Parallels, or a comparison between the Greek and Roman Histories. (35-39)

In the time of a great plague in Lacedaemon, they were told by the oracle, that the pestilence would cease upon the sacrificing of a noble virgin every year. It fell one time by lot to Helena, who was brought out and dressed up ready for the sacrifice. An eagle at that time flying by took away the sword, and carrying it into a herd of cattle laid it down upon a heifer; whereupon they spared the virgin.—Aristodemus, in his Third Collection of Fables.

There was a dreadful plague in Falerii, which the oracle said would be removed upon the sacrificing of a virgin to Juno every year. While this superstition was in course, it fell to Valeria Luperca’s lot to be the sacrifice. An

eagle flew away with the drawn sword, but laid a stick upon the fuel prepared for the fire, with a little mallet fixed to it. The sword he threw upon a heifer feeding near the temple. The virgin perceiving this sacrificed the heifer; and taking up the mallet, went about from house to house, and with a gentle knock called to those that were sick, bidding them be of good health. And this was the rise of the ceremony which continues to this day. —Aristides, in his Nineteenth Book of Italian Histories.

Philonome, the daughter of Nyctimus and Arcadia, went many times to the chase with Diana. Mars lay with her in the shape of a shepherd, and fetched up her belly. She was delivered in time of twins, which for fear of her father she threw into the river Erymanthus. By a strange fatality of providence they were driven safe into a hollow oak, which happening to be the kennel of a wolf, this wolf threw her whelps into the river, and suckled the children. Tyliphus a shepherd, that had seen this with his own eyes, took these children and brought them up as his own, calling one of them Lycastus, and the other Parrasius, which reigned successively in Arcadia.—This is reported by Zopyrus Byzantius, in the Third Book of his Histories.

Amulius dealing very tyrannically with his brother Numitor, killed his son Aenitus as they were a hunting, and made his daughter Sylvia . . . a priestess of Juno. Mars got her with child, and when she had laid her belly of twins, she confessed the truth to the tyrant; which put him in such an apprehension, that he exposed them both on the side of the river Tiber, where they were carried by the stream to a place where a she-wolf had her whelps. The wolf cast away her own, and gave suck to these children. Faustus a shepherd, observing this, took the children to himself, and called them by the names of Romus

and Romulus, which came afterwards to be the founders of Rome.—Aristides’s Italian Histories.

After the destruction of Troy, Agamemnon and Cassandra were killed; but Orestes, that was brought up with Strophius, revenged the death of his father.—Pyrander’s Fourth Book of Peloponnesian Histories.

Fabius Fabricianus, a kinsman of Fabius Maximus, having taken Tuxium, the chief city of the Samnites, sent to Rome the image of Venus Victrix, which among them was held in great veneration. His wife Fabia was debauched by Petronius Valentinus, a handsome young man, and afterwards she treacherously murdered her husband; but for her son Fabricianus who was yet in his infancy, she shifted him away to be privately brought up, and so provided for his security. When he was grown up, he destroyed both his mother and the adulterer, and was formally acquitted for it by a decree of the Senate.—Dositheus’s Third Book of Italian History.

Busiris, the son of Neptune and Anippe the daughter of Nilus, was used to invite strangers in to him under a pretence of hospitality, and then to murder them; but divine vengeance met with him at last, for Hercules found out the villany, and killed him with his club. —Agatho the Samian.

Hercules, as he was driving Geryon’s oxen through Italy, took up his lodging with King Faunus there, the son of Mercury, whose custom it was to sacrifice strangers to his father. He set upon Hercules, and had his brains beaten out for his pains.—Dercyllus’s Third Book of Italian History.

Phalaris of Agrigentum, a cruel tyrant, was wont to put strangers and travellers to the most exquisite torment.

Perillus, a brass-founder, made a cow of brass, and presented it to the king for a new invention, that he might burn strangers alive in it. Phalaris for this once was just, in making the first proof of it upon Perillus himself; and the invention was so artificial, that upon putting it in execution, the engine itself seemed to bellow.—Second Book of Questions or Causes.

In Egesta, a city of Sicily, there was a certain tyrant called Aemilius Censorinus, who was so inhuman that he proposed rewards to the inventors of new tortures. There was one Aruntius Paterculus that had framed a brazen horse, and made a present of it to the tyrant to practise with it upon whom he pleased. It was the first piece of justice that ever the tyrant did, to make trial of the torment upon the author of it, that he might first feel himself the torments he had provided for others. He was afterwards thrown down from the Tarpeian Rock. It may be thought that unmerciful rulers are from this tyrant called Aemilii. —Aristides’s Fourth Book of Italian History.