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fairs of Jewry were agreeable to the history of Judith, and such a king as this supposed Nabuchodonosor might well enough be ignorant of the Jews, and as proud as we shall need to think him. But the silence of all histories takes away belief from this conjecture; and the supposition of itself is very hard, that a rebel, whose king was abroad, with an army consisting of seventeen hundred thousand men, should presume so far, upon the strength of twelve hundred thousand foot, and twelve thousand archers on horseback, as to think that he might do what he lists, yea, that there was none other God than himself. It is indeed easy to find enough that might be said against this device of Torniellus; yet if there were any necessity of holding the book of Judith to be canonical, I would rather chuse to lay aside all regard of profane histories, and build some defence upon this ground, than, by following the opinion of any other, to violate, as they all do, the text itself. That Judith lived under none of the Persian kings, Bellarmine, (whose works I have not read, but find him cited by Torniellus,) hath proved by many arguments. That she lived not in the reign of Manasseh, Torniellus hath proved very substantially, shewing how the cardinal is driven, as it were, to break through a wall, in saying that the text was corrupted, where it spake of the destruction of the temple foregoing her time. That the kings Arphaxad and Nabuchodonosor, found out by Torniellus, are the children of mere phantasy, it is so plain, that it needs no proof at all. Wherefore we may truly say, that they, which have contended about the time of this history, being well furnished of matter wherewith to confute each other, but wanting wherewith to defend themselves, (like naked men in a stony field,) have chased Holophernes out of all parts of time, and left him and his great expedition, extra anni solisque vias, in an age that never was, and in places that never were known.

Surely to find out the borders of Japhet, which 'were towards the south, and over-against Arabia',' or the countries of Phud and Lud, that lay in Holo phernes's way; I think it would as much trouble cosmographers, as the former question hath done chronologers. But I will not busy myself herewith; having already so far digressed, in shewing who liv ed not with Manasseh, that I think it high time to return unto mine own work, and rehearse what others I find to have had their part in the long time of his reign.

SECT. VI.

Of other princes and actions that were in these times.

The first year of Manasseh was the last of Romu lus; after whose death one year, the Romans wanted a king. Then was Numa Pompilius, a Sabine, chosen; a peaceable man, and seeming very religious in his kind. He brought the rude people, which Romulus had employed only in wars, to some good civility, and a more orderly fashion of life. This he effected, by filling their heads with superstition; as persuading them, that he had familiarity with a nymph called Egeria, who taught him many ceremonies, which he delivered unto the Romans as things of great importance. But all these devices of Numa were, in his own judgment, no better than mere de lusions, that served only as rudiments, to bring the savage multitude of thieves and outlaws, gathered into one body by Romulus, to some form of milder discipline than their boisterous and wild natures were otherwise apt to entertain. This appeared by the books that were found in his grave almost six hundred years after his death, wherein the superstition taught by himself was condemned as vain. His grave was opened by chance, in digging a piece of 1 Judith, ii. 23, 25.

ground that belonged to one L. Petilius, a scribe. Two coffins, or chests of stone, were in it, with an inscription in Greek and Latin letters, which said, that Numa Pompilius, the son of Pompo, king of the Romans, lay there. In the one coffin was nothing found, his body being utterly consumed. In the other were his books, wrapped up in two bundles of wax; of his own constitutions seven, and other seven of philosophy. They were not only uncorrupted, but in a manner fresh and new. The prætor of the city desiring to have a sight of these books, when he perceived whereunto they tended, refused to deliver them back to the owner, and offered to take a solemn oath that they were against the religion then in use. Hereupon, the senate, without more ado, commanded them to be openly burnt. It seems that Numa did mean to acquit himself unto wiser ages, which he thought would follow, as one that had not been so foolish as to believe the doctrine wherein he instructed his own barbarous times. But the poison wherewith he had infected Rome, when he sat in his throne, had not left working when he ministered the antidote out of his grave. Had these books not come to light until the days of Tully and Cæsar, when the mist of ignorance was somewhat better discussed, likely it is that they had not only escaped the fire, but wrought some good, (and peradventure general,) effect. Being as it was, they served as a confutation, without remedy, of idolatry that was inveterate.

Numa reigned three and forty years in continual peace. After him, Tullus Hostilius, the third king, was chosen in the six and fortieth year of Manasseh, and reigned two and thirty years, busied, for the most part, in war. He quarrelled with the Albans, who met him in the field; but regard of the danger, which both parties had cause to fear, that might grow unto them from the Tuscans, caused them to bethink themselves of a course, whereby, without effusion of so much blood as might make them too weak for a

common enemy, it might be decided who should command and who obey.

There were in each camp three brethren, twins, born at one birth, (Dionysius says that they were cousin-germans,) of equal years and strength, who were appointed to fight for their several countries. The end was, that the Horatii, champions for the Romans, got the victory, though two of them first lost their lives. The three Curiatii, that fought for Alba, (as Livy tells us,) were all alive, and able to fight, yet wounded, when two of their opposites were slain; but the third Horatius, pretending fear, did run away, and thereby drew the others, who, by reason of their hurts, could not follow him with equal speed, to follow him at such distance one from another, that, returning upon them, he slew them, as it had been in single fight, man after man, ere they could join together, and set upon him all at once. Dionysius reports it somewhat otherwise, telling very particularly what wounds were given and taken, and saying, that first one of the Horatii was slain, then one of the Curiatii, then a second Horatius, and lastly the two Curiatii, whom the third Horatius did cunningly sever the one from the other, as is shewed before.

This is one of the most memorable things in the old Roman history, both in regard of the action itself, wherein Rome was laid, as it were in wager, against Alba, and in respect of the great increase which thereby the Roman state obtained. For the city of Alba did immediately become subject unto her own colony, and was shortly after, upon some treacherous dealing of their governor, utterly razed; the people being removed unto Rome, where they were made citizens. The strong nation of the Latins, whereof Alba, as the mother city, had been chief, became, ere long, dependent upon Rome, though not subject unto it, and divers petty states adjacent, were by little and little taken in; which

additions, that were small, yet many, I will forbear to rehearse, (as being the works of sundry ages, and few of them remarkable, considered apart by themselves,) until such times as this fourth empire, that is now in the infancy, shall grow to be the main subject of this history.

The seventh year of Hippomenes in Athens, was current with the first of Manasseh. Also the three last governors for ten years, who followed Hippomenes, were in the same king's time. Of these I find only the_names, Leocrates, Apsander, and Erizias. After Erizias yearly rulers were elected.

These governors for ten years were also of the race of Medon and Codrus, but their time of rule was shortened, and from term of life reduced unto ten years; it being thought likely that they would govern the better, when they knew that they were afterwards to live private men under the command of others. I follow Dionysius of Halicarnassus * in applying their times unto years of the Olympiads, wherein the chronological table, following this work, doth set them. For he not only professeth himself to have taken great care in ordering the reckoning of times; but hath noted always the years of the Greeks, how they did answer unto the kings of Rome, throughout all the continuance of his history. Whereas, therefore, he placeth the building of Rome in the first year of the seventh Olympiad, and affirms, that the same was the first year of Charop's government in Athens; I hope I shall not need excuse, for varying from Pausanias, who sets the beginning of these Athenians somewhat sooner.

In the reign of Manasseh it was, that Midas, whom the poets feigned to have had asses ears, held the kingdom of Phrygia. Many fables were devised of him; especially that he obtained of Bacchus, as a great gift, that all things which he should touch might immediately be turned into gold; by which,

VOL. III.

2 Dion. Halic. 1. i. fol. 43, and 44.

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