Woodcut illustration of Camilla and Metabus escaping into exile - Penn Provenance Project

In Virgil's ''

Aeneid The ''Aeneid'' ( ; la, Aenē̆is or ) is a Latin Epic poetry, epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Troy, Trojan who fled the Trojan_War#Sack_of_Troy, fall of Troy and travelled to ...

'', Camilla of the

Volsci The Volsci (, , ) were an Italic tribe, well known in the history of the first century of the Roman Republic. At the time they inhabited the partly hilly, partly marshy district of the south of Latium, bounded by the Aurunci and Samnites on the ...

is the daughter of King Metabus and Casmilla. Driven from his throne, Metabus is chased into the wilderness by armed Volsci, his infant daughter in his hands. The river Amasenus blocked his path, and, fearing for the child's welfare, Metabus bound her to a spear. He promised Diana that Camilla would be her servant, a warrior virgin. He then safely threw her to the other side, and swam across to retrieve her. The baby Camilla was suckled by a mare, and once her "first firm steps had eentaken, the small palms were armed with a keen javelin; her sire a bow and quiver from her shoulder slung." She was raised in her childhood to be a huntress and kept the companionship of her father and the shepherds in the hills and woods. Modern scholars are unsure if Camilla was entirely an original invention of Virgil, or represents some actual Roman myth. In his book ''Virgil's Aeneid: Semantic Relations and Proper Names'', Michael Paschalis speculates that Virgil chose the river Amasenus (today the Amaseno, near Priverno, ancient Privernum) as a poetic allusion to the

Amazons In Greek mythology, the Amazons (Ancient Greek: Ἀμαζόνες ''Amazónes'', singular Ἀμαζών ''Amazōn'', via Latin ''Amāzon, -ŏnis'') are portrayed in a number of ancient epic poems and legends, such as the Labours of Hercules, ...

with whom Camilla is associated. In the ''

'', she helped her ally, King

Turnus Turnus ( grc, Τυρρηνός, Tyrrhênós) was the legendary King of the Rutuli in Roman history, and the chief antagonist of the hero Aeneas in Virgil's ''Aeneid''. According to the ''Aeneid'', Turnus is the son of Daunus and the nymph Veni ...

of the

Rutuli The Rutuli or Rutulians were an ancient people in Italy. The Rutuli were located in a territory whose capital was the ancient town of Ardea, located about 35 km southeast of Rome. Thought to have been descended from the Umbri and the Pelas ...

, fight

Aeneas In Greco-Roman mythology, Aeneas (, ; from ) was a Trojan hero, the son of the Trojan prince Anchises and the Greek goddess Aphrodite (equivalent to the Roman Venus). His father was a first cousin of King Priam of Troy (both being grandsons ...

and the Trojans in the war sparked by the courting of Princess

Lavinia In Roman mythology, Lavinia ( ; ) is the daughter of Latinus and Amata, and the last wife of Aeneas. Creation It has been proposed that the character was in part intended to represent Servilia Isaurica, Emperor Augustus's first fiancée. Stor ...

. Arruns, a Trojan ally, stalked Camilla on the battlefield, and, when she was opportunely distracted by her pursuit of Chloreus, killed her. Diana's attendant,

Opis Opis (Akkadian ''Upî'' or ''Upija''; grc, Ὦπις) was an ancient Babylonian city near the Tigris, not far from modern Baghdad. Akkadian and Greek texts indicate that it was located on the east side of the Tigris, near the Diyala River. T ...

, at her mistress' behest, avenged Camilla's death by slaying Arruns.

Virgil Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: t ...

says that Camilla was so fast on her feet that she could run over a field of wheat without breaking the tops of the plants, or over the ocean without wetting her feet. Giovanni Boccaccio's ''

De mulieribus claris ''De Mulieribus Claris'' or ''De Claris Mulieribus'' (Latin for "Concerning Famous Women") is a collection of biographies of historical and mythological women by the Florentine author Giovanni Boccaccio, composed in Latin prose in 1361–1362. ...

'' includes a segment on Camilla. She is not often a subject in art, but the female figure in ''

Pallas and the Centaur ''Pallas and the Centaur'' is a painting by the Italian Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli, c. 1482. It is now in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. It has been proposed as a companion piece to his '' Primavera'', though it is a different shape. ...

'' by

Sandro Botticelli Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi ( – May 17, 1510), known as Sandro Botticelli (, ), was an Italian Renaissance painting, Italian painter of the Early Renaissance. Botticelli's posthumous reputation suffered until the late 19th cent ...

(c. 1482,

Uffizi The Uffizi Gallery (; it, Galleria degli Uffizi, italic=no, ) is a prominent art museum located adjacent to the Piazza della Signoria in the Historic Centre of Florence in the region of Tuscany, Italy. One of the most important Italian museums ...

) was called "Camilla" in the earliest record of the painting, an inventory of 1499, but then in an inventory of 1516 she is called

Minerva Minerva (; ett, Menrva) is the Roman goddess of wisdom, justice, law, victory, and the sponsor of arts, trade, and strategy. Minerva is not a patron of violence such as Mars, but of strategic war. From the second century BC onward, the Roma ...

, which remains her usual identification in recent times. She was the subject of an internationally successful opera, '' Camilla'' by

Giovanni Bononcini Giovanni Bononcini (or Buononcini) (18 July 1670 – 9 July 1747) (sometimes cited also as Giovanni Battista Bononcini) was an Italian Baroque composer, cellist, singer and teacher, one of a family of string players and composers. Biography E ...

(1696). Camilla is similar to

Penthesilea Penthesilea ( el, Πενθεσίλεια, Penthesíleia) was an Amazonian queen in Greek mythology, the daughter of Ares and Otrera and the sister of Hippolyta, Antiope and Melanippe. She assisted Troy in the Trojan War, during which she w ...

Greek mythology A major branch of classical mythology, Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the Ancient Greece, ancient Greeks, and a genre of Ancient Greek folklore. These stories concern the Cosmogony, origin and Cosmology#Metaphysical co ...

.Virgil, ''The Aeneid'', trans. Robert Fagles, Penguin Books, 2006, p. 438.

References

Notes

* Lightbown, Ronald, ''Sandro Botticelli: Life and Work'', 1989, Thames and Hudson *

, ''Aeneid'', Theodore C. Williams. trans. Boston. Houghton Mifflin Co. 1910
Online version

See also

References

Notes

Further reading