Holinshed Chronicles: England, Scotland, and Ireland. Volume 1, CompleteHolinshed, Raphael
History
Holinshed Chronicles: England, Scotland, and Ireland. Volume 1, Complete
Holinshed, Raphael
Great Britain -- History -- To 1485; Great Britain -- History -- Tudors, 1485-1603
[Sidenote: _Philostrate._]
Philostrate in Heroicis saith, how he saw the bodie of a giant thirtie
cubits in length, also the carcase of another of two and twentie, and
the third of twelue.
Liuie in the seauenth of his first decade, speaketh of an huge person
which made a challenge as he stood at the end of the Anien bridge,
against any Romane that would come out and fight with him, whose
stature was not much inferiour to that of Golias, of Artaches (of
whome Herodot speaketh in the historie of Xerxes) who was sixe common
cubits of stature, which make but fiue of the kings standard, bicause
this is longer by thrée fingers than the other. Of Pusio, Secundilla,
& Cabaras, of which the first two liuing vnder Augustus were aboue ten
foot, and the later vnder Claudius of full nine, and all remembred by
Plinie; of Eleazar a Jew, of whome Iosephus saith, that he was sent to
Tiberius, and a person of heigth fiue cubits; of another of whom
Nicephorus maketh mention lib. 12. cap. 13. Hist. eccles. of fiue
cubits and an handfull, I say nothing, bicause Casanion of Mutterell
hath alredie sufficientlie discoursed vpon these examples in his De
gigantibus, which as I gesse he hath written of set purpose against
Goropius, who in his Gigantomachia, supposeth himselfe to haue killed
all the giants in the world, and like a new Iupiter Alterum carcasse
Herculem, as the said Casanion dooth merilie charge and vpbraid him.
[Sidenote: _Lib._ 7.]
Plinie telleth of an earthquake at Creta, which discouered the body of
a giant, that was 46. cubits in length after the Romane standard, and
by diuerse supposed to be the bodie of Orion or Ætion. Neuerthelesse I
read, that Lucius Flaccus and Metellus did sweare Per sua capita, that
it was either the carcase of some monster of the sea, or a forged
deuise to bleare the peoples eies withall, wherein it is wonderfull to
see, how they please Goropius as one that first deriued his
fantasticall imagination from their asseueration & oth. The said
Plinie also addeth that the bodie of Orestes was seuen cubits in
length, one Gabbara of Arabia nine foot nine inches, and two reserued
In conditorio Sallustianorum halfe a foot longer than Gabbara was, for
which I neuer read that anie man was driuen to sweare.
[Sidenote: _Trallianus._]
Trallianus writeth how the Athenienses digging on a time in the
ground, to laie the foundation of a new wall to be made in a certeine
Iland in the daies of an emperour, did find the bones of Macrosyris in
a coffin of hard stone, of 100. cubits in length after the accompt of
the Romane cubit, which was then either a foot and a halfe, or not
much in difference from halfe a yard of our measure now in England.
These verses also, as they are now translated out of Gréeke were found
withall,
Sepultus ego Macrosyris in longa insula
Vitæ peractis annis mille quinquies:
which amounteth to 81. yeares foure moneths, after the Aegyptian
reckoning.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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