0000NOTAscanius_Bernini

0000NOTAscanius_Bernini

Gian Lorenzo Bernini, "Aeneas, Anchises, and Ascanius," marble sculpture group, c. 1618-1619, Galleria Borghese, Rome, inv. 182. (=0044AeneasFlight_Bernini)

Aeneas hoists his aged father, Anchises, onto his shoulder (while Anchises in turn carries the ancestral gods, the penates) and leads his small son, Ascanius, from the collapsing city of Troy. The weight of the moment is emotional, not physical, and shows ponderously on Aeneas' face. He directs his offspring into an uncertain future and shoulders the burden of his ancestry at the same time. This theme plays enormously in Vergil's great Roman epic, the Aeneid. (See Book 2, especially.)

Ascanius' family tree (ML p. 478)

Legend had it that after Aeneas' death Ascanius defeated the Etruscans at the Numicus River, founded the city of Alba Longa, then after his death was succeeded by Silvius. Alba Longa is the legendary foundation of Castel Gandolfo, where the popes keep a summer residence. (For map click here.)

Vergil has Venus receive a great prophecy from Jupiter regarding her offspring's future hegemony in Italy: "You will take great-hearted Aeneas up to the stars of heaven. ...The reign of his son Ascanius, who now receives the second name Iulus (it was Ilus while the kingdom of Ilium still stood), shall last while thirty long years revolve, and he shall transfer his kingdom from its seat at Lavinium and build a city with powerful fortifications at Alba Longa. Here the rule of the race of Hector will last for three hundred long years until Ilia the royal priestess, heavy with the seed of Mars, shall give birth to twin sons. Then Romulus shall receive the peopel, wearing with joy the tawny hide of the wolf which nursed him. The walls he builds will be the walls of Mars and he shall give his own name to his people, the Romans. On them I impose no limits of time or place. I have given them empire that will know no end." (West trans.)

Since Aeneas is the son of Venus, Ascanius is her grandson. His mother Creusa does not escape the Sack of Troy alive. He is treated with rich characterization in Aeneid. Because Julius Caesar and Augustus celebrated their descent from Venus, through Aeneas, the figure of Ascanius is an important character in Roman mythology of the early empire.