as victims in war

• first group is the Trojan women portrayed on the sculpture of the temple to Juno in Carthage
• they are going in supplication to the temple of Athene, their hair unbound and beating their breasts
• book 2- image is repeated as Aeneas recounts the fall of Troy
• Cassandra, daughter of Priam, hands tied, is dragged away
• Hecuba and her daughters are sitting 'flocked round the altar like doves driven down in a black storm'
• book 7 - Latin women hear the signal for war and 'terrified mothers pressed their babies to the breasts'
• book 9 - Virgil gives cameo picture of the mother of Euryalus
• she laments that she had not the opportunity to wash her son's wounds, dress his body with her lovingly woven cloak or bury his body
• her words are a reminder of the sorrow which afflicts all families in war
• book 10 - revisit grief of Euryalus' mother after Aeneas kills Lausus
• the mother has given her son a garment to wear, a tunic which she has women for him with a soft threat of gold
• the folds of it are now filled with blood
• Virgil doesn't show the reaction of the mother but forces to show the parallel image of book 9 - making it more poignant
• grieving mother - effective way of highlighting the evil destructive force of war, whether it is a Trojan or an Etruscan killed
• book 11 - theme of wailing women is repeated - mirrors book 1/2
• Trojan women lament the death of Pallas
• mothers of Pallanteum set the city ablaze with their cries
• mothers, wives, children and sisters of Latinus' city wail and beat their breasts
• Amata and Lavinia take offerings to the temple of Pallas, as Hecuba and the Trojan women do on the temple frieze
• Virgil creates pathos for the women victims of war
• book 9 - Ascanius promises Nisus '12 chosen maidens' as a reward
• Virgil could be saying that in war, even the 'good' side acts with callous disregard for women
• he may be pointing out that in the absence of Aeneas, the new 'Roman' way of treating the enemy with mercy has been forgotten