Page:Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies Volume II.djvu/378

Rh P. 47: Vitré, a town of Brittany, modern Department Ille-et-Yilaine, of about 10,000 inhabitants. Retains its medieval aspect and town walls to the present day.


 * Collenuccio, Bk. V.

P. 49: Boccaccio has arranged this story in his De claries mulieribus, cap. CI. Vopiscus, Aurelius, XXVI-XXX, relates this fact more coolly.


 * Zenobia, the famous Queen of Palmyra, widow of Odenathus, who had been allowed by the weak Emperor Gallienus to participate in the title of Augustus, and had extended his empire over a great part of Asia Minor, Syria and Egypt. She was eventually defeated by Aurelian in a great battle on the Orontes not far from Antioch. Palmyra was destroyed, and its inhabitants massacred; and Zenobia brought in chains to Rome.


 * The Emperor Aurelian was born about 212 A. D., and was of very humble origin. He served as a soldier in almost every part of the Roman Empire, and rose at last to the purple by dint of his prowess and address in arms, succeeding Claudius in 270 A. D. Almost the whole of his short reign of four years and a half was occupied in constant fighting. Killed in a conspiracy 275 A. D.


 * Perseus, the last King of Macedon, son of Philip V., came to the throne 179 B. C. His struggle with the Roman power lasted from 171 to 165, when he was finally defeated at the battle of Pydna by the consul L. Aemilius Paulus. He was carried to Rome and adorned the triumph of his conqueror in 167 B. C., and afterwards thrown into a dungeon. He was subsequently released, however, on the intercession of Aemilius Paulus, and died in honourable captivity at Alba.

P. 53: Maria of Austria, sister of Charles V., widow of Louis II. of Hungary, and ruler over the Netherlands; she died in 1558. It was against her rule that John of Leyden struggled.

P. 53: Brantôme has in mind Aurelia Victorina, mother of Victorinus, according to Trebillius Pollio, Thirty Tyrants, XXX.

P. 54: In Froissart, liv. I, chap. 174.