289
is the conjecture of Pighius; almost all the MSS. read _Callidus_, two of the best give _Claudius_, as a various reading, some have cautius. There must be a proper name, and, if we are to follow Livy, it can be no other than Plautius. This is confirmed by a medal of the Plautian family (Eckhel, Vol. v.) bearing on one side a female mask, with the inscription _L. Plautius_: on the other, a winged Aurora driving four horses, with Plancus inscribed. This medal evidently commemorates the act and the time of day. Ovid, perhaps, followed a peculiar version of the story, and it would not in the least surprise me, if in it the musicians had been ordered by the senate to quit Rome, and go to Tibur, for, if this trick had been played by the desire of the senate, why seek thus to deceive them? If the musicians had not been ordered to leave Rome, what is the meaning of vv. 689, 690? In this case, Ovid will have used _exilium_, v. 665, in its later sense of banishment to a certain place, He was himself relegated to Tomi, and, in his Tristia, he frequently calls himself an exul.
687. _Tibicina_, a sing. for a plural.
696. _Haec turba_, the tibicines. For the following story of Marsyas, see Met. vi. 383. Mythology, pp. 95, 123.
711. On the XVII. Kal. Jul. the Hyades rise acronychally.--Dodoni Thyene. Some MSS. read _Dodoni Dione_, and Dione was worshiped at Dodona (Mythology, p. 105.); but Pherecydes says that the seven Hyades who nursed Bacchus, were also called Dodonides, and Thyene is, in him, one of them. See Hygin. Astr. Il. 21.
712. _Agen. bov_. See on III. 658. IV. 717.
713. _Purg. Vestae_. Sec v. 227.
715. On the XVI. Kal. Favonius begins to blow.
717. On the same day (XVI. Kal.) the upper part of Orion rises acronychally. How Neapolis blunders here! "Eadem luce cum Sole Orion simul emergit; nec est cur ambigas an agat de ortu cosmico."
718. None of the commentators makes any remark on this line, which is not de