This was the moral of his divine poem; honest in the
poet, honourable to the emperor (whom he derives from a divine
extraction), and reflecting part of that honour on the Roman people
(whom he derives also from the Trojans), and not only profitable,
but necessary, to the present age, and likely to be such to their
posterity. That it was the received opinion that the Romans were
descended from the Trojans, and Julius Caesar from Iulus, the son of
AEneas, was enough for Virgil, though perhaps he thought not so
himself, or that AEneas ever was in Italy, which Bochartus
manifestly proves. And Homer (where he says that Jupiter hated the
house of Priam, and was resolved to transfer the kingdom to the
family of AEneas) yet mentions nothing of his leading a colony into
a foreign country and settling there. But that the Romans valued
themselves on their Trojan ancestry is so undoubted a truth that I
need not prove it. Even the seals which we have remaining of Julius
Caesar (which we know to be antique) have the star of Venus over
them--though they were all graven after his death--as a note that he
was deified.
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