The allegorists have gone mad in finding deep explanations for this amusing fiction.

See Heraclides, 'Ponticus," p.

463 sq., ed Gale.

The story is told by Homer himself in Book xv.
The Sinthians were a race of robbers, the ancient inhabitants of Lemnos which island was ever after sacred to Vulcan.
"Nor was his name unheard or unadored In ancient Greece, and in Ausonian land Men call'd him Mulciber, and how he fell From heaven, they fabled, thrown by angry Jove Sheer o'er the crystal battlements from morn To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve, A summer's day and with the setting sun Dropp'd from the zenith like a falling star On Lemnos, th' Aegean isle thus they relate." "Paradise Lost," i.

738 75 It is ingeniously observed by Grote, vol i p.