# CHAPTER V.—_That changes in Sects and Tongues, and the happening of Floods and Pestilences, obliterate the Memory of the Past._

To those philosophers who will have it that the world has existed from
all eternity, it were, I think, a good answer, that if what they say be
true we ought to have record of a longer period than five thousand
years; did it not appear that the memory of past times is blotted out
by a variety of causes, some referable to men, and some to Heaven.

Among the causes which have a human origin are the changes in sects and
tongues; because when a new sect, that is to say a new religion, comes
up, its first endeavour, in order to give itself reputation, is to
efface the old; and should it so happen that the founders of the new
religion speak another tongue, this may readily be effected. This we
know from observing the methods which Christianity has followed in
dealing with the religion of the Gentiles, for we find that it has
abolished all the rites and ordinances of that worship, and obliterated
every trace of the ancient belief. True, it has not succeeded in
utterly blotting out our knowledge of things done by the famous men who
held that belief; and this because the propagators of the new faith,
retaining the Latin tongue, were constrained to use it in writing the
new law; for could they have written this in a new tongue, we may
infer, having regard to their other persecutions, that no record
whatever would have survived to us of past events. For any one who
reads of the methods followed by Saint Gregory and the other heads of
the Christian religion, will perceive with what animosity they pursued
all ancient memorials; burning the works of poets and historians;
breaking images; and destroying whatsoever else afforded any trace of
antiquity. So that if to this persecution a new language had been
joined, it must soon have been found that everything was forgotten.

We may believe, therefore, that what Christianity has sought to effect
against the sect of the Gentiles, was actually effected by that sect
against the religion which preceded theirs; and that, from the repeated
changes of belief which have taken place in the course of five or six
thousand years, the memory of what happened at a remote date has
perished, or, if any trace of it remain, has come to be regarded as a
fable to which no credit is due; like the Chronicle of Diodorus
Siculus, which, professing to give an account of the events of forty or
fifty thousand years, is held, and I believe justly, a lying tale.

As for the causes of oblivion which we may refer to Heaven, they are
those which make havoc of the human race, and reduce the population of
certain parts of the world to a very small number. This happens by
plague, famine, or flood, of which three the last is the most hurtful,
as well because it is the most universal, as because those saved are
generally rude and ignorant mountaineers, who possessing no knowledge
of antiquity themselves, can impart none to those who come after them.
Or if among the survivors there chance to be one possessed of such
knowledge, to give himself consequence and credit, he will conceal and
pervert it to suit his private ends, so that to his posterity there
will remain only so much as he may have been pleased to communicate,
and no more.

That these floods, plagues, and famines do in fact happen, I see no
reason to doubt, both because we find all histories full of them, and
recognize their effect in this oblivion of the past, and also because
it is reasonable that such things should happen. For as when much
superfluous matter has gathered in simple bodies, nature makes repeated
efforts to remove and purge it away, thereby promoting the health of
these bodies, so likewise as regards that composite body the human
race, when every province of the world so teems with inhabitants that
they can neither subsist where they are nor remove elsewhere, every
region being equally crowded and over-peopled, and when human craft and
wickedness have reached their highest pitch, it must needs come about
that the world will purge herself in one or another of these three
ways, to the end that men, becoming few and contrite, may amend their
lives and live with more convenience.

Etruria, then, as has been said above, was at one time powerful,
abounding in piety and valour, practising her own customs, and speaking
her own tongue; but all this was effaced by the power of Rome, so that,
as I have observed already, nothing is left of her but the memory of a
name.