YOL XLVIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 445 



[Mr. C. then quotes a number of passages from the ancient poets, alluding to 

 astronomical observations, which he thinks renders the last-mentioned date not 

 improbable.] 



As a further confirmation that we are not very wrong in placing the age of 

 these two poets as we have done, it may be remarked, that in the description 

 given by Hesiod of lucky and unlucky days, he tells us, rfinxaSx lum-o? apia-TJii/. 

 But the first person, among the Greeks, that called the last day of the month 

 by that name, or that used the word TPOriAI, if we believe Laertius, was Thales. 

 Neither Homer nor Hesiod therefore, if this observation be true, can be older 

 than Olymp. 35, 1 , or the year before Christ 637, when that philosopher was born. 

 But as it must have been some time before he could apply himself to astronomi- 

 cal studies, and probably not till the middle part of his life, or about the year 

 before Christ 600, the Odyssey could not well have been composed before. 



But Pisistratus, as we are informed by Tully, first collected Homer's verses, 

 and digested them in the manner we now have them. And Solon, according to 

 Laertius, proved the right of the Athenians to the island Salamis, from these 

 lines of the Iliad : 



Ata; i IX. JlxXxiMivof a,yiv JuoxAi^Exa vrtx^, 

 St^ktj i aycoK, !► A^rivxtuov \tna.yTO (pxXxyyii;. 



Solon, according to Laertius, flourished about Olymp. 46, and in the 3d year 

 of it was archon, and published his laws. This was the year before Christ 5gO. 

 What his age was at that time, he does not tell us, but that he was 80 at his 

 death; which by Plutarch, in his life of that lawgiver, is placed Olymp. liii. 3, 

 or the year before Christ 562. If so, he must have been about 52 the year that 

 he was archon. And that he could not have been very young then, is plain, 

 from the post and credit he was in. On the expiration of his archonship, as we 

 are informed by Plutarch, he travelled for 10 years, and returned an old man, 

 as indeed he was, being now about 62 years of age : this was the year before 

 Christ 580. During this interval, it is highly probable, he had his intervie\y 

 with Croesus, and brought back with him to Athens, Homer's poems, which he 

 might meet with at Smyrna, or some other of the Ionian cities. On his return, 

 he found his country torn with factions, and that Pisistratus had formed the de- 

 sign of making himself master of the state, which he soon afterwards effected. 

 What year this was in is uncertain. The Oxford marble places it, as does Plu- 

 tarch, in the archonship of Corneas, which is supposed to concur with Olymp. 

 liv. 4, or the year before Christ 557. But Tatian, Clemens Alexandrinus, and 

 Scaliger, among the moderns, fix the government of Pisistratus to Olymp. 1. or 

 577 years before Christ. And this indeed agrees best with Plutarch ; who says 

 that Pisistratus, after seizing the administration, ' honoured and esteemed Solon,, 

 and often sent for him, and advised with him.' 



