Turnus

King of the Rutulians at Ardea, nephew of Queen Amata of Latium, earlier suitor of Lavinia whose betrothal King Latinus withdrew when the oracle demanded a foreign bridegroom. Roused by Juno through the Fury Allecto (*Aen.* 7.341–572) into open war against the Trojan settlers, he is the Italian antagonist of the poem's second half. His boast and his tragedy run parallel to Hector's in the Iliad: he kills Evander's young son Pallas in the ninth-book battle and strips his sword-belt as a trophy (10.439–509), which the dying Turnus will then have visible on his shoulder in the final duel. Aeneas closes the whole poem at 12.887–952 by running him through — the sight of Pallas's belt cancelling Aeneas's last-second inclination to mercy. The poem ends on Turnus's shade descending *cum gemitu sub umbras* — with a groan, into the shadows — not on Aeneas's victory.

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