274

THE WOODEN HORSE.

of Troy Paris himself, though late, was one of the victims of the war, being killed in the field.

After ten years' siege, and no decisive progress having been made, the Greeks bethought themselves of a stratagem: they built a wooden horse, of so enormous a size, that it could contain a band of armed men in its belly: they left this horse, concealing within it many of their most valiant leaders, with Neoptolemus or Pyrrhus, the son of Achilles, at their head, on the shore: the rest sailed away for the island of Tenedos, and pretended to give up the siege: Sinon, a spy whom they left behind, told the Trojans, that if this horse were once placed within their walls, Troy would one day reduce all Greece under her sovereignty: actuated by this false intelligence, the Trojans were themselves most active in introducing ruin into their city: the fleet returned in the silence of night: those who were inclosed in the wooden horse let themselves out, and admitted their companions at the gates Troy was burned, Priam was killed, and his family and subjects sold to slavery in the siege of Troy the Gods took opposite sides, as their resentments or partialities led them, and Neptune and Apollo had finally the satisfaction of demolishing the walls which they had been drawn in to rearf

Helen was now restored to her first husband Menelaus, who conducted her to Sparta in triumph. Agamemnon, the brother of Menelaus, also returned home, but the event of his arrival proved tragical: Clytemnestra, the sister of Helen, his wife, had for some years lived in adultery with

• Soph. Ajax. Ov. Met. xii. 580 et seqq. Id. xiii. 1 et seqq. f Virg. Æn. ii. 57 et seqq.

PENELOPE'S WEB.

2.75

275

Ægisthus, the son of Thyestes: and this wicked pair contrived, under all the appearance of a welcome reception, to assassinate Agamemnon, and his most faithful friends in the midst of the banquet: Orestes, the son of Agamemnon, when he grew up to be a man, avenged his father by the death of Ægisthus and his mother: but though Clytemnestra was a bad woman, the Gods did not approve of a mother perishing by the hands of her son, and caused him to be haunted by the Furies.

Lastly, Ulysses experienced so many disasters at sea, that ten years elapsed between the burning of Troy and his arrival in Ithaca: he visited the caverns of the Cyclops, the island of Circe, and the infernal regions, and passed through dan gers surpassing human belief: at last when he reached his native country, he found his palace and government in the possession of a set of dissolute suitors, who had agreed to urge his wife to marry one of them under pretence that Ulysses was certainly death: the name of the wife of Ulysses was Penelope: she was the niece of Tyndarus, and the cousin of Clytemnestra and Helen; but her conduct was very different from that of these infamous women: she remained faithful to Ulysses during the whole of his twenty years' absence: one expedient by which she baffled the importunity of her suitors, was telling them that she had vowed to weave a funeral web for Laertes the aged father of Ulysses, before she would marry a second husband: this web she unravelled by night, as fast as she worked upon it by day: at the end of ten years' wandering Ulysses came home, slew the suitors, and rewarded the fidelity.

Eschyl. Agamemnon, Choephora, Eumenides, pass.

276

ENEAS, SON OF VENUS.

of the virtuous Penelope with uninterrupted happiness b.

One other hero of the Trojan war remains to be mentioned: this was Eneas, the son of Anchises, descended from Assaracus the brother of Ilus: the mother of Æneas was Venus: one would think it was more natural to give out that a hero had a God for his father, than a Goddess for his mother; for in the latter case he must have been born in Heaven, or the Goddess must have come and resided for some length of time on earth: but every hero, who was desirous to pass for a Demigod, was not prepared to deny his father: perhaps, in both instances the pretence of a celestial origin is the cover for some blemish; when a God was said to be the father, the mother was unchaste; and when a Goddess was feigned to be the mother, the true mother was of obscure rank.

When Troy was burned, Æneas escaped from the flames, bearing his old and infirm father upon his shoulders: he is said to have passed into Italy: and the ancient Romans claimed Æneas as the founder of their state: Virgil has consecrated this claim in a splendid and incomparable poem, entitled the Eneid: Æneas was worshipped at Rome under the name Jupiter Indigetes.

Hom. Od. passim.

CHAP. XXX.

OF ROMULUS.

Amulius Usurps the Throne of Alba.-Birth of Romulus and Remus, Sons of Mars.-They are exposed on the Banks of the Tiber.-Suckled by a Wolf.-Educated among_Shepherds.-They Discover themselves, and put to Death Amulius.-Numitor, their Grandfather, is King of Alba.-Building of Rome.-Remus Killed. The Asylum.-Rape of the Sabines.-They break off a Battle between their Fathers and their Husbands.-Romulus taken up into Heaven.-Worshipped by the name of Quirinus.-Final Greatness of the Roman State.

THE Romans, a more sober and plain-spoken race of men than the Greeks, added only one God of their own countrymen to the fabulous Pantheon, previously to the sad period, when despotism destroyed in them the pride of integrity, and every tyrant became a God: this one was Romulus the founder of that city, and in that respect having the same claim to their regard, as Cadmus to that of the Thebans, or Theseus of the Athenians.

Numitor, the grandfather of Romulus, was by paternal descent king of Alba: but Amulius his brother, more ambitious and daring than be, deprived him of the kingdom, and reduced him to a private station at the same time he put to death the son of Numitor, and compelled his daughter, by name Rhea Sylvia, to take the vows

278 ROMULUS SUCKLED BY A WOLF.

of virginity as a vestal: the sacred character of Rhea however was no obstacle to the love of the God Mars he grew enamoured of her, and became the father of Romulus and Remus, the twin progeny of the vestal.

:

Amulius no sooner understood that she was a mother, than he condemned Rhea herself to perpetual imprisonment, and ordered the infants to be thrown into the Tiber: the Tiber had at that time overflowed its banks, and the servant who bore the children, not being able to reach the bed of the river, left them in the marshes: here they were found and suckled by a she-wolf, and in this situation were discovered by Faustulus the royal shepherd, who having some suspicion of the particulars of their birth, took them home, and bred them as his own children.

These royal youths, as they grew up, not only delighted in hunting wild beasts, but often with the bands of their companions made an onset on a gang of robbers: in one of these skirmishes Remus was taken prisoner, and by these bold outlaws accused of their own crime: he was given up to Numitor to be punished, who having tried him with various questions, began to suspect the secret of his birth: Faustulus at the same time divulged his thoughts to Romulus: and both brothers, having collected a party of armed men, beset the palace at once, killed Amulius, and restored Numitor to the crown..

Romulus and Remus were of too active and adventurous a disposition to sit down contented in their father's little kingdom: they expressed to him their wish to be permitted to build a town.

i Qv. Fasti, ii. 382, et iii. 7 et seqq.