[CHAPTER II.

SECTION I.

Sacrilege among Heathens before the Christian era.]

XERXES, having ten hundred thousand men in his land army, and as many, by estimation, in his navy, intendeth to make an absolute conquest of Greece; and spoiling all Phocis, leaveth a part of his army among the Dorians, commanding them to invade Delphi, and to fire the temple of Apollo, and to bring away the sacred riches of it. The soldiers, marching towards it, came to [the Temple of Athene of the Vestibule,] a place not far from Delphi, where a wonderful tempest of rain and lightning suddenly came upon them, and rending down part of the mountains, overwhelmed many of the army, and so amazed the rest, that they fled away immediately in all the haste they could, fearing to be consumed by the god who, by this prodigious miracle, thus preserved his temple. In memory hereof a pillar was erected in the place, with an inscription to relate it.

But this seemed not a sufficient revenge for so horrible a design, accompanied with other acted sacrileges. Nothing, therefore, prospereth with Xerxes; [his invincible navy is overthrown at Salamis, where the Eacidæ and Dionysus were believed to fight on the side of the Greeks; he himself, who had set forth with splendour, pomp, and luxury from Persia, retreats in disorder, distress, and want to the Hellespont. Mardonius, whom he leaves behind as general, being also his son-in-law, is defeated with great slaughter and slain at Plate; on the same day, a mighty power of Persians is overthrown, not, as it was believed, without a supernatural omen of success to the Greeks before the battle began. Thus Xerxes ended his wars with inestimable loss, derision, and shame.] Vengeance notwithstanding still pursued him; so that after many years, Artabanus, the captain of his guard, (aspiring to the kingdom, though he obtained it not) murdered both him and his eldest son Darius.1

Imilco, a famous general of the Carthaginians, for their wars of Sicily, in the time of Dionysius the tyrant, prevailed very fortunately in all his enterprises, till that taking the suburbs of Achradina, he spoiled in it the temple of Ceres and Proserpina. This sacrilege (saith Diodorus) brought a just punishment upon him: for in the next encounter the Syracusans overthrew him. And being arrived in

1 DIODOR. lib. xi. 55.

his camp, fears and tumults rise amongst his soldiers in the night time, and sudden alarms as if the enemy had been upon his trenches. Besides this, a grievous plague at last [broke out] in his army, accompanied with many fierce diseases that drave his men into frenzies and forgetfulness; so that running up and down the army, they flew upon every man they met with. And no physic could help them; for they were taken so suddenly, and with such violence, as they died within five or six days, no man daring to come near them for fear of the infection. Hereupon ensued all other calamities: their enemies assail them both by sea and land; they invade their forts and their trenches, fire their navy, and (to be short) make a general confusion of the whole army. An hundred and fifty thousand Carthaginians lie dead on the ground. Imilco himself, who lately possessed all the cities of Sicily (except Syracuse, which he also accounted as good as his own,) flieth by night back into Carthage, and feareth now the losing of it. This great commander (saith Diodorus), that in his haughtiness placed his tent on the temple of Jupiter, and perverted the sacred oblations to his profane expenses, is thus driven to an ignominious flight, choosing rather to live basely and contemned at home, than to expiate his wicked sacrilege by a deserved death. But he came to such misery, that he went up and down the city in a most loathsome habit, from temple to temple, confessing and detesting his impiety; and imploring at length some capital

punishment for an atonement with the gods, ended his life by the extremity of famine."

Cambyses, the son of Cyrus the Great, being at Thebes in Egypt, sent an army of fifty thousand men to spoil the Ammonians, and to burn the temple and oracle of Jupiter Ammon. Himself, with the rest of his forces, marched against the Æthiopians: but, ere ever he had gone the fifth part of his journey, his victuals so failed him, that his men were forced to eat their horses and cattle. And whilst, like a man without reason, he still forced them to go on, and to make shift with herbs and roots; coming to a desert of sand, divers of them were constrained to tithe themselves, and eat the tenth man; whereby his voyage was overthrown, and he driven to return. His other army, that went to spoil and fire the oracle, after seven days' travel upon the sands, a strong south wind raised the sands so violently upon them, as they were all overwhelmed and drowned in them.3

Cambyses, after this, in despite of the Egyptians, wounded the sacred calf Apis (which they worshipped for their god) with his sword upon the thigh; derided the image of the god Vulcan; and entering the temple of the Cabiri, where none might come but the priests, burnt the images of their gods. Presently, upon wounding Apis, he fell mad, and committed divers horrible facts; as he mounted upon

2 DIODOR. SICUL. Hist. lib. xiv. 63.

3 HERODOTUS, lib. iv.

his horse his sword fell out of the scabbard, and wounded him in the same part of the thigh wherein he had wounded Apis, and thereon he died, having reigned but seven years, and leaving no issue, male or female, to succeed him in the great empire of his father Cyrus, wherein, for securing of himself and his posterity, he had formerly murdered his brother Smerdis."

A rich citizen of Egypt, longing to eat of a goodly peacock that was consecrate to Jupiter, hired one of the ministers to steal it; who going about to do it, was at the first interrupted by a serpent; and the second time the peacock (that had lived by report an hundred years) flew towards the temple, and resting a while in the midway, was after seen no more. The practice being discovered by a brabble between the parties about the hiring money, the minister was justly punished by the magistrate for his treachery; but the citizen, that longed to eat of the sacred fowl, swallowed the bone of another fowl, was choked therewith, and died a very painful death."

Dionysius the elder rose by his own prowess from a private man to be king of Sicily; and in performing many brave exploits both in Italy and Greece, committed divers sacrileges upon the heathen gods, and defended them with jests. Having conquered Locris, he spoiled the temple of Proserpina, and sailing thence with a prosperous wind, "Lo!

4 HEROD. lib. iv.

5 ELIAN. de Animal. 1. xi. c. 33.