Person Page 186

In Greek mythology, Anchises was the son of Capys and Themiste (daughter of Ilus, son of Tros). His major claim to fame in Greek mythology is that he was a mortal lover of the goddess Aphrodite (and in Roman mythology, the lover of Venus). One version is that Aphrodite pretended to be a Phrygian princess and seduced him for nearly two weeks of lovemaking. Anchises learned that his lover was a goddess only nine months later, when she revealed herself and presented him with the infant Aeneas. The principal early narrative of Aphrodite's seduction of Anchises and the birth of Aeneas is the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite. According to Apollodorus' Bibliotheca, Anchises and Aphrodite had another son, Lyrus, who died childless.

Anchises was a prince from Dardania, a territory neighbouring Troy. He had a mortal wife named Eriopis, according to the scholiasts, and he is credited with other children beside Aeneas. Homer, in the Iliad, mentions a daughter named Hippodameia, their eldest ("the darling of her father and mother"), who married her cousin Alcathous.

Anchises bred his mares with the divine stallions owned by King Laomedon. However, he made the mistake of bragging about his liaison with Aphrodite, and as a result Zeus, the king of the gods, hit him with a thunderbolt which left him lame.

After the defeat of Troy in the Trojan War, the elderly Anchises was carried from the burning city by his son Aeneas, accompanied by Aeneas' wife Creusa, who died in the escape attempt, and small son Ascanius (the subject is depicted in several paintings, including a famous version by Federico Barocci in the Galleria Borghese in Rome). Anchises himself died and was buried in Sicily many years later. Aeneas later visited Hades and saw his father again in the Elysian Fields. Homer's Iliad mentions another Anchises, a wealthy native of Sicyon in Greece and father of Echepolus.
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Anchises 1, who was comely as the gods, was loved by Aphrodite . His son Aeneas saved him from the fire of Troy , and he went into exile. Years later he died in Sicily, but Aeneas , who met him in the Elysian Fields, learned from him about some of life's mysteries, and about his own destiny.

Anchises 1, who had the privilege of being loved by a goddess, came from Dardania, which is a territory neighbouring Troy named after Dardanus 1, who once colonized it after leaving the island of Samothrace where he had lived until then. Dardanus 1, son of Zeus and the Pleiad Electra 3, was succeeded in the throne by Erichthonius 1, who inherited both the kingdom of his father and that of his maternal grandfather. And after Erichthonius 1's son Tros 1 the people of the land were called Trojans. Now, among the children of Tros 1 are named Ilus 2, the founder of Troy ,Ganymedes whom Zeus carried off, and Assaracus, who became king of the Dardanians after his father. Assaracus was succeeded by Capys 1, who was still alive at the end of the Trojan War , and Capys 1 fathered Anchises 1.

When Zeus , by reason of Ganymedes ' beauty, took him to heaven, he gave Tros 1 recompense for his son in the form of some extraordinary horses, which are otherwise known as the MARES OF LAOMEDON 1, on account of the conflict between Heracles 1 and King Laomedon 1 of Troy involving these horses. It is told that of this stock Anchises 1 stole a breed, putting his own mares to them. King Laomedon 1 knew nothing of it, but from these a stock of six was born in Anchises 1's palace. Of these horses he kept four for himself giving the other two to his son Aeneas to fight in the war at Troy . But on the course of combat Diomedes 2 took possession of these horses, and would have killed Aeneas , had not Apollo saved him.

Yet the greatest moment in Anchises 1's life must have been his meeting with Aphrodite , when he was tending cattle on Mount Ida. When the goddess saw him, she was seized by desire, and went immediately to her precinct in Paphos in the island of Cyprus, where the CHARITES bathed her with heavenly oil. And having put on rich clothes and decked herself with gold, she returned to Ida flying among the clouds. There, they say, came wolves and lions and bears and leopards, all fawning on her; and seeing them, she put desire in their breasts so that they all mated.

But herself she came to Anchises 1, who was now playing the lyre while the others followed the herds, and appeared before him with the looks and height of a maiden, but still wearing a robe of gold enriched with all kinds of needlework, twisted brooches, earrings in the form of flowers and several necklaces round her throat. When Anchises 1 saw this marvel, he understood that he was contemplating a goddess; this is why he started to promise her sacrifices, and asked her to help him become an eminent man among the Trojans, and bless him with a strong offspring, adding:

"As for my own self, let me live long and happily, seeing the light of the sun, and come to the threshold of Old Age , a man prosperous among the people." [Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite 5.105]

Some have said that Aeneas came first to Laconia in the Peloponnesus, founding the cities Aphrodisias and Etis, and that there Anchises 1 died being buried at the foot of the mountain called Anchisia after him. But Anchises 1, sailing with his son, has also been reported to have landed in the island of Delos, where King Anius, the father of the WINEGROWERS presented him with a sceptre. Anchises 1, others say, died at port Drepanum in Sicily, where he was buried before Aeneas sailed to Carthage where he met Queen Dido [see map at Aeneas ].