The father of these (not here mentioned) was Acheron: the names of the three were Alecto, Megæra, and Tisiphone. They were called Furies in hell, on earth Harpies, and in heaven Diræ. Two of these assisted at the throne of Jupiter, and were employed by him to punish the wickedness of mankind. These two must be Megæra and Tisiphone—not Alecto; for Juno expressly commands her to return to hell, from whence she came; and gives this reason:
Te super ætherias errare licentius auras
Haud pater ipse velit, summi regnator Olympi,
Cede locis.
Probably this Dira, unnamed by the poet in this place, might be Tisiphone; for, though we find her in hell, in the Sixth Æneïd, employed in the punishment of the damned,
Continuo sontes ultrix, accincta flagello,
Tisiphone quatit insultans, &c.
yet afterwards she is on earth in the tenth Æneïd, and amidst the battle,
Pallida Tisiphone media inter millia sævit—
which I guess to be Tisiphone, the rather, by the etymology of her name, which is compounded of τιω ulciscor, and φονος coedes; part of her errand being to affright Turnus with the stings of a guilty conscience, and denounce vengeance against him for breaking the first treaty, by refusing to yield Lavinia to Æneas, to whom she was promised by her father—and, consequently, for being the author of an unjust war; and also for violating the second treaty, by declining the single combat, which he had stipulated with his rival, and called the gods to witness before their altars. As for the names of the Harpies, (so called on earth,) Hesiod tells us they were Iris, Aëllo, and Ocypete. Virgil calls one of them Celæno: this, I doubt not, was Alecto, whom Virgil calls, in the Third Æneïd, Furiarum maxima, and in the sixth again by the same name—Furiarum maxima juxta accubat. That she was the chief of the Furies, appears by her description in the Seventh Æneïd; to which, for haste, I refer the reader.