a burden difficult to describe even with untrammelled words, or in plain prose, free from the fetters of rhyme. ↩

Apulia, or La Puglia, is in the southeastern part of Italy, “between the spur and the heel of the boot.” ↩

The people slain in the conquest of Apulia by the Romans. Of the battle of Maleventum, Livy, X 15, says:⁠—

“Here likewise there was more of flight than of bloodshed. Two thousand of the Apulians were slain, and Decius, despising such an enemy, led his legions into Samnium.”