Aeneas is one of the most prominent heroes who fought at Troy, as told in Homer’s Iliad, and he is the subject of Virgil’s Aeneid. Both works lie at the heart of western civilisation and are fantastic adventures involving love and war, journeys across wine-dark seas and the destruction and founding of cities.

Anthony Adolph analyses all the Greek and Roman myths about Aeneas to create the biography of a character who, though heavily fictionalised, may well have been a real person. In Search of Aeneas is essential reading for anyone interested in the links between classical mythology and ancient history, and the great empires of the Mediterranean.

The author transports the reader on a fabulous journey in Aeneas’s footsteps through the archaeological sites of the ancient world, from Troy to Rome. He cuts through the complexities of the classical texts and academic papers, explaining what they say about Aeneas in straightforward terms. By rooting the myths in real places, he makes them more comprehensible, especially for newcomers to the story.

Rather than be daunted by Aeneas as a semi-divine, mythological figure, Adolph has approached him as any genealogist should treat an ancestor, seeking to understand him in the context of his family and the era, and builds on the growing academic view that the core of the Iliad is based on real events.