Anárion

Lineage

Anárion was born in S.A. 3219 in Númenor, the younger son of Elendil the Tall and the grandson of Amandil, last Lord of Andúnië. His brother Isildur was ten years older. His name, meaning Son of the Sun, was paired with his brother's, Servant of the Moon, and the pairing was carried into the two cities they later built. He grew up among the Faithful at Rómenna under the rule of Ar-Pharazôn and the shadow of Sauron. His son Meneldil was born in 3318, the last man born in Númenor before it sank.

Exile and the founding of Gondor

When Ar-Pharazôn sailed against the Valar in 3319 and the island was drowned, Anárion and Isildur escaped in five ships, driven by the storm to the mouths of the Anduin. While their father founded Arnor in the north, the brothers founded the South-kingdom of Gondor and ruled it together under Elendil's high kingship. Their capital was Osgiliath, astride the great river, where their two thrones stood side by side in the hall of the Dome of Stars. Isildur built Minas Ithil in the east; Anárion built Minas Anor, the Tower of the Setting Sun, at the foot of Mount Mindolluin in the west, the city that was afterward called Minas Tirith. One of the palantíri was set there and another at Osgiliath. Under the two brothers the Dúnedain spread through the vales of the Anduin, and the Men of the mountains and the coasts, who had known the Númenóreans as tyrants in the last years of the island, learned to accept them as kings.

The war with Sauron

Sauron returned to Mordor after the Downfall and in 3429 struck at Gondor. Minas Ithil was taken and Isildur fled north by ship to bring word to Elendil. Anárion stayed. He held Osgiliath against the enemy and, for a time, drove Sauron's forces back to the mountains, so that Gondor survived until help came. When the Last Alliance marched south in 3434, Anárion joined it, and he fought at Dagorlad and in the long siege of Barad-dûr.

Death

In 3440, the seventh year of the siege, a stone cast from the Dark Tower struck Anárion and killed him. His helm was crushed by the blow, which is why the crown of Gondor, when the kings later chose to wear a Númenórean war-helm as their symbol, was the helm of Isildur and not his own. He died a year before Sauron was overthrown.

Legacy

Isildur, taking the high kingship after Elendil's death, planted a seedling of the White Tree in Minas Anor in his brother's memory and gave the rule of Gondor to Anárion's son Meneldil. From Meneldil the Kings of Gondor descended in unbroken line to Eärnur, and the claim of the North to Gondor's throne, which Arvedui raised and the Council rejected, turned on whether Isildur had given the kingdom to Anárion's heirs outright. When Aragorn at last took the crown, he was descended from Anárion as well as from Isildur, through Fíriel, daughter of Ondoher, and so united both lines. Anárion's name was preserved in the highest tower of Minas Tirith and in the memory of Gondor's founding, and the city he built outlived Osgiliath and Minas Ithil to become the capital of the Reunited Kingdom.

Killed by a stone cast from Barad-dûr in S.A. 3440, in the seventh year of the siege.