On this day in 1810 Lord Byron swam the Hellespont, in emulation of Leander's legendary swims to visit his beloved Hero. Byron was twenty-two, and ten months into his two-year tour of the Mediterranean. He was not yet famous for his poetry or his profligacy, although he had just finished the first draft of Childe Harold, and had just ended, while in Malta, his first serious affair. This was with Constance Spencer Smith, a twenty-six-year-old married woman who was no Hero, but who had dazzled Byron with her beauty, mystery and unattainability. She had once been arrested on orders of Napoleon (for unclear reasons), and had escaped from prison by way of another enflamed twenty-two-year-old nobleman (plus a rope ladder, a boy's costume, a carriage and a boat) ... FULL STORY »
