So, Aeneas in the Homeric Iliad can boast about the eternal genes that make him the ideal ancestor of any dynasty that claims to be descended from him. And that is how, from the hindsight of world history, Rome could claim its destiny as the Eternal City. I have already noted that Strabo (13.1.53 C608), after listing various dynasties in the past that had been vying with each other for possession of Aeneas as their ancestor, concludes by acknowledging Rome as the world power that ultimately won out in claiming Aeneas as its founder. And Virgil’s Aeneid can go down in history as a most powerful statement of such a claim. But what about the era when the Homeric Iliad took shape? Does this epic make a claim that is comparable to what we see in the Aeneid of Virgil? Such questions need to be consolidated and asked retrospectively, not just prospectively, since the historically earlier cases where dynasties claimed descent from Aeneas are not nearly as well attested as is the case of Rome. So, the consolidated question is this: from the standpoint of the Iliad as we have it, was there any existing political power that could have claimed ownership, as it were, of Aeneas? The answer is simple: there did exist some grouping of Ionians that had such power, and, for them, Aeneas was an Ionian. But the details, as we will see in what follows, are complicated. And, to complicate things further, there were two phases of Ionian ownership, which I summarize here in the form of two points to be made from the start.
Point 1. [Epitomized from HPC 196–197.] The first of two phases for an Ionian ownership of Aeneas can be traced back to the seventh century BCE or perhaps even earlier. It was a time when the Ionians of the Ionian Dodecapolis in central Asia Minor, dominated by the Ionian city of Miletus, were continuing to expand their influence in northern Asia Minor. (For more on the Ionian Dodecapolis, see the inventory of Words and Ideas.) One sign of such expansionism was the success of these Ionians in making inroads into the region of ancient Troy in northern Asia Minor and establishing there a new Troy, as it were. Such success is reflected in the Ionian epic tradition. The primary example is the Ionian epic of the Iliou Persis, attributed to Arctinus of Miletus. Here I offer a brief review of the relevant parts of this epic (Proclus summary p. 107.24–26 ed. Allen 1912):
After Troy was completely destroyed by the Achaeans, a handful of prominent survivors sought to find alternative places to live. The most prominent of these survivors of Troy’s total destruction was the hero Aeneas: foreseeing the destruction that was about to happen, he withdrew from the doomed city and moved to a palace he established in the highlands of Mount Ida.
This version of the Aeneas story matches not only the plot of the epic Iliou Persis. It matches also the local mythology of the city of Scepsis, located in the region of Mount Ida. As we learn from Strabo (13.1.53 C607), Demetrius of Scepsis claimed explicitly that the basileion ‘royal palace’ of Aeneas was in the city of Scepsis. The idea of a royal city founded by Aeneas in the region of Mount Ida reflects the political interests of Ionians in general, not only of Scepsis in particular. To make this point, I start by focusing on two details reported by Demetrius of Scepsis by way of Strabo (13.1.52 C607):
A. The city of Scepsis, after being founded by Aeneas, was later ruled jointly by Ascanius (Askanios) son of Aeneas and Scamandrius (Skamandrios) son of Hector.
B. The population of Scepsis was augmented at a later period by immigrants from the Ionian city of Miletus.
Scepsis had a special meaning for Ionians not only because this city was supposedly the site of the palace of the hero Aeneas but also because the ancient site of Troy was supposedly located within its territory, in the highlands of Mount Ida. Here was the kōmē ‘village’ of the Ilieis ‘people of Ilion’, a site that Demetrius of Scepsis claimed was the real ancient Troy, while the Aeolian site of Ilion, some 30 stadium-lengths to the northwest, was supposedly a false Troy (Strabo 13.1.35–36 C597–598; also 13.1.25 C593). So, the Trojan War, according to this Ionian version, supposedly happened in territory that Ionians once claimed as their own. In this version, ancient Troy was totally destroyed and then later reoccupied as a mere village, while Aeneas established at Scepsis a new city of Troy for the surviving Trojans. And the relocation of Aeneas to Scepsis at a time that anticipated the total destruction of ancient Troy now made it possible for the new Troy that was Scepsis to become the legitimate heir to the Trojan heritage—all within the framework of Ionian territory. In terms of this particular Ionian version of the Trojan War, everything happened within the Ionian territory of Scepsis. In contrast to this version of the Trojan War, which suited the interests of the Ionians, the Aeolians made a rival claim: that Troy was in fact not totally destroyed and that some of its population survived to rebuild the old city, originally called either Troy or Ilion, as the New Ilion, or, more simply, Ilion. See the anchor comment at I.09.328–333 about efforts of Aeolians to possess ancient Troy and its environs in the historical period. This rival version of the Aeolians was actively promoted by the historian Hellanicus of Lesbos, whose publications can be dated as far back as 406 BCE (scholia for Aristophanes Frogs 694). Hellanicus in his Trōïka (FGH 4 F 25b), as mediated by Strabo (13.1.42 C602), says that the city of New Ilion was in fact the same place as the old Ilion, that is, ancient Troy. Strabo (again, 13.1.42 C602) remarks that this claim of Hellanicus—who was a native of Aeolian Lesbos—reflects the historian’s partiality toward the people of the Aeolian city of New Ilion. Modern archaeology, however, has proved that the claim of the Aeolians as represented by Hellanicus of Lesbos was basically right and that the rival claim of the Ionians as later represented by Demetrius of Scepsis was wrong. There is in fact no historical or archaeological support for the claim that the old Ilion, ancient Troy, was located in the Ionian territory of Scepsis. Here I return to the Ionian version as restated by Demetrius and then by Strabo (13.1.35–36 C597–598; also 13.1.25 C593). According to this version, as we saw, the site of the old Ilion was the kōmē ‘village’ of the Ilieis ‘people of Ilion’ in the territory of Scepsis, some thirty stadium-lengths away from New Ilion. Despite the fact, however, that Demetrius thinks of this ‘village’ as the site of ancient Troy, he concedes (via Strabo 13.1.38 C599) that he could see absolutely no trace of any epic ruins there.
Point 2. [Epitomized, radically, from HPC 143–146.] The second of two phases for an Ionian ownership of Aeneas can be traced back to an era that starts, by my estimation, somewhere around the late seventh century BCE. The city of Athens, which was emerging as a primary representative of Ionian identity at that time, was making its own inroads into the region of ancient Troy, eventually establishing there a new Troy of its own by occupying and reconfiguring the city of Sigeion, which had been formerly an Aeolian stronghold. The formerly Aeolian identity of Sigeion is noted by Strabo 13.1.25 C593. As for the reconfigured Ionian identity of Sigeion as a new Troy, I refer again to Points 6 and 8 in the anchor comment at I.09.328–333. This reconfigured city of Sigeion as a new Troy became a rival of another new Troy, Ilion, which had been built by the Aeolians on the foundations of what remained of the old Troy, as noted at Points 1–5 in the same anchor comment at I.09.328–333. See also anchor comment at I.20.302–308 on: Aeneas the Ionian, part 2; and anchor comment at I.20.302–308 on: Aeneas the Aeolian.