Lavinia

In the future, Lavinia learns of an arrow wound that Aeneas sustained on the morning of his battle with Turnus. Fighting began, breaking the truce, and in the confusion, someone shot Aeneas in the leg. He never learned who it was but let people think that Turnus was the one who wounded him.

On the last night of the war, Lavinia hardly sleeps. She wakes and helps her father prepare for the fight between Aeneas and Turnus. The Trojans arrive, and crowds watch as Lavinia and Latinus perform a ritual for Aeneas. It’s the first time that Lavinia and Aeneas have been in the same space. Aeneas vows that if he loses the fight, his people will leave Latium forever. If he wins, he won’t claim rule over Latium; Latinus will remain king, and his people and the Trojans will live together in harmony. Aeneas promises to create a city for his people and name it after Lavinia. Latinus swears to this treaty and makes a sacrifice to seal it. The sacrifice takes all morning, and the crowd grows restless. Overhead, an eagle attacks a group of swans. The swans turn to fight the eagle and chase it away, which a Latin man claims is an omen. He rallies Turnus’s men, throws a spear, and kills a Trojan. Confusion and fighting ensue, and Lavinia escapes with her father to the council rooms.

Amata believes that Aeneas started the fight, but Lavinia argues with her, declaring that Turnus has betrayed them. She tells Amata that Turnus never cared about either of them but then begs her mother’s forgiveness for her cruel words. Amata leaves in tears. The fighting rages on outside, and Lavinia again tends to the wounded. After hearing women wailing from her mother’s quarters, she finds that her mother has died by suicide. She orders attendants to wash her mother’s body and then finds her father to tell him what happened. Latinus, distraught, puts ash in his hair as Lavinia tries to comfort him. Outside, the battle stops. Aeneas has killed Turnus, ending the war. The poem is finished.

The poem is unfinished; the poet didn’t finish it before his death or succeed in having it burned. Lavinia doesn’t know what to do now, without the poet’s guidance. She hears about Turnus’s death from those who saw it. He and Aeneas fought until Aeneas speared Turnus in the thigh. Turnus admitted defeat, accepting whatever fate Aeneas chose for him. Aeneas looked as if he would spare Turnus’s life but then saw that Turnus was wearing Pallas’s gold belt. Enraged, he drove his sword through Turnus’s heart. Aeneas declared that his treaty with Latinus would hold. Turnus’s men retreat home to Ardea, while Juturna disappears and is never heard from again. The following day, the dead are burned on pyres. Amata has her own pyre; she’s cremated in the gown she was weaving for Lavinia’s wedding.

The war left many dead, and the people of Laurentum grieve. Lavinia makes offerings to Janus and notices that the War Gate is still open. She and her attendants, with help from others, shut it, and she tells the gate to remain closed because “the treaty holds” (125). After the nine days of mourning are over, Aeneas arrives in Laurentum, accompanied by 12 of his warriors and a few Etruscan princes. Evander, grief-stricken over Pallas’s death, has recalled all his Greek soldiers. Latinus summons Lavinia to meet Aeneas, who gifts her a pottery vessel he brought from Troy containing the gods of his household. He asks her to choose where his men should build the new city, Lavinium. She describes the location from her dream of the red river. Aeneas agrees.

The Trojans build Aeneas and Lavinia a house so that they can get married. The city of Lavinium is soon established on a bend on the river Prati. Lavinia prepares for her wedding, for which she wears bridal ornamentations. After the marriage rituals, Aeneas carries Lavinia over the threshold of their new home.

Lavinia is glad that she doesn’t have to go far from her childhood home when she marries Aeneas. She busies herself with her duties as a wife and tends to Aeneas’s household gods. Maruna and her mother stayed in Laurentum to take over Lavinia’s religious duties. Although she and Aeneas were happy, Lavinia finds their three years together difficult to narrate now that he’s gone.

Aeneas hangs his shield in their entrance hall. He doesn’t want to think about war, only peace. He works hard to establish peace between the Trojans, the Latins, and other neighboring peoples. Turnus’s death still troubles him; he believes that his killing Turnus in battle wasn’t just, that it was nefas, an unspeakable wrong. Lavinia disagrees, believing that Turnus had evil in his bloodline. She hopes that the same evil isn’t in her, but Aeneas insists that nothing in her is evil. No matter what argument Lavinia makes, she knows that Aeneas is still haunted by what he did. Lavinium continues to grow and prosper. The Trojans and the Italic peoples learn from each other and intermarry.

Lavinia and Aeneas’s son, Silvius, is the first baby born in Lavinium, but many more follow. Aeneas hosts games for warriors to demonstrate their skills. Ascanius, desperate to prove himself worthy of his father, does well but isn’t the best, which frustrates him. He sees Lavinia as a rival for his father’s love and is jealous of Silvius.

Latinus gets along well with Aeneas and often visits Lavinium. He’s aging and his health is failing. He declares Aeneas his son and heir. More and more people move from Laurentum to Lavinium, until Laurentum becomes quite a small city. Although peace exists between most Latins and the Trojans, some, like Almo’s father, still harbor resentments. Lavinia tries to make amends with Silvia and learns that Ascanius’s attack didn’t kill Cervulus (Silvia’s beloved stag). However, Silvia refuses to see her, and they never meet again. Animosity brews outside Latium between the Greeks and the Etruscans. Ascanius boasts that one day his descendants will rule all of Italy.