[LXXVIII.] Lucifer, 'the light bringer,' was the name of the morning star, which, rising just before the sun, seemed to bring the daylight.
[LXXX.] The Pelasgians were a very ancient race, of whom only traces existed in Greece in historic times. They were said to be very wide-spread, but the tales connecting them with Italy are all unhistoric. Silvanus was an ancient Latin woodland deity.
[LXXXIV.] The story, as related by Livy, is that the Romans being in want of wives, Romulus instituted games in honour of Neptune. At a given signal, the Romans seized and carried off the Sabine maidens who had come to see the games.
[LXXXV.] Mettus, dictator of Alba, had been called in to assist the Romans under Tullus Hostilius. He came, but withdrew his troops in the middle of the battle. For this treachery he was punished in the way Virgil describes. Horatius Cocles was the hero who guarded the Tiber bridge against Porsenna of Clusium. Cloelia was a Roman maiden who had been sent as a hostage to Porsenna. She escaped by swimming across the Tiber.
[LXXXVI.] The event here referred to is the invasion of Rome by the Gauls in 390 B.C. They captured the whole of the city, except the Capitol, which was successfully defended by Manlius, who had been put on the alert by the cackling of a flock of geese.