I know not
that any of the commentators have taken notice of that passage. If
they have not, I am sure they ought; and if they have, I am not
indebted to them for the observation. The words of Virgil are very
plain:-
"Sacra suosque tibi commendat Troja Penates."
As for Augustus or his uncle Julius claiming by descent from AEneas,
that title is already out of doors. AEneas succeeded not, but was
elected. Troy was fore-doomed to fall for ever:-
"Postquam res Asiae, Priamique evertere gentem,
Immeritam visum superis."--AENEIS, I. iii., line 1.
Augustus, it is true, had once resolved to rebuild that city, and
there to make the seat of the Empire; but Horace writes an ode on
purpose to deter him from that thought, declaring the place to be
accursed, and that the gods would as often destroy it as it should
be raised. Hereupon the emperor laid aside a project so ungrateful
to the Roman people. But by this, my lord, we may conclude that he
had still his pedigree in his head, and had an itch of being thought
a divine king if his poets had not given him better counsel.
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