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[53] Demetrius thinks that Scepsis was also the royal residence of Aeneias, since it lies midway between the territory subject to Aeneias and Lyrnessus, to which latter he fled, according to Homer’s statement, when he was being pursued by Achilles. At any rate, Achilles says:
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However, the oft-repeated stories of Aeneias are not in agreement with the account which I have just given of the founders of Scepsis. For according to these stories he survived the war because of his enmity to Priam:
2
and his fellow-rulers, the sons of Antenor and Antenor himself, survived because of the hospitality shown Menelaüs at Antenor’s house. At any rate, Sophocles
3
says that at the capture of Troy a leopard’s skin was put before the doors of Antenor as a sign that his house was to be left unpillaged; and Antenor and his children safely escaped to Thrace with the survivors of the Heneti, and from there got across to the Adriatic Henetice,
4
as it is called, whereas Aeneias collected a host of followers and set sail with his father Anchises and his son Ascanius; and some say that he took up his abode near the Macedonian Olympus, others that he founded Capyae near Mantineia in Arcadia, deriving the name he gave the settlement from Capys, and others say that he landed at Aegesta in Sicily with Elymus the Trojan and took possession of Eryx and Lilybaeum, and gave the names Scamander and Simoeis to rivers near Aegesta, and that thence he went into the Latin country and made it his abode, in accordance with an oracle which bade him abide where he should eat up his table, and that this took place in the Latin country in the neighborhood of Lavinium, where a large loaf of bread was put down for a table, for want of a better table, and eaten up along with the meats upon it. Homer, however, appears not to be in agreement with either of the two stories, nor yet with the above account of the founders of Scepsis; for he clearly indicates that Aeneias remained in Troy and succeeded to the empire and bequeathed the succession thereto to his sons’ sons, the family of the Priamidae having been wiped out:
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And in this case one cannot even save from rejection the succession of Scamandrius.
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And Homer is in far greater disagreement with those who speak of Aeneias as having wandered even as far as Italy and make him die there. Some write,
meaning the Romans.
Dost thou not remember how from the kine, when thou wast all alone, I made thee run down the Idaean mountains with swift feet? And thence thou didst escape to Lyrnessus, but I rushed in pursuit of thee and sacked it.
For always he was wroth against goodly Priam, because, although he was brave amid warriors, Priam would not honor him at all;
For already the race of Priam was hated, by the son of Cronus; and now verily the mighty Aeneias will rule over the Trojans, and his sons’ sons that are hereafter to be born.
the family of Aeneias will rule over all,
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and his sons’ sons,
Geography. Strabo. Horace Leonard Jones (Translator). London. 1924-1929.
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