reigns of kings are still shorter because kings are succeeded not only
by their eldest sons but sometimes by their brothers, & sometimes they are
slain or deposed & succeeded by others of an equal or greater age, especially
in elective or turbulent kingdomes. And in the later ages since ch\r/onology
hath been exact, there is scarce an instance to be found of ten kings reign
ing together any where in continual succession above 260 years. But
Timæus & his followers (& I think also some of his predecessors after the
example of the Egyptians) have taken the reigns of kings for generations
& recconed three generations to an hundred & sometimes to an hundred &
twenty years, & founded the technical chronology of the Greeks upon this
way of recconing. Let the recconing be reduced to the course of nature
by putting the reigns of kings one with another at about eighteen or
twenty years a piece: & the ten kings of Sparta by one race, the nine
by another race, the ten kings of Messene & the nine of Arcadia above
mentioned between the return of the Heraclides into Peloponesus & the
end of the first Mess\en/ian warr, will scarce take up above 180 or 190 years:
whereas according to chronologers they took up 379 years.

For confirming this recconing I may add another argument.
Euryleon the son of Ægeus ^a 1 commanded the main body of the Messenians
in the fift year of the first Messenian war, & was in the fift genera
tion from Oiolicus the son of Theras the brother in law of Aristodemus
& tutor to his sons Eurysthenes & Procles, as Pausanias ^b 2 relates. And
by consequence, from the return of the Heraclides, which was in the days
of Theras, to the battel which was in the fift year of this war, there were
six generations, w^ch as I conceive being for the most part by the eldest
sons, will scarce exceed thirty years to a generation & so may amount |unto|
170 or 180 years. That war lasted 19 or 20 years. Add the last 15
years, & there will be about 190 years to the end of that warr:
whereas the followers of Timæus make it about 379 years, to the
end of that war, w^ch is above sixty years to a generation.

By these arguments Chronologers have lengthned the time between the
return of the Heraclides into Peloponnesus & the first Messenian war,
adding to it about 190 years. And they have also lengthned the time between
that war & the rise of the Persian Empire. For in the race of the Spartan
kings descended from Eurysthenes, after Polydorus reigned ^a 3 these kings, Eury
crates, Anaxander, E\u/rycratides, Leon, Anaxandrides, Cleomenes, Leonidas &c
& in the other race descended from Procles, after Theopompus reigned ^b 4 these,
Anaxandrides, Archidemus, Anaxileus, Leutichides, Hippocratides,
Ariston, Demaratus, Leutichides II &c according to ^b Herodotus. These
kings reigned till the sixt year of Xerxes in which Leonidas was slain
by the Persians at Thermopylæ, & Leutichides II soon after, flying from
Sparta to Tegea, dyed there. The seven reigns of the kings of Sparta
which follow Polydorus being added to the ten reigns above mentioned w^ch
began with that of Eurysthenes, make up seventeen reigns of kings be
tween the return of the Heraclides into Peloponesus & the sixt
year of Xerxes. And the eight reigns following Theopompus being
added to the nine reigns above mentioned which began with that of
Procles, make up also seventeen reigns. And these seventeen reigns
at twenty years a piece one with another amount unto three
hundred & forty years. Count these 340 years upwards from the
sixt year of Xerxes, & one or two years more for the warr of
the Heraclides & reign of Aristodemus the father of Eurysthenes
& Procles: & they will place the return of the Heraclides into Pelopon
nesus, 159 or 160 years after the death of Solomon & 46 or 45 years
before the first Olympiad in which Coræbus was victor. But the follow
ers of Timæus have placed this return two hundred \&/ eighty & two years
years earlier. Now this being the computation upon which the Greeks \as you have heard from Diodorus & Plutarch,/ have founded
the chronology of their kingdoms which were ancienter then the Persian empire,
that chronology is to be rectified by shortening the times w^ch preceded the death of Cyrus,
in the proportion of almost two to one. For the times which follow the death of Cyrus
are not much amiss.