1270-1250; while the subsequent Alexandrine chronologists, Eratosthenês and Apollodôrus, place that event in 1184 and 1183 B. C.; and the Parian marble refers it to an intermediate date, different from either,—1209 B. C. Ephorus, Phanias, Timæus, Kleitarchus, and Duris, had each his own conjectural date; but the computations of the Alexandrine chronologists was the most generally followed by those who succeeded them, and seems to have passed to modern times as the received date of this great legendary event,—though some distinguished inquirers have adopted the epoch of Herodotus, which Larcher has attempted to vindicate in an elaborate but feeble dissertation.[80] It is unnecessary to state that, in my view, the inquiry has no other value except to illustrate the ideas which guided the Greek mind, and to exhibit its progress from the days of Homer to those of Herodotus. For it argues a considerable mental progress when men begin to methodize the past, even though they do so on fictitious principles, being as yet unprovided with those records which alone could put them on a better course. The Homeric man was satisfied with feeling, imagining, and believing particular incidents of a supposed past, without any attempt to graduate the line of connection between them and himself: to introduce fictitious hypotheses and media of connection is the business of a succeeding age, when the stimulus of rational curiosity is first felt, without any authentic materials to supply it. We have, then, the form of history operating upon the matter of legend,—the transition-state between legend and history; less interesting, indeed, than either separately, yet necessary as a step between the two. [79] See the preceding volume of this History, Chap. ii. p. 66. [80] Larcher, Chronologie d’Hérodote, chap. xiv. pp. 352-401. From the capture of Troy down to the passage of Alexander with his invading army into Asia, the latter a known date of 334 B. C., the following different reckonings were made:— Phanias gave 715 years. Ephorus ” 735 ” Eratosthenês ” 774 ” Timæus } ” 820 ” Kleitarchus } Duris ” 1000 ” (Clemens Alexand. Strom. i. p. 337.)