ITA

HISTORY of ANCIENT ITALY.

TALY was anciently poffeffed by various tribes; the north of it by the Gauls, and the fouth by different colonies from Greece. Its firft inhabitants were the Aborigines; their firft king was JANUS. In his time, SATURN having been expelled from Crete by his fon Jupiter, after wandering through different countries, came into Italy, where he was hofpitably entertained by Janus, and affumed into a fhare of the kingdom. The juft government and wife inftitutions of Saturn, gave occafion to the fable of the Golden age. From him the country was called SATURNIA, and that part of it where he chiefly refided LATIUM, Virg. Æn. vii. 320. &c.; Ovid. Faft. i. 235.; Dionyf. i. 36. & 38.

The Enotri, Ausones or Aurunci, Ligures, Ofci, Pelafgi, Sabini, Samnites, Umbri, &c. came into Italy at different times, A a

Dionyf

Dionyf. i. 10. 11. 12. &c. Dionyfius makes the Ænstri the fame with the Aborigines, and to come from Arcadia, Ib. 60. He fays they were called Aborigines, from their inhabiting the mountains, (70 THG EV TOIS OPEDIV cirnotas) Ib. 13. but they feem to have derived their name rather from their being the original inhabitants of the place, Ib. 10. They were afterwards called Italians, from Italus, one of their kings, 12.

About fixty years before the Trojan war, EVANDER, the fon of Carmenta a prophetcfs, brought into Latium a colony of Arcadians; and by the permiffion of FAUNUS, the fon of Picus, and grandfon of Saturn, Virg. En. vii. 48 then king of the Aborigines, built a fmall village on a hill near the Tiber, which he called Pallantium, from the name of his native city Palanteum, whence that place was afterwards called PALATIUM or the Palatine mount. Evander introduced into Italy the knowledge of letters, of mufical inftruments, and of feveral other useful arts, Dionyf. i. 31. — 34.

In the time of Evander HERCULES came into Italy after his conquest of Geryon in Spain, and left behind him a number of his followers, both of Trojan and Grecian extraction, who fettled on the Capitoline hill, then called Mons Saturnius. One CACUS, a noted robber in the neighbourhood, having carried off by stealth fome oxen from Hercules, was flain by him, Dionyf. i. 34.45.; Liv. i. 7.; Ovid, Faft. i. v. which gave rife to the fictions of the pocts, Virg. Æn. viii. 193. &c.

645.

After the deftruction of Troy, ANTENOR, with a multitude of Heněti from Paphlagonia, fettled at the top of the Hadriatic gulf, and built Patavium, now Padua, Liv. i. 1.; Virg. En. i. 242. ULYSSES is likewife faid, in his wanderings, to have come into Italy, and to have refided for fome time at Circeji, the city of Circe, by whom he had a fon, called Telegonus, who founded Tufculum, Ovid. Faft. iv. 69. This Telegonus, going to Ithaca to fee Ulyffes, was fhipwrecked on that ifland. Not knowing where he was, he began to plunder the inhabitants; and when Ulyffes and Telemachus his fon came out to repel the invaders, Telegonus ignorantly in the scuffle flew his father, as Oedipus did Laïus, Ovid. Faft. i. 1. 114. whence Tuculum, from its lofty fituation, is called Telegoni juga parricida, Horat. od. iii. 29. 8.

About the fame time, DIOMEDES, the fon of Tydeus and king of Etolia, another of the Grecian heroes in the war against Troy, unwilling to return to his native country on account of the infidelity of his wife giale, pafled over into

Apulia,

Apulia, and married the daughter of Daunas, king of that country, which was called Daunia after his name. Diomed built feveral cities, particularly Arpi, called alfo Argos Hippium, Argyripa or Argyrippa, Ovid. Met. 14. 456.; Faft. iv. 76.; Virg. An. xi. 246.; Plin. iii. 11. f. 16. 2.

In the time of Atys king of Lydia, one of the defcendants of Hercules, a colony from that country, during a famine, set fail for Smyrna under the conduct of Tyrrhenus, the king's fon, and landed in Umbria, Hersdot. i. 94. Crolling the Appenines they are faid to have built twelve cities, one of them called Tarquinii from Tarcon, a diftinguished chief among them. The whole country was called TYRRHENIA, afterwards Thufcia or Etruria, Strab. v. 219.

But the most famous of all thofe foreigners who came into Italy was ÆNEAS,, the fon of Anchifes and Venus, defcended from the royal family of Trov.

DARDANUS, the fon of Jupiter by Electra, the daughter of Atlas, was the founder of the Trojan nation, and confequently of the Romans. Dionyfius fays he was a native of Arcadia, i 61. Strabo, of Samothracia, vii. fin. Virgil, of Italy, En. iii. 167. Having removed into Afia, he married Batea, the daughter of Teucer, king of Phrygia, and built a city called Dardania, and afterwards TROJA, D'onf. ibid. From Dardănus the Trojans were called Dardanida. His defcendants and fucceffors were, 1. Erichthenius; 2. Tros, whence Troja, the city Troy and Troes, the Trojans; 3 Ilus, from whom Troy was called Ilium; 4. Laomedon; and 6. Priamus, the laft king of Troy.

The great grandfather of Æneas was farucus, the fon of Tros and brother of Ilus; his grandfather was Capys, the father of Anchifes. PRIAM having refufed to restore Helena, the wife of Menelaus king of Sparta, whom his fon Paris had carried off, was attacked by the united forces of all the ftates of Greece, commanded by Agamemnon, the brother of Menelaus, and king of Mycena. Troy underwent a ficge of ten years, being defended chiefly by the valour of HECTOR, the fon of Priam. At laft Hector was flain by ACHILLES, the braveit of the Greeks, who himself was alfo killed foon after by the treach ery of Paris. Troy is faid to have been taken by a ftratagem of the Grecks, fuggefted by Ulyffes, the king of Ithaca. They reared a large wooden image in the form of a horfe, and inclofed in it a number of armed men. This they pretended to be a vow to pacify the wrath of the goddess Minerva, for an image of that goddefs which Ulyffes and Diomedes had ftolen.

from her temple in Troy. The Trojans, deceived by the false information of SINON, a pretended deferter from the Greeks, brought the horse into the city, and, as on facred occafions, devoted themfelves to feftivity. The armed men being let out of the horse by Sinon, opened the gates, and admitted their companions. They fall upon the city. Priam is flain by Pyrrhus, the fon of Achilles, and moft of the citizens are put to the fword, or reduced to captivity. Aneas, made his escape amidit the flames, carrying his father Anchifes on his back, who held the facred things and household-gods in his hands. Afcanius or Iulus, the fon of Æneas, ran by his father's fide, having his left hand linked in his father's right. Crëusa, the wife of neas, followed behind; but by fome accident, miffing her way, was loft; nor could he be found, although Ancas returned to fearch for her.-This is the account of Virgil, who, though he embellishes facts, yet feldom relates any thing for which there is not fome foundation in hiftory. He indeed fuppofes fome events to have happened in the time of his hero, which took place at a different period. But in other refpects the facts recorded in the Eneid are found to have a wonderful agreement with the accounts of ancient hiftorians.

Ancas having collected his friends, and fuch as had escaped from the flames of Troy, and from the Greeks, took poffeffion of ftrong places on mount Ida. Great numbers afterwards flocked to him; fo that the Greeks finding it impracticable to reduce them, granted them permiffion to depart in fafety to whatever place they pleafed. Æneas, having built a fleet, in the harbour of Antandros, a town at the foot of mount Ida, Virg. n. 6. failed with twenty fhips, Ib. i. 381 first to Thrace, where he founded a city called after his name Enea, or Enne, or Eneada, Virg. Æn. iii. 18.; from thence to Delos, then to Crete. Being obliged to leave this place by a peftilence, be failed round Peloponnefus, and having efcaped from ftorm, touched upon two fmall islands called Strophades, in the Ionian fea, (the abode of the harpies, Virg En. iii. 210.) then he pafied by Zacynthus, Dulichium, Same or Cephalenia, and Ithaca. He landed in Epire, firft at Actium, where was a temple of Apollo, Ib. 275.; next at Buthrotum, where he found Andromache, the wife of Hector, married to Helenus, one of the fons of Priam, who governed that country, as guardian to Mokhus the fon of Pyrrhus, her former hufband. Pyrrhus was flain by Oretes, the fon of Agamemnon, for depriving him of Hermione, the daughter of Men:lous and Helena, who had been betrothed to Oreftes, and whom Pyrrhus, deserting An

dromache,

dromǎche, had married, Ib. 325. &c.; Paufan. ii. 23. Helenus being endued with the gift of prophecy, foretold to Æneas what was to befal him, and gave him directions concerning his voyage, Dionyf. i. 51. Æneas having failed past the Ceraunian mountains, croffed over into Italy. He offered up facrifices to Juno in her temple on the Japygian or Salentine promontory, Ib. 547. but ftaid only a fhort time there from an apprehenfion of the Greeks, who then poffeffed those parts, Ib. 396. & 550. Having therefore cruifed along the bay of Tarentum, and coaft of Bruttii, and having paffed the Fretum Siculum, without entering it, he landed on the country of the Cyclops. in Sicily, near the foot of mount Etna, Ib. 569.; then having taken up Achemenides, who had been left there three months before by Ulyffes, Ib. 645, from fear of Polyphemus, a gigantic cyclops, he fet fail again, v. 666, and having cruised along the east and fouth coafts of Sicily, he next entered the port of Drepanum, on the west fide of the island, north of Lilybaum, 707 at the foot of mount Eryx. Here he loft his father Anchifes. Having departed from thence (at which time the subject of the Eneid properly begins, i. 34.), he was driven by a ftorm on the coaft of Africa, near Carthage.

This city, according to Virgil, had lately been built by a colony from Tyre, under the conduct of DIDO, the widow of Sichaus, whom Pygmalion, her brother, the king of Tyre, from envy of his riches, had flain, Virg. Æn. i. 340. Dido received Aneas with great hofpitality, and falling in love with him, wifhed him to fhare with her the government of Carthage; but he, bent on failing for Italy, to which he is faid to have been urged by many intimations of the gods, left her; upon which the, in defpair, flew herself.

Virgil fuppofes Dido contemporary with Eneas; whereas others make her two or three ages pofterior to him. This is one of the few anachronisms which the poet, for the fake of embellishment, has admitted into the Æneid.

After failing from Carthage, Æneas was compelled, by force of weather, to make for Sicily. He again landed at Drepanum, the city of Aceftes, where he celebrated various games in honour of his father, Virg. Æn. v. Here he left fuch of his companions as were aged and infirm, and founded a city for them, Ib. 755. called after the name of his friend, ACESTA, Ib. 718. ÆGESTA, Dionyf. i. 52. or SEGESTA, Cic. Verr. iv. 33and built a temple to Venus on the top of mount Eryx, Virg. ib. 759. Dionyfius fays, of mount Elymus, i. 53.

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