THE FABLES OF HISTORY.
It is surprising how many of the facts of history have been reduced into
fictions by the careful investigations of modern enlightenment. For
centuries, it was established as an undeniable enormity of the empire,
that the Emperor Justinian put out the eyes of Belisarius. Tragedies,
operas and romances, were grounded upon this cruel incident; and the arts
have lent their aid to the perpetuation of a popular error.
Let us examine the real state of the case. In 563, a conspiracy was
discovered against the Emperor Justinian; and the conspirators were
arrested on the eve of executing their criminal design. Certain of his
favourites, envious of the great name of Belisarius, suborned false
witnesses, whose testimony made it appear that he was included in the
plot; upon which, Justinian indulged in the bitterest reproaches against
his perfidy. Belisarius, strong in his sense of innocence, and the
consciousness of the great services he had rendered to the empire,
disdained to justify himself; and Justinian, weak, versatile, and
mistrustful, influenced by a paltry pusillanimity, caused him to be
stripped of his offices, made prisoner in his house, and deprived of all
attendants or companions.
This state of things continued for the space of seven months; when the
innocence of Belisarius was, by the intervention of others, brought to
light; and he was at once restored to his former honours and the
confidence of his master. So far from being deprived of sight, and guided
about by a youth, as our imaginations have been misled into depicting him
by a variety of artists and men of letters, Belisarius died at an advanced
age in the full enjoyment of his senses.
The two first authors who thought proper to load the memory of Justinian
with the odium of having put out the eyes of Belisarius, were Crinitus and
Raphael Mafféi, both belonging to the sixteenth century. No anterior
writer makes the smallest allusion to this act of barbarity; which, had it
been authentic, could scarcely have been buried in obscurity for a period
of ten centuries. The event which probably gave rise to so monstrous a
supposition was, the disgrace of Carpocratian; who, after being the chief
favourite of Justinian, was driven into exile in Egypt, and compelled to
beg his bread on the highways. But even in this instance, the fallen man
was not deprived of sight.
One day, a village priest who was preaching in France, on the instability
of riches and the misfortunes of the great, perceiving his simple flock to
be melted into tears by the pathetic nature of his recital, comforted them
by adding, "Nevertheless, my brethren, take comfort, for, after all, these
traditions may be greatly exaggerated." It were as well, perhaps, if
historians were equally candid, more especially the one who first treated
of the cruel fortunes of Belisarius.
This great man had, in truth, no need of factitious enhancements to secure
the sympathies of the sixteenth century; the nobleness of his character
having fully equalled the greatness of his exploits. As the conqueror of
the Goths, he sustained the fortunes of the empire; sacrificing himself
for his master, and refusing a crown when the throne was easily
accessible. After he had achieved the conquest of Italy, the jealousy of
Justinian recalled him from his command. Yet when the fortunes of his
country stood a second time in need of his sword, he did not hesitate to
lay down his resentment, and take up arms for its defence.
A far more authentic instance of undeserved misfortune is the case of
Oedipus, who, born the heir of the throne, was secretly removed from the
palace in consequence of a prediction that he would become the murderer
of his father. To avoid the accomplishment of the oracle, the infant was
about to be destroyed; the servant, to whom the task was assigned, having
literally pierced his feet, and suspended him to the branches of a tree;
when unfortunately a shepherd, taking pity on the tortured babe, relieved
him and conveyed him to the Court of the Queen of Corinth, by whom, being
childless, he was reared as her son. At eighteen years of age, an oracle
enjoined him to go in search of his parents; and on his travels, having
killed a man by whom he was insulted, the victim proved to be his father.
Oedipus arrives at Thebes. A riddle is proposed to him, the sense of which
he is so unfortunate as to guess; and having by this feat rid the country
of the Sphinx, he receives the promised reward in the hand of the Queen of
Thebes, who, in process of time, proves to be the mother of her young
husband. In consequence of this parricide and incest, a frightful
pestilence afflicts Thebes; and Oedipus in despair, puts out his own eyes,
banishes himself from his native country, and is followed into exile by
his daughter Antigone, who officiates as his guide.
Such misfortunes naturally inspired the minds of the heathens with a
belief in the doctrine of fatality--a blind interpretation of events which
also served to induce a belief in the marvellous, and confirm half the
preposterous superstitions perpetuated by the weakness of the human race.
Nothing can be more groundless, by the way, than our vain assertion of
being the only created beings who "contemplate Heaven with brow erect."
Not only do we share this distinction with the ourang-outangs, but with a
variety of birds, such as the crane and the ostrich; which, on this point,
are better qualified than ourselves, seeing that instead of the upper
eyelid falling, the lower eyelid rises over the eye; thus leaving them
more at liberty to raise their eyes to Heaven.
False pretensions and vulgar errors of this kind abound in the world:--as
for instance, the belief that the pelican pierces her bosom to feed her
little ones with her blood--that the scent of bean-flowers produces
delirium--that the mole is blind--that the dove is a model of gentleness
and conjugal fidelity; and how often are the questions still mooted
whether Hannibal really worked a passage through the Alps with
vinegar--whether the coffin of Mahomet be really suspended at Mecca
between two loadstones--whether shooting stars be fragments of shattered
planets, or souls progressing from purgatory--whether beasts of prey are
afraid of fire; and whether human nature have ever exhibited affinities
with the brute creation in the form of fauns, dryads, satyrs, or
centaurs.
The fable of the centaurs explains itself naturally enough by the wonder
created in the world by the first man hardy enough to reduce the horse to
a state of submission, and convert it into a domestic animal. We know that
a man on horseback has been regarded as a complex animal by many savage
nations; just as the Peruvians, when attacked by the artillery of Pizarro,
believed their invaders to be Gods, seeing that thunder was at their
disposal.
As to fauns and satyrs, which probably consisted of shepherds whose lower
extremities were clad in goat skins, Herodotus declares that a whole
nation of them existed among the mountains of Scythia. Plutarch relates
that, in the time of Sylla, a faun was caught at Nymphea near Apollonia,
which was brought as a present to the Dictator. The creature could utter
no articulate sound,--its voice consisting of a noise between the cry of a
goat and the neighing of a horse; but exhibited social qualities, and was
much addicted to female society. This was probably some deaf and dumb
idiot, left by unnatural parents to perish in infancy, and miraculously
preserved; as in the case of Peter, the Wild Boy, found during the last
century in the forests of Westphalia, and maintained at the cost of the
King of England to a good old age. A similar specimen of degraded humanity
was exhibited at Paris under the name of the Savage of Aveyron; and the
historical fable of Valentine and Orson was probably founded on some
similar circumstance.
According to Philostratus, a satyr was taken in Ethiopia of so mild and
gentle a disposition, as to have been easily tamed; and that certain of
the simeous tribes, such, for instance, as the ourang-outang called the
Wild Man of the Woods, should have been considered a satyr by both Greeks
and Romans, on a first inspection seems natural enough. St. Jerome, in his
life of St. Anthony, asserts that he encountered a satyr in the desart,
and that they conversed and breakfasted together.
We should have thought these holy personages more in danger of an
encounter with wild beasts; concerning which peril, a passing remark may
be made, that the idea of frightening them away by fire is a popular
prejudice. Tavernier relates that some soldiers having lighted a great
fire to preserve themselves from the damp, in a forest of Africa, were set
upon by a lion, and that one of the men was greatly injured by this
midnight intruder, which was luckily shot dead by one of his comrades.
As regards the popular opinion concerning the tomb of Mahomet, it is now
proved to be at Medina instead of Mecca, where the belief of many
centuries assigned it a place; but so far from being suspended in the air
by a loadstone, the coffin lies on the ground surrounded by an iron
balustrade. A learned Jesuit, by dint of many patient experiments,
ascertained the possibility of sustaining a human body in the air by the
power of the loadstone. But the quantity employed only served to realize
the miracle for the space of two seconds. On the discovery of the singular
properties of the loadstone, as affecting the polarization of the needle,
the vulgar naturally began to endow it with miraculous powers. In 1765,
the Journal Encyclopédique published an Essay attributing to the loadstone
the power of curing the tooth-ache; the person afflicted being required to
turn his face towards the North Pole, and touch the aching tooth with the
southern point of a magnetic needle. The system was pursued for a time by
a variety of quack dentists, but soon fell to the ground.
With respect to shooting stars, philosophy remains undecided as to their
origin. But vulgar superstition clings to the belief that any wish formed
during the transit of one of these luminous bodies will be accomplished.
This idea probably purported in the first instance to demonstrate the
transitory nature of human wishes, as exemplified in the momentary glimpse
of the meteor. Some philosophers attribute shooting stars to the encounter
of the electric fluid with inflammable molecules in the atmosphere.
Descartes asserts that they are terrestrial particles which, meeting in
the air the second element, take fire and fall back to earth; leaving
where they fall a viscous matter. The truth is that they have never been
known to fall back upon the earth. Monsieur Biot has hazarded a conjecture
that they may be fragments of comets, falling with immense rapidity
through the realms of space.
If this point of popular prejudice remain unremoved, nothing can be more
certain than that the mole possesses organs of vision--though small; and
that the fable of the maternal tenderness of the pelican, originated in
the flexible pouch in which she deposits the fish she collects for her own
food, and that of her young. The proverbial fidelity of the dove to her
mate has been equally disproved by naturalists; no person having ever kept
a pair of doves without noticing that they are birds of a peculiarly
irascible and quarrelsome nature.