7. An argument tending to lower tiie whole time of the kings, and the date of the buflding of Solomon's Temple, has been deduced ftxmi some ancient data of Tyrian chronology. Josephus (c. Ap, i, 17) announces that the buUdhig of the Temple lies 148 years 8 months before the founding of Carthage ; he gives this on the authority of Menander of Ephesus, meaning his own summation of that author's enumeration of reigns pro- fessedly copied fh>m pubtic monuments. In proo^ he quotes the regnal numbers of the kings from Hirom, the friend of Solomon, to Pygmalion inclusive, eleven in aU, making a sum (not however expressed) of 177 years 8 months. He adds, from his author, *'It was in the seventh year of Pygmalion that Elisa fled from T^ and founded Carthage hi Libya;" and^hm
CHRONOLOGY
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CHRONOLOGY
JUmje/^ "The sum of yean from the reign (epoch) of Hirom to the founding of Oarfhage is 155 yean 8 months ; and since it was in 12 Hirom that the Tem- ple was built, the time from thence to the founding of Carthage is 148 years 8 months." (The interval, as the numben stand in the text, is, in fact, 177 years 8 months, mimu 12 of Hirom and 40 of Pygmalion, L e. only 125 yean 8 months: it does not concern us here to consider how the missing 18 yean may be restored ; the number, 148 yean 8 months, given twice by Jose- phns, is not affpcted by erron that may have crept into the details.) Now the founding of Carthage is placed by Timseus. (Dion. HaL i, 74) 88 yean before 01. 1, i. e. B.C. 814-18; by Trogus (Justin, xvui, 6) 72 yean before the building of Rome, i. e. B.C. 826. Niebuhr (the £iither), accepting the date B.C. 814-18 as indisputable, deduces for the building of Solomon*s Temple the year B.C. 957-56 {Lect. <m Ane. But, iii, 159) ; Moven {PhSmzier, ii, 1, 140 sq.), preferring the other, gets the date B.C. 969. Again, Josephus {Aid, viii, 8, 1), after stating that 11 Hirom is 4 Solomon, and the year of the bnUding of the Temple, adds (prob- ably from Menander) that the year in question was 240 yean from the building of (New) Tyre. It does not appear that he found the 11 or 12 Hirom ex- pressed by Menander or Dius as answering to the 4 Solomon. Probably he obtained the synchronism from his own investigation of the various places In 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, and 1 Chronicles, where Hiram is mentioned ; but the number 240 is probably Tyrian. Now Trogus (Justm, xviii, 8) states that Tyre was founded by the Sidonians in tJie year before the fall of Troy. Among the numerous ancient dates assigned to that event, one is B.C. 1208 (Ephorus, followed by the Parian CAron. and other authorities). But B.C, 1209—240=969, precisely the year which resulted from the former argument. Such is the twofold proof given by Moven, accepted by J. v. Gnmpach and oth- ers, and highly applauded by A. v. Gutschmid (in the Rhdn Museum^ 1857). On the other hand, it should be considered— 1. That between the flight of Elisa, in Pygmalion's seventh year, which is the goal of these 148-4 yean, and the founding of the dty, there cer- tainly occurred a train of events (the settlement in Byrsa=£o2raA, and the growth around it of the Ma^ galia= if a' Aoi^ which eventually became the New- Town, irart^raia= Carthage) which implies a con- siderable tract of time ; and, 2. That as the ancient dates of the fiill of Troy vary over a range of about 180 yean, Timaeus placing it at 1888, Herodotus at 1270, Eratosthenes at 1188, Aretinus, 1144, besides in- termediate dates (MoUer, Fragmenta ChronoL § 17), the 240 yean may be so measured as to fall near enough to the time given to 4 Solomon by the usual chronology. It has generally been received hitherto that the ^ra of Tyre dates from dr. B.C. 1250, and there seems to be no suffident reason to the contrary (Bunsen, iv, 280 sq.). The concurrence of the two lines of argument in the year B.C. 969 is one of those coincidences which are so perpetually occurring in chronological combinations that the practised inquirer at last pays little heed to them. In Uct, it may only imply that Justin's author got fh)m Menander the date 384 Tyre =7 Pygmalion, mistakenly, as by Josephus, identified with 1 Carthage ; and having alM> obtained from the same or some other source the year equiva- lent to 1 Tyre, would so arrive at his datum for 1 Car- thage, or, vice versa, from the latter would rise to the former. And, after all, when we inquire what is the worth of Josephus as a reporter, and, supposing him accurate, what is the value of the Tyrian annals, the answer is not of necessity unfavorable to the claims of the Biblical chronology of the kings of Judah and Israel. Furnished, as this is, by an annalistic series incomparably more full and exact than any profane ncords of the same times which have come to ns at second hand, it is not to be impeached by any but
clear contemporary monumental eridenoe (radi as Mariette's Apis records) ; and if the entire Hebrew tale of yean frt)m 4 Solomon to 11 Zedekiah is to be materially lowered on the scale of the series B.C^ this can only be done by proving some capital error in the Astronomical Canon. See Tyre.