chiefly at Brundisium. The white metal formed from this
mixture soon becoming dim, a sponge with powdered pumice stone was
usually fastened to the mirrors made of that composition. They
were generally small, of a round or oval shape, and having a
handle; and female slaves usually held them, while their
mistresses were performing the duties of the toilet. Sometimes
they were fastened to the walls, and they were occasionally of the
length of a person's body. Venus was supposed often to use the
mirror; but Minerva repudiated the use of it.]

[Footnote 50: _Polypus._--Ver. 366. This is a fish which entangles
its prey, mostly consisting of shell fish, in its great number of
feet or feelers. Ovid here calls them 'flagella;' but in the
Halieuticon he styles them 'brachia' and 'crines.' Pliny the Elder
calls them 'crines' and 'cirri.']

[Footnote 51: _Descendant of Atlas._--Ver. 368. Hermaphroditus was
the great-grandson of Atlas; as the latter was the father of Maia,
the mother of Mercury, who begot Hermaphroditus.]

[Footnote 52: _The two are united._--Ver. 374. Clarke translates,
'nam mixta duorum corpora junguntur,' 'for the bodies of both,
being jumbled together, are united.']

EXPLANATION.

The only probable solution of this story seems to have been the fact
that there was in Caria, near the town of Halicarnassus, as we read in
Vitruvius, a fountain which was instrumental in civilizing certain
barbarians who had been driven from that neighborhood by the Argive
colony established there. These men being obliged to repair to the
fountain for water, and meeting the Greek colonists there, their
intercourse not only polished them, but in course of time corrupted
them, by the introduction of the luxurious manners of Greece. Hence
the fountain had the reputation of changing men into women.

Possibly the water of that fountain, by some peculiar chemical
quality, made those who drank of it become soft and effeminate, as
waters are to be occasionally found with extraordinary qualities.
Lylius Gyraldus suggests, that several disgraceful adventures happened
near this fountain (which was enclosed by walls), which in time gave
it a bad name.

FABLE VI. [IV.389-415]

Bacchus, to punish the daughters of Minyas for their contempt of his
worship, changes them into bats, and their work into ivy and vine
leaves.

The