Camilla

• she is Virgil's invention
• she is the last figure in the Catalogue in book 7
• she dominates the second half of book 11
• like Dido, she defies the traditional woman's role
• when we first meet Dido, she is likened to Diana, Camilla's patron goddess
• when we first see Camilla, we are told of her 'royal splendour' of her 'purple veiling' which weaves round its 'gold clasp', reminding us of Dido's appearance on the hunt
• Dido provides a female and emotionally charged episode at the beginning of the poem
• Camilla is a parallel figure at the end
• she belongs to nature with her 'Lycian quiver and shepherd's staff of myrtle wood'
• she is a warrior, and her staff has the head of a lance
• R. D. Williams - 'strange mixture of the beauty of an idyllic pastoral world and the heroic world of violence and cruelty'
• she dies because she is attracted by the exotic gold and purple of the finery of Choreus, a eunuch priest, who is later killed by Turnus
• for the Romans of Virgil's time, perhaps she recalled the spirit of their rural past and the purity that war destroys
• her death is full of pathos
• she dies, like Dido, with one female companion
• her life 'left her with a groan' and 'fled in anger down to the shades' - exact same words as used for Turnus' death