77. Q. What is Ovid’s idea in the poem? A. To tell in his own way such
legends of the teeming Greek mythology as deal with the transformations
of men and women into animals, plants, or inanimate things.
78. Q. What has this poem been to subsequent poets? A. A great treasury
of material.
79. Q. What episode, taken from the second book of “Metamorphoses,” is
given by our author? A. Phæton driving the chariot of the sun.
80. Q. In what is the legend of Phæton conceived by many to have had
its origin? A. In some meteorological fact—an extraordinary solar heat
perhaps, producing drought and conflagration.
81. Q. Of what two other stories from the “Metamorphoses” does our author
present a translation? A. The story of Daphne’s transformation into a
laurel, and the tragic story of Niobe.
82. Q. What American writer has quite extensively treated Ovidian topics
in a way that is at once instructive and delightful? A. Hawthorne.
83. Q. Ovid’s verse in the “Metamorphoses” is the same as what? A. As
that of Virgil and Homer, namely, the dactylic hexameter.
84. Q. What has the general agreement of thoughtful minds tended to
affirm in regard to Julius Cæsar? A. The sentence of Brutus, as given by
Shakspere, that he was “the foremost man of all this world.”
85. Q. What is the principal literary work of Cæsar that remains to us?
A. His “Commentaries,” which is an account he wrote of his campaigns in
Gaul.
86. Q. With the exception of a few instances, in what person does Cæsar
write? A. In the third person.
87. Q. From whom did the ancient patrician family of Cæsar claim
derivation? A. From Iulus, son of Trojan Æneas.
88. Q. The word Cæsar was made by Caius Julius a name so illustrious that
it came afterward to be adopted by whom? A. By his successors in power at
Rome, and finally thence to be transferred to the emperors of Germany,
and to the autocrats of Russia, called respectively Kaiser and Czar.
89. Q. With whom was Cæsar associated in the first triumvirate? A. Pompey
and Crassus.
90. Q. Out of the eight books comprised in Cæsar’s “Gallic Commentaries,”
how many is the preparatory student usually required to read? A. Only
four.
91. Q. With what two series of military operations on Cæsar’s part does
the first book principally occupy itself? A. One directed against the
Helvetians, and one against a body of Germans who had invaded Gaul.
92. Q. Of what is Cæsar’s tenth legion, that became famous in history,
still a proverb? A. For loyalty, valor and effectiveness.
93. Q. In the second book Cæsar gives the history of his campaign against
whom? A. The Belgians, made up of different tribes.
94. Q. Who were esteemed the most fierce and warlike of all the Belgian
nations? A. The Nervians.
95. Q. After Cæsar’s successful campaign against the Belgian tribes, what
was decreed for his victories? A. A thanksgiving of fifteen days, an
unprecedented honor.
96. Q. In the third book an account is given of a naval warfare against
whom? A. The Veneti.
97. Q. What is the first thing of commanding interest in the fourth book
of Cæsar’s “Commentaries?” A. The case of alleged perfidy, with enormous
undoubted cruelty, practiced by Cæsar against his German enemies.
98. Q. What famous feat on the part of Cæsar is narrated in the fourth
book? A. That of throwing a bridge across the river Rhine.
99. Q. What were the dimensions of this bridge? A. It was fourteen
hundred feet long, furnishing a solid roadway thirty or forty feet wide.
100. Q. With the relation of what enterprise does the fourth book close?
A. The invasion by Cæsar of Great Britain.