IENE'AS (Gk. Aiveiac, Aineias). The hero of Vergil's .Eneid-. He was, according to Homer, the son of Anchises and Aphrodite (Venus), and was ranked next to Hector among the Trojan heroes. The traditions of his adventures before and after the fall of Troy are various and dis cordant. Vergil gives the following version: iEneas, though warned by the ghost of Hector in the night when the Greeks entered Troy to take his household gods and flee from the city, re mained in the contest until Priam fell, tak ing with him his family, he escaped from the Greeks, but in the confusion of his hasty flight lost his wife, Crefisa. Having collected a fleet of twenty vessels, he sailed to Thrace, where he be gan building the city of -Enos, but was terrified by an unfavorable omen, and abandoned his plan of a settlement here. A mistaken interpretation of the oracle of Delphi now led him to Crete, but from this place he was driven by a pestilence.
Passing the promontory of Aetium, he came to Epirns, and then continued his voyage to Italy and round Sicily to the promontory of Dre panum on the west, where his father, Anchises. died. A storm afterward drove him to the coast of Africa, and landing near Carthage. he was hospitably received and entertained by Queen Dido. llis marriage with Dido was prevented by Jupiter, who sent Mercury with a command that _Eneas must proceed to Italy. Accordingly, lie
sailed away. leaving the disappointed queen, who committed subdde. During his stay in Sicily, where he celebrated the anniversary of his father's death with games, the wives of his com panions and seamen, weary of voyages with out certainty of finding a home, made an attempt to burn his fleet. After building the city of Acesta, lie sailed for Italy. On lauding there he visited the Sibyl at Cumac. She conducted him into the infernal regions, where he saw Anchises, and re ceived intimations of his future destiny. Then, sailing along the Tiber. and landing on the east side of the river, he found himself in the country of Latinus. king of the Aborigines. Lavinia, the daughter of Latinos, had been destined to marry a stranger, hut her mother had promised to give her in marriage to Turnus. king of the Rutuli. She married iEneas, and war ensued, which ter minated in the death of Turnus. _Eneas Silvius, the sou of -Eneas by Lavinia, as the ancestor of the kings of Alba Longa. and hence of Romulus and 'Remus, was regarded as the founder of the Roman Empire. See HOME.