In the first place he represents it as belonging chiefly to the family of the Panthoidæ. Panthus (from whom a tribe in modern Ilium derived its name Πανθωῒς)(949) was a priest of the god,(950) and hence his sons were protected by Apollo in battle.(951) Hence also Euphorbus, the descendant of Panthus, is selected to kill Patroclus, who, as well as all the other Æacidæ, was in the heroic mythology represented as odious to Apollo.(952) The other family, described in the Iliad as connected with Apollo, is that of Æneas, whom, when wounded by Diomed, the god himself conducted to his temple on the citadel of Troy, and delivered over to the care of Latona and Artemis.(953) Now that this history was not a mere arbitrary fiction of the poet may be distinctly proved. For we know that, after Troy had fallen, the remaining Trojans still maintained themselves in the mountains; they are mentioned by Herodotus as a separate state existing in the stronghold of Gergis, in the defiles of Ida;(954) and, even after the Peloponnesian war, Dardan princes reigned here and at Scepsis.(955) It can, we think, be shown that Homer’s prophecy(956) respecting the future dominion of the descendants of Æneas over the remnant of the Trojan nation, refers solely to the town of Gergis, and perhaps to the neighbouring valleys. Now the chief temple at Gergis was that of Apollo,(957) and in the same town there was an ancient Sibylline oracle, known by the name of the _Hellespontine_ or _Mermessian_. We now see that the ancient poet, being well acquainted with the existence of the Æneadæ at Gergis, their festivals and sacrifices, felt himself bound, according to the spirit of mythology, to represent Apollo as the ancient guardian of that family.