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In his times also, by the promise of God, Isaac, the son of
Abraham, was born to his father when he was a hundred years old, of
Sarah his wife, who, being barren and old, had already lost hope of
issue. Aralius was then the fifth king of the Assyrians. To Isaac
himself, in his sixtieth year, were born twin-sons, Esau and
Jacob, whom Rebecca his wife bore to him, their grandfather
Abraham, who died on completing a hundred and seventy years, being
still alive, and reckoning his hundred and sixtieth year. At that
time there reigned as the seventh kings, among the Assyrians, that
more ancient Xerxes, who was also called Balaeus; and among the
Sicyons, Thuriachus, or, as some write his name, Thurimachus.
The kingdom of Argos, in which Inachus reigned first, arose in the
time of Abraham's grandchildren. And I must not omit what Varro
relates, that the Sicyons were also wont to sacrifice at the tomb of
their seventh king Thuriachus. In the reign of Armamitres in
Assyria and Leucippus in Sicyon as the eighth kings, and of Inachus
as the first in Argos, God spoke to Isaac, and promised the same
two things to him as to his father, namely, the land of Canaan to his
seed, and the blessing of all nations in his seed. These same things
were promised to his son, Abraham's grandson, who was at first
called Jacob, afterwards Israel, when Belocus was the ninth king of
Assyria, and Phoroneus, the son of Inachus, reigned as the second
king of Argos, Leucippus still continuing king of Sicyon. In those
times, under the Argive king Phoroneus, Greece was made more famous
by the institution of certain laws and judges. On the death of
Phoroneus, his younger brother Phegous built a temple at his tomb,
in which he was worshipped as God, and oxen were sacrificed to him.
I believe they thought him worthy of so great honor, because in his
part of the kingdom (for their father had divided his territories
between them, in which they reigned daring his life) he had founded
chapels for the worship of the gods, and had taught them to measure
time, by months and years, and to that extent to keep count and
reckoning of events. Men still uncultivated, admiring him for these
novelties, either fancied he was, or resolved that he should be made,
a god after his death. Lo also is said to have been the daughter of
Inachus, who was afterwards called Isis, when she was worshipped in
Egypt as a great goddess; although others write that she came as a
queen out of Ethiopia, and because she ruled extensively and justly,
and instituted for her subjects letters and many useful things, such
divine honor was given her there after she died, that it any one said
she had been human, he was charged with a capital crime.
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