Our knight did bear no less a pack
Of his own buttocks on his back.”
Butler.
Æo′lus was the god of the winds. Jupiter was his reputed father, and his mother is said to have been a daughter of Hippotus. Æolus is represented as having the power of holding the winds confined in a cavern, and occasionally giving them liberty to blow over the world. So much command was he supposed to have over them that when Ulysses visited him on his return from Troy he gave him, tied up in a bag, all the winds that could prevent his voyage from being prosperous. The companions of Ulysses, fancying that the bag contained treasure, cut it open just as they came in sight of Ithaca, the port they were making for, and the contrary winds rushing out drove back the ship many leagues. The residence of Æolus was at Strongyle, now called Strombolo.
“Æolus from his airy throne
With power imperial curbs the struggling winds,
And sounding tempests in dark prisons binds.”
Dryden.
Æscula′pius, the god of physic, was a son of Apollo. He was physician to the Argonauts in their famous expedition to Colchis. He became so noted for his cures that Pluto became jealous of him, and he requested Jupiter to kill him with a thunderbolt. To revenge his son’s death Apollo slew the Cyclops who had forged the thunderbolt. By his marriage with Epione he had two sons, Machaon and Podalirus, both famous physicians, and four daughters, of whom Hygeia, the goddess of health, is the most renowned. Many temples were erected in honour of Æsculapius, and votive tablets were hung therein by people who had been healed by him; but his most famous shrine was at Epidaurus, where, every five years, games were held in his honour. This god is variously represented, but the most famous statue shows him seated on a throne of gold and ivory. His head is crowned with rays, and he wears a long beard. A knotty stick is in one hand, and a staff entwined with a serpent is in the other, while a dog lies at his feet.
“Thou that dost Æsculapius deride,