[500] In the best text of the Donation this is not called the fourth consulship of Gallicanus. In any case, however, the date is impossible; no such consulship as this is known. [501] II Kings xv, 5. [502] This apocryphal story ran that the Sibyl prophesied of Christ, and that Augustus erected an altar to him. [503] The Temple of Peace was built by Vespasian and was not destroyed until it was burned down in the time of Commodus. [504] This episode in the Gesta, or Actus, or Vita, Silvestri, as may be gathered from Valla’s subsequent discussion, involves an enormous serpent, dwelling in a cave under the Tarpeian rock, devastating the entire city of Rome with his poisonous breath, appeased only by maidens being given him to devour, and finally bound forever in his cave by Sylvester. For references, cf. Coleman, Constantine, etc., pp. 161, 168. [505] Apparently Valla assumes that the Gesta Silvestri was written by a Greek named Eusebius, but not Eusebius of Caesarea, author of the Church History. Cf., however, Coleman, Constantine, pp. 161-168. [506] Satura, x, 174-175. [507] Cf. the story of Bel and the Dragon in the Apocrypha. [508] Factorum et dictorum memorabilium libri novem, V, vi, 2. [509] _Ibid._, I, viii, 3. [510] Livy, VII, 6, incorrectly summarized. [511] Livy, Preface, 7. [512] Livy, V, 21, 9. [513] Terentius Varro, de lingua latina, lib. v, 148-150. [514] Valerius Maximus, factorum et dictorum memorabilium, lib. i, viii, 7. [515] _Ibid._, i, viii, 3. [516] _Ibid._, i, viii, 4, with the substitution of “seen” for “given.” [517] In a disputation between Sylvester and Jewish rabbis the rabbis are said to have killed a bull by shouting the sacred name, Jehovah, and Sylvester is said to have brought him to life by whispering the name of Christ. Cf. Coleman, Constantine the Great, etc., p. 163. [518] These stories were to be found, among other places, in the Mirabilia urbis Romae, a guidebook to Rome dating from the twelfth century. English translation by F. M. Nichols, The Marvels of Rome (London and Rome, 1889), pp. 19-20. [519] This clause, though not in the MS. or Hutten, seems necessary to the sense of the following clause, so I have translated it from Bonneau’s text. In the Vita Silvestri we are told that the pagan priests ordered Constantine to bathe in infants’ blood in order to cure himself of leprosy. Cf. Coleman, Constantine the Great, etc., p. 162. [520] It will be remembered that Valla wrote this while in the service of the King of Naples, who was in conflict with imperial as well as with papal claims. [521] A forgery of the eleventh century. Cf. E. Emerton, Medieval Europe, p. 55. [522] Gossip had it that Boniface VIII induced his predecessor to abdicate by angelic warnings, which he himself produced through improvised speaking tubes. [523] The assassination of Vitelleschi, supposedly by order of the Pope, took place in March, 1440, and is one of the means of dating Valla’s treatise.