Book iv

. 1. 393. White garments, were worn at this festival, and woollen robes of dark colour were prohibited. The worship was conducted solely by females, and all intercourse with men was forbidden, who were not allowed to approach the altars of the Goddess.]

[Footnote 633: The oaks, the early oracles.--Ver. 9. On the oaks, the oracles of Dodona, see the Translation of the Metamorphoses, pages 253 and 467.]

[Footnote 634: Having nurtured Jove.--Ver. 20. See an account of the education of Jupiter, by the Curetes, in Crete, in the Fourth Book of the Fasti, L 499, et seq.]

[Footnote 635: Beheld Jasius.--Ver. 25. Iasius, or Iasion, was, according to most accounts, the son of Jupiter and Electra, and enjoyed the favour of Ceres, by whom he was the father of Plutus. According to the Scholiast on Theocritus, he was the son of Minos, and the Nymph Phronia. According to Apollodorus, he was struck dead by the bolts of Jupiter, for offering violence to Ceres. He was also said by some to be the husband of Cybele. He is supposed to have been a successful husbandman when agriculture was but little known; which circumstance is thought to have given rise to the story of his familiarity with Ceres. Ovid repeats this charge against the chastity of Ceres, in the Tristia,

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