48

The 70 years foretold by Jeremiah are fulfilled in the time of Cyrus. From this it is possible to see how our sacred writings are shown to be more ancient and truer than those of the Greeks and Egyptians, or any other historiographers. For Herodotus and Thucydides, or Xenophon, or the other historiographers, most of them began to write their records almost from the reign of Cyrus and Darius, not being able to speak with accuracy of the ancient and earlier times. For what great thing did they say if they spoke about Darius and Cyrus, the barbarian kings, or, among the Greeks, of Zopyrus and Hippias, or the wars of the Athenians and Lacedaemonians, or the deeds of Xerxes, or of Pausanias who was in danger of perishing by famine in the temple of Athena, or the things concerning Themistocles and the Peloponnesian war, or the things concerning Alcibiades and Thrasybulus? For our subject is not a matter for much talk, but to make plain the quantity of time from the foundation of the world and to refute the useless labor and nonsense of the writers, that there are neither twenty thousand myriads of years, as Plato said, and this, dogmatizing that so many years had passed from the flood until his own time, nor indeed 15 myriads and 375 years, as we said before Apollonius the Egyptian relates. Nor is the world uncreated and the universe an automatic thing, as Pythagoras and the rest have idly chattered, but rather it is created and is governed by providence by the God who made all things; and the whole time and the years are shown to those who wish to be persuaded by the truth. Lest, then, we should seem to have declared things up to Cyrus, but to have neglected the intervening times, as if having nothing to demonstrate, God providing, I will try, as far as possible, to explain the order of the subsequent times as well. Of Tomyris in Massagetia, it then being the sixty-second Olympiad; from that time the Romans were already becoming great, God strengthening them, Rome having been founded by Romulus, who is recorded to be the son of Ares and Ilia, in the 7th Olympiad, on the eleventh day before the Calends of May, the year then being counted as ten months; Cyrus, then, having died, as we have already said, in the sixty-second Olympiad, the time from the founding of Rome becomes 220 years, at which time Tarquinius, named Superbus, ruled the Romans, who first exiled certain Romans and corrupted boys and made natives into eunuchs; moreover, after violating virgins, he also gave them in marriage. For this reason he was fittingly called Superbus in the Roman language; which is interpreted as arrogant. For he first decreed that those who saluted him should be saluted in return by another. He ruled for 25 years. After him ruled annual consuls, military tribunes or aediles for 463 years, whose names we consider it a long and superfluous task to list. For if anyone wishes to learn, he will find from the records which Chryseros the nomenclator wrote, who became a freedman of M. Aurelius Verus, who from the founding of Rome until the death of his own patron

48

Κύρου πληροῦται τὰ ο ἔτη, τὰ προειρημένα ὑπὸ τοῦ Ἰερεμίου. Ἐντεῦθεν ὁρᾶν ἔστιν πῶς ἀρχαιότερα καὶ ἀληθέστερα δείκνυται τὰ ἱερὰ γράμματα τὰ καθ' ἡμᾶς εἶναι τῶν καθ' Ἕλληνας καὶ Aἰγυπτίους, ἢ εἰ καί τινας ἑτέρους ἱστοριογράφους. ἤτοι γὰρ Ἡρόδοτος καὶ Θουκυδίδης ἢ καὶ Ξενοφῶν ἢ ὅπως οἱ ἄλλοι ἱστοριο- γράφοι, οἱ πλείους ἤρξαντο σχεδὸν ἀπὸ τῆς Κύρου καὶ ∆αρείου βασιλείας ἀναγράφειν, μὴ ἐξισχύσαντες τῶν παλαιῶν καὶ προτέρων χρόνων τὸ ἀκριβὲς εἰπεῖν. τί γὰρ μέγα ἔφασαν εἰ περὶ ∆αρείου καὶ Κύρου τῶν κατὰ βαρβάρους βασιλέων εἶπον, ἢ κατὰ Ἕλληνας Ζωπύρου καὶ Ἱππίου, ἢ τοὺς Ἀθηναίων καὶ Λακεδαιμονίων πολέ- μους, ἢ τὰς Ξέρξου πράξεις ἢ Παυσανίου τοῦ ἐν τῷ τεμένει τῆς Ἀθηνᾶς λιμῷ κινδυνεύσαντος διαφθαρῆναι, ἢ τὰ περὶ Θεμιστοκλέα καὶ τὸν πόλεμον τὸν Πελοποννησίων, ἢ τὰ περὶ Ἀλκιβιάδην καὶ Θρασύβουλον; Oὐ γὰρ πρόκειται ἡμῖν ὕλη πολυλογίας, ἀλλὰ εἰς τὸ φανερῶσαι τὴν τῶν χρόνων ἀπὸ καταβολῆς κόσμου ποσότητα καὶ ἐλέγξαι τὴν ματαιοπονίαν καὶ φλυαρίαν τῶν συγγραφέων, ὅτι οὐκ εἰσὶν ἐτῶν οὔτε δισμυρίαι μυριάδες, ὡς Πλάτων ἔφη, καὶ ταῦτα ἀπὸ κατακλυσμοῦ ἕως τῶν αὐτοῦ χρόνων τοσαῦτα ἔτη γεγενῆσθαι δογματίζων, οὔτε μὴν ιε μυρίαδες καὶ γοε ἔτη, κατὰ προειρήκαμεν Ἀπολλώνιον τὸν Aἰγύπτιον ἱστορεῖν· οὐδὲ ἀγένητος ὁ κόσμος ἐστὶν καὶ αὐτοματισμὸς τῶν πάντων, καθὼς Πυθαγόρας καὶ οἱ λοιποὶ πεφλυαρήκασιν, ἀλλὰ μὲν οὖν γενητὸς καὶ προνοίᾳ διοικεῖται ὑπὸ τοῦ ποιήσαντος τὰ πάντα θεοῦ· καὶ ὁ πᾶς χρόνος καὶ τὰ ἔτη δείκνυται τοῖς βουλομένοις πείθεσθαι τῇ ἀληθείᾳ. μήπως οὖν δόξωμεν μέχρι Κύρου δεδηλω- κέναι, τῶν δὲ μεταξὺ χρόνων ἀμελεῖν, ὡς μὴ ἔχοντες ἀποδεῖξαι, θεοῦ παρέχοντος καὶ τῶν ἑξῆς χρόνων τὴν τάξιν πειράσομαι κατὰ τὸ δυνατὸν ἐξηγήσασθαι. Τομύριδος ἐν Μασσαγετίᾳ, τότε οὔσης ὀλυμπιάδος ἑξηκοστῆς δευτέρας· ἔκτοτε ἤδη οἱ Ῥωμαῖοι ἐμεγαλύνοντο τοῦ θεοῦ κρατύνον- τος αὐτούς, ἐκτισμένης τῆς Ῥώμης ὑπὸ Ῥωμύλου, τοῦ παιδὸς ἱστορουμένου Ἄρεως καὶ Ἰλίας, ὀλυμπιάδι ζ, τῇ πρὸ ι καὶ α καλανδῶν Μαΐων, τοῦ ἐνιαυτοῦ τότε δεκαμήνου ἀριθμουμένου· τοῦ οὖν Κύρου τελευτήσαντος, ὡς ἔφθημεν εἰρηκέναι, ὀλυμπιάδι ἑξη- κοστῇ καὶ δευτέρᾳ, γίνεται ὁ καιρὸς ἀπὸ κτίσεως Ῥώμης ἔτη σκ, ᾧ καὶ Ῥωμαίων ἦρξεν Ταρκύνιος Σούπερβος τοὔνομα, ὃς πρῶτος ἐξώρισεν Ῥωμαίους τινὰς καὶ παῖδας διέφθειρεν καὶ σπάδοντας ἐγχωρίους ἐποίησεν· ἔτι μὴν καὶ τὰς παρθένους διαφθείρων πρὸς γάμον ἐδίδου. διὸ οἰκείως Σούπερβος ἐκλήθη τῇ ῥωμαϊκῇ γλώσσῃ· ἑρμηνεύεται δὲ ὑπερήφανος. αὐτὸς γὰρ πρῶτος ἐδογμάτισε τοὺς ἀσπαζομένους αὐτὸν ὑπὸ ἑτέρου ἀντασπάζεσθαι. ὃς ἐβασίλευσεν ἔτεσιν κε. Μεθ' ὃν ἦρξαν ἐνιαύσιοι ὕπατοι, χιλίαρχοι ἢ ἀγορανόμοι ἔτεσιν υξγ, ὧν τὰ ὀνόματα καταλέγειν πολὺ καὶ περισσὸν ἡγούμεθα. εἰ γάρ τις βούλεται μαθεῖν, ἐκ τῶν ἀναγραφῶν εὑρήσει ὧν ἀνέγραψεν Χρύσερως ὁ νομεγκλάτωρ, ἀπελεύθερος γενόμενος Μ. Aὐρηλίου Oὐήρου, ὃς ἀπὸ κτίσεως Ῥώμης μέχρι τελευτῆς τοῦ ἰδίου πάτρωνος