you see the truth of
what we cited above out of _Achilles Tatius_; viz. that some anciently
placed the Solstice in the eighth Degree of _Cancer_, others about the
twelfth Degree, and others about the fifteenth Degree thereof.

_Hipparchus_ the great Astronomer, comparing his own Observations with
those of former Astronomers, concluded first of any man, that the Equinoxes
had a motion backwards in respect of the fixt Stars: and his opinion was,
that they went backwards one Degree in about an hundred years. He made his
observations of the Equinoxes between the years of _Nabonassar_ 586 and
618: the middle year is 602, which is 286 years after the aforesaid
observation of _Meton_ and _Euctemon_; and in these years the Equinox must
have gone backwards four degrees, and so have been in the fourth Degree of
_Aries_ in the days of _Hipparchus_, and by consequence have then gone back
eleven Degrees since the _Argonautic_ Expedition; that is, in 1090 years,
according to the Chronology of the ancient _Greeks_ then in use: and this
is after the rate of about 99 years, or in the next round number an hundred
years to a Degree, as was then stated by _Hipparchus_. But it really went
back a Degree in seventy and two years, and eleven Degrees in 792 years:
count these 792 years backward from the year of _Nabonassar,_ 602, the year
from which we counted the 286 years, and the reckoning will place the
_Argonautic_ Expedition about 43 years after the death of _Solomon_. The
_Greeks_ have therefore made the _Argonautic_ Expedition about three
hundred years ancienter than the truth, and thereby given occasion to the
opinion of the great _Hipparchus_, that the Equinox went backward after the
rate of only a Degree in an hundred years.

_Hesiod_ tells us that sixty days after the winter Solstice the Star
_Arcturus_ rose just at Sunset: and thence it follows that _Hesiod_
flourished about an hundred years after the death of _Solomon_, or in the
Generation or Age next after the _Trojan_ war, as _Hesiod_ himself
declares.

From all these circumstances, grounded upon the coarse observations of the
ancient Astronomers, we may reckon it certain that the _Argonautic_
Expedition was not earlier than the Reign of _Solomon_: and if these
Astronomical arguments be added to the former arguments taken from the mean
length of the Reigns of Kings, according to the course of nature; from them
all we may safely conclude that the _Argonautic_ Expedition was aft