FOODGLOS61

is thought to have been a monk at Winchester, then Cerne Abbas (where he later became abbot), and to have finished his life as the first Abbott of Eynsham. Aelfric's most famous works are two Catholic Homilies that together make up the longest extant text in Old English. Among other works, Aelfric also produced a Latin grammar (c. 998), some Latin-Old English colloquies, and a Latin-Old English vocabulary all intended to assist English-speaking novices in learning Latin. These linguistic works became very widely known throughout Britain, and it is not that surprising that, almost two centuries later, Aelfric's Latin-Old English vocabulary was the starting point for the Vocabularium Cornicum which seems to be based on Aelfric's late tenth-century Latin-Old English vocabulary . Aelfric (or Æfric, c. 955-1010/20) is recognized as having been a leading scholar of his time and the foremost Old English prose stylist.

NOTE:-It seems most likely that the Vocabularium Cornicum was originally composed in the middle or later twelfth century AD. This is later than the date suggested by Kenneth Jackson (c. 1100) who thought that the Old English of Aelfric's tenth-century glosses would not have been understandable to the Vocabularium Cornicum's author much later than that date. However, more recent scholarship has made it clear that Old English texts could be understood well into the twelfth century, and the phonology of the forms found in Vocabularium Cornicum are seen as better suiting a date in the middle or later twelfth century.

(We are grateful to Dr. Oliver Padel for offering this clarification on Jackson's dating.)

one of Plato's greatest students, was born in 384 BC. Aristotle's father was a physician to the king of Macedonia, and when Aristotle was seven years old, his father sent him to study at the Academy. He was there at the beginning as a student, and then became a researcher and finally a teacher. He seemed to have adopted and developed Platonic ideas while there and to has used them in his lectures.

When Plato died, Plato willed the Academy not to Aristotle, but to his nephew Speusippus. Aristotle then left Athens with Xenocrates to go to Assos, in Asia Minor, where he opened a branch of the Academy. This Academy focused more on biology than its predecessor which relied on mathematics.

There he met Hermias, another former student of Plato, who had become king of Assos. Aristotle married Hermias niece, Pythias, who died ten years later. During these years in Assos, Aristotle started to break away from Platonism and developed his own ideas.

King Philip of Macedonia invited Aristotle to the capitol around 343 BC to tutor his thirteen-ear-old son, Alexander.

Tutoring Alexander in the Academy in Assos, Aristotle still remained the president of the Academy. In 359 BC, Alexander's father, King Philip decided to set off to subdue the Greek city-states, and left Alexander in charge, thus stopping Aristotle's tutoring of Alexander.

King Philip was then murdered, in 336 BC, and Alexander became king. He mobilized his father's great army and subdued some city-states, thus becoming "Alexander the Great".

In 335 BC, Aristotle returned to Athens. Speusippus had died, but Aristotle was again not given the presidency of the Academy in Athens, instead, it was given to one of his colleagues Xenocrates. So, Aristotle founded his own school this time, it was named the Lyceum, named after Apollo Lyceus. In 323 BC, twelve years after founding the Lyceum, Alexander the Great died. In Greece resentment against the Macedonia hegemony seethed and riots broke out. Aristotle was accused of impiety, and his life was in serious jeopardy. So he left Athens, and went to his late mother's estate at Chalcis on the island of Euboea. Where died in the following year, 322 BC.

is the title of a collection of Roman cookery recipes, usually thought to have been compiled in the late 4th or early 5th century AD and written in a language that is in many ways closer to Vulgar than to Classical Latin.

Apicius is a text to be used in the kitchen. In the earliest printed editions it was given the overall title De re coquinaria ("On the Subject of Cooking"), and was attributed to an otherwise unknown "Caelius Apicius", an invention based on the fact that one of the two manuscripts is headed with the words "API CAE". The name Apicius had long been associated with excessive love of food, apparently from the habits of an early bearer of the name. The most famous individual given this name because of his reputation as a gourmet was Marcus Gavius Apicius, who is sometimes mistakenly asserted to be the author of the book.

The cookery manuscript of the first century Roman Gourmand, containing 500 recipes, the manuscript was assembled and hand copied in the fourth century. In the ninth century, monks at the Fulda monastery in Germany recopied the recipes in a simple manuscript adorned by red letters. This ninth century manuscript has amazingly survived through twelve hundred years of wars and natural disasters and is believed to be the earliest copy of Apicius, and the only recipe collection we have from the ancient Mediterranean

would become the Conqueror of the Ancient World, was born at Pella, Macedonia in

356 BC His father was King Phillip II and his mother was Olympias, a deeply spiritual woman who taught her son that he was a descendant of Achilles and Hercules. From the earliest age, Alexander was conditioned for conquest and kingly glory. He, thus, became focused on being a great ruler.

When he was 13, Alexander became student to the great Greek philosopher Aristotle. Under Aristotle’s tutorship he gained an interest in philosophy, medicine and science. However, Aristotle’s concept of small city-state government would not have gone down well with the young prince who was bent on world domination. Aristotle did, however, cultivate Alexander’s interest in reading and learning.

At age 16 Alexander was called to Macedonia to put down a Thracian rebellion while his father was away. Distinguishing himself immediately, Alexander quelled the rebellion, stormed the rebel’s stronghold and renamed it Alexandroupolis, after himself.

In 336 BC Phillip was assassinated and 20 year old Alexander took the throne of Macedonia. Within two years he had embarked on his campaign of conquest. His army of 30,000 foot soldiers and 5,000 cavalrymen was small but efficient. Along with the army he took engineers, surveyors, architects, scientists and even historians.

The first engagement was against the Persians at the Granicus River in modern day Turkey. Defeating the Persians he swept through western Asia Minor. The next autumn the second major encounter against the Persians took place at Issus, in the south eastern corner of Asia Minor. Persian king Darius III had amassed an army of about half a million to wipe out the Greek threat. But the vicious and tactically superb attack mounted by Alexander routed the Persians, despite being outnumbered about 13 to 1. Alexander now turned south, marching along the Mediterranean coast His only resistance came from the island city of Tyre. Alexander began a siege that would last for seven months. Finally Tyre was completely destroyed in July, 332 BC

Alexander now pushed further south, conquering Gaza and then moving into Egypt where the people welcomed him as a deliverer from their Persian rulers. Now Alexander turned north east, moving through Palestine towards the Tigris River. In 331 BC he met the Persians for the third time. The Battle of Gaugamela saw him defeat superior odds once more. Persian King Darius was later killed by his own people. Swiftly Alexander pushed through to take the Persian Capital at Babylon. He humiliated the Persians by burning their great palace at Xerxes. Before long the entire Persian domain was under Alexander’s control. He now crossed the Indus River and entered the region bordering the Persian province of Taxila. Here he met the feared Indian Monarch Porus who, with 25,000 men and 200 elephants nearly did what the entire Persian Kingdom could not. After fierce fighting, however, Alexander was once more victorious. Porus surrendered and became an ally.

After an eight year campaign Alexander was now ruler of a massive empire. He was keen to push further west but his men were weary and intent on returning to their families. Reluctantly he complied with their wishes.

Alexander was a caring military leader. He would visit his men after the battle, examining their wounds and praising them for their valiant efforts. He would also arrange extravagant funerals for the fallen. He would arrange games and contests for his men. The affection for their leader was what galvanized his troops.

Returning to Babylon Alexander assumed the role he had coveted for so long – The great Conqueror. Eventually, however, he gave way to a licentious lifestyle of excessive drinking. He also gave way to fits of rage and paranoid suspicion. One night he even murdered his closest associate, Clitus, in a fit of rage. This act was to haunt him for the remainder of his short life.

In June, 332 BC Alexander fell victim to malarial fever. He never recovered. The man who no man could defeat died on June 13, 323 BC He was just 32 years and 8 months old.

was born at St Albans, Hertfordshire, England, on the same night as King Richard I. Neckam's mother nursed the prince with her own son, who thus became Richard's foster-brother. He was educated at the St Albans Abbey school (now St Albans School), and began to teach as schoolmaster of Dunstable, dependent on St Albans Abbey. Later he lived for several years at Petit Pons in Paris (c. 1175-1182). By 1180 he had become a distinguished lecturer on the arts at the University of Paris.

By 1186 he was back in England, where he again held the place of schoolmaster, firstly at Dunstable in Bedfordshire and then as Master of St Albans School until about 1195. He is said to have visited Italy with the Bishop of Worcester, but this statement has been doubted; the assertion that he was ever prior of St Nicolas's Priory, Exeter, seems a mistake; on the other hand, he was certainly much at court during some part of his life. Having become an Augustinian canon, he was appointed abbot of the abbey at Cirencester in 1213. He died at Kempsey in Worcestershire, and was buried at Worcester.

Besides theology, Neckam was interested in the study of grammar and natural history, but his name is chiefly associated with nautical science. In his De naturis rerum and De utensilibus (the former of which, at any rate, had become well known at the end of the 12th century, and was probably written about 1180) Neckam has preserved to us the earliest European notices of the magnet as a guide to seamen, the early compass.