The Oracle Foretells the Coming of Aeneas

While Æneas is on his way from Cumæ to the mouth of Tiber we will take a brief glance at the state of things in Latium, and see what sort of reception is awaiting him there. The King of Latium at this time was Latinus, who drew his descent from Saturn, an ancient pastoral deity of Italy. His daughter, and only child, Lavinia, was betrothed to Turnus, and the match was strongly favored by Amata, queen and wife of Latinus, whose heart had been won by the princely form and high ancestry of the youthful suitor. But just before the arrival of the Trojans strange portents had occurred, which seemed to forbid the union of Lavinia and Turnus. In the central courtyard of the royal palace there was an ancient laurel-tree, found growing on the spot by Latinus when he began to build the city, which was named from this circumstance Laurentum. One morning the whole courtyard was besieged by a buzzing swarm of bees, which settled on the laurel, and hung in a dense cluster from its topmost bough. “A stranger is coming,” declared the seers, “from the same quarter whence flew the bees, and he shall hold sway in this royal citadel.” Another time, when Lavinia was taking part in the sacrifice which was offered at her betrothal, the flame caught her long hair, and in a moment she was wrapped from head to foot in a mysterious fire, which smoked and blazed and roared, but did her no harm. “O king,” proclaimed the seer again, “thy daughter is destined to high renown, but she shall bring on this people a wide-wasting war.” Alarmed by these portents Latinus went to consult the oracle of Faunus, his father, in the sacred grotto near the burning spring of Albunea, which is the Delphi of Latium. Wrapped in the skins of sheep which had been offered in sacrifice (for so the custom was) he lay all night at the mouth of the cavern. “In the dead vast and middle of the night” he heard a voice which said: “Seek not in Latium a bridegroom for thy daughter; from a distant land there cometh one who shall mingle his blood with thine, and out of that union a race shall arise before which all peoples of the earth shall bow the knee.” This answer of the oracle was soon noised abroad, and caused throughout Latium a fever of expectation at the moment when the ships of Æneas were first sighted off the coast.