Chapter 20.—Of the Succession of
the Line of Kings Among the Israelites After the Times of the
Judges.
While these kings reigned in the
places mentioned, the period of the judges being ended, the kingdom
of Israel next began with king Saul, when Samuel the prophet
lived. At that date those Latin kings began who were surnamed
Silvii, having that surname, in addition to their proper name, from
their predecessor, that son of Æneas who was called Silvius; just
as, long afterward, the successors of Cæsar Augustus were surnamed
Cæsars. Saul being rejected, so that none of his issue should
reign, on his death David succeeded him in the kingdom, after he
had reigned forty years. Then the Athenians ceased to have kings
after the death of Codrus, and began to have a magistracy to rule
the republic. After David, who also reigned forty years, his son
Solomon was king of Israel, who built that most noble temple of God
at Jerusalem. In his time Alba was built among the Latins, from
which thereafter the kings began to be styled kings not of the
Latins, but of the Albans, although in the same Latium. Solomon
was succeeded by his son Rehoboam, under whom that people was
divided into two kingdoms, and its separate parts began to have
separate kings.