Atlas is the son of the Titans Iapetus and Clymene, two of the twelve Titans. In Roman mythology, he had a wife, the nymph Pleione, who bore the 7 Pleiades, Alkyone, Merope, Kelaino, Elektra, Sterope, Taygete, and Maia, and the Hyades, sisters of Hyas, named Phaesyla, Ambrosia, Coronis, Eudora, and Polyxo. Atlas is a brother of Epimetheus, Prometheus, and Menetius.

The career of Atlas included ruling as King of Arcadia. His successor was Deimas, the son of Dardanus of Troy.

Arcadia is the name of a region in modern-day Greece, but it was also a place of reference in ancient Greek mythology. It was located in the Peloponnese, and was considered to be a wilderness in which the god Pan resided, along with dryads, nymphs and other spirits. It was believed that it was a utopian place, where inhuman creatures dwelled. Hermes, the god of thievery and the messenger of the other gods, would be seen roaming in the region, while Atalanta, “a mythical heroine who participated in the hunt for the Calydonian Boar and managed to kill it”, was the daughter of the king of Arcadia.

The story of the birth of Aeneas is told in the “Hymn to Aphrodite”, one of the major Homeric Hymns. Aphrodite has caused Zeus to fall in love with mortal women. In retaliation, Zeus puts desire in her heart for Anchises, who is tending his cattle among the hills near Mount Ida. When Aphrodite sees him she is smitten. She adorns herself as if for a wedding among the gods and appears before him. He is overcome by her beauty, believing that she is a goddess, but Aphrodite identifies herself as a Phrygian princess. After they make love, Aphrodite reveals her true identity to him and Anchises fears what might happen to him as a result of their liaison. Aphrodite assures him that he will be protected, and tells him that she will bear him a son to be called Aeneas. However, she warns him that he must never tell anyone that he has lain with a goddess. When Aeneas is born, Aphrodite takes him to the nymphs of Mount Ida. She directs them to raise the child to age five, then take him to Anchises. According to other sources, Anchises later brags about his encounter with Aphrodite, and as a result is struck in the foot with a thunderbolt by Zeus. Thereafter he is lame in that foot, so that Aeneas has to carry him from the flames of Troy.

Dardanus, in Greek legend, son of Zeus and the Pleiad Electra, mythical founder of Dardanus on the Hellespont and ancestor of the Dardans of the Troad and, through Aeneas, of the Romans. His original home was supposed to have been Arcadia. Having slain his brother Iasius or Iasion (according to some legends, Iasius was struck by lightning), Dardanus fled across the sea. He first stopped at Samothrace and when the island was visited by a flood, crossed over to the Troad, a region surrounding Troy in Asia Minor. Being hospitably received by Teucer, (ruler of Phrygia) he married his daughter Bateia and became the founder of the Royal House of Troy.

Tacitus, Josephus, and others point to the establishment of a Royal line in Cretan Mycenae, established by exiles from Egypt who practiced circumcision and were considered “Aliens” by the Egyptians.

There are numerous links between Troy and Crete. Dardanus built a city at the foot of Mount Ida in the Troad; there is also a Mount Ida near the Cretan city of Mycenae.

The Compendium of World History records that “the refugees of the First Trojan War settled in Italy. They founded Lavinium two years after the First Trojan War, that is, in 1179 and later the city of Alba (the site of the Pope’s summer palace today) at the time of the Second Trojan War in 1149. The Trojan Royal House founded in Italy a line of kings that reigned in Alba from 1178 until 753, when the center of government passed to Rome.