Book XI is an interlude between the battle described in the preceding book, which brings the Trojans close to victory, and Aeneas’s defeat of Turnus in direct combat, which concludes the war and the epic poem. Structurally, the present book falls roughly into three parts: the first section describes the truce and the return of Pallas’s body to Evander in Pallanteum; the second section deals with the Latins’s council of war, held to determine what course of action to take against their enemy; and the final part is devoted to the brave but hopeless battle waged against the Trojans and their Etruscan allies by the forces of the warrior maiden Camilla, who is believed to be entirely Virgil’s creation, although she and her female compatriots recall the Amazons, mythical women warriors. Book XI is stylistically unified by the sun’s rising in the first line and its setting in the last few lines as the armies prepare to battle.
Aeneas’s model behavior as a brave warrior tempered with compassion continues to be a major theme. The Trojan prince prepares the proper funeral rites for the dead and discharges his “ritual vows / As victor to the gods.” He is in marked contrast to Turnus, whom we never observe making ritualistic offerings for his fallen comrades.
As Aeneas readies Pallas’s body for transport back to Evander, his weeping over the death of this newfound and now-lost friend and ally reminds us of this god-like hero’s human frailty. However, good Trojan commander that he is, Aeneas’s emotions do not overwhelm his sense of duty. Virgil’s staccato lines mimic Aeneas’s fierce determination to end the war: “That was all. / Then he turned backward toward the parapets / And made his way to camp.” Aeneas’s resiliency is again demonstrated later in the book when the Latins, arguing amongst themselves, debate their will to continue the war. Their disordered behavior is juxtaposed to Aeneas’s ordered behavior, which Virgil characterizes in the succinct line, “Meanwhile Aeneas left camp / And took the field.” Desiring peace for himself and his people, Aeneas will fight only if he has to, but his actions assure us that he is ready to do battle if that is what his future holds.
The glory of dying honorably in battle, which Virgil and his fellow Romans esteemed, receives much attention in Book XI. For example, when Evander meets the procession that carries his dead son, he is stricken with grief over his loss, but his emotions are tempered by his remembering the great deeds that Pallas accomplished in fighting side by side with Aeneas. By winning “the beauty of courageous death,” combatants assure their place in history because their exploits will not be forgotten. This immortality is best expressed by Opis, who, sent by the goddess Diana to watch over Camilla, promises the warrior maiden that her death is not in vain: “Yet your queen has left you / Not without honor at the hour of death, / Nor will your end be unrenowned / Among earth’s people, nor will it be known / As unavenged.” As the Aeneid’s own cataloguing of ancestral lines attests, dying with honor is valued not only because it reflects the combatant’s virtuous character, but because a family’s reputation is often at stake.
