Aventinus 124

Johannes Turmayr's 1520 History of Bavaria, Chapter 124, - translated and annotated by Ras Feqade, AD 2021.

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### 124. Of the German and Bavarian kings Venno and Helto, also the Roman kings.

After kings Myela and Penno, I find that **Venno** and **Helto** were powerful with us for seventy years. From Venno the Etschland is still called upper and lower Vennosgäu, commonly called Vinska for short; and the mountain from which the Etsch and likewise the Inn spring from Engadein, still called from this king in Italian *Vennos mons*, that is Vennosbirg, the common German speaks roughly Vinstermynz, as under the verren S Jacob zum 'darken star' is so called Italian *finis terrae*, that is 'the end of the world, because the achievement will come to an end'.

[Venno and Helto are assigned the space of 70 years, ie 735-665 BC, but once again it seems more plausible that this is the total of both their consecutive reigns, not that they both ruled this long concurrently.]

Helto even moved into Italy, and settled there, then, as Titus Livius indicates, at this time the Germans also fell more in Italy, and over time the old inhabitants were driven away with women and children, as I will then describe further below. From this king Helto we now call all arguably honest princes "Helden".

At that time the Roman king was, after Romulus, the first Roman king, **Numa Pompilius** and **Tullus Hostilius** seventy-three years. And Numa was the first to bring up and devise Roman beliefs and worship, Pope Bishop monks priests and nuns, built churches, celebrated holidays, the New Year, carnival, horse riding for the grain, bonfire, walking around the city and other such things so that he could move the Roman people from war to spirituality and fear of god; he says that he gave such a gift to a goddess and helper, called Egeria, who honored and called the women back in birth like now St Margrete; So (as Lactantius writes against the pagans to Emperor Constantine the first) the Romans didn’t deceive him, if he wrote a number of books against his imaginary worship, let them be buried with him.

[Numa Pompilius 714-673 BC; Tullus Hostilius 673-641 BC.]

What further these two kings did can be found in the German Titus Livius.

### 126. What notably happened in other countries.

At this time the king in Egypt was **Necepsus**, a great astronomer and doctor, who also left quite a few books of these arts under him. They were also powerful on the sea from the islands of Lesbos and Mytilene in 68 years. Many new towns were built all over the world. Then lived many notable people in art and power, namely the two kings in Asia in the country Lydia, **Candaules** and **Gyges**, of whom the ancients write much.

[Necepsus is Nekauba, who was Pharaoh in Lower Egypt only 678-672 BC. The Lesbians controlled the Sea 682-614 BC. Candaules of Lydia reigned c.705-688; Gyges 688-652 BC]

Candaules had a beautiful wife, he thought his joy isn’t complete, unless other people knew more that he had such a beautiful wife: he secretly hid his good companion Gyges in the room that he should see the naked woman when she undressed. That came Candauli to a great disadvantage, because his housewife and Gyges were the same thing, married together, strangled Candaules, also sat together in the kingdom. And this Gyges should have had a finger when someone infects it, tell everyone, but nobody wants to see it. Is another proverb among the Greeks of this finger as with us of the fog hats.

The Sybil Herophila from the island of Samos continued to live this time. And Glaucus on the island of Chios invented how to blow iron together. Likewise, the most famous pagan master and poet Melesigenes, whom one calls Homer, that is the blind one, then he went blind and thus died, is a fountain of all art, has the Greek script outside the whole of Greece and spoke in plain language brings you how to end all words correctly, write, talk, put together. God has worked three great miracles in him: first that he was blind and then such an artist; the other, that he is a founding child (we don't know who his father was, where his home was; his mother is a poor housewife, her name is Kritheis, she was down on the laundry by the river called Meles, that's why she called the boy Melesigenes, as he was made in the river Meles; Aristotle thinks that it was made into a spirit in the above-mentioned maiden); the third and greatest is that he, so much a beginning of all art, is so famous that nobody has ever been able to repeat it for him. The others, who first invented such a thing, are generally not the most skilful and best in the subject they have thought up; then the descendants improve it daily with the times, first bring it up to the peak, as in our times with the printing press, with the guns and in other things such things are more happening and nature is. Soon after him there was the poet Hesiod, of whom some say he was his father.

Also at this time Athens, the capital of Greece, abolished the royal power, as they had 400 years earlier abolished the royal name; their supreme prince and lord had to style themselves not as the king but as judges and scholars; now they name the free time, every year up and down all people. And in **Draco** it had made a country code and law book.

[The Athenians went from ten year archons, to one year archons in 683 BC. Draco wrote the severe constitution for Athens in 622 BC, somewhat after this timeframe.]

At that time there was also a big madman in Sicilia by the name of **Phalaris**, who had a particular desire to torture the people with strange, cruel torments, that's why Perillus (at the same time a famous artist, bell founder and master craftsman) thinks he wants to earn a lot from this Phalaris, made an ox from copper, with a hole with a little door on the side, because he wants to push a person in and close it again: if you stoke a fire under the ox, the person will roast and boil like an ox. But it hit untrue to their masters and Perillo was just the right one for the caster: he had to smoke up his work first, Phalaris shoved him in an ox and stokes the fire and roasted it.

[Phalaris is said to have been tyrant of Akragas and all Sicily 570-554 BC, a little too late for this time.]

### 127. Of the German King Mader the Second, it is Frankish Meder, for short Maer and Meer.

As all old historians, Greek Latin, write, including the old German songs, made by the old heroes of Germany, testify that long before the birth of Christ the old Germans had a number of people outside their landscape, at times three hundred thousand men and Women, wives and children were sent off to look for another dwelling and good to win, to become wealthy and rich. Accordingly, they commonly here in Europe covered the French and Greek countries, France, Hispania, and Asia, namely the countries that are now called Tartary and Turkey. As this people now overwhelms us in the city, doesn’t bother us with peace and quiet, so in former times did our forefathers, the kingdoms, as now the Tatern and Turks are called, together with other countries, have refrained from it, as it pleased him and was convenient, taken by surprise. According to the custom, this hero and king **Mader** also traveled far, foreign lands with wars, to gain honor and good, homeland, then town built into an eternal memory and after him called Madersland, the common one speaks Mailand for short, from which the Romans and Greeks make Mediolanum and Mediolanon, of all Ptolomaeus and Stephanus, the land descriptors, report. The first was in the kingdom of Bavaria on the Behamerwald against the Ips; the other Mailand on the Rhine in Holland, where now Utrecht is the bishopric; the third in France is now called Saintgonge or Saintes, and was long ago the main state in France; the fourth in Hispania, the fifth in Britain, the sixth in Italy, that still has the name [Milan]. He set his brother-in-law **Ambtgot** in France over Hispania and Britain, who held court at Burges; to his son **Balweis** he gave Lombardy, the other **Sigweis** the Bavarian kingdom, which at that time also included Bohemia in it. To the third son, **Brenner** he handed over Thuringia and Meissen, as previously called Engelland, made him a king of the Swabians, who at that time from the now named landed as far as the Polish and the river Vistula, protected Bavaria, in their care time and living in surrounding lands, bordering the Danube.

Right at the same time, **Nebucadnezzar**, who was first emperor of Babylon, and Necepsus, whom the Jews called **Nechao**, the most powerful and most famous Black Moor, arch-king in Egypt, fought for a long time for the whole world: they came together at last on the river Euphrates, evil to evil and like to like and (as Jeremiah the prophet writes) strong to strong; both had many people, both died, both lie dead in the wilderness.

[Nebuchadnezzar's reign over Babylonia was actually 605-562 BC, after and not coterminous with Mader in Germany. The Necho II with whom he fought on the Euphrates in 605 BC, was Pharaoh 610-595 BC, but neither king died in that engagement.]

In the meantime, while the abovementioned kings were quarreling with each other, the war people from all over their countries had called to them, our hero and king Mader set out with many people, Germans and Winds, moved down the Danube, got over the narrow arm (that the Kempher called Oxenford) of the sea, where the Danube fell, whereof I have written much above now and enough; overran the country now called Turkey and Tartary, even up to Syria and the Holy land, it was a great success. Some believe that he was ordered by the emperor of Babylon against the king of Egypt; when the emperor of Babylon (as I will describe hereafter) was on the first and taking from the king of Egypt the whole of Syria, also goes to Asia. And the above Mader went back to Germany with great goodwill, died in Holland, ruled 55 years.

At that time the Roman kings were #4 and 5, **Ancus Marcius** and **Tarquinius** the old, to whom Sibylla from Cumae under Rome brought quite a few books, as described above.

[Ancus Marcius 641-618 BC; Tarquinius Priscus 618-579 BC.]

Herodotus the earliest and best Greek historian in the first book makes report of this German hero Mader, calls him Madys after the way he speaks, his people Cimmerians and Scyths, is in our language the Kempher and Schützen, or in Saxon the Kemper and Schütten. Strabo, who describes the Greeks to the whole world, does the same.

[Mader is known to classical history as Madyus, son of Protothyes (Bartatua in Assyrian records), the king of Scythia. It would seem he somehow obtained rule over Franconia following Venno and Helter, around 665 BC, ruling 55 years until 610 BC.

Madyus succeeded his father in Scythia as well, and appears on the king list of Media from 656 to 616 BC.

With his in-law Ambgot set in Bourges over Gallia (as confirmed in the French account), as well as Hispania and Britannia, the realm of Madersland thus stretched from the Atlantic to the Caspian for a few years.

In 640 BC Madyus slew the Cimmerian chief Tugdamme (Lygdammis), and absorbed the Cimmerians who had been overruning Anatolia and parts of Mesopotamia.

The British accounts have Saisylt of Britannia succeeded by a certain Iago in ca. 630; this would have to be the same as Ambgot, indicating when he acquired authority there. At the same time, c. 630 BC the 'Umman-Manda' (Scythians, Cimmerians and Germans of Madersland) were overrunning the Assyrian Empire, sacking the pagan temple at Ascalon, even reaching the border of Egypt.

The French account less ambiguously makes Bellovese and Sigovese the sons of Ambigat, and says when Ambron became king of Sicambria (627 BC), these two brothers both expanded into Italy where they supposedly founded Como, Cremona, Vicenza, Pavia, Genoa, Mantua, Milan, and Venice.

Likwise this passage in Anderson seems to refer to this time: *For then we read of these petty German Kings, viz. BELLEVOSUS der Baldweiss, SIGOVESUS der Sygweiss, HELITONUS der Deid, and MEDO, under whom the Ligures, Insubres, Suevi, Senones, Sicambri, Cimbri, Chamani, and other Nations of Gaul and Germany, pass'd over the Alps, and spread themselves over the North of Italy: after whom followed King CICONIUS aer Zecco, with his Boji, (that had been expell'd from Bohemia by the Marcomanni, a Suevian Nation) and crossing the Po, They expell'd the old Hetrusci and Umbri, possessing all to Ancona. They built or enlarged the Cities Comus, Bergamus, Trent, Vincentia, Mutina, Parma, and Bononia, the Capital of the 112 Tribes of the Boji, call'd by them Bojobonia.*

In 616 BC the Medes under Cyaxares declared independence from Scythia; Mader himself died in 610 BC in Holland, possibly campaigning against the independent state of Sicambria.

The next king of Germany from 588 BC, Brenner II, would thus seem to be the youngest son of Ambgot. Brenner divided Germany with his nephew Konman, son of Sigweis, into the two states of Bavaria and Swabia. It would probably be Ambgot and Sigweis who had controlled Germania in the intervening years 610-588 BC.]

### 128. Of the kings of Jerusalem Josias and his son, how the kingdom also became exiled from the wrath of God.

[Josiah 640-609 BC and the remaining kings of Judah to the fall of Jerusalem to Babylon, 586 BC.]

...And Jerusalem was broken up in the last year of the regime of the above-mentioned German king, Mader, and the foundation of Solomon stood no longer than 430 years; The kingdom of Jerusalem, from David onward to number 474 years, from the first king Saul, 514 years...

[Brenner II and Konman were certainly ruling Germany by the time Jerusalem fell in 586 BC. Mader's rule had apparently ended somewhat before this, in 610 BC, so this calculation is incorrect.]

### 129. What happened in other lands, what there was for notable people.

As the histories of the pagans, also the holy prophet Jeremiah testified, the above-mentioned Nebucadnezzar, the Babylonian emperor and Hercules of all kingdoms in Syria, of Damascus, of Tyre, in Arabia, three in the promised land, three in Africa, the Egyptians and Libyans from Cyrene, also more won and dismissed in Asia, the kings were slain with their slaughter, the land was desolated and the people were led away, everything out of the wrath of God, as the Jewish prophecies at length, in many words, before it happened, threaten and describe people.

But in Europe much more well-known cities were being built at that time, under which Marsilia, capital of the kingdom of Arelat, is now called Delphinat and, before times, listened to the German kings and emperors, when they minted and at times held court.

And these notable poets were among the Greeks: Alcman, Archilochus, Alcaeus, Stesichorus, Sappho a woman, thought up and wrote pretty artificial poetical verses (that is how we speak, songs and rhymes), which are still taught today by the people Latins and Greeks are the names of being kept and in use.

At that time there was also a very great darkness of the sun, of which Thales, who was first and foremost a philosopher of the Greeks, said long before: it means the great change that happened before and after this time with many kingdoms in the wide world that have been erased.

[Eclipse of Thales: 585 BC]

Solon, the other wisdom and philosopher of the Greeks, has improved the land order and legal book of the capital in Greece, that of Athens, that Draco had made.

[Constitutional reforms of Solon: 594 BC]

Furthermore at this time there was Arion, an exquisite harp-player, of whom the ancients sing and say much, from the island of Lesbos from the town of Methymna, he moved everywhere at the princes' courts in Greece and Italy, gained much unspeakable good. Since he wanted to go home again on the sea, the shipmen said everything was good for him, wanted to murder him for that. So he asked them to just play a song on the harp. That was rewarded for him, and so standing back on the steering wheel, started playing on the side game and sang along. Many sea pigs came up and listened, and then he jumped out into the sea: from no time on what a sea pig will bring to the city. The artists who have described the majesty and miracles of God and nature write many adventurous things that are unbelievable in the wild, about the sea pigs, as the Greeks and Latins call dolphins. The ancient Greeks had such a miracle cast out of copper, a dolphin swimming in the sea with a harp on it.

[Long, rambling paragraph omitted about Oracle of Dodona in Epirus.]