Source Verification: Aeneas and Turnus
Every claim below is either what a named ancient source attests, in its own line or section, or a point where the sources themselves disagree.
What the Sources Attest
Who is Turnus to Aeneas?
Turnus is Aeneas's rival in Italy: the king of the Rutulians, who expected to marry Lavinia and lose her to the newcomer. In Virgil, the Latin queen Amata favours Turnus as her kinsman and sides with him against the Trojans. Livy says Lavinia had been betrothed to him before Aeneas arrived. In both accounts he goes to war against Aeneas and Latinus.
Source: Virgil, Aeneid 7.341-405
Why does Aeneas kill Turnus?
Aeneas is about to spare the wounded Turnus when he sees Pallas's baldric on Turnus's shoulder. Turnus had killed Pallas, the young son of Aeneas's ally Evander, and taken the belt as a trophy. Aeneas says Pallas himself takes the forfeit of Turnus's blood, and kills him. Earlier, after Pallas fell, he had already told a suppliant that such mercy ended with Turnus.
Source: Virgil, Aeneid 12.887-952
Why does Hera hate Aeneas?
In the Roman version she is Juno, and Virgil gives several reasons. She fought for the Greeks at Troy, Paris rejected her beauty in his judgement, and Jupiter honoured Ganymede. She also feared a Trojan people would one day destroy her favourite city, Carthage. She drove the Trojans across the sea for years and, once they reached Latium, stirred up the war against them.
Source: Virgil, Aeneid 1.12-33
Who kills Turnus?
Aeneas strikes the blow, but he says Pallas does it. As he drives his sword into Turnus's chest, he cries that Pallas takes the lawful forfeit of his guilty blood. Virgil does not say what happens next. The poem ends with Turnus's spirit fleeing to the dark, and the question of whether the act is justice or rage is left to the reader.
Source: Virgil, Aeneid 12.938-952
Where Accounts Differ
- virgil-vs-livy-on-the-war
- who-is-to-blame-for-the-war
- who-shot-aeneas
- aeneas-mercy-or-vengeance
- Virgil and Livy give different wars. In Virgil, Aeneid 12.887-952, the war ends with Aeneas killing Turnus in single combat, and the poem stops there. Livy, Ab Urbe Condita 1.2, has Turnus, the Rutulian king to whom Lavinia had been betrothed, declare war on Latinus and Aeneas. Livy says the Aborigines and Trojans lost their leader Latinus in the first battle. Turnus then allies with Mezentius of Caere, and in the second battle Aeneas wins but dies, and his tomb is on the Numicius. Livy 1.2 as read for this page does not say how Turnus dies. In Virgil, Latinus survives the war and Aeneas is alive at its end.
- Who is to blame for the war depends on the reading. In Virgil, Aeneid 7.286-340, Juno openly sets out to delay the marriage with war and sends Allecto. In Aeneid 7.601-640 Latinus refuses to open the Gates of War and Juno does it herself. Turnus and Amata are agents of the Fury, but in Aeneid 7.341-445 Turnus first rejects Allecto's message and is not persuaded until she attacks him, so Virgil leaves some of the choice to him. This page reports the sequence rather than assigning the guilt.
- Virgil says nobody knew who shot the arrow that wounded Aeneas during the broken truce (Aeneid 12.311-323). The poem lets Juturna's meddling, chance or a god stand as possible causes and does not choose. The broken sword is also told as a rumour: Virgil says Turnus took Metiscus's sword by mistake, but adds that this is the tale (Aeneid 12.697-766).
- Whether the killing is justified is disputed by readers, not by the text. Virgil gives Aeneas both a reason to spare Turnus (his suppliant plea, and the memory of his father Anchises) and a reason to kill (the baldric), and he ends the poem at the moment of the stroke (Aeneid 12.887-952). Modern scholars have argued over whether this shows lawful vengeance or a loss of self-control. The page does not take a side.
Sources
- Virgil, Aeneid 1.12-33
- Virgil, Aeneid 7.286-340
- Virgil, Aeneid 7.341-405
- Virgil, Aeneid 7.341-445
- Virgil, Aeneid 7.475-510
- Virgil, Aeneid 7.601-640
- Virgil, Aeneid 8.1-18
- Virgil, Aeneid 8.102-152
- Virgil, Aeneid 10.439-509
- Virgil, Aeneid 10.510-530
- Virgil, Aeneid 11.29-58
- Virgil, Aeneid 11.434-444
- Virgil, Aeneid 12.161-195
- Virgil, Aeneid 12.216-260
- Virgil, Aeneid 12.311-323
- Virgil, Aeneid 12.554-590
- Virgil, Aeneid 12.593-611
- Virgil, Aeneid 12.697-766
- Virgil, Aeneid 12.791-842
- Virgil, Aeneid 12.843-886
- Virgil, Aeneid 12.887-952
- Virgil, Aeneid 12.938-952
- Livy, Ab Urbe Condita 1.2
- Virgil, Aeneid 11.469-531
- Virgil, Aeneid 11.896-915
- Virgil, Aeneid 8.626-670