Aeneid Book XI

In the Fagles' translation, this book is titled "Camilla's Finest Hour." In Virgil's work, Camilla seems to epitomize a strong character. Other female characters are not portrayed as well. Creusa "wails with anguish" (Book 2, line 847). Sure her home is being destroyed by the Greeks, but it seems this behavior is still unacceptable. She disappears into the night--no one knows how she met her fate, but she is dead. At first, Dido seems to be a successful queen in a thriving city. Driven to by the gods to love a man she can never have, Dido kills herself. Finally, Camilla emerges. Since her infancy she has been raised to become a warrior princess. She leads a group of Amazons to fight the Trojans. She slaughters just like any other man. She is described as a falcon preying upon a dove which "hooked talons rip its insides out" (Book 11, line 853). Camilla is on fire. Yet Virgil doesn't allow women to thrive in his Roman epic. The woman must die, but unlike Creusa or Dido, Camilla dies with her dignity intact. Her final thoughts are for the Italians. In reading about her death, I thought of Patroclus in Iliad and how Hector killed him. The gods are the only ones able to kill her. In both texts, Apollo aids Hector and Chloreus in killing these two. Without the meddling of the gods, both might have survived. But Virgil could not have a strong female actually survive through his entire work.