Amphora Aineias Ankhises 470 BC Staatliche Antikensammlungen

Ascanius (;

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...

: Ἀσκάνιος) (said to have reigned 1176-1138 BC) was a legendary king of Alba Longa and is the son of the

Trojan Trojan or Trojans may refer to: * Of or from the ancient city of Troy * Trojan language, the language of the historical Trojans Arts and entertainment Music * ''Les Troyens'' ('The Trojans'), an opera by Berlioz, premiered part 1863, part 189 ...

hero

Aeneas In Greco-Roman mythology, Aeneas (, ; from ) was a Trojan hero, the son of the Trojan prince Anchises and the Greek goddess Aphrodite (equivalent to the Roman Venus). His father was a first cousin of King Priam of Troy (both being grandsons ...

and Creusa, daughter of Priam. He is a character in

Roman mythology Roman mythology is the body of myths of ancient Rome as represented in the literature and visual arts of the Romans. One of a wide variety of genres of Roman folklore, ''Roman mythology'' may also refer to the modern study of these representa ...

, and has a divine lineage, being the son of

, who is the son of the goddess Venus and the hero Anchises, a relative of the king Priam; thus Ascanius has divine ascendents by both parents, being descendants of god Jupiter and Dardanus. He is also an ancestor of Romulus, Remus and the

Gens Julia The gens Julia (''gēns Iūlia'', ) was one of the most prominent patrician (ancient Rome), patrician families in ancient Rome. Members of the gens attained the highest dignities of the state in the earliest times of the Roman Republic, Republic ...

. Together with his father, he is a major character in

Virgil Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: th ...

's ''

Aeneid The ''Aeneid'' ( ; la, Aenē̆is or ) is a Latin epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, 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 th ...

'', and he is depicted as one of the founders of the Roman race.

Mythology

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

and

, Ascanius was the son of the Trojan prince

and Creusa, daughter of Priam. After the

Trojan War In Greek mythology, the Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans (Greeks) after Paris of Troy took Helen from her husband Menelaus, king of Sparta. The war is one of the most important events in Greek mythology and ...

, as the city burned, Aeneas escaped to

Latium Latium ( , ; ) is the region of central western Italy in which the city of Rome was founded and grew to be the capital city of the Roman Empire. Definition Latium was originally a small triangle of fertile, volcanic soil ( Old Latium) on w ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

, taking his father Anchises and his child Ascanius with him, though Creusa died during the escape. According to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Ascanius' original name was Euryleon and this name was changed to Ascanius after his flight from Troy. According to Virgil, Ascanius was also called Iulus or Julus. The

, or the Julians, the clan to which

Julius Caesar Gaius Julius Caesar (; ; 12 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC), was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war, ...

belonged, claimed to have been descended from Ascanius/Iulus, his father Aeneas, and, ultimately, the goddess

Venus Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is sometimes called Earth's "sister" or "twin" planet as it is almost as large and has a similar composition. As an interior planet to Earth, Venus (like Mercury) appears in Earth's sky never f ...

, the mother of Aeneas in myth, his father being the mortal Anchises. According to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, however, Julus was a son of Ascanius who disputed the succession of the kingdom of Alba Longa with Silvius, upon the death of Ascanius. According to another legend mentioned by

Livy Titus Livius (; 59 BC – AD 17), known in English as Livy ( ), was a Roman historian. He wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people, titled , covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome before the traditional founding in ...

, Ascanius may have been the son of Aeneas and Lavinia and thus born in

, not

Troy Troy ( el, Τροία and Latin: Troia, Hittite: 𒋫𒊒𒄿𒊭 ''Truwiša'') or Ilion ( el, Ίλιον and Latin: Ilium, Hittite: 𒃾𒇻𒊭 ''Wiluša'') was an ancient city located at Hisarlik in present-day Turkey, south-west of Ç ...

. Ascanius later fought in the Italian Wars along with his father Aeneas. After the death of Aeneas, Ascanius became king of Lavinium and an Etruscan king named

Mezentius In Roman mythology, Mezentius was an Etruscan king, and father of Lausus. Sent into exile because of his cruelty, he moved to Latium. He reveled in bloodshed and was overwhelmingly savage on the battlefield, but more significantly to a Roman aud ...

took advantage of the occasion to besiege the city.Another tradition says that he was too young to reign and that his mother Lavinia reigned in his stead for a number of years until he came of age, upon which, Ascanius founded Alba Longa and left his mother in charge of Lavinium, q.v. Dionysius of Halicarnassus ''Roman Antiquities'' 1.65 Mezentius succeeded in making the city surrender and agree to pay a yearly tribute. Upon his retirement, Ascanius fell upon him and his army unaware and entirely defeated Mezentius and killed his son Lausus. Mezentius was forced to agree to pay a yearly tribute. Subsequent to this, exactly thirty years after the founding of Lavinium, Ascanius founded the city of Alba Longa and became its first king. He left his mother, Lavinia, in charge of the city of Lavinium. Ascanius was succeeded by Silvius, who was either the younger brother of Ascanius or his son. Ascanius died in the 28th year of his reign.

''Aeneid''

Ascanius Shooting the Stag of Sylvia 1682 Claude Lorrain

However, in the ''

'',

claims that Mezentius fought in the Italian Wars at the time

was alive. In the Aeneid, it is Aeneas who kills Lausus after harming Mezentius, who escaped while his son faced the Trojan king. When the news about Lausus' death reaches Mezentius, he comes back to face Aeneas, and is killed too. In this account, Ascanius does not participate in these deaths. Nevertheless, Virgil shows Ascanius' first experience at war. In the ''Aeneid'', Ascanius is a teenager without real war experiences, but while besieged by the Italians, Ascanius launches an arrow against Numanus, the husband of the youngest sister of

Turnus Turnus ( grc, Τυρρηνός, Tyrrhênós) was the legendary King of the Rutuli in Roman history, and the chief antagonist of the hero Aeneas in Virgil's ''Aeneid''. According to the ''Aeneid'', Turnus is the son of Daunus and the nymph V ...

. After killing Numanus, Apollo comes and says to Ascanius: ''Macte nova virtute, puer: sic itur ad astra,'' ''dis genite et geniture deos.'' This phrase can be translated into English as: "Go forth with new value, boy: thus is the path to the stars; son of gods that will have gods as sons." or "Blessings on your fresh courage, boy, scion of gods and ancestor of gods yet to be, so it is man rises to the stars." In this verse, Virgil makes a clear reference to the offspring of Iulus, from whom Augustus Caesar claimed descent. Therefore, in this verse Virgil refers to the

, the family of Augustus and

, who was deified after his death. The

sic itur ad astra ''Ad astra'' is a Latin phrase meaning "to the stars". The phrase has origins with Virgil, who wrote in his ''Aeneid'': "''sic itur ad astra''" ('thus one journeys to the stars') and "''opta ardua pennis astra sequi''" ('desire to pursue the h ...

become almost proverbial and several mottos use an ''ad astra'' phrase. After this episode, Apollo orders to the Trojans to keep Ascanius away from the war. In this same episode Ascanius, before launching the fatal arrow in Numanus, prays to Jupiter, saying: ''Jupiter omnipotens, audacibus annue cœptis'' The translation is : "Omnipotent Jupiter, please favour my audacity" or "All-powerful Jupiter, assent to my bold attempt". The last part of the

hexameter Hexameter is a metrical line of verses consisting of six feet (a "foot" here is the pulse, or major accent, of words in an English line of poetry; in Greek and Latin a "foot" is not an accent, but describes various combinations of syllables). It w ...

became the United States motto '' annuit coeptis''. The name Iulus was popularised by

in the ''

'': replacing the Greek name Ascanius with Iulus linked the Julian family of Rome to earlier mythology. The emperor

Augustus Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian, was the first Roman emperor; he reigned from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. He is known for being the founder of the Roman Pr ...

, who commissioned the work, was a great patron of the arts. As a member of the Julian family, he could claim to have four major Olympian gods in his family tree: (

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but slightly less than one-thousandth t ...

, Juno,

and

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Roman god of war. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin at ...

), so he encouraged his many poets to emphasize his supposed descent from Aeneas.

Notes

References

, '' Ab urbe condita'' Book 1. *

, ''Aeneid'', Book IX.

External links

The ''Aeneid'' in Latin

{{Authority control Characters in Roman mythology Characters in the Aeneid Kings of Alba Longa Kings in Greek mythology

Mythology

''Aeneid''

See also

Notes

References

External links