The History of the World

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1829 Excerpt: ...thereat, saith thus: The Cretans ever liars were, they care not what they say: For they a tomb have built for thee, O king, that liv'st alway. kDiodorus Siculus tells, by way of report from the Libyan fables, confirmed, as he saith, by some Greek writers, that the original of these gods was from the western parts of Afric. For there, among the Atlantidae, reigned one Uranus, (which signifieth heaven,) called so for his great skill in astrology, and for his knowledge and benefits to the people, honoured by them as a god after his death. He had by many wives forty-five sons; but by his principal wife Titea he had seventeen sons and two daughters, all which were called after their mother's name Titanes. Of Titea likewise it is said, that she for her goodness was canonized as a goddess, being dead, and called the earth, as her husband was styled heaven. But of all the children of Titea, her daughter Basilea, (which name sounding as queen in English, she is by the Latin translator of Diodorus called regina,) excelling the rest as far in virtue as in years, was, by general consent of her brethren and of the people, appointed to rule as queen after her father's death, being as 'Luc. in Sacrif. k Diod. 1. a. c. 5. yet a virgin. She took to husband her brother Hyperion, to whom she bare a son and a daughter, called sun and moon. The beauty and towardliness of these children moved her brethren to envy, and bred in them a fear of being excluded from the succession; wherefore they took the boy and drowned him in the river Eridanus, now called Po. The loss of this child caused his sister to break her own neck; and the loss of both her children made the mother to play many mad pranks, dancing with cymbals, after a wild fashion, in sight of all the people, before whom she...