Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/56

 4Q HTSTORY OF GREECE. Mr. Clinton, why he called upon them to alter their method of proceeding at the year 776 B. c., and why they might not be allowed to pursue their " upward chronological reckoning," with- out interruption, from Leonidas up to Danaus, or from Peisistratus up to Ilellen and Deukalion, without any alteration in the point of view. Authentic dynasties from the Olympiads, up to an epoch above the Trojan war, would enable us to obtain chrono- logical proof for the latter date, instead of being reduced (as Mr. Clinton affirms that we are) to " conjecture " instead of proof. The whole question, as to the value of the reckoning from the piad, the downward and the upward terminus. (Sec Fasti Hellenic!, vol. i. lutroduct. p. ix. second edit, and p. 123, ch. vi.) All chronology must begin by reckoning upwards : when by this process ve have arrived at a certain determined era in earlier time, we may from that date reckon downwards, if we please. We must be able to reckon up- wards from the present time to the Christian era, before we can employ that event as a fixed point for chronological determinations generally. But if Eratosthenes could perform correctly the upward reckoning from his owii time to the fall of Troy, so he could also perform the upward reckoning up to the nearer point of the Ionic migration. It is true that Eratosthenes gives all his statements of time from an older point to a newer (so far at least as we can judge from Clemens Alex. Strom. 1, p. 336) ; he says " From the cap- ture of Troy to the return of the Herakleids is 80 years ; from thence to the Ionic migration, 60 years ; then, farther on, to the guardianship of Lykurgus, 159 years ; then to the first year of the first Olympiad, 108 years ; from which Olympiad to the invasion of Xerxes, 297 years ; from whence to the begin- ning of the Peloponnesian war, 48 years," etc. But here is no difference between upward reckoning as high as the first Olympiad, and then down ward reckoning for the intervals of time above it. Eratosthenes first found or made some upward reckoning to the Trojan capture, either from his own time or from some time at a known distance from his own : he then assumes the capture of Troy as an era, and gives statements of intervals going down- wards to the Peloponnesian war: amongst other statements, he assigns clearly that interval which Mr. Clinton pronounces to be undiscoverable, viz. the space of time between the Ionic emigration and the first Olympiad, interpos- ing one epoch between them. I reject the computation of Eratosthenes, or any other computation, to determine the supposed date of the Trojan war bat, if I admitted it, I could have no hesitation in admitting also the space which he defines between the Ionic migration and the first Olympiad. Euse- bius (Praep. Ev. x. 9, p. 485) reckons upwards from the birth of Christ, making various halts, but never breaking off, to the initial phenomena of Grecian antiquily, the deluge of Deukalion and the conflagration o^ Fbftfl ton.