the object of their supplications." 206 --_Purest hands._ This is one of the most ancient superstitions respecting prayer, and one founded as much in nature as in tradition. 207 It must be recollected, that the war at Troy was not a settled siege, and that many of the chieftains busied themselves in piratical expeditions about its neighborhood. Such a one was that of which Achilles now speaks. From the following verses, it is evident that fruits of these maraudings went to the common support of the expedition, and not to the successful plunderer. 208 --_Pthia,_ the capital of Achilles' Thessalian domains. 209 --_Orchomenian town._ The topography of Orchomenus, in Boeotia, "situated," as it was, "on the northern bank of the lake Ćpais, which receives not only the river Cephisus from the valleys of Phocis, but also other rivers from Parnassus and Helicon" (Grote, vol. p. 181), was a sufficient reason for its prosperity and decay. "As long as the channels of these waters were diligently watched and kept clear, a large portion of the lake was in the condition of alluvial land, pre-eminently rich and fertile. But when the channels came to be either neglected, or designedly choked up by an enemy, the water accumulated in such a degree as to occupy the soil of more than one ancient islet, and to occasion the change of the site of Orchomenus itself from the plain to the declivity of Mount Hyphanteion." (Ibid.) 210 The phrase "hundred gates," &c., seems to be merely expressive of a great number. See notes to my prose translation, p. 162. 211 Compare the following pretty lines of Quintus Calaber (Dyce's Select Translations, p 88).-- "Many gifts he gave, and o'er Dolopia bade me rule; thee in his arms He brought an infant, on my bosom laid The precious charge, and anxiously enjoin'd That I sh