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MRAP Directory 06
Page 04
Hiero, so long the faithful ally of Rome, died shortly after the battle of Cannae (B.C. 216), and was succeeded by his grandson Hieronymus, a vain youth, who abandoned the alliance of Rome for that of Carthage. But he was assassinated after a reign of fifteen months, and a republican form of government was established in Syracuse. A contest ensued between the Roman and Carthaginian parties in Syracuse, but the former ultimately prevailed, and Epicydes and Hippocrates, two brothers whom Hannibal had sent to Syracuse to espouse his interests, had to quit the city, and took refuge at Leontini. Such was the state of affairs when the Consul Marcellus arrived in Sicily (B.C. 214). He forthwith marched against Leontini, which Epicydes and Hippocrates defended with a considerable force. He took the city by storm, and, though he spared the inhabitants, executed in cold blood 2000 Roman deserters whom he found among the troops that had formed the garrison. This sanguinary act at once alienated the minds of the Sicilians, and alarmed the mercenary troops in the service of Syracuse. The latter immediately joined Hippocrates and Epicydes, who had made their escape to Herbessus; the gates of Syracuse were opened to them by their partisans within the walls, and the party hostile to Rome was thus established in the undisputed command of that city.
To insist on seeing things for oneself is to be in [Greek text], or in plain English, an idiot; nor do I see any safer check against general vigour and clearness of thought, with consequent terseness of expression, than that provided by the curricula of our universities and schools of public instruction. If a young man, in spite of every effort to fit him with blinkers, will insist on getting rid of them, he must do so at his own risk. He will not be long in finding out his mistake. Our public schools and universities play the beneficent part in our social scheme that cattle do in forests: they browse the seedlings down and prevent the growth of all but the luckiest and sturdiest. Of course, if there are too many either cattle or schools, they browse so effectually that they find no more food, and starve till equilibrium is restored; but it seems to be a provision of nature that there should always be these alternate periods, during which either the cattle or the trees are getting the best of it; and, indeed, without such provision we should have neither the one nor the other. At this moment the cattle, doubtless, are in the ascendant, and if university extension proceeds much farther, we shall assuredly have no more Mrs. Newtons and Mrs. Bromfields; but whatever is is best, and, on the whole, I should propose to let things find pretty much their own level.
Sir Isaac Newton says the Feast of the Nativity, and most of the other ecclesiastical anniversaries, were originally fixed at cardinal points of the year, without any reference to the dates of the incidents which they commemorated, dates which, by lapse of time, it was impossible to ascertain. Thus the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary was placed on the 25th of March, or about the time of the vernal equinox; the Feast of St. Michael on the 29th of September, or near the autumnal equinox; and the Birth of Christ at the time of the winter solstice. Christmas was thus fixed at the time of the year when the most celebrated festivals of the ancients were held in honour of the return of the sun which at the winter solstice begins gradually to regain power and to ascend apparently in the horizon. Previously to this (says William Sandys, F.S.A.),[3] the year was drawing to a close, and the world was typically considered to be in the same state.
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