or about three Generations to an hundred years: but if the reckoning
proceed by the eldest sons, they are shorter, so that three of them may be
reckoned at about 75 or 80 years: and the Reigns of Kings are still
shorter, because Kings are succeeded not only by their eldest sons, but
sometimes by their brothers, and sometimes they are slain or deposed; and
succeeded by others of an equal or greater age, especially in elective or
turbulent Kingdoms. In the later Ages, since Chronology hath been exact,
there is scarce an instance to be found of ten Kings Reigning any where in
continual Succession above 260 years: but _Timæus_ and his followers, and I
think also some of his Predecessors, after the example of the _Egyptians_,
have taken the Reigns of Kings for Generations, and reckoned three
Generations to an hundred, and sometimes to an hundred and twenty years;
and founded the Technical Chronology of the _Greeks_ upon this way of
reckoning. Let the reckoning be reduced to the course of nature, by putting
the Reigns of Kings one with another, at about eighteen or twenty years
a-piece: and the ten Kings of _Sparta_ by one Race, the nine by another
Race, the ten Kings of _Messene_, and the nine of _Arcadia_, above
mentioned, between the Return of the _Heraclides_ into _Peloponnesus_, and
the end of the first _Messenian_ war, will scarce take up above 180 or 190
years: whereas according to Chronologers they took up 379 years.

For confirming this reckoning, I may add another argument. _Euryleon_ the
son of _Ægeus_, [24] commanded the main body of the _Messenians_ in the
fifth year of the first _Messenian_ war, and was in the fifth Generation
from _Oiolicus_ the son _Theras_, the brother-in-law of _Aristodemus_, and
tutor to his sons _Eurysthenes_ and _Procles_, as _Pausanias_ [25] relates:
and by consequence, from the return of the _Heraclides_, which was in the
days of _Theras_, to the battle which was in the fifth year of this war,
there were six Generations, which, as I conceive, being for the most part
by the eldest sons, will scarce exceed thirty years to a Generation; and so