestors; and the cities of Greece did it to all the eminent Greeks: as to Europa the sister, to Alymnus the brother, and to Minos and Rhadamanthus the nephews of Cadmus; to his daughter Ino, and her son Melicertus; to Bacchus the son of his daughter Semele, Aristarchus the husband of his daughter Autonoe, and Jasius the brother of his wife Harmonia; to Hercules a Theban, and his mother Alcmena; to Danae the daughter of Acrisius; to Æsculapius and Polemocrates the son of Machaon, to Pandion and Theseus Kings of Athens, Hippolytus the son of Theseus, Pan the son of Penelope, Proserpina, Triptolemus, Celeus, Trophonius, Castor, Pollux, Helena, Menelaus, Agamemnon, Amphiaraus and his son Amphilochus, Hector and Alexandra the son and daughter of Priam, Phoroneus, Orpheus, Protesilaus, Achilles and his mother Thetis, Ajax, Arcas, Idomeneus, Meriones, Æacus, Melampus, Britomartis, Adrastus, Iolaus, and divers others. They Deified their dead in divers manners, according to their abilities and circumstances, and the merits of the person; some only in private families, as houshold Gods or Dii Pænates; others by erecting gravestones to them in publick, to be used as altars for annual sacrifices; others, by building also to them sepulchres in the form of houses or temples; and some by appointing mysteries, and ceremonies, and set sacrifices, and festivals, and initiations, and a succession of priests for performing those institutions in the temples, and handing them down to posterity. Altars might begin to be erected in Europe a little before the days of Cadmus, for sacrificing to the old God or Gods of the Colonies, but Temples began in the days of Solomon; for ^[187] Æacus the son of Ægina, who was two Generations older than the Trojan war, is by some reputed one of the first who built a Temple in Greece. Oracles came first from Egypt into Greece about the same time, as also did the custom of forming the images of the Gods with their legs bound up in the shape of the Egyptian mummies: for Idolatry began in Chaldæa and Egypt, and spread thence into Phœnicia and the neighbouring countries, long before it came into Europe; and the Pelasgians propagated it in Greece, by the dictates of the Oracles. The countries upon the Tigris and the Nile being exceeding fertile, were first frequented by mankind, and grew first into Kingdoms, and therefore began first to adore their dead Kings and Queens: hence came the Gods of Laban, the Gods and Goddesses called Baalim and Ashtaroth by the Canaanites, the Dæmons or Ghosts to whom they sacrificed, and the Moloch to whom they offered their children in the days of Moses and the Judges. Every City set up the worship of its own Founder and Kings, and by alliances and conquests they spread this worship, and at length the Phœnicians and Egyptians brought into Europe the practice of Deifying the dead. The Kingdom of the lower Egypt began to worship their Kings before the days of Moses; and to this worship the second commandment is opposed: when the Shepherds invaded the lower Egypt, they checked this worship of the old Egyptians, and spread that of their own Kings: and at length the Egyptians of Coptos and Thebais, under Misphragmuthosis and Amosis, expelling the Shepherds, checked the worship of the Gods of the Shepherds, and Deifying their own Kings and Princes, propagated the worship of twelve of them into their conquests; and made them more universal than the false Gods of any other nation had been before, so as to be called, Dii magni majorum gentium. Sesostris conquered Thrace, and Amphictyon the son of Prometheus brought the twelve Gods from Thrace into Greece: Herodotus ^[188] tells us that they came from Egypt; and by the names of the cities of Egypt dedicated to many of these Gods, you may know that they were of an Egyptian original: and the Egyptians, according to Diodorus, ^[189] usually represented, that after their Saturn and Rhea, Reigned Jupiter and Juno, the parents of Osiris and Isis, the parents of Orus and Bubaste.

By all this it may be understood, that as the Egyptians who Deified their Kings, began their monarchy with the Reign of their Gods and Heroes, reckoning Menes the first man who reigned after their Gods; so the Cretans had the Ages of their Gods and Heroes, calling the first four Ages of their Deified Kings and Princes, the Golden, Silver, Brazen, and Iron Ages. Hesiod ^[190] describing these four Ages of the Gods and Demi-Gods of Greece, represents them to be four Generations of men, each of which ended when the men then living grew old and dropt into the grave, and tells us that the fourth ended with the wars of Thebes and Troy: and so many Generations there were, from the coming of the Phœnicians and Curetes with Cadmus and Europa into Greece unto the destruction of Troy. Apollonius Rhodius saith that when the Argonauts came to Crete, they slew Talus a brazen man, who remained of those that were of the Brazen Age, and guarded that pass: Talus was reputed ^[191] the son of Minos, and therefore the sons of Minos lived in the Brazen Age, and Minos Reigned in the Silver Age: it was the Silver Age of the Greeks in which they began to plow and sow Corn, and Ceres, that taught them to do it, flourished in the Reign of Celeus and Erechtheus and Minos. Mythologists tell us that the last woman with whom Jupiter lay, was Alcmena; and thereby they seem to put an end to the Reign of Jupiter among mortals, that is to the Silver Age, when Alcmena was with child of Hercules; who therefore was born about the eighth or tenth year of Rehoboam's Reign, and was about 34 years old at the time of the Argonautic expedition. Chiron was begot by Saturn of Philyra in the Golden Age, when Jupiter was a child in the Cretan cave, as above; and this was in the Reign of Asterius King of Crete: and therefore Asterius Reigned in Crete in the Golden Age; and the Silver Age began when Chiron was a child: if Chiron was born about the 35th year of David's Reign, he will be born in the Reign of Asterius, when Jupiter was a child in the Cretan cave, and be about 88 years old in the time of the Argonautic expedition, when he invented the Asterisms; and this is within the reach of nature. The Golden Age therefore falls in with the Reign of Asterius, and the Silver Age with that of Minos; and to make these Ages much longer than ordinary generations, is to make Chiron live much longer than according to the course of nature. This fable of the four Ages seems to have been made by the Curetes in the fourth Age, in memory of the first four Ages of their coming into Europe, as into a new world; and in honour of their country-woman Europa, and her husband Asterius the Saturn of the Latines, and of her son Minos the Cretan Jupiter and grandson Deucalion, who Reigned 'till the Argonautic expedition, and is sometimes reckoned among the Argonauts, and of their great grandson Idomeneus who warred at Troy. Hesiod tells us that he himself lived in the fifth Age, the Age next after the taking of Troy, and therefore he flourished within thirty or thirty five years after it: and Homer was of about the same Age; for he ^[192] lived sometime with Mentor in Ithaca, and there learnt of him many things concerning Ulysses, with whom Mentor had been personally acquainted: now Herodotus, the oldest Historian of the Greeks now extant, ^[193] tells us that Hesiod and Homer were not above four hundred years older than himself, and therefore they flourished within 110 or 120 years after the death of Solomon; and according to my reckoning the taking of Troy was but one Generation earlier.

Mythologists tell us, that Niobe the daughter of Phoroneus was the first woman with whom Jupiter lay, and that of her he begat Argus, who succeeded Phoroneus in the Kingdom of Argos, and gave his name to that city; and therefore Argus was born in the beginning of the Silver Age: unless you had rather say that by Jupiter they might here mean Asterius; for the Phœnicians gave the name of Jupiter to every King, from the time of their first coming into Greece with Cadmus and Europa, until the invasion of Greece by Sesostris, and the birth of Hercules, and particularly to the fathers of Minos, Pelops, Lacedæmon, Æacus, and Perseus.

The four first Ages succeeded the flood of Deucalion; and some tell us that Deucalion was the son of Prometheus, the son of Japetus, and brother of Atlas: but this was another Deucalion; for Japetus the father of Prometheus, Epimetheus, and Atlas, was an Egyptian, the brother of Osiris, and flourished two generations after the flood of Deucalion.

I have now carried up the Chronology of the Greeks as high as to the first use of letters, the first plowing and sowing of corn, the first manufacturing of copper and iron, the beginning of the trades of Smiths, Carpenters, Joyners, Turners, Brick-makers, Stone-cutters, and Potters, in Europe; the first walling of cities about, the first building of Temples, and the original of Oracles in Greece; the beginning of navigation by the Stars in long ships with sails; the erecting of the Amphictyonic Council; the first Ages of Greece, called the Golden, Silver, Brazen and Iron Ages, and the flood of Deucalion which immediately preceded them. Those Ages could not be earlier than the invention and use of the four metals in Greece, from whence they had their names; and the flood of Ogyges could not be much above two or three ages earlier than that of Deucalion: for among such wandering people as were then in Europe, there could be no memory of things done above three or four ages before the first use of letters: and the expulsion of the Shepherds out of Egypt, which gave the first occasion to the coming of people from Egypt into Greece, and to the building of houses and villages in Greece, was scarce earlier than the days of Eli and Samuel; for Manetho tells us, that when they were forced to quit Abaris and retire out of Egypt, they went through the wilderness into Judæa and built Jerusalem: I do not think, with Manetho, that they were the Israelites under Moses, but rather believe that they were Canaanites; and upon leaving Abaris mingled with the Philistims their next neighbours: though some of them might assist David and Solomon in building Jerusalem and the Temple.

Saul was made King ^[194], that he might rescue Israel out of the hand of the Philistims, who opressed them; and in the second year of his Reign, the Philistims brought into the field against him thirty thousand chariots, and six thousand horsemen, and people as the sand which is on the sea shore for multitude: the Canaanites had their horses from Egypt; and yet in the days of Moses all the chariots of Egypt, with which Pharaoh pursued Israel were but six hundred, Exod. xiv. 7. From the great army of the Philistims against Saul, and the great number of their horses, I seem to gather that the Shepherds had newly relinquished Egypt; and joyned them: the Shepherds might be beaten and driven out of the greatest part of Egypt, and shut up in Abaris by Misphragmuthosis in the latter end of the days of Eli; and some of them fly to the Philistims, and strengthen them against Israel, in the last year of Eli; and from the Philistims some of the Shepherds might go to Zidon, and from Zidon, by sea to Asia minor and Greece: and afterwards, in the beginning of the Reign of Saul, the Shepherds who still remained in Egypt might be forced by Tethmosis or Amosis the son of Misphragmuthosis, to leave Abaris, and retire in very great numbers to the Philistims; and upon these occasions several of them, as Pelasgus, Inachus, Lelex, Cecrops, and Abas, might come with their people by sea from Egypt to Zidon and Cyprus, and thence to Asia minor and Greece, in the days of Eli, Samuel and Saul, and thereby begin to open a commerce by sea between Zidon and Greece, before the revolt of Edom from Judæa, and the final coming of the Phœnicians from the Red Sea.

Pelasgus Reigned in Arcadia, and was the father of Lycaon, according to Pherecydes Atheniensis, and Lycaon died just before the flood of Deucalion; and therefore his father Pelasgus might come into Greece about two Generations before Cadmus, or in the latter end of the days of Eli: Lycaon sacrificed children, and therefore his father might come with his people from the Shepherds in Egypt, and perhaps from the regions of Heliopolis, where they sacrificed men, 'till Amosis abolished that custom. Misphragmuthosis the father of Amosis, drove the Shepherds out of a great part of Egypt, and shut the remainder up in Abaris: and then great numbers might escape to Greece; some from the regions of Heliopolis under Pelasgus, and others from Memphis and other places, under other Captains: and hence it might come to pass that the Pelasgians were at the first very numerous in Greece, and spake a different language from the Greek, and were the ringleaders in bringing into Greece the worship of the dead.

Inachus is called the son of Oceanus, perhaps because he came to Greece by sea: he might come with his people to Argos from Egypt in the days of Eli, and seat himself upon the river Inachus, so named from him, and leave his territories to his sons Phoroneus, Ægialeus, and Phegeus, in the days of Samuel: for Car the son of Phoroneus built a Temple to Ceres in Megara, and therefore was contemporary to Erechtheus. Phoroneus Reigned at Argos, and Aegialeus at Sicyon, and founded those Kingdoms; and yet Ægialeus is made above five hundred years older than Phoroneus by some Chronologers: but ^[195] Acusilaus, ^[196] Anticlides and ^[197] Plato, accounted Phoroneus the oldest King in Greece, and ^[198] Apollodorus tells us, Ægialeus was the brother of Phoroneus. Ægialeus died without issue, and after him Reigned Europs, Telchin, Apis, Lamedon, Sicyon, Polybus, Adrastus, and Agamemnon, &c. and Sicyon gave his name to the Kingdom: Herodotus ^[199] saith that Apis in the Greek Tongue is Epaphus; and Hyginus, ^[200] that Epaphus the Sicyonian got Antiopa with child: but the later Greeks have made two men of the two names Apis and Epaphus or Epopeus, and between them inserted twelve feigned Kings of Sicyon, who made no wars, nor did any thing memorable, and yet Reigned five hundred and twenty years, which is, one with another, above forty and three years a-piece. If these feigned Kings be rejected, and the two Kings Apis and Epopeus be reunited; Ægialeus will become contemporary to his brother Phoroneus, as he ought to be; for Apis or Epopeus, and Nycteus the guardian of Labdacus, were slain in battle about the tenth year of Solomon, as above; and the first four Kings of Sicyon, Ægialeus, Europs, Telchin, Apis, after the rate of about twenty years to a Reign, take up about eighty years; and these years counted upwards from the tenth year of Solomon, place the beginning of the Reign of Ægialeus upon the twelfth year of Samuel, or thereabout: and about that time began the Reign of Phoroneus at Argos; Apollodorus ^[201] calls Adrastus King of Argos; but Homer ^[202] tells us, that he Reigned first at Sicyon: he was in the first war against Thebes. Some place Janiscus and Phæstus between Polybus and Adrastus, but without any certainty.

Lelex might come with his people into Laconia in the days of Eli, and leave his territories to his sons Myles, Eurotas, Cleson, and Polycaon in the days of Samuel. Myles set up a quern, or handmill to grind corn, and is reputed the first among the Greeks who did so: but he flourished before Triptolemus, and seems to have had his corn and artificers from Egypt. Eurotas the brother, or as some say the son of Myles, built Sparta, and called it after the name of his daughter Sparta, the wife of Lacedæmon, and mother of Eurydice. Cleson was the father of Pylas the father of Sciron, who married the daughter of Pandion the son of Erechtheus, and contended with Nisus the son of Pandion and brother of Ægeus, for the Kingdom; and Æacus adjudged it to Nisus. Polycaon invaded Messene, then peopled only by villages, called it Messene after the name of his wife, and built cities therein.

Cecrops came from Sais in Egypt to Cyprus, and thence into Attica: and he might do this in the days of Samuel, and marry Agraule the daughter of Actæus, and succeed him in Attica soon after, and leave his Kingdom to Cranaus in the Reign of Saul, or in the beginning of the Reign of David: for the flood of Deucalion happened in the Reign of Cranaus.

Of about the same age with Pelasgus, Inachus, Lelex, and Actæus, was Ogyges: he Reigned in Bœotia, and some of his people were Leleges: and either he or his son Eleusis built the city Eleusis in Attica, that is, they built a few houses of clay, which in time grew into a city. Acusilaus wrote that Phoroneus was older than Ogyges, and that Ogyges flourished 1020 years before the first Olympiad, as above; but Acusilaus was an Argive, and feigned these things in honour of his country: to call things Ogygian has been a phrase among the ancient Greeks, to signify that they are as old as the first memory of things; and so high we have now carried up the Chronology of the Greeks. Inachus might be as old as Ogyges, but Acusilaus and his followers made them seven hundred years older than the truth; and Chronologers, to make out this reckoning, have lengthened the races of the Kings of Argos and Sicyon, and changed several contemporary Princes of Argos into successive Kings, and inserted many feigned Kings into the race of the Kings of Sicyon.

Inachus had several sons, who Reigned in several parts of Peloponnesus, and there built Towns; as Phoroneus, who built Phoronicum, afterwards called Argos, from Argus his grandson; Ægialeus, who built Ægialea, afterwards called Sicyon, from Sicyon the grandson of Erechtheus; Phegeus, who built Phegea, afterwards called Psophis, from Psophis the daughter of Lycaon: and these were the oldest towns in Peloponnesus then Sisyphus, the son of Æolus and grandson of Hellen, built Ephyra, afterwards called Corinth; and Aëthlius, the son of Æolus, built Elis: and before them Cecrops built Cecropia, the cittadel of Athens; and Lycaon built Lycosura, reckoned by some the oldest town in Arcadia; and his sons, who were at least four and twenty in number, built each of them a town; except the youngest, called Oenotrus, who grew up after his father's death, and sailed into Italy with his people, and there set on foot the building of towns, and became the Janus of the Latines. Phoroneus had also several children and grand-children, who Reigned in several places, and built new towns, as Car, Apis, &c. and Hæmon, the son of Pelasgus, Reigned in Hæmonia, afterwards called Thessaly, and built towns there. This division and subdivision has made great confusion in the history of the first Kingdoms of Peloponnesus, and thereby given occasion to the vain-glorious Greeks, to make those kingdoms much older than they really were: but by all the reckonings abovementioned, the first civilizing of the Greeks, and teaching them to dwell in houses and towns, and the oldest towns in Europe, could scarce be above two or three Generations older than the coming of Cadmus from Zidon into Greece; and might most probably be occasioned by the expulsion of the Shepherds out of Egypt in the days of Eli and Samuel, and their flying into Greece in considerable numbers: but it's difficult to set right the Genealogies and Chronology of the Fabulous Ages of the Greeks, and I leave these things to be further examined.

Before the Phœnicians introduced the Deifying of dead men, the Greeks had a Council of Elders in every town for the government thereof, and a place where the elders and people worshipped their God with Sacrifices: and when many of those towns, for their common safety, united under a common Council, they erected a Prytaneum or Court in one of the towns, where the Council and People met at certain times, to consult their common safety, and worship their common God with sacrifices, and to buy and sell: the towns where these Councils met, the Greeks called δημοι, peoples or communities, or Corporation Towns: and at length, when many of these δημοι for their common safety united by consent under one common Council, they erected a Prytaneum in one of the δημοι for the common Council and People to meet in, and to consult and worship in, and feast, and buy, and sell; and this δημος they walled about for its safety, and called την πολιν the city: and this I take to have been the original of Villages, Market-Towns, Cities, common Councils, Vestal Temples, Feasts and Fairs, in Europe: the Prytaneum, πυρος ταμειον, was a Court with a place of worship, and a perpetual fire kept therein upon an Altar for sacrificing: from the word ‛Εστια fire, came the name Vesta, which at length the people turned into a Goddess, and so became fire-worshippers like the ancient Persians: and when these Councils made war upon their neighbours, they had a general commander to lead their armies, and he became their King.

So Thucydides ^[203] tells us, that under Cecrops and the ancient Kings, untill Theseus; Attica was always inhabited city by city, each having Magistrates and Prytanea: neither did they consult the King, when there was no fear of danger, but each apart administred their own common-wealth, and had their own Council, and even sometimes made war, as the Eleusinians with Eumolpus did against Erechtheus: but when Theseus, a prudent and potent man obtained the Kingdom, he took away the Courts and Magistrates of the other cities, and made them all meet in one Council and Prytaneum at Athens. Polemon, as he is cited by ^[204] Strabo, tells us, that in this body of Attica, there were 170 δημοι, one of which was Eleusis: and Philochorus ^[205] relates, that when Attica was infested by sea and land by the Cares and Bœoti, Cecrops the first of any man reduced the multitude, that is the 170 towns, into twelve cities, whose names were Cecropia, Tetrapolis, Epacria, Decelia, Eleusis, Aphydna, Thoricus, Brauron, Cytherus, Sphettus, Cephissia, and Phalerus; and that Theseus contracted those twelve cities into one, which was Athens.

The original of the Kingdom of the Argives was much after the same manner: for Pausanias ^[206] tells us, that Phoroneus the son of Inachus was the first who gathered into one community the Argives, who 'till then were scattered, and lived every where apart, and the place where they were first assembled was called Phoronicum, the city of Phoroneus: and Strabo ^[207] observes, that Homer calls all the places which he reckons up in Peloponnesus, a few excepted, not cities but regions, because each of them consisted of a convention of many δημοι, free towns, out of which afterward noble cities were built and frequented: so the Argives composed Mantinæa in Arcadia out of five towns, and Tegea out of nine; and out of so many was Heræa built by Cleombrotus, or by Cleonymus: so also Ægium was built out of seven or eight towns, Patræ: out of seven, and Dyme out of eight; and so Elis was erected by the conflux of many towns into one city.

Pausanias ^[208] tells us, that the Arcadians accounted Pelasgus the first man, and that he was their first King; and taught the ignorant people to built houses, for defending themselves from heat, and cold, and rain; and to make them garments of skins; and instead of herbs and roots, which were sometimes noxious, to eat the acorns of the beech tree; and that his son Lycaon built the oldest city in all Greece: he tells us also, that in the days of Lelex the Spartans lived in villages apart. The Greeks therefore began to build houses and villages in the days of Pelasgus the father of Lycaon, and in the days of Lelex the father of Myles, and by consequence about two or three Generations before the Flood of Deucalion, and the coming of Cadmus; 'till then ^[209] they lived in woods and caves of the earth. The first houses were of clay, 'till the brothers Euryalus and Hyperbius taught them to harden the clay into bricks, and to build therewith. In the days of Ogyges, Pelasgus, Æzeus, Inachus and Lelex, they began to build houses and villages of clay, Doxius the son of Cœlus teaching them to do it; and in the days of Lycaon, Phoroneus, Ægialeus, Phegeus, Eurotas, Myles, Polycaon, and Cecrops, and their sons, to assemble the villages into δημοι, and the δημοι into cities.

When Oenotrus the son of Lycaon carried a Colony into Italy, he ^[210] found that country for the most part uninhabited; and where it was inhabited, peopled but thinly: and seizing a part of it, he built towns in the mountains, little and numerous, as above: these towns were without walls; but after this Colony grew numerous, and began to want room, they expelled the Siculi, compassed many cities with walls, and became possest of all the territory between the two rivers Liris and Tibre: and it is to be understood that those cities had their Councils and Prytanea after the manner of the Greeks: for Dionysius ^[211] tells us, that the new Kingdom of Rome, as Romulus left it, consisted of thirty Courts or Councils, in thirty towns, each with the sacred fire kept in the Prytaneum of the Court, for the Senators who met there to perform Sacred Rites, after the manner of the Greeks: but when Numa the successor of Romulus Reigned, he leaving the several fires in their own Courts, instituted one common to them all at Rome: whence Rome was not a compleat city before the days of Numa.

When navigation was so far improved that the Phœnicians began to leave the sea-shore, and sail through the Mediterranean by the help of the stars, it may be presumed that they began to discover the islands of the Mediterranean, and for the sake of trafic to sail as far as Greece: and this was not long before they carried away Io the daughter of Inachus, from Argos. The Cares first infested the Greek seas with piracy, and then Minos the son of Europa got up a potent fleet, and sent out Colonies: for Diodorus ^[212] tells us, that the Cyclades islands, those near Crete, were at first desolate and uninhabited; but Minos having a potent fleet, sent many Colonies out of Crete, and peopled many of them; and particularly that the island Carpathus was first seized by the soldiers of Minos: Syme lay waste and desolate 'till Triops came thither with a Colony under Chthonius: Strongyle or Naxus was first inhabited by the Thracians in the days of Boreas, a little before the Argonautic Expedition: Samsos was, at first desert, and inhabited only by a great multitude of terrible wild beasts, 'till Macareus peopled it, as he did also the islands Chius and Cos. Lesbos lay waste and desolate 'till Xanthus sailed thither with a Colony: Tenedos lay desolate 'till Tennes, a little before the Trojan war, sailed thither from Troas. Aristæus, who married Autonoe the daughter of Cadmus, carried a Colony from Thebes into Cæa, an island not inhabited before: the island Rhodes was at first called Ophiusa, being full of serpents, before Phorbas, a Prince of Argos, went thither, and made it habitable by destroying the serpents, which was about the end of Solomon's Reign; in memory of which he is delineated in the heavens in the Constellation of Ophiuchus. The discovery of this and some other islands made a report that they rose out of the Sea: in Asia Delos emersit, & Hiera, & Anaphe, & Rhodus, saith ^[213] Ammianus: and ^[214] Pliny; claræ jampridem insulæ, Delos & Rhodos memoriæ produntur enatæ, postea minores, ultra Melon Anaphe, inter Lemnum & Hellespontum Nea, inter Lebedum & Teon Halone, &c.

Diodorus ^[215] tells us also, that the seven islands called Æolides, between Italy and Sicily, were desert and uninhabited 'till Lipparus and Æolus, a little before the Trojan war, went thither from Italy, and peopled them: and that Malta and Gaulus or Gaudus on the other side of Sicily, were first peopled by Phœnicians; and so was Madera without the Straits: and Homer writes that Ulysses found the Island Ogygia covered with wood, and uninhabited, except by Calypso and her maids, who lived in a cave without houses; and it is not likely that Great Britain and Ireland could be peopled before navigation was propagated beyond the Straits.

The Sicaneans were reputed the first inhabitants of Sicily, they built little Villages or Towns upon hills, and every Town had its own King; and by this means they spread over the country, before they formed themselves into larger governments with a common King: Philistus ^[216] saith that they were transplanted into Sicily from the River Sicanus in Spain; and Dionysius ^[217], that they were a Spanish people who fled from the Ligures in Italy; he means the Ligures ^[218] who opposed Hercules when he returned from his expedition against Geryon in Spain, and endeavoured to pass the Alps out of Gaul into Italy. Hercules that year got into Italy, and made some conquests there, and founded the city Croton; and ^[219] after winter, upon the arrival of his fleet from Erythra in Spain, sailed to Sicily, and there left the Sicani: for it was his custom to recruit his army with conquered people, and after they had assisted him in making new conquests to reward them with new seats: this was the Egyptian Hercules, who had a potent fleet, and in the days of Solomon sailed to the Straits, and according to his custom set up pillars there, and conquered Geryon, and returned back by Italy and Sicily to Egypt, and was by the ancient Gauls called Ogmius, and by Egyptians ^[220] Nilus: for Erythra and the country of Geryon were without the Straits. Dionysius ^[221] represents this Hercules contemporary to Evander.

The first inhabitants of Crete, according to Diodorus ^[222] were called Eteocretans; but whence they were, and how they came thither, is not said in history: then sailed thither a Colony of Pelasgians from Greece; and soon after Teutamus, the grandfather of Minos, carried thither a Colony of Dorians from Laconia, and from the territory of Olympia in Peloponnesus: and these several Colonies spake several languages, and fed on the spontaeous fruits of the earth, and lived quietly in caves and huts, 'till the invention of iron tools, in the days of Asterius the son of Teutamus; and at length were reduced into one Kingdom, and one People, by Minos, who was their first law-giver, and built many towns and ships, and introduced plowing and sowing, and in whose days the Curetes conquered his father's friends in Crete and Peloponnesus. The Curetes ^[223] sacrificed children to Saturn and according to Bochart ^[224] were Philistims; and Eusebius faith that Crete had its name from Cres, one of the Curetes who nursed up Jupiter: but whatever was the original of the island, it seems to have been peopled by Colonies which spake different languages, 'till the days of Asterius and Minos; and might come thither two or three Generations before, and not above, for want of navigation in those seas.

The island Cyprus was discovered by the Phœnicians not long before; for Eratosthenes ^[225] tells us, that Cyprus was at first so overgrown with wood that it could not be tilled, and that they first cut down the wood for the melting of copper and silver, and afterwards when they began to sail safely upon the Mediterranean, that is, presently after the Trojan war, they built ships and even navies of it: and when they could not thus destroy the wood, they gave every man leave to cut down what wood he pleased, and to possess all the ground which he cleared of wood. So also Europe at first abounded very much with woods, one of which, called the Hercinian, took up a great part of Germany, being full nine days journey broad, and above forty long, in Julius Cæsar's days: and yet the Europeans had been cutting down their woods, to make room for mankind, ever since the invention of iron tools, in the days of Asterius and Minos.

All these footsteps there are of the first peopling of Europe, and its Islands, by sea; before those days it seems to have been thinly peopled from the northern coast of the Euxine-sea by Scythians descended from Japhet, who wandered without houses, and sheltered themselves from rain and wild beasts in thickets and caves of the earth; such as were the caves in mount Ida in Crete, in which Minos was educated and buried; the cave of Cacus, and the Catacombs in Italy near Rome and Naples, afterwards turned into burying-places; the Syringes and many other caves in the sides of the mountains of Egypt; the caves of the Troglodites between Egypt and the Red Sea, and those of the Phaurusii in Afric, mentioned by ^[226] Strabo; and the caves, and thickets, and rocks, and high places, and pits, in which the Israelites hid themselves from the Philistims in the days of Saul, 1 Sam. xiii. 6. But of the state of mankind in Europe in those days there is now no history remaining.

The antiquities of Libya were not much older than those of Europe; for Diodorus ^[227] tells us, that Uranus the father of Hyperion, and grandfather of Helius and Selene, that is Ammon the father of Sesac, was their first common King, and caused the people, who 'till then wandered up and down, to dwell in towns: and Herodotus ^[228] tells us, that all Media was peopled by δημοι, towns without walls, 'till they revolted from the Assyrians, which was about 267 years after the death of Solomon: and that after that revolt they set up a King over them, and built Ecbatane with walls for his seat, the first town which they walled about; and about 72 years after the death of Solomon, Benhadad King of Syria ^[229] had two and thirty Kings in his army against Ahab: and when Joshuah conquered the land of Canaan, every city of the Canaanites had its own King, like the cities of Europe, before they conquered one another; and one of those Kings, Adonibezek, the King of Bezek had conquered seventy other Kings a little before, Judg. i. 7. and therefore towns began to be built in that land not many ages before the days of Joshuah: for the Patriarchs wandred there in tents, and fed their flocks where-ever they pleased, the fields of Phœnicia not being yet fully appropriated, for want of people. The countries first inhabited by mankind, were in those days so thinly peopled, that ^[230] four Kings from the coasts of Shinar and Elam invaded and spoiled the Rephaims, and the inhabitants of the countries of Moab, Ammon, Edom, and the Kingdoms of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboim; and yet were pursued and beaten by Abraham with an armed force of only 318 men, the whole force which Abraham and the princes with him could raise: and Egypt was so thinly peopled before the birth of Moses, that Pharaoh said of the Israelites; ^[231] behold the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we: and to prevent their multiplying and growing too strong, he caused their male children to be drowned.

These footsteps there are of the first peopling of the earth by mankind, not long before the days of Abraham; and of the overspreading it with villages, towns and cities, and their growing into Kingdoms, first Smaller and then greater, until the rise of the Monarchies of Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Media, Persia, Greece, and Rome, the first great Empires on this side India. Abraham was the fifth from Peleg, and all mankind lived together in Chaldea under the Government of Noah and his sons, untill the days of Peleg: so long they were of one language, one society, and one religion: and then they divided the earth, being perhaps, disturbed by the rebellion of Nimrod, and forced to leave off building the tower of Babel: and from thence they spread themselves into the several countries which fell to their shares, carrying along with them the laws, customs and religion, under which they had 'till those days been educated and governed, by Noah, and his sons and grandsons: and these laws were handed down to Abraham, Melchizedek, and Job, and their contemporaries, and for some time were observed by the judges of the eastern countries: so Job ^[232] tells us, that adultery was an heinous crime, yea an iniquity to be punished by the judges: and of idolatry he ^[233] saith, If I beheld the sun when it shined, or the moon walking in brightness, and my heart hath been secretly inticed, or my mouth hath kissed my hand, this also were an iniquity to be punished by the judge: for I should have denied the God that is above: and there being no dispute between Job and his friends about these matters, it may be presumed that they also with their countrymen were of the same religion. Melchizedek was a Priest of the most high God, and Abraham voluntarily paid tythes to him; which he would scarce have done had they not been of one and the same religion. The first inhabitants of the land of Canaan seem also to have been originally of the same religion, and to have continued in it 'till the death of Noah, and the days of Abraham; for Jerusalem was anciently ^[234] called Jebus, and its people Jebusites, and Melchizedek was their Priest and King: these nations revolted therefore after the days of Melchizedek to the worship of false Gods; as did also the posterity of Ismael, Esau, Moab, Ammon, and that of Abraham by Keturah: and the Israelites themselves were very apt to revolt: and one reason why Terah went from Ur of the Chaldees to Haran in his way to the land of Canaan; and why Abraham afterward left Haran, and went into the land of Canaan, might be to avoid the worship of false Gods, which in their days began in Chaldea, and spread every way from thence; but did not yet reach into the land of Canaan. Several of the laws and precepts in which this primitive religion consisted are mentioned in the book of Job, chap. i. ver. 5, and chap, xxxi, viz. not to blaspheme God, nor to worship the Sun or Moon, nor to kill, nor steal, nor to commit adultery, nor trust in riches, nor oppress the poor or fatherless, nor curse your enemies, nor rejoyce at their misfortunes: but to be friendly, and hospitable and merciful, and to relieve the poor and needy, and to set up Judges. This was the morality and religion of the first ages, still called by the Jews, The precepts of the sons of Noah: this was the religion of Moses and the Prophets, comprehended in the two great commandments, of loving the Lord our God with all our heart and soul and mind, and our neighbour as our selves: this was the religion enjoyned by Moses to the uncircumcised stranger within the gates of Israel, as well as to the Israelites: and this is the primitive religion of both Jews and Christians, and ought to be the standing religion of all nations, it being for the honour of God, and good of mankind: and Moses adds the precept of being merciful even to brute beasts, so as not to suck out their blood, nor to cut off their flesh alive with the blood in it, nor to kill them for the sake of their blood, nor to strangle them; but in killing them for food, to let out their blood and spill it upon the ground, Gen. ix. 4, and Levit. xvii. 12, 13. This law was ancienter than the days of Moses, being given to Noah and his sons long before the days of Abraham: and therefore when the Apostles and Elders in the Council at Jerusalem declared that the Gentiles were not obliged to be circumcised and keep the law of Moses, they excepted this law of abstaining from blood, and things strangled as being an earlier law of God, imposed not on the sons of Abraham only, but on all nations, while they lived together in Shinar under the dominion of Noah: and of the same kind is the law of abstaining from meats offered to Idols or false Gods, and from fornication. So then, the believing that the world was framed by one supreme God, and is governed by him; and the loving and worshipping him, and honouring our parents, and loving our neighbour as our selves, and being merciful even to brute beasts, is the oldest of all religions: and the Original of letters, agriculture, navigation, music, arts and sciences, metals, smiths and carpenters, towns and houses, was not older in Europe than the days of Eli, Samuel and David; and before those days the earth was so thinly peopled, and so overgrown with woods, that mankind could not be much older than is represented in Scripture.