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 AEneas,
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
AEneas was hospitably entertained by Latinus: that Latinus, in the
presence of his household gods, added a family league to the public one,
by giving AEneas 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. AEneas 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 AEneas, enraged that a stranger had been preferred to
himself, made war on AEneas 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 of the new city, and then considering that the Trojan power
was increasing much more than was altogether consistent with the safety
of the neighbouring states, without reluctance joined his forces in
alliance with the Rutulians. AEneas, in order to conciliate the minds of
the Aborigines to meet the terror of so serious a war, called both
nations Latins, so that they might all be not only under the