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SECT. II.

Of the memorable things of this age, in other nations; and of the difficulty in the computation of times.

THERE lived in this age of Othoniel, Pandion, or Pandareus, according to Homer, the fifth king of Athens; who began to rule in the twentieth year of Othoniel, and governed forty years. He was father to Erechtheus; his daughters were Progne and Philomela, so greatly mentioned in fables.

Cadmus also about this time obtained Thebes; of whose daughter Semele was born, Dionysius, or Liber Pater; under whom Linus the musician lived. In his time also the cities of Melus, Paphus, and Tharsus were built.

Ida and Dactylus flourished in this age, who are said to have found out the use of iron; but Genesis hath taught us the contrary, and that Tubalcain wrought cunningly both in iron and brass'. Not long after this time, Amphion and Zethus governed Thebes; whom divers chronologers find in Ehud's time. But St. Augustine, making a repetition of these fables, which were devised among the Gre cians, and other nations, during the government of the judges, begins with Triptolemus, of whose parentage there is as little agreement, Vives, upon the 13th chapter of St. Augustine de Civitate Dei, and the 18th book, hath gathered all the opinions of this man's progeny, where, he that desires his pedigree may find it. Lactantius and Eusebius make him native of Attica, and the son of Eleusius king of Eleusina; which Eleusius, by careful industry, had fed the people of that territory, in the time of a great famine. This, when, upon the like occasion, Triptolemus could not perform, fearing the fury of the people, he fled thence by sea in a kind of galley

1 Gen. iv. 22. Whence came the name of Vulcan by Apheresis of the two first letters.

or long boat, which carried in her prow an engraven or carved serpent; who, because he made exceeding great speed to return, and to relieve his people with corn, from some neighbour nation, it was feigned by the poets, that his coach was carried by serpents through the air.

Whether the times of these kings, which lived together with Othoniel, and after him with the rest of the judges, and kings of Israel and Judah, be precisely set down, I cannot avow; for the chronologers, both of the former and latter times, differ in many particulars, to examine all which, would require the whole time of a long life; and therefore I desire to be excused, if in these comparisons I err with others of better judgment: for whether Eusebius, and all that follow him, or his opposites, (who made themselves so conversant with these ancient kings, and with the very year when they began to rule,) have hit the mark of time, of all other the farthest off, and most defaced, I cannot but greatly doubt. First, because the authors themselves, from whom the ancientest chronologers have borrowed light, had nothing for the warrant of their own works, but conjecture; secondly, because their own disagreement and contention in those elder days, with that of our own age among the labourers in times, is such, as no man among them hath yet so edified any man's understanding, save his own, but that he is greatly distracted after what pattern to erect his buildings.

This disagreement is found not only in the reigns of heathen kings and princes, but even in the computation of those times, which the indisputable authority of holy scripture hath summed up; as in that of Abraham's birth; and after, in the times of the judges, and the oppressions of Israel; in the times from the egression to the building of Solomon's temple; in the Persian empire; the seventy weeks; and in what not?-Wheresoever the account of times

may suffer examination, the arguments are opposite; and the contentions are such, as, for ought that I see, men have sought by so many ways to uncover the sun, that the days thereby are made more dark, and the clouds more condensed than before. I can therefore give no other warrant, than other men have done in these computations; and therefore that such and such kings and kingdoms took beginning in this or that year, I avow it no otherwise, than as a borrowed knowledge, or at least a private opinion; which I submit to better judgments. Nam in pris 'cis rebus veritas non ad unguem quærenda: in ancient things we are not to require an exact nar ration of the truth, says Diodorus.

SECT. III.

Of Ehud's time, and of Proserpina, Orithya, Tereus, Tantalus, Tityus, Admetus, and others that lived about these times.

AFTER the death of Othoniel, when Israel fell back to their former idolatry, God encouraged Moab to invade and suppress them: to perform which, he joined the forces of Ammon and Amalek unto his own, and so, (as all kind of misery readily findeth out those whom God hath abandoned, or for a time withdrawn his help from, thereby to make them feel the difference between his grace and his displeasure,) these heathen neighbouring nations, had an easy conquest over Israel; whom God himself exposed to those perils, within which they were so speedily folded up. In this miserable estate they continued full eighteen years, under Eglon, king of the Moabites, and his confederates, Yet as the mercies of God are infinite, he turned not his ears from their crying repentance; but raised up Ehud the son of Gera to deliver them; by which weak man, though maimed in his right hand, yet confident in the justness of his quarrel, and fearing that the Israelites

were too few in numbers, to contend with the head of those valiant nations; he resolved to attempt upon the person of Eglon, whom, if he could but extinguish, he assured himself of the following victory; especially giving his nation no time to re-establish their government, or to choose a king to command, and direct them in the wars. According to which resolution, Ehud went on as an ambassador to Eglon, loaden with presents from the Israelites, as to appease him; and obtaining private access upon the pretence of some secret to be revealed, he pierced his body with a poniard, made on purpose, with a double edge; and shutting the doors of his closet upon him, escaped.

It may seem that, being confident of his good success, he had prepared the strength of Israel in readi ness. For, suddenly after his return, he did repass Jordan, and invading the territory of Moab, over threw their army, consisting of ten thousand able and strong men; whereof not any one escaped. After which victory, and that Samgar his successor had miraculously slain six hundred Philistines with an ox-goad, the land and people of Israel lived in peace, unto the end of eighty years, from the death of Othoniel; which term expired in the world's year 2691.

In the days of Ehud, Naomi, with Elimelech her husband, and with her two sons, travelled into Moab; and so the story of Ruth is to be referred to this time. About the beginning of the eighty years which are given to Ehud, it was that Orcus king of the Molossians, otherwise Pluto, stole Proserpina, as she walked to gather flowers in the fields of Hipponium in Sicilia; or, (according to Pausanias) by the river Cephisus, which elsewhere he calleth Chemer, if he mean not two distinct rivers. This stealth being made known to Pirithous, with whom Hercules and Theseus joined themselves, they agreed together to recover her; but Pluto or Orcus, (whom

others call Aidonius,) had, as they say, a very huge dog, which fastened on Pirithous, and tore him in pieces; and had also worried Theseus, but that Hercules speedily rescued him, and by strength took and mastered the dog Cerberus; whereof grew the fable of Hercules's delivering of Theseus out of hell, But Zezes, as I take it, hath written this story, somewhat more according to the truth; for Theseus and Pirithous, saith he, attempted to steal Proserpina, daughter to Aidonius, king of the Molossians, who had Ceres to wife, the mother of Proserpina. Proserpina being a general name also for all fair women. This purpose of theirs being known to Aidonius, Theseus and Pirithous were both taken; and because Pirithous was the principal in this conspiracy, and Theseus drawn on by a kind of affection or enforcement, the one was given for food to Aidonius's great dog Cerberus, the other held prisoner; till Hercules, by the instigation of Eurystheus, delivered him by a strong hand. The Molossi (which Stephanus writes with a single (S)) were a people of Epirus, inhabiting near the mountains of Pindus; of which mountains, Oeta is one of the most famous, where Hercules burnt himself. The river of Acheron, (which the poets describe to be in hell,) riseth out of the same hills. There is another nation of the Molossi in Thessaly; but these are neighbours to the Cassiopæi, saith Plutarch in his Greek questions.

The rape of Orithyia, the daughter of Erechtheus, king of Athens, taken away by Boreas of Thrace, is referred to the time of Ehud. The poets ascribe this rape to the north-wind, because Thrace is situate north from Athens. In his time also, Tereus ravished Philomela, of which the fable was devised of her conversion into a nightingale, For Tereus having married her sister Progne, conducting Philomela from Athens to see her sister, forced her in the passage, and withal cut out her tongue, that she might not complain; persuading Progne's wife, that Philo

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