Tis true that this City ✝ Ionas 4.11. Num. 35.3, 4. including the large gardens & large suburbs for Cattel feeding of Cattel, was a great city in the days of Ionah that is about eighty or an hundred years before the captivity of the ten tribes. Nahum Nahum 2.8 who lived after the reign of Sennacherib represents that it had been long a populous city, Aand Herodotus that it reigned over the upper or greater Asia 500 years. And so long perhaps it might have been one of the greatest cities in the east, but yet it grew not up before the reign of Pul to that extent of Dominion wchwhich made it was called the kingdom of Assyria & accounted one of the greatest monarchies. ffor before his reign there is not one word of theis kingdoms of Syria & Assyria Monarchy in all sacred history the scriptures, thô after he began to make it great, it's mentioned both in sacred w sacred history & in the Prophets in the reign of almost every king. In the days of Ionas it was not so great & potent as not to be terrified at the preaching of Ionas & fear being invaded by its neighbours and ruined within forty days. After though after After it grew potent its kings were constantly called kings of Assyria but till the days of Ionas they were called only ✝ ✝ Ionas. 3.6, 7 kings of Nineveh Ionas & the decree of & then the at his preaching the decree of the King & his nobles for a publick solemn fast was published only through Nineveh. Ionas 3.6, 7 ffor by ytthat name it seems the kingdom as well as the city was hitherto called. When Ieroboam the son of Ioash king of Israel had newly subdued the kingdoms of Damascus & Hamath, the Prophet Amos thus reproves Israel for being lifted up. Amos. 6.14. Ye wchwhich rejoyce in a thing of nought, wchwhich say, Have we not taken to us horns by orour strength? But behold I will raise up against you a nation, o house of Israel saith the Lord & they shall afflict you from yethe entring in of Hamath unto the river of the wilderness. God here threatens to raise up a nation against Israel, but what nation he names not. That he conceales till yethe Assyrians should appear and discover it. In the prophesies of Isaiah Ieremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, Micah, Nahum, Zephany & Zechary wchwhich were written after this monarchy grew up, its openly named upon all occasions, but in this of Amos not once, thô yethe captivity of Syria & Israel thereby be yethe subject of yethe prophesy & that of IsrealIsrael be often threatned. He only saith in general that Israel notwithstanding her present greatness should be captivated & that he would raise up a nation to do it, meaning that he would raise it up above them from a lower condition a nation whom they yet feared not.. ffor so the hebrew word מקם signifies when applied to men, as in Amos 5.2 1 Sam. 2.8. 2 Sam. 12.11. Ier 50.32 Psal. 113.7. Ier. 10.20. & 50.32. Hab 1.6. Zech 11.16. The Assyrian Monarchy therefore rose up after the writing of this Prophesy & by consequence in the reign of Pul & his successors. For after Ieroboam had conquered Damascus & Hamath his successor Menahem destroyed Tipsah with its territories upon EupratesEuphrates because in his expedition against Shallum who usurped the crown they opened not to him & ther forefore Israel continued in its greatness till Pul 2 King. 15. (probably grown formidable by some victories) caused Menahem to buy his peace. 2 King 15. Pul therefore reigning presently after the prophesy of Amos & being the first upon record who began to fulfil it, may justly (in yethe sense of the scriptures) be accounted the founder of this Monarchy.

Had we distinct accounts Had we distinct accounts of those early ages I doubt not but we might find a much greater number of kingdoms wchwhich went to make up the body of this Assyrian monarchy then we harve now able to recconed up. For a a Plin l. 2. c. 25. almost all Mesopotamia was continued in villages except Babylon untill the Greeks assembled them into cities because of the fertile soile, & all the Medes as Herodotus informs us, Herod. lib. 1 after they revolted from the Assyrians & recovered their ancient liberty, lived for a while under their proper laws, being every where divided into δήμοι peoples or little polities (such as in scripture are called cities & kingdoms:) amongst wchwhich when rapines & wicked hostilities were every where committed without punishment 4ment, they assembled in a Council & began to treat of their common state, & finding that a common Iudge was requisite to put an end to those mischiefs & that they were too grievous to be longer endured, & were not to be remedied without a common Iudge they agreed to set up a King over them who might govern the whole state by good laws. Thereupon they created one Dejoces their King & at his request built him a palace fit for such a king & a City whose walls equalled those of Athens in compass, there being it seems till then no city in all Media big enough & well enough fortified & adorned for a royall seat. This city was Ecbatane, wchwhich some conjecture to be that now called Ispahan Tauris by the natives but was much more eastward.. So then all Media was anciently divided into δήμοι small kingdoms wchwhich lived each under its own laws & warred with one another till they united under Deioces, & thereby laid the foundation of the Monarchy of yethe Medes & Persians. These δήμοι were towns next superior to villages ♁♁ villages, such as we call corporation towns & market towns, but wchwhich in the first ages were free & absolute cities each with its court & territory & subordinate villages. ffor what the Greeks call δήμοι the scriptures call the cities of the Medes. Their smalness & multitude may be learnt from hence that in Greece many of these δήμοι in the first ages combined under one head city such as was Eleusis or Cecropia or Mantinea or Tegea, & then many of these head cities combined under one Metropolis such as was Athens or Corinth or Thebes.

For the original of kingdoms was much the same in Greece & the lesser Asia & other countries as in the East. For Homer reccons fifteen – – – – – The original of kingdoms was much the same in other countries. For Homer Æneid l 2 Iliad. β reccons up fifteen several nations wchwhich came to the assistance of Troy, each under the command of it's own Prince, & yet all their territories together made but a very small part of this Asia minor. The first great kingdom we read of there was the Lydian seated at Sardis, & that grew great only in the reign of its two last kings Alyatte & Crœsus.

And in Greece Homer reccons up twenty & nine several nations wchwhich sent their armies against Troy each under the command of its Prince, & some (being not yet grown into single kingdoms) under the command of more Princes then one. One of these nations was yethe kingdom of Athens, another that of the Argives or Mycenæ, a third that of Arcadia. These were three kingdoms & their kings, who were Menestheus, Agamemnon & Agapenor, led their forces against Troy. The rest were either kingdoms or aggregates of free cities or small kingdoms not yet well united into one government. For Pausanias tells us Pausan. l. 9: initio. that all Greece was at first governed by kings before common wealths were instituted. By the original & ancient constitution of the kingdoms of Athens, Mycenæ & Arcadia you may understand that of the rest.

That of Athens is thus set down by Thucydides. Thucyd. l. 2. p. 110Vnder Cecrops, saith he, & the ancient kings untill Theseus, Attica always κατὰ πολεις ὠκειτο, πρυτανεια τι ἔχουσα καὶ ἄρχοντας was inhabited city by city, having Prytanea & magistrates. Neither did magistrates & Prytanea or Courts with yethe Vestal fire adjoyning. Neither did they consult consult the king when there was no fear of danger but each apart administred their own common-wealth & had their own Council. Yea some, as the Eleusinians with Eumolpus against Erichtheus, did sometimes make war. But when Theseus a valiant prudent & potent man obteined the kingdom he took away the Councils & Magistrates & made of other cities & made them all meet in one Council & Prytaneum at Athens. To the same purpose Plutarch also relates Plutarch. in Theseo. how that the people of Attica were divided & difficult to be called together to consult about their common affairs & sometimes disagreed & made wars upon one another till Theseus perswaded them to convene into one polity wchwhich should be free & have the whole power lodged in the people excepting only that he would manage their wars & put their laws in execution. To wchwhich when they agreed he dissolved the Prytanea & Courts & Magistracy wchwhich they had in their several cities & erected in Athens one Prytaneum & Court common to them all, wchwhich, saith Plutarch is still there to be seen. So then the government of every city was at first complete & absolute in matters both civil & sacred. Every City had its Prytaneum or Vestal temple with a Court in it for the council of the City to sacrifice and consult about civil affairs. ffor the Magistrates in the first ages were also the Priests. And hence it is that πολιτεία polity, wchwhich signifies the government of a city, has been ever since used for the government of a kingdom or any other free & absolute government. Polemon tells us Apud Strabonem l. 9. p. 396. that in this body of Attica there were an hundred & seventy δήμοι distinct peoples or cities, one of wchwhich was the city Eleusis so famous for her sacred mysteries. And these continued free till the reign of Cecrops their first common captain or king. For Philochorus relates Apud Strabonem l. 9. p. 397 that when Attica was infested by sea & land by the Cares & Bœoti, Cecrops first of any man reduced the multitude (that is the 170 cities) into twelve cities whose names were Cecropia, Tetrapolis, Epacria, Decelea, Eleusis, Aphydna, Thoricus, Brauron, Cytherus, Sphettus, Cephysiaissia & Phalerus, & that Theseus afterwards contracted these twelve cities into one wchwhich was Athens. By this you may perceive that Cecrops the first king of Attica was only a Captain of the forces of all the cities elected in time of danger. He According to the Arundelian Marble he reigne was made their captain or king about the time that Moses was born 623 years before Cadmus brought letters into Europe, & Theseus reigned about 320 years after was contemporary to the Argonauts, being the father of Demophoon & predecessor of Menestheus who went to the war of Troy.

The original of the kingdom of the Argives was much after5 after the same manner. ffor saith Pausanias, Pausan. in Corinthiacis.Φορωνεὺς δὲ ὁ Ινάχου τοὺς ἀνθρώπους συνάγαγε πρωτον ἐις κοινὸν σποράδας τεώς καὶ ἰφ᾽ εαυτων ἑκάστοτε ὀικουντας καὶ τὸ κωρίον ἐς ὁ πρωτον ἠθροίσθησαν, αστυ ὠνομάσθη Φορώνικον: Phoroneus the son of Inachus was the first who gathered into one community the Argives who till then were scattered & lived every where apart: and the place where they met was called were first assembled was called the city of Phoroneus. Others add that he set up an altar to Iuno & ordeined them laws & judicature & reduced them from a brutish & salvage life to a civil one. The altar was doubtless for the worship of the common assembly & the brutish life from which he reduced them was that of warring upon one another. He reigned about the time of Abrahams King David's death. For in the reign of that king was his sister Io the daughter of Inachas stole away by a Phœnician merchant & carried into Ægypt was contemporary to Cadmus or but a very little ancienter. ffor when the Phenician merchants stole away his sister Io & carried her into Egypt the Greeks in revenge stole away Europa from the Phenicians.

The people of Arcadia were a branch of the Pelasgi & the Pelasgi are accounted one of the oldest nations of Greece. Probably Pelasgus from whom they had their name was one of the sons of that Elisha who first peopled Peleponnesus. ffor They had their name from Pelasgus their first king, it being usual in those days to call the people & country after the name of their the king. This was not the son of Niobe Hesiod & Æschinus accounts him Apud Apollodor. l. 2. initio.ἀυτόχθονα a son of the earth a native of the country & Pausanias tells us Pausan. lib. 8. sub initio that the Arcadians accounted him the first man & that he was their first king he & first & taught the ignorant people to build houses for defending themselves from heat & cold & rain & to make them garments of skins & instead of hearbs & roots which were sometimes noxious, to eat the acorns of the beech tree: that all Peloponnesus was at first called from him Pelasgia, & that the city Lycosura wchwhich was built by his son Lycaon was the oldest of all the cities either in the continent or in the Islands. This, saith he, was the first city which the Sun ever saw & after the pattern of this were other cities built. He saith also that Lycaon gave the name of Lycæus to Iupiter & instituted the Lupercalia to his honour: but it's more reasonable to beleive that this worship & honour was given to Lycaon by his posterity long after his death. Lastly he saith that In & slew an infant upon his altar, whence they feigned him transformed into a wolf. The Marble makes him contemporary to Pandion the grandfather of Theseus, & by consequence contemple to Cadmus Others make him a little ancienter. Pausanias tells us that in the time of the sons of Lycaon Pausanias tells us that the whole region was much increased in people the number of cities & people, & that those his sons who were about 24 in number, shared his territories among them & built each of them one or more cities the names of wchwhich he there sets down. Only Oenotrus who was the youngest of the brothers sailed thence with his people into Italy. And this is recconed the first colony wchwhich the Greeks sent abroad. The same division division of the kingdom of Lycaon amongst his sons is mentioned also by Dionysius Halycarnassæus. And by this instance you may understand how upon the first peopling of Greece Peloponnesus every father shared his territories amongst all his sons (as Moses describes) untill there was no more room for division. How these divisions united large afterwardsward into greater polities, you can Strabo has thus set down given us yethe following instances. Strabo l. 8, p. 337.Homer, saith he, calls all the places given wchwhich he reccons up in Peloponnesus, a few excepted, not cities but regions because each of them consisted of a convention of many δήμοι free towns out of wchwhich afterwards noble cities were built and frequented: So the Argives composed Mantinea in Arcadia out of five δήμοι free towns towns, & Tegea out of nine. And out of so many was Heræa built by Cleombrotus or by Cleonymus. So also Ægium was built out of seven or eight δήμοι towns, Patræ out of seven, Dyme out of eight: & so the city Elis was erected by the conflux of many towns into one city. Here & in some passages above, its plain ytthat by yethe δήμοι out of wchwhich Ci cities arose, the Greeks mean towns of a middle degree between their cities & villages. How out of these Of such towns Herodotus tells you that all Media consisted till they built Ecbatane a city equal to that of Athens, & these towns the scripture as was said calls yethe cities of the Medes. How in Greece by erecting common councils with Prytanea such towns grew into cities & cities into the seats of kingdoms, the councils ever drawing a conflux of people, has been said already is apparent above has been said above, & will further appear by the rise of kingdoms in Italy. Some of these councils were without a king, as yethe Amphyctionick council of twelve Greek nations wchwhich met twice a yeare in spring once at Delphos & once in the temple of Apollo & in autumn at Thermopylæ in yethe Temple of Ceres built for that purpose. All sorts of people met to sacrifice & feast & buy & sell & the Princes to consult about the common welfare of the nations. Such another council was of twelve cities was at Delphos One of the twelve nations were the Macedonians. They were not of this council in the beginning but were admitted afterwards in the room of the Phocians who were struck out for sacrilege. Iustin tells us Iustin. l. 7 that the ancient Macedonia was a small region & its people a branch of the Pelasgi & Pliny saith Plin. Hist. l. 4. c. 10. it was composed of 150 cities peoples. I suppose he means towns δήμοι towns. Out of these towns at length arose cities & little kingdoms for Iustin tells us that when Caranus led a colony of Greeks thither (wchwhich was about 90 years before if to the eleven nine first kings of Macedonia we allow a reign of about twenty one years apiece was about seventy thirty years after the captivity of the ten tribes) he first seized the city Ædessa & then expelling Midas the king of a certain part of Macedon & afterwards other kings, he succeeded in yethe room of them all & thus uniting the nations of various peoples he6 he succeeded in the room of them all he first of all made one only body of Macedonia & founded that kingdom wchwhich at length by subduing first its neighbours then other nations propagated its dominion to the furthest parts of the east. & became Herodotus Herod. lib. 8. prope finem. makes not Caranus but Perdiccas the son of Caranus to be yethe founder of this kingdom, & describes the kings of those times poor & mean below the degree of subjects in later ages, so that their meat was cookt for them by their own Queens. By conquering such kings either Caranus or Perdiccas became king of Macedon & his successors at length by conquering all Greece & yethe east erected the third Monarchy.

The rise of kingdoms in Italy was like that in other places. For Dionysius Halicarnassæus writes how the region where Rome was afterwards built was first peopled by barbarians called Siculi. Their original he knows not but we may take them to be a part of the posterity of Cillim who first who according to Moses & Daniel, first peopled Italy. This region, saith he, was afterwards taken from them by a long war by the Aborigines who till then lived in the mountains in towns without walls spread all over the region, but after yethe Pelasgi & other Greeks intermixed wthwith them & helped them in their war against their neighbours, the Siculi being expelled, they compassed many cities wthwith walls, & became possest of all the territory between the two rivers Liris & Tiber. He speaks of the Aborigines & Pelasgi here as of two peoples intermixed, but a little after he takes them to be but two names of one & yethe same people brought hither out of Peloponnesus by Oenotrus the Son of Lycaon as above, & thus describes how in the beginning they peopled the western part of Italy. Oetro Oenotrus, saith he, having found a large region fit for pasturage & tillage but yet for yethe most part uninhabited, & where it was inhabited peopled but thinly: in a certain part of it purged from yethe barbarians he built cities little & numerous in the mountains: wchwhich manner of building was familiar to the ancients. Then he tells us how after they were grown numerous so as to want room they made war upon the Siculi, as above & forced them to leave Italy & seat themselves in yethe next Island, wchwhich was ever since from them called Sicily Sicily. This was that war in wchwhich the Aborigines first compassed many cities with walls as above. Out of such cities as these arose afterwards divers kingdoms in Italy amongst wchwhich yethe Aborigines or Latines for a long time made but a small figure tho augmented by the new colonies of Ianus & Saturnus & Evander. They had a king before yethe Trojan war but wthwithout being united under him. For about 32 years after that war Ascanius the son of Æneas built yethe city Alba & instituted there a Council of all the cities under him with sacrifices to Iupiter: in the time of wchwhich solemnity one of yethe young men of best note governed yethe city; & this council was no doubt (like those of the Greeks) erected for uniting all the cities into one polity. The Vestal fire was also kept in Alba. This kingdom allowing their kings a reign of 201 years a piece one with another continued about 484294 years continued about 484294 years & then Romulus with a few Latines laid the foundation of Rome about 20 miles from Alba. Strabo tells us Strabo lib. 5. p. 229, 230. that yethe Æqui, Volsci, & some Aborigines & the Rutuli & other greater and lesser cities dwelt about Rome when it was first built, & that they dwelt there freely village by village without being subject to any common nation – & that Romulus built Rome in a place assumed not by choice but by constraint wchwhich was neither fortified by nature nor had ground enough to supply the city nor men to inhabit it. For yethe inhabitants of yethe region lived each apart & reached to yethe very walls of yethe city & regarded not yethe Albani. Such were Collatia, Antemnæ, Fidenæ, Lavinium & other such like small cities not above 4 or 5 miles from Rome. To get men therefore he built an Asylum wchwhich drew a conflux of people, & wthwith these he warred with the king of the Sabines at Lavinium & by compact inherited his kingdom, & being now grown strong it may be presumed that other little free cities round about easily complied with him. For Dionysius Halicarnassæus tells us Dionys. lib. 2 that this new kingdom as Romulus left it consisted of thirty Courts or Councils in so many towns, each with the sacred fire kept in the Prytanæum of yethe Court for the Senators who met there to perform sacred rites after the manner of the Greeks. Whence the Senators were called Curiales. But when Numa the successor of Romulus reigned, he leaving the several fires in their own courts instituted one common to them all at Rome. – Afterwards7wards Servius Tullius, the feild being divided, as above, into about 30 territories, on the hills & such places as being fortified by the nature of the place might easily protect the husbandmen, he prepared refuges wchwhich the Greeks call δημους. Hither every body fled out of the field when any enemies came & here they often staid all night. These had also their magistrates to whose care it belonged to know the names of the husbandmen who contributed within the limits of that refuge, & their farms whereby they got their living, & as often as it was necessary to call the countrimen to their arms & to lay a tax upon them those Magistrates called them together & taxed them. And that the number of the country people might easily be known & recconed he commanded them to build, & dedicate Altars to the Gods who were inspectors & keepers of the refuge; Which altars they should yearly honour with sacrifices being all assembled together, & instituted a most honourable feast wchwhich they called the village-feast, & wrote laws concerning those sacra wchwhich the Romans still observe. – Then being very desirous to unite and conjoyn the cities of the Latin nations into one body polytick least being weakned by intestine discords & wars they should be deprived of their liberty by the neighbouring Barbarians he called together the chief men out of the several cities declaring to them for what great designe about their common advantage he had convened them. – And by this speech he perswaded them to build a Temple with an inviolable refuge at Rome at their common charge in wchwhich the people of all the cities being yearly assembled might perform publick & private sacrifices & buy & sell at set times. And if any quarrel or difference arose between them it might be determined at these sacra, the decision of the controversy being permitted to the arbitriment of the rest of the cities. He built therefore at yethe common charge of the cities the Temple of Diana in the hill Aventinus & wrote the laws of the compact made between these people in a pillar of brass wchwhich remains to this day being erected in the Temple of Diana & has the characters of the Greek letters wchwhich the Greeks used of old. Thus Thus far Dionysius. By this unquestionable record you may see how difficult it was to unite the divided cities into one polity. You have also in the refuges or fortified towns a specimen of the first cities & kingdoms into wchwhich men convened when they began to make war upon one another

For better understanding the ancient state of Greece & Italy, the Chronology of those times is to be rectified. ffor the Europeans had no Chronology ancienter then the Persian Monarchy. And whatever Chronology we have now of ancienter times has been framed since by reasoning & conjecture. Pherecides Atheniensis in yethe reign of Darius Hystaspis or soon after wrote a large book of yethe Antiquities & ancient Genealogies of yethe Athenians & was one of the first European writers of this kind, whence he had yethe name of Genealogus And by these Genealogies the Greeks estimated times past but computed not by any Æra till about yethe end of the Persian Monarchy. Hippias who lived in the end of that Monarchy was the first that counted by the Olympiads & was derided for it by Plato. Plutarch a a in Numa. saith that Hippias published a bBreviary of yethe Olympiads supported by no certain arguments The Arundelian Marbles were composed 60 years after the death of Alexander the great & yet mention not the Olympiads, so that this Æra was not then received tho it be now reputed the principal Æra of the Greeks. The annual Archons annual of the Athenians may be relied on as high as the warr of Darius Hystaspis with the Greeks, but in ancienter times are set too early wthwith great intervalls of time between them. Plutarch b b in Romulo & Numa. represents great uncertainty in the originals of Rome & so doth Servius c. c In Æn. VII. v. 678 The old Records of the Latins b were burnt by the Gauls 64 years before the death of Alexander the great & Q. Fabius Pictor the oldest historian of the Latins lived 100 years later then that king.

Now all nations before they began to keep exact accompts of time have been prone to raise their antiquities & make the lives of their first fathers longer then they really were. And this humour has been promoted by the ancient contention between several nations about their antiquity. For this made the Egyptians & Chaldeans raise their antiquities higher then the truth by many thousands of years. And in imitation of the Egyptians the seventy have added to the ages of the Patriarchs. And8 And Ctesias has made the Assyrian Monarchy above 1400 years too long older then the truth. The Greeks & Latins are more modest in their own originals but yet have exceeded the truth. ffor in stating the times by the reigns of those their kings wchwhich were ancienter then the Persian Monarchy they have put those reigns equipollent to generations & accordingly made them reign one wthwith another about an age a piece recconing three ages to an hundred years. For they make the seven kings of Rome who preceded the Consuls to have reigned 244 years wchwhich is one with another 35 years a piece & the 14 Kings of the Latines between Æneas & Numitor or the founding of Rome to have reigned 425 years wchwhich is above 30 years a piece, & the first ten kings of Macedon (Caranus &c) to have reigned 353 years wchwhich is above 35 years a piece & the first ten kings of Athens (Cecrops &c) 351 years wchwhich is 35 years a piece, & the eight first kings of Argos (Inachus, Phoroneus &c) to have reigned 371 years wchwhich is above 46 years a piece: Whereas according to yethe ordinary course of nature kings reign one with another but about 20 years a piece. So the 18 Kings of Iudah who succeeded Solomon reigned 390 years wchwhich is one wthwith another 22 years a piece. The 15 Kings of Israel after Solomon reigned 259 years wchwhich is 17$\frac{1}{4}$ years a piece. The 18 Kings of Babylon (Nabonasser &c) reigned 209 years wchwhich is 11$\frac{2}{3}$ years a piece. The 10 Kings of Persia (Cyrus &c) reigned 208 years wchwhich is almost 21 years a piece. The 16 successors of Alexander in Syria (Seleucus &c) reigned 244 years wchwhich is 15 years a piece. The 10 in Macedonia (Aridæus &c) 156 years wchwhich is 15$\frac{1}{2}$ a piece. The 28 Kings of England (William the Conqueror & his successors) 635$\frac{1}{2}$ years wchwhich is 22$\frac{2}{3}$ years a piece. The sixty & three kings of France (Pharamund & his successors) 1224 years wchwhich is 19$\frac{1}{2}$ years a piece. Generations from father to son may be recconed one with another about 33 or 34 years a piece or three generations to an hundred years. But if the Generations proceed by the eldest sons they are shorter so that four three of them may be recconed to an hundred eighty years. And the reign of Kings is still shorter because Kings are succeeded not only by their eldest sons but sometimes by their brothers and and sometimes they are slain or deposed & succeeded by others of an equal or greater age, especially in elective & turbulent kingdoms.