• The plague of Aegina is described by Ovid, Metamorph . VII , Stonestreet’s Tr. :⁠— “Their black dry tongues are swelled, and scarce can move, And short thick sighs from panting lungs are drove. They gape for air, with flatt’ring hopes t’ abate Their raging flames, but that augments their heat. No bed, no cov’ring can the wretches bear, But on the ground, exposed to open air, They lie, and hope to find a pleasing coolness there. The suff’ring earth, with that oppression curst, Returns the heat which they imparted first ⋮ “Here one, with fainting steps, does slowly creep O’er heaps of dead, and straight augments the heap; Another, while his strength and tongue prevailed, Bewails his friend, and falls himself bewailed; This with imploring looks surveys the skies, The last dear office of his closing eyes, But finds the Heav’ns implacable, and dies.” The birth of the Myrmidons, “who still retain the thrift of ants, though now transformed to men,” is thus given in the same book:⁠— “As many ants the num’rous branches bear, The same their labor, and their frugal care; The branches too alike commotion found, And shook th’ industrious creatures on the ground, Who by degrees (what ‘s scarce to be believed) A nobler form and larger bulk received, And on the earth walked an unusual pace, With manly strides, and an erected face; Their num’rous legs, and former color lost, The insects could a human figure boast.” ↩