[3.] Admetus, husband of Alcestis, being told by an oracle that his wife must die if no one offered himself in her stead, thought to lay the obligation on his father, as being an old man with but few more years to live. The first verse quoted is from the Alcestis of Euripides; the second is not found in any extant version of that play.
[4.] Eteocles and Polyneices, sons of Œdipus, quarreled with each other about the inheritance of their father’s kingdom. Eteocles having gained possession of it, Polyneices brought up the famous seven kings, his allies, against Thebes, and fell in battle there by his brother’s hand, whom he also killed. The verses quoted are from the Phœnissæ of Euripides.
[5.] Schweighäuser interprets this passage to mean that these men occupy the public places as wild beasts do the mountains, to prey on others. If we might read ὡς τὰ θηρία for ὡς τὰ ὄρη, we should get a less obscure sense, “haunt the wilderness—I should say the public places—like wild beasts.” The passage is clearly corrupt somewhere.
[6.] Polyneices bribed Eriphyle with the gift of this necklace to persuade her unwilling husband to march with him against Thebes where he died.
Chapter VIII.
[1.] The allusion is to Odyssey, v. 82-4. “But he was sitting on the beach and weeping, where he was wont; and tormented his spirit with tears and groanings and woes, and wept as he gazed over the barren sea.”
[2.] Let him pity.—See Bk. I., ch. viii., [note 3.]
Chapter IX.
[1.] The conflagration.—See Preface for an account of the Stoic Doctrine of the Weltverbrennung.