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| Toynbee "Astrea" |
Astraea, daughter of Jupiter and Themis, according
to some writers, she was goddess of justice, and during the Golden
Age lived among mankind, but when the wickedness of the world
increased she withdrew to heaven and took her place among the
stars
as the constellation Virgo. She is mentioned,
Mon. I. xi. 1;
Epist. xi. 15; alluded to as giustizia,
[Purg. xxii. 71-72], where
D. translates Virgil's lines:
iam redit et Virgo, redeunt Saturnia regna;
iam nova progenies caelo demittitur alto.
({Virg. Ecl. iv. 6-7}.)
D. refers to these lines,
Epist. vii. 6
[Bucolica].
[See
{Ovid. Metam. i. 113-150}; for other references and
further discussion, see C. S. Singleton, DS, ii,
pp. 190 ff.]
©Oxford University Press 1968. From A Dictionary of Proper Names and Notable Matters in the Works of Dante by Paget Toynbee
(1968) by permission of Oxford University Press