A number of widows and maidens met together in the house of Marcella to study the Scriptures with him; he taught them Hebrew, and preached the virtues of the celibate life.
As a token of signal regard Octavian bestowed upon him the hand of his niece Marcella (28).
He accordingly induced him to divorce Marcella and marry his daughter Julia (21), the widow of Marcellus, equally celebrated for her beauty and abilities and her shameless profligacy.
The chief buildings are the Carmelite Priory (ruins dating perhaps from the 13th century); a Bluecoat school (1514); a free grammar school (1527); an orphan girl school (funds left by Thomas Howel to the Drapers' Co., in Henry VII.'s reign); the town hall (built in 1572 by Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester, enlarged and restored in 1780); an unfinished church (begun by Leicester); a market hall (with arcades or "rows," such as those of Chester or Yarmouth); and the old parish church of St Marcella.
When Alaric sacked Rome, Marcella was cruelly scourged as the Goths thought that she had hidden her wealth.
