Julius Caesar Denarius. 47-46 BC, mint in Africa. Diademed head of Venus right / CAESAR, Aeneas walking left, carrying Anchises and the Palladium. Cr458/1, Syd 1013. RSC 0012. No.7171. Fine, double struck. 3.0g.
This type relates to the mythical descent of the Julia gens from Julus the son of Aeneas.
In Greek mythology, Anchises was a son of Capys. He was the father of Aeneas by Aphrodite. Anchises bred his mares with the divine stallions owned by King Laomedon. After the Trojan War, Anchises was carried from Troy to Italy by his son, Aeneas. Anchises died and was buried in Sicily. Aeneas later visited Hades and saw his father again.
� Aeneas, in Roman mythology the son of Anchises, a Trojan prince, and
Venus, goddess of love. After the capture of Troy by the Greeks,
Aeneas was able, with the help of his mother, to escape from the
fallen city. Carrying his aged father on his back and leading his
little son by the hand, he made his way to the seacoast. In the
confusion of flight, his wife was left behind. A long, perilous, and
adventure-filled voyage took him to Thrace, Delos, Crete, and
Sicily, where his father died. The goddess Juno, who had always
hated Aeneas and wanted to keep him from founding Rome, which she
knew was his destiny, tried to drown him in a violent storm. He and
his crew were cast up on the African coast, where they were welcomed
by Dido, the beautiful queen of Carthage. Dido fell in love with
Aeneas and begged him to remain. When he refused and set sail, she
took her own life in despair. After several years of wandering,
Aeneas reached Italy and the mouth of the Tiber; there he was
hospitably received by Latinus, king of Latium. He became betrothed
to Lavinia, the daughter of Latinus, but before he could marry her,
Juno caused Turnus, king of the Rutuli and a rejected suitor of
Lavinia, to make war against Aeneas and Latinus. The war was
resolved by hand-to-hand combat, in which Turnus was defeated and
slain by Aeneas. Aeneas then ruled for several years in Latium and,
marrying Lavinia, founded the Roman people called Latins. His
descendants Romulus ans Remus founded the city of Rome.
The great Roman epic, the Aeneid by Vergil, tells the story of
Aeneas' perilous wanderings in detail and ends with the death of
Turnus.�
Encarta 1994