His horned head belied the Libyan god. “The desire to be thought the son of Jupiter Ammon caused him to wear the horns of that god, and to represent the same upon his coins.” (Pope’s note.) Libyan = African.
Caesar graced with both Minervas, i.e., by warlike and literary genius; as the conqueror of Gaul and the writer of the ‘Commentaries.’
Scarce detested in his country’s fate. Whom even the enslaving of his country scarce makes us detest.
Epaminondas (died 362 B.C.), the maintainer of Theban independence.
Timoleon, of Corinth, who slew his brother when he found him aspiring to be tyrant in the state (died 337 B.C.).
Scipio. The conqueror of Carthage, which was long the rival of Rome.
Aurelius, i.e., Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121-180 A.D.), Emperor of Rome; one of the brightest characters in Roman history.
Socrates. The great Greek philosopher, who, in maintaining truth, incurred the charge of infecting the young men of Athens with impiety, and was put to death by being made to drink hemlock. His life and teaching are known to us through the writings of his disciple, Plato.
He whom ungrateful Athens, &c., i.e., Aristides (see page 171), distinguished by the surname of The Just. He was unjust, Pope means, only when he signed the shell for his own condemnation.
Phocion. An Athenian general and statesman (402-318 B.C.), put to death by Polysperchon. He injured rather than helped the liberties of Athens.
Agis, “King of Sparta, who endeavoured to restore his state to greatness by a radical agrarian reform, was after a mock trial murdered in prison, B.C. 241.” Ward.
Cato, who, to escape disgrace amid the evils which befell his country, stabbed himself in 46 B.C.
Brutus his ill Genius meets no more. See the account of the Eve of Philippi in Book IV.
The wars of Troy. Described by Homer in his Iliad.
Tydides (Diomede) wounds the Cyprian Queen (Venus). A scene described in the Iliad.
Hector. Slew Patroclus, the friend of Achilles, and in revenge was dragged by him round the walls of Troy.
The Mantuan, i.e., the Roman poet Virgil, author of the Aeneid, born at Mantua (70-19 B.C.)
Eliza = Elissa, or Dido, whose misfortunes are described in the Aeneid.
Aeneas bending with his aged sire. Aeneas carried his father, Anchises, from the flames of Troy on his shoulders.
Arms and the Man. The opening words of the Aeneid.
Pindar. Of Thebes, who holds the first place among the lyric poets of Greece. The character and subjects of his poetry, of which the portions remaining to us are the Triumphal Odes, celebrating victories gained in the great games of Greece, are indicated by the lines that follow.