was facrificed. Agamemnon obeyed, and fent for Iphigenia; but as she was going to be sacrificed, Diana put a hind in her stead, and carried off Iphigenia to Tauros, where she made her one of her priestesses. After this, the winds became more favourable, and they pursued their voyage to Troy, where they landed and began the siege; but the Trojans defended their city so well, that the siege. lasted ten years. The Greeks, finding they could not take it by force, had recourse to stratagem. They made a great wooden horse, and inclosed in its body a number of armed men; after which they pretended to retire to their ships, and abandon the siege. The Trojans fell into this snare; and brought the horse into their town, which cost them dear; for, in the middle of the night, the men concealed in it, got out, set fire to the city, opened the gates, and let in the Grecian army, that had returned under the walls of Troy. The Greeks took the town by storm, and put all the inhabitants to the sword, except a very few, who saved themselves by flight. Among these was ÆNEAS, a Trojan prince, son of Anchises and of the goddess Venus, who protected him in all the dangers he underwent. With his aged father on his shoulders *, his young fon Afcanius, or Jülus, by one hand, the household gods + in the other, and his wife Creusa following behind him, but who was killed in the flight, he made his escape to Antander, a town situate near * For which reason he was surnamed by Virgil, the pious Æneas. † The household gods were the deities who took the care and guardianship of private families, and were called Penates. They were placed in the utmost recess of the house. Dardanus brought them from Samothracia to Troy, whence, on the destruction of that city, Æneas transports them to Italy. They were reckoned so sacred, that the expression of driving a man from his Penates, was used to fignify his being proscribed, or expelled his country. E 3 mount mount Ida, where he found the remainder of the Trojans, who had escaped the sword of the Grecians. Here they built a fleet of twenty ships, and the spring following they fet fail and arrive at Thrace on the other fide the Propontis, where they founded the city of Ænea, called so, in honour of Æneas. They had not refided here long, before they were warned to depart, by a voice that issued from a fmall mount, whither Æneas went to pluck fome branches to hide, or overshadow his altars; which informed them, that he who spoke was Polidore, Priam's young fon; whom, being fent thither during the wars, loaded with gold, Polymnēstor, then king of Thrace, had treacherously murdered, and there buried. After performing Polidore's funeral obsequies, which he had requested of them, they all agreed to depart; and hoifting fail, they directed their course down the Agean fea, and arrived at Ortygia or Delos, a small and pleasant island near the islands Mycone, and Gyaros, where was a famous temple and oracle of Apollo *, whose king and priest happened to be an old acquaintance of Anchises, named Anius +. Here * APOLLO was son of Jupiter and Latona, who was delivered of him and Diana in the island of Delos. He is god of the fun, and thence generally is called Phabus. The poets describe him as drawn in a chariot by four horses full of life and fire, and breathing quick as they run along. His course is said to lie between two fixed points; the first half is all uphill, and the latter all down-hill. He sets out from the eastern, and drives into the western sea, where he is supposed to pass the nights in the palace of Oceanus. He is imagined daily to drive his chariot over a transparent (or crystal) arch in the heavens, on which appear the tracks of his wheels, as on a common road upon earth. Apollo is also the god of poetry and mufic; in which character he is represented with a lyre in his hand. + Anius was of the family of Cadmus, on the fide of his mother Rheo, the daughter of Staphilus, who claimed Bacchus for his father. Rheo having had fome intrigue, her father exposed her upon the sea in a little ship, in which the arrived at Delos, where she was delivered of Anius, who, by his marriage with Doripe, had three daughters, extremely frugal, and who laid Here they afked the oracle what place the gods had appointed for their fixt abode. By a misinterpretation of the oracle's answer, Anthises supposed it to be the ifland Crete; accordingly they fet fail for that place, where they arrived after a three days voyage, having passed by the islands of Naxos, famous for wines, Paros for marble, the verdant Donyfa, Olēaron, and the Ciclādes. Here they were no fooner landed, than looking upon this country as the place of their abode, they laid the foundations of the city of Pergamus, drew their fleet on shore, and attempted to fettle; but lo! a fudden plague seized the men; blights destroyed their trees, their corn was blasted, and their grafs burnt up. In this afflicted condition, they knew not what steps to pursue: Anchises, therefore, as the best method, advised them to dispatch a messenger back again to confult the oracle at Delos, when the night following the household gods gave the true sense of the oracle to Æneas in a vision, advising him to make the best of his way to Italy; adding, Those are the native realms the Fates assign; : Æneas having related this vision to his father and his friends, they all immediately consent to forsake laid up great stores of offerings, which were brought to the temple of Apollo. The Greeks, during the fiege of Troy, fent Palamedes to ask provisions from Anius, and obliged him even to give his daughters hostages. These princesses, however, found a way to escape; which gave occafion to say, that Bacchus had transformed them to pigeons. * The ancient name of Italy was Aufonia, from its most ancient inhabitants, the Ausones. VIRGIL, SERVIUS. Crete, leaving a small colony behind them. They accordingly spread their sails and put to sea; but as foon as they had lost sight of land, they met with a dreadful storm, which wrap'd them in darkness three days, and, on the fourth, drove them upon the islands Strophades. These islands lie in the Ionian Sea, and were inhabited by the Harpies *. These devouring monsters they were obliged to disperse with their swords, after they had twice seized on their repast; when Celeno, their chief harpy, prophetically pronounced this tremendous denunciation; that before they should raise the walls of the promised city, they should DEVOUR THE PLATES ON WHICH THEY THEN FED. The Trojans were so terrified, that they immediately deprecated the gods to avert the horrid fate, and set fail; and after passing within fight of the woody islands, Zacynthus and Sāmē on their left, and craggy Nēržios and Dulichium on the right, avoiding with the greatest care Ithaca, the rocky island of the dire Ulyffes, they cast anchor before the little town of Altium, near the promontory Leucāté, where they pay their vows to Jove, celebrate Trojan games, and, for a monument of their arrival here, Æneas hung up on the fun's temple door, the shield and buckler he had taken from Abas, with this inscription, • HARPIES, had their name from their rapacity, (ab αρπάζω, rapio.) They were born of Oceanus and Terra, with the faces of virgins, and bodies of birds; their hands were armed with claws, and their habitation was in the islands. But, fiends to scourge mankind, so fierce, so fell, ÆN. III. 288. PITT. These - These arms with blood distain'd, 1 Being pleased they had with fafety passed through so many Grecian iflands. In the winter following they pursued their voyage, and passed by the lofty island of Phaācia, and coafting along the rocky shores of Epirus, they land at Chaōnia, from whence they go immediately to the town of Buthrōtum, situate near Dodona, then under the government of Helenus, Priam's captive son, who had just succeeded the late king Pyrrhus, and married his widow Andromache, who, before, had been the wife of Hector. King Helēnus and his confort received the Trojan wanderers with the greatest joy, and conducted them into their small city, the walls of which he laid out in the form of old Troy. Here they refreshed themselves two days; and at their departure, Helenus, who had learnt from Apollo prophecy, informed Æneas of his future adventures, telling him, that he must not expect to reach very foon the destined shore of Italy; for that he'd be obliged to cruize along the Sicilian coafts round to Italy, and afterwards to pass by Circe's island, and at length, before he would be able to raise the foundations of his new city, he must pass the Stygian lake, and visit the infernal regions; promising him, that Apollo would avert the dire prediction of the offended Harpies; and concluded by giving him this most certain omen, when he shall have found the land decreed by fate. 1 When, loft in contemplation deep, you find AN. III. 52. PITT. Helenus |