thank for thy quicknes celeritie thou hast quit thy selfe well indeed that the word which erewhile I uttered unto thee is gotten before me into the market place Well the first thing that he did was this To the Magistrates he went straightwaies signified unto them the occasion of this speech and freed them from all feare and trouble but when he was come home to his owne house he fell in hand to chastice his wife How now Dame quoth he how is this come to passe you have undone me for ever for it is found and knowen for a trueth that this secret and matter of counsell which I imparted to you is divulged and published abroad and that out of my house and thus your unbridled tongue is the cause that I must abandon and fly my countrey and foorthwith depart into exile Now when at the first she would have senied the thing stoutly and alledged for her excuse and defence saying Are not there three hundred Senatours besides your selfe who heard it as well as you No marvell then if it be knowen abroad What tell you me of three hundred quoth he Upon your importunate instance I devised it of mine owne head in mirth to trie your silence and whether you could keepe counsell Certes this Senator was a wise man and went safely and warily to worke who to make proofe of his wife whom hee tooke to be no sounder nor surer than a crackt and rotten vessell would not poure into it either wine or oile but water only to see if it would leake run out But Fulvius one of the favorits minnions of Augustus the Emperor when he was now well stepped in yeeres having heard 〈◊〉 toward his latter daies lamenting and bewailing the dessolate estate of his house in that he had no children of his owne bodie begotten and that of his three nephewes or sisters children two were dead and Posthumius who onely remained alive upon an imputation there upon him confined and living in banishment whereupon he was enforced to bring in his wives sonne and declare him heire apparant to succeed him in the Empire notwithstanding upon a tender compassion he was otherwhiles in deliberation with himselfe and minded to recall his foresaid sisters sonne from exile and the place whereunto he was confined Fulvius I say being privy to these moanes and desseignes of his went home and told his wife all that he had heard Shee could not hold but goes to the Empresse Livia wife of Augustus and reported what her husband Fulvius had told her Whereupon Livia taking great indignation sharply did contest and expostulate with Caesar in these termes That seeing it is so quoth she that you had so long before projected determined such a thing as to cal home againe your nephew aforesaid why sent you not for him at the first but exposed me to hatred enmity war with him who another day should weare the Diademe and be Emperor after your decease Well the next morning betimes when Fulvius came as his maner was to salute Caesar and give him good morrow after he had said unto him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is God save you Caesar. He resaluted him no otherwise but this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is God make you wise Fulvius Fulvius soone found him and conceived presently what hee meant thereby whereupon hee retired home to his house withall speede and called for his wife unto whom Caesar quoth hee is come to the knowledge that I have not kept his counsell nor concealed his secrets and therefore I am resolved to make my selfe away with mine owne handes And well woorthie quoth shee for justly you have deserved death who having lived so long with me knew not the incontinence of my tongue all this while nor would take heed and beware of it but yet suffer me first to die upon your sword and with that catching hold therof killed herselfe before her husband And therefore Philippides the Comaedian did verie wisely in his answere to King Lysimachus who by way of all courtesie making much of him and minding to do him honour demaunded of him thus What wouldest thou have me to impart unto thee of all other treasure and riches that I have What it shall please your Majestie quoth he my gracious Lord so it be none of your secrets Moreover there is adjoined ordinarily unto Garrulitie another vice no lesse than it namely Busie intermedling and Curiositie for men desire to heare and know much newes because they may report and blase the same abroad and especially if they be secrets Thus goe they up and downe listening enquiring and searching if they can find and discover some close and hidden speeches adding as it were some olde surcharge of odious matters to their toies and fooleries which maketh them afterwards to be like unto little boies who neither can hold yee in their hands nor yet will let it goe or to say more truely they claspe and conteine in their bosoms secret speeches resembling serplents which they are not able to hold and keepe long but are eaten and gnawen by them It is said that certaine fishes called the Sea-needles yea and the vipers doe cleave and burst when they bring foorth their yoong and even so secrets when they be let fall out of their mouthes who can not containe them undo and overthrow those that reveale them King Seleucus him I meane who was surnamed Callinicus that is the victorious Conquerour in one battell against the Galatians was defaited hee and his whole power whereupon he tooke from his head the Diademe or Royall band that he ware and rode away on the spurre on horsebacke with three or foure in his companie wandring through desarts and by waies unknowen so long untill both horse and man were done and readie to faint for weatinesse at length he came unto a countrey kearnes or peasants cottage and finding by good fortune the good man of the house within asked for bread and water which the said peasant or cottier gave unto him and not that onely but looke what the field would asoord els besides he imparted unto him and his company with a willing heart and in great plentie making them the best cheere that hee could devise in the end he knew the kings face whereupon he tooke such joy in that his hap was to entertaine the king in his necessitie that he could not conteine himselfe nor second the king dissembling his knowledge who desired nothing more than to be unknowen when hee had therefore brought the king onward on his way and was to take his leave of him Adieu quoth he king Seleucus with that the king reached foorth his hand and drew him toward him as if he would have kissed him withall beckned to one of his followers and gave him a secret token to take his sword and make the man shorter by the head Thus whiles he spake I wot not what his head Off goes and lies in dust when he was
and kinde looke can not choose but in his heart blame the father that begat him and the mother that bare him We read that Pisistratus married his second wife when his sonnes whom he had by the former were now men growen saying That since he saw them proove so good and towardly he gladly would be the father of many more that might grow up like them even so good and loyall children will not onely affect and love one another for their parents sakes but also love their parents so much the more in regard of their mutuall kindnesse as making this account thinking also and saying thus to themselves That they are obliged and bounden unto them in many respects but principally for their brethren as being the most precious heritage the sweetest and most pleasant possession that they inherit by them And therefore Homer did verie well when he brought in Telemachus among other calamities of his reckoning this for one that he had no brother at all and saying thus For Jupiter my fathers race in me alone Now ended hath and given me brother none As for Hesiodus he did not well to wish give advice to have an only begotten sonne to be the full heire and universall inheritour of a patrimonie even that Hesiodus who was the disciple of those Muses whom men have named 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as it were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for that by reason of their mutual affection and sister-like love they keepe alwaies together Certes the amitie of brethren is so respective to parents that it is both a certaine demonstration that they love father and mother also such an example lesson unto their children to love together as there is none other like unto it but contrariwise they take an ill president to hate their owne brethren from the first originall of their father for he that liveth continually waxeth old in suits of law in quarrels and dissensions with his owne brethren and afterward shall seeme to preach unto his children for to live friendly lovingly together doth as much as he who according to the common proverbe The sores of others will seeme to heale and cure And is himselfe of ulcers full impure and so by his owne deeds doth weaken the efficacie of his words If then Eteocles the Thebane when he had once said unto his brother Polynices in Euripides To starres about sunne-rising would I mount And under earth descend as farre againe By these attempts if I might make account This sovereigne roialtie of gods to gaine should come afterwards againe unto his sonnes and admonish them For to mainteine and honour equall state Which knits friends ay in perfect unitie And keeps those link't who are confederate Preserving cities in league and amitie For nothing more procures securitie In all the world than doth equalitie who would not mocke him and despise his admonition And what kinde of man would Atreus have bene reputed if after he had set such a supper as he did before his brother he should in this maner have spoken sentences and given instruction to his owne children When great mishap and crosse calamitie Upon a man is fallen suddenly The onely meed is found by amitie Of those whom blood hath joined perfectly Banish therefore we must and rid away cleane all hatred from among brethren as a thing which is a bad nurce to parents in their olde age and a woorse fostresse to children in their youth besides it giveth occasion of slander calumniation and obloquie among their fellow-citizens and neighbours for thus do men conceive and deeme of it That brethren having bene nourished and brought up together so familiarly from their very cradle it can not be that they should fall out and grow to such termes of enmity and hostility unlesse they were privie one to another of some wicked plots and most mischievous practises For great causes they must bee that are able to undoe great friendship and amitie by meanes whereof hardly or unneth afterwards they can bee reconciled and surely knit againe For like as sundry pieces which have beene once artificially joined together by the meanes of glue or soder if the joint bee loose or open may bee rejoined or sodered againe but if an entire body that naturally is united and growen in one chaunce to bee broken or cut and slit asunder it will be an hard piece of worke to finde any glew or soder so strong as to reunite the same and make it whole and sound even so those mutuall amities which either for profit or upon some neede were first knit betweene men happen to cleave and part in twaine it is an easie matter to reduce them close together but brethren if they bee once alienated and estranged so as that the naturall bond of love can not hold them together hardly will they peece againe or agree ever after and say they be made friends and brought to attonement certeinly such reconciliation maketh in the former rent or breach an ill favoured and filthy skar as being alwaies full of jealousie distrust and suspicion True it is that all jars and enmities betweene man and man entring into the heart together with those passions which be most troublesome and dangerous of all others to wit a peevish humor of contention choler envie and remembrance of injuries done and past do breed griefe paine and vexation but surely that which is fallen betweene brother and brother who of necessitie are to communicate together in all sacrifices and religious ceremonies belonging to their fathers house who are to be interred another day in one and the same sepulchre and live in the meane time otherwhiles under one roofe and dwel in the same house and enjoy possessions lands and tenements confining one upon another doth continually present unto the eie that which tormenteth the heart it putteth them in minde daily and howerly of their follie and madnesse for by meanes thereof that face and countenance which shoulde bee most sweete best knowne and of all other likest is become most strange hideous and unpleasant to the eie that voice which was woont to be even from the cradle friendly and familiar is now become most fearefull terrible to the eare and whereas they see many other brethren cohabit together in one house sit at one table to take their repast occupie the same lands and use the same servants without dividing them what a griefe is it that they thus fallen out should part their friends their hoasts and guests and in one word make all things that be common among other brethren private and whatsoever should be familiar acceptable to become contrarie odious Over and besides here is another inconvenience and mischiefe which there is no man so simple but he must needs conceive and understand That ordinary friends and table companions may be gotten and stollen as it were from others alliance and acquaintance there may be had new if the former be lost even as armour weapons and
his death they will evermore have the same in their mouthes to kindle anew and refresh their sorow went he suddenly and never bad his friends farewell when he departed they lament and say That he was ravished away and forcibly taken from them if he languished and was long in dying then they fal a complaining and give out that he consumed and pined away enduring much paine before hee died to be short every occasion circumstance whatsoever is enough to stirre up their griefe and minister matter to mainteine sorowfull plaints And who be they who have mooved and brought in all these outcries and lamentations but Poets and even Homer himselfe most of all other who is the chiefe and prince of the rest who in this maner writeth Like as a father in the fire of wofull funerals Burning the bones of his yoong sonne sonne after his espousals Sheds many teares for griefe of minde and weepeth bitterly The mother likewise tender heart bewailes him piteously Thus he by his untimely death both parents miserable Afflicts with sorrowes manifold and woes inexplicable But all this while it is not certeine whether it be wel and rightly done to make this sorrow for see what followeth afterwards He was their onely sonne and borne to them in their olde age Sole heire of all and to enjoy a goodly heritage And who knoweth or is able to say whether God in his heavenly providence and fatherly care of mankinde hath taken some out of the world by untimely death foreseeing the calamities and miseries which otherwise would have hapned unto them and therefore we ought to thinke that nothing is befallen them which may be supposed odious or abominable For nothing grievous thought may be Which commeth by necesitie Nothing I say that hapneth to man either by primitive cause immediatly or by consequence aswell in this regard that often times most kinds of death preserve men from more grievous aduersities and excuse them for greater miseries as also for that it is expedient for some never to have bene borne and for others to die in their very birth for some a little after they be entred into this life and for others againe when they are in their flower and growen to the verie hight and vigor of their age all which sorts of death in what maner soever they come men are to take in good part knowing that whatsoever proceedeth from fatall destinie can not possiblie be avoided and besides reason would that being well taught and instructed they should consider and premeditate with themselves how those whom we thinke to have bene deprived of their life before their full maturitie go before us but a little while for even the longest life that is can be esteemed but short and no more than the very minute and point of time in comparison of infinit eternitie also that many of them who mourned and lamented most within a while have gone after those whom they bewailed and gained nothing by their long sorow onely they have in vaine afflicted and tormented themselves whereas seeing the time of our pilgrimage here in this life is so exceeding short we should not consume our selves with heavinesse and sadnesse nor in most unhappie sorrow and miserable paines even to the punishing of our poore bodies with injurious misusage but endevour and strive to take a better and more humane course of life in conversing civilly with those persons who are not ready to be pensive with us and fit to stirre up our sorrow and griefe after a flattering sort but rather with such as are willing meet to take away or diminish our heavinesse with some generous and grave kinde of consolation and we ought to have ever in minde these verses in Homer which Hector by way of comfort delivered unto his wife Andromache in this wise Unhappy wight do not my heart vexe and sollicit still For no man shorten shall my daies before the heavenly will And this I say Andromache that fatall destinie No person good or bad once borne avoid can possibly And of this fatall destinie the same Poet speaketh thus in another place No sooner out of mothers wombe are bades brought forth to light But destinie hath spun the thread for every mortall wight These and such like reasons if we would conceive and imprint before-hand in our mindes we should be free from this foolish heavinesse and delivered from all melancholy and namely considering how short is the terme of our life betweene birth and death which we ought therefore to spare and make much of that we may passe the same in tranquillitie and not interrupt it with carking cares and dolefull dumps but laying aside the marks and habits of heavinesse have a regard both to cheerish our owne bodies and also to procure and promote the welfare and good of those who live with us Moreover it will not be amisse to call to minde and remember those arguments and reasons which by great likelihood wee have sometime used to our kinsefolke and friends when they were afflicted with like calamities when as by way of consolation we exhorted and perswaded them to beare the common accidents of this life with a common course of patience and humane cases humanely Neither must we shew our selves so far short and faultie as to have bene sufficiently furnished for to appease the sorrow of others and not be able by the remembrance of such comforts to do our selves good we ought therefore presently to cure the anguish of our heart with the sovereigne remedies and medicinable drogues as it were of reason and so much the sooner by how much better we may admit dealy in any thing els than in discharging the heart of griefe and melancholie for whereas the common proverbe and by-word in every mans mouth pronounceth thus much Who loves delaies and his time for to slacke Lives by the losse and shall no sorrows lacke Much more dammage I supose he shall receive who deferreth and putteth off from day to day to be discharged of the grievous and adverse passions of the minde A man therefore is to turne his eies toward those worthy personages who have shewed themselves magnanimous and of great generositie in bearing the death of their children as for example Anaxagor as the Clazomenian Pericles and Demosthenes of Athens Dion the Syracusian and king Antigonus besides many others both in these daies and also in times past of whom Anaxagor as as we reade in historie having heard of his sonnes death by one who brought him newes thereof even at what time as he was disputing in naturall philosophie and discoursing among his scholers and disciples paused a while and staied the course of his speech and said no more but thus unto those who were about him Well I wist that I begat my sonne to be a mortall man And Pericles who for his passing eloquence and excellent wisedome was surnamed Olympius that is to say divine and heavenly when tidings came to him that his
named Florentia her Calphurnius a Romane deflowred whereupon he commaunded the yoong maid-childe which she bare to be cast into the sea but the souldiour who had the charge so to doe tooke compassion of her and chose rather to sell her unto a merchant and it fortuned so that the ship of a certeine merchant arrived in Italy where Calphurinus bought her and of her body begat Contruscus 28 Aeolus king of Tuskan had by his wife Amphithea six daughters and as many sonnes of whom Macareus the yoongest for very love defloured one of his sisters who when the time came brought foorth a child when this came once to light her father sent unto her a sword and she acknowledging the fault which she had committed killed her-selfe therewith and so did afterwards her brother Macareus as Sostratus reporteth in the second booke of the Tuscan storie Papyrius Volucer having espoused Julia Pulchra had by her six daughters and as many sonnes the eldest of whom named Papyrius Romanus was enamoured of Canulia one of his sisters so as she was by him with childe which when the father understood hee sent unto her likewise a sword wherewith she made away her-selfe and Romanus also did as much thus Chrisippus relateth in the first booke of the Italian Chronicles 29 Aristonymus the Ephesian sonne of Demostratus hated women but most unnaturally he had to doe with a she asse which when time came brought foorth a most beautifull maide childe surnamed Onoscelis as Aristotle writeth in the second booke of his Paradoxes or strange accidents Fulvius Stellus was at warre with all women but yet he dealt most beastly with a mare and she bare unto him after a time a faire daughter named Hippona and this is the goddesse forsooth that hath the charge and overseeing of horses and mares as Agesilaus hath set downe in the third booke of Italian affaires 30 The Sardians warred upon a time against the Smyrneans encamped before the walles of their city giving them to understand by their embassadors that raise their siege they would not unlesse they sent unto them their wives to lie withall the Smyrneans being driven to this extremity were at the point to doe that which the enemies demaunded of them but a certeine waiting maiden there was a faire and welfavoured damosell who ranne unto her master Philarchus and said unto him that he must not faile but in any case chuse out the fairest wenches that were maide-servants in all the citie to dresse them like unto citizens wives and free borne women and so to send them unto their enemies in stead of their mistresses which was effected accordingly and when the Sardians were wearied with dealing with these wenehes the Smyrneans issued foorth surprized and spoiled them whereupon it commeth that even at this day in the citie of Smyrna there is a solemne feast named Eleutheria upon which day the maide-servants weare the apparell of their mistresses which be free women as saith Dositheus in the third booke of Lydian chronicles Antepomarus king of the Gaules when he made warre upon the Romans gave it out flatly and said that he would never dislodge and breake up his campe before they sent unto them their wives for to have their pleasure of them but they by the counsell of a certeine chamber maide sent unto them their maid-servants the Barbarians medled so long with them that they were tired and fell sound asleepe in the end then Rhetana for that was her name who gave the said counsell tooke a branch of a wilde figge tree and mounting up to the toppe of a rampier wall gave a signall thereby to the Consuls who sallied foorth and defeated them whereupon there is a feastivall day of chambermaids for so saith Aristides the Milesian in the first booke of the Italian historie 31 When the Athenians made warre upon Eumolpus and were at some default of victuals Pyrander who had the charge of the munition was treasurer of the State for to make spare of the provision diminished the ordinary measure and cut men short of their allowances the inhabitants suspecting him to be a traitor to his country in so dooing stoned him to death as Callistratus testifieth in the third booke of the Thracian history The Romans warring upon the Gaules and having not sufficient store of victuals Cinna abridged the people of their ordinary measure of corne the Romans suspecting therupon that he made way thereby to be king stoned him likewise to death witnesse Aristides in his third booke of Italian histories 32 During the Peloponnesiack warre Pisistratus the Orchomenian hated the nobles and affected men of base and low degree whereupon the Senators complotted and resolved among them selves to kill him in the Counsell house where they cut him in pieces and every one put a gobbet of him in his bosome and when they had so done they scraped and clensed the floore where his blood was shed The common people having some suspition of the matter rushed into the Senat house but Tlesimachus the kings youngest sonne who was privy to the foresaid conspiracie withdrew the multitude from the common place of assembly and assured them that he saw his father Pisistratus carying a more stately majesty in his countenance than any mortal man ascending up with great celerity the top of mount Pisaeus as Theophilus recordeth in the second of his Peloponnesiackes In regard of the warrs so neere unto the city of Rome the Roman Senat cut the people short of their allowances in corne whereat Romulus being not well pleased allowed it them a gaine rebuked yea and chastised many of the great men who thereupon banded against him and in the middest of the Senat house made him away among them cut him in pieces and bestowed on every man a slice of him in his bosome Whereupon the people ran immediatly with fire in their hands to the Senat house minding to burne them all within but Proculus a noble man of the city assured them that he saw Romulus upon a certeine high mountaine and that he was bigger than any man living and become a very god The Romans beleeved his words such authority the man caried with him and so retired back as Aristobulus writeth in the third booke of his Italian Chronicles 33 Pelops the sonne of Tantalus and Eurianassa wedded Hippodamia who bare unto him Atreus and Thyestes but of the Nimph Danais a concubine he begat Chrysippus whom he loved better than any of his legitimate sonnes him Laius the Theban being inamoured stole away by force and being attached and intercepted by Atreus and Thyestes obteined the good grace and favour of Pelops to enjoy him for his love sake Howbeit Hippodamia perswaded her two sonnes Atreus and Thyestes to kill him as if she knew that he aspired to the kingdome of their father which they refusing to doe she her selfe imploied her owne hands to perpetrate this detestable fact for one night as Layus lay sound asleepe she
drew forth his sword and when she had wounded Chrisippus as he slept she left the sword sticking in the wound thus was Laius suspected for the deed because of his sword but the youth being now halfe dead discharged and acquit him and revealed the whole truth of the matter whereupon Pelops caused the dead body to be enterred but Hippodamia he banished as Dositheus recordethin his booke Pelopidae Hebius Tolieix having espoused a wife named Nuceria had by her two children but of an infranchised bond woman he begat a son named Phemius Firmus a childe of excellent beauty whom he loved more deerely than the children by his lawfull wife Nuceria detesting this base son of his solicited her own children to murder him which when they having the feare of God before there eyes refused to do she enterprised to execute the deed her selfe And in truth she drew forth the sword of one of the squires of the body in the night season and with it gave him a deadly wound as he lay fast asleepe the foresaid squire was suspected and called in question for this act for that his sword was there found but the childe himselfe discovered the truth his father then commanded his body to be buried but his wife he banished as Dositheus recordeth in the third booke of the Italian Chronicles 34 Theseus being in very truth the naturall sonne of Neptune had a sonne by Hippolite a princesse of the Amazones whose name was Hippolytus but afterwards maried againe and brought into the house a stepmother named Phaedra the daughter of Minos who falling in love with her sonne-inlaw Hippolitus sent her nourse for to sollicite him but he giving no eare unto her left Athens and went to Troezen where he gave his minde to hunting But the wicked and unchaste woman seeing her selfe frustrate and disapointed of her will wrot shrewd letters unto her husband against this honest and chaste yong gentleman informing him of many lies and when she had so done strangled her selfe with an halter and so ended her daies Theseus giving credit unto her letters besought his father Neptune of the three requests whereof he had the choise this one namely to worke the death of Hippolytus Neptune to satisfie his mind sent out unto Hippolytus as he rode along the sea slde a monstrous bull who so affrighted his coatch horses that they overthrew Hippolytus and so he was crushed to death Comminius Super the Laurentine having a sonne by the nimph Aegeria named Comminius espoused afterwards Gidica and brought into his house a stepmother who became likewise amorous of her son-in law and when she saw that she could not speed of her desire she hanged her selfe and left behind her certaine letters devised against him containing many untruths Comminius the father having read these slanderous imputations within the said letters and beleeving that which his jealous head had once conceived called upon Neptune who presented unto Commintus his sonne as he rode in his chariot a hideous bull which set his steeds in such a fright that they fell a flinging and so haled the young man that they dismembred and killed him as Dositheus reporteth in the third booke of the Italian historie 35 When the pestilence raigned in Lacedaemon the oracle of Apollo delivered this answer That the mortalitie would cease in case they sacrificed yeerly a young virgin of noble blood Now whē it fortuned that the lot one yeere fell upō Helena so that she was led forth all prepared and set out readie to be killed there was an eagle came flying downe caught up the sword which lay there and caried it to cerraine droves of beasts where she laid it upon an heyfer whereupon ever after they forbare to sacrifice any more virgins as Aristodemus reporteth in the third Collect of fables The plague was sore in Falerij the contagion thereof being verie great there was given out an oracle That the said affliction would stay and give over if they sacrificed yeerly a yong maiden unto Juno and this superstition continuing alwaies still Valeria Luperca was by lot called to this sacrifice now when the sword was readie drawen there was an eagle came downe out of the aire and caried it away and upon the altar where the fire was burning laid a wand having at one end in maner of a little mallet as for the sword she laid upon a young heyfer feeding by the temple side which when the young damsell perceived after she had sacrificed the said heyfer and taken up the mallet she went from house to house and gentl knocking therewith all those that lay sicke raised them up and said to everie one Be whole and receive health whereupon it commeth that even at this day this mysterie is still performed and observed as Aristides hath reported in the 919. book of his Italian histories 36 Phylonome the daughter of Nyctimus and Arcadia hunted with Diana whom Mars disguised like a shepherd got with child She having brought foorth two twinnes for feare of her father threw them into the river Erymanthus but they by the providēce of the gods were caried downe the streame without harme or danger and at length the current of the water cast them upon an hollow oake growing up on the banke side whereas a she woolfe having newly kennelled had her den This woolfe turned out her whelps into the river and gave sucke unto the two twins above said which when a shepherd named Tyliphus once perceived and had a sight of he tooke up the little infants and caused them to be nourished as his owne children calling the one Lycastus and the other Parrhasius who successively reigned in the realme of Arcadia Amulius bearing himselfe insolently and violently like a tyrant to his brother Numitor first killed his sonne Aenitus as they were hunting then his daughter Sylvia he cloistred up as a religious nunne to serve Juno She conceived by Mars and when shee was delivered of two twins confessed the truth unto the tyrant who standing in feare of them caused them both to be cast into the river Tybris where they were carried downe the water unto one place whereas a shee woolfe had newly kennelled with her yoong ones and verily her owne whelps shee abandoned and cast into the river but the babes shee suckled Then Faustus the shepherd chauncing to espie them tooke them up and nourished as his owne calling the one Remus and the other Romulus and these were the founders of Rome citie according to Artstides the Milesian in his Italian histories 37 After the destruction of Troy Agamemnon together with Cassandra was murdred but Orestes who had beene reared and brought up with Strophius was revenged of those murderers of his father as Pyrander saith in his fourth booke of the Peloponnesian historie Fabius Fabricianus descended lineally from that great Fabius Maximus after he had wonne and sacked Tuxium the capitall citie of the Samnites sent unto Rome the image of Venus Victoresse which was so highly
named Calesto married afterwards to Cleombrotus the sonne of Dimocrates an Acharnanian who by her had a sonne named Lycophron whom Lycophron the grand-father adopted for his owne sonne and he departed this life without children after the decease of this Lycophron Callisto was remarried unto Socrates unto whom she bare a sonne named Symmachus who begat Aristonymus and of Aristonymus came Charmides whose daughter was Philippe and she bare a sonne to wit Lysander Medius who became an interpreter also one of the Eumolpides of him and of Timothea the daughter of Glaucus descended Laodamia and Medius who held the priesthood of Neptune Erectheus Philippa also a daughter who afterwards was a religious priestresse devoted to Minerva for before time had Diocles the Melittean espoused her and she bare him a sonne named likewise Diocles who was a colonell of a regiment of footmen and he tooke to wife Hediste the daughter of Abron of whose body he begat Philippide and Nicostrata and Themistocles the torch-bearer sonne of Theophrastus married Nicostrata by whom he had Theophrastus and Diocles notwithstanding he was priest unto Neptune Erechtheus There be sound of this oratours penning fifteene orations Crowned hee was many times by the people and ordeined there were for him divers statues and images whereof there was one all of brasse according to a publike decree of the citie standing in the street Ceranicum that yeere when Anaxicrates was provost under whom there was allowed unto himselfe and his sonne Lycurgus as also to his eldest nephew table and diet in Prytanneum by vertue of the same decree of the people howbeit after the decease of Lycurgus Lycophron his eldest sonne made sute by law for this gift and donation He pleaded also many times for matters of religion and accused Autolycus the senatour and one of the high court Areopagus Lysicles also the captaine and Demades the sonne of Demius together with Menesachmus and many others whom he overthrew and caused to be condemned every one Moreover he called judicially into question Diphtlus for that he tooke away out of the mettal mines those middle posts or props which supported the weight of earth bearing upon them by which meanes he enriched himselfe directly against the lawes and whereas the penaltie of this crime was death he caused him to be condemned He distributed out of his goods unto every citizen of Athens fiftie drachmes or as some say one mua or pound of silver for the totall summe of his wealth amounted unto an hundred and threescore talents He accused likewise Aristogiton Cleocrates and Autolycus for that being no better than slaves they caried themselves like men of free condition This Lycurgus was surnamed Ibis that is to say the blacke Storke and men commonly would say to Lycurgus Ibis like as to Xenophon Nycteris that is to say the Howlet The most ancient of this house were descended from Erectheus the sonne of the Earth and of Vulcane but the neerest from Lycomedes and Lycurgus whom the people honoured with publicke funerals and obsequies And this descent of their race is drawen from those who were priests of Neptune and set downe in a full and perfect table which hangeth up in the temple Erechthium and was painted by Ismenias the Chalcidian where also stand certeine statues of wood aswell of Lycurgus as of his children to wit Abron Lycurgus and Lychophron which sometimes were made by Timarchus and Cephisodorus the sonnes of Praxiteles the imager He who set up and dedicated the painted table beforesaid was Abron unto whom by order of hereditarie succession fell the priesthood but he gave over his right thereto voluntarily unto his brother Lycophron this is the reason that he is painted giving a three-forked mace unto his brother Now this Lycurgus having caused to be engraven upon a square pillar a briefe of his whole administration of the cōmon weale caused it to be planted just beford the wrestling hall for every man to see it that would Neither could any man be foūd so hardy as to accuse him for robbing the State or inverting any thing to his own use He proposed unto the people that there should be a coronet given unto Neoptolemus the sonne of Anticles and a statue besides for that he undertooke and promised to gild all over the altar of Apollo in the market place according to the commandement direction of the oracle He demanded also that honour should be decreed for Euonymus the sonne of Diotimus whose father was Diopithes in that yeere wherein Ctesicles was provost DEMOSTHENES VIII DEmosthenes the sonne of Demosthenes and of Cleobule the daughter of Gylon of the linage or tribe of Paeania being left an orphan by his father at the age of seven yeeres together with a sister five yeeres olde during the time of orphanage kept with his mother a widow and went to schoole unto Isocrates as some say or as most men give out to Isaeus the Chalcidian the disciple of Isocrates who lived in Athens he imitated Thucydides and Plato the Philosopher in whose schoole there be that say he was first brought up but as Hegesias the Magnesian reporteth being advertised that Callistratus the sonne of Empaedes an Aphidnean and famous orator who had bene captaine and commander of a troupe ofhorsemen and who had dedicated an altar to Mercurie surnamed Agoraios that is to say the Speaker was to make a solemne oration unto the people craved leave of his tutour and schoolemaster that he might go to heare him and no sooner had he heard him speake but he was in love with his eloquence But as for this oratour he heard him but a while even until he left the citie for banished he was Now after that he was departed into Thrace by which time Demosthenes grew to be a yong man then began he to frequent the company of Isocrates and Plato howbeit afterwards hee tooke home into his house Isaeus whom he enterteined the space of foure yeeres and exercised himselfe in the imitation of his stile or as Ctesibius reporteth in his treatise of Philosophie he wrought so that by the meanes of Callias the Syracusian he recovered the orations of Zethus the Amphipolitane and by the helpe of Charicles the Charistian he got them also of Alcidamus and those he give himselfe wholly to imitate But in processe of time when he was come to mans estate and past a ward seeing that his tutours and guardians allowed him not sufficiently out of his living and patrimonie he called them to account for their guardianship that yeere wherein Timocrates was provost of Athens Now three tutours or governours he had to wit Aphobus Theripedes Demophon aliâs Demea whom he charged more than the rest being his uncle by the mothers side he laied actions upon them of ten talents a piece and so much he demanded of them by law he overthrew them all but he could not come by ought of that wherein they were condemned for neither recovered he money nor favour
the night long toile and moile like a drudge and hireling thy selfe hire other labourers for day-wages lie in the winde for inheritances speake men faire in hope to be their heire and debase thy selfe to all the world and care not to whom thou cap and knee for gaine having I say so sufficient meanes otherwise to live at ease to wit thy niggardise and pinching parsimonie whereby thou maist be dispensed for doing just nothing It is reported of a certaine Bizantine who finding an adulterer in bed with his wife who though she were but foule yet was ilfavoured enough said unto him O miserable caitise what necessitie hath driven thee thus to doe what needes Sapragoras dowrie well goe to thou takest great paines poore wretch thou fillest and stirrest the lead thou kindlest the fire also underneath it Necessarie it is in some sort that Kings and Princes should seeke for wealth and riches that these Governours also and Deputies muder them should bee great gatheres yea and those also who reach at the highest places and aspire to rule and soveraigne dignities in great States and cities all these I say have need perforce to heape up grosse summes of money to the end that for their ambition their proud port pompe and vaine-glorious humour they might make sumptuous feasts give largesses reteine a guard about their persons send presents abroad to other States mainteine and wage whole armies buie slaves to combat and fight at sharpe to the outtrance but thou makest thy selfe so much adoo thou troublest and tormentest both body and minde living like an oister or a shell-snaile and for to pinch and spare art content to undergo and indure all paine and travell taking no pleasure nor delight in the world afterwards no more than the Baine-keepers poore asse which carying billots and fagots of drie brush and sticks to kindle fire and to heat the stouphes is evermore full of smoake soot ashes and sinders but hath no benefit at all of the bane and is never bathed washed warmed rubbed scoured and made cleane Thus much I speake in reproch and disdaine of this miserable asse-like avarice this base raping and scraping together in maner of ants or pismires Now there is another kind of covetousnesse more savage and beast-like which they prosesse who backbite and slander raise malicious imputations forge false wils and testaments lie in wait for heritages cogge and cousen and intermeddle in all matters will bee seene in everie thing know all mens states busie themselves with many cares and troubles count upon their fingers how many friends they have yet living and when they have all done receive no fruition or benefit by all the goods which they have gotten together from all parts with their cunning casts subtil shifts And therefore like as we have in greater hatred and detestation vipers the venemous flies Cantharides and the stinging spiders called Philangia Tarantale than either beares or lions for that they kill folke and stinge them to death but receive no good or benefit at all by them when they are dead even so be these wretches more odious and woorthy to be hated of us who by their miserable parsimonie and pinching doe mischiefe than those who by their riot and wastfulnesse be hurtfull to a common-weale because they take and catch from others that which they themselves neither will nor know how to use Whereupon it is that such as these when they have gotten abundance and are in maner full rest them for a while and doe no more violence as it were in time of truce and surcease of hostilitie much after the maner as Demosthenes said unto them who thought that Demades had giuen over all his lewdnesse and knavery O quoth he you see him now full as lions are who when they have filled their bellies prey no more for the lice untill they be hungrie againe but such covetous wretches as be imploied in government of civill affaires and that for no profit nor pleasure at all which they intend those I say never rest nor make holiday they allow themselves no truce nor cessation from gathering heaping more together still as being evermore emptie have alwaies need of al things though they have all But some man perhaps will say These men I assure you do save lay up goods in store for their children and heires after their death unto whom whiles they live they will part with nothing If that be so I can compare them very well to those mice and cats in gold mines which feed upon the gold-ore and licke up all the golden sand that the mines yeeld so that men can not come by the golde there before they be dead and cut up in maner of anatomies But tell me I pray you wherefore are these so willing to treasure up so much money and so great substance and leave the same to their children inheritours and successors after them I verily beleeve to this end that those children and heires also of theirs should keepe the same still for others likewise and so to passe from hand to hand by descent of many degrees like as earthen conduct-pipes by which water is conveied into some cesterne withhold and reteine none of all the water that passeth through them but doe transmit and send all away from them ech one to that which is next and reserve none to themselves thus doe they untill some arise from without a meere stranger to the house one that is a sycophant or very tyrant who shall cut off this keeper of that great stocke and treasure and when he hath dispatched and made a hand of him drive and turne the course of all this wealth and riches out of the usuall chanell another way or at leastwise untill it fall into the hands as commonly men say it doth of the most wicked and ungracious imp of that race who wil disperse and scatter that which others have gathered who will consume and devour all unthristily which his predecessors have gotten and spared wickedly for not onely as Euripides saith Those children wastfull prove and bad Who servile slaves for parents had but also covetous carles pinching peni-fathers leave children behind thē that be loose riotous spend-thrifts like as Diogenes by way of mockery said upon a time That it were better to be a Megarians ram than his sonne for wherein they would seeme to instruct and informe their children they spoile and mar them cleane ingrafting into their hearts a desire and love of money teaching them to be covetous and base minded pinch-penies laying the foundation as it were in their heires of some strong place or fort wherein they may surely guard and keepe their inheritance And what good lessons and precepts be these which they teach them Gaine and spare my sonne get and save thinke with thy selfe and make thine account that thou shalt be esteemed in the world according to thy wealth and not otherwise But surely this not to instruct a
honest persons never respecting whether they be poore strangers and banished or no Do we not see that all the world doth honor and reverence the temple of Theseus aswell as Parthenon and Eleusinium temples dedicated to Minerva Ceres and Proserpina and yet was Theseus banished from Athens even that Theseus by whose meanes the same citie was first peopled and is at this day inhabited and that citie lost he which he held not from another but founded first himselfe As for Eleusis what beautie at all would remaine in it if we dishonor Eumolpus and be ashamed of him who remooving out of Thracia instituted at first among the Greeks the religion of sacred mysteries which continueth in force and is observed at this day what shall we say of Codrus who became king of Athens whose sonne I pray you was he was not Melanthius his father a banished man from Messina Can you chuse but commend the answere of Antisthenes to one who said unto him Thy mother is a Phrygian So was quoth he the mother of the gods why answer you not likewise when you are reproched with your banishment even so was the father of that victorious conqueror Hercules the grand-fire likewise of Bacchus who being sent out for to seeke lady Europa never returned backe into his native countrie For being a Phaenician borne At Thebes he after did arrive Far from his native soile beforne And there begat a sonne belive Who Bacchus did engender tho That mooves to furie women hight Mad Bacchus runneth to and fro In service such is his delight As for that which the Poet Aeschylus would seeme covertly by these darke words to insinuate or rather to shew a farre off when he saith thus And chaste Apollo sacred though be were Yet banished a time heaven did for be are I am content to passe over in silence and will forbeare to utter according as Herodotus saith and whereas Empedocles in the very beginning of his philosophie maketh this praeface An auncient law there stands in force decreed by gods above Groundedupon necessitie and never to remoove That after men hath 〈◊〉 hands in bloudshed horrible And in remorse of sinne is vext with horrour terrible The long liv'd angels whith attend in heaven shall chase him quite For many thousand yeeres from view of every blessed wight By vertue of this law am I from gods exiled now And wander heere and there throughone the world I know not how This he meaneth not of himselfe alone but of all us after him whom he declareth and sheweth by these words to be meere strangers passengers forreiners and banished persons in this world For it is not bloud quoth he ô men nor vitall spirit contemperate together that hath given unto us the substance of our soule and beginning of our life but hereof is the bodie only composed and framed which is earthly and mortall but the generation of the soule which commeth another way and descendeth hither into these parts beneath he doth mitigate and seeme to disguise by the most gentle and milde name that hee could devise calling it a kinde of pilgrimage from the naturall place but to use the right tearme indeed and to speake according to the very truth she doth vague and wander as banished chased and driven by the divine lawes and statutes to and fro untill such time as it setleth to a bodie as an oister or shell fish to one rocke or other in an island beaten and dashed upon with many windes and waves of the sea round about as Plato saith for that it doth not remember nor call to mind from what height of honor from how blessed an estate it is translated not changing as a man would say Sardis for Athens nor Corinth for Lemnos or Scyros but her resiance in the very heaven and about the moone with the abode upon earth and with a terrestriall life whereas it thinketh it strange and as much discontented heere for that it hath made exchange of one place for another not farre distant much like unto a poore plant that by remooving doth degenerate and begin to wither away and yet we see that for certaine plants some soile is more commodious and sortable than another wherein they will like thrive and prosper better whereas contrariwise there is no place that taketh from a man his felicitie no more than it doth his vertue fortitude or wisedome for Anaxagoras during the time that he was in prison wrote his Quadrature of the circle and Socrates even when he drunke poison discoursed as a philosopher exhorting his friends and familiars to the studie of philosophie and was by them reputed happie but contrariwise Phaeton and Icarus who as the poets do report would needs mount up into heaven through their owne folly and inconsiderate rashnes fell into most greevous and wofull calamities THAT WE OVGHT NOT TO TAKE UP MONEY UPON VSVRIE The Summarie THe covetous desire of earthly goods is a passion inturable but especially after that it hath gotten the masterie of the souse in such sort as the advertisements which are made in regard of covetous men be not proposed for any thing els but for the profit and benefit of those persons who are to keepe themselves from the nets and snares of these enemies of humane societie Now among all those who haveneed of good counsels in this behalfe we must range them that take up money upon interest who serving as a pray and bootie to these greedie and hungry hunters aught so much the rather to looke unto their owne preservation if they would not be cruelly devoured And as this infortunitie hath bene in the world ever since the entrie of sinne that alwates some or other yea and great numbers have endevoured to make their commoditie and gaine by the losse and dammage of their neighbours so we may see heere that in Plutarchs time things were growen to a woonderfull confusion the which is nothing diminished since but contrariwise it seemeth that in these our daies it is come to the very height And for to applie some remedie heereto our authour leavethusurers altogether as persons gracelesse reprobate and ancapable of all remon strance addressing himselfe unto borrowers to the end that he might discover and lay open unto them the snares and nets into which they plunge themselves and this he doth without specifying or particularising over neere of usurie because there is no meane or measure limited nor any end of this furious desire of gathering and heaping up things corruptible Considering then that covetous folke have neither nerve nor veine that reacheth or tendeth to the pittie of their neighbours meet it is and good reason that borrowers should have some mercie and compassion of themselves to weigh and ponder well the grave discourses of this authour and to applie the same unto the right use He saith therefore that the principall meanes to keepe and save themselves from the teeth of usurie is to make the best of their owne and
lawyer although he had no law in the world in him and was besides a man of very grosse capacity this man was served with a writ to appeare in the court for to beare witnesse of a trueth touching a certeine fact in question but he answered That he knew nothing at all True quoth Cicero for peradventure you meane of the law and thinke that you are asked the question of it Hortensius the orator who pleaded the cause of Verres had received of him for a fee or a gentle reward a jewel with the portraiture of Sphinx in silver it fell out so that Cicero chanced to give out a certeine darke and ambiguous speech As for mee quoth Hortensius I can not tell what to make of your words for I am not one that useth to solve riddles and aenigmaticall speeches Why man quoth Cicero and yet you have Sphinx in your house He met upon a time with Voconius and his three daughters the foulest that ever looked out of a paire of eies at which object he spake softly to his friends about him This man I weene his children hath begot In spight of Phoebus and when he would it not Faustus the sonne of Sylla was in the end so farre endebted that he exposed his goods to be sold in open sale and caused billes to be set up on posts in every quarrefour to notisie the same Yea mary quoth Cicero I like these billes and proscriptions better than those that his father published before him When Caesar and Pompeius were entred into open warre one against another I know full well quoth Cicero whom to flie but I wot not unto whom to flie He found great fault with Pompeius in that he left the citie of Rome and that he chose rather in this case to imitate the policy of Themistocles than of Pericles saying That the present state of the world resembled rather the time of Pericles than of Themistocles Hee drew at first to Pompeius side and being with him repented thereof When Pompey asked him where he had left Piso his son-in-law he answered readily Even with your good father-in-law meaning Caesar. There was one who departed out of Caesars campe unto Pompey and said That he had made such haste that hee left his horse behinde him Thou canst skill I perceive better to save thy horses life than thine owne Unto another who brought word that the friends of Caesar looked soure and unpleasant Thou saiest quoth he as much as if they thought not well of his proceedings After the battell of Pharsalia was lost and that Pompeius was already fled there was one Nonius who came unto him and willed him not to despaire but be of good cheere for that they had yet seven eagles left which were the standerds of the legions Seven eagles quoth he that were somewhat indeed if we had to warre against jaies jackdawes After that Caesar upon his victorie being lord of all had caused the statues of Pompey which were cast done to be set up againe with honor Cicero said of Caesar In setting up these statues of Pompey he hath pitched his owne more surely He so highly esteemed the gift of eloquence and grace of well speaking yea and he tooke so great paines with ardent affection for to performe the thing that having to plead a cause onely before the Centumvirs or hundred judges and the day set downe being neere at hand for the hearing and triall thereof when one of his servants Eros brought him word that the cause was put off to the next day he was so well contented and pleased therewith that incontinently he gave him his freedome for that newes CAIUS CAESAR at what time as he being yet a yoong man fled and avoided the furie of Sylla fell into the hands of certeine pirats or rovers who at the first demanded of him no great summe of money for his ransome whereat hee mocked and laughed at them as not knowing what maner of person they had gotten and so of himselfe promised to pay them twise as much as they asked and being by them guarded and attended upon very diligently all the while that he sent for to gather the said summe of money which he was to deliver them he willed them to keepe silence and make no noise that he might sleepe and take his repose during which time that he was in their custodie he exercised himselfe in writing aswell verse as prose and read the same to them when they were composed and if hee saw that they would not praise and commend those poemes and orations sufficiently to his contentment he would call them senselesse fots and barbarous yea and after a laughing maner threaten to hang them and to say a truth within a while after he did as much for them for when his ransome was come and he delivered once out of their hands he levied together a power of men and ships from out of the coasts of Asia set upon the said rovers spoiled them and crucified them Being returned to Rome and having enterprised a sute for the soveraign Sacerdotall dignitie against Catulus who was then a principall man at Rome whenas his mother accompanied him as farre as to the utmost gates of his house when he went into Mars field where the election was held he took his leave of her and said Mother you shall have this day your sonne to be chiefe Pontifice and high priest or else banished from the citie of Rome He put away his wife Pompeia upon an ill name that went of her as if she had beene naught with Clodius whereupon when Clodius afterwards was called into question judicially for the fact and Caesar likewise convented into the court peremptorily for to beare witnesse of the truth being examined upon his oath he sware that he never knew any ill at all by his wife and when he was urged and replied upon againe wherefore he had put her away he answered That the wife of Caesar ought not onely to be innocent and cleere of crime but also of all suspicion of crime In reading the noble acts of Alexander the great the teares trickled downe his cheeks and when his friends desired to know the reason why he wept At my age quoth he Alexander had vanquished subdued Darius and I have yet done nothing As he passed along through a little poore towne situate within the Alpes his familiar friends about him merrily asked one another whether there were any factions and contentions in that burrough about superioritie and namely who should be the chiefe whereupon he staid suddenly and after he had studied and mused a while within himselfe I had rather quoth he be the first here than the second in Rome As for hautie adventerous enterprises he was wont to say They should be executed not consulted upon and verily when he passed over the river Rubicon which divideth the province of Gaul from Italy for to leade his power against Pompeius Let the Die
their enemies and in consideration thereof he should receive of them fifty talents notwithstanding he stood then in very great need of mony for to buy victuals for the mariners yet would not he grant their request and when Cleander one of his counsell said unto him I would I trow if I were in your place take the offer So would I also quoth he if I were in yours Being come to Sardis unto Cyrus the yoonger who at that time was an allie and confederate of the Lacedaemonians to see if hee could speed himselfe of him with money for to enterteine mariners and mainteine the armada the first day he gave him to understand that he was thither come to speake with him but answere was made That the king was at the table drinking Well quoth he I will give attendance untill he have made an end of his beaver after he had waited a long time and saw that it was impossible for to have audience that day he departed out of the court for that time being thought very rude and uncivill in so doing the morow after when likewise he was given to understand that he was drinking againe and that he would not come abroad that day he made no more adoe but returned to Ephesus from whence he came saying withall That he ought not so farre foorth to take paines for to be provided of money as to doe any thing unseeming Sparta and besides he fell a cursing those who were the first that endured such indignitie as to subject themselves unto the insolencie of Barbarians and who taught them to abuse their riches and thereby to shew themselves so proud and disdainfull as to insult over others yea and he sware a great oath in the presence of those who were in his company that so soone as he was returned to Sparta he would labor with all his might and maine to reconcile the Greeke nations one unto another to the end that they might be more dread and terrible to the Barbarians when as they stood in no need of their forren forces to wage warre one upon another It was demanded of him what kinde of men the Ionians were Good slaves they are quoth he but bad free-men When Cyrus in the end had sent money for to pay his souldiers wages and besides some gifts and presents particularly to himselfe he received onely the foresaid pay but as for the gifts he sent them backe againe saying That he had no need of any private or particular amitie with Cyrus so long as the common friendship which he had with all the Lacedaemonians perteined also unto him A little before he gave the battell at sea neere unto Arginusie his pilot said unto him That it was best for him to saile away for that the gallies of the Athenians were fasrre more in number than theirs And what of all that quoth he is it not a shamefull infamie hurtfull besides to Sparta for to flie simply best it is to tary by it and either to win or die for it Being at the point to encounter and joine medley and having sacrificed unto the gods the soothsaier shewed unto him that the entrails of the beast signified and promised assured victory unto the armie but death unto the captaine whereat he was nothing daunted nor affrighted but said The state of Sparta lieth not in one man for when I am dead my countrey will be never the lesse but if I should recule now and yeeld unto the enemies she will be much impaired and lose her reputation Thus having substituted Cleander in his place if ought should happen otherwise than well he gave the charge and strooke a navall battell wherein fighting valiantly he ended his life CLEOMBROTUS the sonne of Pausanias when a certeine friend a stranger debated and reasoned with his father about vertue he said unto him In this point at least-wise is my father before you for that he hath already begotten a sonne and you none CLEOMENES the sonne of Anaxandrides was wont to say That Homer was the Poet of the Lacedaemonians because he taught how to make warre but Hesiodus the Poet of the Ilots for that he wrote of agriculture and husbandry He had made truce for seven daies with the Argives and the third night after it beganne perceiving that the Argives upon the assurance and confidence of the said truce were soundly asleepe he charged upon them flew some and tooke others prisoners and when he was reproched therefore and namely that he had broken his oth he answered That he never sware to observe truce in the night season but in day-time onely and besides what annoiance soever a man did unto his enemies in what sort it made no matter he was to thinke that both before God and man it was a point above justice and in no wise subject and liable unto it howbeit for this perjurie of his and breaking of covenant he was disappointed and 〈◊〉 of his hope and desseigne which was to surprise the citie of Argos for that indeed the very women tooke those armes which in memoriall of ancient victories were hung and set up fast in their temples with which they repelled them from the walles after this he fell into a furious rage and his wits were bestraught insomuch as he tooke a knife and slit his bodie from the very ancles up to the principall and noble vitall parts and so laughing and scoffing he left his life His very soothsaire would have disswaded and diverted him from leading his forces against Argos saying That his returne from thence would be dishonourable and infamous and when he presented his power before the citie he found the gates fast shut against them and the women in armes upon the walles How thinke you quoth he now doe you suppose this a dishonourable returne when as the women after all the men be dead are faine to keepe the gates fast locked When the Argives abused him with reprochfull tearmes calling him a perjured and godlesse person Well quoth he it is in you to miscall me and raile upon me as you do in word but it is in me to plague and mischiefe you indeed Unto the ambassadours of Same 's who came to moove and sollicit him for to warre upon the tyrant Polycrates and to that effect used long speeches and perswasions he answered thus As touching that point which you speake of in the beginning of your oration it is out of my head now and I remember it not in which regard also I doe not well conceive the middle part of your speech but as for that which you delivered in the latter end I mislike it altogether There was in his time a notable rover or pirate who made roads into the land and spoiled the coasts of Laconia but at the last he was intercepted and taken now being examined and demanded why he robbed in this sort I had not wherewith quoth he to mainteine and keepe my souldiers about me and therefore I came to those who
to let go the resemblance of an hereditarie vice which beginneth to bud and sprout in a yoong man to stay and suffer it I say to grow on still burgen and spread into all affections untill it appeare in the view of the whole world for as Pindarus saith The foolish heart doth bring forth from within Her hidden fruit corrupt and full of sin And thinke you not that in this point God is wiser than the Poet Hesiodus who admonisheth us and giveth counsell in this wise No children get if thou be newly come From dolefull grave or heavie funerall But spare not when thou art returned home From solemne feast of Gods celestiall as if he would induce men to beget their children when they be jocund fresh and mery for that the generation of them received the impression not of vertue and vice onely but also of joy sadnesse all other qualities howbeit this is not a worke of humane wisdome as Hesiodus supposeth but of God himselfe to discern foreknow perfectly either the conformities or the diversities of mens natures drawen from their progenitors before such time as they breake forth into some great enormities whereby their passions affections be discovered what they are for the yong whelps of beares wolves apes such like creatures shew presently their naturall inclination even whiles they be very yong because it is not disguised or masked with any thing but the nature of man casting it selfe and setling upon maners customes opinions lawes concealeth often times the ill that it hath but doth imitate counterfeit that which is good and honest in such sort as it may be thought either to have done away cleane all the staine blemish imperfection of vices inbred with it or els to have hidden it a long time being covered with the vaile of craft subtiltie so as we are not able or at leastwise have much adoe to perceive their malice by the sting bit pricke of every several vice And to say a truth herein are we mightily deceived that we thinke men are become unjust then only and not before when they do injurie or dissolute when they play some insolent and loose part cowardly minded when they run out of the field as if a man should have the cōceit that the sting in a scorpion was then bred not before when he gave the first pricke or the poison in vipers was ingendred then only when they bit or stung which surely were great simplicitie and meere childishnesse for a wicked person becommeth not then such an one even when he appeareth so and not before but hee hath the rudiments and beginnings of vice and naughtinesse imprinted in himselfe but hee sheweth and useth the same when he hath meanes fit occasion good opportunitie and might answerable to his minde like as the thiefe spieth his time to robbe and the tyrant to violate and breake the lawes But God who is not ignorant of the nature and inclination of every one as who searcheth more into the secrets of the heart and minde than into the body never waiteth and staieth untill violence beperformed by strength of hand impudencie bewraied by malepart speech or intemperance and wantonnesse perpetrated by the naturall members and privie parts ere he punish for he is not revenged of an unrighteous man for any harme and wrong that he hath received by him nor angry with a thiefe or robber for any forcible violence which he hath done unto him ne yet hateth an adulterer because he hath suffered abuse or injurie by his meanes but many times he chastiseth by way of medicine a person that committeth adulterie a covetous wretch and a breaker of the lawes whereby otherwhiles he riddeth them of their vice and preventeth in them as it were the falling sicknesse before the sit surprise them Wee were erewhile offended and displeased that wicked persons were over-late and too slowly punished and now discontented we are complaine for that God doth represse chastise the evill habit and vicious disposition of some before the act committed never considering and knowing that full often a future mischiefe is worse and more to be feared than the present and that which is secret and hidden more dangerous than that which is open and apparent Neither are we able to comprehend and conceive by reason the causes wherefore it is better otherwhiles to tolerate and suffer some persons to be quiet who have offanded and transgressed already and to prevent or stay others before they have executed that which they intend like as in very trueth wee know not the reason why medicines and physicall drogues being not meet for some who are sicke be good and holsome for others though they are not actually diseased yet haply in a more dangerous estate than the former Hereupon it is that the gods turne not upon the children and posterity all the faults of their fathers and ancestours for if it happen that of a bad father there descend a good sonne like as a sickly and crasie man may beget a sound strong and healthfull childe such an one is exempt from the paine and punishment of the whole house and race as being translated out of a vicious familie and adopted into another but that a yoong sonne who shall conforme himselfe to the hereditarie vice of his parents is liable to the punishment of their sinfull life aswell as he his bound to pay their debts by right of succession and inheritance For Antigonus was not punished for the sinnes of his father Demetrius nor to speake of leaud persons Phileus for Augeas ne yet Nestor for Neleus his sake who albeit they were descended from most wicked fathers yet they prooved themselves right honest but all such as whose nature loved embraced and practised that which came unto them by descent and parentage in those I say divine justice is wont to persecute and punish that which resembleth vice and sinne for like as the werts blacke moales spots and freckles of fathers not appearing at all upon their owne childrens skinne begin afterwards to put foorth and shew themselves in their nephews to wit the children of their sonnes and daughters And there was a Grecian woman who having brought foorth a blacke infant and being troubled therefore and judicially accused for adultrie as if shee had beene conceived by a blacke-moore shee pleaded and was found to have beene hereselfe descended from an Aethiopian in the fourth degree remooved As also it is knowen for certaine that of the children of Python the Nisibian who was descended from the race and line of those old Spartans who were the first lords and founders of Thebes the yoongest and he that died not long since had upon his body the print and forme of a speare the very true and naturall marke of that auncient line so long and after the revolution of so many yeeres there sprang and came up againe as it were out of the deepe this resemblance of the stocke
himselfe had begotten a sonne and I heare say that these letters remaine there to be seene even at this day Now if it chaunce that a dunghill cocke tread another cocke when there is no henne at hand he is burnt quicke for that some wizard soothsaier or interpreter of such straunge prodigies will pronounce that it is omenous and presageth some evill lucke Thus you see how men themselves are forced to confesse that beasts are more continent than they that to satisfie fulfil their lusts they never violate nor abuse nature whereas in you it is otherwise for nature albeit she have the helpe and aide of the law is not able to keepe your intemperance within the limits and bounds of reason but like unto a violent streame which runneth forcibly often times and in many places it worketh much outrage causing great disorder scandall and confusion against nature in this point of carnall love and fleshly lust for there have bene men who attempted to meddle and deale with shee goats with sowes and mares as also women who have bene as wood and raging mad after certeine beasts of the male kinde and verily of such copulations as these are come your Minotaures and Aegipanes yea and as I verily thinke those Sphinxes and Centaures in time past have bene bred by the same meanes True it is I confesse that otherwhiles upon necessity and extreame famine a dogge hath bene knowen to have devoured a man or a woman yea and some fowle hath tasted of their flesh and begun to eat it but there was never found yet any brute beast to have lusted after man or woman to engender with them whereas men both in this lust and in many other pleasures have often times perpetrated outrage upon beasts Now if they be so unbridled so disordinate and incontinent in these appetites much more dissolute they are knowen to be than beasts in other desires and lusts that be necessarie to wit in meats and drinks whereof we never take pleasure but it is with some profit but you seeking after the tickling pleasure and delight in drinking and eating rather than the needfull nourishment to content and satisfie nature are afterwards well punished for it by many grievous and long maladies which proceed all from one source to wit surfeit and repleation namely when you stuffe and fill your bodies with all sorts of flatulent humors ventosities which hardly are purged excluded forth for first formost ech sort of beasts hath a severall food and peculiar kinde of nourishment some feed upon grasse others upon roots and some there be againe which live by fruits as for those that devoure flesh they never touch any other kinde of pasture neither come they to take from the weaker and more feeble kind their proper nouriture but suffer them to grase feed quietly Thus we see that the lion permitteth the stag and hinde to grase and the wolfe likewise the sheepe according to natures ordinance and appointment but man being through his disordinate appetite of pleasures and by his gluttonie provoked to all things tasting and assaying whatsoever he can meet with or heare of as knowing indeed no proper and naturall food of his owne is of all creatures living he alone that enteth and devoureth all things for first he feedeth upon flesh without any need or necessitie enforcing him thereto considering that he may alwaies gather presse cut and reape from plants vines and seeds all sort of fruits one after another in due and convenient seasons untill he be weary againe for the great quantity thereof and yet for to content his delicate tooth and upon a lothsome fulnesse of necessarie sustenance he secketh after other victuals neither needfull nor meet for him ne yet pure and cleane in killing living creatures much more cruelly than those savage beasts that live of ravin for bloud and carnage of murdered carcases is the proper and familiar food for a kite a wolfe or a dragon but unto man it serveth in stead of his daintie dish and more than so man in the use of all sorts of beasts doth not like other creatures that live of prey which absteine from the most part and warre with some small nūber even for very necessity of food for there is neither fowle flying in the aire nor in maner any fish swimming in the sea nor to speake inone word any beast feeding upon the face of the earth that can escape those tables of yours which you call gentle kinde and hospitall But you will say that all this standeth in stead of sauce to season your food be it so why then doe you kill the same for that purpose and for to furnish those your milde and courteous tables But the wisedome of beasts farre different for it giveth place to no arte whatsoever that is vaine and needlesse and as for those that be necessarie it enterteineth them not as comming from others nor as taught by mercenarie masters for hire and money neither is it required that it should have any exercise to glue as it were and joine after a slender maner ech rule principle and proposition one to another but all at once of it selfe it yeeldeth them all as native and inbred therewith We heare say that all the Aegyptians be Physicians but surely every beast hath in it selfe not onely the art and skill to cure and heale it selfe when it is sicke but also is sufficiently instructed how to feed and nourish it selfe how to use her owne strength how to fight how to hunt how to stand at defence yea and in very musicke they are skilfull ech one in that measure as is requisit and befitting the owne nature for of whom have we learned finding our selves ill at ease to goe into the rivers for to seeke for crabbes and craifishes who hath taught the tortoises when they have eaten a viper to seeke out the herbe Organ for to feed upon who hath shewed unto the goats of Candie when they be shot into the bodie with arrowes to finde out the herbe Dictamnus for to feed on it and thereby to cause the arrow head to come forth and fall from them For if you say as the trueth is that nature is the schoole-mistresse teaching them all this you referre and reduce the wisedome and intelligence of dumbe beasts unto the sagest and most perfect cause or principle that is which if you thinke you may not call reason nor prudence ye ought then to seeke out some other name for it that is better and more honourable and to say a trueth by effects shee sheweth her puissance to be greater and more admirable as being neither ignorant nor ill taught but having learned rather of it self not by imbecilitie and feeblenesse of nature but contrariwise through the force and perfection of naturall vertue letting go and nothing at all esteeming that beggerly prudence which is gotten from other by way of apprentissage Neverthelesse all those things which men either for
within the ground Then Paulus Aemylius caused an altar to be reared and wan the battell wherein he tooke alive an hundred and threescore elephants carying turrets upon their backs whom he sent to Rome This altar useth to give answer as an oracle about that time that Pyrrhus was defeated according as Critolaus writeth in the third booke of the Epirotick historie 7 Pyraichnes king of the Euboeans whom Hercules being yet but a young man vanquished and tying him betweene two horses caused his bodie to be plucked and torne in pieces which done he cast it forth for to lie unburied now the place where this execution was performed is called at this day Pyratchmes his horses situate upon the rriver Heraclius and whensoever there be any horses wattered there a man shall sensibly heare a noice as if horses neighed thus we find written inthe third booke entituled Of rivers Tullius Hostilius king of the Romans made warre upon the Albanes who had for their king Metius Sufetius and many times he seemed to retire and lie off as loth to incounter and joine battell insomuch as the enemies supposing him to be discomfited betooke themselves to mirth and good cheere but when they had taken their wine well he set upon them with so hot a charge that he defeated them and having taken their king prisoner he set him fast tied betweene two steeds and dismembred him as Alexarchus writeth in the fourth booke of the Italian histories 8 Philip intending to force and sacke the cities of Methone and Olynthus as he laboured with much a doe to passe over the river Sandanus chanced to be shot into the eie with an arrow by an Olynthian whose name was Aster and in it was this verse written Philip beware have at thine eie After this deadly shaft lets slie Whereupon Philip perceiving himselfe to be overmatched swam back againe unto his owne companie and with the losse of one eie escaped with life according as Callisthenes reporteth in the third booke of the Macedonian Annales Porsena king of the Tuskans lying encamped on the other side of Tybris warred upon the Romans and intercepted their victuals which were wont to be conveighed to Rome whereby he put the citie to great distresse in regard of famine but Horatius Cocles being by the common voice of the deople chosen captaine planted himselfe upon the woodden bridge which the Barbarians were desirous to gaine and for a good while made the place good and put backe the whole multitude of them pressing upon him to passe over it in the end finding himselfe overcharged with the enemies he commaunded those who were ranged in battell-ray behind him to cut downe the bridge meane while he received the violent charge of them all and impeached their entrance untill such time as he was wounded in the eie with a dart whereupon he leapt into the river and swam over unto his fellowes thus Theotinus reporteth this narration in the third booke of Italian histories 9 There is a tale told of Icarius by whom Bacchus was lodged and intertained as Eratosthenes in Erigone hath related in this wise Saturne upon a time was lodged by an husbandman of the countrey who had a faire daughter named Entoria her hee deslowred and begat of her foure sonnes Janus Hymnus Faustus and Foelix whom hee having taught the manner of drinking wine and of planting the vine enjoyned them also to empart that knowledge unto their neighbours which they did accordingly but they on the other side having taken upon a time more of this drinke than their usuall manner was fell a sleepe and slept more than ordinarie when they were awake imagining that they had drunke some poyson stoned Icarius the husbandman to death whereat his nephewes or daughters children tooke such a thought and conceit that for verie griefe of heart they knit their neckes in halters and strangled themselves Now when there was a great pestilence that raigned among the Romanes the oracle of Apollo gave answer that the mortality would stay in case they had once appeased the ire of Saturne and likewise pacified their ghosts who unjustly lost their lives Then Lutatius Catulus a noble man of Rome built a temple unto Saturne which standeth neere unto the mount Tarpeius and erected an altar with foure faces either in remembrance of those foure nephewes above said or respective to the foure seasons and quarters of the yeere and withall instituted the moneth Ianuarie But Saturne turned them all foure into starres which be called the foretunners of the Vintage among which that of Janus ariseth before others and appeareth at the feet of Virgo as Critolaus testifieth in his fourth booke of Phaenomena or Apparitions in the heaven 10 At what time as the Persians overranne Greece and wasted all the countrey before them Pausanias generall captaine of the Lacedaemonians having received of Xerxes five hundred talents of gold promised to betray Sparta but his treason being discovered Agesilaus his father pursued him into the temple of Minerva called Chalcioecos whither he fled for sanctuarie where he caused the doors of the temple to be mured up with brick so famished him to death His mother tooke his corps and cast it foorth to dogs not suffering it to be buried according to Chrysermus in the second booke of his storie The Romanes warring against the Latines chose for their captaine Publius Decius Now there was a certaine gentleman of a noble house howbeit poore named Cessius Brutus who for a certaine summe of money which the enemies should pay unto him intended in the night season to set the gates of the citie wide open for them to enter in This treacherie being detected he fled for sanctuarie into the temple of Minerva surnamed Auxiliaria where Cassius his father named also Signifer shut him up and kept him so long that he died for verie famine and when he was dead threw his bodie foorth and would not allow it any sepulture as writeth Clitonymus in his Italian histories 11 Darius king of Persia having fought a field with Alexander the Great and in that conflict lost seven of his great lieutenants governours of Provinces besides five hundred and two war charriots armed with trenchant sithes would notwithstanding bid him battell againe but Ariobarzanes his sonne upon a pitifull affection that he carried to Alexander promised to betray his father into his hands whereat his father tooke such displeasure and indignation that he caused his head to be smitten off Thus reporteth Aretades the Gnidian in his third booke of Macedonian histories Brutus being chosen Consull of Rome by the generall voice of the whole people chased out of the citie Tarquinius Superbus who raigned tyrannically but he retyring himselfe unto the Tuskanes levied warre upon the Romanes The sonnes of the said Brutus conspiring to betray their father were discovered and so he commanded them to be beheaded as Aristides the Milesian writeth in his Annals of Italie 12 Epaminondas captaine of the Thebanes
seene at all with him the master beleeved this lay with her but one time above the rest desirous to know who she was with whom he companied called for a light and so soone as he knew it was his owne daughter he drew his sword and followed after this most vilanous and and incestuous filth intending to kill her but by the providence of Venus transformed she was into a tree bearing her name to wit Myrtle as Theodorus reporteth in his Metamorphoses or transmutations Valeria Tusculanaria having incurred the displeasure of Venus became amorous of her owne father and communicated this love of hers unto her nourse who likewise went cunningly about her master and made him beleeve that there was a young maiden a neighbous child who was in fancie with him but would not in regard of modestie be knowen unto him of it nor be seene when she should frequent his companie Howbeit her father one night being drunk called for a candle but the nourse prevented him and in great hast wakened her who fled therupon into the countrey great with child where she cast her selfe downe from the pitch of a steep place yet the fruit of her wombe lived for notwithstanding that fall she did not miscarie but continued still with her great belly and when her time was come delivered she was of a sonne such an one as in the Roman language is named Sylvanus and in Greeke Aegipanes Valerius the father tooke such a thought thereupon that for verie anguish of mind he threw himselfe downe headlong from a steepe rocke as recordeth Aristides the Milesian in the third booke of Italian histories 23 After the destruction of Troy Diomedes by a tempest was cast upō the coast of Libya where raigned a king named Lycus whose maner and custome was to sacrifice unto his owne father god Mars all those strangers that arrived and were set a land in his countrey But Callirohōe his daughter casting an affection unto Diomedes betraied her father and saved Diomedes by delivering him out of prison And he againe not regarding her accordingly who had done him so good a turne departed from her and sailed away which indignitie she tooke so neere to the heart that she hanged her selfe and so ended her daies this writeth Juba in the third booke of the Libyan historie Calpurnius Crassus a noble man of Rome being abroad at the warres together with Regulus was by him sent against the Massilians for to seize a stronge castle and hard to be won named Garaetion but in this service being taken prisoner and destined to be killed in sacrifice unto Saturne it fortuned that Bysatia the kings daughter fansied him so as she betraied her father and put the victory into her lovers hand but when this yoong knight was retired and gone the damsell for sorrow of heart cut her owne throat as writeth Hesianax in the third booke of the Libian historie 24 Priamus king of Troy fearing that the city would be lost sent his yoong sonne Polydorus into Thrace to his sonne in law Polymester who married his daughter with a great quantity of golde Polymester for very covetousnesse after the destruction of the city murdered the childe because he might gaine the gold but Hecuba being come into those parts under a colour and pretence that she should bestow that golde upon him together with the helpe of other dames prisoners with her plucked with her owne hands both eies out of his head witnesse Euripides the tragaedian poet In the time that Hanniball overran and wasted the countrey of Campania in Italy Lucius Jmber bestowed his sonne Rustius for safetie in the hands of a sonne in law whom he had named Valerius Gestius and left with him a good summe of money But when this Campanian heard that Anniball had wonne a great victorie for very avarice he brake all lawes of nature and murdered the childe The father Thymbris as he travelled in the countrey lighting upon the dead corps of his owne sonne sent for his sonne in law aforesaid as if he meant to shew him some great treasure who was no sooner come but he plucked out both his eies and afterwards crucified him as Aristides testifieth in the third booke of his Italian histories 25 Aeacus begat of Psamatha one sonne named Phocus whom he loved very tenderly but Telamon his brother not well content therewith trained him foorth one day into the forest a hunting where having rouzed a wilde bore he launced his javelin or bore-speare against the childe whom he hated and so killed him for which fact his father banished him as Dorotheus telleth the tale in the first booke of his Metamorphoses Cajus Maximus had two sonnes Similius and Rhesus of which two Rhesus he begat upon Ameria who upon a time as he hunted in the chase killed his brother and being come home againe he would have perswaded his father that it was by chaunce and not upon a propensed malice that he slew him but his father when he knew the truth exiled him as Aristocles hath recorded in the third booke of Italian Chronicles 26 Mars had the company of Althaea by whom she was conceived and delivered of Meleager as witnesseth Euripides in his tragoedie Meleager Septimtus Marcellus having maried Sylvta was much given to hunting and ordinarily went to the chase then Mars taking his advantage disguising himselfe in habit of a shepherd forced this new wedded wife and gat her with childe which done he bewraied unto her who he was and gave her a launce or speare saying unto her That the generositie and descent of that issue which she should have by him consisted in that launce now it hapned that Septimius slew Tusquinus and Mamercus when he sacrificed unto the gods for the good encrease of the fruits upon the earth neglected Ceres onely whereupon she taking displeasure for this contempt sent a great wilde bore into his countrey then he assembled a number of hunters to chase the said beast and killed him which done the head and the skinne he sent unto his espoused wife Scimbrates and Muthias her unckles by the mother-side offended heereat would have taken all away from the damosell but hee tooke such displeasure thereat that hee slew his kinsmen and his mother for to be revenged of her brethrens death buried that cursed speare as Menylus reporteth in the third booke of the Italian histories 27 Telamon the sonne of Aeacus and Endeis fledde by night from his father and arrived in the isle of Euboea ** The father perceiving it and supposing him to be one of his subjects gave his daughter to one of his guard for to be cast into the sea but he for very commiseration and pitty sould her to certaine merchants and when the shippe was arrived at Salamis Telamon chaunced to buy her at their hands and she bare unto him Ajax witnesse Aretados the Gnidian in the second booke of his Insular affaires Lucius Trocius had by his wife Patris a daughter
and spitefull speeches for envious and malicious persons NARRATIONS OF LOVE The Summarie IN this discourse Plutarch relateth five tragicall histories which shew the pitifull accidents that befell certeine persons transported with the inordinate and irregular affection of Love leaving thereby unto the reader a faire and cleere mirrour wherein to beholde the judgements of God upon those that abandon themselves to be carried away by intemperance and loosenesse NARRATIONS OF LOVE IN the citie Aliartos situate within Boeotia there was sometime a yoong maiden of excellent beautie named Aristoclea and the daughter she was of Theophanes and two yoong gentlemen there were that made sute unto her in way of mariage to wit Straton an Orchomenian Callisthenes of Aliartos aforesaid Now was Straton the richer of the twaine and farre more enamoured of the damosell for seene her he had when she washed herselfe in the fountaine of Ercyne which is in Lebadia against the time that she was to carrie in procession to Jupiter surnamed King a sacred panier as the maner was of the Canephorae to do But Callisthenes had the vantage of him and was deeper in her love for that he was besides neere of kin unto the virgin So Theophanes her father being doubtfull what to doe for he stood in feare of Straton as one who for wealth and noble parentage went well-neere beyond all the Boeotians resolved at length to referre the choise unto the oracle of Jupiter Trophonius but Straton who was borne in hand by those of the house about Aristoclea that she inclined more unto him laboured earnestly that the matter might be put unto the election of the damosell herselfe whereupon when Theophanes the father demanded of her in the face of the world Whom she loved better and would chuse to be her husband she preferred Callisthenes whereat Straton shewed himselfe immediatly not a little discontented for this repulse and disgrace but two daies after he came unto Theophanes and Callisthenes pretending and saying that he would not fall out with them but was desirous still of their good favour and friendship how ever his ill fortune had envied him the marriage of the yoong virgin They approving well of this speech and taking his words in very good part invited him as a guest to the wedding feast meane while he provided himselfe of a good number of his friends and besides no small troupe of servants whom he disposed secretly in their houses heere and there against the time that this maiden after the custome and maner of the countrey should go downe to a certeine fountaine named Cissoeisa there to sacrifice unto the Nymphes before her marriage day now as she passed by those who lay in ambush came all running forth from every side and seized upon her bodie but Straton himselfe principally who drew and haled the damosell unto him as hard as he could Callisthenes againe on the other side for his part as became him held her fast so did they about him thus the silly maiden was tugged and pulled to and fro so long betweene them that before they were aware dead she was among them in their hands upon which strange occurrent what became of Callisthenes it is not knowen whether he presently made away himselfe or fled into voluntary exile for he was no more seene as for Straton in the very sight of all men there in the place he killed himselfe upon the very body of his espoused bride 2 There was one named Phidon a Peloponnesian affecting the seignorie of all Peloponnesus and being desirous that the citie of Argos his native seat should be ladie over all others laied an ambush first for the Corinthians to intrap them for he sent an embassage unto Corinth to demand a levie of a thousand yoong men that were the lustiest and most valourous gallants of the whole citie The Corinthians sent them accordingly under the conduct of one of their captaines named Dexander Now the purpose of this Phidon was to set upon this troupe and kill them every one to the end that he might thereby enfeeble the Corinthians and make the citie serve his owne turne as a strong bulwarke most commodiously seated to command and subdue all Peloponnesus This desseigne of his he communicated unto certeine of his friends for to be put in execution accordingly among whom there was one named Abron who being a familiar friend unto Dexander revealed unto him the conspiracie whereupon the said regiment of a thousand yong men before they were charged by the said ambush retired themselves and recovered Corinth in safetie Then Phidon bestirred himselfe to finde out the man who had thus betraied and discovered his plot which Abron fearing withdrew himselfe to Corinth taking with him his wife children and his whole familie where he setled and remained in a village named Melissa belonging to the territorie of that citie there begat he a sonne whom of the very place which he inhabited he named Melissus and this Melissus in processe of time had a sonne of his owne called Actaeon who proved the most beautifull and withall the modestest lad of all other youths and springals of his age in regard whereof many there were enamoured of him but among the rest one especially named Archias descended lineally from the noble race of Hercules and for wealth credit and authoritie the greatest person in all Corinth This Archias seeing that by no faire meanes and perswasions he could prevaile with yoong Actaeon and winne his love resolved with himselfe to use violence and forcibly to ravish and carrie away this faire boy so he came upon a time as it were to make merrie unto the house of Melissus his father accompanied with a great traine of friends and attended upon with a good troupe of his owne householde-servants where he gave the attempt to have away the boy by force but the father with his friends made resistance the neighbours also came foorth to rescue and did all what they could to holde and keepe the youth with them but what with the one side and what with the other poore Actaeon was so pulled and tugged that betweene them hee lost his lfe which done all the rest went their waies and departed but Melissus the father brought the dead corps of his childe into the market place of the Corinthians presented it there unto them and demaunded justice to be done upon those who had committed this foule outrage The Corinthians made no greater a matter of it but onely shewed that they were sory for his mishap and so he returned home as he came without effect attending and waiting for the solemne assembly at the Isthmicke games where being mounted up to the top of Neptunes temple he cried out against the whole race of the Baccharides and withall rehearsed by way of commemoration the beneficence of his father Abron unto them and when he had called for vengeance unto the gods hee threw himselfe downe headlong among the rocks and brake his necke
without the losse of bloud what citie or towne didst thou cause to be yeelded unto him without a garrison or what army without their weapons where found he ever through thy grace any kings sluggish and slothfull any captaine carelesse and negligent any warder or porter of the gates drowsie and sleepie nay he never met with river that had farre passable Winter that was tolerable or Summer that was not painfull and irkesome Goe thy waies goe to Antiochus the sonne of Seleucus to Artaxerxes the brother of Cyrus to Ptolomaeus Philadelphus These were they whom their fathers in their life time declared heires apparent yea and crowned them kings these wonne fields and battels for which never eie shed teare these kept holiday continually these celebrated festivall solemnities daily in theaters with all maner of pompes and goodly sights every one of these reigned in all prosperitie untill they were very aged whereas Alexander if there were nothing else lo how his body is wounded and piteously mangled from the crowne of his head to the sole of his foot gashed heere thrust in there drie beaten brused and broken with all maner of hostile weapons With launce and speare with sword most keene With stones that bigge and massie beene At the river Granicus his armet or morion was cleft with a curtelace as farre as to the haire of his head before the towne of Gaza he was shot into the shoulder with a dart in the Maragandians countrey his shin was wounded with a javelin in so much as the greater bone thereof was so broken and shattered that it came out at the wound in Hircania he gat a knocke with a great stone behinde in his necke which shooke his head so as that his eie-sight was dimmed thereby so as for certeine daies he was afraid that he should have beene starke blinde for ever in a skirmish with the Assacans his ancle was wounded with an Indian dart at what time when he saw it to bleed he turned unto his flatterers and parasites and shewing them the place smiled and said This is very bloud indeed And not that humour say all what you will Which from the gods most blessed doth destill At the battell of Issus his thigh was pierced with a sword even by king Darius himselfe as Chares writeth who came to close with him at hand fight And Alexander himselfe writing simply and the plaine trueth to Antipater I my selfe also caught a stab with a short sword in my thigh but thanked be God quoth he I had no great hurt thereby either at the present or afterwards Fighting against the Mallians he was wounded with a dart two cubits long that being driven through his cuirace entred in at his brest and came out againe at his necke according as Aristobulus hath left in writing Having passed over the river Tanais for to march against the Scythians when he had defaited them in battell he followed the chase and pursued them on horsebacke for a hundred and fifty stadia notwithstanding all the while he was troubled with a sore laske or flux of the belly Now truly fortune much beholden is Alexander unto thee for advancing his estate Is this thy making of him great by suffering him thus to be pierced through on every side Here is a faire upholding of him indeed to lay open thus all the parts of his bodie cleane contrary to that which Minerva did unto Menelaus who with her hand turned aside all the shot of the enimies and made them light upon his armour where it was most sure and of the best proofe to wit upon his cuirace his bawdricke or belt or upon his helmet and by that meanes brake the force of the stroke before it could come to the bare bodie so as all the harme it could do was but a little to rase the skin and let out some smal shew and a few drops of blood but thou contrariwise hast exposed his naked and unarmed parts and those most dangerous to be wounded causing the shot to enter so farre as to goe through the very bone environing and hemming in his body round besetting his eies and feet impeaching him for chasing his enimies diverting the traine of his victories and overturning all his hopes Certes I am of this opinion that there never was king who had fortune more adverse a shrewder stepdame than he although she hath beene curst envious and spightfull enough to many besides for whereas she hath fallen upon others violently like a thunderbolt or shot of lightning whom she hath cut off and distroied right out at once her malice and hatred unto Alexander hath bene cankred obstinate and implacable even as it was before him unto Hercules For what Typhons or monstrous Giants of prodigious stature hath she not raised up as concurrents to fight with him What enimies hath not she fortified and furnished against him with infinit store of armes with deepe rivers with prerupt and craggy rocks or with extraordinary strength of most savage beasts Now if the courage of Alexander had not bene undaunted and the same arising from exceeding great vertue firmely grounded and settled thereupon to encounter fortune how could it otherwise have bene but the same should have failed and given over as being wearied and toiled out with setting so many battels in array arming his soldiers so daily laying seege so many times unto cities and townes chasing and pursuing his enimies so often checked with so many revolts and rebellions crossed so commonly with infinit treasons conspiracies and insurrections of nations troubled with such a sort of stiffe necked kings who shooke off the yoke of allegeance and in one word whiles he conquered Bactra Maracanda and the Sogdians among faithlesse and trecherous nations who waited alwaies to spie some opportunity and occasion to do him a displeasure who like to the serpent Hydra as fast as one head was cut off put forth another and so continually raised fresh and new warres I shall seeme to tell you one thing very strange and incredible howbeit most true Fortune it was and nothing but fortune by whose maligne and crosse aspect he went very neere of losing that opinion that went of him namely that he was the sonne of Jupiter Ammon For what man was there ever extract and descended from the seed of the gods who exploited more laborious more difficult and dangerous combates unlesse it were Hercules againe the sonne of Jupiter And yet one outrageous and violent man there was who set him a worke enjoining him to take fell lions to hunt wilde bores to chase away ravenous fowles to the end that he should have no time to be emploied in greater affaires whiles he visited the world namely in punishing such as Antaeus and in repressing the ordinary murders which that tyrant Busiris and such like committed upon the persons of guests and travellers But it was no other thing than vertue alone that commanded Alexander to enterprise and exploit such a peece of
spirit of prophesy in those daies used many organs and voices to speake unto the people being a greater multitude than now there be And therefore we should on the other side rather wonder if God would suffer to run in vaine like waste water this propheticall divination or to resound againe like as the desert rockes in the wide fields and mountaines ring with the resonance and ecchoes of heard-mens hollaing and beasts bellowing When Ammonius had thus said and I held my peace Cleombrotus addressing his speech unto me And grant you indeed quoth he thus much that it is the god Apollo who is the authour and overthrower also of these Oracles Not so answered I for I maintaine and hold that God was never the cause of abolishing any Oracle or divination whatsoever but contrariwise like as where he produceth and prepareth many other things for one use and behoofe nature bringeth in the corruption and utter privation of some or to say more truely matter being it selfe privation or subject thereto avoideth many times and dissolveth that which a more excellent cause hath composed even so I suppose there be some other causes which darken and abolish the vertue of divination considering that God bestoweth upon men many faire goodly gifts but nothing perdurable immortall in such sort as the very workes of the gods do die but not themselves according as Sophocles saith And verily the Philosophers and naturalists who are well exercised in the knowledge of nature and the primitive matter ought indeed to search into the substance property and puissance of Oracles but to reserve the originall and principall cause for God as very meet and requisit it is that it should so be For very foolish and childish it is that the god himselfe like unto those spirits speaking within the bellies of possessed folkes such as in old time they called Eugastrimithi and Euryclees and be now termed Pythons entred into the bodies of Prophets spake by their mouthes and used their tongues and voices as organs and instruments of speech for he that thus intermedleth God among the occasions and necessities of men maketh no spare as he ought of his majesty neither carieth he that respect as is meet to the preservation of the dignity and greatnesse of his power and vertue Then Cleombrotus You say very well and truely quoth he but for as much as it is a difficult matter to comprise and define in what maner and how farre forth and to what point we ought to employ this divine providence in my conceit they who are of this minde that simply God is cause of nothing at all in the world and they againe that make him wholly the authour of all things hold not a meane and indifferent course but both of them misse the very point of decent mediocrity Certes as they say passing well who hold that Plato having invented and devised that element or subject upon which grow and be engendred qualities the which one while is called the primitive matter and otherwhile nature delivered Philosophers from many great difficulties even so me thinks they who ordained a certaine kinde by themselves of Daemons betweene god and men have assoiled many more doubts and greater ambiguities by finding out that bond and linke as it were which joineth us and them together in society Were it the opinion that came from the ancient Magi and Zoroasties or rather a Thracian doctrine delivered by Orpheus or els an Aegyptian or Phrygian tradition as we may conjecture by seeing the sacrifices both in the one countrey and the other wherein among other holy and divine ceremonies it seemeth there were certeine dolefull ceremonies of mourning and sorrow intermingled savouring of mortality And verily of the Greeks Homer hath used these two names indifferently terming the Gods Daemons and the Daemons likewise Gods But Hesiodus was the first who purely distinctly hath set downe foure kinds of reasonable natures to wit the Gods then the Daemons and those many in number and all good the Heroes and Men for the Demi-gods are ranged in the number of those Heroicke worthies But others hold that there is a transmutation aswell of bodies as soules and like as we may observe that of earth is ingendred water of water aire and of aire fire whiles the nature of the substance still mounteth on high even so the better soules are changed first from men to Heroes or Demi-gods and afterwards from them to Daemons and of Daemons some few after long time being well refined and purified by vertue came to participate the divination of the gods Yet unto some it befalleth that being not able to holde and conteine they suffer themselves to slide and fall into mortall bodies againe where they lead an obscure and darke life like unto a smoaky vapour As for He siodus he thinketh verily that even the Daemons also after certeine revolutions of time shall die for speaking in the person of one of their Nymphs called Naiades covertly and under aenigmaticall termes he designeth their time in this wise Nine ages of men in their flower doth live The railing Crow foure times the Stags surmount The life of Crowes to Ravens doth nature give A threefold age of Stags by true account One Phoenix lives as long as Ravens nine But you faire Nymphs as the daughters verily Of mighty Jove and of nature divine The Phoenix yeeres ten fold do multiply But they that understand not well what the Poet meaneth by this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 make the totall sum of this time to amount unto an exceeding great number of yeeres For in trueth it is but one yeere and no more And so by that reckening the whole ariseth in all to nine thousand seven hundred and twenty yeeres just which is the very life of the Daemons And many Mathematicians there be by whose computation it is lesse But more than so Pindarus would not have it when he saith that the Nymphs age is limited equall to trees whereupon they be named Hamadryades as one would say living and dying with Okes. As he was about to say more Demetrius interrupted his speech and taking the words out of his mouth How is it possible quoth he ô Cleombrotus that you should make good and mainteine that the Poet called the age of man a yeere onely and no more for it is not the space either of his flower and best time nor of his olde age according as some reade it in Hesiodus for as one reads 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is say flourishing so another readeth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say aged Now they that would have it to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 put downe for the age of man thirty yeeres according to the opinion of Heraclitus which is the very time that a father hath begotten a sonne able to beget another of his owne but such as follow the reading that hath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 attribute unto the age of man an
the one to this effect that there should be exhibited a solemnitie of plaies or comedies at the feast Chytrae wherein the poets should do their best and strive a vie within the theatre for the prise and whosoever obtained victorie should therewith have the right and freedome of burgeosie a thing that before was not lawfull nor graunted unto poets and thus hee brought unto use and practise againe a solemne game which he had discontinued Another that there should be made at the publike charges of the citie statues of brasse for the poets Aeschylus Sophocles and Euripides that their tragoedies should be exemplified and engrossed faire for to be kept in the chamber of the citie and that the publicke notarie of the citie should reade them unto the plaiers for otherwise unlawfull it was to act them A third there was that no citizen nor any other person resiant and inhabitant within the citie of Athens should be permitted to buy any prisoners taken in warre such as were of free condition before to make them slaves without the consent of their first masters Item that within the haven Pyraecum there should be exhibited a solemne play or game unto Neptune consisting of round daunces no fewer than three and that unto those who woon the first prise there should be given for a reward no fewer than ten pound of silver to the second eight at the least and to the third not under six according as they should be adjudged by the Umpiers Item that no dame of Athens might be allowed to ride in a coatch to Eleusin for feare that the poore might be debased by the rich and herein reputed their inferiours but in case any of them were so taken riding in a coatch she should be fined and pay six thousand drachms now when his owne wife obeied not his law but was surprized in the manner by the sycophants and promoters he himselfe gave unto them a whole talent with which afterwards when he was charged and accused before the people You see yet quoth he my masters of Athens that I am overtaken for giving and not for taking silver He mette one day as he went in the street a publicane or farmer of the forrain taxes and tributes for the city who had laid hands upon the philosopher Xenocrates and would have ledde him to prison in all haste because he paid not the duties imposed upon strangers for which he gave the publicane a rappe on the head with the rodde or walking staffe which hee had in his hand and recovered the philosopher out of his clouches which done he cast the said officer himselfe into prison for his labor as having cōmitted a great indignity unto such a personage a few daies after the same philosopher meeting him with the children of Lycurgus I have quoth he unto them my good children rendred thanks unto your father and that right speedily in that he is so praised and commended of all men for succouring and rescuing me He proposed and published certeine publicke decrees using the helpe heerein of one Euclides an Olynthian who was thought to be a very sufficient man in framing and penning such acts and albeit he was a wealthy person yet he never ware but one and the same kinde of garment both winter and summer yea and the same shooes he went in every day what need soever was He exercised himselfe continually in declaming both night and day for that he was not so sit to speak of a sudden and unprovided Upon his bedde or pallet where he lay he had onely for his covering a sheepes skinne fell and all and under his head a boulster to the end that the sooner and with more ease he might awake and goe to his study There was one who reproched him for that he paid his money still unto sophisters and professed rhetoricians for teaching him to make orations But quoth he againe if there were any would promise and undertake to profit my children and make them better I would give him willingly not onely a thousand deniers but the one moitie of all my goods Very bold he was and resolute to speake his minde franckly unto the people and to tell them the truth plainly bearing himselfe upon his nobility insomuch as one day when the Athenians would not suffer him to make a speech in open audience he cried out with a loud voice ô whippe of Corfu how many talents art thou woorth Another time when some there were who called Alexander god And what maner of god may he be quoth Lycurgus out of whose temple whosoever go had need to be sprinckled and drenched all over with water to purifie themselves After he was dead they delivered his children into the hands of the eleven officers for execution of justice for that Thrasicles had framed an accusation Menesaechmus endited them but upon the letters of Demosthenes which in the time of his exile he wrote unto the Athenians advertising them that they were ill spoken of about Lycurgus his children they repented themselves of that which they had done and let them go verily Democles the scholar of Theophrastus justified them and spake in their defence Himselfe and some of his children were buried at the cities charges over and against the temple of Minerva Paeonia within the orchard or grove of Melanthius the philosopher and found there be even in these our daies certeine tombes with the names of Lycurgus and his children written thereupon But that which is the greatest thing that soundeth most to the praise of his government he raised the revenues of the common-weale unto twelve hundred talents whereas before they amounted but unto threescore A little before he died when he perceived death to approch hee caused himselfe to be caried into the temple of Cybele the great mother of the gods and into the Senate house desirous there to render an account of his whole administration of the common-weale but no man was so hardy as to come foorth and charge him with any unjust and wrongfull dealing save onely Menesaechmus now after he had fully answered those imputations which he charged upon him he was caried home againe to his house where he ended his daies reputed all his life time for a good and honest man commended for his eloquence and never condemned in any sute notwithstanding many actions and accusations were framed against him Three children he had by Calisto the daughter of Abron and sister to Calaeus the sonne also of Abron of the burrough Bata who was treasurour of the campe during the warres that yeere wherein Chaerondas was provost of this affinitie and alliance Dinarchus maketh mention in that oration which he made against Pastius He left behinde him these children Abron Lycurgus and Lycophron of whom Abron and Lycurgus died without issue but Abron after he had with good reputation and credit managed state matters changed this life and Lycophron having espoused Calistomacha the daughter of Philippus Aixenes begat a daughter