ABSTRACT
THEY sank to yet another folly and superstition, for, if the gods did not favour or assist them in their warlike forays, they aimed weapons of different kinds against heaven, thinking that they could subdue it and, by threats or intimidation, compel the gods to do what they demanded. While they carried out this useless activity, they thought that they themselves on earth were no less powerful, terrifying, and awesome than those situated above or in the underworld. Such men, however, take no note of the ancient proverb of the Götar: ‘Do not cast a pole against heaven, for a thicker club will be hurled back.’ 1 How foolish it is to be so presumptuous Augustine must be called on to testify, when he states in Bk X, Ch. 11, of The City of God that, when Hercules was taking his ease among the people of Locri, he ordered the god to restrain the chirping cicadas. 2 Herodotus, in Bk I, tells how Croesus acted in much the same way when he sent men from Lydia, ordering chains and shackles to be fixed to the threshold of the Delphic god’s temple and a threat to be delivered because the god was not showing him favour. He received the answer that he could not escape his appointed lot, for it behoved him to atone for the crime committed five generations earlier by his great-greatgrandfather, who had killed his own master through guile. When he learnt this, he acknowledged that it was his own fault, not the god’s. So also King Pheros was struck blind because he committed the outrage of flinging a spear into the midst of the Nile’s eddies as they were rising to a height of over twenty-seven feet. So Xerxes, when his immensely long bridges of seven furlongs had been broken by a great storm, commanded in a violent rage that three hundred lashes be dealt to the Hellespont and a pair of shackles be thrown into that sea. Lastly he sent messengers with further orders to brand it and to strike and buffet it with their fists, speaking wild, insane words which went something like this: ‘0 bitter water, your master imposes this punishment upon you, because you have injured him who deserved no evil from you. Yet Xerxes crosses you, whether you wish it or not; you deserve no sacrifice from any mortal, crafty and ill-natured flood that you are.’ He even proceeded to order those who had been in charge of building the bridges to be beheaded, rewarding them for their great labour with unwelcome wages. Indeed, to avoid suffering a similar penalty, other builders joined together three hundred and sixty biremes and triremes on the side towards the Black Sea and held them steady by making them fast on the other side with three hundred and fourteen enormous anchors and cables. 3 I purposely wanted to have the account of these amazingly long bridges brought in here, in case it is perhaps required of someone, as a matter of need or convenience to devise a method of crossing channels and rivers. I think, too, that I should not omit Josephus’s testimony at the beginning of his Antiquities; he tells how after the Flood the sons of Noah wished to make a covenant to stand together, so that a deluge from God might not sweep them away a second time, should they be separated from each other as their peoples multiplied. It was for this reason that the building at Babel was begun, with the intention that the power of Heaven might be fended off by the combined forces of mankind. 4
Threats are made idly against the gods
A club for a pole
Hercules orders gods to remove cicadas Croesus
Fifth generation from great-greatgrandfather is punished King Pheros
Xerxes Bridges 7 furlongs long Three hundred lashes, brandings, and blows
He ordered the overseers to be beheaded
360 biremes and triremes 314 anchors
Sons of Noah built the Tower of Babel after the Flood
