Part 50

219 Hannibal takes Saguntum; originates the second Punic war, which lasts seventeen years; 218 Crosses the Alps; defeats the Romans, first on the river Ticinus, then on the Trebia; 217 Battle of Thrasimene--his third victory; 216 Battle of Cannæ--his fourth victory; 50,000 Romans slain; Capua declares in his favour.

212 Marcellus takes Syracuse, after a three years’ siege; death of Archimedes, the noted geometrician.

206 Asdrubal, the brother of Hannibal, defeated and slain by the Romans; Age of Syphax (Latin poet); Ennius (Latin poet); Masinissa, King of Numidia.

202 Sicily becomes a Roman province.

201 Battle of Zama; Hannibal defeated by Scipio Africanus; End of the second Punic war.

200 Romans conquer Illyricum; 197, defeat the Macedonians at Cynoscephalæ; 196 Hannibal banished from Carthage.

190 Antiochus defeated by the Consul Acilius at Thermopylæ; Age of Cato the elder.

187 Scipio Asiaticus defeats Antiochus I at Magnesia and Sipylum.

186 Scipio Africanus banished to Liturnum.

183 Death of Hannibal in Bithynia, by poison, aged sixty-five.

168 Insurrection of the Maccabees against Antiochus, King of Syria.

168 Paulus Æmilius defeats Perseus at Pydna; Macedonia becomes a Roman province; Age of Hipparchus (philosopher); Polybius (historian), &c.

167 Epirus conquered by the Romans; 165 Age of Judas Maccabæus.

149 Third Punic war begins; 146 Scipio destroys Carthage, Mummius destroys Corinth; Agatharchides (Greek geographer).

137 Demetrius Nicator defeated at Damascus by Alexander Zebina.

133 Numantia destroyed by the inhabitants; Spain becomes a Roman province; The kingdom of Pergamus bequeathed to the Romans by Attalus, its last king.

131 Tiberius Gracchus treacherously slain at Potentia.

109 Jugurthine war begins; lasts five years; 106 Jugurtha betrayed by Bocchus to the Romans; Armenia Major becomes a Roman province.

105 Aristobulus crowned king of the Jews; 106 Pompey born at Rome.

102 Marius defeats the Cimbri and Teutones at Aquæ Sextæ; 101 defeats the Cimbri on the Raudian Plains.

100 Birth of Julius Cæsar, July 12; this month was named after him.

92 Bocchus sends Sylla a present of 100 lions from Africa.

89 The Mithridatic war begins; lasts twenty-six years; 86 Sylla defeats the consuls Carbo and Cinna; Metellus (consul); Sertorius (Roman General); 78 death of Sylla; 76 Calaguris besieged by Pompey; the inhabitants, reduced to extremity, feed on their wives and children.

75 Bithynia bequeathed to the Romans by Nicomedes.

73 Sertorius assassinated by Perpenna and others at Osca.

73 Servile war begins; Roman slaves revolt against their masters, under Spartacus; defeated, two years afterwards, by Pompey and Crassus.

72 Lucullus defeats Mithridates the Great at Cabira; 69 defeats Tigranes; captures Tigranocerta; 68 defeats Mithridates at Zela; 66 again at Nicopolis.

67 Pompey takes Coracesium; 65 dethrones Antiochus Asiaticus.

64 Pontus annexed to Rome; Death of Mithridates the Great.

63 Palestine conquered by Pompey; Cataline defeated and killed at Pistoria.

60 First triumvirate of Cæsar, Pompey and Crassus; Age of Catullus (poet); Cicero (orator); Sallust (historian); Roscius (actor), &c.

57 Gaul becomes a Roman province; 55 Cæsar invades Britain.

53 Crassus plunders the Temple of Venus at Hierapolis; his defeat and death, by the Parthians, near Carrhæ.

51 Siege and capture of Pindenissus by Cicero.

50 Civil war between Cæsar and Pompey; 49 Cæsar crosses the Rubicon; takes Ariminum; 48 defeats Pompey at Pharsalia, July 30th, death of Pompey.

47 Cæsar defeats Pharnaces at Zela; writes from thence his famous letter of three words, “Veni, vidi, vici;” I came, I saw, I conquered; 46 Victorious at Thapsus; Death of Cato; 45 Battle of Munda; the last in which Cæsar commanded.

44 Cæsar killed in the Senate-house, March 15th, by Brutus, Cassius, &c.

43 Antony defeats the Consul Pansa, and is defeated the same day by Hirtius; Cicero murdered by order of Antony; Age of Varro (historian and philosopher); Diodorus Siculus and Pompeius (historians).

42 Antony and Octavius defeat Brutus and Cassius at Philippi.

37 Herod, an Idumean, placed on the Jewish throne.

31 Naval battle at Actium; Octavius defeats Antony; _Ends the Commonwealth of Rome_.

30 Death of Antony and Cleopatra; Egypt becomes a Roman province.

28 _Roman Empire begins_.

27 Title of Augustus given to Octavius; Augustin age; Virgil, Livy, Ovid, Propertius (poets); Horace (historian); Dionysius Halicarnassus (antiquarian).

20 Roman standards taken from Crassus restored to Augustus, by Phraates, king of Parthia; death of Virgil.

19 Noricum and Pannonia conquered by the Romans; Candace, queen of Meroe, in Ethiopia, blind of an eye, invades Egypt, but is repelled.

15 Rhætia and Vindelicia conquered by Drusus.

6 Archelaus, surnamed Herod, banished to Vienna, in Gaul.

4 JESUS CHRIST, our SAVIOUR, born four years before the vulgar era, December 25th.

2 Massacre of the Innocents at Bethlehem, by order of Herod; his death; Archelaus succeeds him.

_A.D. First year of the Christian Era, 4004 years after the Creation._

2 Silk first introduced into Rome.

6 Procurators or governors appointed over Judea.

8 Christ, at twelve years of age, is three days in the temple.

9 Arminius or Herman, a German chief, destroys the army of Varus; this defeat causes a great sensation at Rome; Ovid banished to Tomi.

14 Augustus dies at Nola, after a reign of forty-five years; succeeded by Tiberius; Age of Germanicus (Roman general).

20 Jews expelled from Italy by Tiberius; 28 Age of Strabo (geographer).

29 John the Baptist commences preaching: 30 Baptizes our Saviour.

31 Our Saviour delivers the Sermon on the Mount.

32 Feeds the 5000: his transfiguration; John the Baptist beheaded.

33 Our Saviour’s death; First Christian Church at Jerusalem.

37 Conversion of St. Paul; Death of Tiberius; succeeded by Caligula; 40 Caligula assassinated.

41 Seneca banished to Corsica; is recalled eight years afterwards; Age of Pomponius Mela (geographer).

43 Expedition of Claudius into Britain; 51 Caractacus, British king, taken as a prisoner to Rome.

52 Paul visits Athens; 54 preaches the Gospel at Ephesus; Age of Persius (satirist); Age of Lucan the poet.

60 St. Paul arrested; 62 voyage to Rome; 63 arrives in that city.

61 Boadicea defeated by Suetonius Paulinus at Camulodunum.

68 Nero dies: Josephus (historian); Pliny (naturalist); Petronius (poet).

69 Galba slain; Suicide of Otho; Vitellius slain.

70 Jerusalem taken and destroyed by Titus, September 8th; Agricola’s fleet sails around Britain; Agricola promotes useful arts among the Britons.

76 Agricola defeats Galgacus at the foot of the Grampian Hills.

79 Herculaneum, Pompeii, and other cities, overwhelmed by an eruption of Mount Vesuvius; Death of the elder Pliny.

81 Titus dies, aged 40; Age of Martial (poet); Quintilian (rhetorician).

96 Domitian slain; Age of Tacitus (historian); Juvenal (satirist).

103 Dacia conquered by Trajan; 106 Age of Pliny the younger; Plutarch.

117 Death of Trajan, at Selinus, in Cilicia; succeeded by Adrian.

120 Wall built by Adrian across Britain.

139 Death of Adrian, aged 71; Antoninus (emperor); Ptolemy (geographer).

140 Wall built by Antoninus across Britain.

169 Death of Polycarp the Martyr; Age of Galen (physician).

180 Marcus Aurelius (emperor) dies at Sirmium.

192 The Emperor Commodus slain; Pertinax succeeds him.

194 Severus defeats Niger at Issus; becomes emperor.

210 Wall built across Britain by Severus; 218 Heliogabalus emperor.

226 Artaxerxes founds second Persian empire; Dynasty of the Sassanides begins.

238 Maximinus killed by his own soldiers before the walls of Aquileia. This emperor was a monster of cruelty, and of gigantic size and strength, being eight feet high.

259 Sapor I captures the emperor Valerian, and flays him alive; Odenatus king of Palmyra; Gallienus succeeds Valerian.

267 Odenatus dies; Zenobia, his wife, assumes the title of Queen of the East.

270 Death of Claudius; Aurelian succeeds; regards Zenobia as a usurper; 272 defeats her at Antioch and Emesa; 273 captures Palmyra; takes Zenobia prisoner; puts Longinus, her secretary to death.

275 Emperor Tacitus; 282 Emperor Probus killed, near Sirmium.

286 Age of the emperors Diocletian and Maximianus.

305 Both resign their authority to enjoy private life; the first retires to Salona in Illyricum, and the other to Lucania.

306 Constantine the Great proclaimed emperor; 313 establishes Christianity as the religion of the empire; 315 defeats Licinius at Cibalis; 324 again at Adrianopolis; 328 removes the government from Rome to Byzantium.

338 Death of Constantine; succeeded by his sons Constantinus, Constantius and Constans.

348 Sapor defeats Constantius at Singara; 350 Constantius sole emperor; 351 defeats Magnentius at Mursa; 353, again at Mons Seleucus.

360 Julian the Apostate (emperor); 363 dies; next year Jovian dies.

367 Age of Ausonius (poet); 375 Emporor Gratian.

378 Valens defeated by the Goths at Adrianopolis. This was the most disastrous defeat experienced by the Romans since the battle of Cannæ.

380 Age of St. Augustine, one of the fathers of the Church.

395 Theodosius, emperor, divides the Roman empire between his sons Arcadius and Honorius, into Eastern and Western.

403 Stilicho defeated by the Goths at Pollentia.

407 The Alans, Vandals and Sueves invade Gaul and Spain.

408 Alaric takes Rome first time; 409, second time; 410, third time; the city given up to plunder for six days; Death of Alaric; Kingdom of Burgundy founded.

441 Age of St. Patrick; 448 Romans leave Britain; next year Angles and Saxons land under Hengist and Horsa.

451 Attila defeated at Durocatalaunum; 452 destroys Aquileia; 453 Dies.

455 Rome captured by Genseric, king of the Vandals; Heptarchy established in Britain.

474 Romulus Augustulus, last emperor of the west.

476 _End of the Roman Empire_.

489 Odoacer, chief of the Heruli, becomes king of Italy; Ostrogoths invade Italy and defeat Odoacer.

496 Clovis the Great, king of France; Feudal system begins.

529 Age of Justinian; Belisarius (Roman general).

622 Mahomet, aged 53, flies from Mecca to Medina, which forms the first year of the Hegira or Mahometan Era.

632 Death of Mahomet; Abubeker, his successor or first Caliph.

636 Saracens conquer Egypt; destroy the Alexandrian Library.

712 The Moors invade Spain; 713 conquer the Visigoths.

742 Charlemagne, son of Pepin the Short, born; 768 crowned king of the Franks; 774 crowned king of Italy; 800 crowned emperor of the West, by Pope Leo III; 814 Charlemagne dies. Charlemagne was the most powerful Christian monarch of the middle ages; he was a renowned warrior, he also encouraged learning and religion, and collected around him the most noted scholars of his time.

827 The Heptarchy united under Egbert, king of England.

843 Kenneth Macalpine first king of Scotland.

849 Alfred, King of England, born; 872 ascends the throne; 901 dies. This monarch rescued his country from the power of the Danes; encouraged learning and religion; enacted wise laws, and laid the foundation of the naval power of Britain.

853 Tithes of all England granted to the church.

856 The English crown first disposed of by will.

862 Winchester burnt by the Danes.

867 The monasteries ravaged by the Danes.

886 Ships first built to secure the coasts. Learning restored at Oxford, by Alfred the Great.

890 Brick and stone first used in building. Time calculated by wax candles marked.

897 A plague happened which caused great desolation among the inhabitants.

900 Athelstan created knight, and the first who enjoyed this title in England.

937 A severe frost, which continued 120 days. The Bible translated into the Saxon. Colebrand, the Danish giant, killed by Guy, Earl of Warwick.

944 A storm blew down 1500 houses in London.

945 The first tuneable bells in England were this year hung in Croyland Abbey.

946 Stealing first punished with death.

955 Edred enjoyed the honor of being the first who was styled King of Great Britain.

960 Laws to prevent excessive drinking. Wolves’ heads made a tribute. Eight princes rowed Edgar over the river Dee.

979 Juries instituted.

982 A fire destroyed the King’s palace and a great part of London.

991 The land-tax first levied.

999 Danegelt first levied, to bribe the Danes to leave the kingdom.

1002 November 13, a general massacre of the Danes began at Welwin in Hertfordshire.

1012 The priests first inhibited from marrying.

1014 Selling English children and kindred to Ireland, prohibited.

1017 Canute caused the assassins of Edmund, and the traitor Edric who by a plot of regicide had advanced him to the throne, to be hanged.

1040 Macbeth murders Duncan king of Scotland.

1058 Edward the Confessor began to cure the King’s evil. Godiva relieved Coventry from some heavy taxes by riding naked through the town.

1060 The cross of Waltham erected.

1065 The Saxon laws written in Latin.

1066 William Fitzosborne created earl of Hereford, being the first Earl created in this kingdom.

1068 The tax of Danegelt was re-established; and the curfew-bell ordered to be rung at eight every evening, when the people were obliged, on pain of death, to extinguish their fire and candle.

1072 Surnames first used in England.

1075 William was reconciled with his son Robert, who had rebelled against him. Waltheof, earl of Northumberland, was beheaded for rebellion, and was the first English nobleman thus executed.

1076 William refused to pay homage to the see of Rome for the possession of England, and forbade his bishops to attend the council that Gregory had summoned. He however sent to Rome the tribute of Peter-pence. A great earthquake in England, and a frost from November to the end of April.

1078 William laid the foundation of London.

1079 The Norman laws and language introduced.

1085 Thirty-six parishes, containing a circuit of sixty miles in Hampshire, were depopulated and destroyed without any compensation to the inhabitants, in order to make New-Forest for William’s diversion of hunting. The tyrannical laws of the Forest were made.

1087 A dreadful famine in England. William went to France and destroyed the country with fire and sword. He died at Rouen by a fall from his horse, and was buried at Caen, in Normandy, in the monastery he had himself founded, but was denied interment by the proprietor till the fees were paid.

1088 An earthquake in London. A great scarcity this year, and corn not ripe till the end of November. William II embarked for Normandy, and made war against his brother Robert. William returned to England; and Henry his brother, was forced to wander without a residence.

1091 A tempest which destroyed 500 houses. Great part of London consumed by fire.

1092 Malcolm, king of Scotland, killed at Alnwick, by the Earl of Northumberland.

1094 Man and beast destroyed by a great mortality.

1095 Peter the hermit preached up a crusade to the Holy Land.

1096 The Christian princes raised 700,000 men, and began the holy war. The first single combat for deciding disputes between the nobility.

1097 The Voyage for the Holy War, was first undertaken. Being a contrivance of Pope Urban, to compose the divisions of the church, the whole Christian world being then at discord among themselves. This war lasted almost three hundred years.

1098 Tower surrounded with a wall. Westminster Hall built. Its dimensions are 224 feet by 74.

1099 Jerusalem taken by storm, and forty thousand Saracens put to the sword.

1100 Godwin-Sands, the property of Earl Godwin, first overflowed by the sea, destroying four thousand acres of land. King Henry married the lady Maud, daughter of Margaret, late queen of Scots, and niece to Edgar Atheling, descended from Edmund Ironside. The use of fire and candle, after eight o’clock at night restored to the English.

1106 King Henry subdues Normandy, takes Robert prisoner, and orders his eyes to be put out.

1109 Three shillings levied on every hide of land, which tax produced £824,000.

1110 Arts and sciences taught again at Cambridge.

1112 A plague in London.

1114 The Thames dry for three days.

1116 A council called of the nobility, which is supposed by some to be the first parliament.

1122 The order of the Knights Templars founded.

1123 The first park (Woodstock) made in England.

1129 The revenue of the royal demesne altered from kind to specie.

1132 London mostly destroyed by fire.

1134 Duke Robert, having been imprisoned and blinded twenty-eight years, ended his miserable existence. Wheat sufficient to subsist 100 men one day, sold at one shilling--a sheep 4d.

1136 The distance from Aldgate to St. Paul’s (included), destroyed by fire in London.

1136 The Empress Maud besieged in Oxford, and made her escape from thence on foot, being disguised in white, on a snowy night, to Abingdon. The tax of Danegelt entirely abolished. No less than fifteen hundred strong castles in the kingdom.

1139 The Empress Matilda lands at Arundel, and claims the crown. Makes her natural brother, Robert, Earl of Gloucester, her general.

1141 Stephen taken prisoner at the battle of Lincoln, and confined in chains by Maud, in Gloucester gaol. Stephen released.

1148 A new Crusade undertaken.

1151 Gratian of Bologna, the monk, collects the canon laws after twenty-four year’s labour.

1153 Agreed, between Henry and Stephen, that eleven hundred of the castles, erected by permission of the latter, should be abolished. Appeals were first made to the Pope, and canon laws instituted. There was no regular mode of taxation. Contending parties supported themselves by plundering each other’s tenants. There were more abbeys built, than in the hundred years preceding.

1155 The castles demolished, agreeably to the treaty of 1153.

1157 The Welsh, subdued, do homage, and swear allegiance. A sect, called Publicans, rejecting baptism and marriage, came into England from Germany. The bishops pronounced them heretics; they were branded in the forehead and whipped.

1174 Henry scourged for the supposed murder of Becket. The bishops and abbots of Scotland swore fealty to England and its church. The earls and barons of Scotland swore allegiance to Henry and his son.

1176 London bridge begun by Peter Colmar, a priest. It was thirty-three years in building.

1177 Glass windows in private houses first used. Debasers of coin first severely punished. A new coinage.

1185 A total eclipse of the sun; and, at the same time, an earthquake, which destroyed Lincoln and other churches.

1186 Near Oxford in Suffolk, was a sort of wild-man caught in a fisherman’s net. Trial by jury established, or the verdict of twelve men, to punish offenders with the loss of a leg or banishment. Henry secreted his concubine (Rosamond, daughter of Walter, lord Clifford) in a labyrinth at his palace at Woodstock, who being discovered by his queen Eleanor, was poisoned by her, and buried at Godstow nunnery near Oxford.

1189 The castles of Berwick and Roxburgh delivered up to William, king of Scotland, who was, at the same time relieved from subjection to England. Richard began, with Philip of France, his expedition to the Holy Land. About this time were those famous robbers and outlaws, Robin Hood, and Little John. Upon Richard’s coronation-day, (3rd September,) was a great slaughter of the Jews in London, who coming to offer their presents to the new king, were set upon by the mob, to the loss of their lives and estates; and the example of London was followed by other towns, as Norwich, St. Edmunds-Bury, Lincoln, Stamford and Lynn.

1190 King Richard marries the Lady Berengaria, daughter to the king of Navarre, and goes to the Holy Land, having sold some of the crown lands to raise the money for that expedition. In which voyage he took the Island of Sicily and Cyprus.

1191 Richard obtained a great victory over Saladin, at Jerusalem, September 3. He soon after defeated a Turkish troop of 10,000, who were guarding a caravan to Jerusalem. He took, on this occasion, 3,000 loaded camels, 4,000 mules, and an inestimable booty which he gave to his troops.

1192 Multitudes destroyed by a raging fever, which lasted five months. Two suns appeared on Whitsunday, so resembling each other, that astronomers could scarcely distinguish which was the centre of our system, according to Copernicus.

1194 Richard having been absent four years, returned to England, March 20. He made war with France, and having obtained a great victory over the French at Gysors “Not we” says he, “but _Dieu et mon Droit_,” i.e. God and my Right, has obtained this victory. Ever since, the kings of England have made it their motto. The king of Scotland carried the sword of state at the second coronation of Richard.

1197 Robin Hood, being indisposed, and desiring to be blooded, was purposely and treacherously bled to death. In this reign, companies and societies were first established in London. Three lions passant first borne in the king’s shield.

1199 Surnames first used.

1200 The king of Scotland performed public homage to John, at the parliament held in Lincoln. Assize of bread first appointed.

1204 The Inquisition established by Pope Innocent III. The most ancient writ of parliament directed to the bishop of Salisbury. Five moons seen at one time in Yorkshire.

1205 A fish resembling a man taken on the coast of Suffolk, and kept alive six months.

1207 The first annual mayor and common council of London chosen.

1208 Divine service throughout the kingdom suspended by the Pope’s interdict.

1209 John excommunicated.

1210 Twenty Irish princes do homage to John at Dublin. The clergy taxed to the amount of £100,000.

1211 England absolved by the Pope from its allegiance to John.

1212 Great part of London burnt down by a fire which began in Southwark in Middlesex, and consumed the Church of St. Mary Overy, went on to the bridge; and whilst some were quenching the flames, the houses at the other end took fire, so that numbers were inclosed; many were forced to leap into the Thames, whilst others, crowding into boats that came to their relief, were the cause of nearly 3,000 people perishing, partly by water, and partly by fire.

1213 John resigned his dominions to the Pope, and was absolved. In this reign, sterling money was first coined.

1216 Wheat was sold for twelve-pence a quarter, and beans and oats for four-pence a quarter.

1222 The ward-ship of heirs and their lands was granted to king Henry.

1226 The Pope demanded a sum annually from every cathedral church and monastery in Christendom. This demand was refused. Thomas à Becket’s bones were enshrined in gold and precious stones. Two imposters executed, the one for pretending to be the Virgin Mary, the other Mary Magdalen.

1228 The Jews obliged to pay a third part of their property to the king.

1236 Water first conveyed to London with utility. The Pope’s ambassador going to Oxford, was set upon by the students, and his brother slain, himself hardly escaping; whereupon the Pope excommunicated the University, and made all the bishops who interceded in the University’s behalf, and the students, go without their gowns, and barefooted from St. Paul’s church to his house, being about a mile, before he would revoke the sentence.

1246 Titles first used.

1251 Wales entirely subdued and subjected to English laws.

1253 Fine linen first made in England.