[149] Mombas, a seaport town on an island of the same name off the coast of Zanguebar, East Africa.—Ed.
[150] Mercury, so called from Cyllēnē, the highest mountain in the Peloponnesus, where he had a temple, and on which spot he is said to have been born.—Ed.
[151] Petasus.
[152] The caduceus, twined with serpents.—Ed.
"But first he grasps within his awful hand
The mark of sovereign power, the magic wand:
With this he draws the ghosts from hollow graves,
With this he drives them down the Stygian waves,
With this he seals in sleep the wakeful sight,
And eyes, though closed in death, restores to light."
Æneid, iv. 242. (Dryden's Trans.)
[154] Mercury.
[155] Diomede, a tyrant of Thrace, who fed his horses with human flesh; a thing, says the grave Castera, almost incredible. Busiris was a king of Egypt, who sacrificed strangers.
Quis ... illaudati nescit Busiridis aras?
Virg. Geor. iii.
Hercules vanquished both these tyrants, and put them to the same punishments which their cruelty had inflicted on others. Isocrates composed an oration in honour of Busiris; a masterly example of Attic raillery and satire.