The hero Aeneas appears in both Greek and Roman mythology. He was a defender of Troy, the city in Asia Minorancient term for modern-day Turkey, the part of Asia closest to Greece that the Greeks destroyed in the Trojan Warlegendary war between the Greeks and the people of Troy that was set off by the kidnapping of Helen, wife of the king of Sparta; inspiration for Homer's epics the Iliad and the Odyssey. After the war, Aeneas led the Trojans who survived to the land now called Italy. According to Roman versions of the myth, Aeneas and his followers founded Rome, and he became its first great hero and legendary father.

The Setting. Like many legendary heroes, Aeneas was a nobleman and a demigodone who is part human and part god as...