387. GREAT PAINES, AND GREATER PRAISE, etc. His praise, like his pain, is to be eternal.
xlvii. This list of the thralls of Pride is in imitation of a similar one in Chaucer's _Monk's Tale_, which was based on Boccaccio's _De Casibus Illustrium Virorum_.
415. PROUD KING OF BABYLON, Nebuchadnezzar. See _Daniel_, iii and iv.
420. KING CROESUS, the last king of Lydia, who was overthrown by Cyrus in B.C. 646. _Herodotus_, i, 26.
422. PROUD ANTIOCHUS, Antiochus Epiphanes, king of Syria, who captured Jerusalem twice, and defiled God's altar. He died raving mad B.C. 164. Josephus, _Antiquities of the Jews_, xiii, 5-9.
424. GREAT NIMROD, "the mighty hunter" (_Genesis_, x, 8), whose game, according to Spenser, was man. Josephus tells us that through pride he built the tower of Babel.
426. OLD NINUS, the legendary founder of Nineveh, and put to death by his wife, Semiramis.
428. THAT MIGHTY MONARCH, Alexander the Great (B.C. 366-323), king of Macedon. While consulting the oracle of Jupiter Ammon in the Libyan desert he was saluted by the priests as "Ammons Sonne." He died either of poison (Plutarch) or of excessive drink (Diodorus).
437. GREAT ROMULUS, legendary founder of Rome (B.C. 753). See Livy, i, 16.
438. PROUD TARQUIN, Tarquinius Superbus, the last king of Rome. He was banished B.C. 510.
438. TOO LORDLY LENTULUS, surnamed Sura, member of a haughty patrician family, who conspired with Catiline, and was strangled B.C. 62.
439. STOUT SCIPIO, Cornelius Scipio Africanus (B.C. 287?-183?), the conqueror of Hannibal, and self-exiled from Rome. Livy speaks of his inordinate pride, xxxviii, 50.
439. STUBBORNE HANNIBALL (B.C. 247-183), the great Carthaginian general, who died by poison to avoid falling into the hands of the Romans.
440. AMBITIOUS SYLLA (B.C. 138-78), Cornelius Sulla, the Dictator, who died a loathsome death.
440. STERNE MARIUS (B.C. 157-86), after being seven times consul, he was obliged to take refuge from his rival Sulla amid the ruins of Carthage.
441. HIGH CAESAR, Caius Julius Caesar (B.C. 100-44), who was murdered by Brutus and other conspirators.
441. GREAT POMPEY. Cn. Pompeius Magnus (B.C. 106-48). After his defeat at Pharsalia, he fled to Egypt, where he was murdered.