Parallels, or a comparison between the Greek and Roman Histories. (20-24)

Erechtheus was told in a war he had with Eumolpus, that he should have the better of his enemy if he would but sacrifice his daughter. He advised upon the matter with his wife Praxithea, and delivered up his daughter after the manner of a common sacrifice.—Euripides, in his Erechtheus.

Marius, finding himself hard put to it in the Cimbrian war, had it revealed to him in a dream, that he should overcome his enemies if he would but sacrifice his daughter Calpurnia. He did it, preferring the common safety before any private bond of Nature, and he got the victory. There are two altars in Germany, where about that time of the year may be heard the sound of trumpets.—Dorotheus, in the Fourth Book of his Italian History.

There was one Cyanippus, a Thessalian, who was a great lover of the chase and was often abroad a hunting. This same Cyanippus was newly married, and his staying out so long and so often in the woods gave his wife a jealousy of an intrigue there with some other woman; insomuch

that she followed him one time, and got into a thicket to watch him. The rustling of the boughs in the place where she lay brought the dogs thither in expectation of some game, where they tore this tender-hearted woman to pieces, as if she had been a brute beast. Cyanippus was so surprised with so dismal and unthought-of a spectacle, that he killed himself.—Parthenias the Poet.

Sybaris is a city of Italy, where there was one Aemilius, a very handsome young man, and a lover of hunting. His wife (whom he had lately married) took up a suspicion that, under color of the chase, he carried on an assignation with some other woman. She traced him to the wood, and upon the noise of the boughs in her passage, the dogs ran presently to her and tore her to pieces; and her husband stabbed himself immediately upon this miserable accident.—Clitonymus, in the Second Book of his Sybaritics.

One Smyrna (to whom Venus owed a shame, it seems) fell passionately in love with her father Cinyras, and made the nurse her confidant. She goes craftily to work with her master, and tells him of a maid there in the neighborhood that loved him above all things in the world, but she could not in modesty appear publicly to him. So the father lay ignorantly with his own daughter. But some time after, having a great mind to see his mistress, he called for a light, and when he saw who it was, he pursued the incestuous wretch with his drawn sword; but by the providence of Venus, she was rescued from that danger, and turned into a myrrh-tree.—Theodorus, in his Transformations.

One Valeria Tusculanaria (for whom Venus had no kindness) fell downright in love with her father Valerius. She told the nurse the secret, who ordered it so that she brought the father and the daughter together, telling him, that a maid there hard by was fallen desperately in love

with him, but that she durst not lie with him for fear of being known. The father was got into his cups, and as he was in bed with his daughter, called for a candle. The nurse waked Valeria, and away she goes wandering up and down the country with her great belly. She had at last a fall from a precipice, but escaped without so much as any miscarriage; for she was delivered at her time, and the child’s name was Sylvanus (or goat-footed Pan). Valerius, in the anxiety of his mind, threw himself from the same precipice.—Aristides Milesius, in the Third Book of his Italian History.

Diomedes, after the destruction of Troy, was cast by stress of weather upon the coast of Libya, where Lycus the son of Mars was king, whose custom it was to sacrifice all strangers to his father; but his daughter Callirrhoe falling in love with Diomede, betrayed her father and set Diomede at liberty; who presently went his way without any regard to his benefactress, and Callirrhoe hanged herself upon it.—Juba, Book the Third of his Libyan History.

Calpurnius Crassus, a famous man bearing arms with Regulus, was sent to the Massyllians to attack the castle of Garaetius, being a very strong place. He was taken in the enterprise, and designed for a sacrifice to Saturn; but Bisaltia, the king’s daughter, out of a passionate kindness to Calpurnius, betrayed her father. Calpurnius left her, and after his departure Bisaltia cut her own throat.—Hesianax’s Third Book of African History.

When Priam found that Troy was given for lost, he sent his young son Polydore into Thrace with a vast sum of gold, and put all into the hands of Polymestor his kinsman. So soon as Troy was taken, Polymestor killed the child, and took the gold to himself. Hecuba, being

driven upon that quarter, overreached Polymestor by craft, under pretence of giving him a great treasure, at which time she, with the assistance of her fellow-prisoners, tore out his eyes with her nails.—Euripides the Tragedian.

When Hannibal was ravaging the country of Campania, Lucius Thymbris deposited his son Rustius, with a vast sum of money, in the hands of Valerius Gestius his kinsman; who upon intelligence that the enemy carried all before him, out of pure avarice and without any regard to humanity or justice, killed the child. It so fell out that Thymbris, as he was walking about the fields, found the dead body of his son; whereupon he called his kinsman under pretence of a treasure that he would show him. He took his opportunity, put out his eyes, and crucified him. —Aristides’s Third Book of his Italic History.