（*Ai)nei/as). Homeric Story. Aeneas was the son of Anchises
and Aphrodite, and born on mount Ida. On his father's side
he was a great-grandson of Tros, and thus nearly related to
the royal house of Troy, as Priam himself was a grandson of
Tros. (Hom. Il. 20.215, &c., 2.820, 5.247, &c.; Hes. Th.
1007, &c.) He was educated from his infancy at Dardanus, in
the house of Alcathous, the husband of his sister. (Il.
13.463, &c.) At the beginning of the war of the Greeks
against Troy he did not take any part in it, and the poet
intimates that there existed an ill feeling between him and
Priam, who did not pay sufficient honour to Aeneas. (Il.
13.460, &c., 20.181.) This probably arose from a decree of
destiny, according to which Aeneas and his descendants were
to rule over Troy, since the house of Priam had drawn upon
itself the hatred of Cronion. (Il. 20.307.) One day when
Aeneas was tending his flocks on mount Ida, he was attacked
by Achilles, who took his cattle and put him to flight. But
he was rescued by the gods. This event, however, and the
admonition of Apollo, roused his spirit, and he led his
Dardanians against the Greeks. （Il. 20.89, &c., 190, &c.,
2.819, &c.) Henceforth he and Hector are the great bulwarks
of the Trojans against the Greeks, and Aeneas appears
beloved and honoured by gods and men. (Il. 11.58, 16.619,
5.180, 467, 6.77, &c.) He is among the Trojans what Achilles
is among the Greeks. Both are sons of immortal mothers, both
are at feud with the kings, and both possess horses of
divine origin. (Il. 5.265, &c.) Achilles himself, to whom
Hector owns his inferiority, thinks Aeneas a worthy
competitor. (Il. 20.175.) The place which Aeneas occupies
among the Trojans is well expressed in Philostratus (Her.
13), who says that the Greeks called Hector the hand, and
Aeneas the soul of the Trojans. Respecting the brave and
noble manner in which he protects the body of his friend
Pandarus, see Il. 5.299. On one occasion he was engaged in a
contest with Diomedes, who hurled a mighty stone at him and
broke his hip. Aeneas fell to the ground, and Aphrodite
hastened to his assistance (Il. 5.305), and when she too was
wounded, Apollo carried him from the field of battle to his
temple, where he was cured by Leto and Artemis. (Il. 5.345,
&c.) In the attack of the Trojans upon the wall of the
Greeks, Aeneas commanded the fourth host of the Trojans.
(Il. 12.98.) He avenged the death of Alcathous by slaying
Oenomaus and Aphareus, and hastened to the assistance of
Hector, who was thrown on the ground by Ajax. The last feat
Homer mentions is his fight with Achilles. On this as on all
other occasions, a god interposed and saved him, and this
time it was by Poseidon, who although in general hostile
towards the Trojans, yet rescued Aeneas, that the decrees of
destiny might be fulfilled, and Aeneas and his offspring
night one day rule over Troy. (Il. 20.178, &c., 305, &c.)
Thus far only is the story of Aeneas to be gathered from the
Homeric poems, and far from alluding to Aeneas having
emigrated after the capture of Troy, and having founded a
new kingdom in a foreign land, the poet distinctly intimates
that he conceives Aeneas and his descendants as reigning at
Troy after the extinction of the house of Priam. (Comp.
Strab. xiii. p.608.)
Later Stories. According to the Homeric hymn on Aphrodite
(257, &c.), Aeneas was brought up by the nymphs of mount
Ida, and was not taken to his father Anchises, until he had
reached his fifth year, and then he was, according to the
wish of the goddess, given out as the son of a nymph.
Xenophon (De Venat. 1.15) says, that he was instructed by
Cheiron, the usual teacher of the heroes. According to the "
Cypria," he even took part in carrying off Helen. His
bravery in the war against the Greeks is mentioned in the
later traditions as well as in the earlier ones. (Hyg. Fab.
115; Philostr. l.c.) According to some accounts Aeneas was
not present when Troy was taken, as he had been sent by
Priam on an expedition to Phrygia, while according to others
he was requested by Aphrodite, just before the fall of the
city, to leave it, and accordingly went to mount Ida,
carrying his father on his shoulders. (Dionys. A. R. 1.48.)
A third account makes him hold out at Troy to the last, and
when all hopes disappeared, Aeneas with his Dardanians and
the warriors of Ophrynium withdrew to the citadel of
Pergamus, where the most costly treasures of the Trojans
were kept. Here he repelled the enemy and received the
fugitive Trojans, until he could hold out no longer. He then
sent the people ahead to mount Ida, and followed them with
his warriors, the images of the gods, his father, his wife,
and his children, hoping that he would be able to maintain
himself on the heights of mount Ida. But being threatened
with an attack by the Greeks, he entered into negotiations
with them, in consequence of which he surrendered his
position and was allowed to depart in safety with his
friends and treasures. (Dionys. A. R. 1.46, &c.; Aelian,
Ael. VH 3.22; Hyg. Fab. 254.) Others again related that he
was led by his hatred of Paris to betray Ilion to the
Greeks, and was allowed to depart free and safe in
consequence. (Dionys. l.c.) Livy (1.1) states, that Aeneas
and Antenor were the only Trojans against whom the Greeks
did not make use of their right of conquest, on account of
an ancient connexion of hospitality existing between them,
or because Aeneas had always advised his countrymen to
restore Helen to Menelaus. (Comp. Strab. l.c.）
The farther part of the story of Aeneas, after leaving mount
Ida with his friends and the images of the gods, especially
that of Pallas (Palladium, Paus. 2.23.5) presents as many
variations as that relating to the taking of Troy. All
accounts, however, agree in stating that he left the coasts
of Asia and crossed over into Europe. According to some he
went across the Hellespont to the peninsula of Pallene and
died there; according to others he proceeded front Thrace to
the Arcadian Orchomenos and settled there. (Strab. l.c.;
Paus. 8.12.5; Dionys. A. R. 1.49.) By far the greater number
of later writers, however, anxious to put him in connexion
with the history of Latium and to make him the ancestorial
hero of the Romans, state that he went to Italy, though some
assert that the Aeneas who came to Italy was not the son of
Anchises and Aphrodite, and others that after his arrival in
Italy he returned to Troy, leaving his son Ascanius behind
him. (Lycophr. 1226, &c.; Dionys. A. R. 1.53; Liv. 1.1.) A
description of the wanderings of Aeneas before he reached
the coast of Latium, and of the various towns and temples he
was believed to have founded during his wanderings, is given
by Dionysius (1.50, &c.), whose account is on the whole the
same as that followed by Virgil in his Aeneid, although the
latter makes various embellishments and additions, some of
which, as his landing at Carthage and meeting with Dido, are
irreconcilable with chronology. From Pallene (Thrace), where
Aeneas stayed the winter after the taking of Troy, and
founded the town of Aeneia on the Thermaic gulf (Liv. 40.4),
he sailed with his companions to Delos, Cythera (where he
founded a temple of Aphrodite), Boiae in Laconia (where be
built Etis and Aphrodisias, Paus. 3.22.9), Zacynthus (temple
of Aphrodite), Leucas, Actiam, Ambracia, and to Dodona,
where he met the Trojan Helenus. From Epirus he sailed
across the Ionian sea to Italy, where he landed at the
Iapygian promontory. Hence he crossed over to Sicily, where
he met the Trojans, Elymus and Aegestus (Acestes), and built
the towns of Elyme and Aegesta. From Sicily he sailed back
to Italy, landed in the port of Palinurus, came to the
island of Leucasia, and at last to the coast of Latium.
Various signs pointed out this place as the end of his
wanderings, and he and his Trojans accordingly settled in
Latium. The place where they had landed was called Troy.
Latinus, king of the Aborigines, when informed of the
arrival of the strangers, prepared for war, but afterwards
concluded an alliance with them, gave up to them a part of
his dominions, and with their assistance conquered the
Rutulians, with whom he was then at war. Aeneas founded the
town of Lavinium, called after Lavinia, the daughter of
Latinus, whom he married. A new war then followed between
Latinus and Turnus, in which both chiefs fell, whereupon
Aeneas became sole ruler of the Aborigines and Trojans, and
both nations united into one. Soon after this, however,
Aeneas fell in a battle with the Rutulians, who were
assisted by Mezentius, king of the Etruscans. As his body
was not found after the battle, it was believed that it had
been carried up to heaven, or that he had perished in the
river Numicius. The Latins erected a monument to him, with
the inscription To the father and native god. (Jovi
Indigeti, Liv. 1.2; Dionys. A. R. 1.64; Strab. v. p.229,
xiii. p. 595; Ov. Met. 13.623, &c., 14.75, &c., 15.438, &c.;
Conon, Narrat. 46; Plut. Rom. 3.) Two other accounts
somewhat different from those mentioned above are preserved
in Servius (Serv. ad Aen. 9.264, from the work of Abas on
Troy), and in Tzetzes (ad Lycophr. 1252). Dionysius places
the landing of Aeneas in Italy and the building of Lavinium
about the end of the second year after the taking of Troy,
and the death of Aeneas in the seventh year. Virgil on the
other hand represents Aeneas landing in Italy seven years
after the fall of Troy, and comprises all the events in
Italy from the landing to the death of Turnus within the
space of twenty days.
The story about the descent of the Romans from the Trojans
through Aeneas was generally received and believed at Rome
at an early period, and probably arose from the fact, that
the inhabitants of Latium and all the places which Aeneas
was said to have founded, lay in countries inhabited by
people who were all of the same stock--Pelasgians: hence
also the worship of the Idaean Aphrodite in all places the
foundation of which is ascribed to Aeneas. Aeneas himself,
therefore, such as he appears in his wanderings and final
settlement in Latium, is nothing else but the personified
idea of one common origin. In this character he was
worshipped in the various places which traced their origin
to him. (Liv. 40.4.) Aeneas was frequently represented in
statues and paintings by ancient artists. (Paus. 2.21.2,
5.22.2; Plin. Nat. 35.10.36.) On gems and coins he is
usually represented as carrying his father on his shoulder,
and leading his son Ascanius by the hand.
Respecting the inconsistencies in the legends about Aeneas
and the mode of solving them, see Niebuhr, Hist. of Rome, i.
p. 179, &c. Respecting the colonies he is said to have
founded, Fiedler, De Erroribus Aeneae ad Phoenicum colonias
pertinentibus, Wesel, 1827, 4to. About the worship and
religious character of Aeneas, see Uschold, Geschichte des
Trojanischen Krieges, Stuttgard, 1836, p. 302, &c.; Hartung,
Gescichte der Relig. der Römer, i. p. 83, &c.; and above all
R. H. Klausen, Aencas und die Penaten, especially book i. p.
34, &c. - A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and
mythology, William Smith, Ed.
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