xxxv. In this stanza we see the influence of Homer and Vergil. Ixion, the king of Lapithae, was chained by order of Zeus to a fiery-winged wheel for aspiring to the love of the goddess Hera (Juno). Sisyphus had to roll a huge stone forever up a hill for betraying the designs of the gods. Tantalus, for divulging the secrets of Zeus, was condemned to stand tormented by thirst in a lake. Tityus, for an assault on Artemis, was pinioned to the ground with two vultures plucking at his vitals. Typhoeus, a hundred-headed giant, was slain by Zeus' thunderbolt, and buried under Aetna. The gin on which he was tortured was probably the rack of the Middle Ages. Cf. the bed of Procrustes. Theseus, for attempting to carry off Persephone, was fixed to a rock in Tartarus. The "fifty sisters" are the fifty Danaides, who, for slaying their husbands, were condemned to pour water forever into a vessel full of holes. 322. SAD AESCULAPIUS, the god of medicine, slain by Zeus for arresting death and diseases. 354. AND FATES EXPIRED, and the threads of life which the fates (Parcae) had severed. 387. GREAT PAINES, AND GREATER PRAISE, etc. His praise, like his pain, is to be eternal. xlvii. This list of the thralls of Pride is in imitation of a similar one in Chaucer's _Monk's Tale_, which was based on Boccaccio's _De Casibus Illustrium Virorum_. 415. PROUD KING OF BABYLON, Nebuchadnezzar. See _Daniel_, iii and iv. 420. KING CROESUS, the last king of Lydia, who was overthrown by Cyrus in B.C. 646. _Herodotus_, i, 26. 422. PROUD ANTIOCHUS, Antiochus Epiphanes, king of Syria, who captured Jerusalem twice, and defiled God's altar. He died raving mad B.C. 164. Josephus, _Antiquities of the Jews_, xiii, 5-9. 424. GREAT NIMROD, "the mighty hunter" (_Genesis_, x, 8), whose game, according to Spenser, was man. Josephus tells us that through pride he built the tower of Babel. 426. OLD NINUS, the legendary founder of Nineveh, and put to death by his wife, Semiramis. 428. THAT MIGHTY MONARCH, Alexander the Great (B.C. 366-323), king of Macedon. While consulting the oracle of Jupiter Ammon in the Libyan desert he was saluted by the priests as "Ammons Sonne." He died either of poison (Plutarch) or of excessive drink (Diodorus). 437. GREAT ROMULUS, legendary founder of Rome (B.C. 753). See Livy, i, 16. 438. PROUD TARQUIN, Tarquinius Superbus, the last king of Rome. He was banished B.C. 510. 438. TOO LORDLY LENTULUS, surnamed Sura, member of a haughty patrician family, who conspired with Catiline, and was strangled B.C. 62. 439. STOUT SCIPIO, Cornelius Scipio Africanus (B.C. 287?-183?), the conqueror of Hannibal, and self-exiled from Rome. Livy speaks of his inordinate pride, xxxviii, 50. 439. STUBBORNE HANNIBALL (B.C. 247-183), the great Carthaginian general, who died by poison to avoid falling into the hands of the Romans. 440. AMBITIOUS SYLLA (B.C. 138-78), Cornelius Sulla, the Dictator, who died a loathsome death.