Now first of all it is sufficiently established that, Troy having been
taken, the utmost severity was shown to all the other Trojans; but that
towards two, Æneas and Antenor, the Greeks forbore all the rights of
war, both in accordance with an ancient tie of hospitality, and because
they had ever been the advisers of peace, and of the restoration of
Helen--then that Antenor after various vicissitudes came into the
innermost bay of the Adriatic Sea, with a body of the Heneti, who having
been driven from Paphlagonia in consequence of a civil commotion, were
in quest both of a settlement and a leader, their king Pylæmenes having
been lost at Troy; and that the Heneti and Trojans, having expelled the
Euganei, who dwelt between the sea and the Alps, took possession of the
country; and the place where they first landed is called Troy; from
whence also the name of Trojan is given to the canton; but the nation in
general is called Veneti: that Æneas was driven from home by a similar
calamity, but the fates leading him to the founding of a greater empire,
he came first to Macedonia: that he sailed from thence to Sicily in
quest of a settlement: that from Sicily he made for the Laurentine
territory; this place also has the name of Troy. When the Trojans,
having disembarked there, were driving plunder from the lands,--as being
persons to whom, after their almost immeasurable wandering, nothing was
left but their arms and ships,--Latinus the king, and the Aborigines,
who then occupied those places, assembled in arms from the city and
country to repel the violence of the new-comers. On this point the
tradition is two-fold: some say, that Latinus, after being overcome in
battle, made first a peace, and then an alliance with Æneas: others,
that when the armies were drawn out in battle-array, before the signals
were sounded, Latinus advanced to the front of the troops and invited
the leader of the adventurers to a conference. That he then inquired who
they were, whence (they had come), or by what casualty they had left
their home, and in quest of what they had landed on the Laurentine
territory: after he heard that the host were Trojans, their chief Æneas,
the son of Anchises and Venus, and that, driven from their own country
and their homes, which had been destroyed by fire, they were seeking a
settlement and a place for building a town, struck with admiration of
the noble origin of the nation and of the hero, and their spirit, alike
prepared for peace or war, he confirmed the assurance of future
friendship by giving his right hand: that upon this a compact was struck
between the chiefs, and mutual greetings passed between the armies: that
Æneas was hospitably entertained by Latinus: that Latinus, in the
presence of his household gods, added a family league to the public one,
by giving Æneas his daughter in marriage. This event confirms the
Trojans in the hope of at length terminating their wanderings by a fixed
and permanent settlement. They build a town.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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