Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/51

 MR. CLINTON'S CHRONOLOGY. 35 (who follow Herodotus', stand opposed to O. Miiller and to Mr. Clinton. That the reader may have a general conception of the order in which these legendary events were disposed, I transcribe from the Fasti Hellenica a double chronological table, contained in p. 139, in which the dates are placed in series, from Phoroneus to the Olympiad of Coroebus in B.C. 776, in the first column according to the system of Eratosthenes, in the second according to that of Kallimachus. " The following Table (says Mr. Clinton) offers a summary view of the leading periods from Phoroneus to the Olympiad of Coroebus, and exhibits a double series of dates; the one proceed- ing from the date of Eratosthenes, the other from a date founded on the reduced calculations of Phanias and Kallimachus, which strike out fifty-six years from the amount of Eratosthenes. Pha- nias, as we have seen, omitted fifty-five years between the Eeturn and the registered Olympiads ; for so we may understand the account : Kallimachus, fifty-six years between the Olympiad of Iphitus and the Olympiad in which Coroebus won. 1 anterior to the Capture of Troy and the Return of the Ilcraklcids, which he places with Eratosthenes in 1184 and 1104 B.C. C. Miiller thinks (in his Annotatio ad Marmor Parium, appended to the Fragmenta Historicorum Gracorum, ed. Didot, pp. 556, 568, 572: compare his Prefatory notice of the Fragments of Hellanikus, p. xxviii. of the same volume) that the ancient chronologists, in their arrangement of the mythical events as antecedent and consequent, were guided by certain numerical attachments, especially by a reverence for the cycle of 63 years, product of the sacred numbers 7 X 9 = 63. I cannot think that he makes out his hypothesis satisfactorily, as to the particular cycle followed, though it is not improbable that some preconceived numerical theories did guide these early calculators. He calls attention to the fact that the Alexandrine computation of dates was only one among a number of others discrepant, and that modern inquirers are too apt to treat it as if it stood alone, or carried some superior authority, (pp. 568-572; compare Clemen. Alex. Stromat. i. p. 145, Sylb.) For example, O. Miiller observes, (Appendix to Hist, of Dorians, p. 442,) that " Larcher's criticism and rejection of the Alexandrine chrcaologists may perhaps be found as groundless as they are presumptuous," an observation, which, to say the least of it, ascribes to Eratosthenes a far higher authority than he is entitled to. 1 The date of Kallimachus for Tphilus is approved by Clavier (Prem Temps, toin. ii. p. 203), who considers it as not far from the truth.