Miscellanies 1.21.117–1.21.143

From the Trojan War to the birth of Homer, according to Philochorus, is a hundred and eighty years, later than the Ionian colonization. Aristarchus, in his Commentaries on Archilochus, says he is placed at the time of the Ionian colonization, which took place a hundred and forty years after the Trojan War. Apollodorus says a hundred years after the Ionian colonization, when Agesilaus son of Doryssus was king of the Spartans, so that Lycurgus the lawgiver, while still young, overlapped with him. Euthymenes in his Chronicles says that he flourished with Hesiod and was born in Chios in the time of Acastus, about two hundred years after the capture of Ilium. Archemachus too, in the third book of his Euboean History, is of this opinion; so that he and Hesiod are younger than the prophet Elisha. And if anyone wishes to follow Crates the grammarian and say that Homer lived about the return of the Heraclidae, eighty years after the capture of Ilium, he will again be found later than Solomon, in whose time Menelaus came to Phoenicia, as has been said. Eratosthenes puts Homer's age after the hundredth year from the capture of Ilium. Theopompus, in the forty-third book of his Philippica, relates that Homer lived five hundred years after those who fought against Ilium. Euphorion, in his work on the Aleuadae, puts him in the time of Gyges, who began to reign from the eighteenth Olympiad, and who, he says, was the first to be called “tyrant.” Sosibius the Spartan, in his Chronological Record, puts Homer in the eighth year of the reign of Charillus son of Polydectes. Charillus reigned sixty-four years, and after him his son Nicander thirty-nine; in the thirty-fourth year of his reign, he says, the first Olympiad was established; so that Homer lived about ninety years before the institution of the Olympic games.

After Joash his son Amaziah succeeded to the kingdom for thirty-nine years; Uzziah his son likewise succeeded him for fifty-two years, and he died a leper. In his time Amos prophesied, and Isaiah his son, and Hosea son of Beeri, and Jonah son of Amittai of Gath-hepher, who preached to the Ninevites and came out of the whale. Then Jotham son of Uzziah reigned sixteen years; in his time Isaiah still prophesied, and Hosea, and Micah the Morasthite, and Joel son of Bathuel.

His son Ahaz succeeded him for sixteen years; in the fifteenth year of his reign Israel was carried away to Babylon, and Shalmaneser king of the Assyrians transported those in Samaria to the Medes and Babylon. Hoshea again succeeded Ahaz for eight years, then Hezekiah for twenty-nine years. To him, because of his holiness, when he was at the end of his life, God granted through Isaiah to live another fifteen years, by the sun's going back. Isaiah, Hosea, and Micah continued prophesying until this time. These are said to have lived after the age of Lycurgus, the lawgiver of the Spartans; for Dieuchidas, in the fourth book of his Megarian History, puts the prime of Lycurgus about the two hundred and ninetieth year after the capture of Ilium; while Isaiah is shown still prophesying in the three hundredth year from the reign of Solomon, in whose time Menelaus was shown to have come to Phoenicia, and with him Micah, Hosea, and Joel son of Bathuel.

After Hezekiah his son Manasseh reigned fifty-five years, then his son Amon two years, after whom Josiah his son, most faithful to the law, thirty-one years. He laid the carcasses of men on the carcasses of the idols, as is written in Leviticus. In the eighteenth year of his reign the Passover was held, which had not been celebrated since … Samuel, nor in the time between. Then too Hilkiah the priest, the father of Jeremiah the prophet, finding the book of the law laid up in the temple, read it and died. In his time Huldah, Zephaniah, and Jeremiah prophesied. In Jeremiah's time Hananiah was a false prophet. This Josiah, disobeying Jeremiah the prophet, was killed by Neco, king of Egypt, at the river Euphrates, having gone out to meet him as he marched against the Assyrians.

Jeconiah, also called Jehoahaz, his son, succeeded Josiah for three months and ten days. Neco king of Egypt bound him and carried him to Egypt, setting up in his place as king his brother Jehoiakim, under tribute of the land, for eleven years. After him his namesake Jehoiakim reigned three months, then Zedekiah eleven years. And Jeremiah continued prophesying until his time, and Buzi and Uriah son of Shemaiah and Habakkuk prophesied with him; and the history of the Hebrew kings ends. From the birth of Moses to this deportation, then, there are, as some say, nine hundred and seventy-two years, but according to the exact chronology, a thousand and eighty-five years, six months, and ten days; and from the reign of David to the captivity by the Chaldeans, four hundred and fifty-two years and six months, but as our exact reckoning of the times gathers, four hundred and eighty-two years, six months, and ten days.

In the twelfth year of Zedekiah's reign, seventy years before the Persian supremacy, Nebuchadnezzar marched against the Phoenicians and Jews, as Berossus says in his Chaldean History. Juba, writing about the Assyrians, admits that he took his history from Berossus, testifying to the man's truthfulness. Nebuchadnezzar, then, blinded Zedekiah and carried him to Babylon, and deported all the people (and the captivity lasted seventy years), except a few who fled to Egypt. In Zedekiah's time Jeremiah and Habakkuk still prophesied; in the fifth year of his reign Ezekiel prophesied in Babylon; after him Nahum the prophet, then Daniel; and again after him Haggai and Zechariah prophesied in the time of Darius the First, for two years; and after him the Angel among the Twelve.

After Haggai and Zechariah, Nehemiah, the chief cupbearer of Artaxerxes, son of Achel (Hachaliah) the Israelite, built the city of Jerusalem and restored the temple. In this captivity lived Esther and Mordecai, whose book is current, as is that of the Maccabees. In this captivity Mishael, Hananiah, and Azariah, refusing to worship the image, were thrown into the furnace of fire and were saved by the appearance of an angel. Then Daniel, cast into the lions' den because of the dragon, was fed by Habakkuk by God's providence and was rescued on the seventh day. Here too the sign of Jonah took place; and Tobias, through the angel Raphael, took Sarah as wife, the demon having killed her first seven suitors; and after the marriage of Tobias his father Tobit recovered his sight.

Here Zerubbabel, having conquered his rivals in wisdom, obtained from Darius the renewal of Jerusalem as his reward, and returned with Ezra to his ancestral land; through him came the redemption of the people, the recognition and renewal of the inspired oracles, the celebration of the saving Passover, and the dissolution of foreign marriages. Cyrus had already proclaimed the restoration of the Hebrews; and when the promise was fulfilled under Darius, the feast of dedication was held, as also for the tabernacle. And the whole comes, with the years of captivity, up to the restoration of the people, from the birth of Moses, to one thousand one hundred and fifty-five years, six months, and ten days; from the reign of David, as some say, five hundred and fifty-two years, or, more exactly, five hundred and seventy-two years, six months, and ten days.

So from the captivity to Babylon, which took place in the time of Jeremiah the prophet, what was said by Daniel the prophet was fulfilled, as follows: “Seventy weeks have been decreed for your people and for the holy city, to finish sin, to seal up sins, to wipe out iniquities, to make atonement, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophet, and to anoint a holy of holies. And you will know and understand: from the going out of the word to answer and to build Jerusalem until an anointed leader, seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; and it will return and the street and wall will be built, and the times will be emptied. And after the sixty-two weeks the anointing will be destroyed, and there is no judgment for him. And he will destroy the city and the sanctuary with the leader who is coming; they will be cut off in a flood; and until the end of the war cut short with desolations. And one week will confirm a covenant with many; and in half of the week my sacrifice and libation will be taken away; and on the temple an abomination of desolations, and until the end of the time an end will be given to the desolation. And half of the week will stop the incense of sacrifice, and the wing of destruction until the end, and the order of destruction with haste.”

That the temple was built in seven weeks is clear; for it is written in Ezra. And so an anointed one became king of the Jews, their leader, when the seven weeks were completed in Jerusalem; and in the sixty-two weeks all Judea was at peace and was without wars; and our Lord Christ, the Holy of holies, having come and fulfilled the vision and the prophet, was anointed in his flesh by the Spirit of his Father within these sixty-two weeks, as the prophet said. And in the one week, half of which Nero held as king, he set up the abomination in the holy city of Jerusalem; and in the half of the week he was killed, and Otho, Galba, and Vitellius too; and Vespasian prevailed, destroyed Jerusalem, and made the sanctuary desolate. And that this is so is clear to anyone who can understand, according to what the prophet has said.

When the eleventh year was completed, at the beginning of the following one, in the reign of Jehoiakim, the captivity to Babylon took place under King Nebuchadnezzar, in the seventh year of his reign over the Assyrians, in the second year of Vaphres' reign over the Egyptians, and in the first year of the forty-eighth Olympiad, when Philip was archon at Athens; and the captivity lasted seventy years, ending in the second year of Darius son of Hystaspes, who had become king of the Persians, Assyrians, and Egyptians. In his time, as I said before, Haggai, Zechariah, and the Angel of the Twelve prophesied, and the high priest was Jeshua son of Jozadak. And in the second year of the reign of Darius, who, Herodotus says, overthrew the rule of the Magi, Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel was sent to raise up and adorn the temple in Jerusalem.

The dates of the Persians are reckoned thus: Cyrus thirty years, Cambyses nineteen, Darius forty-six, Xerxes twenty-six, Artaxerxes forty-one, Darius eight, Artaxerxes forty-two, Ochus eight, Arses three. The Persian years together come to two hundred and thirty-five. When Alexander the Macedonian had overthrown this Darius, he began to reign, according to the years set out. Likewise the dates of the Macedonian kings are brought down thus: Alexander eighteen years, Ptolemy son of Lagus forty years, Ptolemy Philadelphus twenty-seven years, then Euergetes twenty-five years, then Philopator seventeen years, after whom Epiphanes twenty-four years; Philometor succeeded him and reigned thirty-five years, after whom Physcon twenty-nine years, then Lathyrus thirty-six years, then the one surnamed Dionysus twenty-nine years.

Last of all Cleopatra reigned twenty-two years, after whom the reign of Cleopatra's children lasted eighteen days. The dates of the Macedonian kings together come to three hundred and twelve years and eighteen days. So those who prophesied under Darius son of Hystaspes in the second year of his reign, Haggai, Zechariah, and the Angel of the Twelve, prophesying in the first year of the forty-eighth Olympiad, are shown to be older than Pythagoras, who is placed in the sixty-second Olympiad, and than Thales, the oldest of the wise men among the Greeks, who lived about the fiftieth Olympiad. And the wise men listed with Thales were contemporary with him, as Andron says in his Tripod. Heraclitus, being later than Pythagoras, mentions him in his writing.

Hence without dispute the first Olympiad would be earlier than the age of the prophets just named together with the so-called Seven Wise Men; and it is shown to be later than the Trojan War by four hundred and seven years. It is easy, then, to see that Solomon, who lived in the time of Menelaus (who was at the time of the Trojan War), was many years older than the wise men among the Greeks. And by how many years Moses precedes him has been shown by us above. Alexander, surnamed Polyhistor, in his work on the Jews recorded certain letters of Solomon to Vaphres, king of Egypt, and to the king of the Tyrians in Phoenicia, and theirs to Solomon; according to them Vaphres sent him eighty thousand Egyptian men for the building of the temple, and the other the same number with a Tyrian master builder, whose mother was a Jewess of the tribe of David, as is written there, named Hyperon.

Indeed, Onomacritus of Athens, whose are said to be the poems attributed to Orpheus, is found in the time of the rule of the Pisistratids, about the fiftieth Olympiad; Orpheus, who sailed with Heracles, was the teacher of Musaeus; Amphion precedes the Trojan War by two generations; Demodocus and Phemius were famous for playing the cithara after the capture of Ilium (the one among the Phaeacians, the other among the suitors). And they say that the oracles attributed to Musaeus are by Onomacritus, the Crater of Orpheus by Zopyrus of Heraclea, and the Descent to Hades by Prodicus of Samos. Ion of Chios in his Triagmi relates that Pythagoras too attributed some works to Orpheus. Epigenes, in his work on the poetry attributed to Orpheus, says the Descent to Hades and the Sacred Discourse are by Cercops the Pythagorean, and the Robe and the Physics by Brontinus. Some also make Terpander ancient; Hellanicus relates that he lived in the time of Midas, and Phanias, putting Lesches of Lesbos before Terpander, makes Terpander younger than Archilochus, and says Lesches competed with Arctinus and won. Xanthus the Lydian says that Thasos was founded about the eighteenth Olympiad (Dionysius says about the fifteenth), so that it is clear that Archilochus was already known after the twentieth Olympiad. He mentions the destruction of the Magnesians as recent. Simonides is placed in the time of Archilochus, and Callinus not much earlier; for Archilochus mentions the Magnesians as destroyed, Callinus as prospering. Eumelus of Corinth, being older, overlapped with Archias, the founder of Syracuse.

We have been led to say this because they put the poets of the Epic Cycle among the very ancient. Among the Greeks too there are said to have been many oracle-mongers, like the Bacides (one Boeotian, the other Arcadian), who foretold many things to many. By the advice of Amphilytus of Athens Pisistratus strengthened his tyranny, since he showed him the right moment to attack. Let me pass over in silence Cometes the Cretan, Cinyras the Cyprian, Admetus the Thessalian, Aristaeus of Cyrene, Amphiaraus the Athenian, Timoxenus of Corcyra, Demaenetus of Phocaea, Epigenes of Thespiae, Nicias of Carystus, Ariston the Thessalian, Dionysius the Carthaginian, Cleophon of Corinth, and Hippo, daughter of Chiron, and Boeo and Manto, and the multitude of Sibyls: the Samian, the Colophonian, the Cumaean, the Erythraean, Phyto, Taraxandra, the Macedonian, the Thessalian, the Thesprotian; and Calchas and Mopsus, who lived at the time of the Trojan War, Mopsus being older, since he sailed with the Argonauts.

They say that Battus of Cyrene composed the so-called Divination of Mopsus, and Dorotheus, in the first book of his Pandects, relates that Mopsus understood the kingfisher and the crow. The great Pythagoras always devoted himself to foreknowledge, and Abaris the Hyperborean, Aristeas of Proconnesus, Epimenides the Cretan, who came to Sparta, Zoroaster the Mede, Empedocles of Acragas, Phormion the Spartan, and indeed Polyaratus of Thasos and Empedotimus of Syracuse, and besides these especially Socrates of Athens. “For I have,” he says in the Theages, “from childhood, by divine fate, a certain daemonic sign; this is a voice, which, when it comes, stops what I am about to do, but never urges me on.” And Execestus, tyrant of the Phocians, wearing two enchanted rings, perceived the right times for actions by the sound they made against each other; yet he died murdered by treachery, though the sound had warned him, as Aristotle says in his Constitution of the Phocians.

And among the Egyptians there were men who were once men but became gods by human opinion, Hermes of Thebes and Asclepius of Memphis; and further Tiresias and Manto at Thebes, as Euripides says; Helenus, Laocoon, and Oenone, daughter of Cebren, at Ilium; … for Crenus, one of the Heraclidae, is reported a famous seer, and Iamus another in Elis, from whom the Iamidae come; and Polyidus in Argos and in Megara, whom tragedy mentions. Why should I list Telemus, who, being the seer of the Cyclopes, foretold to Polyphemus the wandering of Odysseus; or Onomacritus at Athens; or Amphiaraus, who marched with the Seven against Thebes, said to be a generation older than the capture of Ilium; or Theoclymenus in Cephallenia, or Telmessus in Caria, or Galeus in Sicily? There might be others besides these: Idmon, who sailed with the Argonauts; Phemonoe of Delphi; Mopsus, son of Apollo and Manto, in Pamphylia and Cilicia; Amphilochus, son of Amphiaraus, in Cilicia; Alcmaeon among the Acarnanians; Anius in Delos; and Aristander of Telmessus, who was with Alexander. Philochorus even relates, in the first book of his On Divination, that Orpheus was a seer.

Theopompus, Ephorus, and Timaeus record a seer named Orthagoras, as Pythocles of Samos, in the fourth book of his Italian History, records Gaius Julius Nepos. But these are all “thieves and robbers,” as Scripture says, having foretold most things from observation and probability, like the physiognomists, physicians, and seers; others were moved by demons or disturbed by waters, incense, and a certain kind of air. But among the Hebrews the prophets spoke by the power and inspiration of God. Before the law, Adam prophesied about the woman and the naming of the animals; Noah preached repentance; and Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob plainly revealed not a few things to come and already present. With the law were Moses and Aaron, after whom prophesied Joshua son of Nun, Samuel, Gad, Nathan, Ahijah, Shemaiah, Jehu, Elijah, Micaiah, Obadiah, Elisha, Abdadonai, Amos, Isaiah, Hosea, Jonah, Joel, Jeremiah, Zephaniah, Buzi, Ezekiel, Uriah, Habakkuk, Nahum, Daniel, Mishael, the one who wrote the syllogisms, Haggai, Zechariah, and the Angel among the Twelve.

All the prophets come to thirty-five. Of women (for they too prophesied), Sarah, Rebekah, Miriam, Deborah, and Huldah. Then about the same times John prophesied until the Savior's baptism, and after the birth of Christ, Anna and Simeon; for Zechariah, the father of John, is said in the Gospels to have prophesied even before his son. Let us gather the chronology according to the Greeks from Moses onward. From the birth of Moses to the exodus of the Jews from Egypt, eighty years, and to his death another forty; the exodus took place in the time of Inachus, Moses having left Egypt three hundred and forty-five years before the Sothic period. From the leadership of Moses and Inachus to the flood of Deucalion, I mean the second deluge, and the conflagration of Phaethon, which occurred in the time of Crotopus, … forty generations are counted; and three generations are reckoned in a hundred years. From the flood to the burning of Ida and the discovery of iron and the Idaean Dactyls, seventy-three years, as Thrasyllus says; and from the burning of Ida to the rape of Ganymede, sixty-five years.

From then to the expedition of Perseus, when Glaucus founded the Isthmian games in honor of Melicertes, fifteen years. From the expedition of Perseus to the founding of Ilium, thirty-four years. From then to the sailing of the Argo, sixty-four years. From this to Theseus and the Minotaur, thirty-two years; then to the Seven against Thebes, ten years; to the Olympic contest, which Heracles founded in honor of Pelops, three years; to the expedition of the Amazons against Athens and the rape of Helen by Theseus, nine years. From then to the deification of Heracles, eleven years; then to the rape of Helen by Alexander, four years; then to the capture of Troy, twenty years. From the capture of Troy to the return of Aeneas and the founding of Lavinium, ten years; to the rule of Ascanius, eight years; to the return of the Heraclidae, sixty-one years; and to the Olympiad of Iphitus, three hundred and thirty-eight years.

Eratosthenes records the dates thus: from the capture of Troy to the return of the Heraclidae, eighty years; from then to the founding of Ionia, sixty years; after these, to the guardianship of Lycurgus, a hundred and fifty-nine years; to the year before the first Olympic games, a hundred and eight years; from that Olympiad to the crossing of Xerxes, two hundred and ninety-seven years; from which to the beginning of the Peloponnesian War, forty-eight years; to its end and the defeat of the Athenians, twenty-seven years; to the battle at Leuctra, thirty-four years; after which to the death of Philip, thirty-five years; and after this to the death of Alexander, twelve years. Again, from the first Olympiad some say twenty-four years are reckoned to the founding of Rome; from then to the abolition of the kings, when consuls began, two hundred and forty-three years; and from the abolition of the kings to the death of Alexander, a hundred and eighty-six years.

From then to the victory of Augustus, when Antony killed himself at Alexandria, two hundred and ninety-four years, when Augustus was consul for the fourth time. From that time to the games that Domitian founded at Rome, a hundred and fourteen years; and from the first of those games to the death of Commodus, a hundred and eleven years. There are some who reckon from Cecrops to Alexander the Macedonian one thousand … eight hundred and twenty-eight years; from Demophon one thousand two hundred and fifty; and from the capture of Troy to the return of the Heraclidae a hundred and twenty or a hundred and eighty years. From this to the archonship of Euaenetus, in which they say Alexander crossed into Asia, according to Phanias seven hundred and fifteen years, according to Ephorus seven hundred and thirty-five, according to Timaeus and Clitarchus eight hundred and twenty, according to Eratosthenes seven hundred and seventy-four, and according to Duris, from the capture of Troy to Alexander's crossing into Asia, a thousand years. From then to … Euaenetus, archon at Athens, in whose time Alexander died, eleven years. From then to the reign of Germanicus Claudius Caesar, three hundred and sixty-five years; from which time the years that are reckoned to the death of Commodus are also clear.

After the Greek dates, those of the barbarians must also be given, by the largest intervals. From Adam to the flood are reckoned two thousand one hundred and forty-eight years and four days; from Shem to Abraham, one thousand two hundred and fifty years; from Isaac to the division of the inheritance, six hundred and sixteen years. Then from the judges to Samuel, four hundred and sixty-three years and seven months; and after the judges, of the kingdoms, five hundred and seventy-two years, six months, and ten days. After these times, of the Persian kingdom, two hundred and thirty-five years; then of the Macedonian, to the death of Antony, three hundred and twelve years and eighteen days. After this time the Roman empire to the death of Commodus, two hundred and twenty-two years. Again, from the seventy years' captivity and the people's restoration to their ancestral land to the captivity under Vespasian are reckoned four hundred and ten years; and lastly, from Vespasian to the death of Commodus are found a hundred and twenty-one years, six months, and twenty-four days.

Demetrius, in his work On the Kings in Judea, says that the tribes of Judah, Benjamin, and Levi were not taken captive by Sennacherib, but that from this captivity to the last, which Nebuchadnezzar carried out from Jerusalem, there were a hundred and twenty-eight years and six months; and from the time the ten tribes were taken captive from Samaria to Ptolemy the Fourth, five hundred and seventy-three years and nine months; and from the captivity from Jerusalem, three hundred and thirty-eight years and three months. Philo too recorded the kings of the Jews, differing from Demetrius. Further, Eupolemus, in a similar work, says that all the years from Adam to the fifth year of the reign of Demetrius, when Ptolemy was reigning in Egypt in his twelfth year, come to five thousand one hundred and forty-nine; and from the time when Moses led the Jews out of Egypt to the date just mentioned, two thousand five hundred and eighty years. From this time to the consuls at Rome Gnaeus Domitius and Asinius, a hundred and twenty years are gathered.

Ephorus and many other historians say that there are seventy-five nations and languages, having heard the words of Moses, which say, “All the souls from Jacob who went down into Egypt were seventy-five.” But according to the true account, the generic languages appear to be seventy-two, as our Scriptures hand down; and the many others arise from the combination of two or three or more languages. A dialect is a form of speech showing the peculiar character of a place, or a form of speech showing the peculiar or common character of a nation. The Greeks say that there are five dialects among them, Attic, Ionic, Doric, Aeolic, and fifth the Common; and that the languages of the barbarians, being innumerable, are not called dialects but tongues.

Plato assigns a certain language even to the gods, judging especially from dreams and oracles, and besides from the possessed, who do not utter their own voice or language but that of the demons who have entered them. He thinks that irrational animals too have languages, which those of the same kind understand. At any rate, when an elephant fell into mud and cried out, another that was present and saw what had happened went away and returned not long after, bringing a herd of elephants with it, and saved the one that had fallen. They say too that in Libya a scorpion, if it cannot reach a man to sting him, goes away and comes back with more, and they hang on to one another like a chain and so succeed in their plot; the irrational animals do not use some invisible nod, nor inform one another by gestures, but, I think, by their own language. Some others say that if a fish being drawn up escapes when the line breaks, no fish of the same kind will be found in that place on that same day. The first and generic languages are barbarian, but they have their names by nature, since people admit that prayers spoken in a barbarian tongue are more powerful. And Plato in the Cratylus, wishing to explain the word “fire,” says that the name is barbarian; at any rate he testifies that the Phrygians call it so, changing it a little.