able, that Castor and Pausanias differ in some particular names; and if we suppose that both gave true accounts in general, but that each might make some small mistakes, misnaming or misplacing a king or two, his objections will all vanish; for they do not happen to lie against the particular names in which Castor and Pausanias agree. I was willing to mention the objections of this learned writer; because he himself seems to lay some stress upon them, though certainly it must appear unnecessary to confute objections of this nature. And it is surprisingly strange to see, what mere shadows of argumentation even great and learned men will embrace, if they seem to favour their particular notions. Castor's account of the Sicyonian kings will appear, when I shall hereafter further examine it, to be put together with good judgment and exactness: it has some faults, but is not therefore all error and mistake. When we shall come down to the Trojan war, and have seen how far he and Pausanias agree, and where they differ; and shall consider from them both, and from other writers, what kings of Sicyon we have reason to admit, before that country became subject to Agamemnon; we shall find abundant reason to extend their history thus far backwards, and to believe that Ægialeus reigned as early as Castor

supposes.

The ages in which these ancients lived were full of action. If we look into the several parts of the world, we find in all of them men of genius and contrivance, forming companies, and laying schemes to erect societies, and to get into the best method of teaching a

multitude to live together in community, to reap the benefits of social life. Nimrod formed a kingdom at Babel, and soon after him Ashur formed one in Assyria, Mizraim in Egypt, and there were kingdoms in Canaan, Philistia, and in divers other places. Abraham was under the direction of an extraordinary providence, which led him not to be king of any country; but we find that he got together under his direction a numerous family; so that he could at any time form a force of three or four hundred men, to defend himself, or offend his enemies. Egialeus raised a kingdom at Sicyon, Inachus at Argos, and divers other persons in other different parts of the world; but the most ancient polity was that, established by Noah, in the countries near to which he lived, and which his children planted about the time, or before the men who travelled to Shinaar left him.

Noah, as has been said, came out of the ark in the parts near to India; and the profane historians inform us, that a person, whom they call Bacchus, was the founder of the polity of these nations.' He came, they say, into India, before any cities were built in that country, or any armies or bodies of men sufficient to oppose him; a circumstance which duly consi dered will prove, that whoever this person was, he came into India before the days of Ninus. For when Ninus, and after him Semiramis, made attempts upon these countries, they found them so well disciplined

* Vol. i. b. ii.

m

Id. ibid. p. 123. Edit. Rhodoman.

'Diodor. Sic. lib. 2.

and settled, as to be abundantly able to defend themselves, and to repel all attacks which could be made upon them." I am sensible, that some writers have supposed that the time of Bacchus' coming to India was much later than Ninus. But then it must be observed, that they cannot mean by their Bacchus, the person here spoken of, who came into India before any cities were built, or kingdoms established in it; because from the times of Ninus downwards, all writers agree, that the Indians were in a well-ordered state and condition, and did not want to be taught the arts, which this Bacchus is said to have spread amongst them; nor were they liable to be over-run by an army, in that manner, in which he is said to have subdued all before him. And further; if we look over all the famous kings and heroes, celebrated by the heathen historians, we can find no one between the times of Ninus and Sesostris, who can with any show of reason be supposed to have travelled into these eastern nations, and performed any very remarkable actions in them. Ninus, and after him Semiramis, attempted to penetrate these countries, but they met with great repulses and obstructions; and we do not read, that the Assyrian or Persian empires were ever extended farther East than Bactria; so that none of the kings of this empire can be the Bacchus so famous in these eastern kingdoms. If we look into Egypt, there were no famous warriors before

See vol. i. b. iv. Diodorus Sic. lib, 2. Justin lib. 1.

Sesostris. Mizraim and his son's peopled Egypt, Libya, Philistia, and the bordering countries, and they might probably be known in Canaan and Phoenicia; but we have no reason to suppose, that any of them made an expedition into India. The Assyrian empire lay as a barrier between Egypt and India; and we have no hints either that the Assyrians conquered India, or that the Egyptians before Sesostris made any conquests in Asia, or passed through Assyria into the more eastern nations.

It may, perhaps, be here said, that Sesostris was Bacchus, who conquered the East, and founded the Indian polity. But to this I answer; 1. India was not in so low and unsettled a state in the time of Sesostris, as it is described to have been, when this Bacchus came into it; for, as I remarked before, these nations were powerful in the days of Ninus, and so continued until Alexander the Great; and it is remarkable, that even he met a more considerable opposition from Porus a king of this country, than any which had been made to his victorious arms by the whole Persian empire 2. All the writers, who have offered any thing about Bacchus and Sesostris, are express in supposing them to be different persons Diodorus Siculus refutes at large a mistake of the Greeks, who imagined that the famous Bacchus was the son of Jupiter and Semele; and intimates how and upon what foundation Orpheus and the succeeding

• Diodorus lib. 1.

Rhodoman.

VOL. II.

Lib. 1. p. 20. Edit,

poets led them into this error. Though there were persons in after-ages called Bacchus, Hercules, and by other celebrated names, yet he justly observes, that the heroes so first called, lived in the first ages of the world. As to Sesostris, the same writer, after he has brought down the history of Egypt from Menes to Myris, then supposes that Sesostris was seven ge nerations later than Myris, which makes him by far too modern to be accounted the Bacchus, who lived according to his opinion in the first ages of the world. 3. But Sesostris cannot be the Indian Bacchus, because Sesostris never came into India at all. Diodorus, indeed says, that Sesostris passed over the Ganges, and conquered all India as far as the ocean; but he must have been mistaken in this particular. Herodotus has given a very particular account of the expeditions of Sesostris, and it does not appear from him, that he went further east than Bactria; where he turned aside to the Scythians, and extending his conquests over their dominions, returned into Asia at the river Pharis which runs into the Euxine Sea. Now this áccount agrees perfectly well with the reason assigned by the priest of Vulcan for not admitting the statue of Darius to take place of the statue of Sesostris ; " because he said, Sesostris had been master of more nations than Darius, having subdued not only all the kingdoms subject to Darius, but the Scythians besides. India was no

u

η Κατα την εξ αρχης γενεσιν Ανθρωπων. Id. ibid. * Id, p. 34.

• Lib. 2. c. 102.

$ Id. p. 35.

Herodot, lib. 2. c. 110.