Aeneid, Book 11

Book 11 of the Aeneid, Vergil's epic of the Trojan foundation of Rome (29–19 BC), follows the bloodshed of Book 10 with mourning, argument and a final cavalry battle. It prepares the way for the single combat of Aeneas and Turnus that ends the poem in Book 12.

Aeneas sets up the arms of Mezentius as a trophy and weeps over the body of Pallas, which he sends home with a solemn procession. He grants the Latin envoys a truce for burying the dead, and the Latin Drances answers him with praise. In Pallanteum Evander receives his son's body. Among the Latins, grief turns to recrimination when Venulus reports that the Greek hero Diomedes, now settled in Italy, refuses to fight Troy again. In a council King Latinus proposes peace, Drances attacks Turnus as the cause of the war, and Turnus answers him with contempt and refuses to give way. News of the Trojan advance breaks up the debate. Camilla, the warrior queen of the Volsci, offers to lead the cavalry while Turnus lays an ambush; the goddess Diana tells how her father Metabus raised her in the wilds. Camilla fights brilliantly, outwits a Ligurian, and is killed by a spear from Arruns, whom Diana's nymph Opis then shoots. The Latins are routed back to their gates.

The debate between Drances and Turnus is a fine piece of political rhetoric in verse, and Camilla's last fight is one of the most admired episodes of the Aeneid. The Latin is varied and often demanding.