1 For present purposes the word “Pelasgian” denotes the early inhabitants of Italy. Cf. Macrobius I.v, Tum Avienus aspiciens Servium: “Curius,” inquit, “et Fabricius et Coruncanius, antiquissimi viri, vel etiam his antiquiores Horatii illi trigemini plane ac dilucide cum suis fabulati sunt: neque Auruncorum aut Sicanorum aut Pelasgorum, qui primi coluisse in Italia dicuntur, sed aetatis suae verbis loquebantur.” Hence the master’s name here.
The setting requires two visible “houses,” representing Curius’ house and the temple of Saturn founded by Hercules. Note that a house made to resemble a temple had already been used in the first play of the Christmas Prince cycle, Ara Fortunae, and would be used again in a later play, Ira Fortunae.
14 Falernian and Caecuban were two prized wines in Roman times.
39 The Romans associated the constellation Orion with the rainy time of year.
82ff. Normally, in mythology Lycaeon is said to have been turned into a wolf as punishment for having served the gods a meal of human flesh. Here, however, he is evidently represented as one of those ogres, such as Busiris, who sacrificed captive wayfarers to his strange gods.
91 An altar erected by Hercules is supposed to have originally occupied the spot where the Temple of Saturn was later erected in the Roman Forum.
158 Time because of the traditional association of Saturn (Kronos) with time (χρόνος). But there is probably a special meaning within the context of the Christmas Prince cycle, since Time appears as a character in the plays Times Complaint and Philomathes. Hercules’ “friends” (socii) are the gods, as at 86.