Who He Is
Ascanius, also called Iulus, is the son of Aeneas and Creusa. When the poem begins he is a boy, and the poem treats him as the future that destiny pulls forward: Jupiter promises Venus that he will reign in Alba, and it is in his name that Mercury rebukes Aeneas in Carthage. What he himself wants, when he begins to want something, is glory: he shoots a stag out of love of glory, promises spoils to those who volunteer for the most dangerous mission, and with the first arrow of war kills the one who insults him. The poem makes him grow from book to book, from a boy led by the hand to a boy who gives orders to adults and, at the end, to a son who hears his father say farewell before the decisive battle. Through Iulus he is regarded as the ancestor of the Julian family, that of Julius Caesar and Augustus, and this is the link that joins the Trojan lineage to the Roman principate.
Trajectory
In Book I he is the object of a promise and of a deception. Jupiter announces to Venus that he will reign in Alba and that from Iulus's line a Caesar will come. Venus, distrustful of the Tyrians, has Cupid take the form of Ascanius and climb into the lap of Dido to kindle passion in her for Aeneas, and the real boy knows nothing of what they are doing with his face.
Quocirca capere ante dolis et cingere flamma / Reginam meditor, for this reason I plan to take the queen first with cunning and surround her with fire.
In Book II he leaves Troy by his father's hand. When Aeneas, determined to return to the fight, runs into Creusa, it is she who hands him the boy and asks that he take the family along or first defend the house. A flame that does not burn appears over his head, and it is this sign that makes Anchises yield and accept exile. In Book III he follows the wandering, and at Buthrotum Andromache gives him embroidered clothes, because he reminds her of Astyanax, the son she lost.
Si periturus abis, et nos rape in omnia tecum; / Sin aliquam expertus sumptis spem ponis in armis, / Hanc primum tutare domum, if you are going away to perish, take us with you into everything; but if, having tried it, you still place some hope in arms, first protect this house.
In Book IV he is both a reason and a curse. Dido holds him on her lap at night to cheat the love she feels for the father. Jupiter tells Mercury that, if the glory of Rome does not move Aeneas, he should think of Ascanius, to whom Italy is owed. And in the curse she casts upon the Trojans, Dido asks that Aeneas be torn from Iulus's embrace.
Tum vos, o Tyrii, stirpem et genus omne futurum / Exercete odiis, cinerique haec mittite nostro / Munera: nullus amor populis nec foedera sunto. / Exoriare aliquis nostris ex ossibus ultor, / Qui face Dardanios ferroque sequare colonos. / Nunc, olim, quocumque dabunt se tempore vires, / Littora littoribus contraria, fluctibus undas / Imprecor, arma armis: pugnent ipsique nepotes, then you, Tyrians, torment with hatred their line and every generation to come, and send these offerings to my ashes: let there be no love or treaties between the peoples. Let some avenger rise from my bones, who will pursue the Dardanian colonists with torch and sword, now, later, whenever at any time their strength is offered: I curse them, shore against shore, waves against waves, weapons against weapons: let the grandsons fight too.
In Book V he leads the boys on horseback in maneuvers that resemble a labyrinth, and the narrator interrupts the scene to say that Ascanius brought this game to Alba, Alba passed it on to Rome, and the boys still call themselves the Trojan squadron. When the Trojan women, urged on by Iris, set fire to the ships, he gallops to the camp, throws off his helmet, and asks them to stop, saying that they are burning their own hopes. The line works because he is the future they say they want.
Hunc morem, hos cursus, atque haec certamina primus / Ascanius, longam muris cum cingeret Albam, / Rettulit, et priscos docuit celebrare Latinos, / Quo puer ipse modo, secum quo Troia pubes: / Albani docuere suos: hinc maxima porro / Accepit Roma, et patrium servavit honorem; / Trojaque nunc pueri, Trojanum dicitur agmen., this custom, these races, and these contests, Ascanius was the first to bring back, when he was encircling Alba Longa with walls, and he taught the ancient Latins to celebrate them as he himself did as a boy, and the Trojan youth with him; the Albans taught their own; from there great Rome received them and kept the honor of their fathers; and now the boys are called Troy, and the squadron is called Trojan.
Quis furor iste novus? quo nunc, quo tenditis, inquit, / Heu! miserae cives? non hostem, inimicaque castra / Argivum: vestras spes uritis. En ego vester / Ascanius, what new madness is this? Where are you going now, where, he said, alas, wretched citizens? You are not burning an enemy, nor the hostile camp of the Argives: you are burning your own hopes. Behold me, your Ascanius.
In Book VII he says, without meaning to, the line that fulfills the prophecy: hungry, he jokes that now they are eating even the tables. Right after, goaded by Allecto, he wounds the tame stag of Silvia with an arrow, shooting out of love of glory and without knowing whose animal it was. It is the first blood of the war, because the countrymen arrive armed and the Trojans rush to help. Silvia is the first to call for help, and the narrator calls this episode the first cause of the evils.
Heus! etiam mensas consumimus, inquit Iulus, / Nec plura, alludens, look! We are even eating our tables, says Iulus, and nothing more, jesting.
Silvia prima soror, palmis percussa lacertos, / Auxilium vocat, et duros conclamat agrestes, Silvia, the sister, striking her arms with her palms, is the first to call for help, and loudly summons the hard countrymen.
In Book VIII he is named, not seen. The god of the Tiber tells Aeneas that Ascanius will found Alba thirty years later, at the place where the white sow is, and the shield that Vulcan forged shows the whole descent of the line from him.
Illic res Italas Romanorumque triumphos, / Haud vatum ignarus, venturique inscius aevi, / Fecerat Ignipotens; illic genus omne futurae / Stirpis ab Ascanio, pugnataque in ordine bella, there the Lord of fire, not ignorant of the seers nor unaware of the time to come, had made the affairs of Italy and the triumphs of the Romans; there the whole descent of the future stock from Ascanius, and the wars fought in order.
In Book IX he is besieged in the camp with orders not to leave it. When Nisus and Euryalus offer to carry word to Aeneas, he promises bowls, tripods, gold, the horse and the arms of Turnus, captive women, and the lands of King Latinus, and he weeps and swears to treat as a mother the mother of Euryalus, whom the young man leaves without a farewell. Later one of the Rutulians, Numanus Remulus, insults the Trojans as Phrygian women who should leave war to the men, and Ascanius kills him with the first arrow of war. Apollo, in the form of Butes, Anchises's old squire, approves the shot and orders him to withdraw, because the war to come belongs to his line.
Unum oro: genitrix Priami de gente vetusta / Est mihi, quam miseram tenuit non Ilia tellus / Mecum excedentem, non moenia regis Acestae; / Hanc ego nunc ignaram hujus quodcumque pericli est, / Inque salutatam linquo; nox et tua testis / Dextera, quod nequeam lacrymas perferre parentis. / At tu, oro, solare inopem, et succurre relictae; / Hanc sine me spem ferre tui, audentior ibo / In casus omnes, only one thing I ask: I have a mother of ancient Priam's line, whom neither the land of Ilium nor the walls of King Acestes kept back, poor woman, when she left with me. I leave her now without knowing any danger this may be, and without a farewell; the night and your right hand are witnesses that I could not bear my mother's tears. But you, I beg, console the destitute one and come to the aid of the abandoned; let me carry this hope in you with me, and I will go more boldly into all dangers.
Sit satis, Aeneide, telis impune Numanum / Oppetiisse tuis: primam hanc tibi magnus Apollo / Concedit laudem, et paribus non invidet armis. / Cetera parce, puer, bello, let it suffice, son of Aeneas, that Numanus has died unpunished by your arrows: great Apollo grants you this first glory, and does not begrudge you equal arms. For the rest, spare yourself, boy, from war.
In Book X Venus asks Jupiter that at least he be spared, and the nymph Cymodocea warns Aeneas that the boy is trapped between wall and ditch, in the midst of the Latins. When Aeneas lands and raises the shield in flames, it is Ascanius, with the others besieged, who breaks through the encirclement.
Vigilasne, deum gens, / Aenea? Vigila, et velis immitte rudentes. [...] At puer Ascanius muro fossisque tenetur / Tela inter media atque horrentes Marte Latinos, are you awake, race of gods, Aeneas? Keep watch, and loose the ropes to the sails. [...] But the boy Ascanius is held between wall and ditch, in the midst of the weapons and the Latins bristling for war.
In Book XII his father, healed of the arrow, kisses him over the helmet before going back to the fight, and tells him to learn from him valor and true labor, and from the fortune of others.
Disce, puer, virtutem ex me verumque laborem; / [...] Nunc te mea dextera bello / Defensum dabit et magna inter praemia ducet, learn from me, boy, valor and true labor; [...] now my right hand will keep you safe in war and lead you among great rewards.
Themes Embodied
Ascanius embodies Fate and free will from the side of promise: almost everything the gods do for Aeneas and against him is done in the name of what he will become, and the boy chooses none of the stages. To his father's Duty he answers with the Duty of an heir, which the poem asks of him too early, and in the scenes of the burning ships and the siege he acts like an adult. Home, Exile, and Return passes through him in the image of the boy led by the hand, and Empire and colonialism in the genealogy that runs from Alba to Rome and to the Caesar of the prophecy. War begins, in part, in his hands, in the stag of Book VII and the arrow of Book IX.
Ascanius is the question the poem asks about the price of the future. Everyone acts for his sake, and he only truly acts when he errs out of glory, with the stag, or when he strikes too early, against Numanus, and in both cases the adults gather him up. The boy who justifies Italy is also the one who may cost the war, and the poem shows both things without choosing.
Relationships
- Aeneas: the father, who leads him by the hand and leaves him the lesson of valor and true labor.
- Creusa: the mother, who hands him to his father on the threshold of the house and vanishes in the flight.
- Anchises: the grandfather, who yields to the flame over his grandson's head and foretells the hunger for the tables.
- Venus: the divine grandmother, who uses his face to kindle Dido and asks Jupiter to spare him.
- Dido: the queen who holds him in her lap, without knowing who is within him.
- Nisus and Euryalus: the two to whom he makes promises and to whom he swears to look after Euryalus's mother.
- Turnus: the enemy before the camp, whose arms he promises.
In Art
The three generations of the flight, with him by his father's hand, are in the painting The Flight of Aeneas from Troy and in the sculpture Aeneas, Anchises, and Ascanius.