[29.] The Œtæan king.]—Ver. 383. Namely, Ceyx, the king of Trachyn, which city Hercules had founded, at the foot of Mount Œta.
[33.] The profane Phorbas.]—Ver. 414. The temple at Delphi was much nearer and more convenient for Ceyx to resort to; but at that period it was in the hands of the Phlegyans, a people of Thessaly, of predatory and lawless habits, who had plundered the Delphic shrine. They were destroyed by thunderbolts and pestilence, or, according to some authors, by Neptune, who swept them away in a flood. Phorbas, here mentioned, was one of the Lapithæ, a savage robber, who forced strangers to box with him, and then slew them. Having the presumption to challenge the Gods, he was slain by Apollo.
[34.] Names upon tombs.]—Ver. 429. Cenotaphs, or honorary tombs, were erected in honour of those, who having been drowned, their bodies could not be found. One great reason for erecting these memorials was the notion, that the souls of those who had received no funeral honours, wandered in agony on the banks of the Styx for the space of one hundred years.
[35.] Hippotas.]—Ver. 431. Æolus was the grandson of Hippotas, through his daughter Sergesta, who bore Æolus to Jupiter. Ovid says that he was the father of Halcyone; but, according to Lucian, she was the daughter of Æolus the Hellenian, the grandson of Deucalion.
[36.] Brilliant fires.]—Ver. 436. Ovid probably here had in view the description given by Lucretius, commencing Book i. line 272.
[37.] In double rows.]—Ver. 462. By this it is implied that the ship of Ceyx was a ‘biremis,’ or one with two ranks of rowers; one rank being placed above the other. Pliny the Elder attributes the invention of the ‘biremis’ to the Erythræans. Those with three ranks of rowers were introduced by the Corinthians; while Dionysius, the first king of Sicily, was the inventor of the Quadriremis, or ship with four ranks of rowers. Quinqueremes, or those with five ranks, are said to have been the invention of the Salaminians. The first use of those with six ranks has been ascribed to the Syracusans. Ships were sometimes built with twelve, twenty, and even forty ranks of rowers, but they appear to have been intended rather for curiosity than for use. As, of course, the labour of each ascending rank increased, through the necessity of the higher ranks using longer oars, the pay of the lowest rank was the lowest, their work being the easiest. Where there were twenty ranks or more, the upper oars required more than one man to manage them. Ptolemy Philopater had a vessel built as a curiosity, which had no less than four thousand rowers.
[38.] Towards their sides.]—Ver. 475. ‘Obvertere lateri remos’ most probably means ‘To feather the oars,’ which it is especially necessary to do in a gale, to avoid the retarding power of the wind against the surface of the blade of the oar.
[39.] Fixes the sail-yards.]—Ver. 476. ‘Cornua’ means, literally, ‘The ends or points of the sail-yards,’ or ‘Antennæ:’ but here the word is used to signify the sail-yards themselves.
[40.] Covering of wax.]—Ver. 514. The ‘Cera’ with which the seams of the ships were stopped, was most probably a composition of wax and pitch, or other bituminous and resinous substances.
[41.] The tenth wave.]—Ver. 530. This is said in allusion to the belief that every tenth wave exceeded the others in violence.