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It was in strict accordance with the pastoral tradition that the author should introduce himself and his friends into his story. In Virgil's Fifth Eclogue, Daphnis was said to stand for Julius Cæsar, Mopsus for Æmilius Macer of Verona, Menalcas for the poet himself. Sannazaro had, it was believed, revived the fashion in Italy.ssss1 Ribeiro presented himself to the public as Bimnardel, Montemôr asked for sympathy under the name of Sireno, and Sir Philip Sidney masqueraded as Pyrocles. In the Pastor de Fílida, it is understood that Mendino is Don Enrique de Mendoza y Aragón, that Pradileo is the Conde de Prades (Luis Ramón y Folch), that Silvano is the poet Gregorio Silvestre, that Tirsi is Francisco de Figueroa (or, as some rashly say,ssss1 Cervantes), and that Montalvo himself appears as Siralvo. The new recruit observed the precedents and, if we are to accept the authority of Navarrete,ssss1 the Tirsi, Damon, Meliso, Siralvo, Lauso, Larsileo, and Artidoro of the Galatea are pseudonyms for Francisco de Figueroa, Pedro Láinez, Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, Luis Gálvez de Montalvo, Luis Barahona de Soto, Alonso de Ercilla, and Andrés Rey de Artieda respectively.ssss1 Lastly, commentators and biographers are mostly agreed that the characters of Elicio and Galatea stand for Cervantes and for Doña Catalina de Palacios Salazar y Vozmedianossss1 whom he married some ten months after the official Aprobación to his novel was signed. We know on Cervantes's own statement that many of his shepherds were shepherds in appearance only,ssss1 and Lope de Vega confirms the tradition;ssss1 but we shall do well to remember that, in attempting to identify the characters of a romance with personages in real life, conjecture plays a considerable part.ssss1 Some of the above identifications might easily be disputed, and, at the best, we can scarcely doubt that most of the likenesses given by Cervantes in the Galatea are composite portraits.