Thus speaks King Evander–ruler of the small city where Rome will later rise– when he receives Aeneas as a guest during his people’s annual festival. Religious rites of sacrifice are followed by a magnificent feast, all in honor of this people’s deliverance from a death-dealing monster that was half beast and half man. Evander wants Aeneas to understand: this is not empty-headed superstition.
Here is a remarkable expression of one pagan culture’s cult and creed. We are a people who have been saved. In these rites, we remember that we have been saved, and who has saved us. To live in such memory is to live out our identity. It is to be renewed, year in and year out.
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