§ P  Elementary handbook of Ioannes brought from the times of Constantine the Great from the years of the creation of the world.
I considered it just, after chopping off bits of the Hebrew chapters written by Moses and the chronographers Africanus and Eusebius of Pamphilus, and Pausanias and Didymus and Theophilus and Clement and Diodorus and Domninus and Eustathius and many other painstaking chroniclers and poets and wise men, to expound for you in full truth a partial account of the events that took place in the time of the kings, up till the events of my times that came to my hearing; I mean, from Adam to the reign of Zeno and those reigning afterwards. It is necessary for those who come after to write the rest, for virtue’s sake. The majority of authors have put forward the exposition of the world as follows.

§ 1.1  BOOK 1 (from Thurn text) OF THE TIMES OF ADAM
The first human being on earth, Adam, was built or created by God. He had the measurement of his age, 6 feet, including his head, to make 96 finger-widths of this age, his hand-span 16 fingers, his forearm (cubit) 24 fingers, his foot 16 fingers. He lived 930 years.
His wife was called Eva, and she bore three sons, Cain, Abel, and Seth, and two daughters Azouran (Azura) and Asouam (Awan). At God’s command, Adam put names to all the quadrupeds and winged things and amphibians and reptiles and fish and their offspring. His own name and the name of his wife were spoken to them by an angel.
His son Seth had wisdom from God, and by God’s command put names on all the stars, and the five planets so they would be recognized by mankind. The first planet star he called Kronos, the second Hera, the third Ares, the fourth Aphrodite, the fifth Hermes. He expounded the seven vowels from the five planets and two heavenly lights. He first discovered Hebrew letters and wrote them down. God called the two great heavenly lights, to the authority of the day the Sun, to the authority of the night the Moon. The very wise Fortunus the Roman chronicler wrote this, in an account I found in Constantinople.
Seth lived 912 years and took as his wife Asouam his own sister and had children with her, and there was a large generation of people and women. Kain took his sister Azouran for his wife.

§ 1.2  So in the meantime, Enoch the just was born, the son of Jareth, and he did not die. After 1287 years, Enoch was transferred. He was seventh from Adam, as Aquila the Judaean interpreted the Hebrew scriptures expounded by Moses. The priests of the Judaeans interpreted these Hebrew accounts of Moses as follows: The sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were fair, and took wives for themselves from all who were chosen, and they went in to them, as Moses puts it. Sons were born to them, and they were giants upon the earth in those days, the named men from the aeon. From Adam until when the angels desired the sons of Seth to wed the daughters of men of the tribe of Cain, 2122 years.

§ 1.3  In these times, God sent from the heavens a sphere of fire against the giants in the Celtic country and burned it and them. The sphere came down in the Jordan river and was extinguished. They tell this story about the fire, and say Phaethon was the son of the Sun, and that he fell from the chariot to earth, which story Ovid wrote poetically. The Chaeroneian Plutarch told it more accurately. He said a sphere of fire came down in the Celtic country. The rest of the giants saw so many of them struck by lightning but remained unpersuaded. God was angry, and said to them, “Let my spirit not remain in these men, because they are flesh,” as is contained in the Mosaic scriptures. The most wise Peisander, a poet of the Hellenes after the time of Moses, expressed poetically that these giants were men born from the earth, having feet of snakes, and daring somehow to attack the highest divine forces. He called them dragon-footed, and said they were consumed with various punishments by the gods.
The most wise Timotheus interpreted this poetry as follows, that for this reason the poet called these men dragon-footed, because their wits had been bestialized and they reckoned nothing of human virtues, but having feet they walked toward evil and unjust things of the earth. […] movement of the sun and the moon, he commanded some to be killed by lightning fire, others to have their bodies turned to stone, others to be shot with the swiftest arrows of death, others to be ripped apart with wounds as from a spear, the rest to be sunk under lots of water. Thus the giants or dragon-footed paid with their lives, dying nastily. The wise Servius said they were held in a deep plain, war with some in the high mountains and on land and in the hollows were dragged as creeping serpents against them and were killed by those dwelling in the heights.

§ 1.4  And there was a man named Noah beloved of God. Noah was 500 years old and begot three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. God ordered Noah to make a chest, and he made it as the Lord ordered. Noah was 600 years old, and the Lord ordered him to bring everything into the chest with him. Noah brought everything into the chest with him, and all his lineage and all the quadrupeds and reptiles and winged things and amphibians, male and female, as the Lord commanded him. There was a flood on earth for 40 days and 40 nights, and all flesh died, whatever had breath of life, as is contained in the Hebrew scriptures. Altogether, from Adam until the Flood of Noah, 2552 years and 10 generations. In the 601st year of Noah’s life, he emerged from the chest, with his wife and daughters and sons and sons’ wives and every soul of his lineage, and all the beings in the chest, quadrupeds and winged and amphibious and creeping, and everything grew larger in accordance with its kind.
After the flood stopped and the waters abated, the chest found itself resting on the mountains of Ararat in Pisidia province, of which the metropolis is Apameia. The wood of it is still there until now, as Pergamus the Pamphylian wrote. Josephus and Eusebius of Pamphilus and other chroniclers wrote that the Ararat mountains are in Armenia and between the Parthians, Armenians, and Adiabenians, and that is where the chest settled.
The races of Noah had offspring, and there was a crowd of humans and women, and they did a tower-making. Those involved in making the chest were the first to devise ships and put them to swim on the waters. From the flood until the tower-making were 370 years.

§ 1.5  In this middle time after the flood, Shem the son of Noah begot Arphaxad, a wise man, and Arphaxad begot Kainan, who after the flood wrote an astronomy, having found the names given by Seth the son of Adam, and his children, to the stars, carved on a stone plaque. As the most wise Josephus wrote in the second book of his Archaeology, the grandsons of Seth were pious men who foreknew the coming destruction or alternation of mankind. They made two columns, one stone and the other brick, and wrote on them all the heavenly things expounded by their grandfather Seth, calculating that if the earthly order of mankind were altered by water, the stone column would stay, along with what was written on it, while if it was by fire, the brick and what was written on it would be preserved and become known to the people who survived. The stone stele remained on Siris mountain after the flood, and is there until just now, as Josephus expounded.
So the race of Arphaxad endured until the making of the tower. Arphaxad lived 135 years. So from Adam until the completion of the tower-building, 2922 years.

§ 1.6  So the tribes of the sons of Noah were divided, I mean of Shem, Ham, Iapheth, the three brothers. The tribe of Shem took from Persis and Bactria until the Indian land, the length and width as far as Rinokouroura, that is, from the east until part of the south, and Syria and Media and the river Euphrates. The tribe of Ham, the 2nd son of Noah, took from Rinokouroura of Egypt, looking to the south, until part of the west and all Libya and the Nile river, the Chrysorua, and Africa as far as Mauretania and the Herakleotic Pillars and the great sea of Adria. The tribe of Iapheth the third son took from Media on the north until the Britannic Isles and all of Pontus until the part of the west and the Danube and Tanais rivers and the mountains on Caucasia and the Abasgi. All those nations, beginning from the Tigris river which separates Media and Babylonia and until the Pontic Sea, the parts toward Rhodes and Cyprus and the Attalids[?}. The three tribes were separated into 72 nations, as Eusebius of Pamphilus the most wise chronicler expounded.

§ 1.7  In these years from the race of Arphaxad a certain wise Indian appeared, an astronomer named Gandoubarius, who first wrote astronomy for the Indians. Another was born from the race of Shem, Chous by name, an Ethiopian, who begot Nebrod, the giant who founded Babylonia, whom the Persians say was divinized and became a star in the sky, the one they call Orion. He first revealed hunting and gave beasts to all for eating, and was first among the Persians.

§ 1.8  From the tribe of Shem, which held Syria and Persia and the rest of the East, of the first son of Noah, was born and made an appearance a giant-born named Kronos, called by Damno, his father, with the name of the planet. He became strong, and was the first to invent being king over and ruling and dominating other people. He was king of Assyria for many years, and subjugated all the land of Persia, beginning from Assyria. He was held in fear by all as bitter and warlike and a killer of many.
He had a wife, Semiramis or Rhea, so called by the Assyrians because she was proud and arrogant. She was of the same tribe of Shem, son of Noah. Kronos had a son named Picus, who was called Zeus by his parents from the name of the planet. Kronos had another son named Ninus, and a daughter named Hera. Picus Zeus took his own sister Hera as his wife, whom some call Zygia (of the Yoke) Nemesis since they are pleased with her as good and wishing all just things. From her, Picus had a son he named Belus (arrow), because the child was very sharp.

§ 1.9  Forefather Kronos left his son Picus in Assyria and his own wife Rhea Semiramis with Picus Zeus his son. Taking a large accompaniment, a crowd of brave men, he went to the west, which was kingless and not controlled by some commander, and controlled the western parts, while vanishing from Assyria. He stayed controlling and ruling the whole west for many years, and had a wife there named Philyra, from whom he had a son Afros, to whom he gave the land toward Libya. Afros controlled that region as king, and married Astynome from the island Laceria. He had a daughter he called Aphrodite, naming her too after the planet of heavenly Aphrodite. She became a philosopher and married Adonides an Athenian, also a philosopher, who was the son of Kinyros with his own daughter.
This Kinyros, having acted in a way to violate nature, exposed the child in the mountains. He was raised by the so-called Oreionian (mountain) nymphs. He grew up very handsome, and Aphrodite fell in love with him. Ares got angry and smote him, for he was a rival lover of Aphrodite. They say Aphrodite went down to Hades together with Adonides, even though she hadn’t died, but because she loved him greatly, and resurrected him. They tell other stories about him, which they call mysteries. They are said to have philosophized together until death. From Philyra, Kronos had another son Cheiron, also a philosopher.

§ 1.10  After Picus Zeus had been king of Assyria for 30 years, he left his mother and Hera, his sister and wife, and made his son Belus the king of Assyria. He went away to the west toward his father Kronos. Belus was king of the Assyrians for 2 years and died, and the Persians deified him. Kronos saw his son Picus Zeus coming toward him in the west and yielded the kingdom of the west to him, since Kronos was weak and having a difficult time. Picus Zeus was king of the west, i.e. of Italy, another 62 years. After Belus, Ninus the other son of Kronos was king of Assyria. He took his mother Semiramis as his wife, from which it is the custom for the Persians to marry their own mothers and sisters. For this reason, Picus Zeus also took his sister Hera as his wife, as the most wise Homer expounds as follows: “Hera he addressed, his sister and bedmate.” (Il. 16.432) Then Kronos died.

§ 1.11  Ninus, having become master of Assyria, found Nineveh the city of the Assyrians and was the first to rule in it. He had Semiramis Rhea his wife and mother with him. From his lineage was born Zoroastrius the famous Persian astronomer, who, when he was about to die, prayed to be consumed by heavenly fire. He told the Persians, “If the fire burns me, take my burnt bones and guard them, and the kingship will not fail in your country for as long as you guard my bones. Having prayed to Orion, he was consumed by the fire of the air, and the Persians did what he told them, and keep his remains, turned to ash, until now.

§ 1.12  After Ninus, Thouras was king of the Assyrians. His father Zames, the brother of Rhea, renamed him for the planet Ares. He became a fierce warrior, who warred against the northern parts. He attacked Caucasus a powerful man, giant-born and very warlike, descended from the tribe of Iapheth the son of Noah. Fighting Caucasus, he defeated him and took his country. Then he came to Thrace, died, and lies there. The Assyrians erected the first statue to this Ares, and did proskynesis to him as to a god. They call him until today in Persian Baal theon, which translates Ares the warring god. A memorial of this is the prophetic voice of Daniel and the three children, because they were compelled to make proskynesis to him. After the death of Ares, Lames was king, and after Lames, Sardanapalus the great was king of the Assyrians. Perseus the son of Danae slew him and took the kingship from the Assyrians. As their king, he called them Persians from his own name. Membronius the Babylonian wrote this for the Persians.

§ 1.13  The brother of Ninus, Picus Zeus, kept reigning over Italy. In those years there was neither a city nor a government in the west, but all that earth was simply occupied by those from the tribe of Iapheth who had moved there. Picus Zeus lived 120 years, controlling the west and being king over it. He had many sons and daughters from the beautiful women (he seduced them, being a mystic who made various apparitions and overawed them). These women who were debauched by him held him up as a god, because by trickery he showed them apparitions. Picus Zeus had a son named Faunus, whom he called Hermes from the name of the planet. When he was about to die, Picus Zeus commanded that his remains be buried on the island of Crete. His sons built him a temple and put him in Crete island in a tomb, which tomb was in Crete and he lies there up to the present, with an inscription, “Here lies, having died, Picus Zeus, whom they also call Dia. The most wise chronicler Diodorus wrote about him, saying in his exposition concerning the gods, that Zeus the son of Kronos lies in Crete.

§ 1.14  After the death of Picus Zeus, his son Faunus Hermes was king of Italy for 35 years. He was a crafty man, a mathematician, who first discovered the metal gold in the west, and smelting. He recognized that his brothers envied him, the ones from the women his father Picus Zeus had. They wanted to kill him, and they were many, about 70 of them. For Zeus had impregnated a lot of women having sex with them. A son of Maias was born. To the Theban Alcmene, the wife of Amphitryon, after he had sex with her, was born another son named Heracles the son of Alcmene. He was called Triesperos (of the triple evening). He first revealed philosophizing in the hesperian parts, that is in the west. The people of his lineage deified him after his death, and called a star in the sky with his name, the Chiton of Heracles. They wrote that he wore a lion skin, carried a club, and held three apples. They mythologized that he took the three apples having killed the dragon with his club, that is, having defeated the variegated calculation of evil desire through the club of philosophy, having brave thought as a mantle, like a lion’s skin, and thereby taking away the three apples, which are the three virtues, to not get angry, to not be greedy, to not love pleasure. For through the club of an steadfast soul and the pelt of boldest propriety of thought he won the earthly contest over base desire, philosophizing until he died, as the most wise Herodotus wrote. He told a story that seven other Heracleses were born.
Theophilus the most wise chronicler expounded what was said about Heracles allegorically. Hermes, knowing his brothers’ plot against him, left with an excessive amount of gold in his garments, and went to Egypt to the tribe of Ham, the son of Noah. They received him in honor. He remained there, looking down on everyone and wearing a gold uniform. He philosophized to the Egyptians, telling them oracles. For by nature he was extremely logical. So they did proskynesis to him, calling Hermes a god because he told future events and ministered to them the response from God regarding the future, and provided them with money. They also called him Ploutodotes (wealthgiver) since they believed gold was a god.

§ 1.15  When Hermes came to Egypt, the king of the Egyptians then was Mestraim from the race of Ham. When he died, the Egyptians made Hermes king. He was king of the Egyptians for 39 years, in pride. After him Hephaestus was king of the Egyptians for 1680 days, which becomes four and a half years and 38 days. The Egyptians did not know then how to count years, abut they called the period of a day a year. They called Hephaestus a god. For he was a warrior and a mystic. Attacking in war, he fell together with his horse, and was wounded, remaining lame. Hephaestus made a law that Egyptian women must be monogamous and behave properly, and that women found in adultery would be punished. The Egyptians were pleased at this, because for the first time they had a law regarding propriety. Hephaestus from some mystic prayer received tongs from the air for making iron weapons. Whence he became dominant in warfare. They deified him for legislating propriety, and finding nourishment for mankind through the manufacture of weapons, and for creating force and safety in war. For before him they used to fight with clubs and stones.

§ 2.23  BOOK 2
After the death of Hephaestus his son Helios ruled the Egyptians for 4467 days, or 12 years and 97 days. The Egyptians then, or some others, did not know how to reckon the number, but some counted the periods of the moon in years, and others the periods of days in years. For the number of the 12 months was thought up after this,

§ 2.24  from the time when a name was applied to people being subject to kings. Helios, the son of Hephaestus, was strong in loving honor. He learned from someone that an Egyptian women, one of those in wealth and honor among them, had fallen in love and committed adultery with him. Hearing this, Helios sought to catch her by the legislation of his father Hephaestus, so it not be abrogated. He took solders from his army, and learning that the opportunity for her adultery was at night, when her husband wasn’t there, he found her sleeping with her lover beside her. He immediately punished her by parading her through the whole land of Egypt. There was great propriety in the land of Egypt. The adulterer he had executed, and he was pleased. Homer the poet tells this story poetically, how Helios, he says, made a control on Aphrodite when she was having sex at night with Ares. He called “Aphrodite” the desire for harlotry that was controlled by King Helios. The true story, as written above, was composed by Palaephatus, the very wise chronicler. After the death of King Helios, the son of Hephaestus, Sosis was king of the Egyptians. After him, Osiris ruled the kingdom, and after Osiris, Horus was king, and after Horus, Thoulis was king, who captured with a great force the whole earth

§ 2.25  as far as Ocean. On his return he came to Africa to the oracle, pridefully. He sacrificed and made his inquiry, saying, “Tell me, fire-strong, blessed, who does not lie, who causes the aetherial road to bend back: Who before my reign was able to subdue everything, or who after me?” He was given the following oracle: “First God, afterwards Logos, and Spirit with them, all with joined nature and going to one, whose rule is eternal. Go with a swift foot, mortal, to reach the end of an obscure life.” Immediately on exiting the oracle, he was murdered in Africa, his own people having plotted against him. Manetho wrote about these old and ancient kingships of the Egyptians. In his writings he includes that the names of the five wandering stars are said differently. The star called Kronos they called the Shining (Lampon); Zeus (Jupiter) they call Phaethon; Ares (Mars) the Fiery (Pyrodes); Aphrodite (Venus) most beautiful (Kalliston); Hermes (Mercury) the Polished (Stilbon). Which names the most wise Sotates interpreted.
So in the years after this, Sostris was first of the tribe of Ham to be king of the Egyptians. He armed and waged war on the Assyrians, and subjected them and the Chaldaeans and Persians, as far as Babylon. He similarly subjected Asia and all Europe, and Scythia and Mysia.

§ 2.26  When he was returning to Egypt from Scythia, he chose 15 thousand young men as warriors. He made them migrate and commanded them to settle in Persis. He gave them land there of whatever sort they chose. These Scythians remained in Persia from that time until now. They were called Parthians by the Persians, which translated in Persian dialect means Scythian. They have Scythian clothing and language and laws until now, and are extremely serviceable in warfare, as the most wise Herodotus wrote. In the years of the kingship of the aforementioned Sostris was Hermes Trismegistus the Egyptian, a fearsome man for wisdom. He expressed that the name of the ineffable and creator was three great hypostaseis, one godhead. On which account he was called by the Egyptians Trismegistus Hermes. It is contained in various of his speeches to Asclepius these things he said concerning the nature of God. If there were no providence of the lord of everything so as for me to reveal this account, neither would such love possess you so that you would seek concerning it. For it is not doable to provide such mysteries to the uninitiated, but you hear in mind, one alone is the mindful light, before the mindful light. Mind was always illuminated mind,

§ 2.27  and nothing other was there than the oneness of this, being always in him, always contains everything by his mind and light and spirit. Apart from him, not God, not angel, not daemon, not any other being. For of all he is lord and God, and everything is under him and in him. For his word came all-perfect and fertile and creating, falling on fertile nature, in fertile water, made the water pregnant. And having said this, he prayed, saying, “I swear by you, sky, wise work of great God, propitious… I swear by you, voice of the father, which was uttered first, his only-begotten word. This is contained also in the works compiled by the most blessed Kyrillos against Julian the king, that Trismegistus Hermes, while ignorant of the future trinity, admitted the omoousion.
King Sostris took Egypt after the victory and died. Pharao also called Maracho was king of the Egyptian land after him. The rest of those who ruled Egypt were from his lineage.

§ 2.28  In the aforementioned years of Picus Zeus, a certain person from the tribe of Iapheth appeared in western parts, in the land of the Argives, whose name was Inachus. He it was who first ruled in that country, and he founded a city there, which he called Iopolis, from the name of the Moon [Selene], whom he honored. The Argives have a hidden name for the Moon, and secretly called her Io until lately. He built a sanctuary to Selene in the city, and erected a bronze stele/statue to her, on which he wrote “Io Blessed Torch-Bearer.” This Inachus took to wife a woman named Melia, by whom he had three children, Kasos, Belus, and a daughter he named Io from the name of the Moon. The daughter was extremely beautiful. Then Picus or Zeus heard about Inachus, that he had a beautiful virgin daughter. So the king of the western parts sent for and kidnapped Io, the daughter of Inachus, and ravished her, making her pregnant. From her he had a daughter he named Libye. But Io reacted negatively to this incident, and did not want to be with Picus. She gave him and everyone the slip. Humiliated, she left behind her daughter and her father Inachus, and sailed away to Egypt. Having reached the land of Egypt, Io stayed there. After a time, she learned that Hermes, the son of Picus Zeus, was king of Egypt. Afraid of Hermes, she left for Syria, to the Silpion mountain.

§ 2.29  This is where Seleucus Nicator, the Macedonian, built a city in later years, and he called it Antioch the Great, after his own son. Io died after reaching Syria, as the most wise Theophilos records. But others write that Io died in Egypt. Inachus her father sent her brothers in search of her, along with relatives and Triptolemos and Argives with them. They searched everywhere but did not find her. When the Argive Iopolitans learned that Io died in Syria, they came and stayed there briefly, trying every house while saying, “Let the soul of Io be saved.” Then in a prophetic dream they saw a heifer, which told them in a human voice, “Here I am, Io.” When they awoke, they were astonished at the force of the vision. They concluded that Io lay on this mountain, so they built her a sanctuary and settled there on Mt. Silpion, founding a city for themselves, which they called Iopolis. They have been called Ionitai by the Syrians to this day. So the Syrian Antiochenes, from that time, when the Argives came looking for Io, until now, make this memorial, every year at this time trying the houses of the Greeks. The Argives remained there in Syria for this reason: when they were sent from the Argive land by the command of King Inachus, Io’s father, he told them,

§ 2.30  “If you don’t bring my daughter Io, don’t come back to the Argive land.” So these Ionitai founded a sanctuary of Kronos on Mt. Silpion.
Libye the daughter of Io and Picus or Zeus, got married to someone named Poseidon. They bore three children, Agenor and Belus and Enyalios. Agenor and Belus also came to Syria in quest of Io, if she still lived, and her brothers, since they were their relatives. Finding nothing, they returned. Belus went to Egypt, where he married Sida and had two sons, Aegyptus and Danaos. Agenor came to Phoenicia and married Tyro. He built a city he called Tyre after his spouse. He was king there, and had sons from Tyro: Cadmus, Phoenix, Syros, and Cilix, and a daughter Europa. Agenor was king of those parts for 63 years. The poets, disagreeing with the chroniclers, wrote that Europa was the daughter of Phoenix, the son of King Agenor.
Taurus the king of Crete attacked Tyre, and after fighting a sea battle captured the city at evening time. He plundered it and took many prisoners from the city, including Europe the daughter of King Agenor. Agenor and his sons were fighting on the border.

§ 2.31  This incident - Taurus the king of Crete suddenly attacked the country by sea. The Tyrians keep a memorial of that evening until now, calling it Bad Late-Night (κακή οψινή). Taurus took Europa back to his homeland and made her his wife, since she was a beautiful virgin. He called those parts by her name, Europeia. By her he had a son Minos, as Euripides the very wise poet writes. He says Zeus transformed into Taurus (a bull) kidnapped Europe. King Taurus founded in the island of Crete a large city, which he called Gortyna from the name of his mother, who was of the lineage of Picus Zeus. He called the Tyche (fortune) of the city Kallinike, after his daughter whom he had murdered. King Agenor returned to Tyre from the war and learned about Taurus’ surprise attack and the kidnapping, and immediately sent Cadmus for Europa with much money and an army. When he was about to die, King Agenor order that all the land he had conquered be divided among his three sons. Phoenix took Tyre and its hinterland, and called the country Phoenicia after himself. Similarly, Syros call the country allotted to him Syria. Likewise, Cilix called the latitudes allotted to him Cilicia.

§ 2.32  Herakles the philosopher, called the Tyrian, lived in the reign of King Phoenix. It was he who discovered the purple-shell. He was wandering on the coastal part of Tyre city when he saw a shepherd dog eating the so-called purple-shell, which is a small maritime species like a sea snail. The shepherd thought the dog was bleeding, and took a clump of sheep’s wool and wiped off what was coming out of the dog’s mouth, and it dyed the wool. Herakles noticed that it wasn’t blood but the virtue of a strange dye, and wondered at it. Recognizing that the dye deposited on the wool came from the purple-shell, and having taken the wool from the shepherd as a great gift, he brought it to Phoenix, the King of Tyre. He too was surprised by the sight of the strange color of the dye. Admiring his discovery, he ordered that wool be dyed from this purple-shell dye and become a royal mantle for him. He was the first to wear this purple mantle, and everyone marveled at his royal raiment, as a foreign spectacle. From then, King Phoenix commanded that no one under his rule dare to wear such virtuous clothing on land or sea, except himself and those who ruled Phoenicia after him, so that they would recognize the King in the army and the crowd from his marvelous and strange clothing.

§ 2.33  For in the past people did not know how to dye shades of clothing, but whatever color the sheep’s wool was of that they made their clothing and wore it. The kings were not easily recognized by the subject crowd. So the kings in each place, and reges or toparchs, when they heard this, some designed mantles for themselves, others gold fibulae and cloaks, which they dyed purple or red from some plants, and wore them to be recognized by the crowd, as the most wise Palaephatus wrote. Many years later, the Romans subjugated Phoenicia and began to wear the true royal outfit from the purple-shell, as it was revealed in the beginning. They called it “toga” in the Roman language. The consuls of the Romans wear them even today. Numa Pompelius, who was king of the Romans after Romus and Remus, received ambassadors from the country of the Pelasgians, who wore chlamydes with red stripes, like those from the land of the Isaurians. He liked the style, and was the first in Rome who instituted wearing chlamydes, some in royal purple, with gold stripes, others of his senators and those in magistracies and military ranks chlamydes with purple stripes, the hallmark of royal dress, which showed the rank in the Roman state and the subordinate position.

§ 2.34  He ordered that no one be permitted to enter the palace to see him without the uniform of this chlamys, and those guarding the palace did not allow anyone to enter unless he wore a chlamys with the ostentation of royal clothing, as the most wise Tranquillus, the Roman historian, has written.
Syros the son of Agenor was a wise man who wrote arithmetic philosophy in Phoenician letters. He supposed that the authorities were bodyless, and bodies and souls were transferred into other kinds of animals. He was the first to expound these things, as the most wise Clement wrote.
In these years, Phalek, son of Heber, a pious and wise man, lived 339 years, about whom Moses the prophet wrote. So there are from Adam until Phalek 3000 years, according to the prophecy.
The aforementioned Picus Zeus in the above years had after Hermes and Herakles another son, Perseus, from a beautiful woman named Danae, the daughter of Acrisius, who was by origin from the Argive country. About her, the most wise Euripides has mythologized, in writing his play, how Danae was put in some chest and cast away, because she had been debauched by Zeus transformed into gold. The most wise Bouttios, the historian chronicler,

§ 2.35  expounded how Picus Zeus had been unable to persuade her with much gold when she was in her bedroom lying near the sea. So he kidnapped her, since she was very good-looking, and ravished her. From her he had a son named Perseus, the aforementioned. They write that he had wings, because from childhood he was very quick-moving. Hence his father Picus Zeus taught him to perform and carry out the Manganeia [witchcraft] of the abominable cup (myseros skyphos), teaching him everything about mystic and impious errors. He told him that “You will defeat all warriors with this, your enemies and every man opposed, and everyone who looks at this face with be blinded and remain so until they are dead and slaughtered by you.” So Perseus was persuaded by his father Picus Zeus. In later times, after the death of his father Picus, when he had come to full age, he coveted the kingdom of the Assyrians, envying the children of Ninus, his uncle, the brother of his father. Having received a prophecy, he went to Libya. On the road a virgin, a village girl, met Perseus. She had wild hair and eyes. Standing in front of her he asked her, “What is your name?” She freely replied, “Medousa.” Holding her hair, with the sickle-spear sword he carried, he cut off her head. Perseus took it and immediately performed mystic rites on the head, as he had been taught by his father Picus the error of the hateful Manganeia.

§ 2.36  He carried it in his train to every enemy and warrior to subdue and kill them. He called the head “Gorgon” because of the sharpness of the accessory and its effect on foes. From there he crossed and came to Ethiopia, which was ruled by Cepheus. He found there a sanctuary of Poseidon, entered it, and saw a girl abiding in the sanctuary, by an order given by her father Cepheus, Andromeda, a virgin. He took her from the sanctuary and debauched her, since she was beautiful, and made her his wife. Sailing away, he left that country. When he was coming to the land of the Assyrians, he arrived in the land of Lykaonia. They recognized him and resisted him. He used the help of the Gorgon head and defeated the Lykaonians. Finding a village called Amandra, he made it a city and erected a statue of himself outside the gates, bearing the image of the Gorgon. He made a sacrifice, and called the Tyche of the city Persis from his own name. The statue still stands there until the present. He called the city Ikonion, because he took the image of his first victory with the Gorgon there. He subjected the other countries with no one resisting. When he came to Isauria and Cilicia, and had to undergo resistance from his foes, the following was prophesied, that “When you get off your horse, sticking the flat part (tarsos) of your foot to the ground, you would obtain victory.”

§ 2.37  When he got off his horse in the village called Andrasos, there the flat of his foot stuck. He was victorious through the use of the Gorgon, and made the village a city, which he called Tarsus from the oracle about his foot. He sacrificed an unknowing girl named Parthenope to purify the city. Pleased, he launched an attack from there via Mt. Argaeus against the Assyrians. He defeated them, killed Sardanapalus, their king, who was descended from his lineage, and subjugated them. He ruled over them for 53 years, and he called them Persians from his name, taking from the Assyrians both the kingdom and the name. He planted trees he called perseas, not only there but also in the Egyptian parts he also planted perseas as a memorial to himself. He taught the Persians the rite of the hateful and godless skyphos of Medousa, and they called it the country of the Medes because of the lesson.
Perseus, after ruling the Persian land for many years, learned that Ionitai from Argos were living in Syria. He came to them in Syria on Mt. Silpion, since they were his relatives. They received him with all honor and greeted him (made proskynesis), since the Argive Iopolitans knew that he was from the race of the Argives, and they happily celebrated him in song.

§ 2.38  When a winter storm came, and the river running past the city of the Ionitai, then called the Drakon and now the Orontes, was flooding badly, he asked the Ionitai to pray. While they were praying and carrying out the rites, a sphere of fire-lightning came down from the sky, which caused the storm to cease and the flow of the river to be contained. As they marveled, Perseus from that fire lit a fire, and kept it guarded. This fire he carried back to Persian territory, to his own kingdom, and he taught them to honor that fire, which he told them he had seen being brought down from the sky. The Persians continue to honor that fire as divine, up to the present day. Perseus built a sanctuary for the Ionitai, which he called “of the immortal fire.” He built in Persia, similarly, a fire sanctuary, installing pious men to minister to it, whom he called Magi. The very wise chronicler Pausanias has recorded this.
After some time, King Cepheus, the father of Andromeda, came from Ethiopia to attack him. Cepheus couldn’t see, due to his age. When Perseus heard that he was attacking, he was furious, and went out against him carrying the head, and showed it to him.

§ 2.39  Unable to see, Cepheus rode at him on horseback. Perseus didn’t know that he didn’t see, and concluded that the Gorgon head he was holding no longer functioned. So he turned it toward himself and looked at it. Blinded, he remained that way until he was killed. So then, the son of Perseus and Andromeda ruled over the Persians. He was appointed by his grandfather Cepheus, the king of Ethiopia. Cepheus commanded that the hateful head of the Gorgon be burned, and left for his own country. So the lineage of Perseus continued to rule the land of Babylonia. During the years mentioned above, Cadmus from Phoenicia, the son of Agenor, took Boeotia. His father had sent him to look for and rescue Europa, his sister. When Cadmus learned that she was ruling over Crete, he set out for Boeotia and stayed in Boeotia, where he taught them the Phoenician letters, which they didn’t know. They honored him and made him king of Boeotia. He was, after all, quite handsome to look at. He ruled the Boeotians for 62 years, and married a woman from there named Harmonia. With her he had six daughters: Ino, Agaue, Semele, Eurynome, Kleantho, and Eurydike, who took the name Cadmiades when they grew up.

§ 2.40  He founded a great city in Boeotia, which he called Cadmeia after himself, and reigned there. He recalled Teiresias from exile, the Boeotian philosopher, the beast-slayer, who was wealthy in money and worth and wisdom. It was he who introduced to the Greeks the doctrine that everything happened of its own accord and that the world was unforeseeable. So the priests plotted against him, and he was exiled to the sanctuary of Daphnaean Apollo, on the grounds that he had a womanly mind. Also he was overly inquisitive about how women get pregnant having sex with men, and the nature of blood gets separated into bones, flesh, veins, nerves, and blood, and an infant is given life and gets born, as the most wise Cephalion wrote. The most wise Sophocles published a play, and said in a poetic manner that Teiresias saw Pallas bathing and became a woman, meaning, he was seeking to know the wisdom of the creator and was unable. Hence Sophocles expounded in his writings these truthful things: God is one, who made sky and the long earth and the swell of the blue-gray sea and the violence of the winds. Mortals stray much in their heart, we set up statues of gods from stone and wood,

§ 2.41  or gold or ivory reliefs, as consolation for woes, and by making sacrifices to them and vain festivals we think we are being pious. Sophocles appears to praise monarchy.
Cadmus gave his daughter Agaue to a senator named Echion. This Echion had with her a son named Pentheus, a sensible man in thinking and everything. Semele, his other daughter, very beautiful indeed, was loved by a certain Polymedon, the son of the senator Aetherion, descended from the race of Picus Zeus. He seduced and debauched her, and by her had a son. While she still had the child in her belly, it being winter, there was great lightning and thunder. The girl Semele was frightened, and the infant was born there and then, at seven months. She did not withstand the pains, and died, and Cadmus sent the infant to the Nysian country, and he was raised there. This is why it was written that Zeus guarded him in his concavity (κόλπος) for the remaining time of the maternal womb, because, having been born untimely, he had part of his life, relative to the time of birth, as the very wise Palaephatus wrote. His grandfather Cadmus called him Nysios, but the others called him Dionysos as having worked some wonders from the solar prayer, since he was of the paternal race [from Zeus], and deified him for having found nourishment for mankind in grapevines.

§ 2.42  For he expounded things about grapevines and farming. Dionysos also learned some mystic things and became a wise man in mystagogy, and made some seemingly miraculous apparitions. He attacked the Persians and Indians and other countries. When fighting, he used to show miraculous apparitions, and he had a large army with him. When Cadmus grew old, he yielded the administration of the Boeotian kingdom to his grandson Pentheus, the son of Echion, who was praised by the senators and by everyone. Cadmus took Teiresias and passed a long time in Boeotia on the Cithaeronian mountain. When Dionysos heard that his grandfather had gotten old, he came to the city of Cadmeia with great pomp and weaponry, as if he ought to be king. Pentheus saw him making apparitions, having armed soldiers, inviting all his relatives, teaching his female relatives the mystagogy of solar Bacchic revelries, and calling them Bacchae, similarly teaching the citizens the rites of certain solar prayers in order to persuade the Boeotians that he could lay claim to the kingship.

§ 2.43  He was equipped with weapons and an army, whom they say, he called Leapers, since they were quick and springing about. They were from the Bessic country, and trained in mystic wisdom. Recognizing this, Pentheus was jealous of him, since he heard that he desired the kingship of the Boeotians. They became enemies and clashed in battle in the city. Pentheus won and captured him. He tied him up and guarded him for the presence of Cadmus, his grandfather. Agaue, his aunt and the mother of Pentheus, persuaded her son to have him released. Once released, he plotted to kill Pentheus. Arming himself, he sent for Agaue and asked her to reconcile him to Pentheus and to go with him to Cadmus. She worked hard on Pentheus, her son, and persuaded him to reconcile with him and to go to Cadmus, who was grieving over them, and Agaue agreed to come with them and persuade her father. Dionysos was furious against Pentheus, because he had been tied up and insulted by him. For he had told everyone that Dionysos had been born from harlotry. For this reason, in after years Euripides found such a written account and published a play, the Bacchae, with Pentheus saying the following: “Semele having been brought to child-bed by some mortal, laid the sin on Zeus.”

§ 2.44  When they had been reconciled, Dionysos commanded his army to take position in advance in a narrow place on the road and arrest Pentheus. When he was about to go out, Dionysos came to him with a few men, so Pentheus, not knowing the plot, also took a few men with him. Agaue was with him. As they were going, the army of Dionysos attacked and captured Pentheus. Dionysos immediately order him to be beheaded, and the head given to his mother, since she had insulted Dionysos. Dionysos returned to the Cadmeia to be king. On account of this, they say that Agaue decapitated her own son, being she persuaded Pentheus to reconcile with Dionysos and became the cause of her son’s death. The senators and citizens of Cadmeia city did not accept Dionysos to administer their kingdom. They said that he murdered his own cousin, while not a king. If he became king, he would destroy Boeotia. They appealed to Lycurgus, a wise man, telling him what happened, asking him to take up arms against him and drive him from Cadmeia city and Boeotia. When Dionysos learned this, that Lycurgus has taken arms against him,

§ 2.45  he fled from him, went away to Delphi and died there. The corpse of Dionysos was put in a tomb there, and he hung his weapons in the sanctuary, as the most wise Deinarchus wrote about Dionysos. Likewise the most wise Philochorus wrote this, and in his account said about Dionysos that his tomb can be seen in Delphi beside the golden Apollo. The grave is supposedly a certain pit, at which is written, “Here, having died, lies Dionysos of Semele.” The very wise Cephalion similarly wrote this in his own account.
So after the death of Cadmus, the King of Boeotia, Nycteus was king. He had a daughter, the priestess of the temple of the Sun, named Antiope. She was taught the solar prayer, or mystagogy of the Dionysiac Bacchanalia, and from that was called Bacche. Her father Nycteus had a brother named Lycus, the king of Argos. This King Lycus had a senator named Theoboos, the son of some Bronton, cousin of Dirce, of the race of Picus Zeus. Theoboos the senator came from Argos by order to sleep in the sanctuary of the Sun. Seeing the priestess Antiope, who was very beautiful and tall, he fell in love with her.

§ 2.46  He remained in the sanctuary, on the pretext of a vow, as her relative, seduced her, and made her pregnant. Afraid of Nycteus, the King of Boeotia, he left to his own country. When King Nycteus her father learned that she had been debauched, he took her from the sanctuary. Questioning her, he learned from her that her debaucher was Theoboos, that he was a senator of his brother Lycus and of his wife’s race. Nycteus her father did not know that she was pregnant, and sent her to his brother Lycus, King of Argos, so he too could examine the matter of her debauchery, and if it was true that the debaucher was from Argos, he would punish her as a debauched priestess, and would guard himself against that one, as the sort of person who dared such things against a priestly body. King Lycus brought Antiope in for questioning and saw her beauty. Learning that she was pregnant, he took pity on her, and said it was necessary to wait until she gave birth and then she would be punished for doing violence to her priestly uniform. Lycus’ wife was Dirce, and he gave Antiope to her, telling her to guard her next to herself until she gave birth. King Lycus was Antiope’s uncle. Antiope gave birth to twins, who were called Amphion and Zethus.

§ 2.47  At the command of King Lycus, the newborns were thrown away in the village Rasthea near the Cithaeronian mountain. Out of pity, a farmer named Ordion, who was childless, took the babies from the throwers. He recognized that the children were the priestess Antiope’s. For he knew her as a priestess. He raised them. After a time, war stirred for the Argive country, and King Lycus went off to the war. He stayed a long time fighting. Dirce the wife of King Lycus assumed from the fact that he had not yet punished Antiope after the birth, but had let her go, that he was in love with her and having sex with her secretly, since she was very beautiful. Taking her, with a few soldiers, as if to the country, she went to Mt. Cithaeron to the village where her sons had been raised. Dirce didn’t know this. So she took from the place a wild bull, and affixed a torch to its horns. She commanded that Antiope be tied up, and the rope wrapped around the bull’s neck, so that Antiope would be dragged by the bull and killed. When everyone from the estate heard about the death awaiting Antiope, and heard her shrieks, they came from the Dera Goddess, as the place was called. There were many rustics there in the crowd,

§ 2.48  and likewise the two sons of Antiope with them, along with Ordion the farmer who raised them. They begged Dirce not to kill her with such a death. She spoke out to them that she was a priestess of the Sun, and had been debauched and had born two children in harlotry, and it was necessary for her to be punished. The sons of Antiope, Zethus and Amphion, heard from Ordion, who had raised them, that it was there mother who was about to be punished, Antiope. They gathered all the rural population and attacked together. They killed the soldiers, captured Dirce, took the royal ornaments she was wearing, and freed Antiope. Released from her bonds, Antiope permitted her sons Amphion and Zethus to kill Dirce. So they took Dirce and tied her to the same wild bull. Dragged by the bull, she died. Thirsty from being driven, the bull found a spring to drink at. The rope was cut and the corpse of Dirce was left by the spring. So this spring, from that, has been called Dirce until now in that country. Zethus and Amphion took their mother Antiope and left for their country, Boeotia. When they appeared there, they were recognized by the Boeotians. Their grandfather Nycteus, the king of Boeotia, had grown old, fallen ill, and died.

§ 2.49  So after the death of King Nycteus, all the Boeotians asked Amphion and Zethus to be king, since they were of the royal lineage of Nycteus. They were proclaimed kings, and the musicians Amphion and Zethus ruled the Boeotian country. Immediately Amphion the lyre-player built a very large city with twelve gates, where there had previously been a village Enchelia. The brothers named the city Thebes for the name of their father, at the command of their mother Antiope. They reigned many years over the Thebes. So the land was called Thebes. King Lycus, the husband of Dirce, their uncle, died in the war. Cephalion wrote this truthfully. The very wise Euripides poetically published a play, that Zeus as a Satyr debauched Antiope, and from that the musicians Zethus and Amphion were born. In accordance with the change of metempsychosis (reincarnation), he said their father Theoboos was descended from Picus Zeus, because Zeus transformed into a Satyr, which in the Boeotian language is another, more worthless body, debauched Antiope. After the reign of Amphion and Zethus, those of their lineage were kings of Thebes until the reign of Oedipus, son of Laius and Jocasta.

§ 2.50  This Laius, the King of Thebes, had a son Ioakkas, who was renamed Oedipus as above. It was prophesied that he would have sex with his own mother Jocasta, so he commanded the soldiers around him to take Oedipus into the swamps and to put his feet in carved wood having holes, and to drive nails in the wood. From this was devised what soldiers even today call the cuspus [a torture device]. Having done what he commanded, the soldiers left Oedipus in the swamps, as food for wild animals. A rustic called Meliboeus came to cut wood in the swamp and found in dragging on the ground with his feet swollen. Taking the axe he carried, he broke the wood securing his feet, and took him and raised him. He called his Oedipus from his feet being swollen. He became brave as he grew.
In that land, a certain widow named Sphinx appeared, ugly, with big, saggy breasts, a peasant. After the loss of her husband, she collected a crowd of like-minded rustic brigands in her village, named Moabe, lying between two mountains with only one narrow road in between. She used to sit on one summit of the mountain with her band of brigands beside her, and she murdered all the passing travelers and merchants and took their things. She became notorious in Thebes. Many generals were sent out with large armies by King Laius,

§ 2.51  but no one was able to prevail due to the strength of the mountains and the number of rustic brigands with whom she shared the belongings of passing foreigners and citizens. When Oedipus grew up, he learned that he was from Thebes. He heard about the woman named Sphinx, the brigandess, who despoiled all those coming from Thebes and oppressed the city. Having thought of a wise way to kill Sphinx, he took brave rustics from the farm where he was raised, claiming that they would become brigands with Sphinx. He went to her and asked if they could be co-brigands. She checked out the appearance of the youth and those with him, and accepted them. He started attacking passers-by. When he found an opportunity when she did not have a crowd of brigands with her, he took a spear and killed her. He took all her possessions, and killed many of those with her, and brought her corpse back to Thebes city, so that he and those with him would collect money from King Laius. All the Theban citizens marveled and sang his praises, and shouted for him to be king of Thebes.

§ 2.52  The king was annoyed at those in the city, and sent an army against them. Civil war began, and Laius came out to speak in his own defense. Laius was killed by an arrow someone shot at him. So Jocasta, not wanting to be expelled from the kingship, immediately brought Oedipus and made him king. Learning that he didn’t have a wife, she married him, to appease the citizens and Senate. Oedipus was king of Thebes for 19 years, and neither Jocasta nor Oedipus knew that she was his mother. He had two sons with her, Eteocles and Polyneices, and two daughters, Ismene and Antigone. After some time, Jocasta asked Oedipus where he was from and who his father was. He said Meliboeus, who had raised him. She sent for Meliboeus, who had raised him, and learned from him that he was not his son, but he had found him in the swamps. She asked the year, and realized that he was her son. She told him. Hearing this, Oedipus took nails, stuck them in his eyes, and died, leaving the kingdom to his two sons, after commanding them to be king in alternate years. They fell out over the kingship, waged war on each other, and killed each other in single combat. For Polyneices had been expelled from the kingship and chased out of Thebes by Eteocles, his brother.

§ 2.53  He went to Argos and married the daughter of Adrastus, king of Argos. He induced King Adrastus and other kings to come against his brother in Thebes with a large army. The ones he persuaded to mobilize with him were Adrastus, Capaneus, Amphiaraus, Parthenopaeus, Hippomedon. When the two brothers died, as noted above, the kings went back with their armies to their own countries, and the kingship of the Thebans or Boeotians was dissolved, having lasted 368 years. All what is written before was expounded truthfully by the most wise Palaephatus. The most wise Euripides poetically published a play about Oedipus and Jocasta and the Sphinx. The material about the kingdom of Thebes was expounded by Africanus the chronicler.
In the above-written years, Serouch was born of the tribe of Iapheth. He first initiated the practice of the dogma of Hellenism through idolatry, as Eusebius of Pamphilus wrote.

§ 2.54  In the past, warriors, leaders, or those who performed something courageous or virtuous in their life were worthy of being commemorated, especially those who performed mysteries through some power, and as their forefathers they honored them with statues. Everyone used to do proskynesis and sacrifice, honoring them as benefactors to God, because they had discovered a good thing or by art or building or wisdom or whatever other virtues had come to the point of being deified, as the most wise Reginus wrote the names of those deified. People in after times did not know the opinion of their ancestors, that they were honoring them as forefathers and as the inventors of good things, for memory’s sake only. They honored them as heavenly gods and sacrificed to them, not as human-born and mortal and with human feelings. The most wise Diodorus says about them in his writings, that the gods were born human beings, whom men have by custom on account of their benefactions acclaimed as immortal. Some of them were addressed as the ones who held in charge the countries they had ruled. The men who did this were full of ignorance. The form of apotheosis was as follows:

§ 2.55  in their priestly books their names were listed, when they died; at that time they would make a festival and perform a sacrifice to them at the grave monument where they lay, saying that their souls had passed to the Isles of the Blessed and were no longer judged or burned with fire. They stayed that way until the time of Tharra, the father of Abraham. Tharra was a statue-maker, who shaped gods from stone and wood and sold them. He introduced to mankind the error of cult statues and idol-worship, through the depictions of their ancestors, particularly of those who had discovered writing and the arts. The Egyptians, Babylonians, and Phrygians from Greece contributed importantly to this. For they were of this religion. They too were makers of statues and explainers and initiates of mysteries. From them, indeed, this worship was brought to the Hellenes, from someone called Hellen, also a son of Picus Zeus, a man who worked some mysterious things among those living in Hellas. He was from the tribe of Iapheth, the third son of Noah. The Ionians who are from Io became their leader. For they had been taught by Ioaneis the giant who built the tower with the others.

§ 2.56  For their tongues were divided up, since men are also called Meropes from their speech being divided into many tongues and voices. The Chaeroneian Plutarch reproached them; the old philosophy among the Hellenes and barbarians was exposed as an error of statues that some had introduced. He, they say, seemed to deify the shining lights in the sky, introducing the sun and the moon, as the Egyptian theology has it, administering the whole cosmos, raising and increasing everything in the third movement of the five planets and the remaining star arrangement, in accordance with birth and air. Porphyry praised Plutarch the Chaeroneian in his wisdom-loving chronicle.

§ 3.57  BOOK 3: Times of the Divine Knowledge of Abraham
Abraham knew divine knowledge (theognosia) and concluded that the statues his father Tharras made were of dead human beings, and it was not necessary to honor them as gods in heaven, when they had become earth and dust. He confronted his father Tharras, saying, “Why do you mislead people for profit? There is no other god, except the one in the heavens, who created all these visible things. He took the statues and broke them all, and went away to Mesopotamia, as Eusebius of Pamphilus the wise chronicler relates. In the years of Abraham, there was a pious man Melchisedek, a gentile, descended from the lineage of Sidus, son of Aegyptus, king of Libya, from whom the Egyptians get their name.

§ 3.58  This Sidus came from Egypt and took the country from the Canaanite gentiles, the land now called Palestine. He subjugated it and settled there in it. He founded a city he called Sidon for himself, which is now in Phoenicia. So from the lineage of Sidus came Melchi, the father of Sedek, who on becoming priest and king was called Melchisedek, as written previously. He was priest and king of the Canaanites, and founded a city in Mt. Sion, which he called Salem, the city of peace. He was king in it for 113 years. He died just and a virgin, as Josephus relates in the Archaeology. Ioannes and Cyrillus the most blessed bishops say the same thing.
So from the Flood until Abraham are 893 years, from the tower-making are 523 years. After Abraham and Isaac, his son, and Jacob, his grandson, and their seed, out of which the Hebrews com from the years of Abraham, taking the character of a nation through circumcision. So from Adam until Abraham there are ?745 years.
Abraham was 100 years old when he begot Isaac, and Isaak Jacob called Israel.

§ 3.59  The Judaeans were called from Judah the fourth son of Jacob. He had 12 sons. The tribe of Judah controlled and administered the Judaeans, whence they took the name.
In these years, from the tribe of Iapheth, appeared someone named Hesiod, who invented Greek letters and wrote. He was the first to expound letters to the Hellenes.
In the years of Abraham, Endelechus from the tribe of Shem, the son of Noah, was king over the Assyrians. He was the first to reign after the race of Perseus failed, and the kingship came back to the Assyrians.
The first king of the Egyptians from the tribe of Ham, the son of Noah, was Pharaoh called Naracho. The most wise Manetho, as mentioned before, related the old kingdoms of the Egyptians before him. The subsequent kingships of the Egyptians, I mean from Naracho on, were written about by Theophilus the most wise chronicler.
In the years of Abraham, Naracho from the tribe of Ham ruled the Egyptians. Petephres, the chief cook of king Pharaoh, bought from the Saracens Joseph, the son of Jacob. His brothers sold him to the Saracens, envying him because he was his father’s favorite.

§ 3.60  Joseph was handsome to look at. Joseph interpreted the dream which king Pharaoh had, about a future famine in Egypt and the whole country for seven years. The king marveled at Joseph’s judgment, freed him, and gave him a high rank and the daughter of the high priest of Heliopolis in Egypt for his wife. He ordered him to administer all Egypt for seven years and have power to do what he wished. Joseph built horrea (warehouses) and stored grain in them for the seven years. He supplied everywhere through himself the purchase and sale payment, doing what he wished. When the famine occurred in all the land, his brothers came from Canaan to Egypt to buy grain. Recognizing them, Joseph ordered them to be held. He assured them that he was their brother, and compelled them to go and bring his younger brother Benjamin and his father Jacob and all their clan. The brothers left and brought back their father and brother Benjamin and all their clan, 75 names of males and females. Joseph kept them there, and they lived in Egypt for many years, and a vast crowd of Hebrews came to be dwelling in Egypt,

§ 3.61  until Moses was commanded by God to take the people of the Hebrews from the land of Egypt, as all these things are composed accurately in the Hebrew scriptures.
In the times of the kings previously noted, there arose in Caria a giant-born philosopher from the tribe of Iapheth named Endymion. He made mystic prayers to the Moon, asking to learn from her the divine name in a dream. As he prayed, he fell asleep, and heard the divine name in a dream, and never arose. His remains are in Caria until now, dead but vibrating. Each year they open his grave in that country and see his vibrating dead remains, as they say. The very wise Auleas wrote this, about a man whom, he says, they write stories about the moon falling in love with Endymion.

§ 3.62  In the years of Jesus son of Naue of the tribe of Iapheth, someone named Ogyges, an autochthon, was king of the Attic land, for 32 years. A great cataclysm took place in his reign, and he and that whole country were destroyed, and every soul dwelling in the country of Attica alone. The land remained from then desert and uninhabited for 260 years, as is reported in the writings of Africanus.
In the days when the exodus from Egypt of the sons of Israel with Moses was about to happen, an autochthon named Aides was the king of the Molossian country. He married Melindia, and had with her a beautiful daughter they called Persephone. The Molossaians call beautiful women Kore in their language. Perithous, a senator of King Aides, younger and wealthy, seemed to love her passionately. By arrangement with the Kore he wanted to kidnap her at night. Learning this, King Aides was angry. Taking counsel in secret to defend himself from Perithous, so that he could use ignorance as an excuse to everyone. He had a huge wild shepherd dog, named Tricerberus because it had the head and body size of three dogs, and he shut it outside where the Kore was staying. So after the death of her mother, with Kore unaware of this, Perithous showed up at night and came in to kidnap the Kore. The dog attacked and killed him. When the girl heard the disturbance, she went out and the dog killed her too. They claim it is said about her that Plouton snatched the Kore. This is what the most wise Palaephatus wrote.

§ 3.63  In the years of Moses, Erechtheus was king of the Assyrians, and Petissionios king of the Egyptians, the comic-poet pharaoh. He had powerful magi with him, Iannes and Iambres. In his reign, to race of the Jews in Egypt was multiplied, from the generation of Jacob, who came to Egypt, to his son Joseph, until Moses their leader and Aaron his brother. Moses took an Egyptian woman, the daughter of Iothor, the high priest of the Hellenes, a man honored by King Pharaoh and the Egyptians. Moses was trained in all the wisdom of Egypt. The Egyptians feared the Jews, since they had become numerous, and complained to Pharaoh about them. King Pharaoh ordered the Jews to labor for the Egyptians and to make bricks by compulsion. If any Egyptian wanted to build a house or farm, he compelled them to do labor and make bricks, and all the Judaeans sighed with weariness. Moses and his brother Aaron noticed the sighs of the sons of Israel, and prayed to God. The Lord God commanded Moses to go to King Pharaoh of Egypt and tell him, “Release the people of Israel to serve him.”

§ 3.64  Moses took his brother Aaron and went to Petissonios Pharaoh, King of Egypt. He had the right to speak freely, as the son in law of Iothor, the priest of the Hellenes, and as leader of the Judaeans. He announced to him God’s command, and said that the God who made the earth and land and sea and everything in them said to release his people to serve him. Pharaoh heard this and told him, “If it is true that your god commanded you to tell me this, Look, there are Egyptians with me who perform miracles. If you defeat them by asking your god, I will grant to you what he commanded you to say.” He set opposite one another Iannes and Iambres and Moses and Aaron. Pharaoh and his nobles sat down. Ioannes and Iambres through a charm made their staff a snake, and it attacked Moses. Praying, Moses through down the staff he held on the ground. It too became a very large snake, which swallowed the snake Iannes and Iambres had made. So Moses won, and the King and everyone marveled. Similarly, Iannes and Iambres made a river of very transparent water to become blood, in the presence of the King and everyone. Moses prayed, and it became pure water from the flows of the river, as before. They did some other things against each other, and Moses defeated them.

§ 3.65  Moses said to Pharaoh, Behold! You see the power of the God Israel. Let us go, so that we may serve him. Pharaoh put off doing what he agreed. Moses prayed for God to send blows against the Egyptians, so their king would be compelled to let Israel go. The God Israel send a seven-blow anger, so the king would beg Moses and say to him, “Pray to your God to free the country from such evils, and may your God live as Lord. I will not hinder you from taking your people Israel to serve him.” This is contained in the Hebrew scriptures. Moses heard this from the King, and went out to pray to God Israel, and he said to the Judaeans, “The King has freed you all to go serve God.” Petissonios Pharaoh the king immediately went to Memphis to the celebrated oracle. He sacrificed and asked the Pythia, saying, “Clarify for me who is the first of you, the great God of Israel?” This oracle was given to him: “There is descended from the great sky a flame, an exceeding clear, ever-flowing, immortal fire, which trembles all, sky, earth, sea, and Tartarus-dwelling daemons of the depths shuddered.

§ 3.66  This self-fathered, unfathered God, Father Son himself of himself, thrice-blessed. We in one small part of the angels. Learn and go away in silence.”
King Pharaoh heard this from the oracle, and commanded that the words given to him in the prophecy be carved on a stone plaque. Until now these word remain written, carved on the plaque in the sanctuary of Memphis, where the Nile river flows. King Pharaoh returned from the oracle and immediately let Israel and Moses and Aaron go. All the people of the Judaeans left Egypt, and they took trappings (jewelry?) as were in use among Egyptian women and men and abundant silver. After they left, Pharaoh the King of Egypt repented his decision, on learning that they had borrowed trappings and silver and money and departed. He pursued them with his chariots and all his armed force. He reached them by the sea. The Israelites turned and saw king Pharaoh and his army coming behind them and the sea in front of them, and they raised a great cry to God. Moses who was going ahead leading the people struck the sea water with his staff and it became dry, and they walked on. Moses remained behind his whole people and turning back, he again struck the dry land with his staff, and it became sea tossing with waves.

§ 3.67  Petissonios pharaoh, the king of the Egyptians, was drowned in the sea, with his chariots and all his forces, and the waves of the sea covered him and those with him. The Lord saved the people of the Judaeans with Moses and Aaron, walking on the waves of the sea as on dry land, fleeing out of Egypt with 630,000, as Moses wrote in his very wise chronicle.

§ 4.68  BOOK 4 The times of the Kingdom of the Argive Country
After Inachus, Phoroneus was king of the Argives, and many others, until the reign of Lynceus who married Hypermnestra, one of the daughters of Danaos. This Lynceus fought with King Danaos, killed him, and took the kingdom and his daughter, as the most wise Archilochus has written. After the reign of Lynceus, Triopas was king in the Argive land for five years. In the fifth year of his reign, the Argive kingdom was dissolved, and the Sicyonians possessed their kingdom. The kingdom or toparchia of the Argives lasted 549 years, as the most wise Diodoros has written. The first to reign over the Sicyonians, now called Helladics, was Aegialeus, for 52 years,

§ 4.69  and there were another 26 kings until Zeuxippus, who reigned over them 32 years. Then their priests administered the country. Their kingdom lasted 985 years, as the very wise Africanus has written.
The west, the lands toward Italy, were then without a king, but administered by the sons of Picus and/or Zeus and their lineage. In those years, Moses and Aaron died in the desert, and Jesus the son of Naue administered Israel, as was said before. He waged war and captured Jericho and the above-mentioned city of Jerusalem, which Jesus son of Nave renamed Jebun. He captured the country and settled the city Sychem, renaming it Neapolis. After the death of Jesus son of Nave, who made the Jewish people cross the Jordan river by God’s command and come to Palestine, and who destroyed the walls of Jericho with a mystic trumpet, after him Phineas led Israel. After Phineas, 13 judges chosen by the people administered Israel.
In these years there were among the Hellenes Prometheus, Epimetheus, Atlas, and all-seeing Argus called the hundred-eyed because he was looked at by all sides, and was fierce,

§ 4.70  and Deucalion, the son of Hellen son of Picus. Argus discovered craftsmanship in the western parts; Atlas interpreted Astronomy. This is why they say he holds up the sky, because he has heavenly matters in his heart. Prometheus discovered grammatical philosophy; about him they say that he shaped mankind, because to the extent they were ignoramuses, he made them to know the events of former times through philosophy. Epimetheus discovered music. Deucalion reported the events of the partial flood, as the most wise Eusebius of Pamphilus wrote.
After the judges of the Judaeans died, Barach the son of Abinoem led the people. There was a woman prophet Debbora, who told the future to the Judaeans.
In those times there was a prophetess among the Greeks, Sibyl. In those years, the King of the Egyptians was Pharaoh or Naracho. A certain Cecrops was king of the Athenians, who was Egyptian by descent. He was completely huge, so they also called him double natured. He was the first king of the Athenians after the flood of Attica. The capital came to the Athenians after the flood of Attica.

§ 4.71  As soon as he became king of the Athenians, Cecrops commanded that a law be passed that the women who were under his rule be married as virgins to one man. He call them nymphs in this legislation because virgin girls were like wellsprings, who give birth and produce milk from unseen resources. Before his reign, all the women of Attica, both the Athenians and the nearby country, used to have intercourse with a bestial mixing, having sex with each man who was attracted to them, if she too wanted it. A woman who was kidnapped was called the wife of no one, but would have sex with everyone, and they gave themselves to harlotry. Someone would keep as many women as he wished in those days, and would send her away again to whomever wanted her. This was barred from Attica, not to be compelled to have sex with the man they wanted. So no one knew whose son or daughter they were; once born, the child was given to whatever man she wanted of those who had slept with her, whether the child was male or female, and the men were happy to accept them. Cecrops was of Egyptian origin, and pronounced this law. He said that Attica was being ruined by this, and henceforth all the women started behaving properly, and the unmarried virgins yoked themselves to men, and she who had been a harlot married a man she wanted. The Athenians marveled at the King’s law. As some have expressed it, it was on account of this that the Athenians called him two-natured, because he ennobled the children because they knew their parents. Cecrops ruled the Athenians 50 years,

§ 4.72  and after him Cranaus was king for nine years. In those years, Sappho became known as the first musician. After Cranaus, Phoroneus and others were kings, until Codrus, who reigned over them for 25 years. So their kingdom lasted 492 years.
In the years of the Archons, the first to make laws for the Athenians was named Draco, and after him Solon, and Solon abolished the laws of Draco. And again, Thales the Milesian made laws. First Aeschylus was king over them again, for 25 years, and after Aeschylus their king was Acmaeon for two years. The most wise Euripides published a play about him. After Acmaeon, there were 15 other kings until Arexion, who ruled them for 12 years. The kingdom of the Athenians was dissolved after lasting 907 years, as the most wise chronicler Africanus published.
Soon after, Gideon was leader of Israel. In that year was Orpheus the Thracian, the lyric Odrysian, the most wise and famous poet. He expounded theogony and the founding of the cosmos and the shaping of human beings. He said in the beginning of his composition that he was not expounding anything from his own ideas regarding god or cosmic foundations,

§ 4.73  but said he had asked in prayer to learn the theogony and founding of the cosmos and who made it from the Titan Phoebus, the sun. It is contained in his exposition in poetic verses as follows:
O Lord, son of Leto, far-shooter, mighty Phoebus,
O Master, son of the day, who from afar shoots everything with your rays, Undefiled and powerful
All-seeing, lording over mortals and immortals,
Overseeing everything, reigning over mortals and immortals.
Sun rising on golden wings,
Sun raised in the air on honorable wings,
I heard this twelfth utterance from you,
this twelfth divine voice I heard from you
Said by you, far-shooter, divine witness.
You having told me, you who shine from afar,
Orpheus spoke many other verses about this. He expressed it as he expounded it in the above poetic verses. It wasn’t possible to include in this composition (of mine) the full number of verses.

§ 4.74  This is what Orpheus expounded: That from the beginning the aether created by God was displayed to time, and on this side and that side of the aether was chaos, and gloomy night held everything and covered what was under the aether, signifying that the night was first. He said in the same exposition that there is something incomprehensible, and above everything, and earlier, and the creator of all things, and of aether and night and everything under the aether and the covered creation. He said the earth was invisible under the darkness. He expressed that the light shattered the aether and illuminated the earth and all creation, and said the aforementioned light that shattered the aether was supreme over everything. Orpheus heard its name in a prophesy and declared it, Metis, Phanes, Epicepaeus. Which are translated in the common language, Counsel (Boule), Light, Life-giver. He said in the same exposition that the three divine powers of the name are one power and the might of the only God, whom no one sees, of whose power no one can know the idea or nature. From this power all things came to be: the bodiless authorities and the sun and moon, the offices (exousies) and all the stars and earth and sea, and all the visible and invisible things in them.

§ 4.75  He said the race of men was formed by God from earth and took a logical soul from him, as the all-wise Moses expounded. Orpheus in his book wrote that through the three names, of one godhead, everything came to be, and it is everything.
Concerning the suffering race of human beings, Orpheus expounded many verses poetically, some of which are as follows:
“Beasts and birds the sinful tribes of mortals.” Translation: Beasts and birds, the squandered nations of mankind.
”Burdens to the earth, manufactured phantoms, not for nothing…” Translation: The weight of the earth, a constructed species, not knowing for what they were born, nor for what they die.
“Nor knowing how to take thought for coming evil.” Translation: Not perceiving the evil coming against them.
Shrewd, not even which evil to avert to safeguard themselves… Nor from very far away to avert from evil
Nor of present good to turn toward and fence in.

§ 4.76  [Translation:] Nor of coming good to divert from evil and keep good.
Skilful, but in vain, ignorant, improvident. [Translation:] Experienced, but randomly, behaving ignorantly, foreseeing nothing.
This very wise Orpheus expounded many other verses. The very wise chronicler Timotheus published them all, saying that Orpheus, so many years ago, had said the homoousios Trinity created everything.
After Gideon, Tholas was leader of Israel. In the times of Tholas, there was in Phrygia Marsyas the philosopher, who discovered flutes and reeds for music. He lost his good sense, and deified himself, saying “I have found nourishment for mankind through the melody of musical reads. Marsyas lived on his farm the whole time. Having incurred God’s wrath, he lost his senses and threw himself into the river and died. This river the people of that country call Marsyas until now. The poets tell about him that he came in conflict with Apollo. They say this, it is said, because having committed blasphemy he lost his mind and was killed, which is what the most wise Ninus wrote.

§ 4.77  The most wise Lucian records the following story. He said it is from Colchis. It was during the times of Tholas [Tola] that Herakles the hero, and the Argonauts with Jason the Thessalian, and Castor and Polydeuces and Hylas and Telamon and the rest were ascending the Hellespont. They were attacked suddenly by Cyzicus the king of the Hellespont. They clashed in a sea battle and killed King Cyzicus. Attacking at night, they captured Cyzicus the metropolis of the Hellespont province. When they learned from the citizens and senators that it was Cyzicus they had killed, they mourned him, because he was a relative of theirs and had brought his clan from their country. They asked forgiveness for the mutual ignorance, explained their actions to them, and founded a sanctuary in the city of Cyzicus after the victory. Then the Argonauts went to the oracle which is called the Pythia Therma [Pythian hot waters]. After sacrificing they asked, “Prophesy to us, prophet, Titan, Phoebus Apollo, whose house is this, and what will it be?” The following answer was given them by the Pythia: “Do what summons you to virtue and order (πρὸς ἀρετὴν καὶ κόσμον). I ordain you to fear a single high-ruling god, whose imperishable logos will become pregnant in an unknowing girl, and he will sweep through the whole world like a bow of fire giving life and bring a gift to the Father. Hers shall be the house, Maria her name.”

§ 4.78  The heroes wrote the oracle on stone, marble, with bronze letters, and put it above the doorway of the temple, and called it the house of Rhea, mother of the gods. Many years later, under King Zeno, this house became a church of the holy Theotokos Maria.
The Argonauts set forth from the Hellespont and sailed for the Princess Islands. From there they set their course for Chalcedon, hoping to sail up to the Pontic Sea. Again they were attacked, by Amycus. Afraid of his power, they took refuge in a gulf, thickly wooded and wild. Then they saw in a vision a host driving toward them as if from heaven, and a fearsome man with wings on his shoulders like an eagle's, and he prophesied their victory over Amycus. Encouraged, they attacked Amycus and defeated him. Giving thanks, they built a sanctuary where they had seen the host, and they erected there a stamped image of the host they had seen. They called the place and the sanctuary Sosthenes, because they were saved after fleeing there. The place is called this up to the present.

§ 4.79  After Byzantium became the capital, the great King Constantine came to secure the area and saw the sanctuary. He had become a Christian. Noticing the stamped image on the stele standing there, he said it was the sign in the shape of a solitary angel from the Christian faith. Struck by the place and the building, he prayed to learn what was the power of the stamped image of the angel and lay down to sleep there. In a dream, he heard the name of the power, and immediately roused up and adorned the place, making a prayer toward the east. He named the prayer-hall after the archangel St. Michael.
After the victory over Amycus, the Argonauts set out from there on the Pontic sea for the Golden Fleece. They took it, and Medeia as well, the daughter of Aetes the king of Scythia, from the land of Colchis. The rest, about Jason and Glauce the daughter of Creon the king of Thessaly, who was burned up together with her father by some mischance at her wedding, was recorded by the very wise historian Apollonius.
After Tholas, Aeglon [Elon] the Zebulonite ruled Israel. In those years the Hellenes had another prophetess, the Erythraean Sibyl. Troos ruled over Phrygia in those times, the father of Ilios and Ganymedes. He built two cities, Troy in his own name and Ilion named for his older son.

§ 4.80  He completed the city walls and invited all the toparchs and reigning kings of Europe except Tantalus the king of the Mycenaean country. Tantalus was aggrieved at this, and bore a grudge against him. Before beginning to build the cities, Troos had offered to send gifts and make sacrifices in the sanctuary of Zeus in Europe. When he finished the walls after two years, he sent his younger brother, the one called Ganymede, whom he loved, being younger and handsome, to bring the gifts to the sanctuary of Zeus and fulfill the allotted sacrifice. He gave him 50 men. He crossed over the sea and went to the sanctuary of Zeus. Tantalus learned this and thought he had come to spy on Europe. He sent many armed men and caught Ganymede and those with him before they arrived at the sanctuary. Ganymede fell ill, due to his fearfulness. Tantalus questioned him: “How dare you come as a spy to other people’s kingdoms?” He told him “I and my companions came to sacrifice to Zeus.” Learning this, Tantalus ordered him to wait and recover from the illness. After being ill for three days, Ganymede died. Tantalus ordered that the gifts and sacrifice he brought be given over to the sanctuary of Zeus, and that the body of Ganymede be place in the temple of Zeus as an honor.

§ 4.81  Those who were sent with him made a tomb for him, and placed him in it with this inscription: “Troos, King of Asia, dedicates to Zeus his son Ganymede, who lies here, with the sacrifice.” Tantalus did this as a divine service for his father, for it was not the custom of the Greeks to bury the corpse of a mortal man inside a sacred house, so as not to defile the divine. The most wise Didymus the historian chronicler wrote this. Some say that Ganymede was snatched by an eagle, because this event was more painful than death.
After Troos, Ilios was king of the Phrygians. In that time, the victory in the contest of Pelops the Lydian and Oenomaus the Pisaean, accomplished during the solar festival, was the talk of everyone. Charax the historian wrote about this.
After these years, Sampson, a brave man, a mystic and miracle-worker, was the judge and leader of Israel, as is reported in Hebrew scripture. In those years, Lapathus was king of Egypt. He had two sons, Achaus and Lacon. When he was about to die he ordered his two sons to divide his king and the country in two.

§ 4.82  Achaus, after his father’s death, divided the country in two and gave half of it to his brother Lacon from their paternal kingdom. He called the country he ruled by his own name, Laconike. Lacon ruled for 33 years, and built a city Githillia [Gythion?] on the shore. After him there were many other kings of the Laconians until the reign of Thestius, king of the Laconians, who built a city Thestia by the river Eurotas. Thestius had three daughters, beautiful beyond exaggeration, Leda, Clytia, and Melanippe, who as time passed were called Laconides. Her father Thestius gave Leda in marriage to someone named Tyndarius, who ruled the Laconian land after the death of Thestius. This Tyndarus had a daughter by Leda named Clytemnestra. When she grew up, Agamemnon the King of the land of the Mycenaeans married her. She was a slut and committed adultery with a young senator named Cycnus, the son of Ederion, king of Achaea, who was descended from Picus Zeus, while Tyndarius, Leda’s husband, was unaware of the adultery. Leda fornicated up high in a suburb beside the Eurotas river. She became pregnant by Cycnus the adulterer, the son of King Ederion, and gave birth to triplets, Castor, Polydeuces, and Helene.

§ 4.83  Helene was terribly beautiful, and Tyndarius afterwards gave her in marriage to Menelaus, the king of the Argives and companion of Agamemnon, as the most wise Palaephatus writes, that the poets idly recount this in poetic terms, saying the Zeus became a swan (kyknos) and shamed Leda.
During the time of Sampson, Dardanus the son of Ilios ruled the Phrygian country.
In these years, the king of the Hellenes, that is of Hellas, was someone named Abas, for 23 years. After him, Proetus ruled 17 years. His wife Stheneboea or Anteia loved Bellerophontes. She sent messengers to him, but he didn’t agree, saying, “King Proetus found me on lying on the ground in front of his palace and raised me and thought me worthy to eat with him, honoring me like a son. So I should do something like this against him? This is not lawful for Hellenes.” Stheneboea heard this and thought, maybe, since he speaks freely to him, like a son, he will tell him that she was in love with him and had sent people to him. Secretly she told her husband, “Bellerophontes is in love with me and comes for me, and I am afraid that he will give me poison and I will die, because I keep my self-restraint for you as someone who loves her husband.”

§ 4.84  So Proetus told her, “The law for the Greeks is not to harm someone you eat with. So I will send him to your father Iobates, someone he has never eaten with, and will write asking him to kill him for plotting against my kingdom and yours.” He did this and gave him a letter stamped with the royal seal. Bellerophontes took the letter, not knowing the plot against him, and went to King Iobates, and found him at breakfast. When Iobates learned that he had come, he summoned him as someone dear to his son-in-law Proetus, and ordered him to eat with him, like a son. When he accepted the letters and read what was written, and realized that they had eaten together, he said to himself, that this man is accused rather, but if he were planning something evil, justice would not have made him eat with me, since the law for the Greeks is not to harm the person you eat with. He wrote this to his son-in-law and the rest is as Euripides the tragic poet wrote, fulfilling the play.
After the reign of Proetus, the second Acrisius was king for 31 years, and after the victory against Oenomaus, Pelops was king for 32 years, from whom the Helladics were called Peloponnesians. He built a city, which he called Peloponnesos. From then on, the kingdom of Hellas was also called Peloponnese.

§ 4.85  In these years, Democritus taught philosophical things. In his philosophical writing he wrote this, that someone who wanted to be a philosopher must practice self-restraint, must abstain from all evils, always think and do properly. When someone philosophizes in this way, then he will learn the nine-letter name and will see the Son of God, the Impassible Word, the suffering one, the one about to appear. This is treated in the composition of Theophilus the most wise chronicler.
In these years Hippocrates used to philosophize, expounding medical philosophy.
After the reign of Pelops, Atreus was king for 20 years, and after him Thyestes for 16 years, and after him Agamemnon for 18 years, and after him Aegisthus for 7 years. The kingdom of the Hellenes or Peloponnesians lasted 174 years.
In the above-mentioned years, first Minoos was king of Crete, the son of Europa. He ruled the seas, after waging war on the Athenians, and established laws. The most wise Plato, they say, wrote about him in his memoranda on the laws.

§ 4.86  Daedalus and Icarus were in those years, famous because of Pasiphae, the wife of King Minoos, and Taurus her clerk. In adultery with him, she bore a son called Minotaur, with Daedalus and Icarus the intermediaries in her prostituting herself. King Minoos shut up Pasiphae in the bedroom with two slave girls to bring her food, and he left her there and no longer saw her. Depressed at the loss of her royal status, she was struck by illness and died. Daedalus and Icarus were killed. Icarus escaped the guard, but sank while sailing, while Daedalus had his throat cut. Euripides the poet published a play about Pasiphae.
In those years Herakles the mystic initiate performed labors. He went to Libya and fought with Antaeus, who was also a mystic doing Earth-related things. Herakles defeated and killed him. Herakles was struck by illness after the victory, and threw himself into a fire and died, concerning which the most wise Didymus has written. After Dardanus, his son Laomedon ruled over Ilion.
After Sampson, Eli the priest ruled over Israel.
In the above years, Androgeus the son of Pasiphae and Minoos, the king of Crete, died.

§ 4.87  Minoos himself likewise died. When about to die, he commanded that the Minotaur be king of Crete. After his death, the Minotaur ruled Crete, the son of Pasiphae and Taurus her clerk. Considering it an insult to be ruled by the Minotaur, the child of adultery, the Senate plotted against him and incited Theseus, since he was brave, the son of Aegeus the king of Thessaly, to fight him. They agreed to betray the Minotaur and the whole country, and to give him as his wife the sister, Ariadne, the daughter of Pasiphae and King Minoos – he had from Pasiphae and Minoos Androgeus and Ariadne. Theseus came to Crete suddenly against him, and all the senators and the army left the Minotaur and decided to flee the city Gortyn. Learning of their treachery, the Minotaur fled into the Labyrinth country. He went up a mountain and entered a cave to hide. Chasing him, Theseus learned from someone where he was hiding. He ejected him and killed him immediately. Entering Gortyn, he celebrated a triumph for his victory over the Minotaur. He was acclaimed by the senators and the whole country. He asked to go back to Aegeus his father in order to celebrate a triumph for his victory with him too. Before he sailed to his father, some sailor went and told King Aegeus, Theseus’ father,

§ 4.88  that the Minotaur had escaped from the city. He assumed that the Cretans had made a deception. So he said this about them, “Cretans are always liars,” and threw himself in the sea and died. Theseus came and found him dead, and was persuaded by his own Senate to spurn the kingdom of Crete and Ariadne and rule his father’s Thessaly. He brought a wife Ilia called Phaedra. Ariadne went into the sanctuary of Zeus and remained a virgin priestess, until she died.
In those years, the lying desire of Phaedra for Hippolytus her stepson, son of Theseus by a concubine, became widely known. The very wise Euripides wrote a poetic play about her afterwards. The events regarding Phaedra took place 52 years after the death of Pasiphae, as the most wise chronicler Domninus noted. Phaedra was perfect in appearance, well-dressed, long-faced, proper. Hippolytus was perfect in appearance, muscular, dark-complected, short-haired, a bit snub-nosed, flat-faced, with big teeth, sparse-bearded, a hunter, calm and proper. King Theseus heard what was widely known in the city about his wife Ilia Phaedra, and was unhappy with her. Though angry at his son Hippolytus, he didn’t show it to them.

§ 4.89  He took a white bull and gave it as a sacrifice to Poseidon, cursing his son Hippolytus and asking that he died unpleasantly. After three months it happened. As Hippolytus went out hunting on horseback to chase a wild boar, his horse stumbled, and he was unseated and fell on the ground, his left hand still holding the horse’s bridle. The strap got wrapped around his arm, and he was dragged by the horse. Wounded in the head, he was brought by the slaves to the city and the palace. On the sixth day after the head wound he died, age 22. King Theseus mourned him and spoke out to Phaedra about his grief, reproaching her. He told her what was talked about in the city and country regarding Hippolytus and her. Phaedra heard this and admitted that she did not know any such thing, but the people of the city had wrongly suspected her in spreading this abuse. Theseus did not believe her, but ashamed, including before the Senate, put her out of his sight and commanded that he never see her. He was sorry for the death of his son, whom he loved. Phaedra, as a very proper person, was distraught at the false accusation from the city and country, and ashamed at being putting away by her husband. She did away with herself, and died age 39, as the very wise Kephalion wrote, saying they falsely mythologized about the proper Phaedra, her desire for Hippolytus, shaping the story about her poetically.

§ 4.90  In those years, first Eurystheus was king of the Lacedaemonians for 32 years. There were eight other kings after him, altogether reigning for 246 years. And Alkmainos 37 years. The Kingdom of the Lacedaemonians lasted 325 years in all, as the most wise Africanus wrote.
After Eli the prophet of the Judaeans, the first king of the Judaeans was Saul, the son of Kis, from the tribe of Benjamin, for 20 years, in the city Gabaon. Of the Corinthians after the Lacedaemonians, Aletes was king then for 35 years. Another 11 kings, 267 years. Last, […] ruled, for one year. The kingdom of the Corinthians lasted in all 313 years.
In the years of Saul, the Pisaeans first thought up the Olympic competition, and celebrated the secular festival of Olympian Zeus, about which the most wise Africanus has chronicled. In this time, Samuel the prophet was the priest of the Judaeans. He put forward by God’s command King David of the Judaean nation, the son of Jesse.

§ 5.91  BOOK 5 TROJAN TIMES
In the times of David, Priam son of Laomedon was king of Ilion, that is the country of the Phrygians. In his reign, Ilion and Dardanon and Troy and all the country of Phrygia were sacked by the Achaeans. Among these are storied Agamemnon and Menelaus and the others with Neoptolemos Pyrros, who mobilized against Ilion because of the theft of Helene by Paris Alexander. For he was smitten with her. Helene was full-grown, well-dressed, with fine breasts, white as snow, with beautiful eyebrows, a beautiful nose, shapely, curly-haired, blonde-ish, with big eyes, charming, with a beautiful voice, a formidable sight among women. She was 26 years old. This excuse was the beginning of the evils of the destruction of Troy and all the Phrygian land and kingdoms.

§ 5.92  When Paris was born to Hecuba, Priam, his father, went to the oracle of Apollo to inquire about his newborn son. This oracle was given to him: “So you has been born a son Paris, a dys-Paris, who will destroy the kingdoms of the Phrygians when he becomes thirty years old.” Hearing this, Priam immediately renamed him Alexander, and sent him to a countryside place named Amandra, to be fed on milk by some farmer, until the thirty years of the oracle had passed. Priam, his father, left Paris Alexander in the countryside and made a large fortification in the place and called it the city of Parion. Paris remained there to be brought up, spending time and studying. He became eloquent and well-educated, and composed a speech in praise of Aphrodite, saying there was no greater goddess than she, not Hera nor Athena. He said in his composition that Aphrodite was Desire, and from Desire all things were born. This is why they say that Paris judged between Pallas and Hera and Aphrodite and gave Aphrodite the apple, i.e., the victory, saying that Desire, that is, Aphrodite, gives birth to everything, to children, wisdom, propriety, the arts, and all other things in reasoning and unreasoning creatures.

§ 5.93  There is nothing greater and better. Paris even composed a hymn to her, the Keston (embroidered). After 32 years had passed, Priam figured that the time of 30 years given by the oracle about Paris has passed, so he sent and brought Alexander Paris back from the countryside with all honor. Priam saw him as splendid in looks, strength, and speech, and ordered him to take gifts and to go and sacrifice in Greece to Daphnaean Apollo, saying “he has pitied my old age and averted the evils. Look, the time of the oracle has passed.” King Priam made letters for Paris to all the kings or toparchs of Europe, so that they would receive his son Paris Alexander when he went on the vow to sacrifice to Apollo. Then he sent Paris away, and sent with him gifts for the kings. He left on Daisios or June 15, after 57 days of his presence in Troy. He sailed with many royal gifts, and had 100 young Phrygian men with him.

§ 5.94  They arrived in the city Sparto (Sparta) in Greece, king or toparch of which was Menelaus the son of Pleisthenes. This Menelaus was brought up in the palaces of Atreus, king of the Argives, together with Agamemnon, Atreus’ son. From there, the two were called Atreidai. Menelaus was ready to sail immediately for Crete with his relatives, since he ought to sacrifice to Zeus and Europa in Gortyna, the city of Crete, when Paris came to him in Sparta. Menelaus had a custom to make festivals and sacrifices in that time every year in memory of Europa, since he was of her lineage. When he received Alexander Paris and the letters from King Priam of Phrygia and Asia and the gifts he gave, he embraced Paris Alexander and received him favorably, like his own son. He allocated to him and those with him food and all sorts of consumables in his own palace, and every service, and told him to stay in the city as many days as he wished, asking him to stay and get over the malaise of the sea voyage and then to go fulfill the order to sacrifice in the sanctuary of Apollo. Menelaus immediately set him up in much comfort and sailed for Crete, leaving him in his own palace.
While Menelaus was crossing to Crete to sacrifice to Zeus Asterios and Europa in Gortyna,

§ 5.95  Helene happened to come down to the walled garden (paradeisos) of the palace in order to swing/be suspended (in a hammock?) with Aethra the relative of Menelaus from Pelops and Clytemnestra from the lineage of Europa. Paris peeked into the walled garden and was entranced by the youth and beauty of Helene. He fell in love with her, and through Aethra, the relative of Menelaus from Pelops and Clytemnestra of the lineage of Europa, he seduced Helene, took her, and fled on the ships he had with him from Troy, along with 300 litra of money and much valuable jewelry and silver, together with Aethra from the lineage of Pelops and Clytemnestra from the lineage of Europa, and five slave chambermaids, and they crossed over to Sidon, and from there to Proteus, King of Egypt, without having gone to the sanctuary of Apollo and made the sacrifice in Greece. When the soldiers guarding Menelaus’ palace learned of the flight of Helene, they were frightened, and immediately sent three soldiers from Sparta of Greece to Gortyna of Crete to report to King Menelaus the theft of Helene by Paris, and that he took along with her Aethra his and Clytemnestra’s relative. Menelaus on hearing this was flabbergasted. He was very sorry about Aethra, for she was esteemed by him as being very proper.

§ 5.96  He immediately set sail and returned to Greece to the city Sparta, and sent everywhere to search for Helene and Paris and those with them. They were not found.
After a time, Paris came from Egypt with Helene and the money and all her wealth. Priam and Hecuba saw Helene with Paris and marveled that she had such beauty. They inquired of her who she was, of what parentage. Helene said “I am a relative of Alexander and/or Paris”, and rather to be related to Priam and Hecuba and not to Menelaus the son of Pleisthenes. She said he was of Danaus and Agenor the Sidonians, and from the lineage of Priam, and she was of his lineage. From Plesione the daughter of Danaus were born Atlas and Electra, and from her King Dardanus, from whom Troos, and the kings of Ilion. And through Phoenix, the son of Agenor, whose descendant King Dynas was, the father of Hecuba. Leda was said to be of the lineage of Dynas. Having said this, Helene asked Priam and Hecuba not to betray her, and swore that she had taken nothing of Menelaus’ things, but only what was hers.

§ 5.97  So Hecuba embraced her, kissed her, and held her in high esteem.
When Agamemnon, Menelaus, et al. learned the presence of Helene at Troy with Paris, they send ambassadors to have Helene given back. Clytemnestra, her sister, nagged her husband Agamemnon, the king of Argos, for Helene her sister to return. She wrote letters to her and gave them to Menelaus, who was supposed to persuade Helene. Menelaus came to Priam to seek Helene his wife, before the war. The Priamidai (sons of Priam) were not persuaded to send her back. So the Atreid kings mobilized against Ilion, recruiting champions and toparchs. They entreated Peleus and his wife Thetis and her father Cheiron the philosopher king, to provide Achilles, the son of Thetis and Peleus and grandson of Cheiron. This Cheiron sent and brought him. For he was spending time with King Lycomedes, the father in law of Achilles and father of Deidamia on the island. Achilles went with the Atreidai, having his own army with him, called Myrmidons then but now called Bulgars, three thousand, with Patrocles the camp commander (stratopedarches) and Nestor. They were entreated by Cheiron and Peleus and Thetis into going with Achilles.

§ 5.98  Achilles alone went with his army of the Myrmidons and Argives to Ilion. The Atreid kings recruited or entreated the other kings or toparchs and the champions from each country of Europe, each with his army and ships. They all sailed and assembled in the land called Aulis. Winter weather was coming and the seer Calchas said they needed to give a sacrifice to the goddess Artemis of that country, his own daughter. Odysseus went to Argos, pretending he had letters from Agamemnon, and brought back his daughter Iphigeneia. Seeing her coming, Agamemnon wept bitterly. But he feared the army and the toparchs and gave her up to be sacrificed to Artemis. While she was going up to the sanctuary of Artemis to be slaughtered, a deer cut across their path, running between the kings and the army and the priest and the virgin Iphigeneia. The priest and seer saw this: “Catch the deer and bring it for sacrifice instead of Iphigeneia.” The deer was caught and killed for Artemis, and Iphigeneia was given back to her father Agamemnon. Agamemnon left here there in the sanctuary as priestess of Artemis. So then Agamemnon was proclaimed king overall by the army. From there they set forth against Troy.

§ 5.99  When the Hellenes came to Troy, the Trojans resisted them and did not permit them to approach. Many were killed on both sides, among whom was Protesilaus, the champion of the Danaans, and the Danaans made no progress, until they went around them. They landed on the coastal land of Troy and tied the ships with ropes. At evening the Trojans entered the city and secured the gates. At midnight, a certain Cycnus of the lineage of Priam, one of those nearby, heard the presence of the Hellenes in Troy. He left Nea of Andros (Neandria) city with a large, warlike crowd and attacked them. When battle was joined during the night, Cycnus was killed by Achilles, and those with him fell before daybreak. So the Danaans decided to capture the cities near Ilion and Troy, which were allied with Priam. They made a sworn compact that they would bring everything they captured to the kings and champions and the camp. They appointed Achilles and Ajax son of Telamon and Diomedes. Diomedes immediately set forth and captured Neandria), the city whose champion was Cycnus, and plundered the territory. He took [Cycnus’] two sons, Kobes and Kokarkos, and his daughter Glauke, who was 11 years old and beautiful, and all his property and that of the country, and brought it all to the middle of the army.

§ 5.100  Achilles immediately left with the Argives and Myrmidons, his own army, and attacked the city Lesbos and its country, ruled by Phorbas, a relative of Priam who felt great enmity toward the Hellenes. Achilles captured the country and city and killed Phorbas. He took everything in the kingdom, and his daughter Diomede. The girl was fair-skinned, round-faced, blue-eyed, fully grown, not quite blonde, a little snub-nosed, 22 years old, a virgin. He came and brought everything to the Hellenes’ army. So then he set forth again toward the Euxine sea, and erased the country, pillaging it. He captured Lyrnesos city, killed King Eetion, who controlled it, and took captive his wife, Astynome, the daughter of Chryses, the priest of Apollo (she was renamed Chryseis), and brought her and the wealth of the country in his ships. Astynome or Chryseis was rather short, slender fair, blonde, with a nice nose, small breasts, 19 years old. He also killed the army that Eetion has incited against him, of Cilicians, who came in alliance with him and the Trojans. From there he set forth against the sons of Brises, the cousin (or nephew) of Priam, in Legopolis.

§ 5.101  He despoiled the whole country, besieged the city, killed many men, and captured the city. He took captive the daughter of Brises, Hippodameia (renamed Briseis), who was the wife of Menetes, the king of Legopolis, and killed her brothers Andros and Thyas. Menetes, the husband of Hippodameia or Briseis, was not in Legopolis but had gone off to recruit an allied army of Phrygians from Lycia and Lykaonia. King Menetes arrived with his army of Lycians and Lykaonians immediately after the country had been captured by Achilles, along with the city and his wife Hippodameia or Briseis. He did not yield, but he and those with him engaged immediately, despite the fatigue of the road, and fought bitterly with Achilles, until he was hit by a spear by one Eurytion, one of the exarchs with Achilles from his varied army. All those with Menetes were killed. Hippodameia or Briseis was tall, fair, beautiful-breasted, well-dressed, with close-knit eyebrows, a good nose, big eyes, eyelashes with kohl, curly hair worn long in back, with a ready smile, age 21. Seeing her, Achilles desired her, and fell in love with her. He hid her in his own tent and did not bring her to the host of Hellenes. The money, and Astynome Chryseis and all the other things he brought very close to the champions and the army and the kings.

§ 5.102  Everyone recognized about the daughter of Brisos, the wife of Menetos, that Achilles hid her, after behaving properly, and they were aggrieved with him and angry at him because he violated his oath because of his love for her. Everyone was reviling him because he hid her. They gathered in a conventus and blocked Achilles from attacking and capturing cities and despoiling countries, appointing others in place of him, Teucer the brother of Telamonian Ajax, and Idomeneus. They captured Cyprus and Isauria and Lycia, despoiling and destroying them. Telamonian Ajax launched an attack on the Thracians in the Chersonese and besieged them and their king Polymestor. Polymestor feared the man’s strength, and gave him much gold and wheat for one year’s consumption by the Achaean army, and gave up the youngest son of Priam, Polydorus by name, having accepted charge of him from Priam his father, along with much money. For Priam loved Polydorus as the youngest of all and as handsome. For this reason he entrusted him to another country, so that as a small child he not be disturbed hearing the fighting. Polymestor made a written treaty with Ajax not to fight as an ally of Priam. Then attacking from the far side, Ajax came at King Teuthras.

§ 5.103  When battle was joined, he killed him with a sword. Having sacked his city and taken everything, including his daughter Tekmessa, he brought his wealth and everything by night to the Hellenes. Tekmessa was well-decked out for her age, dark-skinned, with good eyes, a fine nose, black hair, delicate features, a virgin, 17 years old. The Danaans stood Polydorus the son of Priam opposite the wall and declared to Priam that he should send Helene and take Polydorus his son, and there would be peace. Then we will kill him. The sons of Priam did not accept sending back Helene. So the Danaans, angry, took him in front of the walls and slaughtered him, with the Trojans watching from above.
[…] from the movement of the seven planets by fatal fortune bringing joys and griefs to men, defining the table the earthly order, the twelve cells of the zodiac number, the dice-box and the seven tokens the seven stars, the tower the height of heaven from which is given back to all good and evil[ …]
Meriones was shortish, wide, white, good beard, big eyes, black hair, curly hair, flat face, bent nose, quick-moving, magnanimous, a warrior.

§ 5.104  Idomeneus: above average height, dark-skinned, good eyes, well set, strong, good nose, thick beard, good head, curly hair, a berserker when fighting.
Philoctetes, a good height, well set, dark skinned, eyebrows meeting, brave, good eyes, good nose, black hair, hairy, sensible, accurate archer, magnanimous.
Ajax the Locrian, tall, strong, tawny, squinting, good nose, curly hair, black hair, thick beard, long face, daring warrior, magnanimous, a womanizer.
Pyrros and/or Neoptolemos, of good stature, good chest, thin, white, good nose, ruddy hair, wooly hair, light-eyed, big-eyed, blond eyebrows, blond beginnings of a beard, round-faced, precipitate, daring, agile, a fierce fighter. He was the son of Achilles by Deidamia, the daughter of Lycomedes. After the death of his father he was sent by Thetis and Peleus, his grandfather, at the request of the Achaeans, to avenge his father’s blood after Achilles was murdered by guile. Having armed, he mobilized against Troy with 22 ships from Peleus, taking an army of Myrmidons, 1750 in number. Sailing away, he reached Troy, and found in his father’s tents Hippodameia Briseis, the guard of the possessions of Achilles. He received her and held her in much honor,

§ 5.105  asking her to be the guard of his own things in the paternal tent. After a short time, Briseis died, struck down by illness.
Calchas was short, white, all grey, including the beard, hairy, a very fine seer and omen-reader.
The best men of Troy were these:
Priam: tall for the age, big, good, ruddy-colored, light-eyed, long-nosed, eyebrows meeting, keen-eyed, gray, restrained.
Hector: dark-skinned, tall, very stoutly built, strong, good nose, wooly-haired, good beard, squinting, speech defect, noble, fearsome warrior, deep-voiced.
Deiphobos: above average stature, keen-eyed, somewhat snub-nosed, dark-skinned, flat-faced, brave, good beard.
Helenus: tall, well set up, white, strong, blond, wine-colored eyes, long-nosed, incipient beard, slightly stooped, sensible, warrior.
Troilos: big, good nose, dark, good eyes, black hair, thick beard, strong warrior and runner.
Paris and/or Alexander: well-grown, sturdy, white, good nose, good eyes, black pupils, black hair, incipient beard, long-faced, heavy eyebrows, big mouth, charming, eloquent, agile, an accurate archer, cowardly, hedonist.

§ 5.106  Aeneas: shortish, thick, good chest, strong, ruddy, flat-faced, good nose, pale, balding, good beard.
Glaucus: strong, sensible, pious.
Antenor: tall, thin, white, blond, small-eyed, hook-nosed, crafty, cowardly, secure, a story-teller, eloquent.
Hecuba: dark, good eyes, full grown, good nose, beautiful, generous, talkative, calm.
Andromache: above average height, thin, well turned out, good nose, good breasts, good eyes, good brows, wooly hair, blondish hair long in back, large-featured, good neck, dimples on her cheeks, charming, quick.
Cassandra: shortish, round-faced, white, mannish figure, good nose, good eyes, dark pupils, blondish, curly, good neck, bulky breasts, small feet, calm, noble, priestly, an accurate prophet foreseeing everything, practicing hard, virgin.
Polyxene: tall, pure, very white, large-eyed, black-haired, with her hair worn long behind, a good nose and cheeks, blooming-lipped, small-footed, virgin, charming, very beautiful, 18 years old when they killed her,

§ 5.107  as the most wise Dictys from Crete wrote in his memoirs, the foregoing and all the rest, on the Greeks who mobilized against Ilion. For he was with Idomeneus the champion of the Danaans when he came to the war with the other Achaeans. He chanced to be the scribe for Idomeneus, saw exactly what happened, and wrote about it as one who was present then in those times with the Hellenes. He listed those who were recruited by Kings Agamemnon and Menelaus, and those who took arms and came with the fleet to Ilion, each with his own army and ship. The one who launched before the others was Agamemnon, the son of Atreus, king of the Mycenaeans, with 100 ships, plus 30 ships in the record of supply ships for the camps. Peneleus and Leistos and Arcesilaus and Prothoenor and Clonius with 50 ships; Elephenor from Euboea with 60 ships; Diomedes from Argos with 80 ships; Ascalaphus and Ialmenos with 30 ships. Schedius and Epistrophus with 40 ships; Meges from Doliche of Hellas with 40 ships; Telamonian Ajax from Salamis with [12 ships; Antimachus and Thalpius and Dores with] 40 ships; Nestor with 90 ships; Thoas with 40 ships; Agenor and Teuthides with 60 ships; Prothoos and Magnitor with 40 ships; Eumenos with 11 ships; Nereus from Mykene with 3 ships;

§ 5.108  Chalcas from Trikke with 40 ships; Eurypylos from Asterion with 40 ships, Leonteus and Polypoetes with 30 ships; Amphigenias from Ilion [garble, Amphigeneia city near Pylos, Pteleon?] with 43 ships; Menestheus from Athens with 50 ships; Idomeneus and Meriones from Crete with 80 ships; Odysseus from Cephalenia Ithaca with 12 ships; Tlepolemus from Lindos with 9 ships; Ajax the Locrian with 9 ships; Achilles from Argos of Hellas with Patroclus, with 50 ships; Protesilaus and Podarces with 40 ships; Palamedes with 12 ships; Philoctetes from Mothone with 22 ships; Nereus from Peraiba with 22 ships, Sorthes, Philippus, Antiphus with 68 ships. The total ships of the Hellenes were 1250. They sailed in accordance with their mandate first to Aulis, and setting out from there they sacked the kingdoms in the country of the Phrygians, as related above, capturing King Priam and killing him and Queen Hecuba, taking their children captives and plundering their palaces they returned to their own lands. The kingdom of Ephesus of all Asia and Troy of Phrygia lasted 819 years in all.
After the fall of Troy, all the Achaeans divided up the spoils and money, wishing to set out for their own homelands and preparing their ships. Some sailed away, but the famous ones stayed, with Telamonian Ajax and Odysseus and Diomedes coming to blows.

§ 5.109  Telamonian Ajax sought to take the bretas [cult figure], which is the Palladium, a small wooden figure of Pallas, said to be a talisman of victory that would keep the city where it lay immune from capture. A certain Asios, a philosopher and shaman, gave the Palladium to King Troos when he was about to found the city. In gratitude, King Troos renamed the whole country Asia, that was formerly called Epitropon, as his memorial. Odysseus and Diomedes stole the bretas on the advice of Antenor, the Trojan exarch, whose wife, named Theano, was priestess of Pallas, where the bretas lay. Odysseus and Diomedes et al. came at night and slept in the sanctuary of Pallas when the Phrygians and Hellenes had the festival of offerings. The Danaans did this, since an oracle was given to them that “It is not possible for you to capture Troy unless you take away the Palladium.” Telamonian Ajax wanted to take it to his homeland, arguing “It’s owed to me for what I did for the Achaeans. It’s enough for me that Hector abandoned the fight with me in our single combat. And I made an assault on the gate of Troy, chasing the Trojans back on my own, and I saved the ships of all you Hellenes, killing many of the Trojan heros and was unwounded myself.

§ 5.110  It is enough for me, I think, and this for glory, that I dragged the body of Achilles to the tents from the sanctuary of Thymbrian Apollo.”
Odysseus resisted him, saying, “I will take it to my city. You haven’t done more than I for the Greeks. From the beginning, after the theft of Helene by Paris, I set forth for Ilion with Palamedes and King Menelaus. I similarly sent invitations everywhere to the kings and heroes. I was the one who engineered the death of Paris. When as you know, battle was joined between Trojans and Greeks, and many had fallen, and the leaders of the Trojans and Greeks were just standing there wondering how to judge the outcome of the war, it was I who recruited the hero Philoctetes to challenge Paris to an archery duel. Philoctetes came up suddenly through the kings and challenged Paris to an archery duel. Paris heard this and came out against him with his bow, together with his brother Deiphobus. I went out and measured off a space of ground for them, where they needed to stand. They drew lots and Paris got to shoot first. Paris shot and missed. I shouted to Philoctetes to take courage. Philoctetes shot back and pierced Paris’s left hand. Immediately he launched a second he took out his right eye.

§ 5.111  With Paris moaning and turning to run, he sent another arrow that pinned his legs together at the ankle, and Paris fell. They all grabbed the body of Paris and fled. When they reached the city, they call his three sons, the ones he had with Helene, Bounimos and Korythaios and Idaios. He saw the little ones, fell unconscious, and gave up his soul during the night. When she saw him, his previous wife Oenoe killed herself with a noose. Deiphobus, Priam’s other son, who as you all know was cut in pieces by King Menelaus, took Helene as his wife. I counseled that Polyxene be taken to the tomb of Achilles and slaughtered by the hero Pyrrhus.” And Odysseus shouted and said, “What am I worthy of, who engineered the destruction of Paris to avenge Menelaus and Achilles and all the Greeks?”
Agamemnon acclaimed him, and many in the army. Again Odysseus spoke, “I will not pass over in silence the other dangers which I face together with Diomedes, when we wanted to take the divine bretas: how we spent time in Ilion with the barbarians, and all that happened at night in escaping to the camp, we declared to you the kings, narrating the same events I say now. For the Trojans were carrying out a sacrifice

§ 5.112  on the occasion of the Offerings, and this sign happened on the altar of Apollo. They kept putting fire on the altar for the sacrifice, but it didn’t burn. After they had set the fire many times and it failed to burn, everything fell off the altar onto the ground. Since there were other signs also, the Trojans understood and said there was nothing good for them in the omens. The Trojan exarchs and Priam and the army compelled Antenor to go to you kings and through his embassy to persuade you Danaans to take a ransom and end the war. And we went and told all this to you. Antenor arrived on his embassy and said his message from Priam and the others: “Kings of the Hellenes, act as friends and not as foes. We have suffered everything sinners ought to suffer. For the injustice Alexander Paris did to Menelaus, Ilion has paid the penalty. The tombs of those lost in battle are witness to this. We survivors bring ransom to you on behalf of gods, homeland, children. Then, as Hellenes, you were unpersuaded. But now save us suppliants, and take the coined money. You all were persuaded by Antenor, and sent me and Diomedes to Priam to negotiate the amount of money.

§ 5.113  We entered Troy to see Priam, and with many things in motion, we settled on giving you two talents of gold and an equal amount of silver in addition. We came back to you to announce what had been agreed. We brought back the agreed terms, and all of you swore on the sacrifices not to sail away from Ilion before making the Wooden Horse from suitable timber and ornamenting it with every art. We decided to sail across to Tenedos, burning our tents. The barbarians, believing we had sailed away, would remain comfortably feasting, and returning at night from Tenedos and attacking, we would burn the city, kill Priam, and give Helene back to the kingdom of Pleisthenes. My advice prevailed, and the gods granted us victory against the barbarians. So you, kings and heroes, be judges of my deeds.
Agamemnon and Diomedes and his army took up the cause of Odysseus, while that of Telamonian Ajax was taken up by Neoptolemus Pyrros, since he was of his lineage, and his army. Many others moved between them until evening, and finally it seemed good for Diomedes to take the Palladium on consignment and guard it until daylight, and each of them relaxed so that in the following way the Palladium would be given to whichever of them it was necessary to give it.

§ 5.114  Ajax, being opposed to Odysseus and Agamemnon and Diomedes, went away to his tent. During the night, Ajax was killed with an iron blade, and in the morning his body was found. His army and that of Pyrrhus rose up against Odysseus, wanting to murder him, so Odysseus took his ships and fled, sailing into the Pontic Sea. Having spent some time there, he returned from there, wanting to return to Ithaca, his homeland, with his ships and army. When he landed at the country called Maronis, there was resistance from the locals. He did battle, defeated them, and became the owner of a lot of money. He internalized the idea that whatever country he showed up at, he could defeat the people of the country and take its wealth away with him. He arrived at the Land of the Lotus-eaters and engaged them in battle. The people of that country defeated him, and only by a little they all avoided being killed. Fleeing from there, he was caught in a storm and carried a long voyage to the island Sikila, now called Sicily. This island was very large, and divided among three large, powerful brothers who looked after one another. I mean Cyclops and Antiphantes and Polyphemus, the sons born to Sicanus, the king of the island. These three brothers were rough men who never welcomed strangers, but killed them instead.

§ 5.115  Making a landing with his ships and army in the part belonging to Antiphantes, he engaged in battle with Antiphantes and his army of Laestrygones. They killed a fair number of Odysseus’ army, so taking his own ship he sailed away from there to another part of the island, that belonging to Cyclops, the Cyclopia mountains. When he learned this, Cyclops came against him with his escort. He was large and ugly. Attacking suddenly against Odysseus, who was approaching the land belonging to him, Cyclops cut down many and captured Odysseus and some of his army. He took one of those captured, named Mikkalion, a brave man who had excelled at Troy and was a leader of Odysseus’ army. Holding him by the hair of his head while Odysseus and all his company watched, he disemboweled him with the sword he carried, for having fought against him. He locked up the rest, wanting to kill them all bit by bit. Odysseus fell at his feet and persuaded him with a lot of money and gifts to let him and his surviving men go. Once Cyclops was persuaded by the gift of money, he declared that he would free them at evening. He wanted to attack at night and kill him and his men and take all the wealth and ships they brought.

§ 5.116  So about evening he released him and his men. Immediately on being released, Odysseus, terrified of the savagery of the man, immediately sailed from his territory. Cyclops attacked at night. Not finding the ships, in his rage he commanded stones to be thrown in the sea, so that they might be carried back to land. It was the middle of the night, with darkness covering earth and sea, so not knowing these places they approached another part of the island, belonging to Polyphemus the brother of Cyclops and Antiphantes. This Polyphemus, learning that someone had sailed at night and approached his territory, immediately took his own escort and engaged in battle with Odysseus. They fought all night, and many fell on Odysseus’ side. In the morning, Odysseus brought gifts to Polyphemus and fell at his feet, saying that he had come wandering lost from the Trojan places, with much compulsion from the waves, and he listed for him all the various events and misfortunes that happened to him. This Polyphemus sympathized with him and took pity. He took in him and his men, until there would be suitable sailing. Polyphemus’ daughter Elpe became amorously disposed toward some handsome man in Odysseus’s crew, named Leion. When a favorable wind blew, they kidnapped her and set forth from Sicily.

§ 5.117  The most wise Sisyphus the Coan related these things. The wise Euripides published a play about Cyclops, that he had three eyes, signifying the three brothers, as sympathizing with each other, monitoring each other’s parts of the island, and fighting as allies and avenging each other. And that Odysseus was able to flee Cyclops after getting him drunk with wine, because Odysseus got Cyclops drunk with lots of money and gifts so his people wouldn’t be eaten; and that Odysseus took a torch and blinded his one eye, because he kidnapped the only daughter of his brother Polyphemus, Elpe, a virgin burning with the torch of erotic fire, that is, one of the eyes of Cyclops burned, Polyphemus, when his daughter was taken away. The most wise Phidalios [Pheidias] the Corinthian published this interpretation, that the wise Euripides poetically translated everything, not having agreed with the wandering of Odysseus published by the most wise Homer.
Odysseus came from Sicily to the Aeolian islands, where he was welcomed by Aeolus, king of the islands. When he was about to die, he divided the two islands to his daughters, and they were queens of the two islands. Circe was priestess of Helios, having been given by her father as an infant to be raised in the sanctuary in the island Aiaia. When she grew up, she became a mystic magus. She was very attractive.

§ 5.118  Her sister Calypso envied her and cherished great enmity toward her. She said, “Why does she deny her father Atlas and say she is the daughter of the Titan Helios?” Circe was afraid of her, since Calypso had a crowd of brave men on her island, and might get angry and attack her and treat her badly. So Circe, unable to recruit anyone into alliance as her guards, prepared a potion from some herbs. They say she welcomed foreign travelers, and through a dose of the drink, a terrible potion of servitude, staying on, and forgetfulness of homeland, she made the foreigners who drank it join (or have intercourse with) her. All remained with her to excess on her island, forgetting their homeland. She gathered many.
When Circe learned that Odysseus’ ships had reached her island, she ordered her people to receive Odysseus and his army zealously. She wanted to have him and his men as her allies in war. As soon as Odysseus came to her island he saw many men on the island from various homelands. He recognized some men from the Achaean army, went up to them, and asked them: “Why are you living on this island?” They told him

§ 5.119  “We are from the Achaean army, and the force of the waves drove us ashore on this island. We accepted a magical drink from Queen Circe and were hit with a terrible love for her. This is our home now, having forsworn all others.” When Odysseus heard this, he gathered all his men and ordered them to take no share of anything given to them by Circe, whether food or drink, because it had some manganeia, but to partake only of the food and drink provided them by the commissariat of King Aeolus or from the stores they previously had in their ships. When Circe brought him and the army and sailors food and drink, they did not accept anything at all from her. Learning this, Circe supposed that Odysseus knew some mystical magic and had foreknowledge of her plots, so she sent to him to come to the sanctuary. He came to her with an armed escort and Achaean craziness (απονοίας), bringing Trojan gifts for her. When she saw him and his escort, she asked him to stay on the island until the winter weather had passed. She gave him her oath in the sanctuary that she would do nothing to harm him or any of those with him. Persuaded, Odysseus stayed with her a short time, having marital intercourse with her, at her own desire. The most wise Sisyphus the Coan and Dictys from Crete related these things about Circe.

§ 5.120  The most wise Homer poetically expressed that through a magic drink she changed the forms of the men she caught, making some lion-shaped, others dog-heads (baboons?), others pig-shaped, others bear-shaped and pig-headed. The wise Phidalios, the Corinthian mentioned above, expounded this poetic composition, interpreting it as follows: that it was in no way suitable for Circe for what she desired to make a crowd of men beast-shaped, but this was a way for the poet to symbolize rival lovers, that it makes them like beasts, and there Circe made them bite and rage and be rabid with desire, as Circe commanded. For it is natural for lovers to lay claim to their loved one and die on her behalf. For such are lovers. From desire they become beasts, not thinking anything sensible but changing their form even bodily, they become as if beast-shaped, both to look at and in their manners, attacking their rivals. It is natural that rivals regard one another as beasts and as attacking each other to the point of murder. They have various approaches to this desire. Some come like dogs for sex, having sex many times; some like lions seek the impulse and only the desire; others like bears have sex in a polluted way. He is the one who probably interpreted it most clearly and correctly in his account.

§ 5.121  Setting out from the island of Circe, Odysseus was carried to the other island, cast ashore there by contrary winds. Calypso the sister of Circe received him there with much attention, and had sex with him, and from there he was carried to where a large lake was near the sea, call the Nekyopompos, and the inhabitants there were seers. They told him everything that was going to happen to him. From there he was carried by a great storm of the sea and thrown against the rocks called Serenides, which from the blows of the waves make a distinctive sound. Coming from there he reached Charybdis, in wild, steep places. There he lost all the rest of his ships and army. Odysseus alone was carried on one of his ship’s timbers in the sea, expecting violent death. Some Phoenicians sailors saw him swimming in the waters, took pity, and rescued him. They brought him to Crete, to Idomeneus, the exarch of the Hellenes. When Idomeneus saw Odysseus naked and needy, he treated him kindly. He gave him many gifts, an army and a general, and two ships with some of the men who rescued him, and sent him to Ithaca.

§ 5.122  The most wise Dictys wrote this, having heard it from Odysseus. Similarly, Diomedes took the Palladium and set out from Troy for his homeland. Agamemnon took Cassandra, whom he desired, and crossed the sea of Rhodes, wanting to hasten to the city of the Mycenaeans.
So Pyrrhus, seeing everyone sailing away, cremated Telamonian Ajax and taking the ashes in a hydria, buried him with great honor near the tomb of Achilles, his cousin and the father of Pyrrhus, in a place called Sigris [Sigeion]. Teucer, the brother of Telamonian Ajax, arrived immediately, coming from Salamis the city of Cyprus, to help his brother, and found Pyrrhus. Learning from him what had happened, and hearing of the honor paid to the corpse of Ajax, he praised Pyrrhus and prayed on his behalf, saying, “You have done nothing odd. For you are the son of that divine mind of Achilles. Time takes away the remains of good men, but virtue shines even in the dead.” Pyrrhus begged Teucer to take food and drink with him. In the symposium, since they were of the same lineage,

§ 5.123  Pyrrhus asked Teucer to tell him from the beginning everything that happened to his father, saying he did not know the accurate story. Teucer began to speak as follows:
A whole age will not obliterate Achilles’ victory over Hector. He learned that Hector wanted to meet queen Penthesileia at night. He secretly prepositioned himself with his army and hid. When Hector was crossing the river, he killed him and all those behind him, leaving only one alive, whose hand he cut off and sent to Priam to announce Hector’s death. While none of the Hellenes knew what happened, he brought the corpse of Hector on the ground before dawn. Hitching him to his two-seater, with Automedon with him driving the horses, your parent kept whipping his body without stopping. When Priam heard the fate of Hector, he groaned, and all those with him. There was so much outcry from the crowd of Trojans that the birds in the sky were frightened. The Hellenes, rejoicing, shouted back similarly, and the gates of Ilion closed. Your parent carried out a festival competition for the kings and everyone, very generously. On the next day, Priam came dressed in mourning clothes, bringing with him Polyxene his daughter, a virgin, and Andromache the wife of Hector, and Astyanax and Laodamas, his infant sons, and approached the Greeks.

§ 5.124  He brought with him much jewelry and gold and silver and clothing. Silence fell on the leaders of the Hellenes as he came near, and all admired the bravery of Priam. They wished to know the reason of his coming. Seeing them, Priam threw himself to the ground and put dust on his head. He asked them to be fellow suppliants to Achilles for the body of Hector. Nestor and Idomeneus pitied him, and pleaded with your father about Priam. He commanded him to come in his tent. Priam came in and fell at his feet, supplicating, just as Andromache did with her children. Polyxene embraced the feet of your father for her brother Hector, proclaiming that she would be a slave and remain with him, if he would give up the corpse. The kings pitied his old age, and beseeched on behalf of Priam. Your father Achilles said to them, “He should have governed his children from the outset and not have shared in their sin. But lust for other people’s money possessed him. He had no desire for Helene the woman, but yearning for the money of Atreus and Pelops. So pay the penalty for what you disrespected. Let Hellenes and barbarians become sensible through you.”

§ 5.125  They persuaded him to take the ransom and return the corpse. He understood the joys of life, and raised up Priam and Polyxene and Andromache, and commanded Priam to bath and taste food and wine with him. For otherwise he would not return the corpse. Priam, gripped by fear and hope for the future, humbly approached Achilles, your parent, supported by Polyxene, and partook of food and drink. After much talk, they stood up and placed the ransom upon the ground. Achilles saw the size of the gifts, and accepted the gold and silver and part of the clothing. The rest he granted to Polyxene, and gave back the corpse. Priam asked Achilles he if could leave Polyxene with him. He told him to take her to Ilion, and to postpone discussion of her to another time. Priam climbed in the vehicle with the body of Hector and those with him, and went to the city. They cremated the body of Hector, and buried him outside, by the wall of Ilion, mourning him bitterly.
In the meantime, Penthesileia arrived from across in the Chersonese, bringing a large host of Amazons and brave men. When she learned that Hector had been killed, she was in the process of turning back. Paris learned this, and persuaded her to stay by giving her much gold. She rested with her army,

§ 5.126  and after a few days she armed herself and her forces and went out to the field, having divided her army in two parts. The archers stood, taking the right-hand part, the foot-soldiers, apart from the cavalry, held the middle place. Penthesileia was with the battle standard in the middle of the cavalry. So the Danaans arranged themselves: opposite the bowmen were Menelaus and I, Teucer, and Meriones and Odysseus, while against the hoplites were Diomedes, Agamemnon, Tlepolemus, Ialmenos, and Ascalaphus, and against the cavalry were your parent Achilles, the two Ajaxes, Idomeneus, Philoctetes, and the remaining leaders and their armies. I Teucer killed a large crowd, so that I was acclaimed the best, while the Ajaxes obliterated the hoplites, attacking them in the middle. Your father Achilles was between them. He was looking at Penthesileia, seeking to kill her, since she was fighting fiercely. Arriving near her horse, he struck her with his spear and knocked her from the horse. While still alive, he dragged the fallen woman by the hair. Seeing her fallen, the rest of her army turned to flee. When the Trojans closed the gates for the fugitives, we Hellenes chased the survivors

§ 5.127  and killed them by the wall. We held off on the women Amazons. These the whole army bound and shared out. While Penthesileia was still breathing, we consulted whether to throw her alive into the river or to give her to the dogs as a snack. Achilles demanded that we bury her when she died. Aware of this, the masses shouted for her to be thrown in the river. Immediately, Diomedes grabbed her by the feet and threw her in the Scamander. She died then and there.
After a few days, someone named Tithon showed up, invited by Priam, leading mounted and infantry, Indians and very warlike Phoenicians with them, and their king Polydamas. There were so many that neither Ilion nor the field could receive them all. A fleet arrived carrying many Indians and their king. All the kings and all the army were managed by the powerful Memnon, king of the Indians. Memnon had with him a great deal of wealth in his ships. After they had rested, they came on shore, carrying strange swords and slings and rectangular shields. The allies of Ilion mixed with them, and Priam’s sons, and Memnon came in a chariot to the plain. We Hellenes armed ourselves and advanced, all nervously. For seeing them, we leaders and our army were astounded.

§ 5.128  With a shout, the Trojans with Memnon and the rest attacked us. We received their onslaught and many were wounded. Many of our numbers fell, and we leaders of the Hellenes drew back, unable to withstand the violence of their numbers. The barbarians would even have burned our ships, if night hadn’t come on. As night fell, the Hellenes regrouped with the army. Collecting the bodies, we cremated them. That night, we wanted some one of the kings to be able to resist and to launch an attack against Memnon, while the rest would take care of fighting his army. Lots were drawn among all us leaders, and by some good fortune Telamonian Ajax, my brother, was picked. Before the sun rose, we Hellenes attacked, all armed, and so did the Trojans and Memnon, king of the Indians, and all their troops. When battle was joined and many had fallen, my brother Ajax ordered the kings of the Hellenes to fight off the other Indians and Trojans, while he would attack Memnon, the king of the Indians, with the hero Achilles, your parent, reinforcing Ajax from behind, covering him.

§ 5.129  Memnon, noticing Ajax coming at him, descended from his chariot as soon as he came near. They made trial of each other with their spears. Ajax first overturned his shield, turning it with his spear, and falling heavily on him. Those near Memnon attacked Ajax as he held Memnon. Seeing this, your father Achilles threw his spear in the throat of Memnon, whose tendon was stripped naked, and killed him with no hope. When he fell, suddenly there was a clamor and flight by the barbarians. We Hellenes seeing this and filled with daring, killed all the Ethiopians. Polydamas attacked Ajax, and Telamonian Ajax lunged at him, striking his groin and killing him. With him dead and many others, the Ethiopians were killed as they fled, the horses trampling them. The area was full of dead bodies. When evening came, the Trojans asked a truce to collect the dead. When we Greeks agreed, both sides made pyres and cremated the dead. The Trojans secured their gates and stayed mourning their champions and Memnon. When a few days had passed, your father Achilles, together with us Achaeans, challenged the Trojans. Paris came out as leader of the barbarians, and Deiphobus his brother. With them and the host were Lycaon and Troilus, sons of Priam as well. Your father Achilles again launched the attack, all us Hellenes with him, and pursued the barbarians.

§ 5.130  As they fled, many fell in the Scamander river and were lost, and many prominent ones were taken alive. Achilles killed the sons of Priam, Troilus and Lycaon, and we Achaeans killed the rest. There was great mourning in Ilion for Troilos, who was still young and brave and handsome.
After some days, the Festival of Offerings came round, and there was a truce in the war, with sacrifices. The Danaans and Trojans were sacrificing to Thymbrian Apollo in the grove a little way from the city. When Polyxene came out with Hecuba to the sanctuary, Achilles admired her when he saw her. When Priam saw Achilles, he sent someone named Idaius to him with a message about Polyxene, while Achilles was going alone in the grove of Apollo. Achilles heard the message about her and lit up. We Hellenes saw Idaius speaking privately to Achilles and there was an uproar, that your sire Achilles was betraying us. We sent him a response through my brother Ajax and Diomedes and Odysseus, to tell him not to risk himself alone with the barbarians. They went and waited for him outside the grove, in order to give him the message. Your father Achilles agreed with Idaius to take Polyxene in marriage. After a little, Paris came secretly toward Achilles, with Deiphobus his brother,

§ 5.131  and they beseeched him regarding Polyxene’s marriage. Achilles welcomed them alone and unawares, not suspecting base conduct because they were in the grove of Apollo. Paris as if to confirm with an oath the agreement between him and Achilles, stood by the altar. Deiphobus wrapped Achilles in an embrace, and Paris, from the side, while he was kissing him, plunged in the sword he was carrying. While Deiphobus restrained Achilles, Paris delivered a second blow to Achilles. He fainted and fell. Paris and Deiphobus went out undetected by another exit from the grove. Though it was nearby, they took a long detour to return to the city. Seeing the, Odysseus said to Ajax and Diomedes, “These men who went in to Achilles were up to nothing good. Let’s go to Achilles.” Entering the grove, they saw your father Achilles lying by the altar on the ground, covered with blood but still breathing. My brother Ajax said to him, “Who was it of men, truly, who could kill you who excelled all in might? But your rashness destroyed you.” Achilles said, “Paris and Deiphobus did me in by treachery, through Polyxene.” He died. My brother Ajax hoisted his dead body on his shoulders, and carried it to the tents. When the Trojans saw, they attacked in order to snatch his body and mutilate it.

§ 5.132  We Hellenes were at a loss, seeing what happened. We cremated his body, put it in a hydria, and buried it in silence (or Sigeum?).
Pyrrhus sighed bitterly hearing this. Teucer noticed, and praised him, saying “Who is able to pronounce your virtues? From your father you carry the blood of King Peleus, the city Phthia, the country Thessaly, while from your mother you bear the blood of Lycomedes, king of the Scyrians. To avenge your father all Ilion and Troy were destroyed. Standing up, Teucer embraced Pyrrhus, and asked him if he could take the sons of his brother Ajax, Aeantides from Glauce, the prior wife of Ajax, Eurysakes from Tecmessa, and Tecmessa herself. Pyrrhus granted this to him. Taking them, Teucer immediately sailed away to Salamis.
Similarly, Pyrrhus took his fleet and sailed away, and all the Achaean army and the heroes went to their homelands.
Sisyphus the Koan wrote this, who was in the war together with Teucer. Homer the poet found his composition and published the Iliad, and Vergil the remainder. This is also contained in the writings of Dictys, a work that was found in a casket, many years after Homer and Vergil, in the reign of Claudius Nero.

§ 5.133  Clytemnestra, the wife of Agamemnon, had previously heard about her husband that he loved Cassandra. With that excuse, she gave herself in adultery to Aegisthus the senatorial, the son of Thyestes. When she heard of the impending presence of Agamemnon in Mycenae, she plotted with Aegisthus how Agamemnon when he came ought to be murdered by Aegisthus by guile. Agamemnon arrived in the city of the Mycenaeans, was received by the city, the senate, and Aegisthus, entered his palace, and was murdered. His wife immediately made Aegisthus king, and married him legally. She had a daughter with him, and called her Erigone. After the death of her father and mother, fearing Orestes she killed herself with a noose. The senate and the city and the army hated Aegisthus. When Orestes the son of Agamemnon heard of his father’s presence at Mycenae, he came from Schoineus, to whom Agamemnon had given him to be brought up when he went to war. His sister took him secretly and told him that Aegisthus was plotting to kill him. While Orestes was wondering what to do next, Strophios, who was of Agamemnon’s lineage,

§ 5.134  showed up in Mycenae with his son Pylades, [Orestes’] fellow student. When Strophios learned what happened to Agamemnon, he advised Orestes to wage war on Aegisthus. Taking Orestes, he came to the oracle of Apollo to learn about Orestes. He received an oracle that it was necessary for Orestes to kill his mother and Aegisthus. When Orestes asked if he would survive killing them, he was told that he would command his paternal property and the whole Peloponnese. He asked Strophios to return to his homeland and leave his son Pylades. Strophios agreed and did so. So Orestes and Pylades came to the city of Mycenae in accordance with the oracle. They secretly approached Electra, his sister, and asked her to persuade his mother Clytemnestra to received him. Electra persuaded their mother, and she received Orestes. Clytemnestra was asked, and shamed Aegisthus. Received by Aegisthus, Orestes was steadfast in his raging, desiring to avenge the blood of his father. He said to all, “The kingdom is mine.” Finding an opportunity he killed his mother and King Aegisthus, his uncle.

§ 5.135  He started raving, from the madness that came on him, and sometimes he could think and be at ease, and sometimes he was raving. For therapy by those of the city and senate, because they loved Orestes and wanted him to be king, the priests purified Orestes and cleaned him and expiated him of his mother’s murder. They took Orestes to the sanctuary of Athena on which the Areios Pagos was, and there was a trial heard between Oeakos with Tyndarios the son of Clytaemnestra and Orestes. Menestheus cast the vote that Orestes had justly avenged the murder of his father, particularly for the other women, so that no other wife would do such a terrible thing. This was written by Dictys in his sixth rhapsody.
The priests took Orestes from the judgment of the Areios Pagos after the vote and took him to Delphi to stay at the sanctuary of Apollo, so that he could get over the mania and rule. Orestes went into the sanctuary, sane, with Pylades. He sacrificed and asked the Pythia to be rid of the maniacal illness. An oracle was given to him by the Pythia in verses, which in the common dialect go as follows:

§ 5.136  Orestes, not otherwise will you put aside the mania of this disease, unless you cross the waves of Pontus and reach the land of Scythia and the country of Aulis. Taking from the altar in the sanctuary of Artemis you will be saved. Fleeing from there from the underworld land of the barbarians you will reach the quaking land of Syria, and opposite the channel of Mt. Silpe you will find a mountain named Melantion, where there is a great temple of Hestia. There put aside your rabid mania. Go there. What I said will happen.” Having been thus advised, Orestes noted it down. He immediately sailed away with Pylades for the Aulis country of Scythia. When they climbed out of the ship, Orestes noticed a sanctuary two miles from the sea, and the strewn human bones. Orestes said to Pylades: “Does this seem to you to be the chambers of a goddess, where we came with the ships? I see the bones of dead foreigners.” Having looked carefully, Pylades said to Orestes, “Let’s go, if we want to be saved.” Orestes said, “We’re not leaving. We aren’t accustomed to running away, nor should we treat the prophecy badly.

§ 5.137  Seeing them, cowherds ran to Iphigeneia and told her, “Daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, two young men have come past the Kyaneai.” She to them: “What kind? From where? What are the strangers’ names?” For Iphigeneia asked everyone who was caught and brought to her to be sacrificed, what country they were from, and then she slaughtered them, because she wanted to learn about her father Agamemnon and his affairs, and what happened about the war with the Phrygians. The cowherds told her, “One of them called the other Pylades, but the name of his partner we don’t know. He didn’t say.” She told them, “What business is it of a cowherd at the sea?” They said, “We came to bathe the cows in the cool sea.” She sent Scythians, who caught them. They were bound and taken to be sacrificed, as the very wise Euripides published poetically in a play, of which this a small part. [Tr. note: a logical explanation for these random misquotes is that Malalas played the role of the Cowherd in a school play].
When they were bound, she ordered one to be separated out, and the other to be brought for sacrifice. The Scythians separated out Orestes, and brought Pylades to the altar of Artemis for sacrifice. Iphigeneia asked him what country he was from, and he said “My country is Hellas, my city Mycenae, Unfortunate I am.” When she heard the country and city, where her father was king, she wept. She thought he had been coached by the cowherds, so she said to him,

§ 5.138  “If you are from Mycenae, do you know who the king is there?” He said, “Formerly it was Agamemnon.” And she to him: “Would you describe Agamemnon, who is his wife, and what children he has?” He said, “He had with Clytemnestra Orestes, Electra, and Iphigeneia, who they say he offered as a sacrifice to Artemis, and the Goddess rescued her, and he does not know where she is. He also had daughters Chrysothemis and Laodice.” When she heard this she ordered that he be freed of his bonds. She wrote on a diptych, gave it to him, and said: “Behold! The Goddess granted you to live, through me. Swear by her that you will give this diptych to Orestes and bring me a letter from him.” He swore to her, “I will put this in his hands and bring him to you.” Taking the diptych, he went out in front of the sanctuary, where Orestes was being guarded, and asked the Scythians to be allowed to talk to him. He gave him the diptych and told him, “Come to your sister.” The Scythians were amazed at the event, and brought him with Pylades to Iphigeneia. Pylades said to her, “Behold Orestes!” She didn’t recognize him. Thinking it wasn’t he, she said, “My brother of the Pelopeian race has a distinguishing mark, a mole on his shoulder.”

§ 5.139  She examined his right shoulder blade and saw it had the Pelopeian stamp. She embraced Orestes, and ordered that his ships be brought on shore along with the sailors. Having beached the ships, they remained through the winter.
When summer came, Orestes and Pylades took Iphigeneia and the solid gold statue of Artemis secretly and fled in their ships. They crossed over to the land of the Adiabenians. From there they came to the eastern Saracen border. They went up in the land of Palestine toward Trikomia [Three Villages]. The people in Trikomia noticed Iphigeneia’s priestly garb, and received her with honors. They stayed there, and Orestes was taken with madness there too. The Trikomitai built a great sanctuary of Artemis and asked Iphigeneia to sacrifice a virgin girl, whose name they would give to the village (kome). They brought the girl, whose name was Nyssa, and made the sacrifice to Artemis. They made a bronze statue of the slaughtered girl as Tyche. Iphigeneia called the city, which had been a village before, Nyssa, after the girl she had slaughtered, and made an altar for her. On it she wrote, “Accept the fugitives from Scythia, plant Goddess Nyssa,” which is still written there.

§ 5.140  When Orestes got his proper wits back, Iphigeneia saw in a dream a deer that called to her: “Flee from that land.” Getting up the next morning, she fled with Orestes and Pylades to the shore of Palestine, and from there they sailed to Syria in accordance with the oracle.
The king of Scythia, named Thoas, heard that Iphigeneia had left with the solid gold statue of Artemis. He sent many Scythians to pursue her, and told them, “Don’t come back to Scythia if you don’t bring back to me the gold statue of Artemis with them.” The pursuers searched everywhere, and reached Palestine and the city Nyssa, formerly called Trikomia. They learned that Iphigeneia, Orestes and company had gone to the shore and sailed away. Enjoying the landscape and the city of Nyssa and the sanctuary of Artemis, and fearing their king, they stayed there and settled, renaming the city for themselves, Scython polis (Scythopolis).
Orestes and his companions reached Syria. Disembarking, they asked where the Melantion mountain and sanctuary of Hestia were.

§ 5.141  Finding it, they went into the sanctuary. They made a sacrifice and stayed to sleep there. Orestes was delivered of his most cruel disease and left the sanctuary. He descended to the bed of the two rivers called Melantoi by the Syrians, because they flow from Mt. Melantion, and bathed himself. Orestes then crossed the Typhon river, now called the Orontes, and came to the Silpion mountain to make proskynesis to the Ionitai. The Argive Ionitai living in Syria heard that Orestes had been freed of his illness, and came to him, since he was from their country and was of royal blood. When they met him, they recognized those with him from the sanctuary of Hestia, and asked them, “Who is he?” They told them, “It is Orestes, and we are bringing him to you.” The Ionitai immediately embraced him and said to him, “Orestes, where did you put off the madness?” Orestes still feared the anger of the illness, and did not turn back, but he indicated to them the sanctuary or mountain where he had been rescued from the disease, resting his right hand on top of his head with his finger pointing to the mountain and the sanctuary. He told them, “On that mountain, in the sanctuary of the divine Hestia I put off the cruel mania. The Ionitai immediately made a bronze statue of him in that pose, when he was showing them, and stood it on a column to the memory and glory of the land and the sanctuary of Hestia. They indicated to those coming after where Orestes put off the rabid mania.

§ 5.142  The bronze statue stands until today. The Ionitai renamed Mt. Melantion Amanos. Orestes greeted the Ionitai and went down to the shore of what used to be called Palaiopolis, but now Seleuceia. He found ships there and sailed away with Iphigeneia and Pylades for Greece. He joined his sister Electra in matrimony with Pylades, and held the country of Mycenae until his death. The Syrians notices the shape of the statue of Orestes, and learned the way from the Ionitai. Becoming angry, they called him the runaway, because when such a good thing happened to him in their country, and he escaped such a threat, instead of turning and paying attention and exalting and thanking the divine and showing the Ionitai the sanctuary of Hestia, he dodged an accounting; instead of gratitude he pointed with his finger to the sanctuary and the mountain where he was saved and delivered from the untamed raving. The statue is called by the Antiochenes Orestes the runaway up to the present. The statue of Orestes stands a little in from of the city. This the wise Domninus has written.
In the years after the capture of Troy, Themis was first admired by the Hellenes. It was he who discovered tragic melodies and performed the first plays.

§ 5.143  After him Minos, and after Minos Auleas wrote tragic choruses for plays. So then in the time after that, Euripides found many stories and wrote plays.
So then David the son of Jesse was king over Israel for 40 years and two months. He renewed the city formerly called Salem and afterwards Jebun, and called it Jerusalem.
From Adam until David, 4755 years.
After David, Solomon the son of David was king for 40 years. He built the sanctuary in Jerusalem and affixed the bronze Cherubim and Seraphim in the temple. It was he who first began to build sanctuaries for the Judaeans, who hadn’t had them. He built a city on the border which he called Palmoira (Palmyra) from the village having been the old fate (παλαι μοιρα) for Goliath, whom his father had killed.
From Adam to Solomon 4895 years.
After the reign of Solomon, other people were kings, including Ahaab, King of the Judaeans. In his reign was Elias the Thesbites, who was taken up.
There were others who ruled, until Hezekiah, in which times the wise poet Homer was at his peak, who wrote about the war of the Trojans and Danaans.

§ 5.144  From Adam until Hezekiah, king of the Judaeans, 5266 years. In the reign of Hezekiah there was a prophet of the Judaeans Isaiah.
In the fourteenth year of the reign of King Hezekiah of the Judaeans, Senachereim, the King of the Assyrians, attacked and took the fortified cities of Judaea. The King of the Assyrians sent Rhapsaces from Lachish to Jerusalem to King Hezekiah with a large force. He stood in the water channel of the upper swimming pool in the road of the fuller’s field. Eliakeim the son of Chelkos the steward and Somnas the secretary and Ioas the son of Asaph the under-stenographer. Rhapsaces said to them, “Tell Hezekiah that thus says the King of the Assyrians: Whom have you placed your faith in? Lest in council or in words of the lips a battle happen. On the broken reed staff that is Egypt? It will penetrate the hand of anyone who supports himself on it. Thus is Pharaoh king of Egypt and all those who rely on him. If you say, ‘I rely on the Lord our God,’ now you will make an exchange with my Lord, the king of Assyria. He will give you two thousand horses, if you are able to give people to mount on them. How are you able to look one toparch in the face? You are household slaves who rely on Egypt for horse and rider.

§ 5.145  And now is it without your Lord that we have come up to this country to wage war on it?”
Eliakim the son of Chelkios and Somnas the secretary and Ioas said to him, “Speak to your servants in the Syrian language, lest what you say reach the ears of those people on the wall.” And Rhapsaces said to them, “Would my lord have sent me to speak these words to your lord or to you, and not to the men city on the wall, in as much as they will be eating dung and drinking urine together with you?” Rhapsaces stood up and shouted in a loud voice in the Judaic language, “Hear the words of the great king of the Assyrians. So speaks the king. Let you not be deceived by the words of Hezekiah. He cannot save you. And let Hezekiah not say that God will save you, and not hand over the city into the hands of the king of the Assyrians. Do not listen to Hezekiah. The king of the Assyrians says this: If you wish to be blessed, come forth to me and let each eat from his vineyard and figs and drink water from your cistern, until I come to take you to a land like your land, a land of grain and wine and bread and vineyards. Let not Hezekiah deceive you saying that God will save you. Did the gods of the nations ever save, each his own country, from the hands of the king of the Assyrians? Where is the god of Aitham (Aimath) and Arphad?

§ 5.146  And where is the god Seppharotheim? Was he able to save Samaria from my hand? Who among the gods of all these nations saved his own land from my hand, so that he says, ‘The Lord God Israel will save you from my hand?’”
They were silent and no one answered him, because the king had order that no one answer him. Eliakim the son of Chelkios, the steward, and Somnas the secretary and Ioas the son of Asaph the clerk went in to Hezekiah, rending their garments, and told him the words of Rhapsaces. Hearing it, Hezekiah tore his clothes and wrapped himself in a sack, and went up to the temple of the Lord. He sent Eliakim the steward and Somnas the secretary and the elders among the priests, wrapped in sacks, to Isaiah, the son of Amos, the prophet, and say to him, “Thus says Hezekiah, a day of grief, of bondage and reproof and anger is today, that the birth-pains comes to the woman in childbirth, but she had no strength to give birth. May the Lord your God hear the words of Rhapsaces, which were sent by the king of the Assyrians to reproach the living God, and to reproach the words which the Lord your God heard. Will you entreat the Lord your God for these forsaken ones?” The servants of the king came to Isaiah. And Isaiah said to them, “Thus you will speak to your lord.

§ 5.147  ‘This sayeth the Lord. Be not afraid at the words you heard, when the ambassadors of the king of the Assyrians reproached me. Behold I will put a spirit in him, and hearing a message he will return to his land, and a dagger will fall in his own land. Rhapsaces went away and found the king of the Assyrians besieging Lomna. The king of the Assyrians heard that Thara, the king of the Ethiopians, was coming to besiege him. Hearing this, he sent Rhapsaces to encounter him with a large force. And he, remaining there, sent messengers to Hezekiah, telling them, “Say this to Hezekiah, the king of Judaea. Let your God not deceive you, on whom you rely, by saying Jerusalem will not be given into the hands of the king of the Assyrians. Or have you not heard what the kings of the Assyrians have done on all the earth, and the gods of the nations did not rescue them? Did not my fathers destroy Gozan and Haran and Rapheis, which are in the country of Thaiman? Where are the kings of Aimath and Arphad and of the city Sepphareim?
Hezekiah took the book from the messengers and read it before the Lord, and Hezekiah prayed to the Lord, saying, O God Israel seated on the Cherubim, that you alone are God, King of the inhabited world, who made the sky and the earth, hear me lord.

§ 5.148  Look, Lord, and see the words Sennachereim sent, reproaching the living God. Truly the kings of the Assyrians laid waste to the whole inhabited world and its countries. They put their idols in the fire. For they were not gods, but the work of human hands, wood and stone. And they destroyed them. And now, Lord our God, save us from their hand, so that every kingdom on earth will know that you alone are God.
And Isaiah, son of Amos, sent to Hezekiah, and told him, “Thus sayeth the Lord God Israel: ‘I heard the prayer you made to me about Sennachereim, king of the Assyrians. Thus sayeth the Lord about the king of the Assyrians: “He will not enter this city, nor will he shoot an arrow at it; nor will he stand at the gate of it; nor will he encircle it with a ditch, but by the road he came, by that will he turn back, because so sayeth the Lord. For I will defend this city, to save it for me and for David my son.
The messenger of the Lord went out by night, and killed 185 thousand in the Assyrian encampment. Rising in the morning they found all the dead bodies, and turning back, the King of the Assyrians went away and resided in Nineveh. And while he was doing proskynesis in the house of Sarach the tutelary god,

§ 5.149  Adramelech and Sarsar, his sons, smote him with knives. They escaped to Armenia. Nachordas, another son of his, was king of the Assyrians.
After the reign of Hezekiah, Manasseh was king of the Judaeans for 55 years.
All the years from Adam to Manasseh are 5321. In these years, the Rhodians, because they were subject to no one in war, but were autonomous and with control of the sea, and feeling happy, erected on their island a huge bronze statue to the Sun. They called it Colossus, as a fearsome spectacle, and thenceforth referred to themselves as Colossaeans.
After Manasseh, Eliakim and Ioakim, his brothers, reigned over Judaea for 44 years. From Adam, the whole number of years is 5375.

§ 6.150  BOOK 6 ON THE TIMES OF THE KINGDOM OF THE ASSYRIANS AND AENEIUS SON OF ASCANIUS
During the reign of King Ioakeim, Nabouchodonosor the King of the Assyrians mobilized and attacked the Judaeans. He captured Jerusalem and all the land of Judaea, as the Prophets foretold for Israel. He took away Ioakeim, the King of the Judaeans, as a prisoner, with all the royal furnishings, and made them all captives. So he no longer ruled over the Judaeans or Jerusalem, the city of Judaea, nor Samaria. The kingdom of the Judaeans was given in the hands of the Assyrians, and they were the masters. In the fifth year of the reign of Nabouchodonosor, all the Judaean captives were in Babylon, as Eusebius of Pamphilus had chronicled.

§ 6.151  In those times the Lydians took the kingships or toparchies, with a force from the other nearby nations. The first to rule over the Lydians was Ardeus, for 36 years. He subjected the nearby nations and kingdoms, and became proud.
After the reign of Nabouchodonosor, king of the Assyrians, Baltasar his son was king. He was served in the priestly vessels of the Judaeans, and mixed wine in them for his concubines and all those who dined with him, as an insult to them. While he was reclining and dining in folly, he saw there suddenly on the opposite wall of the palace a knuckle of a human hand writing, ‘Mane, Thekel, Phares.’ Having written this, the knuckle disappeared. Baltasar read the writing and called all the charm-sayers and magi and astronomers and dream-interpreters of his country, and asked them, “What is the power of the knuckle, and what is the meaning of what it wrote?” No one was able to interpret it. He heard that his father held Daniel, one of the Hebrew hostages, in great honor, and he interpreted his dreams. He sent for Daniel, and told him, “Since the grace of God is with you, interpret for me what I saw with my own eyes, and make clear to me the meaning of the writing.”

§ 6.152  Daniel listened, and saw the meaning of the writing. He told him, “Be magnanimous with me, King, and do not be angry, and I will interpret the writing for you.” He swore not to do anything bad to him for interpreting. Daniel told him, The God of heaven and earth is angry at you and has finished off your kingship. Hearing this, he sent him away to see if it was true. Days later, Darius the Mede, age 60, came as a usurper, killed him, and took his kingdom.
After the kingdom of Darius, other kings ruled over the Assyrians until Astyages. So Astyages was king of the Persians, and he mobilized against the Lydians, attacking with a large force. In that year the sun was eclipsed for many hours of the day, Thales the philosopher having predicted the eclipse. In those years Peisistratus was waging war as a demagogue. […] The Lydians were not defeated, but Astyages departed on his own. Learning this, the Pisaeans conducted a second festival of the Pythian contest, to thank Helios, commending themselves to the Lydians and to the strength of his power.

§ 6.153  Well then, in the times after this the Pisaeans contrived a festival of a third contest, the Isthmian to Plouton. The same Pisaeans invented a fourth festival, and conducted the Nemean games to Dionysos.
After the reign of Ardeus, there were eight kings of the Lydians until Croesus the proud. This Croesus reigned 15 years. In all, the kingship of the Lydians lasted 232 years.
In the years of his rule, Croesus subjected all the provinces or kingdoms, both near him and further away, taking taxes from the obedient, taking away from those who resisted their selves and their kingdoms. He became very afraid, although happy and victorious, and became sluggish. Solon used to philosophize in those times.
After the reign of Astyages, the king of the Persians, Cyrus the Persian became king. He kissed Bardane, the wife of Darius, the king before him, and took her. In the 14th years of Cyrus’ reign, Croesus the king of the Lydians learned from his senators of the prior military presence in Lydia of Astyages, the Persian king, and became annoyed. He declared to Cyrus that he should yield the kingdom to him and depart, or receive the war-fighting presence of his most fortunate kingship.

§ 6.154  Cyrus the king of the Persians received the ambassadors he sent, and read what he had written. He told the ambassadors: “In what way has Croesus been treated unjustly by me, when he has taken so much land from me and my kingdoms? Or how can he claim harm to a country when so many years have passed?” Sorely troubled, he wanted to flee to the Indian land. His wife saw him discouraged. She asked him and learned the problem. She told him, Under Darius, my first husband, there was a Hebrew man, a prophet, with God’s wisdom, whose name was Daniel, one of the captives of the sons of Israel. King Darius held him in great honor, and did nothing without him in his wars. By asking him, each time he had a war, he defeated his enemies. After the king’s death, rich and old, he became a private citizen in the Maravitis country. Cyrus heard this and sent his nobles to him, to bring him back in honor. The envoys from Croesus to Cyrus returned to Lydia bringing to their king the answer given to them by Cyrus.
Croesus the Lydian king chose some of his loyal men and gave them both cheap gifts and other, royal gifts, and sent them to Delphi to the oracle. He told them, “Change your outfits and dress like Egyptians. Going up to the oracle, hand over the cheap gifts to the priest, saying

§ 6.155  ‘We are Egyptians, and we came to ask the Pythia, but from the length of the road we forgot what we came to ask about or request, so pray and ask the Goddess why we came.’ Then, if she tells you why you came, give the royal gifts and tell the priest to find out if I will defeat Cyrus, the king of the Persians.” They took the gifts and went to Delphi, to the sanctuary. They gave the cheap gifts, and said they were Egyptians, and that “We forgot why we came.” Hearing this, the priest was surprised. He took the cheap gifts and went in to pray. He received this answer from the Pythia: “I know the number of the sand and the measure of the sea. I hear when no one speaks, and understand the mute. Croesus the king and his Lydians try to toy with me.” The priest came out and said to them, “You are not Egyptians and Lydians, and you did not forget but you said these things toying with the divine. He gave them the oracle written in diptychs so Croesus would learn the marvel. Surprised, the envoys handed over the other royal gifts to the priest, and told him, “Croesus the king sent us since he has a war with Cyrus, the Persian king. Tell us if he will defeat him.” The priest went back and prayed, and got this oracle: “By crossing the Halys river, Croesus will destroy a great empire.

§ 6.156  He wrote this oracle in diptychs, gave it to them to bring back to king Croesus, and sent them away.
The prophet Daniel came to Cyrus, the king of the Persians, and he said to him: “Tell me if I will defeat Croesus, the king of the Lydians.” Daniel delayed speaking. Annoyed at him, the king put him in a pit of lions. When he learned that he had suffered nothing from the beasts, he brought him and fell at his feet, saying, “I have sinned against you. But pray to your God and tell me if I will be able to resist this proud grabber Croesus, who has subjected all the earth and is still unsatisfied. Daniel prayed, and told him, “You will defeat Croesus and take him prisoner. God who made all visible things spoke about you through his prophet Isaiah, ‘So sayeth the Lord God to my anointed Cyrus, that I have held his right hand and the nations will obey him, and I will break the power of kings. I will open doors before him and cities will not be shut closed. I will march before him and I will level mountains and break bronze gates and smash iron levers and give you dark, hidden treasures, I will open the invisible for you, so that you will know that I am the Lord God. I raise him with justice, all roads are straight for him.

§ 6.157  He will build my city and will return the prisoners of my people, not with ransom or gifts. The Lord God Sabaoth spoke.”
Hearing this, King Cyrus fell at the feet of Daniel and said, “Your God lives, the Lord, I will send Israel from my land so that they may worship their god in Jerusalem.” Then he armed and confronted Croesus.
King Croesus had heard the answer of the oracle. He attacked Cyrus with a great force, and crossed the Halys, a river of Cappadocia, and encountered Cyrus, during a great storm. Defeated, he wished to flee with his army. But the river had flooded from the storm, and he was not able to flee or cross. He and his army were taken captive, 400,000. Cyrus took the survivors captive along with Croesus. He stood him in a wooded tripod, tied up high, and he triumphed over him with his army. Then he took him to Persis. The most wise Thales [Thallus] and Castor and Polybius have investigated these things in their writings, and after them Herodotus the historian. The wise Theophilus also chronicled these things.

§ 6.158  Cyrus the King of the Persians let go from captivity all the sons of Israel as soon as he had taken his kingdoms, and they went to Jerusalem with Zorobabel. Two and one-half tribes, men and women and children, five myriads in number, remained in Persia by their own choice, fearing the nations around them. The nine and one-half tribes returned, as Timotheus the chronicler wrote. He let them go when Daniel asked him.
After the Lydian kingdom was destroyed, the Samians ruled the seas and were kings of those parts. Cyrus, the king of the Persians, heard this after some years, and mobilized against them. He engaged in a sea battle with them and was defeated and fled. Returning to his country, he was murdered. About this war between Cyrus and the Samians, the most wise Pythagoras the Samian wrote. He said that Cyrus died in the war. The wise Africanus chronicled all this.
After the reign of Cyrus, his son Darius or Cambyses and many others were kings of the Assyrians. In the years of king Darius, the son of Cyrus, Anaximander philosophized among the Hellenes. He said the earth is the middle of the whole cosmos, and the sun is not smaller than the earth, and air is the origin of all things. From air all came to be and into air all is dissolved. He declared the human soul to be airy and all to be breath, introducing the vain reasoning of error. He expounded on the equinoxes and their turnings.

§ 6.159  The aforementioned Pythagoras the Samian wrote about arithmetic, and introduced a doctrine to the Hellenes, supposing there to be some bodyless principles. The wise Timotheus memorialized this in his writings.
During the reign of Darius the son of Cyrus, war was initiated by the Ethiopians against him. They treated him badly. Learning this, the Judaeans dwelling in the land of the Medes left and settled Jerusalem. It was a great host of Judaeans. Learning this, Darius the son of Cyrus sent Holofernes, his general, to Jerusalem against them, with a large force. He besieged Jerusalem and something fearsome happened then. Judith was a Jewish woman, who engineered a plot against the Persian exarch Holofernes, pretending to want to betray her nation. She approached him covertly. When he saw her beauty, Holofernes fell in love with her. She said to him “Let no one be here near me, because they come and want to treat me like a prostitute.” He agreed and was alone with her. She endured him for three days, and while she was lying down with him at night, she lifted his head and cut it off. When midnight came, she went through the side gate into Jerusalem, carrying his head.

§ 6.160  And she permitted it to be hung up. Holofernes had erected his tent near the wall on her account. The Judaeans took the head from her and fixed it on a stake on the wall, before dawn, and they showed it to his army. When morning came, the Persians saw the head of Holofernes on a stake, and supposed it happened through some mysterious power. So they fled. The war ended and the Judaeans gained victory over the Persians. This is contained in the Hebrew scriptures. Irenaeus the wise wrote about it.
After the reign of Darius, Artaxerxes was king of the Assyrians. Nehemiah the priest of the seed of David had the right of speaking to him, and pleaded with Artaxerxes. For he loved him, and place him in charge of the eunuchs. Taking much money, he persuaded him to let him go and built Jerusalem, which had been sacked. This was the first capture of Jerusalem and destruction of the sanctuary. Nehemiah, once let go, went up to Jerusalem and erected it and to wall of the city, and he made the public squares broad, and made it better. For it had been deserted for 70 years. This was the second construction of the sanctuary. The sanctuary was completed in 40 years. Artaxerxes was begged by some of his senate and released the remaining Judaeans. And anyone who wished to go up to Jerusalem then, went up with Esdras the prophet and leader.

§ 6.161  To him were given the sacred vessels and the priestly books that had been found. Esdras caused to be written memoranda derived from his notes for the books that hadn’t been found.
In those times Macedonia was ruled by kings. The first to reign in it was Cranaus for 28 years. And then there were 23 other kings until Philip. There were at that time philosophers and poets teaching the affairs of the Hellenes: Sophocles and Heracleides and Euripides and Herodotus and Socrates and the great Pythagoras. There was a Heracles born in the aforementioned times in Lato of the Thebaid, of the lineage of Heracles the son of Alcmene and Picus Zeus. He was raised in Hispania. Becoming a man, he came from Hispania to Italy, fleeing king Eurystheus, and he reigned for 38 years. He took a wife, Auge, the daughter of King Aleos. He was king, since he was of the lineage of Picus Zeus. Hence for him the Italians and the kings or reges stood up gold and porphyry columns for him, since they were king from his race in the furthest parts of the west. Which columns still stand.

§ 6.162  So from Adam to these times are 5362 years. After Artaxerxes, many others reigned over the Assyrians until Darius the Younger. Over Italy reigned Telephus the son of Heracles with Auge. After him his son reigned likewise, who was called Latinus. Latinus reigned in that country 18 years, and from his name the Kitiaeans were renamed Latins. Then Aeneas the son of Anchises the Phrygian fleeing the sack of Ilion, that is the Trojan War, left for Libya toward the Phoenician woman Dido, also called Elissa. After spending time there, he stealthily left her, since he was afraid of Iarvas, king of Africa, as Vergilius the wise poet of the Romans recounted. The most wise Servius the Roman in his writings expounded that Dido was many years after Aeneas died, from a small city called Chartima [Cartha?] on the Phoenician coast between the borders of Tyre and Sidon. This Dido was very rich, and had a husband named Sychaeus, who was also very rich.

§ 6.163  The brother of Dido, named Pygmalion, killed Sychaeus while hunting, envious that he was very wealthy and giving orders to all that country. The two of them on horseback were chasing a wild boar, holding hunting spears. Coming from behind, Pygmalion gave Sychaeus one in the back with his lance, and killed him. For he was brave. And taking his remains he threw them off a cliff. And returning he told various people and his wife that while he was chasing the wild board he fell off a cliff. For Pygmalion was plotting to kill his own sister and take all the money. To Dido her husband Sychaeus appeared in a dream and told her: Leave, least Pygmalion murder you! He showed her the place of the wound. So Dido, eluding her brother Pygmalion and finding an opportunity, took all her money and with her people left and sailed away from Phoenicia and came to Libya, a country of Africa. There she built a very big city which she called Cartagena; and she reigned in it and died there after living sensibly. Receiving an oracle, Aeneas sailed from Libya wishing to come to Italy. The wind being against him, he was cast away with his ships near Sicily, in Calabria in the city called Argyrippe, which was founded by Diomedes the son of Tydeus.

§ 6.164  He was Aitolian by race, a relative of Oeneus king of Aitolia. This Oeneus took a woman named Eriboea and had Tydeus with her. And Eriboea died, and he took another woman named Althaia. And with her he had Meleager and a daughter named Deianeira. A certain younger man named Acheloos, son of Poseidonius, a councilor of Tydeos, was wooing here. Acheloos before the marriage secretly debauched Deianeira, and afterwards told her father Oeneus, I won't take your daughter unless you grant me your kingdom to administer. He did not agree, so Acheloos waged war on Oeneus. Oeneus was compelled to seek out a brave general from the Phthian country, Herakles called Polyphemos, and contracted to give him his daughter Deianeira. He descended with his armed forces and waged war on Poseidonius and his son Acheloos. And in a swordfight Polyphemos killed Poseidonius, the father of Acheloos. This is why the poets expounded that Herakles wrenched away the horn of Acheloos, meaning his paternal strength. Seeing his father fallen, he fled on horseback, whence they write him as hippocentaur. As Polyphemos Herakles was pursuing him he turned and shot an arrow into his breast.

§ 6.165  Immediately Herakles shot back and hit Acheloos as he was crossing the river named Phorbas. Struck through, Acheloos was drawn from his horse into the flows of the river and perished. And from then this river of Aetolia has been called Acheloos, according to the wise Kephalion. Polyphemos Herakles died from the wound in his breast after a few days. Meleager the son of Oeneus, brother of Tydeus and Deianeira, made a great feat in the Kalydonian country, killing a fearsome boar, with Atalante the daughter of Schoineus with him. She made the first move, shooting the wild boar with an arrow, for this beast was defiling that country. After killing the beast Meleager granted the skin to Atalante, having fallen in love with her. When Meleager left to go to his father Oeneus, the latter asked from him the trophies of the beast. And learning that he had given the skin to Atalante, he was furious at his son, who had a shoot of an olive tree guarded by Althaia his wife and Meleager's mother, which shoot, when Althaia was pregnant, she had a craving for and ate. Having swallowed the olive leaf she immediately gave birth to Meleager and an olive leaf together. Regarding this an prophecy was given to his father Oeneus that Meleager would live as long as he kept the olive leaf with him that he had been born with.

§ 6.166  In his anger, Oeneus threw the leaf in the fire and burned it, irritated with his son And Meleager thereupon died, as the wise Euripides recounts in his play about Meleager. After the reign of Oeneus, his other son Tydeus, the father of Diomedes, ruled Aitolia. Diomedes, after the death of his father Tydeus ruled the Argive country, taking as his wife a woman from Argos named Aegialeia. And deranged, he subjected his own country Aitolia, waging war on them. And dissolving this kingdom he made it part of the Argive kingdom, i.e. under the same state, and immediately set forth with the Achaeans on the Trojan War. Returning after the victory at Troy to this kingdom, he was not accepted by his city or its council, but they waged war to resist him. Learning that his wife Aegialeia was engineering his death, since she was whoring herself out to one of his councilors, who would resist him by force, and learning that she had been similarly debauched by Oeax son of Nauplius, and that they were prepared to fight vigorously against him because of their love for her, and noticing that the leaders and the whole country of the Argives were rebelling against him,

§ 6.167  and not being able to depart for Aitolia, his own kingdom, because he had dissolved the kingship, he yielded up his kingdom and sailed away to Calabria. There he built a coastal city, which he named Argyrippe, as written above, now renamed Beneventum. And receiving Aeneas when he was cast away in this city, he held him in great honor and good treatment. And Aeneas passed the winter with him. And Aeneas told Diomedes, I know you took away the holy Palladium which lay in Troy, so that it could be written, the Palladium is given to Aeneas. Diomedes said to him that from the time Odysseus and I took it away neither I nor my army have lacked for disasters. So I was obliged to ask the Pythia about it. And I was given an oracle that said to give it to the Trojans. And Aeneas said, Give it to me. And immediately offering sacrifice, Diomedes handed the Palladium to Aeneas. Taking it, once summer had arrived, Aeneas set forth for Italy, heading for Latinus. And joining with him, now with the help of an army of Phrygians, they waged war on the Roustoulians. And in this war Latinus the son of Telephus was killed, and the Roustoulians were prevailing.

§ 6.168  Aeneas went away to Evander and his son Pallas, most warlike men. They had crossed into Italy and settled a village called Valentia, managing one province. In this village Pallas built a very large house unlike any other in that region, which house was called the Pallantine. And from then on, royal residences were called Pallantion from Pallas. And Aeneas asked them for the assistance of an army, which Pallas and his father provided, 400 brave warriors. And going again to other toparchs, Aeneas received much military assistance, since all that country was opposed to the Roustoulians and to Turnus their king. And Aeneas waged war on them and the Roustoulians were defeated by Aeneas, and Turnus killed. After the victory, Aeneas received the kingdom and Albania the daughter of Latinus. And Aeneas built there a great city, which he called Albania. And Aeneas deposited the Palladium he received from Diomedes in that city Albania. Aeneas reigned with Latinus 19 years. After Aeneas, Ascanius Julius reigned, the son of Aeneas and Creusa of Troy, his first wife, 25 years.

§ 6.169  He founded the city of Lavinia, and moved the royal rule to the Lavinians, transferring the Palladium from the city Albania to the city he founded, Lavinia.
In that same time there was a certain high priest of Jerusalem after the return from Babylon of the two and one half tribes going up to Jerusalem, Eliakim the son of Iesous. In those times was Hippasios, the Pythagorean philosopher, who first extracted the sphere of heaven from the 12 zodiac signs, and who died in a shipwreck at sea. There were also Isocrates and Pericles and Thucydides, the narrator of the war of the Peloponnesians and Athenians, and in the time of Thucydides there was Pheidias the statue-maker and Stesichoros and Bacchylides, who were inventers of dance and poets, after the aforementioned philosophers. In after time the aforementioned were teachers of the Greeks. After this, Demosthenes and Aristophanes the comedian were prominent. After the reign of Dareius the younger, Artaxerxes called Mnemon ruled the Persians, for 39 years. Albas the son of Ascanius ruled the Albans for 36 years. He also founded the city Silpis. From then the kings were called Silvian.

§ 6.170  This King Albas moved the Palladium into the city Silvis. The Aeneadai of the race of Aeneas reigned for 341 years.

§ 7.171  BOOK 7: ON THE FOUNDING OF ROME
So Romos the founder of Rome and his brother Remos reigned, whence they were renamed Romans. They had found the weapons of the Heracles who was of the race of Picus Zeus. The put them in the city they founded, Rome, which was the village Valentia before, in the Forum Boarium in the temple of Picus Zeus, and they shut them up there until just now. The brothers renewed the Palantion, the royal house of Pallas. They build a large temple to Zeus and called it the Capitolium in the Roman language, which is the head of the city. They brought the Palladium xoanon from Silbe city and placed it in Rome. While ruling, the brothers fell into enmity with one another. Remos was killed by Romus, and Romus ruled alone.

§ 7.172  From the time he killed his own brother, the whole city of Rome shook, and there were civil wars in his kingdom. Romus went to the oracle and asked “Why are these things happening in my sole reign?” And it was said by the Pythia that “If your brother does not sit with you on the royal throne, the city of Rome will not stand, nor will the Demos and the war quiet down.” So he made from the likeness (icon) of his brother, a relief or carving of his face, a golden bust, and put the statue on the throne where he sat. He ruled in this way for the remainder of his reign, sitting next to the solid gold relief of his brother Remus. The shaking of the city ended and the popular disturbance quieted. And whenever he commanded something in a decree, he spoke as if it was from him and his brother, saying “We have commanded and decreed.” This custom has prevailed among the kings from that time until the present, to say “We have commanded and decreed.” From that time he sent solid gold busts of himself and his brother to all the cities under the Romans, so they would be placed near the magistrates.
King Romus, after finishing the walls and arranging the city, built the temple of Ares. In that month he made a great festival of sacrifice to Ares, calling the month that used to be call Primus (first), Martius (March), which means “of Ares.”

§ 7.173  The Romans by custom all celebrate this festival until now, calling the day of the festival Mars in the Field (Campus Martius?). Immediately after he began ruling he built the hippodrome in Rome, wanting to entertain the crowd of the Demos of the Romans, because they were rioting and attacking him because of his brother. He conducted the first hippodrome races in the Roman land at the festival of Helios, they say, and in honor of the four elements under him, that is, earth and sea and fire and air. He reasoned that the kings of the Persians did well in their wars by honoring these four elements. King Oenomaus of the Pisaean country conducted a competition in the European parts in the month Dystros or March 25, to Helios the Titan at his exaltation [equinox??], with, they say, Earth and Sea competing, that is, Demeter and Poseidon, who are the elements beneath the Sun. Lots were cast between King Oenomaus and the person coming from whatever country to compete with him. When the lot called for Oenomaus to compete on behalf of Poseidon, he would wear an outfit of blue clothing, for the waters, and the person competing against him would wear the green outfit, for earth. Conversely, if the lot gave to Oenomaus to wear Demeter’s outfit, he wore the green,

§ 7.174  and his rival would wear the outfit of Poseidon, of the waters, the blue. The loser would be killed. A huge crowd began to watch the yearly royal competition, from each country and city. Those citizens who resided in the coastal cities and islands and coastal villages, and the sailors, would pray for the victory of the person wearing the blue outfit, that of Poseidon, taking it as an omen that if Poseidon’s competitor was defeated, there would be a dearth of fish and shipwrecks at sea and violent windstorms. The citizens living inland, and the local rustics and all those involved in farming would pray for the victory of the one wearing the green outfit, thinking the loss by Demeter’s champion, for Earth, would be an omen of famine, and shortages of wine and olive oil and other produce. Oenomaus defeated many challengers over many years, because he had Apsyrtus teaching him the charioteer’s art. This Oenomaus was defeated and killed by Pelops the Lydian. This horse-racing competition was first invented by someone named Enyalius, the son of Poseidon, when he married Libye, the daughter of Io and Picus Zeus. He controlled the southern parts, and called the country over which he was king Libya from the name of his wife. Enyalius invented racing with two-horse chariots, as the wise Callimachus wrote in his Etesians [? Presumably his Aetia].

§ 7.175  So then, after him, Erichthonius conducted the same competition with four-horse chariots, and consequently became famous, as is contained in the histories of Charax. He also wrote this, that the construction of the hippodrome is founded on the management of the universe, that is, of sky and earth and sea . The 12 gates represented the 12 houses of the Zodiac that govern the earth and sea and the transitory course of men’s life. The Pelma [sole of foot, track?] of the Hippodrome is the whole earth; the Euripus [central divider] is the sea inserted in the middle of the earth; the turning post at the gates is the East; the one on the Sphendone (curved end of the track) is the West; the seven spaces [lanes?] the course and movement of the astronomy of the seven stars of the Great Bear.
King Romus was the first in the western land to discover and conduct four-horse chariot races in honor of the Sun and the Four Elements under him, that is, earth and sea and fire and air. Romus gave names to those four elements. To Earth, the Prasinon faction, that is Green; to Sea, or the waters, the Veneton faction, as Blue; to Fire the Rousion faction, as Red;

§ 7.176  and to Air the Albon faction, as white. And from this he devised the four factions in Rome. He called the Prasinon faction, which in the Roman language is “enduring”, praesenteuein, to take the first seats, because it is said to remain, since the green earth stands for ever with its groves. He called the Veneton from there being a large country under Roman rule called Venetzia, whose metropolis is Aquileia, and from there come the blue, that is Venetzia, dyes for clothes. He joined to the Prasinon faction, Earth, the white, Air he says, since it rains and assists and suits the earth. And to the Veneton faction, the Waters, he joined the Rousion faction, Fire, making it subordinate, since water quenches fire.
So the inhabitants of Rome were divided into factions, and no longer were in concord with each other, because they desired their own victory and devoted themselves to their faction as to some religion. There was a great schism in Rome and the factions felt great enmity for each other in Rome, after Romus thought up the spectacle of horse-racing for them. When, in whatever faction, Romus saw people who favored the demes and senators who were angry and resistant to him on account of his brother’s death or any other cause,

§ 7.177  he would decide to adhere to the other faction, and would favor them and whomever was opposed to the goal of his opponents. From his time, the kings of Rome have followed the same guideline.
During the reign of Romus, his army was largely imported, and the was in Rome a crowd of wild people, without enough women for the crowd of men. The battalions of young men desired the pleasures of life, and they descended on the forum looking for women, and there was rioting and civil war. Romus was discouraged and at a loss for what to do. For none of the women would tolerate having sex with the soldiers, since they were wild and barbarous. So he promulgated a law that the soldiers should take virgins, whom he called Broutides, in marriage. No one agreed to give their daughter to them. They said that there was no hope of life for them, because of the wars. So everyone married off their daughters to people from the city. Romus was discouraged and went to the oracle. He was give a prophecy that he should carry out a horse-racing spectacle for the women, in order for the army to take women to marry. He assembled the host of soldiers in the palace and conducted a horse race. He commanded that only women watch the contest. Curious about the coming spectacle, a host of women came to Rome from all the countryside and distant cities and villages.

§ 7.178  The hippodrome was full of married women and younger virgins. The daughters of the Sabines came as well, beautiful women from a land near Rome. Romus gave an order secretly that married women who were Roman citizens should not attend the spectacle, and he ordered his army not to dare to touch a married woman, but to seize only the virgins and those not having husbands. Then Romus went up to the Hippodrome to watch. While the racing was going on, the army was released from the palace and surged into the Hippodrome. They pried the virgins and husbandless women from the bleachers and took them as their wives. Romus made this happen on one occasion only, as the most wise Vergillos has expounded. Pliny the Roman historiographer wrote likewise, and similarly Livy. Other historians wrote that the first horse-racing in Rome was on mules.
They say the brothers Romus and Remus were nursed by Lykaina, because King Amoulius, their grandfather, ordered them to be thrown in the woods as bastards, since Ilia their mother, a priestess of Ares, had been debauched by some soldier, about whom they mythologize that Ares impregnated her. She gave birth to twins,

§ 7.179  and because of this their grandfather threw them in the woods. Some rustic woman found the children while pasturing sheep, and took pity on them, because they were handsome, and took and reared them with her own milk. Until recently in that country they called she-wolves the village women who pastured sheep, since they have their livelihood and most of their time in the presence of wolves. For this reason, Romus invented the Brumalia, having said, they say, that it was necessary for each king of the time to maintain his whole senate, and those in office, and all the army inside the palace as honorable people, in wintertime, when warfare is suspended. He began by summoning and feeding first those with alpha in their name, and following until the last letter. He commanded his senate to feed in the same manner, so they maintained the whole army and whomever they wanted. The pandoura-players of each division would go out at evening to the houses of those who were going to invite them to luncheon the following day, and they played music so that person would know they would be fed by him tomorrow. The custom of the Brumalia has lasted in the Roman state until now. Romus did this hoping to expunge his hubris, because the Romans were hostile to him and hated and reviled him. They said that as the recipient of these insults he should not be king, since the two brothers had been raised from the resources of other people,

§ 7.180  until they reached adulthood and became kings, meaning that they had been raised by Faustus the farmer and his wife Lycaena, eating another’s food, as written above. For it was a reproach among the Romans and all the ancients for someone to be raised from another’s food. For that reason, even in the so-called friendly symposia each of the congregants brought his own food and drink with him, and everything was put in the middle, and they still eat keeping the ancient custom until now, so as not to sound as if they are eaters of another’s food. For this reason, Romos invented this, to expiate his hubris by calling the name of lunch in the Roman language Brumalium, as the most wise Licinnius the chronicler of the Romans has expounded.
After the brothers Romus and Remus, another six kings reigned over Rome until Tarquinius Superbus the unjust. He was the seventh king of Rome after its founding. The royal capital was raised by him.
The Cumaean Sibyl was a prophetess during his reign.
Tarquinius had a son named Arruns, because of whom he was expelled from his kingship. Arruns the son of Tarquinius committed adultery by raping Lucretia the senatorial. She killed herself, as a proper woman. There was a great civil war in Rome for years,

§ 7.181  and many were killed. The wise Servius the Roman author wrote about this. Tarquinius was expelled from the kingship in the following manner. As war was being waged in Rome from the nation of the Ardeni, King Tarquinius took his retinue and came to fight in the land of the Ardeni. Finding this occasion, his enemies the senators Brutus, the uncle of Lucretia, and Collatinus, her husband, plotted against him, bringing together with them all the other senators and people of the city in order to expel him from the kingship. They persuaded the army guarding the palace and the city of Rome, of the Celeriani, very battle-worthy men, to ally with themselves and not to permit Tarquinius to return to Rome. When Tarquinius learned what had been negotiated against him by the senate, the army, and the Demos, he sent and suborned the son of Brutus, who was a friend and a contemporary of his son Arruns. Persuaded, he agreed that when Tarquinius came against Rome he would betray the city and kill his own father Brutus. Brutus’ slave Vindicius, who accompanied his son, learned this and secretly told his master Brutus of the coming plot against him by his son. Immediately on hearing this, Brutus arrested his own son,

§ 7.182  and questioned him on all of this in the Roman forum, and compelled him to speak out on what had been plotted by him and Tarquinius. He confessed to his father the treason arrangement he had made with Tarquinius. He immediately killed his son. So the whole senate of Rome assembled and stripped Tarquinius of his kingship, making this deposition in writing. They voted and designated two consuls, Brutus the great and Collatinus, the husband of Lucretia, to govern the Roman state, who would nominate magistrates through private scrutiny, and that there no longer be a king in Rome. They wrote to the army with Tarquinius to abandon him, and they immediately withdrew. As soon as Brutus became consul, he immediately in gratitude brought his slave Vindicius before the senate and the Demos, because he had faithfully guarded his master. They conducted a celebratory festival to Justice. Sitting on the highest part of the bema, he brought Vindicius up opposite him, and stretching out his right hand and striking him three blows on the cheek, with a shout he said, “We have shaken off the Tyche of your slavery, O Vindicius, and taking off its yoke we have dressed you in the breastplate of Roman liberty for all the time of your life.” He took from his hand a gold ring and put it on his right hand, giving him the rank of count and part of his own property;

§ 7.183  He called the day of the festival Consilia, which is interpreted as day of granting. He ordered the consular magistrates of the provinces he appointed every year on that day to conduct a sacred all-night ritual and festival of Justice in memory of the victory over Tarquinius and the earned freedom of Vindicius, in order to induce the remaining household slaves everywhere to show a good spirit to their masters and become worthy of such freedom and honor. The consular magistrates of the provinces conduct the Consilia until today, with a festival. About this the very wise Livy and many others have written.
After many years the Gauls usurped power and waged war on the Romans. Learning this, the Senate of Rome appointed a strong general against them named Mallion [Manlius] Capitolinus. He armed and took a very warlike army and set out against the Gauls. When battle was join, he defeated them by force. He returned and triumphed for the victory in Rome. He came across as a megalomaniac before the senate and the army and the Demos, and become of this the Senate and everyone became vexed. Envied by some senatorial enemy he had, a powerful figure named Februarius who was of Gaulish descent, plotted against him.

§ 7.184  When Mallion Capitolinus came into a session and the Senate was sitting, the senator Februarius stood up and said to Mallion: “When the Roman army defeated the Gauls, why did you give yourself airs, as if you had fought a single combat? The Tyche of Rome always defeats the foe. It did not escape us, that because of this you are in such a state of megalomania, that you want to be tyrant over the Romans. Which is not going to happen.” Hearing this, the Senate and army and Demos attacked Mallion Capitolinus. The Demos rose up by consent of the Senate and shouted for Mallion Capitolinus to be expelled from the city of Rome. He out of respect for the army and the Demos left for his own estates near Apulia. There he lived quietly. When he had left, the Demos of the Romans went to his hose and stole whatever belonged to him.
The Gauls appointed for themselves a Rex strong in warfare, named Brennus, and mobilized immediately against Rome, having heard that Mallion had been expelled from Rome. Rex Brennus set out suddenly, entered Rome, and captured it on a wintry night, on the 15th of Sextilis, having sent the necessary advance team to kill the gate guards and open the gate. When they had been killed, there was consternation. When the senators learned that the city had been taken, they all fled and the prominent and splendid people of the city with wives and children went to the Capitolium, to the sanctuary of Zeus, with their money.

§ 7.185  Rex Brennus having captured the city of Rome, he killed or took captive many citizens and some of the soldiers. He besieged the Capitolium because the senators and their money were in it. The senators were able to write asking Mallion Capitolinus to bring together the army based in each city and country of the Romans, and to come to avenge Rome and save them. Receiving the senators’ message, Mallion Capitolinus, learning that Rome had been taken and the Capitolium was guarded by Brennus, rex of the Gauls, was upset. He immediately gathered an army from all sides and set out against Brennus. He arrived suddenly and unexpectedly in Rome at night, and deployed his army in the streets of the city. Putting himself in a favorable position, since Rex Brennus and all his people were foreigners, he killed them. Rex Brennus was surrounded and captured, and they immediately decapitated him and put his head on a stake. The cut down his army and his counts, and rescued all the Roman prisoners he had taken, and took back all the property that had been plundered. The Roman senate emerged from the Capitolium after the victory of Mallion Capitolinus. They immediately voted, with the army and the surviving Demos, that he alone should govern Roman affairs.

§ 7.186  Controlling Rome again, Mallion Capitolinus immediately grieved at the capture of Rome and the hubris and the Roman defeat. In the month called Sextilis, he designated as mutilated those days of that month, as being an evil omen for the city of Rome. He struck out the name, so the month would no longer be called that. He arrested the senator, his enemy, Februarius by name, who had plotted against him and caused him to be expelled from Rome, with all his property confiscated. With him watching, he immediately asked for a vote by the army that had come with him to avenge Rome. He addressed the senate and the army, and said that this man is of the Gallic race, as you know, and to avenge them he plotted against me. He has a corrupted life. For he is a passive homosexual, and should not reside in Rome but be expelled dishonorably, and his name taken away, and he should be given as a sacrifice to the chthonian gods. The senate and army agreed. They took away his rank, stripped him naked, wrapped him in rushes and girded him with a long rope. They put the name of the senator in a written order for the month Sextilis, causing the name of the month to become Februarius, from him, since that was a worthy name for an ill-omened and dishonorable month. They ordered the vernacli, or watch patrols, to strike him with cudgels and shout

§ 7.187  “Go out, February,” which in the Hellenic language is εκβα, Περίτιε ( Peritios, 4th month). Thus expelled from Rome, the senator died, sacrificed to the underworld gods. Mallion permitted the priests to make a sacrifice in this month of February. He commanded that in each Roman city there be the same form of straw attire and the rest every year, and to expel February or Peritios month with a beating in front of the city, symbolizing the victory against Brennus and the Gauls and the revenge against the enemy of Mallion. This happens until now in every Roman city. This report I found in Thessalonike. Reading it I found the epigraph of the book: “Report of Brunichius the Roman Chronicler.”
After the consuls administered the city for many years, the first to be king again was Octavianus Augustus. He reproached Mallion Capitolinus for having placed the ill-omened month February in the middle. Augustus immediately moved it through his divine command, placing the name February last of all the months, and instead of it he called the month August from his name, the sixth, from the first, and called the month before August by the name of his uncle, Julius Caesar.

§ 7.188  After ousting Tarquinius from power, the above-mentioned two consuls administered the city, Brutus the great and Collatinus the husband of Lucretia, and many other consuls until Caesar Julius in the year 464. In those years, along with Ioakeim Addous, who was priest of the Jews, was the Greek philosopher Plato, who wrote to Timaeus concerning God and said that the divine had three names, one dynamis and divinity, saying it was the first cause, the good, which takes pity on everything; the second cause is mind (nous), which creates everything; and the third causes is the life-making spirit (psyche), which gave life to everything. He admitted that these three powers exist as one godhead. Kyrillos the most holy bishop of Alexandreia, included this in his writings against King Julian the Apostate, saying that he foretold the Holy Trinity as a unit of godhead, though unaware of what was going to happen. In the time of this Plato there were other philosophers, educators of the Greeks, Xenophon and Aischines and Aristotle. These introduced to mankind the error of metempsychosis (transmigration of souls): Kalliste daughter of Lycaon, metempsychosed as a bear,

§ 7.189  Hippomene, daughter of Megaris, as a lion, Io daughter of Inachus, as a heifer, Atalante daughter of Schoineus as a peacock, and Philomela daughter of Pandion as a swallow and Procne her sister as a nightingale, and Niobe daughter of Tantalus as a stone. They and those around them mythologized other such things. After the death of Artaxerxes the king of the Persians, his son Ochos reigned. He waged war on the Egyptians and captured the whole land of Egypt and destroyed it. Nektanebo was ruling over the Egyptians then. He did a basin-oracle (lekanomanteia) and knew that it was necessary for Ochos the king of the Persians to capture Egypt. So Nektanebo cut the hair on his head and changed his royal robes and left through Pelousion. He came to Pella, a city of Macedonia, and passed his time there. In that time happened the legendary story about Olympias and Nektanebo, that through some joke she was debauched by him and conceived Alexander, whom they say was conceived by Zeus Ammon.

§ 7.190  So the first kingdom of the Egyptians and Thebans had lasted 1493 years, as Eirenaios the wise chronographer recounted. In this time the high priest of the Jews was Iaddous. The Hebrew high-priesthood had lasted 1202 years. In the same years the whole island of Rhodes was laid low by divine wrath, an earthquake at night in the month of October. The column of the Colossus fell and lay on the ground. Then the high priests of the Jews and the whole nation paid taxes to the Assyrians. Then the Assyrians and Ochos their king were riding high, and they were tyrants over the whole earth, and power was handed over to the Assyrians and Persians and Medes and Parthians.
Philip ruled over Macedonia for 20 years. He conquered and subjugated Thessaly and founded a city in Macedonia which he called Thessalonike, which before had been a village called Thermai. Dionysius recounts that it was called Thessalonike after the name of a queen of the race of Philip. The kingdom or toparchy of the Macedonians had lasted 602 years until the reign of Philip, as the most wise Eusebius the Pamphylian chronicles. After Philip, Alexander the son of Philip reigned over Macedonia.

§ 7.191  Dareius the Mede, the son of Assalamos, ruled the Babylonians after Ochos. He dominated everything. During his reign, the Romans prevailed and added the region surrounding their land. Putting forward strong consuls, they took territory.

§ 10.227  In the forty-second year and the fourth month of the reign of Augustus, our Lord Jesus Christ was born, eight (days) before the calends of January, in the month of Apellaios, which is December, on the twenty-fifth, at the seventh hour of the day, in a city of Judaea, Bethlehem by name, near Jerusalem; it was the forty-second year according to the Antiochenes, while Quirinius [Cyrenius] Consul was governing Syria, during the consulship of Octavianus and Silvanus [2 BCE, Imp. Caesar Divi f. Augustus XIII; M. Plautius Silvanus], while the Toparch, that is King, of Judaea was Herod the Great. There elapsed from Adam until Peleg, the son of Eber, to the forty-second year of the reign of Augustus Caesar, two thousand and sixty-seven years;

§ 10.228  From Adam the first-created to the bodily birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the forty-second year of the same Augustus Caesar, five thousand nine hundred and sixty-seven years. Our Lord remained on earth with men thirty-three years. Accordingly, from Adam the first-created until the bodily birth of our Lord Jesus Christ and the crucifixion and the: ascension there are fully six thousand years. Peleg, [according to] the voice of the Prophet Moses, marks one half of the time of the advent of the Lord, for man was created in six days, and Moses the Great said in his writing that for the Lord one day is as a thousand years.
On the sixth day God created man, and man fell into sin. Accordingly, it is clear that in the sixth day of thousands he will appear on earth and save man by his crucifixion and resurrection. Thus also write the chroniclers Clement, Theophilus, and Timothy, agreeing among themselves. Eusebius of Pamphilus also asserts the appearance of the Savior Christ in the sixth millennium in accordance with the six days of Adam’s creation.

§ 10.229  He said that before the ending of the sixth year, our Lord and God, Christ, appeared on earth in order to redeem the human race. He was born and became man, he said, in the five thousand and five hundredth year, and suffered, rose from the dead and ascended into heaven in the five thousandth five hundredth and 35th year. They all agree in affirming that the Lord would appear in the 6000th year, whether more or less. Nevertheless, he appeared in the year 6000 according to the prophetic voice, even if they do not agree in regard to the laying down of the number of years; he shall appear in the last years according to the divine books.
In the reign of the same pious Augustus Octavianus Caesar, a city of Palestine, Salamine by name, fell by the wrath of God. Augustus rebuilt the town and named it Diospolis (city of Zeus).
Herod, the Toparch, that is, the King of Judaea, was informed in that year that magicians from Persia had arrived and had entered the Judaean country (and ordered them seized) The magicians came from Persia, having been instructed by an announcement which they had received, for a star had appeared to them, which had announced to them that in the East Christ the Savior had become god-man. They brought him gifts as to a great victorious king.

§ 10.230  Having come to Jerusalem, they inquired: “Where is the newborn Jewish king?” (And) the Jews became excited. The magicians having been sighted, and having been seized, (and) were taken to the king. He inquired of them, saying: “Why have you come to the Judaean country, what do you seek?” The magicians confessed to him about the starry miracle, “that a great king is born to the world, and we came (bringing) him gifts as to a great king and God. For we have seen his star in the East.” Herod heard them and being astonished, thought to himself, saying: after Augustus Caesar, how strong will the newborn king be? For the magicians came to Jerusalem during the consulship of Vindicius and Varius [2CE, P. Vinicius; P. Alfenus Varus]. Having inquired of them concerning the time of the star, he said to the magicians: “If you return," come and tell me, so that I also might go and bow before him.” The magicians having left, were led by the star which they had seen in the East. They found Jesus and his mother in the city of Bethlehem. And falling to the ground, they bowed before Christ the Savior. They spoke among themselves, (saying) “that the star had shown us a greater god than itself, which we worship as a god.”

§ 10.231  And bringing gifts to him as to God, gold, — frankincense, and myrrh, — and having seen in a dream — that they should not return to Herod, — they returned by another route to the Persian country, disobeying Herod. As having been insulted by the magicians, Herod became angry, and having inquired of the Jewish high priests where Christ should be born, they taught him. And dispatching soldiers, he killed all infants in Bethlehem, the city of Judaea, as the divine books relate.
And Herod immediately fell into an incurable illness, and having been eaten by worms, died. And Archelaus, his son, became king, that is, tetrarch, of the Jewish people, for nine years, during the consulship of Lamia and Servilianus [3 CE, L. Aelius Lamia; M. Servilius], as Clement the chronicler has written. Augustus Caesar Octavianus in the fifty-fifth year of his reign, in the month of October, which is Hyperberetaios, went to the oracle and having offered a sacrifice of a hecatomb, he inquired: “Who shall reign after me in the city of Rome?” But no answer was vouchsafed him by the Pythia. He offered another sacrifice and inquired of the Pythia why no answer had been vouchsafed him, and why the magic had been silent. And the Pythia answered him as follows: “A Jewish boy, who rules the blessed gods, commands me to leave this house, and to depart to Hades.

§ 10.232  Therefore, ye shall leave your houses.” And Augustus Caesar left the oracle and went to the Capitolium. He built there a great and high altar, upon which he wrote in Roman letters: “This altar is (dedicated) to the firstborn God.” This altar is in the Capitolium to this day, as the wise Timothy wrote. Octavianus Caesar fell into illness and died in Rome, being seventy-five years old, childless, and free from carnal sin. For the king was a mystagogue high priest.
After — the reign of Augustus Octavianus Caesar — who had reigned — fifty-seven years, six months, and two days, — reigned Tiberius, twenty-two and a half years, during the consulship of Sextus and Secticianus (14CE Sex. Pompeius; Sex. Appuleius). He was of middle stature, old, slim, of good eyes, dark, with short, curly hair, benevolent, and industrious. He mobilized the army against the Persians, but did not fight them, because they asked him for and were granted a peace treaty. And coming to Antioch he built outside the city two great colonnaded streets (εμβολοι) toward the mountain called Silpios, having a dimension of four miles, roofed and very magnificent. At each street (?) he built tetrapyla with arches, and beautified them with gilt and marble, and decorating the main square with bronze works and statues; and building walls he enclosed these porticoes and the mountain inside;

§ 10.233  he joined the new wall to the old wall of the city build by Seleucus, closing off by this same wall both the acropolis and Iopolis. And the council and people of Antioch erected to Tiberius Caesar a bronze stele above a great Theban column in the middle of the colonnaded streets built by him. This place is called the eye of the city. It has a sculpted imprint of an omphalos in stone. This stele stands until now. Tiberius Caesar, learning that king Seleucus feared the flows of water descending from the mountain in winter and stagnating, avoiding the mountain built the city in the plain, and placed a stone coffer on his stele, in which he made a talisman, through Ablakkonos the mystic and priest, regarding the flows of the Parmenios torrent and the descending rivulets from the mountain, so they would not harm this part of the city or breach the two great streets build by him. The Antiochene citizens say this stone coffer is the ransom of their city, because this part of the city was purchased through the security of the wall built by him against invasion and conquest by the barbarian Saracens and Persians. For the part of the city by the mountain,

§ 10.234  built by king Antiochus Epiphanes, was formerly without a wall. He also built the bouleuterion and other sanctuaries. And king Antiochus the so-called Philadelphus had built many things outside the city. He built two sanctuaries in the grove at Daphne, of Apollo and Artemis, standing two gold statues in them, providing privileges to those who took refuge there so they could not be expelled from these shrines. These were built during the Macedonian kingdom. Tiberius Caesar built in Antioch a great sanctuary of Zeus Capitolinus. This king likewise built a public bath near the spring of Olympias, which had been built by Alexander the Macedonian in the name of his mother. For Alexander drank water there when he came there and said: “I drank my mother’s milk.” The spring is beside the mountain, and Tiberius enclosed in within the wall. King Tiberius also build a sanctuary to Dionysos toward the mountain, and erected two great steles outside the temple in honor of the Dioscuri born to Antiope, Amphion and Zethos. The river of the city, formerly known as Dracon, he called Orontes, which means “Eastern” in the Roman language.

§ 10.235  He also built the theater, adding another zone toward the mountain, and sacrificing a virgin girl named Antigone; whence he did not carry the theater to completion. He stood above the eastern gate, which he built, a stone stele with the she-wolf nursing Romus and Remus, meaning that the building of the added wall for Antioch was Roman. He also built the sanctuary of Pan behind the theater. The wise Domninus the chronographer recounted this.
He also built in Judaea a city in the lake which he called Tiberias. Warm springs having been found there, he built for the city a public bath without a hypocaust, instead using the hot springs. He placed Cappadocia under the Romans after the death of Archelaus its toparch. In the years of Tiberius arson occurred in Antioch of Syria in the 72nd year of its autonomy, during the night, burning the greater part of the agora and the bouleuterion and the sanctuary of the Muses build by Antiochus Philopator from the money left in his will by Maron of Antioch, who moved to Athens and ordered then that from this money should be built the sanctuary and library of the Muses.

§ 10.236  Tiberius also built another city in Thrace, which he called Tiberia.
In the fifteenth year of Tiberius, during the consulship of Alvanus and Nerva [28 CE, Ap. Junius Silanus; P. Silius Nerva] John the Precursor began to preach the baptism of repentance, baptizing in accordance with the prophetic voice, and the whole Judaean country came to him. And from this the beginning- was made of the saving preaching. Our Lord Jesus Christ was baptized by John the Precursor, being about thirty years of age and performing miracles. He was baptized in the Jordan river of Palestine in the month of Audenaios, which is January, on the sixth day and at the tenth hour of the night, during the consulship of Rufus and Rubellion [29 CE, C. Fufius Geminus; L. Rubellius Geminus]. From that time John the Baptist was known to men. And Herod son of Philip, the King, who was Toparch or king of the Trachonitis region, beheaded him in the city of Sebaste eight days before the calends of July during the consulship of Flaccus and Rufinus [?] on account of Herodias, his wife. For John had said to him: “It is not proper for you to have the wife of your brother, just as is written in the divine books."

§ 10.237  The same King Herod the second, the son of Philip, sorrowing on John's account, left the city of Sebaste for Paneas, a city of Judaea. And a rich woman came to him, desiring to set up an image of Christ, having been healed by him. But not daring to do [so] without the King’s permission, she told it to Herod, begging that she set up a copper image of the Savior Jesus Christ in that city. Her prayer was written as follows: “To the honored Herod, the world-ruler and the law-giver of the Jews and the Greeks of the territory of Trachonitis, a petition and prayer from the noblewoman Veronica of the city of Paneas. The truth of philanthropy [other beneficence]” guard your sacred head. Therefore, I am confident with good hopes to obtain that for which I petition. What is the sense of the present petition, is expressed by the previous” word.” Having fallen since childhood into the suffering of blood issue, I have spent all my property and wealth, but have not found healing.

§ 10.238  Having heard of the miraculous healing of Christ, how he restored the dead and brought the blind to the light again, and drove demons out of men, and healed with a word those who were wasting away with disease, to him as to God I hastened. And approaching him when he stood among the people, I was afraid to confess to him my chronic disease, lest perchance he might be repelled by my filthy disorder, and might be angry with me, and the pain of the disease might be increased. I thought to myself that if I could but touch the hem of his robe, I should be healed. And pushing secretly through the crowd, I stole the healing, having touched the hem of his robe. And the flow of blood stopped, and thenceforth I have been well. But he, as if reading the thoughts of my heart, inquired: ‘Who touched me? For power has gone from me. And I turned pale and groaned, thinking that the disease would return worse than ever me. I fell before him, my tears filling the earth, and confessed my daring. He, like God, observing the signs of healing, said: ‘Hope, daughter, your faith has saved you. Go in peace.

§ 10.239  In such manner you, your honor, grant this urgent prayer.” King Herod, hearing this prayer of hers, was surprised at the marvel. And fearing the mysterious healing, he said: “this healing, O woman, is worth a larger statue. Go then and set up whatever statue you wish, praising with zeal him who had healed you.” And straightway Veronica, who was formerly bleeding, set up in the midst of her city Paneas a bronze statue to the Lord our God Jesus Christ, of hammered bronze mixed with a small portion of gold and silver. That image stands to this day in the city of Paneas, having been carried many years ago from the place where it had stood in the midst of the town to a holy church. I found in that city of Paneas a memorandum about it by a certain Bassus, a former Jew become a Christian, with the life of all the former reigning kings in the territory of Judaea.
And this King Herod the son of Philip, becoming over-full was in a medical crisis for eight months. He was killed in his bedroom after eight months, with his wife’s knowledge, as Clement wrote.

§ 10.240  In the eighteenth year of the reign of this Tiberius Caesar, in the seventh month, when Jesus Christ our God was thirty-three years (old), he was betrayed by Judas Iscariot, his disciple — our Lord the Savior — in the month of Dystros, which is March, on the twenty-third, the 13th of the moon, Thursday, at the fifth hour of the night. He had been taken to Caiaphas, the high priest, and from there, in the morning, he was turned over to Pontius Pilate, the governor. And straightway Pilate's wife, Procla, sent to him, saying; “Have nothing to do with this righteous man. For I have suffered much on his account today in a dream.” Having learned of it, the Jews rioted, saying: “Take, take, crucify!” Our Lord Jesus Christ was crucified eight days before the calends of April, the month of Dystros, which is March, the twenty-fourth, the moon having fourteen days, on Friday, at the sixth hour of the day. And the sun was darkened and there was darkness over all the world from the sixth till the ninth hour. The most wise Phlegon, the Athenian, a Greek, has written regarding this darkness in his work as follows: “in the eighteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar there occurred an eclipse of the sun, greater than ever before. It became night in the sixth hour of the day, so that even the stars appeared.”

§ 10.241  Jesus Christ, the son of the living God, gave up the spirit on Friday at the ninth hour of the day. Straightway there was seen all over the world a great earthquake and graves were opened and stones split asunder and the dead arose, as it all is truly described in the divine books, as it was spoken to the Jews; “Of a truth this was the son of God whom we have crucified.” The Lord Jesus was laid in the grave at the tenth hour of that Friday, in the consulship of Sulpicius and Sylla [33 CE, Ser. Sulpicius Galba; L. Cornelius Sulla Felix], in the seventy-ninth year of the (era) of Antioch the Great. Cassius ruled in Syria at the time, having been appointed by Tiberius the King. Our Lord God Jesus Christ rose from the dead in the month of Dystros, which is March, on the twenty-fifth, at the sixth hour of the night, at the dawn of Sunday. On the twenty-sixth of the month March, on the sixteenth day of the moon, he appeared to the apostles and many other saints and remained with them after the resurrection forty days. He was lifted into heaven in the month of Artemisios, which is May, on the fourth day, the second hour of the day, on Thursday, having been seen by the holy apostles and a multitude of others as he was raised up by the clouds, with the holy angels saying: “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up to heaven? This is Jesus.”

§ 10.242  And the holy and life-creating Spirit descended upon the holy apostles in the month of Artemisios, which is May, on the fourteenth day, a Sunday, the first hour of the day, when Pontius Pilate was governing Judaea. He had been appointed to rule this nation by the same Tiberius Caesar, who had abolished the kingdom of Judaea and had set up a prince for them whom he himself had chosen. In those years the high-priestly office of the Jewish race was held by Annas and Caiaphas.
Four years after the resurrection and assumption of our Savior God during the reign of Tiberius Caesar, after St. Paul left Antioch the Great, having first preached the Word with Barnabas in the street near the Pantheon, called Singon's, and after he left for Cilicia, Peter came to Antioch from Jerusalem and taught the Word. And having been enthroned there, he was persuaded by the Jews who had become Christians, and did not accept nor love believers from other nations. Having left them in this way, he departed from there. St. Paul returned afterwards to Antioch the Great, and having learned this about St. Peter, he removed the stumbling block, and received and loved all equally, and brought all to the faith, as the most wise chroniclers Clement and Tatian, have written.

§ 10.243  King Tiberius died a natural death in the palace, being seventy years of age. After the reign of Tiberius Caesar reigned Aelius Gaius also {called) Caligula, who had (spread) great fear among all barbarian races before his reign. It was on that account that the nobles had appointed him king. He reigned during the consulship of Gallus and Nonnianus [35 CE, C. Cestius Gallus; M. Servilius Nonianus] and held the rule for four years and seven months. He was tall, handsome, with a thin face, ruddy, capable, with long hair, small eyes, quick in speech, irascible, and magnanimous. During the first year of his reign Antioch the Great suffered earthquake (theomenia) in the month Dystros or March 23, about dawn, its second suffering after the Macedonians, in the year 85 according to the Antiochenes. Part of Daphne also suffered. And king Gaius provided much money to the city and its surviving citizens. He built there a public bath near the mountain, having sent Salianus as governor to build it. This man also built a large conduit from Daphne, carving the mountain and bringing the water to the public bath built by him. He also built sanctuaries. Gaius Caesar also sent two other senators from Rome, very rich ones, whose names were Pontoos and Varios,

§ 10.244  to guard the city and build it, from among those honored by the king, so that they would provide for the city from their own resources and live in it. They built many houses with their own money. By the houses these senators built many other things in Antioch with their own money, and a large public bath, the so-called Varion, below by the wall near the river, where they also built their houses near the public (bath), and a very distinguished Trinymphon which they ornamented with statues to dress for their marriage all the virgin female citizens.
From the (first) year of the reign of Caesar Gaius, the faction of the Greens, emboldened by him, ruled in Rome and city by city for three years and a half. For he favored them. In the third year of his reign those who belonged to the Blues in Antioch of Syria raised a cry against the Greens in the theatre: “Time raises up and time deposes, Fight Greens", while Pronoios the consular governor looked on.” And there arose in the city a great popular riot, and disaster in the city. For the Greeks of Antioch engaged in public battle with the Judaeans there and killed many Jews and burned their synagogues.

§ 10.245  Hearing of it in Palestine, the priest of the Jews there, whose name was Phineas, gathered a multitude of Galileans and Jewish, who were citizens, about thirty thousand, and suddenly came to Antioch from the city of Tiberias. He killed many, having entered suddenly with armed men. Phineas then returned to Tiberias. King Gaius Caesar learning this, became angry with the nobles who were in Antioch, Pontoos and Varius, and confiscated all their property and converted their estates in Antioch into imperial (property); whence the houses are called "royal" (basilika). He brought them bound in chains, because they had failed to prevent the municipal riot and had not resisted the priest Phineas when he stormed the city. Having sent to Tiberias, the city of Palestine, he seized that Phineas, the Jewish priest, and decapitated him as a tyrant and put to death many Jews and Galileans. They put the head of the priest Phineas on a stake outside the city of Antioch, across river Orontes. He rebuilt the burned (parts) in the city, having sent money.

§ 10.246  In the same year this King Gaius was killed in the palace while he was washing in the morning, by the spatharii and cubicular eunuchs, by the order of the senate. He was thirty-nine years old.
After the reign of King Gaius reigned Claudius Caesar Germanicus, during the consulship of Cassius and Solon [41CE, C. Caesar Augustus Germanicus IV; Cn. Sentius Saturninus ?]. This Claudius Caesar reigned fourteen years and nine months. He was short, stout, of bluish-grey (eyes), graying white, with a long face, taciturn. He built a city which he called after his own name, Claudiopolis. He also built a city Bretannia near the Ocean. This King Claudius gave popular control to the Greens. During his reign Ephesus and Smyrna fell by the wrath of God, and many cities of Asia, to which he sent much for the restoration. Antioch the great was shaken then as well, and the temple of Artemis and of Ares and of Herakles collapsed, and prominent houses fell. Claudius relieved the Antiochenes of the duty that they paid for smoke, for the restoration of Antioch’s roofed colonnades, which had been built by Tiberius Caesar.
At the beginning of his reign, ten years after the ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ, Evodius became first patriarch after the establishment of the episcopacy in Antioch by Apostle Peter.

§ 10.247  And under bishop Evodius, who called them this and assigned them the name, they were named Christians. Formerly, Christians had been called Nazarenes and Galileans. In the eighth year of the reign of Claudius, the Jews stirred up a great persecution against the apostles and their disciples, and plotted revolution against the Romans. The first to be sent against them was a Chiliarch, Festus by name. He brought destruction upon them. Claudius appointed their prince, Felix by name. They rioted. Eighteen years after the ascension of the Lord, on the festival of the Pentecost, Jewish priests heard a human voice speaking from the inmost altar which is called the holy of holies: “Let us depart hence.” This voice was heard crying three times, that the priests shall become the sacrifice, (and) it is to be seen with you all. Since then began the Jewish destruction, as Josephus wrote. For ever since Jews had crucified Jesus,

§ 10.248  who was a pious and righteous man, if one may speak of one who performed signs as a man rather than God, troubles have not ceased in the Jewish territory. Thus has this Josephus expressed it in his Jewish written, writing up to that time. During the reign of Claudius, the city fathers and citizens of Antioch sent a memorandum asking that it be permitted by his divine ordinance to purchase the Olympic games from the Pisaeans of the Hellas region from the yearly revenues of the money left to them by a certain senator Sosibios, their fellow citizen. And king Claudius permitted them to buy the Olympics in the year called by the Syrians of Antioch 92 [45CE ?]. The Antiochenes did this, being aggrieved at their politicians regarding the aforementioned revenues left to the city by Sosibios. Regarding this Sosibios the wise chronographer Pausanias reported that when he died a certain Sosibios left to the great city of the Antiochenes a yearly income of 15 talents of gold, in his will which was published in the times of Octavianus Augustus. The revenues left were for carrying out for his fellow citizens every five years a varied spectacle for 30 days in the month Hyperberetaios or October, with dramatic musical, tragic, athletic, horse racing and gladiatorial events.

§ 10.249  These politicians carried them out at first, but afterwards, profiting from the revenues, they kept putting them off. By divine command the politicians of Antioch together with the city fathers bought the Olympics from the Pisaeans. And these council-members asked the whole city if they were ready to allow them to carry out the Olympic festival in the former [place?]. And the city fathers and the whole demos and the priests having been persuaded, it was granted to them. And these politicians carried out in accordance with the old custom the contest of music and tragedy and horsemanship and the rest for 30 days from the first of Hyperberetaios month on a five-year basis, until the occasion of the five-year period arrived. And again these politicians found a reasonable excuse, with various wars under way in the east, and nothing less than the city of Antioch being taken by enemies, and calamities and various earthquakes and fires, they postponed performance of the five-year spectacular games but chose other different periods for the festival, 15 or 20 years, until they decided the city of the Antiochenes had been freed of ills and was at peace.

§ 10.250  In the thirteenth year of Claudius' reign the whole island of Crete suffered an earthquake (theomenia). In those same years was found in the tomb of Diktys, in a box of lead, a description of the Trojan War, authentically written by him. It lay near the head of Diktys' body. Thinking that the box was of gold, they brought it to Claudius. He ordered it opened, to see what it was, and having copied it, to deposit in the public library. And Claudius died, having sent much to Crete for restoration. He died a natural death in the palace, having been ill for two days. He was sixty-five and a half years old.
After the reign of Claudius reigned his son, Nero, during the consulship of Silvanus and Antoninus [53CE, D. Junius Silanus Torquatus; Q. Haterius Antoninus]. He reigned thirteen years and two months. He was tall and thin, gray, with a heavy beard, able. As soon as he began to reign, he began to inquire about Christ, not knowing that he had been crucified. He sought him, desiring to bring him to Rome as a great philosopher and miracle-worker. For he had heard of him prior to his reign. He did not wish to question him about anything, he sought him.” This Nero was of the faith of the so-called Epicureans, who say that all things are without design.

§ 10.251  Having learned that many years before the Jews had crucified him (Jesus) solely on account of jealousy, although he was without guilt, Nero was angry. And having sent (for them), he brought Annas and Caiaphas in bonds to Rome; Pilate, who lived in Palestine after his deposition, was also brought bound. For Annas and Caiaphas had said many evil things against Pilate, clearing themselves, as having acted the law and tradition. And having given much (money), Annas and Caiaphas extricated themselves, and were released. But Pilate remained in prison. During the years of the reign of his Nero, St. Paul came to Athens, a city of Greece, and found there a philosopher, Dionysius the Areopagite by name, who was an Athenian, agitated about philosophical teaching which he wrote about the sun as being an emanation of the divine light; he said other things about the creation. Seeing him, St. Paul spoke with him. And St. Dionysius asked Paul: "Whose God do you preach, O empty-worded one?” And Dionysius heard Paul while he was teaching and adhered to him, praying that he might be sanctified by baptism.

§ 10.252  Paul seeing Dionysius’ fervent faith, made him bishop in that region. This Dionysius wrote books [for the Hellenes.] Paul then returned to Jerusalem.
During the reign of this Nero arrived a certain Simon, an Egyptian magician, practicing magic, illusions, and calling himself Christ. Apostle Peter having heard of him, came to Rome. As he was passing on his way to Rome through Antioch the Great, it happened that Evodius, the Bishop and Patriarch of the city of Antioch, died. Ignatius assumed the office of episcopacy, having been appointed by St. Peter. It happened in those years that St. Mark the Apostle died in Alexandria the Great, having been Bishop and Patriarch there. And John,‘ his disciple, received the episcopacy from him, as Theophilus wrote. Hastening on to Rome, and learning where Simon the magician resided. Apostle Peter went to him where he lived. He found a large dog tied with chains at his gate, whom Simon tied there on Peter’s account and for those who came to him. He (Simon) told him (the dog) not to permit anyone to enter except such as Simon should permit.

§ 10.253  There occurred a miracle when he (Peter) wished to come to him (Simon) Peter, seeing such a great and terrible dog, and seeing from those who stood before the gate that unless Simon ordered the dog, the dog would not let anyone enter, but jumping on the one entering, would kill him, Peter seized the dog by the chains, shook him and said to him: “Go to Simon and tell him with human voice: Peter, a servant of the highest God, wishes to enter!” The dog went running. And since he had been taught certain magical tricks, standing in the midst, he said with human voice to Simon: “Peter, a servant of the highest God, wishes to come to you.” Those hearing the dog speak with human voice, were amazed and said: “What is this Peter or his power, of whom the dog has spoken, that he endows the dog with human, making him a messenger?” And Simon said to the people who stood and were amazed at Peter: “Let that frighten you today.” For I will likewise command that dog to return him answers” with human voice.” [And Simon said to the dog: “I command you, go] and tell Peter with human voice: ‘Simon bids you come!'” And Peter came to Simon and Peter encountered Simon the Egyptian, performing other miracles, and vanquished Simon the magician by effecting cures. Many believed Peter and were baptized.

§ 10.254  A great disturbance and outcry arose in Rome on account of Simon and Peter, because they were performed miracles against each other. And hearing of the disturbance, Agrippa the Eparch informed King Nero, saying: “There are, O King, certain men in the capital city who are performing miracles against each other. One calls himself the Christ, and the other says: "He is not the Christ, but a magician; but I am a disciple of the Christ.” And King Nero commanded that Simon and Peter be brought before him, and Pilate to be brought from prison. And they were taken before the King. And King Nero asked Simon: “Are you the Christ?”” And Peter said: “He is not. For I am his disciple, and he ascended into the heavens in my presence.” He (Nero) called Pilate and asked him about Simon: “Is this the one that you gave to be crucified?” And Pilate approached and said: “This is not he. This one is long-haired and stout.” He inquired from him (Pilate) about Peter: “Do you know whether this one is his disciple?” He then said: “Indeed! The Jews who came to me (thought him) to be his disciple, and questioned him; but he denied it, saying: I am not his disciple. And I released him.”

§ 10.255  And straightway Nero ordered — since Simon had lied calling himself the Christ, although he was not, and since Peter had been accused by Pilate that he had denied Christ — that they be driven out of the palace. They remained in Rome, performing miracles one against the other. A great bull was brought to Simon, and he spoke a word into its ear. The marvel of it was that instantly the bull died. Peter, having offered a prayer in the sight of all, brought the bull back to life; this was a greater miracle! And many other (deeds) they performed against each other, as it is written in the acts of the holy apostles.
Apostle Peter by his prayer put to death Simon the magician, who wished to ascend. For Simon said to Peter: “You say that the Christ, your God, ascended up into the heavens. I will also ascend!” And Peter seeing the magician in the air in the midst of the city of Rome, Peter prayed, and Simon the magician fell into the middle of the road on the ground and was crushed. His bones are to this day to be found where he fell, and his grave is surrounded by a stone wall. Accordingly, that place is called the Simonion. King Nero having heard that Simon was killed by Peter, became angry, and ordered him seized and killed.

§ 10.256  But as soon as St. Peter was seized, he gave the clothing of the bishop of Rome to Linus, his disciple, who was following him when he was seized. Peter himself was old and short, of high forehead, had short hair, all grey, with head and beard white, pallid, with swollen eyes, a good chin, a long nose, with heavy brows, prudent, rash, easily pacified, of clear discourse by the holy Spirit, a miracle-worker.
The bishop in Rome succeeding Peter was Linus, as Eusebius of Pamphilus writes. Apostle Peter received martyrdom by being crucified head downwards, as the Apostle himself had requested of the Eparch, “that I should not be crucified as was my Lord.” St. Peter died there in the consulship of Apronianus and Capito [59CE C. Vipstanus Apronianus; C. Fonteius Capito].
Nero also became angry with Pilate and ordered him cut down, saying; “Why did he surrender the so-called Christ to the Jews, a blameless man, performing wonders If even his disciple performs such miracles, how much more powerful would he have been?”

§ 10.257  During his reign, St. Paul arrived in Rome, sent from the Judaean land to appear in court. He was martyred, with his head cut off on the 3rd day before the calends of July in the consulship of Nero and Lentulus [60CE Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus IV; Cossus Cornelius Lentulus]. And King Nero ordered that the bodies of the holy apostles not be handed over but left unburied. Paul was, at the age when he was traveling, short, balding, partly gray in pate and beard, with a fine nose, gray-eyed, eyebrows close-knit, pale-complexioned, ruddy-faced, well-bearded, with a smiling character, wise, moral, eloquent, sweet, inspired by the Holy Spirit and making cures.
The same king Nero sent to Judaea and Jerusalem and treated everyone badly, killing many in a military engagement, because they considered him a tyrant and shouted insults against Nero, because he beheaded Pilate to avenge Christ. He came to him because they, having done nothing else but usurp authority from the governor, had crucified Christ. For this he was annoyed at them as at tyrants, and Annas and Caiaphas were killed by soldiers in the engagement. This Nero incorporated in his domain another region in Pontus, sending Polemon as its general. He made it a province, calling it Polemonian Pontus. Nero favored the Blues greatly. In the years of his reign the very wise Lucan was great and praised by the Romans.

§ 10.258  In the consulship of Itoricus and Tolpillianus or Trochelos [68CE, Ti. Catius Asconius Silius Italicus; P. Galerius Trachalus], king Nero disappeared and died, the Hellenic priests contrived for him a dose of potion, and the one who took power after him was of the doctrine of Epicurus, and coming to see the invalid, stabbed him in the palace, and Nero died at age 69.
After the reign of Nero, Galba Augustus ruled for 7 months. He was tall, brave, white-skinned, somewhat squinty, hook-nosed, partly gray, manic. During Galba's reign, the bodies of the holy apostles were handed over for burial by the command of the king himself. For he was commanded in a dream to give the bodies of the holy apostles for burial. Galba died a natural death suddenly, after being bled, at age 49.
After the reign of Galba, Lucius Othon ruled for three months. He was short, wide, brave, straight-haired, small-eyed, somewhat flat-nosed, with a speech defect. In his reign St. Jacob the apostle died, the bishop of Jerusalem and patriarch, whom St. Peter had enthroned in place of himself when he left for Rome.

§ 10.259  Symeon, also known as Simon, received the form of bishop and became patriarch.
This Othon died age 53 after falling ill.
After the reign of Othon, Vitellius Augustus ruled for (9 years and [sic]) 8 months. He was very short, broad-chested, blue-eyed, red-haired, rough-bearded, fair-sighted, cowardly. During his rule Nikomedeia a great city, the metropolis of Bithynia, suffered the anger of god (theomenia), and the king granted the survivors and the city many things for their restoration. For it had suffered before from earthquake and been destroyed. He rebuilt it.
In the reign of Vitellius Caesar the Judaeans seized power and killed Quirinius their governor, stoning him. In the 35th year after the ascension of our savior and god, Vitellius the king sent an expedition against them, sending Vespasian as his general and Titus his son. And they settled down to fight in Judaea and Jerusalem, and while they were fighting Vitellius died in Rome, struck down by illness, at 48 years of age. And after him, the divine Vespasian was proclaimed king, and the army crowned him in the consulship of Rufus and Capitianus. He was short, bald, with a protruding stomach, gray hair, ruddy, with wine-colored eyes, flat-faced, quick to anger.

§ 10.260  And leaving Titus his son to wage war in Judaea he came to Rome and ruled 9 years and 10 months. In his reign occurred a great persecution of Christians in the consulship of Decius and Rusticius [?]. In the 28th year after the death of Christ the Savior Titus took Judaea and Jerusalem in the consulship of Commodus and Rufus, while his father Vespasian was reigning. He sacked Jerusalem and all Palestine and destroyed the holy place of the Jews on the same day that he took the city, and killed 1,100,000 souls, cutting them down with swords. Another 150,000 he sold, young captives and male children and virgin girls, as the very wise Josephus has written. For he was a Jew and present at the war. And Titus destroyed the whole eparchy of Judaea. The wise Eusebius of Pamphilus has thus recorded, that on the same feast day when the Jews crucified Christ all were destroyed, the Savior having been avenged on them. There are three subsequent sackings of Jerusalem, as the very wise Eusebius has recorded. Titus returned to Rome in triumph.

§ 10.261  Vespasian built from the Judaean spoils in Antioch the great the so-called Cherubim before the city gate. For there he set up the bronze Cherubim that were affixed in the temple of Solomon, and when he destroyed the temple he took them from there and took them to Antioch along with the Seraphim, in triumph at the victory over the Jews during his reign, and he set up a bronze stele in honor of the moon with four bulls jutting toward Jerusalem; for he took the city by night with the moon shining. He also built the theater of Daphne, inscribing it, "From the spoils of Judaea". The site of this theater was previously a synagogue of the Jews. And as an insult to them he destroyed their synagogue and made a theater, standing a marble statue of himself there, where it stands until today. Vespasian also built a very large odeion in Caesareia of Palestine from the same Judaean spoils, having the large dimension of a theater, likewise on the site of a former synagogue of the Jews. He created a second Macedonian eparchy, dividing it from the first. During his reign Corinth the metropolis of Hellas suffered an earthquake (theomenia), in the month June or Daisios 20, in the depth of the evening. He granted much to the survivors and to the city. He also built many things in the eparchies of Pannonia and Commagene.

§ 10.262  He separated Europe from Thrace, building Herakleia city, which was formerly called Perinthos, making it a metropolis and giving it a governor. He also built in Antioch the great the sanctuary near the theater, called of the Winds. Struck by disease and having become paralyzed, he died at age 71. After him Titus his son ruled the kingdom for 2 years. He was tall, thin, fair, well-complexioned, with short, straight, sparse hair and small eyes. Struck by an incurable disease, he died at the age of 42. After the reign of Titus, the divine Domitian ruled for 15 years and two months. He was tall, slender, white-skinned, with short blond hair, gray eyes, a little stooped, an acute philosopher. In his reign a persecution of Christians took place. He brought St. John the Theologian to Rome and examined him. Admiring the wisdom of this apostle he quietly allowed him to leave for Ephesus, telling him "Go away and be quiet where you came from." He was mocked. And so he exiled him to Patmos. He used to punish many other Christians, causing a multitude of them to flee to Pontus, as Bottios the wise chronographer reported. The same king Domitian loved the dancer of the Green faction in Rome, called Paris.

§ 10.263  He was mocked by the Senate of Rome and by Juvenal the Roman poet regarding him, on the grounds that he favored the Greens. The king exiled this Juvenal the poet to the Pentapolis of Libya, and after making the dancer wealthy he sent him to Antioch the great to live there outside the city. The said dancer Paris went there and lived outside the city, where he built a suburban mansion for himself, and a bath, which is known to the present day as Paradise, along with the house. He died there and lies in a tomb in the gardens behind the house. Domitian built in Antioch the Great a public bath called Medeia's, because a marvelous statue of Medeia stood in it. Therefore the citizens called the public bath this, rather than the Domitian bath. This public building was built by the mountain near the arena (monomachia) and the shrine of Aphrodite. The same king built there a sanctuary of Asklepios. It was in the time of the reign of this Domitian that the most wise Apollonius of Tyana was at his peak, traveling everywhere and making talismans for cities and regions. Leaving Rome he reached Byzantium, and entering Byzoupolis, which is now by good fortune called Constantinople,

§ 10.264  he made there many talismans at the request of the Byzantines, one for the storks, and one for the Lykos river that flows through the middle of the city, and one for the tortoise, and one for the horses, and many other marvelous things. So then, after leaving Byzantium Apollonius made talismans in the other cities. And from Tyana he came to Syria and entered Antioch the great. And the city-fathers of Antioch asked him to make talismans there as well, for what was needed. So he made one for the north wind, putting the talisman near the east gate; he likewise made a talisman in this city for scorpions, so they wouldn't dare approach the region. He put this talisman in the middle of the city, making a bronze scorpion and burying it, and affixing a small column above. And scorpions disappeared from the whole district of Antioch. He did many other things there. The citizens asked him to make a talisman for mosquitoes, so that the city of Antioch wouldn't have mosquitoes. So he made it, and directed them on the seventh day of the month of Daisios or June to carry out in Antioch of Syria the cavalry contest from Graste of that same month. But on the first of Daisios he set up the talisman, permitting everyone on the 7th of the same month, the day of the hippodrome of Graste, to carry on canes a sculpted lead bust having the face of Ares,

§ 10.265  and below the cane a shield hanging by a red thong, and from there from the cane a dagger hanging thus, tied with linen thread, and told them to shout as they marched, saying "mosquitoless (ακώνοπα) for the city, and after the horse-racing disbanded, for each to place it in his own home. And mosquitoes no longer appeared in Antioch the great. When Apollonius of Tyana was walking around to investigate the topography of Antioch with the city-fathers, he saw in the middle of the city a purple column standing with nothing on top of it, because it had been consumed by hellfire. Inquiring about it, he learned from them that, "After the calamity the city suffered under Gaius Caesar, a certain philosopher mystic named Debborios made this talisman so that when the city was shaken by earthquake it would not collapse. He stood up the column and placed a marble bust on it, and on its chest wrote 'unshaken, unfallen'. But from the typhonic fire of a lightning strike, the top of the column was burned and the bust fell, and we feared lest our city suffer the same again. Intervene for us, make a talisman so that the city, still topsy-turvy, not suffer the same again."

§ 10.266  Apollonius, sighing, rejected making another talisman against earthquakes. And when they saw him sighing, they insisted, beseeching him. Taking a diptych he wrote the following: "And you, miserable Antioch, would suffer twofold; but again will come a time when earthquakes will be piled on calamity. Twice beside Orontes' shores it would be burned by fire, if you would not suffer it again." He gave the diptych to the Antiochene city-fathers, and setting out from the city of Antiochus he went to Seleuceia of Syria. He sailed to Egypt. And Apollonius lived 34 years and eight months, as Domninos the very wise chronographer reported. The divine Domitian built a city in Isauria called Domitianoupolis. Domitian became annoyed at the famous Asklepion, who said to him "you will end up murdered," and killed him. Soon afterwards, by the contrivance of the Senate,

§ 10.267  as Domitian entered the sanctuary of Zeus to sacrifice, he became invisible and died, age 45. Everyone said that he was lifted up from earth to the air as a philosopher. But he was killed, murdered in the very sanctuary of Zeus by the Senate, because he was proud and insulted them. The senators caused the purple chlamys he was wearing to be hung on the chain of one of the candelabra in the sanctuary. And everyone who entered the sanctuary was deceived, believing he had been lifted into the air. It became known afterwards that he had been slaughtered.
After the reign of Domitian, Nerva Augustus reigned one year and one month. He was a very short (διμοιριαιος) old man, keen-sighted, long-nosed, portly, half-grey, dark-complected, curly-haired, shaggy-bearded, good. During his reign Diokaisareia of Cilicia suffered a theomenia (earthquake) for the third time, along with Nikoupolis and its region. And the king immediately sent a member of the Roman senate named Zarbos to rebuild it, giving him 8 hundredweights (centenaria, of silver?). And Senator Zarbos reached Cilicia and having inspected the damage he renewed the city with great zeal, making it better than before; hence the city was called by his name by the grateful citizens. For the senator called the city Nerva in the name of king Nerva.

§ 10.268  But it happened that the King died before it was fulfilled; and they renamed it Anazarbos, allowing the notaries to style it thus. For it was said that from the beginning this city was Kyinda. And it suffered the first time under the consuls of Rome, and was renewed and renamed Kiskos polis. And again it suffered under Julius Caesar for the second time, and it was renewed and renamed Diokaisareia. And suffering again, as mentioned above, under King Nerva it was renamed Anazarbos. Zarbos sacrificed a local girl named Kepara, and made for her a bronze stele for the fortune (Tyche) of the city. Zarbos reported to the king about the citizens, and the king, eager for honor, granted the surviving citizens many favors. This Nerva recalled the holy apostle John, who came back to Ephesus from Patmos. During his reign Manes appeared, who made ordinances, taught, and manipulated the masses. So in the course of his reign gladiatorial fights and spectacles were banned. The king fell ill and wasted away, dying at age 71.

§ 11.269  BOOK 11
After the reign of Nerva, the divine Trajan reigned nineteen years and six months. He was tall, dry in body, dark-complected, fine-featured, short-haired, graying, having deep-set eyes. Until the second year of his reign, St. John the apostle and theologian was visible teaching in Ephesos as bishop and patriarch. Then, making himself invisible he was no longer seen by anyone and no one knew what happened to him up to now, as Africanus and Eirenaios recorded. Under King Trajan there was a great persecution of Christians and many were punished.

§ 11.270  In that year was mobilized a great force against Romania by the king of the Persians, of the Parthian race, the brother of Osdroes king of the Armenians. He took cities and despoiled many regions, having with him his son Sanatroukios. And while Meerdotes the king was despoiling the Euphratesian region he charged and was thrown from his horse and was broken up badly and died. While about to die he made his son Sanatroukios the Arsakes, which means king, in his place. In Persian, Torkim means king. and this Sanatroukios as king of the Persians kept on despoiling Romania. Osdroes, king of the Armenians, the brother of Meerdotes, hearing of his death, sent his own son Parthemaspates from Armenia with a large army to help his nephew Sanatroukios, the king of the Persians, against the Romans. And hearing this the divine Trajan immediately mobilized in the 12th year of his rule, departing against them from Rome in October or Hyperberetaios. And since they had arrived first, he sailed east, attacking with a large force of soldiers and senators. Among them was Hadrian his son in law through his sister. And they arrived in Seleuceia of Syria in Apellaios or December in a dromon from the so-called Bytyllion naval station, a natural harbor near Syrian Seleuceia.

§ 11.271  The Persians were in the process of taking over Antioch the great without a fight through a friendly arrangement and pact, and they occupied the city and guarded it for Sanatroukios the king of the Persians, after the Antiochene officers by their own choice had made a pact of peace and subjection through an embassy to the king of the Persians. The king of the Persians agreed and sent two varzamarates, whose names were Fourton and Gargaris, with much Persian help, 3000. King Trajan, as soon as he reached Seleuceia of Syria by dromon (light vessel), wrote secretly to the Antiochene officers and the citizens noting his own presence and saying: "We know that your city has a large number of men not counting the military numbers stationed there. The enemy Persians in your city are few compared to your numbers. Each of you kill the Persians in your own house, taking confidence from our presence, because we have come to avenge Rome. On reading this the Antiochenes launched a night attack against the Persians in their city, and by staying awake they killed them all. They arrested the two Persian generals called varsamanates and killed them and dragged the remains of Fourton and Gargaris through the city,

§ 11.272  shouting the following: To the Victory of Lord Trajan, Behold Fourton and Gargaris are being dragged! Go, Go, Gargaris, Fourton!" Those Persians who were able to escape did so while the two were being dragged. While escaping, they set a fire and burned a small part of the city at the Skepine neighborhood. King Trajan heard this and praised the courage of the Antiochene citizens. And when the ships of his army arrived from Seleuceia, they went up to holy Daphne to pray and sacrifice in the sanctuary of Apollo. He told the Antiochenes, commanding from Daphne, to remove the remains of the slain Persians and burn them at a distance from the city, and to purify the whole city, and to have pyres of laurel trees at places and gates of the city and to throw into the laurel fire much incense and in the whole city to beat bullskin drums to drive out the spirits of the slaughtered Persians. And so it happened. And King Trajan descended from Daphne and entered Antioch of Syria through the so-called Golden or Daphnetic [gate] wearing a crown of olive branches on his head, in the month Audenaios or January, the 7th day, fourth hour of the day.

§ 11.273  He commanded them to continue the drums for 30 days each night, and commanded this, that it happen each year at this time in memory of the destruction of the Persians, as Domninus the chronographer records. While King Trajan was spending time in Antioch of Syria considering war-related issues, Tiberianus the leader of the first race of Palestinians sent him this message: To the divine emperor victor Caesar Trajan: I have grown weary of punishing and killing the Galilaeans of the dogma of the so-called Christians in accordance with your edicts. And they do not stop indicting themselves to be executed, so I took pains exhorting them and threatening them not to dare to indict themselves to me for being of the said dogma. And being chased away they do not stop. Deign to decree for me, therefore, ...to your trophy-holding power.
And Trajan commanded him to stop killing the Christians, and ordered the same to the other magistrates, henceforth not to kill the Christians. And there was a small alleviation for the Christians. And Trajan left Antioch the great to wage war on the Persians. He defeated them by force in this manner. Learning that Parthemaspates the nephew of Sanatroukios the king of the Persians was discontented,

§ 11.274  king Trajan sent to suborn him, offering to give him the kingship of the Persians if he would be his ally. And having been suborned, he came to him by night. And the Divine Trajan took him to the same place with his crowd, he launched an attack against Sanatroukios, the king of the Persians. And after many Persians had fallen he captured Sanatroukios the king while he was fleeing, and killed him. And Trajan in accordance with the agreement replaced him as king of the remainder with Parthemaspates, the son of Osdroes, and wrote to the Senate in Rome that we could not manage to administer so much limitless land so immeasurably far from Rome, but we would provide them with a king subjugated to Roman power. And the Senate wrote back from Rome for him to do what he wished, and look to the advantage of Romania. And Parthemaspates ruled over the Persians. The very wise Areianos the chronicler recorded the war and victory of the Divine Trajan, researching and writing everything accurately. The king made Amida a metropolis, calling the province Mesopotamia, dividing it off from Osdroene, giving it a governor and the rights of a metropolis.

§ 11.275  He created another province on the Danube river, which he call Dacia Ripensis (parapotamia). During the reign of the Divine Trajan, Antioch the great by Daphne suffered for the third time, in the month Apellaios or December 13, the first hour after cockcrow, in the year called 164 by the Antiochenes, after the second year of the presence of the divine king Trajan in the east. The remaining and surviving Antiochenes built a sanctuary then in Daphne, with an inscription: "The survivors dedicated this to Zeus Soter." In the same night that Antioch the great suffered, Rhodes the island city of the Hexapolis also suffered from earthquake (theomenia) for the second time.
The most pious Trajan built in Antioch the great, beginning first with the so-called middle gateway near the sanctuary of Ares, where the Parmenios torrent descends, very near what is now called the Macellum, and he carved above it the statue of a she-wolf nursing Romus and Remus, so that it would be known that the construction was Roman. He sacrificed there a virgin girl, a distinguished citizen named Kalliope for the redemption and cleansing of the city, making a bridal procession for her. He straightaway erected the two great colonnaded streets, and built many other things in the city of Antioch, both a

§ 11.276  public [bath] [δημοσιον] and an aqueduct that diverted the water flowing from the springs of Daphne into the so-called Agriai, adding the same name to the public [bath] and the aqueduct. He completed the unfinished theater of Antioch, and erected four columns in the middle of the nymphaion of the proskenion with a gilt bronze stele of the girl who had been slaughtered by him, seated atop the Orontes river, as the Fortune of the city, being crowned by kings Seleucus and Antiochus.
King Trajan was in the city when the earthquake [theomenia] happened. St. Ignatios the bishop of the city of Antioch was martyred under him. For Trajan was annoyed because he had insulted him. He gathered five names of Christian women of Antioch and examined them, saying, "What is this hope of yours, that makes you expose yourself to death?" They answered that "Killed by you we will rise up again in the body to eternal life." He ordered them to be cremated and mixed the dust from their bones with bronze and made the bronze for the caldrons of the public bath. And when the public bath began to function, if anyone bathed in it, his sight was darkened and he fell and was in torment. Learning this, king Trajan changed the caldrons and made others from clean bronze,

§ 11.277  and said: I did well when I mixed the dust of their bodies and shared the hot water." He said this, since the Christians were annoying the Greeks by boasting. Melting down the first caldrons he made five bronze stelai with the five women, saying "Behold, they have been raised up again, as they said, but by me and not their god." These stelai still stand in the public bath until now. He also made a firing chamber and commanded those Christians who desired to throw themselves in, and many threw themselves in and were martyred. St. Drosine was martyred then, and many other virgins.
He build in Daphne a sanctuary of Artemis in the middle of the grove. The king also made two provinces across the Danube river in the western part. He called them First and Second Dacia. Immediately afterwards, struck by illness, he died at the age of sixty-six. After Trajan reigned Aelius Hadrianus in the consulate of Apronianus and Nigrus [117CE, Q. Aquilius Niger ; M. Rebilus Apronianus]. He reigned twenty-five years and five months. He was short, stout, white-skinned, partly gray-haired, handsome, thick-bearded, blue-eyed, calm, eloquent, priestly. In Antioch the great, he too built

§ 11.278  a public bath and an aqueduct with his name. He made the theater of the springs of Daphne and diverted the water flowing in the so-called Agriai Gorges, making pilings and building very expensive retaining walls to defeat the onrush of the water and lead it through the aqueduct he built into the city of Antioch for the city's abundance. He built the temple of these springs, out of which emerge the rivulets in Daphne, and set up in this temple of the Nymphs a large seated statue of Zeus holding a foal (?) in honor of the Naiads, in gratitude that he had completed such a fearsome labor. He made the bubbling waters of the so-called Saramanna spring to emerge through a conduit and flow in this conduit in the little theater outside the temple, into five different basins, which he called the five-modion, four-modion, three-modion, two-modion, and modion. Hadrian conducted a festival of the springs in the month Daisios or June 23. And the sacrifices still occur in this way. The spring in Agriai called the spring of Pallas, which had been destroyed, he enclosed and made into an aqueduct for the residents of sacred Daphne. This king Hadrian, before reigning after king Trajan, as the latter's son in law was a senator when Antioch the great suffered the earthquake. There were many senators from Rome in Antioch,

§ 11.279  who by his command built many houses and baths in Antioch. In the reign of the Divine Hadrian, Cyzicus, great metropolis of the Hellespont province, suffered an earthquake on November 10 at night. He granted many favors to the city and rebuilt it. And to the surviving citizens he granted money and valuables. Hadrian built in Cyzicus a very large temple, one of the wonders, standing a marble stele with a very large bust of himself on the roof of the temple, inscribed "of Divine Hadrian," which is still there. This Hadrian, angry at the Judaeans, ordered Jerusalem to be settled with Greeks, and renamed the city Aelius. In his reign, Hadrian reerected the Colossus of Rhodes, which had fallen during an earthquake Rhodes suffered in earlier times, and lay on the ground for 312 years, with nothing having been lost. He spent to restore and erect it in the same place, for machines and ropes and artisans, 3 hundredweight, as he inscribed the year and expenses below it.
During the reign of Hadrian a certain Marcion by name spread the detestable faith of the Manichaeans, preaching that the earthly creation came from some evil one.

§ 11.280  And many Hellenes and Jews and Christians were led astray, as the most wise Clement described.
This same King Hadrian built a city in Thrace, which he called Hadrianoupolis, and another which he called Hadrianou Therai. He built a city in Egypt, which he called Antino. He died at the age of sixty-five of dropsy in Baiae.
After Hadrian reigned Aelius Antoninus Pius Eusebes 23 years. He was dexterous, well-dressed, white-skinned, with gray head and beard, a shapely nose, flat face, wine-colored eyes, ruddy, always smiling, very generous. He built in Heliopolis of Phoenicia of Lebanon a great temple, one of the wonders. He also built in Laodikeia of Syria the forum, a sight to behold, and the Antonine baths. He waged war on the Egyptians who had rebelled and murdered the Augustalis Deinarchus. And after his vengeance and victory he built in Alexandria the great the Heliac Gate and the Seleniac Gate and the dromos. Coming to Antioch the great he paved the square (plateia) of the great colonnaded streets built by Tiberius,

§ 11.281  and the whole city, paving it with millstone, from his own resources, stones from Thebais, and generously defraying the remaining expenses from his own, inscribing this munificence (φιλοτιμία) on a stone plaque he erected at the gate of the Cherubim, which he started out from. This stele is still there, a sign of the greatness of his munificence. He also built a bath in Caesareia of Palestine and in Nikomedeia of Bithynia and Ephesus of Asia. These public baths were called by his name. And returning to Rome he built a great aqueduct. He burnt the documents of the Treasury on which the Senate had agreed in writing under Gaius Julius Caesar, at his command, not to allow those of senatorial rank to make a will unless they bequeathed half their property to the king at the time. The most pious Antoninus said that through his divine imprint each could enjoy his own and take council as he wished. This Antoninus fell ill in Lorium and died in a few days, at age 77.
After him reigned Marcus Antoninus, his son, the philosopher, eighteen years and nine months. He was short, slender, partly gray, short-haired, keen-eyed, well-bearded, fine-featured, long-nosed.

§ 11.282  This king Marcus pronounced the most just law, whereby the children would inherit from the father who died intestate, and a quarter share would be given from the paternal property to a child who had fallen from favor. In his reign, the German nation was subjugated. In the years of his reign the teachings of Julianus the Chaldaean the great were admired. King Marcus built or restored in Antioch the great to public bath called Centenarion. For in the time of Trajan it had collapsed in the earthquake. He built the Mouseion and its so-called Ocean nymphaion. King Marcus Antoninus favored the Green faction. Going to Pannonia he died of disease. After King Marcus Antoninus, Antoninus Verus, his son, ruled for 8 years. He was tall, thick, crook-nosed, keen-eyed, dark, with short, curly hair, bearded, much given to women. He fought a nation of the Huns and defeated them and subjugated many other nations without war. He was munificent. He was murdered in Proconnesus at age 39.

§ 12.283  BOOK 12 YEARS OF KING COMMODUS AND GRANT OF THE OLYMPICS [180-192 CE]
After the reign of Antoninus Verus, Commodus Augustus ruled twenty-two years and eight months. He was above average height for his age, pale, gray-eyed, flat-faced, snub-nosed, large-chested, with an incipient beard, a lover of buildings, holy. In Antioch the Great he built a public bath called the Commodion, and renewed the sanctuary of Athena opposite it; in between, he made the Xystos [practice track], building bases/seats and colonnades. At the beginning, below the Xystos, he built a sanctuary of Olympian Zeus.

§ 12.284  During this time the Antiochenes, both ktetores (local magnates) and citizens, wrote a memorandum asking Commodus to ratify, by his divine command, the transfer to the public purse of the revenues that the aforementioned Sosibius had left to the city of Antioch for a variety of spectacles and various contests carried out by the city, so that the public rather than the politicians would manage the income, and that he grant it for the Olympic games and certain other spectacles in the city of Antioch. Immediately King Commodus by divine command signed over the revenues to the public and ordained that the Olympics be carried out, and allocated specific funds from the public purse to be provided to cover the expenses of those responsible for the sacred and secular festival of the Olympics. He made a law that they be carried out irreproachably every four years in the Festivals of Offerings (or sacrifices) as per the custom, that is, in Panemos or July and Loos or August for 45 days in the festival of Olympian Zeus, likewise ordaining that the horse-racing be carried out irreproachably on the day of the Sun, that is Sunday, with a specific amount of money. Similarly, for the nocturnal stage festival celebrated every three years, the so-called Orgies, which are mysteries of Dionysos and Aphrodite,

§ 12.285  (the Maiouma, so called because this festival is carried out in May or Artemisios), he ordained a specific sum of gold for lamps and candles and the other things necessary for the 40-day, joyous all-night festivities. Regarding this nocturnal festival the very wise Roman poet Vergilius wrote the following in the Roman language: “trieterica Baccho
orgia nocturnusque uocat clamore Cithaeron” [Aeneid 4.302-3]
which means in the Hellenic language “in the three-year-span year, when Dionysos at night with voice the festival of the orgies in the Cithaeronian mountain.” [sic],
The king specified set monies for the hunts to be carried out during four years, as follows: they were to be carried out for 32 months until the abstention from meat, to not function the next six months to gather beasts for the festival honoring Ares and Artemis. Immediately, Artabanios a politician was named the first Syriarch, having been put forward by the ktetores and the whole Demos. He allocated the remaining money in the account for mimes and dancing

§ 12.286  and other entertainments carried out in the Pandemos festival. Thereafter, all the granted funds were provided to the city of the Antiochenes by the public purse irreproachably, to pay for the aforementioned spectacles. So the Antiochenes erected a bronze statue of King Commodus in the middle of the city.
In his reign, for the first time, the Olympic games were performed by the Syrian Antiochenes, through his divine command, as was said above, in the year 260 as the Syrian Antiochenes reckon it, in the Xystos he built. The Antiochenes purchased these Olympics from the Pisaeans of Greece for 90 periods of the Olympic games, that is for 360 years, by an unwritten treaty.
The first Alytarchos in Antioch, named in the divine command, was Aphronios, one of the governors, an Antiochene citizen. Wearing the uniform of the Alytarchos, he was honored during the daytime, with proskynesis done to him as to Zeus himself, but he did not go home during those days nor fall into bed; he slept in the open air on the ground, on stones and clean mattresses and rush mats. He wore a snow-white uniform with gold thread, and a crown of lychnites and other precious stones. He held an ebony rod and wore white sandals on his feet.

§ 12.287  He slept those days in the courtyard of the basilica called the Kaisarion, which had been built by the dictator Julius Caesar, and where a statue of Caesar stood outside the Conch of the basilica. This Kaisarion was opposite the sanctuary of Ares. The Macellum, so called because there is where pork meat is cut, is near the sanctuary of Ares.
The secretary was chosen by the Council and the Demos. His name was Pompeianus Quaestor, and he was of a Roman senatorial family. He too wore a white uniform and a gold crown stamped with laurel leaves. They honored him and did proskynesis to him as if to an Apollo, they say. The Council and the Demos next appointed Casius Illustrius as Amphithales. He likewise wore an all-silk white uniform and a crown woven from laurel leaves, with a gold bust of Zeus in the middle. They honored and did proskynesis to the Amphithales as if to Hermes, as the wise Domninus the chronicler has recorded. To this sacred competition of the Olympics, young nobles came in rank order from each city and country to compete, and they divided them off against each other. They conducted themselves with much self-control and gentility, taking no compensation from anywhere. For they were wealthy, each having his own slaves for service in accordance with his personal wealth.

§ 12.288  Many of them were virgins. There were some who brought much gold from their home towns. But they competed for the sake of a vow and rank, and in order to gain glory in their home town. Those who came, therefore, faced much competition and fear. Some wrestled, others ran or played the trumpet or fought in the pankration, while others boxed in boxing matches with boxwood finger-guards, others held the reins for fast horses, others declaimed tragic songs. There were even virgin girls, students of philosophy who came, ranked by their self-control, to compete. Some wrestled in bombinaria (pleated shorts?), some ran, some sang, some declaimed Hellenic (pagan) hymns. The women fought with women, competing fiercely, not only in the wrestling bouts but in the streets and with their voices. Whichever of them, whether woman or youth, was crowned by the acclaim of the Demos, once a crowned victor remained temperate until death. Immediately after the competition [the young man] was stamped with a seal and became a priest. Likewise, the virgin philosophers who were crowned became priestesses after the competition. Then they were sent home. Those who had property rights to estates were not assessed taxes; those rights remained tax-exempt from the time they were crowned, but only for the lifetime of the person crowned.

§ 12.289  If he was the proprietor of any workshops, those he had when he competed would remain immune from liturgies for his lifetime. So many came to compete that you could not exaggerate the number, but as many of appropriate rank as happened to come, whether they were youths or virgin girls, there were spectators to watch them all. Sometimes a great crowd came, sometimes it didn't, in accordance with the times and the sea-winds.
In the reign of Commodus, Nikomedeia, the metropolis of Bithynia, suffered divine anger, its third such calamity, as far as Moudoupolis and the area around the Sagareos river, in May or Artemision, the 3rd of the month, at dawn. The king granted much to the city and rebuilt it. In the time of Commodus, a certain ktetor and politician of Antioch the Great, Artabanes by name, the Alytarchos, after paying the Olympic awards in Daphne, made a distribution of gifts, throwing to the Demos in holy Daphne many little squares of preserved bread, calling the bread Political on account of having granted it to his own polis, and having allocated revenue from his estates proportionate to the word on each bread.

§ 12.290  The Antiochenes erected a marble statue to him in Daphne, inscribing it “Artabanes Eternal Memory”. King Commodus went to the house of Faustinus, a relative of his, and died of a sudden bloody flux. After the reign of Commodus, Pertinax or Lucius Augustus was king for two months and 18 days. He was tall, well-chested, long-nosed, straight-haired, big-eyed, old, gray-haired. He died, stabbed by the soldiers as he was leaving the palace in March, aged 70.
After the reign of Pertinax, Didius or Silvius Julianus was king for seven months. He was tall, partly gray, curly-haired, with close-knit eyebrows, slightly squinting, of light character, olive-complected. He built in Antioch the Great the Plethris, since they were carrying out the Olympic wrestling bouts in the theater. Because of a memorandum of the ktetores of Antioch requesting it, he provided them money to build the Plethris. They built it near the Kaisarion, having purchased the house of Asabinus, a politician, Jewish by religion, near the Xystos and the Commodion bath. Julianus Didius was stabbed by a cubicularius in the palace fountain in Rome,

§ 12.291  while he was minding the fish, in accordance with a plot with him. He was 60 years old. After the reign of Didius Julianus the divine Severus or Septimius was king, voted by the Senate of Rome in the consulship of Flacco and Clarus [Falco, 193 CE]. He ruled for 17 years and 9 months. He was above average height for his age, thin, good-chested, long-nosed, keen-eyed, dark-complected, curly-haired, gray-haired, large-bearded, knock-kneed, magnanimous, irritable. During his reign, Albinus the senator was a usurper. He had been sent by the former King Didius to wage war on the Gepids, and the army acclaimed him as king, disregarding the Senate. Severus pursued him in Thrace and killed him when he caught him. Severus came to Byzantium and saw the good location of the city. He erected Byzoupolis, and built a public bath, called the Zeuxippon because a bronze statue of Helios used to stand in the middle of the Tetrastoon (four-way colonnade) there, and underneath was written the mystic name of the Sun, “to the God Zeuxippos.” For the Thracians call the Sun this. The people of the city of Byzas called the bath Zeuxippon, by the name the place had before,

§ 12.292  and no longer called it the Severion, though the king had called it by his own name. King Severus attached the public bath to the Tetrastoon, in the middle of which the statue of Helios had stood, and instead of it he built in the acropolis of Byzoupolis a temple or sanctuary to Helios, near the two already there, which had been built by Byzas to Artemis with the deer, and by Phidalia to Aphrodite. Severus brought the statue of Helios from the Tetrastoon and stood it above the sanctuary. The king built opposite the sanctuary of Artemis a very large Kynegion (place for hunts) and opposite the sanctuary of Aphrodite a theater. The Hippikon (hippodrome) the divine Severus set up in Byzantion itself, having bought the houses, and cut down the trees in the garden that was there. He made the Hippikon for the Byzantines but did not manage to finish it. Severus renovated the Strategion. It had been built earlier by Alexander of Macedon when he mobilized against Dareius, and he called the place Strategion. For there as general he launched his war effort to the far shore against the Persians.
During the reign of Severus another senator usurped the throne, Niger by name, who had campaigned against the Persians. After making a peace treaty with the Persians, his army heard

§ 12.293  that some of the Senate in Rome had named him king, and they proclaimed Niger king. He took over all the East as far as Egypt. The Syrian Laodikeans did not accept him but resisted. He besieged Laodikeia and took it, and destroyed it and slaughtered everyone. Severus mobilized against him and chased him in the Thebaid of Egypt. Capturing him in battle, he killed him. Returning from the Thebaid after the victory, he was angry at the Alexandrines, because they had accepted Niger the usurper and inscribed on their city gates, “The city of Lord Niger.” Answering to King Severus the demes of the great city of the Alexandrines shouted as follows: “We know we said 'the city of Lord Niger.' You are his Lord.” Accepting the appropriateness of their defense, he forgave them their fault and granting indulgences accepted them. He built for them a public bath called the Severion. He also built a sanctuary of Rhea. When he was about to leave he arrested a certain Thermus who was one of the leading officials of Alexandria the Great and beloved by the citizens. This Thermus was building a public bath in the city at his own expense, and calling it Therma after his own name [θερμαι means bath]. Severus confiscated the property of this Thermus as being a friend of Niger. Leaving Alexandria he came to Laodikeia and

§ 12.294  praised the surviving Laodikeans and granted them many favors and the status of metropolis (but only during his reign) and called them Septimii, bestowing his family name on them, and he gave senatorial rank to the surviving officials of the city of the Laodikeans, because they had not accepted the usurper Niger but and fought him. He provided them with much funding for grain (sitonika chremata) and much political money, enacting that they would have this annually for the rehabilitation of their city, because when Niger took it, he burned and destroyed it and slaughtered all those who resisted and fought against him. Severus built for the Laodikeans a hippodrome and kynegion and public bath near the harbor, having found a spring. He also built there the Hexastoon (six-way colonnade). He also came to Antioch the Great and granted many favors to them, because when he was leaving for Egypt against Niger they shouted out what proved be an omen of his victory. He built a large public bath by the mountain and called it the Severianon. He commanded the local politicians to use the surplus of the remain fuel money (egkaustika) derived from the public purse to build another public bath. The politicians bought the whole house of the citizen Livia and its bath and garden and built there a public bath in the flat part of the city.

§ 12.295  Having completed it they disagreed on what to call it and named it the Livianon for the person who sold the land. Severus went out for another war and died in barbarian country to the west, age 65.
After the reign of Severus, Antoninus Geta was king for one year. He was shortish, flat-faced, snub-nosed, balding, graying hair, with protruding stomach, a large mouth, pale-skinned, small-eyed. The army killed him, and he died age 51.
After the reign of Antoninus Geta, Antoninus Caracalla was king, the son of Severus, for six years and 22 days. He was of good height and strongly built, well-complected, crooked-nosed, thick-bearded, graying, curly-haired. The whole Demos of Rome loved him. He favored the Green faction. He was murdered in the palace as he was going to the sanctuary, age 47.
After the reign of Antoninus Caracalla, Valerian was king for six years. He was shortish, thin, straight-haired, gray-haired, snub-nosed, thick-bearded, dark-eyed, large-eyed, cowardly, stingy (or dim-sighted). During his reign, one citizen of Antioch the Great named Mariades, expelled from the Boule by joint action of the whole bouleuterion and the demos, because he failed in the horse-races, for whatever part he was in charge of,

§ 12.296  not buying horses but making a profit from the public property of the hippodrome. So he went to Persia and told Sapor the king of the Persians that he would betray his own city, Antioch the Great, to him. Sapor the king of the Persians came with a powerful army across the border at Chalkis and took the whole of Syria and plundered it. He captured the city of Antioch the Great in the evening and despoiled it, and overturned and burned it. in the year 314 of the Antiochene reckoning. He beheaded the politician because he was a traitor to his own homeland. He captured all the eastern parts, and overturned them and burned and plundered them, and killed everyone, until the city of Emisa of Phoenicia of the Lebanon. The priest of Aphrodite, named Sampsigeramos, came out with an army of farmers and slingers and encountered him. The Persian King Sapor noticed his priestly outfit and ordered his army not to shoot at them or attack or fight them but to receive the priest as an embassy. The priest declared to him that he should receive him as an envoy on behalf of his country. In his discussion with the priest, King Sapor sat on a high altar, and one of the farmers slung a stone at him and hit him in the forehead, and he died on the spot.

§ 12.297  Confusion followed, and the army learned that he had died. Supposing the Romans were arriving, they all fled to the border, pursued by the farmers and the priest Sampsigeramos, leaving all their plunder behind, and disappeared. From the opposite direction from the Romans, Enathos the king of the Saracen barbarians came to the border and encountered them. He controlled the Arabian country. His wife was Zenobia, the Saracen queen. Enathos king of the Saracens killed all the Persians in Sapor's army, as Domninus the wise chronicler recorded. The very wise Philostratus wrote otherwise concerning Sapor the Persian king, saying that he took and burned Syria, with Antioch the Great, and many other cities, and likewise took Cilicia and burned Alexandreia the lesser and Rossos and Anazarbos and Aegai and Nikopolis and many other cities of Cilicia, and came through Cappadocia to Persian territory, and that King Enathos of the Saracens met him, to come into alliance with him, he said, and killed him. But Dominos probably told it more correctly, saying that he sent his satrap Spate against Cilicia with an army.
King Valerian had left Rome for a war in Mizoulanon [Mediolanum]. When he was informed about the east, he wanted to return and head for the east,

§ 12.298  but was unable to, because in the meantime he was killed there in Mizoulanon, aged 61.
After the reign of Valerian, Gallienus Licinianus was king for 14 years. He was ripe in age and brave, dark-complected, curly-haired, thick-bearded, with a good nose, large eyes, magnanimous. He favored the Blue faction. As soon as he became king, he mobilized his army against the Persians, and came to avenge the Romans. He granted many things to the plundered survivors, and rebuilt the burned buildings and granted tax relief for four years. He built a large sanctuary in Emisa. When battle was joined against the Persians, after many had fallen on both sides, he made a peace treaty. Returning from there he went into Arabia and waged war on Enathos the king of the Saracen barbarians. He killed him and took Arabia. He returned to Rome, fell ill, and died, age 50.
After the reign of Gallienus Licinianus, Claudius Apollianus was king for nine years. He was above average height, pale, with a big stomach, flat-faced, somewhat snub-nosed, pale-eyed, light-haired, with a twisted mouth, lisping a little, magnanimous. He favored the Green faction.

§ 12.299  During his reign, Nikomedeia, the metropolis of Bithynia, suffered its fourth passion, from divine anger, as far as the rivers and Dakivize. He gave generously to the survivors and the city. In that year Zenobia the Saracen, the wife of Enathos, avenging the death of her husband, took his relatives, seized Arabia, which was occupied then by the Romans, killed the duke of the Romans Trassos and all the army with him in the reign of Apullianus or Claudius. This King Claudius was fighting in Sirmium, and there he died aged 56.
After the reign of Apollianus Claudius, Quintilianus was king for 17 days. He was above average height, thin, long-faced, long-nosed, dark-complected, straight-haired, keen-eyed, partly gray on head and beard. He died in the palace, because he was sick when he was proclaimed king by dire necessity, age 41.
After the reign of Quintilian, the divine Aurelian the warlike was king for six years. He was tall, thin, balding, small-eyed, gray, magnanimous, agile. He wore a diadem with a star. As soon as he became king he began to build the walls of Rome ambitiously. For with time they had decayed, and he attended to the work and compelled the workshops of Rome to take on the building, and they completed the walls in very little time.

§ 12.300  He made a divine command that from that time on the craftsmen of the whole city should be called Aurelians, taking the honor of the royal name for their honor and toil. Having received a notification, Aurelian mobilized against Zenobia, queen of the Saracens, and went into the East. He had been notified that she was despoiling and burning the Eastern territories as far as the borders of Antioch the Great, and had camped near the Orontes river. As soon as King Aurelian arrived in Antioch, he immediately launched an attack against her. In the clash he cut down all her army. Having captured Zenobia, he sat her on a dromedary camel. After parading her through all the eastern countries, he brought her to Antioch the Great. There, while viewing the horse races, he brought her in on the camel. He built a place in Antioch and stood her up there, bound, for three days. He called the place he built Triumph (thriambon). Then he brought her down and brought her to Rome as queen of the barbarian Saracens. After holding a triumph over her in Rome in the former manner, he beheaded her. King Aurelian made Arabia, which was then held by barbarian Saracens, relatives of Enathos, the Saracen, a province under the Romans, after killing them all.

§ 12.301  As he was about to leave Antioch the Great, the Monetarii of Antioch rioted against him and shouted for the customary gifts. Annoyed at them, he punished them.
Aurelian made a province of Dacia Parapotamia, near the Danube river. Aurelian had another war, and he was murdered by his army in the place called Kainon Phrourion (New Fort) for having led the army badly. He died aged 61.
After the reign of Aurelian, Tacitus Augustus was king for seven months. He was above average height, thin, balding, eloquent, short-haired, gray, thin-nosed, sensible. During his reign a certain Manichaean named Kerdon appeared, disputing dogma, teaching, and gathering crowds. In the reign of Tacitus, there was war in the Pontic region; the king went to fight, and he was killed in Ztannike of Pontos [Tyana], age 75.
After the reign of Tacitus, Florianus Augustus was king for two months. He was short, thick, balding, pale, with wine-colored eyes, rather snub-nosed, partly gray on head and beard, extremely fierce. He mobilized against the Persians,

§ 12.302  and while he was descending into Tarsus he was killed by his own troops, at age 65. After the reign of Florianus, Aelius Probus was king for three years and three months. He was short, with a protruding belly, straight-haired, with shaved head, thick-bearded, dark-complected, ruddy, keen-eyed, very wise. He liked the Green faction. During his reign, in Antioch the Great he decorated the Mouseion and the sigma-shaped Nymphaion in it, painting the ocean in mosaic. The same king ordered the grain supply of Antioch to be paid for by the public purse, and legislated that education would be free through his divine dispensation.
King Probus fought the Goths at Sirmium. During the war there was a great famine worldwide; since the expense money wasn't found, the army revolted. They attacked and killed him in Sirmium, at age fifty.
After the reign of Probus, the most godlike Carus was king for two years. He was short, good-chested, pale, straight-haired, partly gray, light-eyed, flat-faced, big-nosed, thick-lipped, proud. During his reign he subjugated a country, which he called Caria, and made it a province. He mobilized against the Persians, invaded, captured Persian territory as far as Ktesiphon, and then returned.

§ 12.303  He walled a castle on the border, which he made a city, giving it the status of city and calling it Karai after his own name. Then he returned to Rome and went out on another campaign against the Huns and was killed, aged sixty and one-half, in the consulship of Maximus and Ianuarius. After the reign of Carus, Numerian Augustus was king for two years. He was tall, thin, straight-haired, long-faced, fine-featured, with a good beard, partly gray, a good nose and eyes, dark complected. During his reign there was a great persecution of Christians, in which were martyred St. George the Cappadocian and St. Babylas. The latter was bishop of Antioch the Great when King Numerian arrived to go to war on the Persians. He desired to spy on the divine mysteries of the Christians, and plotted to enter the holy church where the Christians were gathered, in order to watch the mysteries they were doing. He had heard that the Galilaeans performed their liturgies in secret. When he got near he was suddenly met by St. Babylas, who prevented him, telling him, “You are polluted by the sacrifices to idols. I will not forgive your seeing the mysteries of the living god.” Furious, King Numerian killed him immediately. He then left Antioch and went to war against the Persians. When battle was joined, the Persians attacked him

§ 12.304  and killed the greater part of his army. He fled to the city of Karai. The Persians besieged it and took him captive, and immediately killed him. They flayed his corpse, inflated it like a sack, preserved it with resin, and guarded it as especially glorious. The rest of the army was slaughtered. King Numerian died age 36.
After the reign of Numerian, Carinus Augustus, his brother was king for two years. He was shortish, thick, flat-faced, pale, curly-haired, gray, balding, magnanimous. He liked the Green faction. As soon as he was king, he mobilized against the Persians to avenge his brother Numerian, and he prevailed over them by force.
During his reign, Saints Kosmas and Damian died in the following manner. They were envied by their supervisor. They were trained as doctors, and King Carinus loved them because they performed cures, even on King Carinus himself. After the clash with the Persians, where he had the upper hand and killed a huge number of them, a harsh winter set in, and the Persians asked for a three-month truce. Because it was a harsh winter and he wanted to spare his army, which was worn out, he agreed to the request for three months of peace. He took his army and came to the country of Kyrestike,

§ 12.305  wanting to rest his army and treat the wounded. He reached Kyrestike in the winter, and while he was spending time there managing war issues, it happened that he turned his gaze suddenly toward the rear and saw many doctors following the king, but none of them were helping him at all. So all the doctors of the country were commanded to come to the king, as people who knew the airs of their country. Among them came the supervisor of Saints Kosmas and Damian, and the Saints came with him. When the doctors were not able to help King Carinus, Saints Kosmas and Damian were secretly chosen by some of the king's entourage to cure him. The saints were brought in to the king at night and cured him by prayer. He had faith in them, and said, “These men are servants of the highest god.” Once healthy and restored to his former state, he and his entourage held them in honor. Appealed to by these Saints, he made a divine edict for all the Roman state, that none of the Christians should suffer any harm or be prevented from worshipping as they wished. Their supervisor, brought in by the other official doctors following the king, saw the love the king felt for the saints and was steadfast in his envy toward them.

§ 12.306  After King Carinus left Kyrestike for Persian territory, the supervisor used trickery to take Saints Kosmas and Damian with their people into the mountains and hurl them off a cliff, on the grounds that they were of the Christian faith; so these just men perished. In the middle of the war, Carinus himself died, age 32.
After the reign of Carinus, Diocletian was king for twenty years and nine months. He was tall, thin, with a withered face, completely gray in head and beard, with a pale body, light eyes, thick nose, slightly stooped, very magnanimous and fond of building. He was proclaimed king in the consulship of Bassus and Quintianus [ CE ?].
During his reign a great darkness lasted all day.
After three years of his reign, he made his son, Maximian or Herculian, Caesar. When the Persians were on the move, Diocletian armed and mobilized a campaign together with Maximian. When they reached Antioch the Great, Diocletian sent Maximian Caesar against the Persians while Diocletian himself remained in Antioch. He built there a large palace, having found the foundations previously laid by Gallienus and Licinian.

§ 12.307  Diocletian also built a public bath in the plain near the old hippodrome, which he called the Diocletianum. He also built horrea for grain storage. He gave to everyone measures of wheat and of all the other commodities being purchased, in order that the presence of soldiers not disrupt the markets. He also built the Stadium in Daphne for the Olympic and other athletes, so they would not have to go to Quadrigae to be crowned at the Argyros river. Instead, after competing in Antioch the Great they would go up to Daphne, and not depart on such a long stretch of road to the Argyros river to Quadrigae of Cilicia, both the Olympians and the Antiochenes who went during the Olympic games. He also, in that divine provision, commanded that the contestants in the Olympian games be crowned with laurel in Daphne. In the Stadium of Daphne he built a sanctuary of Olympian Zeus; and in the curve of the stadium he built a sanctuary to Nemesis. He restored the sanctuary of Apollo, ornamenting it with different marbles. He also built an underground sanctuary for Hekate with 365 steps. He built a palace in Daphne for the kings to reside when they came there, whereas before they had pitched tents in the grove and stayed there. He built three factories for making weapons for the army, and also built a factory in Edesa to distribute weapons nearby. Likewise he built a factory in Damascus, having in mind the Saracen raids.

§ 12.308  He also built a mint in Antioch so they could engrave coins there. The mint had been destroyed by an earthquake, and it was restored. He also built a bath called the Senatorial, and another three baths. Caesar Maximian, after attacking and defeating the Persians, returned to Antioch, bringing the wife of the Persian king as a hostage. For they were fleeing with a few men to the Indian border, with their army destroyed... The queen of the Persians, Arsane, lived for some time in Daphne, guarded by order of Diocletian, king of the Romans, with honor. Once a peace treaty was made with the Persians, she was returned to her husband, having been guarded with honor. In that year, gifts were distributed by the king to all the Roman state as a victory offering. Diocletian also built border castles from Egypt to the Persian borders, posting border soldiers in them, and selecting dukes for each provinces to be stationed further back from the castles with a large force as garrison. Statues were erected to the King and the Caesar on the Syrian border. In this year, the Egyptians usurped power and murdered their magistrates, so Diocletian mobilized against them

§ 12.309  and waged war in Alexandria the Great. He besieged it, dug a trench, cut the aqueduct, and diverted it from the Kanopos which also provided use to the city. Having taken Alexandria, he set fire to it. He entered it on horseback, with his horse walking on top of corpses. He commanded the army not to leave off killing until the blood of the slaughtered reach the knee of the horse he was sitting on. By God's will it happened that near the gate as he entered the horse on which he sat stepped on a human corpse and stumbled on it and kneeled, so the horse's knee was bloodied. Noticing this, he granted indulgence, and the soldiers stopped cutting down the citizens of Alexandria. Out of gratitude, the Alexandrines erected a bronze statue to the horse. This place is still called the horse of Diocletian. This year was made the first year in the Alexandrian era.
In his reign a certain Manichaean named Boundos surfaced in the city of Rome. He split off from the Manichaean doctrine and introduced his own doctrine, teaching that the good god (Agathos theos) was at war with the evil (poneros) and defeated him, and it was necessary to honor the victor. He went away to Persia to teach.

§ 12.310  This Manichaean doctrine is called by the Persians in their language that of Daristhenoi, which is interpreted as that of the good. King Diocletian made a persecution of Christians, and many were punished as martyrs. Among them, Saint Menas was martyred. Churches were pulled down, and there were threats and much fear. In the year of the Olympics, King Diocletian arrived in Antioch from Egypt. Since the Olympic contest about to be performed, King Diocletian wore the uniform of the Alytarchos. The Alytarchos used to wear a white, all-silk uniform. Instead of white, the king wore purple, but all the rest was what was customary for the Alytarchos to wear: he held the sacred rod and bowed to the people, and he observed the Olympic contest on all the customary days. Some of his officials came to the Olympic Games in order to show their skills, some in wrestling, some in boxing, some in the pankration, others running. To the victors he provided certificates and rewarded them all generously, as Dometianus the wise records. As Alytarchos in Antioch, Diocletian put away his royal clothes, and after completing the Olympics he did not take back the kingship, saying “I put aside the royal and wore the clothing of immortal Zeus.”

§ 12.311  He stayed like that from then on. He died a natural death age 72. After Diocletian put aside the kingship, Maximian called Herculius ruled for 19 years. Going to Rome, he held a triumph for the victory against the Persians and Egyptians. He was tall, sturdy, partly gray on top, straight-haired, pointy-bearded, dark-complected, good-nosed, good-eyed, eloquent. He too fought against the Christians and punished many saints. Among whom were martyred Saints Pantaleon and Hesychius and Hermippos and Hermolaus and Hermokrates.
When the Olympics were held during his reign, he came to the East against the Armenians, who were usurping rule over the Romans. Defeating them by force, he subjected them. Learning that the time of the Olympics was at hand, he appeared in Antioch for the official days of the contest, and served as Alytarchos, wearing the Alytarchos's uniform. Among the competitors from the Demos were the children of senators, and younger senators; some wrestled, some ran, other did the pankration, or raced horses, or boxed, or declaimed. The winners received great honors, and some were advanced in the military ranks, in addition to the generous gifts given them.

§ 12.312  Maximian also put aside his kingship and the purple and all the royal clothing and wore the Alytarchos's uniform. After completing the days of the Olympics, he did not resume his kingship, but returned to Rome and gave up the kingship and remained so until his death. After a year he died a natural death, age 57.
After Maximian gave up the kingship, Maxentius or Galerius was king for three years. He was short, wide, curly-haired, pale, with a good beard, slightly squinting, flat-nosed, irritable, and he favored the Blue faction. During his reign Iamblichus the philosopher taught, living in Daphne until his death. In that year the Persians allied with the Armenians who fought together with them, invaded the Roman territory and despoiled regions. Maxentius mobilized against them and fought the Persians, and he destroyed them coming through Armenia against them, and he wrested from them countries in Persarmenia and made them under the Romans. He called them First and Second Armenia of the Romans. While Maxentius was in Persarmenia the Persians made their way into Osdroene and took and burned the city and returned, and taking much loot they suddenly departed. The city taken by them was called Maximianoupolis.

§ 12.313  King Maxentius rebuilt the city and the walls, and donated many things to the survivors he relieved them of taxes for three years. Returning to Rome he was killed, being 53 years old. After the reign of Maxentius, Constantius Chlorus was king for 13 years. He was tall, thin, partly gray, his body and eyes of good color, with a good nose, spanos, calm, magnanimous. During his reign, the city Salamias [Salamis] of Cyprus suffered from divine anger, a large part of it being submerged in the sea by an earthquake. The rest of it fell to the ground. Constantius rebuilt it and donated a great deal and built a lot, and forgave the surviving citizens of their taxes for four years, and built various buildings in what was previously called Salamias but was renamed Constantia for him. Which city is now the metropolis of Cyprus. In his reign he sent Maximus or Licinianus with a large army to guard the parts of the East against the Persians and the raids of the Saracens. For formerly they troubled the whole East as far as Egypt. In that year it happened that King Constantius fell ill for 40 days and died. He was 60 years old.

§ 12.314  After the reign of Constantius, the army in the East proclaimed Maximus Licinianus emperor. Leaving Festianus as exarch in the East with an army to guard the east, he departed for Rome. As he was about to leave Antioch he watch the horse races. The demes of the city insulted him, because he had not offered any gives to the city when he was proclaimed king there. Annoyed, he ordered a chariot to go out against them, and the soldiers shot them with arrows in the hippodrome, and two thousand died. King Maximus came to Rome and was king for 7 years. He was large-chested, dark-haired, well-set, thick-bearded, good-eyed, curve-nosed, pro-military, quick to anger, and a traktaistes.
In his reign he granted freedom to the Christians not to hide themselves but to be public. During his reign, in Helioupolis of Phoenicia, St. Gelasinos was martyred. He was second mime and came into a play when a Pandemos festival was being held. With the crowd watching, they put him in a large vat filled with tepid bathwater, to mock Christian doctrine and holy baptism. Gelasinos the mime, having been baptized and coming out of the vat wearing white clothes, no longer endured playing the part, but said to the people “I am a Christian."

§ 12.315  "For I saw the fearsome power of God in baptizing me in the vat, and I will die a Christian.” Hearing this the whole demos watching in the city theater were violently enraged. Pushing forward from the stands (bathroi) to the orchestra (thymele) they grabbed him and dragged him from the theater, still wearing his white clothes. They stoned him to death. Thus ended a just man. His body was taken to the village called Mariamma, where he was from, outside the city of Damascus one and a half miles. An oratory was built for him. King Licinianus Maximus underwent surgery and died age 46.

§ 13.316  BOOK 13 THE YEARS OF KING CONSTANTINE [306-337 CE]
After the reign of Maximus Licinius, the most godlike and faithful Constantine the Great, the son of Constantius Chlorus ruled, from the 8th of the Kalends of August in the consulship of Severus and Maximianus, and he continued to reign for 32 years. He was tall, blond, magnanimous, calm, beloved by God. In the years of his reign a great war happened in the west. The most godlike Constantine went forth against them, and being defeated, was hemmed in by the barbarians. Dejected, before going to sleep he prayed to be rescued from them. Lulled to sleep, he dreamed he saw a cross in the sky, on which was written “in this be victorious.” Having read what was written on the cross, he awoke. Arising, he made the sign of the cross,

§ 13.317  as he saw in the sky, and it went in front of him. Him encouraged his army, saying “We will be victorious!” Launching the attack and engaging the barbarians, he won the war by strength of arms, so that not one of the barbarians was saved but all were destroyed. He returned to Rome with victory and great joy, having the sign of the cross in front of him. He explained to all the power of his vision and of the sign of the cross, and said “This is the sign of the God of the Galilaeans, who are called Christians.” Immediately he destroyed the sanctuaries and all the temples of the Greeks and rebuilt the churches of the Christians, and sent edicts everywhere to reopen the Christian churches. After fasting and being catechized he was baptized by Silvester, the bishop of Rome, along with his mother Helene and all his friends and relatives and a host of other Romans. King Constantine became a Christian. He mobilized against the Persians and was victorious and made a peace treaty with Saravaros the king of the Persians, when the Persian asked for peace with the Romans.

§ 13.318  King Constantine made Euphratesia a province, dividing it from Syria and Osroene, and gave municipal rights to Hierapolis. Returning, he came to Antioch the Great and built the big church there, a huge building, demolishing the public bath of King Philip. For the bath was old and destroyed by time and no longer a bathing place. He built a xenona (guest-house) nearby. He likewise built the Basilica of Rufinus. This was a sanctuary of Hermes, and Rufinus the governor of the holy praetorians demolished it. While leaving with the king during the war he was ordered to remain in Antioch the Great. He paid for the basilica when the king returned to Rome. When King Constantine was about to leave Antioch, he first appointed Ploutarchos, a Christian, as magistrate of Antioch of Syria. He was ordered to supervise construction of the church and the basilica. Ploutarchos, while building the guest-house, found the bronzework of Poseidon which had been erected as a talisman protecting the city against earthquakes. Cursing it, he melted it down and made a statue for King Constantine, which he erected outside the praetorium, writing underneath it “to Bono Constantino". This statue still stands. The king introduced to the great city of the Antiochenes

§ 13.319  the Count of the East (comes anatoles) in the consulship of Illos [Julius Constantius] and Albinus, and made for his praetorium the sanctuary of the Muses, which filled the space east of the governor of the praetorians. His name was Felicianus, a Christian, granting the city of the Antiochenes by divine decree the rights of the value of a second countship, in the year 383 as reckoned by the great city of the Antiochenes. For in the past the count of the East had not been settled in Antioch the Great, but when wars was ongoing a royal delegate sat in Antioch, and when the war ended, the delegate was relieved. King Constantine left Antioch, leaving Rufinus the governor. Rufinus was zealous and finished the basilica, for which reason it was named after him. King Constantine sent his mother Lady Helene to Jerusalem to seek out the Honorable Cross. She found it and brought back the Honorable Cross with the five nails. The whole Christian world was uplifted by this. The king created the province of Third Palaestina. In his reign the city once called Byzantium was renewed in the consulship of Gallianos [Gallicanus]and Symmachus [330 CE], and King Constantine made an extended process from Rome to Byzantium.

§ 13.320  He renewed the prior city wall of Byzus and added another large space to the wall, and linked it to the old city wall, and ordered it to be called Constantinople, completing the Hippikon and ornamenting it with bronze statues and great art, building in it a seat for the royal viewing like that in Rome. He also built a large and distinguished palace like the one in Rome, near the Hippikon, [the ascent from the palace to the royal box of the Hippikon through the Cochlia, and built a large and very distinguished forum, and stood in the middle of it a marvelous column all of porphyry, with a statue of himself on top, with seven rays coming from the head, a work of bronze that he stood in Ilion the city of Phrygia. (textual problem here]. The Palladium xoanon [which had stood in Ilion?], Constantine took from Rome secretly and placed it in the forum he built, under the column of his statue, as some of the Byzantines say that it lies there. The Tyche of the city he renewed and refounded, making a bloodless sacrifice to the god, he called Anthousa. The city was founded in the beginning by Phidalia; its Tyche was named Keroe. Byzas the king of Thrace took this Phidalia as his wife

§ 13.321  after the death of Barbysius her father, the toparch and guard of the emporium (trading post). Barbysius, when about to die, commanded Phidalia to make a wall for the place as far as the sea. Byzas called the country after himself and ruled in the city.
He built two colonnaded streets from the entrance of the palace to his forum, magnificent and adorned with statues and various marbles, and he called the place of the colonnades Regia; nearby he built a basilica and outside it large columns and statues, which he called Senatum, standing opposite it a statue of Augusta for his mother Helene on a small porphyry column, and he called the place Augustion. Likewise he completed the Zeuxippos public bath, ornamenting it with columns and variegated marbles and bronzes. For he had found it unfinished, the public bath having been begun under King Severus. He also built the Hippikon (hippodrome) and many other things. When it was all finished, he carried out horse races, watching from the front row and wearing then on the top of his head a diadem of pearls and precious stones, wanting to fulfill the prophetic voice that said, “you have place on his head a crown of precious stone.” For none of those who ruled before him had ever worn such a thing. He conducted a great festival in May or Artemision 11, in the Antiochene year 378,

§ 13.322  and he commanded by divine edict that on that day be conducted the birthday of his city and that on the same 11th of May be opened the public bath the Zeuxippon, near the Hippikon and the Regia and the Palace. He made another column with a xoanon of himself, gilded, holding his city's Tyche, whom he called Anthousa, likewise gilded, in his right hand, and commanded that on the day of the birthday horseraces the column of his xoanon be brought in, escorted by solders cloaked and booted, each holding candles, and to march the formation around the upper turning post and to come to the ditch opposite the royal chair and the king of that time to rise and bow, as he looks at the statue of Constantine and the Tyche of the city. This custom has been kept until now.
The divine Constantine on completing his consulship as a favor to the Byzantines threw little squares of bread in Constantinople, making it a perpetual daily custom, which bread was called palatine because the same bread was contracted in the palace, and defining for each bread wine, meat, and clothing,

§ 13.323  and defining the income for this from his own property and calling them “political.”
Constantine remained in Constantinople as ruler, taking it away from the province of Europa and from Herakleia its metropolis, and gave it the divine right of a royal capital, promoting in it a praetorian prefect and city prefect and the other great offices, making them all Christians. It has remained happily as the capital since him.
King Constantine created the eparchy of Phrygia Salutaris. During his reign there was a Synod of bishops against Areius regarding the Christian faith. The most blessed bishop Eusebius the Pamphylian, the chronographer, was in this Synod. During the reign of Constantine, Maximianoupolis of Osdroene suffered an earthquake, its second calamity after being taken by the Persians, and King Constantine rebuilt it and its walls, which had collapsed. He granted many things to the survivors, and renamed it Constantina. He also built Souga in Bithynia, which had been a small town before, giving it the status of city and calling it Helenoupolis after his mother. In the name of his mother he called the province Helenoupontos.

§ 13.324  And in that year King Constantine ordered that the three temples in Constantinople on what was formerly called the acropolis, of Helios (Sun), of Artemis Selene (Moon), and of Aphrodite henceforth be out of use. A little while later King Constantine died in Nikomedeia of Bithynia, while on a royal process, in a suburb called Achyron a little way outside the city, having been ill for six days, before construction was complete on the great church in Antioch the Great of Syria, a huge building, one of the wonders. He died aged 60 years and three months, as the wise Nestorian the chronicler has written in his list of rulers and years. After the reign of Constantine the Great, his son Constantine, who was in Rome, became king. He made him king of Rome while still alive, in the consulship of Ursus and Polybius [Polemius, 338 CE].

§ 13.325  King Constantine the younger was king in Rome for 12 years. After his father died he went on a royal process and was murdered in Mothone by his brother's people, at age 20. After King Constantine the younger, his brother Constas was king in Rome for 16 years. He fell sick and died of dysentery at the age of 27. After the reign of Constantine the Great, his younger son, Constantius, ruled for 30 years. He was magnanimous, an Exakionite, which means Arian. The Persians, namely King Abbourarsakios, moved against his kingdom. He mobilized against them, making Julian, his relative, Caesar. When he was in Antioch the Great, he finished the great church and inscribed it as follows:

§ 13.326  “Constantius built a lovely house for Christ
With celestial vaults, all-alike, all-gleaming
Obedient to the orders of lord Constantius
Gorgonios count of the bedchamber contrived the work.”
Reaching Persian territory he made a peace treaty with the Persians for a set period, after many had fallen on both sides in the battle. Returning, he performed the inauguration of the great church in Antioch. Leaving Antioch and heading toward Constantinople, Constantius arrived in Cilicia and built there the bridge over the Pyramos river, a great work. Coming to Mampsouestia, a city of Cilicia, he fell ill and died there, age 40. After the reign of Constantius, Julian the Transgressor (parabates) was king, who had been Caesar before, the relative of Constantius, in the consulship of Marmentius and Nebeta [Mamertinus and Nevitta, 362 CE].

§ 13.327  Julian was articulate. He was called the Transgressor because he rejected the Christian faith, the dogma of his ancestors, and became a Hellene. He was a friend and contemporary of Libanius, the famous sophist of Antioch. In his reign, St. Dometios was martyred. For he mobilized a powerful army against the Persians and came and occupied Antioch. Going up on the mountain called Kasios, he made there a hecatomb sacrifice to Zeus Kasios. Returning from there, he came to Daphne and made a sacrifice to Apollo. Sleeping there, he saw in a vision a blond child saying to him: “In Asia it is necessary for you to die.”
Coming back from Daphne to Antioch, he was met by his senators, officers and the Demos. The demesmen of Antioch shouted insults at him, because they were fervent Christians. In their shouts, they gave him an omen that he would not return. Among those near him were two candidates, Christians, whose names were Juventinus and Maximianus. They split off and joined with the crowd shouting insults, indeed inciting the crowd to abuse. Seeing them, King Julian ordered them to be arrested. He immediately beheaded them in Antioch, and their remains were placed in the martyrium called the Koimeterion. The Antiochenes call them the Gentiles. Extremely annoyed at the Antiochenes, he threatened them, saying he would come back and punish them, as if there had been no omen.

§ 13.328  He made the speech about the Antiochenes, slandering them as revolutionaries. He posted the speech he had delivered outside the palace of this city in the Tetrapylon of the Elephants near the Regia.
Leaving through Kyrestike, he went against the Persians. Passing through the city of Kyrra, he saw a crowd standing in the cave of St. Dometios and being cured by him. He inquired someone why the crowd had gathered. He learned that in the cave of the mountain was a monk, and the crowd had gathered wanting to be cured and blessed by him. King Julian declared to St. Dometios, through a Christian referendarius: “You went into the cave to please your god. Don't desire to please people, but be solitary.” St. Dometios replied, “I closed myself in this cave a long time ago in order to give myself to God body and soul. I am not able to chase away the crowd that comes to me in faith.” King Julian ordered the cave to be blocked up with large stones, with him inside. St. Dometios died as a result. Proceeding against Savvourarsakes, the Persian king, King Julian reached Hierapolis.

§ 13.329  He sent to Samosata, a city of Euphratesia, for ships to be built, some in wood, others in leather, as the very wise Magnus the Chronicler, the Karene, writes, who was with King Julian. Leaving Hierapolis he came to the city of Karai, and there he found two roads, one leading to Nisibis, which had once belonged to the Romans, and the other toward the Roman fortress called Kirkesion, lying between the two rivers Euphrates and Abboras, which Diocletian the king of the Romans had built. Dividing his army, the king sent 16000 soldiers with two commanders, Sebastianus and Procopius, toward Nisibis, and Julian himself arrived at Kirkesion fortress. Leaving in Kirkesion fortress the 6000 soldiers he found stationed there, he added to their number 4000 soldiers with two commanders, Accameus and Maurus. He left there and crossed the Abboras river on the bridge, while the boats arrived in the Euphrates river. The number of boats was 1250. Gathering his army, with Anatolios Magister and Salustius, the eparch of the praetorians, and his generals with him, he climbed on a high platform and addressed the army, praising them and urging them to fight with zeal and discipline against the Persians. Then he permitted them to board the boats.

§ 13.330  The king himself got into the boat made ready for him, and he ordered advance scouts (pro-sculcatores) to take the lead, 1500 brave men from the division of lancers and mattiarii. He ordered them to bear his emblems, and ordered Count Lucianus, a very warlike man, to be with him. He sacked many Persian fortresses lying alongside the Euphrates and on islands in the stream, and killed the Persians in them. He order Victor and Dagalaifos to be behind the other ships and to guard the mass. The king and his whole army descended via the great canal of the Euphrates that joins with the Tigris river. He reached the Tigris river, where the two rivers join and form a large lake. He then diverted into Persian territory in the land of the Mauzanitai, near Ktesiphon city, where the Persian palace was. Having mastered the area, King Julian camped in the plain of Ktesiphon, desiring to enter Babylon with his senate and take over that area.
King Sabbourarsakios suspected that Julian the King of the Romans would be coming via Nisibis, and launched an attack against him with his whole force.

§ 13.331  When he was informed that King Julian of the Romans was behind him and had captured Persian territory, and that Roman generals with a large army would meet him in front, realizing that he was caught in the middle, he fled toward Persarmenia. Using guile, he sent two of his senators to King Julian, who had voluntarily let their noses be cut off, so that they could lead him astray and not catch them fleeing. The mutilated Persians came to King Julian, as they claimed, because they wished to betray the King of the Persians who had punished them. Deceived by the oaths they swore, King Julian followed them with his whole army. They led him into a waterless wasteland, 150 miles, causing them to be lost, on the 25th of Daisios or June. There they found the old, collapsed walls of a city Boubia, and another village called Asia, where the houses were standing but empty. King Julian and the whole Roman army camped there. Food ran out there, and there was no vegetation for the horses. It was a desert. The whole Roman army realized that the King had been deceived, and had led them astray into the desert. They fell into great disorder. On the next day, June 26, they dragged forward the Persians who had misled them, and examined them [under torture]. They confessed, saying that “in order to save our country and king, we gave ourselves up to die and led you astray. Behold, we die your slaves.”

§ 13.332  But they took them back and didn’t kill them, but negotiated for them to extract the army from the desert.
About the second hour of the same day, King Julian passed near the army and scolded them not to behave in a disorderly way. He was attacked and wounded, from hiding. He went into his tent, and died during the night, as the aforementioned Magnus expounded. Eutychianus the Cappadocian chronicler, a soldier and vicarius of the division of the Primarmenians, who was himself present in the war, wrote that King Julian came through the Euphrates against Persian territory. He prevailed and defeated all, and captured as far as the city of Ktesiphon, where the king of the Persians was staying. When the latter fled toward Persarmenia, he wanted to push on the next day with the senate and army as far as Babylon, and take it at night. While he was sleeping, he saw in a dream a full-grown man dressed in a cuirass, coming toward him in his tent near the city of Ktesiphon, in a city called Asia. This man struck him with a lance. Startled, he woke up shouting. The cubicularii eunuchs and spatharii and the army guarding the tent rose up and came toward him with royal torches. King Julian turned himself toward them,

§ 13.333  stabbed in the armpit, and asked them, “What is the name of the village where my tent is?” They told him it was called Asia. He shouted, “O Sun, you have destroyed Julian.” Spurting blood, he gave up his soul in the fifth hour of the night in the Antiochene year 411. So the army, before the Persian enemy knew, went to the tent of Jovian, the Count of the Domestics and a worthy general. They led him unawares into the royal tent, as if King Julian had asked for him. When he came into the tent, they closed around him and proclaimed him king, on the 27 of Daisios or June, before it began to dawn. The mass of the army headed for Ktesiphon. Camped a long way away, it did not learn what happened until sunrise, because of the distance. So King Julian died aged 33. On that night, the most holy bishop Basil of Caesareia in Cappadocia saw in a vision the heavens open and the savior Christ sitting on a throne and saying with a shout, “Mercurius, go and kill King Julian who is against the Christians.” St. Mercurius, who was standing before the Lord, wore a polished iron breastplate. Hearing the command, he disappeared.

§ 13.334  He reappeared, stood before the Lord, and shouted, “King Julian was stabbed and died, as you commanded, Lord.” Startled by the shout, bishop Basil woke up distraught. For King Julian had honored him both for his eloquence and as a collaborator, and used to write to him frequently. Coming down to the church in the early dawn, St. Basil called all the clergy and told them the mystery of the dream, and that Julian the king had been stabbed and died that night. All of them begged him to keep quiet and say no such thing. The very wise Eutropius, the chronicler, in some respects did not agree in his account of this. After the reign of Julian the Transgressor, Jovian the son of Ouranianos was king, crowned by the army there in Persian territory, in the consulship of Sallustius. He was very Christian. He reigned for seven months. As soon as he was king, he addressed all the army and the senators with him, shouting, “If you want me to be your king, let all of you be Christians."

§ 13.335  The whole army and the senators applauded him. Jovian left the desert with his army and came to the fertile Persian land, where concerned himself with how to leave Persian territory. The king of the Persians, Sabbourarsakios, learned of the death of King Julian, continuing in great fear, sent an ambassador from Persarmenia to the king of the Romans asking for peace, one of his nobles called Sourraeinas. The divine King Jovian received him favorably and agreed to receive the peace embassy, and said he too would send an ambassador to the king of the Persians. [Hearing this, Sourraeinas the ambassador of the Persians] asked King Jovian to execute forthwith a peace treaty. He appointed a senator, the patrician Arintheos, and gave him the whole affair, but ordained that he abide by the forms approved or expressed forms by him, since the king himself disdained to make a peace treaty with the senator or ambassador of the Persians. He granted a three-day suspension of the war for the counsel regarding the peace.

§ 13.336  And it was agreed between Arintheos the Roman and Sourraeinas the senator and ambassador of the Persians, for the Romans to give the Persians the whole province of Mygdonia and its metropolis called Niztivios (Nisibis), naked, with only its walls and without men living there. This was supported and a written peace was made. King Jovian took with him one of the Persians satraps, named Iounius, together with the ambassador to rescue him and his army from Persian territory and to take over the province and metropolis. When King Jovian reached Nisibis city, he did not enter it but camped outside the walls. Iounius the Persian satrap entered the city at the king's command, and placed on one of the towers the Persian emblem. The king of the Romans ordered all the citizens to leave by one with all their goods. Silvanus, a politician of the city, by rank a count, came out to him and fell at his feet and begged the king not to betray the city to the Persians. He did not persuade him. For he said he had sworn an oath, and did not wish to have the reputation as an oath-breaker to all. Having fortified a city outside the wall of the city of Amida, he called it the town of Nisibis and made all those from the Mygdonian country and Silvanus the politician live there.

§ 13.337  And having passed toward Mesopotamia, he immediately improved the situation of the Christians and put matters in Christian hands and promoted Christians as officials and exarchs in all the East. Leaving the East after making a peace treaty with the Persians for a short time, King Jovian set out in haste for Constantinople with his army, traveling through the winter, which was severe. When he reached the country of the Galatians, he died in a village called Dadastana, age 60.
After the reign of Jovian, Valentinian the Severe became king, in the city of Nicaea, for 16 years. He was Christian. He was promoted by the Senate and crowned king by Salustius (or Salutius) the eparch of the Praetorians, who chose him and compelled him to be king. For King Julian the transgressor had sent King Valentinian to Salambria because he was too Christian, making him tribune of a legion. For he learned in a dream that he would rule after him.

§ 13.338  Governor Salustius sent for him and brought him from Salambria, and told the army that no one else would make a king of the Romans like him. As soon as he was king, he immediate received the governor Salustius, and putting him under close guard made a public notice against him, that if anyone had been wronged in any way by him, let him come to the king. But no one presented himself against Salustius, because he was extremely pure. King Valentinian built many things in Antioch the Great. He mobilized against the Persians, sending his own brother Valens, having made him Caesar on the first of April. Valens did not fight, but instead made a peace treaty. For he had full authority to represent his brother, and the Persians came and asked for peace. Being in Antioch of Syria with the bulk of his military force on the 10th of November, the 14th of the indiction, he prolonged his stay in order to make the peace treaty with the Persians. He made the treaty for seven years, the Persians asking for peace and granting half of Nisibis (Niztivios). Delighted by the setting and the breezes and waters, in the city of the Antiochenes he first built the forum. He added a large building, after destroying the basilica formerly called the Kaisarion, near the clock and the Commodian public bath, which is now the praetorium of the proconsul governing Syria,

§ 13.339  as far as the Plethrion, restoring its apse and putting arches over the Parmenion torrent, which flows down from the mountain in the middle of the city of Antioch. He made another basilica opposite the Commodion, and ornamented the four basilicas with large Salonitic columns, coffering the ceilings and ornamenting it with paintings and various marbles and gilding, covering with marble all the inner court above the vaults of the torrent. He endowed the four basilicas with various arts, and erected statues, and in the middle he stood up a very large column with a statue of King Valentinian, his brother. He dedicated a marble statue in the Senate of the Conch; and in the middle of the basilica in the Conch he dedicated another seated statue of precious stone with the divine King Valentinian. He also built the two curved bands of the Kynegion, arching them over and filling the pits, since it was a former gladiatorial arena. He also built the public bath near the Hippodrome. He built many other marvelous works in the city. The most godlike King Valentinian killed many senators and governors of provinces, because they had been unjust and had stolen and plundered.

§ 13.340  The praepositus of the palace was a man named Rodanus, very powerful and wealthy, who managed the palace as first chief eunuch. He was burned alive in the curved part of the Hippodrome with dry sticks, while King Valentinian himself was watching the horse races. For this praepositus Rodanus had stolen property from a widow woman named Beronike, have plotted against her while in power. She came to King Valentinian. As soon as he was king, he gave the patrician Salustius to be their judge. He condemned the praepositus Rodanus. When the king learned the ruling by patrician Salustius, he commanded the praepositus to give back to the widow what he had taken from her. But Rodanus was not persuaded to give it back, but he appealed against the patrician Salustius. Annoyed, the king commanded the woman to come to him when he was watching the horse-racing. The woman came to him at the fifth post of the morning. As the praepositus Rodanus was standing very close to him on his right, the king gave an order, and he was seized from the royal box, in front of the whole city, brought down to the race-course, and burned. King Valentinian granted the widow woman all the property of the praepositus Rodanos. He was acclaimed by the whole people and by the Senate, as just and severe, and there was great fear among malefactors and embezzlers, and justice prevailed.

§ 13.341  Similarly when Mistress Mariana, the King’s wife, bought a suburb that produced income and gave for it less than what the suburb was worth, being honored as Augusta, he heard of this and sent for the suburb to be appraised, making the appraisers swear an oath. Learning that it was worth much more than the purchase price, he was angry at the queen and exiled her from the city, and he returned the suburb to the woman who sold it. The king proclaimed his son Gratian as king. The Mistress Mariana was recalled by her son Valerian after he was made king in Rome by his father. The most godlike Valentinian was struck by disease after a year and died in the fortress of the Birgitines, aged 55. After the reign of Valentinian the Great, the Severe, the army seized power and made a senator named Eugenius the king. He ruled for 22 days and was quickly killed.

§ 13.342  Then the divine Valens became king, the brother of Valentinian the severe, brave in war, proclaimed by the senate of Constantinople in the year 326 of Antioch. When his brother Valentinian died, Valens was not in Constantinople, but had been sent by his brother, while still alive, to fight in Sirmium against the Goths. Having defeated them, he returned. Crowned, he was king for 13 years. He was an Exakionite by faith, a warrior, both magnanimous and fond of building. As soon as he was king, he gave to the Arians the Great Church in Constantinople, and in the other cities he did the same, and very much harmed the Christians during his reign. Valens made Second Cappadocia a province, dividing it from the first.

§ 13.343  In his reign Nicaea, the city of Bithynia, suffered from divine anger, in September, the 11th of the indiction. Valens died while making a processus to Hadrianoupolis in Thrace. He went to build a factory building there in front of the city in a farm, but the farm building caught fire and the stairs burned at night, and he died along with his cubicularii and spatharii, age 49. After King Valens, the most pious Gratian the elder son of Valentinian became king, in the consulship of Ausonianus and Hermogenes. He ruled for 17 years. He was calm and honorable. In his reign, Theon the very wise philosopher taught and interpreted astronomy and the writings of Hermes Trismegistus and those of Orpheus. In the sixth year of the reign of Gratian, Theodosius Spanos was proclaimed King by him, after marrying Placidia, the sister of Gratian.

§ 13.344  Before the reign of Gratian, Valerian the king of Rome died, the son of Valentinian and brother of Gratian the elder, having being king of Rome very few years. His relative Valentinian became king of Rome in his place. King Gratian fell ill of a disease of the spleen and remained ill for a long time. While he was going up via the Kochlion [spiral stair?] to watch at the Hippodrome of Constantinople, he was stabbed at the door of the Decimus and died at age 28. After King Gratian, the senate of Constantinople proclaimed Theodosius king, as being of their lineage from Spain. After being proclaimed by the Senate, the divine Theodosius the Spanos, the Great, son in law of Gratian, ruled 17 years. He was Christian and sensible and pious and active. From the first moment of his rule he gave the churches to the Orthodox, making edicts and persecuting the Arians. The king crowned his two sons, whom he had with his first wife Galla. He made Arcadius king in Constantinople, and Honorius in Rome. King Theodosius destroyed all the temples of the Hellenes down to the ground. He dissolved the great and famous sanctuary at Heliopolis, the Three-stone [Trilithon], and made it a church for the Christians. Similarly he made the sanctuary at Damascus a Christian church.

§ 13.345  Many other sanctuaries he turned into churches, and he greatly improved the situation of the Christians during his reign. This king divided Phoenicia Libanesia from that of the Paralos (shore) and made it a province, giving the city Emetze the status of metropolis and an ordinarius Archon. Dividing up Pontus, the king made a province he called Haemimontis. During his reign, Balbinus the Isaurian rose up and suborned the cities of Anazarbos, Eirenoupolis and Kastabala of Cilicia. Arrested by the general Rufus, he was killed. In that year, King Theodosius abolished the three temples in Constantinople in the former acropolis. He made the temple of the Sun a courtyard of houses, and gave it to the Great Church of Constantinople. This court is called even today the courtyard of Helios. He made the temple of Artemis a backgammon parlor (tabloparochion) for the dice-players. This place is called the Temple even now, while the nearby street is the Elafis [deer/heron?]. The temple of Aphrodite he made the carriage-house of the Eparch of the Praetorians, built hospices around it, and commanded that impoverished prostitutes live in them for free. Theodosius also made the former village Rophaeina a city, which he renamed Theodosioupolis.

§ 13.346  From then until now the village has the status of polis, in the consulship of Merobaudes and Saturninus.
Theodosius made the synod of the 150 bishops in Constantinople to deal with the homoousion (same being/essence) of the Holy Spirit. Likewise Theodosius promoted the Eparch of the Praetorians, Antiochus surnamed Chouzon the Great, from Antioch the Great by descent. As soon as he was promoted to Eparch, he prevailed on King Theodosius to broaden and expand the city of Antioch in Syria, which had many dwellings as far as a mile outside the walls. King Theodosius commanded that the dwellings outside the city be enclosed in a wall. A wall was made from the gate of the Philon up to the Rodion. The new wall included the mountain as far as the old wall built by Tiberius Caesar, and the new wall was joined as far as the street called Fyrminos which came down from the gap of the mountain. He brought the stones from the old gladiatorial arena in the acropolis, also dismantling the aqueduct coming to the acropolis from the Waters from the Laodicene road.

§ 13.347  This aqueduct had been made by Julius Caesar when he built the public bath up on the mountain for the remaining Acropolitans and the upper houses, after Seleucus Nicator the Macedonian had brought them down to settle with him in the lower city he had built, Antioch the Great.
In that time Gindaros was walled, and the Lytargon, and many other towns of Syria. In that reign, the Tzannoi crossed over to Cappadocia, Cilicia, and Syria; they plundered them and left. King Theodosius separated New Epirus from the old and made it a province, giving the status of metropolis and magistrate to the city Dyrrachion. He likewise divided Second Palaestina from the first, giving the status of metropolis to Scythopolis.
King Theodosius left Constantinople bound for Rome, and came to the city of Thessalonike. He had with him a military contingent whose lodging requirements disturbed the city. The Thessalonikeis rioted and insulted the king. While watching the horse-races in the Hippodrome, which was full, he ordered them to be shot with arrows: 15000 people died. Bishop Ambrosius was angry at this and placed him under an interdict.

§ 13.348  He remained many days without going to church until, being entreated, the bishop received him at the holy birthday feast. Otherwise he would not receive him, until he made an edict that whenever the king was irritated there would be a 30-day remission before what he ordered was carried out.
The king divided Second Galatia from the first, making it a province, giving polis status to the city of Pisinous.
King Theodosius made a process and, leaving for war, fell ill in Mizoulanon [Mediolanum] and died there in Mizoulanon, age 65. His remains were brought to Constantinople. When he was about to die, Theodosius learned that Arcadius had come to Rome, to Honorius, his brother, who was sick, so he wrote to him to come to Constantinople for the East. So while King Arcadius was spending time in Rome with his brother, King Honorius, and then was drawing out his time on the road while coming to Constantinople, Gainas the senator usurped power, wishing to be king. Arcadius arrived in Constantinople and killed the usurper Gainas. After King Theodosius the Great the Spanos, his son Arcadius reigned, having come to Constantinople from Rome, for 23 years, over the whole state.

§ 13.349  He left his younger brother Honorius in Rome. He was vigorous and active. Immediately on arriving, he made his son, Theodosius the younger, king in Constantinople. Arcadius made a special military unit of men he called Arcadiacs. He fell sick and died suddenly, age 31. After the reign of Arcadius, his brother Honorius reigned for 31 years. He was proud and prudent. This king closed the sanctuary of Serapis Helios in Alexandria the Great. In his reign a major popular disturbance happened in Rome. Annoyed, he left for the city of Ravenna. He sent to bring the general Alaric from Gallia with an army to plunder Rome. Coming to Rome, Alaric commended himself to the city and the senators hostile to Honorius, and did not harm the affairs of the city. Attacking the palace, he took all the money and the half-sister of Honorius, Placidia, who was a young virgin.

§ 13.350  He returned again to Gaul where he ruled as usurper.
Constantius, who was still Count, was with Alaric, and was trusted by him with the girl Placidia. He was able to take her and, fleeing from Alaric, bring her to King Honorius. To thank him, Honorius made him a senator, gave him Placidia as his wife, and made him king in Rome. By her, Constantius had a son called Valentinian. Honorius together with Constantius killed the four usurpers Attalus, Sebastianus, Maximus, and Konstas, senators, who rebelled against him and subverted the people. After killing them and seizing their property he let Constantius rule in Rome, while Honorius reigned in Constantinople with Theodosius the younger. Constantius, the king of Rome, died in the reign and lifetime of Honorius. A senator named Ioannes, having aligned the other senators with him, ruled in Rome as usurper. Learning this, Honorius was furious. But struck by illness, he died of dropsy at age 42.

§ 14.351  BOOK 14 THE REIGN OF THEODOSIUS THE YOUNGER UNTIL THE REIGN OF LEO THE SMALL
After the reign of Honorius, the most godlike Theodosius the young, the son of King Arcadius, the brother of Honorius, was sole king, in the consulship of Stilicho and Abrilianus, having been crowned by his father. He ruled everything for 50 years and 7 months. He favored the Green faction and raised them up in each city. In Constantinople he transferred them from where they used to watch from his right side, and made them watch from the left-hand stands. He moved the pedatura soldiers who used to watch from opposite his seat, to the Blue section, and he gave the stands to those of the Green faction, six arcades, He said to the eparch Kyros, “Those I love I want to watch opposite me.”

§ 14.352  Those of the Green faction in Constantinople shouted to the king, “The same for the same!” He sent a message to them through the chief runner, saying, “In order to honor you I moved you to the left of the seat where I watch.” They cheered him. He ordered that in each city the Greens would watch from the left of the archons. He became king while a child. When he advanced in age King Theodosius studied inside the palace while his father Arcadius was alive. After the death of his father, the younger, very brilliant Paulinus studied with him, the son of the count of the domestics. After the death of his father, when he came to manhood, King Theodosius sought to take a woman in marriage. It bothered his sister Mistress Pulcheria, a virgin, who as she kissed her brother that he had not taken someone to marry. She went around looking for virgin girls, daughters of patricians or of royal blood. She told her brother King Theodosius, while consorting with him in the palace. King Theodosius told her, “I want you to find me someone younger and very beautiful, more beautiful than any woman in Constantinople, whether of royal blood or of a leading senator.

§ 14.353  But if she is not excessively beautiful, then I have not use for her, whether she is of official rank or of royal blood or wealthy, but the daughter of anyone at all, but she has to be a virgin and very magnificent, and I will take her. Mistress Pulcheria listed to this and sent everywhere to search. Paulinus also searched, to please him. In the meantime it happened that a girl came to Constantinople with her relatives, attractive, eloquent, from Greece itself, named Athenais, also renamed Eudokia, the daughter of Leontius the very wealthy Athenian philosopher. This Athenais or Eudokia was compelled to live in the capital city with her aunt for this reason. The philosopher Leontius her father had two grown sons, and being about to die he arranged his affairs, ordering in this will that his two sons, Valerius and Gesius be the inheritors of all the property he left, and said in his will, “To Athenais my most desirable, legitimate daughter I wish to be given 100 nomismata (coins) only. For her Tyche, which surpasses all womanly fortune, suffices.” Leontius the philosopher died in Athens. After his death Athenais or Eudokia was unpleasantly surprised, and fell upon her brothers, who were older, demanding that they not uphold the will but give her a one-third share of the paternal property,

§ 14.354  saying she “had sinned in nothing, as you know, toward your father. I do not know why he left me without resources when he was about to die, and was granting prosperity after his death.” Her brothers were unpersuaded. Becoming angry they chased her from her family house, where she lived with them, and the sister of her mother took her in as an orphan, and guarded her as a virgin. She took her with her when she went to Constantinople to the other sister of her father, her aunt, and taking her to file a suit against her brothers they prepared her to approach the most pious mistress Pulcheria, the sister of King Theodosius. Coming forward she explained how she had been mistreated by her own brothers, speaking eloquently, and when Pulcheria saw how magnificent and intelligent she was, she asked her aunt if she was a virgin. It was explained by them that she was a pure virgin guarded by her father, who had been a philosopher in Greece, and to have grown up with many works of philosophy. She commanded that she and her aunts be guarded by cubicularii and wait there. Saying she was taking the request with her, she went in to her brother the king and told him, “I have found a young, very beautiful, pure, fashionable, articulate Greek virgin, the daughter of a philosopher.

§ 14.355  Hearing this, as a young man he got excited, and sending his collaborator and friend Paulinus, he asked his sister that she contrive to bring Athenais or Eudokia into her bedchamber, so that he could look at her through the curtain, along with Paulinus. She was brought in, and seeing her he fell in love with her, and Paulinus also admired her. So keeping her and making her a Christian (for she was a Hellene), and renaming her Eudokia, he took her as his wife, making for her a royal wedding. With her he had a daughter named Eudoxia. When the brothers of Augusta Eudokia heard that she was a reigning queen, terrified they took refuge in Greece. She sent for them and brought them under a promise, from Athens to Constantinople, and made them officials. The king promoted Gesius to be eparch of the praetorians of the Illyrian nation, and Valerius to be magister, after their sister queen Eudokia told them, “If you hadn't treated me badly, I would not have been forced to come and be queen. So it is you who have bestowed on me this kingdom destined for me by birth. For my good Fortune rather than your feelings toward me made you act badly toward me."

§ 14.356  King Theodosius caused Paulinus his friend, intermediary in the marriage, and their breakfast partner, to rise through all the ranks. Afterward he promoted him to magister, and he flourished. Because he could speak freely to the king, as best man at his wedding, Paulinus as magister also frequently visited the Augusta Eudokia. King Theodosius sent the patrician Aspar to Rome with a large army against Ioannes the usurper. Aspar defeated Ioannes, and ejected him from the kingship of Rome, and killed him. King Theodosius made the young Valentian, the son of Placidia the great and King Constantius, his relative, king in Rome, and gave him his daughter Eudoxia, whom he had with Eudokia Augusta, the daughter of the philosopher. With her, Valentinian had two daughters Eudokia and Placidia. It happened after a time when King Theodosius was proceeding to the church at the holy Epiphany that magister Paulinus disgusted by the immobility of his leg stayed to rest. A certain poor man brought to King Theodosius a Phrygiatic apple huge beyond any exaggeration. The king and all his senate were amazed. The king gave the person who brought the fruit 150 nomismata, and sent it to Eudokia Augusta.

§ 14.357  She in turn sent it to Paulinus the magister, as the king's friend. Magister Paulinus, not knowing that the king had sent it to the Augusta, took it and sent it to King Theodosius, as he was entering the palace. When he received it, he recognized it and hid it. Summoning the Augusta he asked her, “Where is the apple I sent to you?” She said she ate it. He made her swear an oath on his safety, if she ate it or sent it to someone. She swore falsely, that “I sent it to no one, but ate it.” The king commanded that the apple be brought, and showed it to her. He was furious at her, suspecting that she had sent it to Paulinus because she was in love with him, and denied it. For this reason, King Theodosius executed Paulinus. Augusta Eudokia was very sorry, as having been insulted, for it was known everywhere that Paulinus had been killed on her account. For he was young and very handsome. So the Augusta asked King Theodosius to go to the Holy Places on a vow. He granted it. She came from Constantinople to Jerusalem to pray. She built many things in Jerusalem, and renewed the city wall of Jerusalem, saying, “It was about me that David the prophet spoke, that in your Eudokia [satisfaction] will be built the walls of Jerusalem, Lord. (Ps. 50)]."

§ 14.358  Having lived there and built a royal memorial for herself, she died and was interred in Jerusalem. When about to die, she swore that she had not been conscious of the accusation against her regarding Paulinus.
King Theodosius was eloquent, and loved by all the Demos and the senate. In his reign and that of Valentinian, Attila of the tribe of the Gepids mobilized against Rome and Constantinople, with an army of many tens of thousands, and declared through a Goth ambassador to Valentinian, king of Rome: “My despotes [master] and your despotes commands you through me that you make your palace ready for him.” He sent a similar message to King Theodosius regarding Constantinople through a Goth ambassador. Aetius the leading senatorial of Rome, having heard the excessive arrogance of the deranged message from Attila, went to Alaric up toward the Gauls, who was an enemy of the Romans, and incited him to come with him against Attila. For he was attacking many cities of Rome. Falling on him suddenly, while he was camped near the Danube river, he killed many thousands of them. In the battle, Alaric was wounded by an arrow and died.

§ 14.359  Attila likewise died, from a spurt of blood through his nostrils at night, while he was sleeping with his Hunnish concubine. The girl was suspected of having killed him. About this war the most wise Priscus the Thracian wrote. But others wrote that Aetius the patrician suborned his spatharius and he stabbed him and killed him. The patrician Aetius returned to Rome victorious.
King Theodosius in those years built the great church in Alexandria, which is called until now Theodosius'. For he loved Kyrillos the bishop of Alexandria. At that time, taking courage from the bishop, the Alexandrians took matters into their own hands and burned with faggots the famous philosopher Hypatia, about whom great things were said. But she was an old woman.
In his reign the island of Crete, with one hundred cities in the middle of the sea, as the very wise Euripides put it, suffered the anger of god. All the surrounding area suffered, and the public bath in Gortyn the metropolis collapsed, which had been built by Julius Caesar and had 12 separate domed bath chambers (tholos), and in each month there was a separate administration of the baths (?).

§ 14.360  The public bath was perfect: under one chimney the twelve bath chambers were heated, and it was a strange sight to see. King Theodosius reerected six of them, that is two arrangements of the public bath, for summer and winter, which the ktetores of the city had requested. He provided from the building account large amounts for the city and region. He also built in Antioch the Great a great, well-lit basilica, very magnificent, opposite the Athlon. The Antiochenes call it the Anatolion, because the stratelates Anatolius was in charge of the construction, receiving money from the king when he was made stratelates of the East. For this reason, when the work on the basilica was completed, he wrote on it in gold mosaic, “The work of King Theodosius,” as was proper. Above it were two kings, Theodosius and his relative Valentinian who was king in Rome. Theodosius also gilded the two bronze leaves of the Daphnetic Gate, on the model of the doors he gilded in Constantinople, which was called until just now the Golden Gate. Likewise, up to now in Antioch the Great it is called the Golden Gate, having been gilded by Nymphidianus the consular. In this year, the death of Valentinian the king of Rome was announced. He was murdered by Maximus the senatorial, who took power and reigned in Rome.

§ 14.361  King Theodosius mistreated Antiochus the praepositus and patrician, who was powerful in the palace and in charge of affairs. For he had also brought up Theodosius when his father was still alive, as cubicularius and manager of the Roman state from the time of his father Arcadius. He stayed on after the father died, as the patrician who ran Theodosius' affairs. Becoming furious at him, he confiscated his property and, cutting his hair, made him a priest in the Great Church of Constantinople. He made an edict that eunuch cubicularii could not enter senatorial or patrician rank after the completion of their service, i.e., after being praepositus of the palace. Antiochus died as a presbyter. The king advanced to be eparch of the praetorians and eparch of the city the patrician Kyros, the philosopher, a very wise man in all respects. He held the two offices for four years, proceeding in the carriage of the city eparch and taking care of the buildings and renovating all of Constantinople. He was extremely honest. The Byzantines shouted about him in the horse-races all day, while Theodosius was watching: “Constantine built, Kyros renewed. Him on the spot, Augustus!” Kyros was surprised, and spoke his mind: “I don't like it when fortune smiles at me a lot."

§ 14.362  The king was angry that they had shouted for Kyros after Constantine, as having renewed the city. So a plot was hatched and Kyros was implicated as a Hellene. His property was confiscated and he was stripped of his magistracies, and taking refuge he became a priest, and was sent to Phrygia, becoming bishop in Kotyaeion. These Kotyaeian citizens had murdered four bishops already. The city of Kotyaeion is part of the province of Phrygia Salutaris. And Kyros arrived as bishop in the city of the Kotyaeians before Christmas. The clerics and citizens of the city learned that the king had sent him as a Hellene so he would be killed, so suddenly in the church they shouted for him to speak. Under compulsion, he rose to speak. When they gave him peace, he spoke as follows: “Brothers, let us honor the birth of our god and savior Jesus Christ with silence, so that it be understood by hearing alone, in the holy virgin word. To him glory to the aeons. Amen.” They acclaimed him and he went down, and he remained there until his death. Antiochus Chouzon, the grandson of Antiochus Chouzon the elder, was promoted to eparch, and he provided in Antioch the Great a supplement of money for the horse-races and the Olympics and the Maiouma.

§ 14.363  After him Rufinus the king's relative was promoted to Eparch, and he was killed on the grounds that he was contemplating usurpation. King Theodosius was in love with Chrysafius the cubicularius, called Ztoummas, who was very attractive. He gave him as much as he asked for, and let him speak freely with him. He controlled all affairs and stole everything. He was patron and protector of the Greens.
In his reign Nikomedeia the metropolis of Bithynia suffered from divine anger, its fifth such, with evening far advanced, and it was destroyed, overwhelmed by the earth and the sea. He built many things there, the public baths and the colonnades and the harbor and the theaters and the martyrion of St. Anthimus and all the churches. During his reign the Isaurian brigand-chiefs seized Seleuceia of Syria in the extra month, during the consulship of Theodosius and Romoridos. They pillaged and turned the country upside down, passing through the mountains. Having taken everything they returned to Isauria. In his reign, Constantinople suffered from divine anger, by an earthquake on January 26, at night, from the Troadesian bastions to the bronze Tetrapylon.

§ 14.364  The King conducted church services with the senate and the crowd and the clergy, barefoot, for many days.
In that time Blasses the king of the Persians came waging war on the Romans. Hearing this, the king of the Romans made the patrician Procopius stratelates of the East, and sent him with an army to fight. When battle was about to be joined, the king of the Persians declared, “If your whole army has a an capable of fighting one on one and defeating a Persian chosen by me, I will immediately make a peace treaty for 50 years with all the customary gifts.” This being agreed, the king of the Persians put forward a Persian named Ardazanes from the regiment of the Immortals, and the Romans chose Areobindus, a Goth, a count of the Foederati. The two went out armed on horseback. Areobindus carried a lasso in the Gothic manner. First the Persian attacked with his spear. Areobindus swerved sideways on his right side and lassoed him. Pulling him off his horse he killed him. So the king of the Persians made a peace treaty. After the victory, Areobindus went to Constantinople with the stratelates Procopius. He was thanked by the king and promoted to consul. The king made a province, divided off from Lykaonia,

§ 14.365  which he called Lycia, giving the status of metropolis and leading city to Myra of Lycia, where there is a mystery of God, spontaneous fire. Similarly, the king divided off a Second Syria from the first province, giving the status of metropolis and ruling city to Apameia, and also Second Cilicia, which he made a province dividing it from the first, giving the status of metropolis and ruling city to Anazarbos. He made another province, dividing it off from Bithynia, which he called Honorias in the name of his uncle Honorius, giving the status of metropolis and ruling city to Herakleia, the city of Pontos. At the height of his reign, Nestorius was at his height. He became bishop of Constantinople after this, and there was an uproar when he spoke, and Theodosius was compelled to summon the synod of the 240 bishops in Ephesos against Nestorius and to remove him from the see. Kyrillos the bishop of Alexandria the great led the Synod. In that time in Rome, Mistress Eudoxia, now widowed, the wife of King Valentinian, the daughter of King Theodosius and Eudokia, unhappy at Maximus the usurper who had killed her husband and was ruling, induced Zinziric the Vandal, the rex of Africa, to come against Maximus the king of Rome.

§ 14.366  He arrived suddenly in Rome with an army and took Rome and killed King Maximus and destroyed everything, despoiling everything in the palace including the bronze-work, taking as hostages the surviving senators and their wives, among whom he took Mistress Eudoxia, who had induced him to come, and her daughter Placidia, the wife of the patrician Olybrius, who was then in Constantinople, and Eudokia the virgin. He took all the prisoners back to Africa to Carthage [Cartagene]. Zinziric immediately gave to his son Onoric the daughter of Mistress Eudoxia, the virgin Eudokia the younger. He held them in honor with himself. King Theodosius learned that Rome had been betrayed on the advice of his daughter Eudoxia, was aggrieved at her and left her in Africa with Zinziric, saying nothing to him. But he made a processus from Constantinople to Ephesus, the city of Asia, and prayed in St. John the Theologian, asking him who would be king after him. He learned in a dream. He came to Constantinople and after a little time he went out riding. While riding he fell from his horse, hurt his spine, and was carried in a litter. He called his sister Mistress Pulcheria

§ 14.367  and told her that Marcian would be king after him. Summoning Marcian he told him, before Aspar and the whole Senate, “It was revealed to me that you must be king after me.” After two days Theodosius died, age 51. After the reign of Theodosius, the divine Marcian was king, crowed by the Senate. He was tall, straight-haired, gray-haired, with turned-in feet, in the year of Antioch 499, the 4th of the indiction. As soon as he was king, he married Mistress Pulcheria the sister of King Theodosius, who was a virgin aged 54. He reigned for six years and five months.
During his reign, Tripolis of Coastal Phoenicia suffered divine anger, in Gorpiaios month at night. He rebuilt the Ikaros summer public bath, which had collapsed. In it were two works in bronze, which are among the wondrous sights, of Icarus and Daedalus, and Bellerophon and the horse Pegasus. He restored the Phakidion and other prominent buildings of the city, along with the aqueduct. During his reign the synod of Chalcedon was convened, with 650 bishops.

§ 14.368  In his reign Mistresses Eudoxia and Placidia were given back and returned to Constantinople. Olybrius took back his wife Placidia, and she gave birth to Juliana in Byzantion. The king had Chrysaphion Ztoummas the cubicularius beheaded and confiscated, whom the previous king had loved, on the grounds that he influenced against him many of those who approached him, and also as protector and patron of the Greens. Marcianos gave his daughter from a previous marriage to Anthemius, and made him king in Rome. From her Anthemius had a daughter, whom he gave to the stratelates Rekimer. Marcian favored the Blue faction in each city. He issued a divine edict, after a disturbance by the Green faction, that commanded that Greens not hold political or military rank for three years. Enraged by the disturbance he injured his legs. He fell ill from this for five months, and becoming gangrenous he died age 65. Mistress Pulcheria died two years become him.

§ 14.369  After the reign of Marcian, the most godlike Leo the great, Bessos, was crowned by the Senate, for 16 years and 11 months. In his reign, Anthemius was king in Rome, crowned by Marcian. In the reign of Leo, Antioch the Great suffered divine anger for the fourth time, on September the 13th, as Sunday was dawning, in the year 406 by the Antiochene numbering, in the consulship of Patricius. The king granted much to the Antiochenes and the city for the buildings.
In his reign St. Symeon the Stylite died, when Ardabourius the patrician, the son of Asparos, was stratelates of the East. When the Antiochenes shouted and demanded the body of the just man, Ardabourius sent a Gothic army and brought the corpse of St. Symeon to Antioch the Great. A great house was built for him as a martyrium, and his body was placed in it. In the reign of Leo, Isocasius the quaestor, the philosopher, was denounced as a pagan (Hellene). He was descended from a family from Aegeai in Cilicia. He was a city father (ktetor) of Antioch the Great.

§ 14.370  He held many offices with distinction. He was very logical. Arrested by order of the king, when he was in Constantinople, and stripped of his office, he was sent to Chalcedon from Constantinople to the archon of Bithynia Theophilos, who took his [voices]. When Iakovos the count and chief doctor, called the Cool, asked the king - for the king liked Iakovos, as did the whole senate and the city as an excellent doctor and philosopher, and the senate set his likeness in the Zeuxippon - Iakovos abashed the king by demanding that Isocasius be examined in Constantinople by the senate and the eparch of the praetorians and not by the archon of a province, since he had held the office of quaestor. King Leo agreed, and ordered Isocasius to be brought from Chalcedon. Taken to the Zeuxippon, he was examined by the Eparch of the Praetorians Pousaios. Pousaios spoke against Isocasius when he came before the bema naked and bound hand and foot, “Look at yourself, Isocasius, what clothes you are standing in.” Isocasius answered, “I see and am not surprised. For I am a man, and am suffering human misfortunes. But judge me with a clean judgment, as you used to judge together with me.”

§ 14.371  Hearing the words of Isocasius, the Demos of the Byzantines, standing and watching, praised King Leo greatly. Dragging him away from the Zeuxippon to the Great Church, and giving his name he was catechized and enlightened (baptized), and sent back to his country.
The most godlike King Leo commanded that nothing be done on Sundays, and he pronounced regarding this his divine law that neither flute nor kithara nor any other music be played on Sunday, but everything to be inactive. Every person endured it.
During his reign, suspecting that the patrician Aspar was planning a usurpation, as leader of the senate, he murdered [him] in the palace and Ardabourius and Patricius his sons in conventus, though they were senators, and he cut up their bodies. There was uproar in Constantinople. For he had an army of Goths and counts and other children and many people who stayed with them. Whence one of the Goth close to Aspar, named Ostrys, a count, came into the palace shooting his bow together with other Goths. Battle was joined between the excubitores and Ostrys, and many were killed. Meanwhile, seeing that he was losing, he left, taking Aspar's concubine, a distinguished Goth woman, who left with him on horseback for Thrace, and despoiled the villages.

§ 14.372  The Byzantines raised a shout, “No one is a friend of the dead except only Ostrys.”
King Leo made a persecution of the Arian Hexakonites on account of Aspar and Ardabourion, sending orders everywhere that they were not to have churches or to assemble. During his reign in Constantinople there was a rain of ashes [konia] instead of rain, and the ash stood on the tiles a palm high. Everyone trembled and prayed, and said it was the Fire, and was quenched and was ashes of God who loved mankind. In his reign there was a great fire in Constantinople, as never before. It burned from sea to sea. Fearing for the palace, King Leo went across to St. Mamas, and made a processus there for six months. He built there a harbor and a quay called the New Embolon, as it is called until today. During his reign Leo mobilized against Zinzeric the Vandal, the king of the Aphroi, a fearsome sea-fight. He sent a great fleet with Basiliscus the patrician, the brother of Berina Augusta, the wife of Leo. This Basiliscus took money from Zinzeric, the king of the Vandals, and betrayed the ships

§ 14.373  and the exarchs and counts and the whole army, and alone with his ship, a libernum, was first to flee. All the other ships and the army were lost at sea, sunk. Among them was Damonikos, who from Dux had become stratelates of the army, originally from Antioch the Great city. Having shown courage against the Aphroi, he was isolated and surrounded and arrested, and thrown into the depths in his armor. Basiliscus returned defeated to Constantinople. During the reign of Leo, Anthemius the king in Rome was killed. For he had fallen out with his own son in law Rekimer the stratelates, fearing him as a Goth. King Anthemius too refuge in St. Peter's, saying he was sick. When he learned this, King Leo sent to Rome the patrician Olybrius the Roman after his consulship, which he gave up together with Rusticius, in order, he said, to reconcile King Anthemius with his son-in-law Rekimer, as being from the Roman Senate. He commanded him, “After Anthemius and Rekimer become friends, leave Rome and go to Zinzeric the Vandal, the rex of Africa, since you can speak openly to him because the sister of your wife Placidia has married his son,

§ 14.374  and persuade him to be my friend.” King Leo, because he was opposed to Zinzeric and Olybrius was in his faction, suspected Olybrius and had him guarded, lest Zinzeric wage war against Zeno and Olybrius betray Constantinople to Zinzeric, his relative, so that Olybrius could be king in Constantinople. After Olybrius traveled to Rome, leaving his wife Placidia and daughter in Constantinople, the most godlike King Leo wrote to the magister Anthemius, the king of Rome, saying, “I killed Aspar and Ardabourius, so that no one would oppose my command. Now you too kill your son-in-law Rekimer, so that he not rule over you. Look, I sent to you Olybrius the patrician. Kill him too and rule as king rather than be ruled.”
Rekimer had place at each gate and harbor of Rome a Gothic contingent, and whoever entered Rome was searched for what he was bringing. When the magister Modestus, who was sent by Leo to King Anthemius, was searched, the edicts of Leo to Anthemius were taken and brought to Rekimer, and he showed them to Olybrius. So then Rekimer sent to Gundabarius, the son of his sister, and brought him from Gallia, where he was stratelates.

§ 14.375  Gundabarius came and killed King Anthemius while he was in the holy house of the Apostle Peter, and immediately went back to Gallia. Rekimer crowned Olybrius king with the consent of the Senate of Rome. Olybrius was king in Rome for a few months, but fell ill and died. Then Rekimer made another king from the Senate of Rome, Maiorinus. But he killed him too, on the grounds that he loved Zinzeric the Rex of the Afroi. Rekimer replaced him with another king in Rome, from the Senate, named Nepos. Then Rekimer died.
King Leo took two husbands for his daughters: for Leontia the elder, Marcian the patrician, who was the son of Anthemius the king of Rome, and for Ariadne, Zeno the Isaurian the Kodissean. He made both of them stratelates praesentou and patricians. The most conspicuous (perifanestate) Ariadne gave birth to a first-born son, whom she called Leo. The most-evident (emfanestate) Leontia had one female child. King Leo crowned, in Constantinople, his grandson Leo the younger, son of Zeno, making him king together with himself.

§ 14.376  Caesar Leo the younger was appointed consul in January of the 12th of the indiction, in the 422nd year of the Antiochenes. In the February that followed, on the 3rd of the month, King Leo the Great was struck by illness and died of dysentery at age 73. After the reign of Leo the Great, Leo the younger was king for one year and 23 days. He was a small child. He was put forward by his mother the most eminent Ariadne, and while she was doing proskynesis to him, Zeno the stratelates, the patrician, his own father, put a royal crown on his head, on the 9th of the extra month of the 12th of the indiction. They reigned together.
King Zeno the Kodissian, the Isaurian reigned with his son Leo a short time. The most godlike Leo the younger preceded as consul in the year 422 of the Antiochenes, the 12th of the indiction. In the 11th month of his consulship, the most godlike Leo the younger sickened and died, in the month November, 13th of the Indiction, in the Antiochene year 423, age seven, as is written by the very wise Nestorianus, the chronicler of the period up until Leo the younger.

§ 15.377  BOOK 15: THE YEARS OF THE REIGN OF ZENO TO THE REIGN OF ANASTASUS
After the reign of Leo the younger, the most godlike Zeno was king for 15 years. In the eighth month of his reign he appointed Petros, the paramonarios of St. Euphemia in Chalcedon, as bishop Patriarch in Antioch the Great, and sent him to Antioch. After two years and ten months of his reign, he fell into despondency owing to his mother in law Berina's having requested from him something he had not granted, and being plotted against by Mistress Berina, his own mother in law. Fearful lest he be murdered by someone of those living in the palace with his mother in law, he made a processus to Chalcedon, and left from there with post-horses and went to Isauria as the king.

§ 15.378  Queen Ariadne understood him and fleeing from her own mother secretly came to Isauria. There she remained with her husband. After the flight of King Zeno and Ariadne, Mistress Berina immediately chose a king, crowning Basiliscus, her own brother. Basiliscus, the brother of Berina, the mother-in-law of Zeno reigned two years. When Berina named him king, she named him as consul together with Armatus, the stratelates of the great praeses who had been promoted by Basiliscus. The two were consuls. Basiliscus, as soon as he was king, crowned his son Marcus king, and the two reigned together. During the reign of Basiliscus and his son Marcus, a city of First Syria called Gabala suffered from divine anger, in the month Gorpiaios, at dawn. King Basiliscus granted to the city for its renovation 50 litras of gold. King Zeno returned from Isauria with a large army, bound for Constantinople,

§ 15.379  and sent to Antioch the Great an Isaurian garrison, with Trokondes as stratelates. So when Petros the Patriarch heard this, who had been appointed bishop by him, made his choice in favor of Basiliscus. Basiliscus, learning of the reemergence of King Zeno, sent Armatus the stratelates praesentou with all the army he had to Thrace and Constantinople and to the palace, since Armatus had sworn an oath, by the holy baptism of one newly-enlightened, not to betray him. Taking the bulk of the army, Armatus crossed over. Learning of this in advance, King Zeno sent to Armatus, promising him many things, including the stratelasia for life and to make his son Caesar. Influenced by King Zeno, he defected, and was on the side of King Zeno. Armatus did not confront Zeno as he came but decided to advance by another route of Isauria. Zeno drove on and passed through the Gates and entered the palace with his warriors, in the 14th year of the Indiction. He was received by the armies and the Senate. He had confidence in the Green faction, because they loved him. For King Zeno favored the Greens. Basiliscus suddenly learned that King Zeno had invaded the palace, that he was inside, and that everyone was receiving him, even Mistress Berina, his mother-in-law.

§ 15.380  Basiliscus took his wife and children and fled to the Great Church of Constantinople, to the great photisterion, betrayed by Armatus in the consulship of Theuderich. The most godlike King Zeno caused the Veil to be hung for the horse races and immediately came as spectator. He was welcomed by the whole city. After being accepted, as he was watching, he sent to the Great Church and took from Basiliscus and his son and wife the garb of royalty. He lured him and his wife and children out with a promise that they would not be beheaded or stabbed. Ηe sent him and his family to Limnai fortress in Cappadocia. They were thrown in a tower of the castle. The door was sealed and a large host of Isaurian soldiers guarded the fortress of Limnai until they starved, and Basiliscus and his wife and children gave up their souls. They were buried there in the tower in Cappadocia. Zeno was king after he returned for another 12 years, so the entire length of his reign was 15 years and two months. Some assign the two years of Basiliscus to his reign as well. King Zeno, when he returned, immediately removed Petros the bishop and patriarch of Antioch the Great, because he was a friend of Basiliscus, and exiled him to Euchaita in the Pontic region. He made Stephanos the bishop of Antioch in his place.

§ 15.381  King Zeno gave, in gratitude for his return, gifts to all his subjects. During his reign, bishop Stephanos of Antioch was stabbed with sharpened reeds by his own clergy, outside the city as he was coming to the festival of the Forty Saints in Barlae, on the grounds that he was a Nestorian. His corpse was thrown in the Orontes river. Learning this, King Zeno appointed another bishop and patriarch, Kalandion, in Antioch of Syria, but he was exiled as a Nestorian. Bishop Petros was recalled by King Zeno from exile, at the request of the Demos and clergy of the Antiochenes. Coming from Euchaita, he became patriarch again, and he died on that throne in Antioch.
In the reign of Zeno, in accordance with the agreement, the son of Armatus, the stratelates of the garrison, Basiliscus by name, was appointed Caesar. Basiliscus sat beside Zeno watching the horse-races, and the king and the Caesar honored the chariot drivers. But Zeno thought to himself: “Armatus the stratelates of the garrison, the father of Caesar, violated his oath, have sworn on holy baptism to King Basiliscus that he would not betray him, and at my instigation he betrayed him and he died."

§ 15.382  "How will he remain faithful to my reign?” he said, “Not long, if his son the Caesar grows up, and in any case he bypasses me, but I never bypassed him, but I made him a patrician and stratelates on the spot, and made his son Caesar.” So he commanded that Armatus be killed as an oath-breaker, and he was stabbed as he was going up the Decimum to watch the horse-races. After killing Armatus, he appointed his son, Caesar Basiliscus, though still a child, bishop of the metropolis of Cyzicus in the Hellespont.
In his reign the Samaritans rebelled in Palestine and crowned a Samaritan brigand-chief named Ioustasa. He came to Caesaria and watched the horse-races and killed many Christians, while Porphyrius was ruler of First Palaestina. Ioustasas burned [the church of] St. Procopius when Timotheos was bishop of Caesaria. The Dux of Palestine Asklepiades came with his army and the brigand-chaser Reges, the officer of Caesaria with the Arcadiacs, and attacking they engaged and captured him. They beheaded Ioustasas and his head was sent with the diadem to King Zeno, and King Zeno straightaway made their synagogue on Mt. Gargazi [Gerezin]

§ 15.383  an oratory of Mary the holy mother of God, and restored St. Procopius. He made an order not to recruit Samaritans in the army, and confiscated the property of their wealthy people. Matters settled down.
In his reign Theoderic the consular, the son of Valemer, who was raised in Constantinople and appointed stratelates of the garrison [στρατηλάτης πραισέντου], having seen what happened to Armatus and being afraid of King Zeno, took his army and left Constantinople, going to Salabria and usurping control of the units stationed there, he took control of all of Thrace. He came against King Zeno as far as Sykai at Pera across from Constantinople, and he cut the city's aqueduct. After spending many days unable to harm the king, he left there to attack Rome, which was then occupied by Odoacer, the Rex of the barbarians. Giving battle there with the support and treachery of the Senate of Rome, he easily took Rome and King Odoacer. He killed him and seized Rome, becoming Rex in his place, in the year 57. He was reconciled with King Zeno after this and everything he did was in accordance with his advice, and when appointing the consuls of Constantinople

§ 15.384  and the eparchs of the praetorians, he accepted the diplomas [κωδικίλλια] of the greater magistrates from King Zeno, notifying him whom he wanted to be promoted, and he received the scepters of the consuls while he was king. As soon as Theoderic became Rex, a widow approached him, of the Roman senatorial class, named Juvenalia, who told him “I am thirty years in a lawsuit with the patrician Firmus. But discharge me.” Bringing the lawyers of both sides together, he told them, “If by tomorrow and the next day you do not set a limit and release them, I will behead you.” After sitting for two days, they said what was appropriate to the laws, and gave a limit and released them. Lighting candles, Juvenalia came to him to thank him for being discharged from the trial. Theodoric was annoyed at the lawyers and bringing them he said to them, “Why did you in two days release them, what you did not do for thirty years?” He had the lawyers on both sides beheaded, and there was great fear. He made a decree regarding each law. Leaving Rome he settled in Ravenna, a coastal city, until his death. After his death,

§ 15.385  his grandson Alaric became Rex of Rome. He was an Arian in dogma, that is an Exakionite. In the reign of Zeno, Constantinople suffered from divine anger, an earthquake, its second passion for a short time, as far as Tauros. Nikomedeia also suffered then, the metropolis of Bithynia, its sixth passion, and similarly Helenoupolis of the same province. Zeno granted many things to them. In his reign, the patrician Illus the Isaurian rose up, the friend of King Zeno who had brought King Zeno with a large army on his second return from Isauria, when he fled from Constantinople as king. Illus came to Constantinople with King Zeno. Emboldened by him, and bold himself, Illus plotted with Zeno to expel Zeno's mother-in-law from Constantinople, so that she could no longer conspire as before. Zeno sent Illus to Isauria to bring back Longinus, Zeno's brother. When Illus arrived in Isauria, he remained there, writing to Zeno so he would get the message through Mistress Berina, the mother-in-law of King Zeno,

§ 15.386  as if he feared King Zeno. King Zeno, her son in law, persuaded Mistress Berina, as was arranged between him and Illus, so that she would go down and give to Illus a promise of immunity, since he allegedly feared Zeno, and to bring him and his brother Longinus. Berina went down to Isauria. Illus received her and closed her in a castle in Isauria with a large army, and commanded that she be guarded by soldiers. He took Longinus the king's brother and went up to Constantinople. Illus became a senator and consul and magister and patrician, and managed the whole empire. Likewise, Longinus the king's brother became stratelates praesentou and consul, and provided the four factions in Constantinople four young, musical dancers. For the dancers in Constantinople were old and pious, and he fired them with large severance packages. He gave to the Greens as chief singer Autokyon called Karamallon, from Alexandria the Great; and Rodos called Chrysomallos, also an Alexandrine, to the Blues; and Helladion from Emezte city to the Red faction. He gave Margarites Katzamys, brought from Cyzicus, to the Whites. Longinus renounced his second consulship.

§ 15.387  Queen Ariadne, the wife of Zeno, received from her mother secret letters, and begged King Zeno to release Mistress Berina from the castle in which she was imprisoned. King Zeno told her to ask the patrician Illus about her. Queen Ariadne, having been sent for, asked Illus in tears that her mother Berina be released. Illus was not persuaded, but told her, “Why do you want her? So she can make another king against your husband?” Ariadne went back to King Zeno and said “Either Illus in the palace or I.” The king said to her, “Do what you can. I want you.” So Ariadne plotted to murder Illus. When the horse-races were being held and he was going up through the platforms to the Decimum, the scholarius who had been suborned for this, named Sporacius, aimed a blow at his head, wanting to cut him in two. But the spatharius of Illus was nearby, saw the sword descending, and received it with his right hand. The tip of the sword came down on his head and cut off Illus' right ear. The scholarius was killed on the spot. Illus, having been treated by this mean, was carried to his house. When Zeno heard, he swore that he did not know the plot against Illus, but Illus did not believe him, but wandered grief-stricken.

§ 15.388  When he was better he went away, wanting to do something. Though healthy, he remained with the wound from the blow. Coming to King Zeno, he asked him to be set free to go east for a little while for a change of air, as he said, since he was ailing from the blow. King Zeno agreed, and took back the role of magister and made him stratelates of the east, giving him full power. Illus asked to take with him to attend to the Augusta the patrician Leontion, the son of Paulinus. This was so that he could give Mistress Berina, the mother of queen Ariadne, to him, so that he could bring her to Constantinople. Illus also asked the king to take other senators as a sign of his status. He granted it. The patrician Illus left, taking with him the patrician Leontius and the other senators. They came to Antioch the Great, and made a short stop, granted them many favors, and then left for Isauria. Bringing Mistress Berina down from the castle, they made her crown the patrician Leontius as king, in St. Peter's outside the city Tarsus of Cilicia, having persuaded him to be crowned, though a free man. Berina made divine commands for each city, and edicts to the archons and soldiers, that they accept him and not be opposed.

§ 15.389  He wrote an edict saying many bad things about Zeno, and he reigned in Antioch for a few days. When King Zeno learned he sent a large army with Ioannes the Scythian. When Leontius and Illus and those with him heard, they went up to Papyris castle with Berina. Berina died a natural death. A certain Panprepios, accused of being a traitor, was killed and his corpse thrown out into the mountains. Illus and Leontius were besieged and captured. Having made a public appearance beside the archon of Seleuceia of Isauria, they were decapitated by an oral command. Their heads were brought to Zeno in Constantinople impaled on a post. A large crowd came to see them. For they were exposed across in Sykai at St. Konon.
In his reign Perozes was king of the Persians. The Greens caused many disturbances and murders during that time in Antioch. They murdered Jews, it is said, sparing no one. The then Count of the East, Theodoros, was angry, and he pacified the demes. The impiety done by the Greens to the Jews was reported to King Zeno. He was angry at the Greens in Antioch,

§ 15.390  saying, “Why did you burn only the dead Jews? It was necessary to burn the living Jews as well.” The matter was hushed up. King Zeno asked Maurianus the very wise count, who used to predict many things to him, being something of a mystic, who was going to rule after him. He predicted that one of the silentiarii would take over both his kingdom and his wife. [Hearing this King Zeno arrested the patrician Pelagius, one of the silentiarii], who had paid and entered into the patrician rank, a wise man. He ordered his property to be confiscated and him to be imprisoned. At night the guards strangled him and threw his corpse in the sea, at the king's command. Learning this, the eparch of the praetorians Arcadius reviled King Zeno on account of Pelagius. This came to the ears of Zeno, and he commanded that he be killed as he entered the palace. Arcadius learned this, and having been sent for by the king, as they passed the church he made as if he wanted to pray. He descended from the carriage and entered the Great Church of Constantinople and remained inside, and escaped death.

§ 15.391  And while he was there, King Zeno confiscated his property. A little while later, struck down by dysentery, King Zeno died, aged 60 and 9 months, the 8th day of Xanthikos, in the Antiochene year 439, the 14th of the indiction. From Adam until the death of Zeno 5983 years.

§ 16.392  BOOK 16: THE YEARS OF KING ANASTASIUS [491-518 CE]
After the reign of Zeno, the most godlike Anastasius Dikoros, the Dyrrachian from New Epirus, was King, having been silentiarius, in the consulship of Olybrius the son of Areobindus. He reigned 27 years and three months, having been crowned in April on Holy Thursday of Great Week, and he took as his wife Ariadne, who had been wife of the previous King Zeno. He was very tall, short-haired, well turned out, round-faced, partly gray hair and beard, with his right eye blue and his left eye black, having perfect eyes, his beard cut short and thick. In his reign he made the patrician Hierios the Eparch of the Praetorians. He in turn made his relative Kalliopios the Count of the East.

§ 16.393  While he was magistrate, the Greens of Antioch attacked Kalliopios in the praetorium, but he fled and was saved. Learning this, the eparch Hierios raised it with King Anastasius, and the king immediately promoted Constantius the Tarsean as Count of the East, giving him power of life and death, since the Green faction of Antioch was democratizing and governing against the Archons. This Constantius made the Demos of Antioch to obey the commands of the archons, in the Antiochene year 543. The King loved the Red faction of Constantinople, and struggled with the Greens and Blues who were revolting on every side. The king, learning that the Isaurians were gathering in their country wishing to usurp power, immediately mobilized against them, and he send to fight them the generals Ioannes surnamed Kyrtos, the stratelates praesentou, and Diogenianus the patrician, the relative of the Augusta, and others with an army of Scythians and a Gothic and Bessic band. He killed the Isaurians and spoiled their country and destroyed their cities and burned their castles, taking hostage their exarchs in their usurpation, Longinus the bald, from among the magisters, and Athenodorus the younger and Longinines the lame and Konon of Phouskianos, one of the bishops of Apameia. Longinines died first, when battle was joined,

§ 16.394  when the armies met at Kotyaeion, the city of Phrygia and he was killed there. After him Konon the son of Phouskianos fell, hit by a lance. The Isaurians turned to flee and the remaining exarchs were captured alive. They were beheaded and their heads were brought to King Anastasius. After this victory he gave gifts to all the subjects under his rule.
The most godlike King Anastasius made a money-tax (chrysoteleion) of the yokes (iougon) for all the land tax collectives, so that payment in kind and feeding not be demanded by the soldiers. In his reign the demes of Constantinople controlled by the Greens, when the horse-races were conducted, appealed to the king to release certain people who had been arrested by the eparch of the city as stone-throwers. The king was angered by their appeal, and commanded a chariot to attack them, and there was an enormous riot and the demes came down from the stands against the excubitores and reaching the royal Seat (kathisma) threw stones at King Anastasius. One Mauros threw a stone at the king, that he escaped by dodging. Having seen the daring of this man, the excubitores attacked him and cut him limb from limb, and so he gave up his soul. The demos, restive, set fire to the Chalke of the Hippodrome, and the colonnade burned as far as the royal Seat,

§ 16.395  and the whole public colonnade as far as the Hexaippion and the Forum of Constantine was burnt and destroyed, with incidents everywhere. After many were arrested and punished, calm returned, and Plato the patron of the Green faction was promoted city eparch.
During his reign a man appeared in Antioch the Great, from the city of Amida, named Ioannes Isthmeos, an alchemist and terrible imposter, who stealthily entered the silversmiths and showed them hands and feet of statues, in gold, and other animals, saying he had found a treasure full of such animals of pure gold. He deceived many with this and swindled much money. The Antiochenes gave him the nickname Bagoulas, which means fast imposter. Evading everyone he fled to Constantinople and there he swindled many silversmiths, to the point where the king learned of it. He was arrested and brought to the king, and he brought to him a solid gold bit for a horse, with the muzzle in pearls. Taking it, King Anastasius said to him, “Me you did not swindle.” He exiled him to Petrai, and there he died.
In this year of his reign, in the third consulship of King Anastasius, a certain Kalliopas a charioteer from one of the Constantinople circus factions, arrived in Antioch the Great,

§ 16.396  and he was given to the Green faction of Antioch under Basileios Count Aidesinos. He took over the stable of the Green faction, which was lacking, and won by force. Soon after the customary Olympics were held in Daphne of Antioch, and the crowd of Antiochenes went up to Daphne, and those from the cavalry attacked along with charioteer Kalliopas and they invaded the synagogue of the Jews, which was in Daphne, and set fire to it, after plundering everything in the synagogue and killing many, on July 9, 15th of the Indiction. Affixing there the Honorable Cross they made it a martyrion of St. Leontius. When this became known to King Anastasius, he promoted to Count of the East, Procopius the Antiochene, one of the commerciarii. He brought with him a police officer (night-eparch) by divine decree, Menas, a Byzantine. When the Green faction rioted, Menas wanted to suppress some of the trouble-makers. Learning this they fled to St. Ioannes outside the city. Learning this, the night-eparch went at midday with a Gothic contingent to St. Ioannes. Suddenly they entered the holy church, and found one of the troublemakers, named Eleutherius, under the holy table of the sacrificial altar. Jabbing him with a sword there, they dragged his corpse from the altar and beheaded it.

§ 16.397  So the holy altar was full of blood. Taking the head they entered Antioch and came to the bridge of the Orontes river and threw the head in the river. Then they came up to Procopius the Count of the East and recounted what happened. That afternoon it became known to the Greens, and they burst into St. Ioannes and found the body of Eleutherius, and taking his corpse on a litter, they carried it into the city. They assembled opposite the Rufinus Basilica at the Baths of Olbia, and joining in battle in the Street of the Thalassia with the military contingent and the night-eparch and the demesmen of the Blue faction, the Demos of the Green faction prevailed, and they took the Rufinus Basilica and the Zenodotou, and set them on fire, and all the Rufinus burned, along with the two tetrapyla on either side and the praetorium of the Count of the East, and everything they seized was destroyed by fire. The Count of the East fled to Alexandria of Cambyses. Those of the Green faction caught the night-eparch Menas and cut him to pieces and took out his liver. After dragging his corpse, they hung it on the bronze statue called the Kolonision in the middle of the ante-forum.

§ 16.398  Then they dragged the corpse out of the city of Antioch and burned it with faggots. Having learned his lesson, King Anastasius selected as Count of the East Eirenaios the Pentadiast, an Antiochene. He took vengeance and cowed the city. The king permanently abolished the whole tax obligation called the Chrysargyron (Gold-Silver) through a divine ordinance. This was a great and fearsomely generous act, replacing the revenue for the sacred largitiones from his own resources. The king built in Antioch the Rufinum and various buildings in every city of Romania. In his reign Amida, the strongly fortified metropolis of Mesopotamia, was taken, and Theodosioupolis; they were captured by Koades the king of the Persians, when the king invaded with a large force. The Persian king took prisoner the powerful Roman general Konstantinos, who was guarding Theodosioupolis, and many others, who died in Persian territory. King Anastasius mobilized against the Persians, sending Areobindus the son of Dagalaiphos, stratelates of the East, the husband of Juliana, and Patrikis, the stratelates of the great praesentou, and Hypatius, the stratelates praesentou, the son of Secundinus the patrician, and the patrician Appion, making him Eparch of the Praetorians of the East, and a limitless army force of foot and horse with them.

§ 16.399  The two formations joined battle against each other, and many were killed and fell on both sides. Regarding this war, Eustathius the very wise chronicler has written. He immediately died without having completed his composition. King Anastasius sent back the stratelates Hypatius to Constantinople and sent instead of him the most glorious Keleras the Illyrian, a wise man. The cities held by the Persians were restored by Keleras the magister. There was peace and a suspension of the war, and the expeditionary forces withdrew, the whole army of the Romans and Persians. The most godlike Anastasius immediately fortified Dora, a large and strong locality of Mesopotamia that lay between the Roman and Persian borders. He made two public baths in it, and churches and colonnades and horrea for grain storage and cisterns for water. The locality was called Dora by Alexander of Macedon, because he caught the Persian king there, and thence it has the name. But now, taking on the status of city, it was renamed Anastasioupolis. They erected statues of Anastasius there.

§ 16.400  In his reign, Euphemius the Patriarch of Constantinople was removed and exiled to Euchaita in Pontus as a Nestorian. He was replaced as Patriarch of Constantinople by Makedonius, who was also removed as a Nestorian. Similarly the Patriarch of Antioch Flavianus was exiled as a Nestorian to Petrai, a city of Third Palaestina. Severus, who had been a monk, became Patriarch of Antioch the Great in his place, on November 6, in the Antiochene year 561.
The king relieved Ioannes the Paphlagonian of being the administrator of public papers of the praetorium of the eparchs, and made him one of the consuls, replacing him as Trakteutes and Logothetes (auditor) with Marinus the Syrian. He in turn removed all the politicians of the Boule (council) and replaced them with the so-called Vindexes in every city of Romania. The king appointed as count of the Largitiones in Constantinople the consular Ioannes the Paphlagonian, known as Kaiafas. He replaced all the irregular small change (κέρμα τὸ λεπτὸν) that circulated with follera that circulated throughout the Roman commonwealth. Ioannes had the bronze artwork in the open square of Constantinople melted down, the ones the most godlike King Constantine had gathered from each city

§ 16.401  and brought to beautify Constantinople through their art. Have melted them, Ioannes made a huge statue of King Anastasius, which he erected on the great column which stood empty in the Forum of Taurus. This column previously had a statue of Theodosius the Great, and this statue alone had fallen in the fears.
In this year the king proclaimed an edict that no one should be registered as a flogger, nor should anyone be called a flogger, nor should the thing exist, since by existing legislation “our prayer to you is to free those under the yoke of slavery. How then should we tolerate those in freedom to be live a slavish fate?” The king published another divine edict that no one should make someone their child without a decree, neither male nor female, but by divine decree, so that the adopted child would have the status of lawful son and daughter in inheriting, even intestate, which is the essential for adoptive children. In this year of his reign, the demes of Alexandria the Great rebelled and murdered their Augustalis Theodosius, who was of Antiochene origin, the son of Kallioppios the patrician, because of an oil shortage, in the Antiochene year 564, 9th of the Indiction.

§ 16.402  Annoyed, the king punished many of the Alexandrines for having usurped the authority of their magistrate. In this reign Vitalian the Thracian usurped power on a pretext, saying it was on account of the exiled bishops, and seized Thrace and Scythia and Mysia as far as Odessos and Anchialos, having a host of Huns and Bulgars with him. The King send Hypatius the stratelates of Thrace, who confronted it. He was betrayed and captured by Vitalian, and returned to the Romans after much money had been paid. Hypatius was succeeded, after his return to Constantinople, by Kyrillos the Illyrican, who was promoted stratelates in his place. Leaving straightaway, he confronted Vitalian. They fought and many fell on both sides. Kyrillos prevailed and entered Odessos city and remained there, Vitalian having departed from those parts. By distributing money, Vitalian bought off those who were guarding the gates of Odessos, having sent money and certain promises to the gate-guards via relatives of theirs. Through this treachery, Vitalian entered Odessos at night, captured Kyrillos the stratelates of Thrace, and killed him.

§ 16.403  He came pillaging all of Thrace and Europe, until he came to Sykai and the Anaplous (boat landing) at Pera (across from) Constantinople, wishing to take Constantinople. He installed himself at the boat landing on the Sosthenes, in the church of the Archangel Michael. King Anastasius had previously sent through Marinus for the philosopher Proclus the Athenian, a famous man, and King Anastasius said to him: “What should I do about this dog, who is disturbing me and the state, O philosopher?” Proclus told him, “Don't be discouraged, King. For he leaves and departs, as soon as you send someone against him.” King Anastasius at once told Marinus the Syrian, the eparch, who was standing nearby when the King was speaking to the philosopher Proclus, to arm himself against Vitalian, who was at the Pera of Constantinople. Proclus said in front of the king to Marinus the Syrian, “Take what I give you, and attack Vitalian.” The philosopher commanded a large amount of the so-called native sulfur (θεῖον ἄπυρον) to be brought, saying it should be ground into a fine mixture. He gave it to Marinus and said, wherever you throw this, in a house or ship, after sunrise it will immediately set fire to the house or ship and consume it. Marinus asked the king that he send one of the stratelates with a troop of soldiers.

§ 16.404  At once the king sent for Patricius the Phrygian, the general, and Ioannes Valerianes, and told them to arm themselves against Vitalian at Pera, taking dromons and soldiers. They fell at the feet of the king, and said, “We were both of us friends of him and his father. If anything goes wrong, we will be suspected of treason.” The king was angry and threw them out of the palace. He commanded Marinus the Syrian to take the dromons and native sulfur and the armed military force and attack Vitalian. When Vitalian heard that Marinus was going to attack him with a large force, he seized and patched up as many ships as he found, and armed them with Hunnish and Gothic soldiers. He launched an attack on Constantinople, confident that he would take it and destroy Marinus and the force with him when they met. Marinus distributed the native sulfur, which the philosopher gave him, to all the dromons, telling the sailors and soldiers there was no need of weapons, but to throw this on all the ships coming against you and they will burn up. If we reach Pera, to the buildings where the king's enemies are, throw there.”

§ 16.405  Marinus, as the philosopher told him that the ships would catch fire and sink with all hands, ordered them to throw. They set forth toward Pera against Vitalian and his men. They encountered the ships of Vitalian, and they were nearest each other opposite St. Thekla in Sykai in the part of the stream called the Bytharis. The sea battle took place in the third hour of the day. Suddenly all the ships of the usurper Vitalian caught fire and sank in the depth of the stream, and the Goth and Hun and Scythian soldiers went with them. Vitalian and those in the other ships noticed what happened, how the fire suddenly burned their ships, and fled and returned to the Anaplous. Marinus the eparch crossed to Sykai and killed whoever of Vitalian's people he found in the suburbs or the houses, pursuing them to St. Mamas. When evening fell, Marinus and his army remained there guarding the area. Vitalian fled by night from the Anaplous with his remaining force, traveling 60 miles in a single night. When morning came, no one of Vitalian' party could be found at Pera, and the Savior Christ was victorious, and the King's Fortune. King Anastasius made a processus to Sosthenes in the [church of] the Archangel Michael, giving thanks for many days. The philosopher Proclus the Athenian was allowed to leave, at his own request,

§ 16.406  having refused to take anything from the King, who had ordered him to take four centenaria. The philosopher went back to Athens, his city, and thereupon died. Some in Constantinople said that the native sulfur, when thrown in the air, being a very fine power, caught fire from the heat of the sun, and this was natural. Vitalian went to Anchialos and stayed there quietly. In the years of King Anastasius the Sabeiroi Huns, a very warlike nation, passed through the Caspian Gates and reached Cappadocia. There they plundered it, and as many Roman territories as they passed through. They killed many and burned the farms and took many captives and departed. Those who had been despoiled in the hostage-taking came and the King made grants to the victims in each city. He built walls for the large towns of Cappadocia and made the two Cappadocias secure. To all the pillaged provinces he granted full forgiveness from taxation for three years.
In his reign, the island of Rhodes suffered from divine anger, its third such calamity, at night. He granted much to the survivors and to the city from the building account.

§ 16.407  In his reign there was a popular revolution regarding the Christian dogma among the Byzantines in Constantinople, because the king wanted to add to the Trisagios the phrase “who was crucified for us, have mercy on us,” as they say in the eastern cities. The city masses gathered and rioted violently, as if something strange had been added to the Christian faith. An uproar occurred in the palace, when the city eparch Platon ran in to hide from the anger of the Demos. For they were shouting, “Another king for Romania.” Going to the estate of Marinus the Syrian the eparch they burned his house and plundered everything, but they did not find him. He had heard that a large mob of the Demos was coming for him, and fled. They claimed that, being an easterner, he was the one who put the king up to saying this. Pillaging his property they cut his silver with axes and shared it out. They found an eastern monk in his house, and killed him, and carried his head on a pole, shouting, “This is the plotter against the Trinity.” Coming to the house of Juliana the most distinguished patrician they shouted for her husband Areobindus to be king of Romania. Areobindus fled hidden in a ferryboat. King Anastasius went up to the hippodrome to his seat (kathisma)

§ 16.408  without his diadem. Hearing this the Demos entered the Hippikon and through his divine oration he handled the city mobs, asking them not to kill or attack anyone they happened to come across. He calmed all the mob, when they asked him to wear his crown. After that they calmed down and went away from the gathering, and he ordered a detention. Many were detained; some were punished and others investigated by the city eparch. After having suffered for many days, with a vast number killed, order was restored, with not a little fear in Constantinople and in each city of Romania. After a short time, King Anastasius saw in a dream a man of perfect beauty standing opposite him, carrying a written codex and reading and turning five pages of the codex and reading the name of the king he said to him. “Behold! because of your greed I will erase fourteen.” With his finger he made an erasure. King Anastasius woke up alarmed, and he summoned Amantius the cubicularius and praepositus and told him what he saw in the dream.

§ 16.409  Amantius told him, “May you live forever, King! For I too saw a dream last night where I was standing in front of your highness and behind me came a pig, like a great wild boar, and it seized the end of my cloak in its mouth and shaking it pulled me to the ground, and it consumed me, eating and trampling on me.” The king invited Proclus the Asian philosopher, the dream-reader, who was very expert at this, and he told him his dream, as did Amantius. He explained to them the force of the dream and that they would die after a year. King Anastasius, after his first gifts, sent others to all the subjects of his state. In each city of Romania he built various buildings and walls and aqueducts and harbors and public baths, building them from the foundations, and he provided many other things to each city. After a little while he fell sick and lay down and there was very great lightning and thunder and King Anastasius cried out and gave up his soul, being ninety years and five months old.

§ 17.410  BOOK 17, YEARS OF KING JUSTIN [518-527 CE]
After the reign of Anastasius, the most godlike Justin was king, from Bederiana, a Thracian, in the consulship of Magnus, the 9th of July, 11th of the indiction. The army of the excubitores guarding the palace crowned him king, together with the Demos, by the command of God. For he was count of the excubitores. He reigned for 9 years and 22 days. For his age he was above average height, well-chested, wooly-haired, totally gray, with a fine nose, slightly ruddy, handsome, tested in war, ambitious, and illiterate. As soon as he became king he executed Amantius his praepositus and Andreas the cubicularius, the Lausiac, and Theokritos the count, the domestikon of Amantius. For Amantius wanted to make him king, giving money to Justin to propose that Theokritos become king.

§ 17.411  He proposed it. But the army and the Demos did not accept that Theokritos be made king, but by the will of God made Justin king. After becoming king he executed inside the palace those who had wanted to conspire for the kingship. The king recalled the patrician Appion and Diogenianus and Philoxenus, senators who had been exiled by the previous king. He made Appion eparch of the praetorians and Diogenianus stratelates of the East, and after a time made Philoxenus consul. In the beginning of his reign, a fearsome star called a comet rose in the east, which had rays emanating downwards, which they said was bearded. They were afraid. The king immediately promoted Vitalian, who had usurped King Anastasius and the state, and made him stratelates praesentou. In the first year of his reign, Severus the patriarch of Antioch fled to Egypt, fearing Vitalian. Paulus became patriarch in his place, who had been innkeeper of Euboulos. He registered the 630 bishops of the synod of Chalcedon with the diplomas of the churches of each city. Because of this there was a great schism, and many were not in communion with him,

§ 17.412  saying that those who took part in the Synod were thought the same as Nestorius. In his reign the hippodromes were provided to the Seleuceians and Isaurians. In this year appeared a giant woman from the countryside of Cilicia, who exceeded the height and width of a person by one pechys (cubit, arm's length). She traveled around the whole Roman state asking for money. She came to Antioch the Great and collected from each workshop one follis. King Justin designated as consul the stratelates praesentou Vitalian, who became consul of the Romans. While consul, after his first mappa [horse-racing games?] Vitalian was killed in the palace, on the grounds that he was tyrannizing the Romans and had despoiled many cities and countries of Romania.
In his reign, Ztathios the king of the Laz became angry and left the Persian territories, when Koades was king of the Persians, who was a friend of Ztathios the king of the Laz, as having once been subject to the rule of Koades. Because if one of the kings of the Laz happened to die, [a new one] was identified and crowned by the king of Persia, but from the Laz tribe.

§ 17.413  The king of the Laz, abandoning the faith of the Hellenes because he had not been chosen by Koades, king of the Persia, to perform the sacrifices and all the Persian customs, as soon as his father Damnazes died, immediately went to King Justin in Byzantium and handing himself over asked to be proclaimed king of the Laz. He was received by the king and baptized. Having become a Christian, he took as his wife a Roman woman, the granddaughter of Nomos the patrician, named Valeriana. He took her with him back to his country, having been crowned by Justin, the king of the Romans, and wearing a Roman royal crown and white all-silk cloak, having instead of a purple stripe the royal gold stripe, in which there was in the middle a true bust, having the face of King Justin, and a white tunic with a purple border, which also had royal golden embroidery with the likeness of the king. The ztangia he wore, brought from his own country, had peals in the Persian fashion. His belt was similarly from pearls. Both he and his wife Valeriana took many other gifts from King Justin. Learning this, Koades the king of the Persians

§ 17.414  declared to King Justin through an ambassador that, “Though friendship and peace between us keeps being talked about, you behave like an enemy. See how my subject the king of the Laz, whom I appoint, not being under Roman administration but under the Persian state for a century.” To this the Roman King Justin replied through his ambassador, “We would neither accept nor induce any subject of your realm, but someone named Ztathios came to us in our kingdom and falling down before us begged to be rescued from the Hellenic dogma and impious sacrifices and being led astray by daemones, and asked to become a Christian, because he valued the power of the eternal God and Creator of everything. Should we be urged to hinder someone wishing to enter a better order and know the true God? So we released him to his own country, when he had become a Christian and become worthy of the heavenly mysteries.” As a result of this, enmity arose between Romans and Persians. The king of the Persians then urged the Rex of the Huns named Zilgivis. King Justin heard of this, because before he had been urging him to help the Romans, and had sent him many gifts, and had a sworn agreement with him. Hearing that he had defected to the king of the Persians, he was very upset.