Trojan prince, son of the goddess Venus, who escaped the fall of Troy and, in Virgil's Aeneid, journeyed to Italy to found the line that would lead to Rome.
Aeneas appears already in Homer's Iliad as a capable Trojan fighter protected by his divine mother Venus (Aphrodite), but his defining story is Virgil's Aeneid, composed centuries later to give Rome a mythic founding narrative that ties it to Troy. As the city falls to the Greeks, Aeneas carries his elderly father Anchises on his back and leads his son Ascanius by the hand out of the flames, losing his wife Creusa in the chaos.
Carthage and the Underworld
Driven off course by the goddess Juno, who favors Carthage and knows it is fated to fall to Aeneas's descendants, his fleet lands at Carthage, where Queen Dido falls in love with him. Aeneas eventually abandons her on the gods' orders to continue toward Italy, and Dido's suicide and curse on his line are read as a mythic origin for Rome's later wars with Carthage. In Italy, Aeneas descends to the underworld to consult his father's spirit, who shows him a vision of Rome's future glory.
War in Latium
Aeneas's arrival in Italy provokes war with Turnus, leader of the native Rutulians, who is also betrothed to Lavinia, the local king's daughter now promised to Aeneas by prophecy. The Aeneid ends with Aeneas killing Turnus in single combat, securing his people's place in Italy and setting up the later founding of Rome by his descendants Romulus and Remus.
Venus (Greek Aphrodite) is his mother; this parentage already appears in Homer's Iliad, centuries before Virgil's Aeneid.
Key Deeds
•Carried his father Anchises out of burning Troy
•Was loved and then abandoned Queen Dido of Carthage
•Descended to the underworld to see Anchises and Rome's future
•Killed Turnus in single combat to win Italy for his people
Fate
Later Roman tradition (Ovid, Livy) holds that Aeneas vanished after a final battle and was deified as Jupiter Indiges, becoming an ancestor-god of the Roman people.
Primary Sources
Historical texts and references
“Arms and the man I sing, who first from the shores of Troy, exiled by fate, came to Italy and the Lavinian shores.”
“It is said that Aeneas, after this last battle, was nowhere to be found, and the Latins raised a shrine to him as Jupiter Indiges.”
