Anchises (living close by) – In Greek and Roman mythology, father of Aeneas; king of the Dardania; loved by Aphrodite; son of Capys and Themiste. Aphrodite loved him for his beauty and bore him Aeneas. When Anchises boasted of her favour, he was either paralyzed, killed, or struck blind by the lightning of Zeus; accounts differ.
Vergil’s Aeneid (book 2) portrays Anchises as being borne out of the burning city of Troy on Aeneas’s shoulders and sharing in his wanderings over the sea until they reached Drepanum in Sicily, where Anchises died at age 80 and was buried on Mount Eryx. Aeneas carrying his father is the subject of an early work of the Italian sculptor Bernini, as well as the subject of a painting by Raphael.
SOURCE:
Encyclopedia of World Mythology and Legend, Third Edition – Written by Anthony S. Mercatante & James R. Dow
Copyright © 2009 by Anthony S. Mercatante