Note [349] page 191. Plutarch (from whose history the narrative in the text is a paraphrase) describes Alexandra as being actuated in her regency solely by ambitious motives. Her husband, Alexander Jannæus, was the son of Johannes Hyrcanus and brother of Aristobulus I, whom he succeeded as second King of the Jews after the Babylonish Captivity. His reign (104-78 B.C.) was marked by atrocities.

Note [350] page 191. The reference here is to Mithridates VI, Eupator, King (120-63 B.C.) of Pontus on the southern shore of the Black Sea. In the Life of Lucullus, Plutarch relates that having been utterly defeated by the Romans in 72 B.C., Mithridates gave order to have his wives Bernice and Monima put to death together with his sisters Statira and Roxana, in order to prevent them from falling into the hands of the enemy,—while he himself took refuge with his son-in-law. Statira is described by Plutarch as grateful to her brother for not forgetting her amid his own anxieties, and for providing her the means of an honourable death.

Note [351] page 191. This Hasdrubal was the general of the Carthaginians in their last struggle with Rome. When Scipio captured Carthage in 146 B.C., Hasdrubal surrendered, while it is said that his wife, after upbraiding him for his weakness, flung herself and her children into the flames of the burning temple in which they had sought shelter.

Note [352] page 191. In fact, Harmonia was Hiero’s granddaughter, and the wife of a Syracusan named Themistus, who (after the death of Hiero in 215 B.C.) was chosen one of the leaders of the commonwealth and afterwards perished in a fresh revolution. Death was then decreed against all surviving members of Hiero’s family, and Harmonia was slain together with her aunts, Demarata and Heraclea.

Note [353] page 192. The reference is of course to the familiar story of the obstinate dame who persisted in declaring that a certain rent had been made with scissors, and whose husband vainly tried to change her mind by plunging her in a pond. Each time she came to the surface, she cried “Scissors,” until, unable to speak from strangulation, she stretched forth her hand and made the sign of the instrument with two fingers. In a coarser form, the story was current in Italy even before Castiglione’s time.

Note [354] page 192. The conspiracy in question was discovered in 65 A.D. Tacitus relates that Epicharis strangled herself with her girdle while on the way to be tortured a second time.

Note [355] page 192. Leæna was an Athenian hetaira beloved by Aristogeiton. When he and Harmodius had slain the tyrant Hipparchus in 514 B.C., she was supposed to be privy to their plan, and died under torture. The statue in question is mentioned by Pausanias and said by Plutarch (in his essay on Garrulity) to have been placed “upon the gates of the Acropolis.” Recent archæologists identify its site as being on the level of the Acropolis, near the southern inner corner of the Propylæa.

Note [356] page 192. Massilia became the modern Marseilles.

Note [357] page 192. This story is taken from the “Memorable Doings and Sayings” of Valerius Maximus (flor. 25 A.D.), in which Castiglione mistranslates the Latin word publicè (at the public charge) as publicamente (publicly).

Note [358] page 192. Of several persons of this name, the one here referred to was probably the Roman Consul (14 A.D.),—a patron of literature and a friend of Ovid. Had the Magnifico been allowed to finish his sentence, he would (following the narrative of Valerius Maximus) have doubtless added the name of a town in Asia Minor, Julida.