The Deification of Aeneas

The subject is taken from Ovid's Metamorphoses, XIV, which relates how, after Jupiter had granted Venus' request that Aeneas, her son, be given a place amongst the Gods, the Goddess 'drawn through the air by harnessed doves, ...went to the Laurentian shore, just where, concealed by reeds, Numicius' winding stream pours its fresh waters out into the sea. She asked the river-god to wash away and carry off, along his silent course, into the sea's abyss, all mortal parts of her Aeneas. And the horned Numicius, obeying Venus, cleansed her son of his mortality; the purest part alone was left, and this - his sublimated body - she then anointed with ambrosia mixed with honeyed nectar, deifying him.'