1.1
To
begin with, it is generally admitted that after the
capture of Troy, whilst the rest of the Trojans were
massacred, against two of them -Aeneas and Antenor
-the Achivi refused to exercise the rights of war,
partly owing to old ties of hospitality, and partly
because these men had always been in favour of
making peace and surrendering Helen. Their
subsequent fortunes were different. Antenor sailed
into the furthest part of the Adriatic, accompanied
by a number of Enetians who had been driven from
Paphlagonia by a revolution, and after losing their
king Pylaemenes before Troy were looking for a
settlement and a leader. The combined force of
Enetians and Trojans defeated the Euganei, who dwelt
between the sea and the Alps and occupied their
land. The place where they disembarked was called
Troy, and the name was extended to the surrounding
district; the whole nation were called Veneti.
Similar misfortunes led to Aeneas becoming a
wanderer, but the Fates were preparing a higher
destiny for him. He first visited Macedonia, then
was carried down to Sicily in quest of a settlement;
from Sicily he directed his course to the Laurentian
territory. Here, too, the name of Troy is found, and
here the Trojans disembarked, and as their almost
infinite wanderings had left them nothing but their
arms and their ships, they began to plunder the
neighbourhood. The Aborigines, who occupied the
country, with their king Latinus at their head, came
hastily together from the city and the country
districts to repel the inroads of the strangers by
force of arms.
From this point there is a twofold tradition.
According to the one, Latinus was defeated in
battle, and made peace with Aeneas, and subsequently
a family alliance. According to the other, whilst
the two armies were standing ready to engage and
waiting for the signal, Latinus advanced in front of
his lines and invited the leader of the strangers to
a conference. He inquired of him what manner of men
they were, whence they came, what had happened to
make them leave their homes, what were they in quest
of when they landed in Latinus' territory. When he
heard that the men were Trojans, that their leader
was Aeneas, the son of Anchises and Venus, that
their city had been burnt, and that the homeless
exiles were now looking for a place to settle in and
build a city, he was so struck with the noble
bearing of the men and their leader, and their
readiness to accept alike either peace or war, that
he gave his right hand as a solemn pledge of
friendship for the future. A formal treaty was made
between the leaders and mutual greetings exchanged
between the armies. Latinus received Aeneas as a
guest in his house, and there, in the presence of
his tutelary deities, completed the political
alliance by a domestic one, and gave his daughter in
marriage to Aeneas. This incident confirmed the
Trojans in the hope that they had reached the term
of their wanderings and won a permanent home. They
built a town, which Aeneas called Lavinium after his
wife. In a short time a boy was born of the new
marriage, to whom his parents gave the name of
Ascanius.