Aeneas is the hero of the Aeneid: a Trojan prince, son of the goddess Venus and Anchises, who escapes burning Troy and, after years of wandering over the sea, reaches Italy, where his line will give rise to Rome.
The poem does not present him as a conqueror. His first speech is a lament: in the middle of the storm, he envies those who died beneath the walls of Troy, "before their fathers' eyes." He reaches Libya as a castaway and comforts his companions with a hope he himself does not feel, because a leader needs his men to keep going.
The trait that defines him is piety, the duty owed to his father, the gods, his son, and his homeland. On the last night of Troy he carries Anchises on his shoulders "through flames and a thousand darts," leads Ascanius by the hand, and saves the Penates, the household gods. Before that, the dream about Hector had already changed his task: instead of defending the city, he must seek for the gods of Troy the walls he will found after crossing the sea. Destiny comes to him as an order, and he carries it out.
Carrying it out costs dearly. Aeneas leaves Dido, who kills herself, and tells her that he does not sail for Italy "of his own will." He loses his father before arriving, loses Pallas in the war in Latium, and, in the last line of the poem, kills Turnus. The poem shows the firm leader and the shaken man in the same character, and readers have always argued over whether he is a model of duty or a man led by forces greater than his will.