We labor to build a fleet—hard by Antandros, under the heights of Phrygian Ida—knowing nothing. Where would destiny take us? Where are we to settle? We muster men for crews. Summer has just begun when father commands us: ‘Hoist our sails to Fate!’ And I launch out in tears and desert our native land, the old safe haven, the plains where Troy once stood. So I take to the open sea, an exile outward bound with son and comrades, gods of hearth and home and the great gods themselves. “Just in the offing lies the land of Mars, the boundless farmlands tilled by the Thracian fieldhands, ruled in the old days by merciless Lycurgus. His realm was a friend of Troy for years, our household gods in league so long as our fortunes lasted. Well, here I sail and begin to build our first walls on the curving shore, though Fate will block our way—and I give the town the name of Aenus modeled on my own. “Now, making offerings to my mother, Dione’s daughter, and to the gods who bless new ventures, I was poised, there on the beach, to slaughter a pure white bull to Jove above all who rules the Powers on high.
