|
The society of mortals spread abroad through the earth everywhere, and
in the most diverse places, although bound together by a certain
fellowship of our common nature, is yet for the most part divided
against itself, and the strongest oppress the others, because all
follow after their own interests and lusts, while what is longed for
either suffices for none, or not for all, because it is not the very
thing. For the vanquished succumb to the victorious, preferring any
sort of peace and safety to freedom itself; so that they who chose to
die rather than be slaves have been greatly wondered at. For in almost
all nations the very voice of nature somehow proclaims, that those who
happen to be conquered should choose rather to be subject to their
conquerors than to be killed by all kinds of warlike destruction. This
does not take place without the providence of God, in whose power it
lies that any one either subdues or is subdued in war; that some are
endowed with kingdoms, others made subject to kings. Now, among the
very many kingdoms of the earth into which, by earthly interest or
lust, society is divided (which we call by the general name of the
city of this world), we see that two, settled and kept distinct from
each other both in time and place, have grown far more famous than the
rest, first that of the Assyrians, then that of the Romans. First
came the one, then the other. The former arose in the east, and,
immediately on its close, the latter in the west. I may speak of
other kingdoms and other kings as appendages of these.
Ninus, then, who succeeded his father Belus, the first king of
Assyria, was already the second king of that kingdom when Abraham was
born in the land of the Chaldees. There was also at that time a very
small kingdom of Sicyon, with which, as from an ancient date, that
most universally learned man Marcus Varro begins, in writing of the
Roman race. For from these kings of Sicyon he passes to the
Athenians, from them to the Latins, and from these to the Romans.
Yet very little is related about these kingdoms, before the foundation
of Rome, in comparison with that of Assyria. For although even
Sallust, the Roman historian, admits that the Athenians were very
famous in Greece, yet he thinks they were greater in fame than in
fact. For in speaking of them he says, "The deeds of the
Athenians, as I think, were very great and magnificent, but yet
somewhat less than reported by fame. But because writers of great
genius arose among them, the deeds of the Athenians were celebrated
throughout the world as very great. Thus the virtue of those who did
them was held to be as great as men of transcendent genius could
represent it to be by the power of laudatory words." This city also
derived no small glory from literature and philosophy, the study of
which chiefly flourished there. But as regards empire, none in the
earliest times was greater than the Assyrian, or so widely extended.
For when Ninus the son of Belus was king, he is reported to have
subdued the whole of Asia, even to the boundaries of Libya, which as
to number is called the third part, but as to size is found to be the
half of the whole world. The Indians in the eastern regions were the
only people over whom he did not reign; but after his death Semiramis
his wife made war on them. Thus it came to pass that all the people
and kings in those countries were subject to the kingdom and authority
of the Assyrians, and did whatever they were commanded. Now Abraham
was born in that kingdom among the Chaldees, in the time of Ninus.
But since Grecian affairs are much better known to us than Assyrian,
and those who have diligently investigated the antiquity of the Roman
nation's origin have followed the order of time through the Greeks to
the Latins, and from them to the Romans, who themselves are
Latins, we ought on this account, where it is needful, to mention
the Assyrian kings, that it may appear how Babylon, like a first
Rome, ran its course along with the city of God, which is a stranger
in this world. But the things proper for insertion in this work in
comparing the two cities, that is, the earthly and heavenly, ought to
be taken mostly from the Greek and Latin kingdoms, where Rome
herself is like a second Babylon.
At Abraham's birth, then, the second kings of Assyria and Sicyon
respectively were Ninus and Europs, the first having been Belus and
Ęgialeus. But when God promised Abraham, on his departure from
Babylonia, that he should become a great nation, and that in his seed
all nations of the earth should be blessed, the Assyrians had their
seventh king, the Sicyons their fifth; for the son of Ninus reigned
among them after his mother Semiramis, who is said to have been put to
death by him for attempting to defile him by incestuously lying with
him. Some think that she founded Babylon, and indeed she may have
founded it anew. But we have told, in the sixteenth book, when or by
whom it was founded. Now the son of Ninus and Semiramis, who
succeeded his mother in the kingdom, is also called Ninus by some,
but by others Ninias, a patronymic word. Telexion then held the
kingdom of the Sicyons. In his reign times were quiet and joyful to
such a degree, that after his death they worshipped him as a god by
offering sacrifices and by celebrating games, which are said to have
been first instituted on this occasion.
|
|