The most ancient year of the Romans was formed by Romulus. Whence, or how he came by the form of it is uncertain; it consisted of but ten months, very irregu lar ones, some of them being not twenty days long, and others above thirty-five; but in this respect it agreed with the most ancient years of other nations, for it consisted1 of three hundred and sixty days, and no more, as is evident from the express testimony of Plutarch.

The Jewish year, in these early times, consisted of twelve months, and each month of thirty days; and three hundred and sixty days were the whole year. We do not find that GOD, by any special appointment, corrected the year for them; for what may seem to have been done of this sort", at the institution of the Passover, does not appear to affect the length of their year at all, for in that respect it continued the same after that appointment, which it was before.

Thus Ovid. Fast. lib. i.

Tempora digereret cum conditor urbis in anno
Constituit menses quinque bis esse suo.

* Plutarch. in. vit. Num.

** Exodus xii.

1 Id. ibid.

And we do not any where read that Moses ever made a correction of it. The adding five days to the year under Assis, before mentioned, happened after the children of Israel came out of Egypt: so that Moses might be learned in all the learning of the Egyptians, and yet not instructed in this point, which was a discovery made after his leaving them. A year consisted of twelve months in the times of David and Solomon, as appears by the course of household-officers appointed by the one, and of captains by the other; and we nowhere in the books of the Old Testament find any mention of an intercalary month; and Scaliger is positive, that there was no such month used in the time of Moses, or of the Judges, or of the Kings. And that each month had thirty days, and no more, is evident from Moses's computation of the duration of the Flood. The Flood began, he tells us, on the seventeenth day of the second month; prevailed without any sensible abatement for one hundred and fifty days", and then the ark lodged

1 Chron. xxvii.

P Lib. de Emend. Temp. in capite de Anno piscorum Hebræorum Abrahameo.

1 Gen. vii, 11.

r Ver. 24.

on mount Ararats, on the seventeenth day of the seventh month. So that we see, from the seventeenth of the second month, to the seventeenth of the seventh month (i. e. for five whole months) he allows one hundred and fifty days, which is just thirty days to each month, for five times thirty days are a hundred and fifty. This, therefore, was the ancient Jewish year; and I imagine this year was in use amongst them, without emendation, at least to a much later period than that to which I am to bring down this Work. Dean Prideaux treats pretty largely of the ancient Jewish year, from Selden, and from the Talmud and Maimonides; but the year he speaks of seems not to have been used until after the captivity".

t

From what has been said, it must be evident that the chronologers do, in general, mistake in supposing the ancient year commensurate with the present Julian. The one thousand six hundred and fifty-six years, which preceded the Flood, came short of so many Julian years by above twenty-three years. And in like manner

Gen. viii, 3, 4.

Preface to the first volume of his Connection.
See Scaliger in loc. supr. citat.

after the Flood, all nations, till the æra of Nabonassar, which begins exactly where my history is to end, computing by a year of three hundred and sixty days, except the Egyptians only (and they altered the old computation but a century or two before), and the difference between this ancient year and the Julian being five days in each year, besides the day in every leap-year; it is very clear, that the space of time between the Flood and the Death of Sardanapalus, supposed to contain about one thousand six hundred ancient years, will fall short of so many Julian years by five days and about a fourth-part of a day in every year; which amounts to one or two and twenty years in the whole time but I would only hint this here; the uses that may be made of it shall be observed in

their proper places. There are many chronological difficulties which the reader will meet with, of another nature; but as I have endeavoured to adjust them in the places where they occur, it would be needless to repeat here what will be found at large in the ensuing pages.

I shall very probably be thought to have taken great liberty in the accounts. I have

given of the most ancient profane history; particularly in that which is antediluvian, and which I have reduced to an agreement with the history of Moses. It will be said, "take it all together, as it lies in the authors from whom we have it, that it has no such harmony with the sacred writer; and to make a harmony by taking part of what is represented, and such part only as you please, every thing, or any thing, may be made to agree in this manner; but such an agreement will not be much regarded by the unbiassed." To this I answer: the heathen accounts, which we have of these early ages, were taken from the records of either Thyoth the Egyptian or Sanchoniathon of Berytus; and whatever the original memoirs of these men were, we are sure the accounts were, some time after their decease, corrupted with fable and mystical philosophy. Philo of Biblos in one place* seems to think, that Taautus himself wrote his Sacra, and his theology, in a way above the understanding of the common people, in order to create reverence and respect to the subject of which he treated; and that Surmubelus and Theuro, some

* See Euseb. Præp. Evang. lib. i, c. 10.