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mythology, rather than to history. And yet there can be no doubt that there was some historical fact at the foundation. There must have been an ancient city called Troy, which was besieged and taken by the Greeks. But that there ever were such personages, divine and human, as Homer describes, or such exploits as he attributes to them, may certainly more than admit of a doubt.

Though the narrative of the Trojan war can not, therefore, be set down as veritable history, yet enough of fact was embraced under it to give it a real value, both in history and chronology. The Greek writers made it an era, to which they referred the events and supposed events of their early ages. The highest assigned date for the fall of Troy was that of Herodotus, about B. C. 1263. The Parian marble places it at B. C. 1209. Eratosthenes fixed it at B. C. 1183, or about 156 years prior to the building of the temple by Solomon. The lowest date I have found in any author is B. C. 1120. The date of Eratosthenes was adopted by Eusebius, and seems to be the most generally received. This era was a convenient one for the Greek historians. For instance, the "dynasty of Pelasgic chiefs which ex

*

* Clinton's Fasti Hellenici. The dates now given are taken from that author's Epitome of Grecian Chronology (ed. Oxford 1851), compiled from the larger work. pp. 61, 63.

isted in Greece before any other dynasty is heard of in Greek traditions," can be traced back only eighteen generations before the Trojan war. "Inachus, the father of Phoroneus, was the highest term in Grecian history." The latter was of the eighteenth generation before the war, in the fiftyfifth year of whose reign the flood of Ogyges is said to have occurred, B. C. 1796. "Excepting this line," says Clinton," none of the genealogies ascend higher than the ninth, eighth, or seventh generation before the Trojan war.” †

The foundation of the Grecian states, then, was placed, by their own traditions, at a comparatively low antiquity, not exceeding, in any case, eighteen centuries before Christ. At that time the generations of men were accounted the immediate descendants of the gods. Inachus was a deity, and his sons were said to be autochthonous, i. e., sprung from the soil, or aborigines of the country. The Greeks did not claim, in their traditions, to be the oldest of nations, as did the Egyptians, Phrygians, and Scythians.§ Danaus, Cadmus, Cecrops, and Pelops, the reputed founders of as many of their states, were immigrants from abroad, and brought with them arts and institutions already known in their native lands.

*Clinton's Fasti Hellenici. † Ibid.

Ibid.

§ Ibid.

The origin of Rome is as uncertain as that of Greece. No fewer than twenty-five different legends have come down to us out of the mists of antiquity relating to the foundation of that city. They may, however, be reduced to three principal theories: first, that it was founded by Evander in the age preceding the Trojan war; second, by Æneas and his associates shortly after that war; and third, by Romulus and Remus, the twins, in the year B. C. 753. For our present purpose, it matters not which of these is preferred. In point of fact, neither of them is of undoubted authenticity, and most modern historians do not pretend to carry back the beginnings of Roman history more than two or three hundred years before Christ, regarding all before this as fabulous.

Nothing, then, can be derived from either Greek or Roman history invalidating in the slightest degree the sacred chronology as to the age of man on the earth. The beginning of that history is confessedly far within the date of the time of Noah.

CHAPTER IV.

THE ARGUMENT FROM HISTORY (continued).

III. THE CHALDEANS.

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Extravagant Claims. - BEROSUS and his Writings. His Annals of an Antediluvian Kingdom. - These evidently mythical. — His Measures of Time. Elements of true History in them. -Negatively, they contain Nothing inconsistent with Bible Chronology. Positively, they tend to its Confirmation. Earliest Historic Dynasty, B. C. 2458.

THE ancient Chaldeans, according to the usual interpretation of their records, claimed for their nation a higher antiquity than any other people, the Hindus, perhaps, excepted. As usual, however, in statements of this kind, there is great discrepancy in the numbers. I believe the largest number of years claimed by them, antecedent to historic times, is two million one hundred and fifty thousand. Other estimates claim 720,000, 490,000, 473,000, 470,000, 432,000, 270,000, 31,000,* etc. Sometimes

* Sir G. C. Lewis's Survey of the Astronomy of the Ancients, pp. 263, 286.

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these numbers profess to give the duration of Chaldean history previous to the time of Alexander. Thus, according to Porphyry, a writer of the third century, "Callisthenes sent from Babylon to Aristotle a series of astronomical observations, reaching back from the time of Alexander over a space of 31,000 years."

The authority most generally quoted in reference to Chaldean antiquities is BEROSUS, a priest of Belus at Babylon, and an historian who lived in the time of Alexander. He wrote the Chaldean history in three books. This work is now lost, except some few extracts preserved mostly in Josephus, Eusebius, and Syncellus, which again, especially those found in the last two authors named, were taken from the original work of Berosus by three heathen writers, - Apollodorus, Abydenus, and Alexander Polyhistor, all of whom flourished between the time of Alexander the Great and the Christian era. According to them, Berosus "narrates that there were at Babylon the writings of many authors, preserved with the greatest care, which comprised a history through a period of 215 myriads (2,150,000) of years,* in which was an account of the computa

* Thus in Euseb. Chron. (in Armen.), chap. ii. col. 109; but in Syncellus, p. 28, it is "fifteen myriads (150,000) years;" ὑπερ μυριάδων δεκαπέντε.

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