Romulus Part 3

In the midst of this excitement, there suddenly appeared before him, coming from the scene of the conflict, a Trojan friend, named Pantheus, who was hastening away from the danger, perfectly bewildered with excitement and agitation. He was leading with him his little son, who was likewise pale with terror. aeneas asked Pantheus what had happened. Pantheus in reply explained to him in hurried and broken words, that armed men, treacherously concealed within the wooden horse, had issued forth from their concealment, and had opened the gates of the city, and let the whole horde of their ferocious and desperate enemies in; that the sentinels and guards who had been stationed at the gates had been killed; and that the Greek troops had full possession of the city, and were barricading the streets and setting fire to the buildings on every side. "All is lost," said he, "our cause is ruined, and Troy is no more."

The announcing of these tidings filled aeneas and those who had joined him with a species of phrensy. They resolved to press forward into the combat, and there, if they must perish themselves, to carry down as many as possible of their enemies with them to destruction. They pressed on, therefore, through the gloomy streets, guiding their way toward the scene of action by the glare of the fires upon the sky, and by the sounds of the distant tumult and din.

They soon found themselves in the midst of scenes of dreadful terror and confusion,--the scenes, in fact, which are usually exhibited in the midnight sacking of a city. They met with various adventures during the time that they continued their desperate but hopeless resistance. They encountered a party of Greeks, and overpowered and slew them, and then, seizing the armor which their fallen enemies had worn, they disguised themselves in it, in hopes to deceive the main body of the Greeks by this means, so as to mingle among them un.o.bserved, and thus attack and destroy such small parties as they might meet without being themselves attacked by the rest. They saw the princess Ca.s.sandra, the young daughter of king Priam, dragged away by Greek soldiers from a temple where she had sought refuge. They immediately undertook to rescue her, and were at once attacked both by the Greek party who had the princess in charge, and also by the Trojan soldiers, who shot arrows and darts down upon them from the roofs above, supposing, from the armor and the plumes which they wore, that they were enemies. They saw the royal palace besieged, and the _tortoise_ formed for scaling the walls of it. The tumult and din, and the frightful glare of lurid flames by which the city was illuminated, a scene of inconceivable confusion and terror.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE TORTOISE.]

aeneas watched the progress of the a.s.sault upon the palace from the top of certain lofty roofs, to which he ascended for the purpose. Here there was a slender tower, which had been built for a watch-tower, and had been carried up to such a height that, from the summit of it, the watchmen stationed there could survey all the environs of the city, and on one side look off to some distance over the sea. This tower aeneas and the Trojans who were with him contrived to cut off at its base, and throw over upon the throngs of Grecians that were thundering at the palace gates below. Great numbers were killed by the falling ruins, and the tortoise was broken down. The Greeks, however, soon formed another tortoise, by means of which some of the soldiers scaled the walls, while others broke down the gates with battering rams and engines; and thus the palace, the sacred and last remaining stronghold of the city, was thrown open to the ferocious and frantic horde of its a.s.sailants.

The sacking of the palace presented an awful spectacle to the view of aeneas and his companions, as they looked down upon it from the roofs and battlements around. As the walls, one after another, fell in under the resistless blows dealt by the engines that were brought against them, the interior halls, and the most retired and private apartments, were thrown open to view--all illuminated by the glare of the surrounding conflagrations.

Shrieks and wailing, and every other species of outcry that comes from grief, terror, and despair, arose from within; and such spectators as had the heart to look continuously upon the spectacle, could see wretched men running to and fro, and virgins clinging to altars for protection, and frantic mothers vainly endeavoring to find hiding-places for themselves and their helpless children.

Priam the king, who was at this time old and infirm, was aroused from his slumbers by the dreadful din, and immediately began to seize his armor, and to prepare himself for rus.h.i.+ng into the fight. His wife, however, Hecuba, begged and entreated him to desist. She saw that all was lost, and that any farther attempts at resistance would only exasperate their enemies, and render their own destruction the more inevitable. She persuaded the king, therefore, to give up his weapons and go with her to an altar, in one of the courts of the palace,--a place which it would be sacrilege for their enemies to violate--and there patiently and submissively to await the end. Priam yielded to the queen's solicitations, and went with her to the place of refuge which she had chosen;--and the plan which they thus adopted, might very probably have been successful in saving their lives, had it not been for an unexpected occurrence which suddenly intervened, and which led to a fatal result. While they were seated by the altar, in att.i.tudes of submission and suppliance, they were suddenly aroused by the rus.h.i.+ng toward them of one of their sons, who came in, wounded and bleeding from some scene of combat, and pursued by angry and ferocious foes. The spent and fainting warrior sank down at the feet of his father and mother, and lay there dying and weltering in the blood which flowed from his wounds. The aged king was aroused to madness at this spectacle. He leaped to his feet, seized a javelin, and thundering out at the same time the most loud and bitter imprecations against the murderers of his son, he hurled the weapon toward them as they advanced. The javelin struck the s.h.i.+eld of the leader of the a.s.sailants, and rebounded from it without producing any other effect than to enrage still more the furious spirit which it was meant to destroy. The a.s.sailant rushed forward, seized the aged father by the hair, dragged him slipping, as he went, in the blood of his son, up to the altar, and there plunged a sword into his body, burying it to the hilt,--and then threw him down, convulsed and dying, upon the body of his dying child.

Thus Priam fell, and with him the last hope of the people of Troy. The city in full possession of their enemies, the palace and citadel sacked and destroyed, and the king slain, they saw that there was nothing now left for which they had any wish to contend.

CHAPTER V.

THE FLIGHT OF aeNEAS.

B.C. 1200

aeneas's reflections.--He determines to go home.--aeneas is left at last alone.--He goes away.--He sees the princess Helen.--Story of Helen.--aeneas determines to destroy her.--His reflections.--The apparition of Aphrodite.--Her words.--His mother's magical protection.--He reaches his home.--The determination of Anchises.--Creusa's entreaties.--The plan formed for the escape of the family.--The lion's skin.--The household G.o.ds.--Creusa.--The whole party proceed towards the gates.--Escape from the city.--Creusa is lost.--aeneas goes back in search of Creusa.--He finds that his house has been burned.--The apparition of Creusa.--Her predictions.--Her farewell to her husband.--Preparations for departure.--aeneas's company increases.--His fleet.--The embarkation.--Map of the wanderings of aeneas.--A dreadful prodigy.--The bleeding myrtle.--Words of the myrtle.--Story of Polydorus.--aeneas leaves Thrace.--His various wanderings.--The attempted settlement at Crete.--Calamities.--aeneas's perplexity.--Advice of Anchises.--Scene at night.--The household deities.--Their address to aeneas.--Effect of this address.--Subsequent adventures.--Danger of s.h.i.+pwreck.--The harpies.--aeneas driven away.--Dangers at Mt. Etna.--The one-eyed giants.--Polyphemus.--Remarks on the story of aeneas.

aeneas, from his station upon the battlements of a neighboring edifice, witnessed the taking of the palace and the death of Priam. He immediately gave up all for lost, and turned his thoughts at once to the sole question of the means of saving himself and his family from impending destruction. He thought of his father, Anchises, who at this time lived with him in the city, and was nearly of the same age as Priam the king, whom he had just seen so cruelly slain. He thought of his wife too, whom he had left at home, and of his little son Ascanius, and he began now to be overwhelmed with the apprehension, that the besiegers had found their way to his dwelling, and were, perhaps, at that very moment plundering and destroying it and perpetrating cruel deeds of violence and outrage upon his wife and family. He determined immediately to hasten home.

He looked around to see who of his companions remained with him.

There was not one. They had all gone and left him alone. Some had leaped down from the battlements and made their escape to other parts of the city. Some had fallen in the attempt to leap, and had perished in the flames that were burning among the buildings beneath them.

Others still had been reached by darts and arrows from below, and had tumbled headlong from their lofty height into the street beneath them.

The Greeks, too, had left that part of the city. When the destruction of the palace had been effected, there was no longer any motive to remain, and they had gone away, one band after another, with loud shouts of exultation and defiance, to seek new combats in other quarters of the city. aeneas listened to the sounds of their voices, as they gradually died away upon his ear. Thus, in one way and another, all had gone, and aeneas found himself alone.

aeneas contrived to find his way back safely to the street, and then stealthily choosing his way, and vigilantly watching against the dangers that surrounded him, he advanced cautiously among the ruins of the palace, in the direction toward his own home. He had not proceeded far before he saw a female figure lurking in the shadow of an altar near which he had to pa.s.s. It proved to be the princess Helen.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HELEN.]

Helen was a Grecian princess, formerly the wife of Menelaus, king of Sparta, but she had eloped from Greece some years before, with Paris, the son of Priam, king of Troy, and this elopement had been the whole cause of the Trojan war. In the first instance, Menelaus, accompanied by another Grecian chieftain, went to Troy and demanded that Helen should be given up again to her proper husband. Paris refused to surrender her. Menelaus then returned to Greece and organized a grand expedition to proceed to Troy and recapture the queen. This was the origin of the war. The people, therefore, looked upon Helen as the cause, whether innocent or guilty, of all their calamities.

When aeneas, therefore, who was, as may well be supposed, in no very amiable or gentle temper, as he hurried along away from the smoking ruins of the palace toward his home, saw Helen endeavoring to screen herself from the destruction which she had been the means of bringing upon all that he held dear, he was aroused to a phrensy of anger against her, and determined to avenge the wrongs of his country by her destruction. "I will kill her," said he to himself, as he rushed forward toward the spot where she was concealed. "There is no great glory it is true in wreaking vengeance on a woman, or in bringing her to the punishment which her crimes deserve. Still I will kill her, and I shall be commended for the deed. She shall not, after bringing ruin upon us, escape herself, and go back to Greece in safety and be a queen there again."

As aeneas said these words, rus.h.i.+ng forward at the same time, sword in hand, he was suddenly intercepted and brought to a stand by the apparition of his mother, the G.o.ddess Aphrodite, who all at once stood in the way before him. She stopped him, took him by the hand, urged him to restrain his useless anger, and calmed and quieted him with soothing words. "It is not Helen," said she, "that has caused the destruction of Troy. It is through the irresistible and irrevocable decrees of the G.o.ds that the city has fallen. It is useless for you to struggle against inevitable destiny, or to attempt to take vengeance on mere human means and instrumentalities. Think no more of Helen.

Think of your family. Your aged father, your helpless wife, your little son,--where are they? Even now while you are wasting time here in vain attempts to take vengeance on Helen for what the G.o.ds have done, all that are near and dear to you are surrounded by ferocious enemies thirsting for their blood. Fly to them and save them. I shall accompany you, though unseen, and will protect you and them from every impending danger."

As soon as Aphrodite had spoken these words she disappeared from view.

aeneas, following her injunctions, went directly toward his home; and he found as he pa.s.sed along the streets that the way was opened for him, by mysterious movements among the armed bands which were pa.s.sing in every direction about the city, in such a manner as to convince him that his mother was really accompanying him, and protecting his way by her supernatural powers.

When he reached home the first person whom he saw was Anchises his father. He told Anchises that all was lost, and that nothing now remained for them but to seek safety for themselves by flying to the mountains behind the city. But Anchises refused to go. "You who are young," said he, "and who have enough of life before you to be worth preserving, may fly. As for me I will not attempt to save the little remnant that remains to me, to be spent, if saved, in miserable exile.

If the powers of heaven had intended that I should have lived any longer, they would have spared my native city,--my only home. You may go yourselves, but leave me here to die."

In saying these words Anchises turned away in great despondency, firmly fixed, apparently, in his determination to remain and share the fate of the city. aeneas and Creusa his wife joined their entreaties in urging him to go away. But he would not be persuaded. aeneas then declared that he would not go and leave his father. If one was to die they would all die, he said, together. He called for his armor and began to put it on, resolving to go out again into the streets of the city and die, since he must die, in the act of destroying his destroyers.

He was, however, prevented from carrying this determination into effect, by Creusa's intervention, who fell down before him at the threshold of the door, almost frantic with excitement and terror, and holding her little son Ascanius with one arm, and clasping her husband's knees with the other, she begged him not to leave them.

"Stay and save us," said she; "do not go and throw your life away. Or, if you will go, take us with you that we may all die together."

The conflict of impulses and pa.s.sions in this unhappy family continued for some time longer, but it ended at last, in the yielding of Anchises to the wishes of the rest, and they all resolved to fly.

In the mean time, the noise and uproar in the streets of the city, were drawing nearer and nearer, and the light of the burning buildings breaking out continually at new points in the progress of the conflagration, indicated that no time was to be lost. aeneas hastily formed his plan. His father was too old and infirm to go himself through the city. aeneas determined therefore to carry him upon his shoulders. Little Ascanius was to walk along by his side. Creusa was to follow, keeping as close as possible to her husband lest she should lose him in the darkness of the night, or in the scenes of uproar and confusion through which they would have to pa.s.s on the way. The domestics of the family were to escape from the city by different routes, each choosing his own, in order to avoid attracting the attention of their enemies; and when once without the gates they were all to rendezvous again at a certain rising ground, not far from the city, which aeneas designated to them by means of an old deserted temple which marked the spot, and a venerable cypress which grew there.

This plan being formed the party immediately proceeded to put it in execution. aeneas spread a lion's skin over his shoulders to make the resting-place more easy for his father, or perhaps to lighten the pressure of the heavy burden upon his own limbs. Anchises took what were called the household G.o.ds, in his hands. These were sacred images which it was customary to keep, in those days, in every dwelling, as the symbol and embodiment of divine protection. To save these images, when every thing else was given up for lost, was always the object of the last desperate effort of the husband and father. aeneas in this case asked his father to take these images, as it would have been an impiety for him, having come fresh from scenes of battle and bloodshed, to have put his hand upon them, without previously performing some ceremony of purification. Ascanius took hold of his father's hand. Creusa followed behind. Thus arranged they sallied forth from the house into the streets--all dark and gloomy, except so far as they received a partial and inconstant light from the flames of the distant conflagrations, which glared in the sky, and flashed sometimes upon battlements and towers, and upon the tops of lofty dwellings.

aeneas pressed steadily on, though in a state continually of the highest excitement and apprehension. He kept stealthily along wherever he could find the deepest shadows, under walls, and through the most obscure and the narrowest streets. He was in constant fear lest some stray dart or arrow should strike Anchises or Creusa, or lest some band of Greeks should come suddenly upon them, in which case he knew well that they would all be cut down without mercy, for, loaded down as he was with his burden, he would be entirely unable to do any thing to defend either himself or them. The party, however, for a time seemed to escape all these dangers, but at length, just as they were approaching the gate of the city, and began to think that they were safe, they were suddenly alarmed by a loud uproar, and by a rush of men which came in toward them from some streets in that quarter of the city, and threatened to overwhelm them. Anchises was greatly alarmed.

He saw the gleaming weapons of the Greeks who were rus.h.i.+ng toward them, and he called out to aeneas to fly faster, or to turn off some other way, in order to escape the impending danger. aeneas was terrified by the shouts and uproar which he heard, and his mind was for a moment confused by the bewildering influences of the scene. He however hurried forward, running this way and that, wherever there seemed the best prospect of escape, and often embarra.s.sed and r.e.t.a.r.ded in his flight by the crowds of people who were moving confusedly in all directions. At length, however, he succeeded in finding egress from the city. He pressed on, without stopping to look behind him till he reached the appointed place of rendezvous on the hill, and then gently laying down his burden, he looked around for Creusa. She was nowhere to be seen.

aeneas was in utter consternation, at finding that his wife was gone.

He mourned and lamented this dreadful calamity with loud exclamations of grief and despair; then reflecting that it was a time for action and not for idle grief, he hastened to conceal his father and Ascanius in a dark and winding valley behind the hill, and leaving them there under the charge of his domestics, he hastened back to the city to see if Creusa could be found.

He armed himself completely before he went, being in his desperation determined to encounter every danger in his attempts to find and to recover his beloved wife. He went directly to the gate from which he had come out, and re-entering the city there, he began to retrace, as well as he could, the way that he had taken in coming out of the city--guiding himself as he went, by the light of the flames which rose up here and there from the burning buildings.

He went on in this way in a desperate state of agitation and distress, searching everywhere but seeing nothing of Creusa. At length he thought it possible that she had concluded, when she found herself separated from him, to go back to the house, as the safest place of refuge for her, and he determined, accordingly, to go and seek her there. This was his last hope, and most cruelly was it disappointed when he came to the place of his dwelling.

He found his house, when he arrived near the spot, all in flames. The surrounding buildings were burning too, and the streets in the neighborhood were piled up with furniture and goods which the wretched inmates of the dwellings had vainly endeavored to save. These inmates themselves were standing around, distracted with grief and terror, and gazing hopelessly upon the scene of devastation before them.

aeneas saw all these things at a glance, and immediately, in a phrensy of excitement, began to call out Creusa's name. He went to and fro among the groups surrounding the fire, calling for her in a frantic manner, and imploring all whom he saw to give him some tidings of her.

All was, however, in vain. She could not be found. aeneas then went roaming about through other portions of the city, seeking her everywhere, and inquiring for her of every person whom he met that had the appearance of being a friend. His suspense, however, was terminated at last by his suddenly coming upon an apparition of the spirit of Creusa, which rose before him in a solitary part of the city, and arrested his progress. The apparition was of preternatural size, and it stood before him in so ethereal and shadow-like a form, and the features beamed upon him with so calm and placid and benignant an expression, as convinced him that the vision was not of this world. aeneas saw at a glance that Creusa's earthly sorrows and sufferings were ended forever.

At first he was shocked and terrified at the spectacle. Creusa, however, endeavored to calm and quiet him by soothing words. "My dearest husband," said she, "do not give way thus to anxiety and grief. The events which have befallen us, have not come by chance.

They are all ordered by an overruling providence that is omnipotent and divine. It was predetermined by the decrees of heaven that you were not to take me with you in your flight. I have learned what your future destiny is to be. There is a long period of weary wandering before you, over the ocean and on the land, and you will have many difficulties, dangers, and trials to incur. You will, however, be conducted safely through them all, and will in the end find a peaceful and happy home on the banks of the Tiber. There you will found a new kingdom; a princess is even now provided for you there, to become your bride. Cease then to mourn for me; rather rejoice that I did not fall a captive into the hands of our enemies, to be carried away into Greece and made a slave. I am free, and you must not lament my fate.

Farewell. Love Ascanius for my sake, and watch over him and protect him as long as you live."

Having spoken these words, the vision began to disappear. aeneas endeavored to clasp the beloved image in his arms to retain it, but it was intangible and evanescent, and, before he could speak to it, it was gone, and he was left standing in the desolate and gloomy street alone. He turned at length slowly away; and solitary, thoughtful and sad, he went back to the gate of the city, and thence out to the valley where he had concealed Anchises and his little son.

He found them safe. The whole party then sought places of retreat among the glens and mountains, where they could remain concealed a few days, while aeneas and his companions could make arrangements for abandoning the country altogether. These arrangements were soon completed. As soon as the Greeks had retired, so that they could come out without danger from their place of retreat, aeneas employed his men in building a number of small vessels, fitting them, as was usual in those days, both with sails and oars.

During the progress of these preparations, small parties of Trojans were coming in continually, day by day, to join him; being drawn successively from their hiding-places among the mountains, by hearing that the Greeks had gone away, and that aeneas was gradually a.s.sembling the remnant of the Trojans on the sh.o.r.e. The numbers thus collected at aeneas's encampment gradually increased, and as aeneas enlarged and extended his naval preparations to correspond with the augmenting numbers of his adherents, he found when he was ready to set sail, that he was at the head of a very respectable naval and military force.

When the fleet at last was ready, he put a stock of provisions on board, and embarked his men,--taking, of course, Anchises and Ascanius with him. As soon as a favorable wind arose, the expedition set sail.

As the vessels moved slowly away, the decks were covered with men and women, who gazed mournfully at the receding sh.o.r.es, conscious that they were bidding a final farewell to their native land.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WANDERINGS OF aeNEAS.]

The nearest country within reach in leaving the Trojan coast, was Thrace--a country lying north of the Egean Sea, and of the Propontis, being separated, in fact, in one part, from the Trojan territories, only by the h.e.l.lespont. aeneas turned his course northward toward this country, and, after a short voyage, landed there, and attempted to make a settlement. He was, however, prevented from remaining long, by a dreadful prodigy which he witnessed there, and which induced him to leave those sh.o.r.es very precipitously. The prodigy was this:

They had erected an altar on the sh.o.r.e, after they had landed, and were preparing to offer the sacrifices customary on such occasions, when aeneas, wis.h.i.+ng to shade the altar with boughs, went to a myrtle bush which was growing near, and began to pull up the green shoots from the ground. To his astonishment and horror, he found that blood flowed from the roots whenever they were broken. Drops of what appeared to be human blood would ooze from the ruptured part as he held the shoot in his hand, and fall slowly to the ground. He was greatly terrified at this spectacle, considering it as some omen of very dreadful import. He immediately and instinctively offered up a prayer to the presiding deities of the land, that they would avert from him the evil influences, whatever they might be, which the omen seemed to portend, or that they would at least explain the meaning of the prodigy. After offering this prayer, he took hold of another stem of the myrtle, and attempted to draw it from the ground, in order to see whether any change in the appearances exhibited by the prodigy had been effected by his prayer. At the instant, however, when the roots began to give way, he heard a groan coming up from the ground below, as if from a person in suffering. Immediately afterward a voice, in a mournful and sepulchral accent, began to beg him to go away, and cease disturbing the repose of the dead. "What you are tearing and lacerating," said the voice, "is not a tree, but a man. I am Polydorus. I was killed by the king of Thrace, and instead of burial, have been turned into a myrtle growing on the sh.o.r.e."

Polydorus was a Trojan prince. He was the youngest son of Priam, and had been sent some years before to Thrace, to be brought up in the court of the Thracian king. He had been provided with a large supply of money and treasure when he left Troy, in order that all his wants might be abundantly supplied, and that he might maintain, during his absence from home, the position to which his rank as a Trojan prince ent.i.tled him. His treasures, however, which had been provided for him by his father as his sure reliance for support and protection, became the occasion of his ruin--for the Thracian king, when he found that the war was going against the Trojans, and that Priam the father was slain, and the city destroyed, murdered the helpless son to get possession of his gold.