126 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book 11. 



thing certain about their hiftory in antient times, except from Ho- 

 mer, who mentions only occafionally any thing preceding the Tro- 

 jan war. He fays nothing of the number of years that any of them 

 had lived, but only fpeaks of fome of them as being old and others 

 young. Neftor was the oldeft of them, who, he fays, was then li- 

 ving with the third generation. This Ovid underftands to meanj 

 that he was in his third century ; and I don't know any reafon or 

 authority that I can oppofe to his teftimony. And there is a Lady, 

 of whom Homer makes frequent and honourable mention, both in 

 the Iliad and Odyffey^ I mean Helen, who was eighty years of 

 age, according to Eufebius's chronology, (which is the chronology 

 generally received, and to which I fee no good objedlion), when 

 file was carried away by Paris ; and, about twenty years after that, 

 flie entertained Telemachus in Sparta, and was ftill a Goddefs a- 



From what Eloraer fays of Neftor's age, It is evident that the 

 Greeks then, ab well as in after times, computed by generations. A 

 generation, according to Hefiod, among the antient Greeks, as well 

 as among the antient Hebrews, was a hundred years ; and it is upon 

 this hypothefis, as I believe, that Ovid fuppofes Neftor to have been 

 in his third century, at the time of the Trojan war. But, if I 

 Ihould admit them to be fomething lefs, I cannot perfuade myfelf 

 but that they were much longer than In after times. And I am con- 

 vinced that Herodotus errs. In computing the antient generations 

 at no more than three to the hundred years. And it may be 

 obferved, that his computation of the years of generations agrees 

 very ill with the account he gives us of the reigns of particu- 

 lar kings both of Lydia and Egypt, which we cannot fuppofe to 



be 



■ Am '^vcciKuv. 



Odyff. A. Vcrf. 305. 



