Ovid - The Metamorphoses: Index - QRSTUVXZ

Quirinus

Bk XIV:805-828. Bk XV:843-870. The name for the deified Romulus.

Bk XIV:829-851. He receives his wife Hersilia in heaven, deified as Hora.

Bk XV:552-621. Bk XV:745-842. The Romans are his people.

Quirites, Quires

Bk XV:552-621. The Sabines, or Cures, the Romans after the union with the Sabines.

Bk XIV:566-580. They worship the deified Aeneas as Indiges.

Remulus

Bk XIV:609-622. An Alban king, killed by a lightning bolt.

Rhadamanthus

The son of Jupiter and Europa, brother of Minos, with his brother a judge of the dead in the Underworld.

Bk IX:418-438. Bk IX:439-516. Jupiter, recognising his love of justice, wishes he could enjoy perpetual youth.

Rhamnusia, Rhamnusis

Bk III:402-436. A name for Nemesis from her temple at Rhamnus in Attica. She punishes Narcissus.

Bk XIV:623-697. She is angered by those who are too proud and self-sufficient.

Rhanis

Bk III:165-205. One of Diana’s nymphs.

Rhegion, Rhegium

Bk XIV:1-74. A city (modern Reggio) in the southern part of Ausonia (modern Calabria), on the Sicilian Strait. (The Straits of Messina) It was founded c 723BC by the Chalcidians, who were later joined by the Messenese, was sacked by Syracuse, and repopulated by the Romans.

Rhenus

Bk II:227-271. The River Rhine in northern Europe.

Rhesus

A Thracian king of whom the oracle had said that if his horses drank of the Xanthus, Troy would not be taken.

Bk XIII:1-122. He was killed by Ulysses and Diomede, and his horses captured before they could drink of Xanthus.

Rhexenor

Bk XIV:483-511. A companion of Diomede. Venus transforms him into a bird.

Rhodanus

Bk II:227-271. The River Rhone in Gaul, modern France.

Rhodope

Bk II:201-226. A mountain in Thrace.

Bk VI:70-102. Supposed to be a mortal turned into a mountain for assuming the name of a great god.

Bk VI:571-619. The scene of the triennial festival of Bacchus, the trietericus.

Bk X:1-85. Orpheus flees there after losing Eurydice a second time.

Rhodopeïus

Bk X:1-85. An epithet of Orpheus, from Mount Rhodope in his native Thrace.

Rhodos, Rhodes

Bk IV:190-213. The island in the Aegean off the coast of Asia Minor. Sol loved Rhode, the nymph of the island.

Bk VII:350-403. His love is of the island itself.

Bk XII:536-579. The leader of the Rhodian fleet is Tlepolemus.

Rhoeteüs

Bk XI:194-220. Of Rhoeteum, a promontory in the Troad.

Rhoetus(1)

Bk V:30-73. A companion of Phineus, killed by Perseus, who aimed at Phineus the spear which he had thrown at him.

Rhoetus(2)

Bk XII:245-289. A centaur. He killed Cometes and his friend Charaxus at the battle of the Lapiths and Centaurs.

Bk XII:290-326. He killed Euagrus and Corythus, a boy, but wounded by Dryas, he fled the battle.

Ripheus

Bk XII:290-326. A centaur.

Roma, Rome

Bk I:199-243. The city on the Tiber, capital of the Empire.

Bk XIV:772-804. Founded by Romulus in 753BC on the feast of Pales, the Palilia, April 21st.

Bk XV:418-452. Its future greatness prophesied.

Bk XV:552-621. Cipus puts its good before his own.

Bk XV:622-745. Aesculapius ends the plague.

Bk XV:871-879. Ovid claims immortality wherever Rome’s potentia, that is its power, but equally its authority, or its influence, extends, over the lands, terris domitis, that it has conquered, or equally tamed, that is civilised.

Romanus

Bk XV:622-745. Bk XV:745-842. The Roman people.

Romethium

Bk XV:622-745. A place in Italy between Scylaceum and Caulon.

Romuleüs

Bk XIV:829-851. Of Romulus. The Quirinal hill.

Romulus

The son of Mars and Ilia, hence Iliades, the father of the Roman people (genitor). The mythical founder of Rome with his twin brother Remus. They were the children of Ilia/Rhea Silvia, daughter of Aeneas, or in the more common tradition of Numitor the deposed king of Alba Longa. Amulius, Numitor’s brother usurped his throne and made Ilia a Vestal Virgin, but she was visited by Mars himself. Thrown into the Tiber the twins cradle caught in a fig tree (the Ficus Ruminalis) and they were rescued by a she-wolf and fed by a woodpecker, creatures sacred to Mars. Brought up by peasants the twins built the first walled settlement on the Palatine. Romulus killed his brother for jumping over the wall. He reigned for forty years and then vanished, becoming the Roman god Quirinus.

Bk XIV:772-804. He reinstates Numitor, and makes peace with the Sabines, sharing the rule of Rome with Tatius the Sabine king.

Bk XIV:805-828. He is deified, as Quirinus.

Bk XIV:829-851. His hill is the Quirinal. As Quirinus, he receives his deified wife Hersilia into heaven, as Hora.

Bk XV:552-621. His spear was magically transformed into a tree.

Bk XV:622-745. Rome is his city.

Rutuli

Bk XIV:445-482. A people of Latium whose chief city was Ardea, and whose hero was Turnus. They fight Aeneas and the Trojans.

Bk XIV:527-565. They set fire to the Trojan ships.

Bk XIV:566-580. They persist with the war.

Sabaeus

Bk X:431-502. Of the Sabaeans, a people in Northern Arabia. Myrrha reaches their land.

Sabini

The Sabines, a people of Central Italy who merged with the people of Romulus. (See Giambologna’s sculpture – The Rape of the Sabines – Loggia dei Lanzi, Florence)

Bk XIV:772-804. Their king is Tatius. They make peace.

Bk XIV:829-851. They are absorbed into the Roman people.

Bk XV:1-59. Numa desires knowledge beyond theirs.

Sagittarius

Bk II:63-89. The constellation and zodiacal sun sign of the Archer, half man and half beast, formed when Chiron the centaur was placed by Jupiter among the stars. He aims his stellar arrow at the heart of Scorpio. The star-rich constellation contains the centre of the galaxy. It is full of star clusters and nebulae (Trifid, Lagoon, Horseshoe etc). The sun is in Sagittarius at the winter solstice.

Salamis

A city on the island of Cyprus, founded by Teucer, who came from the island of Salamis in the Saronic Sea, site of the famous naval battle where the Greeks defeated the Persians.

Bk XIV:698-771. It contains Anaxarete’s statue, and a temple to Venus Prospiciens – ‘she who looks out’.

Sallentinus

Bk XV:1-59. Of the Sallentines, a people of Calabria.

Salmacis

Bk IV:274-316. A pool in Caria whose waters were enervating, and the nymph of the pool who loved Hermaphroditus.

Bk IV:346-388. Salmacis dives into the pool to pursue Hermaphroditus, and is merged with him. He prays that the pool will weaken anyone who bathes there.

Bk XV:307-360. Its waters have enervating powers.

Samius

Bk XV:60-142: An epithet of Pythagoras, the philosopher. From Samos.

Samos(1)

An island off the coast of Asia Minor opposite Ephesus, sacred to Juno, and the birthplace of Pythagoras (at Pythagórion = Tigáni). Samos was famous for its Heraion, the great sanctuary of the goddess Hera-Juno.

Bk VIII:183-235. Daedalus and Icarus fly towards it after leaving Crete.

Bk XV:60-142. Pythagoras flees from Samos and enters voluntary exile at Crotona.

Samos(2), Same

Bk XIII:705-737. An island in the Ionian Sea under the dominion of Ulysses, passed by Aeneas.

Sardes, Sardis

Bk XI:85-145. The ancient capital of Lydia on the River Pactolus.

Bk XI:146-171. It is overlooked by Mount Tmolus.

Sarpedon

A Lycian chief, the son of Jupiter and Europa, killed by Patroclus in the war with the Greeks.

Bk XIII:123-381. His ranks decimated by Ulysses.

Saturn, Saturnus, Saturnius (Of Saturn)

Bk I:151-176. Son of Earth and Heaven (Uranus) ruler of the universe in the Golden Age. Saturn was deposed by his three sons Jupiter, Neptune and Pluto who ruled Heaven, Ocean and the Underworld respectively. He was banished to Tarturus. He was the father also of Juno, Ceres and Vesta by Ops.

Bk V:385-424. Dis (Pluto) as son of Saturn.

Bk VI:103-128. He fathers Chiron the Centaur on Philyra, while disguised as a horse, and is depicted by Arachne.

Bk IX:211-272. Jupiter as son of Saturn.

Bk IX:439-516. Saturn married his sister Ops, a personification of the Earth.

Bk XIV:320-396. The father of Picus.

Bk XV:843-870. Jupiter his son, surpasses him.

Saturnia, Juno

Bk I:601-621. Bk XIV:772-804. An epithet for Juno, daughter of Saturn.

Bk II:531-565. Her chariot is drawn by peacocks.

Bk V:294-331. The Emathides pretend that she fled to Egypt in the war between the giants and the gods, and there she hid in the form of a white cow.

Bk IX:159-210. As Hercules stepmother she sets him onerous tasks, pursuing him as a punishment for Jupiter’s affair with his mother Alcmena.

Satyri

Bk I:177-198. The Satyrs. Demi-gods. Woodland deities of human form but with goats’ ears, tails, legs and budding horns. Sexually lustful.

Bk IV:1-30. Bk XI:85-145. They are followers of Bacchus-Dionysus.

Bk VI:382-400. Marsyas is one of them, and they weep when he is flayed by Phoebus-Apollo.

Bk XIV:623-697. They pursue Pomona.

Schoeneïa

Bk X:560-637. Bk X:638-680. Atalanta, the daughter of Schoeneus, king of Boeotia.

Sciron

Bk VII:425-452. A famous robber on the coast between Megaris and Attica who threw his victims into the sea. Theseus did the same to him, and his bones eventually became the sea cliffs near the Molurian Rocks.

Scorpio, Scorpius

Bk II:63-89. The constellation and zodiacal sun sign of the Scorpion. It contains the red giant Antares (‘like Mars’), one of the four Babylonian guardian stars of the heavens, lying nearly on the ecliptic. (The others are Regulus in Leo, Aldebaran in Taurus, and Fomalhaut ‘the Fish’s Eye’ in Piscis Austrinus. All four are at roughly ninety degrees to one another). Scorpius, because of its position, is one of the two ‘gateways’ to the Milky Way, the other being the opposite constellation of Orion. The Scorpion men attacked Osiris in Egyptian legend, and the Scorpion’s sting killed Orion in Greek myth.

Bk II:178-200. In ancient Greek times Scorpius was a larger constellation extending over two star signs, Scorpio and Libra.

Scylaceus

Bk XV:622-745. Of Scylaceum, a place on the Bruttian coast. (This is the modern town of Squillace overlooking the Gulf of Squillace, between the ‘heel’ and ‘toe’ of Italy. The Greek city of Schilletion, it was renamed Solacium by the Romans.)

Scylla(1)

Bk VII:1-73. Bk XIV:75-100. The daughter of Phorcys and the nymph Crataeis, remarkable for her beauty. Circe or Amphitrite, jealous of Neptune’s love for her changed her into a dog-like sea monster, ‘the Render’, with six heads and twelve feet. Each head had three rows of close-set teeth. Her cry was a muted yelping. She seized sailors and cracked their bones before slowly swallowing them.

Bk XIII:705-737. She threatens Aeneas’s ships. She was once a nymph who rejected many suitors and spent time with the ocean nymphs who loved her.

Bk XIII:738-788. She listens to Galatea’s story.

Bk XIII:898-968. She meets Glaucus and hears his story.

Bk XIV:1-74. She is changed by Circe’s poisons into a monster with a circle of yelping dogs around her waist. Finally she is turned into a rock. (The rock projects from the Calabrian coast near the village of Scilla, opposite Cape Peloro on Sicily. See Ernle Bradford ‘Ulysses Found’ Ch.20)

Scylla(2)

Bk VIII:1-80. The daughter of Nisus of Megara, who loved Minos. She decides to betray the city to him.

Bk VIII:81-151. She cuts off the purple lock of Nisus’s hair that guarantees the safety of his kingdom and his life. Minos rejects her and she is changed into the rock dove, columba livia, with its purple breast and red legs, while her father is changed into the sea eagle, haliaeetus albicilla. Her name Ciris, from κείρω, ‘I cut’, reflects her shearing of Nisus’s hair, as does the purple breast of the bird. But she is also an embodiment of the Cretan Great Goddess, Car, Ker or Q’re, to whom doves were sacred. Pausanias I xxxix says that Kar founded Megara, Nisus’s city and was king there. The acropolis was named Karia, and Kar built a great hall to Demeter (Ceres) there, Pausanias I xxxx. His tumulus was decorated with shell-stone sacred to the goddess at the command of an oracle, Pausanias I xxxxiii. The rock dove no doubt nested on the rocks of the citadel and coastline. Pausanias II xxxiv says that Cape Skyllaion (Skyli) was named after Scylla. Hair cutting reflects ancient ritual and the Curetes were the ‘young men with shaved hair’ the devotees of the moon-goddess Cer, whose weapon clashing drove off evil spirits at eclipses and during the rites.

Scyros(1)

Bk XIII:123-381. An island in the central Aegean off the coast of Euboea, ruled by Pyrrhus.

Scyros(2)

A town in Asia Minor.

Bk XIII:123-381. Captured by Achilles.

Scythia

The country of the Scythians of northern Europe and Asia to the north of the Black Sea. Noted for the Sarmatian people, their warrior princesses, and burial mounds in the steppe (kurgans). They were initially horse-riding nomads. See (Herodotus, The Histories).

Bk II:201-226. Scorched by the chariot of Phaethon.

Bk V:642-678. Ruled by Lyncus, the barbarian king.

Bk VII:404-424. There is a dark cave there, a path to the underworld by which Hercules drags the dog Cerberus to the light.

Bk VIII:777-842. The haunts of Famine.

Bk X:560-637. The Scythians were famous bowmen, noted for the swiftness and surety of their arrows.

Bk XIV:320-396. Scythian Diana was worshipped at Aricia in Italy, to which Orestes carried her image, from Taurus.

Bk XV:259-306. Contains the river Hypanis.

Bk XV:307-360. The Scythian women cover their bodies with plumage by sprinkling themselves with magic drugs. See Herodotus IV 31 where he suggests the feathers are snowflakes.

Semele

Bk III:253-272. The daughter of Cadmus, loved by Jupiter. The mother of Bacchus (Dionysus). (See the painting by Gustave Moreau – Jupiter and Semele – in the Gustave Moreau Museum, Paris)

Bk III:273-315. She is consumed by Jupiter’s fire having been deceived by Juno. Her unborn child Bacchus is rescued.

Semeleïus

An epithet of Bacchus from his mother, Semele.

Bk V:294-331. The Emathides pretend that he fled to Egypt in the war between the giants and the gods, and there he hid in the form of a goat.

Bk IX:595-665. The Thracian women perform his rites.

Semiramis

Bk IV:31-54. The daughter of Dercetis or Atargatis, the Syrian goddess. She was said to have been cast out at birth and tended by doves. Doves were sacred to her, as they were to Dercetis. Historically she is Sammuramat, Queen of Babylon, and wife of Shamshi-Adad V (Ninus). She reigned after him as regent from 810-805 BC.

Bk V:74-106. Polydegmon is her descendant.

Seriphos

Bk V:200-249. Bk V:250-293. An island of the Cyclades, ruled by Polydectes.

Bk VII:453-500. Allied to Crete. Described as flat.

Serpens, The Dragon, Draco

Bk II:150-177. The constellation of the Dragon, once confusingly called Serpens. It is said to be the dragon Ladon killed by Hercules when stealing the golden apples of the Hesperides. It contains the north pole of the ecliptic (ninety degrees from the plane of earth’s orbit) and represents the icy north.

Serpent, Anguem

Bk II:111-149. Bk VIII:152-182. The constellation of the Serpent, north of the ecliptic in the northern hemisphere. It is separated into two parts, Serpens Cauda, and Serpens Caput, the tail and the head. It contains M5 the finest globular star cluster in the northern sky, and M16 a cluster in the Eagle Nebula.

Sibylla

Bk XV:622-745. The priestess of Apollo in the temple at Cumae built by Daedalus. She prophesied perched on or over a tripod.

Bk XIV:101-153. She guides Aeneas through the underworld and shows him the golden bough that he must pluck from the tree. She tells him how she was offered immortality by Phoebus, but forgot to ask also for lasting youth, dooming her to wither away until she is merely a voice.

Bk XIV:154-222. She leads Aeneas back from the Underworld.

Sicania, Trinacris

A name for Sicily. The Mediterranean island, west of Italy.

Bk VIII:260-328. Daedalus finds refuge there at the court of King Cocalus, noted for his peaceableness. It is at war with Crete.

Bk XIII:705-737. Aeneas passes it.

Bk XV:259-306. The river Amenanus flows there.

Sicelis, Siculus

Bk VII:1-73. Bk XIII:738-788. Bk XV:745-842. Of Sicily. Sicilian.

Bk VIII:260-328. Sicily noted for its large bulls.

Bk XIV:1-74. Bk XV:622-745. The Straits of Messina (Zancle) divide Sicily from Ausonia in Italy.

Sicyonius

Bk III:206-231. Of the city of Sicyon in the Peloponnesus, near Corinth. (The home of the sculptor Lysippos. It is near modern Vasilikó.)

Sidon

Bk II:833-875. The city of the Phoenicians in the Lebanon. Home of Europa.

Bk IV:543-562. Ino’s closest servants come from there.

Bk IV:563-603. Cadmus recalls his homeland.

Sidonis

Bk XIV:75-100. An epithet of Dido, from her native Phoenician city of Sidon.

Sidonius

Bk III:115-137. An epithet of Cadmus who came from Phoenician Sidon and Tyre.

Bk IV:543-562. An epithet of the Theban companions of Ino because they were of Phoenician origin, followers of Cadmus.

Sigeïus, Sigeüs

Bk XI:194-220. Bk XII:64-145. A promontory in the Troad, near Troy, and by the mouth of the Scamander.

Bk XIII:1-122. The scene of the debate over the arms of Achilles in front of the Greek ships.

Silenus

Bk IV:1-30. Silenus and his sons the satyrs were originally primitive mountaineers of northern Greece who became stock comic characters in Attic drama. He was called an autochthon or son of Pan by one of the nymphs. He was Bacchus’s tutor, portrayed usually as a drunken old man with an old pack-ass, who is unable to tell truth from lies.(See the copy of the sculpture attributed to Lysippus, ‘Silenus holding the infant Bacchus’ in the Vatican)

Bk XI:85-145. He is captured by the Lydians and taken to King Midas. Bacchus grants Midas a gift (he chooses the golden touch) as a reward for returning Silenus to him.

Silvani

Bk I:177-198. Demi-gods. Offspring of Silvanus the deity of uncultivated land.

Silvanus

Bk XIV:623-697. A god of the woodlands who pursues Pomona.

Silvius

Bk XIV:609-622. The son of Ascanius, king of Alba.

Simoïs

Bk XIII:1-122. A river near Troy, often paired with the Scamander (Xanthus).

Sinis

Bk VII:425-452. An Isthmian robber, the son of Polypemon, who killed his victims by tying them to pine trees bent with ropes, and releasing the ropes. Theseus served him in the same way.

Sinuessa

Bk XV:622-745. A town in Campania, established as a Roman colony in 296BC. (Its site was on the Via Appia, near the modern Mondragone on the Gulf of Gaeta.)

Siphnos

An island of the Cyclades, between Seriphos and Melos.

Bk VII:453-500. Allied to Crete. Betrayed to Minos by Arne.

Sipylus

One of the seven sons of Niobe, named after Mount Sipylus in his mother’s country.

Bk VI:146-203. The mountain, near Smyrna, is where Niobe lived before her marriage.

Bk VI:204-266. He is killed by Apollo’s and Diana’s assault on the seven sons.

Sirenes, Sirens

Bk V:533-571. The daughters of Acheloüs, the Acheloïdes, companions of Proserpina, turned to woman-headed birds, or women with the legs of birds, and luring the sailors of passing ships with their sweet song. They searched for Proserpine on land, and were turned to birds so that they could search for her by sea. (There are various lists of their names, but Ernle Bradford suggests two triplets: Thelxinoë, the Enchantress; Aglaope, She of the Beautiful Face, and Peisinoë, the Seductress: and his preferred triplet Parthenope, the Virgin Face; Ligeia, the Bright Voice; and Leucosia, the White One – see ‘Ulysses Found’ Ch.17. Robert Graves in the index to the ‘The Greek Myths’ adds Aglaophonos, Molpe, Raidne, Teles, and Thelxepeia.)

(See Draper’s painting – Ulysses and the Sirens – Ferens Art Gallery, Hull, England, and Gustave Moreau’s watercolour in the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard)

Bk XIV:75-100. Aeneas passes their island, between the Aeolian Islands and Cumae. (This was traditionally Capri, or more likely one of the five Galli islets, the Sirenusae, at the entrance to the Gulf of Salerno)

Sirinus

Bk XV:1-59. Of Siris, a town and river in Lucania.

Sisyphus

The son of Aeolus, and brother of Athamas, famous for his cunning and thievery.

Bk IV:416-463. He was punished in Hades, continually having to push a stone to the top of a hill, and then pursuing it as it rolled down again.

Bk X:1-85. His punishment in the underworld ceases for a time at the sound of Orpheus’s song.

Bk XIII:1-122. The reputed father of Ulysses.

Sithon

Bk IV:274-316. A person of indeterminate sex, mentioned briefly by Alcithoë.

Sithonius

Bk VI:571-619. Bk XIII:481-575. Of the Sithonians, a Thracian people.

Smilax

Bk IV:274-316. A nymph who was loved by Crocus, who pined away from hopeless love of her. She was changed into the flowering bindweed and he into the crocus flower.

Smintheus

Bk XII:579-628. An epithet of Apollo, ‘mouse-Apollo’. Sminthos is the ancient Cretan word for ‘mouse’, a sacred creature at Cnossos, Philistia and Phocis.

Sol

Bk I:747-764. Bk XIII:789-869. Bk XV:1-59. The sun-god, son of Hyperion. Identified with Phoebus Apollo.

Bk I:765-779. Clymene swears to Phaethon that he is Sol’s sun. Sol, appealed to as witness here in Egypt, and by Clymene, married to the king of Ethiopia, is synonymous with Ra, the Egyptian sun-god. He is worshipped with outstretched arms and his glittering rays are depicted in the heiroglyphs as having hands at the end to reach out to his worshippers. Hathor-Io is sometimes described as the daughter of Ra and wife of Horus, sometimes as the mother or ‘dwelling’ of Horus, who is himself an incarnation of the sun and identified with Phoebus Apollo, and the sun-god is enclosed by her each evening to be re-born at dawn.

Bk II:1-30. His son Phaethon visits his palace and is granted a favour. He asks to drive the Sun’s chariot for a day.

Bk II:49-62. Sol tries to dissuade Phaethon from driving the chariot.

Bk II:63-89. The Sun progresses annually along the ecliptic through the zodiac in the opposite direction (anti-clockwise) to the daily (clockwise) rotation of the fixed stars.

Bk II:111-149. Sol concedes the sun chariot to Phaethon with dire warnings.

Bk II:381-400. He mourns Phaethon and is reluctantly persuaded to resume his daily driving of the sun chariot.

Bk IV:167-189. He sees the adultery of Venus with Mars and informs Vulcan her husband.

Bk IV:190-213. In revenge for his interference Venus makes him fall in love with Leucothoë.

Bk IV:214-255. She is killed by her father and Sol attempts to restore her, changing her into a tree, with incense bearing resin (frankincense, genus Boswellia?).

Bk IV:604-662. The western ocean receives his chariot and his weary horses at the end of each day.

Bk VII:74-99. The father of King Aeetes of Colchis, and of his sister Circe by the Oceanid Perse.

Bk VII:179-233. The grandfather of Medea.

Bk IX:714-763. The father of Pasiphaë by the nymph Crete, or Perseis.

Bk XIII:789-869. Bk XIV:1-74. The father of Circe. In revenge for his tale-bearing, see above, Venus perhaps made Circe susceptible to passion.

Somnus

Bk XI:573-649. The god of sleep. His cave is in Cimmeria. He has many sons, including Morpheus, Phobetor and Phantasos who take on the images of human beings, creatures, and inanimate things respectively. He sends Morpheus to Alcyone.

Sparta

The chief city of Laconia on the River Eurotas, and also called Lacadaemon.

Bk VI:401-438. Its ruler goes to Thebes to show sympathy for the death of Amphion and his children.

Bk X:143-219. Hyacinthus lives nearby at Amyclae.

Bk XV:1-59. Tarentum in Italy is a Spartan colony.

Bk XV:418-452. A symbol of vanished power.

Sperchios, Spercheus, Spercheos

Bk I: 568-587. A river in Thessaly.

Bk II:227-271. Scorched by the sun chariot when Phaethon fell.

Bk V:74-106. The native place of Lycetus.

Bk VII:179-233. Medea gathers magic herbs there.

Stabiae

Bk XV:622-745. A city on the bay of Naples.

Stheneleius(1)

Of Sthenelus(2), king of Liguria, hence his son Cycnus(2).

Sthenelus(1)

Bk IX:273-323. King of Mycenae, hence his son Eurystheus.

Sthenelus(2)

Bk II:367-380. King of Liguria, father of Cycnus(2).

Strophades

Bk XIII:705-737. Two small islands in the Ionian Sea, ‘the turning islands’, with a dangerous anchorage. Aeneas encounters the Harpies there, foul-bellied birds with girls’ faces, with clawed hands and pallid faces (See Virgil Aeneid III:190-220).

Strymon

Bk II:227-271. A river in Thrace and Macedonia.

Stymphalis

Bk V:572-641. Of Stymphalus, a district in Arcadia with a town, mountain and lake of the same name, near Mount Cyllene. It is a haunt of Diana and Arethusa. (Pausanias says, VIII xxii, that there were three temples of Juno-Hera, at ancient Stymphelos, as the Child, the Perfect One, and the Widow, the moon phases.)

Bk IX:159-210. In the Sixth Labour Hercules killed or dispersed the brazen beaked and clawed man-eating birds of the Stymphalian Lake that killed men and animals and blighted crops. According to some accounts they were bird-legged women sacred to Artemis-Diana.

Styphelus

Bk XII:429-535. A centaur.

Styx, Stygian

Bk I:722-746. Bk XII:290-326. A river of the underworld, with its lakes and pools, used to mean the underworld or the state of death itself.

Bk III:50-94. Its mouth exudes a poisonous black breath like the serpent that Cadmus destroys.

Bk V:487-532. Arethusa passes its streams while journeying through the deep caverns from Elis to Sicily. This is the Arcadian river Styx near Nonacris. It forms the falls of Mavroneri, plunging six hundred feet down the cliffs of the Chelmos ridge. Pausanias says, VIII xvii, that Hesiod (Theogony 383) makes Styx the daughter of Ocean and the wife of the Titan Pallas. Their children were Victory and Strength. Epimenedes makes her the mother of Echidna. Pausanias says the waters of the river dissolve glass and stone etc.

Bk VI:653-674. Bk X:298-355. Its valley is home to the Furies.

Bk X:1-85. Orpheus visits it on his quest for Eurydice, and is prevented from crossing it for a second time by the ferryman, Charon.

Bk X:681-707. Cybele considers plunging Hippomenes and Atalanta beneath its waters.

Bk XI:474-572. It waters are a dark colour.

Bk XIV:154-222. Visited by Aeneas.

Bk XIV:566-580. Aeneas’s visit entitles him to deification.

BkXV:143-175. Pythagoras believes it an invention of the poets.

Bk XV:745-842. The screech-owl, whose call is an omen, is said to be Stygian.

Surrentinus

Bk XV:622-745. Of Surrentum, a town on the Bay of Naples. The modern Sorrento, La Gentile, perched on a tufa rock and bounded by ravines, in a district famed for its beauty, and its fruit. (Torquato Tasso the poet was born there.)

Sybaris

Bk XV:1-59. Bk XV:307-360. A town in Italy, on the Gulf of Taranto. It probably stood on the left bank of the Crathis (modern Crati) and was an Achaean colony whose luxury and corruption became a byword (hence sybaritic) and was destroyed by the men of Croton in 510BC. The descendants of the survivors founded Thurii inland, with the help of Athenian colonists, including Lysias the orator and Herodotus who died there. Sybaris was Romanised after 290BC and named Copiae.

Syenites

The inhabitants of Syene in Upper Egypt.

Bk V:74-106. Phorbas’s native place.

Symaethis

Bk XIII:738-788. A daughter of the river god Symaethus in Sicily, the mother of Acis.

Symaethius

Bk XIII:870-897. Of Symaethus, a town in Sicily. Acis.

Symphlegades, Symplegades

Bk VII:1-99. Two rocky islands in the Euxine Sea, clashing rocks according to the fable, crushing what attempted to pass between them.

Bk XV:307-360. The Argo had to avoid them.

Syrinx

Bk I:689-721. An Arcadian nymph pursued by Pan and changed to marsh reeds by her sisters in order to escape him. She gave her name to the syrinx, or pan pipes, the reedy flute. (See Signorelli’s painting – Court of Pan – Staatliche Museum, Berlin)

Syros

An island of the Cyclades, near Delos. Described as flowering with thyme.

Bk VII:453-500. Allied to Crete.

Syrtis

Bk VIII:81-151. A dangerous series of sandbanks on the north coast of Africa between Tunis and Cyrene.

Taenarius(1)

Bk II:227-271. Laconian, of the river Eurotas.

Bk X:143-219. The home of Hyacinthus.

Taenarius(2)

Bk X:1-85. Laconian, of the cave reputed to give entry to the Underworld.

Taenarus, Taenarides

Bk II:227-271. The southern part of Laconia in southern Greece near the mouth of the Eurotas.

Bk X:1-85. One of the traditional gateways to the Underworld.

Tages

Bk XV:552-621. An Etrurian deity, grandson of Jupiter. He sprang from a clod of earth in human form, and taught the Etruscans the art of divination.

Tagus

Bk II:227-271. The river in Spain and Portugal, reputedly gold bearing.

Tamasenus

Bk X:638-680. Of Tamasus, a city in Cyprus. Its sacred field is sacred to Venus and contains a tree with golden apples

Tanais

Bk II:227-271. The river and river-god of Scythia. The River Don.

Tantalides

Bk XII:579-628. Agamemnon, great grandson of Tantalus.

Tantalis

Bk VI:204-266. Niobe, the daughter of Tantalus.

Tantalus(1)

The king of Phrygia, son of Jupiter, father of Pelops and Niobe.

Bk IV:416-463. He served his son Pelops to the gods at a banquet and is punished by eternal thirst in Hades.

Bk VI:146-203. Boasted of by Niobe.

Bk X:1-85. His punishment in the underworld ceases for a time at the sound of Orpheus’s song.

Tantalus(2)

Bk VI:204-266. One of Niobe’s seven sons killed by Apollo and Diana.

Tarentum

Bk XV:1-59. A city on the ‘heel’ of Italy founded by Lacedaemonians, the modern Taranto, and a commercial port. The Spartan colony of Taras, it was founded in 708BC and became the greatest city of Magna Graecia, famous for its purple murex dyes, wool etc. It was a centre of Pythagorean philosophy. It became subject to Rome in 272BC, and surrendered to Hannibal in 209BC for which it was severely punished, on being retaken.

Tarpeïa

Bk XIV:772-804. A Roman girl who treacherously opened the citadel to the Sabines, and was killed beneath the weight of the weapons, which were thrown on her.

Bk XV:843-870. The Tarpeian citadel was the Capitoline Hill with its temple of Jupiter.

Tartarus, Tartara

Bk I:113-124. The underworld. The infernal regions ruled by Pluto (Dis).

Bk II:227-271. Light penetrates there when Phaethon loses control of the sun chariot.

Bk V:332-384. The third part of the universe.

Bk V:385-424. Dis re-enters Tartarus through the pool of Cyane after raping and abducting Proserpine.

Bk X:1-85. Mentioned by Orpheus.

Bk XI:650-709. Bk XII:245-289. Bk XII:429-535.

Bk XII:579-628. The void of the afterlife.

Tartessius

Bk XIV:397-434. Of Tartessus, an old Phoenician colony in Spain.

Tatius

Bk XIV:772-804. A king of the Sabines who fought against Romulus, but afterwards made peace and ruled jointly with him.

Bk XIV:805-828. He dies.

Taurus(1)

Bk II:63-89. The constellation and zodiacal sun sign of the Bull. It represents the white ‘Bull from the Sea’, a disguise of Jupiter when he carried off Europa. Its glinting red eye is the star Aldebaran one of the four Babylonian guardians of the heavens, lying near the ecliptic. (The others are Regulus in Leo, Antares in Scorpius, and Fomalhaut ‘the Fish’s Eye’ in Piscis Austrinus. All four are at roughly ninety degrees to one another.)

Taurus(2)

Bk II:201-226. A mountain in Asia Minor.

Taÿgeta, Taÿgete

Bk III:572-596. One of the Pleiades, daughter of Atlas.

Tectaphus

Bk XII:429-535. One of the Lapithae.

Tegeaea

Arcadian, from Tegus an ancient town in Arcadia.

An epithet of Atalanta(1).

Bk VIII:260-328. She is present at the Calydonian Boar Hunt.

Bk VIII:376-424. She wounds the boar.

Telamon

Bk VII:453-500. The son of Aeacus, king of Aegina, brother of Peleus and Phocus, and father of Ajax. He comes to meet Minos.

Bk VII:614-660. He brings his father news of the Myrmidons having been created.

Bk VIII:260-328. He is present at the Calydonian Boar Hunt.

Bk VIII:376-424. He trips over a tree-root and falls.

Bk XI:194-220. He helps Hercules rescue Hesione and is given her in marriage.

Bk XII:579-628. Bk XIII:1-122. The father of Ajax, the great.

Bk XIII:123-381. Ajax’s father, and Peleus’s brother, exiled with him for the murder of Phocus.

Telamoniades, Telamonius

Bk XIII:123-381. Ajax as son of Telamon.

Telchines

Bk VII:350-403. A fabled family of priests in Ialysus, an ancient city of Rhodes. Neptune fell in love with the nymph Halia, and her six sons committed outrages that led a disgusted Jupiter to sink them below the earth or under the waves.

Teleboas

Bk XII:429-535. A centaur.

Telemus

Bk XIII:738-788. The son of Eurymus, a seer, who prophesies that Ulysses will seize the single eye of Polyphemus.

Telephus

King of Mysia, son of Hercules and the nymph Auge.

Bk XII:64-145. Bk XIII:123-381. He was wounded and healed by the touch of Achilles’s spear at Troy.

Telestes

Bk IX:714-763. A Cretan, father of Ianthe.

Telethusa

Bk IX:666-713. The wife of Ligdus, and mother of Iphis. her husband orders to have any female child killed, but she has a prophetic dream of Isis telling her to save the child in her womb, a daughter, and deceives him into believing her female infant is male.

Bk IX:764-797. She prays to Isis for help.

Tellus

Bk II:272-300. The Earth Mother, the Goddess of the Earth. She appeals to Jupiter to save the world after Phaethon has lost control of the sun chariot.

Temese

Bk VII:179-233. Bk XV:622-745. A town in Bruttium, possessing rich copper mines. Source of famous bronzes.

Tempe

Bk I:568-587. The valley in Thessaly between Ossa and Olympus through which the River Peneus flows. It was celebrated in antiquity for its abundance of water and luxurious vegetation, and as the place where Apollo came to purify himself after killing Python. It was the principal route into Greece from the north.)

Bk VII:179-233. Medea gathers magic herbs there.

Tenedos

Bk I:504-524. An island in the Aegean near the Trojan coast. (See Homer’s Iliad).

Bk XII:64-145. Sacked by Achilles.

Bk XIII:123-381. Captured by Achilles.

Tenos

An island of the Cyclades, between Andros and Myconos.

Bk VII:453-500. Not allied to Crete.

Tereus

Bk VI:401-438. The king of Thrace, husband of Procne.

Bk VI:438-485. Brings her sister, Philomela, to stay with her, while conceiving a frenzied desire for the sister.

Bk VI:486-548. He violates the girl.

Bk VI:549-570. He cuts out her tongue, and tells Procne she is dead.

Bk VI:619-652. Procne serves him the flesh of his murdered son Itys at a banquet.

Bk VI:653-674. Pursuing the sisters in his desire for revenge, he is turned into a bird, the hoopoe, upupa epops, with its distinctive feathered crest and elongated beak. Its rapid, far-carrying, ‘hoo-hoo-hoo’ call is interpreted as ‘pou-pou-pou’ meaning ‘where? where? where?’.

Book VI:675-721. His actions sour the relationship between Thrace and Attica.

Terra

Bk I:151-176. The goddess of Earth, mother of the Giants, see Tellus.

Tethys

Bk II:63-89. A Titaness, co-ruler of the planet Venus with Oceanus. She reigns over the sea. The sister and wife of Oceanus, in whose waters some say all gods and living things originated, she is said to have produced all his children. Her waters receive the setting sun.

Bk II:150-177. She lets loose the four horses of the Sun. As father of Phoebus the sun (see above), Phaethon the Sun’s child is her grandson.

Bk II:508-530. Visited by Juno for help in punishing Callisto.

Bk IX:439-516. She married her brother Oceanus.

Bk XI:749-795. She turns Aesacus into a diving bird, probably the merganser, mergus serrator, from mergus, a diver.

Bk XIII:898-968. With Oceanus she purges Glaucus.

Teucer(1)

Bk XIII:705-737. A king of early Troy, originally from Crete. His people the Teucrians.

Teucer(2)

Bk XIII:123-381. The son of Telamon and Hesione, half-brother of Ajax, cousin of Achilles.

Bk XIV:698-771. He founded Salamis in Cyprus, having been born on the Greek island of Salamis that was the scene of the naval battle against the Persians.

Teucri

Bk XIII:705-737. The Trojans, from their king Teucer.

Teuthranteus

Bk II:227-271. Of Teuthrania in Mysia in Asia Minor. Mysian. Of the river Caicus.

Thaumantea, Thaumantias, Thaumantis

Bk IV:464-511. Bk XI:573-649. Bk XIV:829-851. Epithets of Iris, daughter of Thaumas.

Thaumas(1), Thaumus

The father of Iris. See Thaumentea.

Thaumas(2)

Bk XII:290-326. A centaur.

Thebes(1), Thebae

Bk III:1-49, The city in Boeotia founded by Cadmus. Phoebus instructs him how to find the site by following a heifer.

Bk IV:389-415. The Theban women follow Bacchus, but the daughters of Minyas reject him and are changed into bats.

Bk V:250-293. It is near Mount Helicon, home of the Muses.

Bk VI:146-203. Amphion rules there with his wife Niobe.

Bk VI:401-438. Rulers of the cities of the Peloponnese, Boeotia and Attica, go to Thebes to show sympathy at the death of Amphion and his children.

Bk VII:759-795. The city of Oedipus, plagued by the Sphinx and the Teumessian vixen.

Bk IX:394-417. Themis prophesies concerning the war of the Seven against Thebes.

Bk XIII:675-704. The city of seven gates on Alcon’s cup. It depicts the sacrifice of the daughters of Orion to save the city from plague.

Bk XV:418-452. A symbol of vanished power. (It was razed to the ground by Alexander, in 335BC, with the exception of the house occupied by the poet Pindar.)

Thebes(2)

Bk XII:64-145. Bk XIII:123-381. A city in Mysia sacked by Achilles.

Thebaïdes

Bk VI:146-203. The women of Thebes.

Themis

Bk I:313-347. A Titaness, co- ruler of the planet Jupiter, daughter of heaven and earth. Her daughters are the Seasons and the Three Fates. She is the Triple-Goddess with prophetic powers.

Bk IV:604-662. She has prophesied the theft of the golden apples from Atlas’s orchard in the Hesperides.

Bk VII:759-795. Ovid suggests the Sphinx was sacred to Themis (as the moon-goddess of Thebes?) who then avenges her death.

Bk IX:394-417. Bk IX:418-438. She prophesies concerning the war of the Seven against Thebes and its aftermath.

Thereus

Bk XII:290-326. A centaur.

Thermodon

Bk II:227-271. Bk IX:159-210. Bk XII:579-628. A river of Pontus, the Black Sea region where the Amazons lived.

Therses

Bk XIII:675-704. A friend of King Anius who sends him the gift of a drinking cup.

Thersites

A Greek at Troy who used to hurl abuse at the Greek leaders.

Bk XIII:123-381. Punished for his insolence by Ulysses.

Thescelus

Bk V:149-199. A companion of Phineus, turned to stone by the Gorgon’s head.

Theseïus heros

Bk XV:479-551. Hippolytus, son of Theseus.

Theseus

Bk VII:404-424. King of Athens, son of Aegeus, hence Aegides. His mother was Aethra, daughter of Pittheus king of Troezen. Aegeus had lain with her in the temple. His father had hidden a sword, and a pair of sandals, under a stone (The Rock of Theseus) as a trial, which he lifted, and he made his way to Athens, cleansing the Isthmus of robbers along the way.

Bk VII:404-424. Medea attempts to poison Theseus but Aegeus recognises his sword, and his son, and prevents her.

Bk VII:425-452. Escaping the attempt by Medea to poison him, his deeds are celebrated by the Athenians: the killing of the Minotaur, and the wild sow of Cromyon, the defeat of Periphetes, Procrustes, Cercyon, Sinis, and Sciron.

Bk VIII:152-182. He kills the Minotaur in the Cretan labyrinth, and abandons Ariadne on Dia (Naxos). (See Canova’s sculpture – Theseus and the Dead Minotaur – Victoria and Albert Museum, London)

Bk VIII:260-328. Athens no longer pays tribute to Minos since he destroyed the Minotaur. The towns of Achaia beg his help in the Calydonian boar hunt, which he joins.

Bk VIII:376-424. He warns off his friend Pirithoüs, and aims at the boar, but his spear is deflected.

Bk VIII:547-610. He is delayed on his return from the Calydonian Boar Hunt, by the River Acheloüs, and the river-god tells the story of Perimele.

Bk VIII:725-776. He wishes to hear more stories of the god’s actions.

Bk IX:1-88. He asks Acheloüs to explain how he lost one of his horns.

Bk XII:290-326. He is present at the battle of the Lapiths and Centaurs, with his oaken club.

Bk XV:479-546. Hippolytus is his son, loved by Theseus’s wife Phaedra.

Bk XV:843-870. He surpasses his father Aegeus.

Thespiades

Bk V:294-331. A name given to the Muses from Thespiae a city near Mount Helicon their haunt in Boeotia.

Thessaly, Haemonia, Haemonius, Thessalis, Thessalus (of Thesssaly)

Bk II:531-565. The region in northern Greece. Its old name was Haemonia, hence Haemonius, Thessalian.

Bk VII:179-233. Contains the vale of Tempe.

Bk VII:234-293. One of its valleys is a source of the magic roots used by Medea.

Bk VIII:725-776. The country of Erysichthon.

Bk XII:146-209. The country of Caenis.

Bk XII:290-326. The mountains are the haunt of bears.

Thestiadae

The two sons of Thestius, Toxeus and Plexippus, the brothers of Althaea, and uncles of Meleager.

Bk VIII:260-328. They are present at the Calydonian Boar Hunt.

Bk VIII:425-450. They are killed by Meleager in an argument.

Thestias

Bk VIII:451-514. Althaea, daughter of Thestius, mother of Meleager.

Thestorides

Bk XII:1-38. Calchas, the son of Thestor.

Thetis

A sea goddess, daughter of Nereus and Doris.

Bk XI:194-220. She is the wife of Peleus.

Bk XI:221-265. She is a shape-changer, but Peleus overcomes her, and she bears him the hero Achilles.

Bk XI:346-409. She obtains forgiveness for him, for the murder of his half-brother Phocus, from Psamathe.

Bk XIII:123-381. She hid Achilles among the women, foreseeing his early death.

Thisbaeus

Bk XI:266-345. Of Thisbe, a town in Boeotia in a region famous for doves.

Thisbe

Bk IV:55-92. A fictional Babylonian girl. The story of Pyramus and Thisbe.

Bk IV:128-166. Her death is described. The mulberry gets its dark-reddish colour

Thoactes

Bk V:107-148. Armour bearer of Cepheus, killed in the fight between Perseus and Phineus.

Thoas

The king of Lemnos, son of Andraemon, and father of Hypsipyle.

Bk XIII:1-122. He does not compete for the arms of Achilles.

Bk XIII:399-428. Ulysses sails for the island to bring back the arrows of Hercules. Thoas was king there when the Lemnian women murdered their menfolk because of their adultery with Thracian girls. His life was spared because his daughter Hypsipyle set him adrift in an oarless boat.

Thoön

Bk XIII:123-381. A Trojan, killed by Ulysses.

Thrace, and Thracius, Thrax, Threïcius(of Thrace)

Bk II:227-271. The country bordering the Black Sea, Propontis and the northeastern Aegean.

Bk VI:70-102. Mount Haemon (Haemus) and Mount Rhodope are sited there.

Bk VI:401-438. Tereus is its king and an ally of Athens.

Book VI:675-721. Boreas is associated with this northern region.

Bk IX:159-210. In the Eighth Labour, Hercules destroys Thracian King Diomede and his four savage mares that fed on human flesh.

Bk X:1-85. The country of Orpheus, containing Mount Rhodope, and the territory of the Cicones. He introduces homosexual love of young boys into Thrace.

Bk XI:1-66. The country of Orpheus, where he is killed by the Maenads, his severed head floating down the river Hebrus to the sea.

Bk XI:85-145. The country of Orpheus.

Bk XIII:429-480. Ruled by Polymestor of the Bistones. Agamemnon beaches the fleet there on the way back from Troy, and the ghost of Achilles appears.

Bk XIII:481-575. Polydorus was murdered by the Thracians. They attack Hecuba after her murder of Polymestor.

Bk XIII:623-639. Aeneas leaves its shores behind.

Thurinus

Of Thurii, a city on the Tarentine Gulf.

Thybris, Albula

Bk II:227-271. Bk XV:418-452. Bk XV:622-745. A poetic form of the River Tiber the river of Rome.

Bk XIV:397-434. Canens dies by its shore.

Bk XIV:445-482. It is dark-shadowed and yellow with sand.

Bk XIV:609-622. It is named after King Tiberinus who drowned there.

Thyestae mensae

Bk XV:453-478. A ‘Thyestean meal’, such as that of Thyestes, whose two sons were cooked and served to him, by his brother Atreus, as a revenge.

Thyneïus

Of the Thyni, a people of Thrace who emigrated to Bithynia.

Bk VIII:679-724. Thynia, the country of Baucis and Philemon, who are Phrygians. They are both turned into trees, she into a lime tree and he into an oak. It is the region north of the Hellespont opposite Dardania and Troy.

Thyoneus(1)

Bk IV:1-30. An epithet of Bacchus from Thyone, a name under which his mother Semele was worshipped as one of the Wild Women of the rites (at Athens, Delphi and Troezen).

Thyoneus(2)

Bk VII:350-403. A son of Bacchus.

Tiberinus

Bk XIV:609-622. Bk XV:622-745. An Alban king who drowned in and gave his name to the river Tiber.

Timolus

See Tmolus.

Tiresias

Bk III:316-338. The Theban sage who spent seven years as a woman and decides the dispute between Juno and Jupiter. He is blinded by Juno but given the power of prophecy by Jupiter.

Bk VI:146-203. His daughter is Manto, the prophetess.

Tirynthia

Bk VII:100-158. Alcmena, the mother of Hercules, from Tiryns applied to Hercules as an epithet.

Tirynthius

Bk VII:404-424. Bk IX:1-88. Bk IX:211-272. Bk XII:536-579.

Bk XIII:399-428. Of Tiryns, a city in Argolis near Argos, commonly applied as an epithet to Hercules.

Tisiphone

One of the Furies.

Bk IV:464-511. She is sent by Juno to madden Athamas and Ino.

Titan

Bk I:1-30. The name Titan is applied to Sol the sun god, son of the Titan Hyperion, and to Phoebus Apollo, as a sun god and daughter of Leto (Latona) whose mother was Phoebe the Titaness.

Bk II:111-149. Bk VI:438-485. Bk X:1-85. Phoebus Apollo. The Sun god as Titan.

Bk VII:350-403. Medea’s winged dragons are born of the Titans.

Bk X:143-219. Bk XI:221-265. The sun.

Titania, Titanis

An epithet for the descendant of a Titan.

Bk I:381-415. Pyrrha the granddaughter of Iapetus.

Bk III:165-205. Diana as granddaughter of Coeus.

Bk VI:146-203. Bk VI:313-381. Latona as a daughter of Coeus.

Bk XIII:898-968. Bk XIV:1-74. Bk XIV:320-396.

Bk XIV:435-444. Circe, daughter of Titan, the Sun.

Tithonus

The son of Laomedon, husband of Aurora, and father of Memnon.

Bk IX:418-438. Aurora, having obtained eternal life for him wishes she could obtain eternal youth for him also.

Tityos

A giant, who attempted violence to Latona, and suffers in Hades.

Bk IV:416-463. Vultures feed on his liver, which is continually renewed.

Bk X:1-85. His punishment in the underworld ceases for a time at the sound of Orpheus’s song.

Tlepolemus

Bk XII:536-579. A son of Hercules, leader of the Rhodians. He upbraids Nestor for neglecting to mention Hercules.

Tmolus, Timolus

Bk II:201-226. A mountain in Lydia, near the source of the River Caÿster.

Bk XI:85-145. It is sacred to Bacchus.

Bk XI:146-171. Bk XI:194-220. The sea is visible from the mountain, which overlooks Sardis, and whose god judges the music contest between Pan and Apollo.

Tonaus

Bk I:151-176. Bk XI:194-220. The Thunderer, an epithet for Jupiter.

Toxeus

The son of Thestius. Brother of Althaea, and uncle of Meleager.

Bk VIII:260-328. He is present at the Calydonian Boar Hunt.

Bk VIII:425-450. He is killed by his nephew Meleager in an argument over the spoils.

Trachas

Bk XV:622-745. A town in Latium.

Trachin

Bk XI:266-345. Bk XI:573-649. A city in Thessaly, ruled by Ceyx, where Peleus finds sanctuary after killing his brother. Hercules is its hero.

Trachinius

Bk XI:346-409. An epithet of Ceyx, king of Trachin.

Bk XI:474-572. Of Trachin.

Tridentifer

Bk VIII:547-610. An epithet of Neptune from his three-pronged trident.

Trinacria, Trinacris

Bk V:332-384. An ancient name for Sicily. Typhoeus the giant is buried under it by the gods.

Bk V:425-486. Ceres blights it because Persephone is abducted from its soil.

Bk V:487-532. Arethusa loves the land, though a foreigner, and begs Ceres to preserve it from harm.

Triones

Bk II:150-177. Bk X:431-502. The constellations of the Great and Little Bear. See Ursa Major and Ursa Minor.

Triopeïs

Bk VIII:843-884. Mestra, the daughter of Erysichthon and granddaughter of Triopas, king of Thessaly.

Triopeïus

Bk VIII:725-776. Erysichthon, son of Triopas king of Thessaly.

Triptolemus

The son of Celeus, king of Eleusis in Attica.

Bk V:642-678. Ceres sends him to take the gift of her crops to Lyncus king of the Scythian barbarians. He is attacked, but saved by Ceres.

Triton

Bk I:313-347. Bk XIII:898-968. The sea and river god, son of Neptune and Amphitrite the Nereid. He is depicted as half man and half fish and the sound of his conch-shell calms the waves. (See Wordsworth’s sonnet ‘The world is too much with us; late and soon,’)

Bk II:1-30. His image depicted on the palace of the Sun.

Tritonia, Tritonis

Bk II:752-786. Bk V:250-293. BkVI:1-25. An epithet of Minerva (Pallas Athene) from her original home near lake Triton in Libya.

Bk V:642-678. Bk VIII:547-610. Applied to her city of Athens.

Tritoniaca harundo

Bk VI:382-400. ‘Minerva’s reed’, the flute she invented.

Trivia

Bk II:401-416. An epithet of Diana, worshipped at the meeting of three ways, ‘Diana of the crossroads’.

Troezen, Troizen

A city in the southern Argolis.

Bk VI:401-438. Its ruler goes to Thebes to show sympathy for the death of Amphion and his children.

Bk VIII:611-678. Bk XV:259-306. Its later ruler is Pittheus.

Bk XV:259-306. The earthquake described here by Ovid is sited by Strabo at Methone. Troizen was a sanctuary of Poseidon- Neptune, god of the sea, the bulls, and earthquakes as were Helice and Buris, according to Pausanias.

Bk XV:479-546. Hippolytus is killed near there, when the bull from the sea, rises from the waves.

Troezenius heros

Bk VIII:547-610. Lelex, an inhabitant of Troezen.

Troy, Troia, and Troianus,Troïcus (of Troy), Ilium

Troy in Dardania, the famous city of the Troad in Asia Minor near the northern Aegean Sea and the entrance to the Hellespont.

Bk VI:70-102. The home city of Antigone, daughter of Laomedon.

Bk VIII:329-375. The future scene of the TrojanWar.

Bk IX:211-272. The place where Philoctetes will be needed, to make use of the bow of Hercules, on the Greek side, in the war.

Bk XI:194-220. Apollo and Neptune built its walls for Laomedon.

Bk XI:749-795. Priam was its last king.

Bk XII:1-38. The Greeks set sail from Aulis to make war over the abduction of Helen by Paris.

Bk XII:579-628. The ten-year war. The death of Achilles.

Bk XIII:1-122. Captured by Hercules.

Bk XIII:399-428. Troy falls to the Greeks and is burned.

Bk XIII:429-480. It lies opposite the land of the Bistones.

Bk XIII:481-575. The Trojan women, who aid Hecuba, and are moved by her fate.

Bk XIII:576-622. Its cause was aided by Aurora.

Bk XIII:623-639. Bk XIV:101-153. Bk XV:745-842. Troy’s destiny lies with Aeneas.

Bk XIII:640-674. Agamemnon is its ravager.

Bk XIII:705-737. Helenus builds a replica of Troy at Buthrotos.

Bk XIV:445-482. Aeneas and his Trojans wage war in Latium.

BkXV:143-175. Pythagoras fought in the Trojan war, as his incarnation Euphorbus.

Bk XV:418-452. A symbol of vanished glory, but as its descendant city, Rome, a symbol of glory to come.

Bk XV:622-745. An epithet of the goddess Vesta, a name for Tauric Diana at Nemi.

Troïus

Bk XI:749-795. An epithet of Aesacus, son of Priam.

Bk XIV:154-222. An epithet of Aeneas.

Turnus

King of the Rutuli in Italy, who opposed Aeneas. His capital was at Ardea, south of Rome, near modern Anzio.

Bk XIV:445-482. He goes to war when Aeneas steals his promised bride Lavinia. He sends Venulus to ask help from Diomede.

Bk XIV:527-565. He burns Aeneas’s fleet.

Bk XIV:566-580. Bk XV:745-842. He is defeated.

Tuscus

Bk III:597-637. Tuscan or Etrurian, but also Tyrrhenian since Etruria was settled by immigrants from Mysia.

Bk XIV:609-622. The Tiber is a Tuscan stream.

Tydides

Bk XII:579-628. Bk XIII:1-122. Diomede, son of Tydeus.

Tyndaridae

Bk VIII:260-328. The twins, Castor and Pollux, the Dioscuri, the sons of Leda by the Spartan king Tyndareus, both present at the Calydonian Boar-Hunt.

Tyndaris

Bk XV:199-236. An epithet of Helen, as the daughter of Tyndareus.

Typhoeus

Bk III:273-315. Bk XIV:1-74. The hundred-handed giant, one of the sons of Earth, who fought the gods. Deposed by Jupiter he was buried under Sicily.

Bk V:294-331. The Emathides pretend that he chased the gods into Egypt.

Bk V:332-384. Calliope, the Muse, tells how Typhoeus was buried under Sicily by the gods.

Tyria paelex

Bk III:253-272. An epithet of Europa.

Tyros, Tyre, Tyrius(=Tyrian)

Bk II:833-875. The city of the Phoenicians in the Lebanon.

Bk V:30-73. Bk VI:26-69. Bk X:243-297. Famed for its purple dyes used on clothing, obtained from the murex shell-fish.

Bk V:385-424. The violet flowers of Enna picked by Proserpine are compared to the purple dyes.

Bk VI:204-266. Amphion’s sons have Tyrian dyed horsecloths.

Bk IX:324-393. The flowers of the lotus tree are compared in colour to its dyes.

Bk X:143-219. The colour of Hyacinthus’s flower.

Bk XI:146-171. Phoebus’s robes are of Tyrian purple.

Bk XV:259-306. Once an island harbour, subsequently linked to the mainland.

Tyrrhenia, Tyrrhenian

Bk XV:552-621. Inhabitants of Maeonia in Lydia. The Tyrrhenians migrated into Italy from Lydia (Tyrrha on the River Cayster) to form the rootstock of the Etrurians (Etruscans).

Bk III:572-596. Acoetes the priest of Bacchus explains his Tyrrhenian origins.

Bk XIV:1-74. Glaucus crosses the Tyrrhenian Sea to seek out Circe. (Possibly located at Cape Circeo, between Anzio and Gaeta)

Bk XIV:445-482. The Etrurians who go to war with the Trojans under Aeneas.

Ulysses, Ulixes

The Greek hero, son of Laërtes. See Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey.

(See Francesco Primaticcio’s painting – Ulysses and Penelope – The Toledo Museum of Art)

Bk XII:579-628. He competes for the arms of Achilles.

Bk XIII:1-122. Ajax cites his deficiencies; his cunning; his reluctance to join the expedition against Troy; his desertion of Philoctetes; his desertion of Nestor; his desertion of the ships when Hector torched them; his unworthy victims; and his theft of the Palladium.

Bk XIII:123-381. Ulysses replies by extolling intelligence and ability over ancestry and mere brawn and courage. He is nobler than Ajax; he discovered the concealed Achilles and sent him to Troy; influenced Agamemnon at Aulis and Troy; went as ambassador to Priam; uncovered a spy, Dolon; killed Rhesus and others; and made the destruction of Troy possible by obtaining the Palladium, its guarantee of safety. He claims Diomede as a true friend.

Bk XIII:399-428. He sets sail for Lemnos to bring back the arrows of Hercules.

Bk XIII:399-428. He finds Hecuba among the tombs of her sons at the fall of Troy.

Bk XIII:481-575. Even Ulysses would not want Hecuba except as the mother of Hector.

Bk XIII:705-737. Ithaca is his home.

Bk XIII:738-788. Telemus prophesies that he will destroy the single eye of Polyphemus.

Bk XIV:154-222. Macareus and Achaemenides were two of his companions. He blinded Polyphemus, and his ship was nearly wrecked by him.

Bk XIV:223-319. Aeolus gave him the bag of winds, but opened by his men, he was blown back to Aeolus, then encountered the Laestrygonians and came to Circe’s isle where his men were transformed into beasts. He ‘married’ Circe, rescued them, and stayed there for a year.

Bk XIV:527-565. The Trojan ships transformed into naiads rejoice to see the wreckage of his ship.

Bk XIV:623-697. Penelope waits for him while he is delayed by the war.

Urania

One of the nine Muses, later Muse of Astronomy.

Bk V:250-293. She welcomes Minerva to Helicon.

Ursa Major, The Great Bear, The Waggon (plaustra), The Wain, The Plough, The Big Dipper, Helice

Bk II:150-177. The constellation of Ursa Major. It represents Callisto turned into a bear by Jupiter, or the plough or waggon or cart of Bootës. The two stars of the ‘bowl’ furthest from the ‘handle’, Merak and Dubhe, point to Polaris the pole star. The ‘handle’ points to the star Arcturus in the constellation Bootës, who is the Waggoner or Herdsman or Bear Herd (Arcturus means the Bearkeeper) or Ploughman.

Bk II:496-507. Jupiter turns Callisto into the Great Bear and Arcas her son into the Little Bear, Ursa Minor.

Bk II:508-530. The constellation is prevented, through Juno’s request to Tethys and Oceanus, from dipping below the horizon.

Bk VIII:183-235. Icarus is warned not to fly too near the constellation.

Ursa Minor, Triones

Bk II:150-177. The constellation of the Little Bear or Little Dipper, said to have been introduced by Thales in about 600BC. Close to Polaris the Pole Star it is a smaller version of the Great Bear, Ursa Major, and represents the far north.

Bk II:496-507. Jupiter turns Arcas into the Little Bear and his mother Callisto into the Great Bear, Ursa Major.

Venilia

Bk XIV:320-396. The wife of Janus, and mother of Canens.

Venulus

Bk XIV:445-482. A messenger from Turnus to Diomede.

Bk XIV:512-526. He returns having failed to win Diomede’s help.

Venus

Bk I:438-472. The Goddess of Love. The daughter of Jupiter and Dione. She is Aphrodite, born from the waves, an incarnation of Astarte, Goddess of the Phoenicians. The mother of Cupid by Mars.

(See Botticelli’s painting – Venus and Mars – National Gallery, London)

Bk IV:167-189. Bk XIV:1-74. She commits adultery with Mars and is caught in a net by her husband Vulcan after Sol has betrayed their affair.

Bk IV:190-213. She is called Cytherea, from the island of Cythera, and takes her revenge on Sol.

Bk IV:346-388. She is the mother of Hermaphroditus, by Mercury, and grants, with him, their son’s prayer that the pool of Salmacis weaken anyone who bathes there.

Bk IV:512-542. She asks Neptune her uncle to change Ino and her son into sea-deities.

Bk V:294-331. The Emathides pretend that she fled to Egypt in the war between the giants and the gods, and there she hid in the form of a fish.

Bk VII:796-865. Cephalus would prefer Procris to her.

Bk IX:394-417. She gave Harmonia the fatal necklace made by Vulcan (Hephaestus), that was Jupiter’s love gift to Europa, and that conferred irresistible beauty.

Bk IX:418-438. She wishes to ward off old age from her mortal lover Anchises.

Bk IX:439-516. Bk IX:517-594. Byblis names her.

Bk IX:764-797. She attends weddings with Juno and Hymen.

Bk X:220-242. She turned the Cerastae into wild bullocks, and forced the Propoetides to perform acts of public prostitution. This latter was a feature of the worship of the great goddess as Astarte and Diana(at Ephesus etc). Cyprus was one of her sacred islands.

Bk X:243-297. She brings the ivory girl Pygmalion created to life.

Bk X:503-559. She falls in love with Adonis. (He is a vegetation god, and as her consort, mirrors Attis with Cybele, Tammuz with Astarte etc. See Frazer’s ‘The Golden Bough’.)

Bk X:560-637 . Bk X:638-680. She tells the story of Atalanta and Hippomenes.

Bk X:681-707. She initiates her revenge on Hippomenes, and warns Adonis to avoid the wild beasts of the forest.

Bk X:708-739. Adonis ignores her warning and is killed by a wild boar (sacred to her as the moon goddess) that gores his thigh. She initiates the annual re-enactment of his death (a vegetation ritual, of the death and resurrection of the Goddess’s consort), and turns his blood into the fragile anemone, the windflower. (See Frazer: The Golden Bough XXIX).

Bk XIII:623-639. Aeneas is her son by Anchises.

Bk XIII:640-674. She is Aeneas’s guardian goddess in his wanderings, and the white doves, into which the daughters of Anius are turned, are sacred to her.

Bk XIII:738-788. Her influence is gentle but powerful, making Polyphemus change his nature after falling in love with Galatea.

Bk XIV:1-74. She perhaps made Circe, Sol’s daughter, susceptible to passion, in revenge for her father’s tale-bearing, see above.

Bk XIV:445-482. Bk XV:745-842. She punished Diomede for wounding her during the Trojan War.

Bk XIV:483-511. She changes Diomede’s friends into birds.

Bk XIV:566-580. She obtains deification for her son Aeneas.

Bk XIV:623-697. She hates hard hearts.

Bk XIV:698-771. Cyprian Salamis has a temple of Venus Prospiciens –‘she who looks out’.

Bk XIV:772-804. She asks the naiades to help the Romans. (Pursuing her support for the descendants of her son Aeneas.)

Bk XV:745-842. She asks the gods to prevent the assassination of her descendant Julius Caesar. Jupiter, however, declares his deification, prophesies the glory of his ‘son’ Augustus, and allows Venus to snatch him up into heaven, as a comet.

Bk XV:843-870. She sets Julius Caesar among the stars.

Vertumnus

An ancient Italian god, of the seasons and their produce.

Bk XIV:623-697. He sets out to woo Pomona, in disguise.

Bk XIV:698-771. He reveals his true form, and wins her.

Vesta

The daughter of Saturn, the Greek Hestia. The goddess of fire. The ‘shining one’. Every hearth had its Vesta, and she presided over the preparation of meals and was offered first food and drink. Her priestesses were the six Vestal Virgins. Her chief festival was the Vestalia in June. The Virgins took a strict vow of chastity and served for thirty years. They enjoyed enormous prestige, and were preceded by a lictor when in public. Breaking of their vow resulted in whipping and death. There were twenty recorded instances in eleven centuries.

Bk XV:622-745. A name for the Tauric Diana at Nemi.

Bk XV:745-842. She ‘married’ her high priest the ‘king of Rome’, e.g. Julius Caesar. See Fraser’s ‘The Golden Bough’ Ch1 et seq.

Bk XV:843-870. She is worshipped with her brother Phoebus, and is set among Caesar’s ancestral gods.

Virbius

Bk XV:479-546. The name for the deified Hippolytus in Italy. He was the King of the Wood (Rex Nemorensis) at Nemi, near Aricia.

He was Diana’s consort, and a minor deity with Egeria.

Volturnus

Bk XV:622-745. A river, the modern Volturno, in Campania that runs by the site of ancient Capua.

Vulcan, Mulciber

Bk II:752-786. Son of Juno. The blacksmith of the gods, father of Erichthonius. His home is on Lemnos.

Bk IV:167-189. He catches his adulterous wife Venus in a net.

Bk VII:100-158. Creator of the bronze-footed bulls of King Aeetes.

Bk VII:425-452. Periphetes the cripple was his son by Anticleia. he owned a huge bronze club with which he killed passers by. Theseus defeated him.

Bk IX:211-272. The god of fire. Hercules on his funeral pyre is subject to it only in his mortal part, owed to his mother Alcmene.

Bk XII:579-628. He made for Thetis, the armour of Achilles, and his fire is the flame of Achilles’s funeral pyre.

Bk XIII:1-122. Lemnos is his island.

Xanthus, Scamander

Bk II:227-271. A river of Troy in Asia Minor and the river-god. His brother and companion river is the Simoïs. (See Homer’s Iliad). He is a son of Zeus. In the Iliad Achilles drives the Trojans into a bend of the river ‘as though a swarm of locusts driven into the river by a raging fire, clustered in the water to escape the flames’ and slaughters them till Scamander runs red with blood.

Zancle, Messene, Messana

An older name for the city of Messana (Messina) in Sicily.

Bk XIII:705-737. Aeneas passes it.

Bk XIV:1-74. Glaucus leaves it behind. Scylla is transformed there.

Bk XV:259-306. Once joined to Italy before the formation of the straits of Messina.

Zephyrus

Bk I:52-68. The West Wind. Eurus is the East Wind, Auster is the South Wind, and Boreas is the North Wind.

Zetes

Book VI:675-721. One of the winged sons of Boreas and Orithyia. One of the Argonauts.

Bk VII:1-73. Drives away the Harpies.