NOTES TO BOOK SEVEN
[I.] 'Thou too, Caieta,' that is to say, as well as Misenus and Palinurus, mentioned in the last book. Caieta gave her name to the town and promontory which were on the confines of Latium and Campania.
[II.] 'The coast, where Circe'—Virgil identifies 'the island of Aeaea,' the dwelling-place of Circe in Homer, with the promontory of Circeii in Italy.
[VI.] 'Say, Erato:' Erato was the Muse of Love, and the invocation is not specially appropriate in this place. But the line is an imitation of Apollonius Rhodius iii, 1.
'Ausonia,' a poetical name for Italy. The Ausones were early inhabitants of Campania.
[VII.] Latinus was king of the Latins, a small tribe whose chief town was Laurentum. Faunus a god of the fields and cattle-keepers, was afterwards identified with the Greek Pan. Picus was a prophetic god. We are told by Ovid that he was changed into a woodpecker (picus) by Circe, whose love he had slighted. Saturnus was the old Latin god of sowing, and was later identified with the Greek Kronos, father of Zeus.