The Aeneid (33 page)

                Aeneas, the leading captains of Troy and lovely Iulus had lain
                down on the grass under the branches of a tall tree and were
110         starting to eat a meal, setting out their banquets on wheaten
                cakes – for Jupiter himself had so advised them – and heaping
                country fruits on these foundations, the gift of Ceres, the Goddess
                of Grain. When the fruit had all been eaten and the sparseness
                of the diet had driven them to sink their teeth into Ceres’
                bounty, scant as it was, to violate with bold hand and jaw the
                fateful circles of crust and show no mercy to the flat quartercircles
                of bread, suddenly Iulus said, as a joke: ‘Look! We
                are eating even our tables!’ That was all. This was the first
                announcement they had received of the end of their sufferings.
                Astounded by the presence of the divine, Aeneas seized upon
                his son’s first words while he was still speaking and made him
120         be silent. In that instant he lifted up his voice and cried out:
                ‘Hail to the land owed to me by the Fates, and hail to the
                household gods of Troy who have kept faith with me! This is
                our home. This is our own land. For now I remember it, my
                father Anchises left me this riddle of the Fates. “When you sail
                to an unknown shore and your food is so scanty that hunger
                forces you to eat your tables, that is the time, weary as you are,
                to hope for a home. This is where you must with your own hand
                lay down the foundations of your first buildings and raise a
                rampart round them.” This is the hunger of which he spoke.
                This is the last hunger we had to endure and it will put an end
130         to our calamities. Come then, with joy in your hearts, and at
                the first light of the sun let us all go in different directions from
                the harbour to explore this place and find out who are the men
                that live here and where their cities are. And now pour libations
                from your goblets to Jupiter, call upon my father Anchises with
                your prayers and set the wine in due order on the tables.’

                At these words he wound a branch of living green round his
                
forehead and offered up prayers to the Genius of the place and
                to Earth, the first of gods, to nymphs and rivers not yet known,
                then to Night and the stars of Night then rising, to Jupiter of
                Mount Ida and the Phyrygian Mother in due order, to his mother
140         in the heavens and his father in Erebus. In reply the All-powerful
                Father thundered clear three times from the heights of the sky
                and with his own hand he displayed in heaven a burning cloud,
                quivering with rays of golden light. In that instant the word
                spread through the Trojan ranks that the day had come for them
                to found their promised city. Eagerly they renewed their feast,
                and delighting in this great omen, they set up their mixing bowls
                and crowned the wine with garlands.

                When the next day first rose and began to traverse the earth
150         with its lamp, they set out in different directions to explore the
                city and the boundaries and shores of this people. Here were
                the pools where the river Numicus springs, here was the river
                Tiber and here were the homes of the stalwart Latins. Then
                Aeneas, son of Anchises, ordered one hundred men chosen as
                spokesmen from every rank of his people to go to the sacred
                walls of king Latinus all bearing branches of Pallas Athene’s
                olive wreathed in wool, carrying gifts and asking for peace for
                the Trojans. They made no delay, but hastened with all speed
                to do as they were bidden, while Aeneas himself was marking
                out the line of his walls with a shallow ditch and beginning to
                build on the site, surrounding this first settlement on the shore
160         with a stockade and rampart as though it were a camp. The
                warriors, meanwhile, their long journey ended, were within
                sight of the towers and high roofs of the city of the Latins and
                came up to the wall. There in front of the city boys and young
                men in the first flower of their age were exercising with their
                horses, training chariot teams in clouds of dust, bending the
                springy bow, spinning the stiff-shafted javelin, racing and sparring,
                when a messenger riding ahead of the Trojans brought to
                the ear of the old king the news that huge men in strange costume
                had arrived. Latinus ordered them to be summoned into his
                palace while he took his seat in the middle on his ancestral
                throne.

170         A sacred building, massive and soaring to the sky with a
                
hundred columns, stood on the highest point of the city. This
                was the palace of Laurentine Picus, a building held in great awe
                because of an ancestral sense of the presence of the divine in the
                grove that surrounded it. Here the omens declared that kings
                should receive their sceptres and take up the rods of office for
                the first time. This temple was their senate-house, this the hall
                in which they held their sacred banquets and here the elders
                would sacrifice a ram and sit down to feast at long tables. Here
                too, carved in old cedar wood, stood in order in the forecourt
                the statues of their ancestors from time long past: Italus and
                Father Sabinus, planter of the vine, still holding in effigy his
180         curved pruning knife, old Saturn, the image of Janus with his
                two faces, all the other kings since the foundation of the city
                and with them the men who had been wounded while fighting
                to defend their native land. Many too were the weapons hung
                on the posts of the temple doors, captured chariots, curved axes,
                crests of helmets, great bolts from the gates of cities, spears,
                shields and beaks broken off the prows of ships. Here too, with
                his short toga, and the augural staff of Quirinus in his left hand,
                sat the Horse-Tamer, Picus himself, whose wife Circe, possessed
190         by lust, struck him with her rod of gold and changed him with
                her potions into a bird, sprinkling colours on his wings.

                Such was the temple of the gods where Latinus sat in the seat
                of his fathers and called the Trojans to him in his palace. When
                they entered he was the first to speak, addressing them in these
                kindly words: ‘Tell me, sons of Dardanus – you see we know
                your city and your family and had heard about you before you
                set your course here – what are you searching for? What has
                taken your ships over all the blue waters of ocean to the shore
                of Ausonia? What need has brought you here? Whether you
                have lost your way or been driven off course by the storms that
200         sailors have to endure so often on the high seas, you have now
                sailed between the banks of our river and are sitting in harbour.
                Do not refuse the guest-friendship we offer you and do not
                forget that we Latins are Saturn’s people, righteous not because
                of laws and restraints but holding of our own free will to the
                way of life of our ancient god. Besides, I myself remember that
                the Auruncan elders used to say – the story is dimmed by the
                
mists of time – that Dardanus was born in these fields and went
                far away to the cities of Ida in Phrygia and the Thracian island
                of Samos now known as Samothrace. He set out from here,
210         from his Tyrrhenian home in Corythus, and now sits on a throne
                in the palace of gold in the starry sky, and his altars add a name
                to the roll of the gods.’

                He spoke these words, and these were the words in which
                Ilioneus made answer: ‘Great king, son of Faunus, it is not black
                storms and heavy seas that have driven us to this land of yours,
                nor have we lost our way by mistaking a star or a coastline. It
                is by design and with willing hearts that we all sail to this city,
                driven from our own kingdom which was once the greatest the
                journeying Sun could see from the highest part of the heavens.
220         Our race begins with Jupiter. The warriors of Dardanus’ Troy
                rejoice in Jupiter as their ancestor. Their king, Aeneas himself,
                is descended from Jupiter’s exalted stock, and Trojan Aeneas
                has sent us to your door. The storm that gathered in merciless
                Mycenae and swept across the plains beneath Mount Ida, and
                the fate that drove the worlds of Europe and of Asia to collide,
                these are known to all men, those who live far to the north
                where the ends of the earth beat back the stream of Oceanus,
                and those who are separated from us by the zone of the cruel
                sun whose expanse covers the middle zone of five. Since that
                cataclysm we have sailed all those desolate seas, and now we
230         ask for a little piece of land for our fathers’ gods, for harmless
                refuge on the beach, for the air and sea which are there for all
                men. We shall not bring discredit on your kingdom. Great fame
                will be yours, and our gratitude for such a service will never
                fade. The men of Ausonia will never regret taking Troy to their
                hearts. I swear by the destiny of Aeneas and his right arm, strong
                in the truth to all who have tested it, and strong in war and the
                weapons of war, that many nations have asked to enter into
                alliance with us. Do not despise us because we choose to come
                to you with words of supplication and olive branches wreathed
                in wool in our hands. Many races have wished to be joined to
240         ours, but the commands of divine destiny have driven us to seek
                out your country. This was the first home of Dardanus. This is
                the land to which Apollo calls us back, and urges us with his
                
mighty decrees towards the Tyrrhenian Thybris and the sacred
                shallows of the fountain of Numicus. These gifts, besides,
                Aeneas offers you, some small relics of his former fortunes
                rescued from the flames of Troy. From this gold cup his father
                Anchises used to pour libations at the altar. This was the sceptre
                Priam would hold in his hand as he gave solemn judgement
                before the concourse of the nations, and here are his sacred
                head-dress and the vestments woven for him by the women
                of Troy.’

250         When Ilioneus had finished speaking, Latinus kept his gaze
                fixed upon the ground and did not move. He never raised his
                burning eyes but they were never still. As a king he was moved
                to see the sceptre of Priam and his embroidered purple but much
                more was he moved by the thought of a marriage and a husband
                for his daughter, and long did he ponder in his heart the prophecy
                of old Faunus. So this was the fulfilment of the portents sent
                by the Fates! So this was the son-in-law who would come from
                a distant land and be called to share his kingdom with equal
                auspices. This was the man whose descendants would excel in
                valour and whose power would win the whole world. He spoke
                at last, and joyfully: ‘May the gods give their blessing to what
260         we begin today and to their own prophecies! You will receive
                what you ask, Trojan, and I do not refuse your gifts. While
                Latinus is king, you will have rich land to farm and you will
                never feel the lack of the wealth of Troy. Only Aeneas must
                come here himself if he is so eager and impatient to join us in
                friendship and be called our ally. He has no need to recoil from
                the face of his friends. It will be a condition of the peace I offer
                that I must clasp the hand of your king. But now I charge you
                to take back this answer to him. Tell him I have a daughter, and
270         the oracles from my father’s shrine agree with all the signs from
                heaven in forbidding me to join her in marriage to any man of
                our people. Strangers will come from a foreign land to be my
                sons-in-law – this is what is in store for Latium according to the
                prophecies – and by their blood they shall raise our name to the
                stars. This Aeneas is the man the Fates demand. This I believe,
                and this is my will, if my mind has any true insight into the
                future.’ After these words, Father Latinus made a choice from his
                
whole stable where three hundred well-groomed horses stood in
                their high-built stalls, ordering one to be brought out instantly
                for each of the Trojans in due order. Their hooves were swift as
                wings, their saddle-cloths were of embroidered purple. Gold
                medallions hung at their breasts, their caparisons were of gold
280         and they champed bright golden bits between their teeth. For
                Aeneas in his absence, he chose a chariot and pair of heavenly
                descent breathing fire from their nostrils. They were sprung
                from a stock which cunning Circe had crossbred by stealing one
                of the stallions of her father the Sun to mate with a mare. With
                these gifts Aeneas’ men returned, riding high in the saddle and
                bringing messages of peace.