Note [376] page 200. Erythræ was an important city on the west coast of Asia Minor opposite Chios. The nearest approach to ‘Leuconia’ in ancient geography is the distant town Leuconum in what is now Slavonia, between the Danube and the Save.

Note [377] page 201. Plutarch’s version of this story adds that in honour of the Persian women’s bravery on this occasion, Cyrus (559-529 B.C.) decreed that whenever the king returned from a long journey, each woman should receive a ring of gold.

Note [378] page 201. One of Plutarch’s minor works is entitled “Apothegms and Famous Sayings of Spartan Women,” and Castiglione’s contemporary Marcantonio Casanova wrote two Latin distiches on “The Spartan Mother Slaying Her Son.”

Note [379] page 201. Saguntum, the modern Murviedro, was a city of Greek origin on the eastern coast of Spain. After a desperate siege of nearly eight months, it was captured by Hannibal in 219 B.C.

Note [380] page 201. The reference here is to the victory, at Vercelli near Milan, by which the Roman general Caius Marius repelled the advance of the Cimbri into Italy, 101 B.C. The sacred fire (supposed to have been brought from Troy by Æneas as the symbol of Vesta, the hearth deity) was kept alive at Rome by six virgins.

Note [381] page 202. Amalasontha, (498-535 A.D.), was the daughter of Theodoric the Great, and regent of the East Gothic kingdom from his death in 526 until her own. After a prosperous reign she is said to have been strangled by her cousin and second husband Theodatus, at the instigation of the Empress Theodora, the wife of Justinian.

Note [382] page 202. Theodolinda, daughter of Duke Garibald of Bavaria, married (589 A.D.) Autharis, King of the Lombards, and on his death in the following year, she married Duke Agilulph of Turin, who was proclaimed king in 591. She died in 625, after exercising the regency in the name of her son. Her virtue, wisdom and beauty were extolled; she was active in her labours on behalf of Christianity; and she carried on a correspondence with St. Gregory, who was pope from 590 to 604.

Note [383] page 202. The Theodora here referred to is doubtless the wife, not of Justinian, but of Theophilus, Emperor of Constantinople 829-842. She died in 867, and was canonized by the Greek Church.

Note [384] page 202. Countess Matilda, (1046-1115), one of the most famous heroines of the Middle Ages, was the daughter of Duke Boniface of Tuscany and Beatrice of Lorraine. She ruled over Tuscany and a large part of northern Italy, espoused the papal cause against the Emperor, and exercised an important influence upon the politics of her time. She was noted also for her religious zeal, energy, and austere yet gentle and cultivated life. Count Ludovico’s supposed descent from her paternal uncle Conrad is now regarded as doubtful.

Note [385] page 202. Among the eminent women here referred to, we may note: Duke Guidobaldo’s grandfather’s wife, Caterina Colonna, (died 1438), who was a great-aunt of Vittoria Colonna, and was praised as “noble, beautiful, discreet, charming, gentle and generous”; his great-aunt Battista di Montefeltro, (died 1450), who, having been deserted by her worthless Malatesta husband, wrote moral essays and poetry, and was celebrated for her piety and mental gifts, as well as for her learning and literary accomplishments; his aunt, Brigida Sueva di Montefeltro, (born 1428), who, after enduring for twelve years the brutalities of her Sforza husband, became an abbess and ultimately received the honour of beatification,—her remains being revered as a sacred relic; another aunt of his, Violante di Montefeltro, (born 1430), who was famous for her talents and beauty; his maternal grandmother, Costanza da Varano, (born 1428), was a granddaughter of the Battista above mentioned, inherited much of that lady’s taste for learning, became the associate of scholars and philosophers, wrote Latin orations, epistles and poems, and (by her marriage to a brother of the first Sforza duke of Milan) became the mother of Duke Guidobaldo’s own mother, Battista Sforza, (born 1446), who rivalled her ancestresses’ attainments, administered her husband’s government judiciously during his frequent absences, and was regarded as beautiful, although tiny in person.