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Chios, of Messina, of Galatia, with the Massagets, and others, in these his services. Further, as if he were not content to destroy the souls of many nations in Europe, Asia, and Africa, (as Acosta + writeth,) the Mexicans, and other people of America, were brought by the devil under this fearful servitude, in which he also holdeth the Floridans and Virginians at this day.

For the wickedness of this king Ahaz, God stirred up Rezin of Damascus, and Pekah the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, against him, who invaded Judæa, and besieged Jerusalem, but entered it not.

The king of Syria, Rezin, possessed himself of Elah by the Red sea, and cast the Jews out of it; and Pekah slaughtered in one day an hundred and twenty thousand Judæans', of the ablest of the kingdom; at which time Maaseiah the son of Ahaz was also slain by Zichri, with Azricham the governor of his house, and Elkanah the second person unto the king. Besides all this, two hundred thousand prisoners of women and children, the Israelites led away to Samaria; but, by the counsel of the prophet Oded, they were returned and delivered back again.

As Israel and Aram vexed Judah on the north, so the Edomites and the Philistines, who evermore attended the ruin of Judæa, entered upon them from the south; and took Bethsemes, Ajalon, Gaderoth, Socho, Timnah, and Gemzo, slew many people, and carried away many prisoners. Whereupon, when Ahaz saw himself environed on all sides, and that his idols and dead gods gave him no comfort, he sent to the Assyrian Tiglath-Pileser, to desire some aid from him against the Israelites and Aramites, presenting him with the silver and gold both of the temple and king's house 7.

Tiglath-Pileser wanted not a good example to follow, in making profit of the troubles that rose in

4 Acost. de Hist. nat. et mor. Ind. 5 2 Chron. xxviii. 6. 7 2 Kings xvi.

6 2 Chron. xxviii.

Palæstina. His father having lately made himself, from a provincial lieutenant, king of Babylon and Assyria, had a little before led him the way into Judæa, invited by Menahem king of Israel. Wherefore now the son willingly hearkened to Ahaz, and embraced the advantage. As for Belosus himself, he was content to assign some other time for going through with this enterprize; because, (as I have said before,) he was not firmly settled at home, and` the Syrian kings lay directly in his way, who were yet strong both in men and fame. But Tiglath, having now, with the treasures of Jerusalem, prepared his army, first invaded the territory of Damascus, won the city, and killed Rezin, the last of the race of the Adads, who began with David, and ended with this Ahaz. At Damascus, Ahaz met Tiglath, and taking thence a pattern of the altar, sent it to Uriah the priest, commanding the like to be made at Jerusalem, whereon at his return he burnt sacrifice to the gods of the Syrians. In the meanwhile Tiglath possessed all Basan, and the rest beyond Jordan, which belonged to the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh: And then passing the river, mastered the cities of Galilee, invaded Ephraim and the kingdom of Israel, and made them his vassals. And notwithstanding that he was invited and waged by Ahaz, yet, after the spoil of Israel, he possessed himself of the greater part of Judah, and, as it seemeth, enforced Ahaz to pay him tribute. For in the second of Kings, chap. xviii., it is written of Hezekiah, that he revolted from Ashur, or rebelled against him, and therefore was invaded by Sennacherib. After Ahaz had beheld and borne these miseries, in the end of the sixteenth year of his reign he died; but was not buried in the sepulchres of the kings of Judah.

With Abaz lived Medidus, the third prince in Media, who governed forty years, saith Eusebius':

1 Euseb. in Chron.

Diodorus and Ctesias find Anticarmus, instead of this Medidus, to have been Sosarmus's successor, to whom they give fifty years.

Tiglath Pileser held the kingdom of Assyria all the reign of Ahaz; yet so, that Salmanassar his son may seem to have reigned with him some part of the time. For we find that Ahaz did send unto the kings of Ashur to help him". The Geneva note says, that these kings of Ashur were Tiglath-Pileser, and those kings that were under his dominion. But that he or his father had hitherto made such conquests, as might give him the lordship over other kings, I do neither find any history nor circumstance that proveth. Wherefore I think, that these kings of Ashur were Tiglath and Salmanassar his son, who reigned with his father, as hath been said before; though how long he reigned with his father, it be hard to define.

At this time began the ephori in Lacedæmon, a hundred and thirty years after Lycurgus, according to Plutarch3. Eusebius makes their beginning far later, namely, in the fifteenth Olympiad. Of these ephori, Elalus was the first, Theopompus and Polydorus being then joint kings. These ephori, chosen every year, were comptrollers, as well of their senators as of their kings, nothing being done without their advice and consent; for, (saith Cicero,) they were opposed against their kings, as the Roman tribunes against the consuls. In the time of Ahaz died Eschylus, who had ruled in Athens ever since the fiftieth year of Uzziah. Alcamenon, the thirteenth of the Medontidæ, or governors of the Athenians, (so called of Medon, who followed Codrus,) succeeded his father Eschylus, and was the last of their governors: he ruled only two years; for the Athenians changed first from kings, (after Codrus,) to governors for life; which ending in this Alcamenon, they erected a magistrate, whom they termed an archon, 22 Kings xxviii. 16,

8 Plut. in vita Sol.

who was a kind of burgomaster, or governor of their

city, for ten years.

This alteration Pausanias, in his fourth book, begins in the first year of the eighth Olympiad; Eusebius and Halicarnassæus, in the first of the seventh Olympiad; at which time, indeed, Carops, the first of these, began his ten years rule.

The kingdom of the Latins, governed about three hundred years by the Sylvii, of the race of Æneas, took end in the same Ahaz's time; the foundation of Rome being laid by Romulus and Remus, in the eighth year of the same king. Codoman builds it the eleventh of Ahaz, Bucholzer in the eighth, (as I think he should,) others somewhat later, and in the reign of Hezekiah. Cicero, Eutropius, Orosius, and others, square the time of the foundation to the third year of the sixth Olympiad. But Halicarnassæus, Solinus, Antiochenus, Clemens Alexandrinus, and Eusebius, to the first year of the seventh; who seem not only to me, but to many very learned chronologers, to have kept herein the best account.

VOL. III.

CHAP. XXIV.

OF THE ANTIQUITIES OF ITALY, AND FOUNDATION OF ROME IN THE TIME OF AHAZ.

SECT. I.

Of the old inhabitants, and of the name of Italy. AND here to speak of the more ancient times of

Italy, and what nations possessed it before the arrival of Æneas, the place may seem to invite us; the rather because much fabulous matter hath been mixed with the truth of those elder plantations. Italy, before the fall of Troy, was known to the Greeks by divers names; as, first, Hesperia, then Ausonia; the one name arising of the seat, the other of the Ausones, a people inhabiting part of it. One ancient name of it was also Enotria, which it had of the Œnotri, whom Halicarnassæus thinks to have been the first that brought a colony of Arcadians into that land. Afterwards it was called Italy of Italus; concerning which changes of names, Virgil speaks thus:

Est locus, Hesperiam Graii cognomine dicunt,

Terra antiqua, potens armis, atque ubere glebæ ;
'Oenotri coluere viri, nunc fama minores
'Italiam dixisse, ducis de nomine, gentem.'

< There is a land which Greeks Hesperia name,
'Ancient and strong, of much fertility:
'Oenotrians held it; but we hear by fame,
That by late ages of posterity,

'Tis from a captain's name call'd Italy.'

1 Halicar. l. 1.

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