complaints of the Lacedemonians whose Fields in mutual hatred the Achaians had laid wast The Senare answered the Lacedemonians that they would send Ambassadors into Greece to look upon the affairs of their Associates and to take away the suspitions of all injury but instructions were privily given to the Ambassadors that they should dissolve this intire Body of the Achaians and make every City to subsist by her own priviledges that so they might more easily be inforced to obedience and if any appeared to be stubborn that they should be broken The Princes therefore of all the Cities being called to Corinth the Ambassadors did recite the Decree of the Senate and declared what was the Counsel which was given to them They declared that it was expedient for all that every City should have her own Laws and her own priviledges which the Achaians no sooner understood but in a fury they presently killed all that were strangers and had violated the Romane Ambassadors themselves if upon notice of the tumult they had not fled away in a great fear When this was declared at Rome the Senate did immediately Decree that the Achaian war should be undertaken by Mummius the Consul who not long after having transported his Army into Greece and all things with great care being provided for did provoke his Enemies to battel But the Achaians as if it had been no trouble at all to conquer the Romanes had nothing in a readiness for War but thinking more of the booty then the fight they brought their Carriages into the Field to draw from thence the spoyls of their Enemies and placed their Wives and Children on the adjacent Hills to behold the pleasure of the Battel which was no sooner begun but being slain before the eyes of their Wives and Children they became a sad spectacle to them for the present and left them a grievous remembrance of it for the future and their Wives and Children being made Captives of Spectators were an easie prey unto their Enemies The City of Corinth it self was pull'd down and all the people sold in the most ignominious manner that in those times was practised that this Example might strike a fear into the other Cities to take â—eed of Innovations for the time to come Whiles these things were in action Antiochus King of Syria made War upon Ptolomy King of Egypt the Son of his elder Sister but â— slow man and so consumed with daily luxury that he not onely neglected the Offices of Regal Majesty but was deprived also of the sense of an ordinary man Being therefore beaten out of his Kingdom he fled to Alexandria to his younger brother Ptolomy and having made him a partaker in his Kingdom they joyntly sent Ambassadors to the Senate at Rome by whom they desired their help and implored the Faith of their Society The supplications of the Brothers did move the Senate Therefore Publius Popilius was sent Ambassador to Antiochus to command him not to invade Egypt or if he was already in it to withdraw from it The Ambassador having found him in Egypt the King kissed him for Antiochus above the rest did respect Popilius when he was a Hostage at Rome Popilius desired him to forbear all private friendship when the Mandates and the Interests of his Country intervened and having produced the Decree of the Senate he delivered it to the King when he found the King to demur upon it and to say that he would refer it to the Consultation of his friends Popilius with a rod which he had in his hand having inclosed him in a spacious Circle that it might contain his friends with him did require him to counsel with them in the Precinct of that Round and not to move out of it before he had given an Answer to the Senate Whether he would have peace or War with the Romanes This sharp proposition did so blunt the minde of the King that he answered that he would obey the Senate After this Antiochus returning to his Kingdom dyed having left behind him a son very young to whom when Guardians were assigned by the people his Uncle Demetrius who was then a Hostage at Rome having understood of the death of his brother Antiochus addressed himself unto the Senate and alledged that his brother being alive he came to Rome as a Hostage for him but being dead he did not now know whose Hostage he might be therefore he pleaded that it was just he should be dismissed from Rome to be invested in his Kingdom which as it was due by the law of Nations to his elder brother so it was now due unto himself who must have the precedency of the Pupil by the priviledge of Age When he observed that the Senate silently presuming that the Kingdom would be more safe unto them under the Pupil then under him were un willing to grant him leave to depart Having secretly departed to Hostia under the pretence of hunting he there took shipping with the Companions of his flight and being brought into Syria he was received with the applause of all men and the young Prince being put to death the Kingdom by his Guardians was delivered unto him Much about the same time Prusias King of Bithinia contrived how to put to death his son Nicomedes endeavouring to provide for his younger sons whom he had by Nicomede's Step-mother and who were then at Rome But the plot was betrayed by those who undertook to perform it they exhorted the young man being provoked by the cruelty of his Father to prevent the deceit and return the wicked act upon the Author of it nor was it hard to perswade him to it therefore being sent for when he came into the Kingdom of his Father he was saluted as King and Prusias his Father being dis-invested of his Kingdom became as a private man and was forsaken of his own servants When he concealed himself in corners he was discovered and commanded to be killed by his son with no less wickedness then he commanded his son to be killed THE Five and thirtyeth BOOK OF IVSTINE DEmetrius having possessed himself of the Kingdom of Syria conceiving that the common hatred by this Innovation would prove ruinous to himself he determined to inlarge the bounds of his Soveraignty and to encrease his Revenues by making War upon his Neighbours Therefore being become an Enemy to Ariathes King of Cappadocia because he refused to marry his Sister he received his suppliant Brother Holofernes injustly driven from the Kingdom and rejoycing that he had offered to him an honest Title of the War he determined to restore to him his Kingdom But Holofernes having ungratefully made a League with the Antiochians and growing into enmity with Demetrius he took counsel to expel him from the Kingdom by whom he was restored to it which although Demetrius understood yet he spared his life that Ariathes might not be freed from the War which his brother Demetrius threatned to bring upon him howsoever having
of sacriledge in a hostile manner he seized upon those Cities of which but immediately before he was Protector those Cities which sought under his conduct those Cities which gratulated both him and themselves for the victory they had obtained he in a scornful manner sold not long afterward both the wives and children of them all he spared not the Temples nor the consecrated houses nor the publick nor the private gods whom not long before he adored Insomuch that he seemed not to be the Revenger of sacriledge but to grant a liberty for sacriledges After this as if he had done admirably well he marched into Cappadocia where having mannaged the war with the like perfidiousness and the neighbouring Kings being taken and slain by treachery he joyned the whole Country of Cappadocia to the Kingdom of the Macedons After this to take away the infamy of envie with which at that present he laboured above other men he sent several persons through several Kingdoms and most flourishing Cities to plant a belief that King Philip had laid up a great bank of money for the erecting of new walls through the Cities and for the building of Fanes and Temples and made Proclamations by Heralds to the end that work-men might come in to undertake the building who when they came to Macedonia being frustrated by long delayes they departed home in silence fearing the anger of the King After this he invaded the Olynthians who after his slaughter of one of his brothers did in compassion entertain the two other whom Philip resolved to put to death pretending they desired to partake with him in the Kingdom being the children of his mother-in-law for this onely cause he utterly destroyed this ancient and noble City and his brothers being delivered to their destined destruction he enjoyed a great booty together with the desires of his paricide After this as if all things were lawful which he had a mind to do he seized upon the golden Mines in Thessaly and on the silver Mines in Thrace and that he might leave nothing inviolated he at last resolved to exercise Pyracies on the Seas These things in this manner mannaged it came to pass that the two brothers of the King of Thrace did make choyce of him as an Arbitrator of their differences not out of any contemplation of his justice but both of them fearing least by his assistance he should add more strength and quite over-ballance the cause and power of the other But Philip according to the versatilness of his wit did come with a gallant Army the two brothers unsuspecting it not as an Arbitrator but a General and deprived them both of the Kingdom by force not like a Judge but as a Theif and a plunderer While those thing were in agitation the Athenians sent Ambassadors to him to desire a peace who having had audience he sent himself Ambassadors to Athens with the condition of it and a peace was concluded for the advantage of them both There came also Ambassadors from the other Cities of Greece not so much for the love of peace as for the sears of war for the fire of their rage being not to be extinguished but by blood the Thebans and Boetians did desire that he would vouchsafe to profess himself to be the General of Greece against the Phocensians being possessed with so great a hatred against the Phocensians that forgetful of their own ruine they desired rather to perish themselves then not to destroy them and to endure the known cruelty of Philip then to pardon their Enemies The Ambassadors of the Phocensians on the other side the Lacedemonians and Athenians being joyned with them did crave that the war might not proceed this being the third time that they bought with moneys a forbearance of it A vile thing it was and shameful to behold that Greece being at that time the mistress of the world both in strength and dignity and alwaies the Conqueress of Kings and Nations and at that time the Commandress of so many Cities should humble her self at the doors of a stranger and either craving or deprecating war should put all her hope in the assistance of another The Revengers of the world were brought so low by their own discords and by civil wars that of their own accord they flattered a sordid part not long before of their own clientry and this especially was done by the Thebans and the Lacedemonians before emulous which of them both should enjoy the absolute command of Greece as Greece at this present would have the command of them Philip in these dissentions for the ostentation of his glory did ride as it were in triumph over the tops of so great Cities and did deliberate with himself which part was most worthy of him Having given audience in private to the Ambassadors on both sides to the one side he did promise the forbearance of the war having obliged them by an Oath not to divulge his answer unto the others he gave assurance that he suddenly and powerfully would assist them he commanded both either to prepare for war or to fear it and thus with a double answer both sides being secure he seized upon the straights of Thermophylae Then the Phocensians finding themselves circumvented by the treachery of Philip had their recourse to Arms but they had not the leisure to prepare an Army nor to draw unto them any Auxiliaries and Philip threatned utterly to destroy them if they would not surrender themselves unto him But there was no more trust in his composition then there was in his promise that the war should be forborn They were therefore everywhere put to slaughter and violated the Children were pluck'd from their Parents the Wives from their Husbands and the Images of the gods were not safe nor left in their own Temples This was all the miserable comfort that they enjoyed that when Philip had defrauded his Associates in the distribution of the booty and ingrossed it all to himself they could finde nothing of their own goods amongst their Enemies Being returned into his Kingdom he drove Cities and People as Shepherds do their Flocks sometimes into their Summer and sometimes into their Winter Pastures He translated every place according to his own pleasure as he would have them peopled or left desolate lamentable was the face of all things and like unto an utter ruine There was no fear of any invasion of the Enemy no running about of the Souldiers in the streets no tumult of Arms no plundering of goods nor forcing men into Captivity but a silent grief and sadness did possess them and a fear that even the very tears in their eyes should be censur'd for delinquency Their griefs did increase in their counterfeiting and in their concealing of them sinking so much the deeper by how much they were the less seen to express them Sometimes they revolved in their mindes the Sepulchers of their Anceâ—â—â—rs sometimes their old houshold gods sometimes their own houses in
fear into a fury hoping that the threatnings and the anger of the gods could be expiated by the slaughter of their Families they killed their wives and children beginning the auspications of the war with such a detestable Parricide So great was the barbarousness of their savage minds that they did not forbear their Infants and the tenderness of that age which even their Enemies would have spared but made a naâ—alitious and an intrinsick war with their own bowels their children and with the mothers of their children for whom others are accustomed to undertake wars Therefore as if they had redeemed the Victory and their lives by the barbarous cruelty bloody as they were from the streaming murthers of their wives and children they joyned in battel with their Enemies with no better event then the auspication promised for fighting the furies of their own consciences did surround them before their Enemies and the Ghosts of those whom they had murdered ptesenting themselves alwayes before their eyes they fell upon a final desolation So great was the slaughter that the gods did seem to have combined with men for their utter destruction After the event of this battel Ptolomy and the Lacedemonians declining the conquering Army of Antigonus did retreat into more safe places Antigonus when he perceived that they were departed the courage of his Souldiers being flushed with the former Victory did make war upon the Athenians In which when he was engaged Alexander King of Epirus desiring to revenge his Fathers death did plunder the borders of Macedonia against whom when Antigonus marched being returned out of Greece he was forsaken by his Souldiers who revolted from him and did lose with his Army the Kingdom of Macedonia His Son Demetrius being in his minority having leavied a new Army in his Fathers absence did not only recover Macedonia that was lost but dis-invested Alexander of his Kingdom of Epirus So great was the inconstancy of the Souldiers or the variety of Fortune that Kings were even now but banished men and by and by they were Kings again Alexander when he fled as a banished man into Arcadia was not long after restored into his Kingdoms with as great an applause of the Epirots as with the help of their Confederats At that time Agas King of the Cyrenians dyed who before his sickness to compose all strifes with his brother Ptolomy had espoused his onely daughter Beronioe to his Son But after the death of King Antigonus Arsinoe the Mother of the young Lady that she might dissolve the marriage contracted without her consent did send for Demetrius the brother of King Antigonus from Macedonia not onely to the marriage of Beronice but to the Kingdom of Cyrene Demetrius being born himself of the daughter of Ptolomy made not the least delay but having a fore-wind to his own desires arrived suddenly at Cyrene and by the confidence of the comeliness of his personage endevouring to endeer himself to his Mother-in-law Arsinoe he began to deport himself very proudly to the royal Family and to domineer over the Souldiery and to translate his affections and his Courtship from the daughter to the mother which was first discovered by the daughter and afterwards abominated both by the people and the Souldiers Therefore all of them having changed their affections a plot was laid for Demetrius to whom Executioners were sent being in bed with his Mother-in-law But Arsinoe having heard the voyce of her daughter standing at the door and giving order to spare her Mother did for a while with her own body protect the adulterer who being slain Beronice with the preservation of her piety revenged the incontinency of her Mother and in the choyce of her husband did follow the judgement of her Father THE Seven and twentieth BOOK OF IVSTINE ANtiochus King of Syria being dead when Seleucus his Son succeeded in his place he began his raign with Parricide his mother perswading him to it who ought to have deterred him from it for he killed his Stepmother Beronice with his little brother begotten on her Which horrible crime being committed he was not onely tainted with Infamy but withall he involved himself in a war with Ptolomy Moreover Beronice when she understood that Executioners were sent to take away her life she shut up her self in her Fathers Daphne where when it was reported to the Cities of Asia that she was besieged with her little child they calling to their minds the dignity of her Father and of her Ancestors and prompted to compassion at the indignity of her Fortune they all sent ayd unto her Her brother Ptolomy being also startled at the danger of his sister having left his own Kingdom did advance to her relief with all the speed that could be But before the arrival of any ayd Beronice when she could not be taken by force was killed by treachery It was conceived by all to be a subject most worthy of lamentation Therefore when all the Cities who had revolted from her had provided a very great Fleet being amazed at this example of horrid cruelty they did offer themselves and their ships to Ptolomy who if he had not been called back into Aegypt by some intestine sedition had possessed himself of all the Kingdom of Seleucus This parricidial guilt had brought upon him so much hatred or the unworthy death of his sister had purchased to Ptolomyes much affection After the death of Ptolomy when Seleucus had set forth a great Navie against the Cities which revolted immediately a great tempest arising as if the gods themselves would revenge this parâ—icide he lost them all by Tempest neither had he any thing left of so great a preparation but his naked body some few Companions of his shipwrack whom Fortune had preserved alive A lamentable thing it was and yet acceptable to him for the Cities which in hatred of him had revolted to Seleucus as if the gods were satisfied in his punishment themselves being the Arbitrators by a sudden change of their minde being touched with compassion for his shipwrack they did restore themselves unto the Authority of his command Rejoycing therefore in his calamity and made more rich by loss he made war upon Ptolomy conceiving himself now equal in strength unto him But as if he was born to be the sport of fortune and had onely received his Kingdom again but to lose it again being various in battel and not much more accompanied then after his shipwrark he sled in great fear to Antiochia from whence he sent Letters to his Brother Antiochus in which he did implore his ayd and in recompence thereof did offer to him all that part of Asia which lyeth on the bounds of the Hill Taurus Antiochus being but fourteen years of age and greedy of Soveraignty above his years took hold of the occasion but not with that pious minde as it was offered but desiring like an Oppressor to force all from his brother he armed himself being but a boy
appear to have spoken more couragiously then they resolved to have performed they plundered that part of Acarnania which bordered on Epirus Olympias had now delivered her Kingdoms to her sons and Ptolomy succeeded in the place of Pyrrhus his deceased brother who when he advanced against his Enemies with a gallant Army being surprized by sickness dyed in the way And Olympias her self her heart being pierced through and through for the loss of both her children and her soul sick within her did not long out-live them and when of all the Royal Family there not any remained alive but onely the young Lady Nereis with her sister Laodamia Nereis marryed Gelon the Son of the King of Sicily and Laodamia flying to the Altar of Diana did there lose her life by the violence of the people which facinorous act the Immortal Gods revenged with the continued slaughters and almost the total destruction of all the people For being punished with barrenness and hunger and vexed with civil discords they were at last almost utterly consumed by Forreign Wars And Milo the executioner of Laodamia being possessed with a fury attempting sometimes to kill himself with a sword sometimes to beat out his brains with stones at the last tearing out his bowels with his teeth died the twelfth day afterwards These things being thus mannaged in Epirus King Demetrius in the mean time deceased in Macedonia leaving his Son Philip in his minority to whom Antigonus being Tutor having married his mother did intend to possess himself of the Kingdom In the process of time when he was kept a prisoner in his own Court by the threats and sedition of the Macedons he broke forth at last and adventured into the publick without a Guard and having thrown his Diadem and purple robe amongst the people he commanded that they should be given to some other man who knew better to govern them or they to obey him For his part he understood well enough the ringols in that envyed Crown and the weight of it not by his pleasures but by his labours and his dangers He did put them in minde of what he had done for them how he revenged the revolt of their associates how he suppressed the Dardanians and Thessalians insulting at the death of King Demetrius and at last how he not only defended but increased the dignity of the Lacedemonians of which since they did repent he dâ—d lay down his command and did return them their own gift because they demanded a King over whom they might command The people hearing this were rebuked by their own shame and commanded him ro receive again the soveraignty of Command which he refused untill the Authors of the sedition were delivered to him to be punished After this he made war upon the Lacedemonians who alone in the Wars of Philip and Alexander despised the command of the Macedons and the Arms which were feared by all the world Betwixt these two renowned Nations the War was carried on on both sides with the greatest resolutions Those fighting for the ancient glory of the Macedons and the others not only for their unstained liberty but for their certain safety The Lacedemonians being overcome not themselves only but their wives and children sustained their misfortune with them with an invincible courage In the Battel not any one of the men was indulgent to his own safety nor any one of the women did afterwards bewail her lost husband The old men extolled the honourable death of their sons and the daughters did gratulate their Fathers slain in the field They all lamented their own condition that they died not themselves for the liberty of their Country The Parents did receive into their houses all that were wounded they comforted the sick and refreshed all the weak and the weary In so great an overthrow there was no complaint in the City no sign of fear at all they all lamented rather their publick then their private fortunes presently upon this Cleomenes their King after a great slaughter of his enemies being covered with his own blood and with the blood of his Enemies retreated to the City and having entred into it he fate not down to demand either meat or drink nor eased himself by putting off the burden of his Armour but leaning against the wall when he beheld that there were but four thousand left of all his Army he exhorted them to reserve themselves to a better opportunity to do their Country service and taking his wife and children with him he departed to Ptolomy in Egypt by whom he was for a long time honourably entertained and lived in the height of regal Majestie And at last after the death of Ptolomy he and all his Family were slain by his son But Antigonus the Lacedemonians being utterly overthrown did lament the fortune of so great a City and strictly did inhibit his Souldiers to plunder and moreover gave a free pardon to those who remained alive alledging that he made War not with the Lacedemonians but with Cleomenes in whose flight all his anger was appeased and it was more for his own glory that Lacedemon was preserved by himself then if it were taken and plundered by his forces He therefore spared the City and the foundation of the walls because there were no men left to whom he might shew indulgence Not long after he died himself and left his Kingdom to his Son Philip being above fourteen years of Age. THE Nine and twentieth BOOK OF IVSTINE MUch about the same time the soveraign Commands of the whole world did suffer a change by the succession of new Kings for Antigonus the Tutor of Philip being dead Philip raigned afterwards fourteen years in Macedonia and Seleucus being in Asia Antiochus was made King both of it and Syria before he was fifteen yeers of age The Kingdom of Cappadocia was delivered by his Father to the child Ariathres Ptolomy possessed himself of Egypt having slain his father and mother and for this parricidial guilt was surnamed The Lover of his Father the clean contrary way The Lacedemonians constituted Lycurgus to be their King in the place of Cleomenes And that in no place there should a change be wanting Hannibal being not yet of Age was chosen General of the Carthaginians not for the want of Commanders but for his hatred to the Romans which arose up from his childhood with him A fatal disease he was not only to the Romans but to Africa it self These boys being kings although there were no Governours of a greater age yet every one of them being intent to follow the traces of their Predecessors there shined forth a growing light of honour in them all Only Ptolomy as he was nefarious in gaining the Kingdom so he was slothfull in the administration of the government of it The Dardanians and other neighbouring Nations who carried an inveterate and a deadly hatred to the Kings of Macedonia in the contempt of this young mans age did daily provoke him On the
heard that Pyrrhus King of Epirus commanding an Army of not above five thousand Macedons did in three battails overthrow the Romans He had heard that Annibal had continued a Conquerour in Italy for the space of sixteen years together and that he might have taken the City it self were he not hindred by a faction of emulating and envious spirits at home and not by any power of the Romans He had heard he said how the people of Transalpine Gaule had invaded Italy and possessed themselves of the most and greatest Cities therein and had there larger territories then they enjoyed in Asia which was said to be but weak in comparison of Rome neither was Rome only overcome by the Gauls but it was taken also by them and nothing was left them but only the top of one hill from whence they were removed not by war but by money But as for the Gauls whose Name was so terrible to the Romans he had a great part of them amongst his own Auxiliaries for the Gauls he said who do inhabit Asia do only differ from those in Italy by the distance of place but had the same original the same courage and the same manner of fight who had so much the more clear and apprehensive wits as they had adventured a more long and difficult march through Illyricum and Thracia who have their residence in other places As for Italy it self did they never hear how and by whom Rome was builded which though now at peace with it self yet some of them dayly for their liberty and others for the power of Command have persevered in continual wars How many Armies of the Romans have been overthrown by the Cities of Italy and some of them by a new way of Contumely thrust under the yoak And that we may not dwell on old Examples all Italy is now in Arms excited by the Marsick war demanding now not liberty but to be partakers in the Empire and of the freedom of the City of Rome neither is the City more oppressed with the neighbouâ—ing war of Italy then with the domestick faction of the Governours â— war even with their own Citizens doth grow upon them far more dangerous then the war with Italy The Cymbrians also from Germany like a vast deluge of wild and ungoverned people do at this present overwhelm all Italy And although the Romans peradventure could maintain the several wars one after another yet they must needs now suffer so many wars coming all at once upon them insomuch that they cannot be at leisure to follow this very war that they do make upon us we make use therefore of this present occasion and pluck from them the increase of their strength and not give them leave to rest being so deeply engaged lest hereat they might finde more work being quiet at home and without another enemie for the question is not to be put whether we should take arms or no but whether of our selves or provoked by the Romans But the war he said was indeed begun against him by them when in his nonage they took the greater Phrygia from him which they granted should be given to his father as a reward for the aide he brought against Aristonicus it being the same Countrie which Seleucus Callimacus gave in Dowrie to his Grand-father Mithridates And what shall I say to the command laid upon me to depart from Paphlagonia was not that another motive of the war espeeially since Paphlagonia came not by the power of the sword but descended to my Father by inheritance by adoption in Will and by the death of successive Kings and in giving obedience to their violent Decrees I have no waies mitigated them but they have still deported themselvs more violently against me For he said what obsequiousness was not afforded to them by him was not Phrygia and Paphlagonia taken from him was not his Son forced from Cappadocia which by the Law of Nations he seized upon being Conquerour but his victorie was ravished from him by them who have nothing at all but what they have purchased by the sword Was not Crestos the King of Bithynia against whom the Senate had denounced war cut off by him to do them a favour yet in whatsoever Gordius or Tigranes had offended it must be reckoned all on his account He alledged also that in the ignominie of him the Senate of their own accord offered that libertie to Cappadocia which they took from other Nations and that people instead of their proffered libertie desiring Gordius to be their king it could not be granted because Gordius was his friend Nicomedes also by their command had made war upon him and was assisted by them because Mithridates did pass unrevenged and now they finde the same cause of war with Mithridates because he would not tamely yield himself to be torn in pieces by Nicomedes the Son of a vaulting woman for they did not so much pursue the faults of Kings as their Power and their Majestie neither did they with so much violence exercise his art on him alone but on all other Kings also so his Grand-father Pharnaces was by their arbitration delivered up to Eumenes King of Pergamus So Eumenes again in whose Ships they were first transported into Asia by whose Armie rather then by their own they overcame both Antiochus the great and the Gauls in Asia and not long after King Perseus in Macedonia was at the last censured by them as their Enemie and forbidden to come into Italie and because they thought it would render them odious to make war with him in his own person they deferred it for a while to carrie it on with more violence against his Son Aristonicus They professed that no man deserved better of them then Masinissa King of the Numidians to him they imputed the Conquest of Annibal the Captivitie of Syphax and the destruction of Carthage to him as well as unto the two Scipios called Africani the title was ascribed of Preserver of the Citie and yet the war waged but the other daie in Africa with his Son was so inexpiable that having overcome him they would give no respect in him to the memorie of his Father but he must endure both imprisonment and become the spectacle of the Triumph This condition and height of hatred was imposed by them on all Kings because their own Kings were such at whose very names they might blush being either Stepherds of the Aborigines or Southsaiers of the Sabins or Exâ—ls of the Corinthians or slaves and varlets of the Tuscans or whose name is most honourable amongst them and as they themselves assert are their founders those who were nourished with the Milk of a Shee Wolf accordingly all their people have the minds of Wolves insatiate of blood and greedie and hungry after riches and soveraigntie But if he would descend to compare himself in his Nobilitie with them he was far more famous he said then that litter of mongrels deriving his Ancestors on his
for him But all the Provinces and the Citie of Rome so much rejoyced at his death that the people having on their heads the Caps of manumission did triumph as if they had been delivered from a cruel master Sergius Galba GAlba derived of the noble Family of the Sulpitii Reigned seven moneths and as many daies He being infamous in his youth was intemperate in his diet and ordered all things according to the counsel of his three friends Junius Cornelius and Caelius insomuch that as well amongst the common people as the Courtiers they were called his School-masters Before he did take upon him the Government of the Empire he ruled many Provinces excellently well and was so severe unto Souldiers that as soon as he came into the Camp it was in all the mouths of the Souldiers Souldiers stand to your Arms Galba is here and not Getulicus Being seventie three years of age whiles in his coislet he endeavored to appease the Legions stirred up by the sedition of Otho he was slain at the Lake of Curtius Otho Salvius SAlvius Otho derived of noble parentage in the Citie of Terentinum Reigned four moneths he was dishonest in all his life but especially in his youth Being overcome by Vitellius first at Placontia and afterwards at Bebriacum he did run himself through with his own sword in the seven and thirtieth year of his age He was so beloved by his own Souldiers that many of them having seen his dead bodie did with their own hands become their own Executioners Aulus Vitellius VItellius was born of a noble Family and Reigned but eight moneths his father was Lucius Vitellius who was the third time Consul he was cruel of minde extreamly covetous and extreamly prodigal In his time Vespasian did possess himself of the Government in the East by whose Souldiers Vitellius being overcome in a battaâ—l under the Walls of the Citie of Rome and plucked out of his Palace where he had hid himself he was dragged about the Citie with his hands bound behinde him as a spectacle for all to look upon And lest the impudent man in the consciousness of the evils he had committed should for shame hold down his head a sword was put under his chin and being half naked many casting dirt and others more filthie excrements in his face he was drawn to the Gemonian Ladders where he caused Sabinus the Brother of Vespasian to be slain and falling by many wounds which he received from several swords he there died himself He lived seven and fiftie years All those of whom I have here spoken especially those of the Cesarian race were of such learning and eloquence insomuch that abounding with all manner of vices Augustus onely excepted they had nothing else to commend them Vespasian VEspasian Reigned ten years Amongst other vertues of this man this was the most remarkable that he would forget all enmities insomuch that he married to a most honorable man the daughter of Vitellius having a very great dowrie He patiently endured the insurrections of his friends answering their reproaches as he was the most wittie man in the world with sharp and innocent conceits of mirth He so prevailed upon Licinius Mutianus presuming too much upon his own merit because by his assistance he obtained the Empire that a third friend being called in and familliar to them both he did pacifie him with these few words You know me to be a man But what shall we speak of friends since he despised also the tauntings of the Lawyers and the reproaches of the Philosophers In a short time he refreshed the world wearied and exhausted with war for he had rather overcome by perswasions then by torment or to put to death the ministers of tyranny unless it were those who had been found to be too bloody instruments thinking most wisely that wicked deeds are in many restrained onely by fear Moreover he abolished many vices in admonishing the offenders by most just Laws and which is more effectual by the Example of his own life Nevertheless there are some who do accuse him of covetousness when it is manifest enough that through the want of money and the re-edification of so many ruined Cities he was enforced to impose those Taxes which were not known before his time nor after it He re-edified Rome wasted with former fires and gave free leave to any to build the houses again if the old masters of them were not to be found he repaired the Capitol the House of Peace and the Monuments of Claudius and builded many new Cities in all Lands which were under the Romane jurisdiction the Cities were renewed with excellent Art and Elegance and the Avenues unto them fortified with great industry The Flaminian Mountains were made hollow and cut down on both sides and a way made to pass through them which way is how commonly called The Rock Pertuse he new formed and established a thousand Nations who hardly before were reckoned to be two hundred the greatest part of them being extinguished by the cruelty of Tyrants Vologese King of the Parthians was through fear constrained to seek peace of him By his vertue Syria which is also called Palestine Curaminia Tracheta and Comagine which at this day we call Augustophratensis were reduced to the Roman Provinces Judaea also was added to them his friends advising him to beware of Mutius Pomposianus who aspired to the Empire he made him Consul with this allusion That the time might come he would be mindful of so great a benefit he governed the Empire with great uniformity he watched much in the night and the great affairs of the Commonwealth being over he permitted his friends to come unto him putting on his Princely habiliments whiles he was saluted The first thing that he did was to exercise his body afterwards he rested and having washed he fell to his meat with a better stomack The love unto this good Emperor hath caused me to speak so much of him whom the Romane Commonwealth for the space of 56 years after the death of Augustus being almost breathless and spent by the cruelty of Tyrants by Providence enjoyed that it might not altogether fall into decay he lived threescore and ten years wanting but one and dyed with his most serious studies he always mingled jests with which he was much delighted I finde that a blazing Star appearing formidable by his fiery train This saith he pertains to the King of the Parthians who doth wear a long bush of hair At the last being tormented with the repletion of the belly he rising from his bed did say That it becomes an Emperour standing on his feet to depart out of the world Titus TItus called Vespasian after his Fathers name born of Domicilla a Free-woman raigned two years two moneths and twenty dayes He from a childe most diligently applyed himself to the excellent studies of Vertue and Military Discipline and above all to learning which he afterwards shewed by the gifts both of his