[Footnote 38: By 'Kings' throughout this 'Life,' Plutarch refers to
the successors of Alexander the Great.]
[Footnote 39: See Thirlwall's 'History of Greece,' chap. lx.]
[Footnote 40: Plutarch's account of these transactions is hardly
intelligible. Demetrius, it appears, was about to lay siege to Athens
when Pyrrhus prevented him. See Thirlwall's History, chap. lx.]
[Footnote 41: The river Aciris, now called Agri.]
[Footnote 42: Demetrius.]
[Footnote 43: I have translated the above passages almost literally
from the Greek. Yet I am inclined to think that Arnold has penetrated
the true meaning, and shows us the reason for Fabricius's exclamation,
when he states the Epicurean philosophy, as expounded by Kineas, to be
"that war and state affairs were but toil and trouble, and that the
wise man should imitate the blissful rest of the gods, who, dwelling
in their own divinity, regarded not the vain turmoil of this lower
world."--Arnold's 'History of Rome,' vol. ii. ch. xxxvii]
[Footnote 44: See an excellent note in Arnold's 'History of Rome,'
vol. ii. ch. xxxvii.]
[Footnote 45: These were the descendants of certain Campanian
mercenaries, who had seized the city of Messina, and from it made war
upon the neighbourhood.]
[Footnote 46: "Barbarians" here as elsewhere merely means those who
were not Greeks.]
[Footnote 47: On this passage Thirlwall ('History of Greece,' chapter
lx.) has the following note: "Flathe (vol. ii. p. 94) conceives that
the waggons were placed in the ditch, which I can neither understand,
nor reconcile with Plutarch's description. Clough follows Flathe, and
says that 'the waggons were sunk in the ditch, here and there along
it.' Plutarch's description is most unfortunately brief. We do not
know to what extent Sparta had been fortified during its wars with
Kassander and Demetrius, or whether the ditch which was dug on this
occasion covered the only gap in the walls. At any rate it is hard to
understand why the Spartans, according to Clough, should dig a ditch
and then sink their waggons in it, as in that case they might as well
not have dug any ditch at all."]
[Footnote 48: The married women wore two pieces of dress, the
unmarried one only. On this occasion the married women tied their
cloaks round their waists. See the description in the 'Life of
Lykurgus.']
[Footnote 49: I have adopted Clough's excellent version of the
well-known passage in 'Iliad,' xii. 243, where Hector says that he
cares not for the flight of birds or any other omen, but that "The
best of omens is one's country's cause."]
[Footnote 50: Compare the games which Achilles, in the 'Iliad,' holds
at the funeral of Patroklus.]