The Ebensburg Alleghanian. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1865-1871, 1868-11-12
THE FABLES OF HISTORY.
THE COLOSSUS on RHoDEs.

THE COLOSSUS OF RHODES.
DR. Octave Delcpierre, the learned Sec
retary Of Legation TO the King Of the Bel
gians, has published book entitled His
torical Difficulties and Contested Events"
The first delusion to which he addresses
himself Is the Colossus Of Rhodes. In the
elementary works in use in the English
and the American schools, the Colossus of
Rhodes is represented as a statue with
gigantic limbs, each leg resting on the
enormous rocks which face the entrance to
the principal port OF the Island Of Rhodes,a
and ships in full sail passed easily, it is
said, between It's legs. This is the nara
tive Of the historian ROllin, of several
French dictionaries, and even OF some en-
cycl0pedias. The real truth about the Co
lossus, according to DIR. Delepierre, is that
about the year 306, b. c., the Rhodians,
after successfully defending themselves
against a years siege, commanded Chares
10 erect 4 memorial statue to the honor of
! their deity, and this statue was erected on
/ an open space of ground near the great
harbor, whore its fragments were seen and
admired by travellers for many years after
It's destruction Toward the end of the
second century after Christ, the Colossus
was reconstructed under the Emperor
Eespasian, but Of smaller dimensions
The fable Of the ancient statue, between
whose gigantic limbs ships in full sail were
believed to have passed, originated appar-
emily at the time of the Crusades, when
the inhabitants of Rhodes amused them
selves by relating to the newcomers all
sorts of incredible stories Of their past
grandeur,
BELISARIUS.
The romantic tale Of Belisarius, the con-
queror Of the Vandals, deprived of his
sight by the Emperor Justinian and COM
PEELED to beg his bread in the streets of
Constantinople, was mentioned by no CON
temporary historian, but it has been re
peated age after age, and Marmontels
novel propagated the fiction in every Ian
guage of Europe The real fact, as stated
by Gibbon, Is that Belisarius was guarded
for year as a prisoner in his own palace.
His innocence Of the treasons Of which he
had been suspected became then acknowI-
edged, and his freedom and honors were
restored but death removed him within
year of his liberation. He was never
blind nor a beggar.
THE ALEXANDRIA, LIBRARY.
Whether the Alexandrian Library con-
tanned 81 600 volumes or 400, 600, it is
tolerably certain that this immense coIleo-
ton made by the Ptolemies was not, as is
commonly supposed, destroyed by the
Arabs in the seventh century, but became
a prey to the flames when Julius Caesar,
who was bcseiged in that part Of Alexan-
dria in which the museum stood, ordered
the feet to be set on fire. One story has
it that the books were ordered to be dis
tributed in the various baths at Alexan-
dria, to be burnt in the stoves, and that
they lasted six months but it would have
puzzled the Egyptians to heat baths with
parchment Another fiction was that at
the taking of Babylon the books were
thrown into the river Euphrates, and the
number was so great that they formed a
bridge over which foot passengers and
horsemen went across.
POPE JOAN.
Is It true that woman succeeded in
deceiving her cotemporaries to the extent
OF elevating herself to the Pontifcal
throne? According to the widely-spread
version, a female Pope disguised as man,
was elected in the year 600, ami assumed
the name of John VIII, and subsequently
died in giving birth to q child This is
clearly legend, the most probable expla;
nation of which is, that Pope John MI
amongst many conoubmes, had one named
Joan, who exercised such an empire over