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The name Mitradates is clearly connected with the god Mithra (131. 3 n.); so in the Romulus legend, the herdsman Faustulus with the god Faunus.

Κυνώ. The dog was a sacred animal among the Iranians (140. 3 n.), and no doubt in the original legend the hero is suckled by a bitch as was Sargon of Accad; Justin (i. 4) gives both stories, the ‘canis femina’, and the nurse ‘cui Spaco postea nomen fuit’. For the rescue by the sacred animal cf. App. IV, § 5. For the rationalization (122. 3) cf. Livy, i. 4. 7 (the she-wolf (lupa) becomes Acca Laurentia, a lupa by profession). This version of the story is Greek, but whether H. or his informants be responsible for it, it is impossible to say. For Σπακώ, which H. seems to be right in calling ‘Median’, cf. L. & S. s. v. κύων.


H. means the north part of Media, Atropatene, which is mountainous and wooded; but the statement that the rest is flat (ἄπεδος), even by comparison, is an exaggeration. Hecataeus (fr. 172; F. H. G. i. 12) says περὶ τὴν Γ̔ρκανίην θάλασσαν οὔρεα ὑψηλὰ καὶ δασέα ὕλῃσι; on this resemblance among others Prášek (Klio, iv. 205) bases his theory that H. borrowed this part of his story from Hecataeus, but the borrowing is probably the other way; cf. Introd. § 20.

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