Aeneas and the Trojans anchor at long last in Italy at the mouth of the Tiber, in the realm of King Latinus. The King is old and has no male heirs: his succession depends on his daughter, Lavinia. His Queen, Amata, favours a marriage with Turnus, King of the neighbouring Rutuli, but Latinus has doubts because, as we have already seen, omens have been contrary, with Lavinia’s hair set alight in an eerie accident which a seer has interpreted as foretelling that Lavinia will wed and found a famous race, but with a foreign, not an Italian, bridegroom.
Meanwhile an oracle is fulfilled which leads Aeneas to prepare to found his new city. The Harpy Celaeno (not Aeneas’s father, Anchises, as Virgil says here) has foretold that the Trojans will be reduced by hunger to gnawing their tables. The Trojans have just ended a meal by eating the wheaten platters it has been served on.
You can see the Harpy’s prophecy here, and the illustrated blog post here.
To follow the story of Aeneas in sequence, use this link to the full Pantheon Poets selection of extracts from the Aeneid. See the next episode here.
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