¶ The Histories of the most famous and worthy Cronographer Polybius: Discoursing of the wars betwixt the Romans & Carthaginenses, a rich and goodly Work, containing wholesome counsels & wonderful devices against the encumbrances of fickle Fortune.  
Englished by C. W.  
¶ Whereunto is annexed an Abstract, compendiously coarcted out of the life & worthy acts, perpetrate by our puissant Prince king Henry the fift.  
Imprinted at London by Henry Bynneman for Thomas Hacket.  
And are to be sold at his shop in Paul's Churchyard at the sign of the Key.   

The phisnomy of Polybius.  
 bust of Polybius  

Whom Nature, Birth, and Science lore,  
have made the child of fame:  
This portraiture (through gravers Art)  
doth show to thee, the same.  
A Greek by birth, of noble blood,  
Polybius eke he hight.  
His works deserve immortal praise,  
and fame upholds his right.  
Read with advise, do judge with skill,  
and troth will cause thee than  
To say as thou of right mayst say,  
he was a worthy man.  
Whom though the Fates with cruel hand  
have cut from mortal breath,  
Yet we enjoy (through worthy Fame)  
his deeds, in spite of Death.   
B. G.   

The life of Polybius collected out of his History.  
THe famous, and worthy Grecian Polybius, was borne in the City of Megalopolis, in Arcady, (which is a province of Achaia, situate in the midst of the plentiful Peloponesus, or Moria) which took the domination of Arcas, son to lupiter He was a noble man, and of high parentage, as it may be gathered by divers tokens. He surmounted all the men of his age, in four points, as this his work manifestly witnesseth: in Eloquence, geography, writing of Histories, and in martial prowess, besides divers other rare qualities, for which his singular gifts, he was made tutor of P. Cor. Scipio, which after was named Scipio Africanus Maior. He pend the Roman Histories more credibly than any other. In so much that Titus Livius peragon of all the Latin Chronographers followed him through all his works, as one which for favour or dread, had never corrupt the sincerity of the History. But of the forty books, in which he wrote them, tearing time and blind ignorance, capital foes to virtue and good literature, have devoured them all, in the odious pit of cankered oblivion, except five books, which remain unpoluted, with certain supplements and unperfect patches, to the great obliteration of such famous facts, as were perpetrate in that time.  
Phocylides.  I Lapso redde manum miserum seruato virumque.  

To the right worshipful Thomas Gaudy Esquire, Christopher Watson wisheth Argantos' age, Polycrates prosperity, Augustus' amity, and after the consummation of this terrestrial Tragedy, a seat amongst the celestial Hierarchy, etc.  
IT was the common guise in ancient time, & generally is embraced at this instant (right worshipful) that such as did or do yield the fruits of their study to be patronized under the rampires of any noble Philomos, or Maecenas, as they used and use (though usurpedly to term them) never stinted to travail with tooth & nail to hunt for haughty stately and current terms, wherewith they flourished forth such virtues as their patrons practised, so that usually, for hope either of gain or favour, a thousand times more laud than they deserved, was attributed unto them, whose tristing vain and gnatonical humour, I heartily abhor, in so much that (lest I might incur the suspicion of certain in that Getical kind of gabbing) I will speak no word in your laud, and that not unadvisedly: for weighing the insufficiency of my wit in performance but of the naked truth (if I should attempt to pen your panigrick) eke dreading lest it should be object to me, which was to a certain writer (not unsemblable to myself in this matter) purposing to pen the praises of Hercules to desist from such a folly, whereby rather dishonour than fame might be purchased to him, considering that there is no such simple sot which already reputeth him not enthronized amongst the heroical estates. Weighing the case then as it standeth, I count it a mere mockery here, as the fashion was and is, to tell you of your rare and virtuous qualities, of which your very enemies, if you (as I doubt) have any, can say nothing but good. Thus then, all vain words set apart, I desire your worship benignly to accept this as a token of the entire affection I bear towards you, which taken as I mean it, shall deserve to furnish some void corner in the lowest part of your Library.  
From my chamber in your house at Gaudy Hall.   

To the Reader.  

WEre it as perilous to deal Cards at play.  
As it is quarrelous to deal Books this day  
One and forty men amongst one and fifty  
Would flee one and thirty to flee one unthrifty:  
And yet Cards so dealt should have in revealing,  
Foredeale of Books in this hard time of dealing.  
Cards be tooted on but on the one side,  
Books on both sides, in all places porde and pride,  
Not to content, but to contend upon espial,  
Of least tittle that can come in trial.   
Weighing these things (gentle Reader) I may be thought to have attempted a bold enterprise to take upon me (being yet in my nonage) such a work as few or none have done at like years, also knowing the danger thereof, which is the hasarding of my good name: yet considering the causes that moved me to it, I trust there is none which will not bear with me.  
The principal and chief cause was, an Oration spoken extemporally by a noble and worthy peer of this realm before our victorious governor Henry the fift, as more at large appeareth in the Epistle to the Questioners. The second was a fervent zeal which I bear towards my native country, and sundry exhortations written by grave and great learned clerk, willing us to employ our whole labour and study, that we overslip not our life like savage & brute breasts, whom Nature hath form prone and subject to the filthy lusts of the belly. The third and last was, that they of riper years and exacter knowledge should be pricked (as it were with a spur) by this my doing, to the attempting of some work to remain for an attestation that they lived not brutishely, but as men regarding their vocation. I confess this my Translation to be unpolished, not exquisitely framed, or in a curious style: for as our English Epigram saith, The plain fashion is best, that's truly expressed, or, the plain fashion is best, that's plain without plaites. which epigram persuadeth me not to creep into your favour with any tedious ambage or painted preamble, seeing the matter is of importance enough to alliciate all men to the reading hereof.  
Thus I put forth this my freshmanly enterprise (yet not without reason) for 
Time is tickle,  
Chance is fickle,  
Man is brickle,  to your grateful accepting, concluding thus.  

This work standing clear from all intent of ill  
In place or lack of good wit, accept good will:  
For if you carp this, I tell you my mind plain,  
Bold blind bayard shall not lead me thus again.   
Far you well. From Gaudy Hall in Norfolk.   

Franciscus Asulanus Lectori salutem.  
EA semper humani generis est infelicitas id infortunium, ea calamitas, utsi quid grato deorum munere mortalibus nobis datum sit, eo nequaquam diutius frui possimus: Sed simulac illius iucunditate oblectari coepimus, id extemplo evanescat, ac veluti rapaci quodam invidentis fortunae livore nobis incautis auferatur. Quo fit, ut quo quid vel dignius vel charius habemus, hoc citius eo privemur miseri. Hoc vero ipsum rebus in omnibus clara videmus luce: nam quid in humanis adeo firmum est, in quo spem certam ponere possumus? quid adeo stabile, in quo placido securi otio quiescamus? Dij boni, & ipsamet tam dubia, tam fallax est vita, ut nemini ne horulam quidem vivere certo sit exploratum. Sed ne pluribus ego exemplis rem manifestam prosequar, hoc vel in hisce Polybij libris, quorum causa haec scribimus, facile cognosci potest. Hij profecto ut optimi erant, ita brevissimo, iniqua hac sort, inter mortales tempore viguerunt: & vix à priscis suae tempestatis hominibus semel aut iterum fuerunt lecti. Adeo nobis infestam tulit fortuna legem, ut optima quaeque tam raptim è nostris effugiunt oculis. Id unum autem dira hac in pernicie nos potest solari, quod & si maxima huiusce operis pars deperdita sit (erant enim quadraginta historiarum libri) quinque tamen adhuc nobis supersunt concinno scripti stilo: qui caeleberrimun Polybij nomen vulgatis passim testantur laudibus. His hercule facile videmus praeclarum hunc scriptorem longé omnes alios tam immensa voluminum magnitudine quam optimo dicendi genere excelluisse. Hic profecto ille est quem optimum scribendis in historijs ducem Gravissimus inter Romanos Titus Livius ubique ferè imitari voluit.  
Accipe igitur Polybium nunc Britannia loquentem lingua. Quem propediem patrio ipsius sermone historias enarrantem (fata adsint) audiveris.  
Sis fortunatus.   

R. W. in laudem Histor. Polybijs, Anglico Lectori.  

IF famous facts,  
or worthy acts,  
Rejoice thy daunted mind:  
Polybius reed,  
Where as in deed  
Good Physic shalt thou find.   

For there is pend,  
which to the end  
Of mortal men shall last:  
By chieftains hands  
Done in strange lands,  
In alder time now past.   

Of captains stout,  
which fought it out,  
Their country to defend.  
whose good name shall  
at no time fall,  
Unto the worlds end.   

Of Consul's strong  
Here all along,  
The doughty deeds are set:  
Which by no craft  
shall be out raft,  
Their honour for to let.   

Then Virtue learn,  
That thou mayst earn  
Such glory for to have,  
As Momus sect  
Can not reject,  
When thou art closed in grave.   
Thales Milesi. Gloriam sectato.   

The Histories of the worthy Chronographer Polybius.  
IF it had chanced that those Historiographers, which have written before me, had pretermitted the commendation of Histories, it might be thought, that I of necessity & constraint in the beginning of this my work, should have erhorted every man to the reading of them: especially because there is no more plain or ready way to the right instruction of life, than facts done in former passed years: but because that not only part but all in general, not by a few means and reasons have practised it both in their beginnings and endings, declaring that the knowledge of them is the best guide and schoolmaster to civility, & that they only are the cause why men with equal and indifferent minds suffer the variety and change of Fortune, taking example at other men's damage: weighing these things I thought none would judge it necessary to recite them again, which have been inculcate of so many, studiously affecting this kind of learning, especially not of me, because the novelty and strangeness of the matter which I determine and deliberate to entreat upon, is of efficacy and force enough to draw the minds both of young and old, to the reading and diligent digesting of this my work. For what man is there so despising knowledge, or any so idle and slothful to be found, which will eschew or avoid by what policies, or by what kind of government the most part of nations in the universal world were vanquished, subdued, and in space of three and fifty years made subject and obedient to the Romans, which before that time was never seen or heard? For who is there so studiously bend, either that hath such an earnest affection or zeal to other discipline or study, that he supposeth any kind of knowledge to be of more value, either worthy to be esteemed or preferred before this? But the antiquity & worthiness of this my work, shallbe more manifest, if the sovereignty & signory of those men that flourished in so great glory and dignity, of the which the Historiographers have written at large, should be compared to the excellency of the Roman Empire: & above other these are most worthy, for that comparison. The Persians, in ancient time were of great power and authority, of marvelous might & riches notwithstanding as oft as they passed the bounds & limits of Asia, they not only doubted the perdition of their principality, but also the loss of their own lives. The Lacedæmonians after they had made many conflicts & bickerings, for the Regiment of the Grecian Empire: And at the last having obtained their hearts desire, they could scantly keep it twelve years in tranquillity & quietness without great grief, trouble and vexations. The Macedonians had the sovereignty over certain parts of Europa, from Adria, to the great river Isther, which is but a small portion of that region: but afterward having vanquished and suppressed the Persians, they enjoyed the principality of all Asia. These also though they ruled over sundry nations and divers places, yet they left a great part of the world unconquered: for they never endeavoured themselves to subdue Sicilia, Sardinia, or Africa, & scantly ever heard they tell of the other fierce & untractable Nations which inhabit towards the Ponent, or west parts. But the Romans not only conquered a few parts, but subdued & brought the most part of the world in subjection. As concerning the times, this my history shall begin at the hundredth and forty olympiad. Concerning the wars at the conflict of the confederates and allies, called amongst the Grecians, the social war which Philip son of Demetrius, and father to Persius, first made against the Achaians, and Aetolians. Of the facts perpetrate by the Asians, at the battle of Syria, which Antiochus, and Ptolomeus Philopater, made the one against the other. Concerning the facts of the Italians and Africans, at the wars betwixt the Romans and the Carthaginenses, commonly called the battle of Hannibal, for these consequently do depend of those which are last written by Sicionius. Before this time there were many battles fought in sundry places: but afterward it chanced that the history increased and augmented so, that it came (as it were) into one body: for the state and condition of the Italians, was mixed and intermingled with the Libyans, Grecians, & Asians, so that they all tend & belong to one matter and end, for the which cause & have made and taken the beginning of my work from this time. For when the Romans in that battle had overcome and vanquished the Carthagmenses, they supposed the chief and worst part to be passed, and therefore thought they might better venture to achieve the whole: even at that present they were emboldened to take in hand the conquest of the rest, attempting to sail with their whole strength and power into Grecia and Asia. But if we once perfectly understood that customs, ordinances & fashions of them which laboured and travailed for achieving the rule and dominion of the world, peradventure it should not be requisite any preciselyer to repeat by what power or puissance, either by what enforcement they were animated to attempt such an enterprise. But considering that the old manners, ordinances and fashions, either of the Romans, or the Carthaginenses, were known to the most part of the Grecians, I supposed it requisite to prescribe in this book, and in the next, to disclose their power and ability, with the famous acts done by them, before I enter into the History, lest by chance some man preparing and endeavouring himself to the reading of this work, might be in doubt by what counsel or power, either by what great hope the Romans were persuaded to the Conquest of the whole World, and domination of our Seas since, in this my beginning and preparation, all men may clearly perceive and understand, that the Romans had store and plenty enough of all necessaries, to the maintenance of such a conquest, and accomplishing of their pretenced purpose. This also is the chief and principal beautifying of any work with the famous and worthy acts perpetrate in this time, that as Fortune hath caused all things done through the most part of the world to tend and belong to one end and scope, so that likewise in one History or Chronicle, they may well be written & comprised. Which thing chief encouraged me to take this History in hand, and so much the rather because no man before this my time hath attempted to commit to remembrance that facts perpetrate in the universal and whole world, for than would not I have attempted this enterprise. But every one particularly hath mentioned and penned certain particular wars, with the facts done in them: but of a conjunct commemoration of things done universally, either of their beginnings, or for what cause they began, or what end they had, there is none as far as I can understand that hath written to these days. I thought it expedient and necessary, considering that this my work should come abroad into the hands of my countrymen, being politic & eloquent fellows to entreat of the most famous renowned and profitable facts of Fortune, which although she hath wrought many wonderful, preclare and notable acts in the days of divers men, worthy of admiration, yet hath she wrought nothing which exuperateth, yea or that are to be compared with these in our days: Which worthy acts can not be understand, by revolving the writers of private Histories, unless there chance to be some such man, which passing by a gorgeous and bravely builded city, or beholding the parts thereof drawn forth, incontinently supposeth that he hath a perfect knowledge of the situation, figure, and course of the universal world, which is incongruent and impossible. And verily as I judge, they no less err and dissent from the truth, which think by reading a particular or private history to obtain the exact knowledge of the universal, than those which beholding the parts of a lively and beautiful body dispurpled and separate into sundry members, and think themselves perfectly to know the good shape and feature of the same joined together. But if a man would take and unite the distinct separate and severed parts, setting them according to their due disposition, conjunction and perfectness, than afterward show it them again, undoubtedly they would confess to have erred & gone astray like to one in a dream, for it is possible that seeing the separate parts, they might conceive a certain imagination, but to obtain a sure knowledge, it is impossible. Wherefore we may well gather, that a particular History is nothing to be compared with the knowledge of the universal, in the revolving of which, it is impossible that a man shall not take both sweet profit and wonderful pleasure, by reason of the variety and worthiness of matter contained therein.  
This book shall begin at the navigation of the Romans out of italy, which consequently followeth those things that were last written by Timeus, and was the hundredth twenty & ninth Olimpiad. But now it is expedient that I disclose how & at what time the italians prepared and made themselves ready to take ship into Scicilia, also with what strength and puissance they attempted that voyage which was the first land that they entered without italy, after they had appeased the civil discord, domestical dissension, and bloody wars in their own country. Also the original of this profection, must be explained without obscurity or dissimulation, lest in fetching the cause too far, the entrance and beginning be made ambiguous or doubtful. Also there must be such a beginning, as is agreeable with the times & facts, so that one part may declare & expound an other, although in the repeating of these things, it were, expedient that the acts done in them should be briefly discoursed. For the beginning being unknown & dark, it is very hard to make the consequent to be credited: but if the principle or entrance be true, the auditors will have a firmer opinion of the rest. It was the nintenth year after that war, in which Simon the Athenian subdued Xerxes, the sixteenth year before the battle fought against the Leu●trans, in which the Lacedæmonians, made a treaty concerning peace with the king of the Persians.  
About what time Dionysius the elder having vanquished and suppressed the Grecians, inhabiting the coasts of Italy, which bordered upon Ellepora, besieged Regia, a city of Callabria, at which instant the French men possessed all Rome, saving the capitol, at which time the Romans taking truce with them, recovered their ancient liberty and freedom of their country, & began to war against their neighbours bordering & marching to their region, and having overcome and put in subjection all the Latins, they warred on the tuscans, then with the Frenchmen, & immediately after with the Samuits. Not long after that, the Tarentines supposing themselves to be in danger for certain offences which they had committed against the Roman Legates, received home king Pyrrhus, a year before the Frenchmen entered italy, with them that were at Delphos, before being vanquished and fled into Asia.  
Now the Romans having tamed the tuscans, subdued the Samuits, and driven the Frenchmen to flight in sundry skermishes, began to envy the other parts of italy, not thinking that they travailed to subdue any foreign nation, but that which of right was their inheritance, patrimony & nutritive soil. Now the Romans having obtained a perfect habit in the wars through daily experience used in their exploits and conquests upon the Samnites and Frenchmen, for which causes they earnestly continued in this broil, to such time as they had expelled Pyrrhus, with his confederates & garrisons out of Italy, than they pursued & turned their whole strength against these which had condescended to him. Now even at an unwares, suddenly & unhoped for, they were become lords & regentes over all the inhabitants of italy, except the French men. After this they began to besiege the Romans which kept Rhegia. A like chance happened at that same instant to two cities situate in the straights of that Sea, Rhegia and Messana. For the Campanes, warring under Agathocles in Scicilia, wondering at the excellency & worthiness, also at the riches & plentifulness of Messana, espying opportunity to accomplish their pretenced purpose, being once received within the walls under the cloak of friendship, violated the covenant of truce, invading the City, thrusting out the Citizens and inhabitants, cruelly murdering them, seizing their wives and children, every man as he chanced, in the conflict and tumult, than they rysled and divided the riches and treasures, with the pleasant pastures and fertile soil amongst them. Thus they obtained a most excellent, rich and worthy City, impleate with inestimable treasure, abounding in plenteousness and store of all things, also within a small tract of time, and imitators of this their perverse enterprise. For at that time when Pyrrhus, King of Epirotes sailed with his army into Italy, the inhabitants of Rhegia, being dismayed and set in a perplexity with his sudden arrival, required aid and assistance of the Romans (because the Carthaginenses, their enemies ruled the seas) which sent them succour that defended their City for a certain time.  
They were in number four thousand men over whom Decius and Campanus were Prefects & rulers. But in continuance being moved and incitate by the example of the Mamertines or Samuites having them also confederates of their facinorous and wicked conspiracy, violated and falsified their oath made to the Citizens of Rhegia, being provoked and alured, partly with the opportunity of time, partly with the great riches, substance and abundance of the inhabitans, they detruded and expulsed the Citizens, afflicting & tormenting divers of them, and according as the Mamertines had done before, semblably did they now detaining and inhabiting the City. The Romans although they were sore grieved and inwardly vexed with the calamities chanced to the Rhegians, yet they could not aid or help them presently, being troubled with other wars, the which being finished they went & besieged the city of Rhegia, which in continuance of time was expugnate and won by force. The defendants had so hautely withstood the assault that the most part were slain, for they perfectly understood, if they either yielded or were taken by force, that they should not avoid cruel Tortures, so that only thirty were taken alive, which incontinently were conveyed to Rome, where as the Consuls were led into the market place, there tormented with rods, and then according to the order of the country, were cut shorter by the length of their heads, both that they might be punished for committing such a heinous offence and for renewing of their amity with the Rhegians, restoring unto them their city, pastures, and other things that were left. The Mamertines for so the Campanes called themselves, when they had taken Messana, during the time that the Roman Legion detained Rhegia, being maintained with their aid not only defended & kept safe their own bounds and precincts, but also displeasured and put in jeopardy divers of the Cities adjacent, as well of the Carthaginenses as of the Siracusans. They had also made tributary unto them sundry cities of Sicily. But now the Rhegians having their city restored, and they being destitute of the Roman Legions help, were environed & besieged of the Siracusans for certain causes which afterwards shallbe declared. Not long before that time there was a sedition sprung up between the Sicilian soldiers, & the governors of the Weal public, in so much that they constituted captains over them of the Artemidans (and him which afterward was their king (one named Hyeron, a very young man, being but a stripling and of young years, but so furnished and endued with all the gifts of nature, as knowledge, virtue, and wisdom, that he wanted nothing appertaining or necessary to a king, except only a kingdom. When he had obtained the authority and regiment of the Soldiers, at the length being environed with a great troop & company of his friends, he entered the city and took divers of the Citizens which were confederates of the rebellion, the which victory he used so moderately & mercifully, that all the Siracusans with one voice and consent (which was a rare thing almost never seen before that time) proclaimed him the second time governor and ruler over them. Then Hyeron as he showed by manifest arguments, deliberated and determined to be of greater and higher estimation than a Captain. But first of all he weighed & considered with himself how the Siracusans were eftsoons accustomed immediately after the departure of the Captain and the army from the City, to kindle uproars and seditions, therefore perceiving the honesty and fidelity of Leptinus, also of what authority, credence, and estimation he was of amongst the Syracusans, and of how much reputation and power amongst the inferior sort, he thought it not incongruent to join himself unto him by affinity, that he might have on to live in the city, when he with his army should be occupied in other affairs. Thus having married the daughter of Leptimus, and knit friendship with Hyminian knots, perceiving how the old Syracusan servitors, which were hirelings and conduct soldiers, were very unstable fickle & full of mutability, commonly desirous of new things and changes, he prepared an army against the Barbarians, which kept Messana, pitching his tents and pavilions, placing the front of his battle along the river of the Ciamossians. Then he took both the horsemen and footmen of the Syracusans, as though he would assault his enemies at some other place, retiring an other way with all his power, conducting them safe and without damage into the City, suffering the rascal and hired soldiers to be environed and enclosed with their enemies, so that they were brought to ruin and utter confusion. When he had by this means dispatched the old servitors out of the City, he prepared & waged soldiers of more credence and stability. Thus having set all things in a good and reasonable estate, and perceiving the Barbarians to advance and boast themselves, also to be proud and arrogant of the former victory, so that they did all things unadvisedly, foolishly, and without regard, like undiscrete and harebrain fools, he with his soldiers and a company of exercised & trained Citizens, departed from the City, coming to the field Nileum, with a quick and swift progression, where he fought a terrible fight along the banks of the river Longanus, with the Campanes, in which he vanquished them, and took their captain. Now perceiving the foolish hardiness and brainsick boldness of the Barbarians to be repressed in this victory, he returned with the Syracusans, where with one voice and common consent of the people, he was proclaimed King. The Mamertines first of all as I said before, being destitute of the Roman Legions help, then grievously afflicted and troubled with this overthrow, were almost utterly discouraged, the most part fled to the Carthaginenses, yielding themselves and their fortresses into their hands. another company sent Legates to the Romans, notifying them that they would yield their fortress with all the munitions belonging, into their hands, requiring them to assist them as their own countrymen. The Romans a great tract of time, determined with themselves what was best to be done, for they judged it very absurd, foolish, & contrary to reason, that they which a little before had so cruelly tormented their own citizens for betraying Rhegia, and falsifying their truth, now to aid, succour, or help the Mamertines which were culpable of the like offence. But when they considered that the Carthaginenses had not only suppressed with violence and force Africa, but also the most part of Spain, with all the Islands of Sardinia and the Sea Tirrhenum, they suspected their neighborhode, which thing would soon be brought to pass, unless they sent succour and help to the Mamertines. Messana being once taken, which by divers was offered them as I declared before, there was no danger in recovering the rest of the Siracusans, especially because all other parts of Sicily were under their governance and power. When the Romans had thoroughly pondered these things, they supposed that of necessity and constraint they were compelled & enforced to aid, relieve and defend Messana, not permitting in any case that the Carthaginenses should edify themselves as it were a bridge, by the which they might have free passage to enter Italy at their pleasure. Yet this matter was long in determining, and in conclusion perceiving it more dishonest than commodious, the Senators prorogued and dismissed it without any resolute determination. The people of Rome, being defatigate and wearied with long war, now were in rest and quietness, so that for lack of their accustomed wages they were sore impoverished, so that they showing to their captains, the profit which should ensue by aiding them incontinently it was concluded to join with the Mamertines, which decree was corroborate by the assent of the commonalty, so that Appius Claudius, one of the Consuls, was elected to con dust an army into Sicily in their defence. The Campanes being certified of their coming, partly with terror and threatenings, partly with subtle sleights and deceipts, ertruded the Carthaginian captain out of the city, which before they had received, calling Appius Claudius unto them yielding the City into his tuition. The Carthaginenses tormented the Perfect of the munition, hanging him upon a gibbet, because through his dastardly cowardliness they had lost the City, and incontinently with all celerity they levied an army, rygging their navy along Pelorus, pitching their tents about Messana, circumspectly besieging the City Hieron, supposing at this instant a most fit occasion to be offered for banishing the Barbarians out of Sicily, which kept Messana, took truce with the Carthaginenses, and then with the Syracusans pitched his tents by the mount Galchidicum, berieving the Mamertines of that issue. Now the Consul which with great trouble and perilous dangers had passed the sea by night, was arrived at Messana, where seeing the enemies with great strength invading the city both by water and land very sharply and vehemently, supposing it to be very dangerous and nothing honourable, dismissed certain Ambassadors to either of his enemies camps, assaying to deliver the Mamertines with quietness, all war and strife appeased. But perceiving that neither of the adversaries would give ear to the words of the embassage, and in the end being forced to danger himself, he determined first to encounter and contend with the Siracusans. Then he began to order his Soldiers, imbattayling and placing his forefronts against Hyeron, giving unto them divers exhortations, during which time the Syracusan Captain made no less preparance. This conflict continued a long time very sharp and terrible, but in continuance the Romans had the victory, where having slain many of their enemies, boldly pursued the king into his pavilion, than the Consul having spoiled and rifled the dead bodies, entered the City with his host. Now Hyeron mistrusting all things, in the night following departed with the residue of the Sicilian army. Appius in the next morning perceiving their departure intended to pursue them, and mustering his Soldiers commanded that they should look to their wounds, and provide for the pursuit of their enemies against the next morning: so in the dawning of the day he set forward, and coaping with his enemies, devoured part with the sword, causing the rest to bestow themselves in villages adjacent. Thus having raised the siege without interruption, he made divers incursions, invading the grounds of the Siracusans & others bordering nigh, foraging and ransacking and depopulating their goods, and in the end besieging them. This was the first profection that the Romans made out of Italy for the causes preceding, at the which chief I took my beginning because I thought it a most apt & perfect beginning of this my work, repea those things somewhat exactlier which were thought necessary, lest I should pretermit any doubts, in explicating the causes. For I supposed it necessary to be revealed how the Romans stood in great danger and distress, even in jeopardy of losing their own city. Also after what manner having recovered Italy again, they attempted to subdue foreign nations. Also I adjudged it very necessary to declare the excellency and magnificency of their Empire, that the flourishing estate which it came to afterward, might be that better credited, by the true knowledge of their original. Wherefore if it chance the sequel of this my work, when I come to speak of famous Cities, that I digress in showing any thing exactlier than the matter is thought to require, let no man wonder at it, seeing I do it to that end and purpose, that my narration may be such, whereby we may precisely know and perfectly understand how and by what means every one came to that state in which they are at this present, according as I have done of the Romans. But now the time requireth to pretermit these things, and that I should return to my incepted purpose, and that which I intended in the beginning, first compendiously showing those things which were done before the times that I intend to mention of. Of which the battle fought in Scicilia betwixt the Romans and the Carthaginenses is the first. Then the Punic or civil war in the which is contained the facts of Amilcar and Asdrubal, with the other things perpetrate by the Carthaginenses, descending to those times in which the Romans made their first exploit into Illiria and the other parts of Europa. Furthermore I must entreat of the conflicts and contentions betwixt the Romans and the Frenchmen, which were in Italy at that time. Also of the war called Cleomonicum which was at that present amongst the Grecians, to the which all these my circumstances belong. For it is not necessary for me to speak of every particular thing, neither should it be profitable to the Readers, or delectable to the hearers hereof. Also I purposed not to write any history of them, but summarily to touch those things which are necessary to the knowledge of these I have in hand. Wherefore I will overrun them as briefly as is possible, endeavouring myself to conjoin the end of them with the beginning of this work, for by the continuation and hanging together of them and my narration, I suppose most sincerely to touch these things, which other writers have written, and also to prepare a very facile and ready way to the true knowledge of this history. But before we make any further progression, it is my pleasure and fantasy, more advisedly, and in an ampler sort to entreat of the wars made by the Romans against the Carthaginenses for the domination of Sicily, because there hath no battle been seen of more continuance, that had more preparance made for it, either that contained more famous and noble acts, either so terrible conflicts, or more variety & change of chances. At that time both the countries were like in strength and puissance, of a reasonable ability. Wherefore if any consider the strength and power of both the cities and Empires, he shall understand that in no other wars or time after that they might be so well resembled. This also specially persuaded, enforced and pricked me forward to write of this war, because those which are thought to have pend it most faithfully, as Philinus and Fabius, far dissent and disagree from the truth. But though I dare not say they erred willingly and of a set purpose, yet I think they were deceived (as affectoures are accustomed) by too much favouring of their councountrey men. For Philinus writeth by affection and a natural motion, that the Carthaginenses did all things like strong, valiant, and courageous Captains. Then Fabius is in that Diameter quite dissenting. But I think there is none which reprehendeth the rest of their lives for this, considering that it is a good and honest man's duty rather to favour his friends and nutritive soil, than foreign nations. But it is his duty which taketh in hand the writing of a history, to moderate himself and abstain from all partiality, yea oft times to extol and praise his utter enemies when by their deserts they deserve to be well spoken of Other times to reprehend their countrymen and friends when their facts are found worthy of reprehension. For as a beast having his eyes scratched out, the rest of his body is fit for no use or profit, semblably the use of a history being falsified, it is altogether unprofitable. Wherefore we must neither abstain from reprehending our friends, ne yet from commending our enemies, when they merit it, neither is it to be thought foolish to praise those at sundry times, considering that these of whom to speak presently, could neither continually conquer victoriously, neither is it like that they always took the foil. And that these things are true which I have spoken, it may be gathered by those things which Philinus hath written. These are his words in the beginning of his second book. The Carthaginenses, and the Siracusans, besieged Messana, where the Roman soldiers arriving, incontinently encountered with the Siracusans, of whom they being overcome, & almost put to utter confusion, réentred the city, & attempting an other insult with the Carthaginenses, were not only spoiled & put to flight, but also the most part taken. Immediately after these, he showeth how Hieron was so affrighted after the combat, that he not only fyering his tents & pavilions fled away by night, but also forsook & left all the strongest fortified and well fenced castles, situate betwixt Messana and sicily. He reporteth also how the Carthaginenses in that conflict were so daunted, that they forsook their tents, dispersing themselves in the Sicilian villages, not being hardy after that day to attempt any thing with their army. Also how the Prefects perceiving the minds of the people to be so discouraged, counseled them no more after that day to commit themselves to the mutability of Fortune in battle. He showeth also how the Romans pursuing the Carthaginenses, not only wasted, spoiled and foraged their province and the Syracusans, but also to have besieged the Scicilians, the which things are so absurd, foolish and incongruent, that it were vain & mere folly to persist in their consultation. For those which a little before besieged Messana, and as he said, were conquerors in the battle immediately & without intermission, he declareth how having their hearts surprised with great fear, they fled away, lurking in the cottages and houses of the City, until they were besieged. And those which hardly before were kept in their city by the Carthaginenses & foiled in fight, straight way he maketh conquerors, spoiling the territories of their enemies, with divers incursions, and finally invading their city. But these by no reason can agree. Wherefore of necessity either that which he putteth first, or the which he placeth last, must be false & of no effect. But this is manifestly known to all men, that the Carthaginenses and Syracusans, after they had fled from their tents, conveyed themselves immediately to the City, where without intermission, the Romans besieged the Scicilians, which proveth and corroborateth his last position, so that of necessity his first assertion must needs be false, untrue, and of no value. For the Romans obtained victory in the battle fought by Messana. Yet he foolishly feigned them to have been vanquished of the Carthaginenses. Oftentimes of this fashion erreth Philinus incongruentely, and without reason: and Fabius accordingly as I shall show in their places.  
But now to return to my purpose from the which I have somewhat digressed by showing these things, that thereby the studious affecters of this work might better perceive the conveyance of the history. When the fame was divulgate & brought from Sicily to Rome, of the prosperous and fortunate success chanced to Appius & the rest of the Roman soldiers, Marcus Valerius and Caius Octacilius being create Consuls, were both sent into Sicily with the Roman army, in the which host were four legions, all Romans, by the aids which was sent them yearly by their allies, every legion containing four thousand foot men and three hundredth horsemen. At the arrival of the Consuls many Cities both of the Carthaginenses, and the Syracusanes revolted unto them. Hieron perceiving the Scicilians to be discouraged, also the number and power of the Romans to be augmented, supposed that their amity should be more commodious to him than the friendship of the Carthaginenses: wherefore he dismissed certain ambassadors to the consuls to entreat for peace, the Romans perceiving the Carthaginenses kept the seas in every corner, & being afraid lest at any time they should be destitute of victuals, they supposed the the friendship of Hieron, should be very commodious to them for the preventing of such casualties, so that they concluded peace with the Siracusans on these conditions: That the King should restore the captives which he had in prison to the Romans without ransom. Moreover, that they should pay an hundredth talents of money, and then to be received and admitted as friends to the Romans. King Hyeron having gotten himself thus under the protection of the Romans, aided and supported them with victuals and other necessaries, as oft as necessity required, passing the rest of his life in more happy and fortunate estate than any other of the Grecians, so that in mine opinion his life was more honourable & renowned than any of the residue, continuing in like estate and happy success a great tract of time both in public and private affairs. As soon as these news were published at Rome they condescended to them, liking very well the conditions and peace concluded with Hieron: after that day they thought it not necessary to send their whole strength and power without Italy, supposing two legions to be sufficient, because they thought the war not so perilous the king being associate unto them, also for that of him they should have plenty of such things as were necessary to the Army. The Carthaginenses, perceiving Hieron to be revolted and become their enemy, and the Romans to have the greater part of italy in possession, supposed that they needed greater puissance to withstand their force, so that they wrote to the Ligurian Captains & prefects of the Gallician army, also to the Spanish soldiers for aid. Which being arrived in Sicily, and perceiving the city of Agrigentine to be a place very fit for their purpose & strong munition against their enemies, bordering against them, stored it with great plenty of victuals, and used it as a warlike munition against the Romans. The Consuls having concluded peace with Hieron, voided out of the Province. After their departure, Lucius Posthumius & Quintus Aemilius being elected in their places, came into italy, with the army, which having diligently considered the preparation of the Carthaginenses, made about the City of the Agrigentines, being of more audacity than their predecessors, thought it necessary earnestly to apply their matters in Sicily. Wherefore they mustered all their soldiers together & invaded the City, encamping themselves within eight furlongs of the munition, keeping their enemies within the City. Now it was Autumn, & every man supposed that the siege would continue very long, for which cause the soldiers left their Camps boldly, labouring sorer than need required to get in their harvest. The Carthaginenses seeing their enemies roving and wandering abroad here & there in the province adventurously & without circumspection, had a good hope that the Roman Legions that day might be vanquished, and easily oppressed, so that they rushed out with great violence, part into the tents and camp, and part amongst the reapers and labourers. But the diversity of manners and orders, as they have oft times preserved many, so the Romans this day especially by them were exempt from dangers: for there is a law amongst them, that whosoever in the time of war absenteth himself out of his appointed station, or wandereth out of the Camp, for so doing he must receive Martial law. By the which good order, it fortuned that the Carthaginenses, being a greater multitude and number of men, yet by the noble and valiant resistance of the Romans, and with the loss of many soldiers, the Africans had the greater foil, and in the end were driven from the Camp and fled away, many of them being spoiled in the pursuit, and the rest with great joy of their enemies driven within the walls. Such fear reigned in both armies by the danger of this day, that afterward the Carthaginenses were not bold so rashly and without regard to enter the camp of their enemies, neither permitted the Romans their soldiers so unadvisedly to run on haruesting. Now when the Carthaginenses desisted any more to urge their enemies with extern skirmishes, fight only far off with shafts and darts, the Consuls divided their army into two parts, laying the one company at the temple of Aesculapius, and encamping that other on that side which lieth toward Heraclea, being the just midst betwixt the two Armies, they encompassed with a double ditch either side of the City, making one betwixt them & the walls of the hold, to defend them from sudden invasions, there was also another diche cast on the outside, lest the fortress should be succoured as it often times chanceth to cities besieged. They fortified the places betwixt the ditches and the host, with divers garrisons of men: victuals and other necessaries for the Camp, were brought by the Siracusans into Erbesum from whence the Romans carried them into their tents, for the town was not far distant from them.  
The two Armies lay thus five months, in the which time nothing was done of either part worthy of remembrance. But in continuance of time when hunger & famine began to pinch & nip the Carthaginenses by reason of the great multitude enclosed in the city, (for they amounted to above fifty thousand men) than Annibal which was ruler of the City, altogether mistrusting of his matters sent word to Carthage to certify them, not only how the City was besieged, but also to require them of aid and succour, with which news the Carthaginenses being moved, they prepared an Army, and collected a great number of Elephants & ships which they sent to Hanno, their other captain in Scicilia, who having gathered his men together, went to Heraclea, where he pondering all things advisedly, took the Town of Erbesum by treason, with all the victuals & necessaries belonging to the host which unto that day had been the greatest storer, and chief supporter of the Romans, by which loss it came to pass that the Consuls were as fiercely assaulted as they did defend, and were oft brought to that stay through penury and want of other necessaries, that sundry times they deliberated of dissolving their camp, which undoubtedly had chanced in continuance, if that Hyeron King of the Syracusans, had not with great diligence provided and ministered necessary things to the host. After this Hanno perceiving the Romans to be infected with sickness & penury, (for there was a great plague in the camp,) and seeing his soldiers very apt and ready for the battle, gathered together above fifty Elephants, making all things in a readiness and bringing his power out of Heraclea, commanding the Numidian horsemen to march before, and joining with their enemies to provoke their horsemen as much as they could to enter the battle, than they to take their slight without staying, unto such time as they came unto him. The Numidians obeyed the commandment of their General, for at the first they so provoked their enemies, that incontinently the Roman horsemen rushed upon them very rashly, the Libyans according to the precept of their Captain, without resistance fled until they came to him, at which sight the Romans turned their backs, but Hanno with his company handled them hotly, killing many & pursuing the rest into their Campe. This broil being thus finished, the Carthaginenses departed with their army & encamped on a hill called Torus, but. x. furlongs distant from the army of their enemies, where they lingered two months without any enterprise, saving with shooting of arrows and casting of darts. In the mean time Annibal made many signs & tokens both by messengers & beacons in the night to Hanno, that the soldiers were not able to susteins the famine any longer, & how many of his retinue were revolted to the Romans for want of sustenance. Hanno being moved with these news, imbattailed his men & set all things in order. The Consuls likewise, with no less diligence prepared them to the conflict, being moved with the dangers before declared. Both the armies were conducted into an equal place, where they coped together with eager and sharp onsets. This conflict continued long very terrible & despiteful, at the length the Romans caused the first battle of the Carthaginenses to recoil and give back, who rashly & without regard, braced in among the Elephants, with which the beasts being afraid, disquieted and troubled the whole army, in which broil that Romans charged them earnestly, compelling the Carthaginenses quite to forsake the field. The Africans being proflygate, & in this manner almost brought to utter confusion, part pauned their lives for standing by it, the remanant fled to Heraclea. The Romans having gathered the pray of Elephants and other booties gained of the Carthaginenses, returned with their retinue into their camps. That night the guard of the Roman hosts watch was negligently kept, what for the unspeakable joy of their prosperous success (as is oft times seen in such braveries) & for the great travail taken in the conflict. Annibal desolate & abandoned of all help, & having no hope of aid, esteeming that to be a most convenient time for him & his soldiers to escape forth, for the causes before remembered, issued out with his army which lay in Agrigentine, at midnight, through the camp of the Romans, without danger or interruption, strawing the ways with chaff. The Romans in the dawning of the next morning perceiving their enemies to be fled, began a pursuit, but incontinently returned to the City where their army without interruption or resistance assailing the gates, entered within the walls, spoiling & raunsacking all things within famous town, seizing & taking great pray of goods and servants, with other inestimable booties, When word was come to Rome, how the Carthaginenses were discomforted, & Agrigentine taken, they began to wax insolent and angry and assaying greater things, not being content with those things which they intended in the beginning, to aid the Mamertines, & defend Messana, for to resist the power of the Carthaginenses in Sicily. But now hoping after greater principalities, they purposed to expel them quite out of the province, supposing by that means of their doings should have more prosperous success. Through these cogitations, they were moved and determinately bend concerning their exploits in sicily, knowing that their foot men were of more prowess & worthiness than their enemies. After the expugnation of Agrigentine, Lucius Valerius & Titus Octacilius elected Consuls, and having a great army levied, were sent into sicily, so that now their strength was equal: for the Carthaginese had domination over the seas, ruling every angle at liberty without interruption, which is an evident argument, that after the suppression of Agrigentine, many of the Mediterrane towns in Sicily revolted to the Romans for dread of their great puissance of footmen. But after that the fleet was abroad, it is to be thought that many more situate by the sea coasts, yielded themselves for fear to the Carthaginenses. Thus Fortune favoured either part equally, but Italy was oft times sore molested with the incursions of the Libyan Navy. But Africa was nothing troubled with any army or host of their enemies: which thing being diligently pondered, the Romans determined to cope with them by sea. Which thing especially solicitated & provoked me to speak of this war at large, lest any should be ignorant of this principle, how & at what time, and for what causes the Romans were enforced to prepare a Navy to encounter with their adversaries. When the Romans perceived that the war could not otherwise be finished, they prepared a Navy of an hundredth & twenty ships, of the which a hundredth were Quinqueremes, and the residue Triremes. In the preparance of this navy the Quinqueremes were very cumbrous & hard to be built, because no such Barks were used in Italy before that time, for which cause the excellency & magnanimity of the Romans is to be marveled at, being men altogether ignorant of the seas, which before that time had never regarded the knowledge thereof, now so courageously to venture upon them, as though they had already vanquished their enemies, with whom they never tried that kind of combat. Also considering how at that present the Africans by the judgement of all men, were most expert & active upon the waters, as a thing left unto them by their forefathers for an inheritance, which is both a singular testimo nigh & a good argument of the worthiness of the acts which I intent to treat of, & the haughtiness of the Romans. For at their first sailing to Messana, they had not only no ships of war, but scantany little Bark or vessel, but borrowing ships of the Tarentines, Locrines, and Neapolitans, for the safety of their army. There road at that present many of the Carthaginenses ships about the coasts of Sicily, from whence one of the quinqueremes hovering aloof from the rest of the fleet, being wracked, by chance came to the hands of the Romans, at which they took example to make theirs: whilst the navy was in furnishing, the army was trained in learning to row after this manner. There were seats made orderly in the sand, in which the Romans sat, & were warned by the voice of a general which stood in the midst of them, to stretch forth their arms altogether, and likewise to draw them in by the sand, so that at a certain sign, they all began and left of together. According to this rate they learned to row, than the ships being finished, they entered the sea, & within a few days after made a true trial in the waters. Gaius Cornelius the Consul, which not long before was made general of the Navy, having brought all the ships into the deep, passed the seas to Messana with seventeen sail, leaving the residue about the coasts of Italy. When he had prepared all things necessary to his Fleet at Messana, spying a convenient time, he passed with the same ships to the islands Hyparides. About that time Hannibal the Carthaginean captain was arrived at Pavormus. He hearing tell of the Consul's arrival, sent one Boodius a Senator of Carthage thither with twenty ships, which coming upon them suddenly in the night, finding the Romans ships in the Haven, environed them. The Consul thus being prevented at unawares, witted not what way was the best to take, but in the end yielded himself as overcome to his enemies, which incontinently conveyed him & the prizes to Hannibal. Within a few days after this overthrow of Cornelius, Hannibal upon whom fortune as yet through her benignity had smiled, not oppressing him with any sinister chance, hearing tell that the Roman Navy road in the coasts of Italy, not far distant from Sicily, earnestly desired to behold the multitude, order, and building of his enemies Navy: for the which purpose he elected fifty ships, and passed into Italy, but in stead of the Italian coasts (Fortune now turning her tippet) he was driven amongst the fleet of his enemies, which being well prepared and ready at all points, assailed him immediately, so that losing the most part of his ships, he escaped away very hardly, yet better than he did hope for. After this the Romans setting toward Sicily, were advertised by the captives, of the misfortune chanced to the Consul, wherefore they sent a post to Caius Duellius his companion and captain of the footmen. But whilst they hovered for him, word came that the power of their enemies was at hand, therefore they dressed themselves towards the naval conflict. But considering how their ships were very slow and nothing apt to celerity, they invented certain munitions and defences for every one of them, afterward called Crows. The munition was found in this sort. There was a pillar of wood erected in the stern of the ship, four else in length and three hands in breadth, having in the top a pulley with stairs made of planks adjoining to it, which were four foot in breadth and six else in length, the stairs were made hollow, having munitions in fashion of battlements up to the top of the cans and knee plates, in the end of the pillar was a sharp instrument of iron tied to the stairs with a rope in a ring, and it was in fashion much like to a mattock so that this engine resembled much those with the which corn is hoisted out of ships, with the which invention as soon as they joined with their enemies, slacking the rope and letting it down, it fastened insolubly in their adver aries Bark by the heaviness of the weight, so that if the foreparts met, two men descended together by the stairs, the two foremost always bearing targets, with which they defended the rest. If they met crosspath or overthwartes, they easily skipped out at all parts. After this preparance to the Naval war, Caius Duellius having knowledge of the infortunate chance, happened to his companion captain of the navy, left his host with the Tribunes, hasting himself towards the fleet: and hearing say, that the Carthaginenses were not very far from Mylis, with great speed made thither with his whole power. The Africanes as soon as they heard tell of their enemies coming, were in hope to have good success (supposing the Romans to be unskilful in governing a Navy) wherefore they prepared thirty ships, putting them forth to maete their enemies without all fear, as though they had gone forth to fetch home some won booty: their captain was Hannibal, which (as I have showed a little before) conducted his army out of Agrigentine in the night time through his enemies camp. He had a Septireme, which in time passed belonged to Pyrrhus' king of Epirotes. Now when the Navies were within prospect one of the other, and that the engines were espied in every ship stern, the Carthaginenses were sore discouraged at the aspect of such a rare sight, but at the length rejecting all fearful and dastardly cowardness, little esteeming the new invented engines, set upon their enemies with a bold courage. The ships being grappled together, the Romans assailed their enemies, descending out of their own ships into theirs, by their new invented engines. Many of the Carthaginenses were slain, the rest amazed at the policy of their adversaries, yielded to them. This conflict resembled much the conflicts and skirmishes made on the land and not much unlike in danger. Thus were the thirty ships taken which assailed the Romans with the Praetors, which as I showed before benlonged to king Pyrrhus. Hannibal seeing all things chance contrary to his expectation, with hard shift in this troublesome tumult, slipping into a skiff or ship boat, fled away. The residue of the Carthagenean navy entered accordingly upon their enemies, but perceiving how the former company were entrapped with their enemies engines, began to practise their fraudulent fetches & deceitful wiles, not entering according to the accustomed guise, but overthwartly using the celerity of their ships, supposing thereby to escape the danger. But the inventions were so aptly disposed and placed, that they easily clasped them which way so ever they entered, with which strange sight the Carthaginenses being amazed, took their flight, having lost fifty ships in that conflict. The Romans having thus obtained the domination of the seas, persisted in their wars, and earnestlier employed their business, sailing into the coasts of Segestana, delivering the town there from besieging, then setting from them, they won the city Macella. After these wars on the sea, Amilcar captain over the Carthaginean army, which then lay in Sicily, hearing tell how there was a contention sprung betwixt the Roman soldiers, and the aids (sent from their confederates) contending of their prowess and worthy acts, insomuch that the foreigners their adiutours, being vanquished, were encamped by themselves. Wherefore Hanno with all diligence hasted towards them, so that suddenly ere they were aware, he destroyed about four thousand.  
After these facts thus finished, Annibal with the remnant which were escaped from the conflict, came to Carthage, from whence soon after accompanied with certain noble captains & a navy of triremes, he was sent in to Sardinia, where within a few days after, being enclosed in a certain porterangle, by the Romans lost the most part of his ships, himself escaping the hands of his enemies: but shortly after being taken of the Carthaginenses he was hanged for his evil doings on the gallows. The Romans as soon as they had obtained the sovereignty and rule of the seas, with all diligence employed themselves for to invade Sardinia.  
The next year following, there was no valiant acts done by the Roman army in Sicily, worthy of remembrance. Caius Sulpitius and Aulus Rutelius, afterward created consuls, were sent to Pavorinus, because at that present, the power of the Carthaginenses lay there. At their arrival immediately they embatailed their men before the city, but the Carthaginenses being within the walls offered not once to come forth, which thing the Romans perceiving, departed from thence to Hippana, which they immediately took. They likewise took Missistratus, which by reason of impregnableness had resisted a certain time. Then they brought their army against the Camerenenses, which a little before had rebelled against them, which with terrible continuance, warlike weapons, and tearing torments they vanquished. Atna & divers other towns were taken by them. Also Lippara was besieged by them. About this time Aulus Tutelius the Consul and captain of the Navy lay in the coasts of the Tinderitans, where he espied the Carthaginean Navy sailing by the coast, wherefore he commanded his men incontinently to make them ready in all haste, and follow him. Then he accompanied with ten ships, marched forward before the rest. The Carthaginenses espying this trick, how part of their enemies were but entering into their ships, another sort launching into the deep, and the first company far distant from all the rest, they returned suddenly with an incredible celerity drowning many of the Romans ships, and the praetors ship with those that were in her, scantly escaped with great rowing and much labour. Whilst this broil was in hand the rest of the Roman navy marching forward met with their enemies, took ten fraughted prizes, sinking eight, the rest fleeing away retired to Lippara. Both the captains departed from this conflict, either of them attributing the victory to himself, for which cause they more ardently prepared for the Naval war, during which time nothing was done amongst the footmen worthy of noting, but troubled themselves with trifles. In the beginning of the next summer having furnished themselves of all necessaries, they repaired to the war again. The Romans met together at Messana, with three hundredth and thirty quinqueremes, from whence they sailed by the south side of Sicily, having overcome the country of Pachinus, to E●nomon, where the footmen abode for them. The Carthaginenses passed the sea with three hundredth and fifty ships, remaining at Lilybeum. The Romans consulted concerning a voyage into Africa, judging it requisite to sail thither with their whole puissance, to the end that the Carthaginenses should not only be disquieted in Sicily, but also molested at home in their native country. On the other part the Carthaginenses perceiving how easy a thing it was to descend into Lybia, also how faint hearted the people were, the enemy being once entered into the Province, therefore they intended incontinently to encounter with the Romans, hoping by that means to stop their exploit into Africa. In this manner the one part preparing to invade, and the other to resist, foreshowed the great wars to ensue. The Romans having prepared all things necessary to their Navy, elected out of their number of footmen, such as were of most haughty and valiant courage, embarking them than they made a quadripartite division of their Navy, giving to every part a double name, saving to the last, which still retained the name of the rearward, as is accustomed in other battles. There was above a hundredth and forty thousand men in the Roman navy, every ship had three hundredth rowers, and six score fighting men.  
The Carthaginenses having prepared their Navy of ships, being fraughted only with men, amounted at the least to the numbered of a hundredth and fifty thousand: so that not only the beholders, but also they which heard tell of the huge number, great ability, and worthy acts of these two armies, may wonder. The Romans perceiving that this their navigation of necessity must be overthwart and crooked, also calling to mind the expertness of their enemies in rowing, purposed to make their course invincible, placing the two Sepremes in which Marcus Attilius & Lucius Manlius were in the forefront with an equal distance, after these the first & second ward followed, keeping like compass which betwixt every two was enlarged with their stems sticking outward. The Navy being protract on a length, fronting on the former ships, had a triangle on each side, unto the which was joined the third Navy, in the manner of a prop or pillar, so that the three frontes being disposed thus, they resembled a perfect triangle. After the third Navy came the carts and foists, in which their horses were transported, & there was cords which reached out of them into the third navy: after these came the rearward in their order, which were disposed that they surmounted and exceeded the wing of them which marched before. The Roman fleet being set in order after this manner, the first parts which were the two triangles of the sides, were void in the midst, the other that followed, that is to say, they which came after the pillar or strength, were more , so that the whole navy was sure and indissoluble. By this time the Carthaginean Captains had gathered their strength and exhorted their soldiers that they should be of bold and stout courage, informing them if they conquered the Romans in this combat, afterward they should fight for the regiment and sovereignty of sicily: but if the Romans should suppress them they should not war for Sicily, but for their country, for their freedom and for their children. Having thus incensed their soldiers, they commanded them to go a board. They incontinently obeyed the commandment of their general, showing themselves very forward, perceiving the eminent danger. Now when the governors of the Carthaginean army had perceived the order of the Roman fleet, they likewise divided their Army into four parts, of the which three be launched into the deep, & lay with their right wing extended out in length with the four parts of their ships bend towards their enemies, as though they would have environed them. The fourth part which was the left wing, remained as under a munition by the shore. Hanno and Amilcar were generals of the Carthaginean navy. Hanno ruled over the right wing, having with him the swifter ships, and Amilcar the left, with the slugs. This was he which (as is before declared) escaped so hardly at Tindarides. Now Amilcar used this policy. The Consuls at their first meeting, espying the forefront of the Africans to be very thin, burst in through the midst of them with great violence, which according as Amilcar had commanded, feigned a recoil, to the end that they might sever and disjoin the Roman navy, which pursued them now earnestle, so that the first and second ward marching after their enemies, and the third and fourth coming slowly after, caused that the two first wards were separated from the last. Which separation being perceived of the Carthaginenses, there was a sign made out of Hamilcar's ship, as they were agreed before, at which sight with a sudden inversion they returned, invading the Romans which pursued them. The battle was very terrible and cruel. The Carthaginenses far exceeded the Romans, in subtle flights and swift rowing: but after that it came to handblowes, & the ships were grappled, the Romans passed in strength & worthiness. According as I have declared, was the beginning of the naval wars. Hanno which (as I declared before) was captain of the right wing, espying the battle to be begun with the forward of the Romans, set forward to invade the rearward, where was a terrible & perilous conflict, during long & very doubtful. Then the fourth ward of the Carthaginenses set towards their enemies & encountered with that fleet which had the ferry boats, who letting the ropes slip, assailed them very fiercely. Thus was the battle divided into three parts, & there was three naval conflicts at one time, every one far separate from another. In the which the fights were alike, because of their equality, each part encountered other courageously, all things went alike on both sides. Then in continuance, Amilcar with his company were put to flight, Lucius Manlius persisted in pursuing his enemies, but Marcus Attilius espying the conflicts in the rearward, and amongst that Hulks, hasted him to aid them with the second ward: the rearward which had been in great peril & danger, and almost suppressed by Hanno, were so encouraged and animated by the Consuls coming, that they fought courageously. The Carthaginenses being thus suddenly intrapte with their enemies on every side, trusting to the celerity and swiftness of their ships, thrust into the deep and fled away. During this time the third navy of the Romans which lay by the shore, was sore assaulted & grievously oppressed by the Carthaginenses, but Lucius Manlius and Marcus Attilius having set the rearward and the other in safety, took their course a contrary way to aid them being in distress which lay as though they had been besieged & almost overcome, which had chanced in deed, but that the Carthaginenses being afraid of their crows, durst not grapple with them, so that they only studied to drive them to the shore. But the Roman Consuls having at unwares encompassed them, took fifty of their fraughted prizes, the residue being driven to the shore, fled away. Thus these three battles were fought severally betwixt the Romans and the Carthaginenses, on one day, according to this prescript order, in which the Romans were conquerors, of whose Navy there was four and twenty Ships wracked, of the Carthaginenses above thirty. The Romans had no fraughted ships taken, but they took to the number of three score and more. After this combat having repaired their taken ships, and joined them to their army, having victuals and other necessaries collected, departed towards Libya. There is a place in Africa called the promontory of Mercury, reaching into the sea towards sicily, there the Romans arrived first, from whence having repaired their ships, they sailed to Clypia, and there not far from the City having disbarqued the soldiers, begun to enuironne the Town with ditches and trenches. They had prepared all things ready to besiege the Town, but the defendants yielded themselves willingly to them. Now the Carthaginenses which had before fled from the naval conflict, were arrived at Carthage, supposing the Roman army after their prosperous success, to have gone immediately thither, for which suspection, they levied a great number of horsemen, footmen, and ships to defend the necessary places of the City. After all this preparance being finished, it is to understanded how the Consuls had besieged the City of Clipia, rejecting all domestical fear, they prepared men ready to their war both by water and land, pretermitting nothing belonging to the safety of the province or city. In the mean time the Consuls having overcome the City of Clipie, and put soldiers into it, they sent legates to Rome, which should certify the Senate of their affairs, & bring them word what they should then take in hand. Finally they brought their whole army to the Frontiers of Carthage, invading the province without interruption, pilling, foraging, and wasting the region before them, burning & destroying the sumptuous buildings, seizing all kind of preys and booties bringing above twenty thousand labourers to their ships. In the mean time the legates sent to Rome were returned, making relation how the senate willed one of the Consuls to remain in Africa, with the host, and the other to repair to Rome with the navy.  
The Consuls perceiving the minds of the Senate, agreed that Marcus Attilius Regulus should remain in Africa, with forty ships, fifteen thousand footmen and five hundredth horsemen, and that Manlius with the residue of the navy and host, with all the multitude of captives should return to Rome. The Carthaginenses perceiving by the great preparation of the Romans, that this war should be of long continuance, appointed Asdrubal the son of Hanno & Bostarus, captains of their host. Then they sent to Amilcar to Heraclea, which immediately came to Carthage, with five thousand footmen and five hundredth horsemen, & was associate the third captain to them. The three generals began to consult amongst themselves concerning the administration of the wars, in which consultation they determined to aid the province, and not to suffer such havoc and waste to be made of the Region. Then Marcus Attilius within a few days after, went to the City Adis, endeavouring himself to besiege and conquer it, of which the Carthaginenses having knowledge, employed their whole diligence to receive and deliver it from the siege, marching forward with their whole Army towards the Romans, to such time as they came to a hill, standing on the right wing of their enemies, on the which for certain considerations they pight their pavilions, supposing it to be a place most expedient and apt for their purpose. All their trust and confidence of victory, were in their Horsemen and Elephants. Thus forsaking the plains and valleys, they ascended with their Army into a high, huge and steep plat, even as it were teaching their enemies what they should do, as without doubt it chanced after: for the Romans perceiving how the Elephants (in the which their enemies put their chief confidence) were altogether unprofitable for battle, and of no force in the mountains, supposed it to be best, not to defer or prolong the time any longer, either to permit them to descend into the plains, but incontinently pretermitting no opportunity, encompassed the hill on either side, by which devise it came to pass that the power of the Elephants and Horsemen, were of no force and to no purpose, so that only the mercynarie soldiers fought out of the higher places, constraining the Roman soldiers a little to retire, but the other part of the hill was suddenly vanquished, and the Romans ascended.  
The Carthaginenses perceiving themselves to be environed on every side with their enemies, immediately they fled and left their tents standing, flying down by the shoot bank. The Romans a certain space pursued the footmen, then having spoiled the tents & making diverse recourses through the whole province, spoiled the fields and rifled the Towns. Shortly after they invaded and took Tunis, perceiving that it was a very fit place for the wars, lying against Carthage & the province encamped there. The Carthaginenses being a little before overcome by sea, were now likewise suppressed by land of the Romans in divers battles, not for lack of men or strength, but of policy & expert captains. Thus they were disquieted with diverse afflictions, and in desperation of their health. After this combat wherein they were so dispersed & foiled, there arose a great rout of the Numidians against them, hoping to get some gains, of whom they had almost as much hurt as of the Romans, for they being a greedy covetous pilling snatching and ravenous nation, depopulated and wasted all things before them. The Carthaginenses quaking for fear of the Numidians, fled out of the province into the city, where as they were greatly discouraged, prognosticating the furious famine like to ensue, as well for the multitude of people enclosed within the City, as for fear of the long siege. Now Marcus Attilius perfectly understanding the great danger that the Carthaginenses were in both by sea and by land, so that the city within a small tract of time, would revolt and yield unto him, yet fearing lest the new Consul then ready to come into Africa, should ascribe the facinorous & worthy acts done by him, to his own glory & praise, thought it best to conclude peace with the Carthaginenses, which gratefully and with joyful minds accepted it, dismissing the chief men of their city to entreat with the Consul concerning the conclusion of the league. This matter being thus brought to pass, yet were the demands so unreasonable, that they refused to take truce with them, yea they were so far out of measure, that they could not suffer the Consul to speak to them, for Marcus Attilius having the victory and dominion over all things, thought whatsoever he offered to the Carthaginenses, that they should accept it as a gift or reward: but they on the contrary part, thought there could be nothing more rigorous, sharp, cruel, or biting, than the words of the Consul were unto them, being driven to the last pinch. Wherefore they departed, not only enemies and peace unconcluded, but also abhorring and detesting the answer of Attilius, as too grievous, displeasant, painful, and hard also, as to magnific, stately, and arrogant.  
When they had showed these things in the senate house at Carthage, though long before they were in despair, and had no hope of prosperous success, nevertheless, yet hearing the unreasonable requests of the Consul, with a great disdain they did animate themselves, reviving their pristinate courages, determining rather to abide extreme danger and calamities, yea and death itself, than to suffer any reproach, infamy, or disworshippe, either of their good name, or of the worthy and famous acts done and achieved by them. At that same present a certain Carthaginean, (by chance) which was sent into Grecia at the beginning to higher soldiers, returned home with a great troop and multitude of men, amongst whom there was one Zantippus, a Lacedaemonian, who was a passing expert and cunning Soldier, & had been much exercised & trained in the wars, which hearing tell of the conflict and overthrow of the Carthaginenses: also perceiving how it was fought and being informed of the time and place where, further considering their preparance with horse and Elephants, turned him to his companions, & said: The Carthaginenses took not this overthrow of the Romans, but through their evil guiding and ignorance of their unexpert captains. These words of Zantippus immediately were bruited through the whole city, and came to the ears of the rulers, which made him to be called before them, minding to try his counsel. Now when Zantippus was come to them, & had showed the reason of his words and the causes why the Romans made such havoc of their men, he promised if they would be counseled by him (afterwards leaving the hills and high places keeping the plains) that he would instruct them how to save themselves, and a ready way to overcome their enemies. The Carthaginean Captains being moved with these words of Zantippus incontinently authorized him general over the whole army: and there was a great rumour noised abroad through the whole host, of Zantippus words, so that there was nothing but pleasant noise and merry talk through the whole army. When he had brought the soldiers out of the city, and imbattailed them, there appeared such manifest difference betwixt them, and the other untrayned Captains, that all the people cried out with a clamorous shout, they desired nothing so much as war, they had such a good hope Zantippus being their guider.  
These things being thus brought to pass, the Carthaginean Captains perceiving the ardent zeal & fervent desire of the soldiers, exhorted them as the time permitted: then within a few days after, brought them forth against their enemies. There was in the Carthaginean army above twelve thousand footmen, four thousand horsemen, and nigh a hundredth Elephants. Marcus Attllius having knowledge of his enemies, though he were somewhat astonied to see them (contrary to their accustomed rate) keep in the plains, and place their tents in them, yet being very desirous of battle, he marched forward to meet them, placing his tents within two hundredth paces of his enemies. The next day following the African Capitains' took counsel amongst themselves what was best to be done. The whole multitude turned to Zantippus, calling him by name, and said that they were ready, and prepared to venture themselves what danger soever there were, desiring him to make forward to the battle. The Carthaginean captains perceiving the valiant courage of their soldiers and the desire they had to encounter with their enemies, considering also the presence of Zantippus, thought that this was a most convenient time to set upon their enemies, wherefore commanding the soldiers to prepare themselves, they granted Zantippus the regiment of the army to rule at his pleasure. He having received of the captains, authority over the host, set towards his adversaries, & in araying his army, placed the elephants every one in his order, before the forefront of the battle: a little space after them he placed a legion of the Carthaginenses, appointing the stipendary soldiers to keep the right and left corner than he appointed them of most agility to fight betwixt the two wings of the horsemen. The Romans perceiving their enemies in a readiness, prepared and made ready their army, setting the most valiant and active Soldiers that could be picked out of the whole company, against the Elephants. After them, they fortified their forefront with divers and sundry munitions, pointing their horsemen in either wing, placing their standards not in the beginning, but in the strength of the battle their order was very slender in the breast, and strengthened with many aids in the back to withstand the force of the elephants. But as it was well provided of the Romans to keep back the beasts, so it was very dangerous for being ingired, for the Carthaginenses having the greater troop of horses, might easilier environ them disposed so straightly. Now both the companions being priest to join battle, either of them looked to be assailed of other. As soon as Zantippus had commanded the elephants to be put toward the enemies, the horsemen of both wings burst in eagerly. The Romans according to the custom of their country, sounding their trumpets, commanded their soldiers to gird valiantly into the thickest of the army. The sight was very sharp and terrible amongst them: but the Roman soldiers dreading the multitude of the Carthaginenses, fled incontinently from both wings, the footmen of the left wing having inclined the force of the elephants, esteemed nothing the multitude of the hired soldiers, but rushed in valiantly on the right wing of the Carthaginenses, putting them to flight, and pursuing them sharply to their tents: but those which were placed next to the Elephants were hurled down & overthrown on heaps by the filthy beasts. The fortune of victory depended doubtful, the resistants defended themselves so worthily: but after the rearward of the Romans was compassed in with the Carthaginean horsemen, & were compelled to encounter with them, & those, which (as I showed) were placed in the midst to resist the elephants, driven on the strongest company of their enemies, by whom they were suppressed and quite overthrown, the Romans began to languish and faint on every part, some being trodden down with the multitude of that cruel & fierce beasts, other slain by the horsemen in the same place where they stood in the beginning, so that a small handful remained to the latter end, which perceiving there was no hope of recovery, fled away to save themselves, but they also the place being very plain, were overrun with horsemen and elephants, other five hundredth flying away with Marcus Attilius, were entrapped and taken by their enemies.  
In the Carthaginean army were slain eight hundredth hired soldiers, which fought in the left wing against the Romans. Of the other part escaped only two thousand with their ensigns and standards, which (as you heard a little before) chased the Carthaginenses to their tents, all the rest saving Marcus Attilius, and a few which were taken with him, were slain. The Carthaginenses having made spoil of the bodies of their enemies, returned into the City with great joy and gladness, leading with them the Consul, and the rest of their Captives.  
If there be any man that pondreth and weigheth this according to verity, he shall find divers things included herein very necessary, and passing profitable to the amendment & right government of our lives. first, if he revolve and intentively consider in his mind how frivolous, unconstant and vain a thing it is to put any hope or trust in Fortune, because of prosperity or other famous facts done according to our minds. Marcus Attilius may be a singular example to every one, which of late flourishing with so many famous triumphs, and adorned with so many glorious victories, and in his chief pomp and glory, would by no means possible, nor by any intercessions, be merciful or favourable to the Carthaginenses, being at the last cast, and in extreme danger, now himself was forced humbly to request mercy and peace at their hands, which with tedious exorations & low obeisance had required it of him not long before, so that the worthy saying of Euripides was at this time verified, that the counsel of one wise man countervaileth the strength of many soldiers: for one man by his politic prudence, overcame and utterly destroyed a multitude before invincible, restoring the city (grievously afflicted and oppressed) to the pristinat state, relieving the Citizen's minds, which were in utter despair. I have voluntarily remembered these things, knowing the fruit contained in them to belong much to the correction and amendment of men's lives. For there are two ways laid before men, by example of which, they may be reform to a better trade of life, the one is by his own calamities, the other by example of other men's harms, of which the former without doubt is of more efficacy, but it chanceth not without the great detriment of him, which suffereth it: the second though it be not so efficacious, yet it is good, because it is expert and void of all danger or damage. Wherefore very few choose the first willingly, by reason of his collaterals, which are affliction, oppression, and trouble, but the other is well accepted of all men, because it is exempt from all detriment, grief and vexation: so that a man of understanding may well perceive, experience to be the best guide and conductor to the right institution and amendment of life, which chief consisteth in the commemoration of other men's facts, for they with out trouble, hurt or damage, give best instructions to wise men: but for this matter let these suffice. The Carthaginenses having all things chanced prosperously and according to their desire, pretermitted no kind of braveries, pomp and gladness, whether it were in praising their Gods, or in offering sacrifice to them, & other rights, neither in making and setting forth of plays, ne yet in giving and receiving gifts, according to the custom of the country. Zantippus having restored the Carthaginenses to their pristinate estate, soon after returned to his own country, having vigilantly foreséens all dangers. For it oft times chanceth, that he which doth worthily, is mortally hated and envied therefore, but being defended with his Citizen's allies and friends, he may easily flee and eschew the same, where strangers and foreigners are quickly dispatched. There is also an other cause alleged for his departure, as I shall show more at large in his place. When relation was made at Rome, of the overthrow of their host, and the Consuls taking, also how the rest of their army were besieged in Clipia, they prepared to aid them, levying a populous army which they sent into Africa. In this mean time, the Carthaginenses besieged Clipia, labouring earnestly to over come it, hoping to take those which escaped the battle. But the Roman soldiers defended themselves so courageously, that the Carthaginenses laboured in vain, who perceiving their travail to be of none effect, raised their camp. Now they heard word how the Romans had prepared a navy, which should come into Africa, with which rumours, the Carthaginenses being moved, began to repair their old Navy, also to prepare a new, so that having two hundredth well appointed ships, they determined to stay their passage into Africa. The Romans having also furnished three hundredth and fifty sail, sent Marcus Aemilius, and Servilius Fuluius consuls, with an army into Africa, the which did determine their journey first into the country of Sicily, and from thence unto Carthage, but suddenly not looked for, by the promontory of Mercury, they did meet with the Lybian Navy, which (as I have showed before) was set there to stop their voyage, and violently rushed upon them, immediately seizing a hundredth & fourteen fraughted prizes, thence sailing to Clipea, they received the Roman Soldiers, and remained a while in Africa, and then returned to Sicily. When they had prosperously passed over the sea, betwixt Africa, and Sicily, and were not far distant from the city Camerina, there chanced such a great calamity and shipwreck to them, as can not be well expressed: for of six hundredth forty and four ships, scant four score were saved, all the rest being either drenched or rend with rocks, gored up the shore with carcases and other traffic. There was never greater spoil at one time before these our days, yet chanced it not so much by fortune, as through the foolish boldness of the Consuls, for mariners and loads men warned them oft to eschew from the out costs of Sicily, being without ports, and very dangerous, especially at that time of the year betwixt Orion, and the can icular signs, but they rejected and did set light the Counsel of the Mariners, and puffed up in pride with their former victories, also being desirous of a few holds of little value, belonging to their enemies, so that their glorious and triumphant victory, which they had obtained before, was blemished with this miserable calamity, suffering severe punishment for their unbridled boldness, and as they are in deed valiant, so they suppose that all such exploits as they purpose to take in hand, must of necessity be finished, judging nothing impossible for them: & as divers times in this their unadvised rashness they had fortunate success, so many times they err & slide into great and manifest dangers, and especially in combats on the sea, for though in conflicts on the land, matching only with men, they often times have the pre-eminence, but not always, yet on the seas, they so harebrainely hazard themselves, that oft times they are pestered with great perils as they are at this present, and sundry other times, and shall be hereafter, except they repress and bridle their untamed rashness. When the Carthaginenses had knowledge of this unlucky chance happened to the Romans, they earnestly employed their whole diligence to the Naval war on the sea, supposing themselves nothing inferior to the Romans by water, for this their infortunate chance, and equal with them by land, because they had overcome the host of Marcus Attilius. Wherefore immediately they sent Asdrubal with all their old soldiers, with a Navy of two hundredth ships, part new made, part having their stems and tackeling refreshed: also a hundredth and forty Elephants, with a supplement of new Soldiers into Sicily, which having his army safely conducted to Lilybeum daily exercised his Soldiers and Elephants, continually molesting the friends of the Romans throughout all Sicily. Although the calamity of the great shipwreck had discouraged and appalled the hearts of the Romans, yet they disdained to give place to the Carthaginenses. Wherefore they prepared a new navy of two hunndreth and twenty ships, which was finished with such celerity, that within three months they were undockte, and set on the water, which may be thought a thing almost incredible. Aulus Aquilius and Caius Cornelius being Consuls, were appointed to sail into Sicily with that Navy, and to make war with the Carthaginenses, which incontinently taking their journey, came to Messana, where as they did receive the remnant of the shipwreck; which made in the whole, a navy of three hundredth sail. From thence they did pass onward to Panormus, the chief City of the Carthaginenses, assailing it with great power and violence, and besieged it on both sides, so the within few days with their torments, brakes & slings, they battered down the tour, entering in with great violence, and won the base town called Neapolis, which being once taken, the Citizens sore discouraged, yielded the other parts, commonly called the old town. When Panormus was taken, the Consuls left certain soldiers there, and returned to Rome. The next Caius Servilius, and Cneius Sempronius, being chosen in their places, took the navy, and passed the seas into Sicily, from thence into Africa, where arriving in the province, they set their army on land in divers places, making great havoc every where, yet they did nothing worthy writing: At length they arrived in the Isle of the Lotophagians, called Mirmix not far distant from the little Syrtes or quicksands, where not knowing the places through which they should sail, chanced in a straight angle, where their ships were grounded by the ebbing of the sea, during which time they stood in a marvelous perplexity & almost drowned in despair, until the water by flowing, set them on foot again, yet could their not scape scotfree, but of constraint were compelled to empty their ships, and cast their ballesse over board. After that day the Romans being pinched with so many perils, made their voyages by sea, as though the enemies had been in their tails. After this they returning into sicily, vanquished Lilybium, & remained at Panormus, front whence as they passed towards italy, there arose such a sudden tempest that above a hundredth and fifty ships of their navy were dispersed by the rage of the Seas, which after long tossing from post to pillar, were wracked and lost. The Romans being daunted with these hurts and calamities, though they esteemed the majesty & honour of their Empire above all other things, yet being oppressed with these miseries, determined utterly to forsake the seas. Then they only prepared an Army on the land, which were sent into sicily, under the tuition of Lucius Cacilius and Caius Curius being Consuls, to whom they delivered only three score ships, for the transporting of their corn and victuals, by which it came to pass, that the Carthaginenses had the superiority again, for the Roman navy taken away, they only ruled over the waters having also great confidence in their army and Elephants on the land. The Romans, being advertised of the battle fought in Africa, and the driving back of their army only through the multitude and strength of the Elephants which broke their battle and disturbed their orders, making great confusion in the host, after that time they were so pauled with the fear of the beasts, that for the space of two years next ensuing, when they should have coped with their enemies, either in Africa or in other places, they never durst encounter with them, or pitch their Tents in the valleys, but continually kept in the hills and high places, for no other cause but only to shield themselves from the Elephants. The Romans perceiving their host to be thus discouraged, without lingering prepared a new Navy, and having an election of officers, Caius Attilius and Lucius Manlius were appointed Consuls. Thus furnishing fifty new ships, and repairing the old Navy, they levied a fresh Army.  
Asdrubal Captain of the Carthaginenses, perceiving the fearfulness of the Romans, also having knowledge by the fugitives of the Romans preparation, & also hearing how one of the Consuls was determined to repair into italy, with part of the Army, & that only Metellus with scant half of the army should remain at Panormus, now Autumn drawing nigh, he removed from Lilybeum, and brought his army to that territories of Panormus. Metellus perceiving his enemies to be at hand, & seeing Asdrubal desirous of battle, restrained his men within the walls, which thing much more incensed the Carthaginean captain, in so much, that having spoiled and burned the fields on every side, he marched toward Panormus. The Consul kept his men so long within, that he ministered the enemies occasion to pass the river which fronted on the walls. The Consul perceiving the Elephants and main army to approach, he sent out his most active soldiers to solicitate and provoke his adversaries that they might come to the hands of the rest, and perceiving that all things chanced according to his mind, he appointed such as were of most agility to stand as it were a rampire above a ditch, from whence they should fight with their enemies a far of with their darts, and other roving weapons, commanding them that if at any time the beasts began to rage, they should skip into the ditches, and from thence hurl at them again: he made a great company of darts or pikes to be conveyed out of the City, which he placed in the pits. Then he with all that standards stood at another contrary angle of the City butting on the left wing of his enemies. As soon as the battle was begun, the master of the Elephants being very desirous of honour and the name of a conqueror, nothing esteeming Hasdrubal'S commandment, stirred up the beasts against the light soldiers, which according to that Consul's commandment gave back, and seeing the beasts pursue them very hastily, skipped into the ditches. Now when the Elephants were come to the pit side, they were so galled, what with shafts shot out of the Town, & the soldiers pikes in the trenches, that they could pass no further, but were compelled to recoil and burst in among their own Army, perturbing their order, and making great slaughter amongst them. While this broil was in hand, in came Metellus with his crew from an other part of the City, and girded in amongst his enemies so hautely, that being troubled with the Elephants before, and now so sharply assailed by the Consul, they were easily suppressed, part being slain, the rest saving themselves by taking them to their heels. There were ten Elephants taken, with ten Indians, the rest which had cast down their riders after the conflict were taken by the Consuls. After this prosperous triumph no small praise was attribute to Metellus, the which by the confession of every man was the only cause that the Roman soldiers peaked not in mountains and hills, but durst in any plain place skirmish with the Carthaginenses. When the rumour of this victory was noised at Rome, the whole City was impleate with inexplicable gladness, not only because the Elephants being taken, the enemies were much their inferiors, but because their soldiers were animated and emboldened. Therefore as they had decreed in the beinning, they prepared an other navy, and sent it into sicily, being very desirous to finish the wars.  
Thus having prepared viands and other necessaries, they passed the seas into sicily, with two hundredth ships. This was the fourteenth year of this war.  
After their arrival in the wished port, the Consuls took such footmen as were in the province, and went to besiege Lilybeum, for that City being subverted, they hoped soon after to pass into Africa.  
But the Carthaginenses being moved also with the same reasons, did purpose in any case to preserve and keep their munition from taking, knowledging themselves to have no title to any thing in Sicily, that being lost, for all the residue of the province, saving Drapanum was in subjection to the Romans. But least those things which I determine to entreat of in sicily, should seem difficult or obscure to any unacquainted with the places, I purpose briefly and in few words to declare the situation of the Island.  
Scicylie bordereth for the most part upon italy, and the frontiers thereof, as Peloponesus doth upon Grecia, and this is the chief difference betwixt them: sicily is separate from italy by an arm or creek of the Sea, Peloponesus from Grecia by a dry march or plot of ground, so that one may pass on foot from it into Grecia, but not from sicily into italy, except they pass by water: in form it resembleth a triangle having at every corner a promontory, of the which that bordering towards the southern clime, joineth to the sea of sicily, and is called Pachinus: that which extendeth toward the North is likewise an end or corner of the sea, & is distant from italy but a mile and and a half, and is called Pelorus: the third which declineth towards Africa and Carthage is but a mile, half a shoot, seven and twenty paces distant from the coasts of Africa, and the inhabitants call it Lilybeum, it separateth the Sardinian and Scicilyan sea. In this promontory there is a hill of the same name (at that instant besieged of the Romans,) fortifted with strong walls, deep ditches, perilous puddles, and many standing waters, by which the port is made very dangerous and perilous to be entered, except the Pilottes be very cunning and expert. The Romans besieging this City, environed it on either side with two camps, making many ditches, rampers, erecting sundry munitions, placing their engines, pretermitting nothing thought requisite to the expugnation of a hold: first they assaulted a town which stood in the hill side, bending towards the African Sea, by all means that could be invented, daily inventing new torments, continually setting them in places most convenient.  
In continuance they overthrew six Towns standing nigh to it, as with their whole power they were assailing the walls.  
This siege was very sharp and mortal, the Citizens were sore discouraged & oppressed with great fear and dread, for many of their towers and bulwarckes were very ruinous, being sore rend and torn, and divers turned over, and cast to the ground by their Enemies: and the Engines damaged them daily more and more.  
The number besieged, amounted to above ten thousand, beside the great multitude of inhabitants. In this their grievous distress, Imilcon ruler of the City valiantly defended them from their enemies, continually réedifying and making up new walls within the City, where the Romans broke them with rams and brakes, circumspectly watching where his enemies made trenches, and by making other disappointed them of their purpose, so that the subtle and sly slyghts of his adversaries were frustrate and of no effect: oftentimes he issued out setting on them both by night and day, so that greater slaughter was made in those byckering, than in plain combat. At that time certain of the conducted Soldiers being lieutenants and sergeants over the Carthaginean host, made a conspiracy, intending to batray the City to the Romans, and being aided with the consent of their coparteners, skipped over the walls in the night, and came into the Romans Camp, and declared their whole intent to the Consul.  
There was at that time there present an Achaean, named Alexon, which before had saved the City of Agrigentine from betraying when the Siracusans kept it. This Alexon having knowledge of the conspiracy, immediately bewrayed their counsel to Imilcon, which without linger congregated all the Captains and officers of the army, except those that fled out by night to the Romans, revealing unto them all that he knew of the treason, earnestly requesting and beseeching them that they would persist steadfast and stable, and not with infamy and obloquy yield themselves and the City into the hands of their enemies, promising unto them large rewards, if they would keep their faith and promise. Unto whom they all answered that there was nothing which they more esteemed than their truth & promise. Then he sent with them to pacify the Gallicean army, Annibal (his son whom the Carthaginenses strangled in Sardinia, after he had lost the navy, as I showed before) supposing that he would be most acceptable to them, because he had warred under his Father in their company. He appointed Alexon to go to the other hired soldiers, because they had great affiance in him. Immediately after he called the whole multitude before him, giving part of them fair and friendly words, promising to other ample & large rewards, by which means he brought to pass that they promised to be stable & faithful towards the Carthaginenses. So that they which wrought the treason, returning and desiring them to give ear till they had showed such things as they had talked with the Romans, were not only divided of their speech, but driven from the walls with darts and stones. Thus were the Carthaginenses brought by treason into extreme danger, and almost into the hands of their enemies, but Alexon which before by his truth and steadfastness to the Agrigentines, had not only delivered the City, but the whole province with their laws and liberties, now also saved the Carthaginenses from utter destruction. The Citizens of Carthage, though they could not hear tell how all things fared at Lilybeum, yet suspecting them to be in distress, because of the long siege, prepared fifty ships freighted with ten thousand men, over which Navy they constituted Annibal son of Amilcar Captain, giving him certain exhortations as the time permitted, commanding that in any case with all celerity he should sail to Lilybeum, and aid his country men.  
Annibal with his Soldiers landed first at Egusa, situate in the midst betwixt Carthage and Lilybeum, from thence with a prosperous gail, he entered the port of the besieged City with hoisted sails, having all his men in a readiness and prepared on the deck. The Consuls being somewhat abashed with their sudden arrival, and partly afraid to encounter with them, lest he should be driven into the Haven with the boisterous and windy blasts then raging, determined not to stop their entrance, but only to ascend the shore in their Armour, and look if by that means they could fear them.  
The multitude which were on the walls, perceiving the presence of their countrymen, trembled and quaked for very joy, exhorting them with plausible words and clamorous noises to enter in boldly.  
Annibal being of an incredible audacity and haughty courage, pushed into the port valiantly, and without danger or peril landed his men. Now when they were within the Town, there was marvelous triumphing, not so much for the arrival of the fresh Soldiers, as because the Romans durst not try to stop their passage. Imilcon perceiving all the army desirous of battle, the old soldiers being encouraged by the arrival of the new supplement, & the new soldiers, because the thorns as yet had never pricked them, supposing it best not to pretermit that opportunity, endeavoured himself by all means possible to get the engines of his enemies destroyed. Then he gathered all the army together, and exhorted them with a long oration, imboldning their courages, promising great gifts to every one that behaved himself valiantly, showing the Carthaginenses that they should not be unrewarded. The Soldiers were marvelously moved with his fair and pleasant words, promising him that they would be ready to their power, earnestly desiring him to linger no longer, but even at that instant to issue out against his enemies. The Captain thancking them for their good wills, immediately dismissed them, commanding that they should go and prepare themselves, and incontinently to return and give attendance on their Captains to do such things as should be appointed them. After that he called together the generals, showed them his purpose, distributing the army amongst them, appointing every one his place, and commanded that they before all other in the first watch, should be ready in their stations, which without grudging obeyed the commandment of their grand captain. Imilcon having brought forth his power in the dawning, set upon the ordinance of his enemies in divers places. The Romans conjecturing their intent, were nothing slothful, but armed themselves, and set all things in a readiness, and issued upon the Africans newly come out of the city: the tumult was very great about the walls. The Carthaginenses were about twenty thousand men, and the Romans more, which caused them rudelier and without order to enter upon them, by which their foolishness they were in more danger: for amongst a great company of soldiers one man fought against an other, as though it had been in a particular combat. But the fiercest and cruelest fight was about the ordinance: for they of both parts which were appointed to that ward, endeavoured themselves mightily, the one part to overthrow, the other to defend, until such time that the bata●le was so fierce and mortal, that with valiant and haughty courage, they died without giving one foot from their appointed places. The Carthaginenses that day behaved themselves so valiantly, firing their engines, shivering them with their sword & other weapons, that the Romans were not able to resist, seeing almost their ending day. After long contention, Imilcon perceiving the great and despiteous slaughter, with the effusion of blood that was made, and his purpose never nigher an end, commanded a retreat to be blown. The Romans though that days they were in great danger of losing their ordinance, yet they resisted their enemies with such incredible courage, that they preserved them and all other things in safety. After this Hannibal departed with his puissance from Lilybeum, about the dead of the night, his enemies not knowing, and passed to adherbal, the other Carthaginean captain, which lay at Drepanum, for which City they took special care, to keep it from the enemies, as well for the goodliness of the town, as for the commodiousness of the port: and it is distant from Lilybeum, but fifteen miles. Now the captains were wonderful desirous to know how all things fared with their companions, but the entrance was so narrowly watched since Annibals' departure, that it was impossible for any man either to enter in or issue out of the city. At that time there was a certain Rhodian named Annibal, a man surely very famous, which perceiving the minds of the Carthaginenses promised to take upon him in spite of all the Romans to enter in to Lilybeum, where having viewed all things, and knowing their state, he would return and certify them. The Carthaginenses though they were jocund to hear him talk of this enterprise, yet they thought it impossible, because the Romans compassed the entrance of the port. But the Rhodian without fear went aboard, and set forward, arriving in the next I'll over against Lilybeum, from whence the day following he sailed towards the City in the sight of all his enemies, which employed their whole diligence to let his entrance, but he obtained the haven, fulfilling his former promise. The other Consul wondering greatly at his bold enterprise, prepared ten of the swiftest ships to watch in the haven all night, in the which he himself remained for his departure, commanding all the rest of the Navy to do accordingly. Then all the ships that were in the entrance along both the sides, lay with rowers stretched out, looking for his forth coming, supposing verily that he should not escape them. But the Rhodian picked not out by night, neither at a corner, but at midday, and through the thick of his enemies, so well prepared, escaping without all danger by his boldness and the swiftness of his Bark, and having passed them a little, he was not content to escape free, but turned his stem, and began to brag neither durst any of the company venture upon him, his Galley was so wonderful swift. The Rhodian as it were triumphing over his enemies, with one poor boat came to Carthage, declaring in the Senate all things that he had either heard or seen: after that, many being encouraged through his example took the same enterprise in hand, so that nothing was done at Lilybeum, but incontinently it was known at Carthage. The Romans marvelously grieved that they should stiil be thus deluded with their enemies, assayed to stoy up the entrance of the port, first casting in many of their hulks and carts fraught with sand into the mouth of the same, with infinite other matters, but all was in vain, for the profound deepness thereof glutted up, & the bubbling of the water dispersed it into sundry places: yet in continuance with great labour, there stood a great piece of their munition, upon which one of the swiftest ships belonging to the Carthaginenses, light with a great violence, and being taken by the Romans, and made ready at all points, was retained in the port, watching for the coming of the rest, but specially of the Rhodian, which by chance came thither by night, and entered the haven with accustomed celerity, but when he purposed to departed, the taken ship pursued him so sharply, that he was almost taken first, he marveled at his swiftness: but viewing her well, and perceiving that she was one of the Carthaginean Quadriremes taken by the Romans, he trusted no more to the swiftness of his ship, but began to encounter with his enemies: after that it came to handstrokes, the Romans being both more in number and valianter men, prised her without labour, and took the Rhodian. The Romans having gained this prize, & joined her to the Quadrireme both well furnished of all necessaries, kept them continnally in the entrance, prohibiting without any difficulty the easy entrance of their enemies into Lilybeum. During this time they besieged the town very sharply, overthrowing the walls of their ordinance, so that Imilcon had no more hope to réedifie them, or to bar the engines of his enemies. After these things had continued in this estate a good while, there arose suddenly such a tempestuous wind, that all the ordinance & other things were beaten & dashed together with the violence thereof, and one of the high bourded towers blown over. A certain Grecian, a soldier of those which were in the City, supposing this a time most expedient to destroy the instruments of their adversaries, went and declared his devise to the Captain, who allowing it very well, immediately having all things prepared, issued out of the City, commanding them to fire their enemies ordinance in three sundry places. The Soundiours having wrought their feat, immediately the fire caught such hold with the violence of the winds (for the engines were very drte, and had stood long against the Sun) that they were soon consumed, for as long as the wind blew, it was impossible that any man should rescue them. The Romans were wonderfully aghast with this sudden chance, and witted not what to do, being desolate and abandoned of all good fortune, many of them were driven to the ground with góbbets and truncheons of timber that fell down, many were blinded and almost smothered with the smoke, when they pressed to rescue the ordinance. The harder that the Romans were bestead with their mischances, the more commodious was it for the Carthaginenses purpose: for they not only beheld their enemies, and the ordinance flaming aloft, but what soever they hurled at them, the wind carried it with main violence to their great damage and hurt. At the length the fire waxed so outrageous, that the pillars and foundations of the Towers were set on fire, and the heads of the rams were melted.  
After this, the Consuls never intended to réedifie their engines, but environed the town with ditches and hills, purposing to take their enemies, with a slow siege, and not to remove their tents before they had overcome the hold. The inhabitants having repaired their walls, shifted well with this their lingering off.  
When relation was made at Rome, of these things there was a Senate summoved, in which they decreed to send a supplement of ten thousand men, because many were destroyed at the siege, & the navy almost desolate. This crew arrived first at Messana, & from thence went by land to the camp at Lilybeun. Now was Appius Claudius entered into the Consulship, and the other returned to Rome, so that he ruled the host at Lilybeum, and perceiving the vacant places to be supplied, called the Captains together, and showing them that be thought that a very expedient time to sail to Drepanum, and at an unwares to set upon adherbal, suspecting no such thing: for not knowing of the new supplement arrived in Sicily, he supposed that the Romans were not able to conduct their fleet for lack of men. After that the Consul had disclosed his mind, they allowed it very well, and picked out the most actius Soldiers that were in the whole army, and put them in the swiftest ship. The Soldiers were very jocund and glad of this journey, not only because it was nigh hand, but also for the great booties which they hoped for.  
Thus all things being prepared, they disankred, and sailed toward Drepanum, about midnight unware to their enemies, so that in the dawning they drew nigh the City. adherbal though at their first appearance he was somewhat daunted with sudden fear, yet being recovered, and receiving by● pristinate boldness, he purposed to try the brittle destiny and fickle state of Fortune, by giving them battle rather than to be enclosed in an Angle, and shamefully besieged of his enemies. And therefore immediately he gathered together a great company of rowers, called the mercenary or hired Soldiers out of the City, and gave unto them divers admonitions, showing them also that if▪ they did fight couragiousely, they should be sure of victory, but if they fled like dastardly cowards, and would not venture themselves, he unbuckled to them the budget of mischiefs that they should suffer being besieged. After he had ended his oration, they all promised to show their valiantness, exhorting him with a clamorous noise to defer the time no longer, but immediately to set towards his enemies. adherbal praising the valiant courage of his soldiers, warned them to embark incontinently, commanding them diligently, and with vigilant eyes to mark his ship, and follow him merrily, then without lingering he marched forward, leading the ring himself, according as he promised to encounter with the Romans. The Consul espying his enemies (not according as he hoped, ready to run away, and save themselves, but rather ardently desiring battle) commanded all his fleet to retire, for part were entered, divers even in the entrance, and many coming far behind: when the foremost endeavoured themselves at the commandment of the general to return, there was such a with beating & dashing betwixt them that came back, and the other that were entering, that the whole navy was in great peril, and many of them sore forfrushed. At the last being brought in order with great pain and travail, the generals set them in array along the bank with their stems towards the enemies. Then the Consul which followed in the rearward, launching into the deep, kept the left wing. Whilst the Romans were in this trouble, adherbal with other five ships, encompassed above their left wing, turning the stems of his ships towards them, keeping himself at large on the sea, making signs that the other four ships, which followed him, should do likewise, so they having prepared themselves, hoist up their streamers, and rushed in among the Romans, which kept a long the bank side for to suppress the Carthaginenses, as they should have issued: but afterward it was a great hindrance and let to themselves, for certain causes which I shall show. As soon as the two Navies were met, the Praetor making signs out of his ship to the other, the Romans were impaled on either side, the skirmish continued long and terrible without any inequality, for there were the worthiest soldiers of both the armies, yet the Carthaginenses prevailed, not only because their ships were swifter and their rowers more skilful, but by keeping at large on the seas, where they might scour abroad at their pleasure: or if it chanced any of them to be entrapped with their enemies, immediately launching into the deep, they were at liberty, where if the Romans did pursue them, incontinently they were again coaped with an other company, to their great dangers, and oft times the losing of their ships. If any of their fellows were in danger, they easily rescued them, plodding with their pumps forward. Now the bank was a marvelous hindrance to the Romans, being caught up in such a straicte corner, that they could neither retire, when need did require, nor yet aid those which were in danger, which are chief impediments in a conflict on the sea. For it was impossible, that they should pass through the chief troop of their enemies, and resist their force, their ships being such slugges, and their rowers so unexpert. The Consul perceiving that he was like to take the foil, and also seeing part of his ships sore beaten by the shore, and divers drowned, brought to utter despair, fled away before all the rest, and other thirty ships, the which stood next unto him followed after. All the rest of the numbered of four score & thirteen were taken by the Carthaginenses, saving those which were perished. Adherbal was greatly praised of the Carthaginenses, for this noble and worthy act, which through his haughty courage and singular wisdom, had overthrown his enemies. But Appius Claudius was greatly dispraised with many opprobrious words, for behaving himself so imprudently, and bringing the Romans in such danger. Finally, being rejected from his Consulship was with great ignominy, reproach and dishonour judged to death. The Romans although they acknowledged this their simple cut and sore repulse, yet nothing oblivious of their pristinate valiantness, incontinently prepared a new navy and fresh soldiers, sending them into Scicilie● under the governance of Lucius Iun●us, than Consul, commanding him to support those, which besieged Lilybeum, with victuals and other necessaries. junius the new Consul departed to Messana. with the three score beackte ships, where he gathered all the Galleys which were in sicily, (saving those that lay at Lilybeum,) which made a Navy of an hundredth and twenty sail, beside the hulks and carts prepared for carriage, amounting nigh to four score, of which he delivered almost half, with certain other beaked vessels to the Questor, commanding him to convey the victuals to the camp, remaining still himself to receive the others, which were coming from Messana, and the grain out of the Country. About this time Adherbal sent the Roman captives & the prizes which he had taken, to Carthage, & appointed Carthalon ruler over thirty sail, making him set towards his enemies, and warning his to take all such ships as he could take, whole & unbroken, and to burn the remnant. He himself followed after with three score ships. Carthalon departing at night, very speedily & suddenly entered on the Roman navy, which lay in that haven of Lilybeum, and put them to their pinch, for the watch making a sudden out cry and great uproar, Imilcon perceived the noise, and in the dawning espying them present, called all his soldiers out of the city, and invaded his enemies. The Romans being thus circumvented on every side, were in great peril, but that Carthagmean captain taking part of their ships, and setting the rest on fire, departed from thence and sailed towards Heraclia, to stop the viands which were coming that way to the Campe. As he was in this exploit, his scouts made relation to him, that there was great store of ships at hand. He hearing these news made no delays, but set forward to meet them, contemning the Romans for the great overthrow which he had lately given them. The Romans also having knowledge of the Carthagienses by their explorators, & perceiving themselves much their inferiors in naval combats, drew to the next bank, in which there was a hollow bending place by the overshoting of the rocks, upon which the Romans stood, beating their Enemies back with stones and slings. The Carthagmenses determined to keep them there, whilst they revolted, but perceiving the nature of the place, and how the Romans resisted them sharplyer than they looked for, taking certain of their dromundaries, costed into a creek adjoining, where they determined to stop their passage. While these things were in hand, that Consul having dispatched his business which he tarried for among the Siracusans, & taken the promontory of Pachinus. passed towards Lilibeum, ignorant of the misfortune chanced to his companions. But Carthalon having knowledge of his coming by his espials, hasted towards him, very desirous to encounter with them far from the other company. But Lucius junius per ceiving that he was at hand, determined not to encounter with him, being afraid of the great multitude, and he was so nigh, that they could not fly back, wherefore he thrust into very dangerous places, and retired to the next harbour, decréeing rather to suffer extreme peril, than to permit the Roman Navy, to fall into their Enemies hands. The Carthaginean Captain perceiving his fetch, desisted to pursue them, and kept in a port just betwixt the Roman Navies, supposing by that means to powder their passages. Within a few days after there began a wonderful tempest to arise, which the Carthaginean Mariners espying (for they had great knowledge on the seas, and were very expert in those places,) counseled Carthalon to expugnate the promontarie Pachinus, & then to eschew the immynent peril. He following their counsel, escaped scotfree, and without danger, but the Roman Navy being sore turmoiled with the violence of the tempest, by reason of their vile harbours, was all torn and rent in pieces, of which great wrack nothing was saved that ever profited after. The Romans being molested with these miserable calamities, were now again inferior to the Carthaginenses, for being plagued & despitefully handled not long before at Drepanum, and now having lost their whole navy, were glad to forsake the Sea, & hope for victory only by land: of the contrary part, the Carthaginenses ruled on the seas uncontrolled, & hoped well to have a saying by the land. Wherefore both the Romans which were at Rome, & those at Lilybeum, though they were disturbed with these contrary chances, yet intended to persist in the siege, wherefore they sent from Rome such things as were necessaire, & the soldiers according to their power, continued the camp. Lucius junius after he had lost the navy by sinister fortune, came to Lilybeum very heavy & careful, addicting himself wholly to excogitate & imagine some strange invention with which he might annihilate or diminish the ignominy & slander wherewith his worship was shadowed.  
Wherefore not long after, by a slender occasion that was offered, he conquered that mount Erix by a policy. This Erix is a mount within Sicily, depending over the sea on that part which looketh towards Italy, it standeth betwixt Drepanum & Panormus, but nigher to Panormus, it exceedeth all the mountains in Sicily, saving Aetna, in largeness and breadth: in the top it hath a plain, in which standeth the temple of Venus more magnific, gorgeous & beautiful, than any other building in Sicily. A little below the top, there is a City of the same name, having marvelous difficult & scarce penetrable passages. The Consul laid one Army in the top, and another at the foot of this mountain, in the passage to Drepanum, hoping by that mean to keep both the hill & the City. Erix taken, the Carthaginenses appointed Amilcar surnamed Barcas, general over their navy, which with his whole power passed into Italy, where he proyed and sacked the sea coasts. This was the eighteenth year of this war. Then having destroyed the territories of the Locrines and Brutians, he returned with his whole puissance into the frontiers of Panormus, where he took a plot correspondent to the wars situate betwixt it & Rhegia, joining to the Sea, and strongly defenced of nature, & passing fit for the defence of an army. This hill is straightly encompassed with steep rocks, having a plain on the very tip, twelve miles in compass, very notable & a fertile soil, the air is very pleasant & no noisome or venomous beasts able to abide in it, certain great and huge rocks stand betwixt it & the land, in the midst there is a ground wart, which serveth for the watch tour, the port is very commodious for those which pass from Drepanum or Lilibeum, to Italy. There be but only. 3. passages, which are very difficile to this place, two from the land, and one from that Sea. Amilcar pitched his tents there, as a man desperate and of no hope, in the midst of his enemies, yet he permitted not his adversaries to be in quiet, but oft times went by Sea, and wasted the coasts of italy, to Cumara, and in the end brought his Army by land, where he encamped before Panormus, but eight hundredth paces distant from the Romans, remaining there three years, during which time he did many notable acts, to tedious to rehearse particularly. The Romans as is showed before, lying in two parts, one company at the top, another at the foot of Erix, Adherbal by policy won the Town which stood on the hill side, betwixt the Roman Armies, by which chance the Romans which lay on the top, were besieged and sore molested with the Carthaginenses, and they themselves likewise keeping the Town, were as sore beset with the two Armies, having but one entrance, and that very strait for the conveyance of victuals into the Town. Thus both the parts persisting in their obstinacy and stubbornness, suffered diverse punishments, grievous tortures, and extreme calamities. When the war in this manner had been long protract, during which time Amilcar plagued the italians, oft times by water, for they almost for the space of fifteen years, had abstained from the Naval war, but now perceiving that the war could not otherwise be ended, they were moved to prepare a new navy. And because their treasury was sore impoverished, the private Citizens according to their ability, disbursed the money, divers of them making one Quinquereme amongst them. Thus were the people of Rome affected to further their wars, and maintain the Glory of their Empire, building two hundredth ships, like to the Rhodians, which as I showed before, was taken at Lilibeum. Lucius Lutacius was appointed ruler over this army, & sent against the Carthaginenses, in the next spring, which suddenly entering Sicily with his fleet, at the first arrival obtained the port of Drepanum, & the other about Lilibeum. The Carthaginean ships quaking for fear, flocked about their Captain, but Lutacius preparing engines, ordinance, and instruments, endeavoured himself to expugnate the City: And perceiving how the Carthagmean Navy was at hand, he remembered their old overthrows, and considering with himself of what effect and force it was, to be expert on the water, with the great emolument thereof, he spent not the time slothfully, neither in luskish loitering, but continually exercised his rowers and Mariners, suffering none to lie idle: by which their diligence it came to pass, that within small tract of time, they were very expert and apt for the naval war. The Carthaginenses having knowledge of their presence, made ready their fleet, freighting it with corn and other necessaries, to the sustentation of them which besieged Erix. Hanno was appointed Captain of these ships, and departed immediately to Hi●ron●sum, from thence to the tents of Amilcar, undiscryed of his enemies, preparing there to disloade and deliver the victuals. Lutacius having knowledge of their coming, misdeeming their counsel (for it was not hard to conjecture) picked out the most hardy fellows of the whole Army, and went to Egusa, being not far distant from Lilybeum, where he exhorted and encouraged his Soldiers as the time permitted, commanding them to make ready against the next morning, to give battle to the enemies. The next day in the morning, Lutacius very well perceiving how the wind served his Enemies at will, and was contrary to him, also seeing the Sea stormy and boisterous, doubted what was best to do. Yet afterward considering if he coped with them whilst the storm endured, that he should only match with Hanno and the ships pestered with traffic, but if he prolonged and tarried until the sea were calm & the ships discharged, that he should not only have to do with a company of quick & light soldiers, chosen out of the whole army, but also with Amilcar, who was greatly feared at that present: considering these things, though the waters were both boisterous & against him, he determined to encounter with his Enemies, coming with full sails against the Carthaginenses, ready to assail them. They perceiving their entrance to be stopped by the Romans, having likewise their fleet ready for battle, let down their sails, and set towards their Enemies, encountering either other with valiant courages: but as this conflict differed in all points from that at Drepanum, so likewise, there chanced a contrary end. The Roman fleet was passing swift, they had unloaded all things, saving necessaries for the wars their rowers had been long exercised, which made them pliant & agreeable to battle, they had also the chosen and best Soldiers of their whole army. But the Carthaginenses were troubled otherwise, their ships were freighted, which made them unfit for the battle, their rowers were unpicked fellows, altogether rude & without knowledge in the wars, their soldiers were new and not acquainted with dangers, for they had not regard to the waters, so much as they were accustomed, supposing the Romans would never have meddled with the Seas, through which their sluggishness and secure living, as soon as they encountered, they had the foil, fifty of their ships were frushed and souncke, seventy taken full fraughted, the rest by a sudden change of wind, laved themselves by flying to Hieronesum. After this battle the Consul with all his Navy returned to Lilibeum, where he divided the spoil and captives, amongst his soldiers. There were taken above ten thousand Carthaginenses, beside those which perished in the conflict. The Africans though they were very prompt, and given to the wars, yet after this terrible overthrow, they were utterly discouraged for diverse causes, for they were not able toayde those in Sicily with necessaries, their navy being lost, and the Romans ruling every corner of the seas, yet they took it for a heinous offence, to forsake their worthy Soldiers: they had no worthy Captains to send against their Enemies. Weighing these things, they dispatched an ambassador, with all convenient speed to Amilcar, auctorysing him to do what he thought best, for the preservation of their country. Amilcar performed the office of a politic & worthy captain, for as long as there was any hope of recovering their honour, he never eschewed any travail or danger, but with great industry & labour sought it forth: he never ceased more than his adversaries to restore their worship, & when he perceived there was no more hope of recovering the same, like a moderate & wise man he gave place for the time, sending ambassadors to the Consul to entreat for peace. And verily it is no less the token of a good & expert general, as well to mark the time in which he must forbear his Enemies, as to know what time is expedient to assail them. Neither did Lutacius the Consul contemn or reject their request, acknowledging that trouble, peril, & danger that the Romans were vexed with all, by reason of the continual wars. So at the length peace was taken upon these conditions. First if it pleased the Senate and people of Rome. Secondaryly that the Carthaginenses should departed quite out of sicily, and never after that to war against Hyeron, neither to molest the Syracusans, or any of their friends. Thirdly that they should dismiss and send home all the captives without ransom. Fourthly, that they should pay within twenty years space to the Romans, two thousand and two hundredth talents of tried and pure money.  
When these conditions and agréements were sent to Rome, they would not ratify them, but sent ten Commissioners with the common consent, which coming into Sicily, changed the former pactions in manner nothing at all, but taking shorter days for paying of the money, adding thereunto a thousand talents. Also that they should not only departed quite out of sicily, but out of all the islands betwixt it, and italy. According to this prescript order was the first war finished, that the Romans had with the Carthaginenses for the principality of Sicily. It endured four and twenty year without intermission or peace. It was the longest war and greatest that ever I heard of, in which they fought at one meeting with the number of five hundredth Quinqueremes, & above, of either side. Another time with few baiting of seven hundredth by divers other noble conflicts worthy to be written of, which I pass by and leave untouched. The Romans lost in that war seven hundredth Quinqueremes beside those which were drowned and broken: the Carthaginenses about five hundredth. So that they which before wondered at the armies, fleets, and naval wars of Antigonus, & Ptolomeus, after this betwixt the Romans and the Carthaginenses counted them as trifles and nothing. For if any consisider the great difference betwixt Quinqueremes, & those Trieremes which the Persians used against the Grecians, and the Lacedemoni●ns against the Atheninans, verily he shall well understand that there was never sorer conflicts, nor greater armies on the seas, which is a manifest probation of those things that I spoke of in the beginning, that the Romans, neither by fortune nor chance as the Grecians suppose, obtained such honour and ample dominions, that in continuance they enjoyed the most part of the world, but by their proper virtue, prowess and haughty courages: yet peradventure there are some which doubt what the cause is, seeing the Romans now excel both by land and water more than they did at that time (having also dominion over the most part of the world) are not able to build so many ships, or make such a Navy at one tyme. But this thing shall be plainly declared when I come to entreat of the state, manners & fashions of their common wealth. But to speak of them now should neither be profitable or commodious to the readers of this my history, for the things being large, would require a long digression. And (yet unto this day that I may speak as I think) they are drowned in the gulf of oblivion through their default which wrote the histories. For part wist not what things they should write, other though they knew what to write, yet they were obscure, in penning them so intricately, that their works were unprofitable, & for no use. Verily if there be any which attentively note this war, he shall perceive that these. ij. worthy cities were equivalent at the beginning in all points, they both burned with one fire, both were desirous of renown, both were of like haughty courages. The Roman soldiers were more excellent & active fellows. But Amilcar surnamed Barcas, the Carthaginean captain & father of Annibal, which after fought against the Romans, was in ferior to no man in valiantness & wisdom. After they had taken truce, they had either like fortune: for the Romans began to war against the Faliscians', but within a short time having subdued their City, the wars broke up, and they lived in peace.  
Thus endeth the wars betwixt the Romans and the Carthaginenses, for the principality of Sicily and the Samnites.   

The second part of Polybius his first Book, entreating of the wars betwixt the Carthaginenses and their hired Soldiers.  
AFter that peace was concluded with the Romans, the Car thaginenses were sore oppressed with intestine hostility, moved by sundry of the Africanes their Countrymen, they were also sore molested by the Numidians, and other neighbours adjacent, which almost vanquished them, so that they were constrained to fight, not only for themselves, for their province, for their native soil and laws, but for their liberty, and the safeguard of their children. Which battle because it is worthy of remembrance, I shall show it compendiously as I purposed in the beginning: for how cruel, despiteful and deadly a war it was, which every man calls bloody and detestable, any man may gather by the facts done in his time. Here shall plainly be showed how vigilant and circum spect captains ought to be, how they ought to provide for afterclappes, also what difference it is to make war with rude and barbarous nations ignorant in the law of arms, and those which be civil & know good manners. Finally by showing this battle, the fountain and original cause shall be apparent why Hannibal made war with the Romans, which because it was not only obscure to such as have written histories of it, but also unto them which were there present (for in battle there falleth many secret chances) I thought it needful to show the verity to the studious readers of this my work. Amilcar having concluded peace with the Romans, disancored & sailed from Erix to Lilybeum, where he gave up his rule, & delivered the army to Gesto, which was captain there, to transport them into Africa, which fearing some evil to chance amongst such a multitude as they were, especially being behind with their wages, which the treasure house was not able to discharge, it was so sore impoverished, he politicly provided that they should not all go together, but in divers companies, to the end that they might be the better dispatched, suffering one company to departed home before he dismissed an other. But the Carthaginenses partly through negligence, partly through poverty, did not only not dispatch them, but commanded them to remain in the city, until their fellows came, that they might all receive their wages together, during which time the soldiers did very much hurt in the city both by day and night, and the multitude augmented so fast, that their facts were intolerable. Then the citizens sent for their Captains, desiring them to convey the Soldiers to Sicca, and to remain there until the rest of the army were come into Africa, commanding certain money to be distributed particularly amongst them, that they might suffer more patiently the protracting of the time. The generals obeyed their commandment, incontinently beginning to lead forth the Soldiers. They according as they had done before, would have left their carriage and other impediments in the City, thinking to return for their wages. But the Carthaginenses being afraid, that if they should grant them that liberty, part would tarry with their wives, other for love of their children, would either not depart, or return incontinently, and so they to remain in as evil a case. Wherefore they drove them out by violence, with all their baggage. When the Soldiers were in Sicca, they lived licentiously, and in drowsy idleness (which are most pernicious in an host, & springs of rebellion) many of them ask their wages with proud boasts, & much more they did before, being mindful of the great gifts promised by their captains when they exhorted them to battle, so that now they looked for ample rewards beside their stipends: but their opinion was frustrate, for as soon as all the company were congregated in Sicca, Hanno the Carthaginean Praetor was sent unto them, not only without the gifts which they looked, for but also talked very much of the scarcity in the treasure house, requiring them to remit part of their wages. The multitude moved with these words began a great uproar and a clamorous noise. There was a great contention and debate (and no wonder, considering the company and their divers languages) for the Carthaginenses had gathered an army of sundry foreign nations, and partly not without a cause, for the army could not conspire any thing amongst themselves for the variety of their speeches, and were more obedient at the commandment of the general. But if there chanced at any time either sedition or insurrection in the army, no one man could quench it, for the barbarous clounes would not be qualified, and being once angered, the brainsick fools waxed untractable continually outraging like brutish beasts without all measure, as they did at that present: there was in the army Spaniards, Frenchmen, Ligurians, Baliarians, and a great troop of Grecians, divers vagabonds of Africa, with innumerable rogues, & fugitives: for which cause it was impossible that one man should rule them all. The Praetor understood not all their languages, and to have many speakers unto them, it was counted mere fooilshnesse: wherefore only their captains must needs do it, so that Hanno laboured in vain: for some of them understood not the commandment of their general: an other company bruited it clean contrariwise, some through ignorance, other of a set purpose and malice, so that nothing was in the host but wrath, anger and ruffling up & down with many mischievous and wicked facts. Amongst other things they murmured and complained, because none of the Captains under whom they had warred in Sicily, which promised them the great rewards, were sent to them, and at the length in great rage and anger they fell to their weapons, nothing regarding Hanno, or the other captains: and setting towards Carthage, they encamped at Tunes, five miles distant from the City. They were in number above twenty thousand. Then the Carthaginenses begun to have respect to themselves. Then they began to confess their foolishness when there was no way to escape the imminent danger: for they were far overseen to retain such a number of hired soldiers in one place, their wars finished: & they played no less the idiots, when they detained not their wives and children, with the other traffic in the City to serve for hostages, if need required. But now being afraid of the great multitude, they pretermitted nothing which they thought of effect to mitigate their fury, sending corn and other victuals into their tents to take at their own price: and divers ambassadors were sent unto them out of the Senate house. But the vagabonds daily waxed crouser, perceiving the Carthaginenses fearful, also considering how they had been exercised in the Sicilian wars, and the force of the citizens to be very small, where before they required but their wages, now they craved recompense, for their horses were slain in the wars, and being not satisfied with these requests, they challenged the grain of many years ensuing to be due unto them, and such a price as never was heard of before that day, immediately to be paid for it, daily excogitating new devices, to excitate the Citizens to battle.  
The most rascal and seditious knaves were of greatest authority in the army. The Carthaginenses condescending to their demands, appointed that all things in controversy betwixt them, should be decreed by the arbitrement of some one that had been their captain in Sicily. They favoured not Amilcar Barcas, because he came not forth to them in this troublesome time, and had given over before willingly the captainshyp, but the whole company trusted much in Gesto, because he was their captain in Sicily, and had been very courteous towards them, but especially in their transportation to Africa, so they decreed to put all things to his dermination. Gesto incontinently disancoring, with certain money, as soon as he arrived at Tunes, called the Prefects together, commanding every nation to be separate and gathered together. Then he began to blame them for their misdemeanoure, giving certain exhortations for the time present, wishing them after that (with a long oration) to worship, love, favour and have the Carthaginenses in estimation, in whose service they had been so long time, persuading and exhorting them to be content with their wages, determining to distribute it by nations.  
There was in the host a certain Campane, which being a servant, fled out of Sicily from the Romans to the Carthaginenses, a man of great strength and courage in battle, named Spendius: This fellow was afraid, if peace should be concluded with the Carthaginenses, that his master would catch him, and handle him according to the Roman laws, wherefore he laboured with tooth and nail to kindle dissension, wishing rather sedition than quietness, war than peace. There was also an African named Matho, which was a freeman, and had been in the Sicilian wars for the Carthaginenses, yet he feared punishment, because he was chief of the sedition. This Companion calling the Africanes together, counseled them to be ware, for without doubt when the other soldiers had received their wages, and were gone, he said that the Carthaginenses would wreak themselves of the Libyans, being informed that they were chief movers of rebellion: And for this cause he wished them to take heed of themselves. The multitude being moved with these words, and because Gesto made only mention of their wages, speaking nothing of recompense for their horses, neither of the required grain, they gathered into one place to determine of the matter. Spendius and Matho inveighed sore against Gesto, and the other Carthaginenses, & the companysone agreed to their wicked purpose, so that if any counseled them otherwise, they never regarded whether it tended to the same end or no, but immediately stoned him to death. After this manner there were many not only captains, but also private men which lost their lives, and nothing was heard in this tumult thorough the whole host, but cast cast: and the vagabunds raged a great deal more, being new risen from supper well tippled, so that if this word Cast, chanced once to be pronounced, the stones were so rattled in every corner, that there was no place to escape by.  
Thus when no man durst resist their devise, Spendius and Matho were incontinently with the whole consent elect captains. Gesto although he perceived their unbridled boldness and treason, yet he endeavoured himself continually to prefer the profit of his country before all other things, and seeing their wild wilfulness daily to increase, and the danger like to ensue to the Carthaginenses, and the peril that he himself was in, determined to try all ways, one while calling the chief of the conspiration, another time the bands particularly, endeavouring himself to qualify them by pleasant words and fair promises, but they being frustrate of the corn, persisted in requiring it, as done unto them.  
Gesto granted that it should be delivered them willingly, if they would yield Matho unto him, at which words they fell into such a frenzy, that incontinently they spoilt him of all the money brought to pay them, taking him & the other Carthaginenses there present. Matho and Spendius, rulers of these rascals, intended to commit some heinous offence, by which they might move the Citizens sooner to battle, wherefore they highly extolled the insolency of the soldiers, taking not only the money, but the males and ferdels, with the other carriages from the Carthaginenses: and after they had blustered out many opprobrious taunts and contumelious words against Gesto and his companions, commanding them to be cast in bonds, they began to rage and wax cruel, (so that such rebellion was never heard of before) proclaiming open war against the Carthaginenses. For these causes & according to this order, began that war which is called the African battle. Matho and Spendius, having committed these facts before mentioned, sent pursuivants through out Africa, inviting them to licentious liberty, & to aid them against the outrageous tryanny of the Carthaginenses. The Libyans condescending to this their cruel conspiracy, and supporting them with victuals and other necessaries abundantly, the Captains divided the Army betwixt them, marching with the one part to the siege Utica, and with the other to expugnat Hippona, because these two Cities would not agree to that treason. The Carthaginenses which before time were sustained by husbandry & accustomed to stuff their treasury with the tributes gathered in Africa, also to defend themselves with hired Soldiers, now were not only destitute of these patrons, but greatly infested with them, so that being suppressed with so many sundry calamities at one time, they were in doubt which way to turn them, & they were so much the grievous, chancing at unwares: for after they had been vexed with long wars in Sicily, & concluded a league with the Romans, they hoped to summer and keep holydaie, thinking themselves mortized in a firm rock, but it chanced clean contrary, for there pushed out an other plague more cruel and mortal than the other. They fought with the Romans for the domination of Sicily, but now they were compelled to ply the box for their own safeguard, their children, country, and native soil, to which they neither had armour, weapons, navy, or other preparance, they were brought to such an ebb by the Romans. Now they looked for no tribute, neither hoped for any aid or secure from their friends, fautors, or allies. Then they perceived what difference there was betwixt extreme hostility and intestine dissension, of which domestical discord, they themselves were the source & spring, for in the former war, supposing them to have just causes, they were too proud and insolent, exacting much of the Africans, bereaving them of half their corn, & doubling their tributes, neither would they redress any of these faults which they committed through ignorance, bragging themselves of their masterships, not because they had behaved themselves honestly, and dealt mercifully in their offices, but for exaggerating and heaping up great mows of money in the treasure, house for which they had sore peeled the commonalty, imitating Hanno which I spoke of before, which were causes that the people of Africa, not only with small entreating, but at a beck agreed to the rebellion, for the women which before time had seen their husbands & children kept in servitute & bondage, because the tributes were unpaid, gathered together in every city, concealing nothing of the goods which was left them, & willingly brought their attire and other ornaments (a thing which might be thought incredible) to pay the Soldiers, by which means Matho and Spendius had such foison and plenty, that not only they discharged all such things as they promised in the beginning of the conspiracy, but also reserved plenty for afterclaps: by which we may learn to provide, not only for time present, but also for the time to come. The Carthaginenses though they were hemmed in on every side with these great calamities, yet were they not altogether drowned in despair, but as the time permitted, hired new soldiers, and made Hanno Captain over them. Then the youth of the City began to arm themselves, and exercise riding, the Citizens began to réedifie and botch up their old barks. In the mean time Matho and Spendius with three score and ten thousand armed men, which were come to them out of Africa, having the Army divided (as I showed before) besieged Hippona: Yet they had not brought all their Army from the tents at Tunes, for which cause the Carthaginenses were clean excluded out of Africa. Carthage is situate on a promontory stretching towards the sea, & resembleth an Island, saving that it joineth to Africa: by land on the one side the City itself is environed partly with the sea, & partly with motes: the piece of ground that joineth it to Africa is three miles in breadth. Utica is not far distant from that angle which vergeth into the sea: on the other part beyond the ditches standeth Tunes, so that the soldiers having one part of their army there, & an other at Utica, excluded the Carthaginenses out of Africa, and issued oft times both by night and day, setting the City in great danger.  
While they were in doing these things, Hanno prepared diligently all things appertaining to the war (for he was a very witty man and full of policies in such devices) soon after he set towards his Enemies, where by the evil discerning of time he showed a point of an unexpert Captain.  
After his coming to Utica, at the first onset he put his enemies to flight, being afraid of the Elephants, but shortly after he brought them which he came to aid, into greater danger than ever they were tofore, for when he had placed his ordinance and other engines belonging to war, as darts, quarelcasters, brakes, in his tents before Utica, he encountered with his Enemies, which being unable to resist the Elephants, after great slaughter fled into a hill adjacent, which was full of Trees and other bwilde. Then Hanno which had been only accustomed before that time to war against the Numidians, who once beginning to fly, never stay or look back for the space of three days, left to pursue his Enemies, as though he had won the field, where he regarding nothing, lived riotously. But his adversaries trained up under Amilcar in Sicily, where they oft times had both fled and pursued their enemies, in one day perceiving him to be entered into the City & lie there uncircumspectly, as though he had conquered them, invaded his tents, where they killed many of his Soldiers, chase the rest with great ignominy & slander into the town, carrying away his engines & munitions without contradiction. But the incircumspectnesse of Hanno hindered not the Carthaginenses only at this time, but also within a few days after, when his enemies pitched their Tents at Sorza, where having good opportunity and sit time in which he might have vanquished them, (for twice after they were imbattayled, they fell at contention amongst them selves,) yet he through his sluggish idleness pretermitted both those occasions. The Carthaginenses perceiving the imprudency of Hanno about such affairs, chose Amilcar Captain of their army again, delivering unto him three score and ten Elephants, with the hired soldiers & vagabonds, also the horsemen and footmen of the City, so that the whole number amounted to ten thousand men. Amilcar incontinently setting forward, with his worthy prowess, at one time both discouraged his enemies, and delivered Utica, showing himself worthy of the praises given to him for his former acts, and acquitting himself very well of the expection which the people conceived of him. His worthiness and policy was known first in this manner. The promontory in which Carthage is situate, joineth to the rest of Africa, with a very sharp ridge, full of holes and bushes, so that the passage is very difficile and made with handy labour. Matho kept all the hills above the passage, very circumspectly, and the river Machera being of profound vastness and swift course runneth by it, and can not be passed, but over one bridge, on which bridge there standeth a town called Sephira likewise under the regiment of Matho, so that the passage into Africa was not only stopped to the Carthaginean Army, but to every private man. Amilcar pondering these things circumspectly, endeavoured himself by all means to invent some way by the which he might pass into Africa with his army, and at the length used this policy, understanding how the heads of this for named river, were so stopped with certain winds, that the vast profoundness thereof, was turned to shallow, at which time, he supposed best to convey his army. Making no man privy to this his devise, he hovered to espy opportunity, which once offered, he set forward in the night time with his soldiers undescried, and conveyed them over that river. In the morning not only his enemies, but the Citizens were astonied at his wonderful passage. Then he marched forward to them which kept Sephira. But Spendius perceiving that he had conveyed over his Army with all his retinue, immediately set forward to aid his companions. There were at Sephira. x. thousand men, & at Utica, about xv. thousand, so they supposed that they might at pleasure empale the Carthaginenses if they both marched forward at one time, & encountered with them the one company before & the other behind, wherefore encouraging their company they set forward towards Amilcar, which failed not of his journey, placing his Elephants in the first front, than his horsemen & lightest footmen, setting the legion soldiers in the rearewarde, & perceiving his enemies to be very earnest, commanded that incontinently the whole order of the battle should be changed, so they which stood in the fore ward should return as though they would flee, and come into the hindmost part, likewise they which were in the rearward traversing about, should enter into the for most rampire, at which sight the Libeans being ready to invade them on both parts, supposing them to be afraid and ready to run away, incontinently broke their order, and came hurling upon them, and to handy strokes, but perceiving the horsemen ready to resist, and the residue of the army to assail them in warlike order, they were so astonied with the rareness thereof, that scattering themselves abroad, they were compelled to flee, many were slain of the legion soldiers, while they invaded the sides of the battle, and divers were overrun by the Elephants & horsemen, so that there was six thousand Libyans slain, and two thousand taken in this combat, the rest fled, some to Sephira, and many to the Camp by V●●ca. Amilcar after this triumph, pursued those which escaped into Sephira, winning the Town at the first assault: all the Soldiers fled to Tunes, from thence he passed through the province, receiving many of the towns which revolted favourably, & expugnate many by force of arms, which caused the Carthaginenses, which of late had no hope of good fortune or liberty, to receive their pristinate courage & boldness. Matho in this time besieged Hippona, persuading Spendius and Autoricus, Captains of the Frenchmen, to pursue their Enemies, counseling them to eschew the plains for fear of the Elephants, and keep themselves continually in the sides of the mountains and in addible ways, and never to keep far distant from him, for many inconveniences that might ensue: he also solicitated the Numidians & Libyans to rebellion, enticing them with many sugared words to assist him, and not to pertermit such an opportunity, in which they might dyliver Africa from bondage and servitude. Then Spendius with. vj. thousand old servitors picked from amongst the whole host at Tunes encamped by the hill sides, not far distant from his enemies: he had also under his conduct, two thousand Frenchmen belonging to Antoricus, for the rest were revolted to the Romans at the siege of Erix in Sicily. At this present Amilcar with his Army remained in a plain, environed with mountains on every side, & there repaired to Spendius great crews of the Numidians, & troops of the Africans, so that the Carthaginenses were hemmed in with three great hosts of their enemies, on the fore side with the Africans, in the diameter with the Numidians, on the other side which Spendius, which brought Amilcar into a great perplexity, as one desolute & abandoned of all liberty. There was at that present amongst the Numidians, one Nerua, a man descended of a honourable & noble progeny, both worthy and valiant in battle, which had always entirely affected the Carthaginenses, & then especially rapt with the nobleness of Amilcar, which supposing that a time most expedient to obtain his favour, approached to his tents, having in his company about a hundredth Numidians, and being approached nigh his pavilion, stayed boldly beckoning with his hand, & signifying that he would speak with him. Amilcar wondering at his audacity, sent one forth unto him, whom Nerua advertised that he would comen with his captain. Amilcar yet in doubt and not rashly crediting his words, stood still, but Nerua incontinently delivering his horse and spear to a Numidian that stood by, approached to Amilcar. The whole army wondered to see such boldness in one man, and beginning to disclose his mind, showed how earnestly he had been always affected toward the Carthaginenses, & that above all things he required the amity of Amilcar, for which causes he came at that present to submit himself, promising that he would be priest and ready to aid him without all deceit or guile, to the uttermost of his power. Amilcar perceiving his entire affection towards him, rejoiced wonderfully, as well for the haughty courage that he saw in the young man, by coming to him so stoutly, as for the simplicity and plainness of his words, not mixed with fraud or guile, not only admitting him to his friendship, but affirming if he would persist faithful and true toward the Carthaginenses, that he should have his Daughter in marriage. After their communication was finished, Nerua returned to his soldiers, and in the next morning came to Amilcar, with two thousand Numidians, which were under his retinue, so that this crew of men being revolted to the Carthaginenses, Amilcar thought himself able to match with his enemies. Spendius likewise having his army strengthened by the coming of the Numidians, and Africanes, conducted them into a plain place, and immediately encountered his enemies, where was a terrible and cruel fight: but after long contention, by the multitude of their elephants and the prowess of Nerua, the Carthaginenses obtained the victory. Then Antoricus and Spendius being desolate and abandoned of all comfort, fled away. There were slain in that combat about ten thousand men, and four thousand taken.  
After this victory Amilcar granted pardon and freedom to all those which would remain and be his soldiers, delivering them the armour of those, which were slain, the rest he called unto him, persuading them neither to rebel or move war against the Carthaginenses, remitting all such offences as they had committed until that time, without punishment, licensing them that would to return to their countries. About this time the hired soldiers that kept Sardinia, imitating Matho and Spendius, invaded all the Carthaginenses inhabiting the isle, and soon after leading Bostarus and the other into a hold, beheaded them. Then was Hanno sent to be a captain there with a fresh band of men, which immediately after conspired against him with the old soldiers, and made him commense in a Tyburn tippet.  
After that, fearing to suffer condign punishment for their facinorous facts, murdered all the Carthaginenses, within the isle, taking the towns and cities into their own hands, inhabiting them until such time as there arose a contention betwixt the Sardinians and them, at which time they were expelled and fled into Italy. After this manner was Sardinia alienate from the Carthaginenses, well replenished with men, abounding in foison and plenty of grain, of the which because many have written before me, I supposed it not necessary to renovate them, being known to all men. Matho and Spendius with Antoricus, captain of the frenchmen, fearing lest the clemency of Amilcar, in dismissing the captives, should prevail and entice the Libyans, with the other hired soldiers from them, endeavoured themselves to invent some facinorous and detestable act, by which they might alienate and withdraw the minds of the multitude from the Carthaginenses, commanding a common convent and general meeting to be proclaimed. As soon as the multitude was gathered together, they called a pursuivant with letters, as though he had been presently sent out of Sardinia to them The tenure of the letters was, that Gesto, and the other Captives should be kept circumspectly, because there were divers in the host, which for to obtain the Carthaginenses favour intended to deliver them.  
Spendius having feigned this occasion, did exhort the soldiers not to have much confidence in the feigned clemency of Amilcar, for dismissing the captives without punishment, saying he set them not at liberty to save them, but by that policy to obtain the residue, & revenge him on the whole multitude: he also exhorted them that they should give vigilant watch to keep Gesto, and the other captives, for if they once escaped, he declared how the enemies would have them in derision and contempt, with many other inconveniences that would ensue, saying they might be well assured, if that such an excellent and worthy captain, being so expert in the wars, should escape from them through their negligence and misdemeanour, that he would be their mortal enemy. As he was yet speaking these words, there came an other post from Tunes, with letters, containing semblable matter, which being red in the multitude, Antoricus captain of the frenchmen arose up, declaring how he had invented a policy by which they should be sure from their enemies, and it was that all the confidence they had in the Carthaginenses, should be utterly extinguished, ratifying that so long as they trusted to their gentleness and mercy, there could be no trusty soldiers in the army, for which cause he thought it most expedient that they should be best credited and only heard which invented most cruel torments, against the Carthaginenses, & who soever persuaded them otherwise, he thought to be judged enemies and traitors. When he had spoken these words, he exhorted & persuaded that Gesto and the other captives with all the rest of the Carthaginenses which should be taken after that day, might be put to most villainous and cruel death. This his oration was of great effect amongst the multitude, because the most part understood him: for he was of such continuance in the wars, that he spoke the Africanes language, in which most part had knowledge by continuance of this war, so that the Soldiers commended his doing marvelously. Then flocked out many plumps of every Nation, and consulting amongst themselves, thought it best that these cruel punishments should be put in practice, especially upon Gesto, which had been very beneficial to them before that time. There was such a cackling amongst them, blabbering in strange language, that none understood it, but being bruited once in the host, how they intended to canuaise the Carthaginenses so cruelly, a certain sedi tious person called Geta, being there present, cried out aloud (Cast.) At which word the whole army made the stones to rattle about them, and drew out their own country men, kinsfolks and neighbours all to scorched, as though they had been torn with wild beasts. Thus they brought forth Gesto, with the other Captives, to the number of seven hundredth, beginning with him, which a little before they chose to be their arbiter, as one, to whom they were most bound, cutting of their hands, tearing their membres, and in the end their thighs being all forfrushed, cast them into a bushy plot, not altogether dead. The Carthaginenses having knowledge of the cruelty showed to their Citizens, witted not what they should do, but with great grief and pensiveness, bewailed the despituous death and cruel torments they sustained. Then they sent ambassadors to Amilcar and Hanno, desiring them not to suffer the cruelty showed then to their Citizens to be unrevenged, willing them to send a Harolde to their malicious enemies for to obtain their bodies to be interred: but their carcases were not only denied, but also warning given to send no more harold, for if they did, they should also drink of the same whip, saying, they had decreed by the common consent, and also would ratify it, that as many of the Carthaginenses as they could catch, should be cruelly put to death, and that of their confederates and mates they would cut of, and keep the hands, for good abearaunce, and so dismiss them to Carthage, which order they observed diligently afterwards, so that if any consider these things attentively, he may boldly affirm, that not only in the bodies of men are certain maladies incurable, but also in their minds. For as a botch if you lay any healing medicine to cure it, when it beginneth to feel the operation & virtue of the medicine, increaseth, likewise if you neglect and take no regard of it, it augmenteth much more of the proper nature, neither desisteth it till such time as the whole body be corrupt: semblable restoration and corruptions chance to the mind: so that no other brute beast is made more cruel, fierce or outrageous, neither more wild or bestial than a man if you grant him liberty and freedom: if you handle him benignly or gently he thinketh you go about to deceive him, so that you are worse trusted for your benefit bestowed: contrariwise if you take against him, there is nothing so hurtful or noisome, which he will not assay, supposing it to turn to his great praise, while he slides into such brutishenesse, that he clean forsaketh the Nature of a man, which hath the beginning of corrupt manners and sinister education in the nonage. To this also there chanceth many augmentations afterward, but the especial captains are covetousness and cruelty, which vices flourished plentifully at that present, both in the multitude and generals.  
While this brewing was yet in tapping, Amilcar sent for Hanno, the other Carthaginean captain, supposing that armies being knit together to end the war sooner, and all the prisoners which he had either there, or caught afterwards, he cast to be devoured of the Elephants, perceiving the rebellion should only be extinguished by utter subversion of his enemies. Now the Carthaginenses were in good hope, and feared not the wars, but fortune altered suddenly, and turned their matters quite contrary: for as soon as the two captains were associate, there engendered such a rancour and debate betwixt them, that they not only omitted to invade their enemies, but offered occasions that their adversaries might assail them. The Carthaginenses being moved with this dissension, commanded that one of them should return into the City, and the other which the Soldiers would, to remain with the host. To amplify this mischief the most part of their hulks which conveyed victuals and other necessaries into the camp were lost in a sudden tempest: also Sardinia (as I said before) was revolted from them, whence they were accustomed to have much aid & succour in their wars: & lest they should lack misery, Hippona & Utica, which only amongst all the cities in Africa, not only in that troublesome time, but in their wars against Agathocles, and the Romans had remained their especial & faithful friends, were now become their enemies, and all the Carthaginenses with their captains to aid them, were cruelly murdered, neither could they obtain their bodies of the cruel Creon's. Matho & Spendius being very proud and lofty for these occasions, marched forward to besiege Carthage. Then was Annibal associate to Amilcar, for after that Hanno was forsaken of the soldiers by the election in the uproar, they sent him forth. Then Amilcar with Annibal & Nerua, scoured through the province, preventing & stopping the victuals of their enemies, continually endeavouring himself to those things that were most necessary, but being environed & compassed on every part with his enemies, he was glad to retire to the Cities adjoining of their friends & aids. Hieron, King of Sicily supported the Carthaginenses very plentifully with all necessaries, considering that their prosperity should be very commodious to him, both for the defence of Sicily, and observing his amity with the Romans, lest the Carthaginenses, being clean vanquished and suppressed, the Italians might at their pleasure, and without contradiction do what pleased them, which surely was a politic and subtle invention: for it is good to take heed & suffer no prince to come to such estate, that in manifest wrongs he must be winked at. The Romans also being in league with the Carthaginenses at that time, forlet him not to aid them. But there was a breach betwixt them for this cause. The Carthaginenses when their City was first besieged, taking five hundredth Romans which coming from Italy, supported the vagabonds with victuals, cast them in prison, which the Romans took grievously, and as an outrage to them. Wherefore shortly after they sent ambassadors to the Carthaginenses for the same matter, to whom they gently dismissed those which were in bonds, which doing was so acceptable and grateful to the Romans, that incontinently they sent home without ransom all the Carthaginean soldiers that they took in Sicily, continually after that day aiding the Carthaginenses with such things as were requisite, permitting their merchant men to transport corn to Carthage, straightly commanding that none should aid their enemies, neither would they accept the legates of the old soldiers inhabiting Sardinia, offering to yield the isle unto them. Incontinently after the citizens of Utica, which had rebelled against the Carthaginenses, gave up both themselves and their City, into the Romans hands, whom they likewise forsook, intending by no means to falsify their promiss. The Carthaginenses being thus relieved with succour of their friends, suffered the siege patiently, so that Matho and Spendius were as sore besieged as they did besiege: for Amilcar kept all victuals and other necessaries so straightly from than, that they were glad to dissolve their camp. Within few days after, they chose out the valiantest soldiers of their whole army, so that with fifty thousand men they incontinently marched towards Amilcar, eschewing the plains for fear of the Elephants & horsemen of Nerua, keeping in the hills and byways scant passable, at which time though they were nothing inferior to their enemies in boldness, yet for lack of knowledge, they were overcome by the Carthaginenses. There a man might have well discerned the difference betwixt a cunning and expert captain, & the rude multitude: for as they fought daily, Amilcar did nothing uncircumspectly or foolish hardily, which soon daunted the courage of Spendius, but continually finding ways to entrap his enemies, and other times bringing them in danger with sudden invasions, casting all those which he caught on live to be devoured of the elephants, and at the last closed them in a perilous place, very fit for his purpose, where he set them in such a perplexity, that they durst not fight for fear of the Elephants and horsemen, neither could they escape by running away, they were so encompassed with ditches, where they were so languished with penury and want of food, that one was constrained to eat an other, suffering just vengeance for the cruelty they used to their friends and country men. Thus they remained, not daring encounter with their enemies, perceiving them to have obtained victory already, and presently beholding that terrible tortures provided for them. They thought it vain to ask peace, perceiving no hope of mercy to remain, considering the great cruelty which they had used before, but remained in misery, continually looking for aid from Tunes. After they had devoured the bodies of their captives and servants (for of long time they had none other repast, they remained with great grief of hunger and fear of punishment, at the last decreing to speak with the Carthaginenses to entreat for peace, they sent a purs●uant to desire that their Legates might talk with Amilcar. When they had obtained this request, the ambassadors were sent, with whom Amilcar made this paction, that he would choose freely ten of his enemies, which he pleased, and let all the rest depart with bag and baggage, without damage or hurt. When these covenants were established, Amilcar went to receive those, for whom he had concluded peace, so that Spendius, Antoricus and divers other chief doers in the host, and beginners of the uproar were delivered him. The Lybians perceiving the deliverance of their captains, and being ignorant of the pactions that were determined, supposed the Carthaginenses to have betrayed them, wherefore incontinently they armed them, thinking to defend themselves in an angle of their tents, but Amilcar marching against them with his Elephants and other of his host, quickly dispatched and killed them, every one being in number above forty thousand, nigh to a place called Serra, taking the denomination of the Carpenter's instrument, called a Saw. Thus the Carthaginenses which a little before were in despair of their safeguard and health, began to receive a good courage, hoping to be reduced to their pristinat estate. Amilcar with Nerua and Annibal, ceased not to wander and forage abroad in the country, so that many of the Africans revolted to them, & divers Cities yielded willingly. Then they brought their host to Tunes, intending to besiege Matho and his accomplices. Annibal pitched his tents on that side of the town which is towards Carthage and Amilcar on the opposite. They brought with them Spendius and the other which they had taken, and hanged them all in the sight of their enemies. When Amilcar was departed to his station, Matho perceiving Annibal to come into his tents with his soldiers very rashly, thought it not best to pretermit such an opportunity, but issued out against the Carthaginenses, & took many of them, compelling the rest to return, sacking their tents, & carrying away their stuff. In this combat Annibal the Carthaginean captain was taken alive, & incontinently led to the gallows of Spendius, where they took and hanged up Annibal, & murdered thirty noble men of Carthage, about the dead corpse of Spendius, so that fortune declined equally to both parts, giving them time to be revenged of their enemies. Amilcar being warned to late of this unhappy chance, could not help them, the plot was so impassable, wherefore he removed from Tunes, and brought his army to the river Machera, where he encamped along the bank. The Carthaginenses hearing tell of the wretched chance happened to their men, begun to despair, but incontinently recovering their spirits, they studied diligently to preserve the state of their City. Then they sent their Senators legates to Amilcar which led with them Hanno, and a new crew of men, commanding that in any case they should take up the old rancour & debate that was betwixt him and Amilcar, which being united together, should with one mind endeavour themselves to conquer their enemies, willing them to way the cruelty of that time, with the necessity and apparent danger the City was in.  
The Senators called the captains together, then after many and sundry exhortations smothered & repressed the cankered sedition, reconcyling & making them obedient to the Carthaginenses. Then afterwards all things were ruled by the two captains, so that warring against Matho, after many chances both at Leptis & other places, they appointed to pitch a field and fight it out with their enemies, to which both parts came courageously, gathering the friends & allies out of every corner, sending for them which were appointed to defend the cities, knowing that in this battle one part should win the spurs. After that both armies had prepared all things belonging to the battle, and were ready, they orderly invaded on the other: the battle was marvelous cruel, rigorous and mortal, but the Carthaginenses in the end obtained the victory. The most part of their Enemies were slain in fight, the rest fled to a little City adjacent, which yielded immediately. So that only Utica and Hippona, persevered in their obstinacy, acknowledging their wickedness, hoping of no mercy for their facinorous crime, by which we may learn a modest mean to be of much efficacy, and that it is better to pill straws, than to work such curious gear and crafty conveyances, that in the end the same is intolerable. But at the last, Amilcar & Hanno encamping about them, they were forced to yield, & agree to all such things as pleased the Carthaginenses. According to this manner was the African war ended, in which the Carthaginenses had such prosperous success, that they not only obtained all Africa, but also executed condign punishment upon the rebels. Matho & his copes mates were led about the town with the youth of the City for a triumph, & then put to pains worthy of their wickedness. This war endured three years and four months, far exceeding all other in cruelty and wickedness, that ever I heard of. About that time the Romans were alured by the persuasions of the soldiers that fled out of Sardinia, to transfrete into the Island, which thing the Carthaginenses somewhat stomached because the Island belonged rather unto them, and therefore prepared an army to send into it. The Romans having gotten that occasion, commanded them to desist from their purpose, affirming their preparance not to be so much against the Sardinians, as against them. The Carthaginenses perceiving how they were not able at that present to match with the Romans, louted for the time, and eschewing all occasions of battle, did not only grant them the Island, but also sent them a thousand & two hundredth talents, lest they should assail them at that present. Thus orderly according to this prescript manner were these things done.  
Nihil est dulcius bene impensi temporis Memoria. Contra vero his molestius nihill.  
Thus endeth the first book of histories written by the most famous and worthy Grecian Chronographer, Polybius, entreating in the first part of the wars betwixt the Romans and the Carthaginenses, for the domination of Sicily, in the second part of that wars betwixt the Carthaginenses and their mercenary soldiers, a rich & worthy work containing wholesome counsels and wonderful devices against the encumbrance of fickle fortune, and comfortable consolations for them that are depressed by her, a work much profitable to all the readers thereof but especially to the diligent digesters of the same.   

To the Questioners. Those which are desirous to know the causes why I joined this abridgement of King Henry the fift his life, to this foreign History, let them read the Epistle following.  
IF any covet to know why I took in hand to renovate the triumphant reign and victorious acts of this Arabical Phoenix and famous conqueror, either how I was bold to coarct them so compendiously, whereby his martial prows may be thought to be appalled or diminished, to the reasonable request, and trusting to their humanity, thus I answer them, employing my diligence and study in the obscure works and intricate engines of the famous Aristotle, prince of Philosophers, to attain some knowledge continued in that sage Sophye, my wits were so cloyed, yea almost dazed, that of necessity and constraint, I was forced to seek some recreation. Then incontinently came to my memory, a sentence of the divine & golden Plato, containing these words. When thou art fatigate with study, recreate and repose thyself with revolving worthy Histories. Then I be 'gan to excogitate what Histories of all other were most famous & Peragons in the comparison of the rest, being desirous to practise some present remedy. But than tumbled an other thought in my brain, which persuaded me to think, if the variety of study revived and set on edge an obtuse or blunt wit, that the alteration of the language should be of some efficacy & force. So I reached to our English chronicles compiled by Edward Hall, which by fortune (beheld the fountain and effycient of my translation, and all the rest) lay open at that present in the life of King Henry the fift, where was noted in the margin, the Oration of Henry Chickley Archbishop of Canterbury, which Oration I read over, and at the end a reply to the same, made by the right honourable Lord Ralph, earl of Westmerlande, a man of no less gravity than experience, which was garnished with such flowers of Rhetoric, and matter of importance, that if it had been in Greek and Latin, it had been nothing inferior, but equivalent with the Orations of Demosthenes or Tully. When I had taken a superficial sight of it, I was rapt in mind more profoundly to digest his stately style knit together as the Amber, and arguments indissoluble as the Adamant. After that I had circumspectly pondered and weighed it with deliberation, I wondered not a little to see such eloquence and pithy sentences proceed out from such a potentate as scant in these our days demane from grave & great learned Doctors. There lacked no copy of examples, as of the Persians, the Africans, the Greeks and especially of the Romans, by diverse other nations, yea of England and scotland. When I had perused the mellifluous Oration of this worthy Orator and mighty magistrate, I determined with myself to read some of the famous Histories, out of which he had picked such pleasant pearls, and especially before the rest that History entreating of the wars made by the Romans for Sicily, and the City of the Samnites, out of the which he had collected the most firm & infringible arguments of his Oration. With the perusing of the which History, I was so rapt and pleasured, that my appalled senses were quickened, and my dull wit sharpened & revived. For the which causes I vowed to apply my vacant hours in reducing it to our maternal & vulgar tongue, under the protection & governance of the most worthy sequel & haughty successors of the incomparable Earl, trusting so much to their bountiful benevolence & accustomed gentleness, which naturally is planted in that stock, so that they would gratefully accept my good will towards them. When the matter was come to this point, I thought that of necessity I must needs pen the oration which was the original cause of this my translation, that thereby I might satisfy them which were desirous to know for what cause I took this work in hand, which could not be done without declaring of the bishops which was the cause of the earls. So then I was persuaded, that every man would be desirous to know for what cause the bishop made his, which could not be showed without entering into the life of King Henry, the which parcel of his life would have caused him to have been judged of some malign & cursed persons, a wicked prince. But for their confounding which would go about to take such a cause where none is offered, I judged it as a thing necessary, at the least compendiously to show this abstract, of the life of our worthy and renowned prince and governor, not needing any argelier to explicate & set forth his works, both because I should sooner empty the Occeans, and fill the vorages of Scylla and Charybdis, than show his merited praises which are done already, as worthily as may be by any man, (in the union of the two illustre and noble families of Lancaster and York, compiled by the forenamed Hal) but yet not accordingly as they ought to have been, or as he deserved, and also because this may sufficiently serve for the understanding of that which I intended. Thus far you well: from my study in saint john's College at Cambridge.  
Yours Christopher Watson.   

¶ The victorious acts of king Henry the fift.  
THe mighty & puissant prince Henry, son & heir to king Henry the fourth, took upon him the high power and regiment of this Realm of England, the twenty day of March, in the year after that Christ our saviour had entered into the immaculate womb of the holy Virgin his natural Mother, a thousand four hundredth and eight, and was crowned King, the ninth day of April next ensuing, and proclaimed King, by the name of King Henry the fift. This King was the man which (according to the ancient proverb) declared & showed, that honour ought to change manners: for incontinently after that he was enthronized in the siege royal, and had received the diaadem and sceptre of this famous and fortunate region, he determined with himself to put on the shape of a new man, & to use an other sort of living, turning insolency & wildness, into gravity and soberness, and wavering vice into constant virtue: and to the intent that he would so persist without reflection, either lest he should be alured by the sinister persuasions of his familiar companions, with whom he had passed his adolescency in wanton pastimes and riotous rufflings, he banished and separated from him, all his old flatterers, and light bold brainsick playféeres, but not unrewarded, inhibiting them from thence forth on a great pain, not once to approach either to his speech, or presence, nor yet to lodge or sojourn within ten miles of his high Court, or royal mansion, and in their places elected & chose men of gravity and great wit, with such as were practised in policy and martial prows, by whose skilful wisdom, curious counsel, prudent policies, and ingenious instructions, he might at all times rule regally, to his high honour, & guide his governance princelike to his profit. This peerless prince was righteously reported to be the rare Arabical Phoenix, and the very Peragone of his predecessors.  
This haughty Henry was a King, whose life was exempt from all faults, & his living unspotted with obloquy, this courteous king was a princely potentate, whom all men leally loved & none disdained or dread: this prewe Prince was a courageous Captain, against whom fickle Fortune never fraudulently frowned, nor irous mischance once spitefully spurned: this warlike Captain was a sincere shepherd, whom his fawning flock faithfully favoured, and obediently obeyed, and with continual acclamations, reknowledged their loving lord. This our pastor was such a just justiciary, that no facinorous fact was pretermitted unpunished, or faithful friendship destitute of due desert. This gentle justiciary was so unfeignedly feared, that all rage and rebellion were quite banished, and all sedition suppressed. His fervent virtues were no more notable than his fine qualities were worthy of praise, for the which few or none were to him comparable. No man could be found more temperate in eating and drinking than he was, he feigned no frugality, his diet was not delicate dainties, but rather rural and gross, more to be desired of the wearied warrior than to be offered to amorous ladies. His indomable courage was so constant, and his heart was so immutable, that he rejected all fear and dastardly dread from him was utterly banished. He had such profound knowledge in conducting and ordering an army, and such a rare grace in the encouraging of his soldiers, that french men publicly pronounced him to be invincible and impossible to be vanquished. He was endued with such pregnant wit, such perfect prudence and admirable policy, that he never enterprised any thing before he had diligently debated it, and circumspectly foreseen all such mean chances as might happen. And when the end was concluded, with all celerity & courage, he furthered his pretence & purpose.  
Wonder it is to hear, how he being a potentate of honour, a prince of youth, a King of riches, and extract of so haughty a family, did continually abstain from lascivious living and blind avarice, yea in the time of sinister chances, he was no more dolent than in the time of victory, the which constancy few men have or can use. Such a stable stomach had he, and such a gravity was engraven in the bottom of his heart. What politic practices and divers devices, he ingeniously invented & used, in finding sudden and resolute remedies for present mischiefs, and what captainlike conveyances he frequented, in the exempting himself and his people in imminent distresses, except he had showed them in the courageous conflict and bold battle fiercely fought at Egencourt, and in divers other places to the great confusion of the French nation, they might have been thought incredible. In the which bold battle he victoriously vanquished, with a small power of our English soldiers insuperable, the flowers of France, fast buckled with boisterous bands on their barbed horses, holding sharp spears and funeral weapons in their unhautie hands: also the bold Britain's with fiery handgunnes, and slashing swords, with the practised pickard's, which carried strong & weighty Crossbows, beside the fierce brainsick Brabanders, and strong almains, with their long pushing pikes, by his prudent policies, he suddenly subverted all these, in the which combat, the sword devoured above ten thousand persons, whereof were princes and nobles bearing banners a hundredth six and twenty, all the remnant sixteen hundredth except, were Knights, esquires, and Gentlemen, so that of noble men and high blood were slain eight thousand and four hundredth of the Gallician army. And in this furious battle only five or six hundredth of our English army, with two or three of the nobility were exempt from the fruition (with eternal glory) of this incomparable terrene triumph. This conflict may be a notorious mirror and gazing glass to all christian Princes to behold and follow, and also a reasonable testimony and attestation of the worthy acts perpetrate by our famous King Henry, the english Hector, which was the blazing comet and glistering lantern of his days. He was the mirror of Christendom, and the glory of his country. He was the flower of kings passed, & a seeing glass to such as should succeed. No emperor surmounted him in magnanimity, no potentate was more piteous or lord more bounteous, no King had less of his subjects, and never King conquered amplier dominions, whose fame by his death as lively flourisheth, as his acts in this life were seen and remembered, he was the scourge of the Frenchmen, and continually abated and appalled their courages: yet he never put confidence in his own strength, neither in the puissance of his people, nor in the fortitude of his champions, neither yet in the strength of his barbed horses, or any whit in his own policy. But he acknowledged God to be the only cause and gatherer of these his heap of renoumes and victorious conquests, in whom he put his whole confidence hope & trust, upon whom he steadfastly ancored and firmly cleaved unto in all his dangers, as to an immovable rock or steadfast corner stone. And he which never leaveth them destitute that put their trust in him, remunerated his firm faith, with many glorious and unchangeable victories, of the which some might almost be thought incredible, if we had not red in the book of Kings, that God likewise had defended them that put their affiance in him, and committed themselves wholly to his governance. This worthy Peragon, amongst all governors, remembered that a King ought to rule with wit, gravity, circumspection, diligence & constancy: and for that cause to have a rule committed, not as an honour, but for an onerarious charge and quotidian carefulness, not to look so much on other men's living, as seriously to consider and intentively revolve his own proper acts and doings, for which cause he not so much trusting to the readiness of his own capacity, nor to the judgement of his own wavering will, called to his Counsel such prudent and politic personages as should not only help to illevate and sustain his charge, in supporting the burden of his realm and empire, but also incense and instruct him with such good reasons and fruitful persuasions, that he might show himself a singular mirror ano manifest example of Moral virtues and good qualities, unto his common people, and loving subjects.  
After that he had laid this prudent and politic foundation, he intended in his mind to do many noble and notable acts, and remembering that all goodness cometh of God, and that all worldly things and humane acts be more weaker and poorer than the celestial powers & heavenly rewards, determined to begin with some thing which should be pleasant and acceptable unto God. So that after he had established all things, being in controversies and variance within these his peculiar realms, countries, territories and confines to the same, nothing forgetting, nor no one thing more desiring than the extermination and ceasing of the long schism and division sprung and continued in the catholic church of christian religion, by the most wicked desire of a Satanical swarm of wicked worldlings, as contemptuous Cardinals, bloodthirsty Bishops, pelting priors, ambitious Abbots, mischievous Monks, filthy Friar-like furies, and a company of cakling Canons, with a pestiferous plump of popish Proctors, & a troop of trouncing Tyrants, with other more monstrous monastical mirroures of mischief, disordered orders of the unsatiable Romish sea, which nominated themselves spiritual chirurgeons, but in deed they were carnal, covetous and greedy devouring gluttons, aspiring for high honour and not for virtue to the licentious and proud rend rock of Rome, where was and is frequented daily wanton, luxurious, superfluous and undecent pomps, with dissolute manners, neither are they taken for enormities (being permitted by their diabolical dimigod) with these perverse fugitives, being alienated & revolted from God's truth, and arrived in the pensive haven of inexplicable wickedness, for which their devilish digression, they shall be afflicted with condign punishment and terrible tortures, unless they speedily retire and endeavour to reduce themselves, from the barbarous insolency, in the which they have long loitered, as the acclamations and earnest exhortations of the sincere Euangelisters, desisting any longer to protract the time to persever and participate with those raging Romists, which desire more to pill than to profit Christ's flock and christian religion by selling of their polling pardons, which they make serve in place of passportes for those which intent to peregrinate through purgatory, & ungracious indulgences. For these causes the King's royal majesty most graciously granted & established a parliament in the second year of his famous reign, to his high honour, and to the inestimable advancement of pure religion, calling his high court the last day of April in the town of Leicester. In the which parliament many commodious laws were concluded, & divers petitions moved were for that time deferred, amongst which requests one was, that a complaint exhibited in the parliament holden at Westminster in the eleventh year of King Henry the fourth, which by reason that the King was at that instant vexed with civil division, intestine discord, domestical dissension, & the prorogation of the parliament came to no effect, might now be well studied, pondered and resolutely concluded. The effect of which supplication was, that all the temporal lands which in ancient times had been devoutly given, & now disordinately spent by the rude religious rabblement & other spiritual spitesoules, which apishly usurped the names of spiritual pastors, might well suffice to maintain to the honour of the Prince and defence of the realm, fifteen honourable Earls, fourteen hundredth worshipful Knights, six thousand and two hundredth gentle esquires, and a hundredth alms houses, for relief only of the poor, needy and impotent persons, and the King to have clearly to his private commodity and amplifying of his treasury twenty thousand pounds with many other ample provisions & large values of the rakehellish, otherwise called religious houses, which I pretermit that was riotously spent by the panchplying porkheads. This before remembered supplication was attentively noted & much feared, amongst the cursed company of drowsy dreaming Dromos, I mean Baal's Baldons that mongrel Massalians & cruel church-robbers whom it touched most in effect, in so much that the gross gospeler, Ethnic Epicures, beastly bellygods, wicked worldlings and spiritual shavelings, were fallen in a pelting chafe, the bloody Bishops broiled, the cullionly Cardinals coured, the proud priors frowned, the fat Abbot's sweat, the poor Friars cursed, the white Canons chafed, the poor Nuns puled like Puttocks, in conclusion, all the sectary Sathanists were sore displeased. Now to find a present preservative for a mischievous chance, and a sanative tent for a deep wound, Caiphas clergy clustered, minding rather to play with the pliant reed, than stubbornly to stand with the stiff Oak, purposed rather to bow than break, so that they agreed to offer unto the King a mighty mass of money to stay the new moved demand. The cause of this offer seemed to some of the crafty cullions and perjured pilate's, neither decent nor convenient, for the pattern lay so plain before their eyes, that they well foresaw and perfectly knew that if the commons once perceived their legerdemain, and that by rewards and offer of money they endeavoured themselves to resist their request and petition, that then they being stirred & kindled with fury would not only asperly rail, but also worthily contemn them as privy corrupters of Princes, and enemies to the public utility, and importunately call upon the King's Majesty and his honourable Lords temporal, that they were like to bestow both labour, charges, and living. Wherefore they determined vigilantly to forecast all chances that might prevail, or further their pretenced purpose, and like an ungracious guard, and as authors and procurers of all mischiefs and facinorous facts, they intended to exterminate this the commons request out of the King's mind, & to obnebulate his senses with some glistering vail, or to replenish his brain with some new toy, lest he should fantasy or regard their importunate petition. The performance of which tended so much to God's glory and the advancement of true religion and virtue. Wherefore upon a day when the King's Majesty was set the parliament house upon his imperial throne, Henry Chickley Archbishop of Canterbury, thereto newly preferred, which had been a Monk of the cankered Carthusians sect, a man which had professed wilful poverty in religion, but to speak congruely in the relegation of religion, yet hopping abroad, waxed as lusty as a March hare, or rather mad (as we may term it) his mind was incensed with the furious flames of lordelyke honour: Also this perverse Paul, being a very Saul, according to the rule of blessed Becket, was so zealous in God's religion, that he regarded ten times more his own private commodity than the sincere evangelical doctrine, as all the train of the dimigod his filthy fraternity did, always concealing double faces under their hoods and counterfeacte cowls, but truelyer termed calves cases, after low obeisance and double ducking made to the King's honour, spoke after this manner in effect.  
When I consider our most entirely beloved and less dread sovereign lord and natural Prince, the loving kindness, the daily labour and continual study, which you incessantly implore, both for the advancement of the honour of your Realm, and also profit of your people, I can not or ought not, except I would be noted not only ingrateful to your royal person, being my patron and preferrer, but also a neglecter of my duty, a secret mummer of such things, which do touch your inheritance, hold my peace or keep silence. For all Authors do agree, that the glory of Kings consisteth not only in high blood and haughty progeny, not in abundance of riches and superfluous substance, nor in pleasant pastime, nor in joyous solace: but the very type of the magnificency in a prince resteth in populous rich regions, subjects, beautiful cities and towns, of the which thanked be God, although you be conveniently furnished both within your realms of England and Ireland, and the principality of Wales, yet by lineal descent by progeny of blood, and by very inheritance, not only the Duchy of Normandy, and Aquitane, with the Counties of Anjou, and Main, and the country of Gascoigne, is to you as true and indubitate heir of the same, lawfully devoluted and lineally descended from the high and most noble prince of famous memory King Edward the third, your great grandfather, but also the whole realm of France, with all the prerogatives and pre-eminences to you as heir to your great grand father is of right belonging, and appertaining. In which Realm to rehearse what noble people, what beautiful Cities, what fertile Regions, what substantial merchants, and what plentiful Rivers are contained, I assure you, that time should rather fail, than matter wax scant. The fraudulent Frenchmen to defraud, & take away your right and title to the Realms of France, in the time of your noble progenitor, King Edward the third, alleged a law, untruly feigned, falsely glossed and sophistically expounded, whereof the very words are these. In terram Salicam mulieres ne succedant. Which is to say, let not women succeed in the land Salic. This land Salic the deceitful glosers feigned to be the Realm of France. This law the logical interpreters assign to direct the Crown and Regality of the same Region, as who would say, that to that pre-eminence, no woman were able to aspire, nor no heir female is able to inherit. The French writers do affirm that Pharamonde king of the French gauls, first instituted this law, which never was, should or might be broken. See now how an evil gloze confoundeth the text, and a partial interpreter marreth the sentence, for first it is apparently known and by a hundredth writers confirmed, that Pharamont, whom they allege to be author of this law, was Duke of Franconia in Germany, and elected to be king of the Sycambres, which calling themselves French men, had gotten a part of the Gaul Seltique, betwixt the rivers of Marne and Seyne. This Pharamonde, deceased in the year of our Lord, four hundredth twenty and six, long after whose death, Charles the great being Emperor, and many years making war on the Saxons, did in bloody battle, disperse and confound the whole puissance of that nation, in the year of our Lord, eight hundredth and five, bringing them to the Catholic faith, and Christian conformity, after which victory, certain Soldiers as the French chronographers affirm, passed over the water of Sala, and inhabited betwixt it and the River Elne, and were commonly called sally, frenchmen, or Saligalls, which country now is the land of Misinie.  
This people had such an indignation at the brutish and unhonest fashions of the German women, that they constitute a law which disabled the females for succeeding any inheritance in that land. Now if ye intentively and with indifferent ears precisely note these two points, you shall easily (all misty mantles laid apart) perceive that the law Salic was only feigned and invented to defraud your noble progenitors and you from your proper patrimony, and right inheritance, for they say that Pharamonde constitute the law, for the land Salic which the hodipekes gloze calleth France. Then I demand of master glosser, or rather of the true sense a disposer, or of master Doctor Commenter, if ever the deviser, as by chance he might, took the degrees of a dotard, if I may call an open liar a Commenter, whether Pharamonde which died four hundredth twenty & one years, before the Frenchmen possessed the Gaul Salic, and never did see or know it, enacted a law of that thing which at that instant was not his or inhabited of his people. Furthermore, this the Realm of France which is your patrimony, consisteth of three, Gaul Belgic, Seltique with Aquitane Salic. Then may the turndish gentle master Gloser, expound like perversely, that Gaul Belgic is the country of Britain, as Geta, like to gloze (but the ignorant ingaram, did it through ignorance, so that his bold blindness must be borne with, but not suffered) that the land Salic is the whole Realm & dominion belonging to the Crown of France. Wonder it is to see the lewd Leagerdemaine, and childish conveyance of the foolish Frenchmen, which jeopard to juggle so openly with this fantastical law, a simple sleight God wotteth and easily perceived without peeping through a wimble bored hole, imitating the crafty hazerders, which cosinlike use to play at seest thou me, or seest me not. For when King Pipen which was Duke of Brabante, by his mother Begga and master of the palace of France, coveted the Crown & Sceptre of the Realm, the fickle French nation not remembering this infringeable law, as they termed it, deposed Childricke the third being very heir male, and undoubtedly descended from the line of Pharamonde and Cloves, King of France, by the counsel of Zacharie then Bishop of the roving rogues and massing Cayphernites, and enthronized this Pepin, as next heir general, descended of lady Blichilde, daughter of King Clothaier the first. Hugh Capet also usurped the Crown without right or reason, of Charles Duke of Lorraine, the sole heir male of the line and stock of Charles the great, after that he had shamefully murdered in pitiful prison, by the perverse procurement of the bloudthristie bishop of Orleans, & devilishly destroyed the said Charles, to make his traitorous title seem true, & appear good, where in deed it was both evil and untrue, to blind the opinions of the rural rout and common people: thus setting a glass before their eyes, he craftily conveyed himself as heir to the lady Lingard, daughter to King Charlamaine, son to Lews the Emperor, which was son to Charles the great, King of France. King Lews also the ninth, (whom the Frenchmen called Saint Lews) being very heir to the said usurper Hugh Capet, could never be satisfied in his conscience, how he might justly keep and possess the Regality of the Realm of France, till he was persuaded, and fully instructed, that Queen Isabel his grand Mother was lineally descended of lady Armengard, daughter and heir to the above named Charles Duke of Lorraine, by the foresaid Hugh Capet of life & Realm wrongfully deprived: by the which marriage the blood and line of King Charles the great, was again united and restored to the Crown and Sceptre of France, so that it more clearer than the sun openly appeareth, the title of King Pipen, the claim of Hugh Capet, the possession of king Lews, yea & of all the French Kings to this day, are derived, claimed & conveyed from the heir female: & yet they would bar you, as though your great grand mother had been no woman nor heir female, but a painted image or feigned shadow. If so many examples, if such copy of precedents collected out of your own histories & gathered out of our writers, suffice not to confound your simple Salic, invented by false fablers and crafty imaginers of you fabling frenchmen, then hear what God saith in the book of Numeri, when a man dieth without a son, let the inheritance descend to the daughter, if your princes call themselves most Christian Kings, let them follow the law of God before the law of the Panime Pharamont. Are not all laws discrepant from gods laws evil, and to all Christian ears odious and noisome are? French women descended of the blood royal, no Christians and not worthy to inherit the Realm of France? is the Realm of France more noble than the kingdom of juda, of whom Christ descended by a woman, when God said to Abraham, that in one of his seed all nations should be blessed? how came Christ of the seed of Abraham, but only by that immaculate Virgin his glorious Mother? likewise when the Prophet Michee said, thou Tribe of juda, art not least of estimation amongst the princes of juda, for out of thee shall come a Captain which shall rule and direct my people of Israel. How descended Christ from the root of jesse, & how was the Duke and captain of the Israelites, & how descended he of the line of David, but only by his mother, a pure virgin and a married wife. Behold by gods law women shall inherit: behold in France, Frenchmen have enherited by that only line of the woman, and yet Englishmen be prohibited to claim by the heir female, contrary to the law of God & man, wherefore regard well my sovereign, your just and true title to the Realm of France, by god's law & man's law lawfully to you devoluted, as very heir to Queen Isabel, your great grand mother, daughter to King Philip the fair, & sister and heir to three Kings, deceasing without any issue, which inheritance of the woman, is declared to be just by the Mosaical law and used and approved by the Gallicean descent, as I have before declared. Therefore for god's sake, lose not your patrimony, disherit not your heirs, dishonour not yourself, diminish not your title which your noble progenitors so highly have esteemed. Wherefore with courage advance forth your victorious banour, fight for your right, conquer your inheritance, spare not sword, blood, nor fire, your war is just, your cause is good, & your claim true. Therefore courageously and speedily set forward your war against your capital enemies, for maintenance of the which, we your loving Chaplains, and obedient subjects of the spirituality, to show ourselves willing and desirous to minister aid and secure to you, for the recovery of your ancient right and true title, to the Crown of France, we have in our Spiritual Convocation, granted to your highness, such an infinite treasure & sum of money, as never by that spirituality was granted to any prince before your days, to serve for an assurance, caution, pawn, gage, & pledge, also for a witness, attestation, & approbation of the unfeigned favour which we your true Chaplains bear towards you, beside our songs, hymns, odes, cantels, & collects, with divers other daily prayers, & continual precations dedicate, consecrated & attribute to god & his Saints, that prosperous success may ensue your martial exploit, & royal passage. When the Archbishop had finished this his oration, which rightly may incense the hearts of all true English men & make them to be ready at the princes pleasure, not only to endeavour themselves to restore the which of right belongeth to the crown of England, but also to enlarge the bonds of their natural country like faithful hearted Philines' nevertheless he used it wickedly, as a vele of his wicked purpose. The honourable lord Ralph, earl of westmerland, a noble of no less gravity than experience a champion of no less experience than stomach, which was at that instant worthy high warden of the Marches toward Scotland, and therefore considering if that the King with his whole power and chivalry of the Realm should pass over into France, (as Chickley had craftily conveyed the matter) that the remnant should be to weak to withstand the strength and power of Scotland, if during the king's absence they should invade that Realm. Wherefore as a true Curtius toward his country, he arose up and after making of due obeisance to the King's highness, he spoke this unpremeditat Oration (not without the great solace of all the Convocation house) as here followeth. Surely sir, as my lord of Canterbury hath clarkly and curiously declared, the conquest of France is very honourable, and when it is gotten and obtained very profitable & pleasant. But saving your grace's reformation, I say and affirm, that to conquer Scotland, is more necessary, more apparent, easy, and more profitable to this Realm, than should be the flourishing gain obtained by the conquest of France. For although I am not so well learned as my lord Archbishop is, & have not been Laureate in the University, neither proceeded to basest degree in schools, yet have I eftsoons read and hard the opinions of famous and great clerks, in the which they doubted not to affirm, that strength knit & combined together, is of more efficacy and force, than being severed & dispersed. As for an example, sprinkle a vessel of water and it moisteth not, but cast it out wholly together, it not only washeth, but also nourisheth. This notable example and saying before this time hath encouraged kings, animated Emperors, inflamed princes, & alured courageous Captains, to conquer Realms to them adjoining, to vanquish nations adjacent to their dominions, to subdue people, either necessary to their purpose, or being to them daily enemies, either continual adversaries, for attestation whereof, behold what was the chief cause and occasion why rulers and governors so sore laboured, thirsted & coveted to bring all regions to them adjoining into on rule or Monarchy, was it not done to this intent that the conquerors might have only power & entire gubernation of all the lands and people within their climate, & govern them in time of peace, also their aid in the time of war, which monarchy was of that majesty and estimation in the world, that no other foreign prince either exterior potentate, either had audacity or yet was able to attempt any thing within the territory or region of the monarchial prince and adorned King? Let the Kingdom of the Assyrians be your example, and if that suffice not, then look upon the Persians, after upon the Greeks, and lastly view the Romans, which ever desired & coveted more to obtain the little isle of Sicily, the territory of the Numidians, & the mean City of the Samnites, lying under their, wings rather than to obtain populous Gall, plenteous Pannovie, or manly Macedon, far distant from their sight and out of their circle or compass. This desire seemeth to rise of a great, prudent and vigilant policy, for as a prince is of more puissance when his countries join, so is he of more strength when his power is at hand. And as men destitute of comfort be more relieved by friends which are present, than by kinsfolks dwelling far distant and in foreign regions, so Princes have commonly coveted and ever desired to have their dominions lying about them, and at hand, rather than to hear by report from them being far distant. If this hath been the policy of conquerors, the appetite of purchasers, and the study of governors, why doth your most noble grace desire France before Scotland, or covet a country far distant from your sight, before a Realm lying within your leap: remember you not how the Isle of Britain was an entire monarchy, in the time of your noble ancestor King Brute the first royal ruler of this your famous Empire, and glorious region? which dividing his realm to his three sons, endued Lothron the eldest, with this part of Britain, which your honourable highness now enjoyeth, & gave to Albanacte his second son, the country of Albany, now nominated Scotland, and to Camber the youngest, he appointed the country of Cambria, now called Wales, reserving always to him and his heirs, homage, liege, and fealty loyal, for these same countries and dominions. By this division the glory of the Monarchy of Britain was obscured and clearly defaced by this separation, the strength of the British kings were sore diminished & weakened, by this dispersion intestine more war began and civil rebellion budded first with bloody showers within this region. For during the time that it was wholly under one, no foreign nation durst once either invade or attempt war against the Britain's, but the region being decided, and the monarchial estate once severed, outward enmity and extern hostility no whit so much infested, grieved or troubled our valiant and bold Britain's as their own neighbours, extract of one proper parent and descended of one progeny. For the avaricious Albanact's, otherwise called the false fraudulent snatching Scots, and the careless Camber's, otherwise denominate unstable & wavering Welshmen, falsified their faith, not only by withdrawing their fealty, denying their homage, & refusing their allegiance due to their sovereigns, the Kings of this realm, but also made continual war and destroyed their towns, and slew the friends of their neighbours, the Britain's. For which cause divers of your haughty progenitors, have not only made war and subdued the faithless Scots, for denying of their homage and reaping of rebellion, but also have deposed their Kings and Princes, inthronising & setting up other in their estates and dignities. Was not Scatter their king slain and extincted for his rebellion by your noble predecessor Dunwallo Moluncius. Arthur also the glory of the Britain's, directed Angosile to the sceptre of scotland, and received of him homage and fealty. If I should reckon how many of their kings have done homage to your ancient predecessors, or rehearse what numbered of Scottish Kings, they have corrected and punished for disobedience, and denying their duties, or if I should declare what Kings they as superioure lords and high Emperors over the under kings of scotland, have elected and made rulers, to the intent that all people might manifestly perceive, that it was more glorious, more honourable and more famous, a King to make a King, than to be a King by natural descent, I assure you, that your ears would be more weary of hearing, than my tongue fatigate with telling the truth. Your noble progenitor King Edward the first, coveting to be superior, to surmount in honour, or at the least to be equivalent in fame with his noble ancestors and famous progenitors, studied daily, & hourly compassed how to associate together, and turn the whole isle of Britain, which was divided by Brute into three several parts, to the pristinate Monarchial state and one dominion.  
After long study and great consultation, he victoriously subdued Wales, tamed their wildness, and bridling them with sharp bits, turned them to their old home and ancient degree: which thing done, he semblably invaded scotland, and conquered the country to the town of perch, vent with the serpentine policy, to avoid and eschew all things, which might either be impediments to their progression and setting forward or occasions of their return and loss of their enterprise, lest they leaving behind them, a noisome neighbour, a continual adversary, and a secret enemy, may as soon come to lose their own patrimony, as conquer or gain the dominions of other. Wherefore the trite and common adage saith: Better one bird in hand than ten in the wood. Leave not the certain for the uncertain: for which consideration it is expedient and needful, that I enunciate or declare unto you certain articles contained in the ancient league and amity continued betwixt the realms of France & Scotland, whereof the words be these. The wars and injuries moved or done by the English nation to either of the said countries to be as common wrong to both. If the English men make war on the french nation, than the Scots at the costs & charges of the French king, shall minister to them succours. Semblably if the Scots be molested by the English wars, the Frenchmen having their costs allowed, shall be to them as aiders and assisters. And that none of both nations shall either contract or make peace with the Realm of England without consent or agreement of the other. And to the intent that this league and amity should be kept univolate, Robert le Bruse the usurper of scotland, willed by his testament two things especially to be observed, the one, never to break the treaty concluded with France, the other never to keep peace or paction made with englishmen longer than the observing thereof were to them commodious or profitable. Yet Mare and other Scottish writers colour this cause, saying that he would have no treaty or peace concluded with England, above three years. But what so ever writers writ, or talkers tell, they be to him most faithful executors, & have never yet falsified or broken his testament, but continually performed his commandment. Yea for the verification of bruises brutish bidding, and for the performance of this his wicked will, and to keep and preserve this league univolate, none of your ancestors ever invaded France, but incontinently the Scots troubled and vexed England, none of your progenitors ever passed the seas in a just quarrel against the French nation, but that Scots in their absence, entered your realm, spoiled your towns, burned and destroyed your villages, sacked your houses, peeled and foraged your country, afflicted your subjects, slew your people, taking and distributing booties innumerable: and thus continually abandoning your country, the caitiffs are and have been accustomed covertly to keep themselves in woods and secret places, that they might there fight and with sudden assaults, and at unwares, invade the defenders of your frontiers: and all these deceits were and are practised to provoke then your ancestors and now you to desist and return from the invading of France. If I should unbuckle to you their come mon breaking of leagues, if I should uncaste their crafty and subtle dissimulation, if I should draw the vail of their falsified fair promises, often sworn, and never kept: if I should unsheath all their shameful shifts, if I should show open the pestiferous pack of their peevishness, I doubt not but you would ten times more abhor to hear of their detestable dealing than I should be ashamed of the truth telling. Therefore I will not only persist in avouching my assertion, but also affirm and prove, that of necessity and constraint, to sweep all corners of private enemies shall be needful, suffering no lurking moats behind your back, which may prove mischenous lets when you go to conquer adversaries before your face. Moreover, beside all these, if you consider the quotidian charges, the inconstant chances which may happen, I think, yea and little doubt but scotland shall be tamed before your journey can be framed to France, for if you intend to invade it, account what numbered of ships must be prepared to the transportation of your army, recount what a charge of anchors, forcast what a come panie of cables, and what other innumerable necessaries appertain to a navy. After your navigation and safe arrival (as I trust God will prosper your journey) if your men chance to decay by sickness, or to be extinct by sword, if victuals fail, if money wax scant, if the winds turn contrary, or hoisting tempests make the sea to outrage with belching dashes, when these necessaries should be transuehate to your army, then shall you be destitute of aid, provision, and treasure, which in a foreign region are the confusion and defacing of an army. On the contrary part, if you invade scotland, your men be hard at hand, your victuals are near, your aid is even at your back, so that in that voyage and exploit you shall have abundance and plenty of all things, neither shall any necessaries to that conquest be wanting. See what an occasion favourable fortune hath friendly offered unto you: is not their king your captive and prisoner? is not the realm in great division and at intestine discord? for the Duke of Albany now presently wisheth rather to have a strange governor than a natural tyrant. Wherefore as I began, so do I persist, that it is necessary before your profection to France, to invade scotland, & by God's grace to conquer and join that region to your empire, and to restore the estate & old pre-eminence to the renowned monarchy of Britain, and so being beautified with realms, & furnished which people, you may with more ease enter France, for the recovering of your righteous title and true inheritance, in observing the old ancient proverb, which saith:  
He which intendeth France to win, With scotland let him first begin.  
After this Oration of the worthy Earl, the Duke of Excester rose up and spoke an other, in the which he persuaded the King's Majesty to take in hand the conquest of France, but not without attributing great laud and praise to the Oration of the Earl, but especially he commended the entrance of his confirmation, in the which he had alleged how the Romans more desired such as were under the flight of their own Eagle, or whose possessions were a moat to their eyes, as the isle of Sicily, and the City of the Samnites, and other, which he clearkly declared, than other regions far distant, and not object to their horizon. But by them he nothing prevailed for the King so much regarded the sayings of his uncle, that incontinently he sent him and others ambassadors to the French King. And shortly after having furnished his navy with all things fit for such a royal voyage, yet being mindful of the words which his true and loyal peer, the Earl of Westmoreland a faithful Codrus toward his country had spoken, he appointed him as a most worthy champion, and one in whom he had fixed great hope and confidence, with the Lord Scrope and other divers hardy personages, valiant captains and worthy warriors to defend the marches and frontiers adjoining to Scotland, in the which they did many haughty and valiant enterprises. When the King had thus ordered and disposed all things for the tuition and safeguard of his realm, perceiving that the wind was prosperous and pleasant for the navy to set forward, they weighed up their anchors, hoist up their sails, & took sea with a hundredth and forty ships, and on the vigil of the Assumption of our Lady, with all his fleet lan did at Kidcauxe in Normandy, without resistance or bloodshedding, and shortly after won the town of Harflew, conquered the battle of Aegincourte, subdued Caen with the Castle, obtained Rouen, wan Ponthoys, and then concluded peace, having married Lady Catherine the French kings daughter, and being proclaimed heir and regent of France, keeping such a noble house in Rouen, that all men resorted to his court, and few or none to the French kings: after Christmas he ordained his brother duke of Clarence his lieutenant general, both of France and Normandy, and on the morrow after Candlemas day took shipping at Caleys, and landed at Dover. And thus was the supplication put up for dissolving of the devils stews, falsely named religious houses, clearly forgotten and buried, according to the minds of the sinful Sathanistes and hooded hypocrites. After this the King made an other voyage into France for certain wrongs offered unto him, & pursued the Dolphin, in such wise, that he could scant find Hiempsalles hole to hide himself in. Thus after many victorious conquests upon that Frenchmen, this flower of chivalry passing to aid them of Cosney which were besieged by the Dolphin's adherents, came to corbel, & so to Senlesse, where whether it were through the heat of the air, or daily labour, being sore feebled & weakened, he began to wax sick, yea and so sick that he was constrained to desist from his pretenced purpose, and send the duke of Bedford his brother to perform his journey and enterprise. Then he began to wax sicker & sicker, & was conveyed in a horselitter to Bloys, where perceiving himself to draw towards his end & that death the stealing thief which goth about to subvert, & in a moment of an hour clearly to suppeditate all princes intentions, came running upon him which his piercing dart, he rendered to God most hearty thanks, chief for that he would call him out of this miserable life, at such a time when as he was of most perfect remembrance both toward God and the world, and also in the time of his flourishing conquest, in which he had never received misfortune, evil chance or spot of dishonour, affirming that he was both glad, and inwardly rejoiced, because the short time and small tract of his mortal life should be a testimony of his strength, a declaration of his justice, and a setting forth of his acts and proceedings, also that by his death he should obtain fame, glory and renown, escaping the reprehension of cowardness, the moat of all infamy, which by chance he might have gotten, if nature had prolonged his life. Saying as eternity is the triumpher of time, so he trusted after this fragile & caduce life, to obtain eternal being: and after this miserable pilgrimage, to enjoy the celestial kingdom, & to come to the place of rest & quietness. Thus committing his soul to God, his young son prince Henry to his nobles, his love to his friends, and his body to the earth, he said certain godly psalms, and received the blessed communion, afterward reciting the Psalm of the Passion, he completed and expired his fatal breath, the last day of August, in the year of our Lord, a thousand four hundredth twenty & two, in the ninth year, the fift month, and twenty & fourth day of his reign, the eight & thirty year of his age. When the death of this Doctor in Martial affairs, & of all chivalry, the very peragon, was published among the common people, incontinently their hearts were appalled, their courages abated, & their dolour much increased, yea their wits were so troubled, that like mad men they tore their hair, accusing and blaming Fortune, which had bereft them of so rare a jewel, for robbing them of so noble an ornament, and defacing them of so sure a defence, and for everting of their strong bulwark. Thus this worthy King died of a pleurisey, which at that time was a rare sickness, and strange disease: for the name was to the most part of men unknown, & Physicians were little acquainted with any remedy for the same: his body was imbaumed, closed in lead, & laid in a royal Chariot, sumptuously adorned with cloth of gold. Upon the corpse was laid a lively representation of his proper person, beset with robes, diadem and sceptre, with ball, & other habiliments appertaining to a King, the which chariot was drawn with brave Coursers, gorgeously trapped in several arms, accompanied with divers dolent mourners. Thus with great funeral pomp, his body was conveyed from Boys de Vincence to Paris, and so to Rouen, from thence to Abinell, after that to Caleis, then to Dover, and so through the city of London to Westminster, where he was interred with such solemn ceremonies, such mourning of Lords, such prayers of prelate's, & such lamenting of commons, as never before that day was seen in England. Thus ended this noble and puissant prince (an Ulysses in worldly policy, a very Nestor in prudent wisdom, an other Hector for manhood, & victorious acts, an other Tully not only in eloquence, but also in defending his people and himself from private & cursed conspiracies, as he showed at his departure from Southampton into France, his most worthy and fortunate reign over this our Realm of England. Whose life although cruel Atropos before his time abbreviated, yet neither fire, rust, or furious fretting time shall amongst our English nation either appal his honour, or obliterate his glory, which in so few years & brief days, at chived so high and glorious adventures, and made so many great and famous conquests, to the preserving of his name in perpetual memory, and the glory of us English men in omnen perennitatem.  
Thus endeth the recapitulation of the life and victorious acts, perpetrate by our puissant Prince of famous memory, King Henry the fift of that name.  
FINIS.   

¶ Imprinted at London in Knightrider street, by Henry Bynneman, for Thomas Hacket, and are to be sold in Paul's churchyard at the sign of the Key.  
Anno. 1568.