Note 58 — STATIUS'S THEBAIS.

Hiera, one of the Æolian islands in the neighbourhood of Sicily, was supposed to be the workshop of Vulcan. The island was volcanic, and the underground noises were ascribed to Vulcan, and his assistants, the Cyclopes, as they plied their trade. The circumstance that the fires of the Æolian forge were exhausted was doubtless introduced by Statius because in his day the eruptions had ceased in Hiera.