Book 1 · Chapters 13–14

In the year 560 before the founding of the City there was a most savage conflict between the Cretans and the Athenians, in which, when the peoples on both sides had been wretchedly crushed, the Cretans exercised a victory bloodier still:

1 Anno ante urbem conditam DLX atrocissimum inter Cretenses atque Athenienses certamen fuit, ubi populis utrimque infeliciter profligatis cruentiorem uictoriam Cretenses exercuerunt;

for they cruelly consigned the sons of noble Athenians to be devoured by the Minotaur — whether I should more fitly call him a wild man or a human beast I do not know — and fattened that misshapen monster on the torn-out eyes of Greece.

2 qui nobilium Atheniensium filios Minotauro, utrum fero homini an humanae bestiae aptius dicam nescio, deuorandos crudeliter addicebant atque informe prodigium effossis Graeciae luminibus saginabant.

In those same days the Lapiths and the Thessalians fought in conflicts all too famous.

3 isdem diebus Lapithae et Thessali famosis nimium certauere conflictibus.

But Palaephatus, in the first book of his Incredible Tales, discloses that the Thessalians themselves were believed by the Lapiths to be Centaurs, and were so called, because as horsemen dashing about in war they seemed to be a single body of horses and men.

4 sed Thessalos Palefatus in libro primo Incredibilium prodit ipsos a Lapithis creditos dictosque fuisse Centauros eo, quod discurrentes in bello equites ueluti unum corpus equorum et hominum uiderentur.

In the year 480 before the founding of the City, Vesozes, king of Egypt, eager either to embroil in war or to join under his rule the south and the north — regions separated by almost the whole of the sky and the sea — was the first to declare war on the Scythians, having first sent envoys to dictate to the enemy the terms of their submission.¹

1 Anno ante urbem conditam CCCCLXXX Vesozes rex Aegypti meridiem et septentrionem, diuisas paene toto caelo ac pelago plagas, aut miscere bello aut regno iungere studens, Scythis bellum primus indixit missis prius legatis, qui hostibus parendi leges dicerent.

To this the Scythians replied to the envoys that a very wealthy king had foolishly taken up war against poor men — a war which he himself, on the contrary, had more reason to fear, since the outcome of war was uncertain, its rewards nothing and its losses manifest. Moreover, they would not wait for him to come to them, but would go out of their own accord to meet their plunder.

2 ad quae Scythae legatis respondent, stolide opulentissimum regem aduersus inopes sumpsisse bellum, quod timendum ipsi magis uersa uice fuerit propter incertos belli euentus nulla praemia et damna manifesta. porro sibi non exspectandum, dum ad se ueniatur, sed ultro praedae obuiam ituros.

There was no delay, for deeds followed words. First they forced Vesozes himself, terrified, to flee back into his kingdom; then they fell upon his abandoned army and seized all its equipment of war; and they would have plundered all Egypt as well, had they not been hindered by the marshes and driven back.

3 nec mora, nam dicta factis insequuntur. primum ipsum Vesozen territum refugere in regnum cogunt, destitutum uero exercitum inuadunt omnemque belli apparatum capessunt, uniuersam quoque Aegyptum populauissent, ni paludibus inpediti repellerentur.

Then, turning back at once, they subdued Asia with endless slaughter and made it tributary; and after lingering there for fifteen years without peace, they were at last called home by the insistence of their wives, who declared that unless they returned they would seek offspring from their neighbours.

4 inde continuo reuersi perdomitam infinitis caedibus Asiam uectigalem fecere; ubi per XV annos sine pace inmorati tandem uxorum flagitatione reuocantur denuntiantibus, ni redeant subolem se a finitimis quaesituras.