[Footnote 1: "Dire," in the Latin sense of ill-omened.]
[Footnote 2: When Jupiter had carried off Europa, her father, Agenor, sent her brother Cadmus to seek her, and commanded him not to return without his sister. Unable to find her he settled at Thebes, and built the city. He slew the dragon, which guarded a neighbouring well, and a portion of the armed men, who sprung up from its teeth, were reputed to be the ancestors of the Thebans.]
[Footnote 3: A second legend ascribed the building of the city to the wonder-working music of Amphion, which caused the stones to pile themselves together. Both legends were subsequently blended, and Cadmus had the credit of the upper part of the city, and Amphion of the lower.]
[Footnote 4: Juno visited Athamas, king of Thebes, with madness, and in his frenzy he shot his own son, Learchus, whom he took for a young lion. Upon this his wife, Ino, who was a daughter of Cadmus, fled with her second son, Melicertes, and threw herself and her boy into the sea.]
[Footnote 5: Domitian. The panegyric on this timid and cruel tyrant was disgraceful flattery. The boasted victories over the Dacian's were in reality defeats. They compelled the emperor to sue for an inglorious peace which was only purchased by the promise of an immediate ransom and an annual tribute. Most of his pretended triumphs were of a similar character, and led Pliny the younger to remark, that they were always the token of some advantage obtained by the enemies of Rome.]
[Footnote 6: During the contest between Vespasian and Vitellius for the empire, Domitian, at the age of eighteen, took refuge in the temple of the Capitol to escape from the fury of the soldiers opposed to his father. It was self-preservation and not daring which impelled him, and when the temple of Jupiter was set on fire he again fled, and hid himself until the party of Vespasian prevailed.]
[Footnote 7: This line is very obscure. There is nothing corresponding to it in the Latin.]
[Footnote 8: From the translation of Stephens:
[Footnote 9: Pope is closer to Stephens than to the original:
funeral flames Divided, like the souls they carry.
The rival brothers ultimately engaged in single combat, and both fell. The body of Polynices was placed by mistake upon the funeral pile of Eteocles, and the flames rose upwards in diverging currents.]