753. B. C. Romulus commenced the foundations of Rome; on this day his
brother Remus was slain by Romulus or his workmen, for having ridiculed
the slenderness of the walls. Thus raised in blood they became the
sanctuary of refugees and criminals, and to increase the population
neighbouring females were forcibly dragged within its boundaries.
323. B. C. Alexander the Great, son of Philip of Macedon died. When a
boy he tamed Bucephalus, a horse which none of the courtiers could
manage, and Philip wept that the kingdom of Macedonia would be too small
for such a son. He was under Aristotle for five years; after the
assassination of his father, he slew his murderers, succeeded him in the
sovereignty, conquered Thrace and Illyricum, destroyed Thebes, became
chief commander of all the forces of Greece, conquered Darius and all
Minor Asia, subdued Egypt, Media, Syria, and Persia, visited the temple
of Jupiter Ammon, bribed the priests to salute him as the son of that
god, exacted divine honours from his army, spread his conquests over
India, invaded Scythia, visited the Indian ocean, and laden with the
spoils of India, returned to Babylon, where he died of drunkenness, in
the thirty-second year of his age. After his death, all his family and
infant children were put to death, his generals quarrelled for the
empire, and bloody wars distributed the prize in shares to the
sanguinary winners.
1142. Peter Abelard, a learned doctor of the church died, aged
sixty-three. He was the celebrated lover of the no less celebrated
Heloise, the niece of a canon, who placed her under Abelard to be taught
philosophy, of whom she learned the art of love; and preferring an
infamous reputation to the bonds of wedlock, caused her tutor’s ruin.
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