reckoning by Years; and in the next
Olympiad _Timaeus Siculus_ improved it: for he wrote a History in Several
books, down to his own times, according to the Olympiads; comparing the
_Ephori_, the Kings of _Sparta_, the Archons of _Athens_, and the
Priestesses of _Argos_ with the Olympic Victors, so as to make the
Olympiads, and the Genealogies and Successions of Kings and Priestesses,
and the Poetical Histories suit with one another, according to the best of
his judgment: and where he left off, _Polybius_ began, and carried on the
History. _Eratosthenes_ wrote above an hundred years after the death of
_Alexander_ the great: He was followed by _Apollodorus_; and these two have
been followed ever since by Chronologers.

But how uncertain their Chronology is, and how doubtful it was reputed by
the _Greeks_ of those times, may be understood by these passages of
_Plutarch_. _Some reckon _Lycurgus__, saith he, [16] _contemporary to
_Iphitus_, and to have been his companion in ordering the Olympic
festivals, amongst whom was _Aristotle_ the Philosopher; arguing from the
Olympic Disc, which had the name of _Lycurgus_ upon it. Others supputing
the times by the Kings of _Lacedaemon_, as _Eratosthenes_ and _Apollodorus_,
affirm that he was not a few years older than the first Olympiad._ He began
to flourish in the 17th or 18th Olympiad, and at length _Aristotle_ made
him as old as the first Olympiad; and so did _Epaminondas_, as he is cited
by _AElian_ and _Plutarch_: and then _Eratosthenes_, _Apollodorus_, and
their followers, made him above an hundred years older.

And in another place _Plutarch_ [17] tells us: _The Congress of _Solon_
with _Croesus_, some think they can confute by Chronology. But a History so
illustrious, and verified by so many witnesses, and which is more, so
agreeable to the manners of _Solon_, and worthy of the greatness of his
mind, and of his wisdom, I cannot persuade my self to reject because of
some Chronological Canons, as they call them, which hundreds of authors
correcting, have not yet been able to constitute any thing certain, in
which they could agree amongst themselves, about repugnancies._

As for the Chronology of the _Latines_, that is still more uncertain.
_Plutarch_ [18] represents great uncertainties in the Originals of _Rome_,
and so doth _Servius_ [19]. The old Records of the _Latines_ were burnt
[20] by the _Gauls_, an hundred and twenty years after the Regifuge, and
sixty-four years b