Elements of General History Volume 6; Ancient and Modern (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1823 Excerpt: ... CHRONOLOGICAL TABLES OF SOME OF THE PRINCIPAL FACTS RECORDED IN ANCIENT AND MODERN HISTORY. This Table will contain but very few facts, though it appeared necessary, in order to connect the different parts of history by their dates. They who are desirous to find the time when any particular action happened, or to enter into the minute of chronology, are referred to the Abbe" Langlet's Tables. My design being entirely different from his, of consequence requires a very different method. The common chronologists, following the Hebrew text of the Scriptures, fix the epoch of the deluge in the year 2348 before Christ. But several learned men admit the authenticity of a series of astronomical observations made at Babylon, which goes as far back as the year 2234 before our era, as well as of an observation made in China 2155 years before the same era. It is evidently impossible that the Chaldeans and Chinese should have been astronomers in so short a time after the deluge. Other monuments of profane history, still more incontestable, areas difficult to be reconciled with the Hebrew text; for which reason the best critics prefer the Samaritan, which throws the deluge about 600 years further back, or the Septuagint, which makes it still more ancient. However, their systems still remain exposed to almost insuperable objections. Let us content ourselves with observing, that even at the date of those astronomical observations, profane history consists only of a heap of fables, or a bare list of kings. The prodigious antiquity claimed by some nations is therefore a groundless hypothesis. I shall for the most part, keep Langlet's dates, though it be necessary to warn the reader, that in the most distant periods perfect exactness is not to be expeted. TO THE REIGN OF AUG...