ll things but himself subdued_ = Alexander the Great
(356-323 B.C.).

_His feet on sceptres and tiaras trod. Tiaras_, in reference to his
conquests over the Asiatic monarchies.

_His horned head belied the Libyan god_. "The desire to be thought the
son of Jupiter Ammon caused him to wear the horns of that god, and to
represent the same upon his coins." _(Pope's note_.) Libyan = African.

_Caesar graced with both Minervas, i.e.,_ by warlike and literary
genius; as the conqueror of Gaul and the writer of the 'Commentaries.'

_Scarce detested in his country's fate_. Whom even the enslaving of his
country scarce makes us detest.

_Epaminondas_ (died 362 B.C.), the maintainer of Theban independence.

_Timoleon_, of Corinth, who slew his brother when he found him aspiring
to be tyrant in the state (died 337 B.C.).

_Scipio_. The conqueror of Carthage, which was long the rival of Rome.

_Aurelius, i.e.,_ Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121-180 A.D.), Emperor of
Rome; one of the brightest characters in Roman history.

_Socrates_. The great Greek philosopher, who, in maintaining truth,
incurred the charge of infecting the young men of Athens with impiety,
and was put to death by being made to drink hemlock. His life and
teaching are known to us through the writings of his disciple, Plato.

_He whom ungrateful Athens_, &c., i.e., Aristides (see page 171),
distinguished by the surname of _The Just_. He was unjust, Pope means,
only when he signed the shell for his own condemnation.

_Phocion_. An Athenian general and statesman (402-318 B.C.), put to
death by Polysperchon. He injured rather than helped the liberties of
Athens.

_Agis_, "King of Sparta, who endeavoured to restore his state to
greatness by a radical agrarian reform, was after a mock trial murdered
in prison, B.C. 241." _Ward_.

_Cato_, who, to escape disgrace amid the evils which befell his country,
stabbed himself in 46 B.C.

_Brutus his ill Genius meets no more_. See the account of the Eve of
Philippi in Book IV.

_The wars of Troy_. Described by Homer in his Iliad.

_Tydides (Diomede) wounds the Cyprian Queen (Venus)_. A scene described
in the Iliad.

_Hector_. Slew Patroclus, the friend of Achilles, and in revenge was
dragged by him round the walls of Troy.

_The Mantuan_, i.e., the Roman poet Virgil, author of the Aeneid, born
at Mantua (70-19 B.C.)

_Eliza_ = Elissa, or Dido, whose misfortunes are described i