e charmed life
of Achilles.--His shield.--The meeting of AEneas and Achilles on the
field.--The harangues of the combatants.--The battle begun.--Narrow
escape.--Sudden termination of the combat.--The tales of the AEneid.

Besides the intrinsic interest and importance of the facts stated in
the last chapter, to the student of history, there was a special
reason for calling the attention of the reader to them here, that he
might know in what light the story of the destruction of Troy, and of
the wanderings of AEneas, the great ancestor of Romulus, which we now
proceed to relate, is properly to be regarded. The events connected
with the destruction of Troy took place, if they ever occurred at all,
about the year _twelve hundred_ before Christ. Homer is supposed to
have lived and composed his poems about the year nine hundred; and the
art of writing is thought to have been first employed for the purpose
of recording continuous compositions, about the year six hundred. The
story of AEneas then, so far as it has any claims to historical truth,
is a tale which was handed down by oral tradition, among story-tellers
for three hundred years, and then was clothed in verse, and handed
down in that form orally by the memory of the reciters of it, in
generations successive for three hundred years more, before it was
recorded; and during the whole period of this transmission, the
interest felt in it was not the desire for ascertaining and
communicating historic truth, but simply for entertaining companies of
listeners with the details of a romantic story. The story, therefore,
can not be relied upon as historically true; but it is no less
important on that account, that all well-informed persons should know
what it is.

The mother of AEneas (as the story goes), was a celebrated goddess. Her
name was Aphrodite;[B] though among the Romans she afterward received
the name of Venus. Aphrodite was not born of a mother, like ordinary
mortals, but sprang mysteriously and supernaturally from a foam which
gathered on a certain occasion upon the surface of the sea. At the
commencement of her existence she crept out upon the shores of an
island that was near,--the island of Cythera,--which lies south of the
Peloponnesus.

[Footnote B: Pronounced in four syllables, Aph-ro-di-te.]

[Illustration: ORIGIN OF VENUS.]

She was the goddess of love, of beauty, and of fruitfulness; and so
extraordinary were the magical powers which were inherent f