THE AENEID: THIRD PART

FOR THE FIRST PART CLICK HERE. FOR THE SECOND PART CLICK HERE.

THREE – Aeneas and his fleet of survivors of fallen Troy arrive at Latium in what is now west central Italy. They are made welcome by King Latinus, who offers his daughter Lavinia to Aeneas as a bride per the oracles foreseeing the arrival of strangers possessed of greatness and whose leader he should marry to Lavinia. 

King Turnus of the Rutuli people is infuriated because he had been promised Lavinia’s hand. The goddess Juno, still hoping to prevent the founding of Rome, causes Latinus’ wife Queen Amata to insist that the original plan to have Lavinia wed Turnus must be adhered to. The situation prompts Turnus to declare war on the Trojans.

Aeneas tries to avoid a conflict in his people’s new home region, but Juno causes our hero’s son Ascanius to accidentally kill a deer sacred to Latinus’ people during a hunt. This cements the impending war and Aeneas has no choice but to seek allies just as Turnus is doing.

Tiberinus, god of the Tiber River, visits Aeneas in a dream and instructs him to form an alliance with the Tuscans, who are already enemies of the Rutuli. Aeneas does so.

Next, Aeneas visits Pallantium, a Greek colony established by King Evander, who has been exposing the ancient Italians to the Greek culture and alphabet. Despite being Greek, Evander – whose city Pallantium is on the site of what will become Rome’s Pallatine Hill – agrees to help the Trojans. He has his son Pallas lead an army to fight at the side of Aeneas.

Aeneas’s mother, the goddess Venus, reluctantly married to the limping fire, forge and volcano god Vulcan by this point, asks her husband to forge an invincible shield for her son. He does so and emblazons that shield with magnificent art depicting future events in Rome’s history.

The shield shows Romulus and Remus suckling at the she-wolf’s breast, the taking of the Sabine Women, the death of Alba Longa’s Mettius Fufetius, the Etruscan King Porsena’s siege of Rome, the Gauls’s attack on Rome, the Battle of Actium and finally, Augustus Caesar officially proclaiming the Roman Empire and ruling during the Pax Romana.   

While Aeneas has been rounding up allies, Juno informs Turnus that the Trojan leader is away from his camp. Turnus strikes swiftly, surrounding the camp and establishing a siege.

That night Nisus and Euryalus, two close friends of Aeneas, try to rally the spirits of their fellow Trojans with a daring raid on the Rutuli army’s camp. They loot and plunder, but the shining helmet that is among Euryalus’s loot gives them away. They die together fighting the Rutuli.

The next day Turnus leads his forces in an attack on the gates of the Trojans. After a long and bloody battle, it seems that the Rutuli army will succeed in penetrating the gates but the Trojans manage to hold firm and repel the assault.

I’LL EXAMINE THE FINAL PART VERY SOON.