Parallela minora

Ares consorted with Althaea and begat Meleager. . . .[*](There is obviously something omitted here.) So Euripides in his Meleager.[*](Cf. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag. pp. 525 ff.; Frazer on Apollodorus, i. 8. 2 (L.C.L. vol. i. p. 64).)

Septimius Marcellus, who was wedded to Silvia, was much given to hunting. Mars, in the guise of a shepherd, violated the young bride, and got her with child. He acknowledged his identity and gave her a spear-shaft, declaring that with it the life of her child that was to be born was inseparably united. She duly bore for Septimius a son Tuscinus. Now the only divinity that Mamercus neglected when he was sacrificing to the gods for a bountiful harvest was Ceres, and she sent a wild boar. But Tuscinus assembled many huntsmen, slew it, and presented the head and the hide to his affianced bride; but Scymbrates and Muthias, his mother’s brothers, took them away from the maiden. Tuscinus was enraged and slew his kinsmen, but his mother burned the spear-shaft. So Menyllus in the third book of his Italian History.