|
on Augustus, the best of Heathen Monarchs; this on K. Charles
the First, the glory of all Christian Kings and Martyrs.This glorious roof I would not doubt to call,Had I but boldnesse lent me, Heav'ns White-Hall. Here he also alludes to those Ludi Apollinares,Ludi Apollina∣res. certain Games
or Playes which were instituted in the seventh year of the se∣cond
Punick warre, in honour of Apollo; the originall of which
and manner of celebrating them, you may read in Livie lib. 25.
These having been for many years disused, were restored by
Augustus. At the first celebration of them (as it is reported
by Macrobius Saturn, lib. 1. c. 17.) a sudden invasion of the
enemy enforced the Roman people to forsake their sports, and
to betake themselves to their armes; in which time of distra∣ction
a cloud of arrows was seen to fall upon the unseasonable
invadors, so that they presently returned Conquerors to their
sports; where at their return they found C. Pomponius, an old
man, dancing to a Minstrel, and being very joyfull that they
had been continued without interruption, they cried Salva
res est, saltat senex; which speech afterward became prover∣biall,
and is fitly used when a sudden evill is seconded with a
good event beyond hope and expectation. We cannot here excuse the Poet from a very grosse Para∣chronisme;
for these words, which he speaks in the person of
Aeneas, are not in the least applicable to this Sibylla Cumaea,
to whom they are directed: (a particular not observed by a∣ny
of the interpreters of Virgil) but to her who was called Cu∣mâna,
who (as contemporary with Tarquinius Priscus, or
rather Superbus, his Grandson, notwithstanding the Authori∣ty
which Gordonus alledgeth out of Solinus, Varro, Lactantius▪
to which I oppose Pliny lib. 13. c. 13. A. Gellius lib. 1. cap. 19.
Halicarnassaeus lib. 4. with that inscription, which, if Dela
Cerda speak truth, is at this day to be read in the Vatican Li∣brary.
Tarquinius Superbus libros Sibyllinos tres, aliis a mu∣liere
incensis, tandem emit) was more then 600 years younger
then Cumaea: nor can it be imagined that she could live from
0
|
