The History of Rome, Books I to VIII | Page 3

C. Licinius
Macer, Coelius, Polybius, etc.]
[Footnote 5: "Hastening to these later times."--The history of the recent
civil wars would possess a more intense interest for the Romans of the
Augustan age.]
[Footnote 6: "From every care,"--the fear of giving offence by
expressing his opinions freely, and the sorrow, which, as a patriot, he
could not but feel in recording the civil wars of his countrymen.]
[Footnote 7: "Acquired."--This refers to the whole period antecedent to
the time when Ap. Claudius carried the Roman arms beyond Italy
against the Carthaginians; (2) extended, from that time till the fall of
Carthage; (3) sinking, the times of the Gracchi; (4) gave way more and
more, those of Sulla; (5) precipitate, those of Cæsar; (6) the present
times, those of Augustus after the battle of Actium.--Stocker.]
CHAPTER I.
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.
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 Coere, at that time an opulent town,
being by no means pleased, even from the commencement, at the
founding