Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/197

 CHAP. V. THE LEGEND OP -<ENEAS. 191 holy man, the divine founder, whose mission is to save the Penates of the cit}-. " Sum pius iEncas, raptos qui ex lioste Penates Classe veho niecum." His dominant quality ought to be piety, and the epithet which the poet oftenest applies to him is that which becomes him best. His virtue ought to be a cold and lofty imjjersonality, making of him, not amau, but an instrument of the gods. Why should we look for passion in him? He has no right to the passions; or, at any rate, he should confine them in the depths of his heart. " Multa gemens multoque animum labefactus amore, Jussa tamen Divum insequitur." Already, in Homer, JEneas was a holy personage, a high priest, whom the people venerated as a god, and whom Jupiter preferred to Hector. In Virgil he is the guardian and savior of the Trojan gods. During the night that completed the ruin of the city. Hector appeared to him in a dream, and said to him, " Troy confides its gods to thee; search out a new city for them." At the same time he committed to him the sacred things, the protecting statues, and the sacred fire that was never to be extinguished. This dream is not simply an ornament placed there by the fancy of the poet. It is, on the contrary, the foundation on which the entire jDoem rests ; for it is through this thatuEneas becomes the depositary of the city gods, and that his holy mission is levealed to him. The urbs of the Trojans, the material part of Troy, has perished, but not the Trojan civitas ; thanks to-^neas, the sacred fire is not extinguished, and the gods have still a worship. The city and the gods are with