OF ANCIENT KINGDOMS AMENDED.

* * * * *

CHAP. I.

_Of the Chronology of the First Ages of the _Greeks_._

All Nations, before they began to keep exact accounts of Time, have been
prone to raise their Antiquities; and this humour has been promoted, by the
Contentions between Nations about their Originals. _Herodotus_ [3] tells
us, that the Priests of _Egypt_ reckoned from the Reign of _Menes_ to that
of _Sethon_, who put _Sennacherib_ to flight, three hundred forty and one
Generations of men, and as many Priests of _Vulcan_, and as many Kings of
_Egypt_: and that three hundred Generations make ten thousand years; _for_,
saith he, _three Generations of men make an hundred years_: and the
remaining forty and one Generations make 1340 years: and so the whole time
from the Reign of _Menes_ to that of _Sethon_ was 11340 years. And by this
way of reckoning, and allotting longer Reigns to the Gods of _Egypt_ than
to the Kings which followed them, _Herodotus_ tells us from the Priests of
_Egypt_, that from _Pan_ to _Amosis_ were 15000 years, and from _Hercules_
to _Amosis_ 17000 years. So also the _Chaldæans_ boasted of their
Antiquity; for _Callisthenes_, the Disciple of _Aristotle_, sent
Astronomical Observations from _Babylon_ to _Greece_, said to be of 1903
years standing before the times of _Alexander_ the great. And the
_Chaldæans_ boasted further, that they had observed the Stars 473000 years;
and there were others who made the Kingdoms of _Assyria_, _Media_ and
_Damascus_, much older than the truth.

Some of the _Greeks_ called the times before the Reign of _Ogyges_,