The Armenians – The proignitors of Troy and Rome

The Indo-European part of the Armenian nation

The Meeting of Dido and Aeneas

Paris,  also known as Alexander or Alexandros, the son of Priam, king of Troy

Priam (Priamos) was the king of Troy during the Trojan War and youngest son of Laomedon. Modern scholars derive his name from the Luwian compound Priya-muwa-, which means “exceptionally courageous”.

Priam had a number of wives; his first was Arisbe, who had given birth to his son Aesacus, who met his death before the Trojan War. Priam later divorced her in favor of Hecuba (or Hecebe), daughter of the Phrygian king Dymas.

Hecuba (also Hekábē, Hecabe, Hécube; Ancient Greek: Ἑκάβη) was a queen in Greek mythology, the wife of King Priam of Troy during the Trojan War, with whom she had 19 children. These children included several major characters of Homer’s Iliad such as the warriors Hector and Paris and the prophetess Cassandra.

In Greco-Roman mythology, Aeneas, derived from Greek Αἰνή meaning “to praise”) was a Trojan hero, the son of the prince Anchises and the goddess Aphrodite. His father was the second cousin of King Priam of Troy, making Aeneas Priam’s second cousin, once removed. He is a character in Greek mythology and is mentioned in Homer’s Iliad, and receives full treatment in Roman mythology as the legendary founder of what would become Ancient Rome, most extensively in Virgil’s Aeneid.

In the Iliad, Aeneas is a minor character, where he is twice saved from death by the gods as if for an as-yet unknown destiny. He is the leader of the Trojans’ Dardanian allies, as well as a third cousin and principal lieutenant of Hector, son of the Trojan king Priam. Aeneas’ mother Aphrodite frequently comes to his aid on the battlefield; he is a favorite of Apollo.

Aeneas had an extensive family tree. His wet-nurse was Caieta, and he is the father of Ascanius with Creusa, and of Silvius with Lavinia. Ascanius, also known as Iulus (or Julius), founded Alba Longa and was the first in a long series of kings.

According to the mythology outlined by Virgil in the Aeneid, Romulus and Remus were both descendants of Aeneas through their mother Rhea Silvia, making Aeneas progenitor of the Roman people.

Some early sources call him their father or grandfather, but considering the commonly accepted dates of the fall of Troy (1184 BCE) and the founding of Rome (753 BCE), this seems unlikely. The Julian family of Rome, most notably Julius Cæsar and Augustus, traced their lineage to Ascanius and Aeneas, thus to the goddess Aphrodite. Through the Julians, the Palemonids make this claim. The legendary kings of Britain trace their family through a grandson of Aeneas, Brutus.

The most recent cinematic portrayal of Aeneas was in the film Troy, in which he appears as a youth charged by Paris to protect the Trojan refugees, and to continue the ideals of the city and its people. It is at this point that Paris gives Aeneas Priam’s sword, in order to give legitimacy and continuity to the Royal Line of Troy – and lay the foundations of Rome.

In Greek mythology, Anchises was the son of Capys and Themiste (daughter of Ilus, who was son of Tros). He was a prince from Dardania, a territory neighbouring Troy.

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. Aphrodite had warned him that if he boasted of the affair, he would be blasted by the thunderbolt of Zeus. He did and was scorched and/or crippled.

One version has this happening after he bred his mares with the divine stallions owned by King Laomedon. The principal early narrative of Aphrodite’s seduction of Anchises and the birth of Aeneas is the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite.

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.

In Greek mythology, Dardanus was a son of Zeus and Electra, daughter of Atlas, and founder of the city of Dardania on Mount Ida in the Troad. Dardania in Greek mythology is the name of a city founded on Mount Ida by Dardanus from which also the region and the people took their name. It lay on the Hellespont, and is the source of the strait’s modern name, the Dardanelles.

From Dardanus’ grandson Tros the people gained the additional name of Trojans and the region gained the additional name Troad. Tros’ son Ilus subsequently founded a further city called Ilion (in Latin Ilium) down on the plain, the city now more commonly called Troy, and the kingdom was split between Ilium and Dardania.

Dardania has also been defined as “a district of the Troad, lying along the Hellespont, southwest of Abydos, and adjacent to the territory of Ilium. Its people (Dardani) appear in the Trojan War under Aeneas, in close alliance with the Trojans, with whose name their own is often interchanged, especially by the Roman poets.”

The Pleiad Electra of Greek mythology was one of the seven daughters of Atlas and Pleione. Electra was the wife of Corythus. She was raped by Zeus and gave birth to Dardanus. According to one legend, she was the lost Pleiad, disappearing in grief after the destruction of Troy. She was called Atlantis by Ovid, personifying the family of Pleiades. Electra means “amber,” “shining,” and “bright.”

Dardanus became the founder of Troy and the ancestor of Priam and his house. Dardanus is the namesake of the straight between the Sea of Marmara and the Aegean Sea known as the Dardanelles.

Moesia was an ancient region and later Roman province situated in the Balkans, along the south bank of the Danube River. The region was inhabited chiefly by Thracians, Dacians (Thraco-Dacians), Illyrian and Thraco-Illyrian peoples. The name of the region comes from Moesi, Thraco-Dacian peoples who lived there before the Roman conquest.

The Moesi were a Daco-Thracian tribe who inhabited present day Serbia and Bulgaria, part of the then Roman province of Moesia, which was named after them in 87 AD by the Romans after the Romans under Crassus defeated them in the 29 BC. Thracologists, the study of Thracians and Thracian culture, suggest that they may have spoken a language or dialect intermediary between Dacian and Thracian.

The Moesi developed out of the Brnjica culture is an archaeological culture in present-day Serbia dating from 1400 BC. The cultural group formed out of this culture are the Moesi, a Daco-Thracian tribe formed in the Roman province of Moesia (ethnonym) of present-day central Serbia. It is also the non-Illyrian component in the Dardanian ethnogenesis.

The Dardani was a tribe that occupied the region of Dardania. Located at the Thraco-Illyrian contact zone, their identification as either an Illyrian or Thracian tribe is uncertain. Their territory itself was not considered part of Illyria.