CAAP. XVI. AN ECLIPSE OF THE SVNNE, AND THE DAY OF AGRIPPANA'S DEATH OBSERVED.

THis hapned when VIPSANIVS, and FONTEIVS were Consuls, in the very yeare of that grand eclypse of the Sunne which XIPHILINE saith was such, that the very starres of heauen appeared. That solemne feast, QVINQVATRVS, in honor of MINER∣VA, to the celebration whereof she was most of∣ficiously inuited by her sonne, with purpose to haue her dispatched out of the world, was vpon the fifth day after the Ides of March (including the Ides, according to the Gruterian Fragments of ROMAN inscriptions) & her plotted shipwracke was vpon the very night of that feast. Her tragadie therefore, by this computation, fell vpon the twen∣tieth of March▪ but constituting the QVINQVA∣TRVS (as some more warrantablie doe) vp∣on the thirteenth Kalends of Aprill, it was then the one and twentieth of March. A grea∣ter argument of diuine wakings ouer the doings of men, that afterwards vpon the very same day of the month, vpon which this mighty empresse Page  53 perished, the newes of the reuolt of GALLIA, which drew on NERO'S destruction, came first of all to NERO'S knowledge. This eclipse, and other signes, all of them declarations of a iust of∣fence taken in heauen at a fact which far outwent all aërie monsters, & common prodigies, gaue oc∣casion to noble TACITVS to breake forth in∣to anger, at the long patience of his Gods, who sufferd NERO to continue in life, and villanie, rather showing therein his sense of the indignitie, then to insinuate a carelesnesse in powers diuine. Howbeit, his words sound not well, and LIPSIVS, aswell as SAVILE, notes to vs an Epicurean faith in them. Otherwise, what are a few yeares permitted to malefactors for repentance, or to render them inexcusable at the iudgement-day, compared to that eternitie which shall punish them? Nor could gods forbearance of NERO seeme too long, for a thousand yeares are short, & the vengeance which ouertooke him late to TA∣CITVS, ouertooke him soone to the truth; the weight of the vengeance considered. When the senate, and people sacrificed at his comming to ROME, for ioy of his preseruation (for that was the name which office found out to diuert the note of crime) that grand eclips of the Sunne, seene (saith PLINIE) in ITALIE betweene seauen & eight, in ARMENIA betweene ten and eleuen, shewed an horrour at their offerings. Nor that the vnaptest diuination, for neuer were men so sould ouer to basenesse of flatterie, and irreligi∣ous simulations as at this time they, to content, & assure their NERO. XIPHILINE, out of DIO, befriends the Sunne, in saying the whole face of his light was darkened in that obscuration Page  54 (which IOSEPH SCALIGER, and reason denies) for that part was vnhappie which was vnhidden, nor did this actuall eclipse portend these deeds, but mourne their doings, for it hapned, according to MARCIANVS, vpon the eleuenth Kalends of May, or the one and twentieth day of April, the very month-day it selfe after AGRIP∣PINA'S death. The constant rule which fore∣showes eclipses led the learned to expect some dismal euent, none more vnnaturall then this mo∣ther-slaughter. Hee was then in the fifth yeare of his empire, and so far within the fifth, as from within October, till the aforesaid day of March.