Unknown, because they had No History of them; those between his flood and
the beginning of the Olympiads, Fabulous, because their History was much
mixed with Poetical Fables: and those after the beginning of the Olympiads,
Historical, because their History was free from such Fables. The fabulous
Ages wanted a good Chronology, and so also did the Historical, for the
first 60 or 70 Olympiads.

The _Europeans_, had no Chronology before the times of the _Persian_
Empire: and whatsoever Chronology they now have of ancienter times, hath
been framed since, by reasoning and conjecture. In the beginning of that
Monarchy, _Acusilaus_ made _Phoroneus_ as old as _Ogyges_ and his flood,
and that flood 1020 years older than the first Olympiad; which is above 680
years older than the truth: and to make out this reckoning his followers
have encreased the Reigns of Kings in length and number. _Plutarch_ [4]
tells us that the Philosophers anciently delivered their Opinions in Verse,
as _Orpheus_, _Hesiod_, _Parmenides_, _Xenophanes_, _Empedocles_, _Thales_;
but afterwards left off the use of Verses; and that _Aristarchus_,
_Timocharis_, _Aristillus_, _Hipparchus_, did not make Astronomy the more
contemptible by describing it in Prose; after _Eudoxus_, _Hesiod_, and
_Thales_ had wrote of it in Verse. _Solon_ wrote [5] in Verse, and all the
Seven Wise Men were addicted to Poetry, as _Anaximenes_ [6] affirmed. 'Till
those days the _Greeks_ wrote only in Verse, and while they did so there
could be no Chronology, nor any other History, than such as was mixed with
poetical fancies. _Pliny_, [7] in reckoning up the Inventors of things,
tells us, _that _Pherecydes Syrius_ taught to compose discourses in Prose
in the Reign of _Cyrus_, and _Cadmus Milesius_ to write History._ And in
[8] another place he saith _that _Cadmus Milesius_ was the first that wrote
in Prose_. _Josephus_ tells us [9] that _Cadmus Milesius_ and _Acusilaus_
were but a little before the expedition of the _Persians_ against the
_Greeks_: and _Suidas_ [10] calls _Acusilaus_ a most ancient Historian, and