“The Scoto-Milesians,” says Dr. Hales,[489] “reckon twenty-three generations from Feni an fear soid, ‘the Phœnician wise man,’ their ancestor, to Heber and Heremon, who established the last settlement from Spain, as observed before; which, at the usual computation of three mean generations to a century, would give 766 years from Fenius to Heber. But we learn from Coemhain, that the sons of _Milesius_ (this should have been _Gallamh_)[490] were coeval with Solomon, and that the Gadelians[491] came to Ireland in the middle of the reign of this illustrious prince,” B.C. 1002, according to the Irish chronology. Counting backwards, therefore, from this date, 766 years, we get the time of Fenius about B.C. 1768. And this agrees with sacred and profane history; for Joshua, whose administration began B.C. 1688, according to Hales’s _Chronology_, notices “the strong city of Tyre” (Josh. xix. 29); which maintained its independence even in David’s days (2 Sam. xxiv. 7); and in Solomon’s (1 Kings ix. 11-14). And Herodotus, that inquisitive traveller and intelligent historian, who visited Tyre about B.C. 448, saw there the temple of the Thasian Hercules; and another erected to him by the Phœnicians at Thasus itself, an island on the coast of Thrace, while they were engaged in search of Europa, the daughter of Agenor, King of Tyre, who had been carried off by some Greeks; an event, says Herodotus, which happened five generations before the Grecian Hercules, the son of Amphitryon, B. ii. sec. 44; who flourished about 900 years before he wrote, sec. 145, or about B.C. 1348, to which adding 166 years for the five generations, we get the rape of Europa about B.C. 1514. “But the deification of the Thasian Hercules must have been after his death, which may make him contemporary with Joshua, or even earlier. Herodotus relates that the Tyrians themselves boasted of the remote antiquity of their city, founded, as they said, 2300 years before (B. xi. 44), which would carry it higher than the deluge. The high antiquity, however, of Sidon and her daughter Tyre, was acknowledged by Xerxes, king of Persia, when he invaded Greece, B.C. 480; and in a council of his officers allowed her ambassadors the honour of precedence” (sec. 11). He adds: “In order to determine the cardinal data of ancient Irish history, it is necessary to premise a synopsis of Coemhain’s System of Chronology. Y. B.C. Creation 1656 3952 Deluge 292 2296 Abraham born 942 2004 David, king 473 1062 Babylonish Captivity 589 589 ---- Christian Era 3952 1