1. JEHOSHAPHAT, Ahab, and Ethbaal, were contemporary fovereigns in Jerufalem, Samaria, and Sidon; for Ahab married Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal, and Jehoshaphat's fon, Jehoram, married Athaliah, the daughter of Ahab.

2. TROY was laid in afhes in the reigns of the fame Jehoshaphat and Ahab, as alfo in that of Agenor, Belus, or Matgenus, the grandson of Ethbaal.

3. NEW Salamis in Cyprus was founded feven years after the conflagration of Troy, by Teucer the fon of Telamon, in whofe family the fovereignty continued feven centuries, in that island.

4. ENEAS about the fame time became the father of kings, in a new feries, over Latium, prior to Romulus. This feries contains 14 names, to whofe reigns is affigned a period of 432 years, which Sir I. Newton reduces to 280 *. The annexed Table will perhaps evince, that even the lefs number exceeds the truth.

Such is the diverfity of names, that the number of fovereigns, and the order of fucceffion, cannot eafily be afcertained. Eneas the father of the colony, to whom Dionyfius affigns a reign of 7 years from the fall of Troy, is excluded. This little addition makes the fum total 432, as in the next page. But the number of reigns thus enlarged, exceeds 14by unity.

IN these four editions the names, and order of fucceffion, are too much at variance to acquire the credit due to authentic records. The numbers taken from Dionyfius do not amount to 432. He affigns indeed 7 years to the first Æneas and his predeceffor Latinus; which fill the blank.` Proper, but inefficient, is Sir Ifaac Newton's fcheme for reducing the quantum of these reigns from 432 to 280 years, as it has been hewn, that the space, between Latinus and Romulus, cannot exceed 147 years. Abfolutely neceffary it is to retrench the one half of the nominal kings, that the arrangements

arrangements by generations and reigns may correfpond to the national eras, by which the hiftory of the times is to be adjusted.

5. DIDO the great grand-daughter of Ethbaal laid the foundation of Carthage in the 18th year from the defolation of Troy, as formerly mentioned, in co-incidence with fundry chronological characters. As the history of this new flate is incorporated with that of the Roman Empire, the time of its origin is an acquifition of no fmall importance.

6. A. M. 3232 IPHITUS reftored the Greek Olympiad 124 years after the conclufion of the Trojan war, and after the foundation of Carthage. It is not alleged that this year was diftinguished by the exhibition of the ufual folemnities, but that is affirmed to be the true fource whence the first circulating period of four years, characterised as the original Olympiad, begins. One invariable criterion difcriminates the years on which prizes were adjudged to the victorsthey were BISSEXTILE. This appropriate and exclufive mark of the periodical quadriennium in Greece, is the more remarkable, as prior in time to the knowledge of the aftronomical reafon, which requires the intercalary day for it is obferved by Mr. Coftard, "That the time is uncertain when it was difcovered that the true length of the folar year was 365 days; but probably not much before the time of Eudoxus, that is, 363 years before our era:" or, 413 subsequent to the era of the restored Olympiad *. This noted term

• See COSTARD's Aftronomy of the Ancients, 1746, p. 36.

of computation, Sir Ifaac Newton admits, was called, by the Greeks, the fource of HISTORICAL time. But he adds, "The fabulous ages wanted a good chronology, and fo also did the historical for the firft 60 or 70 Olympiads *."

If this poftulate be implicitly admitted, the illuftrious author's arrangement, which defers the foundation of Rome to the 38th Olympiad, is involved in all the uncertainty of the fabulous ages; nay, it may be doubted whether the first year of the 68th Olympiad were the true date of the Regifuge, as is afferted, without a peradventure t. Suppofe the confulate introduced with the enfuing year, this important revolution is characterised by a very ambiguous point in time ;~~ that imperceptible line which divides the hiftorical from the fabulous ages.

7. IN the year of the world 3255 was the foundation of Rome laid, 147 from the fall of Troy, 130 from the rife of Carthage, and 23 from the revival of the Olympiad. Sir I. Newton's rash and groundless hypothefis,

*Chron. P 44.

+ Chron. p. 130.

Sir I. Newton fays, that Varro computes the first of Rome from the firft of the viithOlympiad, Chron. p. 129. 1 his erroneous date is, without the leaft fufpicion of 'allacy, copied from Dionyfius the Antiquary, lib i.c 72. In the 4th chapter of the fame book he remarks, "Porcius Cato adopts no Grecian account, but being no lefs accurate in co' ecting ancient hiftorical facts, than the very beft writers, he connects the building of Rome with the 432d after the taking of Troy. This term, compared with the tables of Eratofthenes, coin

hypothefis, which protracts the building of Rome to the 38th Olympiad, incurs the cenfure of an egregious metachronism. The word protracted is here fitly used, for certain it is, that the work was begun 130 years earlier. The Olympiad from its restoration did not immediately become a general term in reckoning, even among the Greeks. If the Romans, after feveral centuries, began to connect their own history with the chronology of the Olympiads, their notations, if supported by various probabilities of certainty, are not to be rejected, as of doubtful credit. On this foot, Eutropius, and others, who affign the third of the vith Olympiad for the hiftorical origin of Rome, are not to be fufpected of credulity or falsehood.

cides with the first of Olympiad vii. If Cato followed no Greek chronologer, he ventured to introduce a computation of his own. The first Varronian year of Rome did coincide in January A. P. J. 3961, with which month began A. U. C. 1 ; and the third year of the vith Olympiad expired about the time of the enfuing fummer folftice. By the Fatti Confulares the fourth of the vith Olympiad is the firft of Rome; and, by the Catonian era, this date is brought one year lower ftill. Unavoidable is the conclufion that Dionyfius and Sir I. Newton fell into a mistake, when they affirmed the synchronism of the Varronian epoch, with the first of the viith Olympiad. With an obvious neglect of propriety, does the great antiquary connect the first year of Romulus with the third of the Varronian era.

FROM