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The legend of Aeneas grew up in the fifth century b.c. among Greeks. In the fourth it was adopted at Rome, and developed. Then it remained static for a century, until the Julii further developed it in the interest of family policy.
This is roughly the result to which the criticism of the Italian foundation legends has led. No single early and original form of them can be defined. They are confused and self-contradictory. Archaeology gives little if any direct confirmation of them, as they stand. Before the end of the nineteenth century few believed that they represented any historical reality. They were supposed to be a poetic invention, by which Greeks in the west sought to adorn the history of their new homes by connecting it with the poetry of their old. At the end of the century a kind of principle could be stated: that peoples naturally tend to claim false origins in lands far from their historical home. Even now pre-historians of Italy can almost disregard the possibility that the legends may have truth in them; for much of the early archaeological evidence is coherent without assuming infiltrations by sea.
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References
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