gold about their necks; and each carried two spears of cornel-wood, tipped with steel.  The young equestrians were divided into three companies; one was commanded by Ascanius himself, mounted on a beautiful Sidonian steed which had been given him by Queen Dido; a second by the youthful Priam, a son of that Polites whom Pyrrhus slew at the fall of Troy; and the third by Atys, a boy who was Ascanius’ especial friend and companion.  They went through a series of evolutions, now advancing in line, again forming in different bands and pretending to charge one another, and afterwards going through many other intricate manoeuvres.  The scene was a most picturesque one, and gave great pleasure to those who witnessed it.

AENEAS’S VISIT TO THE LOWER WORLD

By Charles Henry Hanson

Continuing his voyage, AEneas reached the shore of the country afterwards named Campania, the modern province of Naples.  Here the ships were carefully moored, and the crews disembarked.  Some busied themselves in kindling fires and preparing a meal; others explored the country in search of game.  AEneas, however, hastened at once to seek the temple of Apollo and the adjoining cave of the Cumaean Sibyl,—­the most famous of all the oracles of antiquity.  The temple and cave were situated in a thick wood, closely adjoining the gloomy lake of Avernus, a black pool of unknown depth, hedged in by precipitous cliffs, and emitting gases so poisonous that no bird was able to fly over it in safety.  In the rocks at one side of the lake there yawned a sombre cavern, which was believed in those days to be the entrance to the kingdom of Pluto—­the abode of the dead.

AEneas was surveying the temple,—­an edifice of great splendor, adorned with pictures wrought in metal by the cunning hand of Daedalus,—­when Achates, whom he had sent before him to the Sibyl’s cave, approached, conducting the priestess.  “O prince,” she said, “this is not the time for admiring the works of men.  It will be more fitting for you to propitiate the god with sacrifices, so that he may inspire me.”  With this mandate the hero at once complied, and then the Sibyl summoned him and his followers to the entrance of her cave,—­a vast apartment carved out of the living rock, whence issued a hundred corridors.  Scarcely had the Trojans approached the threshold when the virgin exclaimed, “Now is the time to consult your fate!  The god! lo, the god!” As she cried out thus her looks suddenly changed, her color came and went, her hair fell in disorder over her shoulders, her bosom heaved, and she was shaken by an uncontrollable passion.  Her very form seemed to dilate, and the tone of her voice was no longer that of a mere mortal, since she was inspired by the influence of the god.  “Trojan AEneas!” she exclaimed, “delay no longer to offer thy prayers for the knowledge which thou seekest; for not till then can I reveal to thee the secrets of the future.”