In farther illustration of Mr. Clinton’s opinion that the first recorded Olympiad is the earliest date which can be fixed upon authentic evidence, we have, in p. 138, the following just remarks in reference to the dissentient views of Eratosthenês, Phanias, and Kallimachus, about the date of the Trojan war: “The chronology of Eratosthenês (he says), founded on a careful comparison of circumstances, and approved by those to whom the same stores of information were open, is entitled to our respect. But we must remember that a conjectural date can never rise to the authority of evidence; that what is accepted as a substitute for testimony is not an equivalent: witnesses only can prove a date, and in the want of these, the knowledge of it is plainly beyond our reach. If in the absence of a better light we seek for what is probable, we are not to forget the distinction between conjecture and proof; between what is probable and what is certain. The computation, then, of Eratosthenês for the war of Troy is open to inquiry; and if we find it adverse to the opinions of many preceding writers, who fixed a lower date, and adverse to the acknowledged length of generation in the most authentic dynasties, we are allowed to follow other guides, who give us a lower epoch.”
Here Mr. Clinton again plainly acknowledges the want of evidence, and the irremediable uncertainty of Grecian chronology before the Olympiads; and the reasonable conclusion from his argument is, not simply, that “the computation of Eratosthenês was open to inquiry,” (which few would be found to deny,) but that both Eratosthenês and Phanias had delivered positive opinions upon a point on which no sufficient evidence was accessible, and therefore that neither the one nor the other was a guide to be followed.[73] Mr. Clinton does, indeed, speak of authentic dynasties prior to the first recorded Olympiad, but if there be any such, reaching up from that period to a supposed point coeval with or anterior to the war of Troy,—I see no good reason for the marked distinction which he draws between chronology before and chronology after the Olympiad of Korœbus, or for the necessity which he feels of suspending his upward reckoning at the last-mentioned epoch, and beginning a different process, called “a downward reckoning,” from the higher epoch (supposed to be somehow ascertained without any upward reckoning) of the first patriarch from whom such authentic dynasty emanates.[74] Herodotus and Thucydidês might well, upon this supposition, ask of Mr. Clinton, why he called upon them to alter their method of proceeding at the year 776 B. C., and why they might not be allowed to pursue their “upward chronological reckoning,” without interruption, from Leonidas up to Danaus, or from Peisistratus up to Hellên and Deukalion, without any alteration in the point of view. Authentic dynasties from the Olympiads, up to an epoch above the Trojan war, would enable us to obtain chronological proof for the latter date, instead of being reduced (as Mr. Clinton affirms that we are) to “conjecture” instead of proof.
The whole question, as to the value of the reckoning from the Olympiads up to Phorôneus, does in truth turn upon this point: Are those genealogies, which profess to cover the space between the two, authentic and trustworthy, or not? Mr. Clinton appears to feel that they are not so, when he admits the essential difference in the character of the evidence and the necessity of altering the method of computation, before and after the first recorded Olympiad; yet, in his Preface, he labors to prove that they possess historical worth and are in the main correctly set forth: moreover, that the fictitious persons, wherever any such are intermingled, may be detected and eliminated. The evidences upon which he relies, are: 1. Inscriptions; 2. The early poets.
1. An inscription, being nothing but a piece of writing on marble, carries evidentiary value under the same conditions as a published writing on paper. If the inscriber reports a contemporary fact which he had the means of knowing, and if there be no reason to suspect misrepresentation, we believe his assertion: if, on the other hand, he records facts belonging to a long period before his own time, his authority counts for little, except in so far as we can verify and appreciate his means of knowledge.
In estimating, therefore, the probative force of any inscription, the first and most indispensable point is to assure ourselves of its date. Amongst all the public registers and inscriptions alluded to by Mr. Clinton, there is not one which can be positively referred to a date anterior to 776 B. C. The quoit of Iphitus,—the public registers at Sparta, Corinth, and Elis,—the list of the priestesses of Juno at Argos,—are all of a date completely uncertified. O. Müller does, indeed, agree with Mr. Clinton (though in my opinion without any sufficient proof) in assigning the quoit of Iphitus to the age ascribed to that prince: and if we even grant thus much, we shall have an inscription as old (adopting Mr. Clinton’s determination of the age of Iphitus) as 828 B. C. But when Mr. Clinton quotes O. Müller as admitting the registers of Sparta, Corinth, and Elis, it is right to add that the latter does not profess to guarantee the authenticity of these documents, or the age at which such registers began to be kept. It is not to be doubted that there were registers of the kings of Sparta carrying them up to Hêraklês, and of the kings of Elis from Oxylus to Iphitus; but the question is, at what time did these lists begin to be kept continuously? This is a point which we have no means of deciding, nor can we accept Mr. Clinton’s unsupported conjecture, when he tells us: “Perhaps these were begun to be written as early as B. C. 1048, the probable time of the Dorian conquest.” Again, he tells us: “At Argos, a register was preserved of the priestesses of Juno, which might be more ancient than the catalogues of the kings of Sparta or Corinth. That register, from which Hellanikus composed his work, contained the priestesses from the earliest times down to the age of Hellanikus himself.... But this catalogue might have been commenced as early as the Trojan war itself, and even at a still earlier date.” (pp. x. xi.) Again, respecting the inscriptions quoted by Herodotus from the temple of the Ismenian Apollo at Thêbes, in which Amphitryo and Laodamas are named, Mr. Clinton says, “They were ancient in the time of Herodotus, which may perhaps carry them back 400 years before his time: and in that case they might approach within 300 years of Laodamas and within 400 years of the probable time of Kadmus himself.”—“It is granted (he adds, in a note,) that these inscriptions were not genuine, that is, not of the date to which they were assigned by Herodotus himself. But that they were ancient, cannot be doubted,” &c.
The time when Herodotus saw the temple of the Ismenian Apollo at Thêbes can hardly have been earlier than 450 B. C. reckoning upwards from hence to 776 B. C., we have an interval of 326 years: the inscriptions which Herodotus saw may well therefore have been ancient, without being earlier than the first recorded Olympiad. Mr. Clinton does, indeed, tell us that ancient “may perhaps” be construed as 400 years earlier than Herodotus. But no careful reader can permit himself to convert such bare possibility into a ground of inference, and to make it available, in conjunction with other similar possibilities before enumerated, for the purpose of showing that there really existed inscriptions in Greece of a date anterior to 776 B. C. Unless Mr. Clinton can make out this, he can derive no benefit from inscriptions, in his attempt to substantiate the reality of the mythical persons or of the mythical events.
The truth is, that the Herakleid pedigree of the Spartan kings (as has been observed in a former chapter) is only one out of the numerous divine and heroic genealogies with which the Hellenic world abounded,[75]—a class of documents which become historical evidence only so high in the ascending series as the names composing them are authenticated by contemporary, or nearly contemporary, enrolment. At what period this practice of enrolment began, we have no information. Two remarks, however, may be made, in reference to any approximative guess as to the time when actual registration commenced: First, that the number of names in the pedigree, or the length of past time which it professes to embrace, affords no presumption of any superior antiquity in the time of registration: Secondly, that, looking to the acknowledged paucity and rudeness of Grecian writing, even down to the 60th Olympiad (540 B. C.), and to the absence of the habit of writing, as well as the low estimate of its value, which such a state of things argues, the presumption is, that written enrolment of family genealogies, did not commence until a long time after 776 B. C., and the obligation of proof falls upon him who maintains that it commenced earlier. And this second remark is farther borne out, when we observe that there is no registered list, except that of the Olympic victors, which goes up even so high as 776 B. C. The next list which O. Müller and Mr. Clinton produce, is that of the Karneonicæ, or victors at the Karneian festival, which reaches only up to 676 B. C.
If Mr. Clinton then makes little out of inscriptions to sustain his view of Grecian history and chronology anterior to the recorded Olympiads, let us examine the inferences which he draws from his ether source of evidence,—the early poets. And here it will be found, First, that in order to maintain the credibility of these witnesses, he lays down positions respecting historical evidence both indefensible in themselves, and especially inapplicable to the early times of Greece: Secondly, that his reasoning is at the same time inconsistent,—inasmuch as it includes admissions, which, if properly understood and followed out, exhibit these very witnesses as habitually, indiscriminately, and unconsciously mingling truth and fiction; and therefore little fit to be believed upon their solitary and unsupported testimony.
To take the second point first, he says, Introduction, p. ii-iii: “The authority even of the genealogies has been called in question by many able and learned persons, who reject Danaus, Kadmus, Hercules, Thêseus, and many others, as fictitious persons. It is evident that any fact would come from the hands of the poets embellished with many fabulous additions: and fictitious genealogies were undoubtedly composed. Because, however, some genealogies were fictitious, we are not justified in concluding that all were fabulous.... In estimating, then, the historical value of the genealogies transmitted by the early poets, we may take a middle course; not rejecting them as wholly false, nor yet implicitly receiving all as true. The genealogies contain many real persons, but these are incorporated with many fictitious names. The fictions, however, will have a basis of truth: the genealogical expression may be false, but the connection which it describes is real. Even to those who reject the whole as fabulous, the exhibition of the early times which is presented in this volume may still be not unacceptable: because it is necessary to the right understanding of antiquity that the opinions of the Greeks concerning their own origin should be set before us, even if these are erroneous opinions, and that their story should be told as they have told it themselves. The names preserved by the ancient genealogies may be considered of three kinds; either they were the name of a race or clan converted into the name of an individual, or they were altogether fictitious, or lastly, they were real historical names. An attempt is made, in the four genealogical tables inserted below, to distinguish these three classes of names.... Of those who are left in the third class (i. e. the real) all are not entitled to remain there. But I have only placed in the third class those names concerning which there seemed to be little doubt. The rest are left to the judgment of the reader.”
Pursuant to this principle of division, Mr. Clinton furnishes four genealogical tables,[76] in which the names of persons representing races are printed in capital letters, and those of purely fictitious persons in italics. And these tables exhibit a curious sample of the intimate commixture of fiction with that which he calls truth: real son and mythical father, real husband and mythical wife, or vice versâ.