The Montgomery advertiser., 1902-01-12
MISTAKES OF HISTORY
TALES STARTED LONG AGO AND
 STILL ACCEPTED AS TRUE.
Some Classic Bulls-Myths Relative to the Anglo-saxon King Alfred 300 at Thermopylae-The
 Colossus of Rhodes and
 William Tell. @

New York Mail and Express. The celebration of King Alfred milie- | nary in England and elsewhere through | out the British Empire revives the sto- I ries of the deeds for which the Anglo | Sexon has for centuries been playing
 hcnors to the great Kings memory. V hich things he never dtd. Alfred. the King who founded Oxford University, who fathered the system of trial by jury, and who. as every child was taught. let the cakes burn in the ola woman's hut, has been lauded by millions | of the English-Speaking people. l. Unfortunately historical research has disclosed that Alfred. good man and great King though he was, did nothing of the
 sort. Most of the pretty yarns about | Alfred sprang up hundreds of years after | his death. and are of piece with other entertaining stories which may be classed
 generally, under the head, "Mistakes Sof
 The Blind Milton and Leonidas's
 Probably one of the most affecting | scenes connected with the making of It, erature is that described in the oft-re- peated story of the blind poet Milton
 d.ctating Paradise Lost to his daugh- | ters. Dr. Johnson, however. has been | quoted as denying IL. He said, further more. that Milton never even permitted | his daughters to learn to read and write | X fayorite piece with Western and l | exhibition days was q set of verses tell | ing of the heroic stand of Leonidas and l his brave 300 at Thermopylae. The l Abbe Barthelemy, who asserted that he had inquired minutely into the subject I wrote that according to Diodorus. Leon | ldas had 1000 men under him. and that | Pausanias gave the number of Leonidas army at 12,o00. l Did Caesar say to the pilot:
 Why do you fear? You have cae- | sar on board | Likewise the story that the Duke of Clarence was drowned in putt or mann. l sely is an erhor. of history which passed | current as genuine for several centuries Colossus of Rhodes.
 l The inside of cigar box covers are 1 sometimes ornamented with picture of | full sail passing between the outstretched l legs of the gigantic statue. These pie | lures reflect the popular and what for centuries was the historical, idea of the l Colossus, which was accounted one of | the seven wonders of the world. It may | be interesting to knew that all drawings | of the statue are purely imaginary, and, | what is merer are modern, not ancient. | effortSl Tle Colossus Was erected Tn SV5 ! B. c. The most trustworthy of ancient accounts Of it is contained In q manu- | script dating about 150 E. C., in which
 the height of the statue is given as MS s | Rhcdes is 250 feet across, so that 1t was
 msn:festly impossible that the legs oi | the Colossus should span the entrance to l thu port, or that sfips should sail be- heath it.
 | As matter of fact, the Colossus was
 not built across the harbor, but on an | open space of ground near 1t, but for 1 all that it was a wonderful statue.
 Belisarius Begging for Bread, People whose sympathies are easily
 aroused. have wept eyer the wrongs or | Relisarius, tho conquefUr ,et the .Vandals,
 who, many, were taught. begged his commanded victorious armies and been l of much service to the state. The good | old general was unquestionably an un- | fortunate and much abused man, but | there Is no proof that he begged his liv- | ing at the city gates or elsewhere. Yet | Van Dyke engraved him and David, the | great Frenchman, painted him, and | tragedies and romances were written
 around him in the belief that he did sit | at the city gates forlorn and discop-
 solate object. with palm outstretched for alms
 The facts are that conspiracy against
 the Emperor Justinian being discovered,
 two of Belisarius' officers confessed, un- l der torture that the old general was in ! the plot. He was condemned without l further hearing, his property sequestrat- | ed, and he suffered Imprisonment for six | months. His innocence being established, | Belisarius was released, and he died about
 a year later. But that he ever was re- l duced to the extremity ot begging is de-
 elared to be absolutely untrue.
 William Tell and the Apple. The schoolbook tale of William Tell 1 shooting an apple from his sons head
 is also without foundation in fact. Tell 8
 name doesn't even appear in the chron- | icles of Zurich and the most ancient writing in which the story is mentioned l bears date some 200 years after the event 1 is pretended to be described and the story | Is a vation of old Scandinavian saga A
 similar bit of history is related of Will
 liam of Cloudsley in England in the l twelfth century.
 Petrarch wrote any number of beauti- | full verses to his Laura. yet historians
 say that Laura may have been myth 1 and tho sonnets poetical fiction' so far as any authentic account of the young woman herself Is concerned. Petrarch
 certainly carried his affections to another | shrine, for Laura was not the mother | of his child. Discrediting the actual ex- | lstence of Laura's smashes Dryon's cyn- | ical couplet:
 | If Laura had been Petrach's wife, | Think you he would have written sonnets all his life?
 It is denied also that Emperor Charles w. of Spain on his abdication adopted
 the habit of a monk and occupied him
 self in the manufacture of clocks. It is | declared that he never ceased to be Elm peror de facto, and he never surrendered | the control of affairs of state
 Inventions of the Steam Engine. Coming down to later times. the people | of three different countries claimed three different men as inventors of the Stea m l engine. In America there is popular | belief to this day that Robert Fulton | built the first successful engine and steamboat. In Englan ]. the Marquis of Worcester. who published an account of a steam engine in 1663, has received credit | for the invention. In France. Solomon | de Caus 0615 was regarded as the ge- | nius who had given to the world new motive power. Each of them may have conceived and work d out the idea Of | a steam engine without the slightest l knowledge of what mad been done in tn It | direction before their day: but none of | them nigh: rightly lay claim to being | On April r. l543. Don Blasco de Garay l launched a boat of 200 tons burden at 1 Barcelona in the presence of the Emperor | Charles V. The boat was propelled by | steam and made ten miles an hour. She | was called La Sanctissima Trinidada. l The Emperor gave 10 Don BlaSco hand | some present, but did not yt gard the in- | yention as practicable and nothing came | of lt, From this it would seem that Full | ton was centuries behind the times. Other Doubtful Yarns. | Among other historical" yarns upon | which modern research casts cloud of i doubt are the fOlloWing
 1 That Aeschylu3 Vas killed by being | struck on the head by a tortoise which had been dropped by an eagle.
 l That the army of Aerxes drained the river in it's passage to satisfy its thirst. l That residents near the cataractS of | the Nile are all leaf
 | That in the battle between Aetius and | Attila blood flowed in such torrents that | the dead and wounded were carried away | by the flood,
 | That Columbus used an egg in demon- I