4. Eteocles and Polyneices, sons of Œdipus, quarreled with each other about the inheritance of their father’s kingdom. Eteocles having gained possession of it, Polyneices brought up the famous seven kings, his allies, against Thebes, and fell in battle there by his brother’s hand, whom he also killed. The verses quoted are from the _Phœnissæ_ of Euripides. 5. Schweighäuser interprets this passage to mean that these men occupy the public places as wild beasts do the mountains, to prey on others. If we might read ὡς τὰ θηρία for ὡς τὰ ὄρη, we should get a less obscure sense, “haunt the wilderness—I should say the public places—like wild beasts.” The passage is clearly corrupt somewhere. 6. Polyneices bribed Eriphyle with the gift of this necklace to persuade her unwilling husband to march with him against Thebes where he died. CHAPTER VIII. 1. The allusion is to _Odyssey_, v. 82-4. “But he was sitting on the beach and weeping, where he was wont; and tormented his spirit with tears and groanings and woes, and wept as he gazed over the barren sea.” 2. _Let him pity._—See Bk. I., ch. viii., _note_ 3. CHAPTER IX. 1. _The conflagration._—See Preface for an account of the Stoic Doctrine of the _Weltverbrennung_. 2. Long suggests that the words translated “air to air” might be equally well rendered “spirit to spirit” (ὅσον πνευματίου εἰς πνευμάτιον), thus finding a place for the soul in this enumeration of the elements of man. But this metaphysical division of man’s nature into a spiritual part and a material part would have been wholly contrary to Stoic teaching, which admitted no existence that was not material. As a matter of fact, if any of the terms in this enumeration is to be understood as meaning soul or spirit, it will be fire rather than air. 3. Gods and Powers.—θεῶν καὶ Δαιμόνων. CHAPTER X. 1. _To strangle lions or embrace statues._—Hercules did the former, and ostentatious philosophers sometimes did the latter in winter-time, by way of showing their power of endurance. 2. _The stamp of Nero._—I believe there is no other record than this of any rejection of Nero’s coins, and those which have come down to us are of perfectly good quality. He was declared a public enemy by the Senate, and possibly it was decreed at the same time that his coins should be withdrawn from circulation. Dion, quoted by Wise (_apud_ Schweighäuser), reports that this was done in the case of Caligula, after the death of that tyrant. 3. _Lions at home, but in Ephesus foxes._—“A proverb about the Spartans, who were defeated in Asia,” notes the Scholiast on Aristoph. Pac., 1188-90. BOOK IV. CHAPTER II. 1. _Nor can I move without thy knowledge._—From Homer, _Il._ x. 279, 280, Odysseus to Athene. 2. _The Genius of each man._—τὸν ἐκάστον Δαίμονα. Chapter III.