THE DEATH OF CAMILLA.
Æneas’s first care, after raising a trophy crowned with the arms of the
slain Mezentius, is to send home to Evander the body of his son. A
picked detachment escort it to Laurentum with all honour, wrapped in
robes of gold--embroidered robes, wrought by the hands of the
unfortunate Dido. The youth’s charger, Æthon, is led behind the bier,
and his lance and helm are also borne in the procession; a custom which
we have borrowed from the Romans, and retain to this day in our military
funerals. Æthon weeps copious tears for his dead master; an incident not
so entirely due to a poet’s imagination as it may seem, since the
historian Suetonius tells us that some favourite horses of Julius Cæsar
showed the same tokens of grief, and refused their food, just before his
death. Another feature in the obsequies of Pallas is happily obsolete;
the prisoners whom Æneas had taken alive with this express object follow
behind the corpse, to be sacrificed at the funeral pile. There was
nothing horrible to the polished courtiers of Augustus in such a
thought. Even in that age of refinement and civilisation, the emperor
himself, after the defeat of Antony’s party at Perusia, was said to have
slaughtered three hundred prisoners in honour of the great Julius, to
whom altars were raised as a demi-god. True, the story was probably an
invention of political opponents; but the mere fact that such a story
could be invented and believed, marks strongly the cruel temper of the
age. The old king receives back, in bitter grief, all that remains to
him of the gallant son whom he had so lately sent forth to his first
fatal field: and he charges Æneas, by the mouth of the envoys, to avenge
him on his son’s murderer--for this he only waits to close his own eyes.
A truce of twelve days is agreed upon between the armies for the burial
of their dead. The Latins have meanwhile sent an embassy to ask aid from
Diomed, the hero of the Trojan war, who has come home and settled in
Italy. He is paying the penalty of having wounded Venus in the battle
before Troy, and is not allowed to reach his native Argolis. He warns
the ambassadors that it is not good to war against the race from which
Æneas comes--he, for his part, will have no more of it. At this crisis
the Latins hold a council of war. Their king advises a compromise with
the enemy--a grant of land on which to settle, or a new equipped fleet
to carry the fortunes of Troy yet further on. Then there rises in the
council one Drances, a better orator than warrior, who boldly proposes
to give the princess Lavinia to the bridegroom whom the gods have sent.
Or, let Turnus meet Æneas in single combat--why are the rest to suffer
for his pride? Is all Latium to be steeped in blood that Turnus may have
a princess to wife? Turnus is not slow to reply. He will go forth to
meet the Trojan willingly--will Drances follow him?
Even while they thus debate, Æneas has left his intrenchments by the
Tiber, and is marching on the city. The queen with her daughter and the
terrified women betake themselves to the temples, while Turnus sets
himself to marshal his allies for the defence. While some are left to
guard the walls, the whole force of cavalry ride out to meet the enemy.
His best lieutenant for this service is the huntress Camilla. She leads
her light Volscian horse, supported by Messapus with his heavier Latins,
to meet the cavalry of Æneas, while Turnus with his squadron lays an
ambuscade for him in a wooded valley. Camilla, with her fair staff of
followers, Tulla and Tarpeia--names of ominous sound to Roman
ears--deals slaughter in the enemy’s ranks in no feminine fashion.
“A Phrygian mother mourned her son
For every dart that flew.”
But, fierce Amazon as she is, she is tempted by a woman’s love of
ornament. There is a Trojan, one Chlorus, priest as well as man-at-arms,
conspicuous for the brilliant accoutrements of his charger and himself.
His horse is covered with chain-armour clasped with gold; and purple and
saffron, and gold embroidery--the full splendours of Asiatic costume
which he affects--mark him out as a tempting prey. It might have been,
the poet suggests, a desire to deck some of her national temples with
such distinguished spoils,--or it might have been, he admits, only a
woman’s fancy to wear them herself,--but she singles him out and chases
him over the field, regardless of her own safety. Arruns the Tuscan has
long sought his opportunity, and his spear reaches Camilla as she
gallops in headlong pursuit of her gay enemy.
“In vain she strives with dying hands
To wrench away the blade:
Fixed in her ribs the weapon stands,
Closed by the wound it made.
Bloodless and faint, she gasps for breath;
Her heavy eyes sink down in death;
Her cheek’s bright colours fade.”
So dies Camilla; and the Volscian horse are so disheartened by her loss
that they turn and fly to the city, so closely pursued by the Trojans
that the gates have to be hastily closed, shutting out in many cases
friends as well as foes. Turnus leaves the cover of the wood to attack
Æneas, but night falls on the plain before their forces meet.