Part 1

HISTORICAL DIFFICULTIES

AND

CONTESTED EVENTS.

L’histoire n’est le plus souvent, et surtout à distance, qu’une fable convenue, un _qui pro quo_ arrangé après coup, et accepté. (SAINTE-BEUVE, Nouveaux Lundis. Tome 6ᵐᵉ, p. 8.)

Les vérités se succèdent du pour au contre à mesure qu’on a plus de lumières. (PASCAL).

HISTORICAL DIFFICULTIES

AND

CONTESTED EVENTS.

BY OCTAVE DELEPIERRE, LL.D., F.S.A.

SECRETARY OF LEGATION TO THE KING OF THE BELGIANS.

LONDON: JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 1868.

[_The right of translation is reserved._]

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

PAGE

1. THE COLOSSUS OF RHODES (B. C. 306) 13

2. BELISARIUS (565) 23

3. THE ALEXANDRIAN LIBRARY (640) 31

4. POPE JOAN (855) 40

5. ABELARD AND ELOISA (1140) 49

6. WILLIAM TELL (1307) 67

7. PETRARCH AND LAURA (1320) 93

8. JEANNE D’ARC (1430) 105

9. FRANCIS I. AND COUNTESS OF CHATEAUBRIAND (1525) 116

10. CHARLES V. OF SPAIN (1557) 128

11. THE INVENTOR OF THE STEAM-ENGINE (1625) 139

12. GALILEO GALILEI (1620) 148

APPENDIX TO THE NOTICE ON WILLIAM TELL 161

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL INDEX 167

INTRODUCTION.

The age in which we live seems remarkable for its appreciation of men of renown, and for the homage rendered to them. Societies that are still in their youth are liable to be dazzled by the superficial wonders of historical tradition, and to allow their admiration to be easily taken captive; but an epoch ripened by experience, and by a long habit of literary criticism, should rather reserve its enthusiasm for ascertained facts, and for such deeds of renown as are beyond the pale of doubt and discussion. Thus we find in the present day a marked predilection, not only as a matter of general utility but also from a sense of justice, for a keen research into every doubtful point of history. Nations as well as individuals need the maturity of time to appreciate at their real value the actions and the traditions of past ages.

The art of writing history has two very distinct branches, the combination of which is essential to the production of a complete historian. A research into, and a criticism of, events with no other aim than to elicit truth, is one branch of the historical art; the other is the resolution to interpret, to describe, to give to each event its full signification and colouring; to put that life into it in fact which belongs to every human spectacle. It is only the first part of the task that we propose to undertake in these essays.

Seneca has said that we must not give too ready credence to hearsay, for some disguise the truth in order to deceive, and some because they are themselves the victims of deception. Other Greek and Latin writers have also warned us against a too ready faith in popular traditions. How many errors bequeathed to us by the historians of antiquity owe their enlarged growth, ere they reached us, to their passage through the middle ages.

De Quincy tells us that if a saying has a proverbial fame, the probability is that it was never said. The same opinion may be held of a great many so-called historical facts which are perfectly familiar even to the ignorant, and yet which never happened.

The French critic Lenglet du Fresnoy, in his work “_L’Histoire justifiée contre les Romans_,” has devoted about 100 pages to historical doubts; but he only touches the surface of the subject. Many years before Niebuhr, the Abbé Lancellotti published at Venice in 1637, under the title of “_Farfalloni degli antichi Storici_,” a curious volume, now rare, in which he exposes the many absurd stories taught in schools as history. The book contains more than a hundred of these fictions, and was translated into French by T. Oliva 1770.

Du Pan, in his _Recherches sur les Américains_, says that Montezuma sacrificed annually twenty thousand children to the idols in the temples of Mexico. In such assertions the improbability and exaggeration are so self-evident that it is needless to dwell upon them.

“Books,” says the Prince de Ligne, “tell us that the Duke of Alba put to death by the hands of the executioner in the Low Countries eighteen thousand gentlemen, while the fact is that scarcely two thousand could have been altogether collected there.

Who is there who now believes in the story of Dionysius the Tyrant becoming a schoolmaster at Corinth?[1]

Even in the time of Titus Livius there was so much doubt as to the truth of the legend of the _Horatii_ and the _Curiatii_, that he writes, one cannot tell to which of the two contending people the Horatii or the Curiatii[2] belonged. Yet this cautious historian relates in another place how Hannibal fed his soldiers on human flesh to give them energy and courage. Mr. Rey[3] has carefully studied the origin of the heroic fable of the death of Regulus, and has exposed its fallacy.

In comparatively modern times also, how many delusions do we find worthy of ancient history. The story of the Sicilian Vespers,[4] for instance, and the episode concerning Doctor Procida, who far from being a principal in the massacre, was not even present at it. We may also mention some of the anecdotes of Christopher Columbus:[5] the fable of the egg that he is said to have broken, in order to make it stand upright: the account of his anxiety, amounting to agony, among his mutinous crew, to whom he had faithfully promised a sight of land--all of which has been disproved by M. de Humboldt in his _Examen critique de l’Histoire de la Géographie_.

The history of England also furnishes many examples of similar credulity. Without entering upon the murder of King Edward’s children, which story has been discussed by Walpole, may we not cite the death of the Duke of Clarence, who for four centuries was believed to have been drowned in a butt of Malmsey?--an error exposed by John Bayley in “_The historic Antiquities of the Tower of London_.”

We may cite again the often-mooted question of the exhumation of the body of Cromwell, and of the outrages committed on his remains by order of Charles II:[6] the interesting but imaginative picture of Milton dictating Paradise Lost to his daughters, while, if we may believe Doctor Johnson, he never even allowed them to learn to write. Modern historians, however, are often equally incorrect. Among them we may quote the poet laureate Southey, who was guilty of a remarkable perversion of facts regarding one of the wisest men of the 19th century.

In an article in the _Quarterly Review_ (Vol. XXXIX. p. 477. April 1829) entitled, _State and Prospects of the Country_, we are told that Conrad, a monk of Heresbach, had pronounced in presence of an assembly, an anathema against Greek, saying that: “a new language had been discovered called Greek, against which it was necessary to guard, as this language engendered every species of heresy; just as all they who learned Hebrew, infallibly became Jews.”

This curious anecdote was repeated in _La Revue Britannique_, No. 46. p. 254, whence it found its way into a note of the _Poème de la Typographie_ of M. Pelletier (1 vol. 8ᵛᵒ. Genève, 1832) and the mistake was republished in many other books. Now the real fact is, that Conrad of Heresbach had never been a monk, but was a confidential counsellor of the Duke of Cleves, and that, far from prohibiting the study of the ancient languages, he was one of the savans of the 16th century who shewed the greatest zeal in encouraging a taste for their culture. It is he himself who, in order to expose the ignorance of the clergy of that period, relates, that he heard a monk from the pulpit pronounce the anathema on the Greek language which we have mentioned above. So easy is it, by distorting facts, to make or mar a reputation!

When we reflect on the innumerable errors daily propagated by books, we have cause to be alarmed at the strange confusion in which all literature may find itself a few centuries hence. It is very possible that historical events will be even more difficult of proof than before the invention of printing, which may consequently have served to augment disorder and perplexity rather than to have assisted in the promotion of truth and accuracy. In a recent number of the _Constitutionnel_, in a _feuilleton_ supposed to be from the pen of M. de Lamartine, it is stated that: “The tombs of great poets inspire great passions. It was at Tasso’s tomb,” he says, “that Petrarch, during his first absence, nourished his regretful remembrance of _Laura_!” Now Petrarch died in 1374, and it was more than two hundred years afterwards (in 1581) that Tasso published his first edition of the _Gerusalemme Liberata_!

We should not know where to stop if we attempted to bring forward examples of all the improbable and the untrue in history. We shall confine ourselves therefore to the examination of a few of the most universally accredited facts, the truth of which, to say the least, is extremely doubtful.

We at one time entertained the project of reconstructing the critical work of the Abbé Lancelotti already mentioned, by enlarging its scope. This rare and scarcely known book (_Farfalloni degli antichi Storici_) would have served us as a basis, upon which we should have proceeded to review history in general. It would have been an instructive and a pleasant task to demolish falsehood in order to arrive at truth; to set aside, in good faith, worn out platitudes, deeds of heroism resting on no proof whatsoever, and crimes wanting the confirmation of authenticity; but when we set ourselves to estimate its extent, we shrank from so laborious an undertaking.

In working out the subject, we should have related, with Henry Schnitzler (_De la colonisation de l’ancienne Grèce_), and with Schœll (_la littérature grecque_), that _Cecrops_ the Egyptian had imposed upon us when he pretended to come out of Egypt, as did _Cadmus_ when he professed to arrive from Phœnicia.

The Abbé Barthélemy (_Voyage du jeune Anarcharsis_) would have enlightened us on the memorable battle of _Thermopylæ_, where _Leonidas_, instead of resisting the Persians with three hundred men, commanded, according to _Diodorus_, at least seven thousand--or even twelve thousand, if we may believe _Pausanias_. We should have exposed the fabulous part of the history of _Sappho_, by following Mr. C. F. Neue (_Sapphonis Mytilinææ fragmenta_) and M. J. Mongin, in his remarkable article on this poetess in _l’Encyclopédie nouvelle_; and the learned Spon (_Miscellanies_) would have explained to us the pretended tub of Diogenes. Other innumerable errors would have been brought before the reader, for we have only cited a very small portion of the programme.

Alfred Maury (_Revue de Philosophie_) would have convinced us that Cæsar never said, and never would have said, to the pilot “Why do you fear? You have Cæsar and his fortunes on board,” &c.

On all these subjects an analytical work would be of great use, and for the benefit of those who might be induced to undertake such a task, we proceed to point out the principal chapters in the work of Lancelotti.

1) Zaleucus submitted to have one of his eyes put out, in order to save his son from the loss of both his eyes.

2) The people living near the cataracts of the Nile are all deaf.

3) The army of Xerxes drained the rivers on its passage, to satisfy its thirst.

4) In Egypt the women occupy themselves in commerce while the men remain at home to manufacture cloth.

5) The account given by Titus Livius of the resolution of the Roman senators at the taking of Rome by the Gauls.

6) Agriculturists, or tillers of the ground, are declared consuls and dictators by the Romans.

7) The Lake of Thrasymene takes fire.

8) The philosopher Anaxarchus bit off his tongue and spat it in the face of the tyrant.

9) In a combat between Aëtius and Attila, the blood of the soldiers killed and wounded flowed in such torrents that the dead bodies were swept away by it.

10) Ten Roman virgins, at the head of whom was _Clelia_, after having been sent as hostages to the king _Porsenna_, returned to Rome by swimming across the Tiber.

11) Æschylus killed by a tortoise dropped upon his head by an eagle.

12) In the school of Pythagoras the disciples kept silence during the space of five years.

13) A grapestone caused the death of _Anacreon_; and the senator _Fabius_ was choked by a hair in his milk.

14) _Mutius-Scævola_ burned his hand to shew his fortitude.

15) Among the Spartans all men lived in common and ate in public on the same spot.

16) That the young girls in Sparta occupied themselves in public duties, perfectly naked.

17) _Lycurgus_ permitted the young men in his republic to practise the art of stealing.

18) _Lycurgus_ forbade the use of gold and silver money in his republic. He allowed iron coins to be made, of a very large size.

19) _Lycurgus_ was the originator of the concise, sententious language generally termed _laconic_.

20) _Romulus_ and _Remus_ suckled by a she-wolf, and _Cyrus_ by a bitch.

21) The exploits of _Horatius-Cocles_.

22) The dumb son of _Crœsus_, perceiving a soldier about to kill his father, suddenly recovered his speech.

23) The history of _Lucretia_, such as historians have related it.

24) _Democritus_ and _Heraclitus_.

25) The poverty of the grandees of Rome.

26) _Curtius_ leaping on horseback into the gulf.

27) Draco, the Athenian legislator punished idleness with death.

THE COLOSSUS OF RHODES.

B. C. 306.

In the elementary works for the instruction of young people, we find frequent mention of the Colossus of Rhodes.

The statue is always represented with gigantic limbs, each leg resting on the enormous rocks which face the entrance to the principal port of the Island of Rhodes; and ships in full sail passed easily, it is said, between its legs; for, according to Pliny the ancient, its height was seventy cubits.

This Colossus was reckoned among the seven wonders of the world, the six others being, as is well known, the hanging gardens of Babylon, devised by Nitocris wife of Nebuchadnezzar; the pyramids of Egypt; the statue of Jupiter Olympus; the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus; the temple of Diana at Ephesus; and the Pharos of Alexandria, completely destroyed by an earthquake in 1303.

Nowhere has any authority been found for the assertion that the Colossus of Rhodes spanned the entrance to the harbour of the island and admitted the passage of vessels in full sail between its wide-stretched limbs. No old drawing even of that epoch exists, when the statue was yet supposed to be standing; several modern engravings may be seen, but they are mere works of the imagination, executed to gratify the curiosity of amateur antiquarians, or to feed the naive credulity of the ignorant. Nevertheless, the historian Rollin, several French dictionaries, and even some encyclopedias, have adopted the fiction of their predecessors.

A century ago, the Comte de Caylus, a distinguished French archeologist, found fault with his countrymen for admitting this fiction into the school books[7] for young people, but he sought in vain to trace its origin.

Vigenère, in his _Tableaux de Philostrate_, is supposed to have been the first who ventured to make an imaginary drawing of the Colossus. He was followed by Bergier and Chevreau,[8] the latter adding a lamp to the hand of the statue. A fictitious Greek manuscript, quoted by the mythologist Du Choul,[9] further adorns the Colossus by giving him a sword and lance and by hanging a mirror round his neck.

The Count Choiseul-Gouffier, in his _Picturesque journey through Greece_, published about the year 1780, declares the Colossus with the outstretched legs to be fabulous.

He says: “This fable has for years enjoyed the privilege so readily accorded to error. It is commonly received, and discarded only by the few who have made ancient history their study. Most persons have accepted without investigation an assertion which is unsupported by any authority from ancient authors.”

Nevertheless the Belgian Colonel Rottiers, and the English geologist Hamilton,[10] do not yield to this opinion, but endeavour still to place the site of the statue at the entrance to one of the smaller harbours of the island, scarcely forty feet wide. Rottiers goes even further, and gives a superb engraving of the Colossus, under the form of an Apollo, the bow and quiver on his shoulders, his forehead encircled by rays of light, and a beacon flame above his head.

Polybius is the first among the ancient writers who mentions the Colossus of Rhodes, in enumerating the donations received by the inhabitants of the island after the fearful earthquake they experienced about 223 years before Christ. “The Rhodians,” says he, “have benefited by the catastrophe which befell them, owing to which, not only the huge Colossus, but innumerable houses and a portion of the surrounding walls were demolished.” Then follows a list of the rich gifts they received from all parts. Among the benefactors of the town of Rhodes, Polybius mentions the three kings, Ptolemy III. of Egypt, Antigonos Doson of Macedonia, and Seleucus of Syria, father of Antiochus.

The elder Pliny records that the Colossus, after having stood for fifty-six years, was overthrown by an earthquake, and that it took Charès of Lindos, to whom the Rhodians had entrusted its re-construction, twelve years to complete his task.

It is probable that the statue of Minerva, from 50 to 60 feet in height, which was designed and partly executed by Phidias for the Acropolis at Athens, served as a model for Charès, not only for the material, but for the conception of the Colossus and for the site on which it stood.

Minerva was the patroness of Athens as the sun-god Helios was the patron of the island of Rhodes.

About 150 years before Christ a certain Philo-Byzantius wrote a short treatise on the seven wonders of the ancient world.[11] In it he gives an explanation of the construction of the Colossus, but nowhere speaks of the extended legs under which vessels in full sail entered the port, nor of the beacon light. On the contrary, he mentions one sole pedestal, which was of white marble. Moreover, the statue was said to be 105 feet in height, and the great harbour entrance, according to modern research, was 350 feet wide; it could not therefore possibly reach across this space.

Lastly, if the statue had stood at the entrance of the great harbour, the earthquake must have overthrown it into the sea, whereas Strabo and Pliny tell us that its fragments remained for a considerable time embedded in the earth, and attracted much attention by their wonderful size and dimensions.

The following is the real truth concerning the Colossus. Towards the year 305 before Christ, Demetrius Poliorcetes laid siege to Rhodes, and the inhabitants defended themselves with so much bravery, that after a whole year of struggle and endurance, they forced the enemy to retire from the island.

The Rhodians, inspired by a sentiment of piety, and excited by fervent gratitude for so signal a proof of the divine favour, commanded Charès to erect a statue to the honour of their deity. An inscription explained that the expenses of its construction were defrayed out of the sale of the materials of war left by Demetrius on his retreat from the island of Rhodes.

This statue was erected on an open space of ground near the great harbour, and near the spot where the pacha’s seraglio now stands; and its fragments, for many years after its destruction, were seen and admired by travellers.

This explanation is still further supported by the fact, that a chapel built on this ground in the time of the Templars is named _Fanum Sancti Ioannis Colossensis_.

We have seen that Strabo, who wrote and travelled during the reigns of the first two Roman emperors, was, after Polybius, the earliest author who mentions the fall of the Colossus of Rhodes, and that very concisely. Pliny enters into somewhat fuller details, and speaks of the dimensions of the mutilated limbs. “Even while prostrate,” says he, “this statue excited the greatest admiration; few men could span one of its thumbs with their arms, and each of its fingers was as large as an ordinary full-sized statue. Its broken limbs appeared to strangers like caverns, in the interior of which were seen enormous blocks of stone.”

From this time we find no further mention whatever of these fragments, but it is remarkable that towards the end of the second century after Christ some writers speak of a colossal statue at Rhodes as still existing. It is possible that one was again constructed, but of smaller dimensions. Indeed, _Leo Allazzi_ tells us that the Colossus of Rhodes was reconstructed under the Emperor Vespasian.

Alios Aristides, who flourished between the years 149 and 180 of the Christian era, wrote a panegyric on the island of Rhodes, on the occasion of another earthquake which happened there under the reign of Antoninus Pius. He alludes to demolished monuments, but he consoles the inhabitants by telling them, that at any rate all vestiges of their former grandeur have not disappeared, and that they will not be obliged, as in the former disaster [that of B. C. 407], to rebuild the greater part of their town. He reminds them that, on the contrary, the two basins of the port still remain, as well as the theatre, the gymnasium, and _the great bronze statue_.

This passage is certainly not very clear, and it remains to be proved if the author here speaks of the Colossus which had been restored and had escaped the earthquake, or of some other bronze statue.

Pausanias, who wrote shortly after Aristides, speaks also in two places of the earthquake in the time of Antoninus, without making any mention of the Colossus; but in a description of Athens, he alludes in terms of great admiration to a temple of Jupiter built by Adrian, and he adds: “The emperor consecrated to it a magnificent statue of the god, which surpassed all other statues except the Colossus of Rhodes and of Rome.”

The author could hardly have made this comparison if there had only existed in his time fragments of the Colossus of Rhodes.

Lastly, the satirist Lucian makes frequent mention of the Colossus, and he even introduces it in a dialogue of the assembled gods.

It is probable, therefore, judging from these passages from Aristides, Pausanias, and Lucian, that, at the epoch in which they lived, the Colossus of Rhodes had been restored or reconstructed; for if during four centuries past the fragments had been lying in the dust, these writers would not have thus expressed themselves.

A long time after the fall of the Roman empire, the island of Rhodes was conquered by the general-in-chief of the caliph Othman, in the 7th century of the Christian era; and then mention is once more made of a Colossus in metal. “This last memorial of a glorious past was not respected by the conqueror,” says the Byzantine history; “the general took down the Colossus, which stood erect on the island, transported the metal into Syria, and sold it to a Jew, who loaded 980 camels with the materials of his purchase.”