[166] The ancients hardly ever drank wine neat. Hence the allusion. The symposiarch, or arbiter bibendi, settled the proportions to be used.
[167] Compare the French proverb, "Le beau soulier blesse souvent le pied."
[168] Thessaly was considered by the ancients famous for enchantments and spells. So Juvenal, vi. 610, speaks of "Thessala philtia," and see Horace, "Odes," i. 27. 21, 22; "Epodes," v. 45.
[169] Wyttenbach well compares the lines of Menander:—
ἔνεστ᾽ἀληθὲς φίλτρον εὐγνώμων τρόπός, τούτῳ κατακρατεῖν ἀνδρὸς εἴωθεν γυνή.
[170] An allusion to Homer, "Iliad," xiv. 214-217.
[171] Called by the Romans "pronuba Juno." See Verg. "Æneid," iv. 166; Ovid, "Heroides," vi. 43.
[172] See Pausanias, vi. 25. The statue was made of ivory and gold.
[173] Compare Terence, "Hecyra," 201. "Uno animo omnes socrus oderunt nurus." As to stepmotherly feelings, the "injusta noverca" has passed into a proverb with all nations. See for example Hesiod, "Works and Days," 823, ἄλλοτε μητρυιὴ πἐλει ἡμἐρη, ἄλλοτε μήτηρ.
[174] Wyttenbach compares Seneca's "Fidelem si putaveris facies." "Ep." iii. p. 6.