# The Aeneid — Character guide

> Key figures in The Aeneid by Virgil.

- [Aeneas](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_aeneid_se/characters/aeneas.md): Seven years at sea have cost Aeneas his wife, his city, and most of his fleet; what remains is a mission to found a new Troy in Italy, pressed on him by fate and by his mother Venus. He is pious before he is happy — he o
- [Turnus](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_aeneid_se/characters/turnus.md): Turnus is the finest warrior of Latium, betrothed to King Latinus's daughter and confident of his place at the head of Italy — until Aeneas's ships appear and the gods begin rewriting his future. His rage at being displa
- [Juno](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_aeneid_se/characters/juno.md): Juno has reasons stacked on reasons: Paris chose Venus over her, Ganymede took her place at Jove's table, and Carthage — her favorite city — is fated to fall to the descendants of the very man she is hunting. She cannot 
- [Jove](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_aeneid_se/characters/jove.md): When Venus comes to him weeping over her son's misfortunes, Jove answers with a prophecy that stretches from Aeneas's descendants to Augustus, settling the epic's outcome before it has properly begun. He is not a meddler
- [Ascanius](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_aeneid_se/characters/ascanius.md): Ascanius — also called Iulus — is the living proof that Aeneas's mission matters beyond his own lifetime, the heir whose descendants will build Alba Longa and eventually Rome. He appears at his father's side at altars an
- [Dido](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_aeneid_se/characters/dido.md): Dido fled Tyre after her brother murdered her husband, and she has spent her reign turning a foreign shore into a thriving city — a ruler defined by grief she has refused to repeat. When Aeneas arrives and tells his stor
- [Anchises](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_aeneid_se/characters/anchises.md): Anchises is the patriarch of the exiled Trojans, the man whose command Aeneas obeys even as Troy smolders behind them. He bears the household gods and the weight of the past, yet his body falters where his authority does
- [Venus](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_aeneid_se/characters/venus.md): Venus watches her son's shipwreck from Olympus and immediately carries his complaint to Jupiter, extracting a promise of empire even as Juno rages against the Trojan remnant. She moves through the mortal world in a huntr
- [Latinus](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_aeneid_se/characters/latinus.md): Latinus rules a quiet Ausonian kingdom and reads in prophecy that his daughter Lavinia must wed a foreigner, a sign he welcomes when Trojan envoys arrive. His goodwill collides with Turnus's claim and Juno's fury, and th
- [Camilla](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_aeneid_se/characters/camilla.md): Camilla leads a cavalry of Volscian horsemen and women into battle for Turnus, her devotion to the war matched by a ferocity no one on either side can match. Raised by a father who fled into the mountains and dedicated h
- [Evander](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_aeneid_se/characters/evander.md): Evander governs a poor Arcadian colony on the Palatine, a king whose modest huts will one day be marble temples, and who recognizes in Aeneas the features of his old friend Anchises. He offers the Trojans alliance and hi
- [Pallas](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_aeneid_se/characters/pallas.md): Pallas rides out from his father's humble kingdom as Aeneas's ally, eager to prove himself and unaware of how much his life means to the man beside him. He is the son Evander surrenders to the war, and Aeneas accepts him
- [Mezentius](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_aeneid_se/characters/mezentius.md): Mezentius rules as a tyrant so despised that his own Etruscan subjects rose against him, driving him to seek refuge with Turnus and fight alongside the Rutulians. His defining trait is a scorning contempt for gods and me
- [Amata](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_aeneid_se/characters/amata.md): Amata is the wife of King Latinus and mother of Lavinia, and she passionately favors Turnus as her daughter's husband over the foreign newcomer Aeneas. When Latinus yields to fate and offers Lavinia to the Trojans, Amata
- [Acestes](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_aeneid_se/characters/acestes.md): Trojan king of Sicily who hosts Aeneas.
- [Nisus](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_aeneid_se/characters/nisus.md): Trojan warrior and close friend of Euryalus.
- [Euryalus](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_aeneid_se/characters/euryalus.md): Young Trojan warrior and companion of Nisus.
- [Neptune](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_aeneid_se/characters/neptune.md): God of the sea who calms storms for Aeneas.
- [Sibyl](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_aeneid_se/characters/sibyl.md): The Sibyl serves as Apollo's oracle at Cumae, a figure of immense spiritual authority whom Aeneas seeks out for counsel about his future in Italy. Wild-eyed and possessed by the god when she prophesies, she speaks truths
- [Palinurus](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_aeneid_se/characters/palinuirus.md): Aeneas's helmsman who falls overboard.
- [Salius](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_aeneid_se/characters/salius.md): Arcadian runner in the funeral games.
- [Creüsa](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_aeneid_se/characters/creusa.md): Aeneas's first wife who dies in Troy's fall.

HTML index: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_aeneid_se/characters