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with good reason, to be the same with either the Ham, the Cush, or the Nimrod of Scripture; and that the Chaldeans must have observed the heavens in ages long preceding the time of Nabonassar, the remains of their observations preserved by Hipparchus, and their period of eighteen years for the return of eclipses, recorded by Geminus and Pliny, amply attest.

But, notwithstanding the above combination of evidence, it may be objected, that Hipparchus, to whom we are indebted for the Chaldean eclipses, himself estimated the tropical year, very erroneously, at 365d. 5h. 55′ 12′′ or the 300th part of a day less than 365d. 6h., 600 years after Nabonassar; and could find no accurate observations of the tropics and equinoxes to compare with his own, older than the solsticial observation of Aristarchus, anno 50, per Calip. 1, or B.C. 281, being the 467th year of Nabonassar, wherewith to correct the year of Calippus. This is undoubtedly a proof that the Chaldean equinoctial observations had been lost in the age of Hipparchus, but not that they never had existence; and to such negative evidence of the quantity of the true solar year being unknown before the age of Hipparchus, or, indeed, till it was re-discovered by the Oriental astronomers in the tenth century, as many of the learned suppose, the foregoing combination of proofs may, I conceive, be deemed an efficient answer.

That the true nature of the solar year was known in the most ancient times, may, however, be conclusively proved from other sources; and two stages of the progress of astronomy in this respect may be clearly traced previous to the age of Nabonassar.

In the first place, we have the patriarchal luni-solar period of 600 years, recorded by Josephus; which is no other than the Chaldean Nerus of Berosus, Abydenus, and Alexander Polyhistor. This gives it at least the antiquity of the Chaldean annals of Berosus. This period, supposing the lunation to consist of 29d. 12h. 44' 2" 48", contains 7421 lunations, or 600 solar years of 365d. 5h. 51 35" 2", as is well known to antiquarians ;a quantity which would have been nearly the result of the Chaldean calendar, had the correction taken place fourteen years previously to the Nabonassarean æra; and which would have indicated an error of observation amounting to three days and a-half, and an excess in the year of about three minutes; as is evident from what precedes.

To this period Josephus ascribes an antediluvian origin, as the Chaldean writers do to their Nerus; but whether this supposition be true or not, the cycle is clearly of the highest historical antiquity, and indicates a quantity for the tropical solar year, known to the Chaldean astronomers before the Nabonassarean reformation, and probably at least as early as the 600th year of their first astronomical æra, the equinoctio-lunar characters of which, indeed, appear to fix the true root of this luni-solar period.

This period of 600 years, being known to Berosus and his copyists, down to Josephus, therefore undoubtedly indicates a far more correct acquaintance with the sun's motion in remote ages than was possessed by Hipparchus and Ptolemy, who used the same tropical year (computing it at nearly 7 min. above the truth); and of itself answers any objection that might be drawn from the astronomy of Hipparchus, to the antiquity of a correct knowledge of the solar motions.

§ 5. Of the Quantity of the Egyptian Tropical Year, its Era, and probable Introduction into Chaldea.

The second stage of the tropical year above alluded to, is to be found in the remains of Egyptian astronomy, which is connected with the Chaldean system, and affords more conclusive evidence. This is a point that has, I believe, been hitherto unobserved, and therefore requires full explanation.

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Diogenes Laertius, who wrote about A. D. 200, and therefore between the times of Claudius Ptolemy, in the second, and of Censorinus, in the third century, tells us (apparently from Aristotle's Book of Magic and Sotion who wrote the lives of the philosophers, about 200 years before the Christian æra), that, according to the Egyptians, there elapsed, from Vulcan, the son of Nilus, who discovered the first principles of philosophy, to Alexander king of Macedon, 48,863 years, during which period there had been observed 373 solar, and 832 lunar eclipses.'

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This immense period, which has variously exercised the ingenuity of learned men, to reduce it within the scope of historical time, seems absolutely to explain itself; for it is very plainly the cycle formed by the civil precession of the equinoxes, or of the recession of the tropical solar year through the Sothoic fixed year of 365 days 6 hours, the parent of the Julian year; and is allegorically said to commence with Vulcan and end with Alexander, like the Egyptian Zodiacal revolution of 36,525 vague Sothoic years, which we are told, in the old Egyptian chronicle, elapsed from Vulcan to Alexander: for the Egyptians indulged their love of antiquity, by making their empire coëval in duration with the utmost cycles of the heavenly motions: the one period is purely of an astronomical nature, and so is the other. The Gregorian omission of three Bissextiles in four centuries supposes the great cycle of civil precession to be 48,700 years.

The Egyptian tropical period, 48,863 tropical solar or 48,862 fixed Sothoic years, divided into 365 days 6 hours, produces the tropical epact 10′ 45′′ 501" fere; and deducting this from the Sothoic year, 365d. 6h., we obtain the tropical year of the Egyptian astronomers, 365d. 5h. 49′ 14′′ 93" ferè ; the period for the anticipation of a day being 133 years, the result of dividing 48,863 by 365.

This quantity differs in defect but about a second of time from the respective tropical years of Sultan Gelaleddin, the

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reformer of the Persian calendar, in the eleventh century; of Alphonsus, in the thirteenth; of Copernicus and the Prutenic Tables, in the sixteenth; and, in excess, 2" 93" from the Gregorian estimate. It exceeds the Nabonassarean and true tropical year, by 22" 48", and falls short of the old Chaldean and patriarchal year above mentioned, by 3′ 10′′ 28" 8""; and therefore would appear to have originated at an intermediate date.

Thus we see, that, on applying the period of Diogenes to the test, it answers all the conditions; and that in the pages of that writer, even had it no higher antiquity, we possess the elements of the tropical year nearly as truly as it was known to some of our best modern astronomers, and nearly eight centuries before the errors of Hipparchus and Ptolemy were finally corrected by the Persian astronomer, Ali Suphi, who, in the tenth century, first ascertained its quantity to be about 365d. 5h. 49′, or the 131st part of a day less than 365d. 6h.

For the year of Hipparchus, in the second century before Christ, was followed by Ptolemy in the second century of the Christian æra, by Rabbi Adda in the fourth, and all other astronomers, till Albategnius the Arabian, by comparing his own observations with those of Ptolemy, partially detected its error, and reduced the quantity to 365d. 5h. 46' 24" 54", in the eighth century, as his own mistakes were corrected by Ali Suphi in the tenth.

Thus, as we find the elements of the true tropical year in a writer who lived eight centuries before the errors of Hipparchus were finally detected, and who quotes from others certainly of a much higher æra-probably Aristotle and Sotion, as aboveevery question as to the tropical solar year originating with Hipparchus is conclusively answered.

The Egyptian eclipses mentioned by Diogenes seem to carry evidence of the period being at least older than Conon Samius, who travelled into Egypt in the reign of Ptolemy Euergetes, and collected and wrote an account of all the eclipses preserved by the Egyptians, which has unfortunately not survived; but the astronomical knowledge of Thales, which he obtained in Egypt, and which enabled him to predict eclipses, and write a work on the solstices and equinoxes, raises the historical antiquity of the Egyptian eclipses and tropical year, to at least the seventh century before Christ.

M. Bailly estimates, that the 373 solar and 832 lunar eclipses, mentioned by Diogenes, might be observed in a country having an unclouded firmament, like Chaldea and Egypt, in the space of 1200 or 1300 years; and therefore supposed that these eclipses, having been observed before the reign of Alexander, would ascend to an epoch 1500 or 1600 years before the Christian æra. This is in perfect accordance with the testimony of Simplicius, who, in the same commentary (in Aristot. de Cœlo II.) where he mentions the 1903 years of Chaldean ob

servations found by Callisthenes, states, that the Egyptian astronomy ascended 2000 years from his own time. But 2000 years, computed upwards from the reign of Justinian, conducts us to about 1500 years before Christ, in perfect agreement with M. Bailly's inferences and as the testimony of Simplicius, in the case of the Chaldean observations, is verified, we may deem that regarding the Egyptians of equal authority. M. Cuvier says, that "Macrobius assures us, that collections of observations of eclipses made in Egypt were preserved, which presupposed uninterrupted labour for at least 1200 years before the reign of Alexander" (Edinb. Rev. No. xliv. p. 471).-I have not Macrobius at hand to refer to, and I do not recollect this passage; which, if correct, affords further evidence of the above.

It hence appears that we may date the tropical year and period of the Egyptians, during the use of which the eclipses mentioned by Diogenes were observed, as early as the sixteenth century before Christ; an intermediate date between the origin of the Chaldean astronomy, and its reformation under Nabonassar. And this date is the more probable, because the quantity of the Egyptian tropical year is also intermediate, between that produced by the Chaldean Nerus of 600 years, and the corrected year of Nabonassar, as before mentioned.

That the Chaldeans were benefited by the Egyptian improvement in the solar year, appears probable from the testimony of Diodorus, which singularly harmonizes as to date; for he tells us, "that the Egyptian Belus, the son of Neptune and Lybia, carried colonies to Babylonia, and established a college of priests on the Euphrates; whom the Babylonians called Chaldeans, and who observed the stars after the manner of the Egyptian astrologers." Hestiæus, quoted by Josephus, alludes to the same thing, when he states that "the priests who fled the shrine of Jupiter Enyalius came to Sennaar of Babylonia;" for Enyalius was one of the family of the Egyptian Belus, as we learn from the Paschal chronicle and John Malala.

But the Egyptian Belus was the father of Danäus, who fled with Cadmus from Egypt at the time of the departure of Moses to Palestine, as Diodorus elsewhere (lib. xl. Frag.) informs us; and the age of Moses and Danaus synchronizes with the abovementioned epoch of the Egyptian eclipses and tropical year in the sixteenth century before Christ, according to all original authorities, both sacred and profane*.

Hence, I think we may infer, that the Chaldean astronomy received an impetus from that of the Egyptians about this time; and that their final correction of the solar year, in the time of Nabonassar, probably arose from the additional knowledge of its

* The departure of Moses from Egypt, in his eighty-first year, is fixed to the year B.C. 1491 by the Sacred Hebrew Chronology; the flight of Cadmus to Phoenicia to B.C. 1494, and of Danäus to Argos to B.c. 1486, by the Parian Chronicle.

quantity which they then acquired. The accurate acquaintance of both nations with the true solar motions, and their mutual preservation of observed eclipses, argues a close similarity, and, perhaps, an interchange of system. The vulgar year of 365 days, was common to both; and of their mutual knowledge of the lunar motions we are assured from the Egyptian lunar cycle of twenty-five vague Sothoic years, and the Chaldean period of eclipses of eighteen years. Their astronomy in these respects seems to have been nearly as perfect as at the present day, although followed by ages of ignorance; and the revival of astronomical knowledge supplies us with means which were unknown to Hipparchus, for detecting their progress. The ages of ignorance, it would appear, may be dated from the Persian conquests of Babylon and Egypt; for they certainly had not arrived in the days of Thales: the priests who survived the wars of Cyrus and Cambyses, to whom the arcana of the Chaldean and Egyptian philosophy were confined, having clothed their systems in allegory, by calling periods of days periods of years, and referring the dynasties to astronomical cycles.

§ 6. Of the second Chaldean astronomical Era, and of the most ancient

Babylonian Dynasties.

In reference to the 720,000 years, or days, of the Chaldean observations, mentioned by Epigenes, it should be noted, that Pliny in the same place states, that, according to Berosus and Critodemus, the period was 480,000 years. That it is inconsistent with Pliny himself, as well as with all ancient evidence, to read these numbers 720 and 480 only, as the best editions have them; and that the reading 720,000 is both chronologically and astronomically demonstrable; I trust has been proved. It remains to notice the period of 480,000 years, or days, which is read 480,000 from Berosus by Syncellus.

Sir J. Marsham, Dean Prideaux, and other learned men, who read 720 and 480, compute the latter from the æra of Nabonassar to the time of Berosus, ending about six years before his literary labours terminated; and the former from the same æra to the time of Augustus Cæsar, B.C. 27, when they conclude that Epigenes flourished. The first possesses chronological consistency; but as to the latter, it is altogether gratuitous; for the time when Epigenes lived is no where mentioned: we only know that it was after Berosus, the source of all information on Chaldean history, and before Pliny, an interval of three centuries. Besides, the idea of bringing down Chaldean observations to the reign of Augustus, or, indeed, lower than the date of Berosus's history, is too inconsistent, and confutes itself. The learned men who have adopted such an assumption could not, certainly, have given the subject due consideration.

This is another proof, were it wanted, of the absurdity of reading

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