Erato, the Muse of love poetry, held a lyre.
Polyhymnia, the Muse of sacred poetry, also presided over rhetoric.
Calliope, the Muse of epic and heroic poetry, wore a laurel crown.
Urania, the Muse of astronomy, held mathematical instruments.
XXIX
Mars's attendants, or some say his children, were Eris (Discord), Phobos (Alarm), Metus (Fear), Demios (Dread), and Pallor (Terror).
As founder of Rome, Romulus was its first king, and ruled over the people so tyrannically that the senators determined to get rid of him. So one day when an eclipse plunged the city into sudden darkness, the senators killed Romulus, cut his body into pieces, and hid them under their wide togas. When daylight returned, and the people looked about for their king,—for all the citizens had assembled on the Forum,—the senators informed them that Romulus had been carried off by the immortal gods and would never return. After this Romulus was worshiped as a god under the name of Quirinus, and a temple was built on one of the seven hills of Rome, which has since been known as Mount Quirinal. Yearly festivals in honor of Romulus were held in Rome under the name of Quirinalia.
XXX
Homer gives two versions of the story of Vulcan's lameness,—one, that Jupiter threw him out of heaven for helping his mother against Jupiter's will; and the other, that he was born deformed, and that Juno, ashamed of his ugliness, cast him out of heaven.
(1) "Yea once ere this, when I was fain to save thee (Juno), he caught me by my foot and hurled me from the heavenly threshold. All day I flew, and at the set of sun I fell in Lemnos, and little life was in me."
(2) "She (Thetis) delivered me when pain came upon me from my great fall through the ill-will of my shameless mother who would fain have hid me away for that I was lame."
He spake and from the anvil rose limping, a huge bulk, but under him his slender legs moved nimbly. The bellows he set away from the fire, and gathered all his gear wherewith he worked into a silver chest; and with a sponge he wiped his face and hands and sturdy neck and shaggy breast, and did on his doublet and took a stout staff and went forth limping.—Iliad, Book I and Book XVIII.