1439. ordine certo: the knowledge that everything occurred in its proper order gave men a starting-point on which they might base their calculations about the seasons.

1441. divisa discretaque: pleonastic, ' portioned off and marked out by boundaries.'

1442. florebat. The Greeks used the same metaphor, Aesch. Αg. 659 ὁρῶμεν ἀνθοῦν πέλαγος Αἰγαῖον νεκροῖς ἀνδρῶν ̓Αχαιῶν ναυτικοῖς τ' ἐρειπίοις : Eur. Iph. Taur. 300 ὥσθ' αἱματηρὸν πέλαγος ἐξανθεῖν ἁλός, was studded with.' In this passage the verb no doubt also contains an idea of the prosperity of the sea trade.

puppibus; urbes is Munro's correction for propter odores in the MSS., a reading which makes no sense.

1443. Men began to realize that peace with their neighbours was preferable to war.

1444. res gestas, 'the deeds of men,'=«λéa åvdpŵv, 'songs of the feats of heroes, with which the history of most nations begins' (Duff).

1445-8. Cf. ll. 324-31, where the argument is as follows: If there had been no beginning to the world, why does history begin only with the wars of Thebes and Troy? How does it happen that the achievements of so many heroes are buried in silence? Surely then either the world is young or its history and civilization have suffered frequent interruptions and occasional annihilation, only however to spring up again.

multo: ablative of difference as hilo, l. 1409.

the letters of the alphabet.

1447. vestigia : traces of ancient civilization, i. e. from prehistoric buildings or from figures drawn and scratched on rocks before writing was invented or partly from oral tradition that seems well founded and logical.

1448-9. Notice the asyndeton and cf. ll, 1336, 1372. In these two lines we have a list of the useful arts.

1450-1. Here follow the finer arts which are the true luxuries of life, praemia.

funditus,' without exception.'

daedala, well-wrought,' used in a passive sense as in Verg. Georg. iv. 179'daedala fingere tecta'.

polire substantival infinitive.

1452. usus, 'practice.'

1453. pedetemptim progredientis: as in l. 533 'pedetemptim progredientis'.

1454. unumquicquid=unumquidque, each separate thing': so in Plaut. Trin. iv. 2. 39 'unumquicquid percontabere'. For ll. 1454-5 see note on 1. 1387.

protrahit in medium. Cf. 1. 1158' protraxe in medium '. 1456. alid: for aliud, as in l. 1305 'one after another,' i. e. one developed from another.

cordi' depends on artibus, 'by the inventions of their mind': cor is used of the intellect, which the Romans imagined was seated

in the heart.

OXFORD

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