reckoning, will have been in the middle of the eleventh Degrees of the
Signs. But _Thales_, in publishing his book about the Tropics and
Equinoxes, might lean a little to the opinion of former Astronomers, so as
to place them in the twelfth Degrees of the Signs.

_Meton_ and _Euctemon_, [80] in order to publish the Lunar Cycle of
nineteen years, observed the Summer Solstice in the year of _Nabonassar_
316, the year before the _Peloponnesian_ war began; and _Columella_ [81]
tells us that they placed it in the eighth Degree of _Cancer_, which is at
least seven Degrees backwarder than at first. Now the Equinox, after the
rate of a Degree in Seventy and two years, goes backwards seven Degrees in
504 years: count backwards those years from the 316th year of _Nabonassar_,
and the _Argonautic_ Expedition will fall upon the 44th year after the
death of _Solomon_, or thereabout, as above. And thus you see the truth of
what we cited above out of _Achilles Tatius_; viz. that some anciently
placed the Solstice in the eighth Degree of _Cancer_, others about the
twelfth Degree, and others about the fifteenth Degree thereof.

_Hipparchus_ the great Astronomer, comparing his own Observations with
those of former Astronomers, concluded first of any man, that the Equinoxes
had a motion backwards in respect of the fixt Stars: and his opinion was,
that they went backwards one Degree in about an hundred years. He made his
observations of the Equinoxes between the years of _Nabonassar_ 586 and
618: the middle year is 602, which is 286 years after the aforesaid
observation of _Meton_ and _Euctemon_; and in these years the Equinox must
have gone backwards four degrees, and so have been in the fourth Degree of
_Aries_ in the days of _Hipparchus_, and by consequence have then gone back
eleven Degrees since the _Argonautic_ Expedition; that is, in 1090 years,
according to the Chronology of the ancient _Greeks_ then in use: and this
is after the rate of about 99 years, or in the next round number an hundred