[ 4§2 ] 
more than 400 years before his time ; that is, fince 
there were but 50 years between the Peloponnelian 
war and the battle at Salamis(69), little more than 
4^0 years before the fame expedition. 
Scaliger, in his notes on Eufebius (70), corrects 
the former paifage of Herodotus by the latter ; and, 
inftead of et'ccx.vancc, reads Ti'ipa.XQG'ict ; which will place 
Homer about the year before C'hritf 902. confident 
enough with Paterculus and the marble (71), but dif- 
ferent from his hiftorv by 7 1 years. 
Whether this correction of Scaliger’s be right, or 
not, I fhall not here fland to enquire ; but 1 am apt 
to think the word rilccococrioun itielf, in Herodotus, 
is corrupt. 
The Greek chronology, like that of other nations, 
hath been generally carried up too high ; the natural 
confequence of ignorance, and a defeCt of memoirs. 
This is only now to be corrected by perfons of learn- 
ing and abilities, capable of examining and comparing 
things with each other. In the time of Herodotus, 
no doubt, the popular accounts of Homer and Hefiod 
carried them up much beyond their proper time : But 
this writer, a better judge than the generality of peo- 
ple, feems to me to correCt thofe miftakes, by faying, 
that they lived years before his time, and no more* 
The words no more , appear plainly to intimate, as if, 
in the pafiage in queftion, Herodotus made the age of 
the two poets not near fo great as the common chro- 
nologers of his time ; whereas his number, as it now 
(69) Scholiaft. on Tbucyd. p. 64. Edit. IVaJf. 
(70) Pag. 102. 
(71) Sec Not. 1. 2 . 
s 
Hands, 
