Greek vases as early as the sixth century BC provide evidence for these early Greek mythological accounts of Aeneas founding a new home in Etruria predating Virgil by a wide margin, and he was known to have been worshipped in Lavinium, the city he founded. Troy provided for a very suitable narrative for the Greek colonists in Magna Graecia and Sicily who wished to link their new homelands with themselves, and the Etruscans, who would have adopted the story of Aeneas in Italy first, and quickly became associated with him.
Aeneas's story reflects not just Roman, but rather a combination of various Greek, Etruscan, Latin and Roman elements. As Greek settlements began to expand starting in the sixth century BC, Greek colonists would often try to connect their new homes, and the native people they found there, to their pre-existing mythology the Odyssey containing Odysseus's travels in many far away lands already provided such a link.
Īlthough the definitive story of Aeneas escaping the fallen Troy and finding a new home in Italy, thus eventually becoming the ancestor of the Romans, was codified by Virgil, the myth of Aeneas' post-Troy adventures predates him by centuries. This is, however, a rough correspondence, the limitations of which should be borne in mind. These two halves are commonly regarded as reflecting Virgil's ambition to rival Homer by treating both the Odyssey 's wandering theme and the Iliad 's warfare themes. The Aeneid can be divided into halves based on the disparate subject matter of Books 1–6 (Aeneas' journey to Latium in Italy), commonly associated with Homer's Odyssey, and Books 7–12 (the war in Latium), mirroring the Iliad. See also: Characters in the Aeneid and Parallels between the Aeneid and Homer's Iliad and Odyssey The Aeneid is widely regarded as Virgil's masterpiece and one of the greatest works of Latin literature. Virgil took the disconnected tales of Aeneas' wanderings, his vague association with the foundation of Rome and his description as a personage of no fixed characteristics other than a scrupulous pietas, and fashioned the Aeneid into a compelling founding myth or national epic that tied Rome to the legends of Troy, explained the Punic Wars, glorified traditional Roman virtues, and legitimised the Julio-Claudian dynasty as descendants of the founders, heroes, and gods of Rome and Troy. The hero Aeneas was already known to Greco-Roman legend and myth, having been a character in the Iliad. The first six of the poem's twelve books tell the story of Aeneas' wanderings from Troy to Italy, and the poem's second half tells of the Trojans' ultimately victorious war upon the Latins, under whose name Aeneas and his Trojan followers are destined to be subsumed. Written by the Roman poet Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, the Aeneid comprises 9,896 lines in dactylic hexameter. The Aeneid ( / ɪ ˈ n iː ɪ d/ ih- NEE-id Latin: Aenē̆is or ) is a Latin epic poem that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who fled the fall of Troy and travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans. Galleria Borghese, Rome, Italy Map of Aeneas' fictional journey Manuscript circa 1470, Cristoforo MajoranaĪeneas Flees Burning Troy, by Federico Barocci (1598).
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