prodigious and monstrous sights that he saw in his expedition That mighty Artaxerxes King of Persia hearing of the fame of that learned Hypocrates did send unto the chief Governour of Hellespent earnest letters for Hypocrates promising him great honours and an equality to the chief rulers of Persia and to be a fellow and friend unto mighty Artaxerxes Bion being demanded what was the most dangerous thing in the world he answered to be most fortunate Phocion that learned Athenian was wont to say that better it were to lie carelesse upon the ground safe and sound then to lie with trouble of mind under cloth of States in danger and peril A certain wise Prince before he was crowned King did take the Crown first as Valerius saith in his hand and after looking and musing a while upon it he said O Crown more noble then happy whose peril to enjoy if men understood no man would take thée from the ground though thou didst offer thy self unto him What felicity happened unto Alexander the Great whom fortune so advanced to be a King of Kings a Conqueror of Conquerors yea to be worshipped as a God and to be called the son of Jupiter whose fame compassed the whole earth in so much that Thalestris Quéen of the Amazons came from Scythia unto Hyrcania with thrée hundred women to lie with Alexander thirty days to have a child by him and yet in Babylon that fortune that so exalted him did likewise oppresse him being in his chief fame and but thirty two years old poysoned by his kinsmen and friends and so left and forsaken of all men that he was thirty days unburied as a beggar not as a King and rather like a beast then the son of Jupiter In the same manner fortune served Julius Caesar who after the glory of so many conquests was in his own city of Rome and in the Senate house amidst his Counsellors treacherously slain and murthered with Bodkins and Daggers by his most trusty friends Brutus and Cassius that he had twenty and thrée wounds in his body This was the unfortunate end of so fortunate a beginning How did fortune deal with famous Xerxes whose huge armies dryed up rivers whose infinite numbers of Navies covered the Ocean seas whose power and force all Gréece trembled at fortune that promised all Gréece to him did give him over into the hands of Themistocles his enemy to be vanquished and unto the force of Artabanus to be slain A little better she used Mithridates King of Pontus who after many victories in divers countries and noble triumphs against the invincible Romans she at length to his great discomfort after he had lost his wife children and all his friends did leave him in his old age a prey unto Pompeius Therefore was Plato wont to thank God that he was born a man and not a beast in Gréece and not in Barbary and thanked fortune that he was a scholler unto Socrates who always despised fortune and her power For fortune never doth a good déed but she requiteth the same with an evil turn afterwards Pyrrhus that valiant King of Epyrus whom fortune guided so famously that he was counted by Hannibal the second souldier and Prince for his magnanimity and courage unto Alexander the Great was killed by a silly simple Argive woman with a Tile stone Hannibal whose name was so terrible unto Rome by the space of sixtéen years was driven into exile and became a banished abject from his Countrey and weary of his life he ended his days with poyson in Bithinia Alcibiades whom fortune so favoured that he excelled all men in personage and birth in wisdome and honour in strength and wealth and in all kind of vertues was brought to such banishment and penury to such infamy and reproach that he was compassed round and taken by his enemies and burned in his bed with his whore whose name was Timandra Cambyses and Nero whose cruel and unhappy days both Rome and Persia long time felt their fate was such that after much tyranny and bloodshed being weary in murthering of others they slew themselves This was the end of their cruelty Polycrates who ever sayled with prosperous winds of fortune so that he was named fortunate Polycrates at length being so served of fortune as other Princes were he was taken and hanged by one Orontes an Officer of King Darius in the open sight of Samos where he a long time flourished and in the end was hanged on a high hill named the mount of Mycale These evils happen by fortune yet we sée them not she gripes us with her hands and yet we féel it not she treadeth us down and yet we will not know it Happy is he that accompanieth not with fortune though divers think themselves happy that he fortunate As Gyges and Croesus two Kings of Lydia so wealthy that they judged no man so happy as they were and yet was Aglaus the poorest in all Arcadia and Byton the simplest of all Gréece the one by the sentence of Solon the other by the Oracle of Apollo judged far more happy then they The very tyrant Dyonisius being banished from his Kingdome of Corinth would often say in his misery That happy twice were they that never knew fortune whose fawning face in the beginning doth purchase cruel death in the end Wherefore a certain Lacedemonian called Diagoras being in the Games of Olympia in Gréece having his children and his childrens children crowned with Garlands of Fame for their vertuous acts and qualities said that it were great happiness for him to die presently at such a sight of his childrens Fortune and being asked the cause he said That Fortune never pleased that man so much at one time but she would at another time displease the same as much again And most true it was spoken unto one of the thirty tyrants who being in banquet with divers Nobles and Gentlemen when the house fell and slew them all yet he escaping bragged much of his fortune that he so saved himself a simple man hearing it said to him Never boast of Fortune at any time for that she spareth thee now she will the next time more sharply plague thee Which came so to pass For his flesh was made a food to his horses and his bloud was the drink which was appointed for them If Fortune whose wavering steps are never certain were as little trusted of the most as she is most deceitfull and false to all then Cicero would not have spoken that they which séek Fortune are blinder then Fortune she never advanced any to dignity but she suppressed the same again unto misery as Tarquinius the proud a King that Fortune made famous divers waies of Princely Progeny of passing personage of incredible beauty and of all noble qualities but Lucretia Collatinus wife was made the onely snare to catch him and to take him by whom he was deprived of his government and banished out of Rome to range countries in misery
THE MARROW OF HISTORY OR THE Pilgrimage of KINGS and PRINCES TRULY Representing the variety of Dangers inhaerent to their Crowns and the lamentable Deaths which many of them and some of the best of them have undergone Collected Not onely out of the best Modern Histories but from all those which have been most famous in the Latine Greek or in the Hebrew Tongue Shewing Not onely the Tragedies of Princes at their Deaths but their Exploits and sayings in their lives and by what virtues some of them have flourished in the height of Honour and overcome by what affections others of them have sunk into the depth of all Calamities A Work most delightfull for Knowledge and as profitable for Example Collected by Lodowick Lloyd one of the Gentlemen in ordinary to Queen Elizabeth And Corrected and Revived by R.C. Master of Arts. London Printed by E. Alsop dwelling near the Upper-Pump in Grubstreet 1653. To the true Lover of all good Learning the Truly Honourable CHARLS DIMMOCK Esquire c. SIR I Have here preferred to your observance and protection a work of great Art and of greater Industry you shall find in it a Summary of almost all the Kingdomes and Common-wealths upon the earth and what were the men of Power which commanded in them and also what were as well their Excellencies of Understanding as of Soveraignty it being a Gift unto great men who are called unto extraordinary places to be indued for the most part with extraordinary abilities Here as from a Turret of Speculation you may look down upon the Vulgar and every where behold how near of kin is Misery to Mortality and raising afterwards your Contemplation higher you may looke up on those who have been the Potentates and Princes of the Earth and observe how empty is the Title of Greatnesse and how vain in the Grave is the Prerogative of Kings insomuch that if the Dusts of Alexander the Great and of Bucephalus his Horse were committed both unto one Urn I do believe that Aristotle himself could not distinguish betwixt them either by his Philosophy or his Flattery Sir It it is then easie to be seen that it is onely Virtue that crowneth the lives of Princes and after their deaths doth raise them higher then their Pyramids yet in many Examples you may distinctly here observe that even the best of Kings and those of them who have been nearest unto Heaven have often stooped under the greatest Visitations as the highest Hills are most often checked by the lowdest Thunders But others there have been whose lives by their Lust and Cruelty have been covered with infamy or by their Sloth with silence as Tertullian speaks of Sardanapalus that if he had not been famous for his Riot no man had known him to be a King therefore those depraved Affections are here described and by many Examples abundantly illustrated in the pursuit of which so many great men and Conquerours upon Earth have both delighted and perished They are produced as a Caution unto all and the Book may serve as a Mirrour unto the Best in which they may observe the uncertainty of humane condition in the Pilgrimage of this life It precisely Sir devoteth it self to your protection in whose Example as in a purer Mirror may be read all the Influences of Honour and of Chivalry which that you may long live to dispence amongst us is the dayly prayer of him who is Sir Your most humble and most devoted Servant ROB. CODRINGTON THE PILGRIMAGE OF KINGS and PRINCES CHAP. I. That all Princes are but Pilgrims and some Pilgrims are higher then Kings THis at first may seem a paradox but upon a deliberate consideration it will easily unriddle it self For if you look upon a King in the first place as he is but a man he is a Pilgrim and no more He begins his journey in his cradle and travels every year from sorrow unto sorrow The pleasures and pomp that courts him are but momentary like a flash of lightning that is rather the subject of his memory then his eye But the troubles and the dangers are perpetual and lie as heavy upon his heart as the Crown upon his head This was not unaptly resembled by the Tyrant who his friend affecting the crown did invite him to a Banquet where there was nothing wanting either for abundance or magnificence the Sea and Earth were examined for their rarest provisione to satisfie his palate and on the Cupboard India did appear in all her treasures This indéed did promise a welcome above the invitation but behold over his head a sword hung upon one hair and by its ponderous burthen carrying a certain Death in its point did threaten a sudden destruction to him so that the edge of his appetite being taken off and the Banquet ended there needed no man to say so much as Much good d'it you to him And yet for all this I know not by what secret temptation of Ambition it comes about that the Crown is the onely object of all great Spirits not considering what cares hang round about the ring ols of it This was that which made the great Turkish Emperour seeing a shepheard sitting on a hill and making melody to himself as he marched with his puissant Army against Tamberlane O happy shepheard said he who hath neither any remarkable Town nor any Army to lose Agreable to this is what at least the Poets enform us of Henry the fourth of England who lying on his Death-bed and sending for the Crown his Son came to visit him and beholding the Crown on the pillow and his Father so fast asléep that not the least motion of breath could be discovered to come from him to vex the lightest feather on the pillow he took the Crown away conceiving his Father to be dead Not long after his Father did awake and missing the Crown demanded where it was and who was so bold as to take it away It being answered That his Son had it to whom it was due by the right of succession his Son came in to whom his Father said That if he knew with what travel both of mind and body and with what danger of both it was purchased he would never be so hastie to take it away but kéep far from it as from the center of all sorrow and affliction And if the whole life of man is but a Pilgrimage the life of Kings is the greatest pilgrimage of al A pilgrimage it is both of the mind and of the body to which they are most subject who have the most and the greatest Kingdoms Their life is a perpetual vexation whether you look upon them as greedy to possesse the Kingdomes of others or solicitous to defend their own No sooner one trouble is ended but another begins occasioned either by covetousnesse or ambition or by jealousies extrinsick or Domestick sometimes they fear the over-growing power of their neighbouring Princes somtimes they do lie in wait to intrap them sometimes they
decay The Athenians have such care of the dead that being dressed with all kind of swéet odours they put them in such sumptuous tombs and gorgeous graves that the sepulchres are made over with fine glasse The Scythians when their Kings and noble men die they must have to bear them company to the grave one of their concubines and one of their chief servants and one of their friends that loved them best alive they I say must accompany and follow them to the grave being dead The Romans had this custome that if any man of countenance and credit should die his sons and daughters his nigh kinsmen and best beloved friends as Cicero doth write of Metellus did put him in the fire made for that purpose unlesse he were one of the Emperours whose funeral pomp was much more sumptuous for then his body was to be carried to the market or common Hall of Rome on the second day he was to be carried by certain young noble men to Martius field where a great pile of wood was raised much like a Tower and there after much solemnity and ceremonies done he that succéeded him as an Emperour did first put fire to that work and then all men were busie to sée the body burned and when they had burned him to ashes they would let an Eagle flie from the top of some high Tower which as they supposed should carry his soul unto heaven The Assyrians did use to anoint the dead bodies with honey and wax and with study and care did preserve them from putrifaction Such strange order of burial was in India that the women of that country thought there could be no greater fame nor worthier renown then to bee burned and buried together with their husbands The Thracians are much to be commended herein who at the birth of any of their friends children use to wéep and bewail the misery and calamity that man is born to and at the death of any of their friends they rejoice with such mirth and gladnesse that they past these worldly miseries that at the burial of them even when the corps doth go out of the house they altogether say with one voice Farewel friend go before and we will follow after So the corps goeth before and all his friends follow after him with trumpets musick and great mirth for joy that he is gone out of the vale of misery Plato that divine Greek and noble Philosopher made the like laws in Athens that when any of the chief officers should die he appointed that no mourning weeds should be worn there but all in white apparel and that fifteen young maids and fifteen young boys should stand round about the corps in white garments while the Priests commended his life to the people in an open oration then he was brought very orderly to the grave all the young children singing their country hymns and the ancient men following after them and the grave was covered with fair broad stones where the name of the dead with his vertuous commendations and great praise was set upon the stone The like grave the Italians use at this day and divers other countries And as these and others had the like ceremonies to the praise and commendations of the dead so others little esteemed and regarded such things insomuch that the Persians were never buried till Fowls of the ayr and dogs did eat some part thereof The Messagetes thought it most infamous that any of their friends should die by sicknesse but if the Parents waxed old the children and the next kinsmen they had did eat them up supposing that their flesh was more méet for them to eat then by worms or any other beasts to be devoured The people called Tibareni had a custome that those whom they loved best in their youth those would they hang in their age even so the Albans being inhabitants about mount Cancasus thought it unlawfull for any to care for the dead but straight buried them as Nabatheans bury their Kings and rulers in dung-hils The burial of the Parthians was nothing else but to commend them to the birds of the air The Nasomones when they bury their friends they set them in the grave sitting But of all most cruelly deal the Caspians and the Hircanians which kill their parents their wives their brethren their kinsmen and friends and put them in the high way half quick half dead for to be devoured of birds and beasts The fashion and custome with the Issidones a rude people in some part of Scithia as Plini in his fourth book affirmeth is to call their neighbours and friends together were the dead lie and there merrily singing and banquetting they eat the flesh of the dead and make the scull of the dead a drinking cup and cover it with gold to drink withall Again the people called Hyperborei think no better grace for their friends vvhen they be old then to bring them to some high bank of vvater or great rock and thence after much feasting eating and drinking in the middest of their mirth their own friends do throw them down into the water headlong To seek into histories many such burials might be found amongst so many rude and barbarous nations Notwithstanding in divers regions the funerals of the dead are so esteemed that the greatest infamy the severest punishment for any offendour vvas not to be buried this the Athenians used tovvards those that vvere traitors to their country and the Egyptians if any lived amisse he should be carried dead to the vvildernesse to be devoured of vvild beasts The Persians likewise brought the bodies of men condemned to be eaten of dogs The Lybians thought them most worthy of solemn buriall that died either in wars or were killed by wild beasts The Macedonians had great care in burying the dead souldiers in the field Amongst the Gentiles there were certain days appointed for mourning at the death of their friends Licurgus law amongst the Lacedemonians was that they should mourn but eleven days Numa Pompilus decreed that children after their parents death the wives their husbands c. should mourn ten moneths though by the Senatours it was enacted in the wars at Canna that the Romans should mourn but thirty days Amongst the Egyptians they had a custome to mourn after their kings died thréescore and twelve days but generally the most custome was to bewail the dead nine days In some places mourning was forbidden at their burial as at Athens by the law of Solon in Locretia in Thracia in Coos in Lybia and in divers other places The diversity of mourning was such that amongst the Gréeks they shaved their heads and beards and threw them into the grave with the dead Amongst the Lacedemonians when the Kings of Sparta died certain horsemen were appointed to travell over all the whole Kingdome certifying the death of the King and the women in every city did beat their brasen pots and made a great and heavy noise for the soone the Egyptians
Honorificus King of the Vandales and Herode King of the Iews were eaten up alive with vermine and Lice Pliny and Plutarch say that proud Sylla which sore plagued Rome and Italy had all his flesh converted into Lice and so died Herodotus doth likewise report of one Pheretrina a Quéen of the Barceans who died of this filthy and horrible death God hath taken them away in the midst of their pleasure even eating and drinking as Septimus and Valentianus two famous Emperours who died both of a surfeit for want of digestion Archesilaus died presently with one draught of wine What is the life of Princes but an uncertain Pilgrimage Nay women are famous for their pilgrimage therein As the Queen of Sheba came from Ethiopia to hear and to learn Solomon's wisdome Cornelia from Rome being a noble woman went to Palestina to hear Saint Hierome teach Christians The pilgrimage of our life is nothing else but a continual travel until we come to our last journey which is Death then is the end of all pilgrimage and just account to be made for the same CHAP. XLV Of Death the End of all Pilgrimage THe last line of all things is death the discharge of all covenants the end of all living creatures the onely wish of the good and the very terrour of the wicked And for that the life of man is divers so is death variable after sundry manners and fashions as by experience is séen and known in all Countreys Nothing is surer then death yet nothing is more uncertain then death For Pindarus that wise King of the Liricans being demanded of certain Beotians what might best happen to man in this world Even that said he which chanced to Trophonius and Agâ—medes meaning Death For these men after they had builded a new Temple to Apollo demanded of Apollo the best reward that he could give them they thinking to enjoy some dignity or worldly substance were seven days after rewarded with death The like we read in the first Book of Herodotus where the mother of Biton and Cleobes two young men of Argos knéeling before the Image of Juno besought the Goddesse to bestow some excellent good thing upon her two sons for their pain and travel that they shewed toward her in drawing her Chariot ten miles in stead of horses The Goddesse willing to grant them the best thing that could be given to man the next night quietly in bed as they slept they both died Wherefore very well did Aristippus answer a certain man who asked how Socrates died Even in that order said he that I wish my self to die Giving to understand that any death is better then life That noble Philosopher Plato a little before he died as Sabellicus doth write did thank nature for three causes the first that he was born a man and not a beast the second that he was born in Gréece and not in Barbary the third that he was born in Socrates time who taught him to die well Hermes that great Philosopher of Egypt even dying so embraced death that he called upon that that divine spirit which ruled all the heavens to have mercy upon him being right glad that he had passed this toyling life Such is the uncertainty of death that some in the half of their days and in the midst of their fame and glory die So Alexander the great died in Babilon Pompey died in Egypt and Marcellus being a young man of great towardnesse and by adoption heir unto the Empire of Rome died It is strange to sée the varieties of death and in how divers and sundry fashions it hath happened unto Great men always Some being merry in their banquets and drinking were slain so Clitus was slain by Alexander the great being his chief friend Amnon being bidden to a banquet by Absalom was slain by him Yea all the Embassadors of Persia were commanded to be slain even drinking at the table by Amintas King of Macedonia Some end their lives wantonning with women and playing in chambers as that renowned Alcibiades being taken in wantonnesse with Timandra was slain by Lisander Even so Phaon and Speusippus the Philosopher died likewise Some bathing and refreshing themselves have perished by their own wives so Agamemnon that famous Gréek was killed by his wife Clitemnestra and Argirus Emperor of Rome by his wife Zoe Divers in prison have died as captives so Aristobulus Eumenes Aristonicus Marius Cleomenes Jugurth Siphax famous and renowned Princes Divers have béen slain in the draught as that beast Heliogabalus whom Rome so hated that he fled to a draught and there was slain and after was drawn through the streets and thrown into the river of Tyber Cneius Carbo a man of great dignity and power in Rome was commanded that he should be slain as he was sitting on his stool of ease by Pompey in the third time of his Consulship in Rome Thus shamefully have some died and thus famously others died Patroclus knew not that he should be slain by Hector Hector never thought he should be killed by Achilles Achilles never doubted his death by Paris Paris never judged that he should be vanquished by Pirrhus Neither did Pirrhus know that he should be overcome by Orestes so that no man knoweth his end where how and when he shall die and yet all men are certain and sure that they have an end that they must néeds die And yet the fear of death hath overcome the stoutest souldiers We read that Asdrubal of Carthage a noble and a famous Captain â—verthrown by Scipio for fear of death knéeled before Scipio embracing his féet and was so fearfull that his own wife was ashamed of his doings Yet had this famous Generall rather be a laughing stock to the Romans a bond man to Scipio running a foot like a lacky after his triumph then to die manfully in the behalf of his countrey which valiantly for a time he defended Perpenna likewise a famous Roman being taken in Spain by the souldiers of Pompey in a place full of Groves fearing lest at that instant he should be slain by Pompey's souldiers he made them believe that he had divers things to speak to Pompey of some designs that the enemies had in hand against him rather had Perpenna betray his friends and his fellows yea and all his country to his enemy then suffer a sudden death A greater fear of death we read in that book of Fulgosius of the Emperour Vitellius who after he had vanquished and slain divers nobles and shewed great wrongs unto the Emperour Otho and to Sabinus brother to Vespasian the Emperour being in fear of his life by Vespasian and being taken by the souldiers hee besought them rather then die presently that hee might be kept safe in prison untill he might sée and speak with Vespasian the Emperour such was his fear that he did hide himself in a chest to prolong his wretched life So fearful was Caligula of death that he would never go abroad at any
it is worth your observance that even in his death desiring to traduce the world with a false belief of his immortality he desired Roxane who was present with him and at that time great with child by him that she would give way that some who were most faithfull to her and to himself might take his body he finding an impossibility of recovery and death apparently to grew upon him and throw it into the River of Euphrates that the army and the world might conceive that invisibly he was advanced from mortality and translated into the number of the Gods which when Roxane by no means would give way unto affirming that the power which protected him from so many dangers would preserve him still he was passionate against her that in pretence of love she should deny him immortality and dying in the flower of his youth he acknowledged how momentary and uncertain at the best is the condition of Princes And thus Alexander you see who contended to be above the reach of mortality and to be no Pilgrim became the greatest Pilgrim in the world for he not onely living was in a perpetual travel both of body and of mind but he did not rest being dead for his body was carryed from place to place until it was brought at last to Alexandria and afterwards conveyed unto Memphis And to speak the truth the condition of Kings is more lamentable then the meanest of their subjects who may enjoy their lives with safety which is permitted but to a few Kings so true is that of Juvenal Ad generum Cereris sine caede sanguini pauci Descendunt reges sicca morte tyranni By a dry Death without a bloudy end Few Kings to Ceres son in Law descend For this reason the Honourable Sir Francis Bacon who said That God did most for Kings and that Kings did least for God did affirm That there was so many cares and dangers depending on a Crown that no wise man would take it up to have it especially considering how many excellent Princes who have been as admirable for their justice as for their fortitude and for their continence as for either have violently lost their lives by their ungratefull subjects Of this I shall give you examples pregnant enough in its due place and conclude this chapter That Princes are the greatest Pilgrims by the example of the best of Princes which was David himself And this is as easie to prove by his confession as by his sufferings He is hunted he saith like a Partridge upon the mountains he is like a Pelican in the wilderness he is as a Sparrow upon the house top You may behold him persecuted from place to place yet giving life to the King who would take his life from him You may behold him flying out of the Kingdom and disguising himself in a safe madness to protect him from the violence of his adversaries You may behold him exposed to all the dangers that malice could imagine reviled by his own wife cursed by his own servants and conspired against by his own son and driven out of his City by him so that he might well say I am a stranger in the land and my life is waxen old with heaviness and my years with mourning CHAP II. The attractive Liberality of Princes BVt before I proceed to give you examples of it I shall exhibit to you that the pleasures and the splendours which commonly attends the Court and do cast such a false shew of Glory on it are but as so many flatterers who would perswade to things which are not onely leave a dazle on the eye the easier to delude and betray the underastnding It is vertue only that maketh Princes glorious I will first give you a general survey of the vertues and vices of Princes by which in the pilgrimage of this life some have attained to the heighth of honour and others have sunk into the lowest infamy And first to deface the vice of Avarice I will in this place shew you the vertue of Liberality to put the churlish covetous out of countenance I will extol the liberal which in taking is shamefaced in giving joyfull For a measure in taking and in giving is the true nature of liberality Neither can he that taketh all things though he give much be named liberal in nothing Agesilaus King of the Lacedemonians so observed the laws and rules of Lycurgus that he was wont to say unto the Citizens of Sparta that gifts are more dangerous sometime to be received then hurtfull to be refused Which Phocion the whole glory of Athens at what time Alexander the Great had sent him great gifts wealthy presents jewels and treasures from Persia did shew a true example thereof of in refusing the same saying I will not learn to take lest I forget to give The like answered Zenocrates the Philosopher to the self same Alexander when that he did send great sums of gold and silver for love and affection unto Zenocrares he said he wanted neither gold nor silver Which when it was told unto Alexander he said Hath Zenocrates no friends then that want money Alexander hath more friends then either the substance of Darius or the wealth of Persia can suffice A Question is here to be demanded Whether of them both was more liberal the Prince in giving or the Philosopher in refusing When certain Embassadours of the Samnites came to Rome and being at Fabritius house they perceiving the liberality of Fabritius to be such as it were pity wealth should want to so noble a Gentleman at their return from Rome unto their Countrey not forgetting the free dealing of Fabritius at Rome these Embassadours minding to gratifie Fabritius with the gold of the Samnites sent gifts and presents to him unto Rome for their noble entertainment which were refused with an answer that Fabritius had rather rule and govern them that were ruled by gold then to be subject unto gold alledging the answer of M. Curius to the Embassadors of Macedonia offering large gifts and treasure after the like sort That to possess much is no wealth but covetousness to desire nothing and to give is perfect wealth and liberality A sound proof of two liberal Gentlemen When such ruled Rome then the Romans excelled all the world bountifull and free and most beneficial unto all and covetous unto none When L. Lucullus house was a common hospital to all the poor Gréeks that travelled from Athens Sparta and Thebes yea from al Greeâ—e unto Rome then Rome was liberal When Pomponius Atucus did send unto Cicero being banished two hundred thousand Sesterces unto Volumnius and Brutus as much then Rome was beneficial When the Senators restored Faucula and Oppia two poor women of Campania not onely unto their ancient liberty but doubled their wealth and riches for their true meaning and service to the Romanes the one praying and sacrificing for their good success the other toyling and travelling about the souldiers
business at the siege of Capua where Fulinus was Captain then Rome was mercifull Liberality in noble persons is most commended for in liberal giving and beneficial doings are Princes compared unto Gods Fabius Maximus having certain of his souldiers taken by Hannibal in the wars of Carthage did send unto the Senators of Rome for money to redeem the Roman souldiers from Hannibal according unto Martial law but being denied of his suit he commanded his son straight to go to Rome to sell all the lands and livings that he then possest about the City of Rome and to bring him money The money being brought he paid Hannibal redéemed his souldiers brought them frée to Rome upon his own charge and being blamed of the Senators that he sould his land he answered that he had rather want patrimony in his Country then love towards his Countreymen he had rather be without living in Rome then to want the good will of tho poor souldiers Alphonsus the great King of Arragon was wont to rejoyce more in one little sentence that Titus Vespatianus would often say then of all that he had read all the days of his life This Emperours golden sentence was That day to be unhappy in the which he neither gave or granted any thing to some man saying That no man ought to depart from a Prince sad Ho judged time lost when no body fared the better by him and thought no man should depart without some benefits done or gifts given to some or others Liberality doth purchase to the Prince faith and love to the Nobleman service and homage unto all men benefits and good turns Wherefore Alexander the Great not so desirous to take as willing to give was wont to say to any that demanded where his treasures wealth and substance that he got in the wars were kept by poynting with his singer to his friends it is hidden saith he in the hearts of my subjects What can be more commended in a subject towards his Prince then faith and truth What may be more praised in a Prince towards his subjects then liberality and lenity The liberality of the poor is good will A poor Scholler sometime of Gréece being in Rome thought good to salute Caesar the Emperour comming from the Capitol toward his pallace in a few Gréek verses thinking thereby his penury should be somewhat looked upon by Caesar But Caesar surnamed Augustus answered the Scholler in writing again the like Gréek verses which when it was delivered to the poor Gréek he delighted much in the reading commended highly the verses and approached unto Caesar where he was in his Chariot opened his purse and gave unto the Emperour four single halfpence saying Hold not according to thy dignity calling but according to my ability and poverty I give this reward Certainly the poor Scholler was more commended for his small gift to the Emperour then the Emperour himself was praised for his liberality unto all the people in Rome The poor Poet Antilochus was as liberal to his power for his verses made unto King Lisauder as Lisander was in his calling to give him his hat full of silver Simple Sinaeâ—es was as liberal in offering a handfull of water of the river Cydnus unto the great King Artaxerxes of Persia for want of better ability as Artaxerxes was princely in gifts and beneficial unto Sinaetus in rewarding liberally the liberality of Sinaetes with Phiala aurea cum mille Daricis Chaerilus had no better present for a proof of his liberality toward Alexander the Great then to shew his good will unto him in writing whereby he shewed himself more willing then able which being accepted he was liberally rewarded for every several verse a piece of gold What greater gift can any man give then that which proceedeth from the heart Of all treasure saith Aristotle the mind of a man ought most to be esteemed the Mite of the poor woman offered to Christ was no less made of and estéemed then the Gold Myrrhe and Frankincense of the great Sages of the world For the gift maketh not the giver liberal but the giver maketh the gift liberal Wherefore a poor Student of Paris going home to his country Scillia and being urged through penury wanting money to go to a great learned mans house as though he might go to some of the Bishops of England tarrying there a long while without either meat or drink perceiving the house to be gorgeous fair and brave withâ—ut and full of hunger thirst and cold within he wrote with a coal on the wall a sentence of Cicero Non domo Dominus sed domus Domino honest and â—est As though he might say fair buildings want more liberal dwellings then liberal Lords fair houses for the house is praised by the man and not the man by the house Fair houses and wealth do hardly make men liberal it is said that fair things are coupled with pride and wealth joined with covetousnesse In the beginning all men were liberal untill private wealth began to practise with money covetousnesse was not known for as money did increase fo covetousnesse grew In Rome saith Pliny money was not seen four hundred years and more after the building of Rome Then was Rome true and beneficial bp reason of liberality which after waxed wealthy and false by means of covetousnesse That City was most famous chiefly for her liberality wherein Rome excelled all the world if the death of Princes of Noble men yea of all men can sufficiently bear witnesse of their lives considering vertue and fame shall prove that by death which life hardly may utter for no man is well known during life The death of Epaminondas that most renowned Prince of Thebes and Conquerour of all Gréece was a sure and a certain shew of his liberal life The last day of P. Aemilius who triumphed in life time over the proud Macedonians and Liguriant was a true token of his frank and frée dealing in life In life manner we may say of Maenemus Agrippa and Scipio Affricanus the one victor oveâ— the Samnites the other triumpher over Carthage and Numantia whose renowned lives made their deaths famous whose worthy deaths do revive their noble lives Their beneficial dealing and liberality was well known by their deaths so liberally they lived that their friends found no money hidden no gold kept no treasure preserved no wealth at all though divers time by victory and triumphs by conquest and fortune they psssessed Kingdomes and countries in the time of life The greatest Prince in his time Cyrus the first King that brought the Monarchy unto Persia slain by Tomyris had on his grave being buried in Scithia in no gorgeous Temple nor sumptuous Tomb but in an open field this Epitaph Here heth Cyrus the great King of Persia contented now with seven foot who could not be satisfied sometime with seven Kingdomes what Caesar King or Prince soever thou art spare this place unto Cyrus And when Alexander the great
profession of sacred viginitie which she vowed unto Diana was so famous for her magnanimity that when Turnus Aeneas were in wars for the marriage of Lavinia King Latinus daughter she came Bellona like unto the field resisting the violence and puissance of the Troyans with the Rutils and brought aid unto Turnus That noble Zenobia the famous Quéen of the Palmyrians a Princess of rare learning of excellent vertues of most valiant enterprises after that her Husband named Odenatus had died took the Empire of Syria and attempted the magnanimity of the Romans and a long time she withstood in wars that noble and renowned Emperor Aurelian by whom the Emperor was wont to say when it was objected to him that it was no commendation for a Prince to subdue a woman That it is more valiant to conquer a woman being so stout as Zenobia then to vanquish a King being so fearfull as Xerxes The ancient Gréeks as Herodotus doth witnesse were much amazed at the magnanimity of Artemisia Queen of Caâ—ia who after that the King her husband died did shew such fortitude against the inhabitants of Rhodes that being but a woman she subdued their stoutness she burned their Navies wasted their wealth vanquished and destroyed the whole Isle entred into the City of Rhodes caused her Image to be set up for a monument of her chivalry the perpetual memory of her victory O renowned Ladies O most worthy women that with feminine feats have merited manly fame How did famous Teuca Queen of the Illyrians govern her subjects after the death of her husband King Argon who being warred on by the Romans repelled their force broke their bonds and discomfited their armies to her perpetual fame and commendation she governed the people of Illyria no lesse wisely then she defended the puissant force of the Romans stoutly She lived as Histories report as soberly and chastly without the company of man as she governed her countrey wisely and stoutly without the counsel of man It were sufficient to repeat the ancient Histories of two women to prove fully an everlasting prâ—ise and commendation unto all women The one written in Herodotus in his first book of Quéen Tomyris of Scythia the other mentioned by Valerius and Justine of Cleopatra Queen somtime of Egypt The first after that Cyrus had made havock in her Kingdome of Scythia killing destroying and burning all without any regard of Princely clemency or respect unto a womans government and not satisfied therewith he slew also the Queens own son named Margapices thirsting more and more for bloud Insomuch that the valiant Queen being much moved to revenge Margapices death weighing the gréedy rage of Cyrus came Lion like to field either to lose her own life or else to revenge her sons death and prest upon Cyrus at that time more like a grim Gorgon then a silly Scythian and â—lew him in the field and haling him up and down the field she cut off his head and bathed it in a great Tun full of bloud appointed for that purpose saying Now Cyrus drink thy belly full of that which thou couldest never have enough of Thus valiant Tomyris revenged tyranny requiting the death of her son with the death of two hundred thousand Persians The other was Cleopatra who after that Julius Caesar was murthered by Brutus and Cassius and that Marcus Antonius was by Augustus invaded with a puissant Army for his perjury and falshood shewed unto his Vncle Caesaâ— she I say Cleopatra having the most part of Arabia and Syria confederated with her friend and lover Antonius against Augustus being then the second Emperor of Rome and having with the forces of Egypt aided him a long time until that she perceived that Augustus prevailed and that Antonius was vanquished lest she should be conquered by Augustus she conquered her self yeelding rather her body a prey unto Serpents then to become a subject unto Augustus Hannibal could do no more but to poylon himself rather then to yeeld to Scipio Let Semiramis with her valiant force and stoutness be commended at Babylon where she reigned fourty years a Widdow after King Ninus her Husbands death Let noble and famous Atalanta with her Bows and Spears and feats of Arms be praised in Arcadia Let Hypsieratea that followed her Husband King Mithridates in the wars as a Lackey unknown be extolled in Ponius Lot Helerna Janus daughter with all her fortitude be spoken of in Latine And let Deborah be famous amongst the Israelites These women were no lesse famous for their pilgrimâ—ge thâ—n the worthy Conquerors and Champions of the world They were in no point inferiour to men and in many points far excelled Princes and Kings Surely the world was then very weak or women were very strong and resolute And to omit particularly to touch any more of women I will open and declare their vertues in several Countreys The women of Lacena would together with their husbands go unto the field yea they went souldier like unto Missena to fight in field The women of Cimbria would kill those that first fled the field though they were the next friends or kinsmen unto them The women of Saca had this custome either at their marriage to be conquered by their husbands the first day or else to be conquerors over their husbands all the days of their life their combat saith Aelianus was for victory and not for life The women of Persia would meet their husbands and sons flying the field lifting up their cloaths shewing their nakedness saying Whither flée you O you Cowards will you again enter into your mothers wombs will you créep into your wives bellies This they â—id in the wars betwixt Cyrus and his Grandfather Astyages The women of Sparta would go unto the field to sée in what place their Husbands and friends were wounded if it were before they would with gladness and joy shew the same unto every man and bury the body solemnly if their wounds were behind they would be so ashamed of the same that they would leave them unburied in the field The women of Scythia called Amazons lived as conquerours over men and not conquered by men untill Alexander the Great destroyed them and their Countrey which before were so valiant that they weighed not to encounter with Hercules in the field and after with Theseus in open battel they blushed not to meet the valiant Greeks at the destruction of Troy Magnanimity which was then for the defence of countreys is now turned into Tyranny to destroy countreys so that the toyl and travel the great dangers and high attempts that men took in hand was nothing but a pilgrimage of life some going some comming some born some dying some winning some losing some beginning their race and some ending their life much like a Comedy played on stages where every man acteth his appointed part shifting himself into sundry shapes and fashions To make an end of this subject whatsoever we do we do like pilgrims whersoever
we go we go a pilgrimage and thus we live and thus we die CHAP. V. Of Martial Triumphs and the solemnity of Kings and Princes AFter that Mars had moved first Ninus King of the Assyrians unto wars who was the first after the floud that invaded the confines of Asia the world at that time for the simplicity of the people and temperance of life and specially for that it was not populous was called the golden world for the space of two hundred years and a half after Noah untill Ninus first framed wars whence in short time after proceeded sundry wars in several countries Insomuch that to animate the souldiers and to stir their Captains with greater courage to defend their countries they invented glorious triumphs whereby the deserved fame of the Conquerours might be renowned And as the victory of it self was either more or lesse so were the triumphs appointed to be correspondent unto the same The Lacedemonians a people most studious of war had appointed several triumphs according unto the state of the victory for if through deceit or craft they had gotten a victory they would kill a Bull to do sacrifice unto their Gods If again through strength and courage they had purchased a victory then in triumph thereof they would kill a Cock The Athenians at any victory would crown the Conqueror with a Garland made of Oken leaves in triumph of his successe properly appointed for him that defended the estate of Cities or the persons of Citizens Thus Pericles and Demosthenes used often to triumph in wearing the crown called Civica Corona the Civick Garland This order also was observed among the Gréeks that the victors might onely make a triumphant shew of their victory not to move any enmity or to maintain discord against the enemy as sometime the Thebans did who were of all Gréece with one consent accused for that they made a perpetual monument of the victory against the Lacedemonians to stand in brasse rather to stir enmity and discord amongst their successours and posterity then justly to triumph in their present fortune The Princes of Carthage used such triumphs as at the yéelding of the Empire of Carthage by Hasdrubal unto his brother Hamilcar who was Hannibals father and oftentimes triumphed against the Romans It is read in Justine that at the beginning the triumphs were not gorgeously nor sumptuously appointed as they were in processe of time for the Romans who far excelled all countries had no such triumph when Romulus had vanquished Acron King of the Senenses He did wear nothing else but Bay-leaves in triumph thereof for first the branches and bows of trées were cut down in triumph Secondly divers fresh flowers were gathered Then they invented Garlands made of Time intermingled with silver and with gold At length divers kinds of Garlands were so used in Gréece that at their banquets and their drinkings they had their Garlands on their heads for as the world grew in wealth so it grew in sumptuousnesse for the triumph of Romulus was far inferiour to the gorgeous triumphs of Camillus and yet Romulus was a King and Camillus was but an Officer Time bringeth things unto perfection In time Rome waxed so wealthy that Camillus I say was carried in a Chariot all gilded and wrought over with gold having all white horses gallantly furnished a Crown of pure Gold on his head all the Senatours and Consuls of Rome going on foot before him unto the Capitol of the City and thence unto the Temple of Jupiter where to honour the triumph further they slue a white Bull as a sacrifice unto Jupiter and thence he was brought triumphantly unto the City of Rome unto his owâ— house Even so in Gréece and Carthage in time they grew into such pomp and sumptuous triumphs that there was as much study to invent brave shews and solemn sights in triumphs as there was care and diligence to have removed the enemies when Epaminondas ruled stately Thebes when Hannibal governed proud Carthage when Leonidas bare sway in war like Sparta then Gréece and Lydia were acquainted with solemn and brave triumphs In Ninus time the triumphs were in Assyria In Arbaces time the triumphs flourished amongst the Medes In Cyrus time the triumphs were in Persia In Alexanders time they were in Macedonia In Caesars time they were in Rome and thus alwaies from the beginning of the world triumphs followed victories And here I mean a little to intreat of the triumphs of the Romans which far divers ways surmounted the rest whose Fame was spread over all the world and yet imitating in all things the Gréeks insomuch that Rome alwaies had Athens as a Nurse or a patern to frame their laws by for although the Kings were banished as well in Athens as in Rome yet they ruled and triumphed more by Orateurs in Athens and by Consuls in Rome then by Kings Therefore as Plini saith they exercised such feats of arms they contrived such policies they used such solemnities in triumphs that Rome then was noted to be the lamp and lanthorn of Mars They had I say divers Garlands made onely for the triumphs of wars Plini counteth seven sorts of Garlands which the Romans had the first made of pure gold appointed onely for the triumphs of Princes The second of Laurell which of all was most ancient in Gréece and in Italy appointed for the triumphs of souldiers The third of all kind of swéet flowers appointed to him that restored Cities to their liberties again The fourth made of Oken leaves to him that defended Citizens from death these two Garlands were of great honour in Rome but especially in Gréece the one Cicero waâ—e in Rome for his invectives against the conspiracies of the wicked Cacelin the other Fabius Maximus did wear for that he saved Rome from the second wars of Carthage where Hannibal was Captain The fift Garland was appointed for him that assaulted the walls of the enemies first and entred the town The sixth for him that attempted the tents of the enemies The seventh bestowed upon him that boarded first the Navie of the enemy These three last Garlands mentioned for the scaling of walls the boarding ships and attempting the tents were made all of gold and given by the Princes or Senatours to the aforesaid Souldiers There was likewise in Rome a decrée concerning the triumphs that none might triumph unless he had béen before some Officer in Rome as Dictator Pretor Consul or such like and if any unless by the Senate had won any victories though their conquest were never so great and their victorie never so famous as Pub. Scipio for all his victories in Spain and Marcus Marcellus for all that he took the great City of Syracuse they might in no wise by Law make any claim of Triumphs because they were not appointed by the Senator Then Rome flourished and was defended from divers injuries and saved from enemies At what time M. Curius triumphed over the Samnites Mae Agrippa over the
he began to be moved with pity and mercy possest the chief place in his heart so that when the women of the City brought their children in their arms to crave mercy at Merellus hand he avoided the calamity and misery that was ready to fall on Centobrica and spared the City and removed his Camp being conquered himself with pity and mercy of the ruthfull women and innocent children Thus gentle Metellus where he might have béen a Conqueror over men did suffer himself to be conquered by little Infants O Rome happy were those golden days wherein through clemency and gentleness thou wast as much loved and honoured as thou hast béen by valiant Captains trembled at and feared Pompieius the great when Tigâ—anes King of Armenia being by him conquered had knéeled before Pompeius face yéelding his Crown and Scepter at Pompeius his foot and himself unto his gentleness as a captive took him in his arms embraced him put his Crown on his head and restored him to to the Kingdome of Armenia again The like courtesie he used toward Mithridates King of Pontus being dead in giving him a royal burial though he knew well the great hatred that Mithridates had fourty years against the Romans yet in stead of just revengement Pompey used Princely clemency The gentleness that was then used in Rome yet betwixt foes was such that Julius Caesar that valiant Emperor and Conqueror was as willing to revenge the death of his great enemy Pompey upon Photina and Bassus who slew Pompey and did send his head to Caesar as L. Parâ—lus was courteous and favourable to his most mortal foe Perseus Hannibal though he was counted the most and greatest enemy that ever Rome felt yet moved with Princely clemencie he won more commendations for the burial of P. Aemilius Gracchus and Marcellus three noble Romans then he wan fame by overcomming two thousand Romans in field The chief fame that Hannibal was worthy of was for his humanity and gentlenesse as is proved by these two noble Romans before mentioned whose dead carcasses Hannibal caused diligently to be sought for in the field and solemnly to be buried with honour and renown though they were his enemies And as Hannibal was much commended in Rome and well beloved of the Romans for his humanity so was he feâ—red much in Rome for his prowesse and valiant déeds of arms Polycrates that Tyrant of Samos was chiefly commended for his gentlenesse and courtesie shewed towards women which were the wives and mothers of the dead souldiers in restoring them unto liberty in giving them wealth to live and a great charge that no man should do them any wrong Augustus the Emperor when he beheld in the City of Alexandria the sword wherewith Marcus Antonius slew himself could not refrain from tears to shew his humanity and opening his clemency of nature to his enemy he commanded that he should be honourably buried with his dear friend Cleopatra in one grave Cicero in his first book of Tusculans commendeth much the clemency of Cleobes and Bâ—ton in shewing such love and obedience to their mother who being in her Chariot ready to go to the solemn feast of the Goddesse Juno the horses suddenly died and there being no other remedy least their mother should go on foot they yoked themselves to draw the Chariot ten miles to their immortal praise and commendations I remember a history in Patritius of one Simonides who for that he was moved with pity to bury a dead corps left in the way where no man put it into the earth as he was passing with his fellows over the seas that night before they should sail in the morning appeared unto Simonides the self-same man whom he had buried upon the way warning him that day not to go to sea so when he should take shipping he remembring his dream told if unto his fellows desiring them to stay that day but his company laughing him to scorn leaving Simonides on the shore sailed to the seas where in sight of Simonides the ship and all his fellows were lost The like pity was found in Simon the son of that most valiant Gréek Militiades who being elected Generall over the Athenians against the great might and force of puissant Zerxes in the wars of Marathon was nothing inferiour unto his renowned father in prowesse but far passed him in clemency and curtesie this young man for his lenity and pity being joined with valiantnesse was appointed by the City of Athens to incounter with Xerxes whom his father Militiades often plagued at the first time of trying his magnanimity inforced Xerxes after spoil of his souldiers and victory of field to fly unto Persia he was so pittifull that he paied a great sum of monies to have his father Militiades buried who after many conquests and fawning of fortune in victories died in prison whose death and burial shewed no lesse love and faithfulnesse in Simon towards his father then it shewed evidently the pity and mercy he had in redéeming his fathers corps to be buried Wherefore that pitifull Emperour Alexander Severus being demanded what is that which is chief felicity in this world said to foster friends with benefits and gentlenesse and to reconcile foes with pity and rewards Alphonsus at what time a certain dog barked at him took a toast out of his cup and cast it to the dog then saying gentlenesse and clemency shall make foes friends I know not what greater humanity could be then was in Vespasian the Emperour after that Vitellius had killed his brother Sabinus and had long persecuted Vespasians son being at last subdued he spared not to shew gentlenesse to Vitellius his daughter and gave her a great sum of money towards her marriage Agesilaus King of the Lacedemonians after he had the victory of Corinth did not so joy in his conquest as he lamented the deaths of so many Athenians and Corinthians and as Plutarch doth witnesse he said wéeping O Greece thou spillest more men with civil wars by discord then would defend thy state against all the world with courage To use victory genty is more famous then to conquer cruelly As the Emperour Adrian was wont to say that Princes ought rather with pity to say this I can do then with tyranny to say this I will do Augustus that most pittifull Prince after he had conquered that famous City Alexandria which the great Conquerour Alexander had builded and named it according unto his own name being moved with pity stirred with mercy in sight of the Citizens who hoped to have nothing but death said for the beauty of your city and memory of Alexander as also for the love I have unto Prius your Philosopher and for the pity I bear unto you all I spare unto you your City and grant you your life O swéet sounding words from a pittifull Prince not much unlike his predecessour Julius Caesar his own mothers brother who after vanquishing of Pompey at Pharsalia sent letters unto
Rome of such love professed of such friendship promised that though Pompey was the onely joy of Rome the long delight of Romans and the defender and maintainer of their name and fame yet being convicted they received Caesar as another Pompey for that he used humanity and shewed gentlenesse even to his enemies For noble hearts ought to contemn cruelty Princes minds ought to abhor tyranny A simple Sparrow which to avoid the griping paws of a hungry Sparhawk that would have preyed upon him fled unto Artaxerxes bosome being in the Camp whâ—â— after long panting as well for fear as for wearinesse in Artaxerxes bosome Artaxerxes said It is as little mastery unto a Prince or commendation to a valiant Captain to destroy that which of it self doth yéeld as it is a fame unto Artaxerxes to kill this poor sparrow that fled for succour Saying again beholding the sparrow As I will not betray thee thou little sparrow for that thou hast fled for help unto Artaxerxes so will I never deceive any man that will have confidence in me If this pity of Artaxerxes was shewed unto a Sparrow how much more ought Princes to shew the same unto men Antigonus though he was a great enemy to Pyrrhus as Princes be during the time of war Pyrrhus being slain by a silly woman in Argos and his head brought by Alcioneus unto his father King Antigonus thinking to please his father much with bringing K. Pyrrhus head who long had molested Antigonus alive yet the King perceiving the cruel tyranny of his son delighting in dead mens heads took the staff whereon his son Alcioneus carried the head and instead of thanks which he looked for at his fathers hands he was well and worthily rewarded with stripes he took Pyrrhus head and very honourably covered it and after long looking thereon he commanded his son Helenus to carry it to the Kingdome of Epire where Pyrrhus in his life time was King and there to bury it according unto the custome of the Epirots by King Alexander his own brother The like history is written in Herodotus of King Darius who yéelded thanks unto those that brought Histeus head as Antigonus did to his son Alcioneus saying I do as little joy to see Histeus head being dead as I do lament much such tyranny and cruelnesse to be in you who never did see King Darius so cruel to any man alive as you are cruel to Histeus being dead As Darius was gentle of himself so he greatly estéemed those that were gentle insomuch that being at the point of death even at that time when he was so weak that he knew not Polistratus that gave a litle water to refresh his heart he said Whosever thou be I know thée not and for that I am not able to thank thée Alexander shall and will requite thy gentlenesse and the Gods shall thank Alexander for his clemency and humanity towards my mother my wife and children And with that he stretched forth his hand and said Have me recommended to Alexander and give him this my right hand and tell him that Bessus killed Darius whom thou didst sée dying Which when it was told by Polistratus to Alexander he much lamented his death and caused his body to be brought to his mother named Sisigambis Thus worketh clemency and humanity that these two famous Princes Alexander and Darius two mortal enemies yet not forgetting each others courtesie at deaths dore were in love each with the other for their humanity one to another Darius at his death repeating Alexanders gentlenesse towards him and Alexander requited Darius gentleness being dead The greatest fame or commendation that may happen to any man is to be counted gentle and courteous therein are divers vertues knit and joyned in friendship as pity mercy wisedome and affability with others so that the property of those men is always though they can hurt yet never to offend As it is the property of an evil man to revenge so it is the nature of the good and gentle to forgive Pilistratus shewed both wisdome and rourtesie to certain drunkards who having in their drink used wanton speech to his wife and being sober the next morning came to Pisistratus to ask him forgivenesse for their lewd talk to his wife he gently said Learn to be more sober another time I know my wife was not out of her house yesterday Excusing his wife wisely and pardoning them gently How gently did Alexander Severus use Camillus though he rebelled against him and by sleight thought to be Emperor of Rome and for that being condemned to die by the Senate yet he was pardoned by Alexander How curteous was Fabius Maximus to forgive Marsius one of his chief Captains the treasons and snares that he used against his Master Fabius with the enemies Such gentlenesse did Xerxes the great shew unto the Gréeks who were as Spies to view the power and host of King Xerxes sent from Athens and being taken and brought before the King he not onely gently dismissed them but shewed them curteously all his host and force of souldiers The greatest victory is alwaies gotten by gentlenesse as Alphonsus King of Aragon by gentlenesse won Careta Marcellus won Syracusa Metellus Celtiberia as you have heard before mentioned Plutarch reciteth a passing history of great curtesie and humanity of King Belenus towards his son Antigonus who being married to a fair woman fell in love with his fathers wife for his mother was dead and his father married the daughter of Demetrius king of Macedonia named Estrabonica a young woman of excellent beauty for this therefore the Kings son languished in love that he was like to die unknown to his father which when his father knew he caused his own wife to be married to his son Antigonus a rare clemency and great gentlenesse for a man to give his wife to please his friend Pity accompanieth this excellent vertue clemency as we read in holy Scriptures that divers good men ceased not to bewail and wéep over the state of their enemies I néed not here to recite Peticles the Athenian who willed that the dead souldiers of his enemies should be buried in the wars of Peloponesus nor of Hannibals curtesie in the wars of Carthage for the burial of Roman enemies But Moses that man of God brought with him from Egypt the bones of Joseph Tobias and Machabeus mercifull men commanded likewise a solemn buriall for the dead souldiers And Jehu king of Israel caused his enemie Jezabel to be honourably buried But as white is better discerned by the black then by any colour else so shall humanity and gentlenesse appear most excellent in reading the title of tyranny where by conferring both together the excellency of the one is manifest the terrour of the other is odious The gentlenesse and pity that our Saviour Iesus Christ shewed unto Mary Magdalen the lewd woman unto the prodigal child unto Peter that denied him unto the Thief that was hanged with him
answered nippingly the party saying so many things have so long béen hid in my heart that being putrified there they stink I would all men had such a breath that by long kéeping of silence it might taste therof Cato the wise Roman perceived the vertue of silence to be such that one of the thrée things as he himself would say that he most repented him off was to tel his counsell unto another Plini doth commend of all men one man named Anaxarchus of all women he praysed one woman named Laeena whom the tyrannt Nycocreon with all the torments and punishments that he could possibly devise could not enforce to speak that out which they thought should be kept in but Anaxarchus chose rather to dye by torments then to break concealed words spitting in the tyrant Nicocreons face and saying spare not Anaxarchus carkasse thou troublest no part of my minde Epicharis amongst other conspiratours against that cruel Nero being diversly tormented to open the treason against Nero's person would by no means break counsel no more Laeena for all that tyrany used towards her would betray the secrets of Harmodius and Aristogiton which only was the cause that she had her picture erected in Greece In like manner Pompey the great being sent as an Embassador from the Senators and being charged by the King named Gentius who prevented Pompey in his Message to declare the secrets of the Senators and councel of Rome he stretching forth his arm held his finger in the flame of the candle saying When I draw my finger from the candle I will break the counsel of the Senators and so stedfastly he held his hand and so long that King Gentius wondred no less at his patience then he honoured him for his silence O rare silence O passing patience and that in so great a Commander Isocrates an excellent Orator sometime of Athens lest he should be ashamed of his schollers by their spéech and talk for tongues bewray the heart would never receive unto his school but those onely who would pay double hire first to learn silence and then to learn to speak to speak nothing but that which they knew to be most certain and that which of necessity must be spoken This was the order of Isocrates school Yea silence was of such dignity of such estimation that it possest place in Princes hearts that Tiberius Caesar Emperor of Rome would often say Princes ought not to impart their secrets nor to make any privy to their counsel considering how hard is silence to be observed Silence was of such credit and of such force that Metellus who used to be close in the wars of Macedonia would say that if he knew his own coat to be privy to his secrets he would straight cast off his coat and burn it For in him to whom secrets of life are revealed in the same also is danger of death for in the committing of secrets is life and death also committed Had not that famous Hercules the imp of great Jupiter and off-spring of the gods revealed his counsell and opened his heart unto his wife Deianira Had not that mighty Sampson so great in Gods favour that he was a Iudge in Israel shewed his secrets unto his wife Dalila they had not been conquered by two women whom Serpents Dragons Lyons yea all the whole world could not annoy The just punishment of Princes for frivolous talking Conquerours of the world of Kingdomes of countries and yet conquered by a woman yea by a lesser thing then a woman a little member never séen but alas too often heard the tongue onely Tantalus is punished in hel for that he opened the counsel of the Gods after this sort Dainty meats and pleasant wines before his face and yet may he not touch them he hath sight of all things and yet tasteth nothing the hunarier he is the better and braver his banquet shines before him the more desirous he ie to eat the further he is from his victuals Ixion for his telling tales of Juno is no lesse tormented in turnling of his whéel in Hell than is Sisiphus in rowling of his stone or Danaes daughters in filling of their empty tubs The pain of Prometheris in Caucasus the punishment of Titius is duely appointed and of the Gods say the Poets provided truly to those that be braggers and boasters of secrets I must not in this place forget a worthy history of King Demetrius Antigonus son who being sent by his father to Pontus where Mithridates was King being sworn by his father to keep counsel of a vision that he sowed gold in Pontus and that Mithridates should reap it was therefore commanded with his army to passe unto the Kingdom of Pontus and without any word to kill Mithridates His son Demetrius very sorry for the great friendship which was of late sprung betwixt Mithridates and him obeying his father went unto Pontus and commanded his people to stay untill he went to know where Mithridates was who when he came in place he wrote with the end of his spear upon the earth in the dust Flee Mithridates and streight turning to his souldiers he spake nothing to him according to his oath for kéeping silence but wrote a warning to flee wherby he kept his fathers counsel one way and maintained faithfull friendship with King Mithridates another way A young man of Helespont prating much in presence of Guathena a strumpet in Gréece she demanded of him whether he knew the chief city of Helespont to the which the young man said Yea forsooth What said she me thinketh you know not the name of it for it is Sigaeum the City of silence a just reproach for such vain praters Aelianus doth write when the Cranes from Sicilia take their flight to flee over mount Caucasus they stop their mouths with stones to passe with silence the dangers of the Eagles CHAP. XVIII Of Age and the praise thereof BY on that wise man would say often that age was the Haven of rest for that it was the end of misery the gate of life and the performance of all pilgrimages And since age is wished of all men what folly is it to hit any man in the téeth with that which he chiefly desireth Wherefore when king Archelaus had appointed a great feast for his friends amongst other discoveries then at the table Euripides declared the great love which he bare unto Agathon an old tragicall Poet. Agesilaus demanding why should an old man be so well esteemed of Euripides he said Though the spring time be pleasant yet the harvest is fertile though flowers and hearbs grow green in the spring yet wax they ripe in harvest The age of man are compared unto the four seasons of the year his growing time unto the spring his lusty time unto the Summer his wit time unto the Harvest and his old time unto the Winter which doth make an end of all things Frederick Emperour of Rome after he had appointed an old
divers places else which is the nature of the ground About Babylon a field burneth day and night In Aethiopia certain fields about mount Hesperius shine all night like stars As for Earthquakes and wonders that thereby happened I will not speak but those strange grounds that never alter from such effects before mentioned beside the mettals the stones the herbs the trées and all other things are miraculous and strange as Pliny in divers places doth witnesse And as for fire it is too great a wonder that the whole world is not burned thereby sith the Sun the Stars the Elementary fire excell all miracles if God had not prevented in kéeping the same from damage and hurt to man yea appointed that the heat of the Sun should not kindle straws stubbles trées and such like where the heat thereof as we daily sée burneth stones lead and harder substances sith especially that fire is in all places and is able to kindle all things insomuch that the water Thrasimenos burneth out in flames which is unnatural and strange that fire kindles in water and likewise in Egnatia a City of Salentine there is a stone which if any wood touch it wilâ— kindle fire In the Well called Nympheus there is a stone likewise whence come flames of fire the stone it self burneth in the water A greater wonder it is that the fire should be kindled by water and extinguished by wind Fire flashed about the head of Servius Tullius being then a boy in sleep which did prognosticate that he should be King of the Romans Fire shined about the head of L. Marcius in Spain when he encouraged his souldiers to revenge manfully the deaths of those noble and famous Romans named Sipians The marvellous effects of fire are most wonderful and most strange CHAP. XXI Of the World and of the soul of Man with divers and sundry opinions of the Philosophers about the fame AMongst divers Philosophers and learned men grew a great controversie of the beginning of the world some of the best affirming that it had no beginning nor can have end as Aristotle and Plato applying incorruption and perpetual revolution to the same Some with Epicurus thought the world should be consumed Of this opinion was Empedocles and Herachius Some on the other side did judge with Pythagoras that so much of the world should be destroyed as was of his own nature Thales said there was but one world agréeing with Empedocles Democritus affirmeth infinite worlds and Metrodorus the Philosopher conceived worlds to be innumerable Thus hold they several opinions concerning the making the beginning the ending and the numbers of the world What child is there of this age but smileth at their folly reasoning largely one against another in applying the cause and the effect of things to their own inventions And as they have judged diversly of the world concerning the frame and nature thereof so were they as far off from the true understanding of the Creation of man Some grosly thought that mankind had no beginning Some judged that it had a beginning by the superiour bodies And for the antiquity of mankind some judge Egypt to be the first people some Scythia some Thrace some this countrey and some that countrey with such phantastical inventions as may well appear to the most ignorant an error And alas how simple are they in finding out the substance of the soul what it should be where it should be and by what it should be Some say that there is no soul but a natural moving as Crates the Theban Some judge the soul to be nothing else but fire or heat betwéen the undivisible parts others thought it an air received into the mouth tempered in the heart boiled in the lights and dispersed through the body Of this opinion was Anaxagoras and also Anaximenes Hippias judged the soul of man to be water Thales and Heliodorus affirmed it to be earth Empedocles is of opinion that it is hot bloud about the heart so that they vary in sundry opinions attributing the cause thereof either to the fire or else to water either to the earth or to the air and some unto the complexion of the four elements others of the earth and fire others of water and fire some again reason that the substance of the soul is of fire and of the air And thus of approved Philosophers they show themselves simple innocents How ignorant were they in defining the soul of man So far disagréeing one with another that Zenocrates thinketh again the soul to be but a number that moves it self which all the Egyptians consented to Aristotle himself the Prince of all Philosophers and his master Plato shewed in this their shifting reason which both agree that the soul is a substance which moveth it self Some so rude and so far from perfection in this point that they thought the heart to be the soul some the brain How ridiculous and foolish séemeth their assertion to this age concerning the soul and as childishly they dispute and reason again about the placing of the same where and in what place of the body the soul resteth For Democritus judgeth his seat to be in the head Parmenides in the breast Herophilus in the ventricles of the brain Strato doth think that the soul was in the space between the eye brow yea some were so foolish to judge it to be in the ear as Xerxes King of Persia did Epicurus in all the breast Diogenes supposed it to be in a hollow vein of the heart Empedocles in the bloud Plato Aristotle and others that were the best and truest Philosophers judged the soul to be indifferent in all parts of the body some of the wisest supposed that every peece and pâ—rceâ— of the body had his proper soul In this therefore they were much deceived in séeking a proper seat for the soul Even as before they erred shamefully and liâ—d manifestly about the essence and substance of the soul so now were they most simply beguiled in placing the soul as you have heard And now after I have opened their several opinions concerning what the soul is and where the soul is you shall here likewise hear whither the soul shall go after death according to the Philosophers which as diversly vary and disagrée in this as you before heard the diversity of opinions concerning the substance and the place And first to begin with Democritus who judgeth the soul to be mortal and that it shall perish with the body to this agrée Epicurus and Pliny Pythagoras judged that the soul is immortal and when the body dieth it sâ—éeth to his kind Aristotle is of opinion that some parts of the soul which have corporal seats must dye with the body but that the understanding of the soul which is no instrument of the body is perpetual Tho people called Drinda were of this judgement that souls should not descend to hell but should pass to another world as the Philosophers called Essei which suppose
Cibeles in Phrigia Venus in Ciprus Ceres in Sicilia Again Pan was in reverence amongst the Arcadians Osiris amongst the Egyptians Bacchus in the Isle of Naxus Vulcan in Lemnos In fine blocks and stones dogs and cats oxen and calves were honoured and worshipped as Gods Thus they wandred in this vale of misery like pilgrims far from the countrey that we ought to travel to where that true and living God is the God of salvation and health which is without end to be worshipped He is the God of all men and yet of the fewest worshipped he is the Saviour and yet he is neglected yea and more rejected of us that be Christians then the blocks and stones that were honored of the Gentiles And for proof hereof I mean to shew the severe laws that were both in Athens and Rome the two lights of the world for observing of their Gods and Religion Neither the Philosophers in Athens nor the Senators in Rome nor the Magistrates and Princes of the world then would in any wise permit injuries towards the Gods or suffer any evil report toward their religion in such care were they lest they should offend their Gods and break their laws Certain husbandmen found in the lands of L. Petilius by plowing therein two stones whereupon an Epitaph of Numa Pompilius was written in one in the other were found fourteen books seven latin books entituled Jus pontificum the law of the Priests concerning religion and sacrifices of their Gods these books with great diligence and care were not onely commanded to be kept but also in all points to be observed The other were Greek books entituled Disciplina sapientâ—ae the rule of wisedome which for that they tasted of Philosophy condemned the vain superstitious religions of their Gods Petilius fearing lest by reading of wisedome and Philosophy their folly and religion should be destroyed being then Proe or in Rome at which time Cornelius and Bebâ—us were Consuls by authority of the Senate in open sight of all the City of Rome burned the Greek books For the old and ancient men would have nothing kept within their city that might hinder their Gods For before all things they preferred their Gods and their religions and so honoured their Priests their sacrifices and their vestal Virgins more then they honoured the Emperours and Senators as it appeareth by a History in Valerius that when Rome was taken and conquered by the Gauls and the vestal Virgins were enforced to bear those things away shifting more for the sacrifices and rites of their religion in carrying their books their garments and their Gods then they cared for their countrey friends children and goods Insomuch that L. Alvanius when he saw the vestal Virgins taking pains to maintein the honour of Vesta undefiled her sacrifices unpolluted in saving the ceremonies and religion of their Goddesse from the enemies as one that had more regard and respect to their vain religion then carefull of his wife and children which then being in a Chariot to be carried and conveyed from Rome he commanded his wife and children to come down from the Chariot and to go a foot and placed in their room the vestal Virgins with all their burthens belonging to Vesta their sacrifices and other necessaries and brought them honourably to the countrey of Créet where with great honour they were received and for memory hereof till this time the people of Creet for that they did succour the vestal Virgins in adversity were by the Goddesse Vesta recompensed no lesse for their humanity in receiving of her maids into their town then she gratified Alvanius for his reverence to her religion insomuch that the coach where her Virgins and her sacrifices were carried was afterward more honoured and esteemed than any triumphant or imperial chariot In the self same time and troubles of Rome when the Capitol was besieged with the enemies Caius Fabius perceiving how religion was then estéemed girded himself like a sacrificer and carryed in his hand an host to be offered to Jupiter and was suffered to passe through the middest of his enemies to mount Quirinal where solemnities and sacrifices were done to Jupiter and that being accomplished he likewise went to the Capitol through the middest of the Army with all his company and by this means got the victory over his enemtas more by religion then by strength So much was superstition and idolatry honoured and observed every where that the Persians sailed with a thousand ships to do sacrifice and solemnity to Apollo at Delphos The Athenians slew and destroyed all those that envied or repugned their religion Diagoras was exiled for that he wrote that he doubted whether any Gods were or no and if Gods were what they were Socrates was condemned for that he went about to traduce their religion and speak against their Gods Phidias that noble and cunning workman was no longer suffered at Athens then while he wrought the picture of Minerva in Marble for it was more durable then Ivory which when Phâ—dias thought to draw in Ivory he was threatned with death to vilipend so great a Goddesse and to make her in Ivory which was wont to be honoured in Marble The Romans made a law at the destruction of Canna for that great slaughter of the Romans which at that war happened that the matrons of Rome who bewailed and lamented the deaths of their husbands their childrenâ— their brethren and friends incessantly should not pâ—â—se thirty days in mourning lest the Gods should be angry ascriving all fortunes good and bad to their Gods Wherefore it was decreed by the Senatours that the Mothers and Wives the sisters and the daughters of them that were slain at Canna at the thirty days end should cast away their mourning apparel and banish their tears and come altogether in white garments to do sacrifice to the Goddesse Ceres For it was thought and truly believed among the Gentiles and heathens that the Gods would justly revenge those that would at any time neglect their sacrifices Brennus for that he went to Delphos and spoiled Apollo's temple and neglected his Godhead was plagued grievously and worthily revenged So King Xerxes whose Navies covered the whole Seas whose Armies of men dried up rivers and shadowed almost the whole earth because he sent four thousand souldiers to Delphos to rob Apollo was therfore discomfited in his wars forsaken of his souldiers prosecuted of his enemies and compelled to flee like a vagabond from hill to hill till he came to his Kingdome of Persia to his great infamy and shame The like was in Carthage when the City was oppressed by the Romanes Apollo's temple neglected and he himself not esteemed he revenged the same for the first that laid hand upon him lost his hand and his arm Thus in Delphos and in Carthage did Apollo revenge his injuries His son Aesculapius a great God in divers countreys for that Turulius chief ruler of the Navies of Antonius hewed the Groves which were
Whereby straight he was informed that he was not onely delivered from all dangers but also should be sought for by all Greece to the encrease of his fame and augmentation of his honour Brutus clean contrary after much good successe and prosperous fortune after he murthered Caesar at length he was in his sleep by a vision warned to make himself ready to die at Philippi where he was enforced in the wars between Augustus Caesar and him to kill himself Thus were they allured and entised to uncertain dreams to order and rule all their doings For as the Poet Ennius saith what they studied and pondered in the day time the same dreamed they in the night time Dreams moved the Heathen to tyranny for L. Sylla the Firebrand of Italy was warned in his sleep by Bellona the Goddesse of wars to murther kill and destroy all that ever he might find in his way giving him in his hand fire in token he should overcome Rome and Italy Likewise Eumenes King of the Lacedemonians having wars with Antipater King of Macedonia was fully perswaded by a dream to obtain victory for he dreamed that two Alexanders were with great hosts and armies of men ready in the field to fight the one having the Goddesse Minerva as a leader the other having the Goddesse Ceres as their Captain and after long conflicts and much slaughter on both parties he thought that the souldiers of Ceres had the victory and that they were crowned with ears of corn in the honour of Ceres which is the Goddess of corn And because the country of Lacedemonia was more fertil then Macedonia the wise Sages declared the dream said that Eumenes should have the victory over Macedonia Besides these dreams they had a kind of credit in fowls of the ayr in beasts of the field in wind and weather and in divers other things where Soothsaying Oracles and consultations were had When Xerxes the great King of Persia with so many Myriades of men had purposed and decreed with himself to destroy all Greece a Mare being a stout and a proud beast brought forth a Hare a most fearfull and timerous creature whereby the flight of Xerxes from Greece with shame and reproach was presaged And afterward before he would lay siege to Athens resolving with himself to destroy Sparta all the country of Lacedemonia a strange warning happened to this Prince at supper for his Wine before his face was converted into Bloud as it was filled in the cups not once but twice or thrice whereat he being amazed consulted with Wise men of whom he was then admonished to forsake his first intent and to give over the enterprize which he took in hand against the Greeks Midas being yet in his cradle the Ants were séen to carry grains and victuals to féed him withal whose parents being desirous to know the effect thereof were certified by the Soothsayers that he should be the wealthiest and richest man in the world and the most monied Prince that over should reign in India Plato that noble and divine philosopher while he was an infant in like sort in his cradle the Bees with honey fed his sugred and swéet lips signifying his eloquence and learning in time to come They were not Bees of mount Himettum but rather of Helicon where the Muses and Ladies of learning delighted to dwell This was that Plato of whom his master Socrates before he knew him dreamed that he held fast in his hand a young Swan which fled from him away and mounted the skies whose sweet voice and songs as a wonderfull melody and harmony replenished the whole skies They thought it a sufficient admonition to see any thing happen between birds or beasts as a sure and certain shew of their own fortune to come M. Brutus when he was in Camp against Caesar and Antonius and saw two Eagles fighting together the one comming from Caesars Tent the other from his own he knew well when the Eagle that came from his side took flight and was vanquished that he should lose the victory Cicero understood well enough his death to be at hand when the Raven held him fast by the hem of his Gown and made a noise and ever plucked at him till the souldiers of M. Antonius came to the very place where he at that time vvas beheaded by Herennius and Popilius For in the night before Cicero dreamed that he vvas not onely banished from Rome but that he vvandred divers strange countries vvhere Caâ—us Marius a noble Roman as he thought met him demanding of Cicero vvhy and vvhat vvas the cause of his sad countenance and vvherefore he travelled such strange countreys the cause being knovvn to Marius he took him fast by the right hand and brought him to the next Officer vvhere he thought in his sléep that he should have died Thus you sée that Xerxes by a Hare had warning King Mydas was by Ants admonished Plaro by Bées Brutus by an Eagle Cicero by a Raven Themistocles by an Owl of death Pericles by the head of a Ram was fully perswaded and taught by the soothsayers that he should win the people of Athens from Thucidides with whom then he was in controversie And was not Agamemnon and his brother Menelaus with all the Princes of Gréece certified by the Dragon that climbed a trée where he slew a she Sparrow and eight young ones beside that they should be nine years in wars with the Troyans and that in the tenth they should destroy and quite vanquish Ilium Was not Julius Caesar admonished by his wife Calphurnia in a dream that if he would go to the Senate that day he should die And was not that mighty Monarch Alexander warned by a vision to take more regard to his life then he did and to take héed of Antipater who afterward poysoned him Was not Alcibiades that noble Greek certified by a dream of his miserable death by which he and his Concubine Timandra might divers times see before hand what followed after had they had but so great a desire in following of good things as they were bent and prone to seek after evil such prodigious sights such strange miracles were seen that might well allure them to a more perfect and upright life The Sun the Moon the Stars and all the host of Heaven wrought great miracles to reduce Princes from evil enterprizes and to give warning unto others to avoid the tyranny of wicked Princes For the Heavens appeared bloudâ— at that time when Philip King of Macedonia with tyranny invaded Greece At what time Augustus Caesar after his uncle Julius was murthered came to Rome as the second Emperor there were seen stars wandering about the circle of the sun great lightnings and strange impressions like men fighting in the skies yea and birds fell down dead in the City of Rome and Livi writeth that an Ox spake under the plough these words to the ploughman that not onely corn should be dear but also men should
sacrifice unto death for a pledge of their true and faithfull love What means doth love séek to save it self and to be acquainted with ease and pleasure how carefully the Greek Poet Antimachus bewailed the death of his wife Lisidides in such mourning verses and wofull plaints that whosoever did read them he would be as ready to weep in reading the dolefull Epitaph of Lisidâ—des as was Antimachus her husband sorrowfull for her death Pericles was so loving to his wife being a noble Captain of Athens and he was withal so chast that when Sophocles espied a marvellous beautifull young maid saying Behold a passing fair young maid Pericles answered and said Not onely the heart and the hands of a Magistrate must be chast but also his eys must refuse the sight of any but his wife It is read that Pericles being at Athens he was found kissing and making much of his wife and being from Athens he was found as sad to depart from his wife as he was willing to die for his countrey Orpheus loved so well his wife Euridice that as the Poets feign he feared not the power of King Pluto to redéem his wife with hazard and danger of his own body Innumerable are they that deserve the like fame so that these few may be a sufficent proof of others And now I will produce a few examples to prove the like good will and love from the wives shewed toward their husbands as hitherto you heard the great love of husbands towards their wives Alcestes a noble Qu. of Thessaly at what time K. Admetus her husband should die having received an answer by an Oracle that if any would die for the King he should live which when all refused his wife Queen Alcestes offered her self to die to save her husbands life Julia the wife oi Pompey the great and onely daughter to that famous and renowned Julius Caesar Emperour of Rome was no lesse obedient to her father Caesar then she was loving to her husband Pompey who though they both were enemies one to to another yet she shewed her self a loving daughter unto her father and a true wife to her husband and so true that when she saw her own Pompey coming bloudy from the field as his apparel made a shew a great way off she supposing that her husband was hurt being great with child did straight fall into travel and died before Pompey had yet come in The love of Artemisia Quéen of Caria towards her husband King Mausolus is as well declared by the sumptuous Tomb. and gorgeous Grave which she made for him when he died counted for the excellency thereof to be one of the seven wonders of the world it was also truly verified by ceremonies at his death in making the scull of his head her drinking cup in drinking all the ashes of his body as sugar to her wine and in knitting of his heart to her body saying Though our bodies be parted yet our hearts shall never be asunder That noble Greek Laodamia loved her husband so well that when she heard that her husband Protesilaus was slain by Hector at the siege of Troy she desired onely of God that she might see his shadow or likenesse once before she died which when she saw embracing the likenesse of her husband as she thought in her arms she then presently died We read that Quéen Ipsicratea loved her husband King Mithridates so entirely that she shaved off all the hairs of her head and did wear mans apparel and followed him like a Lackey for that he should not know her to be his wife she had rather go to the wars with her husband like a Lackey then tarry from her husband in Pontus like a Quéen Paulina when she heard that her husband Seneca was put to death by that cruel Emperour and Tyrant Nero whom Seneca sometime taught in his youth but was at length requited with death when I say Paulina heard thereof she enquired what kind of death her husband suffered which being known she attempted to die the same kind of death her self as Seneca her husband Likewise that noble Portia daughter to Cato and wife to Brutus hearing that her husband was slain at Phillipi for that she could not procure a knife she choaked her self with coals The like History is read of Triata who when she knew by letters that her husband Vitellius was environed by his enemies and no way able to escape his wife rushed into the Camp and preast near her husband ready to die or to live in the field with him What can be so hard to take in hand but love will hazard it What can be so perilous but love will venter it Neither water can stay it nor fire stop it Sulpitia the wife of Lentulus the daughter of that worthy Roman Paterculus when she perceived that her husband was appointed by the Magistrates of Rome to passe unto Sicilia as an Embassador and there to continue for a season though her mother had great charge over her and very carefull and studious she was to comfort her daughter in the absence of her husband yet she deceived her mother she changed her apparel and caused her two maids likewise to be disguised and went all by night from Rome to Sicily Aemilia the wife of Affricanus and mother to the noble Cornelia who was mother to those famous Romans called Gracchi perceiving her husband to be in love with one of her maids in the house and often to use the maid as his wife though Aemilia knew well of it yet she never hated the maid nor opened it unto her husband But after that her husband was dead she gave unto this Maid a great summe of money and married her wealthily in Rome A rare thing to be found in a woman What shall I speak of the love of Penelope in Gréece towards her husband Ulysses or shew the constancy of Lucreece in Rome towards her husband Collatine the one twenty years was proved by divers noble Greeks yet she remained true unto Ulisses the other through force being ravished by proud Tarquinius son named Sextus would not be false to Collatinus but opened the same and revenged it with her own death Now again how well did Queen Tomiris love her son Margapites the death of great Cyrus King of Persia with two hundred thousand of his souldiers can testifie or how Aegeus loved his son Theseus who when he had perceived the black sail he supposing his son was slain in that Labyrinth he threw himself from a high rock into the sea Why should I molest the Reader herein since an end can hardly be found I will but onely recite one worthy History out of Valerius of a servant to one named Panopion who hearing that certain souldiers came to the City of Reatina in purpose to kill his master he changed apparel with his master and conveyed his master first away safe from the enemies and he went unto his masters bed as though he had béen
him he answered not one word but bad him Good night when he come to his own door which when the enemy saw and that he would not be moved to anger to take any advantage on him he went to the next tree and hanged himself Thus did Socrates who being blamed by his friends for his silence in that he was injuriously handled by his foe answered That his enemies could not endamage him sith he was not that man whom his words did import to be and being stricken spurned by the same man Socrates was counselled to call the same to the Law before the Iudges to the which he answered Which of you if an Asse strike him will call that Asse before any Iudges sith he is no better that useth me this for by this am I known to be Socrates and he to be an Ass The greatest revenge to a fool is to let every man know his folly and the greatest hurt to a wise man is to revenge folly for it was al the revenge of Socrates wheÌ„ any man spake il of him to say thus The man never was taught to speak well So courteous was Fabius Maximus that when he had heard that one of his chief souldiers was about to betray him to his enemies he called the party before him not making him privie that he knew of it and demanding of him what he wanted he commanded him to ask any thing he would have and made him chief Captain of his Army By this means he became most true to Fabius being before most false This was far from such revenge as Alexander the Great used who after he had subdued divers Kingdoms and Countreys he went to the Temple of Ammon to know by the Oracle of Jupiter whether yet any were alive that flew his father King Philip whereby he might shew more tyranny and practise greater murther This was far from M. Brutus rage who was not content to conspire against Caesar and to kill him in the Senate-house but also when power failed when souldiers decayed and he was almost vanquished he made his prayers to Jupiter and to the host of Heaven to plague Caesar and his posterity This I say was far from Livius Salinator who being warned of Fabius Maximus not to revenge malice upon Hasdâ—ubal before he knew the state of the matter the power of the field and the end of the victory where it should happen yet being more rash to revenge then wise in forbearing he said that either out of hand he would kill or be killed And in this place I will recite three or four Histories fit for this purpose Phobius wife fell in love with Antheus a noble Gentleman of Halicarnassus being left in pledge with Phobius chief ruler then of Milesia and used al means possible to allure Antheus to requite her love But he partly for fear and partly for love of Phobius her husband in no wise would consent to any filthy desire Cleoboea Phobius wife took the same in so evil part that she began mortally to hate him inventing what way best she might revenge his discourtesie in refusing her love She feigned on a time that she had quite forgotten her old love towards him and thanked Antheus very much for the love and great zeal that he did bear to her husband Phobius in not consenting to her folly then when she was in love with him Thus talking with him Cleoboea brought her old Lover Antheus over a Well where for that purpose onely she threw a tame Partridge desiring him to aid her to have her Partridge out of the Well the young Gentleman misdoubting her in nothing as one willing to pleasure his friend and old lover went down into the Well to have the Partridge out but she revenged her old love and requited his service after this sort she threw a great stone after him and there killed him and straight for sorrow caling to mind the old amity and hidden love betwéen them she hanged her self This revenge that noble and famous Lacedemonian used who had his own wife in such admiration and was so impatient in love that he was as much hated of her as she of him was honoured and estéemed For she loves King Acrotatus son so dear that her husband Cleonimus understanding the same went to Epire to King Pyrrhus perswading him earnestly to go unto Peloponesus and to move wars against King Acrotatus whereby he might revenge the injury done by his wife in killing him whom she loved best thinking it a greater revenge to kill him whom she loved better then her self then to revenge it upon her own person Valerius Torquatus for that he might not have Tuscus daughter in marriage moved wars immediately and revenged the same with bloud For what cause did Progne King Pandions daughter of Athens kill her own son Iâ—is and gave him to be eaten unto his father and her husband King Pereus of Thrace for nothing but to revenge her sister Phylomela whom her husband deflowred Why did Nero that cruell Emperour kill Seneca his master and teacher in all his youth for nothing but to revenge old stripes which he received at his master being a boy For what purpose did Cateline Silla Damasippus Marius and others make quarrels to plague Rome to punish all Italy to destroy the country for nothing but for that they could not abide the one to be above the other Darius after that he had taken the City of Babilon he revenged his old malice after this sort as Herodotus in his third book affirms he caused thrée thousand of the best within the City to be hanged Attilla King of Panonia slue eleven thousand virgins at the siege of Colonia So several were revenges amongst men so cruel yea so foolish that Xerxes and Cyrus two great Kings of Persia when the water of Hellespont troubled Xerxes and molested his souldiers he forthwith commanded that the sea of Hellespont should have thrée hundred stripes and willed thrée hundred pair of Fetters to be thrown into Helespont to bind the sea Even so did Cyrus because the river Gindes did drown one of his best geldings he made his souldiers to divide the river into a hundred and fourscore small parts to revenge the rage of the river toward him thinking that by breaking of the great rage of so great a stream he well and worthily requited the injuries of Ginges These are cruell revenges too many are of these insomuch that women revenge their malice after this sort So Tomyris Quéen of Scithia to revenge her son Margapites death slue King Cyrus and two hundred thousands of his souldiers too great a slaughter for one mans death and not yet satisfied till she bathed Cyrus head in a great vessel of bloud This Bâ—ronice Pollia and divers cruell women have performed Princes ought to use advisement in revenging and wisedome in sufferance For as Frederick the Emperour was wont to say Princes that revenge hastily and especially wrongfully are like fair marks for
the God of théeves and for the antiquity of theft it is thought that Prometheus Deucalions father as Poets do feign by the aid of Minerva stole first fire from Phoebus for the which fact he was punished in mount Caucasus after this sort he was bound fast and an Eagle appointed to eat up his heart and to hale his puddings along in furtherance and memory of his theft Hercules and Jason two of the most famous Princes that ever Greece fostred went unto Colchis to steal the golden Fléece Theseus and Perithous went unto the Kingdome of Pluto to steal Proserpina away There was dwelling in a rock near Athens a famous théef named Sciâ—on who was wont to throw headlong strangers that were his guests from a rock into the sea and after that he had continued a long time in spotling and murthering of men that passed by in taking their goods and lives away he was in theÌ„ same sort by Theseus put himself to death Cacus of whom Virgil makes mention the son of Vulcan was so crafty a théef that having a den in mount Aventine he used to draw any thing backward by the tail unto his cave where he spoiled it whether it were man or beast there should he be brought by flight of Cacus to he destroyed till he attempted to spoil Hercules by stealth who after long wrastling in his den with his club slew him The famous theef Sinius used such seats and thefts about Corinth that he would bind any passer by or strangers unto trees and there would hew them into small gobbets for their money and substance These three last renowned theeves are much mentioned of writers So Capiton kept himself fifty years in a den as a common robber to steal and to spoil all that came near his violence The Argives were men most noted and infamous for this fault insomuch that a proverb grew of the Argives Argivi fures that is the Argives are theeves Amongst the Persians there were certain theeves called Cardaces permitted without punishment to steal and to rob The old Germans and ancient Egyptians might somtime by law and the liberty of their country be allowed to steal Lycurgus made laws in Sparta amongst the Lacedemonians that he that did steal without reprehension or being taken with the theft should be free and he which could not artificially steal being taken should be punished insomuch that Brusonius in his second book doth speak of a young man that stole a young Fox the owner thereof following after demanded of the young man whether he saw a little for or no the young man denied it hiding the Fox under his cloak but the Fox a subtil beast willing to shew himself to his master did bite and scratch the young man so sore that his puddings gushed out of his side who thus suffered himself to die rather then he would manifest his theft Wherefore Theophrastus a noble philosopher having the examination of a subtile théef demanded whether he could blush or no to the which the théef answered that he could not for he néeded not to blush in a true matter therefore saith Theophrastus thou art the liklier to be a théef for truth alwaies appeareth in a shamefast countenance Wherefore the wise Cato the Senior was wont to say that young men that waxed red were better to be trusted then those that would wax pale for the one signifieth shamefastnesse and the other deceit For Pithias Aristotles daughter being demanded what colour was best in man or woman she answered that colour that shamefastnesse bringeth which is a blushing countenance But to speak of Pyrates Sextus Pompey the son of Pompey the great kept under him divers and sundry Pyrates about the borders of Italy and Sicily to rob and spoil upon the seas to his great infamy and reproach being the son of so famous a Roman whom Rome a long time so estéemed that Caesar hardly might be superiour to him What shall I say of King Pyrrhus and Caius Verres whom Cicero for his sundry thefts and spoil and for divers sacriledges by Verres committed compared unto the foresaid Tyrant To speak of infinite Pyrates and divers Sacriledgers it were to none effect because it is a common practise in all Countreys Therefore as Diogenes the Philosopher said when he saw a poor man led between the Magistrates to the place of execution Behold saith he a little theef betwéen a number of great theeves God grant that it may not truly be spoken of divers Magistrates in sundry places CHAP. XXXVII Of Lust THe spoil and slaughter of Lust did always far surpasse all other vices it hath suppressed Castles and Countreys it hath vanquished Kings and Cesars overthrown the pomp of Asia Affrica and Europe and almost depopulated the whole world This vice of all vices is to be abhorred and detested for there is no vice but hath its center as pride chiefly hath her seat appointed in puissant Princes and Noble men Covetousnesse resideth with old men that be Magistrates and Officers Envy with men of sciences and faculties Vsury with Citizens Symony with Bishops and Priests Hypocrisie with Religious men Deceit with Merchants but Lust is common to all men as well to the subject as to the Prince to the learned as to the ignorant to the wise as to the foolish For David and son Salomon to whom God gave singularity of wisdome dexterity of wit to govern the Israilites yet the sacred Scriptures do witness of their horrible lust David lusted for Bathsheba and that so wickedly that he appointed a way to put to death her husband Uriah Solomon lusted so much that he did forget his God that did guide his steps all the while he ruled justly and lived godly in Israel Aristotle and Socrates in despight of their Philosophy and great knowledge the one became a slave to Hermia the other a subject to Aspasia Sampson and Hercules for all their strength and conquest of Giants and monsters the one prostrated his Club at Deianiraes foot the other committed his strength to the beauty of Delilah The renowned and sugred Oratours Demosthenes and Hortensitis the one from Athens came to Corinth to compound for a nights lodging with Lais the other in Rome with nicenesse and wantonnesse was judged more subject to lust then Lord over himself If then witty and wise men if learned and discreet men if eloquent and subtil men if strong and mighty Conquerours have been ruled by lust deceived by beauty overcome with women what should I speak of Heliogabulus not well named Emperour but worthily called the beast of Rome What should I recite that Monster and Tyrant Nero What should I recite that filthy and vile Emperour Caligula the onely sink of sin and shame not Emperors but Monsters not Princes but Tyrants not men but beasts which defiled their own sisters kept open stews and brothel houses maintaining Whores and Harlots made Laws at their banquets every man to his woman first and then to his meat and
men There is nothing neither can there be any thing more ugly to behold then mans face when he is angry nor to be feared because he hath no rule over himself All the painters of Persia had much to do to draw in colours the terrible countenance and fiery face of Queen Semiramis when she heard that her City of Babylon was besieged by the enemies being then dressing of her head she came with her hairs hand flying in the wind half amazed at the news Her picture in this discontent and fury stood as long as Babylon continued as a monument and a terrible mirrour to posterity We read of the like history of Olimpias whose anger was such when she thought of her son Alexander that she straight ways like a raging Lion or a cruel Tiger digged up the body of Iolas Alexanders murtherer and tare his body in small pieces and gave it to the birds of the air Such anger was in Marcus Antonius towards Cicero that he was not contented at Ciceroes death but comanded his head to be set before him on the Table to féed therewith his wrathfull heart and gréedy eys and his wife Fulvia to shew her anger pulled out his tongue and pinned it to her hood and ware it on her head in token of her cruel and Tigrish heart The noble Roman Metellus was so inflamed against Pompey for at what time he was appointed by the Senatours of Rome to succéed Metellus in his pro-consulship in Spaine Metellus perceiving that hee was discharged he brake for very anger all the furniture of wars and dedestroied all the provision he famished the Elephants and permitted his souldiers to do what injury they could against Pompey so great was his anger that to hinder Pompey he injured his native City of Rome The property of anger is to hurt divers in séeking to offend one As he is not wise that cannot be angry so he is most wise that can moderate anger The fame and renown that both Themistocles and Aristides got in vanquishing their anger one towards the other was great for being sent both as Embassadours for the stâ—te of Athens travelling over a high hill Themistocles said unto Aristides shall we both bury our anger on this hill and go as friends and not as enemies and there though the cause was great they became friends one to the other forgetting and forgiving one anothers fault Anger and wrath are the onely poison of the world whence hidden hatred doth procéed for to nourish the one is to féed the other Therefore it is written that hidden hatred private wrath and young mens counsel hath béen the very cause of divers destructions Manlius Torquatus after he had conquered Campania and triumphed over the Latins returning into the City with noble fame though the Senatours of the City met him in triumph yet the young men of Rome more disdainfull then courteous were more willing to have his death then desirous of his life the cause is known in Valerius I will omit to speak of Caligula whose anger and hatred was such that he wished Rome had but one neck that with one stroke he might strike it off Neither will I recite Hâ—logabalus who amongst writers is named the beast and not the Emperour of Rome The histories of Catelin Silla and Appius for their anger and hatred towards their country and native City are extant in Plutarch and Salust by this anger and wrath proceeded invectives and declarations and then envy and malice began to build their bowers by their chief Carpenter anger and mischief and vengeance doth alwaies depend upon them And because anger is the onely counsel of all mischief I will speak of those two monstrous furies incident alwaies to anger I mean Envy and Malice and shall referre that to Envy and Malice which might have been spoken on this subject CHAP. XLI Of Perjury and Faith and how Princes have been honoured and punished accordingly FAith is the foundation of Iustice and Iustice is the chief means as Aristotle saith to preserve a Publick Weal We will therefore note how faithfull just some Princes have béen how wicked and false others have shewed themselves there are so many vertues in the one and vices in the other For some from foes become friends as Clodius and Cicero two great enemies a long time and yet before two faithfull friends Tiberius likewise and Affricanus from mortal foes grew to be such perpetual friends that Affricanus gave his onely daughter Cornelia in marriage to Tiberius Even so some again from friends became foes yea from tried friendship to mortal enmity as Dion of Siracusa was killed by Calicrates his most assured friend as he thought with whom alwaies before he found friendship and faith Polimnestor likewise though King Priamus reposed such great trust and confidence in him that he committed his own son Polidorus to his custody yet he falsly slew him and murthered him though beside friendship he was his near kinsman How well saith Socrates do faithfull friends far excell all Gold for in danger faith is tried and in necessity friends are known Such is the secret force of truth and love and such is the hidden subtilty of falshood as may be proved in a history of Sextus Pompeius son and heir unto Pompey the great The faith and justice of Pompey at what time he had appointed a banquet for Augustus Caesar and Marcus Antonius upon the seas was well tried for being moved by divers at that time to revenge his fathers death Pompeius the great and especially at that time being prompted to it by his friend and master of the ship whose name was Menedorus Sextus in no wise would suffer it saying that faith and justice ought not to be turned into perjury and falshood for said he as it is perjury to omit faith and promise made to these Emperours so this is tyranny and not justice to revenge my fathers death upon innocence And true it was that Augustus Caesar was then but a boy and brought up in school in Apulia when his uncle Julius Caesar vanquished Pompey And Marcus Antonius was rather a friend to Sextus father then a foe and therefore no lesse faithfull was Sextus in preserving then just in weighing innocency Far unlike was false Hannibal who under pretence of peace with the Romans sent Embassadours unto Rome to treat thereof where they were honourably received but well requited he the courtesie of Rome to his Embassadours For when that noble Roman Cornelius came from Rome as an Embassadour unto Hannibal his welcome was such that he never went alive unto Rome again for most cruelly and falsly was he slain by Hannibal In this falshood and perjury was Hannibal much defamed whose vertues were not so much corrupted by the vilenesse of his own nature as by the falshood and corruption of the Countrey which alwaies in this was not to be trusted of which it is proverbially spoked Poeni perfidi the Carthaginians are false for
In fine whatsoever Philip took in hand the same Clisophus did imitate Aristippus the Philosopher could better please King Dionysius with adulation the Dion the Syracusan could pleasure him with truth Cleo could better accomplish the desire and lust of Alexander with forged flattery then Calisthenes his counsellour could satisfie him with Philosophy Who might move Caesar to do any thing so much as Curio his Parasite Not Pompey his son in Law nor yet his onely daughter Julia nor all the Senatours of Rome Flatterers are dangerous to the most part hurtfull to all profitable to none and yet of Princes most accepted Vnder the shape of humanity they sway and rule in Court like furious Centaurs deformed Scyllaes huge Cyclops grim Gorgons fretting Furies and monstrous Harpies yea with a thousand more deformities For who is more made of then he that ought least to be esteemed who is trusted more then he that deceiveth soonest who is heard more at all times then he that ought least to come in sight at any time who hath more of all men then he that deserveth least of all men In fine who is more beloved any where then he that ought most to be hated every where The common people of the Medes and Persians for that they knéeled to Alexander and made him the son of Jupiter were more estéemed for their flattery therein then the Nobles of Macedonia for their truth and plain dealing What is it but flattery bringeth it to passe That which that famous and renowned Prince Agamemnon with all the force and power of Gréece could not with ten years siege subdue one subtil Sinon a simple and a silly Greek allured the mind of King Priam unto and deceived with flattery his Nobles and entised the Citizens through adulations to their utter destruction and last confusion That ancient and renowned City of Babilon which King Darius with all the power of Persia was never able to vanquish one Zopyrus a Citizen born in Babilon through forged faith and filed flattery I say betrayed it unto King Darius What shall I speak of the ancient Lacedemonians the most famous and worthiest people in the whole world for their wars whom neither Medes Persians Macedonians nor all Greece could vanquish Phrinicus with his flattery deceived them The people of Sambs were deceived by false Apollonius Menelaus was beguiled with the flattery of Paris Dion of Syracusa was slain by his flattering friend Galicrates O sucking serpent of malice whose fruit is death If King Antigonus had known the flattery of his feigned friend Apollophanes he had not been deceived as he was If King Astyages had throughly known Harpagus his servant he had not been slain by King Cyrus If that noble and famous Roman Crassus had weighed the flattery of Carenus he had not been so shamefully murthered among the Parthians What flattery was between Jason and Medea what deceit followed What adulation was betwixt Theseus and Ariadne what falshood ensued The one helping Jason to the Golden Fleece the other delivering Theseus out of the dreadfull Labyrinth from the monster Minotantus were deceived by flattery But passe we forward in the Pilgrimages and affairs of Princes Who murthered Caesar that worthy Emperour in the Senate house of Rome Brutus and Cassius those flatterers that Caesar loved most Who poysoned that mighty Conqueror Alexander in the midst of his triumphs at Babylon those that flattered him most his own Cup-taster lola and his kinsman Antipater Who betrayed that famous Roman Cicero to his meer enemy Marcus Antonius even he whom Cicero before defended and saved from death Popilius Finally who betrayed Christ both God and Man to the Scribes and Pharisees his purse-bearer that flattering Judas with fair spéech saying Avi Rabbi embracing and kissing him as flatterers use to do Where is there greater tyranny shewed then where flattery is most used Where is there greater deceit practised then where courtesie is most tendered Where is more falshood then where trust is most reposed The first thing that deceived man was flattery which the Devil tho serpent put in ure to deceive Eve flattering her saying If thou eat of this fruit thou shalt know good and evil and you shall be as Gods on earth As the Devil is the onely Authour of all lies so is he the onely Father of flattery attempting always the best and not the worst accompanying the highest and not the lowest frequenting the Court more then the Countrey and approaching near to Princes and not to Beggars When Christ was assaulted with the flattery of the Divel promising him all the world if he would knéel and flatter him I would to God that all Princes would speak to flatterers as Christ spake to the Devil Avoid Satan Away flatterer Or else I wish that wise men who are soonest of all by flattery allured would imitate the example of a noble man of Thebes named Itmenius who being sent Embassadour from Thebes to Persia understanding the manners fashions of the proud Persians and that nothing could be gotten without flattery nor heard without knéeling he did let fall his ring on the ground whereby he might stoop before the King not to the King but to take up his ring Or else I would wish all men to answer flatterers as Diogenes answered Aristippus who speaking to Diogenes that if Diogenes could be content to flatter Dionysius the King he needed not to lick dishes or to live poorly in Athens Diogenes made answer If Aristippus could be content to lick dishes or to live poorly in Athens he needed not to flatter Dionysius It is read in Caelius that the maid-servants of Cyprus were so giuen to flattery that they knéeled down to bow and bend their shoulders as a footstool to their Ladies to mount into their Chariots surely the men of Persia and the women of Cyprus engendred such numbers of flattering Parasites that glorious masters now never want flattering servants The schollers of Gnato frequent always Thrasonical places Have we not many now a days that will speak to their friends as Nicesias was wont to say to Alexander the great being wounded and his bloud spinning out O what noble bloud is this This bloud comes from some God and not from man The wise man saith that five things ought of all men to be mistrusted a strange dog an unknown horse a hollow bank a talkative woman and a flattering servant Fair words makes fools glad yea flattering spéeches overcommeth wise men Demetrius having obtained victory in the wars at Salamina was so joyfull of his fortune that he did send Aristodemus a very sublil and a cunning flatterer to certifie his father King Antigonus of his prosperous successe giving in charge unto him to shew the King his father orderly the triumph and victory in the largest manner Aristodemus no lesse joyfull of the message then skilfull in flattery leaving his Navy and his company in Cyprus went on land toward King Antigonus who having understood that Aristodemus was
Athens Lentulus the defendour of Italy exiled from Rome Dion of Siracusa hunted out of his country by Dionisius even that renowned Hannibal that long protector of Carthage was compelled after long service for his country to range about like a pilgrim every where to séek some safe-guard for his life Too many examples might be brought from Gréek and Latine histories for the proof hereof The chiefest bulwark of a Common-wealth saith Demosthenes is assured faith without flattery and good will tried in the Commons and plainnesse without deceit boldnesse and trust in the Nobility Flattery is the onely snare that wise men are deceived withall and this the pharisées knew well who when they would take our Saviour Christ tardy in his talk they began to flatter him with fair words saying Master we know that thou art just and true and that thou camest from God Even so Herod willing to please the Iews in killing James the brother of John and in imprisoning Peter he so pleased the people with flattery that they cried out this is the voice of God and not the voice of men so sweet was flattery amongst the Iews The flattering friends of Ammon knowing the wickednesse of his mind and his perverse dealing toward Mardocheus did not perswade Ammon from his tyranny but flattered him with fair words and made him prepare a high gallows for Mardocheus where Ammon and his children were hanged But the young man that came to flatter king David saying Saul and his children are dead was by David for his flattery commanded to die CHAP. XLIIII Of the Pilgrimages of Princes and Misery of Mortality THere is neither beast on the earth nor fowl in the ayr nor fish in the sea that séeks his own decay but man onely as by experience we sée all things to have a care of their own lives The Lion when he féeleth himself sick he never ceaseth till he féedeth upon an Ape whereby he may recover his former health The Goats of Créet féeding on high upon the mountains when any of them is shot through with an arrow as the people of that Countrey are most excellent archers they seek out an herb called Dictamum and assoon as they eat any part of it the arrow falleth down and the wound waxeth whole incontinently There are certain kinds of Frogs in Egypt about the floud of Nilus that have this perceiverance that when by chance they happen to come where a fish called Varus is which is great a murtherer and spoiler of Frogs they use to bear in their mouths overthwart a long reed which groweth about the banks of Nile and as this fish doth gape thinking to feed upon the Frog the reed is so long that by no means he can swallow the Frog and so they save their lives If the Goats of Creet if the Frogs of Egypt have this understanding to avoid their enemies how much more ought man to be circumspect of his life who hath millions of enemies neither seen nor known We read in the first book of Aelian that the rude swine if at any time by chance they eat of that herb called Hiosciamus which so contracteth draweth their veins together that they can hardly stir they will strive for remedy to go under the water where they feed upon young Crabs to recover health In the same book you may read of a sea Snail which from the water doth come to land to breed and after she hath egged she diggeth the earth and hideth her egs and returneth to the sea again and there continueth fourty days and after fourty days she commeth to the self same place where she hid her egs and perceiving that they are ready to come out of the shell she openeth the shell and taketh her young ones with her into the sea And thus have they a care not onely of their own states and lives but also of others and by some shew of sence they help that which is most dangerous and hurtfull The little Mice have this kind of fore-knowledge that when any house waxeth old and ruinous they forsake their old dwelling and creeping holes and flee and seek refuge in some other place The little Ants have such fore-sight that when penury and want of relief draweth near they wax painfull and laborious to gather victuals as may serve them during the time of famine If these small creeping worms and simple beasts provide for themselves what shall we say of man the King and ruler over all beasts who hath not onely a body to provide for but also a soul to save More happy are these worms and beasts in their kind then a number of Princes are for that they by nature onely are taught to avoid their foes we neither by nature neither by God the cause of all goodnesse can love our friends Therefore very well it is said of the wise man that either not to be born or else being born straight to die is the happiest state that can chance to man For living in this vale of misery we see the Pilgrimage and travel of life to be such that better far it were to be a poor quiet man then a proud ambitious Prince And since death is the last line of life as well appointed for Princes as for poor men who in reading of the lives of Emperors Kings and Princes and the Nobles of the world seeth not their unhappy states which come into the world naked and depart from the same naked yet like proud Pilgrims are busie one to destroy another not content with countreys and Kingdomes they go from place to place like Pilgrims to be more acquainted with misery and to seek death Alexander the great conquerourâ— taking his voyage from his Kingdome of Macedonia unto India in a desire to destroy all the world he was in the City of Babylon prevented by Antipater and Iola with poyson and there he died Philopomenes a great Emperor sometime in Gréece being taken prisoner in the wars of Messena was so cruelly handled that he besought Dinocrates who then was Prince of that countrey and conquerour over him one drâ—ught of poyson to end his life Thus he that could not be content to be Emperor and ruler of Gréece was moved to seek death in a strange Countrey amongst his foes Ladislaus King of Apulia endeavouring to subdue the Florentines and séeking to be King over the Florentines lost the Kingdome of Apulia and by them was at length poysoned and so bereft both of Kingdome and life With this unhappy kind of death many Princes have been prevented and no lesse threatned are these Princes by their own houshold friends then by forraign foes No lesse do their children their wives brethren and kinsmen study to destroy them Thus Claudius Caesar an Emperor of Rome was poysoned by his own wife Agrippina Antiochus King of Syria was poysoned by his Quéen Laodice so that he was in love with Berenices King Ptolomy's sisterr Constantine the Emperor the son of Heraclius being
but one year a ruler in the Empire was poysoned by his mother in Law named Martina The very cause of the Emperor Conradus death who was Fredericks son was onely the Empire and rule of Rome for Manfredus his successour hired the Physitians to poyson him that he might have the onely sway O unhappy state of Princes whose lives are desired both of friends and foes No lesse danger it is to be in favour with Princes sometime then perillous to be Princes We read of a Quéen named Rosimunda the daughter of King Cunimund of Gepida who after she had poysoned Albonius King of the Longobards her first husband did marry a Prince of Ravenna named Helinges whom likwise she thought to poison but being warned in the middest of his draught he caused his wife to drink the rest which drink was the cause of both their deaths How many noble Princes in the middest of their pilgrimages have died that death as Dioclesian the Emperour of Rome Lotarius King of France Charls the eight of that name with divers others as Hannibal prince of Carthage Aristobulus King of Iudea and Lucullus Generall of Rome Princes and noble men do sometime poison themselves lest they should be inforced to serve their foes as Themistocles being banished from his country of Athens being in service under Artaxerxes King of Persia poisoned himself with the bloud of a Bull in presence of all the Persians lest he should be compelled to fight in wars against Gréece his country Even so Aratus prince of Sicionia perceiving Philip the younger would banish and exile him out of his country was inforced with poison to drink his own death out of his own hand Even after this sort after long administration of the Commonwealth did noble Socrates learned Anaxagoras worthy Seneca and famous Demosthenes poison themselves Thus their pilgrimages were ended and their lives finished their honour and dignity their fame and renown did purchase them death Happy then are those whom the world knows not who desire not to be acquainted with the world but quiet and contented do finish the course of their pilgrimages Had not Jugurthus thirsted for the Kingdom of Numidia he had not slain his two brethren Adherbal and Hempsal which were partakers of the Crown for the which vengeance fell upon him being subdued by Marius and dying afterwards in prison Had not King Siphax thirsted after the Empire of Rome he had never béen taken captive and prisoner by Tiberius where he at length out of his Kingdome died in prison Henry the third was of his own son named Henry put again in prison where he died Aristonicus for all his businesse and great doings was vanquished by the Consull Aquilius and put in prison where likewise he died In prison divers princes have ended their lives in forrein countries Strange kinds of deaths happen upon Princes more then on any other men as orderly I shall prove by their pilgrimages and lives Some by fire as the Tyrant Phalaris of Agrigentum who was burned with all his children and his wife in the Brasen Bull which Perillus made for others was first of all put into it himself By fire was the Emperour Valentine burned by the Goths by fire was that famous Greek Alcibiades destroied in Phrygia and burned in bed with his mistresse Timandra after he had ruled Athens and all Greece a long while Sardanapalus that great King and last prince of Assyria fearing to fall into the hands of Arbactus and detesting to die by his enemies made a solemn fire when after his lewd life wantoning in lust and following his desires he burned himself it was the end of the renowned Hercules who conquered Monsters subdued Serpents Lions Dragons and wild beasts at the last he put on the shirt of Nestus the Centaur which burned him alive What shall I speak of Boges the dear friend sometime of King Xerxes who when he knew that he could not escape the hand of Cimon and the power of Atâ—ens he made a great fire where he caused his wife and concubines his children and family to be burned and then his gold silver and treasure and last of all he burned himself Empedocles Catullus Luctatius Asdrubal and Poâ—tia died this death So desirous were men alwaies to become princes so ambitious of honour so greedy of wealth that having the name of a King they thought to avoid and escape that which alwaies waits on the heels of Princes I mean death Were not princes hanged by their own subjects which is the vilest and most ignominious death that can be Achaeas King of Lidia for that he troubled his subjects with new taxes and subsedies was hanged by his own subjects at the river of Pactolus Bomilchar a Prince of Libia being suspected by the Carthaginians that he had conspired with Agathocles unto the annoiance of the subjects was hanged in the City of Carthage in the middest of the Market Policrates who was supposed to be the happiest Prince that ever reigned in Samos and never sustained any losse by fortune was at last by Orontes the Persian King Darius General hanged in sight of Samos Herodotus doth affirm that Leonides that famous King of Sparta who long ruled the Lacedemonians with great fame and renown was by Xerxes King of Persia after his head was smitten off commanded notwithstanding to be hanged Trogus doth write of Hanno a prince of Carthage which flourished in the time of King Philip father to Alexander the great who for his prosperous successe that he had in all his attempts waxed to be such a tyrant that his own people first bound him with cords whipt him with rods pluckt out his eys brake his legs cut off his hands and at last to recompence his tyranny they hanged him up in Carthage These were no mean men that thus were hanged in their own country and by their own people Thus Princes in the middest of their lives have béen arrested by death and by divers kinds of death Some as you have heard by poison some by fire some by hanging have ended their pilgrimages some again have been devoured by their own horses as Diomedes King of Thracia became food himself to those beasts which before he fed with mens bodies The King of Eubea for his tyranny in Boetia was given by Hercules to be eaten by his own horses Licinius the Emperour at what time he had appointed that his daughter Hâ—rina should be given to his horses to be eaten he himself giving her as food unto them was torn in pieces It hâ—ppened that Neocles the son of that noble Greek Themistocks was by a horse likewise devoured And this was not strange unto princes for they were alwaies subject unto all kind of deaths After that the famous prince Mâ—â—us Captain of the Lybians had broken truce with the Romans he was afterward as Livi doth witnesse taken and drawn by four great horses alive at the cemmandement of Tullus Hostilius being then King of Rome Hâ—ppâ—litus son
son to Theseus being falsly accused by his mother in law Quéen Phedra and flying to avoid the fury and rage of his father at the request of the Queen was torn in pieces by wild horses But let us passe further and we shall read that as some were devoured by horses so others were by Serpents stung to death as Laocoon that worthy Troyan was by two Serpents destroyed yea that famous and warlike woman Cleopatra Quéen of Egypt after her lover and friend Marcus Antonius was overcome by Augustus Caesar the Emperour did chuse rather to be overcome with Serpents then subdued by Caesar With this death was Opheltes the son of Licurgus King of Menea vanquished Again some have perished by wild Bores and raging Lions as Anceus King of Samos and Paphages King of Ambracia the one by a Bore the other by a Lion Some have béen devoured by dogs as Linus the son of Apollo Pliny in his seventh book metions a Quéen in Bithinia named Cosinges K. Nâ—comedes wife whom her own dogs flew tare in pieces Euripides that learned Gréek coming in the night time from Archelaus King of Macedonia with whom he had been at supper was incountered by his enemy Promerus who set his dogs on him and did tear him to pieces Even so were Herachtus and Diogenes both Philosophers by dogs likewise killed I may not forget so great a prince as Basilius the Emperour of Macedon who in hunting amongst his Lords and Nobles yea amongst thousands of his Commons he onely meeting a Hart in the chase was hurt by him in the leg whereof he died As for Seleucus King of Syria son to Antiochus surnamed the Great and Bâ—la King of Panonia they were both thrown by their horses and died If these mischance happen unto princes in the midst of their state what is their glory but misery since nothing expelleth fate nor can avoid death Some have been so weary of life some so fearfull of death that they have thrown themselves into the water to be drowned others for all their diligent fear and watching for death have most shamefully notwithstanding been by death prevented Frederick the Emperour marching towards Ierusalem after that he had taken several Cities and Townes in Armenia in passing through a little river was drowned Decius that noble King being enforced to take his flight from the Goths with whom he then was in wars was drowned in the Marish ground Marcus Marcellus after that he had béen a Consul in Rome thrée times before the third wars betwixt the Romans and the Carthaginians was likewise by shipwrack cast away How many noble Princes have béen drowned as Pharaoh King of Egypt in the red sea of whom we read in the sacred scriptures How many have the seas despoyled of life and with their own names christened the names of seas and waters in which they were drowned As by the death of Aegeus King of Athens the sea Aegeum was so called by the death of Tyrrhenus King of Lydia the sea was called The Tyrrhen Sea And so King Tyberinus altered the river called Aelbula by his death to be the river of Tyber Again the sea Hellespont was so called by a woman named Helle drowned in it So by Iâ—arus and Myrtilus the sea of Icarus and the sea Myrton were so called Divers Princes have also perished by famine and have been compelled to eat their own flesh as Erisicthon and Neocles a Tyrant of Scicioma It is written in Curtius that Sysigambis King Darius mother died of hunger Ulysles the Gréek lest any off-spring of Hector should rise in Phrygia to revenge the fall of Troy and his countrey did cast Astianax the son of Hector over the walls alive Lycurgus King of Thrace was by his own subjects thrown headlong into the sea for that he first mingled water with wine How many famous and noble Princes have been stoned to death as valiant Pyrrhus King of the Epyrotes being in wars with Antigonus was slain by an old woman with a a tile-stone at Argos Pyrander at what time the Athenians warred against Eumolpus for that he feared famine hiding the wheat from his souldiers was therefore by them stoned to death Even so was Cinna the Roman in the wars betwixt the Gauls and the Romans for the like offence stoned to death Stout Cebrior King Priaâ—'s son was slain by a stone hurled at him by Patroclus at the siege of Troy so died Cygnus the son of Achilles at the same time O unstedfast fortune that stones should end the many lives of famous princes O imprudent princes that know not how nigh ye are always to death How many hath God punished with sudden death for their offences as Mithridates King of Pontus and Nicanor the son of Parmenio of Macedonia died suddenly Sertorius was slain suddenly at a banquet by Upenna The Emperour Heliâ—gabalus was killed upon his stool at his easement and thrown into Tyber That renowned and famous Conquerour Julius Caesar was in the middest of the City of Rome where he was Emperor yea in the Senate-house murthered and mangled by Brutus and Cassius Divers Consuls in Rome died this death as Fabius Maxâ—mus Gurges the Senator And Manlius Torquatus even at his supper died presently Some with Thunder-bolts did God likewise punish thus Capaneus was slain at the wars of Thebes Tullus Hostilius King of Rome was with a Thunderbolt for his insolency and pride slain Zoroastres King of the Bactrians the first inventer of Magick was likewise by that kind of death encountred Pride in princes was the onely cause of their falls insomuch that the poets feign that the great and monstrous Giant Eâ—câ—ladus for his proud enterprise against Jupiter was thrown by a Thunderbolt into the bottome of Aetna a fiery and flaming mountain The uncertain state of princes is séen and tried by their death Who liveth so short a time as a prince who dieth so strange a death as a prince Who liveth in care who dieth living but a prince Was not Sergius Galba and Commodus the son of Marcus sirnamed Anbilius two Emperors of Rome the one by Otho strangled in the Market place of Rome the other imprisoned by Martia his own concubine Minos King of Creet travelling after Dedalus into Sicily was by his great friend King Cocalus slain by deceit So was Alebas chief governour of Larissa murthered by his own souldiers The desire that men bear unto honour and dignity is commonly accompanied with death as Spurius Cassius and Spurius Melius for their greedinesse of the Empire of Rome were both worthily beheaded God hath shewed just vengeance upon Princes for their iniquity with plagues and pestilences which spoiled the Emperor Constantine and the Empresse Zoae his wife And by this were Marcus Antonius Alphonsus and Domitius justly and worthily punished God hath wonderfully punished the pride of Princes even with shamefull and horrible deaths insomuch that Lice and vermine have consumed their bodies alive As Maximilian the Emperour Arnulphus
Lightning or Thunder but had his head covered with all such things as might resist the violence of Lightning Misa King of the Moabites and Joram King of Iewry being besieged by the enemies and in danger of death they practised devises and invensions to save their lives and sacrificed their children to mitigate the rage of the Gods The love that divers had unto life and the fear they had of death were to be noted worthily considering how much men are vexed with the fear of death Antemon was so desirous to live and so fearfull to die that he hardly would travel out of his house any where and if he were compelled to go abroad he would have two of his servants to bear over his head a great brasen Target to defend him from any thing which might happen to do him hurt Theagenes in like sort would not go out of his house without he had consulted with the Image of Hecate to know what should happen to him that day and to understand whether he might escape death or no. Commodus the Emperour would never trust any Barber to shave his beard lest his throat should be cut Masinissa King of Numidia would rather commit his state and life unto dogs then unto men who was as his guard to kéep and defend him from death I might here speak of Bion of Domitianus of Dionisius of Pisander and of a thousand more who so feared death that their chief care and study was how they might avoid the same The fear of death causeth the son to forsake the father the mother to renounce the daughter one brother to deny another and one friend to forsake another Insomuch that Christ himself was forsaken of his disciples for fear of death Peter denied him and all the rest fled from him and all for fear of death Behold therefore how fearfull some are and how joyfull others are Some desperately have died being weary of life As Sabinus â—uba Cleomenes some have hanged some have burned and some drowned themselves and thus with one desperate end or other perished But since every man must die it were reason that every man should prepare to die for to die well is nothing else but to live again Wherefore certain philosophers of India called the Gymnosophislae being by Alexander the great commanded to answer to cercertain hard questions which if they could absolve they should live otherwise they should die The first question propounded to know whether there were more living or dead to the which the first philosopher said that the living are more in number because the dead have no being no place nor number The second question was whether the land produced more creatures or the sea to this answered the second philosopher and said the land doth ingender more for that the sea is but a portion of the land The third question was to know what beast was most subtil that beast answered the third philosopher whose subtilty man cannot discern Fourthly it was demanded why they being philosophers were so induced to perswade the Sabians to rebellion because said the philosophers it is better to die manfully then to live miserably The fifth question was whether the day was made before the night or the night before the day to the which it was answered the day The sixt was to understand how Alexander the Great himself might get the good wil of the people in shewing said that sixth philosopher thy self not terrible to the people The seveÌ„th question was whether life or death were stroÌ„ger to which it was aÌ„swered life The eight was to know how long a man should live till said the eight philosopher a maÌ„ thinks death better theÌ„ life The last question proposed by Alexander was how might a mortal man be accounted in the number of the Gods In doing greater things said all the Philosophers then man is able to do For they knew this proud Prince would be a God and that he would learn of the sage Philosophers how he might eschew mortality he was answered roundly because he should know himself to be a man and being a man he should make himself ready to die for death is the reward of sin and death is the beginning again of life unto the good As Aulus Posthumius in an Oration which he made unto his souldiers said it is given to both good and bad to die but to die gâ—dly and gloriously is onely given unto good men So Hector speaking in Homer said unto his wife Andromache that she should not be sorry for his death for all men must die Some with the Galatians do so contemn death that they fight naked and are perswaded with the Pythagoreans that they shall never die but passe from one body to another Some again die joyfully as the brethren of Policratâ— who being taken captive by Diognitus the King of Milesia she was so ill intreated by him that she did send Letters to Naxus to her brethren at what time the people of Milesia were feasting drinking and banquetting at a solemn feast Her brethren embracing the opportunity came and found the Emperor drinking and all his people overcharged with wine and slew the greatest part of them and having taken many of them prisoners they brought their sister home to Naxus where as soon as they came home they died for joy of the victory Even so Phisarchus sometime in his great triumph crying out O happy hours and joyful days was taken with such an extasie of joy that he brake his veins at that very instant with the excesse of gladnesse He is counted most wise that knoweth himself To joy too much in prosperity to be advanced and extolled when fortune favours without all fear of ill haps to come is folly To be vanquished and subdued in adversity without hope of solace to ensue is meer madnesse Therefore the Wisemen knowing that death was the last line of life did endeavour in their lives how they might die well And briefly for the examples of our lives I will here note a few sentences of these wise men which they used as their Posies and think good to shew their answers to divers questions propounded to them Bias dwelling in the City of Prienna after the City was destroyed by the Mutinensians escaped and went to Athens whose Poesie was Maximus improborum numerus He willed all young men in their youth to travel for knowledge and commanded old men to embrace wisedome This Bias being demaunded what was the difficultest thing in the world he said to suffer stoutly the mutability of fortune Being demanded what was the most infamous death that might happen to man to be condemned said he by law Being asked what was the swéetest thing to man he made answer Hope Being again demanded what beast was most hurtfull Amongst wild beasts a Tyrant said Bias and amongst tame beasts a Flatterer And being demanded what thing it was that feared nothing in all the world he answered A good Conscience And again in the second Olympiade he was demanded many other questions as who was most unfortunate in the world the impatient man said Bias. What is most hard to judge Debates betwéen friends What is most hard to measure he answered Time Thus having answered to these and divers other questions Bias was allowed one of the seven Wise men of Gréece Chilo the second of the Sages being asked what was the best thing in the world he answered Every man to consider his own state And again being demanded what beast is most hurtfull he said Of wild beasts a Tyrant of tame beasts a Flatterer Being asked what is most acceptable to man he said Time And being asked of the Gréek Myrsilas what was the greatest wonder that ever he saw he said An old man to be a Tyrant The third was Chilo the Lacedemonian who being demanded what was a difficult thing for a man to do he answered Either to kéep silence or to suffer injuries Being demanded what was most difficult for a man to know he said For a man to know himself And therefore he used this Poesie Nosce teipsum This Chilo being of Aesop demanded what Jupiter did in heaven he said He doth throw down lofty and proud things and he doth exalt humble and méek things S. Ion said that in knowing and considering what we are and how vile we are we shall have lesse occasion ministred to us to think wel of our selvs for there is nothing good nor beautifull in man This Solon being asked by King Cyrus sitting in his chair of state having on his most royal habiliments and Princely robes covered with Pearls and Precious stones Whether ever he saw a more beautifull sight then himself sitting in heighth of his Majesty Solon answered that he saw divers Birds more glorious to behold then Cyrus And being demanded by Cyrus what Birds were they Solon said the little Cock the Peacock and the Pheasant which are decked with natural garments and beautified with natural colours This Solon was wont to say I wax dayly old learning much He noted nothing so happy in man as to Live well that he might Die well applying the Cause to the Effect as first to Live well and then to Die well FINIS LONDON Printed by Elizabeth Alsop dwelling in Grubstreet near the Upper Pump 1653.