hours in 137 years: and by consequence this year began at first in _Egypt_ upon the Vernal Equinox, according to the Sun's mean motion, 137 years before the _Æra_ of _Nabonassar_ began; that is, in the year of the _Julian_ Period 3830, or 96 years after the death of _Solomon_: and if it began upon the next day after the Vernal Equinox, it might begin four years earlier; and about that time ended the Reign of _Amenophis_: for he came not from _Susa_ to the _Trojan_ war, but died afterwards in _Egypt_. This year was received by the _Persian_ Empire from the _Babylonian_; and the _Greeks_ also used it in the _Æra Philippæa_, dated from the Death of _Alexander_ the great; and _Julius Cæsar_ corrected it, by adding a day in every four years, and made it the year of the _Romans_. _Syncellus_ tells us, that the five days were added to the old year by the last King of the Shepherds: and the difference in time between the Reign of this King, and that of _Ammon_, is but small; for the Reign of the Shepherds ended but one Generation, or two, before _Ammon_ began to add those days. But the Shepherds minded not Arts and Sciences. The first month of the Luni-solar year, by reason of the Intercalary month, began sometimes a week or a fortnight before the Equinox or Solstice, and sometimes as much after it. And this year gave occasion to the first Astronomers, who formed the _Asterisms_, to place the Equinoxes and Solstices in the middles of the Constellations of _Aries_, _Cancer_, _Chelæ_, and _Capricorn_. _Achilles Tatius_ [69] tells us, that _some antiently placed the Solstice in the beginning of _Cancer_, others in the eighth degree of _Cancer_, others about the twelfth degree, and others about the fifteenth degree thereof._ This variety of opinions proceeded from the precession of the Equinox, then not known to the _Greeks_. When the Sphere was first formed, the Solstice was in the fifteenth degree or middle of the Constellation of _Cancer_: then it came into the twelfth, eighth, fourth, and first degree successively. _Eudoxus_, who flourished about sixty years after _Meton_, and an hundred years before _Aratus_, in describing the Sphere of the Ancients, placed the Solstices and Equinoxes in the middles of the Constellations of _Aries_, _Cancer_, _Chelæ_, and _Capricorn_, as is affirmed by [70] _Hipparchus Bithynus_; and appears also by the Description of the Equinoctial and Tropical Circles in _Aratus_, [71] who copied after _Eudoxus_; and by the positions of the _Colures_ of the Equinoxes and Solstices, which in the Sphere of _Eudoxus_, described by _Hipparchus_, went through the middles of those Constellations. For _Hipparchus_ tells us, that _Eudoxus_ drew the _Colure_ of the Solstices, through the middle of the _great Bear_, and the middle of _Cancer_, and the neck of _Hydrus_, and the Star between the Poop and Mast of _Argo_, and the Tayl of the _South Fish_, and through the middle of _Capricorn_, and of