This interpretation and these criticisms are founded altogether on a false conception of the meaning of the word infigere, which is never to fix on, but always either to fix in, or to fix with, i.e. pierce with. Scopulo infixit acuto, fixed or pinned down or to the ground with a sharp rock; i.e. hurled a sharp-pointed rock on him, so as to nail him to the ground. So (Æn. XII. 721.) "Cornua obnixi infigunt," fix their horns, not on, but in; infix their horns; stick their horns into each other; stick each other with their horns: q.d. Cornibus se mutuo infigunt: and, exactly parallel to our text:
"Saturnius me sic infixit Jupiter,
Jovisque numen Mulcibri adscivit manus.
Hos ille cuneos fabrica crudeli inserens,
Perrupit artus; qua miser sollertia
Transverberatus, castrum hoc Furiarum incolo."
Cicero (translating from Æschylus), Tuscul. Quæst. II. 10.
In confirmation of this view of the passage, I may observe: 1st, that it is easier to imagine a man staked to the ground by a sharp-pointed rock, than flung on a sharp-pointed rock, so as to remain permanently impaled on it; and 2dly, that the account given of the transaction, both by Quintus Calaber and Seneca, agree as perfectly with this view as they disagree with the opposite:
Καί νύ κεν ἐξήλυξε κακὸν μόρον, εἰ μὴ ἄρ'αὐτῷ,
ῥήξας αἶαν ἔνερθεν, ἐπιπροέηκε κολώνην·