VOL. XLVIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 441 



before his time. This author dedicates his history to the consul Vinicius, who 

 is placed in the fasti consulares a. v. c. 782, which is a. d. 30. So that, ac- 

 cording to tliis computation, Homer must have flourished about the year before 

 Christ 920. And with this account agrees pretty nearly the Parian marble. 

 Herodotus, according to our present copies of him, places Hesiod and Homer 

 not more than 400 years before his time. Herodotus, according to A. Gellius, " 

 was 53 years old at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, or the year before 

 Christ 431. And if to this we add 40O years, we shall have the year before 

 Christ 831 ; about which time consequently, according to him, both Homer 

 and Hesiod must have flourished. 



Among the moderns, Petavius places Hesiod a. p. j. 3714, or about the 

 year before Christ 1000: and in his Rationarium Temporum, he says, that 

 Hesiod was contemporary with him, and that this ex Arcturi ortu, quern poeta 

 iste describit, eruditi artis illius coUigunt ; and in the margin refers to Longo- 

 montanus in his Astronomia Danica. With Petavius agrees very nearly Paline- 

 rius, as cited by Dr. Hyde in his notes on Ulug Beigh, though Sir Isaac Newton, 

 whose authority with some persons is decisive, tells us, that from the achronical 

 rising of the same star it follows, that Hesiod flourished about 100 years after 

 the death of Solomon. This again he places, in his short chronicle, in the year 

 before Christ 979; from which, if we subtract 100 years, we shall have the 

 year before Christ 879, when, according to him, both Hesiod and Homer, if 

 contemporaries, must have flourished. In what manner Sir Isaac Newton com- 

 puted this, or whether indeed he ever computed it at all himself, is not, at least 

 publicly, known. It is probable he only followed some one else ; and therefore 

 without derogating in the least from his authority, or thinking it a failure in re- 

 spect to the memory of the greatest man that ever lived, I shall consider a little 

 how far the age of these poets may be determined, with any certainty, from this 

 achronical rising of Arcturus. 



Longomontanus, in his Astron. Danic. supposes Hesiod to have flourished 

 about the year before Christ 77Q, when he makes the place of Arcturus n^ 12" 

 l6', the place of the sun's apogee y 20° lO', and his place, 6o days after the 

 winter solstice ^ 1° 10'. In the year after Christ l6l0, he says the place of 

 Arcturus was ii 18° 47"; so that from the year before Christ 776, to the year 

 l6lO, Arcturus had moved through 36° 31' = l3146o"; which divided by 2386 

 the number of years elapsed, gives the annual motion of the fixed stars 55". But 

 as he makes the annual motion of the fixed stars 49" 45'", or 1° in 724- years ; 

 55" will, according to him, require about 2658 years. So that Hesiod, accord- 

 ing to his computation, must have lived about the year before Christ 1048; un- 

 less, as he seems to suspect, that poet describes the rising of Arcturus, not as it 



VOL. X. 3 L 



