Another story is that Histion, the son of Japhet, the son of Noah,
had four sons, Francus, Romanus, Alemannus, and Britto, from whom
descended the French, Roman, German, and British people.

   Rejecting these and other like stories, Milton gives more regard
to the story of Brutus, the Trojan, which, he says, is supported
by "descents of ancestry long continued, laws and exploits not
plainly seeming to be borrowed or devised, which on the common
belief have wrought no small impression; defended by many, denied
utterly by few." The principal authority is Geoffrey of Monmouth,
whose history, written in the twelfth century, purports to be a
translation of a history of Britain brought over from the opposite
shore of France, which, under the name of Brittany, was chiefly
peopled by natives of Britain who, from time to time, emigrated
thither, driven from their own country by the inroads of the Picts
and Scots. According to this authority, Brutus was the son of
Silvius, and he of Ascanius, the son of Aeneas, whose flight from
Troy and settlement in Italy are narrated in "Stories of Gods and
Heroes."

   Brutus, at the age of fifteen, attending his father to the chase,
unfortunately killed him with an arrow. Banished therefor by his
kindred, he sought refuge in that part of Greece where Helenus,
with a band of Trojan exiles, had become established. But Helenus
was now dead and the descendants of the Trojans were oppressed by
Pandrasus, the king of the country. Brutus, being kindly received
among them, so throve in virtue and in arms as to win the regard
of all the eminent of the land above all others of his age. In
consequence of this the Trojans not only began to hope, but
secretly to persuade him to lead them the way to liberty. To
encourage them, they had the promise of help from Assaracus, a
noble Greek youth, whose mother was a Trojan. He had suffered
wrong at the hands of the king, and for that reason the more
willingly cast in his lost with the Trojan exiles.

   Choosing a fit opportunity, Brutus with his countrymen withdrew to
the woods and hills, as the safest place from which to
expostulate, and sent this message to Pandrasus: "That the
Trojans, holding it unworthy of their ancestors to serve in a
foreign land, had retreated to the woods, choosing rather a savage

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