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 within a narrow Compass of Time; the oldest of them but a few Ages before Cyrus. This would not suit with that prodigious Antiquity which they challenged to themselves. The Truth is, Herodotus, who knew nothing of it, being silent, Ctesias draws up a new Scheme of History, much more pompous; and from him, or rather, perhaps, from Berosus, who was Contemporary with Manetho, and seems to have carried on the same Design for Chaldea, which Manetho undertook for Egypt, Diodorus Siculus, Pompeius Trogus, Eusebius, Syncellus, and all the Ancients that take notice of the Assyrian History, have afterwards copied.

Ctesias knew he should be straitned to find Employment for so many Kings for Thirteen Hundred Years; and so he says, they did little memorable after Semiramis's Time. Sir William Temple employs them in Gardening. As if it were probable that a great Empire could lie still for above a Thousand Years; or that no Popular Generals should wrest the Reins out of the Hands of such drowzy Masters in all that Time. No History but this can give an Instance of a Family that lasted for above a Thousand Years, without any Interruption: And of all its Kings, not one is said to reign less than Nineteen,