In Book IX, with Aeneas away in Pallanteum, the Trojans and the Latins engage in indecisive warfare, and the situation at the end resembles what it was at the start. The battle, which continues over a period of two days, shares our attention with the intervening nighttime tragedy of Nisus and Euryalus.
Virgil contrasts the serenity of Aeneas in Book VIII with the frenzy of Turnus in Book IX. The Trojan leader has been assured, first by his tour of Pallanteum and then by the scenes depicted on the shield presented to him by his mother, of eventual victory over Turnus's forces. In a way, Rome already exists in the form of Evander's city, and the course of its triumphant history has already been laid down. Although Juno would like Turnus to believe that he has a chance of claiming victory over the Trojans, in actuality, the reader, gods and goddesses, and Aeneas all know that Turnus is bound to be defeated by the Trojans, and that his strenuous efforts in this book and those that follow must all come to nothing.
Book IX is the only book in the Aeneid in which Aeneas is absent. However, his spirit and his inviolate leadership still govern the warriors under his command. When Turnus's army first attacks the Trojan encampment, the Trojans pull back within the security of their walls, as Aeneas instructed them to do before he left to seek allies. Virgil notes that the retreating soldiers's impulse is to fight, but they respect Aeneas's leadership and withdraw as he had commanded them to do.
