mftrara 
 
 #P* 
 

 INTRODUCTION 
 
 TO 
 
 HISTORICAL CHRONOLOGY, 
 
 
 # 
 
 BY D. V H HEGEWISCH, 
 
 PROFESSOR AT KIEL IN DENMARK. 
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN, 
 
 BY JAMES MARSH. 
 
 ) 
 
 ^^mm^^^ 
 
 BURLINGTON : 
 
 CHAUNCEY GOODRICH. 
 
 1S37. 
 K 
 
Entered according to ActofCongress,intheyear 1837, 
 
 By Chaujscey Goodrich, 
 
 in the Clerk's office of the district of Vermont. 
 

 The following work has been translated for the 
 purpose of supplying, in the readiest way, an obvious 
 deficiency in the usual course of elementary instruc- 
 tion in history, among the schools and colleges of this 
 country. Chronology, as a distinct science, holding 
 the same general relation to history which geography 
 does, is indeed but little known in our elementary 
 systems. I know of no text book, that has been in 
 use for teaching what will be found in the manual 
 ,hen offered to the public. The larger works in our 
 public libraries wore designed for other purposes, and 
 e*en the treatise of Strauchius, of which a translation 
 exists, and is here and there met with, is obviously far 
 less suited to the end in view. The prefatory remarks 
 
 of the author, though they refer chiefly to a work un- 
 known in this country, with which he compares his 
 
 own views, yet show what he regards as the peculiar 
 
 advantages of the present work. It is referred to by 
 
Heeren, as a very convenient manual for common 
 use, and for the supply of our wants seems better suit- 
 ed, than any other. I have made no changes of any 
 importance, and what few additions have been inser- 
 ted will be found so designated, as to distinguish them 
 from the original work. The Translator. 
 
PREFATORY NOTICE. 
 
 Gatteker's outlines of chronology is, so far as I 
 know, the most recent manual for instruction in this 
 science, that has appeared in the German language. 
 
 That work, for the beginner, who brings to it the 
 necessary attention, and that untiring patience, which 
 is indispensable to all sound learning, is indeed suffi- 
 cient to open to him the way to chronological knowl- 
 edge. 
 
 The book is at the same time a monument of the 
 manifold learning of the author, of his industry, and 
 of his praisworthy zeal, to promote rather the benefit 
 of his hearer or reader, than to advance his own rep- 
 utation. 
 
 Yet, commendable as he is for these properties of 
 bis work, it has seemed to me, that he might have fa- 
 cilitated the study of chronology more, than he has 
 1* 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 there done, and that he has, in fact, needlessly in- 
 cumbered it with difficulties, which do not pertain to 
 it. He has done this, partly by the want of a natural, 
 and clearly arranged method, and partly by mixing 
 with it particular doctrines and investigations, which 
 do not belong to an elementary work, but divert the 
 scholar from his general purpose, and involve him in 
 perplexing questions of minor importance. 
 
 1. Instead of separating from each other, what re- 
 lates to the division of time, or the methods of divi- 
 ding it, on the one hand, and what relates to the suc- 
 cession of these divisions, or the methods of designa- 
 ting ihe order of successive periods, on the other, Gat- 
 terer has throughout his work mingled them confused, 
 ly together. Instruction in regard to the division of 
 time must naturally precede what concerns the se- 
 quence of the divisions adopted. 
 
 2. He has adopted unnecessay and groundless the- 
 ories respecting natural and fundamental eras, calen 
 dars, periods, &c. These to a beginner must appear 
 obscure and mystical, and there is in fact no reason 
 for such a distinction. What Gatterer distinguishes 
 
PREFACE. 7 
 
 by such terms are nothing more than examples, by 
 which the conceptions of an era, a calendar and a 
 period are clearly represented. 
 
 The Juliano-Gregorian year has as little claim to 
 be called a fundamental form of the year, as the Latin 
 word mensa has to be considered a fundamental dec- 
 lination. Both are simply the most intelligible ex- 
 amples, to those for whom they are used, of that which 
 they represent. 
 
 3. Gatterer has given an unnecessary number of 
 special rules, by which the caleudars of particular 
 nations may be made familiar, and their festivals de- 
 termined. These rules, at least for the beginner, and 
 indeed for the mere historical chronologist generally, 
 may be dispensed with, without disadvantage to the 
 science. 
 
 4. He has not sufficiently distinguished and sepa- 
 rated mathematical or astronomical chronology from 
 historical, but has presented both together in a min- 
 gled form. They properly require each its own p@ 
 
 culiar method. 
 
 I have been led to believe, therefore, that a new 
 
© fcBEPACE. 
 
 introduction to the study of merely historical chronol- 
 ogy, requires nothing more in the way of improve- 
 ment, than the avoidance of the four faults, if I may 
 eall them such, above specified, to become both use- 
 ful and agreeable to the youthful votaries of historical 
 g-cienoe. I say, agreeable, yet only in the negative 
 sense, in which we find all saving of unnecessary toil 
 agreeable. For to attempt to render chronology agree 
 able, in the positive sense of the term, would be a vain 
 undertaking. It must always retain the character of 
 a dr^ and uninteresting science. 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 TO 
 
 HISTORICAL CHRONOLOGY. 
 
 1. Object and purpose of Chronology. 
 
 Chronology is the science, which determines the re- 
 lations of the distinguishable portions of time, in re- 
 spect fo their magnitude or duration, and in respect 
 to their succession, or order , 
 
 In other words it teaches how to measure, and to 
 distinguish the parts or divisions of time. What is 
 here meant by the term distinguish will be explained 
 in the sequel. 
 
 Chronology has for its object, therefore, not time 
 in itself. The question what time in itself is, the 
 ahronologist leaves to the metaphysician, and satisfied 
 with that clear presentation of it, which, though not 
 to be explained by words, is inseparable from the con- 
 iciousness of every man, concerns himself only with 
 lis divisions, (with years, month, days &,c.) This 
 listinction is well expressed in the following Latin 
 

 10 INTRODUCTION 
 
 definition. Chronologia est scientia (not tempus, but) 
 lempora metiendi ac distinguendi.* 
 
 The practical purpose aimed at in this science is 
 two-fold — to furnish a principle of order in the sci- 
 ence of history — and to promote the orderly arrange- 
 ments of social life. This it accomplishes by teach- 
 ing us how to give with correctness and precision — 1. 
 the divisions of past time, in which any thing happen- 
 ed — 2. the divisions of the present or future, in which 
 any thing happens, or is going to happen. 
 
 2. The divisions of time have a two-fold relation to 
 each other. 
 
 Space and time, as the metaphysicians express 
 themselves, are the two conditions, on which is groun- 
 ded the possibility of all our sensuous intuitions. The 
 same thing may be expressed in more common terms, 
 by saying whatever exists or comes to pass, exists or 
 comes to pass in space and time, or in some place, 
 and at some time. 
 
 The parts or divisions of space have a three-fold 
 
 *Chronology is the science, which teaches to measure and 
 distinguish (not time, but) times or the divisions of time. 
 
 Instead of chronology the Greeks seem also to have used the 
 word chronography (xQovoyQayia) in the same form with 
 geography. The science, which treats of time in the abstract or 
 pure time, may be termed chronometry, corresponding with ge- 
 ometry as the science of pure space, Tr. 
 
TO CHRONOLOGY. 1 1 
 
 relation to each other, that of magnitude, of position, 
 and of figure. In other words lean say of a por- 
 tion of space — 1. it is greater or less than another — 2. 
 it lies before or behind it, above or below, on the one, 
 or the other side of it- 3. it iseither a triangle, a square 
 a circle, a cube or sphere, or of some other regular or 
 irregular figure. 
 
 The parts of time have only two relations to each 
 other, that of magnitude or duration, and that of order 
 or succession. Of a portion of time, [ can only say 
 it is greater or less than another, and it precedes or 
 follows another. A year is greater than a month, a 
 month than a day. The present year is of a certain 
 number, in the order of succession, since the birth of 
 Christ, &,c. 
 
 3. The quantity or duration of the divisions of 
 time. Possibility of dividing time, and of determin- 
 ing the quantity or duration of its different portions. 
 
 As the geometrician, in measuring space, assumes 
 certain portions of determinate magnitude as units, 
 so must the chronologist proceed in like manner in 
 the measurement of time. As the foot or the inch 
 are employed for determining the dimensions of a 
 given space, so the definite periods, a year, a month, 
 or a day, are used to determine the duration of a giv- 
 en portion of time. 
 

 J2 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 How then, it may be asked, do we find the differ- 
 ent portions of time, that are employed as measures of 
 quantity in chronology 1 
 
 Time is apprehended by us through the perception 
 of movements in nature, as well the inward movements 
 of our minds, as of objects, that fall under the notice 
 of our outward senses in space. Any one movement, 
 from its beginning to its end, may be considered as a 
 determinate portion of time. 
 
 If then we observe in nature movements, that fol- 
 low each other in unbroken and uniform succession, 
 and so that the beginning and the end of each is ea- 
 sily marked, we may adopt such as measures of other 
 portions of time. 
 
 In the successive movements of our minds the begin- 
 ning and end are not readily observed, and there is in 
 these no uniformity^ Hence, though the inward 
 movements, of which we are conscious, have duration, 
 
 and may be contemplated under the relation of time, 
 they cannot be adopted as its measure. 
 
 But among the phenomena of the outer sense the 
 movements of two of the heavenly bodies, the sun and 
 moon, have from the earliest times attracted the no- 
 tice of mankind by their uniformity, and by their nev- 
 er intermitted recurrence, and the periods of both have 
 been employed, as the most convenient measure for 
 
TO CHRONOLOGY. 13 
 
 the duration of time, or rather of its distinguishable 
 
 parts. * 
 
 The sun, from the very dawn of human observation, 
 could not but be observed to have always two distinct 
 motions, or at least (o present the appearance of such, 
 (and it is the appearance only, not what actually takes 
 place, with which the chronologist is concerned.) 
 Each of these motions of the sun has its commence, 
 ment and its termination obvious to the notice of our 
 senses, or rather the end of one revolution and the be- 
 ginning of another fall in the same point of time, or, 
 more strictly still, there is truly neither beginning nor 
 end, but only what the human mind assumes as such. 
 
 Each of these revolutions at the instant of its termi- 
 nation begins always anew, and so proceeds with un- 
 varying uniformity, neither accelerated nor retarded. 
 From one arise years, and the seasons of the year, 
 from the other days and nights, and hence men have 
 from the first regarded years and seasons, days and 
 nights, as natural divisions of time. 
 
 The moon in like manner, describes in unbroken 
 
 succession uniform revolutions, the one around the 
 
 earth in about twenty-four hours, the other through 
 
 the signs of the zodiack in a period of near thirty 
 
 days. This last revolution of the moon has also from 
 
 the earliest times, together with the four obvious chan- 
 2 
 
14 INTODUCTIOtf 
 
 ges in its form, been regarded as a natural division and 
 measure of time, and the entire period of it denomina- 
 ted a month. 
 
 But although these measures of time are grounded 
 in the phaenomena of aature, it is still, in part at least, 
 a matter of arbitrary determination, what point in the 
 revolutions of the sun and moon shall be taken as 
 their commencement. In the diurnal motion of the 
 sun, for example, we may place it at sunrise, or mid- 
 day, or sunset ; in its annual revolution at the sum- 
 mer solstice, (the longest summer day) or at the win- 
 ter solstice, (the shortest winter day.) Again the be- 
 ginning and end of these revolutions, as sunrise or 
 sunset, cannot always be accurately observed. They 
 mark, too, only the larger divisions of time, as years, 
 months, and days, while for the purposes of social life 
 still smaller divisions are necessary. Hence legisla- 
 tors, the founders of religious institutions, and the or- 
 ganizers of civil society, have, by the necessary laws, 
 fixed definitely — 1. what point should be reckoned, as 
 the begnning and end theof the larger divisions of 
 time, (the year, the month, and the day,) and — 2. into 
 how many smaller parts the greater should be divided. 
 
 There are therefore natural divisions of time, (partei 
 temporis naturales,) such as are marked by natural 
 phaenomena, and civil divisions, established by law 
 
TO CHRONOLOGY. 
 
 15 
 
 and custom, (partes temporis civiles.) These last may 
 also be termed artificial or arbitrary ; artificial, be* 
 cause found by artificial means, arbitrary, because it 
 was a matter of arbitrary determination, whether one 
 or another division should be preferred, as whether the 
 day should be divided into twelve, or into twenty four 
 hours. 
 
 To determine with precision the quantity or dura- 
 tion of the natural divisions of time is the business of 
 the Astronomer, or of the mathematical Chronologist. 
 On the other hand the civil or arbitrary divisions of 
 time are matter of mere historical knowledge. Yet 
 the mathematical chronologist cannot speak of the di- 
 visions of time, nor give their precise duration, with- 
 out availing himself of the civil divisions. Mathemat- 
 ical and historical chronology are so far, therefore, Mb- 
 separably connected. 
 
 4. Order, in which the conceptions of the several 
 divisions of time are to be given. 
 
 It might seem at first glance, that, in giving a 
 knowledge of the divisions of time, it would be the 
 most natural method to arrange them in the order of 
 their magnitude, preceding either from the least to the 
 greatest, or from the greatest to the least. In the 
 first we should have, for example, seconds, minuteg, 
 
16 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 hours, days, weeks, months, and years, and in the 
 second the same divisions in the reverse order. 
 
 But both these methods have the same inconven- 
 ience, that we cannot obtain a definite conception of 
 either extreme, the year or the second, without hav- 
 ing first a conception of the divisions, that are inter- 
 mediate. The conception of a day is the only one , 
 that can be clearly apprehended independently of the 
 rest. 
 
 The easiest method, therefore, and the freest from 
 all difficulties, is to begin with the day, and in it to 
 mark the smaller divisions, into which it has been di- 
 vided, not by nature, but by arbitrary arrangement. 
 We can then proceed from the day to the year, from 
 this to the month, and from the month to the division 
 into weeks, 
 
 5. Of Days. 
 
 The natural day (dies naturalis, arcus diurnus) is 
 the portion of time, during which the sun continues 
 above our horizon, or which begins with sunrise and 
 ends with sunset. The natural night (nox naturalis, 
 arcus nocturnus) is the time marked by the contin- 
 uance of the sun below our horizon, or which begins 
 with sunset and ends with sunrise. 
 
 But as the natural day varies in length, continually 
 
TO CHRONOLOGY. 
 
 17 
 
 increasing from the winter to the summer solstice, and 
 again decreasing from the summer to the winter, it 
 cannot furnish the unit of duration, by a repetition or 
 division of which we may obtain the measure of other 
 periods. In order to obtain a unit of unvarying mag- 
 nitude or duration, therefore, the founders of civil in- 
 stitutions have taken the natural day and night togeth- 
 er, as a whole; for, since the variation in the length 
 of the natural night is inversely proportioned to that 
 of the day, increasing as it diminishes, and diminish- 
 ing as it increases, the union of the two gives a whole, 
 the quantity of which is invariable. This whole, 
 arising from the union of the natural day and night, 
 is called the civil day fdies civilis, artificialis, vv/drj- 
 
 [ASQOV.) 
 
 In this arrangement it was a matter of indifference, 
 whether the beginning of the civil day (epocham diei 
 civilis) was placed at the rise of the sun above, its 
 descent below, or at its highestjpoint of elevation above 
 the horizon — in the morning, evening, or noonday. 
 
 Some nations, as the Babylonians and ancient Per- 
 sians, have considered the day as beginning with sun- 
 rise, others, as the Jews, Arabs, and ancient Germans, 
 with sunset. 
 
 An ancient people of Italy, the Umbrians, chose 
 the point, when the sun was on the meridian, or 
 
. 
 
 18 INTRODUCTION 
 
 noon, as the beginning of their day. Astronomers 
 have regarded noon, as the most fitted for this pur- 
 pose, because then the position of the sun, at its 
 highest point above the horizon, serves to mark with 
 the greatest precision the limit between the comple - 
 ted and the incipient day. At this point, too, its posi- 
 tion can be easily observed in all places and on almost 
 every day, while, on the contrary, the varying times 
 of the sun's rising and setting, with the clouds and 
 fogs frequent at those times, render them, as points 
 for the beginning of the diurnal revolution, indefinite, 
 and difficult to be generally ascertained with pre- 
 cision. 
 
 Finally, the Romans began their day, with no re- 
 gard to astronomical observation, at midnight, and to 
 them it is probably to be ascribed, that this practise 
 has become general among the European nations. 
 
 This custom is unastronomical, because nature it- 
 self furnishes no indication, by which that point in 
 the revolution can be known. In order to ascertain 
 it, artificial means, the division of the day into hours, 
 and the use of time keepers, must have been in- 
 vented. 
 
TO CHRONOLOGY. 19 
 
 6. Of Hours. 
 
 Nature itself furnished very obvious suggestion^ for 
 a [farther division of the day, according to the dif- 
 ferent aspects of the sun, at its rise, its highest eleva- 
 tion, its setting, &,c, The Romans had sixteen de- 
 signations for so many divisions of a day and night 
 taken together, grounded on the different gradations 
 of light and darkness. 
 
 But the necessity of having, in the busines of civil 
 life, more accurate and precise divisions of the dav 
 was long felt, before an instrument was invented for 
 making a precise artificial division. The instruments 
 first invented, and for a long time employed for this 
 purpose, were very imperfect, such as the sundial, and 
 hour glass, with either sand or water. Clocks and 
 watches, which answer the purpose most perfectly, 
 were not invented before the Middle Age, and 
 watches not till the fifteenth century at Nurernburg. 
 
 These artificial divisions of the day are called 
 hours. Some ancient nations, as the Jews, the an_ 
 cient Greeks, and the Romans, divided the natural 
 day and the natural night separately, each into twelve 
 hours. The hours of the day were consequently lon- 
 ger in summer and shorter in winter, and those of the 
 night the reverse of this. These unequal hours (horaa 
 inaequales) are at variance with the purpose of a di« 
 

 80 INTRODUCTION 
 
 vision of the day into smaller portions, and the civil 
 day was finally divided into twenty four equal hours 
 (horae aequales.) This division, from its obvious 
 convenience, has been adopted throughout Europe, 
 and among the descendants of Europeans. They do 
 not however number the twenty four hours in a con- 
 tinuous series, but, beginning at midnight, when they 
 commence the civil day, reckon from one to twelve 
 at midday, and thence repeat from one to twelve at 
 midnight. 
 
 The Italians alone of the Europeans, down even 
 to our own age, numbered the hours of the day in a 
 continuous series from one to twenty four, beginning 
 with sunset. This custom is now however discontin- 
 ued in Italy. 
 
 Astronomers also reckon in the same way, from 
 one to twenty four, but commence from midday. 
 
 The ancient Babylonians had at that early period 
 divided the day into hours, but into twelve only, so 
 that one Babylonian hour (hora Babylonica) was 
 equal to two European of the present day. See Hero- 
 dotus B. 11. C. 109. 
 
 Remark 1. The striking of a clock, and the index 
 of a watch, show, not the commencing, but the past 
 hours. 
 
 ft; A reason for numbering the hours from one to 
 
 
TO CHRONOLOGY. 21 
 
 twelve and repeating it, instead of proceeding con- 
 tinuously from one to twenty four, is to save the ear 
 the pain of so great a number of strokes, and also to 
 avoid the labour, and time, and inconvenience of 
 counting so great a num ber. 
 
 7. The divisions of an hour. 
 
 Astronomers have divided the hours of the civil day 
 into sixty equal parts each, which are called minutes, 
 horary minutes (scrupula horaria or communia.) 
 
 Each minute they divide again into sixty seconds 
 (scrupula secunda,) and each second into sixty thirds. 
 These minute divisions are important in astronomi- 
 cal observations, but the historical chronologist has 
 no occasion to employ them. 
 
 Remark. Astronomers denominate the usual sub- 
 divisions of hours horary minutes, to distinguish them 
 from another division, which they sometimes employ, 
 of the civil day into sixty equal parts, which are term- 
 ed diurnal minutes (scrupula prima diurna.) 
 
 8. The Year. 
 
 The uninterrupted, and constantly regular, succes- 
 sion of the seasons furnishes to all men the means of 
 observing the duration or length of the year. Yet» 
 
2£ INTRODUCTION 
 
 from the phaenomena obvious to common observation, 
 it could only be determined vaguely, and within cer- 
 tain indefinite limits, and the science of astronomy 
 must have been carried to a high degree of perfection, 
 before the following propositions could have been 
 demonstrated, as they now are. 
 
 1. That the length of the year is determined with 
 precision by the motion of the sun from one of the 
 tropics to the other, and its return to that from which 
 it set out. 
 
 2. That the true period of this revolution, and con- 
 sequently the precise length of the solar year, is 365 
 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 45 seconds, and 30 thirds, 
 which, expressed in astronomical characters, is 365d, 
 6h, 48/ 45," 30/" 
 
 But, in the practical arrangements of civil society, 
 it is obvious, that the commencement of the new year 
 cannot be marked with such precision, as to deter* 
 mine the hours, minutes &,c. Hence for civil pur- 
 poses it is arranged that the year shall consist of 365 
 days, till the repetition of the fraction shall amount 
 to another day, and that then a day shall be added, so 
 as to make a year of 366 days. This is termed in- 
 tercalating a day, and the year, in which the day is 
 intercalated, is called an intercalary on leap year (an- 
 nus bissextus, intercalaris, embolimaeus ) The day 
 
TO CHRONOLOGY. 23 
 
 bo inserted also is called an intercalary day (dies bis- 
 gextus, &c.) The years, that are not intercalated are 
 called for the sake of distinction common years (anni 
 communes.) 
 
 The year in its natural duration, as determined by 
 astronomers, is termed the natural or astronomical 
 year, that which is defined by legislation, or by cus- 
 tom, a civil year (annus civilis.) 
 
 Nature has left it to the arbitrary determination of 
 men, where to place the commencement of the year, 
 whether in Spring or Autumn, Summer or Winter. 
 Legislators, and founders of civil institutions, have 
 followed in this, each hi? own conception of propriety. 
 Hence some nations commence their year in the 
 Spring, and some in each of the other seasons. 
 
 Remark 1. In the Latin language, the intercalary 
 year and intercalary day are commonly denominated 
 annus bissextilis, and dies bissextilis. But Ideler, in 
 his "Historical enquiries respecting the astronomical 
 observations of the Ancients," has already remarked, 
 that the Romans used the form bissextus, instead of 
 bissextilis. 
 
 2. The natural Solar year above described Astron- 
 omers denominate the Tropical Solar year, because it 
 is described by the motion of the sun between the 
 tropica. From the Tropical year they distinguish an- 
 
24 INTRODUCTION 
 
 other, under the name of the Sidereal year, (annus 
 sidereusj They understand by it the time, which 
 the sun takes, not only to complete its tropical revo- 
 lution, but also to arrive at the same star, at which it 
 was observed at the beginning of its revolution. For, 
 while the sun is performing its tropical circuit, the 
 fixed stars also have had a motion of their own, such 
 that in order to reach the one, from which the sun's 
 revolution was commenced, it must advance still 20/ 
 25/' 30/" farther. The sidereal year, therefore, is 
 20/ 25," 30"' longer than the tropical— of this, how- 
 ever, no practical use is made in historical chronol- 
 ogy- 
 
 9. Of the seasons of the year. 
 
 The seasons, which by their influence on the air 
 and earth, on animals and plants, must have attracted 
 the notice of men from the earliest infancy of the 
 race, have, however, in nature no precise and deter- 
 minate beginning nor end, but only a r gradual transi- 
 tion from one to the other. Astronomically the be- 
 ginning of each is determined by the entrance of the 
 sun into a particular sign of the Zodiack. Its en- 
 trance into Aries determines, for the Northern hemis- 
 phere, the commencement of Spring (the vernal Ae" 
 quinox, Aequinoctium vernale,) but for the Southern 
 
TO CHRONOLOGY. 
 
 95 
 
 the commencement of Spring. With the entrance 
 of the sun into Cancer begins, in the Northern hem., 
 isphere, the Summer, in the Southern, the winter, 
 while with its entrance into Capricorn the seasons are 
 reversed in the different hemispheres. These two 
 last points, the entrance of the sun into Cancer and 
 Capricorn, are called Solstitial points, or the summer 
 and winter Solstices (from sol, the sun, and sto, to 
 stand still,) because the sun, in commencing from these 
 points its returning course, seems for a while to be 
 stationary in them, or because these points are the 
 limits, beyond which its course does not extend. 
 
 The four days, in which the sun enters these four 
 signs, namely the 20th of March, in which it enters 
 Aries, the 20th June, in which it enters Cancer, the 
 22d September, in which it enters Libra, and the 21st 
 December, in which it enters Capricorn, or the two 
 Aequinoxes, and the two Solstices, are termed the 
 four cardinal points of the year (puncta cardinalia. 
 
 TQOTtat,.) 
 
 Out of these four points nations from the earlies: 
 times have selected the commencement of their civil 
 year, some dating it from one, some from another 
 of these, it being obviously a matter of arbitrary 
 choice. 
 
 3 
 
^ INTRODUCTION 
 
 10, The division of the year into Months. 
 
 {a) Lunar Months. 
 
 The revolution of the Moon round the Earth, which 
 it completes during a natural day and night, or in 
 about 24 hours, has never been used, as a measure 
 of time, because the period, which would be measured 
 by it, is determined with more precision by the sun. 
 But the revolution of the moon through the signs 
 of the Ecliptick, duting which its phases are four times 
 changed, has ever so attracted the notice of mankind, 
 especially by this variation of its form, that they have 
 at all times employed this revolution, or the number of 
 days, in which these changes of the moon are com- 
 pleted, as a convenient measure of time. 
 
 These four phases of the moon, have been called the 
 new moon, the first quarter, the full moon, and the last 
 quarter, and the period from one new moon to another, 
 a month. 
 
 But the precise duration of this revolution of the 
 moon can no more be determined^ without numerous 
 and exact astronomical observations, than that of the 
 annual revolution of the sun, Astronomers now 
 
 reckon this Lunar period, or the Lunar month, at 29d, 
 
 12h,44,'3,"12/" 
 
 But since in common life we cannot reckon the 
 smaller fractions, hours, minutes, &c, lawgivers have 
 

 TO CHRONOLOGY. 27 
 
 substituted the civil in place of the natural month, and 
 made it to consist of a certain number of whole days. 
 Civil months are differently limited by different na- 
 tions; having with some an equal number of days 
 for all, while with some again one month has more and 
 another less. 
 
 Remark. The month, as above described, embra- 
 cing the interval from one new moon to another, as- 
 tronomers distinguish as the sy nodical Lunar month, 
 because the new moon is occasioned by the conjunc- 
 tion (awodog) of the moon and sun in the same sign 
 of the Ecliptick. The periodical Lunar month in- 
 cludes the interval, during which the moon passes 
 from a given point of the Ecliptick round to the same 
 point again. This periodical Lunar month consists 
 of 27d, 7h, 43/ 5," Of this no use is made in his- 
 torical chronology. 
 
 11. (b) Of Solar months. 
 
 Along with the Lunar, astronomers have also adop- 
 ted what are termed Solar months (menses Sol ares.) 
 By a Solar month is meant that period of time, which 
 the sun occupies in passing through each of the twelve 
 signs of the Zodiack. But this period is not the 
 same for the different signs, and the Solar mon.' s 
 therefore would be different in length. In order to 
 

 28 INTRODUCTION 
 
 make theai of equal length astronomers have divided 
 the whole time, in which the sun completes its revo- 
 lution, equally among the twelve signs, and assigned 
 to the several months an equal duration. Thus a So- 
 lar month is precisely the twelfth part of a yea*, or of 
 365d, 5h, 48/ 45," 30/" and consequently consist of 
 SOd, lOh, 29/ 47," 30/" 
 
 The legislators of some nations, among whom as- 
 tronomical knowledge had been diffused, have had re- 
 gard to the Solar in determining the civil month, 
 while those of other nations have taken into view only 
 the Lunar month. 
 
 12. The Lunar Year, 
 
 Some nations, who, in seeking the length of the 
 year, have paid more regard to the revolutions of the 
 moon, than to those of the sun, and who had remark- 
 ed, that the year commences anew after about twelve 
 Lunar revolutions, have adopted this as the measure 
 of the year. Twelve complete revolutions of the 
 moon, each from one new moon to another, constituted 
 their year. 
 
 Since the natural Lunar month, so determined, 
 and reckoned with astronomical precision, consists 
 as above stated of 29d, 12h, 44/ 3," 12/" the true 
 duration of a natural Lunar year is 354d, 8h, 48/ 
 

 TO CHRONOLOGT. 
 
 ** 
 
 33," 1%"* The difference between this and the solar 
 
 therefore, is as follows. 
 
 The Solar year 365d, 5h, 43/ 45," 30," 
 The Lunar year 354d, 8h, 48/ 38," 12/" 
 
 Excess of the Solar lOd, 21h, 0/ 7," 18."' 
 
 How the nations, who adopted the Lunar as their 
 civil year, regulated it, in respect to the smaller di- 
 visions of time, will be shown in some particular capes 
 in the sequel. 
 
 Remark. From the difference between a Lunar 
 and Solar year it is obvious, that in 32 Solar there are 
 33 Lunar years. For the lOd, 21 h &c, which are the 
 excess of the Solar, make in 32 years 359d, 3h, 3(F 
 &c, or 4d, l8h, 48' more, than a Lunar year. 
 
 13. Of Weeks. 
 
 The arbitrary division of time into weeks, whether 
 of seven days (hebdomades,) or of eight (ogdoades,) 
 or of ten (decades,) (for such have existed among 
 different nations,) is very ancient. The week of 
 seven days seems to have been the most ancient, and 
 existed^at least among the Hebrews, from the earliest 
 period. 
 
 Yet the invention of this division of time is by soma 
 also ascribej to the Chaldaeans, not a nation of that 
 
30 INTRODUCTION 
 
 name, but the learned men at Babylon, who it would 
 seem bore this name, as a title of distinction. 
 
 The seven days, which compose the week, have been 
 distinguished among many nations, from the most 
 ancient periods, by the names of the seven planets, 
 which were thought to compose our system, and this 
 mode of distinction also is believed to have come from 
 the learned men of Babylon. We shall say more of 
 this in a more suitable connexion. 
 
 The weekly period of seven days would be very 
 naturally introduced among a people, who, in their di- 
 vision of time, had more regard to the moon, than 
 to the sun, and consequently had Lunar months and 
 years. 
 
 From the fourfold change of form, which the moon 
 exhibits during a revolution, the division into weeks, 
 is very obviously suggested, and, as the Lunar pe- 
 riod consists of 29 days, the nearest division in- 
 to quarters, which it admits, would give 7 days to 
 each. 
 
 But the adoption of this division also by nations, 
 who use the Solar year and month, has occasion- 
 ed in their divisions of time two inconveniences, 
 which, accustomed as we are to them from child- 
 hood, appear sufficiently obvious, but which, if now 
 
TO CHRONOLOGY. 31 
 
 first introduced, we should find quite inadmissi- 
 ble. 
 
 1. The Solar year does not consist of an even num- 
 ber of weeks, but has an excess of one or two days. 
 The common year of 365 days has 52 week and 1 
 day, every fourth or leap year of 366 days has 52 
 weeks and 2 days. The year is at an end, while the 
 week, which should be an included part of the year, 
 has not yet terminated, and the new year falls con- 
 tinually, in common years, one day, in leap years, 
 two days later in the week, than in the preceding 
 year. 
 
 2. So too the months consist, not of a number of 
 completed weeks, but of four weeks and some addi- 
 tional days. 
 
 In the sequel we shall meet with examples, in which 
 nations have adopted the division into weeks of ten 
 days, or decades, which is obviously more convenient, 
 where they are united with Solar months, of a corres- 
 ponding length. 
 
 Remark It is obviously more convenient in all 
 kinds of measurement to have but one standard, or 
 element of quantity. As in reckoning the value of 
 money and coin it is better to take either gold alone, 
 of silver alone, as the standard, so also, for conven- 
 iens in measuring time, it would be better to use 
 
83 INTRODUCTION 
 
 only, the period of the sun's revolution, than to con- 
 nect with this a second, like that of the moon, where 
 the relations of the two are so difficult to be deter- 
 mined. 
 
 14. Forms of the year and Calendar. 
 
 These are the divisions of time, as naturally mar- 
 ked out by the revolutions of the sun and moon, ac- 
 cording to the careful observation of astronomers in re- 
 gard to their duration, and as established in the regu- 
 lations of civil society. We have seen, that it is left 
 to the arbitrary direction of lawgivers to determine, 
 with what day the year shall commence, of how m any 
 days a month shall consist, &c. These legal de- 
 terminations and ordinances, taken together, con- 
 stitute what is termed the form of the year (anni 
 ratio, forma.) 
 
 A Calendar or Almanac (calendarium, fasti) is a 
 register or designation of all the days, weeks, and 
 months, which make up a civil year, with a notice of 
 — t. the days, which are legally appointed as festival 
 (Jays — 2, natural or astronomical incidents worthy of 
 notice, by which one day is distinguished from an- 
 other, as the days of new and full moon, of the first 
 and last quarter, of the aequinoxes, the solstices, the 
 eclipses of the sun and moon, the ebb and flow of 
 the tide, &c. 
 
TO CHRONOLOGY. 33 
 
 Remark. So far mathematical or astronomical chro- 
 nology must be combined with historical, and they 
 are inseparable from each other. Mathematical chro- 
 nology could not give with precision the true magni- 
 tude of those divisions, which are natural, without 
 availing itself of the civil divisions of time. How 
 time has been divided legally by different nations, we 
 can learn only from testimony, or in other words his- 
 torically. 
 
 In what follows, the purpose will be only to ex- 
 hibit what pertains to historical Chronology, and we 
 shall aim— 1. to show the form of the year used among 
 different nations, as determined by the founders of 
 religious and civil institutions; — 2, tha important 
 events, which have been fixed upon by different na- 
 tions, as Epochs, or fixed points of time, from which 
 they commence numbering the succession of years,, 
 and finally— 3, to select a form of the year and an 
 Epoch, as a standard, to which those of all nations 
 may be reduced, in order to arrange, in accordance 
 with those selected, the historical incidents of all na- 
 tions and of all ages. 
 
 15. The Julian Year. 
 
 In order to obtain a distinct notion of the different 
 forms of the year, which were used among ancient 
 
u 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 nations, or are still in use elsewhere, it will be of ser- 
 vice to exhibit, as a model for comparison, that with 
 which we of European origin have been from our in- 
 fancy familiar. We can then readily compare others 
 with this, and mark their deviations, and can the more 
 easily judge, whether those deviations are defects or 
 the reverse. 
 
 The form of the year in general use among the 
 European nations, and those of European origin, may 
 be termed the Juliano-Gregorian year or the Juliano- 
 Gregorian Calendar, the Julian modified by Gre- 
 gory. 
 
 The name Julian Calendar, or Julian year, is giv- 
 en, because this form of the year was introduced by 
 the Roman dictator, Julius Caesar. All the nations 
 of Europe, who were converted to Christianity, adop- 
 ted this Calendar, and retained it, till the year 1532 
 after the birth of Christ, About this time important 
 improvements were made in it under the direction of 
 Pope Gregory XITE, and this improved Calendar is 
 called the Gregorian Calendar. 
 
 Since that time it is usual to distinguish the origi- 
 nal, formed by Julius Caesar, as the old Calendar, or 
 oldstyh (annus or calendarium vetus, veteris stili,) 
 and the improved one, as the new Calendar, or as 
 New Style (annus, calendarium stili novi.) 
 
' 
 
 TO CHRONOLOGY. 35 
 
 In the Calendar, which Julius Caesar introduced, 
 it was assumed, that the Solar year consisted of 365 
 days and 6 full hours. Hence, as these 6 hours would 
 make just a day in four years, a day was intercalated 
 every fourth year making it a leap year of 366 days. 
 
 The year thus determined was divided into twelve 
 civil months, whose names January. February, &c, 
 are sufficiently known, Seven of these months had 
 each thirty one, four had thirty days, and February in 
 common years twenty eight, but in leap years twenty 
 nine days. 
 
 It was a great inconvenience, that the months had 
 not all an equal number of days, and still greater, 
 that the longer and shorter follow each other by no 
 rule. 
 
 The beginning of the year was placed in the midst 
 of the winter season, and this indeed could not of it- 
 self be objected to, since it is matter of indifference, 
 whether it be in the winter, or either of the other sea- 
 sons. But that the shortest day of winter, or the win- 
 ter Solstice, was not chosen, instead of the eighth day 
 after that, as the first day of the year, may be con- 
 sidered as transgressing astronomical principles. For 
 as the revolution of the Sun, from one of the tropics 
 round to the same point again, was to be the measure 
 of the year, it would seem, that the year should com* 
 inence, when this revolution commences. 
 
36 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 We shall exhibit in the sequel the probable reasons, 
 why Julius Caesar, against his better knowledge, 
 found it advisable to admit these inconveniences into 
 his Calendar. 
 
 This Julian year was faither divided, not by Julius 
 Caesar himself, but at a much later period, and after 
 Christianity had become the prevailing religion, into 
 fitfy two weeks, each of seven days. But, as these 
 fifty two weeks give only 364 days, we have in com- 
 mon years an excess of one, and in leap years of two 
 days beyond the fifty two weeks. From this again 
 the new incovenience arose, that the commencement 
 of each newyeai fell, in common years one, and in 
 leap year, two days later in the week, than in the 
 preceding year. [For a farther account of this see 
 section 49.] 
 
 16. Essential defect of the Julian year. 
 
 Besides the inconveniences above mentioned, the 
 Julian year had a more essential defect. The length 
 of the year, as assumed by it, was greater than its 
 true length by 11,' 14," 30.'" This in the course of 
 some hundred years amounted to several whole days, 
 and in the 16th century it was observed, that new 
 year's day fell, according to the calendar, about ten 
 days later, than it should according to the course 
 

 TO CHRONOLOGY. 
 
 37 
 
 of the sun. This variation of the Julian Calendar 
 from the true Solar year was especially noticed in the 
 celebration of the feast of Easter. According to a 
 canon of the Nicene Council, Easter was to be cele- 
 brated on the first Sunday after the full moon imme- 
 diately succeeding the Vernal A equinox. This Ae- 
 quinox ought to fall, according to the Julian Calen- 
 dar, on the 21st of March, but it was observed in the 
 16th century, that it was already ten days earlier 
 than the 21st March as set down in the Calendar. 
 
 After many attempts of Astronomers to remedy this 
 error, Pope Gregory XIII gave it in charge to Aloysius 
 Lilius, a man eminent in the science at that period, 
 to reform the Calendar. The Calendar so reformed 
 this Pope ordered in 1582 to be introduced throughout 
 Christendom, and was immediately obeyed by the 
 Catholic States: 
 
 With the remedy of this error the Calendar was 
 suffered to pass, the inconveniences before mentioned 
 remaining as they were. 
 
 17. The Gregorian Year. 
 
 In order to bring back the year to an accordance 
 with the place of the sun in its annual course, ten 
 days were thrown out of the month of October in the 
 year 1582, and thus the next new year's day in the 
 
38 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Calendar made to coincide with the right point in the 
 sun's motion. Immediately after the fourth of Octo- 
 ber, instead of the fifth, was written the fifteenth, and 
 this year therefore had but 355 days. 
 
 To avoid the return of the same evil from the ex- 
 cess of 11/ 14/' 30" in the Julian year above the true 
 time, it was determined, that every hundredth year, 
 for three centuries in succession, which according to 
 the Julian Calendar, would be leap years, should be 
 common years, but for the fourth century a leap year. 
 According to this rule the years 1700, 1800 and 1900 
 were to be common years instead of leap years, as 
 t hey would have been by the Julian Calendar, but 
 the year 2000 a leap year, and so for the last years of 
 succeeding centuries, every fourth only will be a leap 
 year. 
 
 This improved Calendar, as above remarked, was 
 adopted, at the requisition of the Pope, by all the 
 Catholics states, and by those of Germany particularly 
 at the Diet of Ratisbon in 1582. But the German 
 Protestants at this Diet, as well as the Protestants 
 generally throughout Europe, did not adopt it, because 
 they were unwilling to give the appearance of being 
 in any thing controlled by the authority of the Pope. 
 The difficulty consequently arose of having among 
 the states of Europe two different Calendars, the Cath- 
 
TO CHRONOLOGY. 39 
 
 olics using the new, and the Protestants the old. In 
 countries, where Catholics and Protestatnts lived to- 
 gether in habit of intercourse, this difference in the 
 mode of reckoning time occasioned great inconven- 
 ience in the business of social life. The festivals, 
 which were celebrated alike by both, were held by 
 them at different times. All documents and letters 
 must have a two-fold date, and even historians in re- 
 cording events must give the day according to both 
 Calendars, or in old and new style. Both days were 
 usually given in the form of a fraction, as that an 
 event happened on the |f of August, the 14th old 
 style and the 24 new style. 
 
 At length the Protestant's in Germany concluded 
 no longer to reject the improved Calendar, and intro- 
 duced it with the year 1700. But as the difference 
 between the two Calendars, during an interval of 
 more than a hundred years, was now increased to the 
 amount of about one day, they rejected eleven days 
 from the year 1700. In Febuary, which by the Julian 
 Calendar should have had 29 days, only 18 were 
 reckoned, and the 1st of March placed in the Calen- 
 dar immediately after the 18th of February. 
 
 Denmark, Holland and Switzerland now followed 
 the example of the German Piotestants. England 
 did the same in 1752, and Sweden in 1753. 
 
40 INTODUCTION 
 
 The Russians are the only Christian nation in Eu- 
 rope, which still retains the uiireformed Calendar. 
 
 IS. Forms of the year, most worthy of notice, adop- 
 ted by other nations. 
 
 We shall now exhibit the forms of the year, or the 
 Calendars, of some other nations of different periods, 
 and first in Order those of the nations, w T hose history 
 and literature have for us the greatest interest. 
 
 19. The year of the Athenians. 
 
 In aiming to exhibit only such Calendars as have 
 an interest in literature and history, it will not be 
 necessary for us to enquire what mode of reckoning 
 existed among the most ancient Greeks. But the 
 Attic year, or that of the Athenians, which was firs* 
 introduced at Athens in the more advanced periods of 
 Grecian culture, and supposed, on probable grounds, to 
 have been gradually adopted by the other Grecian 
 states, is of course a matter of literary interest, and 
 important to be known. 
 
 The introduction of this Calendar would seem to 
 have taken place in the time of Solon, and probably 
 through his means, about the year 590 before Christ- 
 The Greeks had begun at this period to cultivate 
 among other sciences, Mathematics and Astronomy, 
 
TO CHRONOLOGY. 41 
 
 and yet it is probable, that they did not invent their 
 Calendar by the help of their own science alone, but 
 borrowed it from some nation of Asia, or at least had 
 before them that of some Asiatic nation in the arrange- 
 ment of their own. 
 
 The Attic year was a Lunar year, commenced at 
 the winter Solstice Jand was divided into twelve months 
 having alternately 29 and 30 days. The three months, 
 belonging to each quarter of the year, were distinguish- 
 ed by an epithet designating the season. The follow- 
 ing table shows the names and order of the months, 
 and the number of days in each. 
 
 The Winter months, {^veg x e ^ lB Q lV0,e -) 
 
 Gamelion — . 29 days. 
 
 Anthesterion — 30 — = 
 
 Elaphebolion — 29 — 
 The Spring months, (^vsg sagtvoi,,) 
 
 Munichion — 30 days, 
 
 Thargelion — 29 — 
 
 Skirrophorion — 30 — 
 The Summer months, ([irjveg Osqivoi.) 
 
 Hecatombaeon — 29 days. 
 
 Metageitnion — 30 — 
 
 Boedromion -*■ 29 — 
 
 4* 
 

 42 INTRODUCTION 
 
 The Autumnal months (fiqveg anugwoi,.) 
 
 Maimakterion — 30 — 
 
 Pyanepsion — - 29 — 
 
 Poseideon — 30 
 
 The Attic year had thus only 354 days. Obser- 
 ving, however, that the Solar year was about eleven 
 days longer than this, the Athenians added, every 
 second year, another month of 22 days. It followed 
 after the month Poseideon, and was named the second 
 Poseideon, (nooeidewv dsvisgog.) These two years 
 taken together, or cycle of two years, was called a 
 Dieteris (diei7]Qig,) or in the Latin form a Biennium. 
 
 The number of days in these two years was equal 
 to the number in two Solar years, if we reckon only 
 the entire days. But the Athenians observed also, 
 that the Solar had an excess above the Lunar, not on- 
 ly of the eleven whole days, but of an additional 
 fraction of about a quarter of a day, At the end of 
 every alternate biennium, therefore, or of every fourth, 
 year, they added another day to the intercalary month 
 making it a month of 23 days. This cycle they call- 
 ed a Tetraeteris, (xsTgaej^gig,) or a Quadrennium, 
 
 This cycle of four years gave 1461 days, equivalent 
 to three common and one leap year of the Julian 
 Calendar. 
 
43 
 
 TO CHRONOLOGY. 
 
 This method of intercalating was afterwards chan- 
 ged, and a cycle of eight years adopted, called an 
 Octaeteris, (oKiaei W g,) or Octennium. In this 
 cycle a second month Poseideon of thirty days was 
 added to the third, the fifth, and the eighth year. It 
 contained 2922 days, or was equivalent to six com- 
 mon and two leap years of the Julian Calendar. 
 
 A year, to which the intercalary month was added, 
 was called in Greek eviavrog B^ohfiaiog. 
 
 As this Calendar was not strictly correct, reforms 
 were proposed by Meton about 430, by Callippus 
 about 330, and by Hipparchus about 150 before Christ, 
 But since it is boubtful, whether their proposed re- 
 forms were ever adopted and carried into effect, it 
 seems unnecessary here to give a detailed account of 
 
 them.* 
 
 Remark 1. A cycle (xvxlog, cyclus, circulus, circle) 
 designates a period or series of a determinate number 
 of years^r other intervals of time, after the comple- 
 tion of which the enumeration is commenced anew. 
 
 2. We shall see in the sequel, that some very an- 
 cient Oriental nations had much more perfect ap- 
 proximations to the true Solar year, than this Lunar 
 year of the Greeks. We must therefore admit, if we 
 would not be blinded by prejudice in favour of the 
 
 *See an account of the Metonic cycle in section 49. 
 
44 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Greeks, that the Mathematical and Astronomical 
 sciences were successfully cultivated at an earlier pe- 
 riod by those Orientals, than by the Greeks, and that 
 consequently the Greeks were not the pioneers in these 
 sciences. 
 
 20. Division of the month among the Greeks- 
 
 The Greeks had no weeks of seven days, but di- 
 vided the month into three decades (dexadeg,) or di- 
 visions often days each. The first of these was call- 
 ed the decade of the beginning of the months, (dexag 
 fiijvo; l^afievov or ag/o/tisvov,) the second the decade 
 of the middle (tn]vo; peaowioQ,) and the third the de- 
 cade of the close of the month, (pyvog ydivoviog or 
 aixioviog^ 
 
 The first day in each month was called the new 
 moon (Novinjvia,) or the Jirst. 
 
 The nine following days were designated by the suc- 
 cessive ordinals, as the second, third, Slc. with the 
 addition of the beginning of the month. 
 
 The nine first days of the second decade were de- 
 signated as the first, second, &c, of the middle of the 
 month, or otherwise after the tenth {em S&taS*';) 
 
 The tenth of the second decade was called simply 
 the twentieth (etaog?] or swag,) 
 
TO CHRONOLOGY. 45 
 
 In the third decade the days were numbered in the 
 reverse order. The twenty first day of the month was 
 called, in months having thirty days, the tenth, in 
 those having twenty nine, the ninth, the next the 
 eighth &,c, of the close of the month, or the declining 
 month. 
 
 The last day of the month was called the old and 
 new (hvrj xai ^e?/,) as if it belonged, half to the depart- 
 ing, and half to the beginning month. 
 
 The following table will give a clear conception Of 
 
 I this very inconvenient mode of reckoning, which on- 
 
 I ly early usage, it would seem, could make familiar or 
 
 tolerable. It exhibits the successive days of the 
 
 first month, in the Greek, the month Gamelion of 29 
 
 I days. 
 
 raf.irjliojv, Gamelion. 
 
 1. NovpyvLu, the new moon, 
 
 or 
 ITgon?], the first "} 
 
 2. JsvTsgrj, the second 
 
 3. Tgni], the third 
 
 4. TsTagTij, the fourth 
 
 5. neuTCTTj, the fifth V 
 
 6. c Ext?], the sixth 
 
 7. c E3dofu?], the seventh 
 
 8. Oydot/, the eighth 
 
 9. Evvaxr h the ninth 
 
 10. dexauj, the tenth 
 
 fxijvog iga/Liavov 
 
 or 
 
 aoyoasvov, 
 
 of the beginning of the 
 
 month. 
 
or 
 
 46 INTRODUCTION 
 
 11. IIqoqtt], the first "] 
 
 12. devj£Qi] f the second | 
 
 13. Tgni] the third [xqvog [iscrovvwg, 
 
 14. Texaqxi], the fourth j of the middle of the month 
 
 15. ne/ujiTy, the fifth J> or 
 
 16. e £x«7, the sixth em dexadi, 
 
 17. 'Epdofiij, the seventh | after the tenth. 
 
 18. Oydor] the eighth 
 
 19. EvrccT?], the ninth J 
 
 20. Eiy.ogi] or £V*as the twentieth, 
 
 21. Ewaxr h the ninth 
 
 22. Oydo?] > the eighth 
 
 23. 'E l Sd'o l u?i } the seventh 
 
 24. ^Tiy, the sixth 
 
 25. IlepTtTT], the fifth f cctuovtoq, 
 
 26. Tetuqti], the fourth | of the close of the month, 
 
 27. T££T?y, the third | or the declining month. 
 
 28. dsuT£Q/] y the second J 
 
 29. y Ev7] xai vsi] } the old and new 
 
 21. Division of the day among the Greeks. 
 
 The Greeks, or at least the Athenians, began their 
 civil day with the setting of the sun. They divided 
 it into twelve equal (Babylonian) hours, and made 
 use of sun-dials for measuring them. 
 
 Both these, the hours and the sun-dials, probably 
 the Greeks of Asia Minor, first received from some of 
 the Asiatic nations, among whom the Babylonian cul- 
 ture had been diffused. 
 
 Anaximenes, a philosopher of the Ionian school, is 
 
TO CHRONOLOGY. 47 
 
 said to have set up the first sun-dial at Sparta, about 
 the year 555 before Christ. 
 
 To supply the place of a dial at night and in cloudy 
 weather, the Greeks had hourglasses, in which water 
 was used instead of sand, Clepsydras (jfdeyvdgag.) 
 
 22. The Macedonion Year. 
 
 By this we are to understand — 1. the Calendar, 
 which was used in Macedonia itself, till the time of 
 Alexander, and perhaps still later, and — 2. those which 
 were used in the Asiatic states founded by Alexander's 
 Generals. 
 
 The ancient and original Macedonian Calendar 
 seems to have differed from the Athenian only in two 
 particulars. The year began, not with the winter 
 Solstice, but with the autumnal Aequinox, and the 
 months had other names. 
 
 The Macedonian months corresponded with the 
 Athenian as follows. 
 
 The Macedonian. The Athenian. 
 
 1- Dios, 10. Maimakterion, 
 
 2. Apellaeos, 11. Pyanepsion, 
 
 3. Audinaeos, 12. Poseideon, 
 
 4. Peritios, 1. Gamelion, 
 
48 INTRODUCTION 
 
 5. Dystros, 2. Anthesterion, 
 
 6. Xanthikos, - 3. Elaphebolion, 
 
 7. Artemisios, 4. Munychion, 
 
 8. Daisios, 5. Thargelion, 
 
 9. Panemos, 6. Skirrophorion, 
 
 10. Lo-os, 7. Hecatombaeon, 
 
 11. Gorpiaeos, 8. Metageition, 
 
 12. Hyperberetaeos, 9. Boedromion, 
 
 In Demosthenes and Plutarch the time of certain 
 events is sometimes given in the terms of this ancient 
 Macedonian Calendar. 
 
 After those states arose in Asia, in which the sev- 
 eral Dynasties, that originated with the Generals of 
 Alexander, bore rule, and in which the language, the 
 customs, and the civil institutions of the Greeks were 
 introduced, this Macedonian Calendar seems to have 
 been there also the one in general use, at least in pub- 
 lic documents and monuments. The original Asiatic 
 nations, who came under the sway of the Macedoni- 
 ans as the Syrians, the Babylonians, &c, may per- 
 haps, among themselves, and in matters concerning 
 themselves only, especially in the celebration of their 
 festivals and stated religious ceremonials, have still 
 made use of their own Calendars employed by their 
 ancestors, 
 

 TO CHRONOLOGY. 
 
 49 
 
 But, after all the Grecian conquests in Asia came 
 under the dominion of the Romans, and after Julius 
 Caesar had reformed the Roman Calendar, this was 
 introduced in these parts of Asia, as in all the Roman 
 provinces. Only the Macedonian names of months 
 were retained, and the year was commenced on the 
 2ith of September. This Calendar is also called the 
 Macedonian, To distinguish it from the ancient it may 
 be denominated the new Macedonian, 
 
 It is necessary to be acquainted with the arrange- 
 ments of this Calendar, in order to understand the 
 Greek authors, who wrote after its introduction in 
 Asia, and followed it in giving the dates of events. 
 
 It stands related to the Julian Calendar as shown 
 in the following table. 
 
 / 
 
 Dios 
 
 Apellaeos 
 
 Audinaeos 
 
 Peritios 
 
 Dystros 
 
 Xanthikos 
 
 Artemisios 
 
 Daisios 
 
 Panemos 
 
 fell on September 24. 
 
 — — October 24. 
 
 — — November 23. 
 
 — — December 24. 
 
 — — January 23. 
 
 — — February 22. 
 
 — — March 25. 
 
 — — April 25. 
 
 — — May 25, 
 
50 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Lo-os 1 _ _ j une 2 5. 
 
 Gorpiaeos 1 — — July 25. 
 
 Hyperheretaeos 1 — — August 25. 
 But under the dominion of the Romans even, and 
 after the introduction of the Julian Calendar, some 
 countries and states in Asia retained their ancient 
 domestic Calendars, as may be seen from the coim 
 of these countries.. 
 
 23. The Roman Calendar before its reform by Ju- 
 lius Caesar. 
 
 The Roman year in use before the time of Caesar 
 is said to have been introduced by Numa Pompilius 
 but to have undergone some alterations in the time ol 
 the Decemvirs. It was a Lunar ye ir, but consisted 
 of 355 days. It was divided into 12 months, which 
 till the time of the Decemvirs are said to have followed 
 each other in the following order, 
 
 1. January of 29 days 
 
 2. March — 31 — 
 
 3. April — 29 — 
 
 4. May — 31 — 
 
 5. June — 29 — 
 
 6. Quintilis — 31 — 
 
TO CHRONOLOGY. 51 
 
 7. Sextilis — 29 — 
 
 8. September—- 29 — 
 
 9. October — 31 — 
 
 10. November— 29 — 
 IK December — 29 — 
 12. February— 28 — 
 
 After the Decemvirate the order of the months was 
 changed. The second month was called February , 
 March was the third in order, and December the last. 
 3o at least say ancient authors, who make mention of 
 his subject. 
 
 In order to make this Lunar year correspond with 
 the Solar, a month was intercalated every second 
 year of 22, and every fourth year one of 23 days. 
 
 So far this cycle of intercalation agreed with the 
 Tetraeteris of the Athenians, but, as the Roman year 
 had one day more than the Attic, the four years of 
 the Roman cycle gave 1465 days, which exceeds by 
 four days both the Attic cycle and four Julian years. 
 
 The intercalary month the Romans called Merce- 
 donius or Mercidinus, and placed it between Februa- 
 :y and March. 
 
52 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 24- Confused state of the Roman Calendar before 
 fhe time of Julius Caesar, 
 
 The College of Priests, Collegium Pontificum, had 
 the charge of arranging the Calendar for each new 
 year, and so held, as the Romans expressed it, cus- 
 todiam fastorum. These priests seem to have been 
 quite destitute of astronomical science. Yet it was 
 not from ignorance merely, that they made faulty 
 Calendars, but from design, lengthening or shortening 
 the year as they saw fit. "Instead of improving th e 
 Calendar, as their official duty required," says an old 
 Roman author, "they made it still more confused, by 
 intercalating more or less, in order that a public ma- 
 gistrate, according as he was friendly or otherwise to 
 them, might go out of office earlier or later, that a fa- 
 vorite farmer of the revenue might make the more 
 gain, or a hated one suffer greater injury, from the 
 extension or the abridgement of the year/ 5 * 
 
 In an epistle to Atticus (V. 9,) Cicero begs this 
 friend of his to oppose by every possible means the 
 intercalation of the usual number of days in the then 
 current year, in order that his (Cicero's) proconsul- 
 ship in Cilicia might not be prolonged. 
 
 *Horum (sacerdotumj plerique, ob odium vel gratiam, quo 
 <luis magistratu citius abiret, diutiusve fungeretur, aut publici 
 redemptor ex anni magnitudine in lucro damnove esset, plus 
 minusve ex libidine intercalando, rem sibi ad corrigendam 
 mandatam, ultro depravarunt. Censor, de dienatali c. 30. 
 
TO CHRONOLOGY. 53 
 
 By such caprices of these Calendar-makers, P a month 
 was often transferred from one season to another, so 
 that, according to the Calendar, the summer harvest 
 fell in the autumnal months, and the vintage in the 
 winter.* 
 
 An epistle of Cicero to Atticus (X.17.) is, accor- 
 ding to the Roman method of writing, dated XVII, 
 Kal- Jun. or after our mode the 16th of May, and the 
 Vernal Aequinox had not yet arrived. This letter 
 Cicero wrote, when, after the breaking out of the civil 
 war, he was going to join Pompey in Greece, and the 
 Captain of the vessel was waiting for the Aequinox to 
 be past. The Aequinox, says Cicero, holds on very 
 tediously. 
 
 25, Julius Caesar the author of the Julian Calen- 
 dar. 
 
 Julius Caesar put an end to these disorders. As 
 Pont if ex Maxhnus it became his official duty to take 
 charge of improving the Calendar, and his versatile 
 genius was particularly inclined to the mathematical 
 sciences and to astronomy. The poet, who excites our 
 admiration, when he sets forth the genius, as he does 
 our abhorrence, when he represents the ambitious 
 
 * — ut neque messium feriae aestati, neque vindemiarum au- 
 tumnus competerent. Sueton. in Jul. Caes. 40. 
 
 5* 
 
54 INTRODUCTION 
 
 deeds of Caesar, introduces him speaking as follows : 
 
 Media inter proelia semper 
 Stellarum coelique plagis superisque vacavi » 
 Nee mens Eudoxi vincetur fastibus anni. 
 
 Lucan. Phars. X. 4. 185. 
 
 Plinius (H. M. XVIII. 25.) names Sosigenes, a 
 Peripatetic at Alexandria, as the astronomer, who 
 was specially employed by Caesar in this matter. 
 Macrobius names still another, Marcus Flavins. He 
 is termed a scribe, which was, "among the Romans, a 
 common designation of all, who were employed by 
 the Senate, or magistrates, or even by private per- 
 sons x for drawing up written documents, for copying 
 them, for keeping accounts, &c. 
 
 It was in Caesar's fourth consulate, the year 709 
 from the building of the city, and the year 45 before 
 the birth of Christ, that the reformed Calendar was 
 introduced. It was at once denominated by the Ro- 
 mans in honour of its author the Julian ( and 
 the form, which he gave to the year, the Julian year* 
 The form itself we have given above (No. 15) 
 
 *Ex hoc anno, a Julio Caesare ordinato. ceteri ad nostrain 
 memoriam Juliani appelluntur, iique con:«urgunt ex quarto 
 Oaesaris consulaiu. Ccnsorinus. 
 
 From the same author we learn, that it was from a reference 
 to certain festivals and religious ceremonies of the Romans 
 appointed for stated days of the month, that Caesar gave to the- 
 
TO CHRONOLOGY. 55 
 
 We only remark farther here, that, on the introduc- 
 tion of the new Calendar, the name of the month 
 Quintilis, in honour of Julius Caesar, was_ changed to 
 Julius. The next month, Sextilis, still retained its 
 former name, and was not changed into August till a 
 later period, in honour of Augustus Caesar. 
 
 26. Singular confusion of the year ?(H a. U. C. } in 
 which preparation teas made for introducing the new 
 idar.. 
 
 The year 70S after the building of the city, by the 
 disposition of which all the errors and confusion of the 
 
 months so unequal a number of days, and had so little re- 
 gard to that uumber in the order of their arrangement. Other- 
 E it is probable, from his accurate judgment, that he would 
 have preferred a more equal distribution of days, and a more 
 regular arrangement in the order of succession. Censoriuus 
 says on this point ; Itaque diebus CCCLV addidit X, quos per 
 septem menses, qui dies undetricenos hahc hjant, ita dietribuit, ut 
 Januario et Sextiliet Decembri bini accederent, ceteris singuli, 
 artibus mensrum apppsuif, ne scilicet 
 reiigiones sni cvjusque mentis a loco submoverentur . In this we 
 recognize the of Caesar, that he preferred to endure 
 
 slight imperfections, in the form of his year, rather than do vio- 
 lence to ancient and deep rooted associations, usages, and 
 habits, and by a needless misuse of power weaken the princi- 
 ples of action in the minds of men. Ideler has expressed the 
 very probable conjecture , that on similar grounds, and from re- 
 spect for ancient usages, said to have been established by Nu- 
 maPompilius, Caesar made his year commence where it does, 
 instead of commencing at the winter Solstice, or the shortest 
 day of the year, which would se.em to have been more conso- 
 nant with astronomical principles. 
 
56 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 old Calendar were to be removed, before the new ar- 
 rangement could be introduced, was a very singular 
 year. In this year not only the usual intercalarv 
 month Mercedonius, or Mercidinus, of 23 days, but 
 67 days more, to the amount of which the Roman 
 year had now receded from the Solar year, were in- 
 tercalated. The intercalation of these 67 days was 
 between November and December, in two nameless 
 months, the one of 34, the other of 33 days. This 
 year had therefore 15 months, and 445 days. It was 
 yet more singular, that the month Mercedonius was 
 intercalated after the 23d of February, and after it 
 followed the 5 remaining days of February. This 
 vear deserved the name, given it by Macrobius (Saturn. 
 1. 14,) of the year of confusion, annus confusionis. 
 
 The subjoined table will exhibit more distiuctly to 
 the eye the form of this extraordinary year. 
 
 The year 708 afer the building of the city . 
 Order and names of the Days of the reformed Cal- 
 months with the number endar, on which the first 
 
 of each month would 
 have fallen. 
 
 — The 13th of October of 
 the year 47. before Christ. 
 
 — 11 November. 
 
 — 4 December. 
 
 of their days. 
 
 1. January of 29 days 
 
 2. February — 23 
 
 3. Mercedonius — 23 
 

 TO CHRONOLOGY. O / 
 
 February — 
 
 5 — 27 December. 
 
 4. March 
 
 — 31 — 1 January of 46 before 
 
 
 Christ, 
 
 5. April 
 
 — 29 — 1 February. 
 
 6. May 
 
 — 31 — 2 March. 
 
 7. June 
 
 — 29 — 2 April. 
 
 8. Quintilis 
 
 — 31 — 1 May. 
 
 9. Sextilis 
 
 — 29 — 1 June. 
 
 10. September 
 
 — 29 — 30 June. 
 
 11. October 
 
 — 31 - 29 July. 
 
 12. November 
 
 — 29 — 29 August. 
 
 13. Intercalary 
 
 — 34 — 27 September. 
 
 14. Intercalary 
 
 — 33 — 1 November. 
 
 15. December 
 
 — 29 — 3 December. 
 
 445 days 
 After the 29th December followed then the 1st Jan- 
 uary of the year 709 after the building of Rome, or 
 the 45th before the birth of Christ, and with this 1st 
 of January the new Calendar went into use. 
 
 27. Division of the month among the Romans, and 
 their method of numbering the days of the month. 
 
 The first day in every month was called the Cal~ 
 ends. Kalendae, as Kalendae Januarii, Kalendae 
 
58 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Februarii, &,c. The seventh day, in the four months 
 March, May, July and October, were called Nonac, 
 the Nones, and in the other eight months the fifth 
 day had that name. In the four months above na- 
 med l he fifteenth day was called, Idus, the Ides, in 
 the other eight the thirteenth was so called. Thus 
 every month was divided into three parts — 1st from 
 the Calen-h to thz Nonis— 2d from the Nones to the 
 Ides — 3d from the Ides to the Calends of the following 
 month. 
 
 In each division the days were numbered back- 
 wards, with a reference to the end of that division, as 
 the point from winch the days were counted. Thus 
 the 4th before the Nones of January was reckoned 
 from the Nones backwards, that being regarded as the 
 dav, from which the numbering commenced, and as 
 that was by our mode of reckoning the fifth, the fourth 
 before it in our reckoning was the 2d of January. 
 
 'I ne 5th before the Ides of January was our 9th of 
 January. 
 
 The 15th before the Calends of February was our 
 18th of January. 
 
 The day immediately preceding the Calends, Nones, 
 and Ides was not expressed by a numeral, (the 2d 
 before the Nones &c,) but 'by the word Pridie — Pridie 
 
TO CHRONOLOGY. 51 
 
 Nonarum, Pridie Idus, Pridie Kalendarum— the da} 
 before the Nones, &,c. 
 
 - The following table will make this mode of reckon- 
 ing more intelligible by two examples, the one the 
 month of January, in which the Nones fell on the fifth 
 and the Ides the 13, and t£je other the month of Marcl 
 in which the Nones fell on the ?th and the Ides tht 
 15th. ' 
 
 )de o 
 
 f numbei 
 
 ring. 
 
 Roman mode. 
 
 
 J A 
 
 NUAB Y. 
 
 1. 
 
 =b= 
 
 
 Kalendae. 
 
 2. 
 
 = 
 
 
 4 ante Nonas. 
 
 3. 
 
 ■=. 
 
 
 3 — — 
 
 4. 
 
 == 
 
 
 Pridie Nonarum. 
 
 5, 
 
 = 
 
 
 Nonae. 
 
 6. 
 
 =r 
 
 
 8 ante Idas. 
 
 7. 
 
 = 
 
 
 7 — — 
 
 8. 
 
 = 
 
 
 6 — _ 
 
 9. 
 
 — 
 
 
 5 — — 
 
 10. 
 
 == 
 
 
 4 — — 
 
 11. 
 
 = 
 
 
 3 — — 
 
 12. 
 
 5= 
 
 
 Pridie Idus. 
 
 13. 
 
 ■ — 
 
 
 Id us. 
 

 INTRODUCTION 
 
 14. 
 
 = 
 
 19 ante Kalendas Februarii. 
 
 15. 
 
 = 
 
 18 
 
 — — 
 
 16. 
 
 = 
 
 17 
 
 — — 
 
 17. 
 
 4= 
 
 16 
 
 — — 
 
 18. 
 
 s= 
 
 15 
 
 — — 
 
 19. 
 
 25 
 
 14 
 
 — — 
 
 20. 
 
 = 
 
 13 
 
 — — 
 
 21. 
 
 i 
 
 12 
 
 — — 
 
 22. 
 
 = 
 
 11 
 
 — p 
 
 23. 
 
 = 
 
 10 
 
 — — 
 
 24. 
 
 = 
 
 9 
 
 — — 
 
 25. 
 
 = 
 
 8 
 
 — — 
 
 26. 
 
 = 
 
 7 
 
 — — 
 
 27. 
 
 = 
 
 6 
 
 — — 
 
 28. 
 
 = 
 
 5 
 
 «fc 
 
 29. 
 
 = 
 
 4 
 
 — — 
 
 30. 
 
 == 
 
 2 
 
 — — 
 
 31. 
 
 * = 
 
 Pridie Kal. Februarii. 
 
 
 Our mode. 
 
 Roman 
 
 mode. 
 
 
 MARC H. 
 
 
 1. 
 
 = 
 
 Kalendae Martii. 
 
 2. 
 
 = 
 
 6; 
 
 ante Nonas. 
 

 TO CHRONOLOGY. 
 
 3. 
 
 = 
 
 5 — — 
 
 4. 
 
 = 
 
 4 — — 
 
 5. 
 
 = 
 
 3 — — 
 
 6. 
 
 = 
 
 Pridie Nonarum. 
 
 7. 
 
 = 
 
 Noaae. 
 
 8. 
 
 = 
 
 8 ante Idua. 
 
 9. 
 
 = 
 
 7 — 
 
 lO- 
 
 = 
 
 6 — — ' 
 
 ll. 
 
 = 
 
 5 — — 
 
 13. 
 
 = 
 
 4 _ _ 
 
 13. 
 
 — 
 
 3 — — 
 
 14. 
 
 = 
 
 Pridie Idus. 
 
 15. 
 
 = 
 
 Idus. 
 
 16. 
 
 = 
 
 17anteKal.Aprilis. 
 
 17. 
 
 = 
 
 16 — — 
 
 18. 
 
 «= 
 
 15 — — 
 
 19. 
 
 = 
 
 14 — — 
 
 20. 
 
 s= 
 
 13 — — 
 
 21. 
 
 = 
 
 12 — - 
 
 22. 
 
 == 
 
 11 — — 
 
 23. 
 
 = 
 
 10 — — 
 
 24. 
 
 C3 
 
 9 — — 
 
 61 
 
 6 
 
6,2 INTRODUCTION 
 
 25. = 8 -— — 
 
 26. == 7 — — 
 
 27. = 6 — — 
 
 28. = 5 — — 
 
 29. = 4 — — 
 
 30. = 3 — — 
 
 31. = Pridie Kalendarum ] 
 
 Aprilis. 
 
 Remark. 1. The etymology and signification of 
 these three terms is unknown. According to Macro- 
 bius (Saturn. XV.) the Pontifex, after summoning the 
 people to the capitol, proclaimed to them with a loud 
 voice, that the new month was begun, and that so many 
 days, as the case might be, would intervene before the 
 Nones. This proclamation was at that time designa- 
 ted by a Greek term, adopted into the Latin, Kalare 
 (xaksw.) The meaning of Kalendae may be, there- 
 fore, the proclamation day. 
 
 The term Nonae is said by the same author to be 
 derived from dies nonus, the ninth day, the Nones be- 
 ing nine days before the Ides. 
 
 Of the word ldus Macrobius gives two possible de- 
 rivations, and two possible grounds for the application 
 of it in this case. According to one mode ldus comes 
 
TO CHRONOLOGY. 63 
 
 from videre, and this properly from the Greek ideiv (to 
 see,) and this day was originally so designated, be- 
 cause, at that time of the Lunar month, the moon 
 could be seen in its full form (the full moon.) Ac- 
 cording to the other mode of forming it, the word 
 comes from one in the ancient Etruscan, which at the 
 time when these names were first used, was adopted 
 into the Latin, This word was iduare, to divide, 
 and was applied here, because the Ides fall near the 
 middle of the month, and divide it into two nearly 
 equal parts. 
 
 2. The Romans were accustomed to this mode of 
 reckoning from their childhood, and by early practise 
 the most difficult task becomes easy, while the most 
 capricious and absurd customs come to seem natural 
 and rational. But that philologists and antiquarians, 
 from the 16th century nearly to our own times, should 
 have preferred this Roman mode of reckoning to the 
 natural and rational one adopted in our present Cal- 
 endars, was a pedantry deserving the severe satire 
 which Wolf has bestowed upon it in his Latin Chro- 
 nology. 
 
 3. This seems to be the most suitable place to give 
 some account of the origin of our present customary 
 division of the month into weeks, and of the names, by 
 which the several days of the week are distinguished. 
 
64 INTRODUCTION 
 
 The Romans had no weeks. The division of the 
 month into three parts, by Nones, Ides, and Kalends, 
 was the only one known among them, and this was 
 retained, not only while Rome continued Pagan, but 
 long after it became Christian. Ammianus Marcel- 
 linus, who wrote about half a century after Christiani- 
 ty had become the religion of the State, reckons the 
 days of the month by Kalends, Nones, and Lies. The 
 constitutions of a Christian emperor, even those of 
 Justinian I, in the Corpus Juris, are dated after the 
 aame manner. 
 
 Weeks were introduced by the Christians, and these 
 received them from the Jews, the first Christians hav- 
 ing themselves been Jews. The only deviation from 
 the Jewish week was, that, instead of the seventh, 
 the sabbath of the Jews, the Christians kept sa- 
 cred the first day of the week, as a memorial, that 
 Christ rose from the dead on that day, and hence 
 called it the Lord's day (dies Dominca.) On this 
 day the Christian churches (the ecclesiae) met for 
 mutual edification, for celebrating the eucharist, &c. 
 And thus, in their religious concerns, this mode of 
 reckoning time, by weeks of seven days each, had be- 
 come customary with them, while yet they were ob- 
 jects of persecution to their Pagan rules. After they 
 had gained the victory over Paganism and abolished 
 it, they gradually introduced the division by weeks 
 
TO CHRONOLOGY. 65 
 
 into the regulations of civil life, and dropped the old 
 Roman method of reckoning the days of the month. 
 When and how this took place, as to the details of its 
 history, is wholly unknown. 
 
 As regards the names of the several days of the 
 week, Monday, Tuesday, (diesLunae, Martis &c.) it 
 is altogether improbable, that the Christians employed 
 them on the first introduction of weeks into* the Cal- 
 endar. Whatever had any connexion with the names 
 and worship of the Pagan Gods was their abomina- 
 tion. But in the course of some centuries the Pagan 
 worship had so fallen into oblivion, that it was no 
 longer known, among the new generations of men, in 
 what it consisted, and the names connected with it 
 had ceased to have their original associations and of- 
 fensive import. Among the monks, whose business 
 it became to attend to the regulation of the Calendar, 
 especially for the use of the church, there were many, 
 who had a taste for astronomical studies, and who 
 therefore pursued every kind of knowledge, which 
 was connected with the astronomy of the ancients. 
 The Chaldaeans, i. e. the astronomers or astrologers of 
 Babylon, were celebrated, as having been the greatest 
 astronomers of antiquity, and from these the monki 
 adopted the astrological chimera, that each day of the 
 week was under the influence of one of the seven 
 *6 
 
66 
 
 INTODUCTION 
 
 planets, which were then considered as composing 
 our planetary system. The monks, therefore, had no 
 scruples of conscience against naming the days of the 
 week after the seven planets, as they had been named 
 by the Babylonian Astrologers. The names Jupiter, 
 Mars, Mercurius, Venus and Saturnus, in the designa- 
 tion of the days,as dies Jovis, Martis &,c* were re- 
 garded by them, not as names of heathen Gods, but as 
 names of the planets. 
 
 In regard to the origin of this division of time 
 among the Germans and other northen nations, and 
 the names of the days in the German, Dutch, Danish, 
 and other languages, there are different opinions. — 
 Soine suppose, that the division into weeks was in 
 use among all these nations in very ancient times. — 
 Kastner adopted the opinion, that it was a remnant 
 among them of the religion of the Patriarchs, to whom 
 
 *The Latin names of the days of the week used .where the 
 Latin language has been employed by the learned in modern 
 times, are dies Solis (sunday,) dies Lunae (monday,) dies Mar- 
 tis (tuesday,) dies Mereurii (Wednesday J dies Jovis (thursday) 
 dies Veneris (friday,) dies Saturni (Saturday.] 
 
 The English names are taken, for sunday and monday, ob- 
 viously as in the Latin, from the Sun and Moon, and, for the 
 four next following, from the objects of worship among the 
 Northern nations, most nearly corresponding with those, from 
 which they were named in the Latin. These were Tuu, 
 Woden or Odin, Thor and Freya, answering respectively to 
 Mars, Mercury, Jupiter and Venus. Saturday is probably, as 
 in Latin, derived from Saturn, though some say from a Saxon 
 Idol of a similar name. 
 
TO CHRONOLOGY. 67 
 
 it had served as a memorial of the creation of the 
 world. 
 
 At the same time it is assumed, that in process of 
 time the original purpose of the division was forgotten- 
 These nations became sunk in Idolatry, and named 
 the days of the week after the objects of their idola- 
 trous worship. Thor the God of thunder, Odin or 
 Wodin the God of war, Freya the Goddess of pleas- 
 ure, &c. 
 
 But is it susceptible of proof, that the division by 
 weeks was in use among these nations, before their 
 conversion to Christianity 1 To me it would seem, 
 that so remarkable a fact in the economy of the Ger- 
 mans must have attracted the notice of the Romans, 
 and that Tacitus could not have failed to mention it. 
 
 My own opinion is, that weeks were first introdu- 
 ced among these nations along with Christianity, and 
 that Christianity gave a very natural occasion for 
 their introduction, since all the religious feast and 
 fast days, which recur after weekly intervals, and es- 
 pecially Sunday and Friday, rendered this division 
 nearly indispensable. 
 
 Since now the Christian Ecclesiastics, in the Latin 
 language, which they employed in their religious ser- 
 vices, designated the days of the week by the names 
 of Jupiter Mars, Venus, &c, they naturally were less 
 
68 INTRODUCTION 
 
 scrupulous in seeking, in the languages of these na- 
 tions, for the names of those among the objects o* 
 their ancient worship, which had any resemblance 
 to these Roman divinities, and in thus marking the 
 days of the week in their languages, in the same way, 
 as had been adopted in the Latin language. 
 
 28. Division of the day and night among the Ro- 
 mans. 
 
 Before the Romans introduced the artificial divis- 
 ion of the day into hours, they distinguished the parts 
 of the natural day and night according to obvious ap- 
 pearances in nature. No less than sixteen terms of 
 distinction are found in Roman authors, by which 
 the different parts of the day and night were desig- 
 nated. 
 
 Media nox (midnight) —mediae noctis inclinatio 
 (after midnight)— Gallicinium (cock-crowing) — Con- 
 
 ticinium ( )— Diluculura (the dawn of dayj — 
 
 Mane (sunrise)— Ad meridiem ("towards noon)— Me- 
 ridies (mid-day)— Meridiei inclinatio (afternoon)— 
 Solis occasus ^sunset,)— Vesper (evening)— Crepus- 
 eulum (the dusk) -Prima fax (candle-lighting)— 
 Goncubium (bed-time)— Nox intempesta (dark night) 
 —Ad mediam noctem (near midnight.) 
 
 This natural division see-nas to have answered the 
 
TO CHKOSOLOGY. 69 
 
 purpose of the Romans for more than four hundred 
 years. It was not till about the year 460 from the 
 building of the city, that the first sun-dial is said to 
 have been brought to Rome from the conquered Gre- 
 cian colonies in Italy, and about the year 590 Scipio 
 Nasicais said to have caused hour-glasses (clepsydrae) 
 to be set up in public places, especially in the judicial 
 tribunals. 
 
 In later times the wealthy and powerful bad such 
 in their private houses, and employed a slave for the 
 special office of calling out the hours as they elapsed- 
 
 How many and how great conveniences, in the 
 business and social intercourse of life, accrue to us 
 from inventions, which must have cost their authors 
 much reflection time and patience, but which have 
 become to us of habitual and daily use, we are scarcely 
 able to estimate, or rightly to appreciate their worth. 
 The inventors of the clock and watch are forgotten, 
 by the thankless generations, that have come after 
 them, while the inventors of the instruments of calam 
 ity and death are held in remembrance and honour, 
 
 29. The year of the Jews. 
 
 What form of the year was in use among the Jews, 
 before they came into Canaan, is uncertain. During 
 

 TO INTRODUCTION 
 
 their sojourn in Egypt, they were probably regulated 
 in their mode of reckoning by the Egyptian Calendar. 
 
 ^fter they became an independant people in Ca- 
 naan, until the loss of their independance, or until the 
 so-called Babylonian captivity, they used a Lunar 
 year of 354 days. It was divided into 12 months as 
 follows. 
 
 1. Abib or Nisan 29 days. 
 
 2. Tziv or Ijar 30 — 
 
 3. Sivan 29 — 
 
 4. Thammuz 30 — 
 5 Ab 29 — 
 
 6. Elul 30 — 
 
 7. Tisri or Aethamim 29 — 
 
 8. Bui or Marchesvan 30 — 
 
 9. Chisleu 29 ~ 
 
 10. Thebet 30 — 
 
 11. Schabat 29 — . 
 
 12. Adar 30 — 
 
 They began the year with the month Abib, in com- 
 memoration of their exodus from Egypt in that month. 
 It was a religious rite amono them to make an offer- 
 ing to God of the first ripe ears of barley during the 
 first ten days of this month. But since, in so imper- 
 

 TO CHRONOLOGY. 
 
 71 
 
 feet a year of 354 clays, the harvest would happen 
 continually later in the Calendar, they must judge, in 
 the last month of the year, by looking upon their fields, 
 whether they would have ripe barley in the next month 
 Abib. If the time of harvest seemed yet too remote, 
 they added at the end of the year an intercalary month 
 of 30 days, which was called Ve-Adar, or the second 
 Adar, This leap year had thus 384 days. The in- 
 tercalation, we perceive, was determined by observing 
 the natural period of vegetation, and from authentic 
 accounts of travellers we know, that in Palestine bar- 
 ley comes to maturity about the time of the Vernal 
 Aequinox. At this period, therefore, the ancient 
 Jewish year commenced. 
 
 After their return from the Babylonish captivity, 
 the Jews retained the Babylonian or Chaldee names 
 of the months, which they had adopted during that 
 period. What other changes the Jews afterwards 
 made in their Calendar, under the influence of the 
 foreign nations, to which they were subjected, can in- 
 terest only those literary men, who seek a minute ac- 
 quaintance with the manners and customs of the Jews, 
 in the different periods of their history. 
 
 Through the Talmud, which was completed about 
 the year 500 of the Christian Era, the Jewish year 
 received a new form, which from that time they re- 
 tained merely for the purpose of their festivals aud 
 
72 INTRODUCTION 
 
 religious rites. A knowledge of this form can in like 
 manner be of importance only to a few literary men. 
 
 30- The weeks of the Jews, and their division of 
 the day. 
 
 The Jews had weeks of seven days, the seventh 
 of which was the Sabbath (day of rest.) On this they 
 must abstain from all work, in remembranc of God'a 
 having rested on the seventh day, after he had in six 
 days finished the work of creation. 
 
 It does not appear, that the other six days were de- 
 signated by particular names. 
 
 An artificial division of the day into hours does not 
 eeem to have been in use among the Jews in ancient 
 times, since in their ancient writings, the parts of the 
 day are marked only by natural characters. Men- 
 tion is indeed made of a Sun-dial (2 Kings 20; 9. 
 and Isa. 38, 8.,) but in such a manner, that it would 
 seem to have been something extraordinary, or per- 
 haps the only one, and that they were by no means in 
 common use. 
 
 The hours mentioned in the New Testament (as in 
 Matth. 27, 45. 46. Mark 15, 25.,) the Jews adopted 
 from the Greeks and Romans. 
 
TO CHRONOLOGY. 73 
 
 31. Th'i year of the Egyptians. 
 
 No other people had, in their natural situation, so 
 many favourable circumstances to guide them to a 
 knowledge of the true length of the Solar year, as the 
 Egyptians. Natural incidents of the most striking 
 character called their attention to it, and aided in its 
 determination. 
 
 The first of these deserving notice was the annual 
 overflow of the Nile, and the regularity of its recur- 
 rence, a second was the invariable winds (the Etesiae) 
 at certain seasons of the year, a third the regular 
 disappearance and return of certain fixed stars, which 
 by their brilliant sparkling, in an atmosphere almost 
 constantly pure, were objects strikingly fitted to at- 
 tract observation, especially Sirius, or the Dog-star, 
 which rose according to our Calendar about the last 
 of July. Lastly the city Syene (now Assuan,) on the 
 Southern border of Egypt next to Ethiopia, is said to 
 have been situated directly under the Tropic of Can- 
 cer. The sun, consequently, at noon, on the day of 
 the summer Solstice, was vertical to the inhabitants, 
 and cast no shadow. A well in the city, also at mid- 
 day received the direct rays of the sun upon its bot- 
 tom (Plin. H. N. II, 75.) 
 
 That the Egyptian priests too knew the true dara 
 7 
 
74 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 tion of the Solar year, and that it was not only fc *G5 
 days, but about one fourth of a day more than this, is 
 admitted by all enquirers into antiquity. But whether 
 the Egyptians made any use of this knowledge for the 
 regulation of their civil year, and whether they had 
 common years of 365, with leap years of 366 days, 
 the learned are not agreed. 
 
 That they had such in regular interchange, and 
 *hus a perfect civil year, the following proofs have 
 been adduced. 
 
 Diodorus Siculus says, "The Thebans" (the inhab- 
 habitants ofthr city Thebes, or only the piiests there 
 may be understood,) "added to the 12 months five days 
 and one fourth of a day." (nevie rj/uegag xou leiagior, 
 Diod Sic. 1, 50. 
 
 Strabo says, " The priests at Thebes are pariicularly 
 celebrated for their knowledge of astronomy and phi- 
 losophy. They bring into their reckoning of the year 
 the parts of a day, over the 365 days, which are ne- 
 cessary *o make up the entire year." The sense of 
 these words can be no other, than that, when those 
 parts of a day amounted to a whole one, the priests 
 intercalated it in the following year. (Strabo XVII, 
 554.) 
 
 Horapollo asserts, that "from one rising of Sirius to 
 another is a year of God, (i. e. of the Sun) of three 
 
TO CHRONOLOGY. 
 
 75 
 
 hundred five and sixty days and one fourth of a day, 
 and, consequently, in every cycle of four years (tct- 
 QccsTTiQidi) one day more is reckoned" (Horap. 1. 15.) 
 
 The following arguments have been offered to prove 
 that the Egyptians had not a perfect civil year, and 
 that they had no intercalation in their civil years. 
 
 The proofs of the opposite opinion, advanced above 
 are thought to be invalidated by the remark, that in 
 Diodorus and Strabo it is obviously only the priests at 
 Thebes, who are spoken of, and, since the knowledge 
 spoken of is ascribed only to the priests, it follows from 
 this very circumstance, that this more perfect form 
 of the year was not in use in the business of civil life. 
 As to the other author, Horapollo, he wrote at a period 
 (after the birth of Christ,) when the Julian Calendar 
 had been introduced into Egypt. 
 A passage in Herodotus also is appealed to, in which 
 he says, (according to Idelers translation of it) "They 
 (the Egyptian priests) assured me unanimously, that 
 the Egyptians had of all men first found out the year, 
 and divided it into twelve divisions, and they siy that 
 they attained this knowledge by means of the Sun. In 
 my opinion they proceed in this with more insight 
 than the Greeks, who intercalate a month in every al- 
 ternate year. The Egyptians on the contrary add 
 everv vear. to their twelve months of thirty days, vet 
 
76 INTRODUCTION 
 
 five supernumerary days, and so their seasons return j 
 in a regular circle." If the Egyptians are supposed 
 at that time already to have introduced the leap year, 
 it can hardly be doubted, that the priests- would have 
 mentioned it to Herodotus, and that he would have 
 spoken of it, since the Greek intercalary month gave 
 him so natural an occasion for doing so. 
 
 Finally it is an undoubted fact, that the Egyptians 
 under the Ptolemies had only common, and no leap 
 years, and it is not easy to see, if leap years had pre- 
 viously been in use among them, when and why they 
 were dropped, and wherefore an imperfect was intro- 
 duced in the place of a much more perfect form of 
 the year. 
 
 Gatterer, indeed, who had formed a very elevated 
 Conception r.f the culture of the Egyptians, and who 
 ascribed to them in those early times the most perfect 
 Solar year, would controvert this objection by an hy- 
 pothesis. The Persians, he supposes, after they con- 
 quered Egypt, had rejected the more perfect Egyp- 
 tian year, and introduced their own defective one. 
 But in the fiist place it is not certain, that the year 
 of the Persians was defective, it is even probable, as 
 we shall see in the sequel, that the ancient Persians 
 had a very perfect Solar year. What motive moreove r 
 could the Persians have to impose upon the Egyp- 
 
TO CHRONOLOGY. 77 
 
 tians an inferior Calendar, when they had found a bet- 
 ter one among them, especially as in other mattenr 
 they left to the Egyptians the enjoyment of all their 
 ancient manners and customs, so far as they were 
 compatible with Persian supremacy, even their idol 
 worship, though it was an abomination in the eyes of 
 the Persians. 
 
 These facts and arguments seem rather to prepon- 
 derate, and induce the conclusion, that a Solar year 
 was not at least in general use. 
 
 The civil year of the Egyptians, under the Ptolemies 
 (probably also in earlier times,) was divided into 12 
 months of 30 days each. The Egyptian names of 
 the months are found in Ptolemy, and also in a Greek 
 epigram, where they are distinguished by their natural 
 characters. (Brunck Anal. vet. poet. Graec. II. p. 
 510.) They are as follows. 
 
 1. Thoth. 5. Tybi. 9. Pachon. 
 
 2. Phaophi. 6. Mechir. 10. Pauni. 
 
 3. Athyr. 7. Phamenoth. 11. Epiphi. 
 4 Chojak. 8. Pharmuth. 12. Mesori. 
 As these contained only 360 days, the Egyptian! 
 
 added at the close of the last month 5 days, which 
 
 Ptolemy calls \uegcxg envy oiis rag (supplementary days.) 
 
 The rising of Sirius, the D g-star, or his reappear 
 

 78 INTRODUCTION 
 
 ance in the horizon, in our Calendar about the last of 
 July, was the astronomical incident adopted by the 
 ancient Egyptians to mark the beginning of the new 
 year. This star was called, in their language, T/wth, 
 and this name they gave to the first month, and to the 
 first day of the year. 
 
 But as their civil year was about one fourth of a 
 day, and four of these years, consequently, one whole 
 day too short, their Thoth, or new year's day, came 
 every four years about 1, and every hundred years 
 about 25 days, earlier than the rising of Sinus, and 
 thus their new year's day, in the course of a few cen- 
 turies, receded through a whole year. 
 
 After Egypt became a Roman province, the Julian 
 year, under the Emperor Augustus, was introduced at 
 Alexandria, and among the Greeks and Romans in- 
 habiting Egypt, so far as to make every fourth a leap 
 year. The old Egyptian names of the months, with 
 30 as the number of days in each, and the 5 supple- 
 mentary days at the end of the last month, were re- 
 tained. But as the New Year's day, in the year 
 when the Julian Calendar was thus introduced, fell on 
 the 29th August by our Calendar, this continued to be 
 the commencement of the year after that time in 
 Egypt. 
 
 This Julian year, so modified in Egypt, is known 
 
TO CHRONOLOGY. 79 
 
 among authors as the Alexandrian year , because it was 
 introduced only at Alexandria, and among the Greeks 
 and Romans in Egypt. The native Egyptians continu- 
 ed to adhere to their common, without the quadriennial 
 leap year, as we learn from two very credible authors. 
 Censorinus, who lived in the 3d century of our Era, 
 says that then the Egyptians had no leap year. Annus 
 Egyptiarum civiles habet 395 dies, sine ullo interca- 
 lari. The other author is Theon of the 4th century, 
 from whom only a fragment is extant. " Since the 
 year of the Alexandrians contains 365^- days, but that 
 of the Egyptians only 365, it is clear that the Alexan- 
 drian year, in comparison with the Egyptian, has an 
 excess of about one day in every four years, and in 1460 
 years about 365 days or one whole Egyptian year. " 
 The Alexandrian year, or the regular interchange 
 of common and leap years, may probably have been 
 introduced among the native Egyptians after they 
 became Christians. 
 
 32. The year of the Babylonians or Chaldeans, 
 called also the Nabonassarian year. 
 
 The primitive nation, that we are accustomed to 
 call Babylonians or Chaldeans, and which was so cele- 
 brated in ancient times for its astronomical knowledge, 
 had nevertheless an imperfect civil year, or a common 
 
80 - INTRODUCTION 
 
 year only of 365 days. It was therefore, like the 
 Egyptian, what astronomers call a wandering or am- 
 bulatory year (annus vagus.) For since the new 
 year's day came every fourth year one day earlier, than 
 it should to coincide with the true Solar year, it would 
 of course wander gradually, in the course of 1460 
 years, through all the days in the year. 
 
 But this imperfection of their year is no sufficient 
 ground for calling in question the astronomical sci» 
 ence of the Babylonians. Experience has taught, 
 that there are many difficulties in the way of reform- 
 ing, accoiding to astronomical principles, the civil 
 year, to which a people have been for centuries ac- 
 customed. 
 
 The name Nubonassarian, which chronologists and 
 astronomers have given to this Babylonian year, had 
 an origin, of which we can more properly given an ac- 
 count in the sequel. 
 
 The Babylonians, like the Egyptians, divided their 
 year into 12 months of 30 days each, and added, at 
 the end of the last, 5 days for the completion of th« 
 year. 
 
 Some regard the Chaldaeans, or in other words the 
 astronomers at Babylon, as having invented the divis 
 ion into weeks, and named the days of the week after 
 the seven planets. But weeks of seven days were in 
 
INTRODUCTION 81 
 
 use among several nations, equally ancient with the 
 Babylonians, ase. g. the Jews and Arabians, withou 
 the names of the days. The use of this division seems 
 indeed, to have been much earlier, than the names of 
 the several days of the week. The names may per- 
 haps have been first given by the astronomers of 
 Babylon, 
 
 The Babylonians began their civil day with the ri- 
 sing of the sun, and divided it into twelve equal hours, 
 one of which is, therefore, equal to two of the division, 
 to which we are accustomed. They are still termed 
 by astronomers Babylonian hours. Sun-dials were in 
 use among the Babylonians. 
 
 33. A very perfect form of the year, in use (prob- 
 ably) among the ancient Persians. 
 
 Among the Persians a form of the year was onca 
 in use, which has been considered by astronomers one 
 of the most perfect, 
 
 It had common years of 385, and leap years of 388 
 days, and so far coincided with our form of the Julian 
 year. But the mode of intercalation was, in the judg- 
 ment of astronomers, better than ours. The time and 
 mode of intercalating was reckoned with such accu_ 
 racy, that the first day of the year always fell on the 
 day of the Vernal Aequinox. The year had twelve 
 

 82 TO CHRONOLOGY. 
 
 equal months of 30 days each, and an intercalation at 
 the end of common years of S, at the end of leap years 
 of 6 days. 
 
 The existence of such a Calendar proves, among 
 the people where it .was introduced, a very successful 
 cultivation of astronomy. The question now is, in 
 what century was this used in Persia ? Was it in the 
 highest periods of antiquity ? or was it first introduc- 
 ed after the Christian Era ? 
 
 It is an undoubted historical fact, that Malek 
 Schah, or as he was also called Djelaleddin, king of 
 Persia, of the Seldjukian dynasty, in a certain sense 
 introduced this Calendarin Persia, towards the end of 
 the 11th century of our Era, and hence this form of 
 the year is called by astronomers and chronologists 
 the year of Djelaleddin. 
 
 But in what sense are we to understand him as in- 
 troducing it? 
 
 It is not probable, that Malek Schah made this the 
 eivil year of the Persians; for 1. he was a Mohamme- 
 dan, and the Arabians, in all the countries, which 
 they conquered, introduced the Lunar year along with 
 their religion. Since they conquered Persia, it has 
 there also become the civil year. 2. If Malek Schah 
 had made his Solar year the civil year of the Persians, 
 
INTODUCTION 83 
 
 then it must have been again rejected, and the Ara- 
 bian Lunar year introduced, for in every age, since the 
 time of that prince, the Persians have made use of the 
 Lunar year for their civil reckoning. Mention too 
 would have been made of this recurrence to the Lu- 
 nar year, by some of the oriental authors, who speak 
 of this year, but no such mention occurs. 
 
 It seems probable then, that the year of Djelaleddin 
 was introduced only by astronomers, to be used in 
 their scientific pursuits. At that time the sciences of 
 the Arabians were still flourishing in the East, and 
 there were some among the Mohammedan princes of 
 the middle age, even those of Turkish and Mongolian 
 descent, who loved and cherished these sciences. As- 
 tronomy, combined indeed with astrology, was a 
 favorite science with these princes, Malek Schah 
 was one of the most distinguished for his love of sci- 
 ence, and astronomy was with him also a special fa- 
 vorite. Oriental authors relate, that he summoned 
 together an assembly of all the astronomers, and with 
 them brought his Solar year to perfection. 
 
 This Calendar of Djelaleddin is most fully treated 
 of by Thomas Hyde, in his work de Religione vet. 
 Persar.c. 14. — 16. In the 16th chapter p. 200— 
 211. he give many passages from Persian and Arabian 
 writers, which relate to this interesting subject. Be 
 
84 TO CM RONOLOGY. 
 
 gives them in the original languages, and adds a Latin 
 translation. Judging from the translations (for I do 
 not understand the originals,) these passages them* 
 selves render it probable, that the Solar year was used 
 only by the astronomers. At least its introduction, as 
 the mode of reckoning, in civil life, is not mentioned, 
 as we might presume it would have been, had it taken 
 place, and had the Lunar year, adopted by all the 
 Mohammedan nations, and so closely connected with 
 their religious worship, been here thrown out of use. 
 One circumstance renders it probable, that Malek 
 Schah and his astronomers did not even first find out 
 this Solar year, but that it had been in use before in 
 Persia, perhaps introduced even in the time of Zoro- 
 aster, and not. yet forgotten since the introduction of 
 the Mohammedan year. According to the accounts 
 of credible travellers, the day of the Vernal Aequinox 
 is a popular festival among the Persians, especially in 
 the country, and at the same time has no relation to 
 their present Mohammedan religion. They call this 
 day also Naurus, which word is said to mean new-year's 
 day. As it is a very ancient festival, we may, with 
 great probability at least, conclude, that at some pe- 
 riod the civil year in Persia began on this day, and 
 this festival may have led Malek Schah and his as- 
 tronomers to commence their more accurate Calendar 
 at the same time. 
 
TO CHRONOLOGY. 
 
 85 
 
 34. The Lunar year of the Arabians introduced 
 among all Mohammedan nations. 
 
 The civil year of the Arabians, that is introduced 
 among all the nations, who adopted the religion of 
 Mohammed, is a Lunar year, in the arrangement of 
 which no regard was had to the Solar year. It con- 
 sists of 354 days. ^ But, after the Arabians studied 
 astronomy, they found, that the true Lunar year has 
 an excess of 8h. 48' over the 354 days, and that these 
 8h. 48' multiplied by 30 make about 11 days. The 
 observation of these facts led the Arabian Astronomers 
 to a method of intercalating this fraction of time, af- 
 ter it amounted to an entire day. They adopted a 
 cycle of 30 years, in which they made 11 intercala- 
 tions of one day. There were consequently in the 
 cycle 11 leap years of 355 days, the remainder being 
 common years of 354, This cycle was received into 
 the Calendar of the civil year. 
 
 The leap years in the cycle are the 2d, 5th, 7th, 
 10th, 13th, 15th, 18th, 21st,"24th, 26th, and 29th. 
 
 The Arabian year is divided into 12 months, as 
 follows. 
 
 1. 
 
 Moharrem 
 
 30 days 
 
 2. 
 
 Saffar 
 
 29 — 
 
 3, 
 
 Rabia el Auwal 
 
 S 
 
 30 — 
 
\ 
 
 86 INTRODUCTION 
 
 4. RabiaAchar 29 — 
 
 5. Djomada el Auwal 30 — 
 
 6. Djomada Achar 29 
 
 7. Radjib 30 — 
 
 8. Shaban 29 — 
 
 9. Ramadsan 30 — 
 
 10. Schawal 29 — 
 
 11. Dsulkada 30 — 
 
 12. Dsulhadje ( 29 in common 
 
 ( 30 in leap years. 
 
 In 32 Solar years the 10 clays and 21 hours, by 
 which the Solar exceeds the Lunar year, amount to 
 359d. 3h. 20/ or a whole Lunar year, and from 4 to 
 5 days over. (See above § 12.) 
 
 The Arabians had from primitive times weeks of 
 seven days, but the days of the week were not named 
 after the planets, and were only distinguished by num- 
 ber, as the first, second, &c. From this it would 
 seem, that the division into weeks was more ancient, 
 than the naming of the days. 
 
 35. Of the Calendars of other nations. 
 For mathematical and astronomical chronologists, it 
 W ust be matter of interest to know the Calendars of the 
 Bramins, the Chinese, the Japanese and other nations, 
 
TO CHRONOLOGY. L8 
 
 in order to compare them with our own, and from their 
 greater or less perfection to inler the state of astronom- 
 ical, and other kindred sciences among those nations, 
 at the time, when their Calendars were introduced. 
 
 But as they wonld be of use to the historical en- 
 quirer only in case of his reading the history of those 
 nations in their own authors, we may dispense with 
 them in this introduction without disadvantage, or 
 the charge of incompleteness in regard to the purpose 
 intended by it. 
 
 But we must not pass over in silence a remarkable 
 Calendar, which in our own times was for a while in- 
 troduced among a people, who sought at once to car- 
 ry the arts of civil life to the highest perfection, and 
 for that end went to work with an enthusiasm, that, 
 was regulated by no wisdom, and with a haste, that 
 was guided by no prudence. 
 
 36. The year of thz French in the period of their 
 Republic. 
 
 It was introduced by a decree of the Legislative 
 assembly October 6th 1793. 
 
 New year's day was fixed to be on the 22d Septem- 
 ber. 
 
 To the twelve months new and significant names 
 were given, and the three, which belonged to the same 
 season had names of the same termination. 
 
88 INTRODUCTION 
 
 The three Autumnal months were Vindemiaire, 
 Brumaire and Frimaire. 
 
 The three Winter months were Nivose, Pluviose, 
 and Ventose. 
 
 The three Spring months, Germinal, Florial, and 
 Prairial. 
 
 The three Summer months, Messidor, Thermidor, 
 and Fructidor. 
 
 Each month had 30 days. The five last days of 
 the year, from the end of Fructidor to the beginning 
 of Vindemiaire, according to the Gregorian Calendar 
 from the 17th September to the 21st inclusive, were 
 catted jours complement aires (or complemental days.) 
 
 The week of seven days was rejected, and in its 
 stead each month was divided into three parts 'of ten 
 days each, called a decadi. 
 
 Each day of a decadi had its proper name in the new 
 vocabulary, primidi, duodi, tridi, quartidi, quintidi, 
 sextidi, septidi, octidi, nonidi, decadi. 
 
 The intercalary day, which every fourth year was 
 added to the jours complementaires, was called, le 
 jour de la Republique, and the cycle of four years was 
 called, la Franciade. 
 
 This Republican Calendar, after it had been in use 
 for 12 years ? was by a Senatus-Consulte again drop- 
 
 
TO CHRONOLOGY. 
 
 89 
 
 ped, September 9th 1805, and the Gregorian Calendar 
 restored January 1, 1806. 
 
 37. Relations of the divisions of time to each other, 
 in respect to their order of succession. 
 
 Thus far, we have been occupied with showing^ 
 how the divisions of time are measured, in respect to 
 their quantity or duration. We have exhibited the 
 two kinds of standards of measurement, and shown 
 the use, which is made of each, with their relations 
 to each other — 1. the natural ox astronomical, as the 
 natural, astronomical, Solar year, Lunar year, Solar 
 and Lunar month, day, &c. and — 2. the artificial, 
 arbitrary, civil, as the civil year, month, week, day, 
 hour &c. 
 
 We have, therefore, accomplished the first of the 
 two objects, at which chronology was said to aim, 
 Chronologia est scientia tempora meiiendi. We 
 now proceed to the second, and enquire how the divis. 
 ion of time, since the existence of the human race, or 
 rather since the study of its history was commenced, 
 have succeeded each other. In order to this, it is ne- 
 cessary to mark, by some determinate characters, the 
 divisions, which preceded others, or followed after 
 them, in order to distinguish the preceding from the 
 succeeding, and know the order of sequence, Chro- 
 8* 
 

 90 INTRODUCTION ♦ 
 
 nologia est scientia tempora metiendi, et distinguendi. 
 
 In the continually uniform current of time, we can 
 distinguish its parts, as they follow each other, only by 
 the events, which occur in them. 
 
 These are either natural occurrences— as we dis- 
 tinguish the morning by the rising of the sun, which 
 is a natural occuirence. 
 
 Or human occurrences — as we distinguish the year, 
 from which, as a fixed point, we usually reckon the 
 years that preceded and followed it, only by (he birth 
 of Christ. This was one of those events, which, al- 
 though it was in itself a natural occurrence, or took 
 place in the course of nature, we yet reckon among 
 human events, as we do the birth and death of Alexan- 
 der, of Charlemagne* of Luther, &c. because they 
 are so important in the history of mankind. 
 
 Events, therefore, are the tokens of distinction, the 
 time-marks, the chronological characters, of the di- 
 visions of time, (characteres chronologici.) 
 
 If they are natural events, they are called natural 
 marks or characters ^characteres naturales,) and since 
 astronomers employ for this end celestial phaenomena, 
 i. e. changes in the situation of the stars relatively to 
 each other, these are called astronomical characteis. 
 (characteres Astronomici.) Of this sort are the new 
 and full moon, the Aequinoxes, the Solstices, the 
 
TO CHRONOLOGY. 91 
 
 Solar and Lunar eclipses, the appearance of comets 
 Sic, 
 
 If they are human events, and adopted by men, as 
 distinctive marks of particular portions of time, they 
 are called artificial or arbitrary, marks or characters 
 (characteres instituti, "arbitrary.,) 
 
 As the means of designating the place and order of 
 succession in which the division of time (years, months 
 days, Sic.) follow each other, we must assume one of 
 these as the first. Distinguishing this by the event, 
 that characterised it, we then reckon the uniform and 
 equal portions of time, as years, months, Sic. from 
 this, as a. fixed pointy for those which preceded, back- 
 wards, for those that followed, onward. The time so 
 chosen, as the fixed point, with the events, by which 
 it is distinguished, is called an Epoch or Era. (Epocha 
 Aera, Terminus, Radix.) Of this kind are the year 
 of the birth of Christ, the building of Rome, the flight 
 of Mohammed from Mecca to Medina. 
 
 Among some nations, such Epochs are introduced 
 by legislators, by founders of religious institutions, or 
 by custom, so that in the business of civil life, in doc- 
 uments, contracts, legal enactments, Sic. dates are 
 given in conformity with them. These may be called 
 civil Epochs (Epochae civiles.) 
 
 Other Epochs are chosen by historians, in order to 
 
&2 INTRODUCTION 
 
 arrange and determine by them the sequence of tho 
 events, which they describe, so that their order may 
 be distinctly recognized. These historical Epochs 
 (Epochae historicae) must be distinguished from the 
 civil. 
 
 In the selection of these historical Epochs, there is 
 always more or less of arbitrary determination. For 
 although it must always be marked by some impor- 
 tant event, which may be regarded, as the cause or 
 the commencement of a new series of connected 
 events, yet it depends on the judgment of the historian 
 to what events he may suppose such importance at- 
 taches itself, and the judgments of men are here often 
 very diverse. Hence we find little agreement among 
 the most distinguished writers of general history in 
 their choice of Epochs. Thus Gatterer has adopted 
 one, Schlosser another, Beck a third, &c. 
 
 The portions of time, (years, &,c.,) which elapse from 
 one Epoch to another, are denominated a period. Two 
 Epochs, following each other in the same historical 
 series of events, therefore, include one period, three 
 include two, and four include three periods. Thus 
 the building of Rome was the first Epoch in Roman 
 history, the expulsion of the kings the second, and the 
 time included between these forms the first period of 
 Roman history. 
 
TO CHRONOLOGY. 93 
 
 Remark 1. Epochs may be compared to the resting 
 places, or stations, in which the traveller stops for re- 
 freshment or repose. As the wanderer, reposing him- 
 self beneath the shade of a tree, or upon a rock, looks 
 back upon the way which he has passed over, and for- 
 ward to that wh'ch is still before him, so the way-farer 
 in the path of historical investigation, when he has 
 arrived at some great and distinguishing event, seems 
 to have completed a past, and to be entering upon a 
 new and commencing series of future events. He 
 stops his progress, and dwells for a while, in his reflex- 
 ions, upon the important event, which separates the 
 past from the future, reviews again what he has al- 
 ready passed over, and forms his conjectures respect- 
 ing what may possibly, or more probably follow, in the 
 yet future train of events. This image of a resting 
 place, which invites to reflexion, is contained in the 
 etymological import of the word Epoch, as derived 
 from the Greek sne^sLv, 
 
 2. The word A era is written also Era, and some- 
 times Hera, In the period of classical Latioity it was 
 not in use. Philologists have found the earliest traces 
 of its use in Spain. The Julian Calendar was introdu- 
 ced into Spain under Augustus, in the year 716 after 
 the buildhgof the city, or 37 years before Christ. 
 After this years were numbered in Spain from the 
 
94 INTRODUCTION 
 
 time of the introduction of ihe Calendar, and this 
 reckoning of the year was called the A era. This 
 mode of reckoning in fact continued to be used in 
 Spain, under the same name, in the middle ages, and 
 it was not till the deliverence of the country from 
 Moorish domination, that theso-called Aera Hispanica 
 was laid aside, and the custom of reckoning from the 
 birth of Christ introduced. 
 
 But whence the word Aera was taken, what was its 
 original signification, and how it came to be used in 
 the sense, in which it now is, no satisfactory account 
 has yet been discovered. 
 
 38. 
 
 It is the duty of chronologists and historians, to 
 make themselves acquainted, as well with the civil 
 Epochs and modes of reckoning, which were in use 
 among different nations, as with the historical, which 
 were chosen by historians merely for the purposes of 
 method in the composition of history. For the times, 
 in which events occurred, are given in 'he traditions 
 and historical records of different nations, only accor- 
 ding to those Epochs, and those modes of reckoning 
 time, which were used among themselves. Chronolo- 
 gists and historians of the present day among us must 
 therefore reduce dates, given by Epochs foreign to our 
 
TO CHRONOLOGY. 1)5 
 
 habits^ to those Epochs and modes of reckoning novr 
 customary among ourseives. 
 
 39. Epochs and modes of computing time among 
 the Egyptians , Babylonians and Persians, 
 
 Of civil Epochs, and computations of time, among 
 these three nations, we know nothing, though it is 
 probable they were not without such. For as civilized 
 nations they had public documents, which always pre- 
 supposed a mode of reckoning time, and determining 
 dates. Perhaps they used, as Epochs, the commence- 
 ment of each king's reign, numbering the years from 
 that, so long as his reign continued. $bme Persian 
 documents, which occur in the writings, of the Jews 
 confirm this supposition in relation to that people. 
 
 Some chronoiogists and historians have supposed, 
 that the Babylonians made use of the Nabonassarian 
 Era, as a mode of civil reckoning. This however is 
 an error, as we shall soon see, that the Nabonassarian 
 Era was a different thing from that. 
 
 Neither are historical Epochs, well defined and 
 authentic^ found in the obscure ancient accounts of 
 Babylonian history, except the single one of Nebu- 
 chadnezzar. This frightful conquerer, who trampled 
 under foot the previously existing Asiatic States, and 
 independant nations, from the Euphrates to Egypt, has 
 
96 INTRODUCTION 
 
 left one year in his reign marked with chronological 
 precision. This is the year 588 before Christ, in 
 which he conquered Jerusalem, and carried its people 
 into captivity. 
 
 In Egyptian history Herodotus gives indeed histori- 
 cal Epochs, (iVlenes, the Dodecarchie, and Psamrne- 
 tichus,) but so indefinite and obscure, that they can- 
 not with any certainty be reduced to the correspon- 
 ding years before the birth of Christ. The only 
 Epoch, historically certain and well defined, in the 
 ancient history of Egypt, is the loss of its indepen- 
 dence, and its subjection to the Persian yoke, about 
 the year 526 before Christ. 
 
 The ancient Persian history has two Epochs, his- 
 torically ascertained, and defined with chronological 
 precision, that of the organization of the monarchy 
 by Cyrus, about the year 536, and that of its down- 
 fall, or conquest by Alexander the Great, 331 before 
 Christ. 
 
 40. The Nabonassarian Era, and the Canon of 
 Ptolemy. 
 
 In one of the works of Ptolemy, that namely, which 
 the barbarous Latin translators of the middle ages 
 have entitled Aln.agestus, but which in the Greek 
 original is superscribed, jueyahjg vvviaSewg firfllov »y, 
 
TO CHRONOLOGY. 97 
 
 there is found a list of king's and emperors (xat>o$p 
 fiaaileojv or ^acnleicov^y 
 
 The first division, or section, contains the names of 
 18 kings, who reigned in Babylon, the second section 
 the names of Persian monarchs from Cyrus to Darius, 
 the third contains Alexander and his two successors, 
 who were regarded as his heirs, and consequently as 
 i rulers over the whole monarchy, as established by him, 
 namely, his half brother Arrhidaeus, and his son by 
 Roxana, Alexander II. The fourth section contains 
 the Grecian kings of Egypt, from Ptolemy Lagi to 
 Cleopatra, the fifth and last the Roman emperors, 
 from Augustus, who first converted Egypt into a Ro- 
 man province. 
 
 With the names of these kings and emperors, are 
 arranged two columns of numbers. In the first col- 
 umn, the number designates the sum of the years* 
 during which the monarch reigned, to whose name it 
 is annexed, the number in the second column, the 
 sum made up by adding the preceding to the reigns 
 of his predecessors. Thus, after the last Babylonian 
 king, Nabonadius, stand the numbers 17 and 209. 
 Nabonadius reigned 17 years, and this sum, added 
 to the years of all his predecessors, amounts to 209. 
 
 The first of the Babylonian kings, with wh®m the 
 table begins, is Nabonassar, who reigned 14 years. 
 9 
 
98 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Astronomical chronologists have computed, that 
 the beginning of his reign fell in the year 747 before 
 Christ, and on the day, which in the Julian Calendar 
 would be the 26th February. This Epoch astronora. 
 ical chronologists have called the Nabonassarian Era 
 (Aera Nabonassaris.) 
 
 If it be asked, how were Astronomers able to com* 
 pute this with so much precision, the answer is easy. 
 It is well known, that they can not only ascertain 
 with precision, on what day, and hour future eclipses 
 of the sun and moon will occur, but can compute j 
 .with the same precision, those which have occurred 
 in the most ancient times. 
 
 Ptolemy has mentioned three eclipses of the moon, 
 which had been observed by astronomers at Babylon, 
 and has given the times of their occurrence, in the 
 years, months, and days, of those king's reign. Thus 
 bespeaks of an eclipse of the moon, which happened 
 at Babylon on the 29th of the month Thoth, in the 
 first year of the reign of king Mardocempad. Mod" 
 ern astronomers have computed, that an eclipse of 
 the moon must have been visible at Babylon, in the 
 year 721 before Christ, on the 19th of March, by the 
 Julian Calendar. The first year of the reign of Mar 
 docempad was, therefore, the year 721 before Christ- 
 
 Besides these three Lunar eclipses, Ptolemy has 
 
TO CHRONOLOGY. W 
 
 given, with equaj definiteness, other astronomical ob- 
 servations, made at Babylon. By means of these, and 
 the table of successive reigns, astronomers have been 
 able to attain the precision above referred to. 
 
 Another question naturally arises, for what purpose 
 was this canon made, and by whom ? 
 
 From the use, which Ptolemy himself made of it, 
 it is obvious, that it was made for the use of Astrono- 
 mers, in order to determine the times of their obser- 
 vations, by reference to civil modes of computation. 
 Perhaps the two first sections were formed in Babylon 
 itself, and abstracts carried to Alexandria, when un- 
 der the Ptolemies Astronomy was zealously prosecu- 
 ted there. At Alexandria the canon, or tabular lists 
 of reigns, was continued, the line of Ptolemies added, 
 and afterwards, when Egypt became a Roman prov- 
 ince, the Roman emperors also. 
 
 Whether Ptolemy himself made these additions is 
 uncertain, and a matter of indifference. This list 
 was continued after his death, as he lived under the 
 emperors Hadrian and Antoninus Pius, from about 
 125 to 162 after Christ, and the table contains the 
 names of those, who reigned after that time. 
 
 Besides Ptolemy, there are onlv three ancient au- 
 thors, who make mention of the Era of Nabonassar, 
 viz. Censorinus, Theon, and Syncellus, and all in 
 
100 INTODUCTION 
 
 reference to astronomical and chronological objects. 
 No other writer, and no mere historian speaks of it, 
 not even where Babylonian history was the chief topic 
 of discourse. 
 
 The hypothesis, therefore, adopted by some histo- 
 rians and chronologists, that under Nabonassar, or 
 by his means, an important political revolution hap- 
 pened at Babylon, and a new dynasty came to the 
 throne, cannot be fully established, and is rendered, in- 
 deed, only in a slight degree probable. 
 
 It is more probable, that under Nabonassar some- 
 thing important was done in Babylon for the science 
 of astronomy. Perhaps the civil year may have been 
 reformed, as the Roman was by Julius Caesar, and like 
 that too named after the individual, under whose 
 auspices it was effected. Some chronologists have in 
 fact ascribed the Babylonian year, of which we have 
 given an account above (§22,) to Nabonassar, and 
 called it after his name. (Ideler in his Untersuchun- 
 gen.) 
 
 The table above described, and usually known as 
 the Canon of Ptolemy, is in other respects very im- 
 poitant to ancient chronology. It has served inquir- 
 ers, as a guiding line, in tracing out the perplexities 
 and obscurities, which arise from the great diversity 
 of methods, by which ancient historians have distin- 
 guished the times, of which they wrote. 
 
TO 1 HSiOAOLOGY. 101 
 
 Remark. 1 Among the Babylonian kings in the 
 Canon, the name of Nebuchadnezzar is not found. 
 Yet there is no doubt remains, that a great conqueror 
 of that name ruled at Babylon, during the period there 
 included. Probably, however, all these names, were 
 at first incorrectly spoken and written by the Greeks, 
 to whom they had a barbarous sound, and were after- 
 wards still more corrupted by transcribers. In the 
 Canon, there is found a king Nabocolassar, whose 
 reign falls at the time, in which, according to the more 
 authentic records of the - Hebrew writers, Nebuchad- 
 nezzar reigned, The one may have been made out 
 of the other by repeated errors of transcribers. 
 
 2. If this Ptolemaic Canon is, as I think it, to be 
 considered authentic, it is alone sufficient to remove 
 all the doubts, which have been stated, by certain 
 modern Orientalists, against the existence of Cyrus 
 and his successors, as represented by the Greek au- 
 thors. Those doubts rest only on the ground, that 
 Persian and Arabian authors, many centuries later, 
 and, on other grounds, of no authority, make no men- 
 tion of these kings. 
 
 41. Mode of computing time among the Greeks.' 
 a. JBy generations. 
 
 When men began to give attentionto the distinctive 
 9* 
 
102 INTRODUCTION 
 
 characters, by which the times, when events trans- 
 pired, are distinguished from each other, in order by 
 these to measure the interval of time from one event 
 to another, they found nothing better, than the three 
 generations, grandfather,- father, and son ; or father, 
 ton, and grandson. Thus an event occurred in the 
 time of the grandfather, another in that of the fath- 
 er, &/C. 
 
 Probably all nations, among whom civil modes of 
 reckoning time, and fixed Epochs have been introdu- 
 ced, have long employed this very natural, but very 
 indefinite mode. In regard to the Greeks, it is cer- 
 tain, that for a long time they had no other. The 
 chronology of the heroic age can he computed only 
 by this vague method, and the earliest Grecian histo- 
 rians depended on this alone, 
 
 Pherecydes and Cadmus, (the last from his native 
 country, known as Cadmus of Miletus,) the two most 
 ancient historians of the Greeks, and who lived about 
 500 years before Chiist, are said to have given the 
 dates of events by this method, availing themselves of 
 the genealogies of celebrated families. 
 
 Herodotus sometimes also reckons by the succes- 
 sion of generations. "The queen Semiramis, ,; he says, 
 "lived five generations before queen Nitocris." (Her- 
 od. 1, 184.) 
 
 
TO CHRONOLOGY. 103 
 
 Herodotus expressly lays down the proposition, that 
 three generations {ysveag, generationes) may be taken 
 for a century. He says, B. II. 144. "Three hundred 
 generations of men are equal to ten thousand years, 
 for three generations are, a hundred years." 
 
 In conformity with this, the Greeks assigned 33^ 
 years to each generation. 
 
 The genealogies of celebrated families among the 
 Greeks were kept in remembrance, by always attach- 
 ing to the name of a distinguished individual the name 
 of his father, as Agamemnon the son of Atreus, Mil- 
 tiades the son of Cimon. Another fact, tending to 
 the same result, was, that the name of every celebra- 
 ted man, without exception, was found upon some 
 public monument, either in some temple, or in some 
 other public place. 
 
 Especially was the genealogy of the kings of La- 
 cedaemon, of the race of the Heraclidae, or the de- 
 . scendants of Hercules, known by such monuments. 
 
 Let us see, how, according to this method, by means 
 of the genealogy of these kings of Lacedaemon, they 
 sought to determine the time of the Trnjiri war. 
 
 Leonidas, the king of Lacedaemon, who fell at 
 Thermopylae for the liberties of Greece, was a de- 
 scendant, in the 17th generation, from Aristodemus, 
 the Heraclid, who won the kingdom of Lacedaemow 
 
104 INTRODUCTION 
 
 for his family. At 33* years to a generation, this 
 period is 567 years. Aristodemus was the 4th gener- 
 ation from Hercules, making an interval of 139 years, 
 which added to the former gives 697 years from Her- 
 cules to Leonidas. 
 
 The Trojan war was one generation, or about 33 
 years after Hercules, which subtracted from the above 
 697 leaves 664 years. This then, according to Gre- 
 cian estimates, was about the interval from the Trojan 
 war to Leonidas. 
 
 Even modern chronologists have no other means of 
 determining the time of the Trojan war, because among 
 the ancients, who make mention of it, no other date3 
 are found. 
 
 Since, then, Leonidas died for his country in the 
 year 480 before Christ, modern chronologists assume, 
 according to the above computation adding 634 to 
 480, that the Trojan war was about 1144 years be- 
 fore the birth of Christ. 
 
 The principle of reckoning three generations, as 
 equal to a hundred years, is in one sense not far from 
 the truth. But Newton first made the remark, that 
 the Greeks applied the principle erroneously, when 
 they considered the reigns of three successive kings 
 equal to three generations, and reckoned them also a 
 hundred years. He showed, that in the average only 
 
TO CHRONOLOGY. 
 
 105 
 
 about 18, and at most 20 years, could be reckoned, 
 as the period of a single reign, and that the longest 
 period assigned to three successive reigns could not 
 be more than GO years. Hence he wrote his "Chro- 
 nologia veterum eme'ridata" for the purpose of showing 
 the errors in the chronology of the ancients, arising 
 from this erroneous application of a principle, where 
 it does not belong. 
 
 The reigns of the 17 Heraclidae at Lacedaemon, 
 according to the remark of Newton, would amount 
 only to about 340 years, and therefore, by his com- 
 putation, the Trojan war happened not far from 990 
 or 920 before Christ. 
 
 This method of computing time by generations has 
 been called the cycle of generations (3yclus genera- 
 tionum.) 
 
 Remark. Eratosthenes and Apollodorus, two Greek 
 authors, are said to have reckoned the sum of the 
 17 reigns of Lacedaemonian kings at 622 years, which 
 would give in the average 36J- years for each. By 
 this reckoning the Trojan war would be placed still 
 earlier, or about 1200 before Christ. Some chronol- 
 ogists, who since the revival of letters have treated 
 the subject, have placed it thus early, merely from re- 
 gard to the authority of those two authors. 
 
106 INTRODUCTION 
 
 42. b. The Otymjjiads. 
 
 \ ■; . 
 
 The Grecian Republics had no civil reckoning of 
 time common to them all. In each Republic, the 
 year, when any event occurred, was designated mere- 
 ly by the rrame of him, who for the year held the high* 
 est office in the State. 
 
 At Athens, where the executive government was ad- 
 ministered by ten Archons annually chosen, it was 
 the first in rank among these, whose -name was inser- 
 ted in the laws, in treaties with other States, and up- 
 on the public monuments. Hence he was distin- 
 guished from the others by the epithet Eponymus 
 (as giving name to the year.) 
 
 At Lacedaemon it was not the names of the kings, 
 but that of the first in rank of the five annual Ephori, 
 which was inserted in public documents, and placed 
 upon public monuments. 
 
 This want of a mode of reckoning time common to 
 the different States, made it very difficult for histori- 
 ans to give the dates of events, in a manner in- 
 telligible to all. We cannot but wonder indeed, that 
 the advantage of such a mode should have failed to 
 occur to a people so inventive, and having so ready a 
 perception of what convenience required in the ordi- 
 nances of civil life, us the Greeks. 
 
TO CHRONOLOGY. 107 
 
 Timaeus of Sicily, after the time of Alexander, is 
 said to have first remarked, that the Olympic Game* 
 might serve for a sure, a fixed, and generally intelligi. 
 ble, designation of chronological dates, and in his wri- 
 tings, of which none are extant, to have marked the 
 dates of events by Olympiads. The convenience, and 
 definiteness of this mode of reckoning, was manifest 
 to all subsequent historians. 
 
 Yet in public business, and for the purposes of civil 
 life, the Olympiads were still never adopted in Greece- 
 
 The Olympic Games were always celebrated at in- 
 tervals of four years. These four years from one cele" 
 bration to another were called an Olympiad, and num- 
 bered as the 1st, 2d, lid, and 4th years of the I. 
 Olympiad, of the II. Olympiad, &,c. 
 
 The Olympiads, however, were not numbered from 
 the first celebration of the Olympic Games. This was 
 very ancient, and lost in the obscurity of primitive 
 times, so that only uncertain traditions of it remained. 
 In process of time it had become customary, however, 
 to erect statues and public monuments, in honor of 
 the combatants, who won the prize at tnose games, 
 and thus they had in these monuments an unbroken 
 series of combatants, and consequently a mark of the 
 successive games that had been celebrated. Coroe- 
 bus is said to have been the first, to whom a statue 
 
108 INTRODUCTION 
 
 was erected, and the celebration, in which Coroebus 
 had been the victor, was now regarded by chronolo- 
 gists, as the first in the series, The four first years, 
 therefore, after the crowing of Coroebus constituted 
 the first Olympiad. 
 
 The year in which he gained the prize, and conse- 
 quently the first year of the first Olympiad, fell the 
 year 776 before Christ. 
 
 For converting Olympiads into our mode of reck- 
 oning from the birth of Christ, the following rule wilj 
 serve. 
 
 Let the 3d year of the 6th Olympiad be given. 
 
 t Multiply the five full Olympiads by 4 will give 20 
 years, and add to this sum the 3 years of the yet un- 
 finished 6th, and we have 23. 
 
 Subtract these 23 years from 776, and we find the 
 3d year of the 6th Olympiad correspond to the year 
 753 before Christ. 
 
 To convert a given number of years before Christ 
 into Olympiads, proceed as follows. 
 Let the year 753 be given. 
 
 Subtract this from 776 leaves 23, which divide by 
 4, and the quotient gives the number of finished 
 Olympiads =5, while the remainder=3 is the 3d year 
 of the yet current 6th Olympiad. 
 
TO CHRONOLOGY. 109 
 
 Bat we must remark that the Olympic games com- 
 menced with the first new moon after the summer Sol- 
 stice, and consequently in the month Hecatombaeon, 
 which was the 7th month in the Attic year. (See 
 above § 19.) An Olympic year, therefore, embraced 
 the six last months of one and the six first of the fol- 
 lowing Attic year. And since the Attic year began 
 at the winter Solstice, or about the time, when the 
 Julian year begins, the Olympic year has nearly the 
 same relation to this also, or embraces about six 
 months of one, and six months of the following Julian 
 year. (Dodwell devet Graecor. ac. Romanor. Cyclis 
 Dissert IV.) 
 
 The following table will show in a few examples, how 
 the yearsof the Olympiads — those before the birth of 
 Christ — and those after the building of Rome, corres 
 pond with each other. The numbers written in the 
 form of fractions designate the last half of one, and the 
 
 first half of the following year. 
 
 Olympiads. Befor 
 
 VI. 3. = 
 4. = 
 
 VII. 1. = 
 
 2. ^ 
 10 
 
 hrist. 
 
 From the h 
 of Rome. 
 
 wilding 
 
 754 
 75 3 
 
 = 
 
 1. 
 
 15 3 
 752 
 
 = 
 
 % 
 
 752 
 75 1 
 
 = 
 
 3. 
 
 
 = 
 
 4. 
 

 110 
 
 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 
 
 3. 
 
 = 
 
 7fi 
 74 9 
 
 = 
 
 &. 
 
 4. 
 
 = 
 
 749 
 74 8 
 
 = 
 
 6. 
 
 I. 
 
 = 
 
 74 8 
 747 
 
 == 
 
 7. 
 
 2. 
 
 — 
 
 74 7 
 Tib 
 
 = 
 
 8. 
 
 43. The Cecropian Era, and Parian Chronicle, 
 
 The Cecropian Era, i. e. the year, in which Ce- 
 crops is said to have come from Egypt to Athens, has 
 been, since 1628, regarded by *he learned, as an im- 
 portant, an authentic, and well defined Epoch in Gre- 
 cian history. Important, since with the arrival of Ce- 
 crops, according to Greek tradition, the progress of 
 civilization in Greece commenced ; and regarded as 
 authentic and well defined, on the following grounds. 
 
 An Earl of Arundel, a friend and patrr n of literature 
 and the arts, sent a man of learning, William Petty, 
 into the Levant to collect manuscripts and ancient 
 works of art. Petty came back to England in 1627, 
 and brought with him r among other ancient monu- 
 ments, a tablet of Parian marble, on which was en- 
 graved a short chronicle of Grecian history. The 
 celebrated Selden published, in the year 1628, the in- 
 scriptions contained on those marbles, under the ti- 
 tle of Marmora Arundetiana. In the civil wars un- 
 der Charles L these marbles were dispersed. After 
 
TO CHRONOLOGY. Ill 
 
 the war much was again collected, and given by the 
 grandson of the Earl to the University of Oxford. — 
 Among-the fragments recovered, and still found at 
 Oxford, is the tablet of Parian marble, which on ac- 
 count of its inscription, is called the Parian Chroni- 
 cle. 
 
 Since Selden two new editions of this Chronicle, as 
 well as of the other inscriptions, have appeared, the 
 one by Humphrey Prideaux, 1676, the other by Rich- 
 ard Chandler, 1763, both under the title Marmora Ox- 
 oniensia. 
 
 When this Chronicle was entire, it ended with the 
 Athenian Archon Diognetus. Such was the case, 
 when it was copied by Selden. But afterwards, in 
 the troubles of the civil war, some of the lower part of 
 it was broken off. 
 
 The dates of events are given in it in years before 
 the Archon Diognetus, reckoning backwards from this, 
 as the fixed point, so that the Chronicle would seem to 
 have been made under this Archon, 
 
 Since then it is proved, that this Diognetus was 
 Archon in the year 2o4 before Christ, it is easy to 
 convert all its dates into the corresponding ones of 
 our mode of reckoning. Thus, according to this 
 Chronicle, the battle of Plataea took place 216 years 
 before Diognetus, and therefore 480 before Christ. 
 

 112 INTRODUCTION 
 
 This Chronicle begins with Cecrops, and dates his 
 eoming into Greece 1318 years before Diognetus, 
 consequenly 1582 before Christ, 
 
 Chronologists supposed, that in this Chronicle they 
 had found the most safe guide in Grecian Chronolo- 
 gy. But in 1753 a treatise appeared in London, in 
 which the anonymous author called in question the 
 authenticity of it, upon apparently strong grounds. Its 
 title was, " The Parian Chronicle, or the Chronology of 
 the Arundelian Marble, with a Dissertation concerning 
 its authenticity." The views of this writei were con- 
 troverted, not only by several learned men in England, 
 but in the Goettingischen Anzeigen (1790, No. GO..) 
 For the same purpose of defending the authority of 
 the Chronicle, a work was published by Dr. Wagner, 
 at Gottingen, 1790. 
 
 Yet the influence of the anonymous writer and of 
 his doubts has been such, that the Chronicle and its 
 authority is appealed to with hesitation, and its au- 
 thenticity may be regarded as at least doubtful. 
 
 The author of the English treatise was for a time 
 supposed to be Dr. Parr, but is now known to have 
 been Joseph Robertson, whose learning and critical 
 ability are celebrated in the Monthly Magazine for 
 March 1802. 
 
TO CHRONOLOGY. US 
 
 44. Important historical Epochs in the history of ths 
 GfreiBs. 
 
 1 . The Legislation of Solon. Not only because 
 by this Athens received that form- of organization, 
 which was so celebrated among the ancients, (the first 
 Republic, of the constitution and organization of 
 which we have full and definite accounts,) but also, 
 because in the time of Solon Grecian culture attain- 
 ed its period of peculiar and characteristic beauty. — 
 The promulgation of the laws of Solon fell in the year 
 594 before Christ, or according to Newton only 502. 
 
 2. The great war against the Persians y especial- 
 ly against Xerxes. This was one of the most impor- 
 tant Epochs for the whole of Europe, and indeed for 
 the whole human race. For had the Greeks been 
 brought under the yoke, the Grecian culture, on which 
 that of all Europe in later times depended, would 
 have been annihilated in its first bloom. The fate of 
 the war was decided, in the great battles of Salamis 
 and Plataea, fortunately for Greece, for Europe, and 
 for all that we term intellectual cultivation. The bat- 
 tle at Salamis took place 479, that of Plataea 478 be- 
 fore Christ. According to the Parian Chronicle, 
 however, they happened a year earlier, and this date 
 is adopted by many modern Chronologists and histori- 
 ans. 
 
 10* 
 
114 INTRODUCTION 
 
 3. The beginning of the Peloponessian war, 431 
 before Christ. At this period it had become obvious, 
 that a free and prudent union, on which alone the in- 
 dependence of the Grecian republics depended, was 
 impossible, and it could already be foreseen, that the 
 preponderance of a warlike State would at some peri- 
 od decide the fate of Greece. In this respect the 
 Peloponessian war may be compared with the thirty 
 years war in Germany. 
 
 4. The battle of Chaeronca, 338 before Christ.— 
 This was for Greece what some battles in our own 
 times have been for Germany. 
 
 45. The Era of the Scleucidae. 
 
 This is important for the history of Asia, after the 
 time of Alexander the Great, through the^whole period 
 of the middle ages, and also for the history of the 
 Christian Church, since the Fathers sometimes made 
 use of this mode of reckoning. 
 
 The Epoch, with which this mode of reckoning 
 commences, falls in the first year of the 1 17th Olym. 
 piad, which again embraced the last six months of the 
 year 312, and the first six of the year 31 1 before 
 Christ. 
 
 Seleucus, afterwards called Nicator, one of the 
 most bold, skillful, and successful of the generals of 
 

 TO CHRONOLOGY 115 
 
 Alexander, obtained in this year a great victory over 
 his opponents. The results of this victory were the 
 conquest of Babylon, and the founding of a powerful 
 monarchy, which was ruled by the posterity of Seleu- 
 cus, and therefore called the kingdom of the Seleucidae. 
 It was otherwise called also the Syrian kingdom, 
 
 In the countries pertaining to the monarchy, it was 
 customary in historical writings, and perhaps in civil 
 transactions to number the years from the conquest of 
 Babylon, and this mode of reckoning was thence call- 
 ed the Era of the Seleucidae. 
 
 The use of this occurs in the Books of the Macca- 
 bees, and is found in the Christian fathers of the first 
 centuries, in the Syrian, and in Arabian authors. 
 
 The Arabians term it the Era of the two-horned 
 (Dhui-Karnain.) 
 
 This two-horned was uudoubtedly .Seleucus and the 
 occasion for the epithet was furnished by coins struck 
 during his reign, on which his head was represented 
 with two horns upon the forehead. Statues also, 
 erected in honor of him, had the same, and these are 
 Baid to have symbolized his physical strength. Se- 
 leucus seems to have been peculiarly flattered by an 
 admiration of his personal prowess. 
 
 Of the coins, which so represented him, Eckhell 
 treats Vol. 1 P* III. p. 210. Those coins, which 
 
116 INTRODUCTION 
 
 were current among the oriental nations, explain 
 most naturally* why the above epithet was used among 
 them. 
 
 Others have supposed, that this epithet was applied 
 by them to Alexander himself. Such is indeed the case 
 in the Koran, and an Arabian author, Abulpharagius, 
 has explained the two horns to signify the two conti- 
 nents, which Alexander subdued. 
 
 It is not improbable, that the latter Orientals, and 
 Mohammed himself, considered Alexander as inten- 
 ded by a designation, then known among them only 
 by tradition. They were by no means skilled in an- 
 cient history, and confounded persons and dates to 
 such a decree, ns n0 [ to distinguish the dominion of 
 the Romans in Asia, from the antecedent reign of the 
 Greeks, and even held the Roman empire to be a con- 
 tinuation of that of the Seleucidae. The later Ori- 
 entals called the Era of the Seleucidae indeed the 
 Era of the empire of Rome. 
 
 Ulug Beg, grandson of the celebrated Tamerlane, 
 prince of Samarcand, about the year 1430, wrote an 
 astronomical and chronological work in the Persian 
 language, in which he speaks of the Era of the Se, 
 leucidae, and even he calls it the Roman, while at the 
 same time he derives it from Alexander. 
 
TO CHRONOLOGY. 117 
 
 46. Civil mode of reckoning time among the Romans* 
 The Consular Era. 
 
 The Romans had no other mode of reckoning in 
 the business of civil life, but the succession of the 
 two annual Consuls. They employed neither in their 
 laws, nor in their treaties with foreign nations, nor 
 upon public monuments, any other means of design a" 
 ting the year when any events took place, than sim- 
 ply to name the two individuals, who exercised for the 
 year the supreme powers of the Consulate, The 
 names of these Consuls being, then, as they succeeded 
 each other from year to year, recorded in their year 
 books or Calendars, ( fastis annalibus,) or preserved 
 upon public monuments, they had, iu the succession 
 of Consuls, the means of numbering the years, from 
 the expulsion of the kings downward, in their proper 
 order. Chronolos n this mode of reckoning 
 
 among the Romans the Conular Era fAera Consula" 
 ris.) 
 
 It began with the year 245 of the city,— 503 before 
 Christ, This Consular Era was retained under the 
 emperors, Tacitus designates years only by the names 
 of the Consuls. Everuafter the Consular office had 
 ceased to confer any thing but an empty title and rank, 
 with the burthensome duty of giving a costly festival 
 to the people, the year was still named after the Coir 
 
118 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 suls, and we might suppose, thai the custom of so de- 
 signating the year was the only reason, that under 
 the emperors the office was not entirely abolished. 
 In tie constitutions of the Emperors in the Roman 
 Codex, the Consuls, under whom the constitutions 
 were given, are always named. The Consulate was 
 first formally discontinued by an ordinance of the 
 Emperor Leo the Philosopher, who reigned from 886 
 to 911. The reason assigned by him is, that in pro- 
 cess of time the office, once so exalted, had fallen into 
 contempt, duum, qui omnia, temporis cursus hanc 
 etiam Consularem magnificentiam e pristina gloria et 
 amplitudine in objectam speciem transformavit.* — 
 (Imp. Leonis Nov. Const. XCIV.) From this time 
 the above mode of reckoning ceased of itself. 
 
 47. The Historical mode of reckoning from the buil- 
 ding of the City, 
 
 The mode of reckon in g/rom the building of the 
 City, (Aera sive annus urbis Conditae, written with 
 the initials A, U. C.) was never the civil Era among 
 the Romans, norused either in their laws, or treaties* 
 or on their public monuments.* 
 
 For a long period the Romans were themselves as 
 
 *Because the lapse of time, which changes all things, has 
 reduced also the Consular magnificence from its pristine glo- 
 ry and dignity into an abject form. 
 
TO CHRONOLOGY. 119 
 
 ignorant, as they were indifferent, in regard to the 
 age of their city. The eLler Cato, who died 148 be- 
 fore Christ, was the first, and Varro in the age of 
 Augustus was the next, who instituted inquiries re- 
 specting the year of the building of Rome. Accor- 
 ding to Cato's comp ntation it was the first year of the 
 seventh, according to Varro's the fourth year of the 
 sixth Olympiad. Chronologists have preferred Var- 
 ro's account, and the fourl h year of the sixth Olym- 
 piad, which was the year 753 before Christ, is receiv- 
 ed by all historians, as the year of the building of 
 Rome. 
 
 Newton doubted the correctness of the computation 
 on the following grounds. It is assumed in it, that 
 the sum of the reigns of the seven kings, from Rom- 
 ulus to the last Tarquin inclusive, was 245 years. 
 But we do not find, that the Romans had any other 
 source of knowledge than tradition in regard to the 
 reign of their kings. No public documents, no monu- 
 ments, no witnesses are named, which designated a 
 definite number of years to the reign of each. The 
 times were disorderly, and two of the seven kings, ac- 
 cording to tradition, were murdered, two others are 
 represented to have died an unnatural death, being 
 struck by lightning, though it is propable, that they 
 also were murdered. Newton, therefore, considers it 
 very improbable, that among so turbulent a peopk 
 

 120 INTRODUCTION 
 
 seven kings in succession should have reigned s 
 great a length of time. He thought this therefore a 
 case, in which his rule should be applied, according 
 to which the average reign of a king is estimated, aa 
 being at the highest no more than twenty years. 
 Taking this rule then the seven kings would have 
 reigned only 140 years, and the building of Rome 
 would fall about 626 before Christ. 
 
 The building of Rome, however, is at best an ob- 
 scure point in history. This is not the place to trea 1 
 of it more at large, but we thought it necessary to 
 mention Newton's opinion on the subject. 
 
 48. Civil mode of reckoning in the Greek Empirt 
 from the Era of the Creation. 
 
 The theologians of this Empire, in the year 681 of the 
 Christian Era, at an oecumenical or general Council, 
 assumed it as a fact proved, that the world was created 
 on the 1st September, 5508 years 3 months and 25 
 days before the birth of Christ. This Era was adopt- 
 ed by all the Oriental Churches in affairs of religion. 
 It was also, after the rejection of the Consular Era, 
 employed by the Greek Emperors at Constantinople 
 in public documents, and introduced into the business 
 of civil life Our method of reckoning from the birth 
 of Christ was never adopted by the Greeks, perhaps 
 
TO CHRONOLOGY. 12l 
 
 for no other reason, but that it was first conceived and 
 introduced in the Western or Latin Church. Two 
 hostile Churches are very prone, even in things that 
 have little concern with religion, to reject the better 
 course, if adopted by their opponents. 
 
 This mode of computation is called by chronolo- 
 gists the Aera Constantinopolitana, or sometimes also 
 the Annus Graecorum civilis, or civil year of the 
 Greeks. 
 
 The Greeks however only designated the number 
 of the year, without adding, that it was the year of 
 the world, or of the Creation, Thus, in a constitu- 
 tion of the Emperor Heraclius, an ordinance of Al 
 exius Comnenus is introduced, and its date given. 
 simply anno 6589. (Imperatoriae Constit.) 
 
 From Constantinople this mode of reckoning was 
 received along with Christianity into the Russian 
 Empire. It continued in use among them till Peter 
 I. in the year 1700 discontinued it, and introduced 
 the Christian Era already in use in the rest of Eu. 
 rope. 
 
 49. The Cycle of Indiction. 
 
 In the Roman Empire, about the time of Diocletian 
 
 or Constantine I., (for the precise time is uncertain,) 
 
 there was introduced a tax on property. Every fif- 
 11 
 
 
122 
 
 IftTODUCTlON 
 
 teen years a new ordinance was promulgated, solemn- 
 ly subscribed by the Emperors, in which it was fix- 
 ed, how much of this tax each Province, each Dis- 
 trict, City or Commune should contribute. During 
 the fifteen years from the publication of the ordinance, 
 every Jocal division in each Province, and each indi- 
 vidual inhabiting that division, must pay the amount 
 levied upon them, whether during that period they be- 
 come poorer or richer. Only after the fifteen 3 ears 
 had elapsed, or the forming of the new ordinance, 
 could any regard be had to the change, that had ta- 
 ken place in the pecuniary condition of the taxpay- 
 ers. 
 
 The ordinance, by which the Emperor imposed the 
 tax, was properly called Indictio, (a charge, a procla- 
 mation,) but the tax came also to be designated by the 
 same name. 
 
 Even in the ordinances written in Greek by the 
 Emperors at Constantinople the Latin word Indictio 
 was used, though sometimes it was translated by the 
 word entPEfirjcrtg* 
 
 In process of time the practice was introduced at 
 Constanstinople of dating imperial ordinances also by 
 naming the current year of the Indiction. Thus of 
 the ordinance of the Emperor Alexius Comnenur 
 mentioned above it is said, it was given Indictione 4, 
 that is in the fourth year of the current Indiction. 
 

 TO CHRONOLOGY. 
 
 123 
 
 The Popes at Rome imitated this custom, and da- 
 ted their Bulls and ordinances also by Indictions, yet 
 with some variations in the form, for they added the 
 number of the current Indiction, which the Greeks 
 did not. 
 
 The Popes moreover assumed in doing so, we know 
 not for what reason, that the Indictions, or tax ordi- 
 nances, had their commencement three years before 
 the birth of Christ, though, as was remarked above, 
 they first came into use in the time of Diocletian or 
 Constantine. The Papal formula was consequently 
 e.g. anno 4 Indictionis LIII. which means, that 52 
 full Indictions of 15 years each=780 years, and four 
 years of the 53d had elapsed, or 784 years, from the 
 assumed commencement of the Indictions, or 781 
 from the birth of Christ, 
 
 When Charlemagne caused himself to be crowned 
 Roman Emperor in the year 890. he adopted this mode 
 of dating in his documents, and the German Empe- 
 rors have retained it. In the ordinance of Maximilian 
 I. for the instruction of Notaries, they are directed to 
 use this form in their public records and documents. 
 
 The tax on property however, to which this formula 
 had reference, had in the mean time, in all those 
 countries, in which it was levied, ceased to exist since 
 the downfall of the western Empire, and was perhaps 
 
124 INTRODUCTION 
 
 too so entirely forgotten, that the meaning of the 
 word was no longer known. 
 
 [This seems to be the most proper place for inser- 
 ting a concise account of some other cycles and 
 terms connected with them, which though not per- 
 haps necessary for the student of history, and so not 
 given in the original work, are yet often referred to 
 in the intercourse of life, and important to be under- 
 stood. 
 
 The Solar cycle, so called, seems to have received 
 its designation, not, as the name would imply, from 
 anv relation to the periodical revolutions of the sun, 
 but from its being theperiod, in which sun-day (dies 
 solis) and the Dominical letter, which designates that 
 day in the Calendar, completes the series of its 
 changes in relation to the day of the year and the 
 month. Since, as mentioned in sec' ion 15, there are 
 in common years, one, and in leap years, two days, more 
 than an even number of weeks, successive years do 
 not begin on the same day of the week but a series 
 of changes takes place. If there were no leap years 
 this series would be completed in seven years, but as 
 every fourth year, being leap year, contains an excess 
 of two days, the series becomes more complicated and 
 can only be completed in 4 times 7 or 28 years. This 
 period of 28 years then is the Solar cycle, 
 
TO CHRONOLOGY. 125 
 
 The use of the Dominical or Sunday letter, as con- 
 nected with this cycle, may be explained as follows. 
 The seven first letters of the alphabet have been used 
 to correspond with the seven days of the week, begin- 
 ning with the year and repeated. One of these of 
 course answers to Sunday, and in our Almanacs, 
 ephemerides, &,c. is printed, in a capital form, against 
 Sunday throughout the year, to designate it as the 
 Lord's day (dies Dominica.) This letter is not always 
 the same, but follows the series of changes above rep- 
 resented. If we suppose January of a particular 
 year to begin on Sunday, and A. to be the Dominical 
 letter, then, if it be a common year, the next will be- 
 gin a day later in the week, or on Monday. Beginning 
 the repetition of the letters with A then, as before, 
 from Monday the first day of the year, the letter cor- 
 responding to Sunday will be G. The Dominical 
 letter, which is thus found for designating the £rst 
 Sunday in the year, is used, if it be a common year, 
 to mark all the Sundays through the year, But in 
 leap year it is used only to the last of February, when 
 the additional day is intercalated, and Sunday falls 
 back another letter. If it was G in those two months, 
 it would be F, for the rest of the year, the next year 
 E, the next D, &c 
 It is customary to consider the Solar cycle as eom- 
 11* 
 
126 INTRODUCTION 
 
 mencing in the ninth year before the Christian Era, 
 which was a leap year and began with Monday. From 
 these data rules are easily framed, for determining on 
 what day of the week New Year's day will fall, and 
 consequently what will be the Dominical letter, for 
 any year, either according to the Julian or the Gre- 
 gorian Calendar. 
 
 The Lunar Cycle is a period of 19 years, first 
 brought into notice by Meton, as mentioned in section 
 19, and hence sometimes called the Metonic cycle. 
 As the Solar year exceds twelve revolutions of the 
 moon, or the Lunar year, by about 11 days, the rela- 
 tion of one to the other will vary through a series o^ 
 changes, which is found to be completed and return 
 into itself, or very nearly so, after 19 Solar years. 
 Thus on the 2d January 1813 there was a new moon, 
 which occurred again on the same day of the year, 
 only after the above period, or in 1832. Taking these 
 data it is easy to prepare tables, which will show the 
 days of the new moon in all the years included in 
 such a cycle. It is only necessary to observe, that, 
 for the commencement of such periods, we refer back 
 to a year, in which there was a new moon on the first 
 of January, and this was the case with the 1st year 
 before Christ. 
 
 This cycle was deemed so important at Athens, 
 
 
TO CHRONOLOGY. 127 
 
 that it was engraved upon a tablet in golden letters, 
 and hence the number, designating what year of the 
 Lunar cycle any year is, is called the golden number. 
 
 As the new moons fall on the same day after every 
 period of 19 years, so the differences between the 
 Lunar and the Solar years will be the same in each 
 successive period of 19 years. This difference is al- 
 ways to be added to the Lunar year to render it equal 
 to the Solar, and is therefore called the epact, (from 
 the Greek snayw, to bring in, to intercalate,) as given 
 in our Almanacs. Tr.] 
 
 50. The Christian Era. 
 
 It is a matter of wonder, that Christians for seven 
 or eight centuries, though they had many festival days 
 in memory of the most important events in the life of 
 Christ, and laboriously enquired out the days, on 
 which those events happened and which were there- 
 fore to be observed, as, for example the day for the 
 celebration of Easter, and though they even celebra- 
 ted the birth day of Christ, should yet, in regard to 
 the year of his birth, have been alike igaofant and in- 
 curious. Especially does it seem strange, that the 
 theologians of the Greek empire, who were so fond of 
 ^earned investigation, and wrote church-histories so 
 industriously, those'too, who in a numerous assemblage 
 
128 INTRODUCTION 
 
 fixed the year of the Creation, should never once have 
 proposed the question, in what year Christ was born, 
 
 A monk, who lived in obscurity at Rome about the 
 year 530, from a country, too, then so unknown, that 
 he was regarded as a Scythian, the monk Dionysius, 
 fturnamed eiiguus (the little,) he it waj, that in tha 
 obscurity of his cell, first attempted to ascertain, by 
 chronological computation, the year of our Saviour's 
 birth. The year too that he fixed upon in the result 
 of his enquiries, was the same, which we reckon from 
 at the present day, as that of the birth of Christ. At 
 that time, however, men were far from conferring 
 upon Dionysius the honour of adopting his mode of 
 reckoning. It was two hundred years later, about 
 720, than an Anglo-Saxon monk, the venerable Bede 
 (Beda venerabilis,) recommended to Christians to 
 make the birth of Christ, as computed by Dionysius, 
 an Epoch for chronological purposes. Bede him- 
 §elf introduced and made use of it in his own histori- 
 cal works. 
 
 But it was Charlemagne, who, after he was crowned 
 
 Roman emperor in the year 800, first used this Era 
 
 in dating public documents. Since that time it hag 
 
 been in general use, as the mode of reckoning time 
 
 n Christian Europe. 
 
 In this mode of reckoning, it is assumed, that Christ 
 
TO CHRONOLOGY. 
 
 129 
 
 was born in the year 753 after the building of Rome, 
 such having been theconclusion of Dionysius. 
 
 Some modern enquirers however regard this as not 
 strictly correct. 
 
 In the life of Christ, as given in the four Evangel- 
 ists, certain circumstances are so determined in re- 
 lation to .time, as to make it appear, that Christ was 
 born in the 750th, rather than the 753d year of Rome- 
 
 In Luke (chap. 3,) it is said, Jesus was baptized 
 by John in the 30th year of his age, and in the 15th 
 of the reign of Tiberius. To find the year of his birth 
 then, we must enquire what year of Rome was the 
 I5thof the reign of Tiberius. But here a circum- 
 stance occurs, which has occasioned a division of 
 sentiment. Augustus, two years before his death, 
 adopted Tiberius as his Colleague, or rather, by a de- 
 cree of the Senate, a participation in the government 
 of the Provinces was conferred upon him. Are the 
 years of the reign of Tiberius then to be reckoned 
 from this period, or only from the death of Augustus 1 
 Augustus died in the year of the city 767. The reign of 
 Tiberius, therefore, may be reckoned from the year 
 765, or from 767. The 15th year of his reign would 
 be accordingly either 780 or 782 a. U. C. and deduct- 
 ing 30, as the age of Christ at that time, the year of 
 his birth would fall in the year 750 or 752 after the 
 building of Rome, 
 
130 INTRODUCTION 
 
 In the Gospel of John, (chap. 2 ) it is stated, that in 
 the 30t»i year of the life of Christ, the Jews said to him. 
 " This temple has been forty six years in building. " 
 &c. Reference is had here to the building, which 
 Herod the 1st had commanded. The year of Christ's 
 birth was therefore in the 16th year of the building of 
 the temple. Herod gave the older for building it in 
 the 18th year of his reign, and this commenced in the 
 yearof Rome 717. The 16th year of the building of 
 the temple therefore, and so of the birth of Christ, was 
 the 750th of the Roman Era 
 
 Finally Jesus celebrated the Passover with his dis- 
 ciples on a Thursday in the 34th year of his life. INow 
 Astronomeis have ascertained by calculation, that the 
 feast of the Passover for a long series of years, before 
 and after the death of Christ, could fall on Thursday 
 only in the year 784 of Rome. This was the 34th 
 year of his life, and therefore he was born in the year 
 of Rome 750. 
 
 51. The Julian Period. 
 
 After the restoration of learning and science in the 
 loth and 16 centuries, historians saw clearly, that 
 without a determinate and certain chronology there 
 could be no true and proper history. Chronology 
 therefore was zealously pursued as a study by many 
 

 TO CHRONOLOGY. ISl 
 
 1 earned men. They soon saw, that in ancient histo 
 ry it must be a primary object to fix upon a uniform 
 and generally applicable mode of reckoning, to which, 
 all the diverse modes of the different nations of antiqui- 
 ty could be reduced. 
 
 For such a general mode of reckoning they conceiv. 
 ed nothing would answer better, than first to reduce 
 the forms of the year of all ancient nations to the 
 Julian year, and second to assume the Creation of the 
 world, according to the account of Moses, as the 
 Epoch, from which to commence the computation of 
 time, i. e. to reckon according to the years of the 
 world. But in regard to the year of the world itself 
 inquirers were not agreed. From the creation to the 
 birth of Christ some reckoned a greater and others a 
 less number of years. From such conflicting opin- 
 ions and systems perplexity again arose, one saying 
 that Rome was built in the year of the world 3196 
 another in 3231, another still in 3250. In order to 
 understand the account of each, one must first know 
 how old he assumed the world to be, or how many- 
 years lie reckoned from the Creation to the birth of 
 Christ. 
 
 To shun this inconvenience, Joseph Justus Scali- 
 ger found out a period of 7980 Julian years, i. e, 
 years of the Julian Calendar. ScaJiger, who died 
 
132 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 1558, was not of course acquainted with the improve- 
 ment of the Calendar by Pope Gregory. 
 
 On account of the Julian year, which Scaliger 
 adopted for his period, he called it the Julian period- 
 It was an error, therefore, when in later times it was 
 supposed by some; that the Julian Period was named 
 from its finder. The error arose from confounding 
 the name of the father Julius Scaliger, who was also 
 a celebrated scholar, with that of the son Joseph, who 
 was author of this chronolgical device. 
 
 Scaliger assumed, that the world was created 
 3949 years before the birth of Christ, but commenc- 
 ed his period 764 years before the Creation. Christ 
 was therefore born in the 4714th year of the Julian 
 Period. 
 
 Petavius, who lived after Scaliger, reckoned from 
 the Creation to the birth of Christ 3984 years, and 
 must therefore commence the Julian Period 729 year* 
 before the Creation. 
 
 Finally Usher computed from the Creation to the 
 birth of Christ 4003 years, and must accordingly 
 place the beginning of the Julian Period 710 before 
 the Creaiion. 
 
 This Julian Period answered the purpose of reliev- 
 ing chronolojists from the necessity of giving tho 
 year of the world, in which an eveet occurred, ao- 
 
1*3 
 
 TO CHRONOLOGY. #31 
 
 cording to all the different systems, in order to be 
 understood by those who adopted them. It was now 
 bufficient to give the year of the Julian Period, and 
 every chronologist could readily find the year of the 
 world according to his own view of that Epoch. 
 
 The grounds, on which Scaliger took 7980 years 
 for his Period, and considered it as beginning 764 
 years before the creation, were taken from the sci- 
 ence of Astronomy. The mere historical chronolo- 
 gist may omit the consideration of these without dis- 
 advantage to his studies** 
 
 This Period so ingeniously devised by Scaliger, 
 and for a time of so much use, continued however 
 to be useful to chronologists, only so long as they reck- 
 oned from the Era of the Creation, and disagreed 
 about its true time. Since that unsettled mode 
 of reckoning has been laid aside, and the more 
 convenient and certain mode of reckoning from the 
 birth of Christ has been generally adopted, the Julian 
 Period is no longer of any necessity or use. 
 
 *It may be observed however in a word, that the number 
 was obtained by multiplying together the Solar cycle of 28, the 
 Lunar of 19, and the Roman lndiction of 15 years, and the Peri, 
 od was conceived to begin, when the number of each of these Cy- 
 cles was 0?ze, or when they began together. Thus if from the 
 present year of the Julian Period 6550 we subtract the present 
 years of those three cycles 26, 14 and 10, and divide the aer- 
 eral remainders by 28, 19 and 15, the truth of the statement will 
 be shown. Tr. 
 
 11 
 
134^ INTRODUCTION. 
 
 52. Mohamm edan Era. 
 
 All the Mohammedan nations have the same mode 
 of reckoning. The Epoch, from which they com- 
 mence in numberifig their years, they call the Hed. 
 jira> an Arabic word signifying a flight, having refer- 
 ence, as here used, to the flight of Mohammed from 
 Mecca to Medina. 
 
 This flight took place, according to accurate chro- 
 nologists, on the 16th July of the year 622 of our Era. 
 
 Since the Mohammedans make use of the Arabian 
 Lunar year, and 33 of these are only equal to 32 
 Solar years, (See § 12 and 34 above) this will give us 
 the rule for converting years of their Era unto the 
 corresponding years of the Christian Era. 
 
 1. If the number of the Mohammedan years is less 
 than 33, I have only to add to it the 621 years from the 
 commencement of our Era to the flight of Mohammed. 
 Thus the 20th year of the Hedjira would.be the 64] 
 of the Christian Era. For within the first 32 year after 
 the Hedjira, the Christian Solar, and Mohammedan 
 Lunar years, have still a general coincidence. Yet 
 in the more accurate comparison of particular days 
 we must have regard to the different forms of the 
 two Calendars, Since the Lunar year is 11 days 
 shorter than the Solar, events, which happened in the 
 first 11 days of the second Lunar, must be reckoned 
 in the first Solar year. 
 
TO CHRONOLOGY 
 
 135 
 
 2. If the number of the Mohammedan year to be 
 compared be greater than 32 it must be divided by 
 33, and the quotient subtracted from the number of 
 years, Thus if the number 1222 of the Hedjira be 
 given, it gives, when divided by 33, the quotient 37. 
 This, subtracted from 1222. gives 1185 Solar years 
 since the Kedjira. For 37 times 33 Lunar are equal 
 to 37 times 32 Solar years. Those make 1221 Lunar 
 years, and these 1185 Solar. 
 
 To the Solar years thus found must be added the 
 621 years before the Hedjira, and we thus find 1222 
 of the Hedjira, to be 1806 of the Christian Era, 
 
 To convert years of our Era into years of the Hedji- 
 ra we must subtract 621, divide the remainder by 32, 
 and add the quotient to the given number, because 32 
 Solar years of our Calendar are equal to 33 Lunar 
 years of the Mohammedan. Thus, if the year 1806 
 be given, 621 subtracted leaves 1185. This divided 
 by 32 gives 37, which added to 1185 is 1222, or 1806 
 of the Christian is 1222 of the Mohammedan Era. 
 
 Yet if the months and days are to be accurately 
 given, we must bear in mind, that every Lunar year 
 of their Calendar falls short by 11 days of our Solar 
 year, and consequently, that events, which happen in 
 the first 11 days of the next Lunar, belong to the 11 
 last days of the first Solar year. 
 
136 INTRODUCTION 
 
 The following table shows how the first ten years of 
 the Hedjira conespond with our reckoning. 
 
 Hedjira, Christian Calendar. 
 
 1. year irom July 16, 622 
 
 623 
 624 
 625 
 626 
 627 
 628 
 629 
 630 
 631 
 
 We here close our Introduction to Historical Chro- 
 nology. In omitting to say any thing of the chro- 
 nological systems of the Bramins, or the Chinese, 
 and other nations, we are governed by what seem to 
 be sufficient reasons. These are in part, that those 
 systems are obscure and uncertain, and in part, that, 
 in order to form a judgment of them, it is requisite to 
 have great skill and readiness in astronomical calcu- 
 lations, connected with chronology, and an accurate 
 acquaintance with the lierature and history of those 
 nations. But as we can little expect to find such 
 skill and knowledge among those, for whom this work 
 is written, so we confess ourselves to be in this partic- 
 ular in the same condition with them. 
 
 2. — 
 
 = 
 
 July 6, 
 
 3. — 
 
 = 
 
 June 26 
 
 4. — 
 
 =: 
 
 June 16, 
 
 5. — 
 
 = 
 
 June 6, 
 
 6. — 
 
 = 
 
 May 26, 
 
 7. — 
 
 = 
 
 May 16, 
 
 8. — 
 
 = 
 
 May 6, 
 
 9. — 
 
 = 
 
 April 26, 
 
 10.— 
 
 = 
 
 April 16, 
 
 to 
 
 July 5, 
 
 623. 
 
 — 
 
 June 25, 
 
 624. 
 
 — 
 
 June 15, 
 
 625. 
 
 — 
 
 June 5, 
 
 626. 
 
 — 
 
 May 25, 
 
 627. 
 
 — 
 
 May 15, 
 
 628. 
 
 — 
 
 May 5, 
 
 629. 
 
 — 
 
 April 25, 
 
 630. 
 
 — 
 
 April 15, 
 
 631. 
 
 — 
 
 April 5, 
 
 632. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 REMARKS ON THE USE OF EPOCHS IN GENERAL HISTORY. 
 
 I take the word Generator Universal History here 
 in its common and generally understood signification, 
 without entering into a more precise determination of 
 the conception, and of its distinction from the Histo- 
 ry of Humanity. 
 
 When I consider the Epochs, which the celebrated 
 teachers of General history have assumed, I find 
 
 1. That almost every one has chosen them in ac- 
 cordance with his own ideas. Schroeckh has chosen 
 one Gatterer another, Schloetzer a third, Beck a 
 fourth, &,c. There must therefore be something ar- 
 bitrary in the selection of such Epochs. 
 
 2. Epochs are often chosen from views, that are 
 contradictory. That, which determines it, is now a 
 Moses or Solon, now a Cyrus, an Alexander, or a 
 Ginghis Khan ; here a Legislator, a founder of reli- 
 gious institutions, or of the regul itions of civil and so- 
 cial life, there a destroyer, an oppressor and conque- 
 ror. 
 
 General history may be presented from very differ- 
 ent points of view, and ought to be exhibted from all 
 points, but not from all at once, nor in the same pic- 
 ture. It must unavoidably be a very confused picture, 
 12* 
 
138 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 if each of the leading figures, which crowd the can- 
 vass is presented from a distinct point of view. 
 
 One or another single point must be chosen, and 
 from this, and this alone, the whole presented, with 
 the consequent degrees of distinctness, which that 
 point permits. 
 
 There are many distinct points of view, each of 
 which has its peculiar interest. 
 
 Among these we may mention that, in which eve- 
 ry thing is contemplated from its relation t political 
 power. From this point of view we contemplate ma- 
 ny free or independent nations, as existing at the same 
 time ; we trace the growing superiority of one; the 
 subordination of many to the power of a single 
 nation; the predominance of one overcome and bro- 
 ken by another ; universal empires established, and 
 these again shattered in pieces, while in their place 
 rise up again free and independent nations. 
 
 Again history may be viewed relatively to the pro- 
 gress of cultivation. Here we see at first rude and 
 savaoe Nations ; one or two cultivated and surrounded 
 by others which yet remain in their original rudeness; 
 diffusion of culture, either by voluntary imitation, or 
 by the extended dominion of the cultivated. Again 
 the first dawning of cultivation, its progress, obstacles 
 in its way, return to barbarism, destruction, restoration. 
 
 Religions point of view. Nations cleave to tradi- 
 tional sayings, and inherited modes of representation. 
 Individuals establish and diffuse new ideas, either 
 from their own conviction, or for moral or political 
 ends ; nations improve received ideas, and receive 
 new ones, either by persuasion or force ; one religion 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 139 
 
 becomes predominant, another is rejected and eradica- 
 ted. 
 
 Commercial point of view. There was once an iso- 
 lated condition, in which each nation, knew scarcely 
 its nearest neighbors; i he different branches of the 
 human race were wholly foreign and unknown to each 
 other ; one nation began to carry on trade with an- 
 other, and more and more extended it, first by land, 
 and then also by sea ; trade became the fixed employ- 
 ment of particular nations, (commercial nations and 
 States.) The extended commerce of the world is 
 carried on by only a few nations, and is extended 
 from one to aneth 
 
 I cannot believe, that children and young persons 
 are interested in reaming much ofthe deeds of an 
 Alexander, a Caesar, an 'Aftila^ and studying minute- 
 ly, at what periods these heroes performed their great 
 exploits. For young and unco«rupted minds there 
 are other views, and Epochs more alluring in Gen- 
 eral history. 
 
 Why, for example, has not the extension of agri- 
 culture been selected with a view to its historical 
 Epochs ? 
 
 Agriculture was the first and most necessary con- 
 dition, on which the intellectual improvement and 
 perfection of the human race depended. Without 
 agriculture there would be no towns, without towns 
 no sciences, no arts, no trade, no industry. 
 
 Where Ceres had not come, there Apollo and the 
 Muses did not venture themselves. 
 
 The invention of agriculture would be the most im- 
 portant Epoch in the history of mankind, did it not be- 
 long to those primaeval and obscure times, from which 
 no distinct notices have come down to us. 
 
40 APPENDIX. 
 
 But of the diffusion of agriculture five pleasing 
 Epochs may be noticed. 
 
 About 2000 years before the birth of Christ agricul- 
 ture was still limited to middle Asia. In the most 
 ancient f Hebrew) accounts, we find probable grounds 
 to suppose, that the Euphrates was yet the western 
 limit of agricultural nations. On this side of it still 
 wandered nomadic hordes. Egypt alone formed an 
 exception. Whence such an advantage was derived 
 to this isolated country, we have not the means of fully 
 explaining. But beyond the Euphrates agriculture 
 was by no means universally diffused. Northern 
 Asia was still filled with herdsman and hunters, who, 
 to the misfortune of southern and civilived nations, 
 were always savage, and lived by plunder and violence. 
 Only southern Asia beyond the Euphrates had, by 
 means of the plough, become the abode of cultivated 
 nations. This was theirs/ Epoch. 
 
 About 1000 years before Christ Asia Minor, 
 Greece, Italy, and the North coasts of Africa were 
 brought under cultivation, forming the second Epoch. 
 
 Under the dominion of the Romans — perhaps by 
 means of this — agriculture was extended over the prov- 
 inces of Gaul, Spain, Britian, as far as the Rhine, and 
 Danube, and Southern and Western Europe became 
 a partaker of the gifts of Ceres, about the time of the 
 birth of Christ, This is the third Epoch. 
 
 Along with the Christian Religion, agriculture was 
 extended over Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, 
 Poland, Prussia, Courland, Livonia. The morasses 
 and forests of Northern and Northeastern Europe were 
 converted to agriculture, about the year 800, forming 
 the fourth Fpoch. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 141 
 
 Finally a fourth continent was discovered, which 
 had hitherto been left to the wildness of nature, and 
 cultivated by no human hands. This, brought under 
 cultivation by European Colonists, bids fair to be one 
 day the abode of happier nations, than the history of 
 the older continents can exhibit. This is the fifth 
 Epoch. 
 
 These several Epochs might be exhibited on as ma- 
 ny Charts, showing the progress and extension of ag- 
 riculture over the Earth, as the rise and progress of 
 the great monarchies has already been. 
 
 Such Charts, connected with the first instructions 
 in general history, would to young minds be more 
 interesting and delightful, and more productive 
 of useful reflections, than those, in which political 
 power, and the rise of Empires, form the point of view, 
 from which the condition of the race at different peri- 
 ods is contemplated. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 Trade and navigation again form an important 
 feature in the general history of mankind. It is by 
 these, that we have become acquainted with the race 
 itself as a Whole, and in its various branches, and 
 with the face of the Earth, in its whole extent, and in 
 its several parts. Without trade and navigation Geog- 
 raphy would never be brought to perfection. 
 
 In the earliest times each nation, knowing little or 
 nothing of any other, regarded itself as the whole 
 human race, or at least as the most important part of 
 it, and the soil, which it inhabited, as the whole earth. 
 
 About 2000 years before Christ, some commercial 
 intercourse arose among a few nations of Middle and 
 Southern Asia, but chiefly on land, by means of cara- 
 
142 appkndix. 
 
 vans. Navigation however commenced on the coast 
 of the Red Sea, on those of the Persian Gulf, and on 
 those of India and Eastern Africa. This formed the 
 first Epoch. 
 
 About 1500 years before Christ, the Mediterrane- 
 an Sea was navigated in all parts by the Phoenicians, 
 and a regular trade began to be carried on between 
 all the countries lying on its coasts. Enterprises in 
 navigation also were pushed even into the Atlantic 
 ocean. This we may consider the second Epoch. 
 
 About 80 years before the birth of Christ, by the 
 discovery of the monsoons, i\v ocean, which separates 
 India from Africa, was subjected to navigation. It 
 was then that voyages were first made from the har- 
 bours of Egypt to the East Indies. The man, who 
 first discovered by observation the periodical regulari- 
 ty and direction of t hose winds, and made such use 
 of them, was Hippalus Its effect in promoting inter- 
 course and improvement was such, as to give him a 
 rank with Prince Henry of Portugal, Vasco de Gama, 
 Columbus, Magellan and Cook, among the benefactors 
 of the race. It may be regarded as the third Epoch. 
 
 It was in the 12th century, that the Baltic and North 
 Seas were first navigated for the purposes of commerce 
 by the people of the Hanse towns, and navigation 
 carried on between these seas and the Mediterranean, 
 forming the fourth Epoch. 
 
 Between 1400 and 1500 commenced the more ex- 
 tended enterprises of the Portuguese and Spanish 
 navigators. Such have been the consequences of 
 these, that now no ocean, no bay, no country or is- 
 land of the earth can remain unknown. This is the 
 fifth Epoch. 
 
APPENDIX. 143 
 
 Charts representing these Epochs of trade and navi- 
 gation, like those before proposed in relation to agri- 
 culture, would be of similar service in the first instruc- 
 tions in general history. 
 
 ^ -JT "JP TP 
 
 Great political revolutions, and changes in the re- 
 lative power and independence of nations, are still im- 
 portant Epochs in General history, and without an ac- 
 count of these revolutions, and a designation of the 
 Epochs, which they form, history would be very im- 
 perfect. 
 
 But we ought accurately to determine the character 
 of the events, that are to be regarded as forming such 
 Epochs. These are not properly, such as prepare the 
 way for a revolution, by merely planting the seeds of 
 future empire, but those, which are decisive, and so 
 establish the power of a single nation, as to make the 
 subjugation of others inevitable. 
 
 Tn this view of the matter, the mere building of 
 Rome, of an individual city, which for several cenlu- 
 ties ruled only over its own narrow d3mesnes, cannot 
 be regarded as an Epoch. It was indeed destined to 
 the attainment of universal empire, but only at the 
 distance of centuries. In the same manner Macedo- 
 nia, still also a small power, was destined to future 
 empire. Yet we do not make the organization of the 
 Kingdom of Macedon an Epoch ; why should we the 
 building of Rome ? 
 
 The event that decided the power of Rome, and 
 rendered precarious the independence of so many oth- 
 er nations, was the termination of the second Punic 
 war, or the peace with Carthage in the year 200 be- 
 fore Christ. This peace, as it appears to my own 
 
144 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 view, was a truly great Epoch in the history of the 
 world. 
 
 Of similar importance as an Epoch, was the battle 
 of Actium, 30 years before the birth of Christ. By 
 this it was decided, that from that time the fate of a 
 great portion of the human race, the fortunes of all civ- 
 ilized nations, from the Atlantic ocean to the Euphra- 
 tes, were to depend on the arbitrary will of one man. 
 


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