Plut. in vit. Cæs.—Cæs. Comment. lib. iv.
So bloom'd the Hours, when from the heaving sea.
Hom. Hymn.
Or shy Napææ, startled from their sleep.
Napææ, the most bashful of all the rural nymphs; their rare apparition was supposed to produce delirium in the beholder.
A wise Etrurian chief, forewarn'd ('twas said)
By his dark Cære, from the danger fled.
Cære of the twelve cities in the Etrurian league (though not originally an Etrurian population), imparted to the Romans their sacred mysteries: hence the word Cæremonia. This holy city was in close connection with Delphi. An interesting account of it under its earlier name "Agylla," will be found in Sir W. Gell's "Topography of Rome and its vicinity." The obscure passage in Plutarch's Life of Sylla, which intimates that the Etrurian soothsayers had a forewarning of the declining fates of their country, is well known to scholars; who have made more of it than it deserves.