He tells his visitor also, at very considerable length, the story of Hercules slaying the monster Cacus, son of Vulcan, half man and half beast, whose breath was as flames of fire, and whose diet was human flesh--the prototype of the giants of later fiction. He points out also to his guest the local features of the country--for they are standing on the site which is to be Rome, and Pallanteum is to become the Palatine mount of future history. Whatever of mythical legend the poet mixed up in his topography, he knew the interest with which his patrician audience--for antiquarianism was almost as fashionable in the court of the Cæsars as it is now--would listen while, by the mouth of Evander, he dwelt on the old historic localities of the imperial city: the Carmental gate, named after the nymph who was Evander’s mother; the grove where Romulus in after-days made his first “Asylum” for the motley band whom he gathered round him; the Tarpeian rock; the hill on which was to stand the Capitol; the Janiculum, with its Saturnian walls, the key of Rome’s defences. “Now”--says the poet, speaking in his own person of the glories of the great city in his own day,-- “Now all is golden--then ’twas all O’ergrown with trees and brushwood tall. E’en their rude hinds the spot revered: * * * * * Here in this grove, these wooded steeps, Some god unknown his mansion keeps; Arcadia’s children deem Their eyes have looked on Jove’s own form, When oft he summons cloud and storm, And seen his ægis gleam.” A league is made between the Trojans and their new friends. King Evander confesses that his own power is small, but Æneas has arrived at a fortunate conjuncture. The Etruscans of Agylla, who have just expelled their tyrant Mezentius for his cruelties, have determined to pursue him to the death. But they have been warned by their soothsayer to choose a foreign leader; and here they are at the gates of Pallanteum, come to beseech Evander to head their expedition. He is himself too old--his son Pallas too inexperienced; he at once presents to them Æneas as a heaven-sent leader. The omens are all favourable, and both troops and commander are well pleased. Æneas selects the best of his crew, whom Evander furnishes with war-horses; the rest he sends back in the galleys to bear the tidings of his own movements to his son Iulus, and to charge him and the Trojans to keep close within their rampart, in case of attack during his absence. Taking command of his Etruscan allies, and followed by four hundred Arcadian horse under the young Pallas, whom his father gladly sends, as the youths of noble houses were sent in the days of knighthood, to learn the art of war under so great a captain, Æneas sets out on his march for Turnus’s capital. The old king does not part from his son without sad misgivings; he has trusted Æneas with more than his life.