One day, while Brutus was hunting in the forests, he accidentally killed his father with an arrow.  His father was at that time King of Alba—­a region of Italy near the spot on which Rome was subsequently built—­and the accident brought Brutus under such suspicions, and exposed him to such dangers, that he fled from the country.  After various wanderings he at last reached Greece, where he collected a number of Trojan followers, whom he found roaming about the country, and formed them into an army.  With this half-savage force he attacked a king of the country named Pandrasus.  Brutus was successful in the war, and Pandrasus was taken prisoner.  This compelled Pandrasus to sue for peace, and peace was concluded on the following very extraordinary terms: 

Pandrasus was to give Brutus his daughter Imogena for a wife, and a fleet of ships as her dowry.  Brutus, on the other hand, was to take his wife and all his followers on board of his fleet, and sail away and seek a home in some other quarter of the globe.  This plan of a monarch’s purchasing his own ransom and peace for his realm from a band of roaming robbers, by offering the leader of them his daughter for a wife, however strange to our ideas, was very characteristic of the times.  Imogena must have found it a hard alternative to choose between such a husband and such a father.

Brutus, with his fleet and his bride, betook themselves to sea, and within a short time landed on a deserted island, where they found the ruins of a city.  Here there was an ancient temple of Diana, and an image of the goddess, which image was endued with the power of uttering oracular responses to those who consulted it with proper ceremonies and forms.  Brutus consulted this oracle on the question in what land he should find a place of final settlement.  His address to it was in ancient verse, which some chronicler has turned into English rhyme as follows: 

  “Goddess of shades and huntress, who at will
  Walk’st on the rolling sphere, and through the deep,
  On thy third reign, the earth, look now and tell
  What land, what seat of rest thou bidd’st me seek?”

To which the oracle returned the following answer: 

  “Far to the west, in the ocean wide,
  Beyond the realm of Gaul a land there lies—­
  Sea-girt it lies—­where giants dwelt of old. 
  Now void, it fits thy people; thither bend
  Thy course; there shalt thou find a lasting home.”

It is scarcely necessary to say that this meant Britain.  Brutus, following the directions which the oracle had given him, set sail from the island, and proceeded to the westward through the Mediterranean Sea.  He arrived at the Pillars of Hercules.  This was the name by which the Rock of Gibraltar and the corresponding promontory on the opposite coast, across the straits, were called in those days; these cliffs having been built, according to ancient tales, by Hercules, as monuments set up to mark the extreme limits of his western wanderings.  Brutus passed through the strait, and then, turning northward, coasted along the shores of Spain.