Abstract

The death of Turnus is one of theAeneid's most controversial and variously interpreted episodes – anything from the triumphant vindication of Aeneas and the Roman future, to the poet's last, resounding plaint against Augustan totalitarianism, with all the more nuanced shades of opinion in between. Virgilian scholarship has recently become tired of the opposition between ‘optimist’ and ‘pessimist’ perspectives, but one piece of potentially important evidence has not found its way into the argument. As often, it is a matter of intertexts, and it begins, unsurprisingly, with theIliad.