[36.] Olympus.]—Ver. 154. Olympus was a mountain between Thessaly and Macedonia. Pelion was a mountain of Thessaly, towards the Pelasgic gulf; and Ossa was a mountain between Olympus and Pelion. These the Giants are said to have heaped one on another, in order to scale heaven.
[37.] There is a way on high.]—Ver. 168. The Poet here gives a description of the court of heaven; and supposing the galaxy, or Milky Way, to be the great road to the palace of Jupiter, places the habitations of the Gods on each side of it, and adjoining the palace itself. The mythologists also invented a story, that the Milky Way was a track left in the heavens by the milk of Juno flowing from the mouth of Hercules, when suckled by her. Aristotle, however, suspected what has been since confirmed by the investigations of modern science, that it was formed by the light of innumerable stars.
[38.] The ennobled Deities.]—Ver. 172. These were the superior Deities, who formed the privy councillors of Jupiter, and were called ‘Di majorum gentium,’ or, ‘Di consentes.’ Reckoning Jupiter as one, they were twelve in number, and are enumerated by Ennius in two limping hexameter lines:—
‘Juno, Vesta, Minerva, Ceres, Diana, Venus, Mars,
Mercurius, Jovis, Neptunus, Vulcanus, Apollo.’
[39.] The Gods of lower rank.]—Ver. 173. These were the ‘Dii minorum gentium,’ or inferior Deities.
[40.] Shook the awful locks.]—Ver. 179. This awful nod of Jupiter, the sanction by which he confirms his decrees, is an idea taken from Homer; by whom it is so vividly depicted at the end of the first book of the Iliad, that Phidias, in his statue of that God, admired for the awful majesty of its looks, is said to have derived his conception of the features from that description. Virgil has the same idea in the Æneid, book x; ‘Annuit, et totum metu tremefecit Olympum.’
[41.] Nereus.]—Ver. 187. He was one of the most ancient of the Deities of the sea, and was the son of Oceanus and Tethys.
[42.] The Nymphs.]—Ver. 192. The terrestrial Nymphs were the Dryads and Hamadryads, who haunting the woods, and the duration of their existence depending upon the life of particular trees, derived their name from the Greek word δρῦς, ‘an oak.’ The Oreades were nymphs who frequented the mountains, while the Napeæ lived in the groves and valleys. There were also Nymphs of the sea and of the rivers; of which, the Nereids were so called from their father Nereus, and the Oceanitides, from Oceanus. There were also the Naiads, or nymphs of the fountains, and many others.
[43.] Thus when an impious band.]—Ver. 200. It is a matter of doubt whether he here refers to the conspiracies of Brutus and Cassius against Julius Cæsar, or whether to that against Augustus, which is mentioned by Suetonius, in the nineteenth chapter of his History. As Augustus survived the latter conspiracy, and the parallel is thereby rendered more complete, probably this is the circumstance here alluded to.