XXXVI. The legend was that Rhea Silvia, a priestess of Mars, bore the twins Romulus and Remus. The two children were exposed and left to die, but were found and nursed by a she-wolf. XXXVIII. This prophecy refers not to C. Julius Caesar but to his nephew Augustus, as is shown by the references to the east (the battle of Actium) and to the closing of the 'gates of Janus.' For an account of the latter, see Book VII. stanza xxiv. XL. The 'son of Maia' is Mercury. XLII. Harpalyce was the daughter of a Thracian king and a famous huntress. XLIX. _Byrsa_. This word, originally the Semitic word for 'citadel,' was thought by the Greeks to be their own word _Byrsa_ meaning 'a bull's hide.' This mistake was probably the cause of the legend given by Virgil. LV. _Paphos_ in Cyprus was one of the chief centres of the worship of Venus. LX. Priam was the king of Troy, and the Atridae were Agamemnon and Menelaus. Achilles is described as fierce to both, because he quarrelled with Agamemnon about a captive. It is with this quarrel that the _Iliad_ opens. LXII. _Rhesus_, king of Thrace, had come to help the Trojans. It had been prophesied that if his horses ate Trojan grass or drank the water of the river, Troy could never be taken. Diomedes (Tydides) prevented this by capturing the horses. LXIII. _Troilus:_ a son of Priam slain by Achilles. LXIV. Memnon, son of Aurora, the dawn-goddess, and Penthesilea, queen of the Amazons, came to Troy as allies. They were both slain by Achilles. LXV. The _Eurotas_ was a river in Laconia, and Cynthus was a mountain of Delos. Both places were supposed to be favourite haunts of the goddess Diana. _Oreads:_ mountain-nymphs. _Latona_ was the mother of Diana and Apollo. LXX. _Hesperia_, 'the western land,' means Italy. The Oenotrian folk were an old Italian race settled in the south of the peninsula, in Lucania. _Italus_ is an eponymous hero and was probably invented to account for the name _Italia_. Probably _Italia_ means 'the cattle land.' LXXXII. This Teucer, who was a Greek, must be carefully distinguished from the founder of the Trojans. He was a son of the king of Salamis, and on his return from the Trojan war was exiled by his father. He fled to Dido's father Belus, and with the help of the latter founded a new kingdom in Cyprus. XCVII. Bacchus was the god of wine and feasting. NOTES TO BOOK TWO XXII. An oracle said that the citadel of Troy would never be taken as long as the _Palladium_, or image of Pallas, remained in it. So Diomedes and Ulysses stole the image. XXXII. Apollo had conferred on Cassandra the gift of prophecy. But she deceived him, and as he could not take away his former gift, he added as a curse that no one should ever believe her. XXXV. _Neoptolemus_ was the son of Achilles and grandson of Peleus. XLII. _Sigeum_ is the name of the promontory which juts out into the Hellespont from the Troad.