[Illustration: Æneas.]
Among the Trojans at the fall of Troy there was a prince called Æneas,
whose father was Anchises, a cousin of Priam, and whose mother was said
to be the goddess Venus. When he saw that the city was lost he rushed
back to his house and took his old father Anchises on his back, giving
him his penates, or little images of household gods, to take care of,
and led by the hand his little son Iulus, or Ascanius, while his wife
Creusa followed close behind, and all the Trojans who could get their
arms together joined him, so that they escaped in a body to Mount Ida;
but just as they were outside the city he missed poor Creusa, and though
he rushed back and searched for her everywhere, he never could find her.
Because of his care for his gods, and for his old father, he is always
known as the pious Æneas.
In the forests of Mount Ida he built ships enough to set forth with all
his followers in quest of the new home which his mother, the goddess
Venus, gave him hopes of. He had adventures rather like those of Ulysses
as he sailed about the Mediterranean. Once in the Strophades, some
clusters belonging to the Ionian Islands, where he and his troops had
landed to get food, and were eating the flesh of the numerous goats
which they found climbing about the rocks, down on them came the
harpies, horrible birds with women's faces and hooked hands, with which
they snatched away the food and spoiled what they could not eat. The
Trojans shot at them, but the arrows glanced off their feathers and did
not hurt them. However, they all flew off except one, who sat on a high
rock, and croaked out that the Trojans would be punished for thus
molesting the harpies, by being tossed about till they should reach
Italy, but there they should not build their city till they should have
been so hungry as to eat their very trenchers.
They sailed away from this dismal prophetess, and touched on the coast
of Epirus, where Æneas found his cousin Helenus, son to old Priam,
reigning over a little new Troy, and married to Andromache, Hector's
wife, whom he had gained after Pyrrhus had been killed. Helenus was a
prophet, and he gave Æneas much advice. In especial he said that when
the Trojans should come to Italy they would find, under the holly-trees
by the river-side, a large, white, old sow lying on the ground, with a
litter of thirty little pigs round her, and this should be a sign to
them where they were to build their city.
By his advice the Trojans coasted round the south of Sicily, instead of
trying to pass the strait between the dreadful Scylla and Charybdis, and
just below Mount Etna an unfortunate man came running down to the beach
begging to be taken in. He was a Greek, who had been left behind when
Ulysses escaped from Polyphemus's cave, and had made his way to the
forests, where he had lived ever since. They had just taken him in when
they saw the Cyclop coming down, with a pine-tree for a staff, to wash
the burning hollow of his lost eye in the sea, and they rowed off in
great terror.
Poor old Anchises died shortly after, and while his son was still
sorrowing for him, Juno, who hated every Trojan, stirred up a terrible
tempest, which drove the ships to the south, until, just as the sea
began to calm down, they came into a beautiful bay, enclosed by tall
cliffs with woods overhanging them. Here the tired wanderers landed,
and, lighting a fire, Æneas went in quest of food. Coming out of the
forest they looked down from a hill, and beheld a multitude of people
building a city, raising walls, houses, towers, and temples. Into one of
these temples Æneas entered, and to his amazement he found the walls
sculptured with all the story of the siege of Troy, and all his friends
so perfectly represented, that he burst into tears at the sight.
Just then a beautiful queen, attended by a whole troop of nymphs, came
into the temple. This lady was Dido; her husband, Sichæus, had been King
of Tyre, till he was murdered by his brother, Pygmalion, who meant to
have married her; but she fled from him with a band of faithful Tyrians
and all her husband's treasure, and had landed on the north coast of
Africa. There she begged of the chief of the country as much land as
could be enclosed by a bullock's hide. He granted this readily; and
Dido, cutting the hide into the finest possible strips, managed to
measure off ground enough to build the splendid city which she had named
Carthage. She received Æneas most kindly, and took all his men into her
city, hoping to keep them there forever, and make him her husband. Æneas
himself was so happy there that he forgot all his plans and the
prophecies he had heard, until Jupiter sent Mercury to rouse him to
fulfil his destiny. He obeyed the call; and Dido was so wretched at his
departure that she caused a great funeral pile to be built, laid herself
on the top, and stabbed herself with Æneas's sword; the pile was burnt,
and the Trojans saw the flame from their ships without knowing the
cause.
By and by Æneas landed at a place in Italy named Cumæ. There dwelt one
of the Sibyls. These were wondrous virgins whom Apollo had endowed with
deep wisdom; and when Æneas went to consult the Cumæan Sibyl, she told
him that he must visit the under-world of Pluto to learn his fate.
First, however, he had to go into a forest, and find there and gather a
golden bough, which he was to bear in his hand to keep him safe. Long he
sought it, until two doves, his mother's birds, came flying before him
to show him the tree where gold gleamed through the boughs, and he found
the branch growing on the tree as mistletoe grows on the thorn.
Guarded with this, and guided by the Sibyl, after a great sacrifice,
Æneas passed into a gloomy cave, where he came to the river Styx, round
which flitted all the shades who had never received funeral rites, and
whom the ferryman, Charon, would not carry over. The Sibyl, however,
made him take Æneas across, his boat groaning under the weight of a
human body. On the other side stood Cerberus, but the Sibyl threw him a
cake of honey and of some opiate, and he lay asleep, while Æneas passed
on and found in myrtle groves all who had died for love--among them, to
his surprise, poor forsaken Dido. A little farther on he found the home
of the warriors, and held converse with his old Trojan friends. He
passed by the place of doom for the wicked, Tartarus; and in the Elysian
Fields, full of laurel groves and meads of asphodel, he found the spirit
of his father Anchises, and with him was allowed to see the souls of all
their descendants, as yet unborn, who should raise the glory of their
name. They are described on to the very time when the poet wrote to whom
we owe all the tale of the wanderings of Æneas, namely, Virgil, who
wrote the "Æneid," whence all these stories are taken. He further tells
us that Æneas landed in Italy, just as his old nurse Caiëta died, at the
place which still is called Gaëta. After they had buried her they found
a grove, where they sat down on the grass to eat, using large round
cakes or biscuits to put their meat on. Presently they came to eating up
the cakes. Little Ascanius cried out, "We are eating our very tables,"
and Æneas, remembering the harpy's words, knew that his wanderings were
over.
Virgil goes on to tell at much length how the king of the country,
Latinus, at first made friends with Æneas, and promised him his daughter
Lavinia in marriage; but Turnus, an Italian chief who had before been a
suitor to Lavinia, stirred up a great war, and was only conquered and
killed after much hard fighting. However, the white sow was found in the
right place with all her little pigs, and on the spot was founded the
city of Alba Longa, where Æneas and Lavinia reigned until he died, and
his descendants, through his two sons, Ascanius or Iulus, and Æneas
Silvius, reigned after him for fifteen generations.