Mythology and Fables Explained by History

PREFACE.

...the Gods. The second [period] extended from Ogygés A legendary primordial king of early Greece; his name was synonymous with "primeval." until the re-establishment of the Olympiads The four-year cycles used by the Greeks to track time, starting traditionally in 776 BCE.; and it was in this second space of time that the Heroes and Demi-Gods had appeared. Finally, with the Olympiads, historical times began.

To respond to this difficulty, I say:

1. That this division only concerned the Greeks; for those times which they called "unknown" were not so for Asia nor for Egypt, where there were powerful Monarchies, and a system of Religion established since the most remote ages. The Greeks did not yet exist—or at least they were a rude and wandering people, without laws, without politeness In the 18th century, "politeness" referred to the refinement of a civilized society., and almost without Religion—at the time when the Peoples of the East enjoyed all the advantages provided by the Arts and Sciences.

2. For this objection to have any force, it would be necessary that these Gods, whose History one undertakes to provide, were Greek by origin; for one might then say that the Greeks, who knew nothing certain of the times in which they claimed [the Gods] had lived, could not have transmitted their History to posterity: but these Gods were foreign to them. The Colonies that came at different times from Egypt and Phoenicia A maritime civilization in the Levant (modern Lebanon/Syria) known for spreading their alphabet and culture. to settle in Greece brought the Religion and the Gods of their country there. This is a truth that one cannot deny; and Herodotus The 5th-century BCE Greek historian often called the "Father of History.", informed about the Religion of the Egyptians by their very Priests, says so positively. The Gods of the Greeks were therefore originally from Egypt and Phoenicia, and had been the object of religious worship in these two Countries long before the Colonies of which I speak had arrived in...