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
fathers side from Cyrus and Darius the founders of the Persian Empire and on his mothers side from Alexander the great and Nicanor Seleucus the Erectors of the Macedonian Empire or if he should compare his people to theirs they were of those Nations who are not onely equal to the Roman Empire but opposed the Macedonian no Nation that is subject unto him did ever stoop to the commands of a forreign Potentate and obeyed none but their own Domestick Kings would they have him to make mention of Cappadocia or Paphlagonia of Pontus or Bithynia or of Armenia the greater or the less none of which Nations neither Alexander the great who subdued all Asia nor any of his Successors or Posteritie ever touched As for Scythia it is true indeed that two Kings before him adventured not so much to subdue as to invade it Darius by name and Philip who had much to do to escape from thence by flight from whence he shall receive the greatest part of his strength against the Romans He affirmed he undertook the Pontick wars with far more fear and diffidence then this he being then but a young man and unexperienced in the Discipline of war The Scythians howsoever then his enemies besides their Arms and courage of their minds were fortified with the solitude and inhospitable coldness of their climate by which their great labor in war and their contempt of dangers was the more declared amongst which difficulties there could not be any hope of reward expected from a wandring enemie and destitute not onely of money but of habitations but he now undertook another waie of war for there is no climate more temperate then the Air of Asia nor any place more fruitful of soyl nor more pleasant in the multitude of Cities and they should consume the greatest part of their time not as it were in war but in keeping of holy-daies and it is hard to say in a service more easie or more aboundant whether they are to march to the neighboring possessions of the Attalick Kingdoms or to the antient Cities of Lydia Jonia which they should not go to overcome but to possess And Asia it self desirous of his approach doth so much expect him that she seemeth even to court his presence and to call upon him with her voice so hateful had the Romans made themselves unto her by the ravenous avarice of their Proconsuls the exactions of their Publicans and the calumnie of their contentions Let them therefore he concluded follow him with resolution and collect to themselves what so great an Armie might atchieve under his command whom without the aide of any Souldier they saw with his own strength to have taken in Cappadocia and to have slain the King thereof who the first of all mankinde subdued Pontus and all Scythia which no man before him could with safetie pass by much less invade Nor could his Souldiers be ignorant he said of his Justice and liberalitie having those demonstrations of it that alone of all Kings he possessed not onely his Fathers Kingdoms but had added other Kingdoms to them by reason of his munificence as Colchos Paphlagonia and Bospâ—orus Having with this Oration excited his Souldiers in the three and thirtieth year of his Reign he descended to the wars with Rome At the same time King Ptolomy being dead in Egypt his Kingdom and his sister Queen Cleopatra who was his wife also was by Embassadors presented to that Ptolomy who was King of Cyrene At which Ptolomy much rejoyced but especially that without contestation he should be possessed in his Brothers Kingdom to which he knew that the Son of his Brother was appointed both by his mother Cleopatra and by the favor of the Princes Not long after all being displeased with him he no sooner entred into Alexandria and commanded all the favourers of the young childe to be put to death and on that very day in which he married his mother he killed the young Prince in the mothers imbraces of him in the midst of the Banquet and the solemnitie of this marriage and thus he ascended his sisters bed bloodie with the slaughter of her Son Afterwards he was not more milde unto the people who called him unto the succession of the Kingdom for licentiousness being given to the forreign Souldiers all things did daily flow with blood and at last having by force ravished her daughter and taken her afterwards into marriage he divorced himself from his sister With which crueltie the people being affrighted they stole away into several places and having wilfully banished themselves they forsook their Country for the fear of death Ptolomy therefore with his own servants being left alone in so great a City when he perceived himself to be a King not of men but of empty houses did publish a declaration solliciting all Strangers to inhabit the City who coming in great numbers to him he not long after did go himself to meet Scipio Africanus Spurius Mummius and Lucius Metellus the Ambassadors of the Romans who made a visitation into those parts to observe the condition and kingdoms of their Confederates But he appeared as ridiculous to the Romans as bloody to all the Citizens for he was deformed in countenance and short in stature and by the obeseness of his strutting belly more like unto a Beast then to a man which filthiness his tiffanies and light garments which he had on did encrease as if those parts offered themselves to be seen as through a vail which Modesty commands us with diligence to conceal After the departure of the Ambassadors amongst whom while Africanus walked forth to behold the City he became a spectacle of honor himself to the Alexandrians Ptolomy being hated by the Strangers also that were become Citizens did silently for fear of treachery depart into banishment having taken with him his son which he had begotten on his sister and his new wife whom he had married having put away her mother and having with money contracted a mercenary army be made war at once on his Sister and his Country After this having sent for his eldest son from Cyrene that the Alexandrians should not make him their King against him he put him to death whereupon the people pulled down his Statues and Images which he conceiving to be done in favour of his Sister he slow that Son also whom he begot on her and having divided his Body into several parts and put it into a Coffin he sent it to his Mother on that day whereon she made yeerly a great feast for the solemnity of his Birth which was a sight not only grievous and much lamented by the Mother but by all the City also and brought so much grief in the height of all their mirth at the banket that all the Court was filled with a great and a suddain lamentation The Inclinations of the Princes being therefore turned from feasting into mourning they shewed to the people the dismembred body of the young Prince and by the murder of his own son did declare what they ought themselves to expect of their King Cleopatra having ended the dayes of her mourning for the death of
he permitted his Souldiers to marry those female Captives to whom they had indeared themselves politickly conceiving that having in their Tents a representation of their houses and Families at home the labour of the war would be both more pleasant by the company of their wives and their desires to return into their Countries would be more moderate And that Macedonia also should be less exhausted with recruits if young Souldiers should succeed in their old Fathers places and fight in the same works in which they were born being likely to be more constant upon duty exercising not onely their youth and childhood but having their cradles also rocked in the Camp This Custom remained afterwards amongst the Successors of Alexander and maintenance was provided for the Infants and Instruments for the making of Arms and the furniture for horse were given them to practice on when they were but young and their Fathers had allowances appointed them according to the number of their children and if their Fathers dyed nevertheless the children had the pensions of their Father their Infancy amongst so many Expeditions being as a continual war-fare Therefore from their minority being enured to labour and to dangers their Armies were unconquerable for they thought no otherwise of their Tents then of their Country and that an encounter was alwayes nothing else but Victory This is that off-spring which were called Epigoni The Parthians being overcome Andragoras one of the most noble of the Persians was made Governor of them from whom the Kings of Parthia did afterwards derive their Original In the mean time Alexander did begin to exercise his rage on his own men not like a King but like an Enemy Nothing more incensed him then that he was upbraided by them that he had subverted the Customs of his Father Philip and of his own Country for which offence old Parmenio next unto the King in Dignity and his Son Philotas being questioned for other pretences were both put to death On this there did arise a murmur over all the Camp in compassion of the condition of the innocent old man and of his Son and sometimes they were heard to speak that they could not hope for any better themselves which when it was reported unto Alexander fearing least the same reproach should be divulged in Macedonia and that the glory of his Victories should be eclipsed by the ignomy of his cruelty he dissembled that he would send some of his friends into his own Country who should be the Messengers of his Conquests He desired the Souldiers to write freely unto their friends being but seldom to enjoy such an apportunity again by reason of the more distant remoteness of the war This being done he commanded the packet to be brought privately unto him by which having discovered what every one thought of him he reduced them who had written to their friends more hardly of him into one Company either with an intent to destroy them or to distribute them into Colonies in the furthest parts of the world After this he subdued the Dracans Evergetans Parimans Paropamissidans Hydaspians and the other Nations which live at the foot of Caucasus In the mean time Bessus one of the friends of Darius was brought bound in chains who had not onely betrayed but also killed the King whom Alexander delivered to the brother of Darius to be tormented in revenge of his treason thinking Darius was not so much his Enemy as he had been a friend to him by whom he was slain And that he might give a name to those Lands he builded the City of Alexandria on the River of Tanaia within seventeen daies having made a Wall about it six miles in compass and translated thither the people of three Cities which Cyrus had erected He builded also twelve Cities amongst the Bactrians and the Sogdians having distributed amongst them whomsoever he found to be seditious in his Army After this upon a holy day he called his friends together to a banquet where mention being made by them in their wine of the deeds performed by Philip Alexander preferr'd himself above his Father and extoll'd unto the Skies the greatness of his own atchievements the greatest parts of his Guests assenting to him Therefore when Clytus one of the old men tempted by the confidence of his friendship with the King did advance the memory of Philip and the battels which he fought he so inflamed Alexander that a spear being snatched from one of the Guard he killed him at the banquet and insulting over him he objected to him being dead how bravely he defended his Father Philip and how highly he praised his wars After his passion was blown over and he was satisfied with his blood and the consideration of his reputation succeeded into the room of his anger pondering with himself sometimes the person of him who was slain and sometimes the cause of his being slain he began to repent of what he had done and that he gave so discontented an ear to the prayses of his Father which he ought not to have given to his reproaches and lamented that his old friend and his innocent one was slain by him being full of wine and supper and by the same fury being hurryed into repentance as he was into passion he would have kill'd himself Melting into tears he did imbrace the body of the dead he did handle his wounds and did confess his madness to him as if he had heard him and taking the spear again into his hand he turned the point of it to himself and had done a thorough execution with it if his friends had not prevented him this resolution to die continued with him certain dayes afterwards The remembrance of his Nurse sister unto Clytus was an addition to his repentance for whom being absent he was greatly ashamed that he returned her so foul a recompence for the nourishments she had given him and that being a young man and a Conqueror he should with Funerals requite her in whose arms he was bred up He then considered what reports what disgrace he had by this violent act pull'd upon himself not onely in his Army but amongst the conquer'd Nations how much fear and hatred he had cotracted amongst his friends how sad he had made his Feast sitting more terrible at his banquet with his friends then armed in face of his Enemies Then Parmenio and Philotas then Amyntas his kinsman then his Step-mother and his Bothers being killed then Attalus Eurilochus and Pausanias and others of the slaughter'd Princes of Macedonia did present themselves unto his memory For this he four dayes persevered in an abstinence from all meat until at last he was intreated by the prayers of all the Army desiring that he would not lament so much the death of one as to destroy them all nor forsake them whom he had brought into the furthest part of the East amongst barbarous and cruel Nations and provoked by the war The perswasions of Calisthenes the Philosopher
did prevail much upon him who was his familiar acquaintance and bred up with him in the School of Aristotle and was at that time sent for by him to commit his Deeds to History Having therefore called back his mind to the war he took into his protection the Dracons and Chorasmians who did submit unto him Not long after to make himself yet more hateful he commanded that he should not only be worshipped but adored which was the onely thing he had forborn in the proud imitation of the Persian Kings Calisthenes was the most sharp and resolute of all that did contradict it which brought a destruction both on him and many others of the Princes of the Macedons for they were all put to death under the pretence of treason Netheless the Macedons would not admit of adoration but onely retained the Custom of saluting their King After this he marched into India to bound his Empire with the Ocean and the farthest East to which glory that the ornaments of his Army might be agreeable he cover'd with silver the trappings of their horses and the arms of his Souldiers and from their silver bucklers he called his Army Argyraspidae When he came unto the City of Nysa the Inhabitants not resisting him by reason of their religious confidence in the assistance of their god Bacchus by whom that City was builded he commanded that it should be spared being glad that he followed not onely the Militia but the foot steps of the god After this he did lead his Army to the sight of the holy Hill which was cloathed with Vines and lvie the goods of Nature and that so elegantly as if it had been adorned by the art and industry of the hand of the Planter But his Army was no sooner marched to the Hill but transported with a sudden rapture they did by instinct break forth into the sacred ululations of the God and to the amazement of the King did run up and down without any prejudice that he might understand that by sparing the Inhabitants he provided as well for his Army as for them From thence he marched to the Hills of Dodalus and to the Kingdom of Queen Cleophis who having yielded her self unto him she received back her Kingdom having redeemed it by granting him the use of her body obtaining that by wantonness which she could never have purchased by the force of arms She called her son Alexander who was begotten by him who afterwards enjoyed the Kingdom of the Indians Queen Cleophis by reason of this violation of her chastity was afterwards called by the Indians The royal Whore Having marched almost through India when he came to a Rock as wonderful in its bigness as in the difficulty of its ascent into which many Nations fled he understood that Hercules was by an Earthquak prohibited from the taking of it Being therefore transported with a desire to overcome the Acts and Labors of Hercules with infinite difficulty and danger he became master of it and took into his protection all the Nations in that place One of the Kings of the Indians was called Porus as admirable by the strength of his body as by the greatness of his minde who having understood before of the advance of Alexander had prepared an Army to entertain him The battels being joyned he commanded his Army to invade the Macedons and demanded for their King being resolved as a private Enemy to fight with him hand to hand Alexander made no delay to answer him and in the first encounter having fallen head-long to the ground his horse being killed under him he was preserved by the concourse of his Guard Porus being almost covered with blood from many wounds which he received was taken Prisoner and with such indignation grieved that he was overcome that after his Enemy had given him quarter he would neither take any sustenance nor suffer his wounds to be dressed and with much difficulty was perswaded to be contented to live Alexander in the honour of his valour did send him back safe into his own Kingdom He erected there two Cities one called Nicaea the other Bucephale after the name of his horse After that having overthrown their Armies he took the Adrestrians Strathenians Passidams and Gangaritans when he came to the Euphites where they attended his coming with an Army of two hundred thousand horse all his Army being tired as well by the numbers of their Victories as by their labors did beseech him with tears that he would put at last a period to the war and once think upon a return into his Country they besought him to look upon the yeers of his Souldiers whose age would scarce suffice to their return some shewed him their gray hairs some their wounds some their bodies consumed with sickness and some their bodies with the loss of blood They onely they said were the men who enduced the continual war-fare of two Kings Philip and Alexander They did entreat him that he would restore their Relicts and what was left of them to the graves of their Fathers there being no defect in their zeal but in their age Howsoever if he would not spare his Souldiers that he would spare himself and not weary his good Fortune by too much oppressing it Being moved with these so just entreaties he commanded his Camp as to give an end to his Victories to be made more magnificent then was usual that by the large extents thereof both the Enemy should be terrified and an admiration of him should be left unto posterity His Souldiers did never undertake any work more readily and their adjacent Enemies being slain with a great joy they returned unto them From thence he marched to the River Acesines on which he sailed to the Ocean The Gesonae there and the Asybians two Nations of whom Hercules was the Founder did submit unto him from thence he sailed to the Ambrians and Sycambrians which Nations with fourescore thousand armed foot and threescore thousand horse were ready to receive him Having overthrown them in battel he did lead his Army to their Citie and being himself the first man that scaled the Walls when he found the City to be abandoned by its Defendants he leaped down without any Guard into it The Enemy when they did behold him alone with a great shout from every place ran towards him to try if in one man they could end the wars of the World and give a revenge to so many Nations Alexander did as resolutely resist them and did fight alone against so many thousands It is incredible to be spoken that not the multitude of his Enemies nor the pointed force of their weapons nor the cries and shouts they made provoking one another could any wayes affright him he alone did kill and put to flight so many thousands of them but when he perceiv'd that he began to be over-powred by their numbers he applyed himself to the body of a Tree that stood close unto the Wall by which defence
for the rest were fled away did throw them into prison being laden with Irons The people rejoyced especially that the Senate were overthrown by the Captain General of the Senators and that their ayd was converted into their destruction and Clearchus threatned sudden death to every one of them on purpose to raise the market of them to a higher rate For under the pretence of withdrawing them from the fury of the people having received from them great sums of money and despoyled them of their fortunes he not long after did despoyl them of their lives And having understood that war was made against him by those Senators who fled away the Cities prompted to compassion being come to their assistance he did set free their Servants and that no affliction should be wanting in these potent Familes he enforced their wives and their daughters to marry their own Servants death being proposed to every one that should refuse it by this means he thought to render the Servants more faithful to him and more unreconcileable to their masters But these sad Nuptials were made more grievous by the sudden Funerals of the Matrons for many of them before their Nuptials and some on the very day in which they were marryed having first killed their husbands did afterwards kill themselves and delivered themselves from their encreasing calamities by the vertue of an ingenious shame Not long after this the battel was fought in which the Tyrant being Conqueror he in the way of triumph did drag the conquered Senators before the faces of Citizens and being returned into the City he bound some of them he racked others and slew many there was no place free from his cruelty insolence was added to his savageness and arrogance to his fury And now by the success of his continual felicity he did forget himself to be a man and did call himself the Son of Jupiter When he would be seen in publick a golden Eagle was born before him in the honour of his discent His body was cloathed with a garment of Purple he did wear buskins on his feet after the custom of Tragick Kings and a Crown of Gold upon his Head He also called his Son Ceraunus that he might delude the gods not onely with lyes but also with names Two of the most noble of the young men Chion and Leonides complaining at these things with indignation and resolved to deliver their Country did conspire the death of the Tyrant These two were the Scholars of Plato the Philosopher who desiring to exhibite that vertue to their Country to which they daily were instructed by the precepts of their Master they did prepare an Ambush of fifty of their kindred as if they were all their Clients and repairing themselves to the Tower to the Kings as two in great contestation being admitted by the right of Familiarity whiles the Tyrant intentively heard the former of them pleading his cause he was killed by the other but their friends coming in not timely enough to their assistance they were both cut in pieces by the Guard by which it came to pass that the Tyrant indeed was killed but their Country was not delivered For Satyrus the brother of Clearchus did the same way invade the Tyranny and Heraclia for many yeers by degrees of succession was possessed by Tyrants THE Seventeenth BOOK OF IVSTINE MUch about the same time there was a terrible Earthquake in the Countries of Hellespont and Chersonesus in which though they trembled all over yet the City onely of Lysimachia erected by Lysimachus two and twenty yeers before was utterly overthrown which portended dismal things to come both to Lysimachus and to his Generation and the ruine of the Kingdom with the desolation of the afflicted Countries round about him Neither was belief wanting to the prodigy for not long after he killed his Son Agathocles by poyson having used therein the assistance of his Stepmother Arsyrice it being the more horribly remarkable for having ordained him into the succession of the Kingdom and made many prosperous wars under his Conduct he now hated him not onely beyond the obligation of a Father but beyond the Example of Humanity This was his first stain and the beginning of his growing ruine For this parricide was attended with the slaughter of the Princes who were punished to death because they lamented the death of the young man Therefore those who were Commanders in his Army did in great numbers fall away from him to Seleucus enforced him being prone enough before out of the emulation of glory to make war against Lysimachus This was the last contestation betwixt the fellow Souldiers of Alexander and as it were reserved by Fortune to make the example of their parallel the more admirable Lysimachus was seventy and four yeers of age and Seleucus seventy and seven But in this old age they had both of them the resolutions of youth and an insatiable desire to encrease Soveraignty of Command for when but these two did seem as it were to be masters of the whole world they were shut up into too narrow bounds and measured the end of their lives not by the space of yeers but by this limits of their Empire In that war Lysimachus having lost before in divers charges fifteen sons dying not uncouragiously did discend into the Grave himself being the last Hearse of all his Family Seleucus rejoycing in so great a victory and which he conceived to be greater then the victory that he was the last that lived of the cohort of Alexander and a Conquerour of the Conquerors did vaunt of his fortune as if it had been a work of Divinity and above the condition of man being altogether ignorant that not long afterwards he was to be an Example himself of the frailty of the condition of man for at the end of seven Moneths he was slain being circumvented by the treachery of Ptolomy whose sister Lysimachus had marryed and lost the Kingdom of Macedonia which he took away from Lysimachus together with his life Therefore Ptolomy being ambitious to please the people for the honour of the memory of Ptolomy the Great and in the favour of the revenge of Lysimachus did first resolve to reconcile unto him the children of Lysimachus and desired the marriage of Arsinoe his own sister who was their Mother having promised to adopt them his own Sons thinking thereby that they would attempt nothing against him being restrained by their duty to their mother and by their calling of him Father He desired also by letters the friendship of his brother the King of Aegypt professing that he would forget the offence of his succeeding in his Fathers Kingdom would demand no more of him being his brother the injury being received from his Father With all his Art he flattered Eumenes and Antigonus the Sons of Demetrius and Antiochus the Son of Seleucus against whom he was to make war for fear a third Enemy should arise unto him Neither was Pyrrhus
consanguineous Kings the East by degrees became under the power of the Romans THE One and fortyeth BOOK OF IVSTINE THe Parthians in whose power as if they had made a division of the World with the Romans the Empire of the East is at this time resident were the banished men of Sythia which by their own language is interpreted for in the Sythian tongue a Parthian doth signifie a banished man In the time of the Medes and Assyrians they were the most obscure of all the Nations in the East and afterwards when the Empire of the East was translated from the Medes unto the Persians like people without a name they became always he prey of the Conquerors At last the Macedons having triumphed over all the East did make them their servants And indeed it may appear wonderful that by their courage they were advanced to so great a happiness as to raign over those Nations under whose command they were accounted before but as a servile Generation And being provoked by the Romans by their greatest Generals in their most flourishing estate of the Empire they were of all Nations not onely their equals but their Conquerors Howsoever it is more their glory to rise and grow up amongst hose Empires of Assyria Media and Persia before remembred and the most renowned Bactrian Dominion of one thousand Cities then to be fam us in the Conquests of a Nation so remote Moreover it is remarkable that when they were daily vexed with the great Wars against the Sythians and their neerer Enemies and were oppressed round with all manner of dangers they did not onely possess themselves of the solitary and waste places betwixt Hyrcania and the Dacans but privily became masters of the Borders of the Areans Spartans and Majans Afterwards their neighbours not permitting but opposing them they did so far advance themselves that they inhabited as well the clifts and tops of the Rocks and Mountains as the low and spacious plains By which means it comes to pass that either the excess of cold or heat doth give bounds to the greatest part of Parthia for the snow doth possess the Mountains and the heat doth afflict the Valleys The Government of the Nation after their revolt from the Empire of the Macedons was under Kings The order or estate of the Commons is next to the Majesty of Kings from hence they derive both Generals in War and Magistrates in peace Their speech is mixt betwixt the Sythian language and the Median They are cloathed after their old Custom and if their fortunes do grow high they are apparalled like the Medes with a garment translucently thin and fluent In their Wars they use both their own and the Sythian Discipline They have not as other Nations an Army composed of free-men but the greatest part of it doth consist of servants the Communalty of whom they being never to be made free doth daily encrease as more are daily born They bring up these with as great care as they do their own children and teach them both to ride and shoot with great industry As every one is more rich so in the service of the War he brings in more Horses to the King When fifty thousand of their Cavalry did meet Mark Anthony in the Field making war upon them there were not above four hundred and fifty of them that were free born They are not used to fight hand to hand or to maintain a league before a City They fight always with their Horses either charging or wheeling about they also oftentimes do counterfeit themselves to be routed that they may return with the greater advantage whereby they both finde their pursuers to lie open to their swords and unprepared to receive the second impression of their Charge their sound unto the Battel is not given by a Trumpet but by a Drum neither do they long hold out in fight for they were not to be indured if they had as much perseverance in the fight as impetuousness in the first shock of the charge Oftentimes in the very heat of the first charge they forsake their battel and after their fight they will immediately rally and renew the fight again and when you think you are most sure of Conquest the greatest difficulty and danger of the Battel is to come Their defence for themselves and for their Horses are plumed Coats of Mail on which are such waving Plumes â—at they do cover all the bodies of both They have no use either of Gold or Silver but onely on their Armor through the delight of various lust they have every one several Wives neither is there any crime amongst them which is prosecuted with a greater punishment then adultery Wherefore they forbid their women not onely the company of men at their Banquets but also the sight of them they eat no flesh but what they procure by hunting they are always carryed on Horses on those they mannage their Wars on chose they celebrate their Feasts and perform all puâ—lick and private Offices on those they ever move or stand still on those they constantly trade and discourse This is the greatest difference betwixt their Slaves and their Free-born that the Servants in times of no War do go on foot the Free-men do always ride on horseback their common burial is no other then to be devoured by birds or dogs their bones being all that is left are covered with the Earth as for their Religion they are most devout in the worship of their gods the d spâ—sitions of the Nation are lofty seditious deceitful petulant they commanâ— boldness in men and courtesie in women they are always apt to rise at any commotion either Forraign or Domestick they are more prompt to act then to speak therefore they cover all things with silence whether good or bad they are prone unto lust frugal in their diet and with us faith either in their words or promises unless it complies with their advantage they obey their Princes not for reverence but for fear After the death of Alexander the Great when the Kingdoms of the East were divided amongst his Successors none of the Macedons vouchsafing to command over so poor a Nation as they were delivered it to Stratagenor one of their Associates in their wars The Parthians therefore the Macedonians being divided and exercised in civil Wars did follow Eumenes with the other Nations of Upper Asia who being overcome they came unto Antigonus Afterwards they followed the Ensigns of Nicanor Seleucus and he being dead of Antiochus and his Successors from whose Nephews Son Seleucus they first of all revolted In the first Carthaginian War Lucius Manlius Piso and Attilius Regulus being Consuls the discord of the two Brothers Seleucus and Antiochus did give them an impunity for this desertion for the two brothers contending to pluck the Kingdom from one another they did forbear to prosecute against the Revolters At the same time Theodotus the Lieutenant of the thousand Cities of the Bactrians revolted also and
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