r one
extract describes the fountain of the syrens (p. 122), and the other is
an anecdote, which though told here of Julius Caesar (p. 71), is really
the story of the soldier who had fought at Actium with Augustus Caesar.
It occurs also in the "Gesta Romanorum," where the emperor is
named Agyos.

"Helmond" (p. 33, &c.) is intended for Helinand, who died some time
after 1229. After a brilliant period at the court of Philip Augustus,
where he is represented as reciting his heroic verses before the king
and his surrounding, he became a monk of the Cistercian Abbey of
Froidmont. One of his surviving poems deals with the melancholy subject
of death. The "Flores Helinandi" are said to have been popular as well
as his "Chronique." He is also the reputed author of some sermons, and
of the life of St. Gereon, published by the Bollandists, and of other
works still inedited. He is sometimes confounded with another French
monk of the same name, who lived in the eleventh century, and was an
inmate of the monastery at Persigne in Maine. This second Helinand was
the author of commentaries or glosses on the Apocalypse and Exodus.[27]
The first-named has been credited with the authorship of "Gesta
Romanorum." The grounds for this are very slight. "On a longtemps ignore
le nom de l'auteur de cette compilation, mais un passage du 68^e
dialogue du livre intitule 'Dialogus creaturarum' nous le revele par ces
mots: _Elimandus in gestis romanorum_."[28] But, as Sir F. Madden and
Mr. Herrtage have pointed out, the name of "Gesta Romanorum" was given
to any book treating of Roman affairs. A French translation of Livy, by
Robert Gaguin, has been catalogued as a version of the "Gesta." The
reference cited by Brunet is to the Chroniques of Helinand.[29]

Many of the stories and anecdotes are the commonplaces of ancient
history, such as the friendship of Damon and Pythias, the sword of
Damocles, the chastity of Scipio, the magnanimity of Alexander, the
fable of the Dog and the Shadow, &c. Others current in the middle ages
had great popularity, and even in our own days occasionally renew their
youth. The story of John of Ganazath (p. 48) is to be found in Occleve's
translation of Colonna. Mr. Thomas Wright remarks: "This story, under
different forms, was a very common one in the middle ages. One version
will be found in my 'Latin Stories,' p. 28. It will hardly be necessary
to remark that the story of King Lear and his daughters is another
version