THE ROMAN Histories of LUCIUS JULIUS FLORUS from the foundation of ROME. till Caesar AUGUSTUS, for above DCC. years, & from thence to trajan near CC. years, divided by Florus into IV ages. Translated into ENGLISH.  
LONDON By Wil Stansby.    

TO THE MOST FLOURISHING, puissant, and noble Peer, GEORGE, Lord marquess of BUCKINGHAM, etc.  
MY LORD,  
THE Histories of Lucius Florus, comprehending in four short Books the one hundred, forty and two of that principal Historian of the Romans, Titus Livius of Padua, and of many other, written, hard to say, whether more conceitfully or completely, are here translated out of their Latin into English. A labour greater far (as all our learned know) then for the slender bulk of the volume. His majesties great example, and your Lordship's fervent imitation, to increase in the full sail of fortune, the ballast of worthy readings, is here in part well fitted. For your Honour cannot possibly find in so little a room so much, so well together, of this weighty argument. A thing to your Lordship acceptable, considering your small leisure, and to all those other who have already profitably run through his authors: himself so brief as it is almost his fault; so neat, and pithy, as Livy fares the worse for it, so desirous to remember what himself hath said, and to have it understood by others, as he sums his own summary narrations; and finally, so worthy, as seeing the glory of a great Historian forestalled by Livy, and others, he held it more honourable to be (as he is) the first among brief writers, than one among few in the large ones. Epitome's notwithstanding are no other in truth but Anatomies, and all spacious minds, waited upon with the felicities of means, and leisure, will fly them as bane, but this brief hath all the requisites of a perfect body, and apparel as rich as any; for professing Story, he hath certainly performed a Panegyric. His scope, to kindle the valour of the old Roman world in the bosom of the new: though himself, an heathen man, and living under trajan the emperor, saw the proportion of valour well-maintained: that being the most goodly, and most flourishing estate, which at any time under heathen princes, that monarchy enjoyed. Those annotations, and collections, whose lights will lead your Lordship into the wise, and heroik secret of the most potent, grave, and honourable, masters which ever mankind had, are fittest for your more leisure. To your good Lordship therefore, in whose person the ancient splendours of the noble families of VILLERS, & BEAUMONT are united with advantage, doth Lucius Florus offer himself in our vulgar tongue, and brings with him the plain, but withal, the free, and grounded goodwill of his most loving, and careful interpreter, humbly  
Your Lordships, PHILANACTOPHIL.   

To the Reader.  
FLORUS (saith JUSTUS LIPSIUS, who in Mr. CAMDEN'S opinion carried the Sun of antiquity before him) wrote a brief, not so much of Livy (from whom he often dissenteth) as of the Roman affairs, in my poor conceit, aptly, elegantly, neatly. There is in him a sharpness of wit, and shortness of speech, oftentimes admirable; and certain gems as it were, and jewels of wise sentences, inserted by him with good advisement, and verity. Thus far that excellent master, and with him let thy judgement go, if thou wilt herein do justice, howsoever, with Mathematical Stadius, FLORUS is but a tumultuary author: for so it pleaseth that learned Critike to style him, over-loading him with the comparison of incomparable Livy. Be it free, with reverence and modesty, to note oversights (as none do want them) and for me also, a professor of sober freedom, to tax that as an oversight in manners, to use such authors sourly, without whom the Critics fame had oftentimes been obscure, or none at all. In mine Hypercriticks, concerning our countries History, I have dealt freely, as a man desirous to stir up a Livy, or a Florus to ourselves. There is little left testifide touching him, or rather nothing at all, but what himself remembreth, which is, that he lived in Traian's time. Conjecture propounds unto us, that he was of the Seneca's (that also is my opinion) and so an Annaean by line (that is, of the Spanish-house, or family of the Annaeans) and they who entitle him to be of the julij, have also their divinatory reasons. His generous, bright, and flowery writings (the best memorial) are alive, and now translated into our vulgar, with as much propriety as one englishman's English could attain unto for the present; but every where with a religious aim to his meaning, howsoever it may be many times missed, the diversity of Copies, like a change of the mark, and the peculiar manner of his style like a sudden blast coming between. For this is true, that there are in FLORUS sundry knots, not easy to untie, while he, desirous to speak quick, and close together, our understanding in him, wanteth room as it were, and that scope which is, hath somewhat thick in it, amounting to a cloudiness: — brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio— more perhaps, in this author, through corruption of manuscripts, and Prints, or of our duller-pointed wits, then through his fault, whose writings are altogether as luminous, as acuminons.  
First, the names of men, nations, places, offices, and things, peculiar to the Romans, need a particular interpreter, which this pocket-volume will not handsomely permit, at leastwise not in present.  
Secondly, the words which are here and there inserted in a different letter through the text of Florus, are for the most part explanatorie of the author's meaning, supplying marginal notes.  
Thirdly, one elegancy, which is almost perpetual in him, and answers to the first similitude, in which he figures the whole people of Rome, in the person of a MAN (as the frontispiece showeth) it lost for the greater part, throughout the translation, where the singular number sorts not so well, but breeds perplexity, or obscureness.  
Fourthly, The doctrines which he follows both in Theology, and morality, and upon which the fabric of his narrations standeth, are such as thou art to expect from an heathen, with whom Polytheism, or plurality of Gods, was an article of faith, and among whom, selfe-killing, to avoid disgrace, seemed an high point of true magnanimity, and the like, which have small danger in them now, & their examen will elsewhere fall out fitly.  
Fifthly, The numbers in the margin, signify the years from Rome built, which these letters, A. V. C. do denotate, that is, Anno Vrbis Conditae; in the year of Rome Built, such, or such. A discovery not worthy of any one, but only of them, who are nothing else in a manner, but mere English. Necessary is it here notwithstanding, for explanation of the author, who (as the frontispiece, which (with the help of the author's preface) interprets itself, unfoldeth) by a most exact, and studied method of briefness, hath summed the whole time of Rome in gross, and distributed it into ages, as Lactatius Firmianus (vouching I know not what Seneca for it) and Ammianus Marcellinus in his eighteenth book, and lornandes an usurper, and concealer of Florus his wit) under the I'mperour justinian.  
What the translator thinks worthy of thy precious time, to knew further, requires a large book, rather than an Epistle, and that also will be but a brief upon a brief) of all the old Roman wisdom civil, and martial, as here thou hast of their facts. Enjoy this translation in the mean time, and let not unthankfulness strangle any intendments for thy more satisfaction, nor show thee ignorant of such a treasure, as which, after above one thousand four hundred years continuance (twice the time of this story) growing stronger in the world by one language more than his own (when the Roman empire itself (the subject of the book) hath long since in a manner come to nothing) doth give great hope that it is to be immortal.  
Farewell.   

THE PREFACE OF LUCIUS FLORUS.  
THE People of Rome, from King Romulus to Caesar Augustus, for the space of seven hundred years, performed so many noble deeds both in peace, and war, that if a man compare the magnitude of their empire with the number of the years, he will think it greater, then for the time. They displayed their warlike ensigns so far, and wide upon the globe of the earth, that such as read their performances, may learn in them, not the actions of one people, but of all mankind: For they were tossed with so many labours, and perils, that to establish their empire, Virtue and Fortune seem to have contended. Which thing, though it be also principally worth the knowing; nevertheless, for so much as the very greatness itself is an impediment to itself, and the variety of matter makes the mind abruptly flit from one thing to another; 
Aciem intentionis abrumpit.  I will imitate them who draw the maps of countries, and comprehend the whole image of that great Body, within as it were a narrow table: And in so doing, my hopes are, that I shall offer up somewhat towards the admirable honours of the whole world's sovereign people, when together, and yet distinctly in itself, I shall advance into view their empire's universal greatness. Imagining therefore the whole people of Rome were but as one single person; and then running over all their time, think how they began, and how they grew strong; then, how they attained to a certain flower as it were of youth, and how in a sort they afterwards waxed old, we shall therein find four degrees, or main progressions.  
The first revolution was under kings, for almost two hundred and fifty years; in which space they wrestled and strove about their mother-city with their neighbours. This may be the time of their infancy. The following period, from the Consulship of Brutus, and Collatinus, to the Consulship of Appius Claudius, and 
* Marcus.  Quintus Fuluius, comprehends those two hundredth and fifty years, in which they subdued Italy. This was a time most famous for manhood, and deeds of Chivalry. It may well be therefore termed their youthful age. From hence, to Augustus Caesar, are those other two hundredth and fifty years, in which he settled peace thorough all the world. And this compass of time is the very Man's estate, and as it were the strength and ripeness of the Roman Empire. From Augustus Caesar, to our days, there have not passed many fewer than two hundredth years; in which, through the unworthiness of Emperors, the force of the Roman people waxed old, as it were, and wasted itself: saving, that under the government of trajan, their sinews requicken, and beyond all expectation, the old age of the empire, as if the youth thereof were restored, grows green again, and flourisheth.   

THE HISTORY OF THE ROMANS.  

The first Book.  

CHAP. I.  
Of ROMULUS, first King of Romans.  
THe first founder of the city, and empire of Rome, was ROMULUS, the son of Mars, and Rhea. Syluia. 
Vestae Sacerdos.  This the Vestal Priestesse, great with child, confessed of herself, nor did fame long doubt thereof, when Romulus, by commandment of Amulius, thrown into the river, together with his brother Remus, could not be drowned. For the Genius of Tiber both checked down his waters, and a she-wolf following the cry of the babes, left her young ones, and with her teats discharged towards them the office of a mother. And in this plight, found under a tree, Faustulus, the king's shepherd conveyed them to his farme-house, and bred them up. Alba, built by julius, was then the chief city of Latium, which his father Aeneas had reared. Amulius was the fourteenth king from these, and expelled his brother Numitor, of whose daughter Romulus was borne. He therefore, in the first heats of his youth, chased his uncle Amulius out of the royal seat, and restored his grandfather; himself delighting in the river, and mountains, among which he had been educated, was busied in plotting the walls of a new town. These brothers were twins; and it was therefore agreed between them, to make the gods judges, which of them should first enter upon the government and rule. Remus took his stand upon mount Aventine, and Romulus upon mount Palatine. It was the fortune of Remus to see birds first, and they were six Vultures; Romulus saw last, but had twelve. So having the upper hand in this trial by bird-flight, he builds his city, full of hope, that it would prove a martial one; according as those birds, accustomed to blood and ravin, did portend. A 
* Vallum.  trench and rampire seemed sufficient to defend the new city; whose narrowness while Remus derided, and leapt over, in reproof thereof, he was slain; whether by his brother's commandment, or no, is doubtful. Certain it is, that he was the first sacrifice, and consecrated the new city's fortification with his blood. There wanted inhabitants. near hand grew a grove, which he makes a place of sanctuary; and thither a wondrous company of men did forthwith flock, some of them Latins, some shepherds of Hetruria, and other of them some of those beyond-sea Phrygians, who were under Aeneas, and of those Arcadians, who having evander for their General, had come flowing in. Thus of, as it were diverse elements he gathered together one Body, and himself composed of them the Roman people. This was a work of Time, the increase of inhabitants was a work of Men. Therefore they sought wives from among the neighbours; whom, when they could not obtain by suit, they took by force. For they pretending to make shows and games on horseback, the maids assembled from parts about, to behold them, were seized as lawful prey. This ministered an occasion of present war. The Veientes were beaten, and put to flight. The Caeninensians had their town taken, and razed; and king Romulus, with his own hands, offered up to jupiter Feretrius, the magnificent spoils, which he had gained from his adversary 
* Acron.  King. The gates of Rome were betrayed to the Sabines by a silly 
* Tarpeia.  Virgin, who had bargained to receive for reward that which they carried on their left hands, doubtful, whether she meant their shields, or bracelets. They both to keep their promise, and not to suffer her to escape, overwhelmed her to death with their shields. The enemies thus getting to the walls, there rose a terrible conflict in the very entrance, so farforth, that Romulus was glad to beseech jove, to flay his people from their shameful flying. In this place there is a temple, and the statue of JUPITER the Stayer. At last, they which had been ravished, came running-in tearing their hair, between the two armies, as they were furiously encountering. So was peace made with Tatius, and a league ratified. There ensued a matter wonderful to be spoken. The Sabine enemies leaving their ancient seat, removed with their whole families into the new city, and share their hoarded riches among their sons in law for portions. Their joint forces quickly increasing, the most wise Romulus ordained this form of commonweal. That the young men, divided into tribes, should serve on horseback, and watch in armour, to be ready for all sudden occasions of war: the council of estate should belong to the old, and ancient, who for their authority should be called Fathers, and for their antiquity, Senators, or Aldermen. These things thus established, 
A. V. C. XXXVIII.  he was taken out of sight in a moment, as he made an oration before the city, at the pool of Capra. Some think he was torn in pieces by the Senate, for his harsh, and rough disposition: but a tempest rising with an eclipse of the Sun, made it seem like the consecration of a Godhead. Which opinion, julius Proculus, caused to go presently currant, by affirming, that Romulus had appeared to him in a more majestical shape, than ever he was seen before: that he commanded, they should adore him as a power divine: That the Gods had decreed, his name in heaven should be Quirinus: and that Rome should so obtain the empire of the world.   

CHAP. II.  
Of NUMA POMPILIUS.  
TO Romulus succeeded Numa Pompilius, whom living at the Sabines Cures, the Romans, of their own accord, entreated to be their king, for the fame of his religion. He taught them sacred rites, and ceremonies, and all the worship of the immortal gods. He instituted their Colleges of priests of all sorts, Pontifices, Augurs, Salians, and the rest: distinguished the year into twelve months, & marked out which days were lucky, and which were dismal, in them. He gave them their Ancilia shields, and Palladium, as certain secret pledges of empire. He gave them their temple of janus, to be the sure sign of peace, or war: most specially the hearth of Vesta, for virgins to adore, that in imitation of the stars of heaven, the flame preserved there alive, might ever keep awake for safeguard of the state. All these things he ordained, by, as it were, the oracle of the goddess Egeria, that the barbarous might so accept them the rather. To conclude, he brought the fierce people to that pass, that the kingdom which they had achieved by violence, and wrong, they governed by religion and justice.   

CHAP. III.  
Of TULLUS HOSTILIUS.  
NEXT after Numa, reigns Tullus Hostilius, to whom the kingdom was freely given in honour of his virtue. This prince founded all their martial discipline, and art of war. Their youngmen thereby, wondrously practised in feats of Arms, they durst provoke the Albans, an honourable people, & which had long time borne chief sway. But their forces being equal, and their conflicts many, when both sides were diminished, the war was drawn, by consent, to a short work, and the fortunes of both the nations were entrusted to a combat, between the Horatij and Curatij, being three to three of a side, and brethren. The fight was brave and doubtful, and admirable in the event. For three of the one side being wounded, and two of the other slain, that Horatius, who remained alive, helping out his valour with his wit, feigns himself to fly, so to single forth the enemy, and then turning upon each as they were able to follow, overcame them all. So (which was otherwise a rare glory) the victory was gotten with one man's hand, which he forth with stained by parricide. He saw his sister weep at the sight of the conquered spoils he wore, being her betrothed husband's, though an enemies. Which unseasonable tenderheartedness he revenged with sheathing his sword in her. For this heinous fact, he was arraigned. But the merit of his manhood preserved the offendor from danger, and the crime was hidden with in his valour's glory. Nor did the Albans long keep their faith. For, being sent as aids, and fellows in arms against the Fidenates, according to the articles of their league, they turned neutral in battle for their own advantage. But the politic king, Hostilius, so soon as he saw his associates incline to the enemy's party, he gathers fresh spirit, as if he had willed them so to do; which did put hope into our men, and struck fear into the foes. So the treason came to nothing. The battle therefore being won, he causeth Metius Fufetius, the breaker of the league, to be tied between two chariots, and plucked in pieces with swift horses: and though Alba was the mother of Rome, yet withal, because it was a rival, he threw it to the ground, after he had first transported the whole riches, and all the people thereof to Rome: that a city, a kin by the whole blood, might not altogether seem to have perished, but to have, as it were, turned again into her proper Body.   

CHAP. FOUR  
Of ANCUS MARTIUS.  
THe next King was Ancus Martius, 
A. V. C. CXIII.  
* Nepos.  Grandchild of Pompilius by his daughter, and of such a wit. He therefore girt the city with a wall, and joined both the sides thereof together with a bridge over Tiber, which ran between; and planted a Colony at Ostia, where that river falls into the sea. His mind giving him even then, that the wealth of the whole world and passengers to and fro, out of all parts, should be received there, as in the haven town and maritime Inn of Rome.   

CHAP. V.  
Of TARQVINIUS PRISCUS.  
TArquinius, afterward called Priscus, though descended from foreigners beyond sea; yet of his own free courage demanding the kingdom, had it as freely granted, for his industry, and noble carriage. For sprung out of Corinth, he had mingled Greek wit with Italian fashions. This prince enlarged the majesty of the Senate, and augmented the Tribes with new Centuries: notwithstanding, that Attius Naevius, excellently seen in Augury, had forbidden the number to be increased: of whom, the king, to try his skill, demanded, Whether that might be done which he at that instant had in his mind? Naevius having first put in practice the rules of his bird-flying mystery, answered, That it might. Then it was my thought (quoth he) whether I could cut that whetstone with a razor. And thou mayest (said the Augur) and he did it. Hence the Augur-ship became sacred among the Romans. Nor was Tarqvinius better at peace, then at war. For he conquered the twelve Tuscan nations, with often fight: and from thence came our Maces, our Trabeae, our Chairs of State, our Rings, Trappers, Robes, purple-guarded Coats, Chariots of Triumph guilt over, drawn with four horses, embroidered Gowns, Cassocks chambleted with figures of palms: and briefly, all the ornaments & ensigns, by which sovereign Majesty is made eminent.   

CHAP. VI  
Of SERVIUS TULLIUS.  
THen Servius Tullius usurpeth the royal power: nor was his baseness any bar unto him therein, though his mother was a bondwoman. For Tanaquil, the wife of Tarqvinius, had bred him up in honourable fashion for his excellent dispositions sake: and a flame being seen to blaze about his head, did assure he should prove famous. Therefore, in the Interregnum, after Tarqvinius his death, he being set up by the Queen dowagers means, to supply the King's place, as it were but for a time, so managed that authority by his wit, which he had achieved by practice, that he seemed to have good right unto it. By him the people of Rome had their estates valued, 
Relatus in censum.  and books of value, and musters made, themselves marshaled into forms, or classes, and distributed into courts and companies. And by this kings incomparable diligence, the Commonweal was so ordered, that note was taken of all their lands, goods, honours, ages, arts, and offices, and put into public register; as if the state of a most mighty city were to be kept up and held together with the same diligence that a petty family.   

CHAP. VII.  
Of TARQVINIUS SUPERBUS.  
THe last of all the kings, was Tarqvinius, surnamed the Proud, of his conditions. He rather made choice to invade, then to expect his grandfathers realm, which was withholden by Servius: whose murder having procured, he governed the Commonweal as badly, as he had obtained it wickedly. Nor was his wife Tullia of any better nature than himself. For hurrying to salute her husband King, she ran her amazed Coach-horse over the bloody body of her father. But Tarqvinius raging with slaughter against the Senate, and against all men with proud behaviour (which worthy men brook worse than cruelty) after he had tired himself at home with shedding blood, he marcheth at length against the enemy. So Ardea, Ocriculum, Gabijs, Suessa Pometia, towns of strength in Latin land, were taken. Then turned he cruel towards his own. For he stuck not to scourge his son, to the intent, that thereupon counterfeiting himself a fugitive, he might gain credit with the enemy: and Gabijs, according to this plot, being surprised, when the son sent messengers to his father to understand his farther royal pleasure, he only struck off the tops of those poppie-heads, with his wand, which overtopped their fellows; meaning thereby, that he would have the chief men put to death. And this was all the answer which his pride vouchsafed. Nevertheless, he built a temple out of the spoils of conquered cities. Which when it came to be dedicated, according to the rites, all other the Gods (a wonder to be spoken) leaving the place, Iwentas and Terminus only remained. This contumacy of the powers divine pleased the soothsayers well: for it promised, that the Roman affairs should be flourishing, and eternal. But this was marvelous, that in digging to build, there appeared the head of a man for a foundation: which all men did confidently interpret, as a most fair and happy sign, prognosticating, that there should be the head seat of the whole world's empire. The people of Rome suffered the pride of their king, while their women were forborn: but that insolent abuse they could not endure in his sons: Of whom, when one of them had ravished that most beauteous Lady Lucretia, and she clearing herself from the infamy, by killing herself, than they utterly abrogated their name, and all the authority of Kings.   

CHAP. VIII.  
The sum of the whole premises.  
THis is the first age of the people, of Rome, and as it were their infancy, under seven kings: men, by as it were a special provision of the fates, as differing in disposition, as the reason and profit of the Commonweal required. For who could be more hot, or fiery, then Romulus? But there was need of having such an one, to set up the kingdom perforce. Who was more religious than Numa? But their affairs could not want such a person, that the fierce people might be made temperate, through the fear of the Gods. How necessary was that Master of their martial discipline, Tullus, to a warlike Nation? for whetting, and perfecting their courages with reason. How needful was Ancus, the builder? that the city might spread itself, by sending out a Colony; that the parts thereof might be united by a bridge, and itself be defended with a Wall. Again, how great dignity, and grace, did the ornaments, and ensigns, which Tarqvinius Priscus brought in, give to the world's chief people, by their very fashion? What other effect had the musters, and survey which Servius took, then that the commonweal might know, and understand itself? Lastly, the intolerable lordliness of Superbus did some good, nay, a very great deal of good. For thereby it came to pass, that the people stung with abuses, were inflamed with the desire of freedom.   

CHAP. III.  
Of the change in State, from Kings, to a Commonweal.  
THe people therefore of Rome having Brutus, 
A. V. C. CCXLIV.  and Collatinus (to whom the noble matron recommended at her death, her injuries revenge) for captains, & authors, & by as it were a divine instinct, being thoroughly all of them resolved to restore themselves to liberty, and secure the honour of their women, suddenly fell away from the king, spoil his goods, consecreate his ground to Mars, and transfer the sovereign power to the same men, who had been founders of their freedom, but yet changing both the judge, & title. For it was agreed, that whereas the authority had before been single, and perpetual; it should be now but from year to year, and bipartite, lest either by singularity, or continuance it should be corrupted: and for kings they styled them Consuls, that they might remember the duty of their place was to consult, and provide for their Country. Such joy was conceived for this new freedom, that they could hardly believe the change, and one of the Consuls, because he was of kingly name, and race, they deprived him of his office, and banished him the city. Into whose room Valerius Poplicola being substituted, he bent his whole studies to augment the free maiessie of the people. For he bowed down to them the Fasces in their assembly, and made it lawful to appeal from the Consuls to the people. And that the show of a seeming castle might not offend, he plucked down his house which stood high, & built it on a flat, or level. But Brutus to come with all his sails into popularity, did both cast his house to the ground, and slew his sons. For having discovered, that they practised to bring in kings again, he drew them forth into the Forum, and in the midst of the assembly, scourged them first with rods, and then cut off their heads with the axe: so that he plainly seemed, as a common father, to have adopted the people of Rome into the place of his children. From henceforth free, the first arms which the people took, were against aliens for maintenance of their liberty; secondly for their bounds; thirdly for their associates, as also, for glory, and dominion; their neighbours by all means daily vexing them. For whereas they had in the beginning no land of their own lying to their city, they forthwith enlarged their territories with that which they won from the enemy, and being situated in the midst, between Latium, and Tuscanie, as it were in a two-way-leet, they never gave over to issue out of their gates against the adversary, till running like a kind of plague through every nation, and always laying hold of such as were next, they brought all Italy at last to be under their subjection.   

CHAP. X.  
The war with the Tuscans, and King PORSENA.  
KIngs being driven out of the city, 
A. V. C. CCXLVI.  the first arms which the people took were for supportation of their freedom. For Porsena, king of Tuscans, was at hand with huge forces, and brought back the Tarquins, under his protection. Nevertheless, though he priest them, to accept the king again, with fight, and with famine, and had gotten mount janiculum, which stood in the very jaws of the city, yet they both resisted, and forced him also to retire: and finally they struck him into so great admiration, that after he was now grown too hard, he voluntarily entered into a league of friendship with that people, which he had almost overcome. Then were seen those brave Roman adventures, and wonders, Horatius, Mutius, Claelia, who if they were not in chronicles would at this day be taken for fables. For Horatius Cocles, after that he alone could not keep off the enemies, who assaulted him on all sides, and that the bridge was broken down behind him, he crossed over Tiber, swimming, and yet held his weapons fast. Mutius Scaevola came by a stratagem to the king, and attempted to stab him in his camp; but when he saw the stroke lost, by mistaking another for him, he thrust his hand into the prepared fire, and doubled the king's terror by his cunning. For thus he said: That thou mayst know from what manner of man thou hast escaped, three hundred of us have all sworn the same thing. Mean while (an horrible thing to be spoken) Horatius stood undaunted, and the other shook with fear, as if it had been the king's hand which burned. Thus much for men. But, that neither of the sexes should want their praise, behold the courage of a noble damosel Claelia, one of the hostages delivered to the king, breaks from her keepers, and swum safe home on horseback through her native countries river. Porsena terrified with so many, and so notable fair warnings, bade them farewell, and be free. The Tarquins fought so long, as till Brutus, with his own hand, slew Aruns, the guilty son of king Tarqvinius, and till himself also being wounded by the same Aruns, fell down dead withal upon the body, as if he plainly meant to pursue the adulterer even to hell.   

CHAP. XI.  
The war with the Latins.  
THe Latins in like sort upon emulation, and envy, took in hand the quarrel of Tarqvinius, that the people which were Lords abroad, might be made vassals at home. All Latium therefore, having Manilius of Tusculum for leader, was up in arms, upon pretence to revenge the kings wrong. They encountered at sake Regillus in doubtful fight for a long time, till the Dictator himself, Posthumius, tossed the standard among the enemies (a new, and famous device) that it might be recovered with running in; and 
* Florus hath Cossus, not Aebutius.  Titus Aebutius Elua, Master of the horsemen, commanded them to slip their bridles over their horse heads (and this also was a new device) that they might charge the more desperately. To conclude, such was the furious bravery of the battle, that the Gods are said to have given it the looking-on; and that Castor, and Pollux, two of them, did, mounted upon white coursers, no man doubteth. Therefore the General of the Romans adored, and upon condition of victory, vowed them a temple, and duly performed it, as pay to his fellow-soldiers. Thus far for liberty. Their next war with the Latins was concerning limits, and bounders, which broke out presently, and continued without truce. Sora (who would believe it?) and Algidum, petty cities, were then a terror to Rome. Satricum, & Corniculum, towns of no more fame, were Provinces. Over Veij, & Bovilli, a shame to say it, yet we triumphed. Tibur which is now but a suburb, and Praeneste but our summer-recreation, were then demanded of the Gods, as mighty matters, with vows for victory made solemnly first in the Capitol. Faesulae were then what Taphrae were of late; and the forest of Aricinum the same, which in these days the huge Hercinian woods; Fregellae what Gessoriacum; and Tibrsis what Euphrates. Nay it was then held an act of so great glory to have overcome but Corioli, that Caius Marcius (fie upon it) was thereof called Coriolanus, as if he had conquered Numantia in Spain, or the world's third portion, Africa. There are at this day to be seen the tropheas of the sea-fight at Antium, which Caius Maevius, having vanquished the enemy's navy, hung up in the stage of the Forum; if that at leastwise may be termed a navy; for they were but six beak-heads: But in those young days, that number made a battle at sea. The Aequi, and Volscians were nevertheless of all the Latin nations, the most obstinately bend, and, as I may call them, quotidian enemies. But Lucius Quinctius chiefly brought them under; that noble Dictator, who taken from holding the plough, did by his excellent virtue deliver the Consul, Lucius Minurius as he was besieged, & almost distressed in his camp. It was then about the midst of seed-time, when the officer of arms sent from the Senate found 
* patriciuni virum.  the honourable man at his plough-worke. From thence setting forward to the army, he, to show he had not left off any point of countrey-fashions, compelled the conquered enemies to pass reproachfully under the yoke, like cattle. And so the service ending, he returned home to his oxen, a triumphal husbandman. O the goodness of the Gods how great was the speed! The war was all begun, & ended, within the space of two and twenty days; that the Dictator might seem to have hastened home to his rural task left behind unfinished.   

CHAP. XII.  
The war with the Falisci, and Fidenates.  
Our daily, and yearly enemies were the Veientines, people of Tuscanie, so far forth, that the noble house of the Fabiuses promised to the state an extraordinary band of voluntaries, & undertook their part of the war, upon their private charge, but with too too great calamity to themselves. For at the river of Cremera, 
A. V. C. CCLXXIV.  three hundred and six of them, a little army of lords, were slain; and that gate of Rome through which they issued to that encounter was thereupon entitled Dismal. But that deadly blow was revenged with notable victories, as their strongest towns were taken from them by sundry Roman Generals, with differing events. The Falisci yielded themselves of their own accord. They of Fidenae were burnt with their own firebrands. The city of the Veientes was ransacked, and razed for ever. The Falisci yielded upon admiration of their adversaries nobleness, and not without cause; for the Roman General sent back the treacherous Pedant fast bound, before those children which he brought, with a purpose by their surrender to betray the city. For Furius Camillus, a wise, and religious gentleman, well understood, that victory to be a true one, which was achieved without wrong to common honesty, and with honour saved. The Fidenates, to scar us, came marching forward, like an host of infernal furies, with blazing firebrands in their hands, & flaring head-tires speckled like skins of serpents: but that ghastly spectacle was nothing but an omen of their own destruction. How great a State the Veientines were, those ten years siege, which they endured, maketh evident: this was the first time of our wintering in tents, of levying money upon the Commons, to pay a winter-campe: and the soldiers, of their own free wills, took a solemn oath never to rise from before the city, till they had taken it. The spoils of king Lartes Tolumnius were brought to jupiter Feretrius. To conclude, the last act of that city's tragedy was not performed by scaling ladders, or assaults, but by mines, and stratagems under ground. The hugeness of the bootle was such, that the tithes thereof were sent over-sea to Pythian Apollo, and the whole people of Rome were called forth to share in the pillage. Such were the Veientines then. Now, who is he that once remembreth them to have had a being? which are their remains? or which the least token of them? The credit of Histories is put hard to it, in making us believe that ever Veij were.   

CHAP. XIII.  
The gallic war.  
AFter this, either by the envy of the Gods, or by destiny, the most round quick stream of spreading dominion, was for a while kept under by the overflowings of the Galli Senones. Which season, it is hard to say, whether it were more dismal to the Roman people through terrible calamities, or glorious for the proofs they gave of their manhood. Certain it is, that the violence of their extremes was such, as I may well think they were sent from heaven of purpose; the immortal Gods desirous to try, whether the virtue of the Romans might deserve the empire of the world. These Galli Senones, a nation naturally fierce, of a wild behaviour, their bodies huge aswell as their warlike weapons, were in all respects so dreadful, as they seemed no other then borne to destroy mankind and beat down cities. In former ages, when the Ocean had surrounded all, they coming in an huge plump from the utmost coasts of the earth, when they first had wasted what was in their way, and then seated themselves between the Alps, and Po, nor yet contented there, they wandered also over Italy. They lay now at siege before Clusium. The Romans became intercessors, as for their fellows, and confederates. Ambassadors were sent, as the manner is: But what regard hath right, or wrong, among the barbarous? They carry themselves roughly; and transfer the quarrel, from thence. Rising therefore from before Clusium, and coming to Rome, the Consul Fabius gives them battle with an army, at the river Alia. The discomfiture at Cremera was not more piteous. The Romans therefore mark this day among their black ones. Our forces defeated, they forthwith approach the walls of Rome. There was no garrison. Then, or else never, did the Roman bravery of mind appear. For, so soon as might be, such of the Senators, as had borne highest offices, assemble in the Forum, and under the curses of the chief Priest, ban, and devoue themselves, for their Country's safety, to the gods infernal: and, those dire ceremonies ended, they were each of them immediately put back again to their houses, before which, they seated themselves upon their Court-chaires, appareled in their robes of state, and most honourable habiliments, that when the enemy came upon them, they might die in the majesty of their places. The Priests, and Flamines, did partly pack up, in dry-fats, whatsoever was most religiously esteemed of, in their temples, covering them under ground, and partly trussed into carts, transporting it away with themselves. The Virgins also of Vesta's college did barefoot accompany their flying gods. At which time, Albinius, one of the common people, is said to have taken his wife & children out of their wagon, and placed those virgins there. So that even in those days the religion of the State was more dear unto us, then private affection. Such as were able to bear arms, whose number was scarce six thousand, followed Manlius, for captain, up into the Capitol, praying high jove, as if he were even present then among them, that as they were flocked together for defence of his temple, so he again would protest their valour under his title. Mean while the Galls come, at first as men amazed, finding the gate wide open, suspicious of some plot: but when they found all hush, they enter disorderly, with no less a cry, than fury. They go to the houses, whose doors stood everywhere open; and when they beheld the purple-cloathed Senators sitting in their chairs of state, they worshipped them at first as gods, or local Ghosts: but so soon as it appeared they were mortal men, and that otherwise they disdained to answer, they straightways did as absurdly sacrifice, as adore them; burn buildings, & with firebrands, iron tools, and force of hands, lay the whole city as low as the soil it stood upon. Seven months (who would believe it?) the barbarous hovered about one hill, having not only by day, but by night, assayed all means to force it: whom, when at last they were mounted up in the dark, Manlius wakened with the creaking of a goose, threw headlong back from the top of the nag: and to put the enemy out of all hope of starving them, hurled loaves of bread from the castle, to make a show of confidence, though their famine was extreme. And upon a certain set day he sent forth Fabius, through the midst of the enemy's guards, to perform a solemn sacrifice upon mount Quirinal: who, by the mere awe of religion, returned untouched through the thickest of the leaguers weapons, and brought assurance back, that they had the gods their friends. At last, when the barbarous were tired now with their own siege, contented to sell their departure at a thousand pound weight of gold, and then also putting in a sword over and above their bargain, into the false balances they weighed by, insolently justifying it by this cutting quip, Woe to them who are overcome, L. Camillus suddenly assails them at their backs, and made such slaughter among them, that all the characters of destruction, which fire had printed in the city, were blotted out with the inundations of the blood of the Galls. We may well give thanks to the immortal gods in the behalf itself of so great a calamity. That fire and flame which destroyed Rome, buried the poverty of Romulus. For what other thing else did that burning, but provide, that the city which the Fates ordained to be the mansion seat of men, & gods, might not seem to have been consumed, or overwhelmed, but hallowed, and expiated rather? Therefore, after Rome was thus defended by Manlius, and delivered by Camillus, it rose up against bordering nations more eagerly and vehemently then before. And to begin at those very Galls themselves, she, not satisfied with having driven them out, beyond her walls, but drawing after her the ruins of countries, wider over Italy, did so bunt and pursue them under Camillus, as that at this day there remains no footstep of such a people as the Senones, She made one slaughter of them at the river Anien, where Manlius, in a single combat, took from the adversary champion a Torques, or chain of gold. Thence were the Manlij bynamed Torquati. Another time she had the execution of them in the Pontin fields, where Marcus Valerius, in a like duëll, seconded by a sacred bird, reft his pursuing enemy of his arms; & of that bird Coruus, a crow, the Valerij were entitled Corvinoes. Nor as yet giving over, Dolabella, after some years, did utterly extinguish the remains of those generations, at the lake of Vadimon, in Tuscanie, that none of them might be alive, to glory, they had burned Rome.   

CHAP. XIIII.  
War with the Latins.  
Manlius' Torquatus, 
A. V. C. CCCCXIII  and Decius Must, Consuls, the Romans turned their weapons points from the Galls, upon the Latins, men always troublesome, through emulation of being like in power, and in bearing office; but then specially, out of contempt, because the city had been fired; and therefore they demanded to be absolutely free of Rome, and to have equal authority in state, and coming to Magistracy, as the Romans; so that now they durst do more than encounter. At which time notwithstanding who will wonder if the Latins gave way? When one of the Consuls put his own son to death, for having fought against the discipline of war without leave, though he got the upper hand, as thinking Obedience a more important matter then victory: and the other Consul, as if counseled thereunto from heaven, covering his head, devoued, and gave himself to the infernal gods, before the first ranks of the army, and shooting himself forward into the thickest troops of the enemy's battle, opened a new path to victory, by the tract of his blood.   

CHAP. XV.  
War with the Sabins.  
AFter war with the Latins, 
A. V. C. CDLXIV.  the people of Rome set upon the Sabins; who grown unmindful of that old alliance of theirs under Titus Tatius, had joined themselves to the Latins, as infected with a kind of martial neighbourhood. But Curius Dentatus, Consul, they wasted with fire and sword all the space of ground, from the river Nar, and the springs of Velinus, up as far as to the Adrian sea. By which conquest, there was so much land, and so much people subdued, that whether of them were most, not he who had overcome them, could imagine.   

CHAP. XVI.  
War with the Samnites.  
THen, moved upon the petition of the country of Campania, they invaded the Samnites, not on behalf of themselves, but, which was more honourable, on behalf of their associates. Both the nations had strucken a league with the Romans; 
A. V. C. CDXII.  but they of Campania, by surrender of their whole estate, had made it more sincerely, and before the other. The Romans therefore underwent the war with the Samnites, as in their proper right. Campania is the most fair and goodly country, not only of Italy, but of all the world. Nothing is more delicate than the air: flowers spring there twice every year. No soil can be richer; and therefore it is named the contention, or wager of Bacchus, and Ceres. Nothing can be more harbourous, than the sea, which lies before it. Here are those famous haven-townes, Caieta, Misenus, and Baiae, warmed with her proper fountains: here are the lakes, Lucrinus, & Avernus, bowers of delight, for the sea to recreate in. Here the vines apparel the mountains, Gaurus, Falernus, Massicus, and, the fairest of all the rest, Veswius, Aetna's rival for casting out flames. Cities upon the sea-coast, Fermiae, Cumae, Puteoli, Naples, Herculaneum, Pempeij; and Capua, Queen of Cities, and once accounted after Rome, and Carthage, the third main City of the world. For this Seat, and those Regions, the people of Rome invaded the Samnites, a nation, if you respect wealth, glittering in armour of gold, and silver-plate, and clothed in diverse-coloured garments, who should be bravest; if deceitfulness of ambuscadoes, they are bold for the most part upon the advantage of wild woods, and mountains, fitted for the purpose; if madness, and rage, they were bend to the subversion of Rome, and that intention of theirs solemnly bound up with cursed laws, and human sacrifices; if their obstinacy, after six breaches of league, and many notable overthrows, they were still more stomachous. All these things notwithstanding, the Romans, in fifty years space, by the conduct of their Fabiuses, and Papirij, the fathers, and the sons, did so subdue, and tame them, and so razed down the very ruins of their cities, that Samnium is at this day sought for in vain in Samnium; nor doth the matter of four and twenty triumphs easily appear. But the most notable and famous foil which ever happened to the Romans by this nation, was received at the Forks of Caudium, Veturius, and Posthumius, Consuls. For our army being drawn by stratagem, and shut up within such a fastness, as out of which it could not escape, Pontius, captain general of the Samnites, amazed at his own advantage, asked counsel of Herennius, his father, who as an old soldier, wisely bade him, either to let all go free, or to kill them all. But he, following neither of the courses, contented himself with only disarming, and passing them naked under forks, or gallows; and so they neither became friends as in thankfulness for a benefit, and yet after the foul dis-honour, greater enemies than ever. The Consuls therefore, by voluntary yielding themselves back to the Samnites, came gloriously off from the infamy of that league; and the Roman soldiers crying for revenge, to Papirius their new General, fell to raging (an horrible thing to be spoken) with their drawn swords, upon the very way itself, before they came to fight; and in the battle (as the Samnites themselves gave it out) the eyes of the Roman were on a bright blaze of fire; and never gave over killing, till they had paid the enemy, and their captive captain, their own forcks' home again.   

CHAP. XVII.  
War with the Etruscans, Samnites, and Galls.  
HItherto the people of Rome had to deal in battle with one nation after another apart; 
A. V. C. CDLIIX.  but now in heaps with many at once, and yet even so also were hard enough for them all. The Tuscans stirred at that time, with them the Samnites, the most ancient people of Italy, and all the rest, suddenly concur to raze out the Roman name. The terror of so many, and so mighty conspired nations, was extreme. The ensigns of four armies of their enemies waved in flank upon them, from Etruria. Mean while, the Ciminian forest, which lay between Rome, and that army, reputed as impassable till then, as either the woods of Caledon, or Hercinia, was so much misdoubted, that the Senate forbade the Consul from daring to venture upon so great a peril. But none of these things hindered the General from sending his brother in scout, to discover the pace. He, in a shepherds disguise, executes his part by night, and upon his return makes full report. Then Fabius Maximus, by hazarding one man, made an end of a most hazardous war. For falling in at unawares upon the enemy, straggling loosely, and making himself master of the highest grounds, and tops of hills, thundered from thence, after his manner, upon them underneath. For such was the face of that war, as if volleys of lightning, and thunder had been discharged from the clouds of heaven upon the old earthborn Giants. Howbeit, the victory was not unbloody. 
A. V. C. CDLIX.  For Decius, the other of the Consuls, over-set in the bosom of the valley, took upon his own head, by his father's example, all the wrath of the Gods, and made the under-going of general curses, for the general good, which was now grown appropriated to his family, to be the price, and rate at which to purchase victory.   

CHAP. XVIII.  
The war of Tarent, and with king Pyrrhus.  
THe war of Tarent follows, 
A. V. C. CDLXXII.  single in name, and title, but affording many victories. For this involved as it were in one ruin, the Campanians, Apulians, Lucanians, and, the head, or top of the war, the Tarentines, all Italy, and together with these the most noble prince in Greece, king Pyrrhus: so that at one, and the same time, the conquest of Italy was finished, and a lucky sign given of fetching home triumphs from beyond sea. Tarentus itself, sounded by the Lacedæmonians, was once the metropolis of Calabria, and Apulia, and of all Lucania, aswell renowned for greatness, fortifications, and a port, as admirable in its situation: for placed at the very entrance into the Adriatic sea, it fitly sends forth shipping for our coasts, for Istria, Illyricum, Epyrus, Achaia, Africa, & Sicilia. There looks upon the harbour, in prospect of the sea, the city's theatre, the original cause of all her calamities. They were then at their solemn sports, when the fleet of Roman galleys was from thence espied to row by the shore: and imagining them to be enemies, the Tarentines hurry out, and pell-mell enter upon them, not well knowing either who, or from what place they were. Presently hereupon, ambassadors from Rome brought a complaint; but they violate their persons also, after a lewd fashion, and filthy to be spoken. Thus rose the war. Dreadful were the adversaries preparations, when so many nations stirred at once on behalf of the Tarentines; and fiercer than they all, king Pyrrhus, who as in defence of that city, which by reason of her Lacedaemonian founders, was Greekish, came attended upon with the whole strengths of Epyrus, Thessaly, Macedonia, of elephants (till that time unknown) of sea, of land, men, horse, armour, and the terror of those wild beasts added. The first battle was at Heraclea, and Liris, a river of Campania, Laevinus Consul: which was so desperately heady, that Obsidius, captain of the Farentan troop, charging king Pyrrhus home, disordered, and compelled him, having first cast away his ensigns, or notes of a king, to abandon the fight. There would have been an end, had not the elephants come forth, a sight of wonder, & made their race into the battle, whose hugeness, hideous shape, strange smell, and braying noise, amazed the horse, and seeming huger than they were, through being unacquainted-with, put the army in rout, flying far, and near, and made a monstrous havoc. The second battle at Asculum in Apulia was more fortunate, Fabricius, and Aemilius, Consuls. For by this time the fear conceived of the elephants was worn away, and Caius Minucius, a spear in the fourth legion, cutting one of their trunks off, had made it appear, that they were mortal. Therefore, the javelins were darted thick at them also: and firebrands hurled into the towers, overwhelmed all the adversaries squadrons with the fall of their burning works: nor was there any other end of the overthrow, but that which night made by parting; king Pyrrhus himself, last of them who fled, being wounded in the shoulder, was borne away armed, by his guard. The last battle was in Lucania, near the fields which they call Aurusin, under the same Generals, as before. And that event which virtue was about to have given here, for an upshot, or clozing victory, fortune gave. For the elephants being brought again into the vanguard, one of them a young one, being grievously wounded in the head with a weapon, 
* avertit.  turned tail: and as in flying, it rushed thorough, over the bodies of friends, and bemoaned itself in braying, the dam knew it, and as it were to take revenge for her foal, started out of her rank; then filled all with fear, & affright round about, no otherwise then as if they had been her adversaries: so the same beasts which carried away the first day clear, and made the second indifferent, gave away the third past controversy. But the war with king Pyrrhus was not in the fields abroad with forces only, but with wit also, and at home within the city. For the cunning prince, after he had obtained the first victory, having well felt what manner of men he had to deal with in the Romans, despaired to prevail by force, & betook himself to devices. For he burned the slain, used his prisoners lovingly, and sent them home free without ransom. And in the neck of that, dispatching ambassadors to Rome, laboured by all possible means to be admitted as a friend. But the Roman virtue approved itself then for excellent, in war, and peace, abroad, & at home, in all points: neither did ever any victory rather show the valour of the people, the high wisdom of the Senate, and the magnanimity▪ slenders, than the Tarentine. What kind of men were trampled to death in the first battle by the elephants? all their wounds were forward, some found dead upon their enemy's bodies, in every man's hand his sword, threatenings left upon their brows, and anger living in death itself. Which Pyrrhus so admired, that he said, O how easy were it for me, to become lord of the world, if I were captain of the Roman soldiers, or for the Romans, had they me for their king! And what speed made they who survived the first overthrow, in renforceing their powers? when Pyrrhus said; I see as sure as can be, that I am borne under the constellation of Hercules, for that so many more heads as I have slain, spring out of their own blood, as it were out of Lerna's serpent. And what a Senate was that? when upon the oration of Appius the Blind, the king's ambassadors who were sent back out of the city with their gifts and presents, confessed to Pyrrhus, upon his demand of what they thought concerning the enemy's seat, that the city seemed a temple, the Senate a parliament of kings. Again, what manner of men were the Generals themselves in camp? when Curius sent the king's physician back, who made offer in secret, for a certain sum to poison him, and Fabricius, having the choice given by Pyrrhus, refused to share a kingdom with him. Or what were they in time of peace? when Curius preferred his earthen dishes before the Samnites gold; and Fabricius, using Censorian severity, condemned it for riotous in Rufinus, a consulary nobleman, because he had silver plate, in all to a ten pound weight. Who wonders now, if the people of Rome, with such qualities, courages, and martial discipline, obtained victory; or that by this one Tarentine war they should in four years space bring into subjection (as they did) the greatest part of all Italy, most puissant nations, most rich commonweals, & most fertile countries? Or what doth so much surpass belief, as when you compare the beginnings of the war with the conclusion? Pyrrhus, conqueror in the first field, harassed trembling Italy, Campania, Liris, and Fregellae, came within ken of Rome, then almost taken, as he beheld it from the castle of Praeneste, and within twenty miles off, filled the eyes of the quaking city with smoke, and dust. The same prince, enforced twice after that to quit his camp, twice wounded, and beaten over land, and sea, into his Greece again; peace, and quiet, and the spoils, which were gotten from so many the richest nations, so infinite, as Rome was not wide enough to contain her own victory. For there never entered a more glittering, or more goodly triumph, because before this time, she had beheld nothing but the cattle of the Volscians, the herds of the Sabins, the 
* carpenta.  chariots of the Galls, the manufactures of the Samnites arms. But, had you been now a spectator, the captives were Molossians, Thessalians, Macedonians, the Brutian, Apulian, and Lucaner, the pomp consisted of gold, purple, statuas, tables, & the delicacies of Tarent. But Rome saw nothing, which contented her more, than those beasts with towers on their backs, of which she had stood in such fear, and they again, sensible of their captivity, followed drooping with down-hanging necks after the horse their Masters.   

CHAP. XIX.  
The Picenian War.  
ALI Italy forthwith enjoyed peace (for after Tarent who should dare to do ought? 
A. V. C. CDLXXXV. ) saving only as the Romans thought it good, of their own mere motion, to prosecute the enemy's friends. Hereupon they conquered the Picentines, and their chief city Asculum by General Sempronius, and the field, in the time of battle suffering an earthquake, he appeased the goddess Tellus by promising to build her a Temple.   

CHAP. XX.  
The Sallentine War.  
THe Sallentines were added, 
A. V. C. CDXXC VII.  by Marcus Atilius, commander in chief for that service, to the Picentines, together with the head-towne of that province, Brundisium, renowned for a port. And in this conflict, Pales the shepherds deity, of her own accord, demanded a Temple for herself, in am of victory.   

CHAP. XXI.  
The Vulsinian War.  
THe last of the Italian nations who remained constant in their truth to us, 
A. V. C. CDXX CVIII.  were the Vulsinians, the richest people of all Etruria, and now humble suitors for assistance against their late slaves, who had set up the liberty given them by their lords, over the givers themselves, and getting the power of the State among them, did accordingly tyrannize. But Fabius Gurges, the Roman captain, made the villains smart for their villainy.   

CHAP. XXII.  
Of Seditions.  
THis is the second age of the Roman people, and as it were their youth, a time in which they were most fresh, and budding out in certain fiery shoots, boiled over as it were in jollity of spirit. On the other side, that wildness which they retained of their shepheardish original, breathed forth somewhat still, which was untamed in them. Thence it came, that the army making a mutiny in the camp, stoned Postumius, their General, to death, for refusing to give them the shares he promised. That under Appius Claudius they would not overcome the enemy when they might. 
A. V. C. CCXXCI.  That under General Volero, most withdrawing their service, they crushed the Consuls fasces. Thence it was, that they punished the most honourable commanders they had, with banishment, for resisting their pleasure, as Coriolanus, whom they condemned to the plough. Which injury he would as harshly have chastised with his sword, if his mother Veturia, when he was now ready to charge, had not disweapond him with weeping. Yea, as Camillus himself, because in their conceits he had not made the shares of the Veientine spoils indifferent, between the Commonalty, and the soldier. But he, a much better man, did rescue the besieged in Rome taken, and revenged their quarrel upon the Galls their enemies, to whom but even now they were humble suitors. In such sort they contended also with the Se. nate itself about settling the rules of right, that abandoning their houses, they threatened emptiness, and utter decay to their native country.   

CHAP. XXIII.  
The cities first discord.  
THe first intestine dissension happened through the unruliness of Usurers, 
A. V. C. CCLVII.  who exercising villainous cruelty, the whole people departed in arms to the Sacred Hill, and very hardly, not but until they had obtained Tribunes, and were persuaded also by the authority of Menenius Agrippa, a wise, and eloquent man, could be drawn to return. The fable of that old oration, effectual enough to induce concord, is extant. In which is feigned, that The parts of man's body were once upon a time at odds together, for that, all the rest doing their several offices, the belly only was idle: but in the end, when they found themselves almost pined to death, by the separation, they became good friends again, for that by the meat, which by the stomaches ministery was converted into blood, the veins were filled with nourishment.   

CHAP. XXIIII.  
The cities second discord.  
THE 
* libido.  tyranny of the Decemuirs embroiled the city the second time, in the very heart thereof. Ten princes elected for that purpose, had booked the laws culled out of such as were brought from Greece, at the people's commandment: and the whole rule of Roman justice was described by them in Ten Tables: after which though their commission determined, they nevertheless retained the sovereign power, upon a tyrannical humour. Appius Claudius was puffed up, more than all his partners, with so great pride, as he secretly resolved to deflower a freeborn virgin, forgetting Lucretia, forgetting the expulsion of kings, and the laws which himself had enacted. Virginius her father therefore, when he saw his child by false practice judged a bondwoman, he made no bones to kill her with his own hand, in the face of the Court; and the companies of his fellow-soldiers displaying about him their banners, 
admotisque signis commilitonum.  they laid siege, in arms, to that whole usurped sovereignty, and from mount Aventine, where their first camp was, dragged it down into the jail, and fetters.   

CHAP. XXV.  
The cities third discord.  
THe dignity of marriages kindled the third sedition, 
A. V. C. CCCVIII.  in which the commons stood for freedom of joining in marriage with the nobles. And this tumult broke forth in mount janiculum, by the instinct of Canuleius, Tribune of the people.   

CHAP. XXVI.  
The cities fourth discord.  
THe desire of honour in the commoners, 
A. V. C. CCCXXCV  who aspired to be also created magistrates, moved the fourth great stir. Fabius Ambustus had two daughters, one of which he bestowed in marriage upon Sulpitius, a gentleman of Patrician blood, the other upon Stolo, a Plebcian. He, because his wife was frighted at the sound of the sergeant rod on his door, which was never heard there, till then, and for that respect was proudly enough scoffed-at by her other sister, brooked not the indignity. Therefore having gotten to be Tribune, he wrested from the Senate, whether they would, or no, the participation of honours, and high offices. Nevertheless, in the very hottest of these distempers, a man shall see cause to admire the generous spirit of this princely people. For so much as one while they busied themselves in the rescue of freedom, another while of chastity, than stood for dignity of birth, and for the ensigns, & ornaments of honour. But of all these worthy things, there was not any one over which they held so wakeful an eye, as over liberty; nor could they be corrupted by any gifts, or good turns, as a value for betraying it. For when in a mighty people, and growing mightier daily, there were in the mean space many pernicious members, of them they punished Spurius Cassius, suspected of affecting sovereignty, because he had published the Agrarian law, & Maelius, for that he gave lavishly, both of them with present death. Indeed, his own father took revenge upon Spurius, but Servilius Ahala, master of the Roman horsemen, or cavalry, by commandment of Quinctius, the Dictator, ran his sword through Maelius, in the middle of the Forum. But Manlius, the preserver of the Capitol, carrying himself, because he had freed most men of their debts, over loftily, and above the garb of a fellow-citizen, they pitched him headlong from the top of the castle, which himself had defended. Such were the people of Rome at home, and abroad, in peace, and in war, during this working current of their youth, 
fretum.  the second age of their empire, in which they conquered all Italy, between the Alps, and Sea, by force of arms.  
The end of the first Book of Lveius FLORUS.    

THE HISTORY OF THE ROMANS. The second Book.  

CHAP. I.  
WHEN Italy was now brought under, & made mannageable, the people of Rome having continued almost five hundred years, was in good earnest grown a man: and if there be any such thing, as strength, and lusty youth, then certainly they were strong, and young, and began to be hard enough for all the world. They therefore (which is a wonder, and incredible to be spoken) who had kept a struggling at home for well-near five hundred years (so difficult it was to set up an Head over Italy) in only the two hundred years which ensued, marched thorough Africa, Europe, Asia, and in brief, thorough the whole world, with their victorious armies.   

CHAP. II.  
The first Carthaginian, or Punic war.  
THe people therefore conquerors of Italy, 
A. V. C. CDXXC IX.  after they had run thorough all the length thereof, to the sea itself, like a fire, which having consumed all the woods in its way, is broken off at the bank of some river passing between, in like sort stop a while. But when they saw within kenn a wondrous rich booty lopped off as it were, and torn away from their Italy, they burned with so extreme a desire of achieving it, that whereas they could not come at it by bridges, nor shut out the sea, they were resolute to unite it to their dominion by force of arms, and so to make it again a parcel of their continent. But lo, the destinies willing to open them a way, there wanted not a wished occasion, Messana, a confederate city of Sicilia, complaining of the Carthaginians outrages, who aimed at the conquest of Sicilia, as well as the Romans, both of them at the same time, and with equal affections, and forces, having in project the lordship of the world. Therefore, for assisting their associates, that was the colour, but in very deed spurred on with love of the prey (though the newness of the attempt troubled them, yet valour is so full of confidence) this rude, this shepheardish people, and mere land-men, did well show, that manhood made no difference whether it fought on horseback, or on shipboard, upon the earth, or waters. Appius Claudius, Consul, they first adventured into those straits which had been made hideous with poetical monsters, and where the current was violent; but they were so far from being deterred thereby, that they made use of the fury of the hurrying tie as of a favour: for falling in therewith, they forthwith set upon Hiero, king of Syracuse, with such celerity, that himself confessed he found himself overcome before he saw the enemy. Duilius, and Cornelius, Consuls, they durst also fight at sea. And the speed then used to build, and rig a navy was certainly a sign of speeding. For within threescore days after the timber was felled, an armada of one hundred and threescore sail, rid at anchor out of it; so that they seemed not the work of shipwrights, but as if by a kind of metamorphosis, the gods had turned them such, and changed trees to vessels. But the report which goes of the fight is marvelous, where these slugges, and heavy bottoms seized upon the quick and nimble navy of the adversaries, who were much more cunning at sea, so far as skill to shift aside oars, and to dally out the strokes of beake-heads, by you're, and ready turning. For the hands of iron, and other the grappling engines of the Romans, the enemy made much sport at, before the battles joined; but were then compelled to try it out in good earnest, as if they had fought on firm land. Thus giving the overthrow at the Isles of Liparae, their enemy's armada either sunk, or fled, this was their first sea-triumph. The joy whereof, how great was it? when Duilius, Captain general in that service, not thinking one days triumph enough, did never come home from any supper, so long as he lived, but he would have torches borne lighted, and flutes play before him, as if he triumphed every day. The loss, in regard of so great a victory, was but light. The other of the Consuls, Cnaeus Cornelius Asina, entrapped by the enemy, under colour of parley, & so surprised, became a lesson against giving credit to the faithless Carthaginians. Calatinus, Dictator, drove the Carthaginian garrisons out of Agrigentum, Drepanum, Panormus, Eryx, Lilybaeum, well-near all they had. The Romans were once in great fear of a mischief about the forest of Camarina, but through the excellent virtue of Calpurnius Flamma, a tribune of soldiers, we escaped. For he, with a choice band of three hundred, did beat the enemy from a ground of advantage, which he had taken, and meant to have made good against us, holding play, till our whole army was gotten out of danger. By which his so prosperous success, he matched the glory of Leonidas at the straits of Thermopylae: in this one point our Calpurnius more famous than the other, that he overlived the exploit, though he drew no characters in blood. Lucius Cornelius Scipio, when Sicilia was now become a purliew, or suburbe-province of the Roman state, and war crept farther, crossed over into Sardinia, and Corsica, neighbour islands, where he so affrighted the inhabitants, by rasing the city Carala, and so vanquished all the Carthaginians, or Paenish-men, as well by land, as sea, that nothing now was left to be conquered, but Africa itself. Marcus Atilius Regulus sailed with war aboard him into Africa. Yet there wanted not some, who fainted at the terrible name which the Carthaginian seas had gotten. Mannius, the tribune also, augmenting by his fear this fearful conceit, till the General menacing him with the naked axe, unless he obeyed, made him take heart, and put to sea, for fear of his head. They forthwith plied it with oar & sail: and the fear of our coming was such among the Paenish-men, that Carthage had almost set open her gates, and been taken. The first reward of this martial voyage was the taking of the city Clypea (for that stands first in sight upon the Punic shore like a fort, and sentinel) and above three hundred castles, besides the same, were sacked, and razed. Nor fought they only with men but with monsters also; for a serpent of prodigious bigness, and bred as it were to take vengeance on behalf of Africa, vexed our camp at Bagrada. But Regulus, who conquered all things, having spread the terror of his name far, and near, multitudes of their youth slain, their captains dead at his foot, or fast in chains, his navy freighted with infinite spoils, which he had sent heavy laden away to Rome, as stuff for triumph, laid siege to the chief seat of that war, Carthage itself, and lodged close at the very gates. Here fortune wheeled about a little, only that Rome might have the more glories to adorn it, whose greatness is for the more part most improved by great mischances. For the enemies turning themselves to make use of foreign aids, the Lacedæmonians sent them Xantippus for a General, who being most expert in the Art of war, gave us a grievous overthrow, & the most stout Regulus himself (a misfortune which had never happened to the Romans before) fell alive into the enemy's hands. But he was a man able to bear so great a distress: For his mind could neither be conquered by imprisonment, nor with the message he undertook; because, quite contrary to that which he had in charge from the Carthaginians, he delivered his opinion in the Roman Senate, That they should not make peace, nor yield exchange of prisoners. But neither was the majesty of the man embased by voluntary return to the foe, in discharge of his honour, nor finally, by captivity, nor by nailing on a gibbet for punishment: nay, all these things increased the admiration of him. For what other thing was all this else, then that the vanquished did triumph over the vanquishers; and though not over Carthage, yet over fortune's self? And the Romans were more eager, & more offensively bend to take revenge for Regulus, then to compass victory. The Carthaginians therefore bearing their crests aloft, & the war coming back into Sicilia, Metellus Consul made such a slaughter of the enemy at Panormus, that there was no more stir in that Island. An argument of a most brave day gained, was the seizure of an hundred and twenty elephants: a great prey, had such an heard been gotten, not by war, but by hunting. Publius Claudius' Consul, the Romans were overcome, not by the enemy, but by the Gods themselves, whose ceremonies they had contemned, their navy forthwith sinking in the place, where he had commanded the birds to be cast in, because they had given signs he should not fight. Marcus Fabius Buteo, Consul, met the enemy's navy in the African sea, about Aegymurus, sailing onward to the invasion of Italy, and overthrew it. O how great a triumph perished utterly at that time, by stress of weather! when the pillage of the enemy's ships, driven by diverse winds, filled the shores of Africa, the Syrts, the coasts of all nations, and the islands about, with wrecks, and ruins. A mighty loss, but it was not without some respect to the honour of the prince of people, the Romans, that the victory was intercepted by tempest, and the triumph miscarried by shipwreck. And yet when the Carthaginian spoils floated up & down, and were split upon all the capes of land, & Isles about, the Romans triumphed notwithstanding. 
A. V. C. DXII  Lutatius Consul, an end was made of this war at the islands called Aegates. A soret sea-fight was there never; for in the enemy's armada was their provant, their land-forces, their engines, their weapons, and as it were all Carthage; which burden was their bane: the Romans navy, you're, light, unincumbred, in one kind like a landcampe, and in another, like a fight on horseback, they were so guided with their oars, as with bridles, & the galleys themselves seemed living creatures, their prows, and beaks nimbly fitted to strike here, or there, at pleasure. The enemy's vessels therefore torn to pieces in a trice, covered all the sea with their shipwrecks between Sicilia, and Sardinia. So exceeding great was that victory, as no question was moved now about razing the bulwarks of their enemy's towns. It seemed frivolous to rage against the castle, & stonewalls thereof, when Carthage itself was swallowed thus in the bottom of the sea.   

CHAP. III.  
The Ligurian war.  
THe first Carthaginian war thus sinisht, 
A. V. C.  a short repose, such as might serve as it were to take breath in, followed: and for a sure sign of peace, and that arms were laid aside indeed, than first after the days of king Numa, the temple-gate of janus was shut in: but it was forthwith set open again. For the Ligurians, 
A. V. C. DXVI  the Galls of Insubria, and the Illyrians provoked them, as in like sort did the nations from under the Alps, that is, from under the very entrances into Italy, some one or other of the Gods daily egging them on, that the arms of the Romans might not take dust, or cancker-fret: to be brief, quotidian, and as it were domestic enemies were as a school of war to the young fry of soldiers; nor did the people of Rome use this, or that nation of them otherwise, then as a whetstone to sharpen the edge-tool of their virtue upon. The Ligurians dwelling close upon the lowest ridges of the Alps, between Varus, and the river Macra, sheltered among wild thickets, were more difficult to come at then to conquer. This tough, and swift generation of men, trusting to their fastnesses, and feet, rather made inroads by flealth, like highway thieves than an orderly war. Therefore, after that the Deceits, Oxibians, Euburiades, and Ingaunians, nations of Liguria, had thus for a long time shifted for themselves, by advantage of their woods, ways, and starting holes, Fuluius at the last shuts up their lurking places with smoke, and fire, Baebius draws them down into the champain, and Posthumius so disarmed them, as he scarcely leaves them iron enough to shoe a plough.   

CHAP. FOUR  
The gallic war.  
THe Galls of Insubria, 
A. V. C. DXXVIII.  who also dwell under the Alps, had the minds of wild beasts, and bodies huger than for men. It is nevertheless found true by experience, that as their first brunt is more forcible than a man's, so their second is weaker than a woman's. Bodies bred about the Alps under a moist sky, are somewhat answerable in nature to the snow of their seats, for so soon as they wax hot thorough with fight, they forthwith melt into sweat, and are as it were dissolved with the sun in a moment. These, as at other times often, but specially now, Britomarus being their captain, solemnly swore never to unbuckle their belts till they had mounted the Capitol. It fell out just. For Aemilius having the victory, ungirdled them in the Capitol. Soon after, Ariouistus their captain, they vowed to consecrate a golden chain to their God of War, to be composed of such spoils as they took from our soldiers. jupiter intercepted their vow; for Flaminius erected a golden trophea to jove of the chains they wore. Verdumarus being their king, they promised to offer the armours of the Romans up to Vulcan; but their vows ran bias. For Verdumarus was slain, and Marcellus hung up the third magnificent, & pompous spoils, which since the reign of Romulus had been offered to jupiter Feretrius.   

CHAP. V.  
The Illyrian war.  
THe Illyricans, 
A. V. C. DXXIU  or Liburnians inhabit at the farthermost roots of the Alps, between Arsia, and the river Titius, upon the whole length of the coast of the Adrian sea for a very mighty way. They not contenting themselves under the reign of Queen Teuta, with spoils gotten by incursions, added one heinous act to many bold ones. For they took our ambassadors, as they sought for an orderly redress by law, in the points of wrong, and slew them, not with the sword, but like beasts of sacrifice with the butcher's axe, burned the masters of the ships, and to make the matter fuller of dishonour, all this in a woman's reign. Therefore, Cnaeus Fuluius Centumalus our General, they were brought into subjection far, and near. So chopping off the chief Lords heads, we sacrificed to the ghosts of our ambassadors.   

CHAP. VI  
The second Carthaginian war.  
Four years were scarcely now overpast after the first Carthaginian war, 
A. V. C. DXXXV.  when lo, another brake forth, less in respect of the time (for it lasted not above eighteen years) but so far beyond the former in respect of terrible overthrows, that if a man compare the loss together, which both the sides sustained, he would rather think the victor's part to be the party vanquished. The noble Carthaginians were ashamed, seeing themselves thrust out of the seas possession, and their islands violently taken from them, and they to pay tribute, who were wont to impose it. Hereupon Annibal, than a boy, bound himself by oath to his father before the altar, to take revenge; wherein he was not slack. Therefore to beget matter for a war, he razed Saguntus to the ground, an ancient rich city of Spain, and a great, but grievous monument of her truth, and faith to the Romans; whose freedom being by name provided for in the general articles of league, Annibal seeking causes of new quarrels, overthrew to the ground, with his own, and others hands, that by breach of peace he might open Italy for himself. The Romans make not a greater conscience of any thing then of keeping the faith of leagues. Upon advertisement therefore that their confederate city was besieged, they did not presently run to their weapons, but did rather first choose to assay by way of orderly complaint, what amends could be had, as remembering they were also in amity with Carthaginians. Meanwhile the Saguntines tired with hunger, batteries, assaults, and fire, and their constancy turning into madness, and fury, they make a monstrous funeral pile in the most open space of their city; and laying then themselves, and their whole substance on the top thereof▪ made an end of all together with sword, and fire. For this so foul a destruction, the Romans demanded the delivery up of Annibal. But the Carthaginians paltering in the case, quoth Fabius, the chief ambassador of the Romans, What means this delay? lo, in this lap I bring you war, and peace, choose which of them you like best, and take it among you. And when at these words the voice went round, he should give them at his pleasure, which he would; Be it war then, said he; and therewithal flinging open the skirts of his rob, in the midst of the Counsel-house, which he had gathered hollow, and held up till then, he did it with such an horror as if he had indeed poured war among them out of his lap, or bosom. The end of this war was suitable to the beginning. For as if the last curses of the Saguntines in that their public self-slaughter, & final fire had commanded such obsequies to be celebrated, their ghosts were sacrificed unto with the devastation of Italy, the captivity of Africa, and the destruction of kings and Generals of armies, by whom that war was managed. When as therefore that sad, and dismal storm, and tempest of the Carthaginian war once stirring in Spain, had forged out of the Saguntine fires, those lightnings, and thunders, now long in breeding, and aimed at Rome, immediately then, as carried with a whirlwind, it rushed thorough the middle of the Alps, and fell upon Italy from the snowy top of those mountains made higher than they were of themselves by fame, and fables, as if it had been from heaven. The first rages of the charge burst straightway forth with horrible violence, between the river of Po, and Ticinum. There, Scipio General, the Roman army was put to flight, and the General himself had fallen wounded as he was, into the hands of the enemy, if his son, then wanting of eighteen years old, had not rescued his father from certain death itself with bold bestriding him. And this shall be that Scipio, who grows up to the destruction of Africa, and shall make a surname to himself out of her calamities. 
A. V. C. DXXXI.  After this overthrow at Ticinum followed that of Trebia. This second storm of war wrought the furious effects thereof, Sempronius Consul. There the crafty enemies, in a cold, & snowy day, having first well warmed themselves at fires, and suppled their limbs with oil, men (a wonder to be spoken) coming out of the South, and sunburnt climates, overcame us at home with our own winter. The third lightnings of Annibal flew random at us by Trasimenus lake, Flaminius our General. There also, the Carthaginians vented another new trick of their trade. For the lake lying hidden under a thick mist, the cavalry shadowed from sight with twigs, & long osiers which grew in the marsh, gave a sudden charge upon our rear. Nevertheless we cannot blame the enemy, but ourselves. For swarms of bees which clustered upon the Roman ensigns, their gilt eagles unwilling to come out, and an huge earthquake at the joining of the battles, all of them unlucky signs, had forewarned our rash General of the event, and prevented it, but that the concourse of the horse, & foot, & the extraordinary loud clashing of their weapons gave to Flaminius alone the honour of leading them on, against the other Consuls liking. The fourth, & the almost deadly wound of the empire was at Cannae, an obscure village of Apulia, but through the greatness of the blow which was received there, it got to be famous at the cost of forty thousand lives. In that place the General himself, earth, heaven, the day, and all things else consented to the fall of that unfortunate army. For Annibal not content to have put counterfeit fugitives upon us, who seeing their vantage, forthwith set upon our men at their backs, but that most dangerous captain having moreover in the open fields, marked the nature of the place where the sunne-beams did beat hottest, the dust was infinite, and the eastern wind blew stint as it were, he so marshaled his battles, that the Romans standing with their faces towards all these disadvantages, himself had the whole favour of the sky, the wind, the dust, & sun at once to fight for him. The enemies therefore were so glutted with the execution of two most mighty hosts, that Annibal himself bade his soldiers, spare the sword. Of the two Consuls, the one fled, the other was slain; hard to say, whether of them the more brave therein. Aemilius ashamed to survive, Varro despaired not of better. Signs of the greatness of the overthrow were these, the river Aufidus ran blood for a while, a bridge of dead carcases made at Hannibal's commandment over Gellus brook, two bushels of gold rings sent to Carthage, and the estimate of Roman gentlemen slain, calculated not by tale, but measure. It was then past all doubt, that Rome had seen her last day, & that Annibal, within five days, might have feasted in the Capitol, if (as the Carthaginian, Maharbal, Bumilcar's son, is reported to have said) Annibal had as well understood how to make use of his victory, as how to obtain it. But, as the common voice goeth, either the fate of Rome ordained to be empress of the earth, or Annibals evil Genius, or the Gods of Carthage now averted, carried him a diverse way. For when he might have put his victory home, he rather made choice to enjoy it, & suffered Rome to rest, while he progressed to Campania, & Tarent, where both he, and his army lost, by, and by their spirit so, as it was truly said, that Capua was Annibals Cannae. For him whom neither the Alps, nor force of arms could daunt, Campania alone, and the delicate warm springs of Baiae did (who would believe it?) subdue. Meanwhile the Romans took breath, and rise as it were from death to life again. Weapons wanted: they took them down out of the temples. Fresh soldiers wanted: they minister the oath of war to their bondmen, and make them free. Treasure wanted: the lords of the counsel bring gladly all they had, leaving no gold to themselves, but what was in their brooches, belts, and rings: the knights, and gentlemen followed the Senators example, and the commoners the gentlemen's: to be brief, Levinus, and Marcellus Consuls, such abundance of riches was brought together out of private contributions for the public service, that the exchequer had scarcely books, and clerks enough to enter the particulars. What shall we say of them at this time, in the choice of magistrates? how great was the wisdom of the centuries, or hundred-men, when the younger sort asked counsel of the ancient, whom they should nominate for Consuls? For it stood them upon, not to deal with fair force only against so cunning an enemy, who had so often beaten them, but to meet with him also in his own policies. The first hope of their empire's recovery, and, as I may say, revival thereof, was Fabius, who invented a new method of vanquishing Anibal, Not to fight. And from hence it was, that in happy time for Rome he got the nickname, to be called, The draw-backe, or Cunctator: and from hence it came, that the people styled him, The shield of the state. He therefore so ground and punned Annibal, by coasting him thorough all Samnium, the forests of Falernus, and Gaurus, that whom plain strength could not break in pieces, delay might fret, and wear. Soon after, Claudius Marcellus, General, they durst also encounter him, came hand to hand, drove him out of his Campania, and forced him to raise his siege from before Nola. They durst in like sort, Sempronius Gracchus General, pursue him thorough Lucania, and set upon his back in his retreat; though, O the shame! the Romans were compelled to fight with the hands of their bondslaves. O the horrible confidence of a people, among so many adversities! O the high haughtiness, and bravery of their spirit, in their so extreme & afflicted estate, that being doubtful of keeping Italy, they durst notwithstanding tend to other places; and when their enemies flew up and down at their throats, over all Campania, and Apulia, and made half Africa in Italy, did both at one time bear the brunt of his assaults, and at the same time dispatched forces into Sicilia, Sardinia, Spain, and other parts of the world. Marcellus was sent into Sicilia, which held not out long: for the power of the whole Island was put apart into one city. Syracuse, that great, and till that time, unconquered chiefe-towne, though defended by the wit of Archimedes, did yield at last. Her treble wall, alike number of castles, her haven of marble, and her fountain Arethusa, so far renowned, what availed they other then thus far only, that the city was spared, in respect of her beauty? Gracchus' seized Sardinia: neither did the wildness of the Islanders, nor the monstrous crags of their mad mountains (for so they were called) stand them in any stead. A terrible course was taken with their cities, and with their City of cities, Caralis, that the headstrong nation, scarce worth kill, might be tamed at last with the lack of their native soil. The two Scipio's, Cnaeus, and Publius, sent into Spain, had plucked away once all hope from the Carthaginians, but lost their hold again, being destroyed by the cunning inventions of the adversary. The Scipio's had gotten indeed great days, when they gave overthrows; but the one of them was circumvented and slain by their dangerous devices, as he was busy to entrench; and the other of them, having fled into a tower, was overwhelmed from round about with firebrands. That Scipio therefore, who dispatched with an army into Spain, to revenge his father, and his uncles death, was the man to whom the fates decreed so great a surname out of the conquest of Africa, recovered all Spain, that brave martial country, ennobled for chivalry, and men of the sword, that seed-plot of the enemy's armies, that schoolmistress of Annibal himself; he conquered all of it, I say (though incredible to say it) from the pillars of Hercules to the Ocean, and I know not whether more speedily, or more easily: the speed, four years speak; the easiness, one only city manifesteth, being taken upon the same day in which it was besieged; and it was a fortunate sign of Africa's conquest to ensue, that Carthage in Spain was so easily taken. Certain it is notwithstanding, that the admirable continency of the General was of greatest force to subdue the province: for he restored their young sons, and daughters, were they never so pleasing, or fair, back to the barbarous, without permitting them to come in his sight, that he might not seem to have once sipped or skimmed the honour of their chastity so much, as with beholding them. This was then the carriage of the Romans in divers countries abroad, who yet, for all that, could not be rid of Annibal, who stuck close to them in the bowels of Italy; for most nations had revolted unto him, and himself, a most smart and excellent captain, used Italian forces against Italy. We nevertheless had triced him out of most of her towns and countries. Tarentus came in again of itself. Capua, the seat, dwelling house, and the other as it were, Carthage of Annibal, was now also gained back, the loss whereof so greatly grieved the man, that thereupon he turned all his strengths upon Rome. O people, worthy to be lords of the earth, worthy of all favour, and to have the government of the affairs of men, and gods! Driven to the worst of fears, yet gave they not over their enterprise, and doubtful how to keep their own city, they, for all that, quitted not Capua, but entrusting a part of their army to Appius Consul, and the residue following Flaccus into Rome, they fought where they were not, as well as where they were. Why wonder we therefore? For Annibal encamping within three miles of Rome, was resisted by the Gods (nor will I shame to confess it) I say by the Gods themselves, because such store of rain fell at every remove of his, that he seemed put back by divine provision; not as in defence of heaven, but to keep him off from the citie-walls, and Capitol. He therefore departed, & fled, and retired into the farthest nook of Italy, having done all he could against Rome, saving only given it assault. It is but a trifle to speak of, but yet of much efficacy, to show the magnanimity of the Romans, in that the very field itself, where Annibal encamped, being, during the siege, set to sale, found a chapman. On the other side, Annibal, to imitate their confidence, cried the goldsmith's row in the city, but no man would buy of him. And thus we may see there were presages enough. But so great virtue of men, and so much favour of the Gods came to nothing. For Asdrubal, brother of Annibal, came out of Spain with a new army, new strengths, new weight of war. Rome had been undoubtedly quite ruined, had that man joined with his brother: but Claudius Nero, and Livius Salinator, utterly distressed him as he was encamping, Nero kept Annibal off in the farthest corner of Italy. Livius marched with ensigns spread, into the quite opposite quarter, that is, up to the very jaws of the first descence from the Alps into Italy, the distance as great, from our other camp, as all the length of Italy. It is not easy to say, with what high wit, and speed, the two Consuls united their camps, and giving battle to Asdrubal, not aware of that union, destroyed him utterly, Annibal all this while not once dreaming what was done. Sure it is, that when the news came to Aniball, and he saw his brother's head tossed out before his trenches, I acknowledge (quoth he) the unluckines of Carthage. This was the man's first confession, not without a sure presage of the fate which hung over his head. And now it was certain out of Anibals own mouth, that Aniball might be vanquished. But the people of Rome, full of confidence, after so many fortunate successes, held it a gallant attempt to make an end of the quarrel, with the sorest enemy they had, and that at his own home, in Africa. 
A. V. C. DXLIX.  Scipio therefore captain general, they transported thither the whole weight of war, beginning to imitate Aniball, and to pay him back in his Africa, for the mischiefs he did in their Italy. O ye Gods! what forces of Asdrubal, what armies of king Syphax did he overthrow? what, and how great were those two camps, which he in one night consumed with fire? To conclude, he was not now within three miles of Carthage, as Aniball had been of Rome, but battered besieged gates themselves thereof: and thereby wrung Aniball out of Italy, upon which he lay hard, and heavy. Since Rome stood, there was never a grater day then that, in which, two the most famous captains that ever were before, or since, the one of them, conqueror of Italy, the other of Spain, confronted each the other in battle-ray. But yet they came first to a parley about articles of peace: at which both of them stood a good while without speaking a word, as if mutual admiration had fixed them to the ground. But when they could not agree upon a peace, the trumpets sound a charge. It is clear, by confession of both parties, that no armies could be better marshaled, nor any battle be sorer fought, as Scipio reported of Anibal's army, and Anibal of Scipio's. But Aniball notwithstanding gave place, and Africa became the conquerors reward, and, after Africa, the whole earth's empire also.   

CHAP. VII.  
The first Macedonian, or Philippian War.  
NOne thought it now a shame to be overcome, when Carthage was. Macedonia, Greece, Syria, and all other nations, as if carried with a certain current, and torrent of fortune, by and by followed Africa. But the first who followed were the Macedonians, a people which had once affected the world's Monarchy. Though therefore a Philip was king then, the Romans notwithstanding seemed to themselves to have to deal in him with great Alexander. The Macedonian war was greater in the name thereof, then was answered in the performances of the nation: The cause of the war grew by reason of the league which Philip had made with Anibal, having then a long while tyrannised Italy: which cause increased when the Athenians implored aid against Philip's injuries, in which, exceeding the rights of victory, he showed his rage upon temples, altars, and monuments of the dead; The Senate thought good to minister succour to so noble suitors: For the kings of countries, Captains general, commonweals, and nations, had sought to this city for protection: Laevinus therefore Consul, the people of Rome than first entered the Ionian sea, and trended along the whole coast of Greece, with, as it were a triumphant navy: for they advanced in open view the spoils of Sycilie, Sardinia, and Africa, and a laurel growing unplanted out of the stern of the Admiral promised manifest victory. Attalus, king of Pergamus, came in with aids to us of his own accord. There came also the Rhodians, expert men at Sea, and with them on the water, and with horse, and foot on land, the Consul made all to shake. The king twice overcome, twice put to flight, twice stripped out of his camp, yet nothing was so terrible to the Macedonians as the sight itself of their wounds, which being not made with darts, or arrows, nor with any Greekish weapons, but with huge javelins, and swords as huge, were wider than death had need of. Verily, Flaminius' General, we pierced through the Chaonian mountains, till then impassable, we passed the river Pindarus, running through broken places, and broke through the very bars themselves of Macedonia; into which to have entered, was itself a victory. For from that day forward, the king never daring to try his fortune in battle again, was vanquished at the dogges-heads, or the hillocks called Cynocephalae, and that in only one encounter, or petty skirmish, rather than a fought field, the Consul granting him to be in peace, and leave to enjoy his kingdom. And to take away all prints, or tokens of hostility; he repressed Thebes, and Eubaea, and the immoderate enterprises of the Lacedæmonians under Nabis; and restored the greeks to their ancient state, that they might live after their own Laws, and be as free as their forefathers. O what reioycements were then! O what comfortable cries! when this proclamation was made by the public officer in the theatre of Nemea, at the Quinquennal, or five-yeerly plays! O what were the shouts, and clamours! what abundance of flowers sprinkled upon the Consul! yea, they made the Herald speak out that sweet word again, and again, which pronounced Achaia free; nor did they otherwise relish that proclamation, or edict of the Consul, then as they would have done some excellently pleasing lesson played upon soft wind-instruments, or violins.   

CHAP. VIII.  
The war in Syria with king Antiochus.  
PResently after the Macedonians, 
A. V. C. DLXI.  and king Philip, Antiochus took his turn to be conquered, by a kind of chance, fortune, as it were of purpose, so marshalling matters, that as the Roman empire went forward by degrees from Africa into Europe; it might also roll from Europe, into Asia, causes of war offering themselves without seeking, that the course of victory might sail onward in order as the world stood sited. There was no war of which there went so terrible a fame as of this. For those Persians, who were of old, the eastern world, Xerxes, and Darius, came then to mind, in whose days mountains were cut thorough, and the sea was covered with fails. Besides this, certain prodigious signs which seemed to threaten somewhat from heaven, bred terror; for Apollo at Cumae was in a continual sweat. But this was nothing else save the Godheads agony in favour of his beloved Asia. Nor, to say truth, did any country so abound with money, riches, and munition, as Syria: but they were all in the hands of so cowardly a king, as could glory in nothing more, then that he was overcome by the Romans. Antiochus was thrust into this war, upon the one side by Thoas, chief of the Aetolians, seeking in vain to draw the Romans into an honourlesse league with him against the Macedonians; and upon the other side Annibal, who being foiled in Africa, a fugitive also, and impatient of peace, sought over the world where to find out an enemy of the Roman people. And what manner of danger might that have proved, had that king given himself over to his directions? if Annibal, now quite down, had been trusted with the power of Asia? But Antiochus, relying upon his own abilities, and the title of a king, held it enough that he moved war by himself. Europe did now without controversy belong to the Romans. Antiochus demanded back the city of Lysimachia, upon the coast of Thrace, built in Europe by his ancestors, as a parcel of his inheritance. With this as it were star, or constellation, the tempest of the Asian war being stirred, kings assembling in extraordinary number; and defiance bravely given, when Antiochus had thus wakened all the humours of Asia with wonderful noise, and tumult, he betook himself to sports, & wanton pleasures, as if he had already gotten the garland. The Island Eubaea was divided from the main land with Eurypus, a narrow sea having many ebbs, and flows. here Antiochus pitching his pavilions of silk, and gold, hard upon the brink of the murmuring sea, at the sound of flutes, and other music, and though it were winter, yet had he roses brought fresh from all parts, and lest he should in nothing seem to play the captain, he took musters of fine young boys, and girls. Such a king therefore as this, whom his own riotous humours had already conquered, the people of Rome, assailing that Island, by Marcus Atilius Glabrio, Consul, at the very first bruit of approach was glad to fly the place. And albeit he had gotten to so notable a steep passage as that of Thermopylae (ever to be glorious in the death of those three hundred Lacedæmonians) yet not dating to trust that strength the Romans made him give way aswell at land, as sea. Without delay he returns into Asia. The charge of his navy royal he committed to Polyxenes, and Annibal. For himself could not endure so much as to look upon a fight. So his whole force at sea was torn in pieces by the galleys of Rhodes, our Aemilius Regillus their Admiral. That Athens may not flatter itself, we overcame Xerxes in Antiochus, in Aemilius we matched Themistocles, and did as great an exploit in taking Ephesus, as the greeks did in taking Salamina. At that time Scipio Consul, his brother, that Scipio Africanus who had so lately conquered Carthage, serving voluntary under him there, as lieutenant general, it seemed good to make an end of that war. The king was already beaten out of the sea, but we go farther. Our camp is pitched at the river Meander, and the mountain Sipylus. It is incredible to be spoken what powers of his own, and of his friends the king had there. Three hundred thousand foot, and not a less number of horse, and of seithed chariots; besides these, elephants of an huge size, glittering in gold, purple, silver, and their own ivory, stood as bulwarks on both hands of the battle. But all these preparations were hindered by their own confusive greatness, and with a shower, which pouring suddenly down did, most luckily for us, wet, and weaken the strings of the Persian bows. There was first a fear, by and by a flight, and then a triumph. Antiochus' overcome, and humbling himself, it pleased the Romans to vouchsafe him peace, & a piece of his own kingdom, so much the more willingly, because he had so easily given it over.   

CHAP. IX.  
The Aetolian war.  
THe Aetolian war succeeded, 
A. V. C. DLXIV.  as good reason would, to this of the Syrian. For Antiochus thus brought under foot, the Romans prosecuted the unquenched firebrands of the Asian war. Therefore Fuluius Nobilior had in commission to execute that revenge, who forthwith lays siege unto, and batters Ambracia, the city royal of king Pyrrhus. Yielding followed. The Athenians, and Rhodians became intercessors for the Aetolian. And we were mindful of their friendship. So it pleased us to pardon them. But the war crept on farther to the neighbour places about, of Cephalaenia, Zacynthus, and all the Isles in that sea, between the Ceraunian mountains, and the cape of Maleum, accessary members of the Aetolian war.   

CHAP. X.  
The Istrian war.  
THe Istrians follow the Aetolians in fortune, 
A. V. C. DLXXVI.  whose side they had lately taken. The beginnings of the war were successful to the foe, but were withal the cause of their destruction. For after they had entered the Roman camp, by force, and were masters of a gallant booty, Caius Claudius Pulcher sets upon them afresh, as they were for the most part in their jollity at sports, and banquets, and so vomited-up the victory they had gotten, with their blood, and lives together. Apulo himself, their king, being shifted away on horseback, and tumbling down drunk oftentimes, overswayed as he was with surfeit, and swimming in the head, was hardly at last brought to understand he was a prisoner, when he came to himself.   

CHAP. XI.  
The Gallo-Graecian war.  
THe ruin of Syria drew the Gallo-Graecians also after it. 
A. V. C. DLXIV.  They had sided with Antiochus, It is doubtful, whether Manlius was greedy of a triumph, or feigned, for gaining it, that he had seen them in person; howsoever, he, though victorious, was certainly denied to triumph, because the Senate approved not the cause of the war. Those Gallo-Graecians, as their compound name showeth, were a mixed and mongrel people; being the remains of those Galls which had wasted Greece under Brennus, and proceeding castward still, seated themselves in the middle of Asia. As therefore the seeds of plants alter kind by shifting soil, so their natural fierceness was mollifide with the delicacies of Asia. They were broken, and put to flight in two battles, though upon our coming they abandoned their habitations, & retired themselves among the highest of their mountains, which the Tolistoboges, and Tectosages had now possessed. Beaten from both sides of their covert with slings, and shot of arrows, they submitted themselves to a perpetual peace. But they were kept bound by occasion of a kind of wonder, when they would have bitten, & torn their bonds in sunder with their teeth, each offering to the other his throat to choke. For Chiomara, wife of Orgiagon, a petty king of theirs, ravished by a Roman captain, gave a memorable example of wively virtue, for she cut off the fellows head from his shoulders, and escaping from her guard, brought it to her Lord, & husband.   

CHAP. XII.  
The war with king Perses, or the second Macedonian.  
THough nations after nations were plucked into subjection by the ruin which the Syrian war drew with it, yet Macedonia lifted up her head again. The memory, & remembrance of what they had once been noble, would not suffer that most valiant nation to be in quiet, and Perses succeeded to king Philip, who bearing the same mind, thought it stood not with the honour of his country, to have it made vassal for ever. The Macedonians broke forth far more violently under him then under his father. Forthey had drawn the Thracians to be a part of their strengths, and so they made a temper in their discipline of war between the boisterous qualities of Thrace, & the diligence of Macedonia. Hereunto the kings own policies gave help, who making the top of mount Aemus his station, took a view from thence of all his confines, & so walled Macedonia everywhere in with men, & munition, by planting castles in abrupt places, as there seemed no way left for enemies to invade his Macedonia, unless it were from out of the clouds. But Quintus Marcius Philippus, Consul, the people of Rome entering that province, after they had carefully first searched all the passages, got through by the marshes of Ascuris, & those sharp, & lofty places, doubtful whether hills, or sky, over which it seemed the very fowls of the air could not find a way, and came pouring down upon the king with a thunder-crack of war, as he sat secure, and dreamt of no such matter. His affright was such, that he caused all his money to be drowned in the sea, for safety; and all his ships to be fired, to keep them from burning. When greater, and thicker garrisons were afterwards planted to guard the passages against us, Paulus Consul, other ways were invented to conquer Macedonia; the Consul, with admirable wit, and industry, offering at one place, and breaking in at another, whose coming itself was so terrible to Perses, as he durst not be present at the service, but committed the war to be managed by his captains. Therefore overcome in absence, he fled to sea, & to the Island there of Samothrace, relying upon the privileges of that sanctuary; as if temples, and altars could protect the man, whom his sword & mountains could not. There was never any king did longer retain the conscience of his lost estate; for when he wrote to the Roman General from out of the temple whither he was fled, 
nomenque epistolae notaret.  and styled the letter, he put himself down in it by the name of king. Neither was ever any one more reverently respective of captive majesty than Paulus, for the enemy coming into sight, hereceived him into the temple, and admitted him to his feasts, warning his sons to stand in awe of fortune, that was able to do such things unto the mighty. Among all the most goodly triumphs which the Roman people led, and saw, this over Macedonia was chief, as that which took up three whole days with the show, upon the first of which were statues, and pictures presented; upon the second, warlike furnitures, and money; and upon the third, the captives, among whom was king Perses himself, who not as yet recovered out of his amazement, was as a man astonished with the unexpected evil. But the people of Rome felt the joy of the glory, long before the arrival of the conquerors letters which brought the news: for upon the same day in which king Perses was overcome, it was known at Rome. Two young men mounted on white coursers, washed off their dust and blood at the lake juturna. These brought the tidings, and were generally thought to be Castor, and Pollux, because they were a pair; to have been at the battle, because they were gory; and to have come fresh out of Macedonia, because they were panting hot as yet.   

CHAP. XIII.  
The Illyrian war.  
THe (as it were) infection of the Macedonian war drew in the Illyrians. 
A. V. C, DXXC VI  They were entertained in pay by king Perses, to trouble, all they could the Romans at their backs. Anicius, lieutenant- Praetor, subdued them in an instant. It was enough, that he razed Scodra, their principal city. The whole nation did forthwith yield itself. To be brief, this war was made an end of, before they at Rome did hear it was begun.   

CHAP. XIIII.  
The third Macedonian war with Andriscus.  
THE Carthaginians, 
A. V. C. DCV.  and Macedonians, as if it were agreed upon between them, each to be thrice overcome, took arms again by a kind of fate, both of them about a time. But the first who threw the yoke off, were the Macedonians, by so much harder to be reduced then before, while it was held a matter of nothing to reduce them. The cause of the war is in a manner to be blushed at. For Andriscus, a very base fellow, unknown whether a free man, or a bond, certainly one who took pay, did enter upon the quarrel, and kingdom at once. And for that he, being but a mere counterfeit, was notwithstanding called Philip by the people, by reason of resemblance, it filled his kingly shape, and kingly name, with a kingly spirit also. Therefore, while the people of Rome, contemning these matters, employed no greater a person against him, than Iwentius, a Praetor, they rashly venture on a man strong at that time, not only in Macedonians, but in huge aids out of Thrace. Whereby they, otherwise invincible, were overcome in battle, not by true, and very kings, but this fantastic, and playerly one. But Metellus, another Praetor, took a most sound revenge for the loss of Iwentius, and of the legion which he commanded: for he both condemned Macedonia to the state of bondage, & brought Andriscus in chains to Rome, delivered up into our hands, by that vaivode, or petty king of Thrace, to whom he had fled for succour: fortune nevertheless showing him thus much favour in his miseries, that the Romans carried him aswell in triumph, as if he had been a king indeed.   

CHAP. XV.  
The third Carthaginian, or Punic war.  
THe third war against Africa was short in respect of the time (for it was but four years work) and, 
A. V. C. DCIU  in comparison of the other two, the least in labour. For the fight was not so much with the men, as with the city itself, the even whereof was certainly the greatest that could be: for it made an end of Carthage. To comprehend in mind the sum of those three times it was thus, in the first, the war was begun, in the second it was driven away out of our coasts, in the third it was ended. The cause of this last war was, for that, contrary to the articles of league, the Carthaginians had once prepared an army at land and sea, against the Numidians, and often terrified the borders of Masinassas kingdom. We bare favour to this good and friendly king. When the war was settled, the Senate debated what should become of Carthage. Cato, whose hatred admitted no satisfaction, would have it utterly razed: but when the Consul demanded another's opinion, Scipio Nasica stood to have it preserved, lest the fear of a rival city removed, the felicity of Rome might grow over-ranke, and riotous. The Senate made choice of a middle way, which was, to remove the city out of her old seat. For nothing seemed to them more honourable, then to have such a Carthage as should not be feared. Manilius therefore, and Censorinus, Consuls, the people of Rome invading Carthage, the navy thereof (which upon overture of peace they willingly yielded) was, in sight of the city, fired. Then calling forth the princes, they commanded them, upon peril of their heads, to depart the country. Which black decree kindled so great choler in them, as they resolved to endure the worst that could be, rather than obey it. Lamentations hereupon did forthwith fill the city, and the cry went round, To ARMS, the final resolution being, whatsoever came of it, to rebel. Not for that they had now any hope left to free themselves, but because they held it better that Carthage should be ruined by their own hands, than their enemies. The fury of the rebels may be conjectured by this, that they plucked down housetops, and houses, with that timber to build a new navy; for want of iron & brass, their smiths wrought gold, and silver into armour; and the matrons clipped the hair of their heads to make cordage for engines. Mancinus Consul, the siege waxed hot both at land, and sea. The haven of the fortifications, and the first, and second wall were dismantled, when the castle notwithstanding, called The Byrs, made such a resistance as if it had been another city. Though there was no doubt of overthrowing it, yet the Scipio's seemed ordained by destiny for that purpose. The people therefore of Rome require to have a Scipio for accomplishing that war. And that was the son of Paulus, conqueror of Macedonia, whom the son of that great Scipio Africanus had adopted, to uphold the glory of his house, with this intention of the fates, that the city which the grandfather had humbled, the grand child should subvert. The enemies being shut up within the castle, the Romans sought also to cut off the sea. But the Carthaginians dig out a new haven upon another side of the town, not to fly out at, for no man did believe they could escape, but from the which a new armada issued, as if it had grown up suddenly of itself. Meanwhile no day, nor night went over their heads, in which some new work, some new engine, some new band of forlorn fellows appeared not, like so many sudden flashes of flame rising out of cinders, after the fire hath been buried in overwhelming rubbish. But things at last growing absolutely desperate, forty thousand men yielded themselves, and, that which you would scarce think, Asdrubal was the first man of them. How much more boldly did a woman, the wife of the captain? who taking her two children, threw herself with them from the top of the house into the middle of the fires, following that Queen's example, which had founded Carthage. How mighty a city was destroyed, may by the long continuance of the burning (to let other arguments go) be convinced. For the fire which the enemies themselves had kindled of their own accord in their dwellings, and temples, with intent, that so much of the city as they were not able to deliver from the Roman triumphs, might be consumed, could not be extinguished in seventeen whole days together.   

CHAP. XVI.  
The Achaean war.  
COrinth, 
A. V. C. DCVI.  the Metropolis of Achaia, presently followed the fortune of Carthage, as if that were an age for subversion of cities, Corinth, the beauty of Greece, is situated upon a narrow neck of land between the Ionian, and Aegaean seas, as a spectacle, or pageant. it was destroyed (alas the wrong!) before it was registered in the list of proclaimed enemies. Critolaus was the cause of this war, who made use of the freedom given by the Romans, against the Romans, and it being uncertain whether he did not also strike their ambassadors with the hand, he for certain did it with his tongue. Metellus therefore, chiefly busy in ordering the affairs of Macedonia, had now this also added to his charge, to take revenge. From hence grew the Achaean war, and Metellus, Consul, had the chase, and execution of Critolaus his first forces, through the open fields of Elis all along the banks of Alpeus. One battle made an end of the war. And now the city itself was begirt with a siege, when, as the fates would have it, Mummius came to the victory, which Metellus had fought for. Mummius, by the advantage of that honour which the other had achieved, vanquished the enemy's army at the very entrance of the Isthmus, or land-necke, and died the heavens on each side thereof with blood. Finally, the inhabitants abandoning the city, it was first sacked, and then at sound of trumpet quite defaced. What store of statues, rich garments, and goodly monuments in tables were torn down, burnt, and cast about? what riches were carred away, and fired, you may from hence conjecture that all the Corinthian brass which is at this day so much commended through the world, is found to be but the remain of these consume: for the violence used against this most wealthy city set an higher rate upon the brass thereof, because multitudes of statues, and pictures, consisting of brass, gold, and silver, melting in the fire, the veins of the metal ran in one, and mixed together.   

CHAP. XVII.  
Acts done in Spain.  
AS Corinth followed Carthage, so Numantia followed Corinth. And it was not long first, before no part of the world was free from arms. After these two most famous Cities were consumed, war did spread itself every where about, nor that by turns in places, but together, as though it were but one war over all, so that the whirling flames thereof seemed carried about over the whole earth, as if dispersed with winds. Spain never had a disposition to rise universally against us, nor at any time a mind to put all her strengths into one, either for trying masteries, or for maintaining her liberty in common, being otherwise so environed with seas, and with the Pyrenaean hills, that by advantage of her situation she had been inaccessible. But the Romans had enstraitned her before she was aware thereof, and was of all other provinces the only one, which never understood her own abilities till she was conquered. The war lasted here almost two hundred years, from the times of the first Scipio's till Caesar Augustus, not continually, or cohaerently, but as causes were ministered: nor with Spaniards at first, but with the Carthaginians, or Penish-men in Spain. Thence grew the contagion, connexion, and cause of the wars. The first Roman ensigns which ever were displayed over the top of the Pyraenees, the two Scipio's, Publius, and Cnaeus advanced, and in terrible great battles slew Anno, and Asdrubal the brother of Anibal, so as all Spain had been conquered in a moment, had not those most gallant gentlemen, supplanted by the Arts of Africa, been destroyed in their own victory, after they had gotten the upper hand both at land, and sea. That Scipio therefore, who was shortly afterwards surnamed Africanus, invaded Spain in revenge of his father, and his uncle, as a province untouched in a manner, & new to us as till then. He presently took Carthage in Spain, and other cities, nor contented to have driven the Penish-men out, laid tribute upon it also, and subdued all on this side the river Iberus, and beyond; himself the first of Roman leaders who ran up victoriously, as far as Gades, & the shores of the Ocean. There is more in it, to keep a province, then to make one. captains therefore were sent with forces hither, and thither, part after part, to compel the fiercest people of Spain, and the nations thereof, free till that time, and for that cause impatient of bearing any yoke, though not without much labour, and bloodshed, to obey us. That Cato who was termed Censorius, broke the hearts of the Celtiberians, the stoutest men of Spain, by certain encounters. That Gracchus, who was father of the Gracchis, punished them with the subversion of one hundred, and fifty of their cities. That Metellus who was styled Macedonicus, deserved to be also called Celtibericus, having gotten Contrebia, by a memorable exploit, and gained more glory by forbearing Vertobrigae. Lu-cullus subdued the Turdulans, and Vaccaeans, overwhome that later Scipio Aemilianus, obtained pompous spoils in a single combat, in which the king was challenger. Decimus Brutus went somewhat farther, overcoming the Gallicians, and all the Gallician nations, beyond the river Oblivion, which the soldiers quaked to behold, and marching along the Ocean shore as conqueror, he turned not his ensigns another way, till he saw the Sun stoop under the sea, and his fires over whelmed as it were with waters, not without some scruple in Brutus, who was chilled at the sight, lest perhaps it had been in him a kind of sacrilege. But the hardest hold of all was with the Lusitanians, and Numantines, nor that without cause, for only they in all those countries were fitted with captains. And we had found no less work with the Celtiberians, had not Solundicus, chief author of that commotion, been destroyed in the beginning, a most dangerous, and desperate man had he prospered, who twirling a certain spear of silver, which was pretended by him to be sent from heaven, counterfeited the prophet, and drew all to admire, and follow him. But the same rashness which had put him on, making him also adventure after twilight towards the Consul's camp, a soldier chopped his javelin into him, close at the pavilion itself. But Viriathus made the Lusitanians pluck up their courages, a man of a most sharp, and cunning wit, from huntsman turning highway thief, and from highway thief turning prince, and captain general, and, had fortune said the word, the Romulus of Spain. For not contented to maintain the freedom of his nation, he destroyed all the countries on either side the rivers of Iberus, and Tagus, with fire, and sword, fourteen years together, and, assailing the camps of Praetors, & Precedents, had the slaughter of Claudius Vnimanus, or One-hand, and of his whole army to almost the last man, and in his mountains erected tropheas of such ensigns, robes, and maces of state as he had won away of ours. At the last he was brought into extremities by Fabius Maximus, Consul. But his successor Servilius Cepio stained the victory. For greedy to be rid of the trouble once for all, he entered into practice with some treacherous companions, familiar friends of Viriathus, and got him murdered, being already brought low, and ready to yield upon any terms, and thereby gave the enemy so much honour, as to make it thought that he could not otherwise be conquered.   

CHAP. XVIII.  
The Numantine war.  
AS Numantia was inferior to Carthage, 
A. V. C. DCXII  Capua, and Corinth for riches, so for virtue and honour, it was equal to them altogether, and if we respect the men thereof, it was simply the greatest glory of Spain, for having neither wall, nor bulwark, and being but only situated upon a little rising knoll, or hill by the river Durius; with no more than four thousand, it endured fourteen years siege against an army of forty thousand: And not endured only, but gave also terrible overthrows, and forced us to accept of shameful conditions. And remaining unconquered after all was done that could be, no other person would serve the turn to subvert it, but he who subdued Carthage. To speak ingenuously, there was no war of ours, the cause whereof was more unjust than was this. For the Segidensers, their friends, and kinsfolk, escaping our hands, were entertained by them. No intercession used on their behalf would be heard. And albeit they abstained from intermeddling in any broils of war, they were notwithstanding commanded, if they would have a firm, and formal peace, to purchase it by parting with their arms. This proposition was so interpreted by the barbarous, as if they must go hide away their heads in holes. Hereupon they forth with fell to arms, Megaera a most brave soldier, their captain general; and charging Pompey home in fight, they did choose to enter league, when they could have made an end of him. After this they set upon Mancinus, whom they so amated with daily slaughters, that he had not a soldier in his army durst look a Numantine in the face, or stand his voice, yet such was their nobleness, that they were content to make a peace with him also, when they might have had the kill of all his army to a man. But the people of Rome no less ashamed, nor storming less at the reproach of these conclusions of peace with the Numantines, than they did for those at Caudium, discharged themselves from the dishonour of that base treaty, by yielding up Mancinus to the enemy. But General Scipio, one thoroughly seasoned for the overthrow of cities by the burning of Carthage, grew hot at length upon revenge. But he had more work within his own camp, then in the open field; with his own men, then with the Numantians. For his army having under other captains been formerly tired with daily, and injust, but specially servile labours, such of them as knew not how to use their weapons, were commanded, for their ease who knew the use, to carry more stakes, and earth to the rampire, and that those should be rayed with dirt, who would not be smeared with blood. Besides that, strumpets, scullions, and all things else which were not of necessity to be used, were cut away. It is a saying, that Such as the captain is, such is the soldier. The army, thus reduced under discipline, encounters the enemy, and then came that to pass which no man did ever hope for; the Numantians, in sight of all men, ran away. They would likewise have yielded themselves, if the conditions would have been but tolerable for men to accept. But nothing contenting Scipio, saving a real, and absolute victory, they in such extremities resolve to make a desperate sally, after they first had feasted well, as at their last viands, with halfe-raw flesh, and a kind of broth, or drink made of corn, and called by the inhabitants keale, or Caelia. This resolution of theirs discovered to Scipio, he would not afford, to men so minded, the favour of battle, but girts them up close with four camps, and hemming them round within trench, and counterscarph, they besought him for fight, that so he might dispatch them like men. But when that would not be granted, they agree to rush out howsoever, and coming so to handy-strokes, very many of them were slain; and famine now coming fast upon the residue, they lived yet a little longer. Their last help was to fly, but their wives broke their horse-bridles, and committing an heinous offence through love, bereft them of that remedy. Their end therefore being now no longer to be deferred, their sufferance turns into fury, decreeing among themselves to die in this manner: They made away their captains, themselves, and town with the sword, with poison, and with setting all on fire. Go thy ways, O thou most valiant city of the world, and in mine opinion most happy withal, in the very worst that happened upon thee, being that, for protection of thy friends thou didst defend thyself with thine own hand, and for so long a time, against that people which had all the earth to back, and bear them out. To conclude, the city which was thus taken by the greatest captain under heaven, lest nothing of itself for the enemy to rejoice in over it. For, there was not a man of all Numantia left alive to be trailed in chains; spoil, and booty, as among poor folks, there was not any; their armour, & munition were burnt. So all the triumph which could be had, was over a name alone.   

CHAP. XIX.  
A brief repetition.  
ALl this while the people of Rome were in their actions fair, 
A. V. C. DLXIV.  noble, pious, holy, and magnificent. The ages following as they were as full of great acts, so were they also more troublesome, and foul vices still growing as the empire grew. So that if a man divide into two parts this third age of their power, employed by them in attempts out of Italy, he must worthily confess, the first hundred years thereof, in which they tamed Africa, Macedonia, Sicilia, and Spain, to be, as the poets sing them, the golden age, the other hundred to be plainly the iron, and bloody one, and whatsoever else is more horribly cruel: as that, which with the jugurthine, Cimbrian, Mithridatick, Parthian, gallic and Germane wars, whose acts made our glory mount to heaven itself, did mingle those Gracchian, and Drusine massacres, yea the bondmen's war, and (that no dishonour might he wanting) the war against the fencers also. And finally turning their weapons each upon the other, they tore themselves into pieces, with the hands of Marius, and Sylla, and lastly of Pompey, and Caesar, as it were in fits of rage, and fury, and in contempt of all religion. Which actions, though they are intricately wrapped one within the other, and confounded among themselves, nevertheless to make them the better to appear, and that their heinous facts may not trouble their heroic, they shall be set forth apart. Therefore, to follow our first method, we will commemorate those just, and solemn wars against foreign nations, that the degrees of greatness by which the empire was day by day augmented, may be manifest. Then will we return to those black deeds of theirs, in their monstrous foul, and execrable civil battles.   

CHAP. XX.  
The war in Asia with ARISTONICUS.  
SPain being conquered in the west part of the world, 
A. V. C. DCXX.  the people of Rome enjoyed peace in the East, nor peace only, but a kind of unusual, and unknown felicity, the estate of kings, and the riches of whole realms coming to them as bequests, and legacies. Attalus, king of Pergamus, son of king Eumenes, once our associate, and fellow-soldier, made his last will thus, I make the people of Rome the heir of all my goods. And it was a part of his goods that he did so. The people therefore of Rome entering upon the whole estate, retained it not by fight, & force, but (which is more just) by virtue of his device, and testament. It is hard to say, whether they lost this legacy, or recovered it sooner. Aristonicus, a young fierce prince, & of the blood royal, did easily work the cities, accustomed to be governed by kings, to acknowledge him for sovereign lord, & those other which resisted him, as Mindus, Samos, Colophon, he seized by force. He had the slaghter also of the army of Crassus, Proconsul, & took him prisoner. But Crassus remembering the honour of his house, and of the Roman name, struck out the eye of his half-barbarous keeper with the yerk of a wand, to procure his own killing thereby. And as he wished, so it happened. Perperna, soon after this, overthrew, and took Aristonicus in battle, who yielding himself, was kept in chains. Marcus Aquilius made an end of the remains of the Asian war, by poisoning (O base!) the well-heads of certain cities, to compel them thereby to yield. Which fact as it ripened the victory, so it made the same infamous. For, against the will of the Gods, and the custom of ancestors, it blemished the lustre of the Roman arms, (preserved till then religiously pure) with impure drugs, and sorceries.  
The end of the second book of Lucius Florus.    

THE HISTORY OF THE ROMANS. The third Book.  

CHAP. 1.  
The war with JUGURTH.  
THese things passed in the Orient. But there was not the like quiet in the South. Who would look for any war in Africa, after Carthage was subdued? But the kingdom of Numidia gave to itself a great blow, and though Anibal was rid out of the way, yet jugurtha had that in him which was to be feared: for he, the most false & crafty prince under heaven, ventured upon the people of Rome, glorious, for great acts, and not to be conquered by the sword: and yet things fell out beyond all men's imaginations, that he the king, who surpassed all others in cunning, should himself be surprised by cunning. This prince, grandchild to Masinissa, and by adoption the son of Micipsa, moved to it by ambition of sovereignty, having resolved to murder his brothers, and yet not fearing them so much as the Senate, and people of Rome, under whose protection, and wardship they were, wrought his first black feat by practice, and upon that plot getting Hiempsals head, as he was contriving how to kill Adherbal also, and he flying to Rome for refuge, jugurtha by sound monying his Ambassadors, to bribe others with, drew even the Senate also to take his part. And this was the first victory which he gained of us. Afterwards, when Scaurus was appointed by the state to make partition of the kingdom between himself, and Adherbal, he conquered the noble qualities of the Roman commonweal by corrupting him, and effected thereby his undertaken wickedness the more boldly. But heinous acts never lie hidden long. The bribing of Scaurus came to light, and a decree was made to revenge the parricidial murder by war. Calpurnius Bestia, Consul, was the first employed into Numidia. But the king, experimentally knowing, that gold could do more against the Romans than Iron, bought his peace. Guilty of the premises, he notwithstanding both came upon summons, and safe-conduct to Rome, and with like audaciousness suborning the actors, murdered his competitor in the kingdom, Massina grandchild of Masinissa. This was another cause for the Romans to take arms up against the tyrant. The revenge therefore was committed to be taken by Albinus. But (o the shame!) jugurtha so overbribed his army also, that our men voluntarily giving way, he got the victory, and our camp withal; and reckoning it in as a part of the price, that he suffered the army which he had bought, to escape his hands, did put upon us dishonourable terms. At the same time, Metellus steppeth out against him, not so much in revenge of the Roman empire, as to redeem the blemishes thereof; and dealing most cunningly, one while by entreaty, another while by threats, and feigning flight when he meant nothing less, matched him at his own weapons: nor contenting himself with the waste, & desolation of fields, and villages, made attempts upon the chief fortresses of Numidia, and long time sought to get Zama, though in vain: nevertheless he sacked Thala, where the king's munition, and treasures lay. So having stripped him out of his cities, he pursued him through Mauritania, and Getulia, flying his own confines, and kingdom. Last of all, Marius, much augmenting the army, as having, according to the obscurity of his birth, 
A. V. C. DCXLII.  admitted the scum of Rome to the oath of soldiers, sets upon jugurtha wounded as he was, & already forced to fly, and yet overcame him no more easily then as if he had been fresh, and unbroken. This man most fortunately mastered Capsa, a city dedicated to Hercules, seated in the middle of Africa, environed with sands, and serpents, and scaled Mulucha, built upon a steep mountain, a certain Ligurian leading up to it upon breakneck clifs, and high over-hanging places; and gave to king Bocchus, who for kindred's sake took his part, a terrible overthrow at Cirta. Bocchus thereupon distrusting his own estate, and fearing to be drawn into another man's ruin, as accessary, indented for his own peace, and safety at the peril of jugurtha. So that most false and slippery man, by his father in Laws practices ensnared, was betrayed into the hands of Silvius. Thus in the end the people of Rome had the gazing upon him, brought laden with irons in triumph: and he again though overborne, and fast bound, beheld that city, which he like a lying prophet had sung, would one day perish, if it could once meet with a chapman. Let it notwithstanding have been never so saleable, it had a chapman in him, and, seeing he escaped not, sure we are, that it shall never perish.   

CHAP. II.  
The Alobrogian war.  
IN this wise went things with the people of Rome in the South world. 
A. V. C. DCXXVIII.  The troubles which broke out North ward, were far more manifold, and horrible: no quarter is so disquietous, the sky there always lowering, and the people's natures harsh, and peevish: the outrageous enemy burst forth upon this side, and upon that, and from the midst itself of the North. The Salyans, of all the nations beyond the Alps, were the first who felt our wrath, by reason of a complaint, which they of Massilia, a friend-towne, most true, & firm to us, had made of their incursions. The next were the Allobroges, and Aruernois, for that the Aedui implored our help, and assistance, against them, as using the like vexations. Varus, and Isara which run through Vindilicia, and the swiftest of rivers the Rhone, are witnesses of our victory, the thing which most frighted the barbarous, was the sight of the elephants, as those which matched themselves in boistrousnes. The bravest object in this triumph was the king himself, Bituitus, presented to us in discoloured arms, and silver chariot, just as he fought. How great, and how greatly important the victory was, in the opinion of both, may be conjectured by this, that Domitius Aenobarbus, and Fabius Maximus, reared towers of stone upon the places of battle, and fixed tropheas on their tops, adorned with the enemy's spoils, which was not our wont till then. For the people of Rome never upbraided the vanquished enemy with their overthrow.   

CHAP. III.  
The Cimbrian, Theutonicke, and Tigurin war.  
THE Cimbrians, 
A. V. C. DCXL.  Theutons, and Tigurins, flying from the utmost bounds of Gallia, the Ocean having swallowed their countries, sought new habitations where they could find them out, through the world: and being bard all entrance into Gall, & Spain, they wheeling about to Italy, sent their ambassadors to Silanus, where he lay encamped, and from thence to the Senate, entreating that martial commonweal to allot them out some proportions of land, in stead of pay; for which they should always use the service of their hands, and swords, at their good pleasure. But what land should the Roman people divide among them, who were ready to go together by the ears among themselves, about laws touching the allotting out of grounds? Their petition therefore being rejected, what they could not compass by entreaties, they concluded to win by force. Nor could Silanus hold out against them in the first brunt of the barbarous, nor Manilius in the second, nor Caepio in the third. They were all of them defeated, and driven out of their tents, and trenches. They had made an end of us, had not Marius happened to live in that age. Yet even he himself not daring presently to encounter them, held his soldiers within their strength, till that invincible rage, and furious onset, which goes current with the barbarous for true valour, fell. Thereupon, they marched about back, craking, and upbraiding us, and ask in scorn (so confident they were of sacking the city) what they would have home to their wives. Nor more slowly than was menaced, they rushed thorough the Alps, that is to say, the very bars of Italy, in three main battles. Marius makes wondrous speed after, and outstripping the enemy, by shortest cuts overtakes the Theutons, who had the vanguard, at the very climb of the Alps, in a place called Aquae Sextiae, and quite distressed them in their overmuch security. The enemy was master of the valley, and river, and our men had no water to drink at all. Whether Marius took that dry ground of purpose, or turned by wit his error to advantage, is doubtful to say, but courage enforced by necessity, was for certain, the cause of victory. For his army crying out for water, Ye are men (quoth he) and there it is: they fought therefore with such courage, & made such slaughter of the enemies, that the Romans having the day, drank not more water out of the coloured river, than they did of the blood of the barbarous. Surely, king Theutobocchus himself, who was wont to vault over four, or five horses let together, had scarce any time to get one now for himself to fly away upon, and, being apprehended in the next forest, was single an whole show himself, being a person of so huge an height, as he overtopped the tropheas selves. The Theutons utterly thus destroyed, he turns upon the Cimbrians. (who would believe it?) clambering over at the crags of Tridentum, through the snow, which makes it winter all ways on the Alps, and raiseth them higher than naturally their ridges are, came rolling down upon Italy in plumps. They attempted to pass the river Athesis, not by bridge, or boat, but according to their lubberly wits, assayed to stop it first with their bodies: but when they saw they could not stay the stream with their hands, and targets, they plashed down trees, and so crossed over: and had they immediately set on towards the city, the peril had been extremely great. But in the Venetian grounds, whose mould is in a manner the finest of all Italy, the daintiness of the air, and soil entendered their spirits; and being otherwise well softened with the use of bread, sodden flesh, and sweet wines, Marius in very good season sets upon them: they prayed him to assign them a day of battle, which he named to be the next of all. They joined in a most spacious champain called Caudium, and there one hundred, and forty thousand of them left their lives: so they were fewer now in the whole first number, by another third. They had the execution of the barbarous for an whole days space. These also taught our captain general to piece out manhood with martial cunning, imitating Anibal, and his arts at Cannae: for having to begin with, a misty day, & by that an advantage to charge them at unaware, & the same a windy one also, which might serve to carry the dust into their eyes, and faces, Marius, making use of all, ranged his battle towards the rising Sun, so that the brightness, and repercussion of the beams upon our helmets, made the heavens seem as if they were on fire, as was by and by, afterwards understood by the captives, nor was it a less work to overcome their wives, than themselves. For having made a barricado about them with carts, and wagons, they struck at us from aloft, as it were from towrtoppes, with slaves, and lances. Their death was as gallant as their fight. For when the embassage which they dispatched to Marius, could not obtain liberty at his hands, and priesthood (nor was it lawful) they everywhere strangled their infants, or pashed out their brains, and either, one of them killed the other, or making halters of their tresses of hair trust themselves up by the necks, upon boughs, or the rails of their carts. King Beleus fight courageously was beaten down dead, and not against his will. The other battle consisting of the Tigurins, which had taken up the smaller hills of the Norick Alps, as it were for a back, or succour to their fellows, betaking themselves to base flight, and trading in robberies, slipped away whither they could, and vanished. These so glad, and glorious news, concerning the liberty of Italy, and the deliverance of the empire, came first to the people's ears not by men, as the manner is, but (if it be not against religion to believe it) by the Gods themselves. For the same day, upon which the thing was done, young men crowned with laurel, were seen before the temple of Castor, and Pollux, reaching letters to the Praetor, and a common rumour without a known author, luckily ran in the theatre, The Cimbrians are overcome. Then which thing what could be more admirable, or glorious? for Rome, as if lifting herself on tiptoe, upon her own hills, she had been present at the sight of the battle, the people, as is usual in a show of sword-players, clap their hands in applause, at the self-same instant in which the Cimbrians were overthrown in battle.   

CHAP. FOUR  
The Thracian war.  
AFter the Macedonians, the Thracians (if the Gods will) rebelled, who themselves were tributaries to the Macedonians: nor content to make inroads into the next provinces, they did the like in Thessaly, & Dalmatia, running out as far as to the Adrian sea, and stopping there as at nature's entreaty, they threw their darts into the waves themselves, Meanwhile, there was no kind of cruelty left unpractised upon the captives, during all that time. They sacrifice man's blood to the Gods, quaffing it out of their enemy's skulls, by this kind of mockage defiling death aswell with fire, as fume, and tear infants quick out of their mother's wombs with torments. The Sordiscans were of all the Thracians the most savage, & had as much craft as wildness of courage. The situation of their woods, & mountains conspired with their shrewd, & wily wits. All the army therefore which Cato led, was not only put to rout, or flight by them, but (which is like a wonder) was wholly entrapped, and waylaid. Didius beats them back into their own Thrace as they straggled, & dispersed themselves here and there on boot-haling. Drusus drove them farther off, and forbade them to pass Danubius. Minucius destroyed them all about Aebrus, not without loss, I confess, of many of his own, while they ride upon the false crusts of ice breaking under. Piso scoured Rhodope, and Caucasus. Curio pierced as far as Dracia: but the gloominess of the woods cooled his courage. Appius ran up as far as to Sarmatia. Lucullus to Tanais, the bounder of those nations, and to the lake Maeotis. Nor were these most merciless enemies otherwise tamed, then by using their own measure towards them: no pity was taken of their prisoners, but all of them rid out of the world with fire, and sword. But nothing so terrified the barbarous, as the chopping off their hands, by which they seemed to overlive their own punishment.   

CHAP. V.  
The war with Mithridates.  
THe Pontic nations are planted towards the North upon the sea on the left hand of us, 
A. V. C. DCLIX  and are so called of the Pontic sea. The first king of all these nations, and countries was Atheas, afterwards Artabazes, who descended of the seven Persians. Mithridates' coming of him, was the mightiest of them all. For whereas four years served against Pyrrhus, & seventeen years against Anibal, he resisted forty years, till finally subdued in three huge wars, the felicity of Silvius, the virtue of Lucullus, and the mightiness of Pompey, brought him to nothing. He pretended for the cause of his hostility, before lieutenant Cassius, Nicomedes of Bythinia, whom he charged with invading his confines. But the truth is, that blowneout with ambition, he coveted the monarchy of all Asia, and, if he could, of Europe also. Our vices gave him hope, and confidence unto it. For being divided among ourselves with civil wars, the very opportunity alured him and Marius, Silvius, and Sertorius laid that remote side of the empire open. In these wounds of the commonweal, and amidst these tumults, this sudden whirlwind of the Pontic war, as if taking advantage of the times, blew from off as it were the farmost watchtower of the Northern world at unawares upon us, being both weary then, and diversely distracted. The first blast of this war swept away Bythinia from us in a trice. Then the like terror fell upon the rest of Asia. Nor were the cities, and nations thereof slow in revolting to the king. And he was at hand, and priest them hard, using cruelty as a virtue. For what was more deadly dire, than that one edict of his, by which he commanded all men thorough Asia, who were free of Rome, to be massacred? At that time certainly, houses, temples, altars, and all sorts of laws, aswell divine, as human, were violated. But this terror upon Asia, unlocked Europe also to the king. By Archelaus therefore, and Neoptolemus, he disseised us there of all, excepting Rhodes only (which held for us more firmly than the rest) of the Isles of the Cycladeses, Delos, and Eubaea, yea and Athens also, the glory itself of Greece. The terror of the king's name breathed now upon Italy itself, and upon the very city of Rome. Lucius Silvius therefore, an excellent good man, while he was in action of arms, and of no less violence, showed the enemy back as it were with one of his hands, from encroaching any farther. And first he brought Athens to such extremities by siege, that he made that city (what man would credit it?) which was the mother of corn, to eat man's flesh for hunger, and undermining their port Piraeus, and more than six walls of theirs, after he had tamed them, yet, though himself called them the most ingrateful men, he nevertheless restored to them their temples, and reputation, for the honour, and reverence of deceased ancestors: and when Eubaea, & Boeotia had now chased the garrisons away which the King had billeted upon them, he discomfited all the royal forces together, in one set battle at Cheronaea, and in another at Orchomenus: and from thence crossing forthwith into Asia, distressed Mithridates himself: and there also had been an end of the quarrel, if his desire had not rather been to have triumphed speedily over the enemy then completely: this was the state in which Silvius left Asia. The league with the Pontickes recovered Bythinia of Nicomedes, and Cappadocia of Ariobarzanes; as if Asia had again been ours, as at the beginning: but Mithridates was but repulsed only. This course therefore daunted not the pontics, but set them more on fire. For the king having had Asia, and as it were tasted the bait of Europe, sought to recover it now by the law of arms, not as belonging to others, but, because he had once lost it, as his own. These fires therefore, as not sufficiently quenched, broke out into a greater flame than before; whereupon the king repairing his armies, augmented with greater numbers than erst; and to be brief, with the whole powers of his realm, he invaded Asia again by sea, and land, and rivers. Cyzicum a city ennobled with a castle, walls, port, & towers of marble, beautifies the shores of Asia. Against this place, as if it were another Rome, he bent his utmost abilities: but the city was encouraged to withstand upon the news of Lucullus his approach, who (a wondrrous thing to be spoken) floating on a blown bladder, and steering himself with his feet, seeming, to such as lookt-on a far off, like some swimming whale, escaped thorough the middle of the enemy's fleet: and calamity forthwith turning itself to the other side, the king tired with protraction of the siege, & famine bringing plague, Lucullus overtook him in his retreat, and made such work among his men, that the rivers Granicus and Aesopus ran blood; the crafty king knowing the Romans covetousness, willed his people to scatter farthels and money as they fled, to slacken the pursuers speed: neither was his flight more fortunate by sea, than it was by land; for his navy which consisted of one hundred sail, deep laden with munition, overtaken with a tempest in the sea of Pontus, suffered such foul spoil, as answered the mischief of a battle at sea: no otherwise then as if Lucullus, being as it were in league with the winds, and waves, might seem to have given order to the weather, for beating down Mithridates. Though all the strengths of that most powerful kingdom were in this wise ground to pieces, yet losses made his spirit greater. Betaking himself therefore to his next neighbour nations, he drew the whole East almost, and North of the world to accompany his ruin. Iberians, Caspians, Alban, and eitherr of the Armenia's were solicited to take part, & Pompet's fortune sought every where about for dignity, name, and titles with which to glorify him, who beholding Asia on fire with new combustions, and that more kings sprung still out of other, judging it no wisdom to delay time, while in the mean space the powers of enemy-countreys' might unite themselves, he forthwith makes a bridge of boats, and, of all men before his days, was the first of ours who passed over Euphrates, and lighting upon the flying king in the middle of Armenia, made a dispatch of the war (how great was the happiness of the man!) in one only battle: this was fought by night, and the moon was also for us: for shining at the back of the enemy, as if she were in pay on our side, and in the faces of the Romans, the Pontickes mistaking their own shadows, projected long, as at her going down, laid at them as at the very bodies of their enemies. So Mithridates was that night utterly vanquished. For from that time forward he was able to do nothing, though trying all the ways possible, after the manner of snakes, whose head being bruised, they threaten last of all with the tail. For after his escape, his meaning was to terrify Colchos, the sea-coasts of Cilicia, and our Campania, with his sudden coming: then, overturning the port Pyraeus, to join the countries together as far as between Colchis, and Bosphorus, from thence to march through Thracia, Macedonia, and Greece, and so to assail Italy upon the sudden. These were his projects, and they went no farther. For his subjects revolting from him, and himself prevented by the treason of his son Pharnaces, having laboured in vain to effect it by poison, he killed himself with his sword. Meanwhile Cnaeus the Grreat, pursuing the remainders of the rebellion of Asia, flew up, and down at pleasure through divers countries, and nations. For following the Armenians towards the east, and taking Artaxata their principal city, he granted back the kingdom to Tigranes, upon his submission. But in marching north, towards Scythia, he guided his course by stars▪ as if he had been at sea; puts the Colchians to the sword; takes the Iberians to mercy, spares the Albans, and encamping under mount Caucasus ir-selfe, commanded Orodes, the Colchian king, to descend from thence into the plain; Artoces, prince of the Iberians to give in his children for hostages: of his own mere motion he rewards Orodes, sending unto him out of his Albania, a couch of gold, and other gifts; then turning his forces Southward, & marching through Libanus in Syria, and Damascus, he displayed the Roman ensigns round about, passing through those odoriferous woods, and groves of balm and frankincense. The Arabians were at his service. The jews assayed to defend Jerusalem: But he forced that city also, and saw openly that grand mystery, as under a sky of beaten gold; the brethren at odds about the kingdom, and he made umpire, adjudged the crown to Hircanus; claps Aristobulus into irons for refusing to obey the award. Thus the people of Rome by Pompey their captain general overrunning all Asia in the greatest breadth thereof, made that which was the utmost province of the empire to be now the middlemost: for excepting the Parthians (who did rather choose our friendship) and the Indians (who knew us not as yet) all Asia between the red sea, the Caspian gulf, and the Ocean, was possessed by us, as either tamed, or distressed by the Pompeian legions.   

CHAP. VI  
The war with the Pirates.  
WHile the Roman people was held bufied in divers parts of the world, the Cilicians invade the seas, destroy commerce, break the bonds of human society, and hinder all navigation like a tempest. The troubles raised in Asia by the wars of Mithridates, begat boldness in these desperate, and raging thieves, while under the tumults of a foreign war, and at the envy of a stranger king, they roved without punishment; and contenting themselves in the beginning with the neighbouring seas, under Isidorus captain, they practised their robberies between Crete, and Cyrenae, Pyraeus, and Achaia, and cape Maleum, which they entitled Cape gold, by reason of brave booties. Publius Servilius was employed out against them, and though he bulged their light, and nimble friggats, with his heavy, and well-appointed ships of war, yet the victory he got cost blood: nor satisfied with driving them from of the water, he subverted their strongest cities, which abounded with daily-gotten pillage, as Phaselis, Olympus, and Isaurus, the principal fortress itself off all Cilicia, and, upon the conscience of his great enterprise, loved the surname Isauricus. Nevertheless, they could not be kept on shore, though broken at sea with so many calamities; but as certain creatures who have a double gift to live in either clement, the Romans were no sooner departed from thence, but impatient of land-life, they launch again into their water, and somewhat farther out then formerly. So Pompey, fortunate before that time, seemed now also worthy to have the glory of this service, as an accession to his employments against Mithridates. This pestilent plague dispiersed over the whole sea, he resolving to extinguish at once, and for ever, carried his attempt with a kind of divine preparation. For having abundance of ships aswell of the Romans, as of our friends, the Rhodians, he guarded both the sides of Pontus, and the coasts of the Ocean, with many vice-admirals, & commanders. Gellius was set to waft upon the Tuscan sea; Plotius upon the Sicilian; Gratillius upon the Ligustine bay; Marcus Pomponius upon the Gallicke; Torquatus upon the Balearian; Tiberius Nero upon the Gaditanian, where our seas begin; Lentulus upon the Libyc; Marcellinus upon the Egyptian; Pompey's young Son upon the Adriatic; Marcus Portius upon the very jaws of Propontis; who so shrouded his fleet, that he watched at that passage, as if it had been at a gate. So all the pirates wheresoever, thus environed, within as it were an hunting toil, at all harbours, bays, shelters, creeks, promontories, straits, halfe-iles, were utterly distressed. Pompey undertook Cilicia, the mother, and fountain of this war. And the enemies were forward to fight, not for any hope they had, but because that being overborne, they would seem to dare: but yet no farther, then as only to brook the first shock. For when they beheld the beake-heads of our clashing galleys charge in ring upon them, they forthwith struck sail, threw away oars, made a general shout (a sign among them of yielding) and begged life. A victory gained with less bloodshed than this, as we at no time had, so neither did we ever find a people more loyal to us than they. And that was long of our General's high wisdom, who transplanted this brood of mariners far of, out of the very ken of the sea, and as it were teddred them fast in the uplands. Thus at the same time he recovered the seas, for the use of merchants, & restored to land her own men. In this victory what should we first admire? whether celerity, because it was gotten is forty days? or good fortune, for that he lost not a vessel? or finally the lastingness, for that there never was any pirate after?   

CHAP. VII.  
The Creticke war.  
THe Creticke war, 
A. V. C. DCXXCV.  if we will have the truth, ourselves made to ourselves, only upon a desire to conquer that noble island. It seemed to have favoured Mithridates, for which seem sake we meant to take revenge by the sword. Marcus Antonius was the first who invaded it, borne-up with so wonderful an hope, and affiance of victory, that he fraught his ships with more fetters, than weapons. Therefore he had the reward of his dotage. for the Cretensians intercepted most part of his navy, and hoisting the bodies of such as they took prisoners, up in sails and tackle, rowed back into their Ports, as it were with a forewind in triumph. Then Metellus wasting the whole Island with fire, and sword, penned them within their castles, and cities, Gnosus, Erythraea, and (as the Greeks are wont to speak) the mother of city's Cydona: and he so mercilessely plagued the captives, that most of the islanders poisoned themselves, other sent their surrenders to Pompey absent: who busied in the enterprises of Asia, and sending Octavius to Crete, as governor, was laughed to scorn, for meddling in another man's province, and provoked Metellus to exercise the right of a conqueror the more bitterly upon the Cretans, and having vanquished Lasthenes, and Panares, captains of Cydona, returned victorious, and yet brought nothing greater back of so famous a conquest, than the surname Creticus.   

CHAP. VIII.  
The Balearian war.  
THe house of Metellus Macedonicus was so far forth accustomed to warlike surnames, 
A. V. C. DCXXXI  that the one of his sons obtaining the title Creticus, another of them was eftsoones styled Balearicus. The Baleares had about the same time made the seas dangerous with their piracies. A man would wonder that those wild, and savage people durst once so much as look from their rocketoppes down upon the sea: But, more than so, they ventured forth to sea in bungled boats, and now, and then frighted such as sailed by, with sudden onsets, and now also when they a far off descried the Roman navy approach in the main sea, conceiving it to be purchase, they had the hearts to assail it, and at the first charge covered it with an huge shower of small and great stone. Each of them useth three slings in battle. Who will wonder if they be excellent marksmen, when these are the only arms the nation hath, and are bred up in the practice of them from their childhood? A boy gets no morsel at his mother's hands, but that of which she makes a white, and which himself must hit. But this kind of hail did not long terrify the Romans. After they came to hand-strookes, and felt our beake-heads, and iavelines coming, they raised a bellowing cry, like so many beasts, and fled to shore, where slipping in among the next hillocks, the first work was to find them out, the next, to conquer them.   

CHAP. IX.  
The voyage into Cyprus.  
THe final destiny of islands was at hand. 
A. V. C. DCXX VII.  Cyprus therefore yielded itself without war. Of this isle, abounding in ancient riches, and, besides that, consecrated to Venus, Ptolomic was king; and the report of her wealth was such, nor that untruly, that the people which were conquerors of the world, and accustomed to grant away whole kingdoms, gave in charge to Publius Claudius, a tribune of theirs, author of the motion, to confiscate that prince, though alive, and in league with them. At the bruit whereof he shortened his days by poison. The riches of Cyprus were conveyed in barges up the river Tiber by Porcius Cato, which brought more treasure to the treasury of the people of Rome, than any triumph.   

CHAP. X.  
The gallic war.  
ASia subdued by the hand of Pompey, 
A. V. C. DCXCV.  fortune transferred upon Caesar the conquest of that which was left untouched in Europe. And there remained the most terrible of all other nations, the Galls, and Germans: and Britain though divided from the whole world, yet had notwithstanding one to conquer it. The first cause of this trouble begun at the Heluetians, who seated between the Rhine, and Rhodanus, and their countries proving to narrow for their swarms, came to demand of us other habitations, having first set their towns on fire. A solemn sign among them of never returning thither. But we ask time for deliberation, and during that delay, when Caesar, by cutting down the bridge over Rhone, had taken from them the means of flying away, he by and by led back that most warlike people into their old homes, as a shepherd drives his flocks to their sheepfolds. The following battle which was fought against the Belgians, was much more bloody, as against men who fought for freedom. Here the Romans did many famous feats of arms, and this of Caesar's was most singular, that his army inclining to fly, he snatched the target from one who was running away, and charging upon the face of the enemies, restored the battle with his own hand. After this he encountered the Veneti at sea, but the combat was greater with the Ocean then with the enemy's ships. For they were bungerly made, and misshapen, and had presently been split with our beake-heads, but the shallow places hindered the fight, that the tide withdrawing upon course, during the skirmish, the Ocean might as it were seem to have been stickler in the battle. He had elsewhere also to deal with difficulties which grew from the nature of the nations, and places. The Aquitans, a subtle generation, betook themselves to grots, and holes under ground: Caesar had dammed them up. The Morini slipped aside into the woods: he commanded to fire them. Let no man say the Galls are only fierce, they use fraud also. Induciomarus assembled the Trevirists, Ambiorix the Eburones, and making a combination among themselves in Caesar's absence, both of them found out his several lieutenant's general. But Titus Labienus stoutly repulsed the one of them, & brought that king's head away. The other laying an ambuscado in the valley, overcame us by craft, and so the camp was sacked, and the gold thereof taken. There we lost Cotta, with Titurius Sabinus lieutenant general. Nor could we ever bee-meet with that king after, for he played least in sight beyond the Rhine perpetually. But Rhine, for all that, escaped us not, as neither was it fit, that it should be a free receiver, and defender of our enemies. But Caesar's ground of war against the Germans was at first most just. For the Sequani complained of their incursions. How great was then the pride of Ariouistus? when our ambassadors said, Come thou to Caesar? What is that Caesar? quoth the king? And let him come to me if he will, and what concerns it him what our Germany doth? am I a meddler in the Roman affairs? The terror therefore of this new nation was so great throughout the camp, that they who were of the main battle, made everywhere their last wills, and testaments. But those giant like bodies, by how much the huger they were, by so much were they the fairer mark for a sword, or dart to hit. What the fervour of our soldiers was in the fight, cannot be set forth in any example more clearly then in this, that when the barbarous whelmed their shields over their heads, covering themselves as under a roof, or penthouse, or as a tortoise under the shell, the Romans sprung up upon the shields, and from thence did cut their throats. Again, when the Menapians complained to us of the Germans, Caesar passeth over the Mose, upon a bridge of boats, seeks out Rhine itself, and the enemies, among the Hercinian woods. But all the whole race of them was fled into the wilds, and marshes, the army of the Romans appearing on a sudden on this side the bank of Rhine, struck such an amazement among them. Nor did we cross that river only once, but again also, and that by a bridge made over it. At which time their affright was much augmented, when they beheld their Rhine taken prisoner as it were, and yoked with a bridge, betaking themselves afresh in flight to their forests, and fenny places; that which most fretted Caesar, being that he had not whom to conquer. Thus all made ours both at land, and sea, he casts his eye upon the Ocean, and as if the Roman world sufficed not, his mind was set how to achieve another. For this cause gathering a navy, he made for Britain. He crossed into Britain with marvelous speed; for weighing anchor out of the harbour of the Morini, at the third watch, he was landed in the Island before noon. The shores there, were full of the enemies troubled troops, and the chariots of war whirled up and down disorderly, their riders quaking at the wonder of the sight: their fear therefore was instead of a victory. The timorous Britan's yielded up their arms, and gave hostages: and Caesar had then marched farther, had not the Ocean given his shattered fleet a sore scourging with his billows. Thereupon he returned into Gall, and with a greater armada, and more forces than before, did thrust out once again into the same Ocean, and again pursuing the same Britan's into the Caledonian woods, he also caused Cavelianus, one of their kings, to be fast bound in chains. Contenting himself with this (for his intention was not to get provinces, but glory) he makes back into Gall with more spoils then at first, the Ocean's self more quiet, and favourable, as if it confessed itself too weak for Caesar. But the last mightiest conspiracy of the Galls, was, when that prince so dreadful for stature, martial skill, and courage, and whose very name seemed devised to strike a terror, Vercingetorix, drew at once all the Aruernois, and Bituriges the Carnutes, and Sequani into a league, by speaking big among them, when the assemblies of people were thickest, as in their groves upon festival, and counsel-dayes, erecting their minds thereby for recovery at their ancient liberty. Caesar was at this time absent out of Gallia, busy in taking fresh musters of Ravenna, and the Alps themselves heaped high with winter snows, and so the ways cloyed up, they presumed he was fast, and safe enough. But of how fortunate a rashness was he at the news? Over crags, and cliffs of mountains, thorough ways, and drifts of snow, till that time pathless, he with light-armed bands of soldiers got into Gall, united his winter-camps there, which stood far distant, and was himself in person in the middle of Gallia, before the remotest part feared his coming. Then assaulting the heart-strengths of the war, he destroyed Auaricum, and a garrison in it of forty thousand, and levelled Alexia to the ground with fire, which had two hundred, and fifty thousand fight men to rescue it. The whole stress of the war was about Gergovia. For that most spacious city, having four score thousand defendants, walls also, a castle, and craggy cliffs, was girt-in round by Caesar with works, stakes, and a ditch through which he drew the river, and with eighteen several camps in the whole compass, and an huge counterscarp, by which means he tamed it first with famine, and such of the defendants as durst sally out, being either cut in pieces in the trenches with the sword, or gored upon the stakes, he at last constrained it to yield. That very king himself, the principal glory of Caesar's conquest, both came like an humble suitor into the camp, and throwing his comparisons, and arms at his foot, said thus unto him, O thou most valiant of men, thou hast conquered a valiant man.   

CHAP. XI.  
The Parthian war.  
WHile the people of Rome utterly distressed the Galls towards the North of the world, they receive a grievous wound in the East, by the Parthians. For which we cannot blame fortune. The discomfiture afforded no kind of comfort. The greedy humour of Crassus, Consul, which had neither Gods, nor men to friend, gaping for Parthian gold, cost eleven legions their lives, and him that head of his, upon which Metellus, Tribune of the people, had powered hostile curses at his setting out. And when the army was past Zeugma, sudden whirlwinds threw our standards into! Euphrates where they sunk: & when he encamped at Nicephorium, ambassadors, from king Orodes summoned him to remember the leagues which Parthians had formerly made with Pompey, and Silvius; but his mind wholly bend how to swallow the treasures of that realm, without pretending so much as an imaginary cause of war, only said, he would answer at Seleucia. The Gods therefore, who take revenge for violating public leagues, did both prosper the stratagems, and strokes of the enemies. For first, Euphrates, the only river to convey our victuals, and defend us, was now between us, and home; then again, credit was given to a certain counterfeit fugitive, one Mazara, a Syrian, who training the army out into the midst of the open deserts of the country, betrayed it to the enemy on all sides, Crassus therefore was scarce approached to Carrhae, when Syllax, and Surena, the kings chief captains, displayed & flourished their flags woven of silk, and gold. And presently thereupon the enemy's Cavalry gave in on every hand, pouring their shot of arrows upon us as thick as the drops of hail, or rain. So the legions beaten miserably to the earth, himself alured out to a parley, had, upon a sign given by the enemy, come quick into their hands, if the resistance of the Tribunes had not moved the barbarous to prevent his escape by killing him. That notwithstanding, they chopped off his head, & made themselves merry with it. As for his son, they overwhelmed him with shot, even almost in his father's sight. The remains of that unfortunate host shifting each man for himself, & scattered by flight into Armenia, Cilicia, and Syria, did scarce afford a man alive to bring the news. The head, and right hand of Crassus were brought to king Orodes, & made sport for him, nor that unfitly. For they poured molten gold in at his open mouth, that he who was on fire with the thirst of gold while he lived, his dead, & bloodless carcase might have enough thereof to serve his turn.   

CHAP. XII.  
The recapitulation.  
THis is that third transmarine age of the people of Rome, in which employing themselves upon exploits out of Italy, they displayed their adventurous arms over the whole earth. Of which age, the first hundred years were holy, pious, & (as we have already said) the age of gold, void of heinous fact, or foul black deed, all the while the simpleness, and purity of that shepheardish original continued, and the immivent fear of the Paenish-men maintained among us ancient discipline. The other hundred years (which we reckon from the destruction of Carthage, Corinth, Numance, and from the date of the last will, and testament of king Attalus (in which he devised his kingdom in Asia) up to Caesar, and Pompey, and to Augustus, who followed them) as the glory of martial acts made stately great, of so vast domestic mischiefs made wretched, & worthy to be blushed at. For as it was noble, and goodly to have conquered Gallia, Thrace, and Cilicia, most fertile, and most powerful provinces, the Armenians also, & Britan's, great names, but more for the honour of the empire, then for the uses thereof: so was it a brutish, and a shameful thing to fight, and bicker at home, at the same time, with our own citizens, associates, bondmen, fencers, and the whole Senate with itself. And I know not, whether it had not been better for the people of Rome to have rested content with Sicilia, and afric, yea, or to have wanted them also, having Italy at command, then to grow to such greatness as to be consumed with their proper strengths. For what other things else bred civil furies, but the too much rankness of prosperity? The first thing which corrupted us, was the conquest of Syria, & next after that, the heritage of the king of Pergamus in Asia. The wealth, and riches of those countries were the things which crushed under them the moral virtues of that age, and overthrew the commonweal drowned in her own vices as in a common sink. For what cause was there why the people of Rome should stand so hard for fields, or food, but as they were driven by the hunger which prodigality had procured? From hence therefore sprang the first, and second Gracchan seditions, & that third Appuleian. And out of what other ground did it grow, that the knights, and gentlemen of Rome separated themselves from the Lords, to have sovereign power in seats of judgement, but merely out of covetousness, that so they might convert to private lucre the customary payments due to the State, and even judgements in law itself? This brought in the promise of making all Latium free of Rome. from whence rose the war with associates. And what bred the war with bondmen? what? but the great number of them in families? whence came the armies of fencers against their owners, but for the excessive prodigality used in shows for gaining popular favour? While the Romans give themselves over to shows of sword-players, they brought that to be a profession, and Art, which was before those times the punishment of enemies. And, to touch our more gallant vices, was it not overmuch wealth which stirred among us rivalities in honours? Or did not the storms of Marius, and Sylla, and the magnificent furniture of feasts, & sumptuous presents, rise out of that abundance, which are long would bring forth beggary? This was it which made Catiline fall foul upon his country. To be brief, what other fountain had that very desire in some of sovereignty, & to rule alone, but too much store of wealth? But that desire did mutually arm Caesar and Pompey with those mortal enmities, which like the fury's firebrands set Rome on a bright blaze. Our purpose therefore is, to handle these civil quarrels, distinguished from just, and foreign wars, in order as they fall.   

CHAP. XIII.  
Of the Gracchan Laws.  
THe power of the Tribunes stirred the causes of all seditions, under pretext of defending the common people, for whose help that power was ordained, but in very truth that the Tribunes might engross absolute authority to themselves, and for that cause courted the commons for their special favour, & good will, by enacting laws which allotted them land, corn, and seats of judgement, gratis. There was a colour of equity in each; for what so just, as the people to receive their right at the hands of the Fathers of the State? for them who were the lords of nations, and possessors of the earth, not to live like strangers to their own homes, and temples? what more reasonable, then that the poor should live upon their own exchequer? what could be more effectual to make the templar of liberty even, and indifferent? then the Senate governing provinces, that the chivalry, and gentlemen of Rome, to support their authority at home, should have the as it were kingdom of iudgement-seates? Yet even these very things turned pernicious, & the woeful commonweal came thereby to be the wages of her proper overthrow: for the chivalry, and inferior nobles being made judges, which till then the lords of Counsel were, they purloined the public incomes, that is to say, the patrimony of the empire; and the paying for the common people's corn out of the public money, sucked dry the very sinews of State, the treasury: and how could the common sort be made landed men, without eiecting them who were already in possession, and were themselves also a portion of the people? and who held their seats of abode, left them from their ancestors, by prescription, as a title of inheritance.   

CHAP. XIIII.  
The sedition of Tiberius Gracchus.  
TIBERIUS GRACCHUS, who had not his equal for birth, person, & eloquence, kindled the first firebrand of contention. This man, whether for fear that the yeelding-up of Mancinus, might also reach to him, because he was a surety for our part of the league at Numance, becoming popular; or carried as in point of honour for the common good, because pitying to see the people of Rome, thrust out of their own lands, though conquerors of nations, and owners in possession of the world, he would provide that they should not live like persons banished from their household Gods, and houses; or what other motive soever else did set him on work to dare so mighty a matter; true it is, that when the day of propounding the law was come, he having an huge troup to guard him, mounted the Rostra, nor wanted there in readiness all the nobility against him, and the Tribunes of the people in sides. At which time Gracchus seeing Marcus Octavius cross his propositions, he pushed him down from the Rostra with his hand, contrary to the religious respect of brotherhood in office, and the nature of their authority, and put him into that fear of present death, as he was compelled to give over his Tribuneship: and after this sort getting himself to be created one of the three for parting the lands, when upon a comitial day he laboured to have his authority continued for a longer time, thereby to make good his beginnings, the nobility, and those whom he had disseised opposing him, they fell to killing in the Forum, 
Caedes à faro coepit.  and then through the city; and flying from thence to the Capitol, when touching his head with his hand to exhort the people, as by a sign, to stand upon their guard for their lives, it seemed as if he demanded a diadem: thereupon Scipie Nasica inciting the people to run to their weapons, he was beaten to the earth, and slain, as it were by course of justice.   

CHAP. XV.  
The sedition of Caius Gracchus.  
CAius Gracchus waxed forth with no less hot in revenge of his brothers both death, 
A. V. C. DCXXX II.  and laws, and with equal uproar, and terror, as he, putting the common sort into possession of their forefathers lands, promising to share among them the late bequeathed kingdom of Attalus, for their maintenance. And now grown over-mighty, and powerful by being made Tribune again, he was followed with the commons as he flung up, & down, so that when Minucius the Tribune adventured to abrogate his laws, he trusting to the strength of his complices, invaded the Capitol, a place fatal to his house, and family. But beaten from that attempt with the slaughter of his nearest friends, he withdrew himself to mount Aventine. But the forces of the Senate meeting him, there he was destroyed by Opimius, Consul. There was insulting upon the dead carcase also, and they who muthred him, had for reward the weight of his head in gold, the head of a Tribune of the people, religiously sacred, and not to have been violated.   

CHAP. XVI.  
The Appulcian sedition.  
ALl this notwithstanding, 
A. V. C. DCLIII.  Appuleius Saturninus desisted not from pressing to make good the Gracchan laws. The favour of Marius gave so much boldness to the man, being ever an enemy to the nobility, and presuming the more because Marius was Consul, that openly killing Aulus Nonius, in the general assembly, his competitor in the Tribuneship, he attempted to bring in Caius Gracchus in his stead, a fellow of no tribe, nor name, but foisting in a pedigree, adopted himself into the family. Thus keeping such tragical revels in the state without being once called to account for them, he bent his wits so earnestly to establish the Gracchan laws, as he forced the Senate to swear to what he would, threatening the refusers to forbid them fire, and water. There was one nevertheless found, who did rather choose to be banished. Therefore when Metellus was once fled, all the lords quailing, and Appuleius tyrannising, now the third time Tribune, grew so outrageous, as he troubled even the very general assemblies made for election of Consuls with new slaughter. For, that Glaucias, the upholder and minister of his madness, might be made Consul, he commanded his competitor Caius Memmius to be slain: & when in that embroilement those of his guard called him KING, he heard them gladly; but then, by the joint opposition of the Senate, Marius the Consul himself now also making one, because he was not able to bear him out, the battles joined in the Forum. From whence Appuleius being beaten, he seized upon the Capitol. But there they besieged him by cutting off the condit-pipes. Whereupon his lieutenants assuring the Senate he was sorry for what was passed, he came down out of the castle, & was received, together with the leaders of his faction, into the Curia. Into which the people breaking forcibly, overwhelmed him with clubs, and stones, and tore him also to pieces as he was in dying.   

CHAP. XVII.  
The Drusin sedition.  
LAST of these boutefeus was Livius Drusus, 
A. V. C. DCLXII.  who bearing himself strong not only upon the force of his Tribuneship, but upon the authority of the Senate also, and having the consent of all Italy, attempted to induce the same laws; and while he serves turns of one thing after another, he kindled such a fire, that the very first flash thereof could not be endured: and himself taken off by sudden death, left a long hereditary quarrel upon his posterity. Caius Gracchus by enacting that law, Which took the office of judges from the Senate, and conferred it upon the knights, and gentlemen, had divided the people of Rome, and made it a double-headed city, which was but single before. And the Gentry, bold upon their so mighty power, as having thereby the fates, and estates of the Senators, and the lives of princes in their hand, forestalled the public revenues, and excises, and robbed the commonweal in their own right. The Senate, weakened by the banishment of Metellus, and the condemnation of Rutilius had lost all the grace of majesty. In this condition of things, Servilius Caepio standing for the Gentry, and Livius Drusus for the Senate, two men of equal riches, courage, and calling (which bred that emulation against Drusus) ensigns, standards, and banners were upon the point to advance. Thus differed they together in one city, as if it had been in two camps. Caepio gave the first onset to the Senate, and culled out Scaurus, and Philip, the chiefs of the nobility, as persons guilty of practising for places. Drusus, to resist these commotions, wan the people to him by the Gracchan laws, and drew the associates of Rome to the people, by giving hope that they should all be made free of the city. This speech of his is yet remembered, that he had left nothing in the state to be given to any one, unless that party had a mind to make a partition of mud, and clouds. The day of promulgation of the law was come, and so great was the concourse from all quarters about, that the city seemed as if besieged with the approach of enemies. Philip, Consul, durst notwithstanding speak against the laws. But the usher of the Court taking him by the throat, did not let him go till the blood started into his face, and eyes. So the laws were enacted perforce, and commanded to pass for current. Our fellows, or associates called out of hand for the reward of their partaking. Which Drusus unable to perform, and sick of the troubles into which he had rashly entered, died in season, considering the danger. But our fellows in arms forbore not nevertheless to seek the accomplishment of Drusus his promises, by hostility.   

CHAP. XVIII.  
The Social war.  
THe war against our fellows & associates, 
A. V. C. DCLXIII  howsoever it be termed but the Social war, that so we might extenuate the envy; yet, if we will have the truth, it was a civil war. Because the people of Rome having mixed the Etruscans, Latins, and Sabins, and deriving one blood out of all, made an entire body out of parts, and of them all together is but one. Nor was the rebellion of our associates within Italy, less heinous than that of the Romans within the city. When therefore our fellows, and allies most justly demanded equal privilege with the Romans, whose greatness they had increased with their supports, and to the hope whereof Drusus had razed them upon a desire to predominate; and when also he was oppressed by the wickedness of those at home; the same firebrand of mischief which consumed him, inflamed our companions and allies, to take arms, and force the city: what thing could be sadder than this vast mischief? what more calamitous? when all Latium, & 〈…〉 Etruria, and Campania, finally Italy, rose jointly in arms against the mother, and foster city? when every army of our most valiant, and most loyal fellows had under each ensign those municipal bad members, and monsters of men? Popedius led the Marses, and Latins, Afranius the Vmbrians, the whole Senate, and Consuls, Samnium, Telesinus led Lucania, when the people, which was the disposer of kings, and nations, could not govern itself, so that Rome conqueress of Asia, and Europe might be assailed from Corfinium. The beginning of the war was plotted to be in mount Alban, where, on the festivali day of the Latins, Sextus julius Caesar, and Marcius Philippus, Consuls, should have been sacrificed between the rites, 
sacra.  and the altars: but that treason being frustrated by discoury, the whole conspiracy broke out in Asculum, our ambassadors who were then present in that city, being killed in the assembly itself, at the public plays. This was the solemn sign of the wicked war, and from thence the alarm was everywhere taken by all the parts of Italy, Popedius posting up and down, as the captain, and author of it. Neither Pyrrhus, nor Aniball committed so great a spoil. Behold, Ocriculam, behold Grumentum, behold Faesulae, Carscoli, Nuceria, and Picentes are wasted with slaughter, sword, and fire. The army of Rutilius is discomfired, discomfited also is that of Caepio's: for Lucius julius Caesar himself, when the army, which he led, was overthrown, & his dead body brought all bloody into Rome, made such a solitariness with the piteous spectacle, that one might have even past through the middle of the city quietly. But the great good fortune of the people of Rome, always better when at worst, puts at last their universal forces to the work, singling out several captains against several people; Cato scatters the Etruscans, Gabinius the Marses, Carbo the Lucan's, Sylla the Samnites. But Strabo Pompeius having made havoc of all with fire, and sword, never gave over destroying, till he had sacrificed the subversion of Asculum to the ghosts of so many Consulary armies, and to the Gods of so many ransacked cities.   

CHAP. XIX.  
The bondmen's war.  
THough we fought with our associates (an heinous matter) yet were they freemen howsoever, and at leastwise generous persons. Who can patiently brook, that the sovereign people of the earth should arm against their slaves? The first troubles of that base nature were attempted in the younger days of Rome, & within the city itself, by Herdonius Sabinus, captain, when the state busied with the quarrels stirred by the Tribunes, the Capitol was besieged, and taken by the Consul. But this was rather an uproar than a war. But now, the empire being mightily enlarged with divers countries, who would believe that the Island of Sicily should be more cruelly wasted in the war against slaves, then in the Carthaginian? An excellent corn country, and as it were a purlieu of Rome, where the Latin people had their farms, and granges; for furniture of tillage there were very many bridewells, & husbandmen kept in chains, which ministered matter for war. A certain Syrian called Eunus (the great mischiefs he did, makes us remember his name) feigning himself inspired with a divine fury, while he vaunts the ceremonies of his Syrian goddess, called bondmen to arms, and liberty, as it were by authority from heaven: and to get credit in that point, he juggled a nut into his mouth, filled with brimstone, and fire, and blowing it softly, spat fire as he spoke. This cozening wonder drew at the very first two thousand of such as came in his way, and eftsoons breaking up the worke-iails, or bride-wells, by right of war, he made up an host of above forty thousand: & that nothing might be wanting to the evil, he pranked himself up like a king in royal ornaments, and made miserable spoil of castles, towns, and villages: for a last disgrace, the camps of our Praetors were taken by him; nor shames it to tell their names; the camps of Manlius, Lentulus, Piso, Hysaeus. They therefore who ought to have been fetched back by officers as fugitives, pursued our Pratorian Generals, whom they had made to run away in set battle. In the end yet we had the punishing of them, Publius' Rupilius, our captain General: for after he had vanquished them in the field, and last of all besieged them in Enna, where hunger, like a plague of pestilence, consumed them, he bound the remains of those strong thieves, in chains, and fetters, & trussed them on gallows: and for this service contented himself with anovation, lest he should dishonour the dignity of triumph, with carrying in the inscription, the title of villains. The Island had scarce taken breath, when by and by we came from the bondmen, and the Syrian to the Cilician. Athenio, a shepherd swain, murders his master, and freeing his fellows out of the work-iayle, puts them under banners into battel-ray: himself in a rob of purple, with a staff of silver, and about his head a royal wreath, pieceth together no less an army than the former mad man, but rageth far more eagerly against masters, and bondmen, as if against fugitives, and as if he would revenge the Sicilian bondslaves cause, sacking castles, towns, and villages. This varlet also had the kill of Praetorian armies, the camp of Servilius taken by him, and that of Lucullus in like sort. But Aquilius, using the example of Publius Rupilius, utterly distressed the enemy by starving, & they who were otherwise hard to overcome by force, he easily destroyed by famine: it was their desire to have yielded, but through the fear of the pains of punishment, they preferred voluntary death: nay, we could not take vengeance upon the ringleader himself, though he came alive into our hands: for very many striving together whose prisoner he should be, the prey was torn in pieces while they wrangled about that interest.   

CHAP. XX.  
The war with Spartacus.  
But be it that we brook the dishonour of the bondmen's war; 
A. V. C. DCLXXX  for they are liable to good, or evil at fortune's pleasure, & though they are but as it were a second kind of men, yet by enfranchisement they are nevertheless adopted sometime into the sweets of our freedom; the war which Spartacus raised, I am ignorant how to call it: for where villains were the soldiers, and sword players the captains, those the basest of men, these augmented the worst of evils with the scorn of so vile indignity. Spartacus, Crixus, and Oenoma breaking up Lentulus his school of fence, with three score and ten such companions as themselves, or more, burst out of Capua, and calling bondmen to their banners, and assistance, when above ten thousand sturdy bodies were assembled, they were not then contented only to escape, but they would also be revenged. The first, as it were alter, which pleased them, was mount Veswius. There being besieged by Clodius Glaber, they slipped down the rifts of the hollow mountain by ropes of twigs, and descended to the lowest roots thereof, and suddenly forcing an entry at an issue of the camp, where no such danger was dreamt of, did surprise it: after that, other camps also. Then rove, and wander they over Vhora, and all Campania▪ nor satisfied with wasting villages, and hamlers, they make a terrible destruction in Nola, Nuceria, Thurij, and Metapont. Their numbers daily so increasing; as that now they were a full army, they make bucklers of woven osiers, covered with hides of beasts, and forge out the iron of their worke-iayles into swords, and tools of war. And that no grace of a full host of men might be wanting, they back the horse which they found at adventures, to raise a cavalry, and brought to their captain the ensigns, and fasces which were taken from our Praetors. Nor refused he to use them, though of an hireling Thracian becoming a soldier, of a soldier a fugitive, than a strong thief, and last of all, upon trust of his abilities of body, a swordplayer: who celebrated the death of his own captains slain in battle, with princely exequys, commanding such as he took prisoners, to fight at sharp about the funeral fire, as if it would clear all passed disgrace, if of a swordplayer, he became a giver of sword-games. After this, setting also upon Consuls, he cut in pieces the army of Lentulus in the Apennine, raised the camp of Caius Cassius at Mutina. Puffed up with these successes, he deliberated (which is enough to shame us) of invading Rome itself. So, in the end, we were glad to put all our strengths against a challenger at sharp, 
mirmillo.  & Licinius Crassus was the man who recovered our honour: for the enemies (it is a shame to give them that style) beaten, and chased by him, fled into the farthermost nooks of Italy: there they being shut up into a corner of Brutium, prepared to escape into Sicily, but wanted shipping, and having tried to supply that defect with boats of hurdles, and barrels bound together with twigs, but all in vain, by reason the current was too swift, at last making a sally, they died like men, and (which was as it should be where the captain was a swordplayer) they fought without leave. 
sine missisne.  Spartacus himself behaving himself most valiantly in the front, or head of the battle, was slain as Prince and General.   

CHAP. XXI.  
The civil war of Marius.  
THis only thing was wanting to make up the evils of the people of Rome to the full, 
A. V. C. DCLXU.  that there should be a paricidiall war among themselves at home, and that citizens should encounter citizens, as if they were fencers, or sword-players, in the heart, and Forum of the city, as in a fight ground, or theatral Sand. Howsoever, it would grieve me the less, had the leaders of that wickedness been base companions, or if noblemen borne, yet debauched in their manners. But O the sin! what men! what chiefs! when they were the ornaments, and glories of their age, Marius and Silvius, who upheld that worst of heinous evils with their utmost countenance. Things, so to say, were planet-strucken with three bad influences; the first slight, and little, and more properly a broil, than a war, the cruelty, such as it was, staying among the captains of the quarrel themselves; but the next was more grim, and bloody, such as had the upper hand embrewing their weapons in the bowels of all the Senate; the third outwent, in the rage thereof, not civil only, but hostile fury, when the madness of revenge had all the strengths of Italy to bolster it, their hatred one of the other raging so long, as till none were left to kill. The beginning, and cause of the war, was the insatiable thirst of honour in Marius, while he laboured by the law of Sulpitius to take from Silvius his decreed employment: but Silvius, impatient of the injury, forthwith turned about with the legions which were under his command, and deferring the war of Mithridates, marched into the city at port Esquiline, and Colline gate in two great battalions: from whence, when Sulpitius, and Albinovanus had suddenly repulsed them, and logs, & stones, and tools were hurled upon all sides from off the walls, Silvius also falls to throwing, openeth his passage with fire, and possesseth as a conqueror the captive Capitol, that fort which had escaped the Paenish-men, yea and the Galli Senones also. Then by an act of the Senate, Sulla's adversaries proclaimed enemies of the State, they had law on their side to rage against the present Tribune, and most of the contrary faction. Marius by servile flight saved himself, or rather, fortune kept him in store for another war. Cornelius Cinna, Cnaeus Octavius Consuls, the fire which was not well put out rose afresh, and that certainly by reason of the disagreement, when it was referred to the people, whether such as the Senate had proclaimed enemies should be recalled. They came to this general assembly with their swords about them: but they prevailing who wished quietness, Cinna, leaving the city, posted to his party. Marius' returns from Africa, the greater for calamity, because prison, chains, flight, and banishment had endear his dignity. At the name therefore of so great a man, there is flocking to him from far, and near, bondmen (O the heinousness!) & sturdy rogues were armed: and the distressed General easily found an army: so that, as demanding restitution to his country, out of which he was expelled by force, he might well seem to have good reason for his doing, had he not otherwise wrought his cause by cruelty: but returning discontented with Gods and men, the haven-towne Ostia a pupil, and foster-child of Rome, was at the first assault taken, and with horrible destruction pillaged. From thence he enters the city in four battles, Cinna, Marius, Carbo, and Sertorius leading them, where, after that the whole band of Octavius was beaten from mount janiculum, presently, upon a sign given, they fell to killing the princes, and chief lords, much more savagely than is used either in a Paenish, or a Cimbrian city. The head of Octavius, Consul, was pitched upon a pole before the Rostra, and the head of Antonius, a consulary man, was set on the board before Marius himself: Caesar, and Fimbria were murdered in that place of their houses where their household Gods stood, and Crassus the father, and son, each insight of other. Bebius, and Numitor were drawn with the hangman's hooks through the middle of the Forum. Catulus freed himself from being made the scorn of his enemies by smothering. Merula, jupiters' priest, bespurtled the eyes of jove himself, with the blood which sprung out of his veins in the Capitol. Ancharius was run through, Marius himself looking on, because when Marius saluted him, he reached not out forsooth that fatal hand of his. These Senators he massacred between the Calends, and Ides of january, in that seventh Consulship of his. What would have become of things, if after that proportion of killing he had been Consul but a year? Scipio, and Norbanus Consuls, that third worst whirlwind of civil fury thundered forth with all the violence it had; at which time seven legions of the one side, on another five hundred cohorts stood in arms, and Silvius hastened out of Asia with a victorious army. And certainly, Marius having showed himself so merciless towards Sulla's friends, how great cruelty was there need of, for Silvius to be even with Marius? Their first encounter was at Capua by the river Vulturnus, and there the army of Norbanus was quickly overthrown, and all Scipio's forces, upon colourable overture of peace, speedily oppressed. Then Marius the younger, and Carbo, Consuls, as if the hope they had to get the victory were quite dead, yet not to perish unrevenged, they parentated to themselves with the blood of the Senate. And besetting the Senate-house, such of the Senate, whose throats they meant to cut, were drawn out from thence, as out of a sheep-penne, or prison. What slaughters were there in the Forum, in the Circus, and open Temples? For MUTIUS SCAEVOLA, the priest, embracing the altar of Vesta in his arms, is only not buried in her fire. Lamponius, and Telesinus, ringleaders of the Samnites, waste Campania, and Etruria more dreadfully than Pyrrhus and Annibal did, and under the colour of siding, revenge themselves. The whole forces of the enemies were quite distressed at Sacriport, and port Collen, or Hill-gate. There Marius, and here Telesinus were destroyed. But war, and slaughter ended not together. For the sword was unsheathed even in peace, and they who freely yielded themselves, were also deprived of their lives. It is not less heinous, that Silvius, at Sacriport and Hill-gate, did cut in pieces above threescore and ten thousand. But than it was war. He commanded above four thousand unarmed citizens, who had yielded themselves, to be put to the sword in the public village. These though so many slain in cold blood, yet are no more than four thousand. But who can number them who were killed everywhere throughout the city by any one who lifted? till Furfidius admonished, that some aught to be left alive, that there might be over whom to command. Hereupon was that huge table hung out, in which two thousand by name, culled forth of the very flower of the Senate, knights, and gentlemen, were proclaimed to die. A new kind of edict. It were tedious, after all these things, to historify the kill in cruel sport of Carbo, of Soranus, the Praetor, and of Venuleius, and how Baebius was not slain with the sword, but torn in pieces with hands, as with the paws of savage beasts. How Marius, brother of the General Marius, was thrust with his eyes, hands, and thighs into the earth, before the tomb of Catulus, and in that state kept so alive, as he might sensibly feel himself die in every part. To let pass almost all the several forms of death used upon several persons: the stateliest free-townes of Italy were sold as at an outrop, who would give most, Spoletum, Interamnium, Praeneste, Fluentia. For as for Sulmo, that ancient confederate, and friend-citie, not yet conquered, Silvius (O unworthy fact!) commanded it to be utterly razed, condemning it no otherwise then as hostages condemned by the law of arms, and accordingly sentenced to death, are commanded forth to execution.   

CHAP. XXII.  
The war with Sertorius.  
WHat other thing else was the Sertorian war, 
A. V. C. DCLX XIV.  than the inheritance of Sulla's proscription? Whether I should style it an hostile, or a civil war, I know not, as that which the Lusitanians, and Celtiberians acted, having a Roman to their General. He was a man of an excellent rare, but of a disastrous valour, outlawed for his life, and flying that most deadly proclamation, he tossed both sea, and land with mixture of his miseries: and trying his fortune now in Africa, then in the Balearies, and sent from thence into the Ocean, passed thorough to the Fortunateilands, and lastly armed Spain, where, as a man with men, he easily made head, nor did the courageous bravery of Spanish soldiers appear in any place more plainly, then when a Roman led them, though not contented with Spain alone, he minded Mithridates also, and the pontics, aiding him with a navy. What had been able to resist so potent an enemy? The world could not withstand by only one captains means. Cnaeus Pompeius was joined to Metellus. They wasted the puissance of Sertorius in battle, though it was long first, and never but with doubtful fight, nor at last by fair war; for he was dispatched through the villainy, and treason of his familiar friends: and our captains having traced his armies almost over all Spain, did never encounter his, but the battle was always long, and hazardous. The first proof we made of his abilities was by lieutenant's general, when Domitius, and Thorius upon the one side, and the Herculeij upon the other made some light skirmishes: but these being eftsoons slain at Segovia, and those at the river Anas, the Generals themselves coming to try it out in person at Lauro, and Sucron, parted each with equal mischief done to either. They turning then their power to waste the country, and these to the subversion of cities, wretched Spain smarted for the quarrels of the Roman captains one against the other, till such time as Sertorius murdered by practice of his household friends, and conquered Perperna, submitting himself, the city's Osea, Term, Tutia, Valentia, Auximia, and, which had endured the worst of hunger, Calaguris, swore feaulty to the Romans. So Spain received into peace, the victorious Generals had rather it should seem a foreign war then a civil, because they would triumph.   

CHAP. XXIII.  
The civil war under Lepidus.  
MArcus Lepidus, 
A. V. C. DCLXXV.  Quintus Catulus, Consuls, the civil war was almost sooner determined then taken in hand. But how much, and how far soever in compass the firebrand of that commotion blazed, it rose all out of Sylla's ashes: for Lepidus, in his insolency, desirous to innovate, prepared to annul the acts of that mighty man, nor without good cause, if at least wise it could have been done without great calamity to the commonweal. For when Silvius, the Dictator, had by the advantage of the upper hand, proscribed his enemies; such of them as overlived, being recalled from banishment by Lepidus, to what else were they called but to war? and when the goods of attainted citizens were adjudged, and given away by Silvius unto others, though they were but badly taken, yet being they were taken by law, the replevin of them did doubtlessly endanger the green raw peace of the State. For which respect it was expedient that the commonweal sore sick, and hurt, should rest itself howsoever, lest the wounds thereof should break out, and bleed afresh in the curing. When therefore he had frighted the city with his turbulent orations, as with an alarm, he went into Etruria, and from thence presented an army against Rome. But, before this time, Lentulus, Catulus, and Cnaeus Pompeius, the captains, and as it were ensign-bearers of Sulla's tyranny, had planted an army at Miluius bridge, & mount janiculus: and by them repulsed at the very first brunt, and proclaimed traitor by the Senate, he fled back without bloodshed into Etruria; from thence retired to Sardinia; and there in sickness, and repentance ended his days. The victors, a thing rarely seen in civil wars, moderated their affections, and contented themselves to hold all quiet.  
Deo gratias.    

THE HISTORY OF THE ROMANS. The fourth Book.  

CHAP. I.  
CATILINE'S war.  
CATILINE, 
A. V. C. DCXC.  moved to it, first with riot, and then with want, the effect of that excess, together with the opportunity, our armies being then in warfare at the utmost bounds of the earth, was thrust into a treason for inthralment of his native country, for assassinate of the Senators, for murder of the Consuls, for firing the city in many places at once, for robbing the Exchequer, and in a word, for utter extirpation of all commonweal, and for doing that, whatsoever else, which even Hannibal himself would not have seemed to have wished. All which purposes, with what complices (O the sin!) were they by him attempted? himself a Patrician, a Senator of the highest rank; but that is not so much: there were in of the Curij, Porcijs, Sullae, Cethegi, Autronij, Vargunteij, and Longini: and what potentates were they by birth? what ornaments of the Senate? Lentulus likewise, chiefly at that time Praetor, had all of these for a black guard to his most black designs. Man's blood was added as a pledge of the conspiracy, which carried about in cups and goblets, they drank: a most horrible thing, had not the end, for which they drank it, been more horrible. The goodliest empire under heaven had seen the last days of itself, had not that plot happened in the Consulship of Cicero, and Antonius, one of which discovered the same by his diligence, the other confounded it by force. The intelligence of this so vast a treason was given by Fulvia, a base cheap trull, but not so wicked as to be guilty of parricide. Then Cicero the Consul, calling a Senate, made an oration against the heinous traitor to his face, against the guilty person there in presence, but wrought no greater effect then only to make the foe shift for himself, and openly professing to be such, threatened to put out the fire with pulling down all. So he departs to the army which Manlius had prepared in Etruria, with purpose to assail the city. Lentulus, divining that himself was the man of his family, to whom sovereignty was destinated in Sibylls verses, had in fit places, against the set day, dispersed men, fireworks, and weapons over the whole city: nor contented with complices at home only, the ambassadors of the Allobroges, at that time, as it happened, in town, were dealt with, to stir their nation to arms: and the frenzy had gadded over the Alps, if upon another discovery made by Vulturius, the letters of the Praetor had not been attached in the going. Hands were hereupon forthwith laid, at Cicero's commandment, upon the Allobroges: and the practice was openly proved against Lentulus in the Senate. It being put to the question what should be done with the malefactors, Caesar was of opinion, their lives should be spared, because they were persons of great honour: Cato censured them to death for their treason: which opinion was seconded by all, and they were strangled accordingly in prison. Though thus a part of the conspiracy was choked, yet Catiline desisted not from his enterprise, but with ensigns spread marcheth out of Etruria, against his native country, and encountered on the way by the army of Antonius, is beaten down, and slain. How grimly they fought, the event showeth: not a man of the enemies was left, and look what place each one fought in, upon the same he lost his life, and covered it with his body. Catiline was found stark dead far off from his own company among the carcases of his enemies: a most brave end, had he made it for his country.   

CHAP. II.  
The war of CAESAR, and POMPEY.  
THe whole world almost being now in peace, the Roman empire was greater than that it could be extinguished by any foreign violence. Fortune therefore beating envy to that people, which was sovereign of all other, armed their own selves to their own destruction. The madness of Marius, and Ginna confined itself within the city, as if she tried how it would do; the tempest of Silvius spread wider, yet did it not thunder out of Italy; but the fury of Caesar, and Pompey did hurry, & suck into it both the city, Italy, races, nations, & in a word the universal empire, with a kind as it were of deluge, and gulf of fire, so far forth, that it cannot rightly be only called a civil, neither yet a social, no nor a foreign, but rather a certain, common of all together, and more than a war. For if we look upon the captains, the whole Senate was in sides; if the armies, on the one part eleven legions, on the other, eighteen, the flower, & strength together, of all the Italian blood; if the aids of the confederates, on this side, the choice of the Galls, & Germans, on that, Deiotarus, Ariobarzanes, Tarcondimotus, Cothus, the whole powers of Thrace, Cappadocia, Cilicia, Maccdonia, Greece, Italy, and all the Orient; if the space of the war, four years, and that, considering the destructions it wrought, but a short time; if the place, and flag, upon which it was acted, Italy, from whence it turned itself into Gall, and Spain, and fetching a compass from the west, it sat down with the whole burden thereof upon Epirus, and Thessaly; thence it crosseth suddenly into Egypt; than it glanced into Asia, and lay heavy upon afric; last of all, it reeled back into Spain, and there at length it went out, and died. But the war, and hatred of the factions ended not together. For that rested not, till the rancour of the conquered parties had in the heart of the city, & middle of the Senate, satisfied itself with the blood of their conqueror. The cause of so monstrous mischiefs was the same, which it useth to be of all, too too much prosperity. For Q. Metellus, and Lucius Afranius, Consuls, when the majesty of Rome prevailed through the world, and the people chanted the fresh victories of Pompey, the Pontic, and Armenian triumphs, in Pompey's theatres, his overgreat power (as it often falleth out) moved envy among the leysurable citizens, Metellus for abatement of his triumph over Crete, Cato, who always ran bias to the mighty, detracted Pompey, & found fault with his actions. The grief hereof drove him awry, and compelled him to provide strengths for upholding his dignity. It happened Crassus at that time flourished in honour of blood, riches, and authority, and yet still coveted more. The name of Caius Caesar was up, for eloquence, and spirit, and had the honour of a Consulship. But Pompey overtopped them both. Caesar therefore struggling to get dignity, Crassus to increase it, Pompey to keep what he had, and all of them alike greedy of great power, easily made a match to set upon the commonweal. Therefore, while each of them useth the others strengths for his own glory, Caesar invaded Gall, Crassus▪ Asia, Pompey Spain, three most puissant armies. And thus the whole world was now become to be held by three princes in partnership. This domination wore out ten years time. From that time forward, because till then they were balanced among themselves through a mutual fear, upon the slaughter of Crassus by the Parthians, and the death of julia, Caesar's daughter, who marrying to Pompey, maintained concord between the son, and father in law, by the league of nuptial love, emulation broke forth presently. Pompey now was jealous of Caesar's greatness, and Caesar badly endured Pompey's supereminency. The one brooked no equal, the other no superior. But O the sin! they strove in such sort for principality, as if so great a fortune of empire had not been enough for two. Therefore Lentulus, and Marcellus being Consuls, and the affiance of the first pact among them once broken, the Senate consulted to disemploy Caesar, and Pompey laboured the same; nor was Caesar himself against it, if in the first comitial assembly, or choise-moot, there had been respect had of him, for the Consulship; which honour ten Tribunes had with Pompey's good liking decreed him in his absence, and was afterwards, upon Pompey's dissembling, denied it. He should have come, & sued for it after the 
* more maiorum.  old wont. On the other side, he earnestly demanded execution of the decree, & would not cashier his army, unless they at home were as good as their word to him. For this cause he was proclaimed enemy. Caesar, thoroughly nettled at the news, resolved to maintain with the sword, the rewards of his sword. The first field, & 
* arena.  Sand-plot of civil war was Italy; whose castles Pompey had furnished with slight-garrisons. But all of them were as it were overwhelmed with Caesar's sudden coming-on. The first alarm was sounded at Ariminun. Then was Libo more than all Etruria, Thermus then Vmbria, Domitius then Corfinium. And the war had been made an end of without blood, if, as he attempted it, he could have oppressed Pompey at Brundisium. But he escaped by night through the closures of the besieged haven. A shameful matter to be spoken: the late precedent of the Senate, umpire of peace, & war, fled in a torn, & almost naked vessel, over that sea, which himself had triumphed. Nor is Pompey sooner driven out of Italy, than the Senate out of the city, into which almost empty of people through fear, Caesar entering made himself Consul. The sacred inmost treasury, because the Tribunes opened it somewhat too slowly, he commanded to be broken up: & violently seized the revenue, and patrimony of the people of Rome, sooner than he did the sovereignty. Pompey driven away, & fled, he had a more mind to take order for securing the provinces, then to pursue him. He kept Sicilia, & Sardinia, the public pledges of corn, by deputies, or lieutenant's general: there was not an enemy in Gall, himself had made it all peace there. But passing in person against the Pompey's in Spain, Massilia was so bold as to shut her gates. Poor Massilia, while it would fain have peace, fell into a war, through fear of war. But because it had strong walls, he commanded it should be taken for him in his absence. A Greekish city, but which more hardly then for the name it had lopped bavins for rampire, durst burn the engines bend against it, and encounter us at sea. But Brutus, who had the charge of the war, tamed them quite both at land, & sea: whereupon yielding themselves, they were stripped out of all they had, excepting that (which they prized above all) their common liberty. Caesar's war in Spain with Petreius, & Afranius, lieutenant's general to Cnaeus Pompeius, was doubtful, various, and bloody, attempting to besiege their camp at Ilerda by the river Sicoris, and to thrust between them, and the town. In the meanwhile by stopping the stream, whichin the spring-time used to swell, 
verni fluminis obundatione.  they deprived him of victuals. So his camp was assaulted with famine, and the besieger himself remained as it were besieged. But so soon as the water was down, 
sed ubi pax fluminis redit.  he scours the coasts with fire, and sword, and fiercely re-enforceth his pursuit, & overtaking them upon their retreat into Celtiberia, he drew a trench about, and so compelled them to yield for thirst. Thus was the hither Spain taken in, and the farther Spain delayed not. For what could one legion do, when five could do nothing? Varro therefore of his own accord giving way, the Gades, the straits, the Ocean, and all, followed the luckinesse of Caesar. But fortune durst do somewhat against that captain in his absence, on this side Illyricum, and in Africa, as if his fair successes were of purpose to be styrped, and inter-woven with cross accidents: for when Dolabella, and Antonius being commanded by Caesar to guard the jaws of the Adriatic gulf, and the one had pitched his camp upon the Illyrian shore, the other on the Corcyrean, Pompey being master then at sea, Octavius his lieutenant general, and Libo, with huge numbers of mariners, closed them in upon all hands, and Antonius, despite of his most resistance, was enforced to yield through famine: and those long boats sent to his aid by Basillus, such as for lack of ships they were fain to shift with, were taken as it were in an hunting toil, by a new stratagem of the Cilicians on Pompey's side, the fastening of ropes under water: but the tide coming in, freed two of the vessels: one of them which carried the Opitergins was entangled in the cords, & produced an effect worthy to be commended with honour to posterity: for a band of scarce one thousand young fellows held play from morning till night, against the force of an whole army, environing them on all sides: and when by manhood they could find no way forth, at the encouragement of Vulteius, their Colonel, they slew one the other. In Africa also, such like was the valour, and adversity of Curio, who sent by Caesar with commission to receive that province, & proud for having repulsed, and put Varus to flight, was unable to stand the sudden coming-on of king juba, and the cavalry of the Mauritanians. He might have fled, but shame persuaded him to die together with that army which his temerity had cast away. But fortune now importunately demanding to make scores even, Pompey had chosen Epirus for the seat of war: nor was Caesar slow: for having made all safe at his back, though it were the depth of winter, and so the season unfit, yet he embarked for battle; and encamping at Oricum; when that part of his forces which was left behind with Antonius, for want of shipping stayed with the longest at Brundisium; he was so impatient, that for fetching them, he attempted at midnight, and in a frigate to venture over, though the sea was terrible rough. His words to the master, afraid at so great a danger, are not forgotten. What fearest thou? thou carriest Caesar. When all the forces which either side could make, were drawn together, & their camps confronted each the other the generals governed themselves by different courses. Caesar naturally fierce, & longing to dispatch, offers battle, eggeth, and provoketh to it: one while by besieging the camp, about which his works ran sixteen miles (but what could besieging hurt them, who having the sea open, abounded thereby with all provisions?) another while with assaulting Dyrrhachium in vain (for the situation of it made it inexpugnable) and besides all this, with daily skirmishes, as the enemy sallied forth (at which time captain Sceua's manhood was admired, in whose target one hundred, & twenty shot were found sticking) now with sackage of Pompey's confederate cities, as when he wasted Oricum, and Gomphi, and other fortresses of Thessali, Pompey, on the contrary, contrives delays, and ways of putting of, that, by closing the enemy on all parts, he might break his heart with lack of victuals, and the violent humour of his most fiery adversary might cool, & falter. This wholesome counsel did not long avail the author▪ the soldier, he blames lying idle, confederates cry out upon delay, and the great lords tax him with ambition. So the destinies thrusting things headlong on, in Thessaly, and the champain fields of Philippi, chosen for the place of fight, the fortunes of Rome, the world, and all mankind were set upon a cast. The people of Rome never saw in one place together so great forces, nor fortune so many mighty persons at a time. There were above three hundred thousand in both the armies, besides the aids of kings, and Senators. Signs of an imminent downfall were never more apparent; run away of beasts ordained for sacrifice, swarms of bees, notable overcasting of the sky in day time. Pompey himself dreamt overnight, that he heard a noise in his own theatre at Rome, sounding about him in the nature of a mourning, and in the break of day he was seen (fie unlucky!) before his main battle in a black upper garment Caesar's army was never more fresh, 
pullo amiculo.  & fuller of spirit. The sound of the charge came first from Pompey's side, but the shot from the other. The javelin of Crastinus, who began the fight, was noted: and being run into the gaping mouth with a sword, and found dead with it so, among the carcases, did by the novelty itself of the wound, well declare, with what choler, and madness he fought: neither was the issue of the battle less admirable: for whereas Pompey had such multitudes of horse, as he thought to cirumvent Caesar easily, himself was circumvented: for after they had fought a long time upon even terms, and, at a sign given them by Pompey, his troops of horse fell on in flank, the German cohorts made so boisterous an impression upon the riders, that they seemed footmen, & these to have come on horseback: the overthrow of the light-armd soldiers ensued upon the slaughter of the flying horstroupes: then the terror striking farther, one company putting another into rout, the rest of the destruction was made as it were at a stroke. Nothing was more the bane of that day, than the hugeness itself of the army. Caesar was much in that battle, and half between soldier and sovereign: speeches of his were overheard as he rid up, and down; the one bloody, but according to the Art of the sword, and powerful for gaining the day, Soldiers, foin at the face; the other tending to vain glory, Soldiers, spare our countrymen; when his own self notwithstanding chased them. Happy Pompey, for all this misery, had he shared in the fortune of his slaughtered army: but he overlived his own glory, that with the more dishonour he might post for his life through Thessalian Tempe; be beaten from Larissa; and upon a forlorn rock of Cilicia, study, whether he should fly into Parthia, Africa, or Egypt; briefly, that upon the Pelusian shore, by the command of a most unworthy king, by the counsel of gelded-men, and (to take all the misfortunes together) that murdered by the sword of Septimius, his fugitive, under the eyes of his wife, & children, he should conclude his days. Who would think that the war should not be determined with Pompey's life? But the embers of the Thessalian fire waxed much more hot, and forcible then ever: and in Egypt there was war without any partake of ours: for when Ptolomea, king of Alexandria, had committed the most heinous act of all those other which were committed during the civil war, and had, by means of Pompey's head, settled his own terms with Caesar, fortune casting about for a revenge, thereby to appease the ghost of so great a potentate, wanted not occasion. Cleopatra, that king's sister, throwing herself at Caesar's feet, besought restitution to her part of the realm. To plead for her, came the lady's beauty, which was doubled by this, that so rare a creature seemed to have wrong, & the hatred born to the king himself, who, in killing Pompey, gratified the fortune of the contrary faction, not Caesar, against whom he would also, without all question, have dared as much, if it would have served his turn. When Caesar's pleasure therefore was, that she should be restored to her kingdom, by as it were a Gavelkind, he being forthwith be-set in the palace royal, by the same instruments who murdered Pompey, with wondrous valour, & a slender company, did bear the brunt of a mighty army. For, by firing the next tenements, & the Arsenal, he dislodged the enemy, who plied him from thence with shot. From thence he suddenly escaped to the penile of Pharus. Beaten out of that, & glad to plunge into the sea, he got, with admirable good fortune, to the next ships, by swimming, fain to leave his rob in the waves, whether by chance, or of purpose, that the adversary might pelt, & mawl it with stones, and shot, in stead of him. Received at last among his own mariners, & assailing the enemy in all quarters at once, he paid the ghost of his son in law the vengeance due to it, upon that cowardly, and traitorous nation. For not only the king's tutor, Theodorus, (author of the whole war) but not so much also as those masks of men, the Eunuches, Photinus, & Ganymedes, flying by sea, and land, came to evil ends. The young king's body was found as it lay wallowed under mud, and known by the honour of a golden cuirass, or breast plate upon it. New stirs were likewise in Asia, begun in Pontus, fortune watching as it were of set purpose, to make this the end of Mithridates' kingdom, that the father should be conquered by Pompey, and the son by Caesar. King Pharnaces, rather upon trust of our discord, than his own valour, fell upon Cappadocia with an offensive army. But Caesar setting upon him, in only one, and that too (so to say) not an whole battle, ground him as it were to dust, after the manner of lightning, which at one, and the same moment of time, came, hit, and went away: neither was it a vain brag which Caesar made of himself, that the enemy was overthrown there, before ever he set eye upon him. Thus went matters in foreign parts. But in afric, the fight of Romans with Romans was more deadly, than it had been in Pharsalia. Hither the remains of the shipwrecked faction were driven by a certain pang, or fit of fury: nor would you call them remains, but a whole, and entire war. Pompey's forces were rather scattered then consumed. His tragedy made them more solemn, and zealous to fight. Nor did the succeeding Generals degenerate. For Cato, and Scipio founded full enough in the place of Pompey's name. juba, king of Mauritania, made one in the quarrel, forsooth that Caesar might have the more to conquer. There was therefore no difference, nor odds between Pharsalia, and Thapsus, saving that the eagerness of the Caesarians was both the more, & the more sharp, as chafing that the war grew though Pompey was dead. To be brief, a thing which never happened till then, the trumpets sounded a charge, through the soldiers forwardness, without the commandment of the General. The overthrow began at juba, whose elephants not thoroughly manned to fight, and but lately taken wild out of the woods, quite confounded at the sudden shrillness, forthwith dis-ranked their friend's army, & made that the captains could not escape by flying, all of them coming to their ends remarkably. For Scipio was now gotten on shipboard, but his enemies overtaking him, he ran his sword thorough his own belly; & one ask after him in search, he answered in these very words, The General is well. juba gotten into his palace, after a royal banquet made to Petreius, the companion of his flight, among his cups, and dishes called upon him for a kill. And Petreius had enough of that both for the king, and himself: so the viands, half as it were eaten, and the funeral messes swum mixed with royal, and Roman blood together. Cato was not at this battle, but encamping at Bagrada, he lay for defence of Utica, as at the other main fort, or bar of Africa. But hearing the defeat of his partners, he dallied not at all, but (as it became a wiseman) did even joyfully hasten his own death. For after he had embraced, and bidden good night to his son, and companions, he reposed himself awhile in his bed, having perused by a light Plato's book of the Immortality of the soul, and then, about the first relieving of the watch, vnsheathing his sword, he therewith thrust himself with a reinforced stroke into the body. After which, the physicians presumed to wrong the brave man with laying salves, which he permitted till they were out of the room: but then he rashed them away, and the blood following amain, he left his dying hands in the very wound. War, and sidings broke out again, as fresh, as if there had never passed a stroke in the quarrel: and by how much the troubles in Africa were beyond those in Thessaly, by so much Spain's surpassed those in Africa; & the brotherliness of the Generals drew exceeding savour to that side, when for one Pompey there stood up two. The encounters therefore were no where so terrible, or hazardous. The first conflict was in the very mouth of the main Ocean, Varius, and Didius oppositely lieutenants general. but the strife with the sea itself, was sorer than that of Fleet with Fleet: for the Ocean, as it were to chastise own countrymen for their madness, dashed indifferently of either of their navies in pieces. What a ghastly, and hideous sight was that, when at one, and the same instant, seas, storms and tackle fought together! Add to all this, the fearful situation of the place, where the shores of Spain, and Mauritania on this coast, and on that, do offer in a manner to clasp, and meet the sea both mediterranean, & main Ocean, and Hercules pillars, opposite mountains, hanging over. At which time, foul weather, and fierce battle raged round about. After this, both parts ranged here & there, employing themselves in the siege of cities; whose case was miserable, while between the leaders of several sides, they smarted deeply for their friendship with the Romans. The last battle of all was at Munda. Here the fight was not answerable to the felicity of other fights, but doubtful for a long time, and discontentive; so as fortune plainly seemed to deliberate upon the doing of some, I know not what, thing. Certainly, Caesar himself was seen before the army sadder than for his wont, whether in regard of human frailty, or as suspecting that the excess of prosperity would not hold out always, or as fearing the same things which Pompey found, so soon as once he came to be what Pompey was: but in the very battle itself, after the armies had with equal slaughter done nothing for a long space but kill, suddenly (the like whereof no man living could remember) in the most heat of the fight, there was a deep silence on both sides, as if they were agreed▪ this was every one's coneit of it. Last of all, which Caesar in fourteen years before had never seen, the selected tried band of his old soldiers (an heinous matter) gave back: so that although they fell not as yet to flat running away, nothing was plainer notwithstanding, then that they resisted more for pure shame, than valour. Caesar therefore putting his horse from him, ran like a madman into the head of the battle: there he stayed such as were shrinking, confirming them, and finally cried, and flew through all the squadrons with his eyes, and hands in that perturbation, it is reported he debated within himself, what to do with himself, if the worst befell, and his countenance was, as of a man, who meant to make his own hand his own executioner, had not five cohorts of the Pompeian horse crossing the battle, as sent by Labienus to guard the camp in danger, given a semblant of flying: which either Caesar did himself believe, or cunningly laying hold upon the occasion of that seeming, charged as upon flyers, and did thereby both put fresh spirit into his own people, and did also daunt his enemies: for his people thinking they had the upper hand, followed the more boldly, and the Pompeians, while they supposed their fellows ran away, did fall themselves to running. How great the slaughter was of the enemies, and the wrath, and fury of the victorious, may be by this conjectured: such as escaped out of the field, betaking themselves to Munda, and Caesar commanding them to be forth with besieged, a rampire was made by piling up dead bodies, dragged thither from all about, and fastened together with spears and javelins. An abominable spectacle even among the barbarous. But Pompey's sons despairing, in truth, of victory, Cnaeus Pompeius flying out of the battle, and, wounded, as he was, in the leg, seeking to save himself in the deserts, and unfrequented places, was overtaken at the town Lauro, and there (so little he as yet despaired) was slain by Pesennius who had him in chase. Meanwhile, fortune hid Sextus Pompeius' safe in Celtiberia, reserved for other wars after Caesar's death. Caesar returns victorious home: the pomp of his first triumph was furnished from the Rhine, and Rhone, and with the image of the captive Ocean in gold. The stuff of the second was bay-tree of Egypt; and, for shows, the images of Nile and Arsinoe, and of the watchtower Pharus, as it burned in the top like a flaming beacon. The third was the chariot of Pharnaces, and the spoils of Pontus. The fourth represented king juba and his Moors & Spain twice conquered. Pharsalia, Thapsus, and Munda (those greater arguments, & matters then over which he triumphed) were not mentioned. Here, for a while, were weapons laid aside, the following calm without blood, and the cruelties of war were made amends for with goodness: not a man put to death by commandment, except Afranius, (for whom once pardoning was enough) and Faustus Sylla, because Caesar had learned to fear him for his father in law, and Pompey's daughter, with her uncles by Sylla's side: in this he took care to make posterity secure. His country therefore not ingrateful, all sorts of honours were heaped upon this one prime man; images about the temples; in the theatre a crown decked with rays; a chair of state in the Senate-house; a pinnacle upon his house top; a month in the Zodiac; and besides all these, himself proclaimed Father of his country, and perpetual Dictator: last of all (and it was unknown whether it were with his good liking) Antonius, Consul, the ornaments of a king were offered: all which proved but as ribbons, or trim of an host ordained to be slain in sacrifice. For the mildness of this prince was looked upon with envious eyes, and the power itself, which conferred benefits, was to free minds cumbersome. Nor was the forbearance of him an acquittal any longer: for Brutus, and Cassius, and other Patricians, Lords of the highest rank, conspired to assassinate him. How great is the force of fate! the conspiracy was known far abroad; a scroll was given also to Caesar himself, upon the very day of the fact; & though an hundred beasts were sacrificed, yet not one of them had any sign of luckines. He came into the Senate-house with a meaning to advance a war against the Parthians: there the Senators stabbed at him, as he sat in his court-chair, & with twenty three wounds he was driven to the ground. So, he who had imbrued the whole earth with civil blood, did with his own blood overflow the Senate-house.   

CHAP. III.  
CAESAR Octavianus.  
CAesar, and Pompey slain, the people of Rome seemed to have returned to the state of their ancient liberty, and had returned indeed, if Pompey had left no children, nor Caesar an heir; or, which was more pestilent then both, if once his fellow in office, and then his rival in honour, that firebrand of Caesar's power, and whirlwind of the ensuing age, Antonius, had not overlived. For, while Sextus Pompeius seeks to recover his father's estate, no part of the sea was free from fear of him; while Octavius revengeth his father's blood, Thessalia was again to be stirred: while Antonius, variable-witted, either disdained that Octavius should succeed to Caesar, or for love to Cleopatra, takes upon him to be a king: for he had no other way to be safe, but by turning vassal. In so great perturbation we are to be glad notwithstanding, that the whole power of Rome came to be settled upon Octavius, first Caesar Augustus, who by his wisdom, and dexterity reduced into order the body of the empire, shaken, and distempted on all sides, which without all doubt could never have been brought together, and made to agree, unless it had been governed by the authority of some worthy one, as with a soul, or mind. Marcus Antonius, & Publius Dolabella, Consuls, fortune now busy in transferring the empire to the house of the Caesars, the troubles of the city were various, and manifold: that as in the change of yearly seasons, the stirred heavens do thunder, and signify their turnings by the weather; so in the change of the government of the Romans, that is to say, of all mankind, the world troubled throughout, and the whole body of the empire was turmoiled with all sorts of perils, and with civil wars both at land, and sea.   

CHAP. FOUR  
The Mutinensian war.  
THe first cause of civil breach was Caesar's last will, and testament, in which Antonius being named but in the second place, he grew stark mad, that Octavius was preferred, and for that cause opposed the adoption of that most spiritful youngman with an inexpiable war. For seeing him not fully eighteen years old, tender, & fit to be wrought upon, and open to abuse, both defaced the dignity of Caesar's name with reviling terms, and diminished his inheritance with privy thefts, disgraced him with foul phrases, and gave not over, by all the ways he could invent, to impeach his adoption into the julian family: lastly, enterprised a war for over-bearing the young noble gentleman, and with an army, raised in Gall on this side the Alps, besieged Decimus Brutus for resisting his practices. Octavius Caesar, pitied for his youth, and wrongs, & gracious for the majesty of that name which he assumed, calling his adoptive father's old soldiers to arms, he then a private person (who would give credit to it?) sets upon the Consul, delivers Brutus from siege, and strips Antonius out of his camp: at that time he did nobly with his own hand: for bloody, & wounded as he was, he carried upon his own shoulders the eagled ensign into the camp, which the eagle-bearer delivered to him, dying slain.   

CHAP. V.  
The triumvirate.  
Antonius', of his own nature, troublesome to peace, and troublesome to commonweal, Lepidus comes in like fire to flame: because there was a necessity of entering into the bond of a most bloody league against two armies. The intentions of the boutefeus were several in kindling these firie-blazes: Lepidus, covetous of riches, the hope whereof stood upon troubling the state, Antonius desirous to be revenged upon them, who proclaimed him traitor, and Caesar for the death of his adoptive father upon Cassius, and Brutus, offensive to his unrevenged ghost. Upon these terms of as it were a league, 
A. V. C. DCCXI.  peace was established among the three captains, and at Confluents between Perusia, and Bononia they join hands, and their armies embrace: so the triumvirate is entered upon with no good fashion. The commonweal oppressed with force, Sulla's proscriptions return, the hideous cruelty whereof contained no less than the number of one hundred, and forty Senators: the ends of such as fled for their lives over all the world, were ghastly, foul, and miserable.   

CHAP. VI  
The war with CASSIUS: and BRUTUS.  
Brutus', and Cassius seemed to have put by julius Caesar from the tyranny, as another Tarqvinius Superbus. But common liberty, the testitution whereof they principally aimed at, was lost by this assassinate of the common Father. So soon therefore as the fact was committed, they fled out of the Senate house, or Curia, into the Capitol, as fearing Caesar's old soldiers not without cause, who wanted not the mind to take revenge, but a captain for it. And when it now appeared what destruction hung over the state: the murder was disliked, & by the Consuls consent a decree of Oblivion was enacted: yet to be out of the eye of the public grief, they departed into Syria, and Macedonia, provinces given them even by Caesar himself, whom they slew, revenge was rather deferred then buried. The commonweal therefore being settled upon the pleasure of the Triumuirs, rather as it might be, then as it were fit, and Lepidus one of the three, left at home for defence of Rome, Caesar addresseth himself, with Antonius against Cassius and Brutus. They having drawn huge forces to an head, took the self-same field which was fatal to Cnaeus Pompeius, where the tokens of their destinated overthrow were not obscure: for the birds which used to gorge themselves upon carrion, hoverd about the camp as if it were already theirs, as they marched out to battle, a black Moor meeting them, was too too plainly a sign foreboding dire success: and to Brutus himself at night, when light being brought in, he meditated somewhat, as his manner was, all alone, a certain gloomy Image appeared to him, which being by him demanded what it was, I AM (it said) THINE EVIL SPIRIT, and therewithal vanished out of his admiring sight. In Caesar's camp all presages were as much for good, as they were in the other for the bad; birds, & beasts promising alike fair fortune: but nothing was in present more lucky, then that Caesar's physician was warned in his sleep, that Caesar should not stay in his own camp, for that it would be surprised, accordingly as it fell out. For the battles joining, & the fight maintained on both sides with equal manhood for awhile, although the Generals were not present, the one withdrawn through sickness of body, and the other for sloth, and fear; yet the unvanquished fortune both of the revenger, and he for whom the revenge was undertaken, stood for the side. The danger was as doubtful at first, and as equal on both parts, as the event of the fight declared: Caesar's camp taken here, and Cassius his camp there. But how much more forcible is fortune than virtue! and how true is that speech in which he breathed out his last! THAT VIRTUE WAS ONLY A VERBAL THING, AND NOT A REAL, Mere mistaking gave away that battle: for when Cassius, a wing of his armies shrinking, saw his own troops of horse gallop back upon the spur, after they had taken Caesar's camp, supposing they fled, got himself to an hillock; from whence not being able to discern what was done by reason of the dust, noise, & night at hand, and when the scout whom he had employed for discovery, stayed somewhat long before he returned, he verily thought the day was lost; and thereupon caused one of them who was next him, to strike off his head. Brutus, when he had in Cassius, lost his own life also, not to break in any point that faith which each of them had plighted to the other, for otherwise they meant not to overlive the battle, laid his side open to the deadly blow of one of his own companions. Who would not wonder that those most wise men used not their own hands at their last? unless in this point also they had a joint persuasion, not to distain their hands, but in letting out their most pure, and pious souls they meant the direction should be theirs, but the heinous execution other men's.   

CHAP. VII.  
The war at Perusia.  
THE partition of such lands as Caesar divided in camp among the old soldiers for reward of service, 
A. V. C. DCCXII.  raised another war. Lucius Antonius, who was always in his own nature a most wicked man, was stirred up the more by Fulvia his wife, a virago, who had served in the wars like a man. Therefore by encouraging such as were disseised of their tenements, there was going to arms again. In this case, Caesar sets upon him, not upon his own head, or opinion, but as upon a person whom all the Senate sentenced an enemy: & shutting him up within the walls of Perusia, compelled him to the extremest terms of yielding, by such a famine as had left no filthy thing unfed upon.   

CHAP. VIII.  
The war with SBXTUS POMPEIUS.  
THe killers of julius Caesar being made away all, 
A. V. C. DCCXVII.  there only now remained Pompey's house. One of the brothers fell in Spain, the other saved himself by flying, who assembling the scattered remains of that unfortunate war, and arming moreover, to his aid, the sturdy bodies in the worke-iails, or bride-wells everywhere, held Sicily, and Sardinia. And now his navy wafted up, and down in the middle of the sea. O how differently from his father! he rooted out the Cilicians, but this man stirred pirates to take his part. It was so mighty a piece of martial work to master, and utterly to distress him in the straits of Sicily, that he had carried with him to his grave the reputation of a gallant commander in the war, had he attempted nothing after that, but (which is an argument of a noble mind) TO HOPE ALWAYS. For his powers quite defeated, he fled, and sailed into Asia, where he was to fall into the hands of his enemies, and be cast into fetters, and (which of all other things doth most afflict an heroic spirit) to die by an executioner, at the pleasure of a foe. There was no flight since that of Xerxes more miserable. For he who late was Lord of three hundred, and fifty ships of war, escaped away with only six, or seven of them, putting out the light in the admiral, throwing his rings into the waves, quaking, and ever looking back, and yet not fearing lest he should perish. Though in Cassius, and Brutus, Caesar had ridded the power of the faction out of the world, and in Pompey had abolished the whole name, and title of it, yet could not he settle a sound peace, while Antonius the rock, the knot, and the common let of assured quiet, was alive, and there was no want in him why vices made not an end of him: nay his pride, and riot having made trial of all things, he first overcame enemies, than citizens, and lastly the times with the terror he had raised of himself.   

CHAP. IX.  
The war with the Parthians by General VENTIDIUS.  
THe miserable overthrow of Crassus made the Parthians higher crested, and they were glad to hear the news of the civil wars of Rome. So soon therefore as any occasion glimmered out, they stuck not to break in upon us, Labienus even inviting them, who employed by Cassius, and Brutus, dealt with the enemy (O the madness of wickedesse!) for their assistance, who thereupon chase away the garrisons of Antonius, led on by the gallant young king Pacôrus. Saxa, deputy of Antonius, obtained of his own sword to keep him out of their fingers. After Syria was won away, the mischief had crept farther, the enemy, undercolour of giving aid, conquering for himself, had not Ventidius (who also was Antonius his deputy) with incredible good fortune, both defeated the forces of Labienus, slain Pacôrus himself, and followed in execution upon all the cavalry of Parthia, over the whole space of country between the rivers Orontes, and Euphrates. The slain, were above twenty thousand, as Ventidius handled the matter. For counterfeiting a fear, he suffered the enemy to come up so close to his camp, that they wanted room to ply their shot of arrows. The king himself most valiantly fight was killed, and his head carried about, and showed to all the revolted cities. Syria was thus recovered without war, and so, by the slaughter of Pacôrus we were even for Crassus' overthrow.   

CHAP. X.  
The war of ANTONIUS with the Parthians.  
THE Parthians, and Romans having made trial each of other, Crassus, and Pacôrus being lessons to both sides of either's forces, league was made again with equal reverence, and entireness of amity, and that by Antonius himself. But the infinite vanity of the man, while he coveted to add the conquest of Araxes, and Euphrates to the titles of his images, suddenly leaves Syria, and invades the Parthian, without any either cause, or wise counsel, or so much as an imaginary colour of war, as if so to steale-upon were also a part of a captains duty. The Parthians, besides affiance in their peculiar weapons, pretend likewise to be afraid, and fly into the open fields. He forthwith pursues them as victorious; when, upon a sudden, though in no great numbers, they burst out near twilight at unawares, like a shower, upon the Romans now weary with travail, and with their arrows overwhelm two legions. But this was nothing, in comparison of the calamity which hung over their heads the very next day, had not the compassion of the Gods come between. One, whose life was spared in Crassus his overthrow, comes riding to the trench, attired like a Parthian, and hailing them in Latin, after he had gotten to be believed, informs them what was at hand, that the king would come upon them with all the power of the realm: that therefore they should march back, and recover the mountains; though even so perhaps they should have store of enemies. By this means a lesser force came against them, than was in readiness. Yet they fell on, and the remains of the army had been quite destroyed, but that when the Parthian shot flying as thick as hail, the soldiers, taught we know not how, dropped on their knees, and casting their targets over their heads, seemed as if they had been slain, then stayed the Parthians their bows. whereupon the Romans starting up on their feet again, did again move such wonder, as that one of the barbarous used this speech; Go Romans, and fare well; fame with good cause terms you the Conquerors of nations, who can outstand the shot of Parthia. Water afterwards did no less mischief than the armed enemy: first the country was naturally dry offsprings, than the river Salmadicis was to some more noyous than the drought, and last of all when the weak drank deep of the river, even the sweet waters also, proved poisonous. Moreover, the heats of Armenia, and the snows of Cappadocïa, and the sudden change of one air into another, was itself in stead of a plague. So a third part of sixteen legions hardly remaining, when the silver which he had in the army was everywhere chipped with chisils, and himself between the fits of the mutiny called ever, now and then to a swordplayer of his to kill him, the doughty General fled at last into Syria: where, like a man in a manner besotted, he became somewhat more brag, and lofty then before, as if he who had brought himself away, had gotten the victory.   

CHAP. XI.  
The Actium war with ANTONY and CLEOPATRA.  
THe fury of Antony which ambition could not kill, 
A. V. C. DCCXXII.  was quenched with wanton lust, and riot, for after his Parthian journey growing into hatred with war, he gave himself over to rest, and surprised with the love of Queen Cleopatra, solaced on her bosom, as freely as if all other matters had succeeded well. This Egyptian woman did value her company at no less a rate to Antony drunken with love, than the whole Roman empire. & he promised it: as if the Romans were more easily to be dealt with then the Parthians. Therefore he began to plot a tyranny, nor that covertly, but forgetting his country, his name, his gown, his fasces, he absolutely degenerated into no less a monster in his understanding, than he did in his affection, and fashion. he went with a staff of gold in his hand, a Persian sword by his side, a purple rob buttoned with huge precious stones; and a diadem in readiness. that a king might enjoy a Queen. At the first bruit of these stirs, Caesar crosseth over from Brundisium, that he might give war the meeting; and, pitching his tents in Epirus, did beset the island Leucades, and the rock Leucades, and the points, or nesses of the Ambracian bay, with his ships of war, we had above four hundred sail; the enemies not fewer than two hundred, but what they wanted in number, was made up in bulk: for they had from six to nine banks of oars, besides that, their fights were raised so high with decks, and turrets, as they resembled castles, and cities, making the very sea groan under, & the winds out of breath to carry them: which hugeness of theirs was itself their bane. Caesar's navy had not in it any vessel but from three banks of oars, to six, and none above: therefore they are you're, & ready for all the needs of service, whether to charge, recharge, or turn about. those of the other side were mere slugges, and unwieldy for all work: upon every of which many of ours setting, and plying them what with darts, and all sorts of flinging, what with beak-heads, or prows, and castings of fire, scattered them all at pleasure. nor did the greatness of the enemy's preparations appear at any time more than after the victory: for the huge armada, bulged, & split in the fight, was carried in the wracks thereof, up, and down over the whole sea, containing the spoils of Arabia, and Saba, and of thousand other nations of Asia, and the waves stirred with the winds, did daily belch up gold, and purple upon the shores. the first who led the way to running away, was the Queen, who in a galleon whose poop was of gold, and sail of purple, thrust into the deeps, Antonius forthwith following her: but Caesar was at his heels. So that neither the preparations which he had made to fly into the Indian Ocean, nor Paraetonium, and Pelusium, the two corner coasts of Egypt, stuffed by him with garrisons, stood him in any stead, all were so quickly seized. Antonius was the first of the two who slew himself. the Queen kneeling at the feet of Caesar, laid baits for his eyes; but in vain; her beauties were beneath that prince's chastity. nor was life her suit▪ for that was offered, but her care was for a part of the kingdom: which when she despaired to obtain of the prince, and saw herself reserved for triumph, the guard put about her being negligent, she betook herself to the Mausolie (so call they the sepulchres of their kings) where attired in most pompous habit, as her custom was, she seated herself in a throne, sweetened with rich perfumes, close to her Lord Antonius, and clapping serpents to her veins, died away in a slumber.   

CHAP. XII.  
Wars against foreign nations.  
HEre ended the civil wars. the rest were against strangers, who, while the empire was turmoild with these intestive miseries, sallied out against us in divers quarters of the world. For peace was but green, and the stif-swoln necks of nations, not yet enured to the curb of servitude, slipped the yoke which had but newly been imposed. the climate which is almost under the north-pole, bore itself more roughly: the Noricks, Illyrians, Pannonians, Dalmatians, Mysians, Thracians, and Dacians, Geteses, and Sarmatians, and Germans. The Alps, and snow upon them, whither war could not climb, gave encouragement to the Noricks. But Caesar thoroughly quieted all the nations of that tract, the Brenns, Senons, & Vindelicians, by his son in law whose mother he had married, Claudius Drusus. How savage those crafty people were, appeared well enough by the women, who for want of mischievous weapons, pashed their sprawling babes on the ground, and hurled them in the soldiers faces, as they came against them. The Illyrians also live under the Alps, possess the valleys between, and guard certain passages, at it were bars, themselves wrapped in with abrupt water-falls. Against them he went in person, commanding bridges to be made. Here the waters, and enemies empeaching him, as our soldiers were slack to scale, he rashed a target out of one of their hands, and led the way, the troop then following thick: but the Illyrian having with their multitude sawed in sunder the bridge, his hands, and legs were wounded in the fall; so the blood which dropped from him, making him show the braver, and his danger itself the more majestical, he assailed the enemy at the back. The Pannonians are walled in with two wild forests, and three great rivers, Draws, Saws, and Ister, and they, having first foraged their next neighbours, retired themselves within their defences. For taming these he sent out Vibius: who slew them on either bank of their rivers. The armours of the vanquished were not consumed with fire, as the fashion of war was, but were preserved, and thrown into the streams, that the news of their fellows overthrow might so be conveyed to the residue. The Dalmatians, for the most part, dwell close at wood-sides, which makes them wondrous forward more than all other, to commit robberies: Marcius, by burning Delminium, their principal city, had now as it were cut off their head: Asinius Pollio amerced them with the loss of their cattle, arms, and tillage: but Augustus commanded Vibius to subdue them utterly: Who made those fierce nations dig in mines, and to refine gold-oare, which they, the most covetous men of the world, do search for with careful diligence, that they may seem to hoard it for their proper uses. How wild, and grim the Mysians be, and how barbarous above all barbarism, is horrible to be spoken. One of their captains stepping out before the army, prayed silence, and said; Who are ye? answer was made; We are lords of the world. They replied, Ye may well say so, if you conquer us: Marcus Crassus, General, took the word as a fair forebodeing. The Mysians forthwith offer-up an horse before their battalions, vowing to sacrifice, and eat the bowels of those captains of ours whom they should kill. I may very well believe the Gods heard their speech: they could not stand out the sounding of a trumpet. Domitius, a captain, struck no little terror into the barbarous, himself a man of a barbarous blunt wit, but which did well enough among his likes, who carrying, for as it were his crest, a chafingdish, or little hearth upon his helmet, and the coals thereof kindling with the motion of his body, the flames seemed to blaze as if his head were on fire. Before them in time, the most mighty people of Thrace rebelled, who as barbarous as they were, yet were accustomed to military ensigns, and discipline, yea and to Roman weapons also: but being utterly subdued by Piso, they showed their wood rage in their very bondage itself. For attempting to gnaw their chains in sunder with their teeth, they punished their own wildness. The Dacians keep them to their mountains, till the ice have knit both the banks of Danubius together; and then as often as it is hard frozen over, they pass it, as under the guidance of Cotiso their king, and destroy the border-countreys'. Caesar Augustus thought good to make that practice too hot for them, though it was a most difficult matter to come where they were. Sending Lentulus therefore against them, he drove them beyond the farther bank, and planted garrisons on the hither. If Dacia was not conquered then, it was put by, and deferred. The Sarmatians gallop, and ride in champain fields: and it was held enough, to command them by the same Lentulus not to approach Danubius. They have nothing but snow, and thin woods. Their barbarousness is so great, as they understand not what peace means. Would Germany also had not thought it so great a matter to overcome. It was more basely lost, then gloriously gained. But Augustus, forsomuch as he knew his father having twice past over Rhine by bridge, had sought war there in honour of his memory, he desired to make a province of it: and it was done, could the barbarous aswell have brooked our vices, as obeyed our commands. Drusus, sent into those regions, first tamed the Vsipetes, then overran the Tencthers, & the Cattis. For he had trimmed a certain high hillock in manner of a trophea with the most special spoils of the Marcomanni. After that, he invaded these other most puissant nations, the Cherusci, Suevians, & Sicambrians at once: who burning twenty captains of ours, had bound themselves by that fact to maintain war against us, with so assured hope of victory, that they divided the prey by bargain beforehand. The Cherusci they would have the horse, for their share; the Suevians the gold, and silver; the Sicambrians the prisoners. But all went quite backward on their sides. For Drusus prevailing, did share, and sell their horses, cattle, and chains of gold, and themselves, as lawful prize. Moreover, he left garrisons everywhere behind him, and guards for defence of the provinces. Upon the river of Mose, of Albis, of Visurgis, and the bank of Rhine, he planted above fifty castles. He joined Bonna, and Gelduba together with bridges, and strengthened them with shipping. He opened the Hercinian wood, till that time pathless, and unseen. To conclude, such was the peace in Germany, that the men seemed not the same men, the soil seemed other than it had been, and the air itself more mild, and temperate then ever. And that most gallant young gentleman (I call him not so, out of flattery, but as he well deserved) dying there, the Senate, which it never had done to any other, surnamed him of Germany, Germanicus. But it is more difficult to keep a province, then to conquer it. Provinces are achieved by the sword, but retained by justice. Therefore that rejoicement was short. For the Germans were rather overcome then tamed, and under General Drusus they rather admitted our customs, then submitted to our forces. When he was once dead, they began to hate the lawless humour, and pride of Quintilius Varus no otherwise, then as they would have hated cruelty. But he durst set up a Law-Court, and sit in judgement within his camp, as if he had been able to restrain the violence of the barbarous, with his sergeant rods, and criers voice. But they, who now a good while since had seen their blades cankered with rust, and their horse of service grown foggy with ease, no sooner saw our gowns, and laws more cruel than our weapons, but they make Arminius captain, and fall to arms. When Varus, in the mean space, was so adventurous upon trust of peace, as he took no heed at all, though the conspiracy of the captains was foretold, and disclosed to him by Segestes, a prince among them. Therefore (O strange secureness!) as he sat upon the tribunal, citing parties, they at unawares assail him on all hands, taken absolutely unprovided, and fearing no such matter, sack his camp, and destroy three legions. Varus followed the utter loss of things there, with the same fate, and mind that Paulus Aemilius did the deadly blow at Cannae. Nothing was more bloody than the slaughter which was made through the woods, and marshes; nothing more intolerable than the insultings of the barbarous, specially against pleaders at the bar, plucking out the eyes of some, and lopping-off the hands of other some; one had his mouth stitcht-up, after his tongue was first cut out, which the savage actor grasping in his hand, said to it: Thou viper, at last give over hizzing. The body of the Consul himself, which the soldiers had in their piety buried, was digged out of his grave. The barbarous do as yet withhold two of our ensigns, & two of our eagles; the third the eagle-bearer plucking off, before the enemies laid hand upon him, and carrying it hidden in the hollow of his belt, was plunged so into the bloody marsh. By this overthrow it came to pass, that the course of empire which had not stopped at the Ocean, stayed upon the bank of Rhine. These things happened northward. In the South of the world there were rather hurly-burlies then war. The Musulanians, & Gaetulians' who border upon the Syrts, were chastised by Cossus captain general, at Caesar's commandment, who was therefore proper-named Gaetulicus. The victory spreads wider. He left the Marmarians, & Garamants for Furnius, who subdued them: & might have returned entitled Marmaricus, but that his modesty rated not his conquest so high. In the orient, there was more to do with the Armenians. Thither Caesar sent one of his nephews. Both were of short life, and the one of them inglorious. For Lucius died of sickness at Massilia: Caius died in Lycia of a wound, as he recovered Armenia, withdrawing itself to the Parthians. Pompey, having vanquished king Tigranes, tied the Armenians to this only point of bondage, that they should have no governors but at our appointment. This right of ours, hitherto intermitted, was revived by Caius, not without bloodshed, and yet without much bickering: for Domnes, whom the king had made governor of Artaxat, feigning a revolt, assails him as he was busy in perusing a scroll, which himself had reached unto him, pretending it contained an account of the treasures; and with his drawn sword, runs him into the forehead. but the Barbarian was tilted at on all sides by the army, who being destroyed with sword, and fire, into which he threw himself wounded, 
superstiti etiam non Caesari satisfecit.  satisfied Caius overliving him, but did not satisfy Caesar. In the west part of the world, all Spain was at quiet, excepting that quarter which abutting close upon the rocks where the Pyrenaean mountains end, is washed with the hither Ocean. Here, two most puissant nations, the Cantabrians, and Asturians lived free from command. the Cantabrians were the more forward of the two, the haughtier also, and stifer in holding out a rebellion: for not contented to maintain their own freedom, they sought to encroach upon their neighbours, and wearied the Vaccaeans, Curgonians, and Autrigons, with often incursions. against these men, because they were said to deal more outrageously then ordinary, Caesar commanded not an expedition to be made by any other, but went in person: came himself to Segisama; pitcheth his camp; and from thence even then, dividing his army into divers parts, hemmed all Cantabria about, and conquered that wild nation, by environing them as beasts within a toil. nor was the Ocean theirs: for our army well-appointed for war, played upon the backs of the enemy. His first battle against the Cantabrians was under the walls of Vellica. from hence they fled into that most steep high mountain Vindius, whither they believed the waves of the Ocean might as soon have clambered, as the Roman army. thirdly, the town Arracillum made great resistance, but yet was taken at the last. In the siege of mount Edulius, about which he had drawn a trench of fifteen miles in compass, the Romans mounted on all sides: and when the barbarous saw no possibility to escape, their strife was who should kill themselves first with fire, and sword amidst their feasts, or with poison, which is commonly there scruzed out of Tax-trees, and so the greater part of them delivered themselves from that which seemed to them captivity. Caesar had these services done for him by Antistius, Furnius, and Agrippa, his deputies, while himself wintered upon the sea-coasts of Tarracon. He present in his own person at the doing, drew some of the vanquished from dwelling on the mountains, of some he took hostages, and of others he made slaves, and sold them under garlands. It seemed to the Senate an action worthy of laurel, and a chariot: but Caesar was now at that height, as he might contemn to triumph. About the same time the Asturians came pouring down from their mountains in an huge troop, nor did they stay their own, 
ut barbari impares.  (as the barbarous are unruly) but pitching their camp by the river Astura, and, dividing their force into three armies, they prepared to assail three several camps of the Romans all at a time. the fight had been doubtful, and bloody, and had made an end of both parts, they coming then, as they did, so strong, so suddenly, and with such sound deliberation, but that the Brigaecins betrayed them, by whom Carisius having intelligence, he came upon them with an army, and destroyed their device, nevertheless, the battle even so was not unbloody, such as remained unflaine of that most puissant assembly, retired themselves into the city Lancia: where the fight was so sharp and hot, that when our soldiers demanded leave to set fire on the city after it was taken, the General could hardly obtain the favour at their hands, that it might rather be a monument of the Roman victory, standing, then burnt to the ground. This was the last war of Augustus Caesar, and the last rebellion of Spain. Constant allegiance, and eternal peace forthwith ensued, aswell by reason of their own inclination more bend to peace, as by Caesar's courses, who fearing the boldness which mountains bred in them, commanded them to inhabit from thenceforth in those camps of his which were upon plain ground. This began to be found a matter of high wisdom. The region round about was naturally full of gold-oare, of vermilion, orpiment, and other colours. He therefore commanded the ground should be searched, and wrought. For while the Asturians digged their own treasures, and riches which lay deep hidden, to serve others turns, themselves also began to understand their value. All the West; and South of the world being at peace, and Northward also (excepting only the Rhine, and Dababius) as likewise in the East, between Taurus, and Euphrates, those other countries who were free from our power, had a feeling notwithstanding how great it was, & reverenced the people of Rome's victory over nations. For both the Scythians sent their ambassadors, and the Sarmatians also, desiring friendship. The Seres moreover, and the Indians inhabiting right under the Sun itself, came with precious stones, and pearls, and dragging elephants also along after them among their presents, thought not so much of any thing as of the length of the way, which took up four years travel: and the very colour itself of the men spoke for them, that they came from under as it were another Sun. The Parthians in like sort, as if they repented their victory, restored of their own accord the ensigns taken at the destruction of Crassus. So all mankind had everywhere an entire, and continual either peace, or paction. And Caesar Augustus seven hundred years from after the building of Rome, durst shut the Temple of double-faced janus; twice only clozed before that time; once under king Numa, and the other time when the first war of Carthage was concluded. From henceforth, bending his mind to peace, he corrected many things in the times which were prone to all mischief, and which overflowed in riotous looseness, with grave, and severe edicts. For these so many, and so wondrous great deeds of his, he was called perpetual Dictator, and Father of his Country. It was also debated in the Senate, whether, because he had founded the empire, he should be styled Romulus. But the name Augustus seemed to be a more holy, and venerable word than the other, that so even now while he lived on the earth, he might be as it were deified by the name itself, and title.  
FINIS.     

The end of the four books of the Roman Histories, written anciently in Latin by LUCIUS FLORUS, and translated into English by E. M. B.  
Soli Deo gloria.