Old Father Tiber then plunged into the middle of the river, and
disappeared from the hero's view. When AEneas awoke he immediately
prepared for his journey, selecting two ships from his fleet and
furnishing them with men and arms. As he was about to depart, the
prophecy only just repeated by the river god was fulfilled before his
eyes; for on the bank where he stood, a white sow suddenly appeared
with a litter of thirty young ones.

When lo! a sudden prodigy;
A milk-white sow is seen
Stretched with her young ones, white as she,
Along the margent green.
AEneas takes them, dam and brood,
And o'er the altars pours their blood,
To thee, great Juno, e'en to thee,
High heaven's majestic queen.
CONINGTON, _AEneid_, BOOK VIII.

AEneas then started on his voyage, Father Tiber making the passage
easy by calming his turbid river so that its surface was as smooth as
a peaceful lake. At noon next day the Trojans came in sight of
Pallanteum, and soon afterwards they turned their ships toward the
land, and approached the city. Just then King Evander, accompanied by
his son Pallas and many of his chiefs, was offering a sacrifice to
Hercules in a grove outside the city walls. Alarmed at the sudden
appearance of the vessels, they made a movement as if to depart in
haste from their altars. But Pallas forbade them to interrupt the
sacred rites, and advancing to meet the strangers, he addressed
them from a rising ground, asking who they were, and for what purpose
they had come. AEneas, speaking from the deck of one of his ships, and