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Troy was overthrown, and its destruction was everywhere sung and made
well known even to boys; for it was signally published and spread
abroad, both by its own greatness and by writers of excellent style.
And this was done in the reign of Latinus the son of Faunus, from
whom the kingdom began to be called Latium instead of Laurentum. The
victorious Greeks, on leaving Troy destroyed and returning to their
own countries, were torn and crushed by divers and horrible
calamities. Yet even from among them they increased the number of
their gods for they made Diomede a god. They allege that his return
home was prevented by a divinely imposed punishment, and they prove,
not by fabulous and poetic falsehood, but by historic attestation,
that his companions were turned into birds. Yet they think that, even
although he was made a god, he could neither restore them to the human
form by his own power, nor yet obtain it from Jupiter his king, as a
favor granted to a new inhabitant of heaven. They also say that his
temple is in the island of Diomedaea, not far from Mount Garganus in
Apulia, and that these birds fly round about this temple, and worship
in it with such wonderful obedience, that they fill their beaks with
water and sprinkle it; and if Greeks, or those born of the Greek
race, come there, they are not only still, but fly to meet them; but
if they are foreigners, they fly up at their heads, and wound them
with such severe strokes as even to kill them. For they are said to be
well enough armed for these combats with their hard and large beaks.
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