Chap. IV. ^ ANTIEiNT METAPHYSICS. 127 



be from conjecture, like his account by generations, but from 

 written evidence t- Now, thoiigli reigns of kings be different 

 from generations, there muft be feme proportion betwixt them ; 

 for, if Kings reign long, they muft live long, efpecially in thofe 

 antient times, when the government was not trailed to kings 

 under age ; and kings commonly do not live longer than other, 

 men, but generally a fliorter time. Now, there is always a pro- 

 portion 



f Herodotus mentions the length of the reigns of only three of the Lydian Kings, 

 Ardys, Sadyattes, and Alyattes. One of thefe, viz. Sadyattes, reigned a fhort 

 time, no more than twelve years, (Lib. i- Cap. 16.); but Ardys reigned forty- 

 nine years, (Ibid.); and Alyattes no lefs th.m fifty-feven years. Of the Egyptian 

 Kings he mentions only the length of the reigns of four, Cheops, Chephren, My- 

 cerinus, and Anyfis. The firft of thefe reigned fifty years, (Lib. ii. Cap. 127.). 

 His fuccefibr, Chephren, and who, it is to be obferved, was his brother, and fo 

 mufl: have been old before he fucceeded, reigned 56 years : Mycerinus, the 

 third I named, was con lemned by the Oracle to die in fix years, and accordingly 

 reigned no longer, (Ibid. Cap. I33-)* The laft, Anyfis, was dethroned by the 

 King of Ethiopia, and fled to the Marfhes, where he lived fifty years, during all 

 ■which time the Ethiopian reigned : After which, he having left the country, Anyfis 

 returned to his kingdom ; but how long after that he reigned, or how Jong before 

 he was expelled, Herodotus does not fay -, (Ibid. cap. 137.) But here we have five 

 Kings, reckoning the Ethiopian King as one, two of whom reigned each fifty years, 

 cnr of them more than fifty, though we cannot tell how much more, and another 

 of them fifty-fix years, and only one of them reigned no more than fix years- 1 am 

 therefore difrof^d to believe that, when Herodotus computes the generations of 

 the Egyptian Kings to be no more than three to the hundred years, (Lib. ii. Cap. 

 142 ) he reckons accojding to the length of generations in his own time, proceed- 

 ing upon the fuppofition that men were no longer-lived in thofe ages than they 

 were in his ; an opinion that, I believe, has been very general in all ages. I will 

 only add on this fubject, that Herodotus does not appear to have formed any fixed 

 opinion about the length of a generation ; for, in computing the generations of 

 Lydian Kings, he aflTigns fomewhat lefs than twenty- three years to a generation, 

 (Lib. i. Cap. 7 ) 



