That, when a city falls, they pass to the Victor”
The Roman custom of evoking the gods of a conquered city to come out of the subject shrines, and take up their dwelling with the conqueror, is well known. In Livy, V. 21, there is a remarkable instance of this in the case of Veii—“Tuo ductu,” says Camillus, “Pythice Apollo, tuoque numine instinctus pergo ad delendam urbem Veios: tibique hinc decumam partem prædæ voveo. Te simul, Juno regina, quæ nunc Veios colis, precor ut nos victores in nostram tuamque mox futuram urbem sequare; ubi te dignum amplitudine tua templum accipiat.”
“For blood of mortals is the common food.”
I read φόνῳ, not φόβῳ, principally for the sake of the sentiment, as the other idea which φοβῳ gives, has been already expressed. Certainly Well. is too positive in saying that φόβῳ is “prorsus necessarium.” Both readings give an equally appropriate sense: that in the text, which Pot. also gives; or this other—
“Your fear but heaps the fuel of hot war
I’ the hearts o’ the foe.”
“Dirce and Ismenus’ sacred stream.”
These were waters in Theban legend no less famous than Inachus and Erasinus in that of Argos. The waters of Dirce, in particular, were famous for their clearness and pleasantness to drink. “Dirce, flowing with a pure and sweet stream,” says Aelian, Var. Hist. XII. 57, quoted by Unger. p. 187, and Æschylus in the Chorus immediately following, equals its praise to that of the Nile, sung so magnificently in the Suppliants.”