FORTY-ONE LIVES WHICH COVERED TWO THOUSAND YEARS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3149, 22 July 1914, Page 77

FORTY-ONE LIVES WHICH COVERED TWO THOUSAND YEARS.

A remarkable chain of portraits is given by the Strand Magazine which shows for the first time that the overlapping lives of no more than 41 individuals have been sufficient to link the time of the Pharaohs with the present day, while no more than 21 lives have been required to cover the whole of the Christian era. “The Greeks had a game, called the torch race, in which relays of runners carried a lighted torch to the goal,” writes C. R. Haines. “It will be amusing and perhaps instructive to represent the past generations of men from the twilight of history till the present time as runners in such a race, each one passing on the torch of life to a< successor before his own death. It has not been an easy task to exhibit a catena of overlapping lives from 1300 B.c. to a.d. 1900, and if the dates and ages of the individuals selected are not in softie cases as certain as could be wished, allowance must be made on account of the inadequacy of the early records. ‘.‘We cannot do better than begirt with Raineses the Great, one of the most remarkable men in history, • who reigned over Egypt for 67 years, being born about 1300 b.c. and living to be nearly 100. “The names of the other 40 lives which link to-day with the day of the Pharaohs are as follow; Moses _ Plotinus Joshua Hermanric EH - Attila Samuel Llewarch Hen David Theodore of Tarsus Solomon The Venerable Bed© Jehoiada Alenin Shalmaneser Piastus Jeroboam Alfred the Great Romulus Abdurrhaman 111. Epimenides Firdausi Sakva Muni Don Rcderigo Sophocles Dias de Bivar Hippocrates Nicholas Breakspear Philemon Canon of Lucerne Archimedes Sir. Ralph Vernon Mafcus Cato John Trussingham a Gains Marius H“nrv Jenkins Hillel Edward Hall Ar.ollonius Robert Taylor Galen