Isaac Newton

The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended


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and the desert above it were anciently called Ammonia. He was the first that built long and tall ships with sails, and had a fleet of such ships on the Red Sea, and another on the Mediterranean at Irasa in Libya. 'Till then they used small and round vessels of burden, invented on the Red Sea, and kept within sight of the shore. For enabling them to cross the seas without seeing the shore, the Egyptians began in his days to observe the Stars: and from this beginning Astronomy and Sailing had their rise. Hitherto the Lunisolar year had been in use: but this year being of an uncertain length, and so, unfit for Astronomy, in his days and in the days of his sons and grandsons, by observing the Heliacal Risings and Setting of the Stars, they found the length of the Solar year, and made it consist of five days more than the twelve calendar months of the old Lunisolar year. Creusa the daughter of Erechtheus marries Xuthus the son of Hellen. Erechtheus having first celebrated the Panathenæa joins horses to a chariot. Ægina, the daughter of Asopus, and mother of Æacus, born.

      1030. Ceres a woman of Sicily, in seeking her daughter who was stolen, comes into Attica, and there teaches the Greeks to sow corn; for which Benefaction she was Deified after death. She first taught the Art to Triptolemus the young son of Celeus King of Eleusis.

      1028. Oenotrus the youngest son of Lycaon, the Janus of the Latines, led the first Colony of Greeks into Italy, and there taught them to build houses. Perseus born.

      1020. Arcas, the son of Callisto and grandson of Lycaon, and Eumelus the first King of Achaia, receive bread-corn from Triptolemus.

      1019. Solomon Reigns, and marries the daughter of Ammon, and by means of this affinity is supplied with horses from Egypt; and his merchants also bring horses from thence for all the Kings of the Hittites and Syrians: for horses came originally from Libya; and thence Neptune was called Equestris. Tantalus King of Phrygia steals Ganimede the son of Tros King of Troas.

      1017. Solomon by the assistance of the Tyrians and Aradians, who had mariners among them acquainted with the Red Sea, sets out a fleet upon that sea. Those assistants build new cities in the Persian Gulph, called Tyre and Aradus.

      1015. The Temple of Solomon is founded. Minos Reigns in Crete expelling his father Asterius, who flees into Italy, and becomes the Saturn of the Latines. Ammon takes Gezer from the Canaanites, and gives it to his daughter, Solomon's wife.

      1014. Ammon places Cepheus at Joppa.

      1010. Sesac in the Reign of his father Ammon invades Arabia Fœlix, and sets up pillars at the mouth of the Red Sea. Apis, Epaphus or Epopeus, the son of Phroroneus, and Nycteus King of Bœotia, slain. Lycus inherits the Kingdom of his brother Nycteus. Ætolus the son of Endymion flies into the Country of the Curetes in Achaia, and calls it Ætolia; and of Pronoe the daughter of Phorbas begets Pleuron and Calydon, who built cities in Ætolia called by their own names. Antiopa the daughter of Nycteus is sent home to Lycus by Lamedon the successor of Apis, and in the way brings forth Amphion and Zethus.

      1008. Sesac, in the Reign of his father Ammon, invades Afric and Spain, and sets up pillars in all his conquests, and particularly at the mouth of the Mediterranean, and returns home by the coast of Gaul and Italy.

      1007. Ceres being dead Eumolpus institutes her Mysteries in Eleusine. The Mysteries of Rhea are instituted in Phrygia, in the city Cybele. About this time Temples begin to be built in Greece. Hyagnis the Phrygian invents the pipe. After the example of the common-council of the five Lords of the Philistims, the Greeks set up the Amphictyonic Council, first at Thermopylæ, by the influence of Amphictyon the son of Deucalion; and a few years after at Delphi by the influence of Acrisius. Among the cites, whose deputies met at Thermopylæ, I do not find Athens, and therefore doubt whether Amphictyon was King of that city. If he was the son of Deucalion and brother of Hellen, he and Cranaus might Reign together in several parts of Attica. But I meet with a later Amphictyon who entertained the great Bacchus. This Council worshipped Ceres, and therefore was instituted after her death.

      1006. Minos prepares a fleet, clears the Greek seas of Pyrates, and sends Colonies to the Islands of the Greeks, some of which were not inhabited before. Cecrops II. Reigns in Attica. Caucon teaches the Mysteries of Ceres in Messene.

      1005. Andromeda carried away from Joppa by Perseus. Pandion the brother of Cecrops II. Reigns in Attica. Car, the son of Phoroneus, builds a Temple to Ceres.

      1002. Sesac Reigns in Egypt and adorns Thebes, dedicating it to his father Ammon by the name of No-Ammon or Ammon-No, that is the people or city of Ammon: whence the Greeks called it Diospolis, the city of Jupiter. Sesac also erected Temples and Oracles to his father in Thebes, Ammonia, and Ethiopia, and thereby caused his father to be worshipped as a God in those countries, and I think also in Arabia Fœlix: and this was the original of the worship of Jupiter Ammon, and the first mention of Oracles that I meet with in Prophane History. War between Pandion and Labdacus the grandson of Cadmus.

      994. Ægeus Reigns in Attica.

      993. Pelops the son of Tantalus comes into Peloponnesus, marries Hippodamia the granddaughter of Acrisius, takes Ætolia from Ætolus the son of Endymion, and by his riches grows potent.

      990. Amphion and Zethus slay Lycus, put Laius the son of Labdacus to flight, and Reign in Thebes, and wall the city about.

      989. Dædalus and his nephew Talus invent the saw, the turning-lath, the wimble, the chip-ax, and other instruments of Carpenters and Joyners, and thereby give a beginning to those Arts in Europe. Dædalus also invented the making of Statues with their feet asunder, as if they walked.

      988. Minos makes war upon the Athenians, for killing his son Androgeus. Æacus flourishes.

      987. Dædalus kills his nephew Talus, and flies to Minos. A Priestess of Jupiter Ammon, being brought by Phœnician merchants into Greece, sets up the Oracle of Jupiter at Dodona. This gives a beginning to Oracles in Greece: and by their dictates, the Worship of the Dead is every where introduced.

      983. Sisyphus, the son of Æolus and grandson of Hellen, Reigns in Corinth, and some say that he built that city.

      980. Laius recovers the Kingdom of Thebes. Athamas, the brother of Sisyphus and father of Phrixus and Helle, marries Ino the daughter of Cadmus.

      979. Rehoboam Reigns. Thoas is sent from Crete to Lemnos, Reigns there in the city Hephœstia, and works in copper and iron.

      978. Alcmena born of Electryo the son of Perseus and Andromeda, and of Lysidice the daughter of Pelops.

      974. Sesac spoils the Temple, and invades Syria and Persia, setting up pillars in many places. Jeroboam, becoming subject to Sesac, sets up the worship of the Egyptian Gods in Israel.

      971. Sesac invades India, and returns with triumph the next year but one: whence Trieterica Bacchi. He sets up pillars on two mountains at the mouth of the river Ganges.

      968.