saith that _he wrote Genealogies out of tables of brass, which his father,
as was reported, found in a corner of his house_. Who hid them there may be
doubted: For the _Greeks_ [11] had no publick table or inscription older
than the Laws of _Draco_. _Pherecydes Atheniensis_, in the Reign of _Darius
Hystaspis_, or soon after, wrote of the Antiquities and ancient Genealogies
of the _Athenians_, in ten books; and was one of the first _European_
writers of this kind, and one of the best; whence he had the name of
_Genealogus_; and by _Dionysius [12] Halicarnassensis_ is said to be second
to none of the Genealogers. _Epimenides_, not the Philosopher, but an
Historian, wrote also of the ancient Genealogies: and _Hellanicus_, who was
twelve years older than _Herodotus_, digested his History by the Ages or
Successions of the Priestesses of _Juno Argiva_. Others digested theirs by
those of the Archons of _Athens_, or Kings of the _Lacedæmonians_.
_Hippias_ the _Elean_ published a Breviary of the Olympiads, supported by
no certain arguments, as _Plutarch_ [13] tells us: he lived in the 105th
Olympiad, and was derided by _Plato_ for his Ignorance. This Breviary seems
to have contained nothing more than a short account of the Victors in every
Olympiad. Then [14] _Ephorus_, the disciple of _Isocrates_, formed a
Chronological History of _Greece_, beginning with the Return of the
_Heraclides_ into _Peloponnesus_, and ending with the Siege of _Perinthus_,
in the twentieth year of _Philip_ the father of _Alexander_ the great, that
is, eleven years before the fall of the _Persian_ Empire: but [15] he
digested things by Generations, and the reckoning by the Olympiads, or by
any other _Æra_, was not yet in use among the _Greeks_. The _Arundelian_
Marbles were composed sixty years after the death of _Alexander_ the great
(_An._ 4. _Olymp._ 128.) and yet mention not the Olympiads, nor any other
standing _Æra_, but reckon backwards from the time then present. But
Chronology was now reduced to a reckoning by Years; and in the next
Olympiad _Timæus Siculus_ improved it: for he wrote a History in Several
books, down to his own times, according to the Olympiads; comparing the