Methodising the Apocalypse

Having composed the ‘Originals’ and the ‘ShortChronicle’, Newton continued working on his reconstruction of ancientchronology. Now in his 70s, he still displayed a tremendous energy and zealwhen it came to writing. With the help of various assistants, he published asecond, expanded edition of the Opticks, and was workingtowards a third edition of the Principia, when in the fallof 1725 he received an unpleasant surprise in the form of theAbregé. As we saw earlier, Newton'sresponse was short and to the point. In his eyes, the French translation ofthe ‘Short Chronicle’ contained many errors and showed an evengreater misunderstanding of its key arguments. Whether of not he had plannedto publish his revised chronology before writing his rebuttal, from thatmoment onwards he frantically began drafting up chapter after chapter forwhat would eventually become the Chronology of Ancient KingdomsAmended.

The posthumously published Chronology consisted of sixchapters of variable length, preceded by the ‘ShortChronicle’. The first chapter alone, titled ‘Of the Chronologyof the First Ages of the Greeks’, took up almost half of the 376-pagevolume and contained most of the materials found in the final versions ofthe ‘Originals’. After a brief introduction, Newton firstpresented his calculations for the average lengths of monarchial reigns,followed by an analysis of ancient calendars and his arguments for datingbased on astronomy.