Aeneas

Aeneas is the hero of the epic story by the Roman poet Virgil called the Aeneid. Aeneas is a Trojan warrior who, according to the story, escapes the burning of Troy after the Trojan War ends after the ruse of the Trojan horse by the wily and cunning strategist Odysseus. Aeneas has many adventures, taking him to places in the Mediterranean Sea including Crete, Carthage, Sicily, and he is supported by his mother, the goddess Venus, but is confounded by the machinations of the powerful opposing goddess Juno. Along the way, he falls in love with the beautiful queen Dido of Carthage, but is recalled to his travels by the messenger god Mercury, at the urging of Jupiter. At one point, he visits the Underworld with the help of the guide Cumaean Sibyl, and sees his newly deceased father Anchises. Aeneas returns to help the Trojans, mostly men, battle new enemies in Italy, and Aeneas defeats his rival Turnus enabling him to marry the princess Lavinia. Aeneas, then, through successive offspring, is the founder of the city of Rome. In the Iliad, Aeneas is a lesser character with a brief mention that he would escape the destruction of Troy to found a new city, but it doesn't say which city this is; Virgil, writing centuries later, expands this character greatly to explain the origins of Rome as well as its wars with Carthage, according to Classics scholar Elizabeth Vandiver.