s "an
aetiological myth to explain the swiftness of horses" for the fleetest
horses came out of the West; thus Pegasus was born at the springs of
the ocean, and there is the passage in Homer (_Iliad_, XVI, 149) about
the horses "that flew as swift as the winds, the horses that the
harpy Podarge (Swift Foot) bare to the West Wind as she grazed on the
meadows by the stream of the Ocean." Hence we may conclude that there
was a race of swift horses in Portugal in the earliest times, which
Professor Ridgeway would doubtless like very much to prove, in support
of his interesting thesis, were derived from Libya.]

[Footnote 114: _Hypenemia_, or barren eggs, are described intelligently
by Aristotle (H.A.V. 1, 4, VI. 2, 5), and, with Varro's confidence in
the country traditions, by Pliny, H.N. X, 80.

If he had known it, Varro might have here cited the fact that the
unfertilized queen bee is parthenogenetic, though producing only male
bees; i.e., drones: but it remained for a German clergyman, Dzierzon,
to discover this in the eighteenth century.]

[Footnote 115: Cf. Plautus _Menaechmi_, II, 2, 279. One of the two
Menaechmi is, on his arrival at Epidamnus, mistaken for his brother,
of whose existence he does not know, and much to his amazement is
introduced into the brother's life and possessions. At first he
expostulates, accusing the slave of the brother, who has mistaken his
identity, of being crazy and offers to exorcise him by a sacrifice
of weanling pigs, wherefore he asks the question quoted in the text.
Varro was evidently fond of this passage, as he quotes it again,
_post_, p. 221. The _Menaechmi_ is one of the immortal comedies and
has survived in many forms on the modern stage all over Europe. From
it Shakespeare derived the plot of the _Comedy of Errors_.]

[Footnote 116: It is interesting to compare these sane therapeutics with
Cato's practice less than two hundred years previous (_ante_, p. 47),
which was characteristic of the superstitious peasant who in Italy
still seeks the priest to bless his ailing live stock.]

[Footnote 117: This Atticus was Cicero's intimate friend to whom he
addressed so many of his charming letters. He changed his name as
stated in the text, the new name being that of an uncle who adopted
him, as we learn from his life by Nepos. As is well known to all
students of Cicero, Atticus had dwelt in Athens many years and derived
his income from estates in Epirus, which is the point of Scrof