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[53] The Scepsian (Demetrius) supposes that Scepsis was the palace of Aeneas, situated between the dominion of Aeneas and Lyrnessus, where, it is said, he took refuge when pursued by Achilles.
Remember you not, says Achilles,
how I chased you when alone and apart from the herds, with swift steps, from the heights of Ida, thence indeed you escaped to Lyrnessus; but I took and destroyed it.
1
Present traditions respecting Aeneas do not agree with the story respecting the first founders of Scepsis. For it is said that he was spared on account of his hatred to Priam:
he ever bore hatred to Priam, for never had Priam bestowed any honour upon him for his valour.
2
His companion chiefs, the Antenoridae, and Antenor, and myself, escaped on account of the hospitality which the latter had shown to Menelaus.Sophocles, in his play, The Capture of Troy, says, that a panther’s skin was placed before Antenor’s door as a signal that his house should be spared from plunder. Antenor and his four sons, together with the surviving Heneti, are said to have escaped into Thrace, and thence into Henetica on the Adriatic;
3
but Aeneas, with his father Anchises and his son Ascanius, are said to have collected a large body of people, and to have set sail. Some writers say that he settled about the Macedonian Olympus; according toothers he founded Capuae,
4
near Mantineia in Arcadia, and that he took the name of the city from Capys. There is another account, that he disembarked at Aegesta
5
in Sicily, with Elymus, a Trojan, and took possession of Eryx
6
and Lilybaeus,
7
and called the rivers about Aegesta Scamander and Simoïs; that from Sicily he went to Latium, and settled there in obedience to an oracle enjoining him to remain wherever he should eat his table. This happened in Latium, near Lavinium, when a large cake of bread which was set down instead of, and for want of, a table, was eaten together with the meat that was laid upon it.
Homer does not agree either with these writers or with what is said respecting the founders of Scepsis. For he represents Aeneas as remaining at Troy, succeeding to the kingdom, and delivering the succession to his children’s children after the extinction of the race of Priam:
the son of Saturn hated the family of Priam: henceforward Aeneas shall reign over the Trojans, and his children’s children to late generations.
8
In this manner not even the succession of Scamandrius could be maintained. He disagrees still more with those writers who speak of his wanderings as far as Italy, and make him end his days in that country. Some write the verse thus:
The race of Aeneas and his children’s children, meaning the Romans, shall rule over all nations.”
Geography. Strabo. Hans Claude Hamilton (Translator), William Falconer (Translator). London. 1854-1857.
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