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Rev 17:9. Ὄρη-βασιλεῖς, mountains-kings) The seven mountains of Rome were formerly defended and adorned with seven citadels. Pacatus in Paneg.: “These things thou didst survey, O Rome, from thy hills; and, elevated with seven CITADELS, thou wast lifted up to a greater height through joy:” ch. 46. “These hills,” says G. Fabricius, in ch. 3 of his Rome, “Virgil in his Georgics, and Ausonius in his Epithalamium, on account of the royal dwellings which were at one time situated on them, called the seven Citadels.” Those seven mountains were the Palatine, the Capitoline, the Cælian, the Esquiline, the Viminal, the Quirinal, and the Aventine. But the prophecy regards the seven mountains according to the time of the beast, in which the Palatine is deserted, and the Vatican flourishes. The others are the same as they were of old. Nor indeed have the seven heads of the beast a double signification,-the one of the mountains separately, in a confused manner; the other of the kings separately, in a distinct manner: but they have one signification only, in such a way, however, that the thing signified is something compound, consisting of a mountain and a king. Some seek for the seven mountains at Jerusalem; but, as Wolf forcibly teaches, they do not make out their point. See Isa 10:32. But grant that there were formerly seven mountains there; there were never seven kings there also, much less were seven mountains joined with seven kings individually: the city itself was destroyed before John wrote; Jerusalem is never called Babylon, even when it is most blamed; and the order of the prophecy thrusts Babylon into much later times. All these things are in agreement with the city Rome. And the first head of the beast is the Cælian Mount, and on it the Lateran, with Gregory VII. and his successors: the second, the Vatican Mount, with the temple of St Peter, built by Boniface VIII.: the third, the Quirinal Mount, with the temple of St Mark, and with the Quirinal Palace, built by Paul II.: the fourth, the Esquiline Mount, with the temple of St Maria Maggiore, built by Paul V. Thus far the dwelling and the action of the Pontiffs perambulate these mountains; and that in such a manner, that to the first head there is added a second, but not so that the first immediately falls to decay; to these two a third; to the three a fourth; and afterwards to the four a fifth, until the five kings, and all things that have been established by them on the five mountains, fall. Turn over the Bullarium in order: you will observe four times from Gregory VII., in the first of which almost all the Bulls, given in the city, are dated from the Lateran; in the second, at St Peter’s; in the third, at St Mark’s and from the Quirinal; in the fourth, at St Maria Maggiore. No fifth, and undoubtedly no sixth or seventh mount, is seen to have been thus honoured by the Popes: and this very fact tends to prove the truth of this interpretation. The seven mountains will be distinctly seen, when the seventh is honoured.-ὅπου-ἐπʼ αὐτῶν) for ἐφʼ ὧν. Hebr. אשר עליהם.