The origins of Turnus, Vergilian invention, and Augustan Rome

Quartarone, Lorina (2015) The origins of Turnus, Vergilian invention, and Augustan Rome. Acta Antiqua Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, 55 (1-4). pp. 379-392. ISSN 0044-5975

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Abstract

This article briefly surveys literary sources on the Rutulians and Turnus and finds them to have been neither particularly informative nor plentiful. In fashioning his portrait of Turnus and his people, Vergil exploited that dearth of information by countering it and adding details not found in the earlier traditions. His inventive portrait of the heritage of Turnus, which emphasizes ethnic diversity, creates several parallels between Turnus and Aeneas, and helps make him both a direct counterpart and formidable opponent to the Trojan hero. By making the two warriors more similar than different via their mixed Italian and Greek ancestry, Vergil homogenizes them to the ethnically complex population of Rome during the age of Augustus.

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