and Acarnania.]

[Footnote 5: _Bent inwards._--Ver. 33. 'Varus,' which we here
translate 'bent inwards,' according to some authorities, means
'bent outwards.']

[Footnote 6: _Casting of yellow sand._--Ver. 35. It was the custom
of wrestlers, after they had anointed the body with 'ceroma' or
wrestler's oil, in order to render the body supple and pliant, to
sprinkle the body with sand, or dust, to enable the antagonist to
take a firm hold. It was, however, considered more praiseworthy to
conquer in a contest which was +akoniti+ 'without the use of sand.']

[Footnote 7: _Most beauteous mate._--Ver. 47. Clarke translates
'nitidissima conjux,' 'the neatest cow.']

[Footnote 8: _Recourse to my arts._--Ver. 62. 'Devertor ad artes,'
is rendered by Clarke, 'I fly to my tricks.']

[Footnote 9: _To conquer serpents._--Ver. 67. Hercules, while an
infant in his cradle, was said to have strangled two serpents,
which Juno sent for the purpose of destroying him.]

[Footnote 10: _Hundred in number._--Ver. 71. The number of heads
of the Hydra varies in the accounts given by different writers.
Seven, nine, fifty, and a hundred are the numbers mentioned. This,
however, is not surprising, as we are told that where one was cut
off, two sprang up in their place, until Hercules, to prevent such
consequences, adopted the precaution of searing the neck, where
the head had been cut off, with a red hot iron.]

EXPLANATION.

The river Acheloues, which ran between Acarnania and AEtolia, often
did considerable damage to those countries by its inundations, and,
at the same time, by confounding or sweeping away the limits which
separated those nations, it engaged them in continual warfare with
each other. Hercules, who seems really to have been a person of
great scientific skill, which he was ever ready to employ for the
service of his fellow men, raised banks to it, and made its course
so uniform and straight, that he was the means of establishing
perpetual peace between these adjoining nations.

The early authors who recorded these events have narrated them under
a thick and almost impenetrable veil of fiction. They say that
Hercules engaged in combat with the God of that river, who
immediately transformed himself into a serpent, by which was
probably meant merely the serpentine windings of its course. Next
they say,