Although the Romans mythologized their Trojan origins, they did not invent them. By the sixth century BCE, before Rome emerged as a major power, Greeks already identified peoples they encountered in Italy with descendants of Aeneas and other veterans of the Trojan War. As Roman power expanded, Greeks also made use of the link between Troy and Italy. Thus, for example, the Greek king Pyrrhus of Epirus in the third century BCE declared himself a descendant of Achilles and justified his invasion of Italy as Greek opposition to the "new Troy" at Rome.
It is possible that Aeneas was worshiped as a hero or god in Italy as early as the fourth century BCE. By this time he may already have been considered an ancestor of the Roman people in general. Thus Aeneas's remains were supposedly interred at a local shrine, and the half of him that was divine was worshiped by the Romans as Jupiter Indiges ("Jupiter the native").
Partly because of his status as a sort of non-Greek Greek, the figure of Aeneas helped Greeks and Romans to articulate their complex relationship. The Romans were greatly influenced by Greece, which they came to rule in the second century BCE. The link between Aeneas and Rome allowed the Roman rule of Greece to be seen as a kind of payback for the supposed destruction of Troy by the Greeks in the distant past.
Aeneas was a hero of ancient Greek and Roman mythology. A Trojan prince, he was the son of a mortal, Anchises, and the Greek goddess Aphrodite (the Roman Venus). Aeneas was the legendary ancestor of the Roman race.
Although Troy was in Asia Minor (part of modern Turkey), it was thoroughly Hellenized, or influenced by Greek culture, through extensive trade with Greek colonies in the area. Thus, although the mythical Trojans were thought of as non-Greek, they intermarried with Greeks, practiced Greek customs, spoke Greek, and worshiped Greek gods, even tracing their royal line to the chief Greek deity, Zeus. The Trojan Aeneas was reckoned to be the offspring of the Greek goddess Aphrodite. The main source of stories about Aeneas is now the Aeneid, by Roman poet Virgil (70—19 BCE), but there were numerous legends about the hero long before in the Greek world.
Aphrodite did not take Anchises as a lover by choice. The match was forced on her by Zeus (the Roman Jupiter) as a punishment: he blamed her for using her power as the goddess of love to make him mate with mortal women. Aphrodite was ashamed of her liaison. She forbade Anchises to speak of it, but she vowed that their son would be a great hero. After Aeneas was born, he was cared for by some nymphs, who raised him until he was old enough to become a warrior.
Aeneas came of age on the eve of the Trojan War. Ancient Greeks and Romans believed that this conflict took place in the distant past, and that the cultural and political map of their own world was a consequence of the clash between the Greek “west” and the Trojan “east.” According to this view, Aeneas, and other heroes, including Achilles and Odysseus, are transitional figures who stand at the brink of a monumental shift in human affairs. After the
Trojan War, no longer would semidivine heroes such as Aeneas and Achilles decide the fate of nations, nor would the world be populated by the monsters and witches encountered by Aeneas and Odysseus.
The Trojan War was generally represented as Greek retaliation for Trojan aggression. With the help of the goddess Aphrodite, Paris, son of the Trojan king Priam, sailed to Greece, abducted Helen, wife of the Spartan king Menelaus, and brought her back to Troy to be his own bride. Aeneas accompanied Paris on this voyage, although he seems not to have been told in advance that their mission was to steal another man’s wife. Menelaus was outraged, and with his brother Agamemnon, king of Mycenae, raised an army to invade Troy and rescue Helen. The Greeks sailed to Troy and besieged the city, which Aeneas helped defend as leader of a group of Trojan allies known as the Dardanians. He was one of
Left: The Flight from
Troy by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598—1680) depicts Aeneas leaving the ruined city with
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His father, Anchises, on his shoulders.
Troy’s most valiant defenders, although he was forced to flee from the Greek warrior Achilles and escaped death in battle on more than one occasion only through the intervention of the gods.
Although Aeneas and Priam were on the same side, there was friction between them. Their mutual dislike was attributed variously to Priam’s disregard for Aeneas’s contribution to the war effort, Aeneas’s recommendation that the Trojans make a truce with the Greeks, and the historic rivalry between their two branches of the Trojan royal family. In any case, when the Greeks at last captured Troy, Aeneas, unlike most Trojan warriors, either escaped or was allowed to leave. The hero, with his aged father Anchises on his shoulders and his young son Ascanius (also called Julus) at his side, led a band of survivors from the ruined city; amid the confusion, however, he lost his Trojan wife, Creusa.
Aeneas, Achilles, and Odysseus
Comparisons between the legendary role of Aeneas and the exploits of Achilles and Odysseus provide some useful insights into what the Romans saw as the heroic nature of the founder of their society.
Aeneas was a capable warrior, but not the greatest at Troy. He was overshadowed by Achilles, who, like him, was the son of a goddess and a mortal man. Aeneas's hostility toward Priam paralleled that of Achilles toward Agamemnon. Yet in other ways Aeneas was greater than Achilles: he placed his people's welfare before his own interests, while Achilles was willing to let his fellow Greeks perish over a point of pride. Aeneas survived the Trojan War to establish a new royal family; Achilles died at Troy, and in most accounts founded no royal line.
Although Odysseus was a great fighter, like Aeneas his reputation rested more on his ability to preserve the cohesion of the community, as, for example, when he faced down the troublemaker Thersites or helped to mediate between Achilles and Agamemnon. Also like Aeneas, Odysseus wandered far after the Trojan War, visited the underworld, and fought again once he reached his destination. Yet whereas Odysseus had to kill many fellow citizens on his return in order to establish his power, Aeneas sacrificed himself for his people, dying either during or shortly after the battles that secured the Trojans' position in Italy.
Thus Aeneas occupied the middle ground between the two main Greek heroes. Like Achilles, he came into conflict with authority; like Odysseus, his focus was on the preservation of his people. Whereas Achilles died during the Trojan War, and Odysseus long survived it, Aeneas lived only long enough to see his people safe and their future secure.
Below: This painting by Gerard de Lairesse (1640—1711) depicts Aeneas with Dido on the throne in Carthage.
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