Aventinus 11

Johannes Turmayr's 1520 History of Bavaria, Chapter 11 - translated and annotated by Ras Feqade, AD 2020.

* Previous Chapter: Aventinus 10
* Next Chapter: Aventinus 12
* (To Table of Contents)

11. Of the time when everything went right, everyone had plenty, when the 'gods' were walking on earth and the heroes ruled, whom the ancients called 'gods', and of the (as the poets and even old historians call it) golden world.

After the deluge, for 350 years, while the punishment of God was still freshly remembered, and Noah with his sons, who remembered such wrath, were still alive, it was a good time, everything went right, no one had any fault, the people lived in all fear of God and in harmony with each other, one person gave the other something in love, there was no war, no quarreling, one durst not make light of any ordinance of the land, one still had neither judges nor henchmen nor executioners nor audition, that everyone in fear of punishment knew from himself what was right and good; there was no spirituality, no primogeniture, nor merchant, nor sodomites, nor beggar, one built little crude stalls, likewise little huts only for the wild animals and uncultivated; shame, discipline and honor and all fairness was there in the world with the merry, young and old, princes and subjects.

[The deluge occuring in 2755 BC, the indicated duration of this 350 year Golden Age brings us to 2405 BC, about 20 years past the abandonment of the tower; in fact with the first of wars and captivity occuring in 2376 BC (Kish v. Elam), it is thus correct to say there were no wars in the 350 years after the flood.]

At that time the heroes ruled, they heeded nothing but the honor of God and common use, they did not not seek their honor nor violence, but only sought that they please God and people, do land and people much good. There was no need for extravagance, neither in food nor in drink, neither in clothing nor in building nor in other matters, needed to measure what God and nature itself brought and grew from itself; the agriculture gave in and around and on, one now used his own. The princes only looked at how the many good lands and people proved, that they kept and looked after; they did not try to extend their power to other countries, any king, any gentleman understood not to reach farther than his home reached, in which he was born. All things were common: one celebrated the original new year, one new year to the next to honor the heroes, at which time all things were common. The gentlemen gave money to the field servants and house servants, just as we still make offering; it is a pagan custom, so the old holy fathers, the popes, forbade celebrating such a day when one can now find spiritual rights.

The poets and elders call this time the golden world. But it was not long. This forementioned Ninus, the third Babylonian, was the first who brought such innate, long-time unity, and the old worthies came there from all over the world, through new desire to extend his power, he smashed up, and began to war. First of all, he attacked his junior and adjoining countries, forced and conquered all the people, as unruly and untrained as they were to get hold of and to resist the enemy; bring under his pity and obedience to all countries and regions, so in the rising of the sun and in Asia up to the river Don, and Germany up to the border of the emperor Tuitscho, whom he dared not attack. He also came with an army to Africa, the third part of the earth where Carthage lay. He caught the king from Persia, named Farnus, hanging him on a gallows with his wife and seven children; he did the same to other kings in Asia, took, and had them killed with women and children. The king in Armenia and Pope then all over the world with the name Sabeth, named the holy (called Saturnus by the Latins and held for a god), his cousin, his lord Nimrod's brother, he drove and chased him out of the country. But this Sabeth left his son, whom the said Ninus also overcame, in Armenia and he entered our country, to our king Tuitscho, then after only ten years he went to Noah in Italy, who lived there and governed the land and people, who himself had instructed them and kept them in fear of God and good harmony with his teaching. When, in the 137th year of the king Tuitscho, after Noah the father and rescuer of all people, he traveled and visited all of Asia and Africa, he settled in Europe at Viterb in Italy. From him and his son Gomer came the old, first-born country people in Italy, called Etrusci, who long afterwards were driven out by the Germans, and were subsequently completely wiped out by the Romans with their language. Noah invented wine, called Jain in Hebrew and Old Italian, the ancients and still the Latins call him Janus, we Jener, of whom the new year and first month still retain the name.

 [Ninus properly refers to king Meskiag-nuna, who ruled Ur from 2306 to 2254 BC, and all Sumer the first four years. Although much later and well known legend said he conquered large areas of Asia, this appears to be an erroneous inversion of actual events; it seems rather that Sabeth, i.e. Sebtah son of Kush, brother of Nimrod, drove Meskiag-nuna out of the capital Nippur in 2302 BC, relagating him to Ur only; Sebtah headed a coalition of Arattans and Elamites, thus the Sumerian kinglist reports the Elamites as seizing hegemony in Sumer from Ur. In *Defloratio* the title 'Saturn' is given to Nimrod, but Aventinus instead identifies it with his brother. Sebtah left Aratta and Elam to Barzanes in 2263 BC and went it seems not to Germany, but to Kush in Africa where he governed ten years, before proceeding to Italy via Iberia (where he founded Saguntum). The figure of Tuyscon's 137th year seems to apply to when Sebtah left Aratta to Barzanes. The explanation of Noah's throne name Janus as 'wine' is correct; however Noah as Janus I had died in 2406 BC, and the ruler of Italy by the time Sebtah arrived there in 2252 BC was Janus II, who was the actual 4th son of Noah born after the flood.]

And the above-mentioned Ninus built a mighty city on the Euphrates river, named after him Nina, it is called Nineveh in the Bible: it was four and half miles long, the circumference was twelve miles, the highest of the wall was a hundred feet high and so wide, that three wagons might go next to each other on it; it had 1500 doors, one was two hundred feet high. In front of this city Ninus was buried in a wide field, built a costly tomb, it was well a quarter of a mile high, one could think it a castle from afar.

 [This is all part of the fictionalized later legend, as Meskiag-nuna ruled Ur in Sumer, not Nineveh in Assyria.]