On the right track at last, the Trojans again set forth toward Italy, but soon they were driven off course by a storm that forced them to take refuge on one of the Strophadës, a group of islands in the Ionian Sea. Here, Harpies, vicious bird-women, assailed them. The Trojans defended themselves as best they could, and Celaeno, the Harpies's leader, prophesied that after the Trojans reached Italy, famine would drive them to eat their tables as a punishment for their violence against her race.
The Trojans fled from the island and sailed north along the western coast of Greece to Actium, where they spent several months and held athletic contests. From here, they journeyed to Buthrotum, where they were welcomed warmly by the prophet Helenus, a son of Priam, and his wife, Andromachë, the widow of Hector, for whom she still grieved. Helenus warned Aeneas that many trials would still have to be overcome before the voyagers reached Italy, where Aeneas's discovery of a white sow with a litter of thirty young would indicate the site upon which he was to found his city. Telling Aeneas how best to avoid danger while at sea, including the monster Scylla and the whirlpool Charybdis, Helenus also advised him to consult the sibyl of Cumae and to appease Juno's hatred by remembering to offer sacrifices to her.
Andromachë recounted how she and Helenus came to rule together, and provided Aeneas with the information that Pyrrhus, who killed Priam and his son Politës in Book II, was killed by Orestes. Ironically, Pyrrhus's death occurred "before his father's altar," a fitting site for his demise when we remember how cruelly he treated Priam by slaying Politës in front of the Trojan king.
