Part 80

Note 360 page 197. The number of the Sibyls is usually reckoned as ten: Persian (or Babylonian), Libyan, Phrygian, Delphian, Cimmerian, Erythræan, Samian, Trojan, Tiburtine, and Cumæan,—of which the last was the most famous.

Note 361 page 197. ASPASIA, (flor. 440 B.C.), was born at Miletus in Asia Minor, but in her youth removed to Athens, where she was celebrated for her talents and beauty, and became the mistress of Pericles, one of whose orations she is said by Plato to have composed. Her house was the centre of intellectual society, and was even frequented by Athenian matrons and their husbands.

Note 362 page 197. DIOTIMA was a probably fictitious priestess of Mantinea in the Peloponnesus, reputed to have been the instructress of Socrates. Her supposed opinions as to the origin, nature and objects of life, form the subject of Plato’s “Symposium.”

Note 363 page 197. NICOSTRATE or Carmenta was a prophetic and healing divinity, supposed to be of Greek origin. Having tried to persuade her son Evander to kill his father Hermes, she fled with the boy to Italy, where she was said to have given the Roman form to the fifteen characters of the Greek alphabet that Evander introduced into Latium.

Note 364 page 197. This ‘preceptress ... to Pindar’ was MYRTIS, a lyric poetess of the 6th century B.C. She is mentioned in a fragment by Corinna as having competed with Pindar. Statues were erected to her in various parts of Greece, and she was counted among the nine lyric muses.

Note 365 page 197. Of PINDAR’S life little more is known than that he resided chiefly at Thebes, and that the dates of his birth and death were about 522 and 443 B.C. respectively. Practically all his extant poems are odes in commemoration of victories in the public games.

Note 366 page 197. The Greek poetess CORINNA (5th century B.C.) was a native of Tanagra in Bœotia. She is said to have won prizes five times in competition with Pindar. Only a few fragments of her verse remain.

Note 367 page 197. SAPPHO flourished about 600 B.C., and seems to have been born and to have lived chiefly at Mitylene. She enjoyed unique renown among the ancients: on hearing one of her poems, Solon prayed that he might not see death before he had learned it; Plato called her the Tenth Muse; and Aristotle placed her on a par with Homer. For a recently discovered and interesting fragment of her verse, see the Egypt Exploration Fund’s “Oxyrhynchus Papyri,” Part I, p. 11.

Note 368 page 198. Castiglione here follows Plutarch. Pliny, on the other hand, affirms that Roman women were obliged to kiss their male relatives, in order that it might be known whether they had transgressed the law forbidding them to drink wine.

Note 369 page 199. This paragraph is taken almost literally from Livy, excepting the incident of the babies borne in arms, which Castiglione seems to have invented.

Note 370 page 199. TITUS TATIUS was the legendary king of the Sabines. His forces were so strong that Romulus was driven back to the Saturnian Hill, which had previously been fortified and which became the site of the Capitol. The familiar story is to the effect that Tarpeia (daughter to the captain of the fortress), being dazzled by the Sabines’ golden bracelets, promised to betray the hill to them if they would give her the ornaments on their left arms. Accordingly she admitted the enemy at night, but when she claimed her reward, they threw down upon her the shields that they wore on the left arm, and thus crushed her to death. Her infamy is preserved in the name of the neighbouring Tarpeian Rock, from which traitors were flung down.

Note 371 page 199. There is said to be no historical mention of any Roman temple to Venus Armata. Castiglione may have had in mind a passage in the “Christian Cicero” (Lactantius Firmianus, who wrote about 300 A.D.), recording the dedication by the Spartans of a temple and statue to the Armed Venus in memory of their women’s brave repulse of a sudden attack by the Messenians during the absence of the Spartan army.

Note 372 page 199. Calva (bald) was one of the Roman Venus’s most ancient epithets, under which she had two temples near the Capitol. Of the several explanations of this appellation, Castiglione seems to refer to the one which interprets it as the memorial of the Roman women’s heroism in cutting off their hair to make bow-strings for the men during a siege by the Gauls.

Note 373 page 200. In his life of Camillus (died 365 B.C.), Plutarch gives a legendary account of the origin of the Handmaidens’ Festival. At a time when the Romans were ill prepared for war, the Latins sent to demand of them a number of free-born maidens in marriage. This was suspected as a trick to obtain hostages, but no method of foiling it was devised until Tutula, a slave girl, advised the magistrates to send her to the Latin camp along with some of the most beautiful handmaidens in rich attire. This was done, and at night, when her companions had stolen away the enemies’ weapons, Tutula displayed a signal torch agreed on with the Romans, who at once sallied forth, easily captured the Latin camp, and put most of the enemy to the sword.

Note 374 page 200. The Romans are said to have wearied of Cicero’s self-praise for his suppression of the Cataline conspiracy (63 B.C.). The woman in question was a Roman patrician, Fulvia by name, who was the mistress of one of the conspirators and divulged the plot to Cicero.

Note 375 page 200. This DEMETRIUS (II) was grandson to the Demetrius I already mentioned (see note 136), and ruled over Macedonia from about 239 to about 229 B.C. His son, PHILIP V (237-179 B.C.), joined Hannibal in a war against Rome, which finally ended in the downfall of the Macedonian monarchy and the captivity of his son and successor Perseus (167 B.C.). The incident mentioned in the text is narrated by Plutarch in his work on “Women’s Virtue,” as also is the instance next cited by Castiglione, who however reverses the order of events.

ANNE OF BRITTANY QUEEN OF FRANCE 1476-1514 ]

Enlarged from a negative, specially made by Alinari through the courtesy of Professor I. B. Supino, of a medal, in the National Museum at Florence, by Jean Perreal (1460?-1528?). See note 387.

Note 376 page 200. Erythræ was an important city on the west coast of Asia Minor opposite Chios. The nearest approach to ‘Leuconia’ in ancient geography is the distant town Leuconum in what is now Slavonia, between the Danube and the Save.

Note 377 page 201. Plutarch’s version of this story adds that in honour of the Persian women’s bravery on this occasion, Cyrus (559-529 B.C.) decreed that whenever the king returned from a long journey, each woman should receive a ring of gold.

Note 378 page 201. One of Plutarch’s minor works is entitled “Apothegms and Famous Sayings of Spartan Women,” and Castiglione’s contemporary Marcantonio Casanova wrote two Latin distiches on “The Spartan Mother Slaying Her Son.”

Note 379 page 201. Saguntum, the modern Murviedro, was a city of Greek origin on the eastern coast of Spain. After a desperate siege of nearly eight months, it was captured by Hannibal in 219 B.C.

Note 380 page 201. The reference here is to the victory, at Vercelli near Milan, by which the Roman general CAIUS MARIUS repelled the advance of the Cimbri into Italy, 101 B.C. The sacred fire (supposed to have been brought from Troy by Æneas as the symbol of Vesta, the hearth deity) was kept alive at Rome by six virgins.

Note 381 page 202. AMALASONTHA, (498-535 A.D.), was the daughter of Theodoric the Great, and regent of the East Gothic kingdom from his death in 526 until her own. After a prosperous reign she is said to have been strangled by her cousin and second husband Theodatus, at the instigation of the Empress Theodora, the wife of Justinian.

Note 382 page 202. THEODOLINDA, daughter of Duke Garibald of Bavaria, married (589 A.D.) Autharis, King of the Lombards, and on his death in the following year, she married Duke Agilulph of Turin, who was proclaimed king in 591. She died in 625, after exercising the regency in the name of her son. Her virtue, wisdom and beauty were extolled; she was active in her labours on behalf of Christianity; and she carried on a correspondence with St. Gregory, who was pope from 590 to 604.

Note 383 page 202. The THEODORA here referred to is doubtless the wife, not of Justinian, but of Theophilus, Emperor of Constantinople 829-842. She died in 867, and was canonized by the Greek Church.

Note 384 page 202. COUNTESS MATILDA, (1046-1115), one of the most famous heroines of the Middle Ages, was the daughter of Duke Boniface of Tuscany and Beatrice of Lorraine. She ruled over Tuscany and a large part of northern Italy, espoused the papal cause against the Emperor, and exercised an important influence upon the politics of her time. She was noted also for her religious zeal, energy, and austere yet gentle and cultivated life. Count Ludovico’s supposed descent from her paternal uncle Conrad is now regarded as doubtful.

Note 385 page 202. Among the eminent women here referred to, we may note: Duke Guidobaldo’s grandfather’s wife, Caterina Colonna, (died 1438), who was a great-aunt of Vittoria Colonna, and was praised as “noble, beautiful, discreet, charming, gentle and generous”; his great-aunt Battista di Montefeltro, (died 1450), who, having been deserted by her worthless Malatesta husband, wrote moral essays and poetry, and was celebrated for her piety and mental gifts, as well as for her learning and literary accomplishments; his aunt, Brigida Sueva di Montefeltro, (born 1428), who, after enduring for twelve years the brutalities of her Sforza husband, became an abbess and ultimately received the honour of beatification,—her remains being revered as a sacred relic; another aunt of his, Violante di Montefeltro, (born 1430), who was famous for her talents and beauty; his maternal grandmother, Costanza da Varano, (born 1428), was a granddaughter of the Battista above mentioned, inherited much of that lady’s taste for learning, became the associate of scholars and philosophers, wrote Latin orations, epistles and poems, and (by her marriage to a brother of the first Sforza duke of Milan) became the mother of Duke Guidobaldo’s own mother, Battista Sforza, (born 1446), who rivalled her ancestresses’ attainments, administered her husband’s government judiciously during his frequent absences, and was regarded as beautiful, although tiny in person.