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So you will understand his demand for brown folios. Indeed, he is beginning to have a slight contempt for authors sufficiently known to the vulgar to be inserted in biographical dictionaries. Hermolaus Barbaras is one of those distinguished by omission in some chief works of that kind; and we learned to our surprise from a don at Cambridge that he had never heard the name.
Well educated by his parents, he became a physician, and on account of his skill, his learning, his graceful manners and his handsome face, was finally selected to attend the person of the Emperor Maximian. At the Imperial Court the young doctor, who had meantime neglected the faith of his mother, was recalled to a true sense of Christian duty by the precepts of an old priest named Hermolaus.
Thus in 1517 spoke Stephen Poncher, bishop of Paris, after his first meeting with Erasmus: 'Italy has no one to compare with him in literary gifts. In our own day Hermolaus and Politian have rescued Latin from barbarism; and their services can never be forgotten. When I was there, too, I met a number of men of rare ability and learning.
After reducing Sogdiana, Alexander returned into Bactria in 327, and began to prepare far his projected expedition into India. While he was thus employed a plot was formed against his life by the royal pages, incited by Hermolaus, one of their number, who had been punished with stripes for anticipating the king during a hunting party in slaying a wild boar.
Thereupon the Saint, together with the Christian priest Hermolaus, was bound to an olive tree and beheaded with a sword. The story of his martyrdom has been frequently treated in Venetian art, for as an eastern Saint Pantaleone has a church dedicated to him in Venice, wherein the brush of Paul Veronese has painted in glowing colours the chief incidents of his life and death.
He was even said to have encouraged Hermolaus to make the attempt, bidding him have no fear of Alexander's golden throne, and reminding him that he would have to deal with a man who was both wounded and in ill-health. Yet none of those concerned in Hermolaus's conspiracy mentioned the name of Kallisthenes, even under the most exquisite tortures.
Hermolaus and his associates, among whom was Callisthenes, a pupil of Aristotle, were first tortured, and then put to death. It seems certain that a conspiracy existed; but no less certain that the growing pride and haughtiness of Alexander were gradually alienating from him the hearts of his followers. Alexander did not leave Bactria till late in the spring.
These accusations were more easily believed to be true because at this time the plot of Hermolaus was discovered; and it was said that when Hermolaus enquired of Kallisthenes how one might become the most famous man in the world, he answered, "By killing the most famous man in the world."
Lily and Colet, too, one of them the founder, the other the first Head Master, of St. Paul's School, were about this time studying in Italy, under the great Politian and Hermolaus Barbarus. Oxford, which had so long been in hostile communication with Italy as represented by the Papal Courts, at last touched, and was thrilled by the electric current of Italian civilisation.
Have you a mind, quoth Herr Trippa, to have the truth of the matter yet more fully and amply disclosed unto you by pyromancy, by aeromancy, whereof Aristophanes in his Clouds maketh great estimation, by hydromancy, by lecanomancy, of old in prime request amongst the Assyrians, and thoroughly tried by Hermolaus Barbarus.
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