But, as for hereditary virtue, he was ennobled from all three continents both by his forefathers and his wives. From Asia came his immediate ancestor, Assaracus, and others who reigned in Phrygia, which is a part of Asia. Therefore Virgil writes in the third _Æneid_: "After that it had seemed good to Heaven to overthrow the power of Asia, and the guiltless race of Priam." From Europe came the male founder of his race, who was Dardanus; from Africa his grandmother Electra, daughter of the great king Atlas, to both which things the poet testifies in the eighth _Æneid_, where Æneas says to Evander: "Dardanus, the father of our city, and its founder, whom the Greeks call the son of Atlas and Electra, came to the race of Teucer--Electra, whose sire was great Atlas, on whose shoulders rests the circle of heaven." But in the third _Æneid_ Virgil says that Dardanus drew his origin from Europe. "There is a land which the Greeks have named Hesperia, an ancient land, strong and wealthy, where the Ænotrians dwell; it is said that now their descendants have named the country Italy, from the name of their king. There is our rightful home; from that land did Dardanus come." That Atlas came from Africa, the mountain called by his name, which stands in that continent, bears witness; and Orosius says that it is in Africa in his description of the world, where he writes: "Its boundary is Mount Atlas, and the islands which are called 'the happy isles.'" "Its"--that is, "of Africa," of which he was speaking.[211] [Footnote 211: _Æn._ iii. 1, viii. 134, iii. 163; Oros. i. 2.--(W.)] Likewise I find that by marriage also Æneas was ennobled; his first wife, Creusa, the daughter of king Priam, was from Asia, as may be gathered from our previous quotations; and that she was his wife our poet testifies in the third _Æneid_, where Andromache asks Æneas: "What of the boy Ascanius, whom Creusa bore to thee, while the ruins of Troy were yet smoking? Lives he yet to breathe this air?"[212] The second wife was Dido, the queen and foundress of Carthage in Africa. That she was the wife of Æneas our poet sings in his fourth _Æneid_, where he says of Dido: "No more does Dido think of love in secret. She calls it marriage, and with this name she covers her sin." The third wife was Lavinia, the mother of Albans and Romans alike, the daughter of king Latinus and his heir, if we may trust the testimony of our poet in his last _Æneid_, where he introduces Turnus conquered, praying to Æneas thus: "Thou hast conquered, and the Ausonians have seen me lift my hands in prayer for mercy; Lavinia is thine."[213] This last wife was from Italy, the noblest region of Europe. [Footnote 212: III. 339. The best MSS. of Virgil omit "peperit fumante Creusa."] [Footnote 213: _Æn._ xii. 936.--(W.)]