those from whom a person is descended in a straight line. The word is derived from the Latin ancestor, contracted from antecessor, goer before. Many nations have paid honours to their ancestors. It was properly the departed souls of their forefathers that the Romans worshipped under the denominations of lares, lemures, and household gods. Hence the ancient tombs were a kind of temples, or rather altars, whereon oblations were made by the kindred of the deceased.

ANCHISÉS, in fabulous history, a Trojan prince, descended from Dardanus and the son of Capys. Venus made love to him in the form of a beautiful nymph, and bore him Æneas, the hero of Virgil's Æneid.