BOOK I.

INTRODUCTION.

I. Some say that the study of philosophy originated with the barbarians. In that among the Persians there existed the Magi,¹ and among the Babylonians or Assyrians the Chaldæi,² among the Indians the Gymnosophistæ,³ and among the Celts and Gauls men who were called Druids⁴ and Semnothei, as Aristotle relates in his book on Magic, and Sotion in the twenty-third book of his Succession of Philosophers. Besides those men there were the Phœnician Ochus, the Thracian Zamolxis,⁵ and the Libyan Atlas. For the Egyptians say that Vulcan was the son of Nilus, and that he was the author of philosophy, in which those who were especially eminent were called his priests and prophets.

II. From his age to that of Alexander, king of the Macedonians were forty-eight thousand eight hundred and sixty-three years, and during this time there were three hundred and seventy-three eclipses of the sun, and eight hundred and thirty-two eclipses of the moon.

Again, from the time of the