Astronomical and Nautical Collections, 451 



Egyptian year - '• -• -'' 



of Nabonassar. 



happened in two snccessive years of any system of chronology. 

 But it is much less intelligible, that the second eclipse should 

 be referred to the latter rather than the former of the Calippic 

 years, which must be supposed to have begun about 94<* after 

 the vernal equinox of — 199, while the eclipse happened a few 

 days before the equinox ; though certainly in the same Egyp- 

 tian year. There cannot well be an error in the manuscripts ; 

 because the years are expressly called the same. 



552, Mechir (VI) 18. The date of the Pillar of Rosetta. The 

 476th of Nabonassar being the 13th of Philadelphus, the 38th, 

 or last of this prince must have been the 501st N. the 25th of 

 Evergetes the 52t)th ; the 17th of Philopator the 543d, and 

 the 9th of Epiphanes the 552d. © - 195y+ 4.2^. 



The same inscription bears the date of the 4th of Xanthicus, 

 which was probably the 151st of the Macedonian year, and the 

 beginning of this year was about 154 days before the vernal 

 equinox : while in 512, that is 40 years before, it had begun 

 158 days before the equinox : the difference amounting but to 

 4 days, which is probably less than the error that would attend 

 any other date that could be substituted : and Mr. St. Martin's 

 attempt to prove, that the year of the young king began with 

 the 15th of his father, appears to be completely unsuccessful. 

 Dr. Young seems to have been too hasty in allowing the opi- 

 nion of this ingenious antiquary to influence his dates of the 

 reigns of the Ptolemies in this particular. (Discoveries, p. 143.) 



The perfect agreement of the Macedonian year, at least as 

 observed by the ** Chaldeans," in 504 and 512 of Nabonassar, 

 with the true tropical year, leads us at once to suppose, that 

 they must have retained the very ancient mode of intercalation 

 which consisted in inserting three months in each" octaeterid:" 

 and the example of the year 519, when the Macedonian year 

 began 15 days earlier than it must have done in 520, shews 

 that there must have been an intercalary month at the end of 

 519, though there seem to be but 26 days left for it. The 

 precise order of the intercalations has not been fully explained 

 in any good authority : and it is certain that it must have 

 varied greatly among the different nations of the Greeks : for 

 we have the direct testimony of several historians, and parti- 

 cularly of a letter of Philip, quoted by Demosthenes, to prove 

 that the Macedonian names of the months were employed with 

 considerable variations in Macedon and at Corinth. But the 

 best account of these periods is found in Geminus, the author 

 of the Introduction to the Phenomena. (Halma's Ptolemy, 

 vol. 3, p. 44.) 



" The first chronological period employed by the ancients 

 was the Octagterid, which contains 99 months, 3 of them in- 



