Again, in the year 775 before the founding of the City, fifty parricides were committed in a single night among the sons of the brothers Danaus and Aegyptus. Then Danaus himself, the contriver of such great crimes, driven from the kingdom that he had gained by so many outrages, withdrew to Argos; and there, having shamefully persuaded the Argives to wrongdoing, he drove from the kingdom Sthenelas, who had taken him in as a needy fugitive, and reigned himself.1
1 Item anno ante urbem conditam DCCLXXV inter Danai atque Aegypti fratrum filios quinquaginta parricidia una nocte commissa sunt. ipse deinde tantorum scelerum fabricator Danaus regno, quod tot flagitiis adquisiuerat, pulsus Argos concessit ibique indigne persuasis in facinus Argiuis Sthenelan qui eum profugum egentemque exceperat regno expulit atque ipse regnauit.
1In Pausanias the Argive king displaced by Danaus is Gelanor, son of Sthenelas.
At that time there was in Egypt the cruel hospitality, and the crueller religion, of Busiris, a most bloody tyrant, who used to offer the blood of innocent guests to the gods who were partners in his crimes — a thing without doubt abhorrent to men; whether it seemed abhorrent to the gods themselves as well, I leave open.
2 Busiridis in Aegypto cruentissimi tyranni crudelis hospitalitas et crudelior religio tunc fuit; qui innocentum hospitum sanguinem diis scelerum suorum participibus propinabat: quod exsecrabile sine dubio hominibus uiderim an ipsis etiam diis exsecrabile uideretur.
At that time, too, parricide was added to incest among Tereus, Procne and Philomela, and a banquet of unspeakable food more abhorrent than both, when, because her sister’s chastity had been ravished and her tongue cut out, the mother killed her little son and the father ate him.
3 tunc etiam Terei Procnae et Philomelae incesto parricidium adiunctum atque exsecrabilius utroque conuiuium per infandos cibos additum, cum propter sororis pudicitiam ereptam praecisamque linguam filium paruulum mater occidit, pater comedit.
In these same times Perseus crossed from Greece into Asia; there he subdued barbarian peoples in a heavy and long war, and at last, as victor, gave his name to the conquered nation: for from Perseus they came to be called Persians.
4 isdem temporibus Perseus a Graecia in Asiam transuectus est, ibi barbaras gentes graui diuturnoque bello domuit et nouissime uictor nomen subiectae genti dedit: namque a Perseo Persae sunt uocitati.