Founding of Rome the line of Romans through his son Iulus, the namesake of the Julio-Claudian dynasty. The national epic of mythical Rome, the "Aeneid" of Virgil, tells the story of how Trojan prince Aeneas came to Italy. The "Aeneid" was written under Augustus, who claimed ancestry through Julius Caesar from the hero and his mother Venus. According to the "Aeneid", the survivors from the fallen city of Troy banded together under Aeneas and underwent a series of adventures around the Mediterranean Sea, including a stop at newly founded Carthage under the rule of Queen Dido, eventually reaching the Italian coast. The Trojans
Aeneas "Origines". The Aeneas legend was well known in Virgil's day and appeared in various historical works, including the "Roman Antiquities" of the Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus (relying on Marcus Terentius Varro), "Ab Urbe Condita" by Livy (probably dependent on Quintus Fabius Pictor, fl. 200 BCE), and Gnaeus Pompeius Trogus (now extant only in an epitome by Justin). The "Aeneid" explains that Aeneas is one of the few Trojans who were not killed or enslaved when Troy fell. Aeneas, after being commanded by the gods to flee, gathered a group, collectively known as the Aeneads, who then traveled to Italy