Æneas calls it Lavinium,
after the name of his wife. In a short time, too, a son was the issue of
the new marriage, to whom his parents gave the name of Ascanius.
2. The Aborigines and Trojans were soon after attacked together in war.
Turnus, king of the Rutulians, to whom Lavinia had been affianced before
the coming of Æneas, enraged that a stranger had been preferred to
himself, made war on Æneas and Latinus together. Neither side came off
from that contest with cause for rejoicing. The Rutulians were
vanquished; the victorious Aborigines and Trojans lost their leader
Latinus. Upon this Turnus and the Rutulians, diffident of their
strength, have recourse to the flourishing state of the Etruscans, and
their king Mezentius; who holding his court at Cœre, at that time an
opulent town, being by no means pleased, even from the commencement, at
the founding of the new city, and then considering that the Trojan power
was increasing much more than was altogether consistent with the safety
of the neighbouring states, without reluctance joined his forces in
alliance with the Rutulians. Æneas, in order to conciliate the minds of
the Aborigines to meet the terror of so serious a war, called both
nations Latins, so that they might all be not only under the same laws,
but also the same name. Nor after that did the Aborigines yield to the
Trojans in zeal and fidelity towards their king Æneas; relying therefore
on this disposition of the two nations, who were now daily coalescing
more and more, although Etruria was so powerful, that it filled with the
fame of its prowess not only the land, but the sea also, through the
whole length of Italy, from the Alps to the Sicilian Strait, though he
might have repelled the war by means of fortifications, yet he led out
his forces to the field. Upon this a battle ensued successful to the
Latins, the last also of the mortal acts of Æneas. He was buried, by
whatever name human and divine laws require him to be called,[8] on the
banks of the river Numicius. They call him Jupiter Indiges.
[Footnote 8: Æneas, being now deified, could not be called by his human
name; and in speaking of his being buried, it would be improper to name
him by his divine title. _---- Indigetem_. He is called by Dionysius
??????? Te??.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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