The Arkansaw traveler., 1889-08-03
Errors of History.
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Exchange.
 How the myths and fables of the early ages, with which the schoolboyI and girls of 6 generation ago were delighted, are failing away. There ii no evidence that Romulus ever lived that Brutus slammed idiocy and con- demned his sons to death; that Mus cius Scevola thrust his hand into the fire; that ClGlia swam the Fiber, or that Horatius defended bridge against an army. Coriolanus, of course, never allowed his mother to intercede for Rome. The number of Nerxes' army has been grossly exaggerated, and il was not stopped st Thermopyle by three hundred Spartans, but by 1000 or, as some authors compute, l2,000
 The siege of Troy is largely a myth as every schoolboy knows, but what are we to believe when we are told that "Helen must have been sixty years old when Paris fell in love with herr" The skeptics have attacked the crediblity of the late Greek and Ro- man history. They have deprived Diogenes of his tub, Sappho of her lover, Rhodes of its Colossus. They have asserted that Portia did not swallow burning coals; that Cesar never crossed the Rubicon, that he never said to 6 pilot, "You carry Caesar and his fortune," nor cry out |" "Et tu Brute!'" as he fell at the base of Pompey's statue; that Phillip never told Alexander, "Seek another kingdom, for Macedon is too small for thee," and the chemists have proved that vinegar will not dissolve pearls nor cleave rocks, in spite of the fabled exploits of Cleopatra and Hannibal
 Nero did not kill his mother nor fiddle while Rome was burning, Ii indeed he knew what & fiddle was Tiberius twas a pretty good fellow and we are assured, indeed, that all the Roman emperors who were suc- cessfully put out of way" were hardly treated by servile historians, who sought to cater to the popular taste. Human nature has not changed since that time, as we have seen in our ex- perience. Popular leaders who fail to lead popular movements to a suc- cessful issue are always "traitors" iu the eyes of the "servile historians" or the winning side. Modern European history, too, fares badly at the hands of the writer in the Journal.
 "Arthur is undoubtedly a fable Charlemagne has been so beclouded by legend that it is difficult to separate the true from the false but 1t is quite certain that his paladins are as my thical as Arthur's knights. Alfred never allowed the cakes to burn, nol ventured into the Danish camp dis guised as a minstrel. William Tel was a myth. Fair Rosamond wa' not poisoned by Queen Elieanor, but died in the odor of sanctity in the con- vent of Godstow. Blondell, the har. per, did not discover the prison ir which Richard III. was confined Charles TX. did not fire on the Huguenots with an arquebus from the window of the Louvre during the massacre of St. Bartholomew Charles V. did not celebrate his owI obsequies in his lifetime. Clarence was never drowned in a butt oi Malmsey nor was Richard II. starved to death in Pontefract castle. The story of Abelard and Heloise has been strongly doubted, and question has been raised as to whether Joan oi Arc ever suffered the punishment that made her a martyr, though de- tails of her execution and last momenti are found in the civic records of Rome Charles Monsolet quotes paragraph