In the following century wrote an elaborate history of Who drew up a chronological list of the priestesses of HeraĪt Argos of Ephorus, who lived in the 4th century B.C.,Īnd is distinguished as the first Greek who attempted theĬomposition of a universal history and of Timæus, who Lived through the greater part of the 5th century B.C., and Hellenicus, the Greek logographer, who appears to have Ineffectual attempts were made in the direction of systematicĬhronology we have no knowledge at first-hand. Of the more formal historical writings in which the first Records which were found in the pueblo of Montezuma. And a Spanish adventurer destroyed the picture A Chinese emperor has the credit ofīurning “ the books” extant in his day (about 220 B.C.),Īnd of burying alive the scholars who were acquainted The earliest written annals of the Greeks, Etruscans, and But of these early records a very small portion only has escaped the ravages of time and barbarism. After political relations began to be established, the necessity of preserving a register of passing seasons and years would soon be felt, and the practice of recording important transactions must have grown up as a necessary consequence of social life. For these reasons the history of the early ages of the world is involved in almost impenetrable obscurity, and chronology, comparatively speaking, is only of recent origin. The masterpieces of Herodotus and Thucydides, while setting forth, each in the manner suited to the author's aim, events in the order of their succession, are stories without dates. Writing was practised many centuries before historians began to assign dates to the events they narrated.
The invention of the art of writing afforded the means of substituting precise and permanent records for vague and evanescent tradition but in the infancy of the world, mankind had learned neither to estimate accurately the duration of time, nor to refer passing events to any fixed epoch. Events which greatly affected the physical condition of the human race, or were of a nature to make a deep impression on the minds of the rude inhabitants of the earth, might be vaguely transmitted through several ages by traditional narrative but intervals of time, expressed by abstract numbers, and these constantly varying besides, would soon escape the memory. Before the invention of letters the memory of past transactions could not be preserved beyond a few years with any tolerable degree of accuracy. The preservation of any record, however rude, of the lapse of time implies some knowledge of the celestial motions, by which alone time can be accurately measured, and some advancement in the arts of civilized life, which could only be attained by the accumulated experience of many generations.