The Trojans having become embroiled with the inhabitants of Latium, and a confederacy having been made against them, it was natural that Virgil should wish to provide Aeneas with Italian allies. The legend of Evander offered itself opporhmely to meet the want. He was supposed to have settled in Italy about sixty years before the Trojan war, so that it was possible that his old age should have coincided with the arrival of Aeneas: while the traditional character of the Arcadian prince, the mythical introducer of a foreign civilization, pointed him out as the friend rather than the enemy of the pious hero of Troy. It was reasonable too that Aeneas should be sent to visit Evander in his own home, that home being on the spot which was afterwards to be made illustrious by the foundation of the Eternal City. The narrative of Hercules and Cacus and the description of Roman topography follow as a matter of course. In giving Evander a son, Pallas, Virgil appears to have followed one of the versions of the legend (see Servius' note on v. 51 of this Book), at the same time that he retains the name of the elder Pallas, the founder of the Arcadian Pallantium and the eponym of the town on the Palatine. The thought of makiDg Pallas accompany Aeneas may have been suggested by Apollonius, who makes Lycus send his son Dascylus along with Jason: Ovid however, in telling the story of Evander in the First Book of the Fasti, connects Pallas with Aeneas, so that there may have been some legendary authority for the association.