Aeneas’s enemy Turnus, King of the Rutuli, is besieging the Trojan camp while Aeneas is away seeking allies. An attempt by the Trojans to reach Aeneas and bring him back to lead the fighting has failed, as they find out when the heads of the men charged with the mission, the lovers Euryalus and Nisus, are paraded before Euryalus’s mother on spears. A bitter battle, in the course of which Aeneas’s son, Ascanius, kills his first man with a bowshot, follows as Turnus tries either to take the camp or to force the Trojans to leave it and fight in the open. In a series of combats recalling the heroic warfare of Homer’s Iliad, many are gorily killed on both sides. Bravely but rashly, the Trojans open a gate to make a sortie: the enemy see their chance and make a concerted attack. The Trojans manage to close the gate again, at the cost of leaving many of their own men outside – and, as they soon realise to their cost, shutting Turnus, the most terrible enemy warrior of them all, inside. He creates havoc, and for a time it looks as though Trojan resistance will collapse, until the Generals Mnestheus and Serestus have finally managed to rally their troops.
See the illustrated blog post here.
To follow the story of Aeneas in sequence, use this link to the full Pantheon Poets selection of extracts from the Aeneid. See the next episode here.
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