[60:1] Amphilochus was one of the heroes of the Trojan war. He was the son of a seer, and was believed to be endowed with the gift of prophecy. The oracle bearing his name at Mallos in Cilicia was said to have been founded by him, and it had a wider and more enduring reputation for veracity than any other ancient oracle.
[60:2] Εἰ βέλτιον βιώσεται. The question related to his property,—to his means of comfortable living. I therefore use in translating it the familiar colloquialism, better off. The answer has a moral significance. Βέλτιον is an ambiguous word,—applicable equally to condition and to character.
[60:3] “Thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy,” was sound ethical doctrine, equally with Gentile and with Jew, until men saw in the divine humanity of Jesus Christ the qualities of character which had been most despised, transfigured and glorified.
[62:1] Thespesius means divine.
[63:1] Plutarch (Greek Questions, 39) writes: “The Pythagoreans say that the souls of the dead neither give a shadow nor wink.”
[63:2] Ἀνάγκη. This mythical parentage may account for the name of Adrasteia, which is probably derived from διδράσκειν, to escape, with the α privative, and thus means unescapable.
[64:1] Punishment.
[64:2] Justice.
[64:3] One of the Erinnyes, or Furies. There are different myths as to their number, though there were commonly said to be three. Their name is probably derived from ἐρινύειν, to be in a rage. They were in Grecian fable the type of implacable anger and unrelenting vengeance.
[64:4] Plutarch in his Apophthegms, says of Artaxerxes Longimanus, who was not an unwise, but an over-indulgent king: “He first ordained as a punishment for his nobles who had offended, that they should be stripped and their garments scourged instead of their bodies; and whereas their hair should have been plucked out, that the same should be done to their turbans.” We do not learn that his example was followed by any of his successors, or that he employed this method as to criminals in general. But the illustration is a happy one.