Mars is said to have begotten Meleager upon Althaea.—Euripides, in his Meleager.
Septimius Marcellus took to wife one Sylvia, and a great
lover of hunting he was. Mars put himself in the habit
[p. 467]
of a shepherd, whored the new wife and got her with
child; which being done, he told her who he was, and
gave her a spear, telling her that the fate of the child
she went withal was wrapped up in the fate of that
spear. . . .
Septimius slew Tuscinus; but Mamercus, in his sacrificing to the Gods for a fruitful season, omitted only Ceres,
who in revenge sent a wild boar into his grounds. Whereupon getting a knot of huntsmen together, he killed him,
and delivered the head and skin to his sweetheart; but
Scymbrates and Muthias, the maid's uncles, took them
away from her. Mamercus in a rage killed them upon it,
and the mother burned the spear.—Menyllus, in the Third
Book of his Italian History.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.