then a Passage to which when you are arrived you will think that the Promontories did cleave asunder and were divided which before were joyned into one Sicily was first called Trinacria and afterwards Sicania At the beginning it was the Country of the Cyclops who being extinguished Aeolus possessed himself of the command of the Iland after whom every one did stoop to the Government of Tyrants there being never any Land more fruitful of them In the number of whom when Anaxilaus with justice and mercy contended with the cruelty of others his moderation gain'd him no little profit for when dying he left many little children and committed the Tutelage of them to Micythus a servant of his of approved fidelity so great was the love which they did all bear unto his Memory that they chose rather to obey a servant then to abandon the children of the King and the Governors of the Ciâ—ie forgetting their dignity did permit that the Majesty of the Kingdom should be administred by a servant The Government of Sicily was heretofore attempted by the Carthaginians and with various success they for a long time did fight with the Tyrants but their General Hamilcar being lost at last with his whole Army the conquered were quiet for a season In the mean time when the Inhabitants of Regium did labour with discord and the City was divided into two parts the old Souldiers who combined altogether being called by the Inhabitants of the City of Imera to their ayd having relieved the City did fall upon their friends whom they came to assist and not only seized upon their City but took their Wives and Children captive their Fathers and Husbands being slain who did oppose them a villany by no Tyrants to bee paralleld How much more honourable were it for the Rhegians in this cause to be conquered then to conquer for although by the Laws of War they had served the Authors of their Captivitie or their Countrey being lost they were necessitated to be banished yet they should never have left their City nor their Wives and Children as a prey to the most barbarous of Tyrants nor be sacrificed themselves almost on their own Altars and in the presence of the gods of their Countrey The Catanians also when they found the Syracusians too heavily to oppress them distrusting their own strength desired ayd of the Athenians who whether out of the desire to encrease their Dominions being masters already of Greece and Asia or whether for fear that the Lacedemonians Forces should be added to the Syracusian Navie sent Lamponius their Captain with a Fleet into Sicily that under pretence of assisting the Catanians they should indeavour to possess themselves of the whole Iland And because their first beginnings were prosperous enough their Enemies being often slain or routed with a great Navie and a stronger Army they came again to Sicily under the command of Lachetes and Chariades But the Catanians either through fear of the Athenians or the tediousness of the War made peace with the Syracusians the Auxiliaries of the Athenians being dismissed Not long after when this Covenant of Peace was ill observed by the Saracusians they sent their Ambassadors again to Athens who in old and ragged habiliments their hair both of head and beard being of an unsightly length and in a most slovenly and deformed posture to move compassion did address themselves to the Assembly Tears were added to their prayers and their supplications so prevailed upon the people inclined to pity that they condemned their Captains who brought back their Auxiliaries from them Hereupon a great Navie was prepared Nicias and Alcibiades and Lamachus were made Captains and so formidable an Army was sent into Sicily that they became even a terror to those unto whose ayd they marched Not long after Alcibiades being called back to answer to the Charge that was brought against him Nicias and Lamachus did obtain two Victories by Land and with a close siege having begirt their Enemies they block'd up the passage which brought them their relief from Sea The Syracusians labouring under the burden of these necessities desired ayd of the Lacedemonians which was dispatched to them but with one Captain Gylippus by name but such a one that no assistance could be comparable to his He the nature and course of the War being understood and yet almost in a lost condition they had drawn together some few inconsiderable Forces our of Greece and Sicily did in the first place possess himself of some places of reserve fit for the carrying on of the War After this being twice routed in the third encounter he slew Lamachus one of their Commanders of the Athenians and having put his Enemies to flight he relieved his besieged friends On this the Athenians transferr'd the War from Land to Sea which being suddenly known Gylippus sent to Lacedemon for the Fleet to his assistance and for some recruits if need were for the service of the Land The Athenians also sent Demosthenes and Eurymedon in the place of their Captain that was killed with supplies both of men and money And by the common decree of Cities the Pelopennesians sent Auxiliaries in great numbers to the Syracusians and as if that the War of Greece was translated into Sicily they did fight on both sides in the height of resolution with all the powers they could make In the first encounter at Sea the Athenians were overcome who lost all and all their moneys both publick and private This distress at Sea was seconded by a distress at Land and being routed there also it was the counsel of Demosthenes that they should remove themselves and the War from Sicily whiles their affairs though shaken and ruinous were not quite lost and that they ought not to persevere any longer in a War unluckily begun he alleaged that there may be more grievous and more unfortunate Wars at home for which they ought to reserve the Forces of their City But Nicias whether through shame of the ill success or through fâ—ar to leave destitute the hopes by abandoning the cause of his Associates or fate so ordaining it was resolved not to stir Therefore the fight again at Sea was renewed and they were called back from the storm of their former misfortune to some hope of Victory But by the unexperience of their Captains who assaulted the Syracusians defending themselves in the streights of the Sea they were easily overcome Eurymedon their Captain fighting most bravely amongst the foremost was the first that was slain The thirty ships which he commanded were all immediately devoured by the fire Demosthenes and Nicias being themselves all overcome did convey their Army to the shoar thinking that their flight would be more safe by Land whereupon Gylippus seized upon one hundred and thirty of their ships which they had abandoned and pursuing the Athenians in their flight he took many Prisoners and put many to the sword Demosthenes the Army being lost did with his sword
Hercules But remembrâ—ing that Darius was yet alive he commanded Parmenio to seize upon the Persian Fleet and sent some others of his friends to take possession of some Cities in Asia which the fame of his Victory being understood came presently into the hands of the Conquerors the Lieutenants of Darius delivering themselves with vast sums of gold unto them After this he advanced into Syria where many Kings of the East with Fillets and Miters did meet him of whom some he received into the society of his friendship according to their merits and from others he took their Kingdom new Kings being chosen in their places Amongst others A'bdolominus chosen King of Sidonia by Alexander was remarkable who living but miserably before all his imployment being either to scoure ditches or to water gardens was ordained King by him the Nobility of that Kingdom being rejected least they should impute their royalty to their birth and not to the benefit of the giver When the City of Tyre had sent to Alexander by their Ambassadors a Crown of gold of great weight in the pretence of gratulation the gift being gratefully accepted Alexander did declare unto them that he would repair himself unto Tyre to pay his vows to Hercules the Ambassadors replying that he should perform that better in the old Town of Tyre and in the more ancient Church desiring withal that he would forbear to enter into their new City Alexander was so incensed at it that he threatned utterly to destroy their City and immediately drawing his Army to the Iland he was not less resolutely received by the Tyrians through the confidence they had of being assisted by the Carthaginians The example also of Dido did confirm them in their resolution who Carthage being builded were masters of the third part of the World thinking it dishonourable if their women had more resolution to subdue forreign Kingdoms then they had to defend their own liberty Those therefore who were unfit for the service of the war being removed to Carthage and the ayd of that City desired to be hastned they were not long after taken by treachery After this he took Rhodes Aegypt and Cilicia upon composition and was resolved to go to Jupiter-Hammon to ask counsel of him concerning the event of things to come and concerning his own Original for his mother Olympias had confessed to his Father Philip that Alexander was not begotten by him but by a serpent of a vast extent and bulk And Philip not long before his death did openly confess that Alexander was not his Son and caused Olympias to be divorced from him as being guilty of incontinence Alexander therefore desiring to know the divinity of his Original and to deliver his Mother from Infamy did send some before him to suborn the Priests what answers they should give unto him Entring into the Temple the Priests immediately did salure him as the Son of Ammon He being joyful of this his adoption by the God did command that he should be esteemed as his Father After this he demanded whether he had taken full revenge on all the Murtherers of his Father It was answered That his Father could neither be killed nor die but the revenge for King Philip was fully performed After this having propounded a third demand unto them It was answered That both Victory in all wars and the possession of all Lands was granted to him His Companions also were enjoyned by the Priests to worship him as a God and not as a King From hence he was possessed with a strange insolence and a wonderful pride of minde being altogether estranged from that familiarity which he had learned by the letters of the Grecians and the Institutions of the Macedons being returned from Hammon he builded Alexandria and commanded that a Colâ—ny of the Macedons should be the chief Seat of Aegypt Darius flying to Babylon desired Alexander by letters that he might have the liberty to redeem the Captive Ladies and promised him a vaste sum of money But Alexander returned answer That to redeem those Captives he must not onely have his money but all his Empire Not long after Darius did write again to Alexander and in his letter he offered him the marriage of his Daughter and a great part of the Empire but Alexander did write back unto him that he gave him but that which was his own before and commanded him to come as a Suppliant to him and to permit the Conqueror to dispose of the Kingdom at his own pleasure Wherefore having abandoned all hope of peace Darius did prepare again for the war and advanced against Alexander with four hundred thousand foot and one hundred thousand horse In his march he was enformed that his Wife was dead in her extremity of pain by an abortive birth and that Alexander did lament her death and assisted at her burial which civilities he used towards her not out of the heat of vain love but the obligations of humanity for he was assured that Alexander did never see her but once when he oftentimes repaired to comfort his Mother and his Daughters Darius then confessing that he was truly conquered when after so many battels his Enemy in courtesies did overcome him and that it should not be altogether unpleasing to him if he could not be victorious especially when he was conquered by such an Enemy did write the third time unto Alexander and gave him thanks for his civil respects unto his Family and offered him his other Daughter to Wife and the greater part of his Kingdom even to the River of Euphrates and thirty thousand talents for the other Captives Alexander returned answer That the giving thanks of an Enemy was superflucus neither had he done any thing in flattoâ—y of him or in the distrust of the event of the war or to complement for conditions of peace but out of the greatness of his minde by which he had learned to contend against the Forces but not the calamities of his Enemies He promised that he would allow the same Grants to Darius if he would be his Second and not his Equal But as the World could not be governed by two Suns no more could it endure the Government of two such great Empires in a safe condition Therefore he should come he said and make a surrender of himself on that present day or prepare for the battel on the next nor promise to himself any other fortune then of what before he had the experience On the next day their Armies stood both in battel-array Immediately before the fight began a deep sleep invaded Alexander possessed with too much care who being onely wanting in the battel he was with much ado awakned by Parmenio All men demanding the cause of so sound asleep in such apparent danger when in his greatest leisures he was alwayes moderate of it He made answer that being delivered from a great sear the suddenness of his security was the occasion of it for he might now fight
unpeopled City on the other side of Euphrates He was there importuned by Anaxarchus the Philosopher to despise again the presages of the Magicians as things false and uncertain and unknown to men if proceeding from the Fates or if from Nature not to be prevented Being returned therefore to Babylon after the leisures of many days he again prepared a solemn Feast which sometimes before he had intermitted where having devoted himself altogether to mirth in the excess of drinking he added night unto the day Thessalius Medius afterwards to a new Bower did invite both him and his Companions having taken the Cup into his hand in the middle of his draught he groaned as if he had been struck through with a sword and being carryed half dead from the Banquet he was tormented with so great a pain that to free himself of it he demanded for a sword and his body became so extreamly tender that he complained at the touches of his friends as if he had received so many wounds His friends divulged the cause of his disease to be a distemper by the excess of wine when indeed it was treason the infamy whereof the powerfulness of his Successors did suppress The Authour of the Treason was Antipater who when he beheld the dearest of his friends commanded to death his Son-in-law Alexander Lycestos slain and himself having done considerable service in Greece not respected only but also made distastful to the King and morever accused by his Mother Olympias for divers insolencies when he considered also some few daies before what were the punishments which the Lieutenants of the conquered Nations too cruelly indured and conjectured that he himself was called out of Macedonia not to the society of the war but to be a partaker of their punishment therefore to make sure work with the King he with poyson suborn'd his Son Cassander who with his brother Philip and Jolla were accustomed to minister unto him So great was the strength of this poyson that it could not be contained either in Iron or in Brass or in any shell and could no way be carryed but in the hoof of an horse Cassander was instructed that he should not commit the trust of it unto any but to Thessalus and his brothers For this cause therefore the Feast was prepared and renewed in the house of Thessalus Philip and Jollas who were accustomed to take an assay of the Kings Cup had the poyson ready in cold water and having tasted of the wine they put the poyson afterwards into it Four days afterwards Alexander finding that death undoubtedly was approaching he said that he acknowledged the fate of the Family of his Ancestors most of the Aeacidans dying about the thirtieth yeer of their age After this he pacified the Souldiers growing into tumults and suspecting that he perished by treason and being brought into the highest and the most conspicuous place of the City he did admit them all into his presence and gave them his right hand to kiss When they all wept he was seen to be not onely without tears himself but without the least show of a troubled minde and comforted some who impatiently did lament he gave to others his instructions to deliver from him to their Parents so invincible was his courage now against death as it was before against his Enemies The Souldiers being dismissed he demanded of his friends who stood round about him if they thought they should finde another King that was like unto him they all holding their peace he said that as he himself was ignorant of that so he was confident of this and did presage it and did almost with his eyes behold how much blood Macedonia should lose in this contention and with how many slaughters she would parentate to him being dead At the last he commanded his body to be burryed in the Temple of Hammon When his friends beheld him to faint away they demanded whom he would make heir of his Empire he made answer The most worthy So great was the magnitude of his minde that when he had left behind him his Son Hercules his brother Aridaeus and his wife Roxane great with child forgetting those obligations he did nominate the most worthy to be his heir as if it were a sin that any but a valiant man should succeed a valiant man or the wealth of so great an Empire should be left to any but to approved resolutions With these words as if he had sounded into his friends ears a charge unto the battel or had sent the evil spirit of discord amongst them they all grew immediatly jealous of one another and in a popular ambition did all tacitely seek the favour of the Souldiers On the sixth day being speechless having taken his Ring from his finger he delivered it to Perdicas which for the present did pacifie a little the growing dissention of his friends for although he was not named Heir by voyce yet by choyce he seemed to be elected Alexander deceased being three and thirty yeers of age and one month a man endued with a mightiness of spirit above the capacity of men On that night when his Mother Olympias did conceive him she seemed in her sleep to have commerce with a great Serpent neither was she deceived in her dream which by God was presented to her for undoubtedly she had in her womb a burden above the condition of mortality and although the generation of the Aeacidans from the first memory of Ages and the Kingdoms of her Father brother and husband and of her Ancestors before them did render his mother most illustrious yet she was not more famous by any Title then by the name of her Son There appeared also many presages of his greatness on the day of his birth for two Eagles flying all that day round about the place did pearch at last upon the Battlements of his Fathers Court prognosticating unto him the two Empires of Europe and Asia and on the same day his Father received the glad tidings of two Victories the one in Illyria and the other in the Olympick race to which places he sent some Chariots drawn all with four horses which portented to the Infant the victory of the whole World He was of an admirable apprehension in the study of letters and having passed his minority he for the space of five yeers had his education under Aristotle the most excellent of all the Philosophers Being invested in his Fathers Kingdom he commanded that in his Title he should be called King of all Lands and Lord of the World So great a confidence had his Souldiers in him that he being present they feared not though unarmed the arms of any Enemy He therefore never encountred any Enemy whom he did not overcome nor besieged any City which he did not take nor invaded any Nation over whom he did not triumph At the last he was overcome not by any prowess of the Enemy but by Treason and the Civil fraud of his own Subjects
a peace-maker from the Carthaginians to dive into his Counsels concerning Sicily to which place Fame reported that he was designed And indeed that was the cause why the Romans sent back the Carthaginians ayd lest Pyrrhus in the war with Rome being detained in Italy should not have the liberty to transport his Army and the war into Sicily Whiles these things were in agitation Fabricius Lucinus being sent Ambassador from the Senate of Rome did conclude a peace with Pyrrhus to confirm which Cyneas being sent to Rome with great presents from Pyrrhus found not any whose hand was open to entertain them There was almost at the same time another Example of the same continuance of the Romans for an Ambassie being sent from the Senate into Aegypt when they had refused great gifts offered to them by King Ptolomy some few days after being invited to a supper they had Crowns of Gold sent to them which having received in a complement of an honour the next day they imposed them on the Statues of the King Cyneas when he brought back word that the Peace with the Romans was disturbed by Appius Claudius Pyrrhus demanded of him what manner of City Rome was He made answer That it seemed to him to be a City all of Kings After this the Ambassadors of Sicily came to Pyrrhus delivering to him the command of the whole Iland which was extreamly harrassed with the daily wars of the Carthaginians Therefore having left his Son Alexander at Locri and put strong Garrisons into the Cities he passed over with his Army into Sicily And because mention hath been made of the Carthaginians we will speak something of their original the Genealogy of the Tyrians being to be extracted from many generations whose conditions also were much to be lamented The Nation of the Tyrians discended from the Phoenicians who being shaken with an Earthquake having abandoned their Country did first inhabit the Assyrian marsh and not long afterwards the shoar next unto the Sea where they builded a City and called it Sidon from the abundance that was there of fishes for the Phoenicians call a fish Sidon After the process of many yeers being overcome by King Ascalon they took shipping again and did build the City of Tyre in the yeer before the destruction of Troy and being long and variously wearied with the wars of the Persians they were Conqueros at the last but their Forces being exhausted they endured unworthy punishments by their own Servants at that time abounding in their multitudes who having made a conspiracy did kill all the free people and their masters with them and possessing themselves of the City they enjoyed the Houses of their Masters they invaded the Commonwealth they marryed wives and begat children One amongst so many thousands of the slaves being of a better disposition and prompted to take compassion on the old man his Master and his little Son did not kill them with cruelty but look'd upon them with pious pity and humanity therefore when he had removed them out of the way as if they had been slain the slaves taking into consideration the present condition of their Republick they thought it expedient to have a King created out of their own Corporation and to make choyce of him as most acceptable to the gods who first could discover the rising Sun This design he acquainted Strato with for so his Masters name was called whom he had privately conceald and being by him instructed of the place of the Randezvous when at midnight they came all forth into one Field the others looking towards the East he alone did turn himself towards the West It appeared unto them a madness to look for the rising of the Sun in the Hemiphere of the West But when the day brake forth and the Sun began to shine on the highest tops of all their Cities others expecting that they should in the East behold the rising of the Sun he showed them in the West the fulgor of it where it did gild the Pinnacles of their Temples The device appeared to exceed the apprehension of a slave and Strato being examined he confessed that he had been one of their Masters Then they understood how much ingenious understandings were superiour to the servile and that slaves may overcome in numbers and malice but not in wisdom pardon therefore was granted to the old man and his Son and as if they had been preserved by Providence they immediately created Strato their King after whose death the Kingdom passed to his Son and afterwards to his Grandsons This outragious villany of the slaves was everywhere reported as an Example to be feared over all the World Therefore in the process of time when Alexander the Great made war in the East having sacked the City of the Tyrians he lastned all to the Cross who remained alive as the Revenger of the publick security in the remembrance of this their ancient slaughter But he preserved the Family of Strato inviolate and restored the Kingdom to his posterity ingenuous and innocent Inhabitants being commanded to inhabit that City and so the servile race being utterly extirpated a new generation of Citizens was erected The Tyrians being thus founded by the auspication of Alexander did soon grow rich by thrift and industry But before the murders committed on their Masters when they abounded both in wealth numbers having sent a Colony into Africa they builded the City of Vtica In the mean time the King of Tyrus deceased having left Heirs Pygmalion his Son and Eliza his daughter a Virgin of an excellent beauty The people delivered the Kingdom to Pygmalion a boy of a very tender age Eliza marryed her Uncle Sichaeus the Priest of Hercules which was an honour next unto the King He had great but concealed treasures and for fear of the King he did hide his gold not in Houses or Coffers but in the Earth which though it was unknown to men yet Fame reveal'd it to Pygmalion who being transported with an insatiable desire of it and forgetting all respects of nature and humanity did impiously kill his Uncle who was also his brother-in-law Eliza for a long time could not endure the presence of Pygmalion by reason of the horrid murder he had committed at the last having dissembled her hatred and made more smooth her brow she privately attempted to fly away and having taken into her society some of the Princes who were equally exasperated against the King she truly conceived that they had the same desire to make an escape with her After this she made her deceitful addresses to her brother and represented to him that she had a desire to live in his Court that the house of her Husband might no longer renew any subject of grief unto her she being desirous to forget him and that no longer the imagination of him might reflect so sad upon her Pygmalion did give no unwilling eare to these words of his sister thinking that with her the gold
Amongst these complaints all the Court resounded with the lamentations of the Standers to behold this so sad a departure at length the necessity of their Journey did impose an end to their tears and the death of the King did follow his travelling Family Whiles these things were in agitation the Carthaginians understanding how the affairs were carryed in Sicily conceiving that an occasion was offered to them to become Masters of the whole Iland they passed thither with a great Army and subdued many Cities At the same time Pyrrhus made war against the Romans and being desired by the Sicilians to assist them as hath been mentioned heretofore when he came to Syracusae and had there conquered many places he was called as well King of Sicily as of Epirus In which felicity rejoycing he bestowed on his Son Helenus whom he begat on the daughter of Agathocles the Kingdom of Sicily as discending to him by the priviledge of Inheritance and gave to his Son Alexander the Kingdom of Italy After this he made many prosperous battels with the Carthaginians In the process of time there came Ambassadors from his Confederates in Italy reporting that they could not resist the Romans and that they must surrender all unto them unless they were relieved with sudden supplies Being perplexed with this doubtful danger and uncertain what to determine or whom first to assist he providently consulted for the safefy of both For the Carthaginians pressing him on this side and the Romans on the other it appeared dangerous unto him not to transport his Army into Italy but far more dangerous to abandon Sicily least that the one should not appear forsaken nor the other lost for the want of Recruits In this tempest of growing dangers the safest haven of Counsels did appear to fight it out in Sicily with all the powers he could make and the Carthaginians being beaten to carry his conquering Army into Italy The battels therefore being joyned although he overcame his Enemies yet because he withdrew his Army from Sicily he was interpreted to be overcome and his Confederates revolting from him he lost speedily the Kingdom of Sicily as he easily did obtain it But having found no better fortune in Italy he returned into Epirus His fortune in both these places was as admirable as exemplar For as before in his prosperity the happiness of his affairs flowing above and beyond his desires he added the command of Italy to Sicily and grew glorious by many victories against the Romans â—so now in his adversity his Fortune having destroyed what she had builded and made him an example of humane frailty she added to the loss of Sicily the ruine of his Navie at Sea and the disgraceful battel against the Romans and his dishonourable departure from Italy After his departure from Sicily also Hiero was made chief Magistrate whose moderation was so great that with the approbation of all the Citizens he was created General against the Carthaginians and not long afterwards King His infant Education was a Prophetess of his future Majesty for he was the Son of Hieroclytus a noble man who derived his original from Gelus an antient Tyrant of Sicily but his birth on the Mothers side was sordidly ignominious For he was begotten on a Mayd-servant who was his mother and therefore it was commanded by his Father that he should be exposed as the disgrace and dishonour of his Family But the Bees having layd honey round about him where he was left did nourish him being very young and wanting all humane comfort for many days by reason of which his Father being admonished by the South sayers who persaged in their songs that the Kingdom was portended to him did cause him to be brought home and with all his care and endeavor did instruct and bring up to that hope of Majesty which was promised being but a boy at Shool amongst his companions a Wolf suddenly appearing took his book from him and being a young man and learning his first rudiments in the art of war an Eagle pearched on his buckler and on Owl on his Spear which did presage that he should be wary in Counsel high in courage and be crown'd a King at last He often fought with those that challenged him and always returned a Conqueror he was rewarded by King Pyrrhus with many Military gifts he was as admirable for his strength as for the beauty of his body pleasing in discourse just in employment moderate in command and nothing could be seen that was wanting in him of a King but the Kingdom only THE Four and twentieth BOOK OF IVSTINE WHile these things were thus managed in Sicily King Ptolomy sirnamed Ceraunicus and Antiochus and Antigonus dissenting in Greece and makeing war amongst themselves almost all the Cities of Greece being encouraged by it as if an occasion were offered them to recover their liberty did send to one another and by their Ambassadors having obliged themselves into a league of friendship they did break forth into an apparent war that they might not seem to make war with Antigonus they assaulted the Aetolians his Confederates pretending that the cause of the war was because they had by force possessed themselves of the Cyrean Fields which by the consent of all Greece were dedicated to Apollo To this war they made choyce of Aras for their General who with a prepared Army did spoyl both the Cities and wrecks of Corn which was layd up in those Fields and what they could not take they did set on fire Which when the Aetolian Shepherds beheld from the tops of the Mountains having drawn themselves together into a body of five hundred they pursued their scattered Enemies not knowing how numerous they were because the amazement of the sudden assault and the smoak of the fire had taken from them the full discovery of their Enemies and having killed nine thousand of them they put the residue to fight After this the Spartans beginning the war again many of the Cities denyed them ayd conceiving that they sought not after liberty but the soveraign command of Greece In the mean time the wars amongst the Kings were ended for Ptolomy having beaten away Antigonus and possessed himself of the Kingdom of all Macedonia did make peace with Antiochus and joyned in affinity with Pyrrhus his daughter being given to him in marriage and being safe from all fear of a forraign Enemy he turned his unrighteous minde to commit domestick wickedness and by treachery prepared the destruction of Arsinoe his sister that he might both deprive her Sons of life and her self of the possession of the City of Cassandria His first artifice was by dissembling his love to convert his sister in the way of marriage for he could not otherwise then by the pretence of love finde access to the Sons of his sister whose Kingdom he would enjoy But this wicked design of Ptolomy was made known unto her but he did send her word not giving any belief
being understood Antiochus the King of Syria the antient hatred betwixt both Kingdoms exciting him in a sudden War did possess himself of many of his Cities and did invade Egypt it self On this Ptolomy was surprized with fear and by his Ambassadors desired Antiochus to forbear until he could get his Army in a readiness And having drawn very considerable Forces from Greece he overcame Antiochus and had dispoyled him of his Kingdom if he had but a little helped Fortune and improved the advantage by his valour But contented with the restauration of the Cities which he had lost and having made a Peace he greedily imbraced a Subject for sloth and being fallen into luxury having slain his wife Eurydice who was his own sister he was overcome by the allurements of Agathocleâ— the Harlot and forgetting the greatness of his Name and Majesty he wasted the nights in wantonness and the days in riot Timbrels and Dances were added the Instruments of Luxury and he was not now looked upon as a King but as a professed Master of looseness he delighted himself with Minstrels and all the provocations of lust This was the hidden disease and the sad symptomes of the falling Court. Licentiousness afterwards increasing the impudence of the incontinent woman could not be contained within the wals of the Palace whom the daily and intermingled pollutons of the King with her Brother Agathocles a prostitute of an aspiring comeâ—ness did make more insolent No little aggravation to this was the Mother Euanthe who held more fast the King inthralled with the allurements of both her children Therefore being not contented to possess the King they did now also possess the Kingdom Now they were seen in publick and saluted and attended Agathocles the Prostitute being joined to the side of the King did govern the City and the women did dispose of the Sâ—aâ—s of Judicature of Lieutenant-ships and places of Command neither was there any man of less power in the Kingdom then the King himself In the mean time having left five sons by his sister Eurydice he died Thus whiles the women seized upon his Exchequer and indeavoured to govern the Kingdom by making a League with the deboystest and most dissolute persons the business was a long time concealed but it being discovered at last Agathocles was killed in the first place by the concourse of the multitude and the women to revenge the death of Eurydice were fastened upon crosses The King being dead and the infamy of the Kingdom being as it were expiated by the punishment of the Harlots the Alexandrians did send their Ambassadors to Rome intreating them that they would undertake the Guardianship of the young Prince and protect the Kingdom of Egypt which they said Philip and Antiochus having made a League together had divided amongst themselves The Embassy was gratefull to the Romans at that time seeking an occasion to make War against Philip who lay in wait to entrap them in the time of the Carthaginian War To this may be added that the Carthaginians and Hannibal being overcome the Romans feared the Arms of no man more Considering with themselves how great a commotion Pyrrhus with a few Bands of the Macedonians had made in Italy and what great atchievements they had performed in the East Ambassadors were therefore sent to require Philip and Antiochus to refrain from the Kingdoms of Egypt Marcus Lepidus was also sent into Egypt to be protector of the Kingdom in the behalf of the young Prince Whiles these things were in action the Ambassadors of Attalus King of Pergamus and of Rhodes did address themselves to Rome complaining of the injuries of King Philip which complaint took away all the delay of the War against Macedonia Immediatly in pretence of bringing aid to their associates War was denounced against Philip and many Legions were sent with the Consul into Macedonia And not long afterwards all Greece in confidence of the Romans success against Philip being erected into a hope of their former liberty did make VVar upon him so that the King being urged on every side was compelled to desire peace the conditions whereof when they were expounded by the Romans King Attalus began to redemand his priviledges the Rhodians demanded theirs the Achaeans and Aetolians theirs On the other side Philip did grant that he could be induced to obey the Romans but it would be an unworthy part of him if he should condiscend that the Grecians being overcome by Philip and Alexander his Predecessors and brought under the yoke of the Macedonian Empire should like Conquerors impose Laws of peace on him who ought rather to give an account of their subjeâ—â—ion then lay a claim to liberty At the last Philip being importunate a Truce was made for two moneths and the peace which could not be concluded in Macedonia was to be concluded on by the Senate at Rome In the same year between the two Ilands of Theramenes and Therasia in the midst betwixt both banks and the Sea there was a great Earthquake In which to the wonder of those who sailed by the waters growing suddenly hot there arose an Iland out of the Deeps And on the same day an Earthquake in Asia did shake Rhodes and many other Cities and bringing a great ruine with in did wholly devour others All men being affrighted at the prodigie the prophets presaged that the rising Empire of the Romans should devour the ancient one of the Greeks and Macedons The Senate in the mean time having refused to make any Peace with Philip he sollicited the Tyrant Nabis into the society of the War and having brought his Army into the field and marshalled them to incounter their enemies who were prepared to receive them he did exhort them by declaring to them that the Persians Bactrians and the Indians and all Asia even to the end of the East was overcome by the Macedons and that this war ought so much the more couragiously to be sustained by them as Liberty is more noble then subjection But Flaminius the Roman Consul did excite his Souldiers unto Battel by the Commemoration of their late Atchievements demonstrating that Carthage and Sicily on this side and that Italy Spain on the other side were conquered by the Roman valour and that Hannibal was not to be ranked below Alexander the great who being beaten out of Italy they had subdued Africa it self the third part of the world Moreover the Macedons were not to be esteemed according to their ancient fame but by their present strength for now they waged not war with Alexander the great whom perchance they heard to be invincible neirher with his Army who subdued the East but with Philip a boy not yet grown up to maturity of Age who hardly was able to maintain the bounds of his own Kingdom and with those Macedons who not long ago became a prey to the Dardanians They did only boast of the honors of their Ancestors but the Romans were renowned for the present
courage of their Souldiers for Hannibal and the Carthaginians and almost all the West were not overcome by any other Army but by those Souldiers who were then in the field with him The Souldiers on both sides being stirred up with those exhortations they joyned in Battel the one glorying in the conquest of the East the other of the West these carrying into the fight the ancient and obsolete Honours of their Ancestors and the others the flower of their Chivalry flourishing in the height of the present examples But the Roman fortune overcame the Macedonians And Philip having lost the battel desired Peace of the Consul Flaminius which being obtained he preserved still the name of a King and all the Cities of Thrace being lost as Members that had no interest in the ancient possession of the Kingdom he onely reserved the title of King of Macedonia but the Aetolians being offended because Macedonia was not taken from the King and given to them for a reward of their service did send Ambassadors to Antiochus who by flattering him with his greatness did perswade him to make War with Rome promising him that all Greece would be ready to assist him THE One and Thirtieth BOOK OF IVSTINE PTolomy surnamed Philopater King of Egypt being dead the tender age of his Son who was left to inherit the Kingdom being despised he became a prey to his own Subjects moreover Antiochus King of Syria had a design to dispossess him of Egypt Therefore when he had invaded Phaenicia and other Cities of Syria which belonged to the principality of Egypt the Senate of Rome did send Ambassadors to him to declare unto him that he should abstain from the Kingdom of the yong Prince which was bequeathed to their trust by the last Will of his Father But these Ambassadors being neglected by Antiochus not long after there was sent from Rome another Ambassy who making no mention of their Ward at all commanded that the Cities which by the right of War were under the People of Rome should wholly be restored to them Antiochus refusing it War was denounced against him which he as hastily did undertake as unfortunately he did manage At the same time Nabis the Tyrant did seize upon many Cities of Greece Whereupon the Senate that the Roman forces should not at the same time be detained in a double War did write unto Flaminius that if he thought good he should first free Greece from Nabis as he had delivered Macedonia from Philip. For this cause his Commission was prolonged The name of Hannibal did also make the war of Antiochus more terrible against whom his adversaries who envyed his name in Arms did in private accusations complain unto the Romans that he had entred into a League with Antiochus alledging that he being accustomed to military Commands and the arbitrary power of the sword would never be content to live under Laws and that he being weary of the peace of the City would be always looking after new causes of War which accusations although they were falsly reported yet amongst the fearfull they passed for truth The Senate being surprised with the fear of him did send Servilius Ambassador into Africa to discover his Designs and gave him private Instructions that if possibly he could he might kill him by his emulators and free the Roman people from the fear of so hated a Name But Hannibal was not long ignorant of the design being a man experienced both to foresee and to prevent dangers and preparing for adverse fortune in prosperity as thinking of prosperous fortune in adversity Therefore after he had the whole day presented himself in publick before the face of the Senate of Carthage and of the Roman Ambassador the evening approaching he took horse and repaired to his Country-house which he had near to the Sea-Coast his servants not knowing of it and being commanded to attend him at the gate of the City He had there ships with Marriners in a readiness which lay hid in a Creek and vast sums of money that when occasion required neither want nor inconveniency should delay him With the choisest youth of his Servants whose number the prisoners which he had taken in Italy did increase he imbarked himself and directed his course to Antiochus On the next morning the City expected their Commander in chief and at that time Consul in the place of publick Assembly whom when they found to be departed they were possessed with as great a fear as if the City it self had bin taken And the Roman Ambassador as if a new War already was brought by Hannibal upon Italy returned in a private silence unto Rome and brought along with him the melancholy tidings In the mean time Flaminius having with him some of the associated Cities of Greece did in two battels overcome Nabys the tyrant and left him as it were unnerv'd and fainting in his Kingdom But liberty being restored to Greece and the Garrisons drawn off from the Cities when the Roman Army was commanded back into Italy Nabys being incensed at the nothingness of his empty fortunes did in a sudden War invade again many of the Cities with which the Achaians being affrighted that the neighbouring Evil might not creep unto them they constituted their Praetor Philopemenes to be their General a man of admirable industry whose courage and whose conduct in that War was so apparent that in the Judgement of all he might be compared to Flaminius the Roman General At the same time Hannibal came to Antiochus and was received as a gift from the gods and by his arrival the King was possessed with so great a heat of resolution that he thought not so much on the war it self as on the rewards of the victory But Hannibal who had experience of the Roman valour affirmed that the Romans could not be suppressed but in Italy it self For the performance of which service he desired one hundred ships ten thousand foot and one thousand horse promising with those unconsiderable forces to make as great a War in Italy as he did ever heretofore and bring unto the King sitting in his throne in Asia either a victory over the Romans or the equal conditions of a peace for he said that there was wanting only a General to the Spaniards inflamed with a desire to commence the War against the Romans and Italy moreover was now more known unto him then heretofore neither would Carthage be quiet but without delay would send Auxiliaries to him These counsels being acceptable to the King one of the Confidents of Hannibal was sent to Carthage to exhort them to the War being too covetous of it before he represented to them that Hannibal would immediately be present with his forces and did not communicate to either of the Factions any thing at all but only that nothing was wanting to carry on this War but the resolutions of the Carthaginians for Asia would defray the charges and lend them men enough for the War When
people did cut her off by reason of her cruelty did enjoy the Kingdom alone Mithridates also being taken away by a sudden death did leave his Kingdom to his son who was also called Mithridates whose Greatness afterwards was such that he excelled in Majesty not only all the Kings of his time but of the former age and with various victory held war with the Romans for the space of six and forty years whom the most famous Generals Sylla Lucullus and others at the first and Cneius Pompeius at the last did so overcome that he arose alwaies more great and famous in renewing of the war and became more terrible by his losses and at last being overcome by no hostile force he died a voluntarie death in his own Kingdom being a very old man and leaving a Son to succeed him many signs from Heaven did presage his greatness to come for both on that day in which he was born and on that in which he began his Reign at both times there did appear a Comet which for seventie nights did shine so brightly as all Heaven did seem to be in a flame for by the greatness of it it took up the fourth part of Heaven and by its splendor it overcame the light of the Sun and when it did either rise or set it took up the space of four hours Being in his minoritie he laie open to and did endure the treacherie of his tutors for they did put him upon a wild and an unmanaged horse and did command him not onely to ride him but to exercise his horsmanship and to throw darts from him but Mithridates deluding their design by governing the horse beyond the expectation of his age they conspired against him by poyson which he suspecting did oftentimes drink Antidotes and with such exquisite remedies did so prepare his bodie against it that being an old man he could not die by poyson though attempting it Fearing afterwards that his enemies would perform with the sword what they could not dispatch with poyson he pretended he would solace himself with the recreation of hunting wherefore for the space of four years he neither entred into Citie nor came in the Countrie within the roof of any house but wandred in the woods and took up his lodging on the tops of severall hills no man knowing in what place he was being accustomed by his swiftness of foot either to pursue wild beasts or to flie from them and sometimes by main force to grapple with them By which means he both eschewed all treason that was designed against him and hardned his bodie to all indurance of virtue When afterwards he came to the management of the Kingdom he immediately contrived not so much how to rule it as how to enlarge it and by an incomparable felicitie overcame the Scythians who were before invincible for they had overthrown Zopyro the Lieutenant of Alexander the great with thirtie thousand armed men and killed Cyrus King of the Persians with two hundred thousand Souldiers and routed Philip King of the Macedons Being increased in his power he possessed himself of Pontus and not long afterwards of Cappadocia and going privately out of his Kingdom he sojourned over all Asia with a few friends and thereby gained a perfect knowledge of all the Countrie and of the situation of every Citie After that he travailed higher over all Bithynia and being already as it were Lord of Asia he contrived where to laie his best opportunities for his following victories After this he returned into his Kingdom where it being generally noysed abroad that he was dead he found a young childe which in his absence Laodice who was both his sister and his wife had brought forth But after his long travels amidst the gratulations both of his safe arrival and of the birth of his son he was in danger of being poysoned for his sister Laod ce believing he had been dead did fall into an incontinent life and attempting to conceal one sin by committing a greater did resolve to welcome him with poyson which when Mithridates understood by her maid he revenged the treason which was plotted on the author of it And winter drawing on he spent his time not at the banquet but in the field not in sloth but in exercise not amongst his companions but with Kings equal to him either in the horse-race or the foot-race or by trying the strength of bodie He also by daily exercise hardned his Armie to the same patience of labour and being unconquered himself he by these acts made his Armie invincible Having afterwards made a league with Nicomedes he invaded Paphlagonia and having overcome it he did share it with his companion Nicomedes The Senate being informed that Paphlagonia was again in the possession of Kings they sent Embassadors to them both to command them to restore the Nation to her former condition Mithridates when he believed that he was equall to the Roman Greatness did return a proud answer which was that he received his Kingdom by inheritance and did much wonder that they should trouble themselves with a Controversie which did not belong unto them and being nothing terrified with their threatnings he seized upon Galatia Nicomedes because he could not defend himself by right made answer that he would restore his part to a lawful King and having changed his Name he called his own Son Philomenos after the name of the Kings of Paphlagonia and in a false name and title enjoied the Kingdom as if he had restored it to the true Roial Progenie And thus the Embassadors being deluded did return to Rome THE Eight and thirtyeth BOOK OF IVSTINE MIthridates having begun his parricides by the murder of his own wife determined with himself to put to death the Sons of his other sister Laodice whose husband Ariarathes King of Cappadocia he had treacherously murdered by Gordius thinking he had done nothing in murdering of the father if the young men still enjoyed their fathers Kingdom with a desire whereof he was violently transported Whiles he was busie on his design Nicomedes King of Bithynia did invade Cappadocia destitute of a King which when Mithridates understood in a counterfeit pietie he sent assistance to his sister to drive Nicomedes out of the Kingdom but in the mean time a contract being made Laodice had espoused her self to Nicomedes At which Mithridates being much troubled he drove the Garrison-Souldiers and others of the Armie of Nicomedes out of Bithynia and restored the Kingdom to his sisters son which was an honorable act indeed if it had not been attended by deceit for not long after he pretended that he would call back Gordius from banishment whom he used as his minister in the murder of Ariarathes and restore him to his Countrie hoping if the young man should not give waie to it there would arise from thence a sufficient cause of the war or if he should permit it that the Son might be destroyed by thesame man who
and by the murder of his own son did declare what they ought themselves to expect of their King Cleopatra having ended the dayes of her mourning for the death of her son when she perceived that she was oppressed by a war also from her late husband her brother she by her Ambassadors demanded aid of Demetrius King of Syria whose own fortunes were as various as they were memorable For when Demetrius made war against the Parthians as mention hath been made before and in many encounters overcame them being on a sudden surrounded by an Ambuscado having lost his Army he was taken himself Arsacides King of the Parthians in the greatness of his royal spirit having sent him into Hyrcania did not only honour him with the Respect due unto a King but gave him his daughter also in marriage and promised to restore unto him the Kingdom of Syria which in his absence Trypho became Master of After his death Demetrius despayring of return and not enduring Captivity and loathing a private life although a fatt one and a wealthy did contrive with himself how he might escape into his own Kingdom His friend Calamander was both his Companion and his perswader to undertake this journey who after his Captivity in Syria having hired a guide did bring him disguized in a Parthians habit through the desarts of Arabia into Babylon But Phrahartes who succeeded Arsacides by the swiftness of his horses did cause him to be brought back being overtaken by the compendiousness of their goings Being brought unto the King he not only pardoned Calamander but gave him a reward for his fidelity to his friend but having very roundly checked Demetrius he sent him to his wife in Hyrcania and commanded that he should be observed by a stricter guard In process of time when the children which he had by his wife did seem to be a stronger obligation on him for his fidelity he did endeavour to make his escape again having the same friend to be his Companion but by the same infelicity he was taken again near unto the bounds of his own Kingdom and being the second time brought unto the King he was looked upon as a hated man and not suffered to come into his presence But being then also dismissed to his wife and children he was sent back into Hyrcania and confined to a City upon a penalty not to go out of it and in the reproach of his childish levity was laden with golden shackles But no compassion of the Parthians nor respect of any consanguinity was the occasion of this their clemency towards Demetrius but because the Parthians affected the Kingdom of Syria they determined to make use of Demetrius against his brother Antiochus as the opportunity of time or the fortune of the war should require This being understood Antiochus thinking it discretion to take the advantage to begin the war did conduct his Army which he had hardened with many neighbouring wars against the Parthians But his preparation for luxury was no less then for the carrying on of the war for three thousand of his black guard followed eight thousand of the armed men amongst whom also a great number were Cooks Bakers and Players and all of them so abounding with Gold and Silver that the common Soldiers had their shoes enterlaced with Gold and trod upon that mettal for the love of which all other Nations do fight with steel In their Kitchings also their instruments were of silver as if they advanced rather to keep some great feast then to prosecute a war Anticohus approaching many Kings of the East did meet him who in detestation of the Parthian Pride delivered themselves and their kingdoms to him Not long after the battail began and Antiochus having overthrown his Enemies in three several fields and possessed himself of Babylon he was called Antiochus the great And the people in all the neighbouring Nations revolting to him there was nothing left to the Parthians but their own Country and the boundaries of it At the same time Phrahartes sent Demetrius into Syria with a considerable Army of the Parthians to possess himself of his own Kingdom that upon that account Antiochus should be called off from Parthia to defend his own Interests And because he could not overcome him by strength he did every where attempt him by Stratagems The Army of Antiochus abounding with multitudes the winter coming on he quartered his Army in several Cities which was the cause of his destruction For when the Cities beheld themselves oppressed with the billeting the injuries of the soldiers they revolted to their old Masters the Parthians and on a prefixed day by treacheries they did all assault the divided Army that thereby one might be disabled to bring assistance unto the other Which when Antiochus understood being resolved to relieve those who were next unto him he advanced with that party which with him had their winter quarters In his way he encountred with the King of the Parthians against whom in his person he fought more couragioâ—sly then all his Armie At last when he had overcome his enemies by fine force being abandoned of his own Souldiers through the treacherie of their fear he was slain Phrahartes did bestow upon him the solemnitie of magnificent funerals after the manner of Kings and being taken with the love of the Virgin did marrie the daughter of Demetrius which Antiochus had brought along with him and began to repent that ever he suffered Demetrius to go away and having sent in full speed several troops of horse to fetch him back they found him in safetie in his own Kingdom fearing the same design of Phrahartes and having in vain attempted all things to reduce him they returned to their own King THE Nine and thirtyeth BOOK OF IVSTINE ANtiochus being overthrown in Parthia with his Armie his Brother Demetrius being delivered from the Captivitie of the Parthians and restored to his own Kingdom when all Syria was in lamentation by reason of the loss of the Armie as if he had happily managed his own and his Brothers wars with Parthia in which the one of them was taken and the other slain he was resolved to make another war in Egypt his mother in law Cleopatra having promised him that Kingdom as the reward of his assistance against her Brother But whiles he affected the possessions of other men as oftentimes it comes to pass he lost his own by the revolt of Syria for the Antiochians first of all under the command of their General Trypho having in detestation the pride of their King which became intolerable by the exercise of his Parthian crueltie and after them the Apamenians and other Cities following their examples did revolt from King Demetrius in his absence But Ptolomy King of Egypt having his Kingdom invaded by him when he understood that his sister Cleopatra having taken with her the wealth of Egypt was fled unto her Daughter and to Demetrius her Son in law did suborn a
of the Conqueror but to plead for her besides the Laws of war there was also the contiguitie of blood she being her own sister against whom so bloodily she raged and his own cosen German and the mother of children betwixt them to this neer relation of consanguinitie he added the superstition of the Temple to which she fled to protect her self and that the gods were so much the more religiously to be worshipped as they were more propitious and favourable to him in his conquest besides she being slain nothing was diminished of the strength and power of Cyricaenus But by how much Gryphus was the more unwilling by so much her sister was inflamed with a female pertinatiousness conceiving those words of his proceeded from love and not from pittie Therefore having called the Souldiers to her she sent them her self to kill her sister who entering into the Temple when they could not drag her out of it they cut off her hands holding fast on the Image of the goddess and in her last words having cursed the Author of the Parricide the gods besides being violated she died but to revenge her self for not long after another battaile being fought and Cyricaenus Conquerour he took Gryphina the wife of Gryphus prisoner who killed her sister and by her death did parentate to the Ghosts of his wife But Cleopatra in Egypt when she was offended that her Son Ptolomy was her companion in the Kingdom she excited the people against him and having taken from him his Wife Seleuce and so much the more unworthily because he had two children by her she compelled him to live a banished life having sent for her younger Son Alexander and crowned him King in the place of his Brother and being not content to have banished him out of the Kingdom she prosecuted a War against him in Cyprus and having driven him from thence also she killed the General of her own Army because he permitted him to escape alive out of his hands although Ptolomy being no wayes inferior to him in strength did willingly depart out of the Iland that he might not be engaged in a War against his own Mother Alexander being terrified with this cruelty of his Mother did also himself forsake her preferring a safe and quiet life above a dangerous Kingdom But Cleopatra fearing that her eldest Son Ptolomy should be assisted by Cyricaenus to be by him restored into Egypt did send great Ayds to Gryphus and Seleuce to be his wife who must now be espoused to the Enemy of her former husband and by Ambassadors called back Alexander her Son into the Kingdom whose life when by treachery she contrived to take away being prevented by him she was killed herself and yielded up her spirit not by fate but parricide Worthy she was of this infamy of death who drove her own Mother from the bed of her husband and possessed her room in it and successively made her two Daughters Widows after their alternate marriage with their own Brothers who banished one of them afterwards made war against him and having taken the Kingdom also from the other did endeavor to put him to death by treachery But Alexander had the leisure to repent of this horrible act for when ever it was known that the Mother was slain by the violence of the Son he was forced into banishment by the people and Ptolomy being called back the Kingdom was restored to him who would neither make War with his Mother nor take away by Arms from his brother what he himself did first possess Whiles these things were thus carryed his brother begotten on a Concubine to whom his Father in his Will did leave the Kingdom of Cyrene did decease having made the people of Rome his Heir for now the fortune of Rome being not content with the bounds of Italy did begin to extend it self to the Kingdoms of the East Therefore that part of Lybia was made a Province and afterwards Crete and Cilicia being subdued in the Piratick War were reduced into the form of a Province by which meanes the Kingdoms of Syria and Egypt being streightned by the Roman neighbourhood and accustomed heretofore to raise advantages to themselves by Wars with those who were next unto them the power of wandring abroad being taken away they turned their own strength into their own bowels insomuch that consuming themselves with daily encounters they grew into contempt with their neighbors and became a prey to the Nation of the Arabians but weak and contemptible before whose King Herotimus in the confidence of six hundred Sons begotten on divers Concubines with divided Armies did sometimes invade and plunder Egypt and sometimes Syria and advanced the name of the Arabians making it great by the weakness of the neighbouring Princes THE Fortyeth BOOK OF IVSTINE THe mutual hatreds of the Brothers and not long afterwards the enmity of the Sons succeeding the hatred of their Parents when both the Kings and Kingdom of Syria was consumed by an inexpiable War the people were enforced to seek forraign Ayd and began to look upon the Kings that were strangers to them Therefore when one part of them were of opinion that Mithridates should be sent for out of Pontus and another part thought that Ptolomy should be sent for out of Egypt it being advertised that Mithridates was involved in the Roman War and that Ptolomy was an Enemy unto Syria they all agreed upon Tigranes King of Armenia who was supplyed besides his own strength with the Society of the Parthians and the affinity of Mithridates Tigranes being therefore sent for into the Kingdom of Syria for the space of eighteen years most peaceably enjoyed the Kingdom neither did he provoke any by War neither being provoked did he conceive it necessary to make war against any other But as Syria was safe from the in vasion of Enemies so it was made desolate by an Earthquake in which one hundred and seventy thousand persons and many Cities were destroyed The South-sayers being consulted did make answer that this Prodigie did portend the change of affairs in the Kingdoms of the East Tigranes therefore being overcome by Lucullus Antiochus the Son of Cyricaenus was made King of Syria by him But what Lucullus gave Pompey afterwards did take away for he demanding the Kingdom of him he made answer That he would not make him King of Syria either desiring or refusing it having for the space of eighteen years during which Tigranes possessed Syria dishonourably concealed himself in a corner of Cilicia but Tigranes being overcome he now desired of the Romans the reward of another mans labour Therefore as he did not dispossess him of the Kingdom when he had it so because he gave way to Tigranes he would not grant him that which he could not defend least he should render Syria again obnoxious to the robberies of the Arabians and the Jewes He therefore reduced it into the form of a Province and thus by the discord of the
the rewards of his Victorie In the Reign of Latinus Aeneas came from Ilium into Italie Troy being sacked and destroyed by the Greeks He was immediately entertained with war and drawing forth his Armie to battail Latinus sending a Trumpet to parly with him was possessed with such an admiration of him that he received him into the societie of the Kingdom and Lavinia being given him in marriage he was the son in law to Latinus After this they had both war with Turnus King of the Rutilians because Lavinia who before the arrival of Aeneas was betrothed to him was denied him in marriage In this war both Turnus and Latinus perished therefore when Aeneas by the Law of Arms commanded over both people he builded a Citie after the name of his wife Lavinia He afterwards made war against Mezentius King of the Tuscans in which dying himself his Son Ascanius did succeed him who having abandoned the Citie Lavinium did build long Alba which for three hundred years was the Metropolis of the Kingdom After the Reign of many Kings of that Citie at the last Numitor and Amulius did enjoy the Kingdom but when Amulius had disenthroned Numitor who was the more respected by reason of his age he politickly devoted his Daughter Rhea to a perpetual Virginitie that there should be no more children out of the race of Numitor to take revenge on him for the usurpation of the Kingdom and the better to conceal his design a pretence of honor was added to the injurie and she seemed not so much to be a person condemned as a Voteress elected Therefore being shut up in a Wood sacred to Mars she brought forth two children at one birth it is uncertain whether begotten by Mars or by incontinence with another Amulius his fear being multiplyed by the birth of the two boys did command them to be exposed and laded Rhea with chains by the injurie and burden whereof she not long after died But fortune prospicient to the Original of Rome did provide a Woolf to give suck to the children who having lost her whelps and desiring to emptie her teats did offer her self as a Nurse to the Infants and returning often to the children as to her own young ones Faustulus the Shepherd observed it and having taken them from the Woolf he brought them up amongst the flocks in a rural life It is by manifest arguments believed that the boys were begotten by Mars both because they were born in his Grove and were nursed also by a Woolf which is a creature under the protection of Mars One of the boys was called Remus and the other Romulus being at mans estate in their daily exercises amongst the Shepherds they did encrease their strength and swiftness and did oftentimes with prompt industrie drive away the Theeves that came to steal the Cattle It so fell out that Remus at last was taken by them and as if he was himself the same which he did forbid in another he was brought unto the King and accused to have been accustomed to rob the flocks of Numitor wherefore the King did deliver him to Numitor to be revenged of him But Numitor being moved with the flourish of his youth and his suspition calling to his minde his Nephew exposed when the similitude of the savor of his daughter and the time at which he was exposed did agree with his age and held him very doubtful Behold then Faustulus came unexpectedly with Romulus by whom the Original of the â—oys being understood the plot immediatey was contrived the young men were armed or the revenge of their mothers death and Numitor for his Kingdom taken from him Amulius being slain the Kingdom was retored to Numitor and the Citie of Rome was â—uilded by the young men the Senate then was constituted consisting of one hundred Seniors who were called Fathers The Neighbors also disdaining that their daughters should be married unto Shepherds the Sabin Virgins were taken away by violence and the Nations about them being overcome by Arms they first obtained the Empire of Italie and afterwards of the world In those times it was the custom of Kings instead of Diadems to use Spears which the Greeks call Scepters for in the beginning of time the Antients worshipped Spears for the immortal Gods in the memorie whereof Spears at this daie are added to the Images of the gods In the times of King Tarquin the youth of the Phocensians being brought into the mouth of Tyber did enter into friendship with the Romans and sayling from thence into the furthest parts of France they builded Massilia betwixt the Ligurians and other fierce Nations of the Gauls and performed great atchievements whiles by Arms they either protected themselves against their barbarous insolence oâ— whiles of their own accord they did provoke them of whom they were provoked heretoforâ— For the Phocensians being compelled by the barrenness of their soyl did live with more industrie and alacritie on the Seas then on the Land and did lead their lives somtimes by fishing somtimes by trading but for the most part by Pyracie which at that time was accounted honorable Therefore having sailed into the farthest Coasts of all the Ocean they came into a harbor at the mouth of the River of Rhone and being delighted with the pleasure of the place on their return to their own Countrie discovering to others what they had seen themselves they stirred up many men to undertake that voyage Furius and Peranus were the Admiral and Vice-Admiral of their Fleet. They came to the King of the Segoregians Sâ—â—anus by name in whose Territories they dâ—â—ired to build their City desiring his friendship It so fell out that the King on thâ—â— daie was employed in the preparations for the marriage of his daughter Gyptis for whom according to the custom of that Nation he intended to provide a husband who was to be chosen by her self at a great and solemn feast prepared for that purpose Therefore all the Suitors being invited to the â—inner the Grecian Guests were also intreatd to be present at it The Virgin then acording to the custom being brought in and eing commanded by her father to give waer unto him whom she would make choice of â—o be her husband she passing by all the Gauls did turn towards the Greeks and gave the water to Peranus who being made of a guest a Son in law had a place assigned to him wherein to build his Citie Masâ—ilia therefore was builded neer unto the mouth of the River of Rhone on a remote Bay as it were an angle of the Sea But the Ligurians envying the prosperitie and increase of the Citie did wearie the Grecians with daily wars who in beating back the dangers from them became so glorious that their enemies being overthrown they sent forth many Colonies into the neighboring Countries from these the Gauls being instructed their barbarous manners being either quite laid aside or more civilized they learned the use of a more refined
course of life as to exercise and mitigate the field s with ploughs and to environ and to defend their Cities with Walls They then began to live not only by Arms but Laws they learned to prune the Vine and to plant the Olive And so great a beautie and order was observed both in disposing of the things and men that Greece did not seem to come into Gallia but Gallia to be translated into Greece Senanus King of the Segoregians being dead from whom the place was received to build the Citie his Son Commanus did succeed him in the Kingdom and a certain King affirming that the time would come when Massilia should be the destruction of the neighboring people did argue that it might be suppressed in the Original lest growing strong by degrees it might at last suppress him who gave both an Original and an encrease unto it to the performance whereof he inserted this following Fable A Bitch great with whelp did petition to a Shepherd to give her room in which to bring forth her young ones which being obtained she petitioned to him again to grant her the same room to bring up her young ones at the last her whelps growing into age and she being supported with her Domestick numbers did challenge the proprietie of the place unto her self So the Massilians who do now appear to be but strangers may in a short time become Lords of the Countrie The King being incited by the application of this storie did attempt by deceits to destroy the Massilians Therefore on the Holy-day dedicated to Flora he sent many lustie and able men into the Citie to be entertained as guests and gave order that many more should be brought in Carts in which they should be covered with green leaves whiles he himself with his Armie lay hid in the next hills that they might be present when the opportunitie served for their Ambush and the Gates in the night being opened to receive their Carts they might with armed men invade the Citie drowned in wine and sleep But a woman who by the contiguitie of blood had neer relation to the King being accustomed to play the wanton with one of the Grecians pittying the loveliness of the young man in her embraces of him did betray the deceit unto him and desired him to decline the danger He immediately informed the Magistrates with it and the prepared treacheries being discovered the Ligurians were apprehended and lying hid were drawn out of the Carts and being all put to death deceits were prepared for the deceitful King and seven thousand of the Ligurians were slain with the King himself After this the Massilians did alwaies upon their Holy-daies keep their Gates shut and observed a strict watch and had Centinels to walk their Rounds on the walls and to take notice of strangers and to demand the word and thus as if they were invironed with war they managed their Citie in the times of peace so punctually good Instructions are observed there not so much by the necessitie of the times as by the custom of doing well After this the Massilians had for many years great wars with the Ligurians and the Gauls which both increased the glorie of the Citie and amongst the neighboring Countries made famous the valor of the Greeks by their multiplied Victories And when a new war arose from Carthage they having surprized the Busses of their Fishermen they often overthrew the Armie of the Carthaginians and gave peace unto them being conquered They entred into a league with the Spaniards and almost from the first foundation of their Citie they observed their friendship with the Romans with great fidelitie and in all their wars industriously assisted their associats which both increased the confidence of their strength and purchased them peace from their enemies When Massilia flourished therefore with the same of their atchievements the abundance of their wealth and the glorie of their strength the neighboring people in conspiring multitudes did gather themselves together to root out the name of the Massilians as to extinguish a common fire By the consent of all Caramandus was chosen General who when he besieged the Citie with a powerful Armie of chosen men being affrighted in his sleep with the vision of a hard favoured woman who called her self a goddess he offered peace of his own accord to the Massilians and having desired that he might be allowed the libertie to enter into their Citie and to worship their gods when he came unto the Temple of Minerva and beheld in the pâ—rtalls of it the image of the goddess which he beheld before in his sleep he immediately cried out that that was she who did affright him in the night and commanded him to raise the siege and having gratulated the Massilians that the immortal gods had care of them he entred into a perpetual league with them having recompenced the goddess with a chain of Gold Peace being obtained and their securitie established the Embassadors of the Marsilians having returned from Delphos to which place being sent they had brought gifts unto Apollo did inform them that they heard in the way that the Citie of Rome was taken by the Gauls and set on fire they seemed to be much afflicted at the loss and did prosecute it with a publick funeral and sent their Gold both what they had in private as well as publick to make up the summe having understood that they had redeemed their Citie and their peace with money from the Gauls For which benefit it was decreed by the Senate that they should be made free of Rome and a place allowed them in the publick Spectacles and a solemn league was again confirmed perpetually to be observed with equal Interests on both sides In his last book Trogus affiâ—ms that his Ancestors derived their original from the Volscians that his Grandfather Trogus Pompeius was made free of the Citie at what time Cneius Pompeius made war against Sertorius in Spain he affirmeth also that his Uncle under the same Pompey was Colonel of a Regiment of horse in the war against Mithridates and that his father served in the wars under Caius Caesar and that he was both his Secretarie the master of the Complements and had the office of the Seal THE Four and Fortieth BOOK OF IVSTINE SPain as it is she doth shut up the limits of Europe so it is the conclusion of this Work The Antients called it first Hyberia from the River Hyberus and after Spain â—om Hispanus It is situated betwixt Africk nd France and inclosed with the main â—cean and the Pyrenaean mountains and as is less then either Africk or France so it more fruitful then either for it is not scorched with the violence of the Sun as Africa neither is it troubled with daily windes as France but enjoyes a mean betwixt both and by its temperate heat and seasonable and pregnant showers it produceth all variety of fruits insomuch that it sufficeth not only the Inhabitants
of the Sows did nourish him with their milk whereupon at the last he commanded that he should be cast into the Ocean Then by the present power of Providence as if he was carryed rather in a Ship then on the waves by a gentle tide he was brought to the land safe betwixt the raging sands and the reciprocating Billowes And not long after there did appear a Hinde who did offer her strutting dugs unto the little one who by his daily conversation with his nurse became of a wonderful swiftness of body and a long time wandred on the Mountains and the Valleys amongst the herds of the Dear being no ways inferior in his swiftness to them At the last he was taken in a snare and given as a great present to the King and being discovered to be his Nephew by the similitude of his lineaments and by the marks of his body which presently after his birth were burned on it in the admiration of the deliverances from so many chances and dangers he was ordained by the King to be his Successor in the Kingdom his name was called Habis and no sooner was he invested in the Kingdom but he shewed such proofs of nobility and greatness that it appeared he was not in vain delivered from so many dangers by the Majesty of God for by Laws he did unite the barbarous people and taught them how to yoak the Oxen and to plough and sow the ground and enforced them to feed on better nourishment then what the trees or Plants provided belike in the hate of those things which he himself had endured The education of this Prince would seem fabulous but that it is recorded that the Builders of Rome were nourished by a Woolf and that a Bitch did give suck unto Cyrus King of Persia The people were by him forbidden to exercise any servile labour and they were distributed by him into seven Cities Habis being dead the Kingdom for many Generations continued amongst his Successors But in another part of Spain which consisteth most of Ilands the Kingdom was in the power of Geryon In this place there is such abundance of grass and withall so pleasant that if by the providence of the herdsmen the Cattel were not enforced to discontinue feeding their bodies would break by the excess From hence the Droves of Geryon in those times accounted the onely wealth of the world were of that fame amongst the Nations that by the greatness of the booty they allured Hercules out of Asia It is recorded in Story that Geryon was not a Gyant of three bodies as the Fables do make mention but that there were three brothers of so fast a concord that all three seemed to be governed by one minde and that Hercules did not of his own accord make War upon them but having observed that his own droves of Cattle were forced from him he regained of them what he had lost by the sword After the Succession of many Kings in Spain the Carthaginians first of all possessed themselves of it for when the Inhabitants of the Gades being obedient to the vision had translated into Spain the holy things of Hercules from Tyre from which place the Carthaginians also do derive their Original and had builded them there a City the neighbouring people of Spain envying the growing happiness of the new City and upon that account provoking them to War the Carthaginians being of the same kindred did send relief unto them and by a happy Expedition they both vindicated the Gaditans from injury and added the greatest part of Spain to the Empire of their command And afterwards being incited by the fortune of their first Expedition they sent Amilcar their General with a great Army to make themselves masters of all the Province who having performed great atchievements whiles he followed his fortune too inconsiderately he was betrayed in an Ambush and slain Asdrubal his Son-in-law was sent to supply his plae who was slain himself by the servant of a Spaniard in the revenge of the unjust death of his Master Annibal the Son of Amilcar did succeed him and was a greater General then them both for having excelled them in his atchievements he subdued all Spain and having afterwards made war on the Romans he afflicted Italy with several losses and overthrows for the space of 16 years The Romans in the mean time having sent the Scipioes into Spain did first of all drive the Carthaginians out of that Province afterwards they had great Wars with the Spaniards themselves neither could they be conquered to an absolute obedience untill Augustus Caesar having subdued all the world did carry thither his conquering swords and having by Laws brought the barbarous and rude people into a more civil course of life he reduced all Spain into the form of a Province The End of the Books of JVSTINE the HISTORIAN Collections taken from the Books of Sextus Aurelius Victor on the lives and manners of the Roman Emperors from the time of Caesar Augustus to the Emperor Theodosius Octavianus Augustus Caesar IN the seven hundred and two and twentyeth year after the City of Rome was built but in the four hundred and eightieth year after the expulsion of the Kings the custome was renewed at Rome to obey onely one person not entituled a King but an Emperor or by a more reverend Name Augustus Octavianus was the Son of Octavius a Senator by the Mothers side he derived his discent from Aeneas by the Julian Family and by the adoption of Caius Caesar his great Uncle he was called Caius Caesar and by reason of his victories sirnamed Augustus Being established in the Empire he exercised the Tribunitian power of himself He reduced the Country of Egypt being before unpassable by reason of the Marshes and the inundation of Nilus into the form of a Province which that he might make serviceable to the City by the transportation of Corn he caused with the great labour of his Souldiers all the deep ditches to be opened which the negligence of Antiquity had covered with mud In his time four hundred Millions of measures of Corn were brought yearly out of Egypt unto Rome To the number of the Provinces of the people of Rome he added the Cantabrians and Aquanians the Rhoetians Vindelicans Vandals and Dalmatians he overthrew the Swedes and the Cattans and translated the Sycambrians into France and enforced the Pannonians to be tributary to Rome and compelled the people of the Gothes and Bastarnians to a peace having first provoked them to feel his power by War The Persians presented their Hostages unto him and granted him the permission to chuse them a King The Indians moreover and the Scythians the Garamants and Ethiopians did send their Ambassadors with Presents to him He so much abhorred all Wars troubles or division that he would never denounce War upon any Nation unless for great and just causes alledging that it shewed a vain-glorious and most unconstant minde either in the immoderate desire
yet remaining of them he answered there are no more whom I now desire to have dead but the Tyrant himself by which words after the revenge of his Sisters chastity he shewed himself to be a Conqueror of the Tyrant himself By his vertue the City being admonished of her liberty Hippias at last was driven from his Kingdom into banishment who repairing to the Persians did offer himself as a Guide unto Darius in his war against his Countrey Therefore the Athenians the approach of Darius being understood desiring aid of the Lacedemonians a City then in friendship with them and finding that by reason of some Religion they demanded the respite of four days their assistance being not regarded with ten thousand of their own Citizens and a thousand Auxiliaries of the Platensians they advanced into the fields of Marathon against six hundred thousand of their Enemies Miltiades was Captain Geneâ—al of the war and the Author not expecting the Lacedemonian aid who was armed with so great a confidence that he believed there was more advantage in the swiftness of the march then in the assistance of his friends Great therefore was the cheerfulness and courage of their minds which they shewed in their eager running to the battel insomuch that when there was the space of a mile betwixt both Armies in full speed and before the flight of their arrows they came up unto the faces of their enemies neither was success wanting to their boldness for they fought with so much courage that you would take these to be men and the other sheep The Persians being overcome did fly into their ships many of which were sunk and many taken In this fight so great was the prowess of every one that it is hard to judge whose praise was the greatest But the glory of young Themistocles did apparently shine forth amongst the rest in whom his Imperatorious Honours to come were easily to be seen The glory also of Cynegirus an Athenian Souldier is celebrated by the praises of many Writers who after innumerable slaughters in the fight when he had driven the flying enemies to their ships he took hold of a ship laden with men with his right hand nor did he let loose his hold till he lost that hand His right hand being cut off he fastened upon the ship with his left hand and having lost that also he took hold of the ship with his mouth so great was his courage that being not wearied with so many slaughters nor both his hands being lost being yet overcome at the last thus dismembred as he was and like an inraged wild beast he fought even with his teeth In that battel the Persians lost two hundred thousand men besides those who perished at Sea Hippias the Athenian Tyrant was also slain the Author and Promoter of the war the Gods the revengers of his Countrey taking punishment of his treachery In the mean time Darius when he would renew the war died in the very preparation of it many children being left begotten both before and after his reign Artobazanes being eldest by the priviledge of his age did challenge the Kingdom which the right and order of birth and nature her self doth allow to the Nations But Xerxes did make his plea not in relation to order but to the happiness of his birth It was true indeed he said that Artobazanes was the first-born but when Darius was a private man but he was born when Darius was a King therefore his brothers who were born to Darius being but a private man could not challenge to themselves the Kingdom but only that private Fortune which Darius had before he was a King He alledging that he was the first whom his Father being a King did beget to inherit the Kingdom To this it was added that Artobazanes was born when not only his father but his mother also were of a private Fortune but he was born his mother being a Queen and that he never saw his father but when a King moreover that King Cyrus on his mothers side was his Grandfather not only the heir but the erector of so great an Empire Therefore if the Father had left both Brothers endued with equall right yet he should carry it both by the right of his Mother and his Grandfather This strife with concording affections they did refer to their Uncle Artaphernes as to a Domestick Judge who the cause being examined made Xerxes King and so brotherly was the contention that neither the Conqueror did insult nor the conquered repine and in the very height of the contestation they sent presents to one another and had not only undistrustful but delightful feastings together The Judgement it self was also given without arbitrators and without reproaches so much more moderately did brothers then decide great Kingdoms amongst themselves then they do now share but small Patrimonies Xerxes made preparations five yeers together for the Grecians which when Demaratus King of the Lacedemonians who lived as a banished man in the Court of Xexes understood being more friendly to his Countrey after his flight then to the King after his benefits lest they should be oppressed by an unexpected war he did certifie the particulars to the Magistrates in Tables of wood and covered the Letters with wax spread over them that neither the Characters might be read which would have bin if they had nothing to cover them nor the fresh wax betray the deceit he then gave them to a faithful servant to be carried and did command him to deliver them to the Magistrates of Sparta which being brought unto them it held them long in suspence at Lacedemon for they saw nothing written and yet believed that they were not sent in vain and that the business was so much the greater by how much it was the more concealed The men not knowing what to conjecture the sister of King Leonides found out the design of the writer the wax therfore being taken off the advertisements of the war were discovered Xerxes had by this time armed seven hundred thousand men out of his own Dominions had three hundred thousand sent to his assistance that it is not unworthily recorded that Rivers were drank up and that all Greece was hardly able to contain his Army he was also said to have one hundred thousand Ships To this so great an Army a General was wanting for if you look upon the King you will rather extol his wealth then his conduct of which there was such abundance in his Kingdom that when Rivers were consumed with his multitudes yet his Exchequer was still full He was always seen the last in the fight and the first in the flight humble in dangers and when the occasion of fear was over one high-minded Before the trial of the War as if he was Lord of Nature her self by the confidence oâ— his numbers he levelled mountains and raised the valleys all to one height some Seas he covered with Bridges and contracted others for the
for that they sought to increase their own power not by the strength but by the weakening of their Associates Being dismissed to Athens he was received by the Citizens as if Sparta had been triumphed over After this the Spartans that their Army might not be corrupted with sloth and to revenge the War which the Persians had made on their City and on Greece did of their own accord make incursions into and plundred the Confines of Persia They chose Pausanias to be General both for their own Army and the Army of their Associates who for his Conduct affected the whole Kingdom of Greece and contracted with Xerxes for the marriage of his daughter a reward of his treachery to which purpose he restored the prisoners that by some benefit he might oblige to him the belief of the King He also wrote to Xerxes that whatsoever Messengers he sent unto him he should put them to death lest the negotiation betwixt them should be betrayed by their tongues but Aristides the Captain of the Athenians being chosen his Companion in the War by crossing the designs of his Colleague and wisely providing for the imminent danger did find out the Treason and not long after Pausanias being accused was condemned Xerxes when he found the plot discovered made War again upon the Grecians who elected for their Captain Cimon the Athenian the Son of Miltiades a young Gentleman the example of whose piety did declare his greatness to come for to give him Funerall Rites he redeemed the body of his Father out of prison where he dyed being accused to have purloined from the publike Treasury and took the Bonds upon himself neither did he deceive in war the expectation of his Friends for being not inferiour to the valour of his Father he enforced Xerxes to fly back with fear into his Kingdom being overcome both by Sea and Land THE THIRD BOOK OF IVSTINE XErxes the King of the Persians the terror before of the Nations the wars being unfortunately mannaged abroad began at last to be despised at home for the Majesty of the King daily diminishing his Lieutenant Artabanus having flattered himself with the hope of the Kingdom did come in an evening with seven sons he had into the Court which by the interest of friendship lay always open to him where having slain the King he by policy did attempt to take away his sons who opposed his desire and not mistrusting Artaxerxes being very young he reported that the King was slain by his own Son Darius that he might the sooner enjoy the Kingdom He perswaded Artaxerxes by Parricide to revenge Parricide and coming to the house of Darius being asleep they killed him as if being guilty he had counâ—erâ—eâ—ted sleep on purpose After this when Artabanus saw that one of the Royall Issue was yet remaining and did out-live his villany and withall feared the contention of the Nobility concerning the possession of the Kingdom he assumed Baccabassus to be a partner of his coâ—nsells who being contented with his present condition did reveal to Artaxerxes how his Father was slain and his Brother murdered upon a false suspicion of Parricide and that Treason was plotted against himself This being understood Artaxerxes fearring the number of the sons of Artabanus did command that his Army should be mustered on the next day that he might take into his observation the number of his souldiers and their particular industry and experience in their exercise of Arms Therefore when amongst the rest Artabanus was present and in Arms the King dissembled that his Coat of Mayl was not fit for him and desired Artabanus to make an exchange who being busie to disarm himself and unprepared for defence the King did run him through with his sword After this he commanded the sons of Artabanus to be apprehended and at once this excellent young man did revenge the slaughter of his Father the death of his Brother and delivered himself from treachery Whiles these things were thus carried in Persia all Greece being divided into two parts by the Lacedemonians and Athenians they from Forraign Wars did convert their Swords into their own bowels Therefore of one people there were constituted two bodies and men heretofore of one and the same Camp were now divided into two hostile Armies The Lacedemonians did draw to their party the common Auxiliaries heretofore of both Cities but the Athenians being as renowned for their Antiquity as their Acts did trust in their own strength and so these two most powerful people of Greece equal by the Institutions of Solon and the Laws of Lycurgus did throw themselves into a War through the emulation of greatness Lycurgus when he succeeded his brother Polybites King of Sparta and could challenge the Kingdom for himself did with great fidelity restore it to his son Charilaus born after his Fathers death when he came unto age to give an example to Posterity how much the Rights of Piety amongst all good men should prevail above the temptation of riches therefore in the Parenthesis of time whiles the Infant grew up he being his protector made Laws for the Spartans Laws not more famous for their justice then for the example of the Law-giver for he ordained nothing in any Law for others of which he first of all had not made a rule of it in himself He confirmed the people in their obedience to their Governors and the Governors to Justice in the execution of their places of Command He perswaded parsimony to all believing that the labors of the war would be more easie by the daily exercise of frugality he commanded all things to be bought not with money but with exchange of wares he took away the use of Gold and Silver as the occasion of all wickedness he divided the administration of the Common-wealth by orders he gave to their Kings the power of the Wars to the Magistrates the Seats of Judgement and annuall Successions to the Senate the Custody of the Laws to the People the substituting of the Senate and the power of creating such Magistrates whom they pleased he made an equal division of Land to all that their Patrimonies being alike no man might be made more powerful then his Neighbour he commanded all men to keep their feasts in publike that no mans riches or his luxury should be concealed It was permitted to young men to wear but one suit of Apparel during the space of one whole year and that no man should be clothed better then another nor feast more voluptuously lest the imitation should be turned into luxury He instituted that the boys at fourteen years of age should not be brought up in the City but in the field that they might lay forth their first yeers not in riot but in labour They were permitted neither bed nor pillows to lie upon nor to eat any warm things nor to return into the City untill they were at mans estate He ordained that the Virgins should be married without portions He
Arms at their very entrance into their Gates and not above one hundred men and disabled too by their age did enter into a fight against fifteen thousand Souldiers so much strength and courage the sight of their City and of their houshold gods did administer who infused into them greater spirits as much by their presence as by the remembrance of them for when they saw for whom and amongst whom they stood they were all of a resolution either to overcome or die a few old men undertook the whole brunt of the battel unto whom before that day appeared not all the youth and Army of their Enemies could be equal In this fight two Captains of the Enemies were slain In the mean time when the coming of Agesilaus was reported the Thebans retreated and some few hours after the battail again began for the youth of the Lacedemonians being inflamed with the courage and glory of their old men could not be kept back but would throw themselves upon their Enemies howsoever the Thebans had the Victory and Epaminondas performing the duty not onely of a General but of a resolute and couragious Souldier was grievously wounded which being understood the Thebans through the excess of grief were possessed with fear and the Lacedemonians through the excess of joy with a kind of amazement and as it were with a consent on both sides they departed from the batâ—el Some few daies afterwards Epaminondas deceased with whom the whole strength of that Common-wealth dyed also for as if you break or blunt the edge of any weapon you take from the residue of the steel the power to hurt so this Captain who was the edge of their courage being taken away the whole strength and vigor of that Theban Commonwealth was immediately rebated insomuch that they did not seem onely to lose him but to have all perished with him for before this Captain they did never mannage any memorable war and were famous afterwards not for their vertues but their overthrows so apparent it was that the glory of his Countrey was born and dyed with him It is hard to say whether he was a better man or a better Captain for he sought the Government not for himself but for his Countrey and was so careless of money that he had not wherewith to defray the charges of his own Funeral moreover he was no more covetous of glory then of money for the Commands were all thrown upon him refusing and drawing back from them and he so deported himself in his places of honour that hee seemed not to receive but to give an ornament to the dignity it self So great was his knowledge in Letters and Philosophy that it may be wonderful how that excellent experience in the affairs of war should arrive unto a man born amongst the Arts neither did the manner of his death differ from the institutions of his life for being brought half dead into his Tent he collecting his voyce and spirits demanded onely if his Enemy had taken his Buckler from him when he fell which when hee understood was preserved he desired to see it and it being brought unto him he kissed it as the companion of his labours and his glory Hee again demanded Who had obtained the Victory when it was answered The Thebans he replyed It was well and so gratulating his Countrey he did give up his last breath In his grave the vertues not onely of the Thebans but of the Athenians also was buried for he being taken away whom they were accustomed to emulate they did degenerate into sloth and laid forth the publick Revenues not as before on Fleets and Armies but on festival dayes and on the setting forth of Playes and visiting the Scene oftner then the Camp they onely celebrated the Theators famous with Poets and Actors praysing their Poets and their Orators more then their Captans by which means it came to pass that in these leisures of the Grecians the name of the Macedons but ignoble and obscure before should rise into glory and that Philip bred up in the vertues and institutions of Epaminondas and Pelopidas being three yeers as an Hostage at Thebes should put the Kingdom of Macedonia on the necks of Greece and of Asia as the yoak of their servitude THE SEVENTH BOOK OF IVSTINE MAcedonia was heretofore called Aemathia after the name of their King Emathion the first experiments of whose vertue were extant in those places Their beginnings were but small and their bâ—unds but narrow the people were called Pelasgi and the Country Boeotia But afterwards by the prowess of their Kings and the industry of their Nation having first subdued their borderers and after them other People and Nations they extended their Empire to the furthest bounds of the Orient Telegonus the father of Astriopaeus whose name we have received amongst the most famous Commanders in the Troâ—on war was said to reign in the Country of Poeonia which now is a part of Macedonia On the other side in Europa there raâ—gned Europus by name But Caranus with a vast multitude of the Grecians being commanded by the Oracle to loâ—k out a seat for hâ—mâ—n Macedonia when he came into Emathia he unexpectedly possessed himself of the City of Edissâ— he Inhabitants not perceiving it by reason of a tempest and a great mist that did attend it In this expedition he followed the conduct of a slock of Gâ—â—ts who â—led towards the Town from the violence of the tempest and calling the Oracle into his memory by which he was commanded to seek out a place to rule in the Goats being his leaders he made that City the â—eat of his Kingdom and whithersoever afterwards â—e advanced he religiously observed to have the same Goats before his Ensigns to be the Leaders on in his enterprize who were the authors of his Kingdom for the memory of this event he called the City Edissa Aegaea and the people Aegaeâ—des After this Midas being forced away for he also possessed a part of Macedonia and some other Kings with him he alone succeeded into the place of them all and having united the Nations into one he brought the several people of Macedonia into one body and the Kingdom increasing he made the foundaâ—ion strong with an intent to raise it higher After him Perdicas reigned whose life was famous and his last words at his death were as memorable as the precepts of the Delphian Oracle for full of age and dying he shewed to his Son Argaeus the place where he would be buryed and commanded that not onely his own but the bodies of all who succeded him in his Kingdom should be interred the same place presaging that if the Relicks of his Successors should be buryed there the Kingdom should perpetually continue in that Family And it is superstitiously believed that the issue failed in Alexander because he changed that place of Sepulchre Argaeus having governed the Kingdom moderately and with the love of the people did leave Philip his
which they begot their children and in which they were begot themselves Sometimes they lamented their own misfortune that they lived to see that day sometimes the misfortune of their children that they were not born after it Philip in the mean time did remove some of them into the frontier Garrisons and set them before the faces of their Enemies others he did dispose of into the farthest bounds of his Kingdom Some whom he had taken Prisoners in the war he reserved at home to supply his Cities and so out of many Countreys and Nations he constituted one Kingdom and People The affairs of Macedonia being set in order he became master of the Dardanians and other neighbouring places taken by deceit neither did he abstain from those who were most neer unto him for he determined to drive Arymbas out of his Kingdom who was King of Epirus and in the neerest consanguinity obliged to his wife Olympias and for this purpose he sent for Alexander the brother of his wife Olympias a boy of a sweet and lovely countenance to come in his sisters name to Macedonia and with all his art having sollicited him into the hope of his Fathers Kingdom dissembling his lust he enforced him to grant him the unlawful use of his body thinking that he would be more obsequious to him either through this familiarity of unlawful love or through the benefit of the Kingdom therefore when he arrived to the age of twenty yeers he took the Kingdom from Arymbas and gave it unto him being unrighteous in both for that he observed not the rights of consanguinity in him f om whom he took the Kingdom and that he made him his prostitute before he made him a King unto whom he gave it THE NINTH BOOK OF IVSTINE WHen Philip had advanced into Greece sollicited by the plundering of a few Cities and finding by their riches how great was the wealth of them all he intended to make war upon all Greece and thinking that if he could be master of Bizantium a famous Sea-Town iâ— would much conduce to his affairs it being a gallant reserve both by Sea and Land he layd a fiege unto it shutting her Gates against him This City was first builded by Pausanias King of the Sparians and possessed by him for thâ— space of seven yeers Afterwards by the several inclinations of Victory it was sometimes in the power of the Lacedemonians and sometimes of the Athenians which uncertain possession was the cause that neither of them either helping it or owning it as their own she did more constantly maintain her liberty Philip therefore being weary and his stock exhausted with the long delay of the siege made use of Piracy for the purchase of moneys and having taken one hundred and seventy ships he refreshed his Army distracted and languishing through want And that so great a power might not be held in a Leagueâ— before one Town taking with him the most valiant of them he besieâ—ed many Cities of the Châ—â—sonesians and sent for his son Alexander being then eighteen yeers of age to come unto him that he might learn under him the first rudiments of the War He marched also into Scythia to see what plunder he could get there and like a Merchant he maintained one war by the profits of another At that time Matthaeas was King of the Scythians who being oppressed by the war of the I strians did desire the assistance of Philip by the Apollonians promising to adopt him into the succession of the Kingdom of Scythia In the mean time the King of the I strians dying delivered the Scythians both from the fear of the war and the need of assistance Therefore Matthaeas having dismissed the Macedonians commanded them to acquaint Philip that he neither desired his ayd nor did intend his adoption for the Scythians he said did not need the revenge of the Macedonians being better men then themselves neither his Son being alive did he want an 〈◊〉 This being understood Philip sent Ambassadors to Matthaeas desiring of him to lend him some moneys towards the charge of the fiege least through want he should be enforced to forsake the war which the more reâ—dily he said he ought to do because he paid not the souldiers whom he sent unto his ayd who received nothing for their service nor for the charges of their march in the way Matthaeas excusing himself by reason of the unkindness of the heaven the barrenness of the earth that neither inriched the Scythians with Patrimonies nor allowed them sustenance made answer that he had no wealth wherewith to satisfie so great a King and therefore it were more honourable for him to deny him altogether then to contribute but a little to him the Scythians he said were esteemed not by their wealth but by the vertues of their minde by the strength and hardness of their bodies Philip finding himself deâ—ided having raised the fiege before Byzantium did advance against the Scythians who to make them the more secure did send Ambassadors to enform Matthaeas that when he besieged Byzantium he had vowed a Statue to Hercules and that he now came to erect it at the mouth of the River of Ister he therefore desired that coming as a friend to the Scythians he might be allowed a peaceable entrance to perform his religion to his god Matthaeas made answer that if he would perform his vowes he should send the Effigies unto him and promised that it should not onely be erected accordingly as he desired but that it should stand inviolated He sent him word that he could not give way that his Army should enter into his Dominions and if he should erect any Statue the Scythians being unwilling he would pull it down again when he was departed and convert the brass of the Statue into heads for arrows With these passages the minds of both being much exasperated the battel was begun The Scythians excell'd in vertue and valor howsoever they were overcome by the policy of Philip. There were taken twenty thousand women and children and a vast booty of Cattel but of gold and silver nothing at all And although it were before reported it was at this time first of all believed how poor the Scythians were Twenty thousand of their Mares of a brave race were sent into Macedonia for breed But the Triballians did meet with Philip on his return from Scythia they denied to give him passage unless they received part of the prey From hence began the quarrel and by and by the fight in which Philip was so sorely wounded in his thigh that through his body his horse was killed when all conceived him to be slain the booty was all lost therefore the devoted spoyls of the Sythians were to be lamented rather than enjoyed by the Macedons as soon as he began to recover of his wound he brought upon the Athenians his long dissembled war to whose cause the Thebans did joyn themselves fearing least the Athenians being overcome
between both the Phrygias which City he desired to be master of not so much for the booty as for that he understood that in that City in the Temple of Jupiter there was consecrated the plough of Gordius the knots of whose cord if any could unlose the Oracle did persage of old that he should raign over all Asia The cause and original was from this When Gardius was ploughing in this Country with his Oxen great flights of birds of all sorts did flie round about him and repairing to the Augurs of the next City to know the reason of it he met in the Gate of the City a Virgin of an excellent beauty and having demanded of her to what Augur he should more particularly address himself she having understood the occasion and having some knowledge herself in the Art by the instructions of her Parents did make answer that the Kingdom was presaged to him and did offer her self the companion of his hope and to be his companion in marriage So â—air a condition did seem to be the first felicity of the Kingdom After the marriage there did arise a sedition amongst the Phrygians and counsel being asked what a period should be put unto the differences and when the Oracles did answer That to end the discord there was need of a King and it being demanded again who should be the King They were commanded to make him King whom they should finde with a Plough entring into the Temple of Jupiter Gordius was the man whom presently they saluted as their King He consecrated to Regal Majesty in the Temple of Jupiter the Plough by which the Kingdom was conferr'd on him After him there reigned his Son Midas who being instructed by Orpheus with the solemnities belonging to the worship of their gods did fill all Phrygia with Religion and Ceremonies by which during the whole course of his life he was safer then by his Arms. Alexander therefore the City being taken when he came into the Temple of Jupiter he demanded where the Plough was which being shewed unto him when he could not discover the ends of the cord lying hid among the multiplicity of the foldings he gave a violent interpretation to the sense of the Oracle and cutting the cords asunder with his sword he found the ends lying undiscovered in the mysterie of the twists Whiles he was doing this he was informed that Darius was approaching to give him battel with a formidable Army Therefore fearing the danger of the streights he in a swift march did lead his Army over the Mountain of Taurus in which expedition his foot without any respite did run five hundred furlongs When he came unto Tarsus being taken with pleasantness of the River Cydnus running through the midst of the City having unbuckled his Armor and being covered with sweat and dust he threw himself into the River which was extreamly cold On an sudden so great and so chilling a benumnedness did posses every joynt that being speechless the danger could be neither deferred nor any hope oâ— remedy admitted There was one of his Physitians Philip by Name who promised to give a redress unto his evil but some letters sent the day before by Parmenio from Cappodocia did render him suspected to the King who not knowing of Alexander's sickness did write unto him to have a careful eye on Philip his Physitian because he was corrupted by Darius with a great sum of money howsoever thinking it safer to doubt the trust of his Physitian then his undoubted disease having received the Cup he delivered the letters to him sted fastly did behold him as he drank the physick Having observed hâ—m to be not moved at the sense of the letter he became more cheerful on the fourth day afterwards was recovered In the mean time Darius advanced towards him with an Army of three hundred thousand foot one hundred thousand horse The multitude of his numbers did trouble Alexander in the respect of the fewness of his Souldiers but computing with himself what great atchievements he had performed by that paucity and how many Nations he had overthrown his hope did overcome his fear and thinking it dangerous to delay the Battel least some desperation should grow upon the minds of his Souldiers being mounted on horse-back he did ride about his Army and by several exhortations did enflame the courage of the several Nations he stirr'd up the Illyrians and the Thracians with the ostentation of the wealth of the Persians the Grecians with the memory of their former wars with their perpetual hatred against the Persians He put the Macedonians in mind of Europe overcome and of Asia desired by them and that the world had not any Souldiers that were comparable unto them This battel he said would put an end to their labors but no end unto their glory As he delivered these words he did once and again command his Army to stand that by that delay they might the better observe and sustain the unweâ—ldy numbers of their Enemies neither was Darius less industrious in the marshalling of his Army for omitting no office of a General he in his own person did ride about the Army and did exhort every one and admonish them of the ancient glory of the Persian Empire and of their everlasting possession which was given of it by the immortal Gods After this the battel was fought with great resolution in which both Kings were wounded and the fight was doubtful until Darius fled whereupon there followed a great slaughter of the Persians there were slain of their foot threescore and ten thousand and ten thousand of their horse and forty thousand were taken Prisoners Of the Macedons there were slain one hundred and thirty foot and one hundred and fifty horse In the Camp of the Persians there was found much gold and other rich movables Amongst the Captives there were the Mother and the Wife who was also the sister of Darius and his two daughters to visit and to comfort who when Alexander came in person with some men in Arms they imbracing one another as if immediately they were to die did make a skrieking lamentation then humbling themselves to the knees of Alexander they desired not life but onely a respite from death so long until they had buried the body of Darius Alexander beimg moved at their so great a piety did both give them an assurance of the life of Darius and withal took from them the fear of death and did command that they should be esteemed and saluted as Queens and commanded the daughters of Darius to look for husbands suitable to the dignity of their Father After this taking into his observation the riches and precious Furniture of Darius he was possessed with admiration at it he then first began to delight himself with luxurious Banquets and the magnificence of Feasts and to be tempted by the beauties of Barsine his Capive on whom having afterwards begot a Son he did call him
for the rest were fled away did throw them into prison being laden with Irons The people rejoyced especially that the Senate were overthrown by the Captain General of the Senators and that their ayd was converted into their destruction and Clearchus threatned sudden death to every one of them on purpose to raise the market of them to a higher rate For under the pretence of withdrawing them from the fury of the people having received from them great sums of money and despoyled them of their fortunes he not long after did despoyl them of their lives And having understood that war was made against him by those Senators who fled away the Cities prompted to compassion being come to their assistance he did set free their Servants and that no affliction should be wanting in these potent Familes he enforced their wives and their daughters to marry their own Servants death being proposed to every one that should refuse it by this means he thought to render the Servants more faithful to him and more unreconcileable to their masters But these sad Nuptials were made more grievous by the sudden Funerals of the Matrons for many of them before their Nuptials and some on the very day in which they were marryed having first killed their husbands did afterwards kill themselves and delivered themselves from their encreasing calamities by the vertue of an ingenious shame Not long after this the battel was fought in which the Tyrant being Conqueror he in the way of triumph did drag the conquered Senators before the faces of Citizens and being returned into the City he bound some of them he racked others and slew many there was no place free from his cruelty insolence was added to his savageness and arrogance to his fury And now by the success of his continual felicity he did forget himself to be a man and did call himself the Son of Jupiter When he would be seen in publick a golden Eagle was born before him in the honour of his discent His body was cloathed with a garment of Purple he did wear buskins on his feet after the custom of Tragick Kings and a Crown of Gold upon his Head He also called his Son Ceraunus that he might delude the gods not onely with lyes but also with names Two of the most noble of the young men Chion and Leonides complaining at these things with indignation and resolved to deliver their Country did conspire the death of the Tyrant These two were the Scholars of Plato the Philosopher who desiring to exhibite that vertue to their Country to which they daily were instructed by the precepts of their Master they did prepare an Ambush of fifty of their kindred as if they were all their Clients and repairing themselves to the Tower to the Kings as two in great contestation being admitted by the right of Familiarity whiles the Tyrant intentively heard the former of them pleading his cause he was killed by the other but their friends coming in not timely enough to their assistance they were both cut in pieces by the Guard by which it came to pass that the Tyrant indeed was killed but their Country was not delivered For Satyrus the brother of Clearchus did the same way invade the Tyranny and Heraclia for many yeers by degrees of succession was possessed by Tyrants THE Seventeenth BOOK OF IVSTINE MUch about the same time there was a terrible Earthquake in the Countries of Hellespont and Chersonesus in which though they trembled all over yet the City onely of Lysimachia erected by Lysimachus two and twenty yeers before was utterly overthrown which portended dismal things to come both to Lysimachus and to his Generation and the ruine of the Kingdom with the desolation of the afflicted Countries round about him Neither was belief wanting to the prodigy for not long after he killed his Son Agathocles by poyson having used therein the assistance of his Stepmother Arsyrice it being the more horribly remarkable for having ordained him into the succession of the Kingdom and made many prosperous wars under his Conduct he now hated him not onely beyond the obligation of a Father but beyond the Example of Humanity This was his first stain and the beginning of his growing ruine For this parricide was attended with the slaughter of the Princes who were punished to death because they lamented the death of the young man Therefore those who were Commanders in his Army did in great numbers fall away from him to Seleucus enforced him being prone enough before out of the emulation of glory to make war against Lysimachus This was the last contestation betwixt the fellow Souldiers of Alexander and as it were reserved by Fortune to make the example of their parallel the more admirable Lysimachus was seventy and four yeers of age and Seleucus seventy and seven But in this old age they had both of them the resolutions of youth and an insatiable desire to encrease Soveraignty of Command for when but these two did seem as it were to be masters of the whole world they were shut up into too narrow bounds and measured the end of their lives not by the space of yeers but by this limits of their Empire In that war Lysimachus having lost before in divers charges fifteen sons dying not uncouragiously did discend into the Grave himself being the last Hearse of all his Family Seleucus rejoycing in so great a victory and which he conceived to be greater then the victory that he was the last that lived of the cohort of Alexander and a Conquerour of the Conquerors did vaunt of his fortune as if it had been a work of Divinity and above the condition of man being altogether ignorant that not long afterwards he was to be an Example himself of the frailty of the condition of man for at the end of seven Moneths he was slain being circumvented by the treachery of Ptolomy whose sister Lysimachus had marryed and lost the Kingdom of Macedonia which he took away from Lysimachus together with his life Therefore Ptolomy being ambitious to please the people for the honour of the memory of Ptolomy the Great and in the favour of the revenge of Lysimachus did first resolve to reconcile unto him the children of Lysimachus and desired the marriage of Arsinoe his own sister who was their Mother having promised to adopt them his own Sons thinking thereby that they would attempt nothing against him being restrained by their duty to their mother and by their calling of him Father He desired also by letters the friendship of his brother the King of Aegypt professing that he would forget the offence of his succeeding in his Fathers Kingdom would demand no more of him being his brother the injury being received from his Father With all his Art he flattered Eumenes and Antigonus the Sons of Demetrius and Antiochus the Son of Seleucus against whom he was to make war for fear a third Enemy should arise unto him Neither was Pyrrhus
a long time they had fought unfortunately in Sicily the war being translated into Sardina they were overthrown in a great battel having lost the best part of their Army for which they commanded Macheus under whose conduct they had subdued a part of Sicily and performed great atchievements against the Africans to be banished with the part of the Army which remained Which the Souldiers took so heavily that they sent Ambassadors to Carthage who in the first place were to desire the liberty to return into their Country and a pardon for their unhappy warfare and if not to declare unto them That if they could not obtain it by entreaties they would command it by arms When the threatnings as well as the Petitions of the Ambassadors were despised they not long after having embarked themselves did advance in arms unto the City There having called both the gods and men to witness that they came not to ruine but to be restored to their Country and to manifest to the Citizens that in the managing of the former war they wanted not valour but fortune having besieged the City and cut off all provisions from coming to it they brought the Carthaginians to the lowest desperation In the mean time Cartalo the Son of the banished Machaeus when he was sent for by his Father as he passed by the Leaguer in his return from Tyre to which place he was sent by the Carthaginians to carry the Tenths to Hercules out of the Sicilian prey which his Father took he returned answer That he would first discharge the obligations of publick Religion before the duties of private piety This answer although it much troubled his Father yet he durst not offer any violence to Religion Not long after the people having made Cartalo their Agent to desire that Machaeus would suffer provisions to be brought with safety to the City when he came unto his Father being cloathed in purple and the fillets of the Priesthood hanging down from his Miter his Father calling him aside did speak unto him And how darest thou wretch as thou art to approach into the presence of so many miserable Citizens cloathed in that purple glistering with gold How darest thou as it were in triumph to enter into our sad mournful Tents in such a slowing habit and ornaments of quiet felicity Couldst thou finde none else to whom to vaunt thy self was there no place so fit for thee as this Camp where is nothing to be represented but the sordid condition of thy Father and the reproaches of his unhappy banishment Not many daies since being sent for by me thou didst not onely proudly despise I will not say thy Father but I am confident the General of thy own Citizens And what shewest thou more in that purple and those Crowns then the titles of my Victories Since therefore thou wilt acknowledge nothing of a Father but the title onely of a banished man I am resolved to shew my self not like a Father but a Souldier and I will make thee an Example that none hereafter shall be so bold as to scorn the unhappy miseries of his Father having said this he commanded him to be fastned to a most high Cross in his gorgeous habiliments in the sight of the whole City Some few days afterwards he surprized Carthage and having called forth the people to an Assembly he complained of the injury of his banishment he excused the necessity of the war he forgave the contempt of his former Victories having punished the chief Authors of the injurious banishment of the miserable Citizens he pardoned all the rest And having put to death ten of the Senators he restored the City to her former Laws And not long after being accused to have affected the Kingdom he suffered double punishment both for the murder of his Son and for the violation of the liberties of his Country In his place Mago was chosen General by whose industry and courage the wealth of the Carthaginians and the limits of their Empire and their glory in the affairs of war increased THE Nineteenth BOOK OF IVSTINE MAgo the General of the Carthaginians having established their government by an orderly course of military Discipline and confirmed the strength of that City as well by the art of war as by his policy deceased having left behind him two Sons Asdrubal and Amilcar who treading in the pathes of their Fathers vertue did succeed as well in the greatness as in the genealogy of their Father Under their conduct war made against the Illyrians They fought also against the Africans demanding the Tribute for the ground of their City the payment whereof for many yeers was neglected But as the cause of the Africans was more just so their fortune was better And the war was concluded with them not by Arms but with the payment of the moneys And Asdrubal being grievously wounded dyed in Sardinia having delivered up the Government to his brother Amilcar The general lamentation in the City and his eleven Dictatorships and four Triumphs did make his death the more remarkable The courage also of the Enemy did encrease as if the Carthaginians had lost their Army with their Captain The people therefore of Sicilia having addressed themselves to Leonidas brother of the King of the Spartans by reason of the daily injuries committed by the Carthanigians the war between them continued long with various success Whiles these things were in action Ambassadors came to Carthage from Darius King of the Persians bringing an Edict with them in which the Carthaginians were forbidden to sacrifice men upon their Altars as also to eat the flesh of dogs they were also commanded to burn and not to bury in the ground the bodies of the dead they desired also ayd of the Carthaginians against the Grecians on whom Darius was resolved to make war But the Carthaginians refusing to send Auxiliaries by reason of the daily wars with their Neighbors did readily obey him in the rest lest that they might seem to be obstinate altogether Amilcar in the mean time was killed in the Sicilian war having left behind him three Sons Hamilco Hanno and Gisco Asdrubal also had the same number of Sons Annibal Asdrubal and Sapho by whom the affairs of the Carthaginians were governed in those times they invaded the Mauritanians and fought against the Numidians and the Africans were compelled to remit the Tribute which was demanded for their City Afterwards when so a great a Family of the chief Commanders began to be heavie to the City because they did act and determine all things of themselves the City made choyce of one hundred of the Senators unto whom the Generals returning from the war were to give an account of what they had done for the publick service that being under the power of this supream Court they might so in war dispose of their Commands that they might have a regard to Justice and to the Laws at home Amilco succeeded General in Sicily in the
and as if he had ballanced the loss of Italy and Sicily with the regaining of the Kingdom of Macedonia he did send both for his Son and for his friend which he did leave at Tarentum Antigonus with a few horsemen the Companions of his flight being on a sudden forsaken of all the ornaments of his dignity did repair to Thessalonica to behold the events of his lost Kingdom hiring a mercenary Army of the Gauls to renew the war And being again utterly overthrown by Ptolomy the Son of Pyrrhus and in his flight attended but with seven men he not onely lost all hope of the recovery of his Kingdom but fled into solitary places and made them the best procurers of his safety Pyrrhus being now advanced to so great a height of soveraignty was not content with that which with modesty he durst not aspire unto in his hopes but propounded unto himself the Empire both of Greece and Asia he took a felicity and pride in his wars as in his Soveraignty for no man could resist him whithersoever he turned his power but as he was esteemed invincible in adding Kingdom unto Kingdom so having overcome them and obtained them he quickly lost them being more fortunate to obtain then to preserve having afterwards transported his forces on the other side of Chersonesus he was received by the Embassies of the Athenians Achaians and Messenians And all Greece amazed at the glory of his name and at the wonders of his Atchievements against the Romans and Carthaginians did with a labouring expectation attend his arrival His first war in Greece was against the Lacedemonians where he was opposed more by the valour of the women then the men There he lost his Son Ptolomy and the ablest and the choycest men in his Army For so great a multitude of women did press in throngs upon him for the defence of their Country as he was besieging Sparta that he was enforced to retreat from them being not more valiantly then modesty overcome Moreover it is affirmed that his Son Ptolomy was so able a man of his hands that he took the City of Corcyra being followed onely with threescore men In a battel at Sea there being but seven men with him he leaped out of his boat into the ship of his Enemies and did enforce it to obedience And at the assault of the City of Sparta he gallopped into the middle of the City and was there killed by the concurse of the multitude whose body when it was brought unto his Father it is reported that Pyrrhus said thar he was slain a great while later then he feared or then his rashness did deserve Pyrrhus being beaten back by the Spartans did march to Argos where when he endeavoured to besiege Antigonus shut up in that City he fighting most violently amongst the thickest and the formost was slain with a stone thrown from the Walls his head was brought unto Antigonus who using the victory with gentleness did dismiss his Son Helenus delivered to him with Epirus and gave him leave to depart to his own Kingdom aud delivered him the body of his unburyed Father to be interred in his own Country Amongst all Authors the Fame is constant and clear enough that no King either of that or the former Age was to be compared to Pyrrhus and that not onely amongst Kings but other personages there was seldom any to be found of a more just or a more Religious life So great was his knowledge in Military affairs that although he made war with so great Kings as Lysimachus Demetrius and Antigonus yet he alwayes remained unconquered In the war also of the Illyrians and Sicilians and of the Romanes and Carthaginians he was never inferiour to them and oftentimes a Conqueror who though his Country was but narrow and before ignoble by the Fame of his atchievements and the uprightness of his conversation he did renown it over all the World THE Six and twentieth BOOK OF IVSTINE AFter the death of Pyrrhus there were great motions and tumults of war not onely in Macedonia but in Asia also and in Greece for the Pelopennesians were by treachery betrayed to Antigonus and according to the several inclinations of the Inhabitants partaking either of joy or grief as the several Cities either hoped for ayd from Pyrrhus or were afraid of his power so now they either entred into league with Antigonus or flung themselves upon a war by the mutual hatred amongst themselves In this commotion of the troubled Provinces the City also of Epirus was by tyranny invaded by Aristotimus the Prince by whom when many of the Rulers of the City were slain and more of them driven into banishment the Aetolians desiring of him by their Ambassadors that the Exuls might be permitted to have their wives and children come unto them he at the first denyed it and afterwards as if he had repented of what he had denyed he gave all the Matrons leave to repair unto their banished husbands and appointed a day for their departure They as if they should for ever suffer banishment with their husbands taking with them their richest moveables when they had met at the gate of the City to travel all in one troup they were apprehended and committed to prison and plundred of all their goods the little children being slain in the laps of their Mothers and the Virgins their daughters ravished All men being amazed at this domineering cruelty one of their Rulers Helemat by name an old man and destitute of children and one that feared not the respect of age being not obliged to the respect of pledges having called to his house the most faithul of his friends did exhort them to the revenge of their Country They all debating on a way to conclude the publick with their private danger and desiring a time for deliberation he sending for his servants did command them to lock the doors withall to go unto the Tyrant and desire him to send some of his Guard to apprehend the Conspirators assembled in his house objecting to every one of them that because he could not be the Author of delivering his Country he would be the revenger of it being forsaken by them Hereupon they being surprized with a doubtful danger chusing the more honourable way of the two they conspired to kill the Tyrant and Aristotimus by this meanes was slain in the fifth Moneth af er he had usurped the Tyranny In the mean time Antigonus being oppressed with several wars which he made against King Ptolomy and the Lacedemonians and a new Army of Enemies from Gallograecia having left in his Camp some few Companies to defend it against the other Enemies he marched with his chief power against the Gauls Which being understood the better to prepare themselves to the fight they did offer sacrifices for the good event of the battel And a great slaughter and utter destruction being persaged to them by the entrails of the beasts they desperately turning their
fear into a fury hoping that the threatnings and the anger of the gods could be expiated by the slaughter of their Families they killed their wives and children beginning the auspications of the war with such a detestable Parricide So great was the barbarousness of their savage minds that they did not forbear their Infants and the tenderness of that age which even their Enemies would have spared but made a naâ—alitious and an intrinsick war with their own bowels their children and with the mothers of their children for whom others are accustomed to undertake wars Therefore as if they had redeemed the Victory and their lives by the barbarous cruelty bloody as they were from the streaming murthers of their wives and children they joyned in battel with their Enemies with no better event then the auspication promised for fighting the furies of their own consciences did surround them before their Enemies and the Ghosts of those whom they had murdered ptesenting themselves alwayes before their eyes they fell upon a final desolation So great was the slaughter that the gods did seem to have combined with men for their utter destruction After the event of this battel Ptolomy and the Lacedemonians declining the conquering Army of Antigonus did retreat into more safe places Antigonus when he perceived that they were departed the courage of his Souldiers being flushed with the former Victory did make war upon the Athenians In which when he was engaged Alexander King of Epirus desiring to revenge his Fathers death did plunder the borders of Macedonia against whom when Antigonus marched being returned out of Greece he was forsaken by his Souldiers who revolted from him and did lose with his Army the Kingdom of Macedonia His Son Demetrius being in his minority having leavied a new Army in his Fathers absence did not only recover Macedonia that was lost but dis-invested Alexander of his Kingdom of Epirus So great was the inconstancy of the Souldiers or the variety of Fortune that Kings were even now but banished men and by and by they were Kings again Alexander when he fled as a banished man into Arcadia was not long after restored into his Kingdoms with as great an applause of the Epirots as with the help of their Confederats At that time Agas King of the Cyrenians dyed who before his sickness to compose all strifes with his brother Ptolomy had espoused his onely daughter Beronioe to his Son But after the death of King Antigonus Arsinoe the Mother of the young Lady that she might dissolve the marriage contracted without her consent did send for Demetrius the brother of King Antigonus from Macedonia not onely to the marriage of Beronice but to the Kingdom of Cyrene Demetrius being born himself of the daughter of Ptolomy made not the least delay but having a fore-wind to his own desires arrived suddenly at Cyrene and by the confidence of the comeliness of his personage endevouring to endeer himself to his Mother-in-law Arsinoe he began to deport himself very proudly to the royal Family and to domineer over the Souldiery and to translate his affections and his Courtship from the daughter to the mother which was first discovered by the daughter and afterwards abominated both by the people and the Souldiers Therefore all of them having changed their affections a plot was laid for Demetrius to whom Executioners were sent being in bed with his Mother-in-law But Arsinoe having heard the voyce of her daughter standing at the door and giving order to spare her Mother did for a while with her own body protect the adulterer who being slain Beronice with the preservation of her piety revenged the incontinency of her Mother and in the choyce of her husband did follow the judgement of her Father THE Seven and twentieth BOOK OF IVSTINE ANtiochus King of Syria being dead when Seleucus his Son succeeded in his place he began his raign with Parricide his mother perswading him to it who ought to have deterred him from it for he killed his Stepmother Beronice with his little brother begotten on her Which horrible crime being committed he was not onely tainted with Infamy but withall he involved himself in a war with Ptolomy Moreover Beronice when she understood that Executioners were sent to take away her life she shut up her self in her Fathers Daphne where when it was reported to the Cities of Asia that she was besieged with her little child they calling to their minds the dignity of her Father and of her Ancestors and prompted to compassion at the indignity of her Fortune they all sent ayd unto her Her brother Ptolomy being also startled at the danger of his sister having left his own Kingdom did advance to her relief with all the speed that could be But before the arrival of any ayd Beronice when she could not be taken by force was killed by treachery It was conceived by all to be a subject most worthy of lamentation Therefore when all the Cities who had revolted from her had provided a very great Fleet being amazed at this example of horrid cruelty they did offer themselves and their ships to Ptolomy who if he had not been called back into Aegypt by some intestine sedition had possessed himself of all the Kingdom of Seleucus This parricidial guilt had brought upon him so much hatred or the unworthy death of his sister had purchased to Ptolomyes much affection After the death of Ptolomy when Seleucus had set forth a great Navie against the Cities which revolted immediately a great tempest arising as if the gods themselves would revenge this parâ—icide he lost them all by Tempest neither had he any thing left of so great a preparation but his naked body some few Companions of his shipwrack whom Fortune had preserved alive A lamentable thing it was and yet acceptable to him for the Cities which in hatred of him had revolted to Seleucus as if the gods were satisfied in his punishment themselves being the Arbitrators by a sudden change of their minde being touched with compassion for his shipwrack they did restore themselves unto the Authority of his command Rejoycing therefore in his calamity and made more rich by loss he made war upon Ptolomy conceiving himself now equal in strength unto him But as if he was born to be the sport of fortune and had onely received his Kingdom again but to lose it again being various in battel and not much more accompanied then after his shipwrark he sled in great fear to Antiochia from whence he sent Letters to his Brother Antiochus in which he did implore his ayd and in recompence thereof did offer to him all that part of Asia which lyeth on the bounds of the Hill Taurus Antiochus being but fourteen years of age and greedy of Soveraignty above his years took hold of the occasion but not with that pious minde as it was offered but desiring like an Oppressor to force all from his brother he armed himself being but a boy
appear to have spoken more couragiously then they resolved to have performed they plundered that part of Acarnania which bordered on Epirus Olympias had now delivered her Kingdoms to her sons and Ptolomy succeeded in the place of Pyrrhus his deceased brother who when he advanced against his Enemies with a gallant Army being surprized by sickness dyed in the way And Olympias her self her heart being pierced through and through for the loss of both her children and her soul sick within her did not long out-live them and when of all the Royal Family there not any remained alive but onely the young Lady Nereis with her sister Laodamia Nereis marryed Gelon the Son of the King of Sicily and Laodamia flying to the Altar of Diana did there lose her life by the violence of the people which facinorous act the Immortal Gods revenged with the continued slaughters and almost the total destruction of all the people For being punished with barrenness and hunger and vexed with civil discords they were at last almost utterly consumed by Forreign Wars And Milo the executioner of Laodamia being possessed with a fury attempting sometimes to kill himself with a sword sometimes to beat out his brains with stones at the last tearing out his bowels with his teeth died the twelfth day afterwards These things being thus mannaged in Epirus King Demetrius in the mean time deceased in Macedonia leaving his Son Philip in his minority to whom Antigonus being Tutor having married his mother did intend to possess himself of the Kingdom In the process of time when he was kept a prisoner in his own Court by the threats and sedition of the Macedons he broke forth at last and adventured into the publick without a Guard and having thrown his Diadem and purple robe amongst the people he commanded that they should be given to some other man who knew better to govern them or they to obey him For his part he understood well enough the ringols in that envyed Crown and the weight of it not by his pleasures but by his labours and his dangers He did put them in minde of what he had done for them how he revenged the revolt of their associates how he suppressed the Dardanians and Thessalians insulting at the death of King Demetrius and at last how he not only defended but increased the dignity of the Lacedemonians of which since they did repent he dâ—d lay down his command and did return them their own gift because they demanded a King over whom they might command The people hearing this were rebuked by their own shame and commanded him ro receive again the soveraignty of Command which he refused untill the Authors of the sedition were delivered to him to be punished After this he made war upon the Lacedemonians who alone in the Wars of Philip and Alexander despised the command of the Macedons and the Arms which were feared by all the world Betwixt these two renowned Nations the War was carried on on both sides with the greatest resolutions Those fighting for the ancient glory of the Macedons and the others not only for their unstained liberty but for their certain safety The Lacedemonians being overcome not themselves only but their wives and children sustained their misfortune with them with an invincible courage In the Battel not any one of the men was indulgent to his own safety nor any one of the women did afterwards bewail her lost husband The old men extolled the honourable death of their sons and the daughters did gratulate their Fathers slain in the field They all lamented their own condition that they died not themselves for the liberty of their Country The Parents did receive into their houses all that were wounded they comforted the sick and refreshed all the weak and the weary In so great an overthrow there was no complaint in the City no sign of fear at all they all lamented rather their publick then their private fortunes presently upon this Cleomenes their King after a great slaughter of his enemies being covered with his own blood and with the blood of his Enemies retreated to the City and having entred into it he fate not down to demand either meat or drink nor eased himself by putting off the burden of his Armour but leaning against the wall when he beheld that there were but four thousand left of all his Army he exhorted them to reserve themselves to a better opportunity to do their Country service and taking his wife and children with him he departed to Ptolomy in Egypt by whom he was for a long time honourably entertained and lived in the height of regal Majestie And at last after the death of Ptolomy he and all his Family were slain by his son But Antigonus the Lacedemonians being utterly overthrown did lament the fortune of so great a City and strictly did inhibit his Souldiers to plunder and moreover gave a free pardon to those who remained alive alledging that he made War not with the Lacedemonians but with Cleomenes in whose flight all his anger was appeased and it was more for his own glory that Lacedemon was preserved by himself then if it were taken and plundered by his forces He therefore spared the City and the foundation of the walls because there were no men left to whom he might shew indulgence Not long after he died himself and left his Kingdom to his Son Philip being above fourteen years of Age. THE Nine and twentieth BOOK OF IVSTINE MUch about the same time the soveraign Commands of the whole world did suffer a change by the succession of new Kings for Antigonus the Tutor of Philip being dead Philip raigned afterwards fourteen years in Macedonia and Seleucus being in Asia Antiochus was made King both of it and Syria before he was fifteen yeers of age The Kingdom of Cappadocia was delivered by his Father to the child Ariathres Ptolomy possessed himself of Egypt having slain his father and mother and for this parricidial guilt was surnamed The Lover of his Father the clean contrary way The Lacedemonians constituted Lycurgus to be their King in the place of Cleomenes And that in no place there should a change be wanting Hannibal being not yet of Age was chosen General of the Carthaginians not for the want of Commanders but for his hatred to the Romans which arose up from his childhood with him A fatal disease he was not only to the Romans but to Africa it self These boys being kings although there were no Governours of a greater age yet every one of them being intent to follow the traces of their Predecessors there shined forth a growing light of honour in them all Only Ptolomy as he was nefarious in gaining the Kingdom so he was slothfull in the administration of the government of it The Dardanians and other neighbouring Nations who carried an inveterate and a deadly hatred to the Kings of Macedonia in the contempt of this young mans age did daily provoke him On the
fathers side from Cyrus and Darius the founders of the Persian Empire and on his mothers side from Alexander the great and Nicanor Seleucus the Erectors of the Macedonian Empire or if he should compare his people to theirs they were of those Nations who are not onely equal to the Roman Empire but opposed the Macedonian no Nation that is subject unto him did ever stoop to the commands of a forreign Potentate and obeyed none but their own Domestick Kings would they have him to make mention of Cappadocia or Paphlagonia of Pontus or Bithynia or of Armenia the greater or the less none of which Nations neither Alexander the great who subdued all Asia nor any of his Successors or Posteritie ever touched As for Scythia it is true indeed that two Kings before him adventured not so much to subdue as to invade it Darius by name and Philip who had much to do to escape from thence by flight from whence he shall receive the greatest part of his strength against the Romans He affirmed he undertook the Pontick wars with far more fear and diffidence then this he being then but a young man and unexperienced in the Discipline of war The Scythians howsoever then his enemies besides their Arms and courage of their minds were fortified with the solitude and inhospitable coldness of their climate by which their great labor in war and their contempt of dangers was the more declared amongst which difficulties there could not be any hope of reward expected from a wandring enemie and destitute not onely of money but of habitations but he now undertook another waie of war for there is no climate more temperate then the Air of Asia nor any place more fruitful of soyl nor more pleasant in the multitude of Cities and they should consume the greatest part of their time not as it were in war but in keeping of holy-daies and it is hard to say in a service more easie or more aboundant whether they are to march to the neighboring possessions of the Attalick Kingdoms or to the antient Cities of Lydia Jonia which they should not go to overcome but to possess And Asia it self desirous of his approach doth so much expect him that she seemeth even to court his presence and to call upon him with her voice so hateful had the Romans made themselves unto her by the ravenous avarice of their Proconsuls the exactions of their Publicans and the calumnie of their contentions Let them therefore he concluded follow him with resolution and collect to themselves what so great an Armie might atchieve under his command whom without the aide of any Souldier they saw with his own strength to have taken in Cappadocia and to have slain the King thereof who the first of all mankinde subdued Pontus and all Scythia which no man before him could with safetie pass by much less invade Nor could his Souldiers be ignorant he said of his Justice and liberalitie having those demonstrations of it that alone of all Kings he possessed not onely his Fathers Kingdoms but had added other Kingdoms to them by reason of his munificence as Colchos Paphlagonia and Bospâ—orus Having with this Oration excited his Souldiers in the three and thirtieth year of his Reign he descended to the wars with Rome At the same time King Ptolomy being dead in Egypt his Kingdom and his sister Queen Cleopatra who was his wife also was by Embassadors presented to that Ptolomy who was King of Cyrene At which Ptolomy much rejoyced but especially that without contestation he should be possessed in his Brothers Kingdom to which he knew that the Son of his Brother was appointed both by his mother Cleopatra and by the favor of the Princes Not long after all being displeased with him he no sooner entred into Alexandria and commanded all the favourers of the young childe to be put to death and on that very day in which he married his mother he killed the young Prince in the mothers imbraces of him in the midst of the Banquet and the solemnitie of this marriage and thus he ascended his sisters bed bloodie with the slaughter of her Son Afterwards he was not more milde unto the people who called him unto the succession of the Kingdom for licentiousness being given to the forreign Souldiers all things did daily flow with blood and at last having by force ravished her daughter and taken her afterwards into marriage he divorced himself from his sister With which crueltie the people being affrighted they stole away into several places and having wilfully banished themselves they forsook their Country for the fear of death Ptolomy therefore with his own servants being left alone in so great a City when he perceived himself to be a King not of men but of empty houses did publish a declaration solliciting all Strangers to inhabit the City who coming in great numbers to him he not long after did go himself to meet Scipio Africanus Spurius Mummius and Lucius Metellus the Ambassadors of the Romans who made a visitation into those parts to observe the condition and kingdoms of their Confederates But he appeared as ridiculous to the Romans as bloody to all the Citizens for he was deformed in countenance and short in stature and by the obeseness of his strutting belly more like unto a Beast then to a man which filthiness his tiffanies and light garments which he had on did encrease as if those parts offered themselves to be seen as through a vail which Modesty commands us with diligence to conceal After the departure of the Ambassadors amongst whom while Africanus walked forth to behold the City he became a spectacle of honor himself to the Alexandrians Ptolomy being hated by the Strangers also that were become Citizens did silently for fear of treachery depart into banishment having taken with him his son which he had begotten on his sister and his new wife whom he had married having put away her mother and having with money contracted a mercenary army be made war at once on his Sister and his Country After this having sent for his eldest son from Cyrene that the Alexandrians should not make him their King against him he put him to death whereupon the people pulled down his Statues and Images which he conceiving to be done in favour of his Sister he slow that Son also whom he begot on her and having divided his Body into several parts and put it into a Coffin he sent it to his Mother on that day whereon she made yeerly a great feast for the solemnity of his Birth which was a sight not only grievous and much lamented by the Mother but by all the City also and brought so much grief in the height of all their mirth at the banket that all the Court was filled with a great and a suddain lamentation The Inclinations of the Princes being therefore turned from feasting into mourning they shewed to the people the dismembred body of the young Prince
young man of Egypt the son of Protarchus a Merchant who by armes should demand the Kingdom of Syria and the plot was laid as if he had been received into the Royal Family by the adoption of King Antiochus and the Syrians despising not any who was imposed upon them to be their King the name of this their King that they might no longer endure the arrogance of Demetrius was called Alexander and great aides were sent him out of Egypt In the mean time the bodie of Antiochus slain by the King of the Parthians was brought in a silver Coffin being sent by him to be buried in Syria which was received with infinite solemnitie both from all the Cities and from King Alexander himself to leave a fairer gloss upon the fable and this procured him the general favour and acclamations of the people all men believing that his tears came as much from his heart as from his eyes But Demetrius being overcome by Alexander when he was besieged round with calamities he was at last forsaken by his own wife and children Being therefore leâ—t with a few poor servants when he repaired to Tyrus to defend himself there by the religion of the Temple going out of the Ships he was killed by the commandment of the Lieutenant Seleucus one of his Sons because he assumed the Diademe without the Authoritie of his mother was slain by her the other whose Name by reason of the greatness of his Nose was Gryphus was ordained King as yet by the mother that the Name of the King might be with the Son but all the command of Soveraigntie with the mother But Alexander having seized upon the Kingdom of Syria being puffed up with the vanitie of his present success did begin now by a contumelious arrogance to despise Ptolomy himself by whom he was advanced into the Kngdom Ptolomy therefore having reconciled himself unto his sister did endeavor with all his power to destroy the Kingdom of Alexander which in the hatred to Demetrius he had procured to him by his own power To which purpose he sent Auxiliaries into Greece to Gryphus and his daughter Gryphina to be espoused to him that he might sollicite the people to the aide of his Nephew not onely by his affinity to him but by the societie of the war Neither was it in vain for when all perceived Gryphus recruited with the Egyptian forces they did by degrees begin to revolt from Alexander Not long after the battaile was â—ought in which Alexander being conquered did flie to Antiochia Being there destitute of money and the Souldiers complaining for want of pay he commanded the Effigies of VICTORY being all of solid Gold to be taken away from the Temple of Jupiter laughing at the Sacriledge with this scorn of prophanâ—r witâ— for VICTORY he said was lent him by Jupiter Not long after when he commanded â—â—e Effigies of Jupiter himself being all of beaten Gold and of an infinâ—â—e weight to be taken away he was met with in the Sacriledge and enforced to fly by reason of the concourse of the multitude and a great Tempest following him he was taken by Thieves being forsaken of his own men and was by them brought unto Gryphus who did put him to death Gryphus having recovered his fathers Kingdom and being delivered from all forrein dangers was set upon by the Son of his own Mother who in her immoderate desire of Soveraigntie having betrayed her Husband Demetrius and killed one of her Sons and complaining that her Dignitie suffered Diminution by the greatness and the Victories of her Son she offered him a Boule of poyson as he came hot from hunting But Gryphus having notice of this treason as if he would contend with his mother in complement desired her to drink first her self but she refusing it he grew importunate upon her at the Iast the witness being produced did convict her and affirmed that she had nothing left to defend her self but onely to drink that which she offered to her Son The Queen being thus overcome her wickedness being turned upon her self she died by the same poyson which she had prepared for another Gryphus having obtained securitie for his Kingdom did live for the space of eight years secure himself At the last he found a Rival in his Kingdom it was his Brother Cyricaenus born of the same mother but begotten of his Uncle Antiochus whom when he endeavored to take away by poyson he exasperated him to contend with him the sooner in Arms for his establishment in the Kingdom Amongst these parricidial discords in the kingdom of Syria Ptolomy King of Egypt dyed the kingdom of Egypt being left to his wife and to one of his Sons whom she should make choice of to succeed him as if the State of Egypt should be more quiet then the Kingdom of Syria when the mother having elected one of her Sons to be her successor should have the other to be her enemie Therefore when she was more inclined to her younger Son she was compelled by the people to make choice of the elder to whom before she would give the Kingdom she took away his wife and inforced him to divorce from his bed his most dear sister Cleopatra and to marrie his yonnger sister Seleuce not with the impartialâ—tie of a motherly affection to her two daughters having taken a husband from one of them and given him unto the other But Cleopatra being not so much forsaken by her husband as dismissed from him by the willfulness of her mother was married afterwards to Cyricaenus in Syria and that she should not bring him the bare and emptie name onely of a wife she sollicited the Armie of Cyprus and having engaged them to her she brought them as a Dowrie to her husband Cirycaenus being now equall to him in strength the battaile was fought and Cyricaenus being overcome was put to flight and came to Antioch which was presently besieged by Gryphus in which Citie was also Cleopatra the wife of Cyricaenus the Citie being taken Gryphina the wife of Gryphus commanded nothing more earnestly then that her sister Cleopatra should be sought out not to assist her in her Captivity but to be sure that she might not escape the calamitie of it because that in the emulation of her she did come into that Kingdom and by marrying the enemie of her sister did make her self an enemie unto her she accused her for drawing forreign Armies into the contestation of the Brothers and that it was not for nothing that she was divorced from her Brother and that she married another without the Kingdom of Egypt against the will of her mother On the other side Gryphus did desire her that she would not compell him to commit so foul a crime and that never any of his Ancestors after so many wars both at home and abroad having overcome their enemies did offer any violence to the women whom their sex did exempt from the danger of the war and from the crueltie
the indignity of new injuries did more exasperate them Therefore in the battel when they perceived the Army of the Parthians deeply engaged they revolted to the Enemy and executed their long desired revenge on the Parthian Army by their slaughter of them and by the death of their King Phrahartes himself In his place his Uncle Artabanus was chosen King The Scythians being contented with the Victory having plundred their Country return home But Artabanus having made War upon the Inhabitants of Colchos and received a wound in his arm not long after deceased by the anguish of it His Son Mithridates did succeed him whose Atchievements did gain him the same name of GREAT for being enflamed with the emulation of the Acts of his Predecessors he excelled their glories by the greatness of his vertues he made many Wars with his neighbours where he shewed great demonstrations of his valour and added many Nations to the Parthian Kingdom and having made many prosperous Wars against the Scythians he revenged the injuries of his Predecessors and made War at last upon Artoadistes King of the Armenians But because we have here a passage opened to Armenia we will in the first place derive its original from the first beginning neither is it fit that it should be passed by in silence it being so great a Kingdom whose bounds Parthia being excepted doth exceed the magnitude of any Kingdom whatsoever for Armenia lies open from Cappadocia towards the Caspian Sea eleven hundred miles in length the latitude of it conteineth but seven hundred onely It was founded by Armenius the Companion of Jason the Thessalian whom when King Pelias desired to have destroyed by reason of his excellent valour thinking him dangerous to his Kingdom he was commanded to be one of the adventurers into Colchos to bring home the Fleece of the Ram so famous amongst all Nations the King hoping that he would be destroyed either by the length of the Expedition or by war amongst the most barbarous of the Nations Jason therefore the report being spread abroad of that glorious expedition when the most noble of the youth of the whole world did strive who first should come into that service did compose an Army of most excellent men who were called Argonautae whom after great atchievements when he had brought back safe into Greece they were with great force beaten from Thessaly by the Sons of Pelias Jason therefore with a great multitude who on the report of his glory came daily out of all Nations to him his Wife Medea being his companion whom having repudiated he again in the commiseration of her banishment did take into the participation of his Bed and Medius his Stepson begotten by Aegeus King of the Athenians did return to Colchos and restored there his Father-in-law driven from the Kingdom After that he made great Wars against the neighbours and added to the Kingdom of his Father-in-law divers Cities that were taken to take away the injury of the former War in which he both took by force his daughter Medea and killed Aegâ—alus the Son of Aetas and part of them he distributed to the people whom he had brought with him to serve him in his Wars He was the first of all men who subdued that part of the world Hercules and Bacchus excepted who were said to be the Conquerors and the Kings of all the East To some of the people he assigned Phrygius and Ansistratus to be their Generals who were the drivers of the Chariot of Castor and Pollux he made a league also with the Albanians who having followed Hercules out of the Mount Albania in Italy after he had slain Geryon did drive his Cattel through Italy and who being mindful from whence they derived their Original did in the War of Mithridates salute the Army of Cneius Pompeius by the name of brethren All the East therefore did erect Temples and constitute Divine Honours to him which many years afterwards Parmenio Lieutenant General under Alexander the Great did command to be pulled down and abolished that no name in the East should be of more veneration then the name of Alexander himself After the death of Jason Medus was the emulator of his vertues who in the honour of his Mother Medea did build a City and called it after her name and founded the Kingdom of the Medes after his own name in the Majesty whereof the Empire afterwards did a long time flourish The Amazonians are near unto the Albanians whose Queen Thalestris desired for generation to have the carnal knowledge of Alexander the Great as we finde it asserted by several Authors Armenius also being himself a Thessalian and one in the number of Jasons Captains having recollected a considerable party that wandred up and down after the death of Jason did plant Armenia from whose Hills the River Tygris doth first flow but with small beginnings and after some space she hides her self under Earth through which running undiscovered for the space of five and twenty miles she sheweth again her self and appears a great and violent River in the Country of Sophone from whence falling down is received into the waters of Euphrates But Mithridates King of the Parthians after the war of Armenia was expelled by the Senate from the Parthian Kingdom by reason of his cruelty His brother Horodes having possessed himself of the vacant Kingdom did for a long time besiege Babylonia whither Mithridates fled and at last compelled the Inhabitants being oppressed by famine to surrender themselves and Mithridates of his own accord in confidence of the contiguity of his blood did deliver himself unto the power of Horodes But Horodes taking him to be rather an enemy then his brother did in his own presence command him to be slain After this he made War upon the Romans and overthrew Crassus the Roman General with his Son and all the Roman Army His Son Pacocus having performed great atchievements in Syria and being sent to pursue the relicts of the Roman Army was called back into Parthia being suspected by his Father in whose absence the Army of the Parthians being left in Syria were slain by Cassius the Quaestor of Crassus with all their Captains This being performed not long after there did arise the Civil Wars of the Romans betwixt Caesar and Pompey in which the Parthians took the part of Pompey both by reason of their association with him in the war with Mithridates because of the death of Crassus whose Son they heard did side with Caesar and who they doubted not would thoroughly revenge his Fathers death if Caesar were the Conqueror Therefore Pompey and all his party being overcome they afterwards sent their Auxiliaries to Cassius and Brutus against Augustus and Antonius and after the end of that war having entred into a league with Labienus they made desolate with their Armies both Syria and Asia and being as high in their resolutions as their numbers they assaulted the Camp of Ventidius who after Cassius
in the absence of Pacorus did overthrow the Parthian Armie but Ventidius having dissembled a fear did a long time contain himself within the Camp and permitted the Parthians for a while to insult who being insolent and secure he at the last did send forth one part of the legions against them who charging upon them with great courage did utterly rout them Pacorus conceiving that his flying men had drawn along after them the Roman legions to pursue them did set upon the Camp of Ventidius supposing it to be destitute of defenders whereupon Ventidius sallying forth with the other part of the legions did cut off the whole Armie of the Parthians with the King Pacorus himself neither did the Parthians in any war receive a greater wound then in that battail When these things were reported in Parthia Horodes the father of Pacorus who not long before had understood that all Syria was plundred and Asia seized upon by the Parthians and who did glorie that his Son Pacorus was a Conqueror of the Romans being on a suddain informed both of the death of his Son and the total destruction of the Armie his grief was heightned into furie For the space of many daies he would not speak to any nor take any sustenance nor utter any words at all insomuch that he seemed to be a dumb man After many days when grief had opened the passage of his voice he called upon nothing but Pacorus he seemed as if he both heard and saw Pacorus and would stand still and speak as if he discoursed with him and somtimes would lamentably condole him being slain After a long time of sorrow another affliction did invade the miserable old man which was to determine with himself which of his thirtie Sons he should make King in the place of Pacorus He had many Concubines on whom so great a number of children were begotten and every one of them was importunate with him to make choice of her own Son but the fate of Parthia did so ordain it being there a solemn custom to have Kings to be parricides rhat the most wicked of them all Phrahartes by name should be elected King who no sooâ—ner was invested in his royaltie but as if he would not die a natural death and when he would have him did kill his father and afterwards put to death his thirtie Brothers neither did his guilt cease here for perceiving that the Peers of the Kingdom were much incensed against him for his daily cruelties he commanded his own Son being almost of age to be killed that there should not one remain who might bear the name of a King Marke Antony made war upon him with sixteen gallant Legions because he brought aide to Pompey and his partie against Caesar and himself but his Armie being sorely weakned by many encounters he retreated from Parthia by which victorie Phrahartes being grown more insolent when he determined many things cruelly against the people he was driven into banishment by them and having with repeated importunities for a long time wearied the neighboring Cities and last of all the Scythians he was by their great assistance restored unto his Kingdom In his absence the Parthians had constituted one Tyridates to be their King who understanding of the advance of the Scythians did flie with a great number of his friends to Caesar making war at the same time in Spain carrying with him as a pledge to Caesar the youngest Son of Phrahartes whom he took away by force being too negligently guarded Which being understood Phrahartes sent presently Embassadors to Caesar demanding that his servant Tyridates and his Son should be restored to him Caesar having understood the Embassie of Phrahartes and the desires of Tyridates for he desired also to be restored to the Kingdom affirming that the Romans would have a Right to Parthia if the Kingdom thereof should be at his disposing did make answer That he would neither deliver Tyridates to the Parthians neither would he aide Tyridates against them And that it might appear that Caesar was not of that sullen temper that they could prevail nothing at all upon him he sent Phrahartes his Son without ransom and allowed Tyridates a large exhibition as long as he would continue with the Romans After this the war in Spain being ended when he came into Syria to compose the State of the East Phrahartes was possessed with a great fear that he would make war against him Therefore the Captains over all Parthia that were taken Prisoners in the Armies of Crassus or of Antony were recollected and the Ensigns that were taken were also sent back to Augustus with them the Sons and Nephews also of Phrahartes were given as pledges to Augustus and Caesar prevailed more with the greatness of his Name then another Emperor could have done by Arms. THE Three fortyeth BOOK OF IVSTINE THe affairs of Parthia and the East and almost of all the world being described Trogus as after a long pilgrimage doth return home thinking it the part of an ungrateful Citizen if having illustrated the actions of all Nations he should conceal the affairs only of his own Countrie He briefly therefore toucheth upon the beginning of the Roman Empire that he might not exceed the measure of his propounded work and not in silence to pass by the original of that Citie which is the head of the whole World The Inhabitants of Italie were first the Aborigines whose King Saturn was reported to be of so great Justice that no man served under him neither had he any thing private to himself but all things were undivided and common unto all as one patrimonie to them In the memorie of which example it was provided that in the Saturnalia the Interests of every one being made equal the servants did everywhere in their banquets lie down along with their masters Therefore Italie was called Saturnia after the Name of their King and the Hill where Saturn did inhabite being by Jupiter driven from his own Seat is called the Capitol The third King who Reigned in Italie after him was Faunus in whose time Evander came into Italie from Pallantheum a Citie of Arcadia with a small Retinue to whom Faunus did bountifully assign certain fields and a Hill which he afterwards called the Hill Palatine At the foot of this Hill he errected a Temple to Lycaeus whom the Greeks call Pan and the Romans Lupercus The Effigies of the god is cloathed with the skin of a Goat in which habit they rnn up and down in Rome at the Lupercals Faunus had a wife whose name was Fatua who being daily filled with a divine Spirit did as it were in a furie presage of things to come from whence those that to this daie are inspired are said to fatuate or to foretell the events of Fates to come Latinus conceived in whoredom was the son of the daughter of Faunus and of Hercules who at that time having killed Geryon did drive his Cattle through Italie