Note [359] page 195. This story (which was used by Tennyson for his play of “The Cup”) is found in Plutarch’s tract “Concerning Women’s Virtue,” where the scene is placed in Galatia, in Asia Minor.

Note [360] page 197. The number of the Sibyls is usually reckoned as ten: Persian (or Babylonian), Libyan, Phrygian, Delphian, Cimmerian, Erythræan, Samian, Trojan, Tiburtine, and Cumæan,—of which the last was the most famous.

Note [361] page 197. Aspasia, (flor. 440 B.C.), was born at Miletus in Asia Minor, but in her youth removed to Athens, where she was celebrated for her talents and beauty, and became the mistress of Pericles, one of whose orations she is said by Plato to have composed. Her house was the centre of intellectual society, and was even frequented by Athenian matrons and their husbands.

Note [362] page 197. Diotima was a probably fictitious priestess of Mantinea in the Peloponnesus, reputed to have been the instructress of Socrates. Her supposed opinions as to the origin, nature and objects of life, form the subject of Plato’s “Symposium.”

Note [363] page 197. Nicostrate or Carmenta was a prophetic and healing divinity, supposed to be of Greek origin. Having tried to persuade her son Evander to kill his father Hermes, she fled with the boy to Italy, where she was said to have given the Roman form to the fifteen characters of the Greek alphabet that Evander introduced into Latium.

Note [364] page 197. This ‘preceptress ... to Pindar’ was Myrtis, a lyric poetess of the 6th century B.C. She is mentioned in a fragment by Corinna as having competed with Pindar. Statues were erected to her in various parts of Greece, and she was counted among the nine lyric muses.

Note [365] page 197. Of Pindar’s life little more is known than that he resided chiefly at Thebes, and that the dates of his birth and death were about 522 and 443 B.C. respectively. Practically all his extant poems are odes in commemoration of victories in the public games.

Note [366] page 197. The Greek poetess Corinna (5th century B.C.) was a native of Tanagra in Bœotia. She is said to have won prizes five times in competition with Pindar. Only a few fragments of her verse remain.

Note [367] page 197. Sappho flourished about 600 B.C., and seems to have been born and to have lived chiefly at Mitylene. She enjoyed unique renown among the ancients: on hearing one of her poems, Solon prayed that he might not see death before he had learned it; Plato called her the Tenth Muse; and Aristotle placed her on a par with Homer. For a recently discovered and interesting fragment of her verse, see the Egypt Exploration Fund’s “Oxyrhynchus Papyri,” Part I, p. 11.

Note [368] page 198. Castiglione here follows Plutarch. Pliny, on the other hand, affirms that Roman women were obliged to kiss their male relatives, in order that it might be known whether they had transgressed the law forbidding them to drink wine.