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From Lucian’s Wonderland, being a Translation of the ‘Vera Historia,’ by St J. Basil Wynne Willson, M. A., illustrated by A. Payne Garnett; Edinburgh and London: Blackwood and Sons; 1899, pp. 157-164.


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NOTES.
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CLICK ON THE RED LINE REFERENCES AND YOU WILL GO TO THAT SECTION, IN A NEW BROWSER WINDOW.






AUTHOR’S  INTRODUCTION.

 P. 2, l. 19.  Photius preserves some fragments of Ctesias’ ‘History of India.’

 P. 3, l. 4.  Iambulus wrote a work ‘De Mirificis Hominum Formis.’

 P. 3, l. 15,  Homer’s ‘Odyssey,’ bks. ix-xii.

BOOK I.

CHAPTER I.

 P. 9, l. 2,  The Straits of Gibraltar.

CHAPTER II.

 P. 21, l. 18,  Endymion, the beautiful youth who fell into a deep and eternal sleep on Mount Latmus, and was kissed by the Moon as he lay.

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 P. 30, l. 17,  Sarpedon, son of Zeus and Laodamia, King of Lycia, was slain by Patroclus in the Trojan War. See Homer’s ‘Iliad,’ bk. xvi., l. 459.

 P. 31, l. 10 ,  The huge bronze statue, seventy cubits high, that is commonly said to have bestridden the harbour at Rhodes.

BOOK II.

CHAPTER I.

 P. 85, l. 8,  Momus was the god of mockery and censorious criticism.

 P. 85, l. 17,  Galatea and Tyro recall the Greek words for “milk” and “cheese.”

 P. 86, l. 16,  Cork is given as a translation of the Greek name Phello. Cf. French Liége.

CHAPTER II.

 P. 93, l. 3,  On being defeated by Ulysses in the contest for the arms of Achilles, Ajax was seized by madness and began to slaughter the sheep of the Greek army, under the impression that they were his enemies.

 P. 93, l. 10,  Hippocrates, a famous physician of old; fl. 430 B.C.

 P. 93, l. 12,  Hellebore was the classical remedy for madness.

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 P. 93, l. 17,  In her youth Helen of Troy was carried off to Athens by Theseus and his friend Pirithous, but was rescued by her brothers Castor and Pollux, and afterwards chose Menelaus out of numerous noble suitors to be her husband. The story of her subsequent abduction from Menelaus by Paris, son of Priam, and the Trojan war, is well known.

 P. 101, l. 14,  Eunomus, an Italian harpist from Locri.

 P. 101, l. 14,  Arion, the celebrated lyric poet and harpist; fl. 625 B.C.

 P. 101, l. 15,  Anacreon, writer of lyric love poetry; died about 478 B.C.

 P. 101, l. 15,  Stesichorus (of Himera in Sicily), fl. 608 B.C., was said to have been struck blind by Helen’s brothers, Castor and Pollux, for writing defamatory poetry on her. On composing a palinode or recantation he recovered his sight.

 P. 102, l. 12,  Ajax, son of Oileus (to be distinguished from the Ajax, son of Telamon), was shipwrecked on his return from Troy, but reached a rock in safety. As, however, he boasted that he would escape in defiance of the gods, Poseidon split the rock with his trident and drowned him.

 P. 102, l. 15,  Two Cyruses — i.e., Cyrus the elder, founder of the Persian Empire, and Cyrus the younger, who was killed in 401 B.C. at the battle of Cunaxa, when conspiring against his brother Artaxerxes with the aid of the Greek Ten Thousand.

 P. 102, l. 16,  Anacharsis, a high-born Scythian, who travelled in search of knowledge and received instruction from Solon.

 P. 102, l. 16,  Zamolxis, a Thracian slave of Pythagoras, who taught his master’s philosophy to his countrymen.

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 P. 102, l. 17,  Numa, the second King of Rome, and the reputed author of much of her primitive law and religion.

 P. 102, l. 17,  Lycurgus, the founder of the Spartan constitution.

 P. 102, l. 18,  Phocion, the leader of the peace party at Athens, and the chief opponent of Demosthenes.

 P. 102, l. 18,  Tellus lived and died on behalf on his country.

 P. 102, l. 19,  The Seven Sages of Greece were Thales, Bias, Pittacus, Solon, Cleobulus, Chilon, Periander. The last named was Tyrant of Corinth, and forfeited his place in Elysium by the oppressive government of his later years.

 P. 103, l. 2,  Palamedes, one of the Greek heroes who fought against Troy, was falsely accused of treachery and stoned to death.

 P. 103, l. 2,  Hyacinthus, a beautiful youth of mythology, killed accidentally by Apollo with a quoit. From his blood sprang the flower.

 P. 103, l. 3,  Hylas, Hercules’ page; drawn by nymphs into a well.

 P. 103, l. 3,  Narcissus pined away from love of his own reflection and faded into the flower.

 P. 103, l. 16,  Epicurus and Aristippus were founders of two sensual schools of philosophy, the Epicurean and the Cyreniac.

 P. 103, l. 19,  Æsop, the writer of fables.

 P. 104, l. 1,  Diogenes, the Cynic, whose habitation on earth was a tub.

 P. 104, l. 3,  Lais, “the celebrated courtesan of Corinth, really lived with Aristippus, for whom Lucian substitutes Diogenes, the founder of the Cynic or opposite school” (Jerram).

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 P. 104, l. 6,  The Stoics compared a life of virtue to the ascent of a steep hill.

 P. 104, l. 8,  Chrysippus, the greatest of the Stoics, in his ‘Vitarum Auctor’ asserted that no man could be a philosopher who had not drunk thrice of hellebore, the antidote of madness.

 P. 104, l. 12,  The philosophers of the New Academy disbelieved in the judgment of the senses, and so, holding that was no criterion or standard of truth, kept their judgment in suspense, and could never reach a definite conclusion.

 P. 106, l. 11,  Zenodotus and Aristarchus were Alexandrine editors of Homer, and in making recensions of the text rejected and omitted several passages as spurious.

 P. 106, l. 15,  The ‘Iliad’ begins with the line, “Of the wrath of Achilles, sing, O Muse!” Lucian laughs at a certain pedantic school of criticism that pretended to discover mysterious and hidden meanings in every word.

 P. 107, l. 16,  In the ‘Iliad’ Ulysses is represented as wily and glib of tongue.

 P. 107, l. 18,  Pythagoras believed in the theory of transmigration, and asserted that his own soul had inhabited the bodies of five men, of whom Euphorbus the Trojan was one. He was said to have had a golden thigh.

 P. 108, l. 7,  Empedocles, a philosopher of Agrigentum (about 444 B.C.), who was probably refused admittance on account of his sceptical opinions, met his death by falling into the crater of Etna.

 P. 108, l. 19,  Carus, unknown, and possibly invented by Lucian.

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 P. 109, l. 4,  Areus, an Alexandrine philosopher.

 P. 109, l. 5,  Epeus was the winner of the boxing-match at the funeral games of Patroclus, as recorded by Homer, ‘Iliad,’ bk. xxiii., l. 64.

 P. 109, l. 5,  The pancratium included wrestling and boxing.

 P. 109, l. 9,  Plutarch mentions a contest between Homer and Hesiod, in which the latter won unfairly.

 P. 109, l. 19,  Phalaris, the notorious Tyrant of Agrigentum, proverbial for his cruelty. His favourite mode of inflicting torture was roasting men alive in a brazen bull.

 P. 109, l. 19,  Busiris, an Egyptian king who sacrificed strangers to Zeus: he was killed by Hercules.

 P. 110, l. 1,  Diomedes, a king of a Thracian tribe, used to feed his mares on human flesh: also slain by Hercules.

 P. 110, l. 2,  Sciron, a Greek robber: as also Sinis, nick-named Pityocamptes = Pine-bender.

 P. 110, l. 11,  Socrates fought at the battle of Delium, B.C. 424, and, when the Athenians were routed and fled in disorder, retreated quietly and steadily, “calmly surveying friends and foes.” On this occasion his superior courage was shown by not retreating at all.

 P. 111, l. 12,  A parody of ‘Odyssey,’ bk. i. l. 1.

 P. 111, l. 17,  Pythagoras, for some unknown reason (it is said, because he believed the souls of the dead to inhabit beans), refused to eat this vegetable, though a vegetarian.

 P. 116, l. 18,  Mr Collins (‘Lucian,’ “Ancient Classics Series”) cites an old oath taken by travellers at Highgate, “not to stir the fire with a sword nor kiss a woman over two-and-twenty.”

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CHAPTER III.

 P. 118, l. 7,  Calypso, a nymph who lived on the island of Ogygia, where Ulysses in his wanderings was shipwrecked. She fell in love with the hero, and promised him immortality on condition that he would remain with her and not return to his wife Penelope. Ulysses refused, whereupon Calypso detained him in the island for seven years, until compelled by the gods to release him.

 P. 123, l. 8,  Ctesias. See note on p. 2, l. 19.

 P. 127, l. 1,  Homer said there were two gates, one for truthful, the other for lying dreams. Virgil recognises two gates — one of horn, for verœe umbrœ, i.e., true spirits appearing in sleep, and the other of ivory, for delusive dreams.

 P. 132, l. 4,  Telegonus was sent out by Circe to seek for his father. Being shipwrecked on the island of Ithaca and pressed by hunger, he began to ravage the fields. Thereupon Ulysses marched against him, and was killed by his son, neither knowing the other.

CHAPTER IV.

 P. 145, l. 4,  The Minotaur was an ox-headed, man-eating monster, who lived in the Labyrinth in Crete. He was slain by Theseus with the help of Ariadne.





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