The works of Horace : with English notes, critical and ... - Cristo Raul

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302 EXPLANATORY NOTES.— ^BOOK I. ODE XXVIII.
dead body or along the bsuaks of the Styx. Hemie the peculiar propriety
of cohibent in the present passage. In order to obviate so lamentable a
result, it was esteemed a most solemn duty for every one who chanced to
encounter an unburied corpse to perform the last sad offices to it. Sprinkling
dust or sand three times npon the dead body was esteemed amply
sufficient for every purpose. Hence the language of the text, "pulveris
exigui pa/rva munera." Whoever neglected this injunction of religion
was compelled to expiate his crime by sacrificing a sow to Ceres. Some
editors maintain that pulveris exigui parva munera is a mere circumlocution
for locus exiguuSf and that cohibent is only the compound used for
the simple verb. Hence, according to these commentators, the meaning
will be, " A small spot of earth now holds thee," &c. This mode of explaining,
howevei', appears stiff and unnatural. Maris et terra mensorem.
Alluding to the geometrical knowledge of Archytas. Numeroque
carentis arence. The possibility of calculating the number of the grains
of sand wa^ a favorite topic with the ancient mathematicians^ Archimedes
has left us a work on this subject, entitled b "^afi/zt-njg (Arenaritis), in
which he proves that it is possible to assign a number greater than that
of the grains of sand which would fill the sphere of the fixed stars. This
singular investigation was suggested by an opinion which some persona
h;ad expressed, that the sands on the shores of Sicily were .either infinite,
or, at least, would exceed any numbers which could be assigned for them
and the success with which the difficulties caused by the awkward and
imperfect notation of the ancient Greek arithmetic are eluded by a device
identical in principle with the modem method of logarithms, affords one
of the most striking instances of the genius of Archimedes.
2-7. S. Archyta. Archytas was a native of Tarentum, and distinguish
ed as a philosopher, mathematician, general, and statesman, and was no
[ess admired for his integrity and virtue both in public and private life. He
was contemporary with Plato, whose life he is said to have saved by hift
influence with the tyrant Bionysiua* He was seven times the general
of his native city, though it was the custom for the office to be held for no
more than one year; and be commanded in several campaigns, in all of
which he was victorious. As a philosopher, he belonged to the Pythagorean
school, and, like the Pythagoreans, paid much attention to mathematics.
He was also extremely skillful as a mechanician, and constructed
various machines and automatons, among which bis wooden flying
dove in particalar was the wonder of antiquity. He perished in a shipwreck
on the Adriatic.—3. Matinum. Some difference of opinion exists
with regard to the position of this place. D'Anville makes the Matiniau
shore to have been between Callipolis and the lapygian promontory on
the Tarehtine Gulf; and the town of Matinum to have lain some Httle
distance inland. Later investigations, however, place Matinum, and a
mountain called Mons Matinus, in Apulia, near the promontory of Gargauum,
and northeast of Sipontum.—5. Aerias tentasse domoSj &c. " To have
essayed the ethereal abodes." Alluding to the astronomical knowledge
of the philosopher. Rotundumpolum. " The round heavens."—6. Morituro.
" Since death was to be thy certain doom.'^—7. Pelopis gemtor.
Tantalus. Conviva deorum. " Though a guest of the gods." The common
mythology makes Tantalus to have been the entertainer, not the
guest, of the gods, and to have ser^'ed up his own son as a banquet in or-
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