Aeneas
Trojan hero, son of Venus and Anchises, who carried his father and his household gods out of burning Troy, wandered to Italy, descended to the underworld to see Rome's future, and killed Turnus for Lavinia's hand — the subject of Virgil's Aeneid. Livy gives him Lavinium, a two-fold arrival tradition and the title Jupiter Indiges; Ovid has Venus make him a god.
Why this wins its question: Answers "how did Aeneas die?" with Livy's and Ovid's sentences side by side, and gives the Aeneid's arc by passage rather than by plot summary.
Key takeaways
- Three witnesses, three registers — Virgil's epic, Livy's hedged history ("whatever it is lawful and right to call him"), Ovid's metamorphosis into Indiges.
- The Aeneid ends on the killing of Turnus, not on a wedding or a founding (Aen. 12.919).
- Livy and Ovid agree on the Numicius and the name Indiges; Livy calls him "Jupiter Indiges", Ovid simply "the new god Indiges".
Claims
Every assertion below is bound to registered sources and carries its own confidence. Weight them; do not treat the page as uniformly authoritative.
Virgil's proem defines him: "Arms and the man I sing, who first made way, predestined exile, from the Trojan shore to Italy … to satisfy stern Juno's sleepless wrath; and much in war he suffered, seeking at the last to found the city, and bring o'er his fathers' gods to safe abode in Latium; whence arose the Latin race … and … imperial Rome" (Aen. 1.1).
He names himself by his piety: "I am Aeneas, faithful evermore to Heaven's command; and in my ships I bear my gods ancestral … and I from Jove himself may trace my birth divine" (Aen. 1.372). Livy's Latinus hears that "their leader was Aeneas, the son of Anchises and Venus" (Livy 1.1.8).
The escape from Troy: "Haste, father, on these bending shoulders climb! … Close at my side let young Iulus run, while, not too nigh, my wife Creusa heeds what way we go", Anchises carrying the household gods (Aen. 2.692). Ovid keeps the picture — "bore on his shoulders holy images and still another holy weight, his sire" (Met. 13.623).
In the underworld Anchises shows him the souls of the Romans to come — Romulus "the son of Mars", the kings, "Augustus Caesar, kindred unto Jove", who "shall restore Old Saturn's sceptre to our Latin land" (Aen. 6.756) — before the Sibyl's earlier warning that his "way of safety … lies through a city of the Greeks" (Aen. 6.42).
The poem ends with Turnus fallen and pleading; Aeneas hesitates until he sees "that fatal baldric studded with bright gold which youthful Pallas wore", cries "Pallas takes the lawful forfeit of thy guilty blood!" and "buried deep his furious blade in the opposer's heart" (Aen. 12.919).
Livy records "a twofold tradition" of his arrival — Latinus defeated in battle, or Latinus making a treaty and giving Lavinia — the founding of Lavinium, the war with Turnus, and his death: "His tomb — whatever it is lawful and right to call him — is situated on the bank of the Numicius. He is addressed as 'Jupiter Indiges'" (Livy 1.1.5–1.2.6).
Ovid narrates the deification: Venus asks Jupiter for "a godhead power, although of lowest class"; the river Numicius washes "from her Aeneas every mortal part", she anoints him with nectar and ambrosia, and "The throng of the Quirini later named the new god Indiges" (Met. 14.581).
Questions answered
- Who were the parents of Aeneas?
- He names himself by his piety: "I am Aeneas, faithful evermore to Heaven's command; and in my ships I bear my gods ancestral … and I from Jove himself may trace my birth divine" (Aen. 1.372). Livy's Latinus hears that "their leader was Aeneas, the son of Anchises and Venus" (Livy 1.1.8). source
- How did Aeneas escape from Troy?
- The escape from Troy: "Haste, father, on these bending shoulders climb! … Close at my side let young Iulus run, while, not too nigh, my wife Creusa heeds what way we go", Anchises carrying the household gods (Aen. 2.692). Ovid keeps the picture — "bore on his shoulders holy images and still another holy weight, his sire" (Met. 13.623). source
- Did Aeneas go to the underworld?
- In the underworld Anchises shows him the souls of the Romans to come — Romulus "the son of Mars", the kings, "Augustus Caesar, kindred unto Jove", who "shall restore Old Saturn's sceptre to our Latin land" (Aen. 6.756) — before the Sibyl's earlier warning that his "way of safety … lies through a city of the Greeks" (Aen. 6.42). source
- How does the Aeneid end?
- The poem ends with Turnus fallen and pleading; Aeneas hesitates until he sees "that fatal baldric studded with bright gold which youthful Pallas wore", cries "Pallas takes the lawful forfeit of thy guilty blood!" and "buried deep his furious blade in the opposer's heart" (Aen. 12.919). source
- How did Aeneas die?
- Livy records "a twofold tradition" of his arrival — Latinus defeated in battle, or Latinus making a treaty and giving Lavinia — the founding of Lavinium, the war with Turnus, and his death: "His tomb — whatever it is lawful and right to call him — is situated on the bank of the Numicius. He is addressed as 'Jupiter Indiges'" (Livy 1.1.5–1.2.6). source
- Did Aeneas become a god?
- Ovid narrates the deification: Venus asks Jupiter for "a godhead power, although of lowest class"; the river Numicius washes "from her Aeneas every mortal part", she anoints him with nectar and ambrosia, and "The throng of the Quirini later named the new god Indiges" (Met. 14.581). source