One of the three peerless sons of Tros, brother of Ilus and Ganymedes, through whom the collateral Dardanian line runs from Capys and Anchises down to Aeneas.1
When Aeneas faces Achilles on the Trojan plain, he recites his lineage in full: Erichthonius begat Tros to be king among the Trojans, and from Tros three peerless sons were born — Ilus, Assaracus, and godlike Ganymedes, fairest of mortal men. While Ilus' branch ran through Laomedon to Priam and Hector, Assaracus begat Capys, Capys begat Anchises, and Anchises begat Aeneas himself: the junior branch of the royal house, kept apart from the throne of Ilios.2
Apollodorus supplies the marriages Homer leaves out. Tros, who named the country Troy after himself, married Callirrhoe, daughter of Scamander, and begat Ilus, Assaracus, and Ganymede. Assaracus took to wife Hieromneme, daughter of the river Simoeis, and had by her a son Capys; Capys in turn married Themiste, daughter of Ilus — knitting the two branches back together — and fathered Anchises, whom Aphrodite met in love and to whom she bore Aeneas.3
In Ovid, an old man watching the diving bird that was once Aesacus vouches for its royal blood by reciting the same pedigree: the line's origin lies with Ilus and Assaracus and Ganymede caught up by Jupiter. Even in Roman verse Assaracus remains a fixture of the Trojan family tree, a name that certifies descent.4
Hyginus hands Assaracus a larger share of the family than the older tradition allows. In his star catalogue it is 'Ganymede, son of Assaracus' who becomes Aquarius, and in his list of the most handsome men Anchises, whom Venus loved, is 'son of Assaracus' — where in Homer and Apollodorus Ganymede is Assaracus' brother and Anchises his grandson through Capys.5
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the spine ignites as you read · hover a bond on the card — every mention of them lights in the story