physician, whose noble endeavours had been employed in procuring the remedy.

Scipio, being to take leave of Africa, produced Masinissa, and magnified him in presence of the army with high commendations, not undeservedly. To him also he consigned over those towns of king Syphax, which the Romans at that present held; wherein, to say truth, he gave him but his due, and that which otherwise he knew not well how to bestow. But the love of the Romans, and friendship of Scipio, was fully answerable now, and hereafter, to all the deservings of this Numidian king. About Carthage there rested no more to be done. Wherefore the Romans embarked themselves for Sicily, where, when they arrived at Lilybæum, Scipio, with some part of his army, took his way home to Rome by land, and sent the rest before him thither by sea. His journey through Italy was no less glorious than any triumph, all the people thronging out of the towns and villages to do him honour as he passed along. He entered the city in triumph; neither was there ever before or after any triumph celebrated with so great joy of the people as was this of Scipio; though, in bravery of the pomp, there were others in time shortly following that exceeded this. Whether Syphax were carried through the city in this triumph, and died soon after in prison, or whether he were dead a while before, it cannot be affirmed. Thus much may be avowed, that it was a barbarous custom of the Romans to insult over the calamities of mighty princes, by leading them contumeliously in triumph, yea, though they were such as had always made fair and courteous war. But hereof we shall have better example, ere the same age pass. It was neither the person of Syphax, nor any other glory of the spectacle, that so much beautified the triumph of Scipio, as did the contemplation of that grievous war passed, whereof the Romans had

been in a manner without hope that ever they should set Italy free'.' This made them look chearfully upon the author of so great a conversion, and filled them with more joy than they well could moderate. Wherefore they gave to Scipio the title of the African, styling him by the name of that province which he had subdued. This honourable kind of surname, taken from a conquered province, grew afterwards more common, and was usurped by men of less desert; especially by many of the Cæsars, who sometimes arrogated unto themselves the title of countries wherein they had performed little or nothing, as if such glorious attributes could have made them like in virtue unto Scipio the African.

1 Excerpt é Pol. 1. xvi.

CHAP. IV.

OF PHILIP, THE FATHER OF PERSEUS, KING OF MACEDON; HIS FIRST ACTS, AND WAR WITH THE ROMANS, BY WHOM HE WAS subdued.

SECT. I.

How the Romans grew acquainted in the east countries, and desirous of war there. The beginning of many princes, with great wars at one time. The Etolians overrun Peloponnessus. Philip and his associates make war against the Etolians. Alteration of the state in Sparta. The Etolians invade Greece and Macedon, and are invaded at home by Philip.

F the great similitude found in worldly events, the limitation of matter hath been assigned as a probable cause'. For since nature is confined unto a subject that is not unbounded, the works of nature must needs be finite, and many of them resemble one the other. Now in those actions that seem to have their whole dependence upon the will of man, we are less to wonder if we find less variety; since it is no great portion of things which is obnoxious unto human power; and since they are the

1 Plut. in vita Sertorii.

same affections by which the wills of sundry men are over-ruled, in managing the affairs of our daily life. It may be observed, in the change of empires, before those times whereof we now write, how the Assyrians or Chaldæans invaded the kingdom of the Medes, with two hundred thousand foot, and threescore thousand horse; but failing in their intended conquest, they became subject within a while themselves unto the Medes and Persians. In like manner Darius, and after him Xerxes, fell upon the Greeks, with such numbers of men as might have seemed resistless. But after that the Persians were beaten home, their empire was never secure of the Greeks; who, at all time of leisure from intestine war, devised upon the conquest thereof, which finally they made under the great Alexander. If Nabuchodonosor, with his rough old soldiers, had undertaken the Medes; or Cyrus, with his well-trained army, had made the attempt upon Greece; the issue might, in human reason, have been far different. Yet would it then have been expedient for them, to employ the travel and virtue of their men, rather than the greatness of their names, against those people, that were no less valiant, though less renowned than their own. For the menacing words used by Cyrus, and some small displeasures done to the Greeks, (in which kind it may be that Nabuchodonosor likewise of fended the Medes and Persians,) were not so available to victory as to draw on revenge in the future. Great kingdoms, when they decay in strength, suffer, as did the old lion, for the oppression done in his youth; being pinched by the wolf, gored by the bull, yea, and kicked by the ass. But princes are often carried away from reason, by misunderstanding the language of fame; and despising the virtue that makes little noise, adventure to provoke it against themselves; as if it were not possible that their own glory should be foiled by any of less noted excel

lence. Against the same stone, whereat Xerxes, and before him (as I take it) Evilmerodach had stumbled, Pyrrhus, the Epirot, had dashed his foot. He was not, indeed, the king of all Greece; though most of mark, and a better soldier than any other Grecian king, when he entered into war against the Romans. This war he undertook, as it were, for his mind's sake; having received no injury, but hoping by the glory of his name, and of the Greeks that served under him, to prevail so easily against the barbarous Romans, that they should only serve as a step to his farther intended conquests of Sicily and Africa. But when the Romans, by their victory against Pyrrhus, had found their own virtue to be of richer metal, than was the more shining valour of the Greeks, then did all the bravery of the Epirot (his elephants, and whatsoever else had served to make him terrible) serve only to make the Romans, in time following, to think more highly of themselves'. For since they had overcome the best warrior in Greece, even him that, being thus beaten by them, could in a year after make himself lord of Greece and Macedon,what should hinder them from the conquest of all those unwarlike provinces, which, in compass of twelve years, a Macedonian king of late memory had won? Certainly there was hereunto requisite no more, than to bring to their own devotion, by some good means, the whole country of Greece; all the rest, this done, would follow of itself. How to deal with the Greeks, Philip and Alexander had shewed a way; which, or perhaps a better, they might learn, by getting more acquaintance with the nation.

When therefore the first Punic war was ended, which followed soon after the wars of Pyrrhus and

2 The king of Spain's pretended invincible navy, being beaten out of the British seas, invited us to those of Spain; and having broken the greatest fleet that ever the Spaniards gathered together, we never made account of any of his prepa rations after that time.