settlement, and sailing thence directed his course to the territory of
Laurentum. This spot also bears the name of Troy. When the Trojans,
having disembarked there, were driving off booty from the country, as
was only natural, seeing that they had nothing left but their arms and
ships after their almost boundless wandering, Latinus the king and the
Aborigines, who then occupied these districts, assembled in arms from
the city and country to repel the violence of the new-comers. In
regard to what followed there is a twofold tradition. Some say that
Latinus, having been defeated in battle, first made peace and then
concluded an alliance with Æneas; others, that when the armies had
taken up their position in order of battle, before the trumpets
sounded, Latinus advanced to the front, and invited the leader of the
strangers to a conference. He then inquired what manner of men they
were, whence they had come, for what reasons they had left their home,
and in quest of what they had landed on Laurentine territory. After
he heard that the host were Trojans, their chief Æneas, the son of
Anchises and Venus, and that, exiled from home, their country having
been destroyed by fire, they were seeking a settlement and a site for
building a city, struck with admiration both at the noble character of
the nation and the hero, and at their spirit, ready alike for peace or
war, he ratified the pledge of future friendship by clasping hands.
Thereupon a treaty was concluded between the chiefs, and mutual
greetings passed between the armies: Æneas was hospitably entertained
at the house of Latinus; there Latinus, in the presence of his
household gods, cemented the public league by a family one, by giving
Æneas his daughter in marriage. This event fully confirmed the Trojans
in the hope of at length terminating their wanderings by a lasting and
permanent settlement. They built a town, which Æneas called Lavinium
after the name of his wife. Shortly afterward also, a son was the
issue of the recently concluded marriage, to whom his parents gave the