Page:The Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology, Volume 1, 1854.djvu/65

On the* Dating of Ancient History. 55 that the Nabonassarean was a dynastial reckoning always kept up to a certain degree by the side of the regnal : it became very famous from the astronomical observations in it, and was adopted as a scientific reckoning, in preference to any Egyptian one, and concurrently with the dynastial ones which succeeded, when astronomy changed ground from Babylon to Egypt, and became an elaborate science. The conquest of the Persian Empire by the Greeks and change of dynasty produced a new dynastial reckoning, the years of which, speaking generally, we may call years of Alexander. They were reckoned differently in the two new Greek kingdoms of Egypt and Syria: in the former they were called years of Philip, from Philip Arrhidaeus, Alexander's shortlived successor, and were counted from his accession, that is from the actual death of Alexander : in Syria they were called by various names, the one most familiar to modern ears being years of the Seleu- cidae. These were counted from a year some time after Alex- ander's death 8 , it is supposed from Seleucus having in that year conquered Babylon from Antigonus, though he did not declare 8 The reason of this epoch having been fixed where it was is very doubtful : Scaliger thinks it arose from a mistaken reckoning of the death of Alexander, owing to a confusion in the Olympiads, from the counting by some, and neglect- ing to count by others, of the three ano- lympiadic Olympiads in the series : but this is very improbable. The astrono- mical epoch corresponding with it, the years of which were called years of the Chaldaeans (for which name no reason seems to have been given), and which was used by the astronomers, concur- rently with the years of Nabonassar, for dating their observations, began, for cyclical reasons as Scaliger supposes, a year later. I cannot however but think that the epoch is a misplaced one of the death of Alexander, and the way in which I should be inclined to account for it is one which I should think must have been suggested before, though it is not alluded to by Norisius. It is simply that the true fact of Alexander's twelve years' reign from the death of Philip was converted in the imagination of the later Syrian generations, as it was exceedingly likely to be) into a false fact of a twelve years' reign over them, beginning with his coming back to Babylon after the complete subjugation of the empire ; twelve years from this bring us to the Seleucid epochal year. A confusion again between his coming back and his death the year after, would make the difference between the Seleucid and Chal- daean years. Any one, I think, who reads i Mace, i, the model of a dynas- tial account, will have this idea sug- gested to them. Alexander is said (v. i) to have reigned instead of Darius, after he had smitten him, (not instead of Philip) : then it is described how he parted his kingdom among his servants while he was yet alive : "So Alexander reigned twelve years, and then died. . . . (v. 7). And after his death his servants all put crowns upon themselves". . . . The years of anarchy are, as was natural, altogether ignored, ^uid Seleucus is sup-