Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume II/City of God/Book XVIII/Chapter 20

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.&#160; 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 &#198;neas who was called Silvius; just as, long afterward, the successors of C&#230;sar Augustus were surnamed C&#230;sars.&#160; 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.&#160; Then the Athenians ceased to have kings after the death of Codrus, and began to have a magistracy to rule the republic.&#160; After David, who also reigned forty years, his son Solomon was king of Israel, who built that most noble temple of God at Jerusalem.&#160; 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.&#160; 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.