The Indians in the eastern regions were the only people over whom he did not reign; but after his death Semiramis his wife made war on them.Thus it came to pass that all the people and kings in those countries were subject to the kingdom and authority of the Assyrians, and did whatever they were commanded.Now Abraham was born in that kingdom among the Chaldees, in the time of Ninus.But since Grecian affairs are much better known to us than Assyrian, and those who have diligently investigated the antiquity of the Roman nation's origin have followed the order of time through the Greeks to the Latins, and from them to the Romans, who themselves are Latins, we ought on this account, where it is needful, to mention the Assyrian kings, that it may appear how Babylon, like a first Rome, ran its course along with the city of God, which is a stranger in this world.But the things proper for insertion in this work in comparing the two cities, that is, the earthly and heavenly, ought to be taken mostly from the Greek and Latin kingdoms, where Rome herself is like a second Babylon.
At Abraham's birth, then, the second kings of Assyria and Sicyon respectively were Ninus and Europs, the first having been Belus and AEgialeus.But when God promised Abraham, on his departure from Babylonia, that he should become a great nation, and that in his seed all nations of the earth should be blessed, the Assyrians had their seventh king, the Sicyons their fifth;for the son of Ninus reigned among them after his mother Semiramis, who is said to have been put to death by him for attempting to defile him by incestuously lying with him.Some think that she founded Babylon, and indeed she may have founded it anew.But we have told, in the sixteenth book, when or by whom it was founded.Now the son of Ninus and Semiramis, who succeeded his mother in the kingdom, is also called Ninus by some, but by others Ninias, a patronymic word.Telexion then held the kingdom of the Sicyons.In his reign times were quiet and joyful to such a degree, that after his death they worshipped him as a god by offering sacrifices and by celebrating games, which are said to have been first instituted on this occasion.
CHAP.3.--WHAT KINGS REIGNED IN ASSYRIA ANDSICYON WHEN, ACCORDING TO THE PROMISE, ISAAC WAS BORN TO ABRAHAM IN HISHUNDREDTH YEAR, AND WHEN THE TWINS ESAU AND JACOB WERE BORN OF REBECCATO ISAAC IN HIS SIXTIETH YEAR.
In his times also, by the promise of God, Isaac, the son of Abraham, was born to his father when he was a hundred years old, of Sarah his wife, who, being barren and old, had already lost hope of issue.Aralius was then the fifth king of the Assyrians.To Isaac himself, in his sixtieth year, were born twin-sons, Esau and Jacob, whom Rebecca his wife bore to him, their grandfather Abraham, who died on completing a hundred and seventy years, being still alive, and reckoning his hundred and sixtieth year.(1)At that time there reigned as the seventh kings,--among the Assyrians, that more ancient Xerxes, who was also called Balaeus; and among the Sicyons, Thuriachus, or, as some write his name, Thurimachus.The kingdom of Argos, in which Inachus reigned first, arose in the time of Abraham's grandchildren.
And I must not omit what Varro relates, that the Sicyons were also wont to sacrifice at the tomb of their seventh king Thuriachus.In the reign of Armamitres in Assyria and Leucippus in Sicyon as the eighth kings, and of Inachus as the first in Argos, God spoke to Isaac, and promised the same two things to him as to his father,--namely, the land of Canaan to his seed, and the blessing of all nations in his seed.These same things were promised to his son, Abraham's grandson, who was at first called Jacob, afterwards Israel, when Belocus was the ninth king of Assyria, and Phoroneus, the son of Inachus, reigned as the second king of Argos, Leucippus still continuing king of Sicyon.In those times, under the Argive king Phoroneus, Greece was made more famous by the institution of certain laws and judges.
On the death of Phoroneus, his younger brother Phegous built a temple at his tomb, in which he was worshipped as God, and oxen were sacrificed to him.I believe they thought him worthy of so great honor, because in his part of the kingdom (for their father had divided his territories between them, in which they reigned daring his life) he had founded chapels for the worship of the gods, and had taught them to measure time, by months and years, and to that extent to keep count and reckoning of events.Men still uncultivated, admiring him for these novelties, either fancied he was, or resolved that he should be made, a god after his death.Lo also is said to have been the daughter of Inachus, who was afterwards called Isis, when she was worshipped in Egypt as a great goddess; although others write that she came as a queen out of Ethiopia, and because she ruled extensively and justly, and instituted for her subjects letters and many useful things, such divine honor was given her there after she died, that it any one said she had been human, he was charged with a capital crime.
CHAP.4.--OF THE TIMES OF JACOB AND HIS
SON JOSEPH.
