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Aeneas

Trojan prince, son of Venus and Anchises, who escapes the sack of Troy carrying his aged father, his household gods (Penates), and leading his son Ascanius by the hand—losing his wife Creusa in the chaos. Fated by prophecy to found a new Trojan homeland in Italy, he survives shipwreck, a love affair with Dido of Carthage which he abandons to obey the gods, a journey into the underworld to see his father's ghost, and a brutal war against the Latins and Rutulians. He wins the final single combat against Turnus to secure Lavinia's hand and the founding of the Latin line that will lead to Rome.

Dido

Queen and founder of Carthage, a Tyrian exile who fled her brother Pygmalion after he murdered her husband. She falls desperately in love with Aeneas after Venus and Cupid manipulate her heart, and when he abandons her at Jupiter's command to continue toward Italy, she curses him, builds a funeral pyre, and kills herself with the sword he left behind.

Turnus

King of the Rutulians and Aeneas's chief rival, promised betrothal to Lavinia before the Trojans arrived. Incited by the Fury Allecto (sent by Juno) in a dream disguised as the priestess Chalybe, he raises the Italian cities to war against the Trojan newcomers. He is ultimately slain by Aeneas in single combat at the poem's end, wearing the belt of the slain Pallas as a trophy.

Latinus

Aged king of Latium who rules from the ancient palace of Picus, a hundred-pillared hall adorned with carved images of ancestor-kings and war trophies. Bound by an oracle to marry his daughter Lavinia to a foreign prince rather than Turnus, he tries to broker peace with the Trojans but is swept into war by Juno's machinations and his subjects' fury.

Amata

Queen of Latium and wife of Latinus, who favors Turnus as a son-in-law over the foreign Trojan Aeneas. Driven mad with rage by the Fury Allecto, she flees into the woods in a Bacchic frenzy and helps ignite the civil war between Latins and Trojans.

Ascanius

Young son of Aeneas and Creusa, also called Iulus. During the Carthage feast Cupid takes his form to inflame Dido's passion; later, grown bolder, he hunts game recklessly in Latium and provokes the war by wounding a prized stag. He is promised rich gifts—silver goblets, gold talents, tripods, and Dido's own bejeweled bowl—by his father's companions.

Anchises

Aeneas's elderly father, carried from burning Troy on his son's shoulders along with the household gods. He dies before reaching Italy but appears to Aeneas in the underworld's Elysian fields, showing him the future glories of Rome, including the doomed young Marcellus.

Venus

Goddess of love and Aeneas's divine mother, who pleads his cause before Jupiter, disguises herself as a huntress to guide her son to Carthage, and sends Cupid disguised as Ascanius to make Dido fall in love with Aeneas. She also shields Aeneas from enemy weapons in battle.

Juno

Queen of the gods, implacably hostile to the Trojans out of old grudges (the judgment of Paris, the favor shown Ganymede, her lost war for Greece) and fear that Carthage, her favored city, will one day be destroyed by Rome. She raises storms through Aeolus, sends the Fury Allecto to incite war in Latium, and only relents to Jupiter's decree late in the story.

Jupiter

King of the gods who comforts Venus with prophecies of Rome's future greatness, sends Mercury to smooth Aeneas's reception in Carthage, and ultimately declares neutrality between Trojans and Latins, leaving the war's outcome to fate.

Aeolus

King of the winds, who at Juno's request unleashes a devastating storm on the Trojan fleet, scattering and nearly sinking their ships before Neptune calms the sea.

Neptune

God of the sea who, angered at the winds' intrusion into his domain, calms the storm Aeolus raised against the Trojan fleet, saving Aeneas's ships.

The Sibyl of Cumae

Prophetess of Apollo who guides Aeneas through the underworld, explaining the fates of unburied souls wandering Styx's shores for a hundred years, and the tortures inflicted by Rhadamanthus on the damned. Aeneas begs Apollo through her not to let her prophecies be scattered on loose leaves, but to speak them aloud.

Evander

Exiled Arcadian king who founded the small city of Pallanteum (future site of Rome) on the Tiber. He allies with Aeneas against the Latins, lends him cavalry and his own son Pallas, and leads the annual rites honoring Hercules for slaying the monster Cacus.

Pallas

Son of Evander, sent to fight alongside Aeneas against Turnus. He is killed by Turnus, who strips his sword-belt as a trophy; Aeneas sends his body home with great funeral honors and later kills Turnus partly in vengeance for his death.

Camilla

Volscian warrior-queen who leads cavalry against the Trojans and distinguishes herself in battle before being killed, causing the rout of the Latin forces.

Nisus and Euryalus

Two devoted Trojan comrades-in-arms; Nisus is older and battle-tested, Euryalus a beardless youth. They volunteer for a dangerous night mission to reach Aeneas, and Ascanius promises them lavish rewards including captured armor, slaves, and land if they succeed.

Mezentius

Exiled Etruscan tyrant and ally of Turnus against Aeneas; his elaborate captured armor is hung as a trophy on an oak trunk sacred to the God of War after his defeat.

Laocoon

Trojan priest of Neptune who warns against admitting the Wooden Horse into Troy and hurls a spear at it; he and his two sons are subsequently crushed and devoured by two great sea-serpents sent as divine punishment, an omen the Trojans misread as condemning his defiance of Pallas rather than a warning against the horse.

Creusa

Aeneas's Trojan wife, mother of Ascanius, who is lost and left behind during the chaotic flight from burning Troy; Aeneas searches for her in vain and only later learns of her fate.

Priam

Aged King of Troy, whose palace is stormed by Pyrrhus (son of Achilles) during the sack of the city; the corpse of his son Hector had earlier been dragged around Troy's walls and ransomed for gold, an image Aeneas recalls with grief when he sees it depicted in art at Carthage.

Troy

The ancient city besieged for ten years by the Greeks and finally destroyed through the trick of the Wooden Horse, smuggled inside the walls by the Trojans themselves after being deceived about the omen of Laocoon's death. Its fall—including the deaths of Priam and the burning of the palace—drives Aeneas and the surviving Trojans into exile to seek a new homeland.

Carthage

A Tyrian colony on the African coast near the Tiber's mouth, founded by exiles fleeing Pygmalion, ruled by Queen Dido, and especially beloved by Juno, who fears an old prophecy that the Trojans' descendants will one day destroy it. Aeneas and his storm-scattered fleet find refuge and lavish hospitality here before he abandons Dido to continue toward Italy.

Sicily / Acesta

An island the Trojans pass through on their wanderings, home to the blinded Cyclops Polyphemus and his brothers near Mount Aetna, and later the site where Aeneas, advised by the seer Nautes, leaves the old, weary, and fearful members of his company to found a new town named Acesta after their host, King Acestes.

Latium and the Palace of Picus

The Italian kingdom ruled by King Latinus, centered on a vast hundred-pillared palace built by the ancestor-king Picus, decorated with statues of Saturn, Italus, and Janus, and hung with captured war-trophies. It becomes the battleground for the war between the native Latins/Rutulians and the arriving Trojans over the right to settle and to marry Lavinia.

Pallanteum

A small city founded on the future site of Rome by the exiled Arcadian king Evander, named for his ancestor Pallas. Evander welcomes Aeneas here, allies with him against the Latins, and hosts the annual rites honoring Hercules for killing the monster Cacus.

The Underworld and Elysium

The realm beyond the river Styx, ferried by the boatman Charon, where unburied souls wander a hundred years before crossing, and where the judge Rhadamanthus punishes the wicked (including the Titans, Salmoneus, and Tityus with his ever-regenerating liver) in a gulf twice as deep as earth is high. Beyond lies Elysium, the blissful region where Aeneas meets his father Anchises and is shown the future souls of Rome's heroes, including the doomed young Marcellus.

The Strait of Scylla and Charybdis

A perilous sea-passage between Italy and Sicily, created when an earthquake split the once-joined lands. On one side lurks Scylla, a monster with a woman's face and torso but a body of dogs ending in a dolphin's tail; on the other, Charybdis endlessly sucks in and spouts out the sea. Helenus advises Aeneas to take the longer route around Sicily rather than risk either.

The Trojans

The surviving people of fallen Troy, led by Aeneas, who wander the Mediterranean for years before settling in Italy. They carry their ancestral gods with them and are destined to merge with the native Latins to form the Roman people.

The Latins and Rutulians

The native Italian peoples ruled by King Latinus (Latins) and King Turnus (Rutulians), who ally with other Italian cities like Ardea, Tibur, and the Volscians against the arriving Trojans, sparking the war that occupies the poem's second half.

The Arcadians of Pallanteum

Exiles from Greek Arcadia led by King Evander, settled on the future site of Rome, who become key allies of Aeneas, contributing cavalry and the young warrior Pallas to the Trojan cause against the Latins.

The Wooden Horse

A massive hollow effigy built by the Greeks and left before Troy's walls as a fake peace offering; the Trojans, swayed by a false omen and Sinon's deception, drag it inside their gates, where the hidden Greek soldiers emerge at night to open the city to the returning army, causing Troy's fall.

The Trojan Penates

The household gods of Troy, rescued by Aeneas from the burning city and carried by his father Anchises throughout the long voyage. They appear to Aeneas in a dream to correct his course toward Italy rather than Crete, insisting they are destined to found a new realm in Hesperia.

The Prophecy of Rome

A destiny repeated throughout the poem: the exiled Trojans, led by Aeneas, are fated to settle in Italy, intermarry with the Latins, and found a line culminating in Romulus and the city of Rome, whose empire will one day rule the world. Both Jupiter and the ghost of Anchises reveal glimpses of this future, including the greatness and coming tragedies of Rome's heroes such as Marcellus.

The Seven-Year Voyage and the Tempest of Juno

After Troy's fall, the Trojan survivors wander the Mediterranean for seven years searching for their promised homeland. Near the end of this journey, Juno persuades Aeolus to unleash a storm that wrecks part of the fleet and scatters the rest, but Neptune intervenes to calm the sea, allowing Aeneas and the surviving ships to make landfall in Africa.