The _Europeans_, had no Chronology before the times of the _Persian_ Empire: and whatsoever Chronology they now have of ancienter times, hath been framed since, by reasoning and conjecture. In the beginning of that Monarchy, _Acusilaus_ made _Phoroneus_ as old as _Ogyges_ and his flood, and that flood 1020 years older than the first Olympiad; which is above 680 years older than the truth: and to make out this reckoning his followers have encreased the Reigns of Kings in length and number. _Plutarch_ [4] tells us that the Philosophers anciently delivered their Opinions in Verse, as _Orpheus_, _Hesiod_, _Parmenides_, _Xenophanes_, _Empedocles_, _Thales_; but afterwards left off the use of Verses; and that _Aristarchus_, _Timocharis_, _Aristillus_, _Hipparchus_, did not make Astronomy the more contemptible by describing it in Prose; after _Eudoxus_, _Hesiod_, and _Thales_ had wrote of it in Verse. _Solon_ wrote [5] in Verse, and all the Seven Wise Men were addicted to Poetry, as _Anaximenes_ [6] affirmed. 'Till those days the _Greeks_ wrote only in Verse, and while they did so there could be no Chronology, nor any other History, than such as was mixed with poetical fancies. _Pliny_, [7] in reckoning up the Inventors of things, tells us, _that _Pherecydes Syrius_ taught to compose discourses in Prose in the Reign of _Cyrus_, and _Cadmus Milesius_ to write History._ And in [8] another place he saith _that _Cadmus Milesius_ was the first that wrote in Prose_. _Josephus_ tells us [9] that _Cadmus Milesius_ and _Acusilaus_ were but a little before the expedition of the _Persians_ against the _Greeks_: and _Suidas_ [10] calls _Acusilaus_ a most ancient Historian, and saith that _he wrote Genealogies out of tables of brass, which his father, as was reported, found in a corner of his house_. Who hid them there may be doubted: For the _Greeks_ [11] had no publick table or inscription older than the Laws of _Draco_. _Pherecydes Atheniensis_, in the Reign of _Darius Hystaspis_, or soon after, wrote of the Antiquities and ancient Genealogies of the _Athenians_, in ten books; and was one of the first _European_ writers of this kind, and one of the best; whence he had the name of _Genealogus_; and by _Dionysius [12] Halicarnassensis_ is said to be second to none of the Genealogers. _Epimenides_, not the Philosopher, but an Historian, wrote also of the ancient Genealogies: and _Hellanicus_, who was twelve years older than _Herodotus_, digested his History by the Ages or Successions of the Priestesses of _Juno Argiva_. Others digested theirs by those of the Archons of _Athens_, or Kings of the _Lacedæmonians_. _Hippias_ the _Elean_ published a Breviary of the Olympiads, supported by no certain arguments, as _Plutarch_ [13] tells us: he lived in the 105th Olympiad, and was derided by _Plato_ for his Ignorance. This Breviary seems to have contained nothing more than a short account of the Victors in every Olympiad.