passage of the Iliad, Poseidôn describes the family of Priam as having incurred the hatred of Zeus, and predicts that Æneas and his descendants shall reign over the Trojans: the race of Dardanus, beloved by Zeus more than all his other sons, would thus be preserved, since Æneas belonged to it. Accordingly, when Æneas is in imminent peril from the hands of Achilles, Poseidôn specially interferes to rescue him, and even the implacable miso-Trojan goddess Hêrê assents to the proceeding.[1] These passages have been construed by various able critics to refer to a family of philo-Hellenic or semi-Hellenic Æneadæ, known even in the time of the early singers of the Iliad as masters of some territory in or near the Troad, and professing to be descended from, as well as worshipping, Æneas. In the town of Skêpsis, situated in the mountainous range of Ida, about thirty miles eastward of Ilium, there existed two noble and priestly families who professed to be descended, the one from Hectôr, the other from Æneas. The Skêpsian critic Dêmêtrius (in whose time both these families were still to be found) informs us that Skamandrius son of Hectôr, and Ascanius son of Æneas, were the archegets or heroic founders of his native city, which had been originally situated on one of the highest ranges of Ida, and was subse-
- ↑ Iliad, xx. 300. Poseidôn speaks, respecting Æneas—
Ἀλλ’ ἄγεθ’, ἡμεῖς πέρ μιν ὑπ’ ἐκ θανάτου ἀγάγωμεν,
Μήπως καὶ Κρονίδης κεχολώσεται, αἴκεν Ἀχιλλεὺς
Τόνδε κατακτείνῃ· μόριμον δέ οἱ ἐστ’ ἀλέασθαι,
Ὄφρα μὴ ἄσπερμος γενεὴ καὶ ἄφαντος ὄληται
Δαρδάνου, ὃν Κρονίδης περὶ πάντων φίλατο παίδων,
Οἱ ἕθεν ἐξεγένοντο γυναικῶν τε θνητάων.
Ἤδη γὰρ Πριάμου γενεὴν ἤχθηρε Κρονίων·
Νῦν δὲ δὴ Αἰνείαο βίη Τρώεσσιν ἀνάξει,
Καὶ παίδων παῖδες, τοί κεν μετόπισθε γένωνται.Again, v. 339, Poseidôn tells Æneas that he has nothing to dread from any other Greek than Achilles.
est parts of Mount Ida, but to have reconciled it with the stories of the migration of Æneas, by saying that he only remained in Ida a little time, and then quitted the country altogether by virtue of a convention concluded with the Greeks (Dionys. Hal. i. 47-48). Among the infinite variety of stories respecting this hero, one was, that after having effected his settlement in Italy, he had returned to Troy and resumed the sceptre, bequeathing it at his death to Ascanius (Dionys. Hal. i. 53): this was a comprehensive scheme for apparently reconciling all the legends.
