A. M. 3391. A. C. 610; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M 4825. A. C. 586. 1 KINGS viii. TO THE END OF 2 CHRON. St Peter, we may observe, was commanded in his vision, to do what he never did; Rise, Peter, kill and eat:' nay, by his reply, it appears, that himself did not think that he was any ways bound to obey the command; Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten any thing that is common or unclean.' And yet the use which he made of this vision was, to report it to the church as a sign or emblematical indication of God's having accepted the Gentiles into the gospel terms of salvation. And, in like manner, when Ezekiel, in his vision, received the command of shaving his head and his face,' his answer might have been in St Peter's strain, Not so, Lord;' for, by thy law, I am forbidden to make baldness upon my head, or to shave off the corner of my beard;' and yet he might relate this vision to the people, the better to enforce the threats which God had authorized him to denounce against Jerusalem: 2. Therefore thus saith the Lord God, Behold I, even I am against thee, and will execute judgments in the midst of thee, in the sight of the nations; and I will do in thee that which I have not done, and whereunto I will not do any more the like, because of all thy abominations.' really commanded to marry a woman of a bad reputation ; yet might there not be many prudential considerations to make such a match eligible? The Scripture, we may observe, in the appellations which it gives persons and things, has less regard to what they actually are, than to what they once were; and hence it is, that Moses's rod, when turned into a serpent, 5 is still called his rod; and those whom our Saviour healed of their several infirmities, are still the deaf, 6 the lame, &c., even after they are cured. Now, if the woman whom Hosea was ordered to marry, though once she had lived an incontinent life, was now become chaste and virtuous, where was the great absurdity of his actually doing it, since, besides other motives to us unknown, he was, in this action, to be a sign to the Israelites, and to set an example to them, who had gone a whoring after other gods,'7 that, if they would forsake their false deities, and return to their true God, the God of their fathers, he would still accept, and receive them, in the like manner as the prophet had taken an adulteress to his wife, upon assurance that ever, for the future, she would prove faithful to his bed? The account of Ezekiel's packing up his household goods, removing them by night, and breaking through the walls of his house to carry them away more secretly, In a word, the prophets, in their visions, might receive though some interpreters have looked upon it as the several commands concerning things illegal or inde- mere narration of a vision, or the recital of a parable, cent; but then they considered these not as formal yet to me it seems more probable, that the whole was commands, but as types, emblems, and predictions, de- transacted just in the manner wherein it is described; livered to them in a perceptive form, in order to im- especially considering the near resemblance between the print the things intended the deeper upon their minds, prediction and the event. For, after that the prophet, by the and to make the representation thereof to the people symbolical action of removing his goods in a fright, had with whom they had to do more lively and affecting; typified the taking of Jerusalem, he proceeds to apply nor should it seem strange, that the divine wisdom, in what he had done in this prediction.-8 I am your sign; this case, makes choice of things improper, and some-like as I have done, so shall it be done unto them: they times impracticable, since his purpose in so doing is to shall remove, and go into captivity; they shall dig make the prophet perceive at once, that it was all sym- through the wall to carry out thereby; and the prince bolical, and not designed to direct him how and what to that is among them shall bear upon his shoulder in the act, but how and what to apprehend, foresee, and fore-twilight, and shall go forth.-My net also will I spread tell of things to come. upon him, and he shall be taken in my snare; and I will scatter, toward every wind, all that are about him to help him, and all his bands.' And accordingly the event happened; for when the city was broken up,' says the historian, all the men of war fled by night, by the way of the gate, between two walls, which is by the king's gardens, for the Chaldees were against the city round about, and the king went the way towards the plain. But the army of the Chaldees pursued after the king, and overtook him in the plains of Jericho, and all his army were scattered from him.' Whether the command given to Hosea to marry a woman that either had been or would prove a prostitute, is to have a literal or figurative construction, commentators and critics, both ancient and modern, are not a little divided; but since in the figurative there is no violence offered to Scripture, and in the literal there is nothing immoral or absurd, it matters not much in which sense we take it. In Scripture, it is a common thing to represent the defection of a people from the service of God, 4 by the metaphors of adultery and fornication; and, therefore, to introduce the prophet as The like is to be said of the same prophet's being or marrying a woman that proved an adulteress, as having dered by God to delineate upon a slate the city of Jerseveral children by that marriage, and as calling these salem, and the Babylonish camp investing it, namely, children by such names as denoted the destruction of a that the portraiture of the fort, the mount, the camp, and rebellious nation, is no bad manner of expressing the battering rams, against it, are so very like to wha near relation between God and his people; his constant happened at the siege, that we can hardly forbear precare in preserving and multiplying them; their vile in-suming, that the whole narration is literal, or that the gratitude in revolting from him; and the great severity prophet did really draw a sketch of the siege of the city, wherewith he intended to punish their revolt. Or, take as God commanded him. For since, as we observed the words in a literal sense, and that the prophet was before, it was a practice sometimes among the best of ora 10 5 Exod. vii. 12. A. M. 3394 A. C. 610; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 4825 A. C. 586 1 KINGS viii. TO THE END OF 2 CHRON. tors to represent, in a picture, the particular thing they History during this period. were to speak to, thereby to gain the readier attention of CHAP. III.-Of the Sacred Chronology and Profane their hearers, why should it be thought inconsistent with the character of a prophet, or any diminution of his discretion, or gravity, to do the same thing, in order to gain the same end? a 2 THE particular differences, and seeming incongruities, in point of chronology, that have occurred in this period of history, we have endeavoured to solve and reconcile in the notes that are annexed to it; but there is a passage ing what had arisen out of necessity, into ornament, this practice subsisted long after the necessity was over; especially amongst the eastern people, whose natural temperament inclined them to a mode of conversation, which so well exercised their vivacity, by To walk naked indeed for three years together, as the prophet Isaiah is said to have done, does not so well comport with the rules of decency, and seems to carry in it an appearance of frenzy or madness; but we are to remember, that, in Scripture phrase, those are said to go naked, who either go without their upper garment, or without the habit that is proper to their station or quality; and that the Hebrew text does not say, that Isaiah walked in this manner for three years together, but that he thus walked as a type or sign of the three years' calamity which would come upon Egypt and Ethiopia. So that the sense of the passage is thus :-That Isaiah went about without his upper garment, in token that the Egyptians and Arabians should undergo a calamity of three years' continuance from the king of Assy-balances; carries out his household stuff; and joins together the ria; but how long or how often he did this, the Scripture is silent; only it may be presumed, that he did it in such a manner, whether three days together, or thrice the same day, as might best prefigure the three years' calamity: and since the action was to be typical, the prophet, who, through the iniquity of the times, could scarce gain the audience of the people at any rate, was to appear in an uncommon garb, and with something particular in his manner, to strike the eyes and awaken the observation of all around him: for, had not there been some visible impropriety in the action, something seemingly inconsistent with the character of so grave a man, it would not have answered the purpose of exciting the curiosity and attention of the people for which it was intended. Thus we have endeavoured to vindicate the actions of the prophets, or rather the wisdom of God which put them upon such actions, from all imputations of weakness and folly; and shall only observe farther, that our misconceptions of these things must, in a great measure, proceed from our ignorance of the prophetic style, as says a learned examiner of this style ;— " For all places of Scripture that are expressed in allegorical or proverbial forms of speech, or by types and resemblances of things, =as all prophecies more or less are, must needs have been better understood in those times when they were written, than they can be now, because we have but an imperfect notion of many things to which the allusion is made, and from whence the similitude is taken." 4 Jenkins's Reasonableness, vol. ii, c. 7. a Language, as appears from the nature of the thing, from the records of history, and from the remains of the most ancient languages yet remaining, was at first extremely rude, narrow, and equivocal: so that men would be perpetually at a loss, on any new conception, or uncommon accident, to explain themselves intelligibly to one another; the art of enlarging language by a scientific analogy being a late invention; this would necessarily set them upon supplying the deficiencies of speech by apt and significant signs. Accordingly, in the first ages of the world, mutual converse was upheld by a mixed discourse of words and actions; hence came the eastern phrase of "the voice of the sign;" and use and custom, as in most other affairs of life, improv motion; and so much gratified it, by a perpetual representation of material images. Of this we have innumerable instances in holy Scripture: as where the false prophet pushed with horns of iron, to denote the entire overthrow of the Syrians: where Jeremiah, by God's direction, hides the linen girdle in a hole of the of the people; puts on bonds and yokes; and casts a book into rock near Euphrates; where he breaks a potter's vessel in sight Euphrates; where Ezekiel, by the same appointment, delineates the siege of Jerusalem on a tile; weighs the hair of his beard in instructed the people in the will of God, and conversed with them two sticks for Judah and Israel. By these actions the prophets in signs: but where God teaches the prophet, and, in compliance to the custom of that time, condescends to the same mode of instruction, then the significative action is generally changed into a Jeremiah is bid to regard the rod of the almond tree, and the vision, either natural or extraordinary: as where the prophet seething pot; the work on the potter's wheel, and the baskets of good and bad figs; and the prophet Ezekiel, the ideal scene of the resurrection of dry bones. The significative action, I say, was, in this case, generally changed into a vision; but not always. significative action was perhaps in vision; so sometimes again For as sometimes, where the instruction was for the people, the though the information was only for the prophet, God would set him upon a real expressive action, whose obvious meaning conveyed the intelligence proposed or sought. Of this we shall give, at the expense of infidelity, a very illustrious instance. The excellent Maimonides, not attending to this primitive mode of information, is much scandalized at several of these actions, unbecoming, as he supposed, the dignity of the prophetic office; and is therefore for resolving them in general into supernatural visions impressed on the imagination of the prophet; and this, because some few of them may perhaps admit of such an interpretation. In this he is followed by Christian writers, much to the discredit, as I conceive, of revelation; and to the triumph of libertinism and infidelity; the actions of the prophets being delivered as realities; and these writers representing them as mean, absurd, and fanatical, and exposing the prophet to contempt. But what is it they gain by this expedient? The charge of absurdity and fanaticism will follow the prophet in his visions, when they have removed it from his waking actions: for if these actions were be so in the imaginary; the same turn of mind operating both absurd and fanatical in the real representation, they must needs asleep and awake. The judicious reader, therefore, cannot but observe, that the reasonable and true defence of the prophetic writings is what is here offered: where we show, that information by action was, at this time and place, a very familiar mode of conversation. This once seen, all charge of absurdity and suspicion of fanaticism, vanish of themselves: the absurdity of an action consists in its being extravagant and insignificative; but use and a fixed application made these in question both sober and pertinent: the fanaticism of an action consists in a fondness for unusual actions and foreign modes of speech; but those in question were idiomatic and familiar. To illustrate this last observation by a domestic example: when the sacred writers talk of being born after the spirit,' of being fed with the sincere milk of the word,' of 'putting their tears into a bottle,' of 'bearing testimonies against lying vanities,' of 'taking the veil from men's hearts,' and of building up one another; they speak the common, yet proper and pertinent phraseology of their country; and not the least imputation of fanaticism can stick upon these original expressions. But when we see our own countrymen reprobate their native idiom, and affect to employ only scripture phrases in their whole conversation, as if some inherent sanctity A. M. 3394. A. C. 610; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 4825. A. C. 586. 1 KINGS viii. TO THE END OF 2 CHRON. in the prophet Ezekiel, generally supposed to relate to | years of their iniquity, according to the number of days, this time, wherein some learned chronologers do not so three hundred and ninety days; so shalt thou bear the well agree. iniquity of the house of Israel. And when thou shalt The passage is this: I have laid upon thee the accomplish them, lie again on thy right side, and thou 1 Ezek. iv. 5, 6. shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days. I have appointed thee each day for a year.' The generresided in the eastern modes of expression, we cannot choose but ality of commentators, who take God's laying upon the suspect such men far gone in the delusions of a heated imagina- prophet the years of his people's iniquity, to denote his tion. The same may be said of significative actions. But it forbearing to punish them for their offences for such a is not only in sacred story that we meet with the mode of speak- determinate time, do agree,' that there is an exact sum ing by action. Profane antiquity is full of these examples; the early Oracles in particular frequently employed it, as we learn of 390 years mentioned in this place; that this sum is from an old saying of Heraclitus: "That the king whose oracle to begin from the time that Jeroboam first set up the is at Delphi, neither speaks nor keeps silent, but reveals by signs." golden calves; and that the 390 and 40 years are not The influence language would have on the first kind of writ-distinct numbers, but that the less is to be included in the ing, which was hieroglyphical, is easy to conceive. Language, we have shown, was out of mere necessity, highly figurative, and full of material images; so that when men first thought of recor ding their conceptions, the writing would be, of course, that very picture which was before painted in the fancy, and from thence, delineated in words: even long after, when figurative speech was continued out of choice, and adorned with all the invention of wit, as amongst the Greeks and Romans, and that the genius of the simpler hieroglyphic writing was again revived for ornament, in emblems and devices, the poetic habit of personalizing every thing filled their coins, their arches, their altars, &c. with all kinds of imaginary beings. All the qualities of the mind, all the affections of the body, all the properties of countries, cities, rivers, mountains, became the seeds of living things: for, --" as imagination bodied forth The forms of things unknown, the artist's hand greater; but then the question is, where we are to end these 390 years? or to which of the captivities do they extend? 4 Several learned men of great authority make these years to end at the last captivity by Nebuzaradan, captain of the guards under Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and four years after the last destruction of Jerusalem, which happened in the eleventh year of Zedekiah; for, from the time of the setting up the calves, say they, to this last instance of God's severity, are just 390 years; from the eighteenth year of Josiah, when the kingdom of Judah entered into covenant with God, to this time, are just forty years; and, by this last captivity, all the predictions of the several prophets, relating thereunto, were perfectly fulfilled. Shakspeare. The reciprocal influence hieroglyphic writing would have on language is as evident. The Chinese used this kind of writing, as It is to be observed, however, that this last captivity well as the Egyptians; and the character given of their language is entirely correspondent: "The style of the Chinese, in their was so small, so sudden, and attended with so little compositions," says Du Halde, " is mysterious, concise, allego- difficulty, as can by no means come up to the pomp and ric, and sometimes obscure. They say much in few words. solemnity of the prophet's description, in that very chapTheir expressions are lively, animated, and thick sown with bold ter wherein this epocha is mentioned. The account comparisons, and noble metaphors." Their style, we see, was concise and figurative; the very character, as we have seen, of which we have of the invasion is this: "Whilst Neall the barbarous nations upon earth, both ancient and modern; for buchadnezzar lay at the siege of Tyre, he sent Nebuzanature is ever uniform. The cold phlegmatic temper of the Chi-radan with part of his army to invade the land of Israel, Hese made their style short and laconic; the use of hieroglyphics on purpose, as is supposed, to revenge the death of made it figurative; and from this mixture it became obscure; Gedaliah; because there was no other reason for his falling upon the poor remains of those miserable people, whom he himself had left and settled there. In this expedition Nebuzaradan seized upon all the Jews whom he found in the land, made them captives, and sent them to Babylon; but they all amounted to no more than seven hundred and forty-five persons." Here was no resistance made, no siege maintained, no famine incurred. The people fell a cheap and easy prey, because they were ruined, and destroyed before. But now, in the expedition to which the prophet alludes, Jerusalem sity of eating bread by weight, and with care, and of was besieged, and the defendants reduced to the neces drinking water by measure, and with astonishment,' as he expresses it. but had those remote inhabitants of the east and west possessed the warm imagination of the proper Asiatics, then had their language, like that of the people spoken of above, abounded with pleonasms instead of laconisms. The old Asiatic style, so highly figurative, seems likewise, by what we find of its remains, in the prophetic language of the sacred writers, to have been evidently fashioned to the mode of ancient hieroglyphics, both curiologic and tropical. Of the first kind are the figurative expressions of 'spotted garments,' to denote iniquity; an intoxicating draught,' to signify error and misery; the sword and bow,' a warrior; a 'gigantic stature,' a mighty leader; balance, weights, and measures,' a judge, or magistrate; arms,' a powerful nation, like the Roman. Of the second kind, which answers to the tropical hieroglyphic, is the calling empires, kings, and nobles, by the names of the heavenly luminaries, the sun, moon, and stars; their temporary disasters or entire overthrow, denoted by eclipses and extinctions; the destruction of the nobility, by stars falling from the firmament;' hostile invasions, by thunder and tempestuous winds;' and leaders of armies, conquerors, and founders of empire, by lions, bears, leopards, goats, or high trees.' In a word, the prophetic style seems to be a speaking hieroglyphic. These observations will not only assist us in the intelligence of the Old and New Testament, but likewise vindicate their cha racter from the illiterate cavils of modern libertines, who have foolishly mistaken that colouring for the peculiar workmanship of the speaker's heated imagination, which was the sober established language of their times; a language which God and his Son condescended to employ, as the properest vehicle of the high mysterious ways of Providence, in the revelation of themselves to mankind.-Warburton's Divine Legation of Moses vol. iv. pp. 133-136, and 173-175.-Ed. 76 6 For this reason, we should rather incline to the hypothesis of those who end both the computations at the destruction of Jerusalem, in the eleventh of Zedekiah; who, according as they compute the time from Jeroboam's apostasy, make the period of God's forbearing 4 Bedford's Scripture Chronology, b. vi. c. 1. Primate Usher, Dr Prideaux, and Marshall, in their Chri nological Tables. Prideaux's Connexion, anno 584. 6 Ezek. iv. 1-3. 7 Ezek. iv. 16. A. M. 3394. A. C. 610; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 4825. A. C. 586. 1 KINGS viii. TO THE END OF 2 CHRON. the house of Israel, from thence to the destruction of Jerusalem, to contain just three hundred and ninety years; and who begin the forty years of God's forbearance of the house of Judah, from the mission of the prophet Jeremiah to preach repentance to them, that is, 1from the thirteenth year of Josiah, when he was first called to this office; from which time, to the last year of Zedekiah, when Jerusalem was destroyed, were exactly forty years. For' since the hundred and twenty years of God's forbearing the old world is reckoned from the mission of Noah to preach repentance, there seems to be some parity of reason, that his forty years' forbearance of the kingdom of Judah should be reckoned from the like mission of Jeremiah. But there is another way of explaining this passage; for if by the word iniquity, which God imputes to the house of Israel and Judah, we are to understand the punishment of their iniquity, which is very common, and seems to be the most natural sense in this place, it is plain, that as the whole tenor of the prophet's discourse seems to denote an event future, and far distant, it may not improperly relate to the continuation of God's punishment upon the tribes of Israel and Judah, for their great and manifold provocations. 4 'Now the punishment of Israel for their iniquities may be said to commence at the taking of Samaria, in the reign of Hoshea; as that of Judah did, at the taking of Jerusalem, in the reign of Zedekiah. If then we reckon from the destruction of Jerusalem to the time when Cyaxares II. (whom the Scripture calls Darius the Median,') became king of Babylon, we shall find it about forty years; and as he was a known favourer of the Jews, and might therefore give them leave to return home, we may be allowed to infer, that here the term of their punishment did expire. And, in like manner, if we reckon from Salmaneser's taking Samaria to the last victory which Alexander the Great obtained over Darius Codomannus, whereby he became sole monarch of all Asia, we shall find it to be much about three hundred and ninety years: and as his kindness to the Jews was very remarkable, we may here date the restoration of their liberty, and consequently their release from the punishment which God inflicted on them for their sins. Thus, accordingly as we take the sense of the words in the prophet, the history which is alluded to puts on a different aspect, and relates to a different period: but proceed we now to the profane history itself. which, during this period of time, are supposed to have happened in the world. "In the thirty-fifth year of the reign of Uzziah king of Judah, and while there was an interregnum in the kingdom of Israel, the Olympic games were instituted in Greece. The use and design of them was to train up the youth in active and warlike exercises, that, if occasion required, they might be capable of doing their country service in the field; and it was not from the mountain Olympus, in Thessaly, but from the city Olympia, (since called Pisa, near Elis, a city in Peloponnesus, where they were celebrated in the adjacent plains, near the river Alpheus), that they took their names. Here was the splendid temple of Jupiter, which had vast treasures belonging to it, by reason of the oracles which were there given out, and these games which were there celebrated in honour of that deity; and here was likewise that famous statue of Jupiter, made by Phidias, which was accounted one of the wonders of the world, and from which he obtained the name of Jupiter Olympius. It was about four hundred and forty years before this time, that these games and exercises were at first instituted by one Hercules; not the son of Jupiter and Alcmena, so much celebrated by the Greek and Latin poets, but one of the priests of Cybele called by that name, who came into Greece from Ida, a mountain in Phrygia, (whence he and his companions were called Idæi, Dactyli, and Corybantes,) and brought in many superstitious rites with them. After the death of this 5 Bedford's Scripture Chronology, b. vi. c. 2. b This statue of Jupiter is described by Pausanias, in the folivory, with a crown on his head, which seems to be made of olive lowing manner:-"He is made sitting on a throne of gold and branches. In his right hand he holds an image of victory, made of ivory likewise, that has on its head-dress a crown of massy gold; and in his left a sceptre, made of all kinds of metals mixed together, with an eagle on the top of it. His shoes and stockings are all of gold, and the rest of the drapery is of the same metal, adorned with figures of various animals, and a great number of flower-de-luces. His throne is embellished with ivory, ebony, gold, precious stones, and a multitude of embossed figures. At the four feet, or pedestals of the throne, are four victories, and two others at the feet of the statue. At the two feet, on the foreside of the throne, on one hand, are the figures of sphinxes, who are carrying off some Theban youths; and on the other side, are represented the figures of the children of Niobe, whom Apollo the throne is represented Theseus, and the rest of the heroes who and Diana shot to death with their arrows. Between the feet of accompanied Hercules to the war against the Amazons, together with several Athlete of diverse kinds; and the place is all around adorned with pictures, representing the labours of Hercules, graven the Graces, and on the other the Hours, because, according jects. On the upper part of the throne, on the one side, are ento the poets, both these were the daughters of Jupiter. On the footstool of the statue are golden lions, and a representation of the combat of Theseus with the Amazons; and on a basis thereof into his chariot, of Jupiter and Juno, Mercury, Vesta, and are innumerable golden figures, such as that of the sun going Venus, who has Cupid standing by her; of Apollo, Diana, Minerva, Hercules, Amphitrite, Neptune, and the Moon, which is here represented sitting upon a horse." This is the substance of what Pausanias says of this famous statue; but notwithstanding that its workmanship was the wonder of all the ancients, and the curiosity of seeing it might increase the number of those who came to the Olympic games, yet Strabo finds great fault with it for want of a due proportion, because it was of such a prodigious bigness, that if it had stood upright, it must have made a hole in the roof of the temple.-Bedford's Scripture Chronology, b. vi. c. 2. in the notes. What dealings and intercourse, in the space of these last four hundred years, a namely, from the building of Solomon's temple to the captivity of Babylon, the Jew-together with several others of the most renowned historical subish people had with the Philistines, the Ammonites, Moabites, Phoenicians, Syrians, and other neighbouring nations; and what relation and dependence they had on the great and powerful kingdoms of Assyria, Babylon, and Egypt, has, in some measure, been observed in the course of this history. What we are farther concerned to do, is to take notice of some more remarkable events, A. M. 3394. A. C. 610; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 4825. A. C. 586. 1 KINGS viii. TO THE END OF 2 CHRON. Hercules, these games were discontinued for many of such transactions as they related. Varro, the most years, till, by advice from the oracle of Apollo, Iphitus learned person among the Romans, both for history and established them again; even in the lifetime of Lycurgus, antiquity, reckon three sorts of times. The first fron who is nowhere said to have opposed them; a and so the beginning of mankind to the first flood, which he they continued until the time of Constantine the Great, calls uncertain, because no account is given of it by any who, upon his profession of the Christian faith, first heathen writer. The second, from the flood to the first slighted the ludi seculares, and afterwards all other Olympiad, which he calls fabulous, because many strange games, as monuments of pagan superstition; so that stories are reported of the gods and demigods in those falling by degrees into disesteem, in the time of Theo- times, but without any method or order. The third, from dosius the Great, if not before, they were utterly unfre- the first Olympiad to his time, which he calls historical, quented, and dwindled into nothing. because thenceforward all transactions were laid in their proper places; but before the institution of this method of computation, "every thing was confused in the Grecian history," as Eusebius tells us, “and no one thing written with any tolerable exactness." These games were used to be performed at the end of every four years, and so every four years made an Olympiad, and lasted for five days; when the youth of Greece contended for mastery in five sorts of exercises, one for each day, namely, the cæstus, or whirlbat, the quoit, leaping, wrestling, and racing, either on foot or horseback, or in chariots; all which exercises were thought so honourable, that even kings themselves did not disdain to become competitors for the victory; and accordingly we find Pindar, the most celebrated poet in those days, addressing his first Olympic to Hiero king of Syracuse, for having won the prize in one of the horse-races. The prize, however, was not great; it was no more than a garland of palm or olive: but the victor was treated with such tokens of respect and esteem, and was attended by the people with such loud acclamations, while he rode into the city in a coach through a breach in the wall, which, upon this occasion, was made for his more pompous entrance; and while he was sure to have the best of poets to celebrate his praise, and rank him even among the gods, that to come off conqueror, and be crowned in this place, was thought an honour not inferior to that of a triumph in Rome; and this the rather, because the inhabitants of Elis, who were the presidents of these games, were so remarkably impartial in giving sentence according to merit, that whoever was crowned by their order and determination was always thought justly to deserve it. 1 Thus, it appears, that the original use of these Olympic games was to encourage activity of body; but in process of time, they came to be employed to a quite different purpose, even to fix the chronology of the his tory of the Greeks, among whom it grew a custom to reckon by Olympiads; for before that custom prevailed, their historians were vastly negligent in fixing the date 1 Bedford's Scripture Chronology, b. vi. c. 2. a Dr Hales gives the following account of the Olympiads, which is probably correct, and is certainly more perspicuous than that in the text. These celebrated games were originally instituted in honour of Jupiter Olympius, by the Phrygian Pelops, who settled in the Grecian peninsula, called from him Peleponnesus about B. C. 1350. They were repeated by the Theban Hercules, about B. C. 1325, and, after a long interruption, restored in part by Iphitus king of Elis, and celebrated at Olympia, on the banks of the river Alpheus, B. C. 884, according to the most probable account. However, the vulgar era of the Olympiads did not commence till 108 years after, July 19. B. C. 776.Hales' Analysis, vol. i. p. 135, second edition.-Ed. b It is to be observed, however, that it was not from the first Olympiad, that they began their computation, but from the 27th, when Choræbus, a native of Elis, was victor, because there was no register kept of the preceding Olympiads; and therefore the commencement of this era was an hundred and eight years after the establishment of the games which occasioned it.-Calmet's Dictionary under the word Olympiad. с In the eleventh year of Jotham, king of Judah, which was the twelfth of Pekah king of Israel, another famous era commenced, and was in use throughout all the empire, upon the building of the city of Rome, the history of which is as follows. 4 After the destruction of Troy, Æneas landing in Italy, was at first opposed by Latinus, king of the Latins, or aborigines; but being overcome in battle by the Trojans, Latinus made peace with their leader, and permitted him and his men, to live independent in his kingdom. Enraged at this treatment, Turnus king of the Rutuli, fomented a fresh war against Æneas; but in the conclusion, he was slain in single combat by the Trojan chief, and his mistress Lavinia, who was the occasion of all this contention, was, by her father Latinus, given to the conqueror for a wife. Æneas, it must be observed, had another son by a former wife, named Creusa, who was lost in the siege of Troy; and after his death, his relict Lavinia, being great with child, and fearing the power of Ascanius, for that was his name, fled into the woods, and was there delivered of a son, who, for that reason, was called Sylvius, and because he was born after his father's funeral, was likewise called Posthumus. It was not long, however, before the people began to express their resentment of this hard usage of Lavinia, so that Ascanius was obliged to recall her; and to avoid all occasions of disagreement for the future, he left to her and her son Sylvius, the city of Lavinia, which Eneas had built, and called after her name, whilst himself removed to Alba Longa, a city of his own erecting and where he lived for the remainder of his days, highly delighted with the situation of the place. After the death of Ascanius, there happened a contention between this Sylvius the son of Æneas, and lulus * Africanus, and Euseb. Præp. Evan. b. x. c. 10. 3 Justin Martyr's Exhortation to the Greeks. c of the time when this city was built, there are two accounts, the Varronian and the Capitolian. The Varronian places it in the year before, but the Capitolian in this year, and yet they nay both be easily reconciled; for as it was customary in those times, when they began to build a city, to go round it with a plough, and make a furrow where the walls were to be built, but leave a void space for the gates; the year before they might thus mark out the city, dig the foundation of the walls, and provide stones, timber, and other materials, and this year lay the foundation; so that the computation might easily begin from either year, though the Capitolian is the general account.-Bedford's Scrip ture Chronology, b. vi. c. 2. [Dr Hales fixes the date of the building of Rome as B. C. 753; which makes the fourth year of Jotham. See table at the end of this section.]-ED. |