Oration to the Greeks 36

But let it be granted that Homer was not later than the Trojan War; let him be supposed to have lived at the very time of the war, and even to have served in the army with Agamemnon, and, if anyone wishes, to have lived before the invention of letters. For the Moses I spoke of will be shown to be older by very many years than the capture of Troy itself, and far more ancient than the founding of Troy and than Tros and Dardanus. For proof I will use as witnesses Chaldeans, Phoenicians, and Egyptians. And why should I say more? One who undertakes to persuade must give his hearers rather brief accounts of the facts. Berossus, a Babylonian, priest of their god Bel, who lived in the time of Alexander, composed for Antiochus, the third after him, the history of the Chaldeans in three books; and in setting out the history of the kings he tells of one of them named Nebuchadnezzar, who made war on the Phoenicians and the Jews. We know that these events were proclaimed by our prophets; they happened much later than the age of Moses, seventy years before the rule of the Persians. Berossus is a most reliable man; proof of this is Juba, who, writing On the Assyrians, says that he learned the history from Berossus. He has two books On the Assyrians.