Editing Aeneid (section)

== Mythology and origins ==
Although the definitive story of Aeneas escaping the fallen Troy and finding a new home in Italy, thus eventually becoming the ancestor of the Romans, was codified by Virgil, the myth of Aeneas' post-Troy adventures predates him by centuries.{{sfn|Kinsey|2012|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=4hlfEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA18 18]}} As Greek settlements began to expand starting in the sixth century BC, Greek colonists would often try to connect their new homes, and the native people they found there, to their pre-existing mythology;{{sfn|Kinsey|2012|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=4hlfEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA18 18]}}{{sfn|Schultz|Ward|Heichelheim|Yeo|2019|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=ZQaQDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT54 54]}} the ''[[Odyssey]]'' containing Odysseus's travels in many far away lands already provided such a link.{{sfn|Schultz|Ward|Heichelheim|Yeo|2019|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=ZQaQDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT54 54]}} Aeneas's story reflects not just Roman, but rather a combination of various Greek, Etruscan, Latin and Roman elements.{{sfn|Schultz|Ward|Heichelheim|Yeo|2019|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=ZQaQDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT54 54]}} Troy provided for a very suitable narrative for the Greek colonists in Magna Graecia and Sicily who wished to link their new homelands with themselves,{{sfn|Neel|2017|pages=[https://books.google.com/books?id=hIibDgAAQBAJ&pg=PA19 18–19]}} and the Etruscans, who would have adopted the story of Aeneas in Italy first, and quickly became associated with him.{{sfn|Schultz|Ward|Heichelheim|Yeo|2019|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=ZQaQDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT54 54]}}

Greek vases as early as the sixth century BC provide evidence for these early Greek mythological accounts of Aeneas founding a new home in Etruria predating Virgil by a wide margin,{{sfn|Gagarin|2010|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=lNV6-HsUppsC&pg=PA21 21]}} and he was known to have been worshipped in [[Lavinium]], the city he founded.{{sfn|Neel|2017|pages=[https://books.google.com/books?id=hIibDgAAQBAJ&pg=PA19 18–19]}} The discovery of thirteen large altars in Lavinium indicates early Greek influence, dating to the sixth through fourth century BC.{{sfn|Gagarin|2010|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=lNV6-HsUppsC&pg=PA21 21]}} In the following centuries, the Romans would come in contact with Greek colonies, conquer them and subsume the legend of Aeneas into their own mythological narratives.{{sfn|Momigliano|1977|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=ykWAVgI1UKQC&pg=PA267 267]}} It is most likely that they fully became interested in Greek myths—and their incorporation into their own foundation legends concerning Rome and the Roman people—following the war against King [[Pyrrhus of Epirus]] in 280 BC,{{sfn|Momigliano|1977|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=ykWAVgI1UKQC&pg=PA268 268]}} as Troy offered a way to insert Rome into Greek historical tradition as good as the one it had in the past for Greeks to link themselves to their new lands.{{sfn|Neel|2017|pages=[https://books.google.com/books?id=hIibDgAAQBAJ&pg=PA19 18–19]}}

Literary evidence of a pre-Virgil attestation of Aeneas' journey can also be found. A fragment usually attributed to fifth-century BC logographer [[Hellanicus of Lesbos]]' lost ''History of the Priestesses of Argos'' states that Rome was founded by Aeneas with the help of [[Odysseus]] and named after [[Rhome (mythology)|Rhome]], a Trojan woman Aeneas was acquainted with.{{sfn|Solmsen|1986|pages=[https://books.google.com/books?id=vb9rhwYbdKUC&pg=PA93 93-5]}} The attribution of this passage to Hellanicus has been met with some doubt and rejection, but other scholars are less dismissive.{{sfn|Farrell|Putnam|2014|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=SZwKAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA45 45]}} Around the fourth century BC, an otherwise unknown Alcimus apparently made Aeneas the father of [[Romulus]] by Thyrrenia. Romulus' then grandson Rhomus ([[Remus]]) went on to found Rome.{{sfn|Farrell|Putnam|2014|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=SZwKAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA44 44]}}