The story is told in Pausanias. A painting of Echetlos was to be seen in the Poecile at Athens.
Petrus Aponensis: author of a work quoted in the Idyl: Conciliator Differentiarum. Abano is a village near Padua.
Some expressions in this Idyl may require explaining. "Salomo si nôsset" (novisset) (p. 136). "Had Solomon but known this." "Teneo, vix" (p. 136). "I scarcely contain myself." "Hact[=e]nus" (p. 136). The "e" is purposely made long. "Hitherto." "Peason" (p. 138). The old English plural of "pea." "Pou sto" (p. 138). "Where I may stand:" The alleged saying of Archimedes—"I could move the world had I a place for my fulcrum—'where I might stand' to move it." "Tithon" (p. 141). Tithonus—Aurora's lover: for whom she procured the gift of eternal life. "Apage, Sathanas!" (p. 143). "Depart Satan." Customary adjuration.
The term "Venus," as employed in the postscript to the Idyl, signified in Roman phraseology, the highest throw of the dice. It signified, therefore the highest promise to him, who, in obedience to the oracle, had tested his fortunes at the fount at Abano, by throwing golden dice into it. The "crystal," to which Mr. Browning refers, is the water of the well or fount, at the bottom of which, as Suetonius declared, the dice thrown by Tiberius, and their numbers, were still visible. The little air which concludes the post-script reflects the careless or "lilting" mood in which Mr. Browning had thrown the "fancy dice" which cast themselves into the form of the poem.