[21] When Perseus, with the help of Athene, had cut off the head of the Medusa, the two sisters caused a sad dirge-like song to issue from the mouths of the many snakes of which their hair was composed, whereupon Athene, pleased with the sound, imitated the melody on a reed, and thus invented the flute.
[22] For details see Roman Festivals.
[23] See Legend of Troy.
[24] Some, with but little reason, make Demeter the daughter of Uranus and Gæa.
[25] Demeter transformed Ascalaphus into an owl for revealing the secret.
[26] The course which the sun ran was considered by the ancients to be a rising and descending curve
the centre of which was supposed to be reached by Helios at mid-day.
[27] The river Po.
[28] This great work of antiquity was destroyed by an earthquake fifty-six years after its erection, B.C. 256. The fragments remained on the ground for many centuries, until Rhodes was conquered by the Turks, and they were eventually sold by one of the generals of Caliph Othman IV. to a merchant of Emesa for £36,000, A.D. 672.