Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

in the reign of the king. As for those, that with so much cunning forsake the general opinion, when it favoureth not such exposition as they bring out of a good mind to help where the need is not over great, I had rather commend their diligence, than follow their example. The words of St. Paul were sufficiently justified by Beroaldus, as having reference to a common opinion among the scribes in those days, that the 111 years of servitude were to be reckoned apart from the 339 years ascribed to the judges; which account the apostle would not in this place stand to contradict, but rather chose to speak as the vulgar, qualifying it with a quasi, where he saith, Quasi quadringentis et quinquaginta annis; "As it were four hundred and fifty years." But Codoman being not thus contented, would needs have it to be so indeed; and therefore disjoins the members to make the account even. In so doing he dasheth himself against a notable text; whereupon all authors have builded, (as well they might and ought,) that purposely and precisely doth cast up the years from the departure out of Egypt, unto the building of Salomon's temple, not omitting the very month itself.

Now (as commonly the first apprehensions are strongest) having already given faith to his own interpretation of St. Paul, he thinketh it more needful to find some new exposition for that, which is of itself most plain, than to examine his own conjecture, upon a place that is full of controversy. Thus by expounding, after a strange method, that which is manifest by that which is obscure, he loseth himself in those ways wherein before him never man walked. Surely if one should urge him to give reason of these new opinions, he must needs answer, that Othoniel could not govern above twenty-five years, because then was the taking of Laish, at which time there was no king in Israel: that the Danites must needs have taken Laish at that time, because else we could not reckon backwards from the foundation of the temple, to any action that might be termed the coming of Israel out of Egypt, without excluding the years of servitude; and that the years of servitude must needs be included, for

that otherwise he himself should have spent his time vainly, in seeking to pleasure St. Paul with an exposition. Whether this ground be strong enough to uphold a paradox, I leave it to the decision of any judicious reader.

And now to proceed in our story. To the time of Jephta are referred the death of Hercules, the rape of Helen by Paris, and the provisions which her husband Menelaus, reigning then in Sparta, and his brother Agamemnon, king of Mycenae, made for her recovery. Others refer this rape of Helen to the fourth year of Ibzan; from which time, if the war of Troy (as they suppose) did not begin till the third of Ailon, or Elon, yet the Greeks had six years to prepare themselves; the rule holding not true in this war, Longa præparatio belli celerem affert victoriam; "That a " long preparation begets a speedy victory;" for the Greeks consumed ten years in the attempt; and Troy, as it seems, was entered, sacked, and burnt in the third year of Habdon.

Three years after Troy was taken, which was in the sixth year of Habdon, Æneas arrived in Italy. Habdon, in the eighth year of his rule, died, after he had been the father of forty sons and thirty grandchildren. And whereas it is supposed, that the forty years of Israel's oppression by the Philistines (of which Judg. xiii. 1.) took beginning from the ninth year of Jair, and ended with the last of Habdon; I see no great reason for that opinion. For Ephraim had had little cause of quarrel against Jephta, for not calling them to war over Jordan, if the Philistines had held them in servitude in their own territories; and if Ephraim could have brought 42,000 armed men into the field, it is not likely that they were then oppressed; and had it been true that they were, who will doubt but that they would rather have fought against the Philistines, with so powerful an army, for their own deliverance, than against their own brethren the Israelites? But Ammon being overthrown, it seemed at that time that they feared no other enemy. And therefore these forty years must either be supplied elsewhere, as in the time of Samson, and afterward; or else they must be re

ferred to the interregnum between the death of Habdon and the deliverance of Israel by Samson, such as it was.

CHAP. XIV.

Of the war of Troy.

SECT. I.

Of the genealogy of the kings of Troy, with a note touching the ancient poets how they have observed historical truth.

THE war at Troy, with other stories hereupon depending, (because the ruin of this city by most chronologers is found in the time of Habdon, judge of Israel, whom in the last place I have mentioned,) I rather choose here to entreat of in one entire narration, beginning with the lineal descent of their princes, than to break the story into pieces, by rehearsing apart in divers years the diversity of occurrents.

The history of the ancient kings of Troy is uncertain, in regard both of their original and of their continuance. It is commonly held that Teucer and Dardanus were the two founders of that kingdom. This is the opinion of Virgil; which if he (as Reineccius thinks) took from Berosus, it is the more probable: if Annius borrowed it from him, then it rests upon the authority of Virgil, who saith thus:

d Creta Jovis magni medio jacet insula ponto:
Mons Idæus ubi, et gentis cunabula nostræ.
Centum urbes habitant magnas, uberrima regna :
Maximus unde pater (si rite audita recordor)
Teucrus Rhoteas primum est advectus ad oras:
Optavitque locum regno. Nondum Ilium et arces
Pergameæ steterant; habitabant vallibus imis.
Hinc mater cultrix Cybela, Corybantiaque æra,
Idæumque nemus.

In the main sea the isle of Crete doth lie;
Where Jove was born, thence is our progeny.

d Æneid. 1. 3.

There is mount Ida: there in fruitful land
An hundred great and goodly cities stand.
Thence (if I follow not mistaken fame)
Teucer the eldest of our grandsires came
To the Rhotean shores; and reigned there
Ere yet fair Ilion was built, and ere

The towers of Troy; their dwellingplace they sought
In lowest vales. Hence Cybel's rights were brought :
Hence Corybantian cymbals did remove;

And hence the name of our Idæan grove.

Thus it seems by Virgil, who followed surely good authority, that Teucer first gave name to that country, wherein he reigned ere Troy was built by Dardanus; of which Dardanus in the same book he speaks thus:

Est locus Hesperiam Graii cognomine dicunt :
Terra antiqua, potens armis atque ubere glebæ.
Enotrii coluere viri: nunc fama, minores
Italiam dixisse, ducis de nomine, gentem.
Hæ nobis propriæ sedes, hinc Dardanus ortus:
Iasiusque pater, genus a quo principe nostrum.
Hesperia the Grecians call the place ;
An ancient fruitful land, a warlike race.
Enotrians held it, now the latter progeny
Gives it their captain's name, and calls it Italy.
This seat belongs to us, hence Dardanus,

Hence came the author of our stock, Iasius.

e

* Atque equidem memini (fama est obscurior annis)
Auruncos ita ferre senes, his ortus ut agris
Dardanus Ideas Phrygiæ penetravit ad urbes,
Threiciamque Samum, quæ nunc Samothracia fertur.

Hinc illum Coryti Tyrrhend ab sede profectum

Aurea nunc solio stellantis regia cœli

Accipit, &c.

Some old Auruncans, I remember well,

(Though time have made the fame obscure) would tell

• Æneid. 1. 7.

Of Dardanus, how born in Italy;

From hence he into Phrygia did fly.

And leaving Tuscaine (where he erst had place)
With Corytus did sail to Samothrace;

But now enthronised he sits on high,
In golden palace of the starry sky.

But contrary to this, and to so many authors, approving and confirming it, Reineccius thinks that these names, Troes, Teucri, and Thraces, are derived from Tiras, or Thiras, the son of Japhet; and that the Dardanians, Mysians, and Ascanians, mixed with the Trojans, were German nations, descended from Ashkenaz, the son of Gomer; of whom the country, lake, and river of Ascanius in Asia took name. That Ashkenaz gave name to those places and people, it is not unlikely; neither is it unlikely that the Ascanii, Dardani, and many others, did in aftertimes pass into Europe; that the name of Teucer came of Tiras the conjecture is somewhat hard. Concerning Teucer, whereas Halicarnasseus makes him an Athenian, I find none that follow him in the same opinion. Virgil (as is before shewed) reporteth him to be of Crete, whose authority is the more to be regarded, because he had good means to find the truth, which it is probable that he carefully sought, and in this did follow; seeing it no way concerned Augustus, (whom other whiles he did flatter,) whether Teucer were of Crete or no. Reineccius doth rather embrace the opinion of Diodorus and others, that think him a Phrygian, by which report he was the son of Scamander and Ida, lord of the country, not founder of the city; and his daughter or niece Batia, was the second wife of Dardanus, founder of Troy. Reineccius further thinks, that Atlas reigned in Samothracia, and gave his daughter Electra to Corytus, or Coritus; and that these were parents to Chryse, first wife to Dardanus. Virgil holds otherwise, and the common tradition of poets makes Dardanus the son of Electra by Jupiter, which Electra was the daughter of Atlas, and wife to Coritus king of Hetruria, to whom she bare Jasius. Annius out of his Berosus finds

« ZurückWeiter »