Men of the Ancient Houses

During the later First Age, the Men of the Three Houses of Edain fought as allies of the Eldar against the power of Morgoth in the North. After Morgoth was defeated in the War of Wrath, the survivors of those Houses were granted a new land to dwell in - Númenor - and a span of life far beyond that of Mortal Men in Middle-earth. Elros, the first of their Kings and the longest-lived of all Men, lived for no less than five hundred years. As the millennia passed, the lives of these Dúnedain grew shorter, but the descendants of the Ancient Houses still far outlived others of their kind. When Aragorn spoke the words quoted above, at the height of the War of the Ring, he was eighty-eight years old, and he would live to reach the age of 210.