his
enemies, who was armed from head to foot, so great a blow with his sword,
that he clave him down from his crown to his seat, so that the body was
divided into two parts." In this example I find no great miracle, nor do
I admit the excuse with which he defends Plutarch, in having added these
words, "as 'tis said," to suspend our belief; for unless it be in things
received by authority, and the reverence to antiquity or religion, he
would never have himself admitted, or enjoined us to believe things
incredible in themselves; and that these words, "as 'tis said," are not
put in this place to that effect, is easy to be seen, because he
elsewhere relates to us, upon this subject, of the patience of the
Lacedaemonian children, examples happening in his time, more unlikely to
prevail upon our faith; as what Cicero has also testified before him, as
having, as he says, been upon the spot: that even to their times there
were children found who, in the trial of patience they were put to before
the altar of Diana, suffered themselves to be there whipped till the
blood ran down all over their bodies, not only without crying out, but
without so much as a groan, and some till they there voluntarily lost
their lives: and that which Plutarch also, amongst a hundred other
witnesses, relates, that at a sacrifice, a burning coal having fallen
into the sleeve of a Lacedaemonian boy, as he was censing, he suffered
his whole arm to be burned, till the smell of the broiling flesh was
perceived by those present. There was nothing, according to their
custom, wherein their reputation was more concerned, nor for which they
were to undergo more blame and disgrace, than in being taken in theft.
I am so fully satisfied of the greatness of those people, that this story
does not only not appear to me, as to Bodin, incredible; but I do not
find it so much as rare and strange. The Spartan history is full of a
thousand more cruel and rare examples; and is; indeed, all miracle in
this respect.

Marcellinus, concerning theft, reports that in his time there was no sort
of torments which could compel the Egyptians, when taken in this act,
though a people very much addicted to it, so much as to tell their name.

A Spanish peasant, being put to the rack as to the accomplices of the
murder of the Praetor Lucius Piso, cried out in the height of the
torment, "that his friends should not leave him, but look on in all
assurance, and that no pain had the pow