63 



Chron. p. 477, has eruditely collected many things pertain- 

 ing to Petosiris, and Necepso king of Egypt, from the most 

 ancient writers on judicial astrology. We likewise learn 

 from Fabricius, that Necepso, to whom Petosiris wrote, as 

 being coeval with him, is believed to have flourished about 

 the year 800 of the Attic aera, i. e. about the beginning of 

 the Olympiads. He is praised by Pliny, by Galen, ix. p. 2. 

 De Facultat. Simplicium Medicament., and from him by 

 Aetius. 



( b ) Page 56. Proclus in Tim. lib. iv. p. 277, informs us, 

 that the Chaldeans had observations of the stars, which 

 embraced whole mundane periods. What Proclus likewise 

 asserts of the Chaldeans is confirmed by Cicero in his first 

 book on Divination, who says that they had records of 

 the stars for the space of 370,000 years; and by Diodorus 

 Siculus, Bibl. lib. xi. p. 113, who says, that their observa- 

 tions comprehended the space of 473,000 years. 



Plato, in the Timaeus, speaking of this greater apocata- 

 stasis, says : "At the same time, however, it is no less pos- 

 sible to conceive, that the perfect number of time will then 

 accomplish a perfect year, when the celerities of all the 

 eight periods being terminated with reference to each other, 

 shall have a summit, as they are measured by the circle, of 

 that which subsists according to the same and the similar 

 [i.e. according to the sphere of the fixed stars]." 



On this passage, Proclus, in his Commentary, observes as 

 follows : " The whole mundane time measures the one life 

 of the universe, according to which all the celerities are ter- 

 minated of the celestial and sublunary circles. For in these 

 also there are periods, which have for the summit of their 

 apocatastasis the lation of the circle of the same [i. e. of the 

 sphere of the fixed stars]. For they are referred to this as 

 to their principle, because it is the most simple of all, since 



