before namely the furnace or hearth the panne or kettle with the trefeet the tunnell the drinking cuppes or earthen pots the spoones and the boxes wherein they keep the hearb and the powder made of the same These things they set little lesse store by than we do heere in Europe by rings beset with pretious stones or bracelets of the best and most orient pearles Their houses for the most part are framed of timber to auoid the danger of earth-quakes which heere are very frequent and often although that some haue their houses very artificially and stately built from the foundation vpward of a very faire kind of stone They haue many goodly Churches and Monasteries both of men and women very rich and sumptuous The language of all these ilands is one and the same but so diuers and manifold and of such different dialects that it may not vniustly be said to be many For they haue of one and the same thing diuers and sundrie names of which some are vsed in scorne and bad sense others in good sense and honourable vsage other phrases and words are vsed by the Nobility others by the common people others are spoken by the men others by the women Moreouer they speake otherwise than they write and in their writing there is a great variety for they write their priuate letters vnto their friends one way and bookes and such like another way They haue diuers bookes very fairely written both in verse and in prose Againe their letters are such as in one and the same character they do expresse and signifie sometime one word sometime two or more Lastly the Iaponian language is of indifferent iudges preferred before the Latine either in respect of the elegancy and smoothnesse of pronunciation or copy and variety of the same therefore it requireth both great time and labour to learne it They are a very warlike people and much giuen to follow that kind of life the chiefe men of dignitie which haue the command of the kingdome and gouernment of the same they generally call Tonos although amongst those there are also certaine degrees as there are amongst our Nobility Princes Dukes Marquesses Earles and Barons Another sort of men there are amongst them which haue the charge and managing of matters of their Church these are shauen all ouer both head and beard these may neuer marrie but do vow perpetuall chastity There are diuers and sundrie sects of these religious persons amongst them some there are which after the maner of the Knights of the Rhodes do iointly professe armes and religion together but they are generally called by one name Bonzij They haue in many places diuers great schooles such as we call Vniuersities The third state or sort of people amongst them are the citizens and other degrees of gentry next vnto these are the retalers hucksters factours and shop-keepers with artificers and handiecraft-men of diuers occupations very ingenious and skilfull in their trades They haue many kinds of armours and warlike weapons made of sundrie makings and excellent temper They haue also the vse of Printing with letters and stamps not much vnlike our maner inuented and practised heere in Europe The last sort and state of people in these ilands are the husbandmen and labourers Generally it is a very subtile wittie and wise Nation and of singular endowments and good parts of nature both for acute iudgement aptnesse of learning and excellency of memorie It is no shame or reproach to any to be accounted poore Slaunderous and railing speeches theeuing robberies and that vngodlie kind of rash othes and swearing with all kind of dicing and gaming they do vtterly abhorre and detest Any offendours against the Law of what degree soeuer are punished by no lesse punishment than banishment confiscation of goods or death Those which are to be executed are for the most part beheaded suddenlie before they are aware Notwithstanding it is the maner in some places to cary such as are taken for robberies in a certaine kind of carre round about the city in the face of all the people and to hang them vp without the wals of the towne In the seruice of God which is the chiefe point of iustice and vertue they do miserably erre and swarue from the right tract Their guides and great masters of religion to informe the rest are those which I say they name Bonzij Amongst their saints which they worship the chiefe are those which they call Amida and Xaca other idols they haue of lesse estimation and note amongst them whom they pray vnto for health recouery in sickenesse children money other things belonging to the body these they call Camis All Iaponia or the people of that name were subiect in time past vnto one Emperour whom they called Vo or Dair this was his title of honour and dignity vntill such time as he growen effeminate and giuen to pleasures and ease became to be scorned and contemned by the Lieutenants and Nobility especially of the Cubi for so they called the two chiefest Princes vnto whom the gouernment of the country was committed of which afterward the one did kill the other therefore the Lieutenants of the seuerall shires with the military men hauing for a time endured such a carpet Knight by and by began to loath his gouernment and at last wholly shaking off the yoke of subiection seised euery man into his owne hand the prouince ouer which he was set as gouernour vnder the Emperour so at an instant that vnited body and maine Empire of so large command was shattered as it were into many parts and pieces yet so as notwithstanding a kind of soueraigne authority doth euen to this day remaine in the Dair of distributing and giuing the titles of honour to the Nobility which eftsoones are altered according to the diuersity of the degrees and are designed by certaine notes and badges The chiefe and most mightie of all the Princes of Iaponia is he that gat either by force or policy Meacum and the best kingdomes neere to the same which they generally by one name do vulgarly call Tensa Those places were lately possessed by Nubunanga that tyrant which I spake of before this King being slaine by treason about two yeares before and his children murdered or banished one Faxiba a chiefe captaine of the rebels by force and violence stepped into his regall throne and tooke vpon him to sway the scepter of that kingdome The honour and credit of the first entrance of this Iland certaine Portugals do challenge and take vnto themselues but I do rather giue credit to Antonio Gaualno who reporteth in that booke which he wrote of the descries of the New-found world that Antonâ—o Mota Francisco Zeimoro and Antonio Pexoto in their iourney as they sailed from the city Dodra in Sion to passe for China they were caried by a contrary wind to the Ilands of the Iaponians about two and forty yeares before that time All this we haue extracted out
vpon what ground Calis-Malis In the lesser of the two foresaid isles stood the towne of Gades and in the greater Iulia Gaditana Augusta which before as appeareth out of Strabo was called Neapolis Now they call both towne and island Cadiz It is the seat of a Bishop who also is intitled Bishop of Alger This Isle was first discouered and inhabited by certaine Phoenicians of Tyrus as is euident out of most ancient records Vpon this isle some are of opinion that the Geryones afterward planted themselues whose droues the Aegyptian or Tyrian Hercules forcibly draue away At one corner of the isle stood the temple of this Hercules famous both for builders superstition riches and antiquity Why it should be holy saith Mela his bones there buried are a sufficient cause Vpon the other corner Strabo affirmes the temple of Saturne to haue been erected In the said temple of Hercules Caesar found the image of Alexander the great as Suetonius in his life reporteth A fountaine there was very holsome to drinke which with a strange kind of contrariety diminished at the floud and increased at the ebbe of the sea In this temple as the same author affirmeth were certaine brazen pillars of eight cubits wheron were ingrauen the costs bestowed in building of the same Here also the same author out of Artemidorus acknowledgeth a temple dedicated to Iuno Dionysius describes therein the temple of Age and of Death and tels of certaine altars consecrated to the Yere to the Moneth to Arte and to Pouerty Hercules pillars are here extant saith Isidore and here growes a kind of tree like a palme with the gum whereof the glasse of Epyrus being mingled is turned into a precious stone The inhabitants of old were famous for their skill in nauigation and from this their ancient trauersing of the seas they do not as yet degenerate But their principall gaine consisteth in making of Salt and in catching of Tunies for which they haue euery yeere an ordinary fishing These fishes being cut in pieces pouldred and barrelled are dispersed all Europe ouer This isle was esteemed by antiquitie the worlds extreame Westerne limit whereupon saith Silius Italicus in his first booke And Gades the vtmost bounds of men c. Also in his 17. booke Gades lands farthest end And Calpe bounding Hercules And Baetis crystall streames That bathe Apolloes steeds For here the Poets faine that the Sun being weary of his dayes labour drencheth himselfe in the Ocean and takes his rest wherefore Statius also calles it Gades the Sunnes soft bed Yea at this very time our Netherlandish Mariners call the Westermost Cape of this isle which by the inhabitants is named El cabo de San Sebastian Het einde der Werelt that is to say The Worlds end This ancient inscription found vpon this isle is by Appianus in his booke of Inscriptions alleged out of Cyriacus of Ancona as followeth HELIODORVS INSANVS CARTHAGINIENSIS AD EXTREMVM ORBIS SARCOPHAGO TESTAMENTO ME HOC IVSSI CONDIER VT VIDEREM SI QVISQVAM INSANIOR AD ME VISENDVM VS QVE AD HAEC LOCA PENETRARET In English thus I Heliodorus a mad Carthaginian commanded in my last will that they should in this tombe bury me at the worlds end to see if any more franticke than my selfe would come thus farre to visit me But that all this inscription is counterfeit and new I learne out of Anthony Augustinus his eleuenth chapter of ancient coines Concerning this isle you may reade more at large in Strabo and Philostratus And of the city reade Brunus in his volume of cities GVIPVSCO GVIPVSCO is a part of that Northerne tract of Spaine called of olde Cantabria it borders vpon the kingdome of Nauarre and the Pyreney mountaines which diuide it from France and it is bounded Westard by the prouince of Biscay The inhabitants in Ptolemey are called Varduli At this present some call it Lipuscoa others Lepuscoa but corruptly as Stephan Garibaio borne in the country writeth Some ancient records of this country do not vndeseruedly name it The wall and fortresse of Castile and Leon. It is a mountainous place euery where so abounding with yron and steele that for quantity and goodnesse of this mettall it is excelled by no other region in the world Wherefore from hence to their great commodity all the neighbour-countries are abundantly supplied with all kind of iron-tooles and instruments Here likewise they make warlike armour and artillery as namely Great ordonance Harquebuzes Caliuers Harnesse Swords c. so good and in such plenty as people of all nations are desirous to haue them They themselues also are a people very warlike So that this region a man may rightly call Mars his armory and the inhabitants his workemen Such as dwell vpon the coasts spending the greatest part of their time at sea reape vnto themselues great profit by taking Newfoundland fish called Baccalaos and Whales of whose fat they make great quantitie of Traine-oile Heere also they boile Salt mixing it I know not for what purpose with Oats and with Hempe-seed The head citie is Tholosa situate at the confluence of the riuers Araxis and Oria others there are also of note as Placencia swarming with Smiths Motrico or rather Monte de Trico so called of the rocke Trico that hangs ouer it The port of Sant Sebastian which is the largest most commodious vpon all the coast Hither people of sundry nations do trafficke At first it was called Hicuru afterward Don Bastia and corruptly Donastia which in signification is all one with Sant Sebastian For Don in the Biscain tongue signifieth Saint as Santo in Spanish But by the inhabitants it is commonly called Vrumea For this region differing altogether in language from the residue of Spaine hath many townes called by diuers names according to the difference of languages some whereof I thought good here to note for the benefit of those that reade histories The sundry names therefore of diuers townes in Guipusco are these that follow Salinas alias Gaza both signifying salt Mondragon alias Arrasale Monreal alias Dena Aspeitia alias Vrasueitia Saluatierra de Traurgui Olite alias Ariuierri Renteria alias Villanueua de Oiarcum Penna Oradada alias Puerto de Sant Adrian Elicaur alias Licaur Marquina alias Elgoiuar Azcoytia alias Vrazgoitia Miranda de Traurgui Araxa Arayça Also the hill Aralar is called Arara and the riuer Vidoso Vidorso and Alduida and Beyouia This riuer runnes betweene Spaine and France In describing this region Stephan Garibayo is very copious in the 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. and 14. chapters of his 15. booke And Florian del Campo writes somewhat of it in his first and second chapter And Nauagierus in his Iournall affirmeth that there is so much yron and steele dig'd out of the mines of Guipusco as yeeldeth 80000. duckats of yerely gaine The words of Plinie in his 34. booke and 14. chapter are not I thinke to this place impertinent Vpon the coast of Cantabria saith he which the
ditch wall or rampart Yet it is apparant out of the description of this prouince done by Iohn Leo Africanus that there be diuers other cities beside these although they be not very strong For in his eighth booke of the description of Africke he reckoneth vp thirty and two beside certaine other villages which he describeth according to their name and situation Of Egypt thou maist read in the description of the Holy Land set forth by Brocard toward the latter end of the same as also in Bellonius Obseruations Guillandine and Niger Of Nilus read Goropius and Nugarola beside that which ancient writers haue written of it which thou shalt see in our Mappe of old Egypt The Hauen of CARTHAGE IT is not our purpose to describe CARTHAGE that famous city and next after Rome the only glory of the world which so long bearded the Romanes and stood out against all forren subiection but because we saw this his Bay to be set out in Italy in this forme I thought it would be a thing wel-pleasing the learned student of Geography to ioine the same also to this our worke together with this discourse of Paulus Iouius written of the same Such is the forme of the Bay of Carthage that the entrance into it is not to be descried by such as saile thitherward from the maine sea for that the cape Clupea called of old writers Mercuries Foreland or Fairenesse stretcheth out it selfe farre into the West and againe winding it selfe and bending inward maketh another cape sometimes called Apolloes Foreland now the sailours call it Zafranio From thence vnto the straits of Goletto it is redoubled in maner of an halfe moone and at the left hand of the city Rada Raba the chart hath famous for hot bathes of soueraigne vertue it leaueth the country Ouer against which are to be seene the ruines of old Carthage and the place where it stood Thus farre Iouius But the places neere adioining are described more particularly in Iohn Leo Africanus NATOLIAE QVAE OLIM ASIA MINOR NOVA DESCRIPTIO AEGYPTI RE CENTIOR DE SCRIPTIO CARTHAGINIS CELEBERRIMY SINVS TYPVS ETHIOPIA or ALHABAS The country of ABYSSINES or The Empire of PRESTER IOHN THe same whom we in Europe call Presbyter Iohn or Priest Iohn the Moores call ATICI ABASSI themselus that is the Abyssines or Ethiopians ACEGVE and NEGVZ that is Emperour and King for his proper name is arbitrarily giuen him as heere we vse in Europe at the discretion of the parents It seemeth also that at his coronation he changeth his name like as the Popes of Rome vse at this day to do and together with his crowne to take vnto him another proper appellation for he which in our remembrance possessed the throne and made a league of amity with the King of Portugall was called before his coronation Atani Tingal but after he had taken vpon him the Emperiall diademe he was named Dauid This Prester Iohn out of doubt in this our age is one of the greatest Monarches of the World whose kingdome lying between the two Tropickes reacheth from the Red-sea almost vnto the Ethiopian ocean and that we may somewhat more precisely set downe the bounds of this Empire for as much as we can gather out of the surueihgs of the same made and set forth by some learned men of our time it hath vpon the North Egypt which now is vnder the command of the Turke on the east it abutteth vpon the Red sea and Barbaricum sinum Pliny calleth it Troglodyticum sinum others Asperum mare the rough sea the seamen at this day vulgarly Golfo de Melinde on the South it is strongly by nature fensed and enclosed by Montes Lunae the mountaines of the Moone on the West it is confined by the kingdome of Nubia and the riuer Nilus These bounds do seeme to containe that prouince which old writers called Ethiopia beneath Egypt together with Troglodytis Cinnamomifera regio the country where in those daies Cinnamon grew most plentifull with part of the inner Libya These countries now are diuided into many smaller prouinces and are called by diuers and sundrie names as thou maist see in the Mappe These countrie people are at this day generally of all our moderne Historiographers called ABYSSINI or as themselues with the Arabians round about them pronounce the word Hhabas and with Al the Arabicke article or pronoune prefixed Alhabas as Beniamin reporteth and Abexim as Garcias ab Horto affirmeth all which wordes indeed originally are the same and do only differ either in sound or maner of writing for the Eastern Hheth a letter I meane proper to those nations and barbarous to vs borne in Europe the West part of the World is diuerslly expressed by diuers as they do well know which know ought in the Hebrew Arabicke Syrian and Ethiopicke languages sometimes by our single h sometime by the double hh otherwise by ch others do wholly omit it as not finding any letter in that language in which they write that is of that nature and power whereby they may truly expresse the same Again the last letter of the same word which the Hebrewes and Arabians call Schin is sometime expressed by sh sometime by ss or by the Spanish x which they sound almost like our sh and sometimes by s or z. For thus I find the word written often in the holy Scriptures translated into Arabicke and Habashi and Alhabassi Psalm 68.32 and 74.14 Item in Gen. 2.13 where Ardzi ' lhabas the land of Ethiopia is the same that Auicenna in the 283. chapter of the second tract of his second booke calleth B'ledi'lhhabashah the country of the Abyssines or as our fathers named it India Occidentalis the West Indies the interpetour Gerardus Cremonensis hath Terras alhabes Bellunensis hath Terras Indiae minoris the countries of the Abyssines or of the lesser India Heere also it is worth the obseruing that this word out of all doubt had his originall from the Hebrew שוכ Cush whereby they did long since call this nation and people as it is apparant out of Gen. 10.5 and 2.13 by the iudgement of all Interpreters Grammarians and Iewish Rabbines For the Hebrew ו or vaw which indeed and in his owne nature is the same with our w is pronounced of some nations in some cases like the Germane v or v consonant as they call it somewhat like the sound of b altogether the same with that pronunciation of the Hebrew Beth when it followeth a vowell as the modern Grammarians and Iewish Rabbines do now teach According to which custome it is not vnlikely but that this word שוכ which the Iewes sounded Cush some other nations might pronounce and vowell thus שוח chauash chabaas habas or Abyssi And indeed the Asians generally and they themselues as Ortelius citeth out of Iosephus do call themselues Chusaeos and as he reporteth from the relation of the reuerend B. Arias Montanus Hispalensis they are euen to this day of
The greatest part of the city standeth vpon hils only the middest of it is plaine and leuell The riuer vpon which it is seated entreth it at two sundry places for the one is diuided into two parts and being entered within the wals it spreadeth it selfe almost into infinite branches and is by and by in channels troughs and pipes conueighed almost to euery priuate house church colledge inne and hospitall Lastly running through their vault fewers and sinkes it carieth with it all the ordure and soile of the city out into the maine riuer and by that meanes keepeth it continually near and cleane The greatest part of their houses built of bricke and coloured stones are very beautifull and do make a goodly shew to the beholder Moreouer the open places galleries and porches are made of a kind of party-coloured bricke or pauement much like vnto those earthen dishes which the Italians call Maiorica The roofe or seelings of their houses they ouerlay with gold and other most orient coloures very finely and gorgeously The toppes of their houses on the out side are couered ouer with boord a dare made plaine so that in the summer time they may be ouerspread with couerlets and other clothes for heere in hot weather they vse to lie and sleepe all night Item for the most part euery house hath a turret seuered into many roomes and lofts whither the women being toiled and weary may with-draw themselues to recreate and refresh their mindes for from hence they may almost see al-ouer the city Churches and Chappels they haue in this city to the number almost of 700. whereof 50. are very large and goodlie most sumptuouslie built of free CONGI REGNI CHRISTIANI IN AFRICA NOVA DESCRIPTIO Auctore Philippo Pigafetta FESSAE ET MAROCCHI REGNA AFRICAE CELEBERR describebat Abrah Ortelius 1595. stone or bricke euery one hauing a fountaine or conduict adioining to it made of a kind of marble or stone vnknowen of the Italians Euery Church hath one Priest belonging to it whose charge is to say seruice there and to read praiers The greatest and chiefe church in this city called Carrauen is of that greatnesse that it is said to be almost a mile and a halfe about It hath one and thirty gates of maruellous bignesse and height The steeple of this Church out of which the people with a very lowd and thundering voice are called to Church like as we do vse by the towling of a bell is very high Vnderneath this is a cellar or vault where the oile lights lampes mats and such other things necessarily and ordinarily vsed in the Church are kept and laid vp In this Church there are euery night in the yeare 900. lamps lighted at once Moreouer in this city there are more than an hundred Bathes Item two hundred innes euery one hauing six skore chambers apeece at the least for diuers of them haue many more Euery inne hath a well or fountaine of water priuat to it selfe In about foure hundred places you shall find mill-houses euery place hauing in it fiue or six mils so that in all you may account heere certaine thousands of mils All occupations heere are allotted their seuerall and proper places to dwell in euery one by it selfe so that the best and more worshipfull trades are placed neerest the cathedrall Church All things which are to be sold haue their seuerall market places appointed out for them There is also a place assigned as proper to the Merchants which one may iustly call a little city enclosed round with a bricke wall It hath about it twelue gates ech of which hath a great iron chaine drawne before it to keep horses and cartes out And thus much of the West part of Fesse For the other side which is vpon the East although it haue many goodly churches buildings noblemens houses and colledges yet it hath not so many tradesmen of sundry occupations Notwithstanding heere are about fiue hundred and twenty weauers shops besides an hundred shops built for the whiting of thread Heere is a goodly castle equall in bignesse to a prettie towne which in time past was the Kings house where he vsed to keep his court These particulars we haue heere and there gathered out of the third book of Iohn Leo his description of Africa where thou maist read of very many other things of this city both pleasant and admirable Item Iohn Marmolius hath written something of the same Moreouer Diego Torresio in that his booke which he sometime wrot of the Seriffs or Xariffs as the Spaniards vsually write it hath done the like Out of whom I thinke it not amisse in this place to adde this one thing worth the remembrance There is a stone saith he at one of the gates of this city which hath vpon it this inscription in Arabicke letters _____ FIZ VLEDEELENES id est populus gentium or thus Fes bleadi'lenes Fesse is a world of men like as they commonly speake of Norway calling it Officinam hominum the shoppe or workehouse where men are made Againe he alleadgeth this as a common prouerbe vulgarly spoken of this city Quien sale dc Fez donde ira y quien vende trigo que comprera as much to say in English He that is weary of Fesse whither will he go and he that selleth wheat what will he buy answerable to that of the poet spoken of Rome Quid satis est si Roma parum est What will content thee if all Rome be not inough This S. Hierome in his second Epistle vnto Geruchia a virgine doth cite out of Ardens the Poet. The kingdome of CONGI OF Congi this kingdome of Africa which others corruptly call Manicongo for this word properly signifieth the king of Congi and cannot he spoken of the country alone my good friend Philippus Pigafetta the authour of this Mappe wrote a booke in the Italian tongue this other day imprinted at Rome Which he penned from the mouth and relation of Odoardo Lopez a Portugall who had himselfe been a long time a dweller there and so a man very skilfull of the state and situation of this country and an ey witnesse of that which heere is set downe out of whom we haue drawen these few particulars This kingdome is diuided into these six prouinces Bamba Sogno Sundi Pango Batta and Pemba The first of which is inhabited and possessed by a warlike and very populous nation so that this one by it selfe is able if need be to make 40000. fighting men The chiefe city of this prouince and seat of their Kings is Bansa which now they call Citta de S. Saluador All this whole prouince is very rich of siluer and other mettals especially about the iland Loanda where also they catch abundance of those shell fish which breed the pearles these they do vse in this kingdome for exchange in buying and selling in steed of money for heere there is no manner of vse of coine neither do they much esteeme of gold or siluer
of colour but also to marke them with diuers kinds of pictures and counterfeits of sundrie sorts of liuing creatures and to go naked least they should hide this their painting I read in Herodian Listen thou shalt heare Solinus speake the same wordes The countrie is partly possessed by a barbarous and wild people which euen from their childhood haue by certaine cutters men skilfull that way diuers images and pictures of liuing creatures drawen and raised vpon their skinne and so imprinted in their flesh that as they grow vnto mans estate these pictures together with the painters staines do wax bigger and bigger neither doth the wild people endure any thing more patiently and willingly than that their limbes by meanes of those deep cuts and slashes may so deepely drinke in these coloures that they may sticke long by them Amongst the Goddesses as I learne by Dion they worshipped Andates for so they call Victoriam victory who had a temple and sacred wood where they vsed to do sacrifice and performe their religious seruice and worship to her Beside her they had another which was called Adraste whether this were the same with Adrastia which some did take to be Nemesis the Goddesse of reuenge which the ancient Grecians Romans did worship I leaue to others to determin Caesar saith that in former times the Druides a kind of superstitious priests dwelt also amongst this people who affirmeth that their discipline and religion was first heere inuented and from hence caried beyond sea into France That they continued vntill the time of Vespasian the Emperour of Rome in Mona or Anglesey it is apparent out of the 14 booke of Cornelius Tacitus his Annals Frō them doubtlesse this nation had their knowledge of the state immortality of the soule after this life for this was the opinion of those Druides as Caesar and others haue written of them But of the Druides we will God willing speake more in our Old France or Gallia as it stood in Caesars time That the Britans did so greatly esteeme and wonderfully extoll the art Magicke and performe it with such strange ceremonies that it is to be thought that the Persians had it from hence I haue Pliny for my patron who mightily perswadeth me The forenamed Bunduica also doth seeme to iustifie the same who as soone as she had ended her oration vnto her army cast an hare out of her lappe by that meanes to gesse what the issue of that iourney would be which after that she was obserued to goe on forward all the company iointly gaue a ioifull shout and acclamation To sacrifice and offer the blood of their captiues vpon their altars and to seeke to know the will and pleasure of their Gods by the entrails of men as the Romans did by the bowels of beasts these people held it for a very lawfull thing Thus farre Tacitus and thus much of Albion now it remaineth that we in like manner say somewhat of Ireland HIBERNIA Or IRELAND VPon the West of Britaine in the vast ocean the Latines call it Oceanus Virginius that is as the Welch call it Norweridh or Farigi as the Irish pronounce the word lieth that goodly iland which all ancient writers generally haue called by one and the same name although euery one hath not written it alike an ordinary and vsuall thing in proper names translated into strange countries For Ptolemy and vulgarly all Geographers which follow him calleth it HIBERNIA Orpheus the most ancient Poet of the Greekes Aristotle the Prince of Philosophers and Claudian IERNA Iuuenall and Mela IVVERNA Diodorus Siculus IRIS Eustathius in his Commentaries vpon Dionysius Afer WERNIA 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and BERNIA the Welch-men or ancient Britans YVERDON the Irish themselues from whence all the rest were fetched ERIN whereof also the Saxons by adding the word Land signifying a countrey or prouince as their manner is haue framed IRELAND by which name it is not only knowen to the English but generally at this day it is so called of all Nations whatsoeuer Thus farre the learned Clarencieux who also thinketh it so to haue beene named by them of their Irish word Hiere which signifieth the West or Western coast or country Like as the Celtae whose language he proueth to be the same with this for the same reason and of the same word named Spaine Iberia which afterward the Greekes in their language interpreted Hesperia In Festus Auienus who wrote a booke intituled Orae maritimae the sea coast it is named INSVLA SACRA The Holy Iland who moreouer addeth that it is inhabited of the Hierni that is of the Irish-men Isacius in his Commentaries vpon Lycophron calleth it WEST BRITAINE Plutarch in his booke which he wrote Of the face in the sphere of the Moone calleth it OGVGIA but why we know not yet read him if you thinke it worth the while you shall heare many an old wiues tale The latter writers as S. Isidore and the reuerend Beda our countriman call it SCOTIA of the Scottes which seated themselues in the West part of this I le about the yeare of our Lord 310. from whence within a very few yeares after being called in by the Picts they came into Brittane and indeed Paulus Orosius Beda and Egeinhardus authors of good credit wrote that it was inhabited of the Scots It is in length from South to North 400. miles in breadth scarse 200. The soile and temperature of the aire as Tacitus affirmeth is not much vnlike that of England It breedeth no snake or serpent nor any venemous creature fowle and birds heere are not very plentifull and as for bees no man euer saw one in the whole country yea if so be that any man shall strew dust grauell or small stones brought from hence amongst the hiues the swarmes will presently forsake their combes as Solinus writeth Yet we know by experience that this is all false for such is the infinit number of bees in this country that they are not only to be found heere in hiues and bee-gardens but also abroad in the fields in hollow trees and holes of the ground The temperature of the aire saith Pomponius Mela is very vnkind and vnfit for the ripening of corne and graine but the soile is so good for grasse not only great and ranke but also sweet and wholesome that their heards and cattell do fill themselues in so short a time that if they be not driuen out of the pasture they will feed while they burst Solinus affirmeth the same but in fewer words Furthermore he calleth it an inhumane and vnciuill country by reason of the rude and harsh manners of the inhabitants And Pomponius Mela termeth the people a disordered and vnmannerly nation lesse acquainted with any sort of vertue then any other people whatsoeuer yet they may in some respect be said to be louers of vertue in regard that they are very religious and deuout Strabo saith that they are more rusticall and vnciuill then the
them which would willingly cast themselues into the fires and graues of their friends verily perswading themselues that they should still liue together with them Item Diodorus Siculus reporteth that some of them would cast into the fire where their friends deceased were burnt to ashes their letters verily beleeuing that they would reade them there For that opinion of Pythagoras of the immortality of the soule had taken footing and deepe root amongst them being perswaded that afterward the bodies being dead in processe of time they should againe returne into other bodies Listen also what Valerius Maximus saith of this matter It was an ancient custome saith he amongst the Gauls as old records do verifie vsually to lend money in this world to be paid againe in the world to come Which the forenamed authour termeth Philosophiam foeneratoriam A couetous or miserly kind of Philosophie practised then by some vsurers But can you tell where now a man may borrow an hundred pounds vpon good security till that day I doubt whether there be any pale-faced cut-throat vsurer glorious smooth-tongued gold-smith crafty mocke-lawyer Scriuener or any rag-merchant broker in this our city that was euer Pythagoras scholler This Iewish sect are all I thinke by their practise of the opinion of the Sadduces who thought and taught that there was no resurrection of the soule to be expected after this life It is no wonder or strange matter to thinke that the Gauls were of this opinion if so bee that be true that one Alexander in Clemens Alexandrinus doth tell of namely that Pythagoras did trauell into France Tertullian out of Nicander doth write that they vsed to he abroad all night vpon the graues and tombes of valiant men and there to expect the answeare of some of oracle I care not an halfe penny for that opinion of the great Orateur Tully in that his oration which he made for Marcus Fonteius where he writeth that The Gauls are hardly addicted to follow any religion at all For Liuy although in other things he be partiall and dealeth hardly with this nation yet he plainly affirmeth that they be not very backeward in religion And Caesar in his seuenth booke of the warres of France who throughly well knew this people saith that they were much giuen to religion and seruice of some god or other Item he saith That they did especially worship god Mercury of whom there were amongst them many images and statues they affirming him to be the authour and inuentour of all arts and sciences him also they hold to be their guide and leader in all iourneies and waies through which they are to trauell him they supposed to haue a great power and stroke in all maner of trafficke and gainfull trade for money to him they offered mans flesh in sacrifice as Minutius Felix writeth Besides him they did also worship Apollo Mars Iupiter and Minerua Of these their gods they held the very same opinion that other nations of the world did viz. That Apollo being praied vnto did driue away all diseases Minerua first taught the grounds of all arts and occupations Iupiter did rule and moderate the motion of the heauens Mars was president and guardian of the warres That the Celtae did honour Iupiter whose image or statue was a most goodly tall oake Maximus Tyrius doth plainly testifie Of Mercury heare what Pliny in the seuenth chapter of his fowre and thirtieth doth write Zenodorus saith he in our time did in the city Clermont or Auvergne Aruerniae the ancients called it make the greatest and most gorgeous statue that euer was made in the world who there for tenne yeares together working vpon the statue of Mercury had for his hire H S. CCCC that is as some men reade it fowre hundred thousand sestertioes which do amount in our money to 3333. pounds sixe shillâ—ngs and eight pence Strabo doth testifie that Diana the Ephesian Goddesse had a temple at Marseils Item Polyaenus witnesseth that the French-greekes Gallo-graeci did worship Diana which Plutarch in his booke of the Fortitude of women doth auouch to be true But beside this Diana they worship another by them sirnamed Arduenna as is verified by an ancient inscription in marble of which we shall speake more anone This goddesse by all probability seemeth to haue beene worshipped in the forrest Arduenna For although it be there written DEANAE ARDVENNAE yet I thinke there is no man meanly seene and trauelled in ancient inscriptions that is ignorant that by it is meant Dianae Arduennae For the ancient Romanes did oft times vse I for E and contrariwise E for I as the learned can beare me witnesse And in honour of her was this forrest Arduenna consecrated and made holy or rather as I thinke heere was some temple erected and dedicated to her seruice built either by the ancient Gauls so deuout and religiously giuen as before is shewed or if you like that better by the Romanes themselues as in the greatest and most renowmed forest or wood within the compasse of their whole Empire a place most worthy and best beseeming this goddesse And what maruell I pray you being I say a place most fit and conuenient for this goddesse Diana to inhabite and make her abode in For she is called of all ancient heathen writers Venatrix Nemoralis Nemorum syluarum Dea virgo custos The goddesse of hunting the goddesse of the woods chases and forests and the maiden keeper of the same Lactantius Lucane and Minutius Felix do affirme that they had three gods which they in their language called Esus or Hesus Teutates and Taranus But the learned for the most part by them do vnderstand Mars Mercury and Iupiter See M. Camdens Britannia In Ausonius there is mention made of a god of theirs which they named Belenus whom Herodian by the iudgement of the learned Iulius Scaliger calleth Belis And whether this be the same with Tibilenus whereof Tertullian maketh mention Petrus Pithaeus in his Aduersaria doth most learnedly dispute and doth there interprete it to be the same that Apollo is to the Greekes Moreouer Abellio was one of their gods as the forenamed Scaliger at the same place out of an ancient inscription doth teach vs. The same authour also maketh mention of Onuana a goddesse of theirs Saint Austen in his bookes of the city of God doth affirme that they had certaine vncleane spirits or diuels called by them Dusij in the catalogue and number of their gods But whether they did worship the god Serapis the same peraduenture with Pluto the aboue-mentioned P. Pithaeus out of certaine words of the sixteenth booke of Ammianus Marcellinus his history doth in the third chapter of his Aduersaria at large and learnedly discourse to whom I referre thee for farther satisfaction Out of Florus also we learne that they worshipped Vulcane for a god who writeth that they did promise to giue him the armour and weapons of the Romanes their enemies Athenaeus saith that
seas toward the maine land it abutteth vpon those mountaines which do part Macedonia from Thracia Romania Mysia the vpper Seruia Bosna and Bulgaria and Dalmatia now it is called Sclauonia This is that Greece which as Manilius saith is Maxima terra viris foecundissima doctis Vrbibus c. Renowmed Greece for warlike men and schollers deeply learned doth farre excell c. which as Cicero writeth in his oration pro Flacco for honour renowme learning diuers arts and sciences ciuill policy in time of peace and feates of armes and martiall chiualrie abroad hath euer been famous or as Trogus Pompeius in his 8. booke saith was for valour and estimation Princesse of the World From hence as Pliny saith the bright lusture of all maner of literature and humane learning first call forth his beames and enlightned the rest of the world on all sides round about In this country humanity and letters together with the maner to write and read how to till the ground and sow corne was first inuented and practised as Plinius Caecilius hath left recorded in his epistle written to his friend Maximus And this is that country saith he from whom we had our statutes that I meane which receiued not lawes as those do which are at the command of the conquerour but willingly and curteously did communicate them to such as did demand them MACEDONIA possesseth the greatest part of Greece This long since hauing conquered the greatest part of the World passing through Asia the Lesse Armenia Iberia Albania Cappadocia Syria Aegypt the mountaines Taurus and Caucasus subdued Bactria Media Persia and the rest of those Eastern countries euen as farre as India in this following the steps of Bacchus and Hercules of which also it became the Empresse yea thou maist say if thou wilt of the whole world answeareable to that of Manilius Macedum tellus quae vicerat Orbem and Macedonia stout which all the world subdued This is that Macedonia 72. of whose cities Paulus Aemilius a Romane Consull sacked and sold in one day Then next after this followeth PELOPONNESVS a peninsula or demy-ile not much inferiour for goodnesse of soile fertility and riches to no country vnder heauen is very like in forme to the leafe of the plane tree In this standeth binaris Corinthus the city Corinth the fortresse bulwarke and gate of all Greece situate between two seas in the isthmos neckeland or narrow place between this prouince and Achaia Heere also is Lacedaemon Misithra or Zaconia as some thinke but it was in old time called Sparta reuerend and honoured of all men for the politique gouernment commonwealth instituted by Lycurgus for many memorable acts done both at home and abroad But that the name of Greece did extend it selfe further than before specified on ech side of the sea it plainly appeareth out of the records of the best writers for how great a portion of Italy was in old time called Magna Graecia Great Greece A great part also of the maine continent in Asia beyond the sea ouer against Macedonia of certaine colonies transported thither and seated there by the Greekes was named also by this name whose inhabitants Plutarch in his Laconica apothegmata for distinction sake nameth Graecos Asianos Asian Greekes For Lucian in his treatise of Loue de Amoribus writeth that the insulae Chelidoniae certaine small ilands or rocks as some call them in the midland sea they are now called Isole corrente as Castaldus iudgeth or Caprose as Pinetus thinketh were the ancient bounds of Greece Isocrates in his oration intituled Panegyricos writeth that the Grecians did inhabit from Cnidus a town in the prouince of Doris in Asia the Lesser euen vnto Sinope a city of Paphlagonia in Asia situate vpon the Euxine sea Chalcondylas calleth it Pordapas the Turkes as Leunclaw reporteth Sinabe In like maner the Aegean sea Archipelago which beateth vpon the coast of Macedonia and also vpon this forenamed Asia is called of Thucydides Plutarch Arrian and Polyenus Hellenice thalassa of Pliny Graeciense mare the Greeke sea Strabo and Pausanias amongst the rest haue described Greece as then it stood most diligently and curiously Of Graecia Asiatica this part of Greece in Asia the Lesser which thou seest opposite to Macedonia read Pausanias in his Achaïa and Vitruuius in the fourth chapter of his first booke of Architecture Ελλας GRAECIA SOPHIANI Abrahamo Ortelio descriptore Cum Priuilegio CYPRVS THat this iland was sometimes a part of Syria and ioyned to the maine land Pliny in his Naturall history doth affirme and that it shall againe be reunited to the same Apollo hath prophesied as Strabo in his Geographie hath left recorded Amongst those ilands of the Midland sea more noted for their greatnesse this doth possesse the sixth place In respect of the forme it is as Eustathius writeth compared to a sheeps skin or as Hyginus noteth to a French target It is longer one way than another by the iudgement of Strabo who moreouer addeth that for excellency and goodnesse of soile it is inferiour vnto no iland whatsoeuer Pliny and Mela do testifie hat in former times nine kings did reigne in it at once Herodotus sayth that king Amasis was of all mortall men the first that tooke it and made it tributary vnto his crowne It was all ouer somtime so woody and ouergrowen with bushes and trees that the ground by no meanes might be ploughed and manured a great part of which although it was dayly spent in the melting and refining of copper and siluer for the iland is very full of mettals as also for the building of ships yet notwithstanding for all this they neuer were able vtterly to destroy their huge woods and infinite luxuriousnesse of the same vntill by proclamation free liberty and licence was giuen and granted to euery man that list to fell and cary away what wood and timber they pleased Item that what ground so euer any man had cleared by stocking vp the bushes and trees that he should for euer after hold for his owne by a free tenure The woonderfull fertilitie of this soile Elianus doth bewray when as he writeth that stagges and hindes do oft times swim hither out of Syria to fill their bellies so good is the feed of this I le The manifold variety and plenty of all sorts of commodities here those words of Ammian in his 14 booke do sufficiently demonstrate vnto vs when he giueth out That it needeth no maner of forren helpe of other countries only of it selfe it is able to build a shippe euen from the very keele to the top saile to rigge it and send it foorth to sea furnished with all maner of necessaries whatsoeuer The great riches of this iland these words of Sextus Rufus do manifestly declare CYPRVS famous for great wealth moued the beggerly Romans to attempt the same so that indeed the interest that we haue in that iland we gat rather by violence than any right we had vnto
Africa are generally or indefinitly named these seuerall prouinces of those greater parts are only to be vnderstood The bounds of this prouince of Africa on the West are the riuer Ampsaga and the Mauritania's the countries of the Moores their next neighbours on the North lieth the Midland sea Arae Philenorum a village betweene it and Cyrenaica is the vttermost bound of it Eastward the Inner Libya and the deserts of the same do confine it vpon the South This countrey was otherwise sometime called ZEVGIS and ZEVGITANA It comprehendeth within this compasse these three shires NVMIDIA named of some MASSYLIA BYZACIVM and TRIPOLITANA Diodorus Siculus diuideth this prouince into foure nations the Poeni Libophoenices Libyi and the Numidae At such time as the Romans bore a sway here and Scipio Aemilianus commanded their legions in these parts this Africa was diuided into two prouinces that neere Carthage they called OLDE AFRICA that which conteined Numidia NEW AFRICA as Pliny Appian and Dion do ioyntly testifie Numidia and Byzacium were vnder the command of the Consuls that wherein Carthage stood belonged to the iurisdiction of the Proconsuls as Sextus Rufus reporteth And this diuision they made as Pliny writeth by a certaine ditch drawen betweene them In the first booke of Iustinians Code and in the seuen and twentieh title of the same thou shalt finde another maner of diuision of this countrey and a farre other maner of gouernment of it by Presidents and Lieutenants Numidia beside the great store of Marble there found called by the name of Numidian marble and the maruellous plenty of Deere and wilde beasts which it yeeldeth hath nothing worth the remembrance as Pliny affirmeth Liuy Pliny and Solinus do giue it the praise for the best horsmen for seruice in the warres of any countrey whatsoeuer They doe as highly commend the fat soile of Byzacium which is such that it yeeldeth an hundred for one yea it hath beene knowen that one bushell of wheat being sowen hath yeelded at haruest the increase of an hundred and fifty bushels againe The Lieutenant of this place sent from thence vnto Augustus Caesar Emperour of Rome forty eares of corne sprung and growen vp from one root and one graine as was probable Item there were sent likewise to Nero from thence three hundred and forty stalks with eares of corne come vp of one and the some graine To this also may be adioyned the goodnesse of the soile which is such as Columella reporteth of it that the husbandman after he hath layd his seed in the ground from seed-time to haruest neuer looketh to his fields nor once medleth with it more for that searse any weed or other such thing which vsually hindereth the growth of corne doth here come vp of it owne accord except it be either set or sowen by hand Halicarnasseus also maketh mention of this great fertility of Africa But Titus the Emperor of Rome in one word doth sufficiently declare the woonderfully fruitfulnesse and plenty of all things here in an Oration of his written vnto the seditious and mutinous Iewes where he nameth it Altricem orbis terrarum The nourse of all nations of the world Yea and Saluianus in his seuenth booke termeth it Animam Reipublicae Romanae The soule of the Romane Common-wealth or politicke body there where thou mayst reade many other things worth the obseruation of the riches command and power of this countrey Herodian maketh it a country very fertile of men Polybius on the other side doth as much commend it for the great abundance of cattell and all sorts of liuing creatures that it breedeth So that for multitude of Horses Oxen Sheepe and Goats it doth farre surpasse almost all the rest of the world beside And that which is most woonderfull of all other it is no strange thing here as Columella out of Dionysius Mago and Marcus Varro telleth vs to see Mules to breed and bring forth yoong so that the inhabitants do as oft see the foales of Mules there as we do of Mares here The same authour in the first chapter of his fourth booke sayth that the people are very ingenious and witty Hirtius calleth it Gentem insidiosam A treacherous nation Maternus nameth it Gentem subdolam A wily and crafty people so that Vlgetius doubted not to say That for wiles and wealth the Romans were alwayes inferiour to the Africans Iuuenal the Poet termeth it Causidicorum nutâ—iculam The nurse of prating petifoggers Athenaeus recounteth the Carthaginians amongst those nations which delight much in quassing and carowsing and vse to be often drunke Saluianus in his seuenth booke De Prouidentia sayth that they are generally so inhumane such drunkards so deceitfull fraudulent couetous treacherous disloyall leud lecherous and vnchaste that he that is not such an one he surely is no Africane Lastly there is as he there addeth no maner of wickednesse or villany that they are not giuen vnto All histories do make mention of the vnfaithfulnesse and false-heartednesse of this nation which indeed is such and they for the same so greatly noted and famous that they grew for it into a common by-word among all such nations as had any conuersation or ought to do with them And thus much of this Africa a land as the Poets terme it most rich for triumphs the fortresse or castle as Cicero calleth it of all Prouinces belonging to the Romane Empire The Ilands neere adioyning and belonging to this country more famous and of better note are Melita Menyx Cosura and Cercina beside some other lesser ones and of lesse account of which as also the people riuers mountaines townes and cities see this our Table That Sardinia that goodly iland which lieth ouer against Genua did sometime belong to this Africa Iustinian doth testifie in the seuen and twentieth Title of the first booke of his Code But of CARTHAGE the chiefe and metropolitane citie of this prouince although Salust sayth it is better farre to say nothing at all of it than to speake little yet notwithstanding I thinke it not amisse to adde somewhat of that also in this place This city of the Latines was called CARTHAGO of the Greeks CHARCHEDON Solinus Polyhistor reporteth that it was first called CARTHADA which word sayth he in the Phoenician tongue of neere affinity to the Hebrew and Arabicke signifieth Ciuitatem nouam The new city And indeed truth it is that _____ in the Arabicke dialect and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Kariat hadátha in the Syrian doth signifie A new city or castle Hereupon it is that Stephanus nameth it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 NOVAM VRBEM The new city He moreouer calleth it OENVSSA CACABE and CADMEIA but vpon what ground and authority I know not Cadmeia peraduenture it was named of the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which in that language as also in the rest of the orientall tongues deriued from hence signifieth the East or first and chiefest both which may well agree to this city for the first
olim non ob opes solum virtutem bellicam quibus semper pres titit verum etiam ob continentia disciplinam que summum apud illos locum habuit celebris fuit Nam artium illustrium et Graecae etiam lingue peritia excelluit matre vt arbitror Massilia Graeca vrbe in maritima ora Prouinciae sita ad quā quondā disciplinaru gratia ud ex ipsa vrbe Roma missi sūt qui docerētur BRETAIGNE and NORMANDY THis Table representeth that part of Gallia Lugdunensis which stretcheth toward the Westerne Ocean The ancients named it Armorica Heere standeth Neustria corruptly so called of late yeeres for Vestria or rather Westria according to some Westrasia as much to say as a Westerne region The occasion of this errour both in pronunciation and writing was for that the French wanting a double V doe alwayes in stead thereof write a single V and because u in this small forme differs not much from n hereupon it is likely that Westria was prodigiously changed into Neustria In which Neustria at this present are situate the regions of Bretaigne and Normandie which in this Table we present vnto your view NORMANDIA so called of the Northerne people that ouer-ranne it for Nord in Dutch signifieth North and mannen men which Northerne people were Danes and Noruegians who hauing by force subdued this region planted themselues here in the time of Lotharius the Emperour Concerning the situation and nature of this place these are the words of Gaguinus in his seuenth booke Normandie is adorned and fortified with one Metropolitan six cities and ninetie foure strong townes and castles most of their villages also being built citie-like thorow which Prouince a speedie traueller shall hardlie passe in six dayes it aboundeth with fish cattell and plentie of corne being in all places so fraught with peares and apples that the people make all their drinke of the same and yet send great quantitie to other countreys They exercise clothing and are notable quaffers of cyder They are naturally a wilie people subiect to no forren lawes liuing after their owne fashions and customes which they most obstinately maintaine cunning they are in sleights and sutes of law whereupon strangers are loth to haue any dealings with them being otherwise well addicted to learning and religion Moreouer they are very apt and valiant in the warres many of whose worthy acts against strangers are recorded Thus farre Gaguinus Of the qualitie of this region you may more largely informe your selfe out of Henry Altissiodorensis his fifth booke of the life of S. German It aboundeth as Caenalis makes report with all things necessary for mans life wine only excepted which the soile doth not yeeld The chiefe city is Rouen in English commonly called Roan which hath a most learned Senate or Court of Parliament that execute iustice and decide the controuersies of the whole Prouince Heere are also great Merchants by meanes of whose trafficke the citie is knowen farre and neere In this citie there is a church dedicated to the Virgin Mary beautified with a most lofty steeple wherin hangs the greatest bell in all France weighing forty thousand pounds as these French verses grauen thereupon do testifie Ie suis nominée George d' Amboise Qui plus que trente six mil poise Et si qui bien me poysera Quarante mil y trouuera In English George de Amboise my name rightly sounds I weigh more than thirtie six thousand pounds Whoso poiseth me well Fortie thousand may tell This George after whose name the bell is called was Archbishop of Roan about the yeere 1500. who considering that in his Diocesse such was the scarsitie of oile as it would hardly be sufficient for the time of Lent granted to his Diocessans in stead thereof the vse of butter conditionally that they should pay six halfepence Tournois a piece with which summe of money he caused the said steeple to be built which thereupon is yet called Latour de beur that is The steeple of butter The antiquities and other memorable matters of this city F. Noel Taillipied hath described in French in a peculiar Treatise Thus much of Normandie BRETAIGNE bordering vpon the coast of Normandie is the vtmost prouince of France toward the Ocean Some thinke that this was of old called Aremorica Sure I am that Caesar describeth cities which he calleth Aremericas vpon this coast But Plinie and Sidonius do name the inhabitants Britannos placing them vpon the riuer of Loire The Middle-age writers call them Brittones which name they yet retaine Plinie most aptly calles this region The godliest Peninsula of Gallia Lugdunensis In a fragment of the Frankes history I reade that it was once called The horne of France from the shape thereof as I suppose Robert Caenalis is of opinion that the Brittons being named Hermiones tooke occasion by way of allusion vnto this name to make choise of those armes which they now beare commonly called Ermines with weasels tailes and the natiue colour of blacke in a field argent c. This region he saith is somewhat drie and not very fruitfull more apt to beare millet than wheat Their fields saith he they call lands It seemeth more properly to be named Eremorica than Aremorica For they make larger leagues betweene towne and towne namely of three miles which is no slight argument of a barren soile Hereof the coniecture seemes not improbable that it was called Brutannia of nourishing or feeding brute beasts So many of their townes as antiquity reports are denominated from flocks and droues as for example Pullinaicum à pullis equinis from horse-coltes Filicieriae now called Fulgeriae alias Foulgeres of braky grounds also Rhedones à Rhedis that is to say of carts which cary commodities long and tedious iourneys which I rather beleeue than that it first borrowed the name from Brutus Thus farre Caenalis let the trueth thereof stand or fall vpon his credit More concerning these countries you may reade in the same authour and in Belleforest but especially in Bertrard Argentré who hath published a large volume of the same in French Reade also Elias Vinetus vpon Ausonius his poem of Cupid crucified LA MANS the inhabitants whereof were in old time called CENOMANI PLinie in his third booke and ninth chapter putteth the Cenomani amongst the Volsci neere Massilia Ptolemey and Strabo doe place them about Brixia in Italia Transalpina which is on this side Padus Other Cenomani be found in Gallia Lugdunensi by Ptolemey and Plinie lib. 4. cap. 15. or by Caesar in his seuenth booke De bello Gall. Howbeit the latter two call them also by a surname Aulercos And these are they whose region we propound in this Table The inhabitants now call it La Mans. The situation of this countrey and of the seuerall townes you may reade in Theuet Belleforest and Caenalis out of whom I thought good to borow this one speciall note concerning a certeine riuer and a
seuen Hospitals seuen Parishes seuen Nunries seuen Colleges seuen Frieries and seuen gates Not farre from hence is the valley of Chisa at the head of the riuer Sorgues a place so highly magnified by Petrarch as he often calles it his Helicon and Pernassus This he made choise of as an hermitage to weane himselfe from worldly cogitations A man in my conceit not of the ordinary cast of Writers and whom I may boldly and deseruedly call The Christian Seneca PROVINCIAE Regionis Galliae vera exactissimaque descriptio Petro Ioanne Bompario auctore Cum Privilaegio decennali Imp. Reg. et Brab 1594 The coast of NARBONNE THE principall places along this coast William Paradine describes in these words Arles was a colonie of the Sextaine as some Writers doe affirme Standing vpon Rhosne it is enuironed with Marshes wherein at this present are a breed of fierce and vntamed Kine Whilome it was a famous Mart-towne as Strabo writes in maner following Narbo saith he the most frequented Mart of this Region standeth at the outlet of the riuer Araxis by the lake Narbonensis but vpon Rhodanus the towne of Arles a Mart of no small importance is situate Neere vnto Arles are those hot bathes where Sextius saith Strabo built a towne after his owne name calling it Aquae Sextiae The cause why he built it was to place a Roman garrison there Here were the Cimbrislaine by Marius as writeth S. Ierome Aurasio now called Orange famous in times past for the gouernment of the Gabali or Cabilonenses wherin I saw the ruines of an huge Theater and a mightie wall excellently built of square stone the like whereof I doubt whether all France can affoord There stands also at the gate towards Lions a triumphall arche with a tilt or turniment of horsmen ingrauen thereupon which we long beheld with great delight To this citie belongeth Nemausum now called Arenas a place renowmed for the ancient Theater there extant Heere is a most woonderfull passage vnder ground passing thwart vnder the very chanell of Rhodanus to the citie which standeth afarre off Heere likewise you may see the Palace of Plotina built by Adrian the Emperour as Spartianus reporteth c. Thus much out of Paradine But of all others most exactly Iohn Poldo d' Albena hath described this citie and set forth the antiquities in picture with the situations and ancient names of the places adiacent Of this argument reade Strabo in his fourth booke and Gunterus a Poet of Genoa The originall of this Table my friend Mr. Carolus Clusius of Arras gaue me drawen with his owne hand SAVOIE SAVOIE standeth on this side the Alpes the Prince whereof called the Duke of Sauoie is Lord of the Region of Piemont The head citie is Chamberi of olde as saith Caenalis called Ciuaro wherein the Senate or Parliament resideth This region some thinke was named Sabaudia from certaine people called Sebusiani and as others suppose of the Sabbatian fourds But Bouillus renders another reason of this name For this region saith he in regard of the narrow passages as being situate among the Alpes and of the scarsitie of inhabitants was all ouer-pestered with theeues which either robbed or murdered such trauellers as passed that way Hereupon a certaine Nobleman hauing obtained it of the Emperour vnder the title of a Dukedome expelled by force of armes all the said theeues and robbers and made the way most secure for trauellers This done he caused it afterward to be named Salua via commonly Sauluoy that is The safe way which before was called Mala via alias Mauluoy The euill or dangerous way hence the Latines call it Sabaudia Hitherto Carolus Bouillus Whether it be a fable or an historie I appeale to the authours credit This one thing I am sure of that the word SAPAVDIA is often vsed in the booke called Notitiae prouinciarum for a name of one of the prouinces of Gallia Narbonensis But here also I thinke it not amisse to annex the description of this prouince out of the history which Paradine wrote of it His words be these That region which in Latine is now called Sabaudia commonly Sauoy ancient Writers named Allobroges And it containeth all that tract which in times past the Sabbatij Ingauni Intimelij Hiconij Tricorij Vicontij Lepontij Latobrigi Medualli Centrones Catoriges Veragri Nantuarij Salassi Tharantasij and Seduni inhabited The regions therein comprised at this present are thus named Sauoy the countie of Geneua the Marquisat of Susa the countie of Morienne the Baronisse of Tharentaise Brengeois Foucigni Chablais Val de Oste Pais de Vaul Pais de Geis and some others The Duchie of Sauoy hath vnder it the region of Piemont adorned with the title of a Princedome Also the region of Bresse wherein are the counties of Varaz Mountrueil Pont de Vaulx Bagey c. Out of ancient monuments it is apparent that this region in times past bare the name of a Kingdome especially in the dayes of Hannibal who being ordained vmpire betweene Bronchus and his brother about the gouernment of this countrey compounded their quarrell and restored the kingdome to the eldest whom his yonger brother had expelled as Liuie reports in his 21. booke Florus also affirmeth that Betultus or as some reade it Betuitus the King of this place was taken captiue by Fabius Maximus And sundrie authours doe make mention of King Cottius in the time of the Emperour Augustus of whom the neighbour-alpes were called Cottiae More concerning this region you may reade in Philibert Pingonicus The Countie of VENACIN THe Countie of Venacin named in Latine Comitatus VENVXINVS and by Caenalis VENETICVS and the Popes territory also because it is vnder his iurisdiction is part of that region in France now called Prouence and of olde Narbonensis secunda The principall citie is Auignon situate vpon the Rhosne It is the Popes towne and held for a while the Papall sea In this countie are three Bishopricks where law-matters also are decided namely Carpentras Cauaglion or L'isle and Vaurias In this Table is comprehended also the Princedome of Orange so called of Orange the chiefe citie being famous in Sidonius and Ptolemey vnder the name of Arausio Plinie and Pomponius call it Arausia Secundanorum COL ARAVSIO SECVNDANOR COH 33. VOLVNT is found grauen vpon an ancient stone More concerning this region you may reade in Belleforest and Theuet GALLIA NARBONENS SABAVDIAE DVCAT Auctore Aegidio Bulionio Belga Scala milliarium VENVXINI COMITATVS NOVA DESCR Auctore Stephano Ghebellino LORRAIN THE bounds of Lorrain in times past extended much farther for it comprehended in a maner all the whole region lying betweene the riuer Rhene and Scheld and the mountaine Vogasus All which was diuided into the higher and the lower The lower Lorrain contained Brabant Haspengow Guelders and Cleue In the higher were the Bishopricke of Liege with the counties of Lutzenburg and Limburg as likewise the duchy of Maesland the countie Palantine vpon Sur and
The greater part of Flanders was from the beginning vnder protection of the French Kings but now it is at libertie and absolute of it selfe being released by Emperour Charles the fift Earle of Flanders who in the treatie of Madrid quite shooke off the French yoke This region Guicciardine hath most diligently described and Iacobus Marchantius most learnedly You may reade also Iacobus Meierus his ten tomes of Flanders affaires Ad autographum Gerardi Mercatoris in hanc formulam contrahebat parergaque addebat Ab Ortelius ZELAND LEuinus Lemnius of Zirichzee in his booke De occultis naturae miraculis Of the bidden secrets of Nature amongst other things writeth thus of Zeland his natiue country That this Marine tract saith he was notvnknowne vnto the ancients it may out of Cornelius Tacitus easily be gathered although not by the same name that at this day it is knowne by but of a custome and common kind of salutation and speaking one to another which acquaintance and friends of this prouince do vse at their meetings therefore he calleth them by the name of MATTIACI when he thus writeth In the same iurisdiction are the Mattiaci a nation very like the Bataui but that those in regard of the situation of their countrie are more desperate and couragious Whereby he giueth to vnderstand that although they are next neighbours and do border vpon the Bataui or Hollanders so called of the hollownesse and lownesse of the ground so that they might iustly be accounted one and the same people yet are only distinguished by the name of their customary saluation and being neerer the Sea are more hardie and audacious as indeed they are and for manhood witte policy craft deceits cunning in buying and selling and diligence in getting and waies to enrich themselues they do farre excell them And in that hee calleth them Mattiaci I conceiue it that they were not so named either of any place or captaine but of that fellowlike salutation as I said and vsuall maner of speaking one to another vsuall amongst them to witte of Maet which in common speach and friendly meetings signifieth a fellow and companion in all our actions bargaines contracts and dangers of all our purposes counsailes labours and trauailles a copartner and consort in any thing whatsoeuer we take in hand or go about c. For the name of Zeland is not ancient but is lately inuented and made of Sea and Land as who would say Sea-land a country or land bordering vpon the sea for it is enclosed round with the ocean consisting of fifteene Ilands although it be not long since the raging Sea did great hurt in this country by whose violence and ouerflowing a good part of Zeland his dammes walles and banks being rent and broken downe was ouercome of the salt-water and laid leuell with the sea notwithstanding certaine of them do remaine of which especially three do continually wrestle with the boisterous billowes of the sea and do very hardly defend themselues with infinite costs and charges against this rude and vnruly element Of these first Walcheren Walachria doth offer it selfe to the eie of such as do saile to these coasts so named either of him that first entered and inhabited in it or as I gesse of the Gaulls Galli which much frequented this country who of the Low-countrie-men are yet called Walen or of that part of Brittaine which lieth vpon the West side of it and is called Wales the most gentleman-like and brauest nation you may beleeue him amongst the English and descended also from the Gaulles which their language as yet doth manifest c. From hence Northward or somewhat declining toward the East is Scouwen Scaldia the Latines call it of the riuer Sceldt which runneth by it and heere falleth into the sea c. Suytheuelandt so named of the situation of it toward the South to distinguish it from another distant from it Northward and therefore called Noortheuelandt a large and most goodly tract of ground coasting along the shore of Flanders and Brabant although of late yeares hauing suffered great dammage and losse it is now much lesse and narrower Thus farre Lemnius Tritthemius in the Annalles of the Franks nameth Middleborough the chiefe city of these Ilands Mesoburgus Meyer calleth it Mattiacum more like a Latinist then a true Geographer More of these thou maist read in the forenamed Lemnius who hath most excellently well described all the Ilands of Zeland and the cities of the same To these if thou wilt thou maist adioine Lewis Guicciardine and I know not what els thou canst seeke for further satisfaction There are also certaine Annalles of these Ilands written in the mother tongue by Iohn Reygersberg But for an incomme thou maist also to these former adde the descriptions of the cities of the Low-countries done by Adrian Barland Of the people of this prouince these verses are commonly spoken Crescit nequitia simul crescente senectâ In Zelandinis non fallit regula talis The worse they wax as they grow old In Zelanders this rule doth hold These Ilands are situate between the mouthes of the riuers Maese and Sceldt bordering on the North vpon Holland on the East vpon Brabant on the South vpon Flanders on the West vpon the Germane sea Iames Meyer thinketh that Procopius calleth these Arboricas Yet Petrus Diuaeus is of opinion that this place of Procopius is corrupt and for Arborichas it ought to be read and written Abroditos That these are those Ilands I do verily beleeue vnto which Caesar in his sixth booke De bello Gallico affirmeth that he forced a part of the army of Ambiorix Prince of the Eburones which as his owne words do giue to vnderstand did hide themselues in Ilands which the continuall motion or ebbing and flowing of the sea had made It is also very probable that Lucane in his first booke aimed at these Isles in these his verses Quaque iacet littus dubium quod terra fretumque Vendicat alternis vicibus cùm funditus ingens Oceanus vel cùm refugis se fluctibus aufert Ventus ab extremo pelagus sic axe volutat c. They come in troopes amaine From where th' vncertaine shore doth lie that is nor sea nor land But both by course as raging Tethys flow'th and ebb'th againe Or as the wind with rowling waues all calm'd doth stand From North to South thus carrying to and fro c. And that which the same Authour in his ninth booke sometime did speake of the Syrtes or Quicksands one may now not altogether vnfitly applie to these Ilands where he thus speaketh Primam mundo Natura figuram Cum daret in dubio terrae pelagique reliquit Nam neque subsedit penitus quo stagna profundi Acciperet necse defendit ab aequore tellus Ambigua sed lege loci iacet inuia sedes When as this massie world by Nature first was fram'd A doubtfull case it seem'd how God would haue it nam'd For neither could
Tribocci did inhabit as Rhenan Munster and others do thinke It is apparent out of old records that it hath beene sometime vnder the iurisdiction of the citie Trier Afterward it was gouerned by Earles although not in that sence in which commonly the word is vsed now-a-dayes yet they notwithstanding were subiect vnto the Duke of Mentz as the foresaid booke of Records doth shew At this day it is dignified with the title of a Landtgrauie Besides many things in this citie worthy of commendation there is a most stately steeple vpon the chiefe church whose height is such that it doth not only exceed all the rest of all Germany but as I thinke of all Europe It is as Munster hath left recorded fiue hundred seuentie foure foot high Those of VVien in Austrich doe thinke their steeple vpon the Church of S. Steuen in height to exceed all others yet that is as Cuspinian reporteth but foure hundred and foure score foot high The steeple of S. Paul of London in England was in height fiue hundred thirty foure foot as the learned M. Camden affirmeth Ours of the Church of our Lady at Antwerp is but foure hundred sixtie six foot high But whether the Geometricall foot vsed by the Architects of these seuerall cities in measuring be equall or not let them seeke which are more curious in these matters That ours of Antwerp for workmanship and beautie doth excell all those others I which heretofore haue seene all the forenamed dare affirme Of this territory of Strasburg reade Beatus Rhenanus his first booke of his German histories PALATINATVS BAVARIAE DESCRIPTIO ERHARDO REYCH TIROLENSE AVCTORE ARGENTORATENSIS AGRI DESCRIPTIO Ex tabula Danielis Spekel The Dukedome of WIRTEMBERG IOhannes Pedius Tethingerus in his history of the famous acts of this countrey describeth this Prouince thus The countrey of VVirtemberg saith he in the very entrance almost of high Germany most pleasantly abbutteth vpon the coast of Switzerland situate especially vpon the bancke of the riuer Nicher some doe thinke it in former times to haue beene the ancient seat of the Charitini whose iurisdiction is very large On the East it bordereth vpon the Sueui Vindelici and Norici On the West vpon the Countie Palatine of Rhein the Prince Electour and Marquesse of Baden lastly it comprehendeth the mountaines of Swartzwald the Blacke-wood On the South the mountaines of Arbon and the Alpes of Switzerland so the inhabitants do call the higher mountaines of that countrey do ioyntly ouerlooke it On the North they haue the Franckes their neighbours and not farre off also is Othos wood And therefore the iurisdiction of VVirtemberg can not more fitly take his begginning than where Nicher ariseth which springeth from a small fountaine out of the high hilles of Arbona in the Dukedome of VVirtemberg neere vnto the villages Schwenningen in the confines of the towne Villing not much more than fiue hundred pases from the fountaine of Donaw Not farre from his fountaine it passeth by Rotwell and leauing vpon the left hand the head of Blacke-wood vpon the right Switzerland Alpes runneth by the Duchie of VVirtemberg with a wandering and crooked course so saluting here and there certaine noble mens castles and townes of the Roman Emperours from his first rise the space of fiue dayes iourney more or lesse being with diuers little streames from sundry places encreased and laden and so made nauigable at Heydelberg falleth very swiftly into the Rhein The whole countrey by reason of the nature of the soile whether for tillage or otherwise in respect of the fertility is not euery where alike For that part where Nicher ariseth and which bordereth vpon the Blacke-wood as also that which is abbuttant vpon the Alpes of Switzerland situate betweene Donaw and Nicher is somewhat rough vnapt for vines but yeelding indifferent good pasture for cattell The soile within the Alps is stony yet very good for corne in like maner by the sides of Blacke-wood the land is sandy of a red colour which notwithstanding is reasonable good corne ground Euery where the nation is much giuen to breed and bring vp cattell Nere vnto the forest of Blacke-wood there are recorded to be these Lordships subiect vnto the Duchy of VVirtemberg Hornberg Schultach Dornstad Nagold VVildberg Kalbe VVilde bath Newenstade By the Alps or neere vnto them these Lordships Baling VVrach Blawbeyren Heidenheim Tuthing vpon the banke of Donaw by the which as by a certaine trench they are seuered and diuided But euery where the confines of the iurisdiction of VVirtemberg do gather themselues into a ring as it were enclosed with a large band to the places neere to Nicher But whereas Nicher doth spread it selfe into the champian fields there it is not only more kinde for temperature of the aire but also the soile is more fit for tillage Euery where are riuers well stored with fish holesome springs pleasant lakes goodly valleys Euery where hilles beset with Vines well-grasing pastures and medowes fertile fields forests of woods and groues in the which are great store of Beeches many Okes innumerable companies of Deeres large pastures abundance of cattell in all places plenty of Wine Corne and Apples Vpon the brinke of crooked Nicher here and there are many goodly cities some of them of reasonable greatnesse others not so bigge but for building and beautie very glorious In the higher countrey vpon Nicher doe stand Hernberg Tubing Nurting Kurch then Stutgard which being built as it were in the center of the prouince is the chiefe citie and the palace of the princes of VVirtemberg and excelleth all the other cities in buildings multitude of people and greatnesse About the lower coast of Nicher at this day doe flourish VVabling Schrondorff VVinida Bachanauge Brackenauge Binnicke Bessicke Bieticke VVinsberg Megimill Lauff Greining VVahing Next vnto Statgard are Bebeling Lenberg Cannostade all which cities haue their seuerall Lordships many strong villages men and munition Moreouer generally the people of this countrey is for their manhood humanitie constancie and religion very renowmed The townes as I said before are not so great but are sumptuously built whereof some are sufficiently fortified by nature and benefit of the place other some by the industrie and labour of man The villages are so well inhabited that they are not much inferiour to prety townes their houses are of timber but very artificially built The castles are fortified by nature and situation as also by the ingenious arte of fortification and so are not easie to be surprised so that a man would thinke that another Laconia were yet extant amongst the Switzers such is the excellencie of the men both at home and abroad This Dukedome hath his name of VVirtemberg an ancient beacon which now is situate in the midst of his territory not very farre from Stutgard yet vpon somewhat a rising ground hilly place is neither for his strength nor building any terrour to the enemy But according to the custome of their ancestours who
all Italie Neere vnto this lake is the territorie of Rosella called of Virgill Rosaea rura velini Velino's fields bedecked with roses sweet of all Italie the most fertile which fertilitie was such as Varro witnesseth that a rod being left in it ouer night the next day it might not be seene for grasse and therefore it is called Sumen Italiae The sweet bread of Italie In former ages they haue reported that the plaine of Stellate was the goodliest and best soile of all Italie but now as Blondus saith the places about Bonony and Mutina do far surpasse the rest Sabellicus according to the common report of the common people attributeth these epithets vnto the chiefe cities of Italie Venice the rich Millane the great Genua the proud Florence the faire Bonony the fertile Rauenna the olde Rome the holie and Naples the noble But the commendation of this country set out by Plinie with as great a maiesty of words as that countrey doth excell the rest of the countreys of the world I cannot but I must needs before I passe from it set downe in this place by way of digression for so he speaketh of it in his third booke and fift chapter ITALIE the nurse and mother of all nations chosen by the prouidence of God to adde a lustre to the very heauens themselues to vnite dispersed kingdomes to temper and mollifie their rude and vnciuill maners to draw the dissonant barbarous and sauage languages of so many diuers people by the entercourse of one refined speech to a conference and parley to teach ciuilitie to men and briefly to make this one a common countrey for all the nations of the world But what shall I say more Such is the excellencie of all places that any man shall come vnto such is the maiestie of all things and of all people which do possesse it The citie of Rome which in it seemeth only to excell and to be a worthy face for so glorious a necke with what words or eloquence may I expresse it How beautifull is the countenance of Campania by it selfe how great and many are the glorious pleasures and delights of the same That it is manifest that in this one place nature hath shewed all her skill in a worke wherein she meant especially to delight And now indeed such is the vitall and continuall holsomnesse of the temperate aire such fertile plaines and champian grounds such sunny banks such harmlesse forests such coole and shady groues such fruitfull and bountifull kinds of woods such fertility of corne vines annd oliues such goodly flocks of sheepe such fat beeues so many lakes such store of riuers and fountaines euery where watering and bedrenching it so many seas hauens or ports as it were bosomes of the land euery where open and ready to entertaine and receiue the traffique of all lands and it selfe running into the sea as it were willingly offering it selfe and earnestly desiring to helpe and succour mortall men distressed in the same I doe omit to speake of the fine wits natures and maners of the people of the same as also of the seuerall nations ouercome by it partly by valour and partly by humanity The Graecians themselues a nation exceeding prodigall of their owne praise and glory haue iudged so of it calling a great part of it Magna Graecia Great Greece Of the ancient writers Caius Sempronius Marcus Cato Polybius in his second booke but most exactly Strabo as he doth all things els haue described this countrey Of the latter historiographers Blondus Iohannes Annius Viterbiensis in his commentaries vpon Berosus and other authors imprinted together with him Pontanus in his first booke of the famous acts of King Alphonsus Volaterrane Sabellicus Bernardus Saccus and Dominicus Niger but most exactly Leander Gaudentius Merula hath most excellently described Gallia Cisalpina which indeed is not the least part of Italie ITALIAE NOVISSIMA DESCRIPTIO AVCTORE IACOBO CASTALDO PEDEMONTANO FORVM IVLII FORVLY or FRIVLY THe originall of the name of Forum Iulij Leander saith diuers writers haue diuersly sought and censured Some doe thinke it so called of Iulius Caesar Blondus seemeth to affirme it to haue tooke his name of the citie Forum Iulij Antiquities do testifie that this region hath beene called Aquilegia of Aquilegium his chiefe or metropolitane city Lastly it is certaine that it is called Patria of the Venetians which name as yet also it reteineth to this day Blondus saith that it was long since called Liburnia but from whence when or for what cause it was so called he sheweth not The first that had here ought to doe were the Euganei Veneti Troiani Galli and after those the Romans vnder whom it did continually persist so long as the fortune and maiestie of the Roman Empire did stand sound and whole which at last declining it came into the hands and iurisdiction of the barbarous nations which oppressed Italie especially the Lombards and so remained vnto the time of Charles the great After that the gouernment thereof was in the power of the Patriarch of Aquileia vntill at length the Venetians desirous to enlarge their territories on this side reduced it wholly vnder their iurisdiction who at this day possesse it The situation of the region is thus It beginneth from a plaine abbuttant vpon the sea and so by a little and little encreasing first it riseth vp in little hilles and then into very high mountaines which almost on euery side so enclose his borders that this plaine enuironed about with the toppes of mountaines as with a wall sheweth like a Theater it is open but at one narrow straight by the which as by a gate ferrying ouer the riuer Sontio from Taruisio it may only be entred The other borders of it the Alpes on euery side doe limit and therefore not to be come vnto but by the sea-ports or valleys of the mountaines or els ouer their tops It hath vpon the sea-coasts very many hauens In this most goodly countrey are large champians watered with many pleasant streames and those fields exceeding fertile for it aboundeth with vines yeelding a kinde of wine which Plinie reckoneth and commendeth for the best and calleth it Vinum Pucinum of the place The mountaines of this countrey are very rich almost of all sorts of mettals to wit of Iron Lead Tinne Brasse Quicke-siluer Siluer and Golde They haue also Marble white blacke and party-coloured Pretious stones as Carneols Berylls c. and crystall Here are all sorts of fruits and apples of a most excellent taste Woods both for fuell timber and hunting most stately pleasant and beautifull meddowes and pastures most excellent pasturage for cattell The aire is temperate The fields of themselues doe abound with all things necessary for the vse of man as also for pleasure and delight The people of this countrey are most apt not only vnto all artes and liberall sciences but also for all merchandise and such other trades of life The most famous cities in it
situation antiquities famous men and other matters worthy of record of this prouince let him haue recourse to the most learned Iohn Boniface who hath a while since set forth a most exact and absolute historie of it There is also extant a description of the countrie of Treuiso done in verse by Iohn Pinadello but as yet it is not imprinted Thus farre the Author hath discoursed vpon this his Mappe to which I trust I may with his good liking adde this out of Zacharie Lillie his Breuiary of the world TARVISIVM now Treuiso a goodly city belonging to the Signiorie of Venice of which of all ancient writers Plinie did first make mention brought forth Totilas the fift and most famous king of the Gothes from whom it first began his greatnesse and to arise to that dignitie that now it hath obtained that the whole prouince of Venice should be called The Marquesate of Treuiso For Totilas gathering together a great armie conquered all Italie and entering the city of Rome did sacke and fire it Certaine haue affirmed that the citie Treuiso was built by the Troians vpon the faire riuer Sile which falleth into the Adriaticke-sea The city it selfe for walles castle and water is very strong for bridges priuate houses and Churches very beautifull and for diuers merchandise very famous It hath great store of corne wine oile fish and fruites The country hath very many castles and villages but worthy men commended for Religion and wisedome vertuous life and ciuill conuersation do especially commend this city Thus farre out of Lillie PATAVINI TERRITORII COROGRAPHIA IAC CASTALDO AVCT Milliaria TARVISINI AGRI TYPVS Auctore Io. Pinadello Phil. et I. C. Taruisino The Lake of COMO sometime called LACVS LARIVS LACVS LARIVS which now they call Lago di Como of Como the ancient town adioining vnto it tooke his name of the Fenducke a bird which the Greekes call Larus and the Latines Fulica of which it hath great plenty It runneth out from North to South in length fortie miles it is beset round with Mountaines whose toppes are couered with groues of Chesse-nut-trees the sides with vines and oliues the bottoms with woods which affoord great store of Deere for game Vpon the brinke of the Lake are many Castles seated amongst the which on the South side is Como a faire towne built by the Galli Orobij or as some thinke by the Galli Cenomanes Afterward Iulius Caesar placed a colonie there amongst which were fiue hundred Grecian gentlemen as Strabo testifieth whereupon it was called Nouum Comum It is seated in a most pleasant place that one would iudge it a kind of Paradise or place onely sought out for pleasure and delight for vpon the fore-side it hath the goodly Lake on the backe-side the champion plaines well manured and fertile of all sorts of fruite Vnto which you may adde the wholesome and sweet aire Of the brasen statue long since taken out of this citie see Cassiod 2. Variar cap. 35. and 36. This towne brought forth the two Plinies men worthy of eternall fame in whose honour and memory the citizens caused these Inscriptions to be engrauen in marble vpon the front of S. Maries Church which we wrote out in the yeare of CHRIST 1558. in our returne from Italie Vpon the right hand of the dore THE STATE AND CITIZENS OF COMO HAVE GRACED C. PLINIVS SECVNDVS THE MOST VVORTHY FREEMAN OF THEIR CORPORATION A MAN OF A PREGNANT VVIT HONOVRABLE FOR DIGNITIES FOR LEARNING ADMIRABLE WHO IN HIS LIFE TIME OBTAINED THE LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP OF VESPASIAN THE EMPEROVR BORE MANY GREAT OFFICES EXCELLED ALL VVRITERS OF HIS TIME IN ELOQVENCE AND VARIETIE VVITH THIS TITLE AND STATVE Such honour great and worthy fame me Pliny did adorne But much it grac'th mee more what heere is set Vpon the left hand TO C. PLINIVS CAECILIVS SECVNDVS THEIR VVEL-BELOVED CITIZEN VVHO HAVING BEEN CONSVLL AVGVR AND BORNE ALL OFFICES IN THE VVARRES A FAMOVS ORATOVR POET AND HISTORIOGRAPHER MOST ELOQVENTLY VVRITTEN OF THE VVORTHY COMMENDATION OF TRAIAN THE EMPEROVR BESTOVVED MANY BOONES AND BOVNTEOVS FAVOVRS VPON HIS NATIVE COVNTRY GRACING THE SAME VVITH ETERNALL CREDIT THE STATE OF COMO FOR THESE BENEFITS DID HEERE PLACE THIS MONVMENT THE FIRST OF MAY IN THE YEARE 1498. At home in peace abroad in war ech office haue I borne I liued I di'd and still I liue as yet But why may I not to these adioine the words of the same Plinie in his second booke vnto Caninius writing thus Doest thou studie or doest thou angle or iointly doest thou both For the Lake affoordeth store of Fish the woods plenty of Deere the priuatenesse of the place doth giue great occasion of study The same authour in his 4. Epistle vnto Licinus Sura hath a storie of a certaine strange spring not farre off from this Lake Paulus Iouius hath most excellently described this Lake in a seuerall Treatise out of the which we haue drawen this our Mappe befitting our purpose Moreouer Cassiodorus in his eleuenth booke of Varieties vnto Gaudiosus hath most exactly painted out the same Benedictus Iouius and Thomas Porcacchius haue written the histories of Como Read also Leander in his Italia and Dominicus Niger in his Geographie The territories and liberties of the Citie of ROME OF the city of Rome sometime the Empresse of the world and Liberties of the same because this place cannot beare so large a description as his worth doth deserue and for that it is better to say nothing at all of it then to say little I thinke it best onely to reckon vp those famous authours which haue written of it at large and to referre thee to them for further satisfaction Of which the more ancient are Q. Fabius Pictor Sex Rufus and P. Victor Of the later writers Blondus in his Italia Fabius Caluus of Rauenna Bartho Marlianus Andreas Fuluius Georgius Fabricius Lucius Faunus Andreas Palladius Pyrrhus Ligorius and Lucius Maurus And very lately Io. Iacobus Boissartus Iacobus Mazochius hath gathered and set out all his old Epigrammes Fuluius Vrsinus the Noble houses and Vlysses Aldroandus the statues of the same Hubertus Goltzius with no lesse art then diligence and great expences hath expressed in forme of a booke the table of his Fasti most cunningly cut in brasse LAKII LACUS VULGO COMENSIS DESCRIPTIO AVCT PAVIO OVIO TERRITORII ROMANI DESCRIP FORI IVLII VVLGO FRIVLI TYPVS TVSCIA THe bounds of Tuscia which in time past was called Hetruria are on the East the riuer Tyber on the West Macra on the South the Mediterran sea on the North the Apennine mountaines It is a most goodly beautifull and pleasant country The people are very ingenious and of a subtile witte indifferently fitte either for peace or warre for all maner of humane litterature or for trades and merchandise The nation hath alwaies been superstitious and much giuen to deuotion in religion as is apparant out of ancient writers The sea coast toward the Tyrrhen or Mediterran sea
againe wonne by those of Pisa Now together with the kingdome of Sicilia it is gouerned by the Spaniard MALTA sometimes called MELITA QVintinus Heduus hath passing well described this Iland and hath set forth a peculiar Treatise of the same The landing of S. Paul and his shipwrecke heere vpon this coast hath made this Iland famous But not many yeares since by the ouerthrow of the Turks huge nauy the knights of Hierusalem to their eternall fame manfully defending the assault it is now againe made more famous See also Fazellus of this I le ELBA anciently called ILVA THis Iland in these our daies is in subiection to the Dukes of Florence and by a strong castell newly built it seemeth to be very defensible and safe against the inuasions of the Turks Of the new order of knight-hood by the name of the Knights of S. Steuen answereable to those of Hierusalem in Malta instituted in the yeare 1561. by Cosmus Medices Duke of Tuscane read Caelius Secundus in his historie of the warres of Malta That this Iland had many veines of mettall it is cleare by the report of ancient Cosmographers And now Leander saith it hath a rich mine of iron where also the Loadstone is found as he writeth Matthiolus telleth that from hence Liquid alume is brought and conueied vnto vs. Diodorus Siculus in his fifth booke hath a large description of this Iland where he calleth it by the name of Aethalia CORCYRA now CORFV IT is an Iland of the Hadriaticke sea subiect to the state of Venice In it is a very strong castell of the same name where is continually maintained a garrison against the Turks Beside the ancient Geographers these later writers Volaterranus Bened. Bordonius and Nicolas Nicolay in his Eastern obseruations with others haue described this Iland ZERBI of old writers called LOTOPHAGITIS THe ouerthrow of the Christian nauie neere this Iland which happened in the yeare of Christ 1560. hath made this iland more famous Of the situation bignesse and gouernours of this Iland read Iohannes Leo Africanus in his fourth booke of his description of Africa INSVLARVM ALIQVOT MARIS MEDITERRANEI DESCRIPTIO Cum Priuilegio The Ile ISCHIA THat this Iland hath been in former times called AENARIA ARIMA INARIMA and PITHECVSA Homer Aristotle Strabo Pliny Virgill Ouid and other good writers are sufficient witnesses Now it is called ISCHIA of the name of the city there built vpon the top of an hill in forme somewhat like the Hucklebone as Hermolaus Barbarons testifieth which of the Greeks is named Ischia or rather of the strength and defenciblenes of the place as Volaterranus thinketh Although it be sure that these be but synonymes of one and the same iland yet Mela Liuie and Strabo do seeme to make Aenaria and Pithecusa two distinct iles as also Ouid may be thought to do in these verses Inarimen Prochitamque legit sterilique locatas Colle Pithecusas habitantum nomine dictus By Inarime he saileth by Prochyte ile by barren Pithecuse A town on toppe of loftie cragge where wilie Apes do vse Where by Pithecusas as I thinke he vnderstandeth the city ancientlie as also now it is of the same name with the whole iland Which although now it be obserued to be ioined to the I le yet in former ages it was called Gerunda and was apart and disioined from the I le as Pontanus a man of good credit doth testifie in his second booke which he wrote of the warres of Naples where he affirmeth that in his time it was ioined vnto the Iland by a causway made between them Prochita not farre distant from hence which Plinie doth write to haue been seuered from Pithecusa doth shew that this was sometime adioined to and sometime disioined from this Iland The same authour doth affirme which Strabo also doth approue that all these sometime were cut off from the maine continent and to haue been part of the cape Miseno This doth the forenamed Pontanus in his sixth booke confirme in these words That Aenaria saith he was cutte off from the maine continent many things do demonstrate namely The torne rocks The hollow ground full of caues The nature of the soile like vnto that of the continent leane drie and spuing out hotte springs and fountaines It breedeth flaming fires in the middest of the earth wherefore it is manifest that it conteineth much Alume Andreas Baccius in that his famous worke of the Bathes of the whole world writeth that this iland doth counterfait Campania of which it was sometime a part not only in respect of the fertility of the soile but also for likenesse and similitude of the bathes Erythraeus vpon the 9. booke of Virgills Aeneiads doth thinke it to be called Arima of a kind of people or beasts so named and that Virgill was the first that when he translated that of Homer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Ionicke preposition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 altering the declension and number did make the new word Inarime Yet Plinie in the 6. chapter of his 3. booke and Solinus surnamed Polyhistor are of a contrary opinion which do affirme it to be of Homer also called Inarime And as the same Pliny reporteth it was called Aenaria for the ships of Aeneas put into harborough heere Pithecusa not of the great store of Apes there found but of Coopers shops or warehouses But this opinion the same Erythraeus in the foresaid place laboureth to ouerthrow as not altogether consonant to the truth for that of tunnes made for this purpose he protesteth that he hath not read of in any authour whatsoeuer Yet Seruius in my iudgement seemeth vpon the forcited 6. of Virgils Aeneads to stand for Pliny where he saith that by Cumae there was a certaine place named Doliola that is if we should interpret it Tunnes And it is more likely that this Iland should take the name from that place with which sometime it was vnited according to the opinion of these good authours rather then of apes for I regard not the fable of Ouid of which beasts none are heere or euer were That this Iland from the beginning hath been subiect to earth-quakes flames of fire and hot waters from thence oft breaking out we are certified by Strabo and Pliny The mountaine which Strabo calleth Epomeus and Pliny Epopos now they call it S. Nicolas mount which for the same cause they report to haue burned inwardly at the bottome and being shaken with an earthquake to haue somtimes cast out great flakes of fire Heere hence arose that fable of Typhon the giant wherof you may read in Homer Virgill Silius Italicus who calleth him Iapetus Lucane and others as the same Strabo interpreteth which they fable to lie vnderneath this hill and to breath out fire and water That it is on euery side wonderfully fertile of the last writers Io. Elysius Fran. Lombardus Io. Pontanus Solenander Andreas Baccius and especially Iasolinus the authour of this
for thou seest how straite and narrow it is what heere is wanting may be supplied out of the Tables following two of Tileman Stella the third intituled the Peregrination of S. Paul and the fourth intituled the Peregrination of the Patriarch Abraham For if all these should haue been portraitured and ioined together in one and the same Mappe it would grow too much too great yea it would be so great and huge that it would exceed this which heere we giue an hundred times and so by reason of the greatnesse it would not only be troublesome in vse but also vnpleasant to the eie In the hart and middest of the plotte where thou seest Syria as it hath been sufficiently replenished and filled with places so in places round about vpon the coasts on all sides it is most empty and barren so that it would appeare like a small iland in the vast ocean and would soone haue growen into a great burdensome and chargeable bignesse to no purpose or profit at all We haue vpon the side in a void place set the Mappe of the whole World whereby the diligent student of Diuinity by conferring might easily see what and how great a portion of the same the holy history doth mention and comprehend and at once iointly with the same labour to find out the situation and position of two famous places mentioned in the holy Scriptures namely of the situation of the country Ophyr and the earthly Paradise Of the which although many men do write many and diuers things and the opinions of the learned be different yet we haue also set downe our iudgement willingly giuing leaue to the learned Reader in his discretion to take which him pleaseth and he may read if he thinke good that which in our Geographicall Treasurie we haue written more at large of Ophyr Of Paradise also there is the like controuersie and question amongst the Diuines The most men do place it in the East others in Syria Postellus vnder the pole Arcticke Some there are which do gesse it to haue been vnder the Equinoctiall line Goropius our countrieman is perswaded by many arguments that it was in Indoscythia a prouince of India in the East abutting vpon the riuer Indus Some of the old writers did imagine it to reach as high as the sphere of the moone others do place it in other places Caesarius the brother of Nazianzene in his Dialogues in what place he supposeth it to be I cannot deuise for he maketh Donaw one of those foure riuers namely that which sacred antiquity called Phison this Saint Hierome and Eusebius do vnderstand to haue been Nilus in Aegypt others Ganges in East India S. Augustine against the Manicheies hath this opinion Beatam vitam Paradisi nomine significatam existimo By Paradise I do thinke the blessed life to be vnderstood Others more later which purposedly haue written of the situation of Paradise are Moses Bar Cepha in the Syriacke tongue and translated by the learned Masius Pererius vpon Genesis Iohn Hopkinson an Englishman in a peculiar treatise where also thou maist see a Geographicall Mappe of the same Others also haue done the like as Beroaldus in his Chronicle Vadianus in the description of the three quarters of the World and Ludouicus Nugarola in his booke intituled Timotheus or Nilus c. Phison one of the riuers of Paradise which some do expound to be Ganges which runneth too farre toward the East this Mappe by reason of his narrownesse cannot by any meanes containe the situation of which thou maist see in another Mappe of ours in this our by-worke intituled Aeui veteris Geographiae tabula A Geographicall chart of the old World GEOGRAPHIA SACRA Ex Canatibus geographicus Abrahami Ortelii Cum privilagio Imp. Regis et Cancellariae Brabantiae ad decennium MDXCVIII Ophiram regionem quia haec tabula compraehendere non poterat hanc aream universalem hic seorsim delineavimus in qua illam ex dissentientium scriptorum iudicio notaevimus Nostram verò de eadem sententiam si quis intelligere aveat Thesaurum nostrum Georgraphicum adeat censuramque suam per me enim licebit addat REVERENDO ET ILLVSTRI DNO GVILIELMO GRIMBERGIO ANTVERPIENSI PRAESVLI DIGNISSIMO Abrah Ortelius obsequij deuotionisque ergò dedicab consecrabatque Haec notula locum Ophirae designat DOMINI EST TERRA ET PLENITVDO ORBIS TERRARVM ET VNIVERSI QVI HABITANT IN EO Psal 24. PALAESTINA OR The HOLY LAND CANAAN The most ancient name of this country was Canaan which it tooke of Chanaan the sonne of Cham whose posterity diuided it amongst themselues and first inhabited it Their names were these Sidon Heth Iebusy Emory Gergesy Heuy Arky Siny Aruady Semary and Hamathy Gen. 10.15.16.17.18 Euery one of these gaue his owne name to that part of the country of Canaan which he enioied for his portion and possessed and of them mention afterward is made Gen. 13.14.15.23.24.25.27.34.36.38.49.50 Exod. 3.13.23.34 Num. 13.22.32 Deut. 1.2.3.4.7.20 Iosu 2.3.5.7.9.10.11.12.13.15.16.17.19.24 Iudg. 1.3.10.11.18 1. King 7.1 Chron. 1. Iud. 5. Psalm 105.106.134.135 Esa 21. Ezech. 16.27 This country was called by the name of the Land of Canaan vntill the Israëlites hauing partly slaine and partly subdued all the posterity of Canaan possessed the same from which time it began to be called the Land of Israel which name was by the Angell giuen to the Patriarke Iacob for that he had wrestled with God and from thence the country grew to be called by that name Gen. 32.28 For the word Israël in the Hebrew tongue signifieth to preuaile with God or a mighty man preuailing against the mighty God Heere hence were the sonnes and ofspring of Iacob named Israëlites and the country wherein they dwelt the Land of Israël as is apparant out of the booke of Iud. and the 1. booke of the Kings Although the whole land of Chanaan were indeed generally called Israël yet neuerthelesse the portion or iurisdiction of euery Tribe which seuerally Iosua assigned to euery one of the twelue Patriarkes receiued a proper appellation of the chiefe of that family as is apparant by diuers places of Holy Scripture The names of the Tribes were these Ruben Simeon Iuda Zebulon Isaschar Dan Gad Aser Nephtali Beniamin Manasse Ephraim and so the name of euery one of the sonnes of Iacob remained in his posterity and place of abode in the same so that the whole land of Chanaan was diuided into twelue parts as the holy Scripture doth testifie Then vnder Roboam when as Israel and that kingdome was rent into two parts the Tribes of Iuda and Beniamin being vnited retained the name of Iuda and that for these reasons First for that of the two it was the mightiest Secondly by reason that out of it the Messias was to come it was the more famous and the name of the whole was taken from the most honourable But the other tenne Tribes which were commanded by the Kings of Samaria still retained the
this continent and circuite curtuous Reader that thou beest not caried away with a vaine and false perswasion of the knowledge of things done in the whole world or if you please so to call it within the compasse of that part of the world described by the old Cosmographers all ancient HISTORIOGRAPHY both SACRED and PROPHANE is comprehended in these all famous acts of mortall men which from the beginning of the world euen vnto the daies of our fathers haue been registred by learned men haue been done and performed For euery storie before the forenamed Columbus written in Latine Greeke or any other language exceeded not the limits of the Roman Empire or the conquests of Alexander the Great if you shall only except the trauels of Marcus Paulus Venetus by land into China and the nauigation of Katherino Zeni by the ocean sea into the North parts of which we haue spoken in the discourse to the Mappe of Mare del zur which I make no doubt all learned historians and others will easily grant me Whereupon we may see how maimed and vnperfect the history of the world is when as it is very apparant that this part of the earth then knowen is scarse the one quarter of the whole globe of the world that is now discouered to vs. And which is especially to be considered rather than to be commended we may truly say that now which Cicero in his third oration against Verres wrote then most falsly when he said of that age There is now no place within the vast ocean none so far remote and distant from vs none so obscure or hidden whither in these our daies the couetous and bad minds of our men doth not cause them go Certaine recordes and testimonies of ancient writers concerning Geographicall Mappes Anaximander scholler to Thales Milesius did set forth as Strabo witnesseth the FIRST GEOGRAPHICALL CHART Now Anaximander who liued in the time of Seruius Tullus the VI. king of Rome was borne in the first yeare of the 35. olympiade which was the first yeare of the raigne of Ancus Martius the 4. king of the Romanes 639. yeares before the birth of Christ The same Strabo maketh mention of a mappe of the HABITABLE WORLD done by Eratosthenes Socrates when he saw Alcibiades to stand so much vpon his welth and great possessions brought him to a mappe of the VVHOLE VVORLD bid him there to find out the prouince of Athens which when he had found he againe willed him to point to his landes and when he answered that they were not in any place there described he saith Art thou then proud of the possession of that which is no part of the World Aelianus in the 28. chap. of his 3. booke De varia historia Hamo Carthaginensis setteth out a mappe of his nauigation into the ATLANTICKE SEA wherein he made a discouery of the COASTS OF LIBYA which he caused to be hanged vp in the temple of Saturne Aristagoras Milesius had a Table of Brasse in which was cutte the VVHOLE COMPASSE OF EARTHLY GLOBE the VVHOLE SEA with all the RIVERS emptying themselues into the same Herod in his V. booke Augustus and Agrippa set out a mappe of the VVHOLE VVORLD to the publicke view of all men as Pliny in the second chapter of his third booke hath left recorded Amongst the Aegyptians there were continually kept certaine Chartes containing all the TRACTS BOVNDS and COASTS both of sea and land as Apollonius in the fourth booke of his Argonautickes doth witnesse Saint Hierome affirmeth that a MAPPE of PALAESTINA made by Eusebius Caesariensis was lost long before his time That Charles the Great Emperour of Rome had a Siluer Table wherein the VVHOLE VVORLD was portraitured those authours who liued in his time and haue written of his life and histories do constantly affirme Theophrastus Eresius bequeathed and gaue by his last Will and Testament certaine mappes in which were described the SITVATION of the VVORLD on condition that they should be put and reserued in the lower part of the gallery which he built and adioined to his schoole as Diogenes Laertius writeth in his life I haue described a Charte of the VVORLD in 12. sheets of parchment Thus Dominicanus the authour of the Annals of the city Celmar in Germany who wrote about the yeare of Christ 1265. speaketh of himselfe in that his worke There are certaine GEOGRAPHICALL CHARTS mentioned and cited by Stephanus Byzantinus in the word Αινος The Emperour Domitian put Metius Pomposianus to death because he caried about the country certain mappes of the VVORLD portraitured in sheets of Velame as Suetonius recordeth Varro in the second chapter of his first booke of Husbandrie hath these wordes There I light vpon by chance Caius Fundanius wy wiues father and Caius Agrius a Knight of Rome a disciple and follower of Socrates with Publius Agrasius the Customer whom I found looking vpon a Mappe of ITALY drawen and described vpon a wall Heere also Vitruuius what he speaketh in the eighth book of his Architecture that these things are and may be so the HEADS OF RIVERS do sufficiently prooue which we do see are described in the Chartes and Mappes of the World Florus who seemeth to haue liued in the time of Traian the Emperour hath these wordes I will do that that Cosmographers are wont to do who vse to set out the SITVATION of the VVORLD in a small chart or table Iulian the Emperour in an Epistle to Alypius thus writeth I was euen then newly recouered of my sicknesse when thou sentest the GEOGRAPHY and yet the map which thou sentest was neuer the lesse welcome For there are in it not only better and more true descriptions but also certaine excellent Iambicke verses wherewith thou hast much graced it But that the Ancients were wont to describe the VVORLD and globe of the earth in Mappes it is manifest out of Plutarcke in the life of Theseus as also out of the fourth booke of Propertius the Poet where he bringeth in Arethusa thus speaking to Lycorta Cogimurè TABVLA PICTOS ediscere MVNDOS We forced are to vnderstand By charts the state of Sea and Land AEVI VETERIS TYPVS GEOGRAPHICVS Abrah ortelius Regiae M t s Geographus describ cum Privilegijs decennalib Imp. Reg. et Cancellariae Brabantiae Antverpiae Ambivaritorum 1590. EN SPECTATOR PILAE TOTIVS TERRAE ICHNOGRAPHIAM AT VERERIBVS VSQVE AD ANNVM SALVTIS NONAGESIMVM SECVNDVM SVPRA MILLES QVADRINGENT COGNITAE TANTVM GEOGRAPHIAM The ROMANE WORLD OR The ROMANE EMPIRE AMmianus Marcellinus thus writeth in his foureteenth booke At such time as triumphant Rome which shall flourish as long as men do liue vpon the earth began first to grow into credit and honour in the world that it might still rise by degrees and lofty steppes into a firme league of eternall peace vertue and fortune which often times iarre did fully consent and agree For if either of them had opposed themselues it surely had neuer come to that
third part by it selfe Salust doth doubt I see But Philostratus also in Isocrates doth diuide the world into Asia and Europe yea Isocrates himselfe in his Panegyricos Moreouer in Varroes booke De lingua Latina these words are read As all the world is diuided into Heauen and Earth so Heauen is seuered into his quarters and the Earth into Asia and Europe Againe the same authour in his booke of Husbandrie writeth thus First when as the world by Eratosthenes was very fuly and naturally diuided into two parts the one toward the South Asia doubtlesse he meaneth the other in the North Europe we call it S. Augustine in his 16. booke De Ciuitate Dei Lucane in his 9. booke and Orosius in the first booke of his history haue the like wordes to the same sense Notwithstanding custome since hath preuailed with all Historiographers and Cosmographers which haue written either in Latine or Greeke iointly to diuide the globe of the earth into these three parts Asia Africke and Europe the last of which we haue taken vpon vs to describe in this place not only in forme of a mappe or chart like a Geographer but in this present discourse like an historian Concerning the forme of it therefore it is manifold as Strabo writeth It is a Peninsula or demy-ile and not an iland although Silenus as Elianus writeth did sometime to Midas so relate of it For it is on all sides as you may see in the mappe bounded and beaten with the salt sea but only vpon the East where it is by a small necke ioined to the greater Asia Yet by what limits they are there distinguished the ancient and the later writers do not altogether agree For those which are more ancient as Aristotle Plato Herodotus and others which do follow their opinion do diuide Europe from Asia by the riuer Phasis a riuer of Colchis falling into the Euxine sea Mar maiore or Maurothalassa as the Greeks call it neere Trapezonda some mappes do now call that riuer Fasso others Phazzeth the Scythians as Theuet reporteth Debbassethca or which is all one by that Isthmos or neckland which is between the foresaid Mar maiore or Pontus Euxinus and the Caspian sea Mar de Cachu the ancient called it Mare Hyrcanum the Hyrcane sea which formerly all old writers thought to be but a bay or gulfe of the Scythian or Northren ocean as Strabo Pliny Mela Dionysius Plutarch in the life of Alexander and in his discourse of the face in the sphere of the Moone and Iornandes a more late writer haue left recorded Yet all of them were deceiued Only Herodotus truly as this our latter age doth approue and find to be so doth affirme this to be a sea of it selfe and to haue neither in-let nor out-let or to be intermedled with any other sea Dionysius Arrianus Diodorus Polybius Iornandes and Ptolemey haue diuided it from Asia by the riuer Tanais Don or Tana as now the Italians name it who thinketh that both the rise of this riuer and the land Northward from whence it commeth are both vnknowen and vncertaine All doubt where to place and lay their bounds as indeed who neuer perfectly knew those places toward the East and North not being then discouered but only described by them from the fabulous reports of others as for example the Riphaean and Hyperboraean mountaines which are feined inuentions of the Greekes as Strabo writeth together with Aluani montes heere described by Ptolemey where now not only these mountaines but also no other at this day are to be seene but in their places diuers huge and vast woods great fennes and bogges or large champion plaines Orpheus also long since described in this part of the continent I meane between Maeotis palus the fenne Maeotis now called Mar delle Zabacche and Mar della Tana and the sea Cronium an huge wood Likewise Dionysius Afer heere abouts placeth an Infinite wood as he termeth it from whence he saith Tanais or Don doth spring which after many windings and turnings at last falleth into the forenamed fenne Maeotis Isidorus heere hath the Riphaean woods in which he saith Tanais doth first take the beginning That Donaw Danubius doth diuide Asia from Europe Seneca in the sixth booke Natural doth manifestly affirme of which his opinion what we do thinke we will God willing set downe in the discourse to the Mappe of Dacia Hitherto we see the forenamed authours to doubt and disagree between themselues of the limittes of these two parts of the world If therefore they shall find me a meet vmpier and arbitratour in this matter I would not vnfitly and as I hope to the liking of all parties decide the controuersie thus I would make the bounds to be Tanais or the riuer Don the straights or narrow peece of the maine land that is between this riuer and the riuer Rha Athel which emptieth it selfe into the Caspian sea the East branch of the same Athel then from his head vnto the riuer Oby and so euen vnto his mouth or fall into the Northren sea For by this mouth I do easily perswade my selfe that antiquity did verily beleeue that the Caspian sea did vnlade it selfe into the maine Ocean For that the name of this riuer Oby is ancient it is very likely for that montes Obij certaine mountaines called Obij are placed heereabout in this tract by Athenaeus which he saith formerly were called of the ancients montes Riphaei the Riphaean hils but then in his daies montes Alpes the Alpes Againe Iornandes in this continent not farre from hence describeth Ouim or Obim a Scythian nation or family And that these foresaid mountaines are in this place not where Ptolemey and Pomponius Mela haue placed them very many men of great credit and learning in these our daies sufficient witnesses do stoutly auouch Amongst which Baro Herberstein in his history of Moscouy is one Paul Oderborne in his treatise written of the life of Basilides is another lastly Antony Wied in his mappe of Moscouy may be the third Now they name it vulgarly by diuers and sundrie names but commonly they call it Cingulum mundi The girdle of the world as the said Herberstein doth affirme In a Mappe of these countries set out by Master Ienkinson an Englishman who trauelled through these parts it is called Zona Orbis The girdle of the Earth Moreouer I haue in some sort for this diuision Iornandes and Aethicus vpon my side where they say that the Riphaean mountaines do part Asia and Europe Againe these selfe same hils yea and in this tract are the montes Hyperborei not where Ptolemey placeth them And they are the same with montes Riphaei Obij and Alpes Thus farre of the diuision of Asia from Europe Pliny calleth this part of the world The Nurce of all Nations Mardonius as Herodotus doth tell of him auoucheth it to Xerxes To be by farre the beautifullest of all places of the World to be a most goodly and gallant
is likely therefore that the etymology and reason of the deriuation of the word Europe which was vnknowen vnto the old writers is to be sought and fetched from no other language else but from that which was most vsuall in this part of the world For that the inhabitants of any country should take the name of their natiue soile from strangers it is so absurd and hard to be beleeued that there cannot any thing more foolish or contrary to truth be inuented or deuised Wherefore I thinke it good concerning this matter heere to lay downe the iudgement of Goropius Becanus our countryman who thinketh it to be so named not of a woman which it is probable either neuer was or neuer came heere but à latitudine videndi of the largenesse of his prospect as he speaketh namely because I do cite his owne words out of the 9. booke of his Origines it doth not only looke toward Asia on the East and South Africa on the South and West but also the New-found-world beyond the Hyperborei on the West and North. Neither shall any man perswade me that Europe had the name from Greece or the Greeke language seeing that it was first inhabited of the Cimbers Cimmerij descended from Gomer the elder brother before it was possessed of the Greeks Iones come from Iawan a yonger brother but the 4. son of Yapheth we make a dipthong by setting the 5. vowel of the Latins before the 2. which neither the Latins nor Greeks do admit Therefore if so be at any time they would change the words in which this did light for We they put Eu turning it backward Therefore our men do term it Verop not Europ whereby they vnderstand a worthy company of men for Wer a mono-syllable pronounced like a dipthong signifieth losty great excellent that which is best in euery kind of thing which notwithstanding some do write ur without a dipthong yet with a long vowell Therefore as of Terues they formed Tereus so of Werop the Latines Greeks haue made Europe so named of the excellency of the Nation which doth farre surpasse all other men of the World For Hop as I haue shewed before signifieth a company or multitude of men More of this word thou maist see in his 8. booke Thus farre out of his workes which are foorth in print that which followeth is taken out of a booke of his which he also hath set foorth yet not imprinted but such as he vsed priuatly and hath many additions in sundrie places in the margin written with his owne hand which he had prepared against the second edition But I waighing saith he and comparing this name with that which I haue read in holy Scripture another reason farre more excellent and better commeth into my mind We see that to Yaphet was promised enlargement or a farre spreading of his posterity or as some other interpret the word ioy and gladnesse which then he truly had enioied when as Christ had redeemed vs by his death and pretious bloud which blessing doth agree to this part of the world rather than to any other vnder heauen beside and therefore all other countries generall do call Europe THE KINGDOME OF THE CHRISTIANS and the Europeans are called of the Turkes and Arabians GIAVVR that is Christians E therefore doth signifie a lawfull contract and mariage VR excellent and HOP hope whereupon it commeth to passe that Europe signifieth The excellent hope of a lawfull mariage which is proper to this portion of the world which Noah gaue to Iapheth his sonne to inhabite For although that the posterity of Sem was by Abraham for many ages wedded to God yet at length he put her away and diuorced her from him But the wedlocke whereby God by Christ is wedded to Europe his Church shall neuer be dissolued so that Europe may most properly be said to be Iaphets portion But of this word we will speake more in our Francica Thus farre Goropius Which I haue very willingly communicated to the curtuous Reader leauing it to the censure of the learned to be iudged Yet I know that these things haue been very bitterly skoffed at already by a certaine learned man but one wholly ignorant of this tongue and therefore of lesse iudgement in this argument There are some which do thinke that this Europe was in the holy Scripture called IAPETIA Thus farre of Europe to which before I do altogether leaue I will ad out of Herodotus in his Polymnia the words of Mardonius to Darius spoken of this country That it is a country most goodly and beautifull bearing all maner of excellent fruitefull trees and those in their kind the best and to be such that it were pity that any man but a king only should possesse The BRITISH ILES Now THE EMPIRE OF Great Britaine PLiny saith that in the Atlanticke ocean there be many ilands named BRITANNICAE INSVLAE The British ilands but the two greater ALBION and HIBERNIA Ireland are properly so called Of these ALBION in regard that it is both the greatest and as it were commander of the rest is most properly called BRITANNIA And I might easily be drawen to beleeue that all these ilands were recorded in the ancient monuments of the Greekes before they were once named or knowen to the Romanes and to haue generally been called CASSITERIDES as who say The Stannaries and that properly CASSITERA which the Romans call Britannia And although I am not ignorant that Cassitera is held of Dionysius and Stephanus to be Indica Insula an Indian an iland or an iland belonging or neere adioining to India yet I am not a whitte moued from that my opinion For I do verily thinke that this was deliuered by them rather of ignorance than of sound knowledge grounded vpon the skill of Geography and we know that this is also a common errour in these our daies to call all countries and ilands vnknowen or farre remote and distant from vs Indian iles by which name not without a manifest ignorance of the truth they call all that whole continent of the New world together with the circumiacent ilands first discouered and found out in the daies of our grandfathers and such also as daily are descried they call by that name On my side is Pomponius Mela a man out of all doubt of good iudgement and credit who calleth them CELTICAS Celtickeiles as if they were neere neighbours to the Celtae I do know that these Cassiterides are of others otherwise described as of Diodorus Siculus a little aboue Lusitania Portugall of Pliny oueragainst Celtiberia Valentia neere Artabrum promontorium cabo de finis terrae by Strabo and Ptolemey where now there are no ilands at all and therefore not these nor euer were any whereupon it is apparant that these ilands were rather known to the ancients by name than true situation Now all men do iointly commend these ilands for the great abundance of Tinne and Lead which they yearely did
they turned their faces toward the right-hand when they did their seruice to their gods Of this matter Plinie in the second chapter of his eight and twentieth booke writeth thus In worshipping of the gods wee offer to kisse the right hand and withall we wind and sway about the whole body which the Gauls did hold to be more religious if it were done toward the left hand To these they did offer in their sacrifices men and other things but especially vnto Mars as Caesar testifieth who thus writeth of them To him namely to Mars when they haue fought any battell for the most part they do bequeath those things that they haue wonne in the field those beasts and liuing creatures that they conquere and take they kill and offer them for sacrifice all other things whatsoeuer they bring into one place In diuers cities in certaine holy and consecrated places you may see great heapes of these things and you shall hardly euer find any man so backward in religion or so vngodly that either will hide and conceale such things as he hath gotten in the field or that will dare to take away ought that hath beene once consecrated and laid vp in those sacred and religious places and if so be that any man be either so prophane or hardly that dareth take ought away he is to bee punished by their lawes with most cruell tortures Diodorus Siculus reporteth the very like of them They doe keepe in the chappels and temples of their gods saith he great store of gold which hath from time to time beene offered to them lying scattering heere and therein euery corner and yet no one man for his life such is their great superstition dareth bee so bold as to touch one piece of it But Caesar goeth on forward in the same discourse They saith he which are sicke or much diseased and such as are in any great danger or are to follow the warres for their sacrifices do either kill and offer other men or else doe vow hauing obtained their purpose to sacrifice themselues and in these their ceremonies they doe vse the aduise direction and assistance of the Druides And this they doe for this reason namely for that they doe verily beleeue that for the life of man preserued the immortall gods can no way be satisfied and pleased but with the life and bloud of man And therdfore for that purpose they haue certaine sacrifices appointed to be publickly solemnized and done Others haue certaine images of an huge and mighty bignesse whose limmes and parts of the body being made of osiers wreathen and roddled one within another they fill full of liue men these images being set on fire the men within them are smoothered and at length with them burnt and vtterly consumed to ashes The death and punishment of such as are apprehended for murther or fellony or any other odious crime they thinke to be much more pleasing to the gods than the death and sacrifice of other men but when there do want a sufficient number of such wicked men to furnish this tragedy then honest guiltlesse men must be forced to play a part and to vndergoe that punishment that they neuer deserued Thus farre Caesar The same almost but much different in words Strabo doth write of them Some saith hee in their diuine ceremonies they shoot through with arrowes or else doe hang them vp by the neckes till they be dead and then making an huge colossus or stacke of hay and sticking vpright a long pole in the midst of it they burne altogether sheepe and all kind of beasts and cattell yea and reasonable creatures men and women Item Diodorus Siculus writeth of this matter thus Condemned men which they keepe for the space of fiue yeares together continually bound to a stake at length together with other goods and cattels they sacrifice and burne in an huge bonne-fire Minutius Felix also doth testifie that to their god Mercurie they did vse to sacrifice men Tertullian in Apologetico saith that Maior aetas Mercurio prosecatur The ancienter sort are hewed in pieces and sacrificed to Mercury So that it had beene much better for the Gauls as Plutarch in his booke of Superstition writeth that they had neuer had any maner of knowledge of the gods at all then to haue beleeued that they might no otherwise be pleased and satisfied then with the liues and bloud of mortall men and to thinke that this is the best and only solemne sacrifice and oblation that euer was vsed by any Solinus also plainly affirmeth that this kind of sacrifice and detestable custome was no maner of worship and seruice pleasing to the gods but rather a great iniurie and wrong done to religion much offending them This custome of killing of men was not vsed only when they offered sacrifices to their gods but euen in their diuinations and sorceries For they tooke those men that were appointed for the sacrifice or ceremonies and striking them vpon the backe by the panting of their bodies they did gesse and diuine of the euent of that action intended as Strabo doth witnesse of them When they do deliberate or consult of any great matter they do obserue saith Diodorus a woonderfull and strange kind of custome and ceremonious superstition For going about to kill and sacrifice a man they strike him vpon the midriffe with a sword But without the aduice and presence of one of their Druides they may not offer any maner of sacrifice at all And although that these butcherings and massacres of men were forbidden by Tiberius Caesar as Pliny testifieth yet Eusebius in his fourth booke de Praepar Euang. doth greatly lament that they were still practised in his time who liued as all men know in the daies of Constantine the Great It is recorded by Pliny that these people did vse in their sorceries coniurations and answering to demands in maner of prophesying the hearb verueine And thus much of the three Galliaes in generall Of which thou maist reade many other things in Caesar Liuy Ammianus Strabo Diodorus Polybius and Athenaeus Something also might haue beene said of euery part particularly if so bee that the smalnesse of this sheet had beene capable of so large a discourse as also much might haue beene said of Gallia Narbonensis the fourth part which was a prouince of the Romanes much differing from the other three in nature of soile temperature of the aire and quality of the inhabitants and people which was as Pomponius Mela writeth better manured inhabited and more fertile and therefore was also a farre more pleasant and goodly countrie than any of the rest But of this we haue spoken in another place apart by it sesfe Behold the inscription which we spake of before and promised to acquaint thee withall DIS MANIBVS Q. CAESIVS Q. F. CLAVD ATTILIANVS SACERDOS DEANAE ARDVINNAE FECIT SIBI ET SVIS HAERED IN FR. P. XII IN AGR. P. XV. IIII. ID OCTOB IMP. CAES. FLAVIO DOMITIANO VIII
people Paeones a common errour among the Grecian historians which Dion in his nine and fortieth booke did first discouer For of the Romans and of themselues they are called Pannonij The Paeones are a nation diuers from these lying betweene mount Rhodope and the marine coasts of Macedonia Ptolemey Strabo Dion Aurelius Victor and ancient inscriptions do diuide Pannony into the HIGHER and LOVVER Liber Notitiarum The booke of Remembrances into the FIRST and SECOND Optatus Afer maketh three Pannonies but vntruely seeing that those aboue named approoued authours doe describe but two and the coine of the Emperour Decius this countriman borne doth mention no more Solinus writeth that this country is very plaine and champion and as rich and fertile a soile as any other thereabout Appian saith that it is full of woods and that it hath no cities nor townes only the lands and fields are diuided vnto certaine farmes and families In Hygenus I reade that a price and custome was imposed vpon these lands according to the fertility and goodnesse of euery aker for there were fields of the first and second price woods yeelding yearely great plentie of maste woods of the meanest sort of feed and pastorage c. But Iornandes certaine ages after reporteth otherwise of this his natiue country and affirmeth it to be beautified with many goodly cities The people doe liue and fare as hardly as any people vnder heauen hauing neither good ground nor good aire nor hauing of their owne growing either oile or wine but very little and bad neither doe they regard to plant and set these commodities the greatest part of the yeare being there very colde and bitter nothing else almost but a continuall vnkinde Winter Dion writeth that they haue some Barley and Millet Strabo saith Spelt Zea and Millet of which they make their bread and drinke and withall affirmeth that he writeth not this by heare-say or relation from others but of his owne experience and knowledge as he learned and saw at such time as he was Lieutenant there Yet he saith they are a most stout and hardy people but hauing nothing woorthy the name of honesty and ciuility being generally very hasty and bloudy minded killing and slaying without any respect or feare of God or man and that vpon euery crosse word and light occasion Solinus auoucheth the same to be true saying that this country is very strong and well furnished with couragious and stout men Tibullus in his fourth booke saith that they are a wily and crafty people Statius and Paterculus called them Feroces fierce and cruell But the same author doth againe asmuch commend them not only for their great loue of military discipline but for their skill and knowledge of the Latine tongue and for that diuers of them are learned and studious of the liberall sciences Ausonius nameth them Armiferos a warlike people Eusebius in his tenth booke de Praeparat Euangelica giueth out that these people especially those that dwelt about Noricum Bauaria or Bayern did first finde out the vse of copper or brasse Herodian saith that they are bigge bodied very tall ready to fight and to kill and slay vpon euery occasion but of so dull a conceit and simple that they doe not easily perceiue whether one deale or speake ought craftily and subtilly or meane well and plainly The Panegyricke of Mamertinus nameth this Pannony the Empresse of all nations for valour and like as Italy renowmed for ancient honour Pliny saith that this countrey yeeldeth great plenty of mast or akornes The same authour also in his historie of Nature hath left recorded as if it were a matter of some moment that heere the herbe saliunca a kinde of lauender doth naturally grow of it owne accord Oppian commendeth the Pannonian dogges which Nemesianus in this verse affirmeth to be good hunters Nec tibi Pannonicae stirpis temnatur origo The hounds heere bred are not the woorst that ere I see The Pannonian cappes made of beasts skinnes or furres such as souldiours vse to weare Vegetius in his booke of warre doth highly commend This country afterward Probus the Emperour permitted to haue vines and by the helpe of the souldiers himselfe did plant them in mount Almus Arpatarro neere Sermium Sirmisch the place where he was borne as also vpon mount Aureus Meczek in Moesia superior Seruia as Sextus Aurelius Victor in his life doth testifie In Paeonia a prouince heere abbuttant vpon mount Rhodope toward Macedony in Greece the soile is rich and fertile of golde that many men haue found lumps of golde-ore of more then a pound weight And in the confines of this country Aristotle in his Admiranda doth write that oftentimes the earth or vpper soard being by continuall showers washed away that kinde of golde which they call apyrum quicke-golde if I may so call it such as haue not touched the fire is found without digging or any other labour But heere againe I doe also obserue an error very frequent amongst the Greeke writers mistaking Paeonia for Pannonia For Pannonia or Hungary euen to this day is so rich of golde that it is wonderfull and scarse to be beleeued of such as haue not seene it as Bonfinius Broderith and Ranzan doe iointly affirme who do all write that they haue seene very many golden twigges of vines some as long as ones finger others of halfe a foote long but of the richnesse of Paeonia for mines of golde I haue neuer heard nor read in any authour to my remembrance Diogenes Laertius in the life of Pyrrhus Eliensis hath noted that the Paeones doe vse to cast the bodies of dead men into pondes or deepe pooles Maximus Tyrius in his eight and thirtieth oration writeth that the Paeones did worship the Sunne and that the signe or idoll of the same which they adored was a little dish put vpon the end of along pole and set vpright But whether this be meant of them or of the Pannones for that this authour is a Grecian I know not I leaue it to the consideration of the learned The like is that place of Aelianus in the twelfth chapter of his seuenth booke de Animalibus where he writeth a discourse of the laborious painfulnesse of the women of this countrey well worth the reading and obseruation Tzetzes also in the three hundred and eighteenth chapter of his tenth Chiliade nameth the Paeones for the Pannones where he hath something perteining to this our purpose Antigonus in his booke de Mirabilibus writeth that in Illyria and Pannonia is that kinde of beast which they call Monychos Aelianus termeth it Monops Others Bonasus Diaconus in the eighth chapter of his second booke of the historie of Lombardie writeth that Pannonia breedeth great plenty of Buffes or Bugles Bisontes and that he heard of an honest old man that fifteene men haue beene knowen to lie together vpon one buffe hide noting thereby the huge greatnesse of this beast And thus much of both those
or Generall of that nation In Myrsilus if I be not deceiued it is corruptly written Rasenua Moreouer it was called COMARA and SALEVMBRONE if we will beleeue the feined Berosus Annius and such like fabulous writers The Phocenses as Herodotus in Clio writeth sometime possessed it The fragment of Antonius neere the lake Arnus maketh mention of the Phocenses and the lake Phocensis Halicarnassaeus also in his first booke saith that the Siculi did inhabite it before the entrance of the Pelasgi The nature of the soile is very fertile of all maner of things yea of vines especially as Halicarnassaeus hath giuen out The large champion plaines diuided into seuerall by-hils and mountaines are well manured and very fruitfull as Diodorus witnesseth It is very woody good pastorage and well watered with many pleasant streames as Plutarch iustifieth Martianus saith that for fertility of soile it was euer renowmed and of great estimation which fertility is no small meanes to draw the people to giue themselues ouermuch to pleasure and ease for they are as the same Halicarnassaeus writeth very fine in their apparell and dainty in their diet both at home and abroad who indeed beside things necessarie do carrie about with them euen when they go to warre diuers fine things most curiouslie wrought onlie for pleasure and delight Eustathius calleth it a robbing cruell and vnciuill nation Eusebius in his 2. booke de praeparati Euang. saith that they were much giuen to Necromancie Arnobius in his 7. booke contra Gentes maketh it the mother and nurce of superstition They were alwaies counted very religious and so were the first that found out sacrifices diuinations and soothsayings from whom also the Romanes receiued these vaine and superstitious arts as also the Sella curulis coach of estate paludamenta trabea the rich robe toga pretexta toga picta fasces secures hatchets litui apparitores curcules annuli annuli rings musick the ludiones whifflers Lastly all their ornamēts of triumph robes of the Consuls or rather that I may vse the words of Florus all the brauery badges wherewith the honorable estate of the Empire was graced set out Cassiodore in the 15. section of his 7. book doth attribute to them the inuentiō of the casting and working of statues of brasse Heere hence it arose that the Romans first committed their children to the Etrusci to be taught brought vp as afterward they vsed to do to the Grecians as you may read in Liuy Strabo and Diodorus Siculus That the flute tibia was the inuention of the Tyrrheni by which they did not only fight but also whip their seruants yea and to seeth Iulius Pollux doth cite out of Aristotle Of them Plutarch in the 8. booke of his Conuiual writeth that by an ancient statute they vsed to disperse their couerleds and blanckets when they rose out of their beds in the morning Item taking of their pots off the fire they left no print thereof in the ashes but did alwaies rake them abroad They neuer would suffer any swallowes to come within their house They might not go ouer a broome They would keep none in their house that had crooked nailes vpon his fingers Yet Thimon in the 12. booke of Athenaeus his deipnosophiston calleth them voluptuous and licentious liuers and none of the best report for their conuersation heereof you may see manie examples if you take anie delight in such stories The like you may read in his 4 booke But I cannot omit this one thing which Heraclides in his Politicks doth recite namely that if anie man be so farre in debt that he is not able to paie the boies do follow him holding vp vnto him in mockery an emptie purse The Etrusci were long since accounted verie wealthie They were very strong both by sea and by land and in warre equall in strength to the Romanes Liuy to whom Diodorus doth subscribe saith it is the richest prouince of Italy both for men munition and money Plutarch in the life of Camillus saith that this countrie did reach from the Alpes Northward as high as the Hadriaticke sea and Southward as low as the midland sea That there were 300. cities of the Vmbri battered and taken by the Tusci we find recorded saith Pliny Such was the wealth and command of Etruria that it did not onlie filll the land with an honourable report and fame of their name but also euen the sea all along from one end of Italy to the other Liuy and Pliny do affirme that Mantua and Atri were colonies of the Tusci Pomponius and Paterculus do say the like of Capua as also of Nola although that Solinus doth ascribe this to the Tyrians where I thinke the copie is corrupt and for Tyrijs I suppose it should be written Tyrrhenis Trogus and Silius Ital cus do affirme it to haue been built and first peopled by the Chaldicenses Yea Plutarch in his treatise of famous women and againe in his Gretian questions saith that these Etrusci in old time did possesse Lemnos Stalamine and Imbrus Lembro certaine ilands in the Archipelago or Aegean sea Tuscus vicus a street in Rome Tusculum and Tusculanum in Latium Campagna di Roma tooke their names from hence Againe mare Tuscum called otherwise mare Inferum Notium Tyrrhenum and Liburnum the Neather sea or South sea in respect of the Hadriaticke sea which is called mare Superum the vpper sea and is vpon the North from this countrie as we find in Pliny and Cicero About Puteoli Pozzole as Dion recordeth there is a creeke of the sea called Tyrrhenus sinus the bay of Tuscane But there are also other Tusci diuerse from these in Sarmatia as Ptolemey noteth as also other Tyrrheni in the ilands belonging to Attica if you will beleeue Marsylus Lesbius TVSCIAE ANTIQVAE TYPVS Ex conatibus geographicis Ab. Ortelij LOCA TVSCIAE QVORVM SITVM IGNORO Ad harnaba Amitinenses Anio Caprium Cora Corytus Cortenebra Cortnessa Crustuminum Etruria idem fortè cum Tyrrhenia Nacria quae et Nucria Neueia Olena Perrhaesium nisi sit Perusia Sabum Sora Tagina Troilium nisi sit Troitum Turrena Augustalis Tyrrhenia an idem cum Etruria Vera Vesentini Vexij nisi sint Veij Consule nostrum Thesaurum geographicum Cum privilegio Imperiali et Belgico ad decennium 1584. LATIVM LATIVM which the excellent Poet Virgil syrnameth The Great The Faire and The Western by the description of Augustus who as Pliny testifieth diuided Italy in eleuen shires the chiefe and principall of the rest was twofold to wit Latium The New and Latium The Old LATIVM VETVS Olde Latium beganne at the riuer Tiber and extended it selfe euen vp as high as the Circaeian mountaines or to Fundi as Seruius sayth LATIVM NOVVM New Latium from hence stretched it selfe vnto the riuer Liris as Pliny and Strabo do ioyntly testifie yea and farther as they both affirme For euen as low as Sinuessa which was otherwise also called Sinope being in that
moorish fennes and bogges Those things also which the Poets do tell of the witchcraft of the sorceresse Circe and that fabulous transmutation and changing of men into diuers and sundry formes or shapes with Seruius I doe rather attribute to the force of nature than to magicke or witchcraft namely of the horrour of those which passe by that way whereby men do seeme to be changed into beasts and with Pliny I may say How infinite are those fables that are tolde of Medea of Colchis and others but especially of our Italian Circe who for her excellent skill in the arte magicke was canonized for a goddesse And be it farre from me and from euery Christian man that we should beleeue those things which it were wicked and profane to thinke or imagine For I haue read in the Ancyrane councell that they are woorse than Pagans and infidels who doe beleeue that any creature may by any man be turned and transformed into any other shape or similitude than by the Creatour himselfe who first gaue them that forme and fashion Therefore let all other men say what they will and perswade what they can they shall neuer make me beleeue these fables It seemeth that the fable arose of the nature and quality of the place for those places which lie out into the sea as this promontory doth are woont to be in more danger of storme and windes than any other places whatsoeuer Which blasts accompanied with the waues ebbes and tides of the sourging sea falling vpon the rocks cliffes and hollow places do cause such sundry sounds and noices that such as doe saile by this way not without a great horrour and trembling doe seeme as if they heard at one instant men mourne lions roare wolues howle dogs barke hogs grunt and beares to make a noice Hither do those words of Lucan in his sixt booke belong Omnia subducit Circaeae vela procellae That this promontory is full of trees especially of okes myrtles and bay-trees Theophrastus writeth from the relation of others Strabo sayth that it aboundeth with diuers sorts of roots peraduenture as there he addeth they affirme this of it that they may the better apply it in all respects vnto the fable of Circe And do you not thinke that this saying of Aristotle the Prince of Philosophers in his Admiranda did arise from hence They report sayth he that in the mount Circello there groweth a deadly poison of such great force that so soone as euer it is taken all the haire of the body immediatly falleth off and it so weakeneth all the parts and members of the same that they wex so litly and dwined that outwardly they beare the shew of dead carkeises such as it would grieue any man to beholde Strabo writeth that in this mountaine was an altar dedicated to Minerua and withall there is to this day to be seene a certeine goblet or bowle of Vlysses but this latter he affirmeth to be from the opinion and report of the vulgar sort only But passing ouer these fables let vs returne againe vnto the historicall narration of such things as in trueth are either here found or haue happened in this place Horace hath left recorded that the sea vpon this coast yeeldeth great store of good oisters which thereof are called Ostrea Circaeia Suetonius reporteth that Marcus Lepidus was by Augustus Caesar for euer confined and banished into this place Plutarch writeth that Iulius Caesar had a purpose hard beneath the city by a deepe channell to conuey the riuer Tiber another way and to turne the course thereof toward this Circaeium promontorium and so to haue caused it to fall into the sea at the city Anxur by which meanes those which for trade and trafficke were by ship to trauell vp to Rome he meant to make their passage more easie and safe but being preuented by death performed not what he had purposed Here also was the city CIRCAEIVM or Circaeia or as Strabo termeth it Circes towne That it was made a colony of the Romans by Tarquinius Liuy Halicarnasseus Cicero and Plutarch do ioyntly testifie Strabo sayth that it hath a good and conuenient hauen I would thinke that the mention or plot of this ancient citie Circaeia doth still remaine in this mountaine in that place where in this description thou seest certeine ruines and foundations of the walles as it were of a city rased long since and layd leuell almost with the ground which place at this day is called by the name of Citta vecchia that is as much to say as The old citie Certeine remnants of this name doth yet remaine to be seene engrauen in the top of this same mountaine as Angelus Breuentanus a man of good credit the authour of this description and a most diligent searcher out of the Romane antiquities doth from his owne knowledge plainly testifie yet much defaced as he also affirmeth and worne out with continuance of time to wit in this forme PROMVNTORIVM VENERIS CIRCAEIENSIVM XXI The forenamed Breuentanus thinketh that by this inscription is shewed the distance of this place from the city of Rome And it is to be seene at this day in that place of this mountaine where thou seest this marke of a starre * imprinted MAGNA GRAECIA OR GREAT GREECE THat a great part of the true and ancient Italy if not all of it together with all Sicily was sometime called by the name of GREAT GREECE I thinke there is no man meanly seen in Geographie that maketh any doubt for the Grecians did in former times possesse as Trogus writeth not only a part but welnigh all Italy Listen what Pliny in the fifth chapter of his third booke saith Of it the Grecians a Nation very prodigall in commending themselues haue giuen their verdict in that they haue named a great part of it Great Greece Hither also pertaine those wordes of Festus Italy was called Great Greece because the Siculi sometime passed it or for that many and the greatest cities of it were built by the Grecians Seruius in his Commentaries vpon the first of Virgils Aeneids writeth thus Italy was termed Megale Hellas Great Greece for that all the cities from Taranto Tarentum euen vnto Cumae were first founded by the Grecians And therefore it was not altogether vnfitly of Plautus in his Menechmis called Graecia exotica outlandish Greece Seneca in his Consolation thus speaketh of it All that side of Italy which coasteth along with the Neather sea Mar Tosco was called Great Greece That Campania Terra di lauoro was possessed by the Grecians Pliny doth plainly affirme Maximus Tyrius in his six and twentieth Oration describeth Auernus lacus the lake of Tipergola in Campania to be within the compasse of Great Greece And that these authours speake truth Trogus particularly sheweth in the twentith booke of his history in these wordes The Tusci which dwell along by the coast of the Neather sea came from Lydia Item the Venetians Veneti which now we see
last epistle describeth in the territories of Consilinum Stylo a city of this tract Marcilianum suburbium which he termeth the natiue soile of Saint Cyprian of which that by the way I may speake one word of this there is nothing spoken which indeed is strange in the liues of the Fathers or Martyrologies of the Saints or in any other authour to my remembrance Nor which is more strange in any of those writers which like as Gabriel Barry and Prosper Parisius haue particularly named and wrote of the seuerall Saints of this country But of the Nature Situation proper Qualities and Antiquities of this prouince I will not speake one word more because the same is most exactly and learnedly done by two learned men both borne heere who therefore knew it well before I began once to set pen to paper to draw this my Mappe I meane Gabriel Barrius in his booke intituled Calabria where he so largely and curiously tricked out Great Greece Brutium and the tract possessed sometime by the Locri that euen that Reader which hardly will be satisfied with such like stories may doubtlesse heere take his fill and Antony Galatey who hath painted out his Iapygia which is in truth the ancient Calabria that his Reader shall not only depart skilfull and cunning in the knowledge of this country bur also much bettered in his vnderstanding and instructed with rules of good learning and Philosophy in him also there is a description of the city Gallipoli Of Tarentum a city of this prouince Iohannes Iuuenis harh set out a seuerall treatise Of Diomedes iles belonging to this country we haue gathered these few lines which follow DIOMEDES ILES Now ISOLE DE TRIMITE PLiny describeth two ilands by this name so many also doth Strabo mention whereof the one he saith is inhabited the other wast and desert Ptolemey reckoneth vp fiue all called DIOMEDES ILANDS and so many there are at this day called by seuerall and distinct names if one shall account rockes and all Whether euery one of these were knowen to the ancients by seuerall names or not I know not Festus Stephanus and others call properly one of these Insula Diomedea Diomedes I le like as amongst the Britannicae insulae the Brittish iles one is properly named Britannia Brittaine One of them Tacitus calleth TRIMERVS or peraduenture Trimetus for otherwise I doe not see from whence that name of Trimite whereby the greatest of them at this day is called and of it the rest should come Pliny calleth another of them TEVTRIA the other for ought I know the ancients left vnnamed as for Electris and Febra which Seruius mentioneth at the eleuenth booke of Virgils Aeneids or Sebria and Aletrides whereof Pomponius Sabinus vpon the same place speaketh I do very willingly confesse that I haue not found them spoken of by any ancient writer They are seated in the Adriaticke sea not farre from the sea-coast of Puglia opposite to Monte de S. Angelo Mons Garganus or Promontorium Garganum Not within kenning or sight of Taranto Tarentum a city of Apulia as very falsly at the same place Seruius hath set downe The name was deriued by the testimony of all writers both Latines and Greekes from Diomedes the king of Aetolia Artinia Nicetas calleth it whom they report after the surprising of Troy in his returne homeward not being enterteined of his owne nation to be driuen hither and to be interred heere and that his temple monument or tombe did remaine in the greatest of them properly called Diomedea S. Maria di Trimite and that the Plane tree was first brought hither for to shaddow Diomedes tombe Pliny in the first chapter of his twelfth booke of the history of Nature hath left recorded Into Trimerus as Tacitus writeth Augustus banished sent his neece Iulia conuict of adulterie where he furthermore addeth that she endured that punishment of exile the space of twenty yeares In Platina in the life of Hadrian the first I read that Paullus Diaconus was once condemned thither by Charles the Great Of Diomedes birds which Iuba calleth Catarractae Aristotle Charadrij of others Erodij a kind of Cormorant or rauenous sea foule proper to these ilands for they are onely to be seene in this one place of all the world if we may beleeue old writers read Ouid in the thirteenth booke of his Metamorphosis where he thus speaketh of them Si volucrum quae sit dubiarum forma requiris Vt non cignorum sic albis proxima cignis The doubtfull formes of birds most strange if that you seeke to know They be no swannes yet white they be as white as any snow Suidas maketh them to be like to storkes Aristotle in his Wonders calleth them vaste and huge birdes with very long and bigge bils Pliny with Solinus do write that they be like the Fulica a kinde of coote of colour white hauing teeth and eies of a fiery sparke Some there are which do thinke them to be Heronshawes Robert Constantine testifieth that the country people of these ilands do now call them Artenae and that they make a noise like the crying of yong children Item that the fatte or grease of them is a soueraigne remedie against diseases arising of cold causes Blondus writeth that he vnderstood by some of the inhabitants of these iles that these fowles still retaining the name of the Diomedean birdes are of the bignesse of a goose But to be very harmelesse creatures yet neither doing them nor the Church any maner of pleasure They which desire to know more of these birdes as also of the Metamorphosis and transmutation of Diomedes consorts into these fowles or of their nature and quality as of their kindnesse toward Grecians honest-men Strabo calleth them and their curstnesse to strangers wicked-men as Strabo hath and of the purifying of the temple and of other poeticall fables deuised of them let them haue recourse to the authours aboue named to which they may ad that list that which Aelianus hath written in the first c. of his 1. booke S. Aug. in the 16 c. of his 18 book De ciuitate Dei Antigonius Antony Liberalis Lycophron and his Scholiast Isacius At this day these ilands are vnder the command of the kingdome of Naples are al generally called by one name Tremitanae ilands de Trimite euery one by a seueral proper name by it selfe as thou maist read in our Geographical treasury They are now all desert void of inhabitants only that except in which sometime was the temple of Diomedes where now is the Monasterie vulgarly called Santa Maria de Trimiti possessed by regular canons which Eugenius the fourth Pope of Rome enlarged and endowed with great reuenews as Blondus recordeth These as Zacharte Lillie reporteth go to Church so diligently heare diuine seruice so deuoutly and relieue those which by storme and tempest are driuen thither so charitably that they are not onely very famous and reuerently esteemed of those that dwell
of Dacia which Eutropius saith did conteine in circuite a thousand miles The chiefe city of this part was Zarmisogethusa which afterward was called COLONIA VLPIA TRAIANA AVG. DACIC ZARMIS as we find in certaine inscriptions in Marble and was so named of Vlpius Traianus the Emperour For he first by conquering ouercomming their king Decebalus made it a prouince Of which warre made by Traiane against the Dakes for the histories of it written by himselfe cited by Priscian the Grammarian are lost you may read in Dion in the life of this Emperour Behold also and view the columne set vp by the Senate of Rome in Traianes market place which yet to this day remaineth whole and sound This columne Hieronymus Mutianus the famous painter shaddowed out with his owne hand and imprinted at Rome in 130. tables The same hath F. Alphonsus Ciacconus so liuely expressed and declared with such a learned and laborious Commentary that in it a man would thinke that he had rather seen this battell fought than to haue read or heard ought of the same from the relation of others Florus writeth that this country doth lie amid the mountaines Item he calleth it a copsy country full of woods and forrests For he affirmeth that Curio came vp as high as Dacia but durst go no further for feare of the dreadfull darke woods Strabo in the seuenth booke of his Geographie and Virgil in the third of his Georgickes do speake of the deserts and wildernesses of the Getes The same authour calleth it Gentem indomitam an vnruelie nation Statius saith that they are hirsuti hairie intonsi vnshorne pelliti furred or clad in skins inhumane sturdy stern braccati wearing long side breeches and mantles like to our Irishmen I read in Pliny that they vsed to paint their faces like vnto our Britans That there is not a more stern nation in the World Ouid the Poet who did not only see the country but also dwelt amongst them and saw their manners very truly wrote of them Vegetius who wrote of the Art of warre saith that it is a very warlike people Hauing indeed as the Prince of Poets testifieth god Mars for their Lieutenant and Gouernour Of Claudian it is named Bellipotens a mighty nation for warlike men Philargyrius out of Aufidius Modestus writeth that when they go to warre they will not set forward before they drinking downe a certaine measure of the waters of the riuer Ister Donaw in the maner of hallowed wine do sweare that they would neuer returne home againe into their owne country vntill they had slaine their enemies Whereupon Virgil called this riuer Istrum Coniuratum coniured Donaw Trogus writeth that this nation with their king Orotes another copy hath Olores in Dion I read Roles did fight against the Bastarnae with very ill successe in reuenge of which cowardise they were by their king enioined when they go to bed to lie at the beds feet or to do those seruices to their wiues which they were wont to do for them They were in times past so strong as Strabo writeth that they were able to make an army of 200000. men Of them also peraduenture this speech of Silius Italicus is to be vnderstood At gente in Scythica suffixa cadauera truncis Lenta dies sepelit putri liquentia tabo Iosephus in his second booke against Appian writeth there are a certaine kind of Dakes commonly called Plisti whose manner of life he compareth to the course of life of the Essenes These I do verily beleeue are the same with those which Strabo calleth Plistae and were of the stocke of the Abij And thus much of Dacia now the Moesi do follow who as Dion Prusaeus noteth out of Homer were sometime named Mysi By the name of MOESIA was all that country vulgarly called which the riuer Saw Sauus falling into Donaw aboue Dalmatia Macedonia and Thracia doth diuide from Pannonia In the which Moesia beside diuers other nations there do inhabit those which anciently were named the Triballi and those which now are called Dardani These are the wordes of Dion Nicaeus It is by Ptolemey enclosed and bounded with the same limits Pliny also doth extend the coasts of it from the meeting of the riuer Saw with Donaw euen vnto Pontus Mar maiore Eastward and Iornandes maketh it to reach as farre as Histria Westward We haue said before that MOESIA was sometime called DACIA for proofe whereof I could alledge Flauius Vopiscus who writeth that Aurelianus the Emperour borne heere did bring certaine people out of Dacia and placed them in MOESIA and to haue named it DACIA AVRELIANA after his owne name which is now that prouince that diuideth DACIARVM MOESIARVMQVE VETVS DESCRIPTIO Vrbes Moesiae II. incognitae positionis Accissum Ansanum Anthia Aphrodisias Bidine Borcobe Cabessus S. Cyrilli Eumenia Genucla Gerania Ibeda Latra Libistus Mediolanum Megara Parthenopolis Securisca Talamonium Thamyris Theodoropolis Troczen Vsiditana Zigere Moesiae I. Daphne Laedenata Pincum Regina Zmirna Daciae Aixis Bereobis Burgus Siosta Sostiaca et Zerna Flumina Daciae Atarnus Athres Atlas Auras Lyginus Maris et Noes Mons Coegenus Cum Privilegijs decennalib Imp. Reg. et Cancellariae Brabanticae Ex conatibus Abrahami Ortelij 1595. NOBILISS DNO IOANNI GEORGIO A WERDENSTEIN ECCLESIAR AVGVSTANAE ET EYCHSTETENSIS CANONICO SERENISSIMI DVCIS BAVARIAE CONSILIARIO SVPREMOQ BIBLIOTHECARIO ABRAH ORTELIVS AMORIS MNEMOSYNON HOC DD. Proefuit his Graecine locis modo Flaccus et illo Ripa ferox Istri sub duce tuta fuit Hic tenuit Mysas gentes in pace fideli Hic arcu fisos terruit ense Getas Ovid. 4. de Ponto Eleg. 9. the two Moesiaes one from another The same doth Suidas in the word DACIA report The prouince Dacia saith Lutropius speaking of the same Aurelianus he placed in Moesia where it now abideth on the South side of Donaw when as before it was seated vpon the North side of the same And Sextus Rufus sheweth that by the same Emperour there were two Daciaes made of the countries of Moesia and Dardania whereupon in the Code of the ciuill law these wordes are read Mediterranca Mysia seu Dardania vpland Moesia or Dardania confounding the one with the other Vnderneath the name of Dacia beside those countries abouenamed was conteined also PRAEVALITANA and that part of Macedonia commonly called SALVTARIS as the booke of Remembrances liber Notitiarum doth manifestly affirme Of the people heere brought from other places Strabo likewise writeth that in his time who we know liued in the time of Augustus and Tiberius by AElius Catus or rather as the learned and industrious Causabon out of Dion would haue vs read Licinius Crassus were conueighed of the Getes which dwelt eyond the Donaw Ister into Thracia more than 50000. men and were afterward called MYSI Mysians An inscription of an ancient stone mentioned in Smetius saith that AElius Plautius propraetor of Moesia did transport into this country of the people and nations beyond the Donaw more
here great swarmes of Monkes and Heremites were bred and from hence were spred and scattered all Christendome ouer as we finde in the Records of the Primitiue Church so that a man may iustly terme this countrey The Seminary or Nursery of all religions Of the Philosophy and Hieroglyphicall secrets of the Egyptians reade the sixt booke of Clemens Alexandrinus his Stromaton Item Orus Apollo and Pierius his Hieroglyphicks The VOIAGE of ALEXANDER THE GREAT IF Archelaus the Chorographer whom Diogenes Laërtius affirmeth to haue described all that part of the earthly globe or maine continent conquered by Alexander the Great that famous king of Macedony or Beton Baeton Athenaeus calleth him and Diogenetus whom Pliny writeth were the measurers of the iourney of the said Alexander or if the Commentaries of Strabo which he saith that he composed of the histories and famous acts of that great Conquerour were now extant it would out of all doubt haue beene an easier matter for vs to haue made this map which heere we purpose to set foorth to the view and benefit of the serious student of Geography of the VOIAGE OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT But being destitute of those helpes first we haue laid the plot of it out of Ptolemey and some other later writers Then we haue set downe in it all those particular places which Quintus Curtius Arrianus and Plutarch doe make mention of in the historie of this expedition For these three of all those which haue at large written of his life and are come to our hands haue of purpose handled this his voiage and expedition To these as helps we haue adioined what we finde making for this our purpose in Strabo Diodorus Trogus Orosius and Plutarch in that his booke which he hath intituled Of the fortune and prosperous successe of Alexander for these men although they haue not purposedly intended that argument yet notwithstanding by the way they haue shewed themselues in the setting out of his memorable acts very diligent and faithfull authours Item Philostratus Solinus and Pliny haue in like maner done vs some seruice heerein And while I looke ouer all maner of histories written either in Greeke or Latine by any other authours whatsoeuer beside those aboue named I could picke very little or nothing out of them that might serue vs in this our argument to any sted at all For although some things may be obserued in the reading of Liuy Valerius Maximus Polybius Athenaeus Polyaenus Aelianus Seneca Stobaeus Quintilian Apuleius Dion Pruiaeus Maximus Tyrius Theon Sophista Plutarch in his treatise of Mounteins and the Panegyricke made to Maxim and Constant yet those doe rather seeme in my iudgement to concerne his priuate life naturall inclination maners vertues and vices then this his voiage and expedition Francis Iuret in his annotations vpon Symmachus doth confesse that he hath by him the life of Alexander the Great written first in the Greeke tongue by one Aesope and since that translated into Latine by Iulius Valerius This authour as yet we haue nor seene and therefore of him we say nothing We haue therefore in the description of this Empire of the Macedonians the greatest as Liuy in his fiue and fortieth booke nameth it of all the whole earth begunne by this our Alexander performed what we could not what we would To this we haue caused the plot and portraiture of Iupiter Ammons oracle famous as Pomponius Mela writeth for the certainty of his predictions to be adioined for an auctuarie and ornament and for that it is so often named mentioned in all ancient histories as also for that this our Alexander in this his expedition went vnto this place to demand of the Oracle what the issue and euent of this his iourney should be Lastly Curtins and Trogus do iointly affirme that he commanded that his body after his death should heere be buried although it be certaine that this was not performed for his corps was interred at Alexandria in Egypt Of it therefore out of sundrie authours we haue collected that which followeth The ORACLE of Iupiter Ammon ALEXANDRI MAGNI MACEDONIS EXPEDITIO IOVIS AMMONIS ORACVLVM INGENIO IVDICIO ET ERVDITIONE PRAESTANTI DOMINO HENRICO SCHOTIO VRBI ANTVERP A CONSILIIS AMORIS ET BENEVOLENTIAE ERGO HANC TABVLAM DEDICAB ABRAH ORTELIVS Cum Priuilegio Imp. et Ordinum Belgicor ad decennium 1595. By that description of Iupiter Ammon in Curtius it seemeth that he meant to expresse vnto vs two formes of it viz. one which was accounted to bee his image or counterfet the other was that which was worshipped for a god that had the shape of a ramme this the forme of a bosse vmbilicus For I vnderstand by the word vmbilicus any high thing that steeketh out as the nauil in a man in maner of a pyramis or conus round or square Like as in books almost finished as Porphyrius testifieth they ordinarily vsed to doe either for ornament or some speciall purpose yea and yet to this day still they are put vpon the outside in forme of a round globe For men of ancient families were wont as we do gather by many circumstances oft times in this rude manner to point at their gods rather then truely to expresse them in their true forme and proportion In the temple of Delphos as Strabo in the 6. booke of his Geography reporteth there was a bosse preserued curiously lapped vp in skarfes and ribbends to demonstrate and shew vnto the world that this place was in Vmbilico that is in the middest or center of the whole earth and it was made as Pausanias writeth of pure white marble For the statue or image of the goddesse Venus which was to be seene at Paphus in Cyprus as Tacitus reporteth was a continuall circle broad at the bottome with a thinne edge or brim rising vp narrower and narrower by degrees in manner of a pyrarnis Maximus Tyrius in his 38. oration speaketh the same of it almost word for word but that he saith it was like a white pyramis The same authour in the same place writeth that the Arabians portraitured their god in forme of a square or cubicall stone and as Suidas affirmeth it had no manner of carued worke vpon it at all But this he speaketh of the Arabians of Petiaea and withall addeth that this their god is called Mars Minutius Felix maketh the same god to be but a rough stone vnhew'd or vnpolish't Liuy also testifieth that the Pessinuntij a people in Phrygia did honour a stone for the mother of the gods Arnobius in his 6. booke saith that it was a flint stone of no great bignesse of colour blacke or very darke and duskish verie craggy rough and vneuen Prudentius also in his 7. booke saith that it was of colour browne or inclining to blacke Herodianus reporteth almost the same of the forme of the statue of the Sunne or Elagabalus that Quintus Curtius doth of his god Ammon These are his words as you may read
an altar in Caledonia mentioned by Solinus a prouince of Great Britaine hauing an inscription vpon it written in Greeke letters there consecrated and dedicated to some God whose gratious fauour he had largely tasted of in this his iourney Of Asciburgium a city built by him as Tacitus writeth vpon the brinke of the riuer Rheine and of an altar there consecrated to his seruice yet that they are altogether fained and meere fables there be many things that do strongly proue And indeed Aulus Gellius in the sixth chapter of his foureteenth booke sheweth that long since this voiage vpon the Ocean seas was doubted of and called in question videlicet they made a question whether Vlysses wandred through the maine Ocean as Aristarchus would haue it or whether he neuer went out of the inner sea so Strabo and Pliny do call the Mediterran or Midland sea as Cratetes would perswade vs. And truely in Ausonius his Periocha there is not a word of this nauigation through the Ocean Item Vlysses himselfe relating vnto his wife the summe of all his peregrination doth not once name the Ocean Neither doth Dares Phrygius Hyginus in his fables or Isacius vpon Lycophron mention any such thing and yet euery one of these men doe make a large discourse of that his wandring voiage Againe those things which we find in Strabo of this matter as he himselfe plainly confesseth were taken out of Possidonius Artemidorus and Asclepiades euery one of which authours it is certaine liued many a day since Homer and not out of Homer himselfe Item the wise Seneca in the 88. chapter of his seuenth booke calleth it Angustum iter errorem longum A short iourney but long in regard of many turne-againes before it was ended But because it was also before me by the learned Iohn Brodey a man of good iudgement and quicke conceit accounted for a meere fable I will heere out of the third booke of his Miscellanea set downe his opinion in his owne words which in English are thus They saith he who thinke that Vlysses euer sailed vpon the Maine Ocean do labour to prooue that their opinion out of this verse of Homer in the tenth booke of his Odysses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But when thou shalt by ship haue pass'd the Ocean seas Of which opinion although I do find the learned Strabo to bee yet I see no reason why I may not freely propose to the censure of the learned what I doe thinke of the same When I doe consider the fashion and maner of building of ERYTHRAEI SIVE RVBRI MARIS PERIPLVS olim ab Arriano descriptus nunc verò ab Abrah Ortelio ex eodem delineatus VLYSSIS ERRORES ex Conatib Geographicis Ab. Ortelij ANNONIS PERIPLVS Cum Imp. Reg. et Cancellariae Brabantia priuilegio decennali 1597. Vlysses shippes described by Homer to be open without deckes and hatches I doe perceiue them to haue beene much too weake and too low to abide the billowes and stormes of the maine sea which for three moneths of the yeare galleies and tall shippes well and strongly built of the best timber and well seasoned can hardly be able to sustaine That any man should thinke that Astypyrgium or Asciburgium which wee spake of a little before was built by Vlysses as some men haue gathered out of Cornelius Tacitus it were extreame madnesse For if one would passe the Spanish French and English seas and then at length to returne backe againe through the Germane Ocean and in diuers places on Gods name vpon the sea coast to build and erect altars he had need haue a nauy of many tal ships strongly built wel appointed he must not think to do it with one little bark or rotten barge rowed to fro with oares and strength of men But authours of good credit do make mention of Vlyssipo and of other famous monuments of him to be seene in Portugall What then Whether that any thing of Vlysses his doing be there to be seene or euer were I greatly doubt and if there be yet that it was made by this Vlysses whose life famous acts Homer did describe I flatly deny And yet it is not incredible to beleeue that as we do suppose that there were many Herculesses so that there were in like maner more Vlyssesses then one which in mine opinion seemeth very probable and likely to be true Thus farre Brodey To those arguments of his I adde first That Odyssopolis is by Cedrenus and the Historia Miscella described to be neere Pontus in Asia And who is so madde to beleeue that this city was so named of this our Odyssus or as the Latines call him Vlysses And seeing that I do see that Homer himselfe doth not make mention of any one place vnto the which he did put in or landed in all this his trauel vpon the Ocean sea I am easily perswaded that this notable Poet doth not only in this verse but euen in diuers other places also by the Ocean poetically mean the sea For example neere the end of the 10. book of his Odysses ni the beginning of the 11. assoone as euer he is returned from the Inferi presently Homer maketh him to enter the Ocean But you will say he entred the Ocean neere wherabout the Cimmerij did dwell as appeareth plainly by that which he writeth in the beginning of the 12. book of his Odysses True But where I pray you did these Cimmerij dwell No where surely but in Italy within a little of the I le Circeia being returned from thence he burieth according to his promise the body of Elpenor The body I mean after so many moneths or which is more probable so many yeres for those nauigations in old time were not the next way through the middest of the sea but much further about as we haue shewed in our Thesaurus at the word OPHIR along by the shore within sight of land corrupt or which is more likely turned to dust and ashes or quite consumed to nothing If any man shall againe obiect with Ouid in the first booke of his Tristium who saith that illius pars maxima ficta laborum est The most part of Vlysses toile was forged in Poets braine and say that this whole history and not only this nauigation vpon the Maine Ocean was but a feined tale I answer that all the story except this part of his nauigation by the vast Ocean only is somewhat probable and nothing in it impossible but might haue beene done In this voiage by the Ocean sea I haue stated the longer lest the Reader might suspect that either through negligence or ignorance it were left out in this our Mappe Now let vs if you please go on forward with our intended iourney Vlysses departing from the iland Aeaea and taking his leaue of his hostesse Circes by whom hauing kept with her by the space of an whole yeare he begat his sonne Telegonus he went his way safe and
in his 5. booke They haue no image carued and made by arte of man after the manner of the Greekes or Romanes to expresse the similitude of that god But there is a very great stone round at the bottome and tapred vpward almost in manner of that Geometricall body which the Mathematicians do call Conus The Sicyonij citizens of Sicyona city in Peloponnesus in Greece as Pausanias writeth did make their Iupiter Milichius in forme of a pyramis or taper The Semni a sect of Philosophers in India as Clemens Alexandrinus reporteth did adore and do religious seruice to a pyramis Hither peraduenture that signe of the profane Sacrament mentioned by Firmicus is to be referred Yea and the Romanes themselues vnder this forenamed figure doubtlesse did meane to expresse some god or other as appeareth by that scaffold or chaire described by the foresaid Herodian made in manner of a turret or lanterne in which their Emperours were crowned and enstalled and was indeed of them enrowled amongst the number of their gods or saints as you please to terme them For this also was so built that it did rise from the bottome vpward lesse lesse by degrees vntil at length it came to the highest last roome which was the least and narrowest of all Hither also are to be referred those obeliskes or pyramides of the Egyptians built in forme not much vnlike those Vmbilici before mentioned dedicated also to the Sunne Item those spires metae in the theaters dedicated to the Dioscuri or Tyndarides The fire which signifieth the goddesse Vesta 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Esta the Chaldees call the fire also was expressed in this forme whose temple was built round and tapered vpward All which do come very neere to the forme of a bosse Vmbilicus or that Geometricall body called by them Conus Out of these I gather that the ancient reading in the old imprinted copies of Quintus Curtius which haue Vmbilico similis like a bosse is much better and more probable than that late edition set out the other day by a learned man which readeth Vmbilico tenus arieti similis to the nauill like a ramme But all these will appeare more plaine and cleare to the reader by the comparison of certaine monies and coines as may be seene in those authours which haue of purpose written of the ancient Romane coines Moreouer certaine nations also although this be not altogether to our purpose yet I take it not amisse to adde a word or two of it by the way were woont to attribute no great beauty to their gods For Arnobius writeth that the Scythians for the signe or idol of their god did vse a skene or short sword The Thespij citizens of Thespia a city in Boetia in Greece did adore and do diuine honour to a bough of Progne The Romanes for Quirinus or Romulus as some thinke to a speare The Samij did reuerence a well for Iuno and the Carij a rough and vnhewed peece of timber for Diana Pausanias witnesseth that the Sicyonij honoured Diana Paetroa vnder the forme of a columne or rude pillar rough and vnpolished Maximus Tyrius reporteth that the Celtae did do reuerence to a very high oke as vnto the signe or image of mighty Ioue The same authour testifieth that the Paeones for the Sunne did diuine honour to a little dish or platter put vpon the toppe of a long pole Tertullian telleth vs that Pallas Attica and Ceres Farrea were put vpon the end of an ill-fauor'd pole rugged stake or rough peece of wood Faria or Pharia which Lipsius liketh better to whom also I assent for that in a certaine coine which Antonius Augustinus setteth out in his Dialogues together with the image and picture of this goddesse there is this inscription ISIS PHARIA seeing that also as Herodotus and Plutarch doe testifie that this same goddesse is the same that Isis which is worshipped of the Egyptian is item that Isis is the same that Dea Pessinuntia is and this the same that Cybele So that Pharia as he would haue it should be the same with Aegyptia vnderstanding thereby Isis of Aegypt Moreouer Minutius Felix maketh mention of Pharia Isis Pausanias in his Achaica writeth that in times past it was an ordinary thing generally practised by all the Grecians to worship rude and vnpolished stones for their gods Item Herodotus in Clio doth writnesse that the Persians were not woont to make any images to reare any temples or to build any altars to their gods We read also that it was the custome of some nations neuer to make any image portraitures or pictures of their gods at all For Tacitus writeth that the Syrians neuer made any similitude or temple to their god Carmel only they built him an altar and did adore him with a religious worship The same authour saith That the Germanes did make no similitudes of their gods nor did euer attribute vnto them the shape and feature of any mortall man and moreouer he addeth that they did see them onely in their deuotions Strabo saith that the Persians did neither erect images nor altars to their gods Silius Italicus speaketh thus of the chappell of Hercules at Caliz Sed nulla effigies simulacráue nota Deorum Maiest ite locum saâ—ro impleuere timore Yea and the Romanes themselues as Varro telleth the tale for more then an hundred and fifty yeares together did worship their gods without any images or idols at all And indeed Pliny plainly affirmeth that it is the weakenesse of mans nature to seeke for any similitudes or counterfets of them But because there is nothing more absolute and perfect than God it is very probable that the Gentiles did reuerence him vnder that forme wherewith in all their actions when they come to perfection they are ordinarily beautified as with a most rich and costly ornament Why they vsed to carrie this god Ammon in a boate or pinnace peraduenture we may vnderstand by that of Cornelius Tacitus where he teacheth that the Sueui were woont to make the image of Isis in manner of a small barke or pinnace thereby to shew that their religion and manner of seruice of their gods vsed by them was brought from beyond the sea from forrein countries Pausanias hath left recorded that the Cyreneans did at Delphos dedicate their God Ammon sitting in a waggon Vehiculum the interpreter calleth Sic bona posteritas Romana scilicet Puppim formauit in aere Hospitis aduentum testificata Dei So Romanes old for loue did make This shippe of purest brasse To testifie that this their god A farre borne stranger was this Ouid in this first booke of his Fasti speaketh of the Romane god Ianus So that what the Romanes meant by this their shippe puppis that they meant by their pinnace or wagon nauigium or vehiculum Moreouer amongst the Germanes also in an iland of the maine sea as Tacitus testifieth there was a place which he calleth Castum nemus in which there