NOTES TO BOOK SIX
[I.] Cumae was the most ancient Greek colony in Campania. The tradition was that it had been founded by immigrants from Cyme and Aeolis and from Chaleis in Euboea. Hence its name, and the epithet Virgil applies to it.
[II.] The 'Sibyl' here mentioned was the most famous of the prophetesses of antiquity. She was directly inspired by Apollo (the Delian seer), and dwelt in a cavern near his temple. Trivia is an epithet of Hecate. See note on [Book IV. stanza lxvi.]
[III.] Daedalus, who built the labyrinth for Minos, incurred the wrath of the latter and escaped from Crete with his son Icarus, by making wings. He fastened them on with wax, and Icarus flying too near the sun, his wings melted and he fell into the Aegean. Daedalus, however, reached Cumae in safety.
[IV.] On the gate were carvings representing various Cretan stories. Androgeos was the son of Minos, king of Crete. He won all the contests at the Panathenaic festival at Athens, whose king, Aegeus, slew him out of jealousy. In revenge, Minos made war on the Athenians, and forced them to pay a yearly tribute of seven youths and seven maidens, who were devoured by the Minotaur. This monster was the offspring of Pasiphaë, wife of Minos, and a bull sent by Neptune, and it lived in the labyrinth built by Daedalus. The tribute continued to be paid until Theseus, son of Aegeus, went to Crete as one of the seven. Ariadne, the daughter of Minos, fell in love with him, and helped him to slay the monster.
[XIV.] Xanthus and Simois were two rivers which flowed through the plain before Troy. The new Achilles is of course Turnus, king of the Rutuli.
[XV.] The Grecian town is Pallanteum, the chief city of Evander's kingdom. See [Book VIII. stanza vii.]
[XVI.] Acheron was the fabled river of the lower world. Virgil probably had in his mind the real Acherusia palus, a gloomy marsh near Naples.
[XVIII.] There was a volcanic lake near Cumae called Avernus, whose waters gave out sulphureous vapours. It was connected by tradition with the lower world. Orpheus, the mythical poet, so charmed the gods of the nether world by his harp-playing, that he was allowed to take back to the upper world his dead wife Eurydice. Castor was mortal, but his brother Pollux was immortal; so when the former was slain in fight Pollux obtained from Jupiter permission that each should spend half their time in heaven, half in Hades. Theseus descended into Hades in order to carry off Proserpine. He was kept a prisoner there until he was rescued by Hercules (Alcides), who came down to carry off Cerberus, the three-headed dog who guarded the entrance (see [stanza lvi.]).
[XXXII.] Virgil alludes to the promontory of Misenum on the north side of the bay of Naples. The legend is a purely local one. There is no mention of Misenus in Homer.
[XXXIII.] 'Aornos' is a Greek word—'where no bird can come.'
[XXXV.] 'The Furies' mother and her sister' were Night and Earth.
[XXXVII.] 'Phlegethon' was the 'burning' river of the lower world.
[XXXIX.] The beast of Lerna is the Lernean Hydra, slain by Hercules; the others are terrible monsters slain by various heroes.
[XLI.] Charon was the ferryman of the dead.
[LIV.] Apollo was called Amphrysian because he tended the herds of Admetus near the river Amphrysus in Thessaly. Here the epithet is strangely transferred to Apollo's servant.
[LVII.] Minos, king of Crete, became one of the judges of the dead, in the under-world. His brother Rhadamanthus was the other. See [stanza lxxv.]
[LIX.] For Phaedra, see note on [Book VII. stanza ciii.] Procris was accidentally slain by her husband, Eriphyle was killed by her son Alcmaeon, Evadne threw herself on her husband's funeral pyre, and Laodamia also died with her husband. For Pasiphaë, see note on [stanza iv.]
[LXIII.] Tydeus, Parthenopaeus, and Adrastus were three of the seven heroes who fought against Thebes. The other names are taken from the Iliad.
[LXXVII.] The two sons of Aloeus were Otus and Ephialtes, who threatened to assail the Immortals by piling Pelion on Ossa and Ossa on Olympus. Salmoneus of Elis was punished for having presumptuously claimed divine honours.
[LXXX.] Ixion was king of the Lapithae, and being taken to heaven by Jupiter, made love to Juno, for which he was eternally punished. Pirithous was his son, and was guilty of having, with Theseus, attempted to carry off Proserpine.
[XCIII.] Lethe was the river of forgetfulness, and those who drank of it forgot their former life and were ready for a new one.
[C.-CI.] The kings mentioned in these two stanzas are the earliest mythical rulers of Alba Longa. Numitor was the father of Rhea Silvia (Ilia), the mother of Romulus and Remus.
[CV.] The Emperor Augustus was the nephew and adopted son of C. Julius Caesar, who claimed to trace his descent back to Iulus, and so through Aeneas to Venus herself.
[CVIII.] The first king referred to is Numa Pompilius, who was a Sabine born at Cures. Tullus and Ancus were the third and fourth kings of Rome. They can none of them be considered historical figures.
[CIX.] This Brutus expelled Tarquinius Superbus, the last king of Rome. His sons tried to restore the monarchy and he ordered them to be executed.
[CX.] The Decii, father and son, both died in battle, and the family of the Drusi had many distinguished members. Manlius Torquatus was celebrated for killing his son for disobeying orders. Camillus was the great Roman hero of the fourth century B.C. He was five times dictator and saved Rome from the Gauls.
[CXI.] Virgil is referring to Caesar and Pompey.
[CXII.] L. Mummius captured Corinth, and so ended the war with Greece, in 146 B.C., and is clearly referred to here. By 'the man who lofty Argos shall o'erthrow,' Virgil probably means Aemilius Paullus, who won the battle of Pydna in 168 B.C. against a king of Macedonia who called himself a descendant of Achilles.
[CXIII.] Cato was the famous censor of 184 B.C. who vainly tried to check the growth of luxury at Rome. Cossus killed the king of Veii in 426 B.C. The two Gracchi were great political reformers. The elder Scipio defeated Hannibal at Zama in 202 B.C., and his son took Carthage in 146 B.C. Fabricius was the general who fought against Pyrrhus, when the latter invaded Italy in 281-75 B.C. Serranus was a general in the first Punic war. The Fabii of renown are so many that Anchises only mentions the most famous of them, Q. Fabius Maximus Cunctator, the general against Hannibal.
[CXV.] Marcus Marcellus was a Roman general in the first Punic war.
[CXVI.] Marcellus was the son of the Emperor's sister Octavia, and at the age of 18 he married Augustus' daughter Julia. He was a youth of great promise, and was destined to succeed his father-in-law, but he died of fever at the age of 20 in 23 B.C., amidst universal grief.