7th, With regard to the parachronisms of the chroni cle, the answer to this charge is obvious : the question here is not the accuracy of the inscription, but its anti quity. The only mistakes which can possibly affect its credit, must be those relative to events which happened but a short time before its supposed date. And here we !mist beg leave to dissent from the general opinion, that the date of the inscription is the same with that of its last epoch, viz. the 264th year before Christ. It does not seem probable, that the author would fill his limited marble with very recent events, when he had before him such a vast and curious field of antiquities. l lo would rather, we should think, carry clown his chronology no farther than was absolutely requisite, and stop at that period, which, in his opinion, constituted the limit of general notoriety. Thus several years, perhaps a cen tury, might have elapsed from the archonate of Artyanax to the period of the inscription ; and thus many of the more recent events in the chronicle might have already incurred some of the doubts and perplexities incident to remote times.
After all, the mistakes, or rather the variations from the common accounts, which appear on the marble, are of very small importance. Rigid accuracy was evidently not the object of the compiler; for he purposely blends, for the sake of brevity, events which obviously must have happened at different periods. Thus, he reduces under one epoch, the murder of Ilipparchus and the expulsion of Hippias, though the former event, according to all ac counts, ancient and modern, happened four ycars before the latter. Its variations, too, are frequently justified by the most conclusive reasons. Thus an objection was long ago started to its authority, founded on a remark of Selden, that it places the commencement of the reign of Cecrops 26 years earlier than the other chronologies, particularly that of Eusebius. The chronology of Euse bius has, it is well known, long ago perished ; and that which goes under his name, is a modern compilation by Scaliger. But his authorities, which he found scattered in Clemens Alcxandrinus, the remains of Julius Africa nus, the preface of Eusebius, and other authors, clearly make the accession of Cecrops at least 20 years earlier than it is represented by the modern compiler ; so that in this case, the whole weight of the mistake falls on the head of Scaliger.
But granting to this, and every other petty objection derived from a variation of a few years in matters of re mote times, its full force, it amounts only to this, that in the time of the chronologer, that is, many hundred years alter the events, there were no authentic accounts of such remote antiquities. If the marble has made the destruc tion of Troy 26 years earlier than some of the surviving writers have done, there are others of great reputation, who have varied still farther from the received opinion. Besides, how many histories have perished, and how many errors have crept into those which remain, in the lapse of 2000 years ! For our part, we consider these variations from the received chronologies as one strong internal proof that the inscription is not a forgery. A forger, equally learn ed with the author, could have compiled, even from the works of the moderns, a system totally unexceptionable on the ground of conformity to the ancients. Scaliger, for instance, could have framed the chronicle so as to coincide, roost miraculously, with Eratosthenes, Diodo rus Siculus, Dion, Halicarnasseus, and his own Euse bins ! Verisimilitude is such an obvious requisite to suc cessful imposture, that no rational fabricator will ever purposely decline it.
The two remaining objections, particularly the last, are so uncommonly vague, that the reader requires no assistance in framing an answer. We shall therefore only remark further, that though the history of the Arun delian marbles were totally unknown, and lord Arundel and Mr Petty were two brokers in monuments'; we should consider its venerable appearance, its intrinsic excellence, and the total absence, after the most severe scrutiny, of any real symptoms of modern fabrication in so long and so learned an inscription, as quite suffi cient to procure that respect, and establish that credit, to which the Parian Chronicle has so just a title.
See Marmora Oxoniensia, by Prideaux, Maittaire, and Chandler. Menzoircs de l'Academie des Inscriptions, torn. xxvi. p. 157. Robertson's Parian Chronicle. Hewlett's Vindication of Ditto. Archtrologia, v. ix. N° 15. Dalin. way's Anecdotes of the Arts, p. 220, et infra. Shuck ford's Connexions, passim. (E)