NOTES TO BOOK FOUR
[VIII.] 'Sire Lyaeus:' Bacchus. These gods are mentioned in this place as having to do with marriage—possibly they are invoked as being specially the gods of Carthage.
[XV.] The name 'Titan' as applied to the sun is curious. Perhaps it is a reference to the Greek tale that Hyperion, one of the Titans, was the father of the sun.
[XIX.] The Agathyrsians were a Scythian tribe, and the Dryopes were a Thessalian people who dwelt on Mount Parnassus, the especial home of Apollo; Cynthus is a mountain in Delos.
[XXVI.] 'Ammon' was the African Jupiter.
[XXIX.] The 'Zephyrs' were the south-west winds, and so the right ones to take the fleet of Aeneas to Italy from Carthage.
[XXXII.] Atlas was the giant who held apart heaven and earth. Virgil identifies him with the mountains which lie in North Africa between the sea and the desert of Sahara. Atlas was the father of Maia, the mother of Mercury. The latter is called 'Cyllenius' from his birth-place, Mount Cyllene in Arcadia.
[XXXVIII.] Mount Cithaeron, near Thebes, was famous for the revels which took place there in honour of Bacchus.
[XLIV.] Phoebus (Apollo) is called 'Grynoeus' from Grynium, a city of Aeolis in Asia Minor. He was much worshipped in Lycia, hence his oracles are often called 'Lycian lots.'
[LV.] It was at Aulis in Boeotia that the Greek expedition against Troy mustered.
[LX.] In this passage Virgil has in mind the Bacchae of Euripides, in which Pentheus goes mad, and perhaps the Eumenides of Aeschylus, but it is more probable that in the latter case he is merely thinking of Orestes as he is represented in tragedy.
[LXVI.] Hecate, the goddess of the lower world, sometimes identified with Proserpina, and sometimes with Diana. She was worshipped at cross-roads by night.
For Avernus, see note on [Book VI. stanza xviii.]
The ancients believed that foals were born with a lump on their foreheads. The name given to this was hippomanes, and it was supposed to act as a powerful love-philtre.
[LXXXII.] By the 'unknown Avenger' Virgil clearly points to Hannibal.