e
therefore met Glaucus with a superstitious fear that he might be
some deity in human shape. This feeling brought to his mind the
story of Lycurgus.

9. It is said that Lycurgus caused most of the vines of his country to
be rooted up, so that his subjects were obliged to mix their wine
with water, as it became less plentiful. Hence the fable that
Thetis received Bacchus into her bosom.

10. This style of language was according to the manners of the times.
Thus Goliath to David, "Approach, and I will give thy flesh to the
fowls of the air and the beasts of the field." The Orientals still
speak in the same manner.

11. Though this comparison may be justly admired for its beauty in the
obvious application to the mortality and succession of human life,
it seems designed by the poet, in this place, as a proper emblem of
the transitory state of families which, by their misfortune or
folly, have fallen and decayed, and again appear, in a happier
season, to revive and flourish in the fame and virtues of their
posterity. In this sense it is a direct answer to the question of
Diomede, as well as a proper preface to what Glaticus relates of
his own family, which, having become extinct in Corinth, recovers
new life in Lycia.

12. The same as Corinth.

13. Some suppose that alphabetical writing was unknown in the Homeric
age, and consequently that these signs must have been
hieroglyphical marks. The question is a difficult one, and the most
distinguished scholars are divided in opinion. We can hardly
imagine that a poem of the length and general excellence of the
Iliad, could be composed without the aid of writing; and yet, we
are told, there are well-authenticated examples of such works being
preserved and handed down by traditional memory. However this may
be, we know that the Oriental nations were in possession of the art
of alphabetical writing it a very early period, and before the
Trojan war. It cannot, then, seem very improbable, that the authors
of the Iliad should also have been acquainted with it.--FELTON.

14. The Solymi were an ancient nation inhabiting the mountainous parts
of Asia Minor, between Lycia and Pisidia. Pliny mentions them as
having become extinct in his time.

15. It was the custom in ancient times, upon the performance of any
signal service by kings or great men, for the public to grant them
a trac