usand oaks did not suffice. Who can relate the
glorious splendour, and stupend magnificence, the sumptuous building of
Diana at Ephesus, Jupiter Ammon's temple in Africa, the Pantheon at Rome,
the Capitol, the Sarapium at Alexandria, Apollo's temple at Daphne in the
suburbs of Antioch. The great temple at Mexico so richly adorned, and so
capacious (for 10,000 men might stand in it at once), that fair Pantheon of
Cusco, described by Acosta in his Indian History, which eclipses both Jews
and Christians. There were in old Jerusalem, as some write, 408 synagogues;
but new Cairo reckons up (if [6529]Radzivilus may be believed) 6800
mosques; Fez 400, whereof 50 are most magnificent, like St. Paul's in
London. Helena built 300 fair churches in the Holy Land, but one Bassa hath
built 400 mosques. The Mahometans have 1000 monks in a monastery; the like
saith Acosta of Americans; Riccius of the Chinese, for men and women,
fairly built; and more richly endowed some of them, than Arras in Artois,
Fulda in Germany, or St. Edmund's-Bury in England with us: who can describe
those curious and costly statues, idols, images, so frequently mentioned in
Pausanias? I conceal their donaries, pendants, other offerings, presents,
to these their fictitious gods daily consecrated. [6530]Alexander, the son
of Amyntas, king of Macedonia, sent two statues of pure gold to Apollo at
Delphos. [6531]Croesus, king of Lydia dedicated a hundred golden tiles in
the same place with a golden altar: no man came empty-handed to their
shrines. But these are base offerings in respect; they offered men
themselves alive. The Leucadians, as Strabo writes, sacrificed every year a
man, _averruncandae, deorum irae, causa_, to pacify their gods, _de montis
praecipitio dejecerent_, &c. and they did voluntarily undergo it. The Decii
did so sacrifice, _Diis manibus_; Curtius did leap into the gulf. Were they
not all strangely deluded to go so far to their oracles, to be so gulled by
them, both in war and peace, as Polybius relates (which their argurs,
priests, vestal virgins can witness), to be so superstitious, that they
would rather lose goods and lives than omit any ceremonies, or offend their
heathen gods? Nicias, that generous and valiant captain of the Greeks,
overthrew the Athenian navy, by reason of his too much superstition, [6532]
because the augurs told him it was ominous to set sail from the haven of
Syracuse whilst the moon was eclipsed; he tarried so long till h