How did this work with Alexander, that would needs be Jupiter's son, and go like Hercules in a lion's skin? Domitian a god, [1957](Dominus Deus noster sic fieri jubet,) like the [1958]Persian kings, whose image was adored by all that came into the city of Babylon. Commodus the emperor was so gulled by his flattering parasites, that he must be called Hercules. [1959]Antonius the Roman would be crowned with ivy, carried in a chariot, and adored for Bacchus. Cotys, king of Thrace, was married to [1960] Minerva, and sent three several messengers one after another, to see if she were come to his bedchamber. Such a one was [1961]Jupiter Menecrates, Maximinus, Jovianus, Dioclesianus Herculeus, Sapor the Persian king, brother of the sun and moon, and our modern Turks, that will be gods on earth, kings of kings, God's shadow, commanders of all that may be commanded, our kings of China and Tartary in this present age. Such a one was Xerxes, that would whip the sea, fetter Neptune, stulta jactantia, and send a challenge to Mount Athos; and such are many sottish princes, brought into a fool's paradise by their parasites, 'tis a common humour, incident to all men, when they are in great places, or come to the solstice of honour, have done, or deserved well, to applaud and flatter themselves. Stultitiam suam produnt, &c., (saith [1962]Platerus) your very tradesmen if they be excellent, will crack and brag, and show their folly in excess. They have good parts, and they know it, you need not tell them of it; out of a conceit of their worth, they go smiling to themselves, a perpetual meditation of their trophies and plaudits, they run at last quite mad, and lose their wits.[1963]Petrarch, lib. 1 de contemptu mundi, confessed as much of himself, and Cardan, in his fifth book of wisdom, gives an instance in a smith of Milan, a fellow-citizen of his, [1964]one Galeus de Rubeis, that being commended for refining of an instrument of Archimedes, for joy ran mad. Plutarch in the life of Artaxerxes, hath such a like story of one Chamus, a soldier, that wounded king Cyrus in battle, and grew thereupon so [1965]arrogant, that in a short space after he lost his wits. So many men, if any new honour, office, preferment, booty, treasure, possession, or patrimony, ex insperato fall unto them for immoderate joy, and continual meditation of it, cannot sleep [1966]or tell what they say or do, they are so ravished on a sudden; and with vain conceits transported, there is no rule with them. Epaminondas, therefore, the next day after his Leuctrian victory, [1967]came abroad all squalid and submiss, and gave no other reason to his friends of so doing, than that he perceived himself the day before, by reason of his good fortune, to be too insolent, overmuch joyed. That wise and virtuous lady, [1968]Queen Katherine, Dowager of England, in private talk, upon like occasion, said, that [1969]she would not willingly endure the extremity of either