A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

Smith, William

A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. William Smith, LLD, ed. 1890

(Βούρτας), a Greek poet of uncertain age, wrote in elegiac verse an account of early Roman history, from which Plutarch quotes the fabulous origin of the Lupercalia. It seems to have been called Αἴτια, like a work of Callimachus, because it gave the causes or origin of various fables, rites, and customs. (Plut. Rom. 21; Arnob. 5.18.)