same laws,
but also the same name. Nor after that did the Aborigines yield to the
Trojans in zeal and fidelity towards their king AEneas; relying therefore
on this disposition of the two nations, who were now daily coalescing
more and more, although Etruria was so powerful, that it filled with the
fame of its prowess not only the land, but the sea also, through the
whole length of Italy, from the Alps to the Sicilian Strait, though he
might have repelled the war by means of fortifications, yet he led out
his forces to the field. Upon this a battle ensued successful to the
Latins, the last also of the mortal acts of AEneas. He was buried, by
whatever name human and divine laws require him to be called,[8] on the
banks of the river Numicius. They call him Jupiter Indiges.
[Footnote 8: AEneas, being now deified, could not be called by his human
name; and in speaking of his being buried, it would be improper to name
him by his divine title. _---- Indigetem_. He is called by Dionysius
[Greek: Chthonios Theos].]
3. Ascanius, the son of AEneas, was not yet old enough to take the
government upon him; that government, however, remained secure for him
till the age of maturity. In the interim, the Latin state and the
kingdom of his grandfather and father was secured for the boy under the
regency of his mother (such capacity was there in Lavinia). I have some
doubts (for who can state as certain a matter of such antiquity) whether
this was the Ascanius, or one older than he, born of Creusa before the
fall of Troy, and the companion of his father in his flight from thence,
the same whom, being called Iulus, the Julian family call the author of
their name. This Ascanius, wheresoever and of whatever mother born, (it
is at least certain that he was the son of AEneas,) Lavinium being
overstocked with inhabitants, left that flourishing and, considering
these times, wealthy city to his mother or step-mother, and built for
himself a new one at the foot of Mount Alba, which, being extended on
the ridge of a hill, was, from its situation, called Longa Alba. Between
the founding of Lavinium and the transplanting this colony to Longa
Alba, about thirty years intervened. Yet its power had increased to such
a degree, especially after the defeat of the Etrurians, that not even
upon the death of AEneas, nor after that, during the regency of Lavinia,
and the first essays of the young prince's reign, did Mezentius, the
Etrurians, or any other of
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