Chap. 49.] THE GREATEST LENGTH Or LIEE. 201 
hundred to iEgimins.^^ Theopompus gives one hundred and 
fifty-three years to Epimenides of Cnossus ; according to Ilel- 
lenicus, some of the nation of the Epii, in JEtolia, have com- 
pleted their two hundredth year ; and his account is confirmed 
by Damastes, who relates that Pictoreus, one of this nation, 
who was remarkable for his size and strength, lived even to his 
three hundredth year. Ephorus says that some kings of Ar- 
cadia have lived three hundred years ; Alexander Cornelius, that 
there was one Dandon, in Illyricum, wholivedfive hundred years. 
Xenophon, in his Periplus, gives to a king of the island of 
the Lutmii six hundred years, and, as though in that instance 
he had lied too sparingly, to his son eight hundred."^^ All these 
statements, however, have originated in a want of acquaint- 
ance with the accurate measurement of time. Eor some nations 
reckon the summer as one year, and the winter as another ; 
others again, consider each of the four seasons a year; the 
Arcadians, for instance, whose years were of three months each. 
Others, such as the Egyptians, calculate by the moon, and 
hence it is that some individuals among them are said to have 
lived as many as one thousand years. 
Let us proceed, however, to w^hat is admitted to be true. 
It is pretty nearly certain, that Arganthonius of Gades^^ reigned 
eighty years, and he is supposed to have commenced his reign 
when he was forty. Masinissa, beyond a doubt, reigned 
sixty years,*^ and Gorgias, the Sicilian, lived one hundred and 
unwittingly the father of Adonis, by his own daughter Myrrh a (or Smyr- 
na), in consequence of the anger of Venus or Aphrodite. He was said 
to have founded the city of Cinyra in Cyprus. 
*3 Callimachus mentions a person of this name, who WTote a treatise on 
the art of making cheesecakes. There was also a physician so called, who 
flourished in the fifth century B.C., and who is said by Galen to have been 
the first who wrote a treatise on the probe. Whether either of these in- 
dividuals is the person here alluded to, is unknown. 
We have the same statement as to the age of Epimenides, in Valerius 
Maximus, B. viii. s. 13 ; he also, in the same section, gives an account of 
the Epii, of Pictoreus, of Dandon, and of the king of the island of the 
Tyrians, all of which agree with the present statement, except that the 
person mentioned by Damastes is called Literius, and the last-named indi- 
vidual is styled the king of the island of the Lutmii. — B. 
The king of the Tartessi, mentioned above. — B. 
*6 Pliny has already spoken of the vigorous old age of Masinissa, in the 
12th Chapter of the present Book. — B. 
