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Anchises

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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in Greek legend, Trojan hero, son of Capys and Themis, grandson (according to Hyginus, son) of Assaracus, connected on both sides with the royal family of Troy, was king of Dardanus on Mt. Ida. Here Aphrodite met him and, enamoured of his beauty, bore him Aeneas. For revealing the name of the child's mother, in spite of the warnings of the goddess, he was killed or struck blind by lightning (Hyginus, Fab. 94). In the more recent legend, adopted by Virgil in the Aeneid, he was conveyed out of Troy on the shoulders of his son Aeneas, whose wanderings he followed as far as Sicily, where he died and was buried on Mt. Eryx. On the other hand, there was a grave on Mt. Ida at Troy pointed out as his. From the name Assaracus, from the intercourse between the Phoenicians and the early inhabitants of the Troad, and from the connexion of Aphrodite, the protecting goddess of the Phoenicians, with Anchises, it has been inferred that his family was originally of Assyrian origin. His flight on the shoulders of Aeneas is frequently represented on engraved gems of the Roman period; and his visit from Aphrodite is rendered in a beautiful bronze relief, engraved in Millingen's Unedited Gems.