Bk II:227-271. Of Babylon, the ancient
Mesopotamian capital of the Babylonians, in modern Iraq.
Bk XI:85-145. The female followers of Bacchus-Dionysus, noted for their ecstatic worship of the god.
Bk III:692-733. They celebrate the rites on Mount Cithaeron.
Bk VII:234-293. Medea has the appearance of a Bacchante.
Bk XI:1-66. They kill Orpheus.
Bk V:385-424. An ancient royal family of Corinth, descended from Bacchis, one of the Heraclidae, founder of Syracuse.
The god Dionysus, the ‘twice-born’, the god of the vine. The son of Jupiter and Semele. His worship was celebrated with orgiastic rites borrowed from Phrygia. His female followers are the Maenades. He carries the thyrsus, a wand tipped with a pine-cone, the Maenads and Satyrs following him carrying ivy-twined fir branches as thyrsi. (See Caravaggio’s painting –Bacchus – Uffizi, Florence)
Bk III:273-315. Snatched from his mother Semele’s womb when she is destroyed by Jupiter’s fire, he is sewn into Jupiter’s thigh, reared by Ino and hidden by the nymphs of Mount Nysa. (See Charles Shannon’s painting – The Childhood (or Education) of Bacchus – Private Collection)
Bk III:528-571. His worship comes to Thebes and is opposed there by Pentheus and at Argos by Acrisius.
Bk III:597-637. Acoetes tells how Bacchus was discovered on Chios. Bacchus asks to be put ashore on Naxos his home. Acoetes may be a manifestation of Bacchus himself.
Bk III:638-691. Bacchus transforms the ship and crew.
Bk III:692-733. His Maenads destroy Pentheus.
Bk IV:1-30. His names, features, deeds and rites. He is Dionysus Sabazius, the barley-god of Thrace and Phrygia, ‘formosissimus alto conspiceris caelo’ the morning and evening star, the star-son, identified by the Jews with Adonis, consort of the Great Goddess Venus Aphrodite or Astarte, and therefore manifested with her in the planet Venus. Later he is the horned Lucifer, ‘son of the morning’.
Bk IV:389-415. He turns the daughters of Minyas into bats.
Bk IV:512-542. Juno mocks at Ino his foster-mother, invoking his name.
Bk IV:604-662. He is worshipped in India and by all of Greece.
Bk IV:753-803. Bk VI:486-548. Bk VII:425-452,
Bk XII:536-579. Bk XIII:623-639. Wine at the marriage feast or banquet is his gift. (See Velázquez’s painting – The Drinkers, or the Triumph of Bacchus – Prado, Madrid) (Note: Wine in Ancient Greece contained honey, aloes, thyme, myrtle berries etc. to form a thick sweet syrup which was diluted when drinking, hence the mixing bowls etc. at the banquets.)
Bk VI:571-619. His triennial festival, the trietericus, is celebrated on Mount Rhodope by the young Thracian women.
Bk VIII:152-182. He rescues Ariadne on Dia, and sets her crown among the stars as the Corona Borealis.
Bk VIII:260-328. He receives libations of wine from the harvest.
Bk XI:85-145. He grants Midas a gift, and takes it away when Midas is plagued by his golden touch.
Bk XIII:640-674. He gave Anius’s daughters the power to change everything into corn, wine and olives, and ultimately rescued them by turning them into doves.
Bk XV:391-417. His worship conquered India, and from there he took the lynxes that follow him.
Of the city of Bactria in Persia.
Bk V:107-148. The native place of Halcyoneus.
Bk XV:622-745. The modern Baia, opposite Pozzuoli on the Bay
of Pozzuoli, once the fashionable bathing place of the Romans, owing its name,
in legend, to Baios, the navigator of Odysseus.
The Emperors built magnificent palaces there. Part now lies beneath the sea due
to subsidence.
Bk II:708-736. Bk IV:706-752 . Of the
Balearic islands between Africa and Spain.
Bk II:676-701. A countryman changed by Mercury into a flint (touchstone, the ‘informer’)
Bk VIII:611-678. The wife of Philemon. They are visited by the gods, Jupiter and Mercury, disguised as mortals.
Bk VIII:679-724. They are both turned into trees, she into a lime tree and he into an oak. (See the painting by Rubens – Landscape with Philemon and Baucis – Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna)
The fifty daughters of Danaüs, granddaughters of Belus, king of Egypt.
Bk IV:416-463. They were forced to marry their cousins, the fifty sons of Aegyptus, and, with one exception, Hypermnestra, who saved the life of Lynceus, because he preserved her virginity, killed them on their wedding night. The others were punished in Hades by having to fill a bottomless cistern with water carried in leaking sieves.
Bk X:1-85. Their punishment in the underworld ceases for a time at the sound of Orpheus’s song.
Bk V:149-199. The goddess of war, and sister of Mars.
Bk IV:190-213. Founder of the line of Achaemenian Kings of Persia. Not the ancestor of the Belides.
Bk IV:604-662. Ancestor of the Belides, King of Egypt, brother of Agenor, and son of Neptune. Acrisius is his descendant through Danaüs.
Bk XI:85-145. Midas, son of Cybele, from Mount Berecyntus (Bk XI:1-66.) in Phrygia.
Bk III:273-315. Semele’s nurse.
Bk XII:290-326. A centaur.
Bk VI:103-128. Theophane, daughter of Bilsaltes, loved by Neptune, and depicted by Arachne.
Bk XIII:123-381. Of the Bistones, a people of Thrace.
A lake in Thessaly.
Bk VII:179-233. Medea gathers magic herbs there by its reedy shores.
Bk II:227-271. A country in mid-Greece containing Thebes.
Bk III:1-49. Cadmus is instructed to found Thebes.
Bk XII:1-38. The Greek ships assemble
there at Aulis.
Bk IX:1-88. The goddess of plenty. The Naiades give her the horn of plenty lost by Acheloüs in his fight with Hercules.
Bk II:150-177. The constellation of the Waggoner, or Herdsman, or Bear Herd. The nearby constellation of Ursa Major is the Waggon, or Plough, or Great Bear. He holds the leash of the constellation of the hunting dogs, Canes Venatici. He is sometimes identified with Arcas son of Jupiter and Callisto. Arcas may alternatively be the Little Bear.
Bk VIII:183-235. Icarus is warned not to fly too near the constellation.
Bk X:431-502. Identified with Icarius the
father of Erigone. Led to his grave by
his dog Maera, she committed suicide by hanging, and was set in the sky as the
constellation Virgo. The Latin text says Icarus, a valid alternative, but I
have translated it as Icarius to avoid confusion with Daedalus’s son.
Bk I:52-68.
The North Wind. Eurus is the East
Wind, Zephyrus is the West Wind, and Auster is the South Wind.
Book VI:675-721. He is identified with Thrace and the north. He steals Orithyia, daughter of Erectheus of Athens, and marries her. She bears him the two Argonauts, Calais and Zetes. (See Evelyn de Morgan’s painting–Boreas and Orithyia– Cragside, Northumberland)
Bk XII:1-38. He prevents the Greeks sailing from Aulis.
Bk XIII:399-428. He blows the Greeks home from Troy. (These are the Meltemi or Etesian winds that blow over the northen Aegean in the summer months. On their reliability the Northern Aegean civilisation was based. See Ernle Bradford’s ‘Ulysses Found’ Ch.4)
Bk VII:350-403. The son of Eumelus, killed by his father for desecrating the sacrifice to Apollo. Apollo pitied the father and changed the boy into a bird, the bee-eater, merops apiaster.
Bk XV:745-842. The peoples of ancient Britain. Julius Caesar had two campaigns in Britain in 55 and 54BC.
Bk IV:1-30. An epithet of Bacchus meaning ‘The noisy one’.
Bk XII:429-535. A centaur.
Bk V:107-148. A famous boxer. A twin brother of Ammon, killed by Phineus.
Bk XII:245-289 One of the Lapithae. Killed by Gryneus at the battle of Lapiths and Centaurs.
A region of southern Italy, in modern Calabria. The ancient capital of the Bruttians was at Cosentia, modern Cosenza, and was taken by the Romans in 204BC. It was an important halt on the Via Popilia linking Rome with Reggio and Sicily. (Ovid does not mention it directly in the text)
Bk IX:595-665. Of Bubasos, a town in Caria passed by Byblis.
Bk IX:666-713.A town in Egypt. The lioness, later cat goddess (Bast, Bastet) worshipped there, equated with Diana.
Bk XV:259-306. A city near the coast of Achaia, on the Coronthian Gulf destroyed by earthquake. Possibly Pausanias’s Boura, see Pausanias VII 25, though it was not on the coast, its destruction was linked with the destruction of Helice.
Bk IX:159-210. A king of Egypt who sacrificed strangers. See the entry for Hercules.
Bk VII:453-500.A son of Pallas, an Athenian prince. Goes with Cephalus on an embassy to Aegina. Brother of Clytos.
Bk XIII:705-737. A city in Epirus. There Helenus, the Trojan seer, built a replica of Troy. (See Virgil Aeneid III:290-350). Aeneas lands there and Helenus foretells his future.
The daughter of Miletus, and Cyanee, twin sister of Caunus.
Bk IX:439-516. The twins are noted for their beauty. Byblis falls in love with Caunus and decides to woo him incestuously.
Bk IX:517-594. She declares her love in a letter to Caunus, and is rejected.
Bk IX:595-665. She follows him as he flees her, and, on Mount Chimaera in Lycia, is turned into an ever-weeping fountain.
Bk III:273-315. Semele, daughter of Cadmus.
Bk III:1-49. The son of the Phoenician king Agenor who searches for his sister Europa stolen by Jupiter. The founder of Thebes.
Bk III:50-94. He kills the serpent sacred to Mars.
Bk III:115-137. He founds Thebes.
Bk III:528-571. He reproves his grandson Pentheus, son of his daughter Agave, for his attempt to lay hands on the god Bacchus.
Bk IV:464-511. His son-in-law is Athamas, husband of his daughter Ino, who are both maddened by the Fury.
Bk IV:563-603. Cadmus and Harmonia are turned into serpents. There is a tradition that this happened in a cave on the coast of Dalmatia near Dubrovnik (Ragusa), see Rebecca West ‘Black Lamb and Grey Falcon’ p251. It was ten miles north of an ancient Dalmatian Epidaurus (now Tsavtat) founded by Greek colonists.
Bk VI:204-266. Amphion is his descendant.
Bk IX:273-323. The Theban women are ‘of Cadmus’
A youth of Thessaly, called Atracides from the city of Atrax. He was born a girl, Caenis, but changed to a youth by Neptune as a gift and made invulnerable. He became a king of the Lapithae.
Bk VIII:260-328. He is present at the Calydonian Boar Hunt.
Bk XII:146-209. Nestor tells his story.
Bk XII:210-244. He is present at the battle of the Lapithae and the Centaurs.
Bk XII:429-535. He is killed, despite his invulnerability to wounds, by being buried under a weight of trees, and is turned into a unique bird with tawny wings.
Bk XII:146-209. The daughter of Elatus of Thessaly, raped by Neptune, and changed into the youth and invulnerable warrior Caeneus at her request.
Bk XII:429-535. Latreus taunts Caeneus calling him Caenis.
Bk XV:745-842. The Roman general and Tribune. His deeds, death and deification. (As ‘king of Rome’ he was also the high-priest of Vesta, ‘marrying’ her, the incarnation of Tauric Diana, as described by Fraser in ‘The Golden Bough’ – Ch.1 et.seq.)
Bk I:199-243. His assassination mentioned.
Bk XV:843-870. He confesses that Augustus has surpassed him. Venus sets him among the stars.
Bk II:227-271. Bk XV:259-306. A river in Mysia in Asia Minor near Pergamum.
Bk XII:64-145. Achilles slaughtered the surrounding peoples.
Bk XIV:154-222. Bk XV:622-745. The old nurse of Aeneas. The place in Italy where she died and was buried (modern Gaeta).
Bk XIV:435-444. Her epitaph.
Book VI:675-721. One of the winged sons of Boreas and Orithyia. One of the Argonauts.
Bk VII:1-73. Drives away the Harpies.
Bk VII:350-403. An island off the coast of Argolis.
A seer and priest, the son of Thestor, who accompanied the Greeks to Troy.
Bk XII:1-38. He foresees the long duration of the war and the ultimate Greek victory, and that the sacrifice of Iphigenia to Diana at Aulis will bring the Greeks favourable winds.
The Muse
of epic poetry. The mother of Orpheus.
Bk V:332-384. She sings the song that defeats the Emathides.
Bk V:642-678. The Muses through her efforts defeat the Emathides and then change them into magpies.
Bk X:143-219. Orpheus asks his mother for
inspiration.
Bk IX:394-417. The daughter of Acheloüs. Themis prophesies the events following the war of the Seven against Thebes, when as Alcmaeon’s second wife, she unwittingly unleashes a chain of events involving the fatal necklace of Harmonia, and the murder of Alcmaeon. She begs Jupiter to age her infant sons so that they can avenge the murder.
Bk IX:418-438. Jupiter explains to the gods that he can grant this only because fate wills it also.
Bk II:401-416. A nymph of Nonacris in Arcadia, a favourite of Phoebe-Diana. The daughter of Lycaon.
Bk II:417-440. Jupiter rapes her.
Bk II:441-465. Pregnant by Jupiter she is expelled from the band of Diana’s virgin followers by Diana as Cynthia, in her Moon goddess mode. Gives birth to a son Arcas.
Bk II:466-495. She is turned into a bear by Juno.
An ancient city in Aetolia on the River Euenus.
Bk VI:401-438. Its ruler goes to Thebes to show sympathy for the death of Amphion and his children.
Bk VIII:260-328. Bk XIV:512-526. Its King is Oeneus. The people ask Theseus’s help against Diana’s avenging wild boar.
Bk VIII:451-514. Althaea brings down vengeance on Calydon.
Bk VIII:515-546. Meleager’s action brings down the house of Parthaon.
Bk VIII:547-610. The victim of Diana’s vengeance.
Bk VIII:725-776. Bk IX:1-88. Acheloüs is a river-god of Calydon.
Bk IX:89-158. Deianira is from Calydon.
Bk XV:745-842. Diomede’s spear is Calydonian.
Bk VIII:260-328. A famous hunt attended by all the heroes of Greece, caused by Diana, seeking revenge for being slighted. She sent a fierce wild boar against Calydon.
An island in the Aegean Sea near Ionia.
Bk VIII:183-235. Daedalus and Icarus fly towards it after leaving Crete.
Bk XV:479-546. Ancient Italian nymphs, with the gift of prophecy, later identified with the Muses.
Bk VI:103-128. Depicted by Arachne.
Bk II:63-89. The constellation of the Crab, and the zodiacal sun sign. It represents the crab that attacked Hercules while he was fighting the multi-headed Hydra and was crushed underfoot but subsequently raised to the stars. The sun in ancient times was in this constellation when furthest north of the equator at the summer solstice (June 21st). Hence the latitude where the sun appeared overhead at noon on that day was called the Tropic of Cancer (23.5 degrees north).
Bk IV:604-662. Seen three times by the storm-driven Perseus.
Bk X:106-142. The sun is in Cancer when Cyparissus kills the stag.
Bk XIV:320-396. The daughter of Janus and Venilia, and wife of Picus, noted for her singing.
Bk XIV:397-434. She wastes away with grief at the loss of Picus.
Bk XV:745-842. A city in Egypt in the Nile delta, from where, Cleopatra ruled.
Bk IX:394-417. An Argive leader, one of the Seven against Thebes.
A synonym for pride in the Middle Ages.
Bk III:572-596. The ‘she-goat’, the sixth
brightest star in the sky, now part of the constellation Auriga the Charioteer,
but once part of the Olenian Goat,
representing Aege daughter of Olenos.
Bk XIV:609-622. One of the Alban kings.
Bk XIV:445-482. A rocky promontory on the coast of Euboea where the returning Greek fleet came to grief.
Bk I:553-567. Bk II:531-565. Bk XV:552-621.
Bk XV:745-842. The hill in Rome, the Tarpeian citadel, on which stood a temple of Jupiter.
Bk XV:622-745. An island in the Bay of Naples. The isle of Capri, mountainous, with an inaccessible, precipitous coast, abounding in caves and fantastic rocks. It has perennial sunshine, pure air, and almost tropical vegetation. Tiberius Caesar retired there in 27AD. See Suetonius ‘The Twelve Caesars’, and Tacitus.
Bk XIV:609-622. An Alban king.
The country in Asia Minor bordering the southern Aegean containing Miletus and Halicarnassus. Its inhabitants the Cares or Carians.
Bk IX:595-665. The country of Byblis and Caunus.
Bk XI:221-265. Of the island of Carpathos in the Aegean Sea. An epithet for Proteus.
Bk VII:350-403. From Carthaea, a town on the island of Ceos in the Aegean.
Bk X:106-142. The home of Cyparissus.
The daughter of Priam and Hecuba, gifted with prophecy by Apollo, but cursed to tell the truth and not be believed. Taken back to Greece by Agamemnon. (See Aeschylus: The Agamemnon)
Bk XIII:399-428. Dragged from the burning temple by her hair as Troy falls.
Bk XIV:445-482. Her rape by Ajax causes Minerva’s anger to fall on the returning Greeks.
The mother of Andromeda and wife of Cepheus. The queen of Ethiopia. She is represented by the constellation Cassiopeia between Cepheus and Andromeda, and is depicted sitting in a chair. The constellation is identifiable by its distinctive W shape.
Bk IV:663-705. She foolishly boasted that she and her daughter were more beautiful than the Nereids, who complained to Neptune who sent a sea monster to devastate Cepheus’s kingdom. The Oracle of Jupiter Ammon told Cepheus to sacrifice his daughter Andromeda. Cassiope and Cepheus accepted Perseus’s offer to rescue Andromeda on condition that she became his wife. For breaking faith with Perseus, Neptune set Cepheus and Cassiopeia as a warning among the stars.
Bk IV:706-752. She rejoices at Perseus’s defeat of the sea-serpent.
Bk III:1-49. Of the spring of Castalia and
cave on Mount Parnassus and the oracle
of Apollo there. The spring is sacred to the
Muses.
The son of Tyndareus of Sparta and Leda, and twin brother of Pollux.
Bk VIII:260-328. He joins the Calydonian Boar Hunt.
Bk VIII:329-375. The brothers hurl their spears.
Bk XII:393-428. Noted for his horses and horsemanship.
Bk XV:622-745. An ancient city of the Rutuli.
Bk II:201-226. The mountain range in Asia.
Bk V:74-106. The native place of Abaris.
Bk VIII:777-842. The haunt of Famine.
Bk XV:622-745. A city in Bruttium. (Near the modern Monastarece Marina on the Ionian Sea, ancient Caulonia, the original Achaean colony was destroyed by Syracuse in 389BC. What is now modern Caulonia, inland, was founded by the survivors.)
The son of Miletus and the nymph Cyanee, daughter of the river god Maeander, hence called Maeandrius.
Bk IX:439-516. His twin sister Byblis falls incestuously in love with him, and decides to declare her love in a letter.
Bk IX:517-594. He is horrifed and rejects her.
Bk IX:595-665. Fleeing his sister he founds the city of Caunus in Caria.
Bk II:227-271. Bk V:385-424. A river famous for its swans in Lydia in Asia Minor. Ephesus is near its mouth.
Bk VII:350-403. An island of the Cyclades, off Cape Sunium. Its ancient city was Carthaea.
Bk X:106-142. Cyparissus was a beautiful boy of the island.
Bk XI:749-795. Hesperie, daughter of Cebren a river god of the Troad.
Bk VII:453-500. Theseus, as a descendant of Cecrops. The Cecropidae, are therefore the Athenians.
Bk VIII:547-610. Theseus in Acarnania.
Bk II:812-832. Aglauros as daughter of Cecrops. The Cecropides, are the daughters of Pandion, that is Procne and Philomela, as Athenians.
Bk VI:70-103. Bk VI:438-485. Bk XI:85-145. Athenian. From Cecrops the founder of Athens.
Bk II:531-565. Bk XV:418-452. The mythical founder of Athens. He was a son of mother Earth like Erechthonius (who some think was his father). He was part man and part serpent. His three daughters were Aglauros, Herse and Pandrosus who were goddesses of the Acropolis in Athens.
Bk V:107-148. An adversary of Perseus, killed in the fight with Phineus.
Bk XII:245-289. One of the Lapithae. He is killed by Amycus at the battle of the Lapiths and Centaurs.
Bk IV:274-316. One of the Dactyls (‘fingers’), born when Rhea pressed her fingers into the earth as she was bearing Jupiter. They were ironsmiths who guarded the infant Jupiter’s cradle. Their sisters taught the mysteries on the island of Samothrace. Celmis was turned into adamantine steel as a punishment for insulting Rhea.
Bk IX:89-158.An epithet of Jupiter worshipped by Hercules at Cenaeum, the north western point of Euboea.
Bk X:431-502. The mother of Myrrha, and wife of Cinyras. Her absence from Cinyras’s bed during the festival of Ceres allows Myrrha to commit her incest.
Creatures, half-man and half-horse living in the mountains of Thessaly, hence called biformes,
duplex natura, semihomines, bimembres.
They were the sons of Ixion, and a
cloud, in the form of Juno.
Bk II:633-676. Chiron
the centaur and Ocyrhoë his daughter.
Bk IX:89-158. The story of Nessus the centaur and Hercules.
Bk IX:159-210. Hercules fought with Pholus and the Centaurs and wounded Chiron with an arrow poisoned with the Hydra’s venom. Chiron’s agony was ended when he exchanged his immortality for Prometheus’s mortal fate.
Bk XII:210-244. Invited to the marriage feast of Pirithoüs and Hippdamia, Eurytus precipitates a fight with the Lapithae.
Bk XII:536-579. Nestor finishes telling the story of the
battle.
An Athenian prince, the grandson of Aeolus, hence Aeolides.
Book VI:675-721. Married happily to Procris, daughter of Erectheus King of Athens.
Bk VII:453-500. Goes to Aegina to seek help from an ally.
Bk VII:501-613. He hears the history of the plague from Aeacus.
Bk VII:661-758. He is unfaithful to his wife Procris and then tempts her into disloyalty. They are reconciled. She gives him a magic hound and a magic javelin, gifts of Diana.
Bk VII:759-795. He recounts the story of Laelaps the hound.
Bk VII:796-865. He tells how through an error he was led to kill Procris, unwittingly, with the magic spear that was her gift.
Bk VIII:1-80. He returns to Athens with the Aeacides.
Bk IV:753-803. Bk V:1-29. Bk V:74-106. A name for the Ethiopians from their king Cepheus.
The king of Ethiopia, husband of Cassiope, and father of Andromeda. He is represented by the constellation Cepheus near Cassiopeia which includes the prototype of the Cepheid variable stars used as standard light sources for measurement of distances in space.
Bk IV:663-705. He accepts Perseus’s offer to rescue Andromeda.
Bk IV:706-752. He promises Perseus a kingdom as dowry for defeating the sea serpent and winning Andromeda.
Narcissus, as the son of the river god Cephisus.
Bk I:348-380. A river in Phocis.
Bk III:1-49. Cadmus passes by it, following the heifer.
Bk III:339-358. Father of Narcissus, by the nymph Liriope.
Bk VII:350-403. Mourns for his grandson changed into a seal by Apollo.
Bk VII:425-452. The location where Theseus defeated Procrustes.
Bk VII:350-403.A mythical character, whose home was near Mount Othrys, who escaped Deucalion’s flood. He was saved by the nymphs, who changed him to a scarabeus, and he flew to the summit of Mount Parnassus.
Bk X:220-242. A horned people of Cyprus turned into wild bullocks by Venus, for the crime of sacrificing strangers and guests on their altars.
Bk IV:416-463. The three-headed watchdog of the Underworld. He bays at Juno entering the city of Dis.
Bk IV:464-511. The foam from his jaws forms part of Tisiphone’s venom of the Furies.
Bk VII:404-424. It also produces the plant wolfsbane, or monkshood, the aconite used by Medea as a poison.
Bk IX:159-210. In the Twelfth Labour he is captured by Hercules and dragged out of the Underworld.
Bk X:1-85. Mentioned by Orpheus. He has snaky hair.
Bk XIV:1-74. Scylla is surrounded by jaws, like Cerberus’s, below the waist.
Bk XIV:75-100. A Lydian people. Jupiter changed them into monkeys, because of their trickery and deceit, and sent them to Pithecusae which took its name from them. (pithecium, a little ape)
Bk VII:425-452. A king of Eleusin, who required all travellers to wrestle with him, and killed them when they were defeated. He was defeated by Theseus. The wrestling-ground was on the road to Megara.
Bk I:113-124. The Corn Goddess. The daughter of Saturn and Rhea, and Jupiter’s sister. As Demeter she is represented in the sky by the constellation and zodiacal sign of Virgo, holding an ear of wheat, the star Spica. It contains the brightest quasar, 3C 273. The constellation alternatively depicts Astraea. The worship of her and her daughter Persephone, as the Mother and the Maiden, was central to the Eleusinian mysteries, where the ritual of the rebirth of the world from winter was enacted. Ceres was there a representation of the Great Goddess of Neolithic times, and her daughter her incarnation, in the underworld and on earth.
Bk V:107-148. Ampycus is one of her priests.
Bk V:332-384. The Muse Calliope sings of her.
Bk V:385-424. Her daughter Proserpine (Persephone) is raped and abducted by Dis.
Bk V:425-486. She searches for her throughout the world. Cyane gives evidence of the abduction, in Sicily, and Ceres blights that land. (On the way she drinks the mixture of water and meal known as the kykeion, the partaking of which was an element of the ritual surrounding the Eleusinian Mysteries.)
Bk V:487-532. She finds that Persephone is in Hades, and asks Jupiter to intercede. He agrees so long as Persephone has not eaten while in the underworld, a decree made by the Fates.
Bk V:533-571. She is allowed her daughter for six months of each year.
Bk V:572-641. She asks Arethusa to tell her story.
Bk V:642-678. She sends Triptolemus, of Eleusis, with her gift of the crops to the barbarian king of Scythia, Lyncus. He attacks Triptolemus and she changes Lyncus into a lynx.
Bk VI:103-128. Neptune lay with her in the form of a horse.
Bk VII:425-452. Eleusis is sacred to her.
Bk VIII:260-328. She is offered the first fruits of the crops.
Bk VIII:260-328. A synonym for the harvest.
Bk VIII:725-776. Erysichthon violates her sacred oak grove.
Bk VIII:777-842. She asks Famine to torment him to death.
Bk IX:418-438. She wishes she could win renewed youthfulness for Iasion, whom she fell in love with at the marriage of Cadmus and Harmonia, and lay with in the thrice-ploughed field.
Bk X:1-85. A synonym for nourishment.
Bk X:431-502. The festival of the first fruits (in Attica, the Thesmophoria) held annually in her honour, where married women dressed in white brought corn garlands as offerings, and sexual union and the touch of a man were forbidden for nine nights.
Bk XI:85-145. Bk XIII:623-639. Bread is her gift.
Bk VII:350-403. The son of Lucifer. The husband of Alcyone, turned into a kingfisher with her.
Bk XI:266-345. He gives sanctuary to Peleus in his kingdom of Trachin, and tells the story of his brother Daedalion.
Bk XI:346-409. His wife Alcyone begs him not to fight against the wolf from the marshes.
Bk XI:410-473. He goes to consult the oracle of Apollo at Claros.
Bk XI:474-572. He is drowned in the tempest.
Bk XI:573-649. Morpheus is sent to Alcyone, taking on his form.
Bk XI:650-709. Morpheus tells Alcyone of his death.
Bk XI:710-748. His body returns on the tide and he is transformed with her into a halcyon.
Bk VII:1-73.The sister of Medea whom Aeetes had given in marriage to Phrixus.
The sacred oak grove of Chaonia at Dodona in Epirus, the site of an ancient oracle of Jupiter (Zeus).
Bk X:86-105. The oracular oak is among the gathering of trees when Orpheus sings.
Of Chaonia, the region in Epirus.
Bk V:149-199. The native country of Molpeus.
Bk XIII:705-737. Passed by Aeneas.
Bk XII:245-289. One of the Lapithae. He was killed by Rhoetus at the battle of Lapiths and Centaurs.
Bk II:633-675. A water nymph, the mother of Ocyroë by Chiron the Centaur.
Bk X:1-85. The ferryman who carries the dead across the River Styx in the underworld, whose tributary is the Acheron. (See Dante’s Inferno). He prevents Orpheus crossing the Styx for a second time.
Bk XIII:123-381. A Lycian, killed by Ulysses.
Bk VII:1-73. Bk VIII:81-151. The whirlpool between Italy and Sicily in the Messenian straits. Charybdis was the voracious daughter of Mother Earth and Neptune, hurled into the sea, and thrice, daily, drawing in and spewing out a huge volume of water.
Bk XIII:705-737. Bk XIV:75-100. Aeneas passes by it.
Bk XIII:123-381. A Lycian, killed by Ulysses.
A fire-breathing monster with a lion’s head, goat’s body and serpent’s tail.
Bk VI:313-381. Its native country is Lycia in Asia Minor.
Bk IX:595-665. Byblis travels to Mount Chimeara there and becomes a fountain.
Bk XI:266-345. The daughter of Daedalion, loved by Apollo and Mercury. She bore twin sons, Philammon to Apollo, and Autolycus to Mercury. She was killed by Diana for criticising the goddess’s beauty and boasting of her own.
Bk III:597-637. The island in the north-eastern Aegean off the coast of Ionia where Acoetes lands and finds Bacchus.
Bk II:612-632. One of the Centaurs, half-man and half-horse. He was the son of Philyra and Saturn. Phoebus Apollo took his new born son Aesculapius to his cave for protection. He is represented in the sky by the constellation Centaurus, which contains the nearest star to the sun, Alpha Centauri.
Bk II:633-675. Father of Ocyroë, by Chariclo the water-nymph.
Bk VI:103-128. Begot by Saturn disguised as a horse.
Bk VII:350-403. His home is on Mount Pelion.
Bk V:74-106. A companion of Phineus who kills the old man Emathion in the fight with Perseus.
Bk XII:290-326. A centaur.
Bk XIII:123-381. A Lycian, killed by Ulysses.
Bk IV:753-803. The brother of Pegasus the winged horse, the warrior born from the blood of Medusa, and clasping a golden falchion. A son of Neptune. The father of Geryon.
A coastal city in the Troad near Mount Ida.
Bk XIII:123-381. Captured by Achilles.
Bk XII:429-535. A centaur.
Book VI:675-721. A Thracian people.
Bk X:1-85. The country of Orpheus.
Bk XI:1-66. The crazed Ciconian women are the Maenads who murder Orpheus.
Bk XV:307-360. Their river with strange properties.
Bk II:201-226. Of Cilicia in Asia Minor.
A city of the Troad.
Bk XIII:123-381. Captured by Achilles.
A fabled people, said to live in caves in perpetual darkness, ‘beyond the north Wind.’
Bk XI:573-649. Their country is the home of Somnus, Sleep.
An island in the Cyclades. Described as chalky-soiled.
Bk VII:453-500. Allied to Crete.
Of the River Cinyps in Africa.
Bk V:107-148. Pelates comes from there.
Bk VII:234-293. Medea uses one of its water snakes as an ingredient for her magic potion.
Bk XV:745-842. Juba’s place of origin.
Bk VI:70-102. An Assyrian King. His daughters were changed into the stone steps of the temple, for their presumption.
The son of Paphos, and the father of Myrrha, and by her incestuously of Adonis. Bk X:708-739. Adonis is therefore called Cinyreïus.
Bk X:298-355. Myrrha conceives a passion for him.
Bk X:356-430. He, innocently, asks her to choose a husband.
Bk X:431-502. He is deceived into admitting her to his bed, and impregnating her, driving her out when he realises what has happened.
Bk XV:552-621. A fabled Roman praetor. He grows horns and is prophesied as a king who will enslave Rome if he enters the city, but declares himself instead, and is rewarded with honours.
Bk IV:190-213. Bk XV:622-745. The sea-nymph, daughter of Sol and Perse, and the granddaughter of Oceanus. (Kirke or Circe means a small falcon)She was famed for her beauty and magic arts and lived on the ‘island’ of Aeaea, which is the promontory of Circeii. (Cape Circeo between Anzio and Gaeta, on the west coast of Italy, now part of the magnificent Parco Nazionale del Circeo extending to Capo Portiere in the north, and providing a reminder of the ancient Pontine Marshes before they were drained, rich in wildfowl and varied tree species.) Cicero mentions that Circe was worshipped religiously by the colonists at Circei. (‘On the Nature of the Gods’, Bk III 47)
(See John Melhuish Strudwick’s painting – Circe and Scylla – Walker Art Gallery, Sudley, Merseyside, England: See Dosso Dossi’s painting - Circe and her Lovers in a Landscape- National gallery of Art, Washington)
Bk XIII:898-968. Glaucus seeks her home.
Bk XIV:1-74. She refuses him a love potion to make Scylla love him, and instead transforms Scylla into a monster.
Bk XIV:223-319. She transforms Ulysses’s men into beasts. Mercury gives him the plant moly to enable him to approach her. He marries her and frees his men, staying for a year on her island. (Moly has been variously identified as ‘wild rue’, wild cyclamen, and a sort of garlic, allium moly. John Gerard’s Herbal of 1633 Ch.100 gives seven plants under this heading, of which the third, Moly Homericum, is he suggests the Moly of Theophrastus, Pliny and Homer – Odyssey XX- and he describes it as a wild garlic.
Bk XIV:320-396. She loves Picus, but, thwarted in her love, turns him into the green woodpecker, picus viridis.
Bk XIV:397-434. She turns Picus’s companions into wild beasts.
Bk XIV:435-444. She had warned Ulysses’s and his crew of the dangers they must still face.
Bk VIII:81-151. The bird into which Scylla, daughter of Nisus was changed. Nisus was changed into the sea eagle. Elsewhere, and interpolated in this translation, the bird is described as having a purple breast and red legs. From the habits of the sea eagle, that preys on it, from its description, and the sacredness of the dove to Cer, the Cretan Bee-Goddess, this translator takes it to be the rock dove, columba livia. The followers of Cer, the Curetes, shaved their locks. Megara was said to have been founded by Car or Ker, a follower of the goddess. See the entry for Scylla.
Bk II:201-226. A mountain in Boeotia, near Thebes.
Bk III:692-733. The place chosen for the worship of Bacchus.
Bk V:107-148. The brother of Clytius. A companion of Phineus, killed by Perseus.
Bk XII:290-326. A centaur.
Bk XI:410-473. An epithet of Apollo from Claros (Clarus) a city in Ionia, where there was an oracle and temple of the god.
Bk I:504-524. A town in Ionia between Smyrna and Ephesus. See Clarius.