[LXXXVII.] See note on [stanza xxxviii.] The Luperci were the priests of Lupercus. Catiline was the author of the conspiracy of B.C. 63. Cicero, the famous orator, was consul for that year and frustrated the plot. Cato the younger died at Utica in 49 B.C. In the Roman writers Catiline is always the proverbial scoundrel and Cato is always taken as the model of rigid and exalted virtue.
[LXXXVIII.] At the battle of Actium, in B.C. 31, the fleet of Augustus met those of Antony and Cleopatra, and owing to the desertion of the Egyptians at the crisis of the fight, gained a complete victory over them.
[XC.] The Cyclads were the western islands of the Greek archipelago.
[XCIV.] The Carians lived in the south of Asia Minor, the Gelonians beyond the Danube, and the Morini on the North Sea, near where Ostend now is. The Dahae were a tribe of Scythians, and the Leleges were an ancient people spread over Asia Minor.
NOTES TO BOOK NINE
[I.] Iris, the rainbow-goddess, daughter of Thaumas, was the messenger of the gods. Pilumnus was an ancient Latin god, and an ancestor of Turnus.