Romæ antiquæ descriptio a view of the religion, laws, customs, manners, and dispositions of the ancient Romans, and others : comprehended in their most illustrious acts and sayings agreeable to history / written in Latine by ... Quintus Valerius Maximus ; and now carefully rendred into English ; together with the life of the author.

STRANGERS.

1. Let us pass to those, for which though there be the same grief, yet there is not the same reason for our City to blush. The Carthaginians put Attilius Regulus to death after a doleful manner. For having cut off his Eye-brows, and shut him up in a little wooden case, wherein there was nothing but sharp nails, they suffer'd him to linger with continual watching, and in a long series of pain. A kind of Torment not worthy him that suffer'd, but becom∣ing the Authors of it. The same Cruelty they used toward our Souldiers, whom being taken in a Sea∣fight, they fasten'd under the bottom of their Ships, that being crush'd to death by the weight of the Reel, they might satiate their barbarous ferity, by an un∣usual kinde of death.

2. Their Captain Hannibal, whose chiefest Vertue consisted in Cruelty, made a Bridge over the River Vergellus with the bodies of the Romans, and so led

over his Army, that the Earth might experiment the wickedness of the Carthaginian Land-forces, as the Sea had beheld the barbarity of their Mariners. Those whom he had taken prisoners, picking out the nearest of Kin that he could, he compell'd to fight by pairs, till he made them destroy one another. Those that were tir'd he lest upon the Road, with the lower part of their Feet cut off. Deservedly therefore, though too slow the punishment were, the Senate forced him, when a Suppliant to King Prusias, to a voluntary Death.

3. As truely had they reason to abominate Mithri∣dates, who with one Epistle slew fourscore thousand Roman Citizens, dispers'd over Asia as Merchant••, defiling the hospitable Gods of so large a Province, with blood unjustly shed, though not unrevenged. For which intolerable torment, at length he compell'd that Vital Spirit to submit, that contended with the poyson. Thereby attaining those torments, which he had made his own friends to suffer at the beck of Gaurus his Eunuch, to whom his obedient Lust could deny nothing.

4. Numulizinthis Diogiris the King of Thrace's Daughters Cruelty, though not so much to be ad∣mir'd, considering the Barbarity of the Nation, yet the horridness will not let it be pass'd in silence: who held it not unlawful to cut living men in two in the middle, or for Parents to feed upon the bodies of their Children.

5. Again Ptolomey Physcon comes upon the stage; a little before, a most dreadful Example of lastful Madness, now of Cruelty. For what more horrid than this? He caus'd his own Son Menephites, whom he had got upon Cleopatra his Sister and Wife, a lovely and hopeful Youth, to be kill'd in his presence; and sent the Head, Feet and Hands cut off, and put into

a Chest, cover'd over with the Child's Garment, as a Birth-day Gift to the Mother. As if altogether igno∣rant of the mischief he had done, and never the more unfortunate, for having render'd Cleopatra miserable in the loss of Children common to both, and himself odious to all. With so blinde a fury doth the height of Cruelty rage, when she thinks to strengthen her∣self by her own acts! For when he understood how he was hated by his people, he sought a remedy for his fear in wickedness; and that he might raign more safely when the people were murder'd, he surrounded the Gymnasium, full of young people, with fire and sword, and slew, partly by the flame, and partly by sword, every individual person of the whole multi∣tude.

6. But Ochus, who was afterwards call'd Darius, bound to the Persians by a most bloody Oath, that he should not put to Death either by Sword, Poyson, Starving, or any other manner of violente, any of those that had conspir'd with him against the Seven Magi, found out a way of Death, by which means he might rid himself of those persons that were burthensome to him, and yet save his Oath. For he fill'd a place, made up with high walls, full of Ashes, and putting a leaning rafter underneath, he placed them in it, after he had highly feasted them; so that when sleep should seize them, they might fall into that insidiary heap.

7. More open, but more horrid, was the Cruelty of Ochus Artaxerxes, who buried his Sister and Mother-in-Law Ocha alive: and stab'd his Uncle to Death with Darts, after he had deprived him of an hundred Sons and Nephews; for not the least injury done him, but because they had the highest applause among the Persians for Probi••y and Fortitude.

8. Guided by the same wicked Suspition, the Citi∣zens

of Athens, by a Decree unworthy their Honour, cut off the Thumbs of the Aeginensian Youth; that a People potent in Shipping, might not be able to con∣tend with them at Sea. I cannot pardon the Athe∣nians, borrowing •• remedy for their fear from Cru∣elty.

9. Cruel also was that Inventor of the Brazen Bull, wherein when poor Creatures were lock'd, and fire put under it, they seem'd in the midst of their long and tedious torments to low like the beast, that their lamentations and howlings express'd in Humane Sounds, might not reach the ears of Phalaris the Ty∣rant, to move his compassion. Which because he would be wanting to the miserable, the first Authour deservedly experimented the torment of his own In∣vention.

10. Nor were the Hetrurians a little cruel in the Invention of Punishment, who tying the bodies of the living back to back, and face to face together, so that part might answer part, suffer'd them to lye till they were putrified to Death. Most bitter Tor∣menters of Life and Death at once.

11. Like those Barbarians, who are reported to set men in heaps of the Bowels and Entrails of kill'd beasts, and there to feed and keep them alive, till being putrified within, they might be eaten up by the Vermine that breed in putrified bodies. Can we complain of Nature, for having made us lyable to many and dire inconveniencies of Sickness; or take it ill, that Celestial Strength should be denied to humane condition, when Mortality hath invented so many Torments to ruine it self, by the impulse of Cruelty?