Numismatics. Spanheim—Vaillant. 22. No one had ever come to the study of medals with such stores of erudition as Ezekiel Spanheim. The earlier writers on the subject, Vico, Erizzo, Angeloni, were not comparable to him, and had rather dwelt on the genuineness or rarity of coins than on their usefulness in illustrating history. Spanheim’s Dissertations on the Use of Medals, the second improved edition of which appeared in 1671, first connected them with the most profound and critical research into antiquity.[720] Vaillant, travelling into the Levant, brought home great treasures of Greek coinage, especially those of the Seleucidæ, at once enriching the cabinets of the curious and establishing historical truth. Medallic evidence, in fact, may be reckoned among those checks upon the negligence of historians, which having been retrieved by industrious antiquaries, have created that caution, and discerning spirit which has been exercised in later times upon facts, and which, beginning in scepticism, passes onward to a more rational, and therefore more secure, conviction of what can fairly be proved. Jobert, in 1692, consolidated the researches of Spanheim, Vaillant, and other numismatic writers in his book, entitled La Science des Medailles, a better system of the science than had been published.[721]
[720] Bibl. Choisie, vol. xxii.
[721] Biogr. Univ.
Chronology. Usher. 23. It would, of course, not be difficult to fill these pages with brief notices of other books that fall within the extensive range of classical antiquity. But we have no space for more than a mere enumeration, which would give little satisfaction. Chronology has received some attention in former volumes. Our learned archbishop Usher might there have been named, since the first part of his Annals of the Old Testament, which goes down to the year of the world 3828, was published in 1650. The second part followed in 1654. This has been the chronology generally adopted by English historians, as well as by Bossuet, Calmet, and Rollin, so that for many years it might be called the orthodox scheme of Europe. No former annals of the world had been so exact in marking dates and collating sacred history with profane. It was, therefore, exceedingly convenient for those who, possessing no sufficient leisure or learning for these inquiries, might very reasonably confide in such authority.
Pezron. 24. Usher, like Scaliger and Petavius, had strictly conformed to the Hebrew chronology in all scriptural dates. But it is well known that the Septuagint version, and also the Samaritan Pentateuch, differ greatly from the Hebrew and from each other, so that the age of the world has nearly 2,000 years more antiquity in the Greek than in the original text. Jerome had followed the latter in the Vulgate; and in the seventeenth century it was usual to maintain the incorrupt purity of the Hebrew manuscripts, so that when Pezron, in his Antiquité des Temps Devoilée, 1687, attempted to establish the Septuagint chronology, it excited a clamour in some of his church, as derogatory to the Vulgate translation. Martianay defended the received chronology, and the system of Pezron gained little favour in that age.[722] It has since become more popular, chiefly, perhaps, on account of the greater latitude it gives to speculations on the origin of kingdoms and other events of the early world, which are certainly somewhat cramped in the common reckoning. But the Septuagint chronology is not free from its own difficulties, and the internal evidence seems rather against its having been the original. Where two must be wrong, it is possible that all three may be so; and the most judicious inquirers into ancient history have of late been coming to the opinion, that, with some few exceptions, there are no means of establishing accurate dates before the Olympiads. While the more ancient history itself, even in leading and important events, is so precarious as must be acknowledged, there can be little confidence in chronological schemes. They seem, however, to be very seducing, so that those who enter upon the subject as sceptics become believers in their own theory.
[722] Biogr. Univ. arts. Pezron and Martianay. Bibliothèque Univ., xxiv., 103.
Marsham. 25. Among those who addressed their attention to particular portions of chronology, Sir John Marsham ought to be mentioned. In his Canon Chronicus Ægyptiacus, he attempted, as the learned were still more prone than they are now, to reconcile conflicting authorities without rejecting any. He is said to have first started the ingenious idea that the Egyptian dynasties, stretching to such immense antiquity, were not successive but collateral.[723] Marsham fell, like many others after him, into the unfortunate mistake of confounding Sesostris with Sesac. But in times when discoveries that Marsham could not have anticipated, were yet at a distance, he is extolled by most of those who had laboured, by help of the Greek and Hebrew writers alone, to fix ancient history on a stable foundation, as the restorer of the Egyptian annals.
[723] Biograph. Britannica. I have some suspicion that this will be found in Lydiat.