[10] ‘Proxuma’ after leaving Caieta. ‘Raduntur’ by the ships in passing, 3. 700. ‘Circaeae terrae,’ Circeii; which, being on the mainland, is identified with Homer's island of Circe (Od. 10. 135 foll.) by supposing that the island had become joined to the mainland, by alluvial deposits or, as Varro ap. Serv. says, by the draining of marshes. Comp. Theophrast. Hist. Plant. 5. 9, Pliny 3. 5. 9 (quoted by Heyne). Virg. himself calls it “Aeaeae insula Circae,” 3. 386, where Helenus predicts that Aeneas should visit it. Westphal (Die Römische Kampagne p. 59) says that the promontory was certainly no island even long before Homer's time, but that it looks like an island from the sea at a moderate distance from the shore, where the flat land of the marshes sinks below the horizon. For the legends which connected Ulysses with this part of Italy see Lewis pp. 327 foll. Telegonus, son of Ulysses and Circe, is the mythical founder of Tusculum. The very name Caieta was said by some to have been originally Αἰήτη (comp. Caulon, Aulon, note on 3. 553), a name associated by Lycophron, v. 1273, with the mooring of the Argo there, but more probably having to do with the Aeaean Circe, the sister of Aeetes of Colchis.
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John Conington. P. Vergili Maronis opera. P. Vergili Maronis Opera. The works of. Virgil. , with a Commentary by John Conington, M.A. and Henry Nettleship, M.A. London. Whittaker and Co., Ave Maria Lane;. George Bell and Sons, York Street, Covent Garden. 1876.
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