Notes on the current edition
Library
1.
Compare Scholiast on
Hom. Od. 5.121
, who calls the maiden Upis. According to another, and more generally received, account, Orion died of the bite of a scorpion, which Artemis sent against him because he had attempted her chastity. For this service the scorpion was raised to the rank of a constellation in the sky, and Orion attained to a like dignity. That is why the constellation Orion flies for ever from the constellation Scorpion round the sky. See
Aratus, Phaenomena 634ff.
;
Nicander, Ther. 13ff.
;
Eratosthenes, Cat. 32
;
Scholiast on Hom. Il. xviii.486
;
Scholiast on Hom. Od. v.121
;
Lactantius Placidus on Statius, Theb. iii.27
;
Scholiast on Caesar Germanicus, Aratea, p. 386, ed. Eyssenhardt, in his edition of Martianus Capella
. The
Scholiast on Hom. Il. xviii.486
, cites as his authority Euphorion, a grammarian and poet of the fourth century B.C.
2.
Compare
Hes. Th. 930ff.
3.
Rhode, more commonly in the form
Rhodos, is a personification of the island of
Rhodes, which Pindar calls the Bride of the Sun (
Pind. O. 7.14
), because it was the great seat of the worship of the Sun in ancient
Greece. A Rhodian inscription of about
220 B.C. records public prayers offered by the priests “to the Sun and
Rhodos and all the other gods and goddesses and founders and heroes who have the city and the land of the Rhodians in their keeping.” See
P. Cauer,
Delectus Inscriptionum Graecarum, p. 123, No. 181
;
Ch. Michel,
Recueil d'Inscriptions Grecques, p. 24, No. 21
;
H. Collitz and F. Bechtel,
Sammlung der griechischen Dialekt Inschriften, vol. iii. p. 412, No. 3749
. Every year the Rhodians threw into the sea a chariot and four horses for the use of the Sun, apparently supposing that after riding a whole year across the sky his old chariot and horses must be quite worn out. See
Festus, s.v. “October equus,” p. 181, ed. C. O. Muller
.
