Aeneas
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Aeneas. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
e-ne'as, a legendary Trojan chief, second only to Hector in the defense of Troy. He was the son of Anchises and the goddess Venus. His wife Creusa was the daughter of Priam the king. Their one child was Ascanius. Virgil chose Aeneas for the hero of his chief work, calling it the Aeneid. According to this writer, Aeneas escaped from the sack of Troy. After performing prodigies of valor he took his son Ascanius by the hand, and, bearing his aged father Anchises and his household gods on his shoulders, bade Creusa follow. In the confusion Creusa was lost and was never heard of again; but Aeneas made his way from the burning city to the shelter of Mount Ida, where he was joined by trusty companions. As soon as the times were propitious, twenty ships were built, and the remnant of the Trojans set out under his leadership to find a new home in the West. In the course of their wanderings, the aged Anchises died. Driven by a tempest to the coast of Africa, Dido, the queen of Carthage, received him kindly, and besought him to remain as her husband. Warned by the gods, however, Aeneas set sail, and the unhappy and deserted Dido put an end to her life on a funeral pile. Finally, Virgil would have us believe, Aeneas arrived at Italy and engaged in local wars, went down to the lower world to see his father, returned and settled in Latium, and married Lavinia, the king's daughter. He thus became the ancestor of the kings of Alba Longa, and of Romulus and Remus, the founders of ancient Rome. See Virgil ; Troy ; Dido ; Aeneid
1000 Classical Characters (1900)
A Trojan prince, son of Anchises and Venus . He married Creusa, the daughter of Priam, and they had a son named Ascanius . I2 During the Trojan war Aeneas behaved with great valor in defense of Troy. When the city was in flames he is said to have carried away his father Anchises on his shoulders, leading his son Ascanius by the hand, his wife following them. Subsequently he built a fleet of twenty ships, with which he set sail in quest of a settlement. He was driven on the coasts of Africa, and was kindly received by Dido , Queen of Carthage, who became enamored with him; but he left Carthage by the order of the gods. He has been praised for his submission to the will of the gods; whence the term Pius is generally appended to his name.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Both accounts are retellings of Virgil, and as summaries of the Aeneid they still stand: Aiton's 1910 entry and the 1900 1000 Classical Characters describe the same escape from Troy, the twenty ships, Dido's pyre and the marriage to Lavinia that modern readers meet. What has moved is the ground beneath the legend. Excavations from the 1950s onward at Lavinium (Pratica di Mare, south of Rome) uncovered a row of thirteen archaic altars and a nearby tomb monument that had been reworked into a shrine in the fourth century BC, evidence that Romans and Latins were honouring a hero-founder identified with Aeneas centuries before Virgil wrote. Critical taste has shifted too: since the 1960s many scholars have read the Aeneid less as straightforward Augustan celebration than as an ambivalent poem, with Aeneas's much-cited piety (the epithet pius the 1900 account notes) weighed against the cost to Dido and to Turnus.
Written for this edition, 2026.