A Classical Dictionary: Containing a Copious Account of All the Proper Names Mentioned in Ancient Authors ...

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E. Duyckinck, G. Long, 1825 - Classical dictionaries - 804 pages
 

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Page 81 - It was his office to keep good order, and to remove all causes of quarrel in the families of those who were dedicated to the service of the gods. The profane and the impious were brought before his tribunal ; and he offered public sacrifices for the good of the state. He assisted at the celebration of the Eleusinian festivals, and other religious ceremonies.
Page 352 - Thaumas and Electra, one of the Oceanides, messenger of the gods, and more particularly of Juno. Her office was to cut the thread which seemed to detain the soul in the body of those that were expiring. She is the same as the rainbow, and, from that circumstance, she is represented with wings, with all the variegated and beautiful colours of the rainbow, and appears sitting behind Juno ready to execute her commands. She is likewise described as supplying the clouds with water to deluge the world.
Page 308 - Leda.) According to some authors, Helen was daughter of Nemesis by Jupiter, and Leda was only her nurse ; and, to reconcile this variety of opinions, some imagine that Nemesis and Leda are the same persons.
Page 395 - BC ; but his cruelty rendered him odious, and the murder of his son Agathocles so offended his subjects that the most opulent and powerful revolted from him and abandoned the kingdom. He pursued them to Asia, and declared war against Seleucus, who had given them a kind reception. He was killed in a bloody battle, 281 years before Christ, in the...
Page 130 - They sacrificed a goat to the goddess, and it was usual to sing one of the books of Homer's Iliad. The most remarkable that attended were young virgins in yellow gowns, consecrated to Diana. They were about ten years of age, and not under five, and therefore their consecration was called iixanvm, from 2i«a, decant and sometimes a;xrivn», as the virgins themselves, bore the name of .-••;•• ™ bears, from this circumstance.
Page 360 - Ops, offended at her husband's cruelty, secreted Jupiter, and gave a stone to Saturn, which he devoured on the supposition that it was a male child. Jupiter was educated in a cave on mount Ida, in Crete, and fed upon the milk of the goat Amalthaea, or upon honey, according to others.
Page 309 - Her brothers, Castor and Pollux, recovered her by force of arms, and she returned safe and unpolluted to Sparta, her native country. There existed, however, a tradition recorded by Pausanias, that Helen was of nubile years •when carried away by Theseus, and that she had a daughter by her ravisher, who was intrusted to the care of Clytemnestra.
Page 360 - Deioneus arrived according to his appointment, he threw him into a pit which he had previously filled with burning coals. This treachery so irritated the neighbouring princes, that all of them refused to perform the usual ceremony, by which a man was then purified of murder, and Ixion was shunned...
Page 335 - Hercules to destroy this dreadful monster, and this he easily effected with the assistance of lolaus, who applied a burning iron to the wounds as soon as one head was cut off. While Hercules was destroying the hydra, Juno, jealous of his glory, sent a sea-crab to bite his foot.
Page 239 - Caesar ; and after the death of the latter the Roman senate, on the motion of the consul Antony, passed a decree, which for ever after forbade a dictator to exist in Rome. The dictator, as soon as elected, chose a subordinate officer, called his master of horse, magister equitum.

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