is enemies
besieged him, he and all his army were overthrown. The [6533]Parthians of
old were so sottish in this kind, they would rather lose a victory, nay
lose their own lives, than fight in the night, 'twas against their
religion. The Jews would make no resistance on the Sabbath, when Pompeius
besieged Jerusalem; and some Jewish Christians in Africa, set upon by the
Goths, suffered themselves upon the same occasion to be utterly vanquished.
The superstition of the Dibrenses, a bordering town in Epirus, besieged by
the Turks, is miraculous almost to report. Because a dead dog was flung
into the only fountain which the city had, they would die of thirst all,
rather than drink of that [6534]unclean water, and yield up the city upon
any conditions. Though the praetor and chief citizens began to drink first,
using all good persuasions, their superstition was such, no saying would
serve, they must all forthwith die or yield up the city. _Vix ausum ipse
credere_ (saith [6535]Barletius) _tantam superstitionem, vel affirmare
levissimam hanc causam tantae rei vel magis ridiculam, quum non dubitem
risum potius quum admirationem posteris excitaturam._ The story was too
ridiculous, he was ashamed to report it, because he thought nobody would
believe it. It is stupend to relate what strange effects this idolatry and
superstition hath brought forth of the latter years in the Indies and those
bordering parts: [6536]in what feral shapes the [6537]devil is adored, _ne
quid mali intentent_, as they say; for in the mountains betwixt Scanderoon
and Aleppo, at this day, there are dwelling a certain kind of people called
Coords, coming of the race of the ancient Parthians, who worship the devil,
and allege this reason in so doing: God is a good man and will do no harm,
but the devil is bad and must be pleased, lest he hurt them. It is
wonderful to tell how the devil deludes them, how he terrifies them, how
they offer men and women sacrifices unto him, a hundred at once, as they
did infants in Crete to Saturn of old, the finest children, like
Agamemnon's Iphigenia, &c. At [6538]Mexico, when the Spaniards first
overcame them, they daily sacrificed _viva hominum corda e viventium
corporibus extracta_, the hearts of men yet living, 20,000 in a year
(Acosta _lib. 5. cap. 20_) to their idols made of flour and men's blood,
and every year 6000 infants of both sexes: and as prodigious to relate,
[6539]how they bury their wives with husbands deceased,