Who He Is
Turnus is king of the Rutulians, son of Daunus and the nymph Venilia, brother of the nymph Juturna, and the antagonist of the second half of the Aeneid. He is neither an invader nor a tyrant: when Aeneas reaches the mouth of the Tiber, Turnus is already the recognized suitor of Lavinia, the only daughter of King Latinus, with the open support of Queen Amata. What he wants is the bride and the kingdom that comes with her, and the honor of not being seen retreating before his own people. The poem presents him this way, by right, before presenting him through fury.
Multi illam magno e Latio totaque petebant / Ausonia. Petit ante alios pulcherrimus omnes / Turnus, avis atavisque potens; quem regia conjux / Adjungi generum miro properabat amore: / Sed variis portenta deum terroribus obstant, many sought her from great Latium and all of Ausonia. Before all others Turnus sought her, the most handsome of all, powerful in his grandfathers and great-grandfathers, whom the royal wife hastened to join to her as son-in-law with wondrous love: but the portents of the gods stand in the way, with various terrors.
That is the key to the character: the war of Latium does not begin because Turnus wants what is not his, but because an oracle hands to another man what was already his by agreement. The whole rest of the arc is the consequence of an engagement undone by divine decree.
Trajectory
In Book VII, Turnus does not choose war: he is possessed by it. Allecto, the Fury that Juno summons from Avernus when she realizes she will not prevail in heaven, goes to him disguised as an old priestess of Juno; he mocks her and orders her to look after the temples, and only then does she show her true face and drive a blazing torch into his chest.
Saevit amor ferri, et scelerata insania belli, / Ira super: magno veluti cum flamma sonore / Virgea suggeritur costis undantis aheni, / Exsultantque aestu latices; furit intus aquai / Fumidus atque alte spumis exuberat amnis; / Nec jam se capit unda, volat vapor ater ad auras, the love of iron rages, and the criminal madness of war, and anger above all: as when a flame of twigs, with a great roar, is set beneath the flanks of a seething cauldron, and the liquids leap with the heat; within, the water boils and smokes, and the river overflows high with foam; the wave can no longer contain itself, and a dark vapor flies up into the air.
Book VII shows that no one there wants war for their own reason: Latinus refuses it until he gives up the throne, Amata acts gripped by a serpent of Allecto, and the countrymen kill over a tame stag. Turnus is the third case of the same series, and this weighs later, when judging the ending, because whoever pays the highest bill is precisely the one who least decided to open the account. At the same time, the poison does not create what he feels: Turnus already knew about the ships and was losing his bride and his throne, and what makes him reject the old woman is contempt for the one who speaks to him of arms.
In Book VIII, it is Turnus who raises the signal of war from the citadel of Laurentum, and the Latins rise up; while Aeneas seeks allies in Pallanteum, Turnus gathers his own.
In Book IX, with Aeneas absent, Turnus attacks the Trojan camp and carries the whole book alone. He prowls the walls like a hungry wolf by a sheepfold, sets the fleet on fire, and he only fails to decide the war there because, having entered the enemy trenches alone, he does not open the gate for his own men. On seeing the ships turn into nymphs, he reads the prodigy in his favor and says he too has his own destinies: to finish off the Trojans who took his bride away.
Ac veluti pleno lupus insidiatus ovili, / Cum fremit ad caulas, ventos perpessus et imbres, / Nocte super media; tuti sub matribus agni / Balatum exercent: ille, asper et improbus ira, / Saevit in absentes; collecta fatigat edendi / Ex longo rabies, et siccae sanguine fauces: / Haud aliter Rutulo muros et castra tuenti / Ignescunt irae, et duris dolor ossibus ardet, as a wolf lying in wait by a full sheepfold, which snarls at the pens after enduring winds and rain in the middle of the night, while the lambs safe beneath their mothers bleat: fierce and savage with rage, it rages against those it cannot reach; the hunger gathered over a long time wears it down, and its jaws are dry of blood. Not otherwise, in Turnus, who guards the walls and camp, anger is kindled and grief burns in his hard bones.
In Book X, the death of Pallas and the baldric decide the ending of the poem. Turnus takes on for himself the duel with Pallas, the young man whom Evander had entrusted to Aeneas, kills him with a single blow, and tears from the body the baldric engraved with the Danaids cutting the throats of their husbands.
Tempus desistere pugna; / Solus ego in Pallanta feror; soli mihi Pallas / Debetur: cuperem ipse parens spectator adesset, it is time to leave off the fight; I alone charge against Pallas; Pallas is owed to me alone: I would wish his father himself were present as a spectator.
rapiens immania pondera baltei, / Impressumque nefas: una sub nocte jugali / Caesa manus juvenum foede thalamique cruenti, seizing the monstrous weight of the baldric and the crime stamped upon it: a band of young men slaughtered, in a foul manner, in a single wedding night, and the bridal beds bloodied.
Virgil interrupts the narrative to warn the reader of the price, in one of the rare moments when he openly anticipates the end of Turnus.
Nescia mens hominum fati sortisque futurae, / Et servare modum, rebus sublata secundis! / Turno tempus erit, magno cum optaverit emptum / Intactum Pallanta, et cum spolia ista diemque / Oderit, O human mind, ignorant of fate and of the lot to come, and unable to keep measure when lifted up by favorable circumstances! The time will come for Turnus when he will wish he had paid dearly to see Pallas unharmed, and he will hate these spoils and that day.
In the same book, Juno pulls him from the fight with a phantom of Aeneas that lures him onto a ship, and he wakes at sea without understanding what happened, humiliated by a flight that was not his own.
Quo feror? unde abii? quae me fuga? quemve reducet? / Laurentesne iterum muros aut castra videbo? / Quid manus illa virum, qui me meaque arma secuti, / Quosque (nefas) omnes infanda in morte reliqui?, where am I being carried? Where have I come from? What flight is this, and who will bring me back? Shall I see the walls of Laurentum and the camp again? And that band of men who followed me and my arms, whom (a crime!) I left all in an unspeakable death?
In Book XI, peace almost comes. Diomedes refuses an alliance, Latinus offers land without demanding surrender, and Drances, out of envy, demands from Turnus the single duel that would spare both peoples. Turnus accepts in speech, and the acceptance is the highest moment of the character: he knows that Aeneas may be a new Achilles, and says he has already given his life to Latinus and the Latins.
Ibo animis contra; vel magnum praestet Achillem, / Factaque Vulcani manibus paria induat arma / Ille licet. [...] Solum Aeneas vocat? et vocet, oro., I will go against him with spirit; even if he shows himself a great Achilles and puts on arms equal to those made by Vulcan's hands. Let him. [...] Does Aeneas alone summon me? Let him summon, I beg.
In the same book, Evander's grief for his son turns Pallas's death into a formal demand, and it is this debt, not reasons of state, that will command the ending.
Quod vitam moror invisam, Pallante perempto, / Dextera causa tua est, Turnum gnatoque patrique / Quam debere vides: meritis vacat hic tibi solus / Fortunaeque locus, that I still linger in a hateful life, now that Pallas is dead, is owed to your right hand: you see that it owes Turnus to son and father; this place alone remains open for your merits and your fortune.
In Book XII, Turnus demands that Latinus seal the pact: he will fight alone with Aeneas, and the winner keeps Lavinia. Latinus tries to dissuade him, offering him his own father's kingdom and other brides, and confesses that he gave way out of love and because of the queen's tears; Amata begs Turnus to give up, because if he dies she will not live to see Aeneas as her son-in-law. Lavinia blushes on hearing her mother weep, and the blush kindles him all the more.
Nulla mora in Turno; nihil est quod dicta retractent / Ignavi Aeneadae, nec quae pepigere recusent. / Congredior; fer sacra, pater, et concipe foedus. / Aut hac Dardanium dextra sub Tartara mittam / Desertorem Asiae (sedeant spectentque Latini) / Et solus ferro crimen commune refellam; / Aut habeat victos, cedat Lavinia conjux, there is no delay in Turnus; there is nothing for the cowardly Aeneadae to retract, nor to refuse what they agreed. I step forward: bring the sacrifices, father, and dictate the treaty. Either with this hand I send the deserter of Asia, the Dardanian, down to Tartarus (let the Latins sit and watch), and alone with the sword I refute the common charge; or let him have the vanquished, and let Lavinia be given to him as wife.
Once the pact of the duel is sworn, Juturna breaks it on Juno's orders and the general battle begins again. Called back by the burning of the city and the death of Amata, Turnus drops the chariot and his sister and runs on foot to the encounter the whole book had postponed.
Jam jam fata, soror, superant; absiste morari: / Quo deus, et quo dura vocat fortuna, sequamur. / Stat conferre manum Aeneae, stat, quidquid acerbi est / Morte pati; neque me indecorem, germana, videbis / Amplius: hunc, oro, sine me furere ante furorem, now, now the fates prevail, sister; cease to delay me: let us follow where the god and hard fortune call us. I am resolved to join hands with Aeneas, resolved to suffer in death whatever is bitter; and you will not see me again unworthy, sister: let me, I beg, rage out this fury first.
By mistake he seizes the charioteer's sword, which shatters against the armor of Vulcan, the Hephaestus of the Greeks; he is chased five laps around the field and falls, his thigh pierced by Aeneas's spear. Defeated, he begs for mercy in the name of his own father and hands Lavinia over as his bride.
Equidem merui, nec deprecor, inquit; / Utere sorte tua. Miseri te si qua parentis / Tangere cura potest, oro (fuit et tibi talis / Anchises genitor), Dauni miserere senectae; / Et me, seu corpus spoliatum lumine mavis, / Redde meis. Vicisti, et victum tendere palmas / Ausonii videre: tua est Lavinia conjux; / Ulterius ne tende odiis, I have earned it, and I do not plead, he said; use your fortune. If any care for a wretched father can touch you, I beg you (you too had such a father, Anchises): have pity on the old age of Daunus; and give me back to mine, or, if you prefer, my body stripped of its light. You have conquered, and the Ausonians have seen the vanquished stretch out his palms: Lavinia is your wife; do not carry hatred any further.
Tune hinc spoliis indute meorum / Eripiare mihi? Pallas te hoc vulnere, Pallas / Immolat et poenam scelerato ex sanguine sumit, will you, clad in the spoils of my own men, escape me from here? Pallas, Pallas sacrifices you with this blow and exacts the penalty from your guilty blood.
Hoc dicens, ferrum adverso sub pectore condit / Fervidus: ast illi solvuntur frigore membra, / Vitaque cum gemitu fugit indignata sub umbras, saying this, he buries the sword, burning, in the chest before him; his limbs loosen with cold, and life, with a groan, flees indignant into the shades.
Themes Embodied
Turnus embodies War, but war seen from the side of the sovereign who defends it: he fights for the bride, for the kingdom of Latinus, and for the word he gave his people. He embodies Passion in the sense of fury, the rage that Allecto kindles, which the poem treats as a force that comes from outside and was already within. He embodies Duty in the opposite sense from Aeneas's: his duty is to the Latins and to his honor, and that is why he accepts the duel in front of everyone. He embodies Fate and free will, because the divine decree that hands Lavinia to a foreigner undoes a legitimate betrothal, and Empire and colonialism, because Aeneas's arrival in Latium is the arrival of a foreigner whom fate sends and whom the oracle had already announced.
Relationships
- Aeneas: the adversary, who almost spares him and kills him with Pallas's baldric.
- Latinus: the king and promised father-in-law, who yields to him out of affection and afterward tries in vain to dissuade him from the duel.
- Amata: the queen who wants him as a son-in-law and who kills herself believing he is dead.
- Lavinia: the bride, who does not speak and blushes before him, and whom, once defeated, he recognizes as Aeneas's wife.
- Pallas: the young man Turnus kills, and whose baldric leads to his end.
- Evander: the father of Pallas, who demands Turnus's death from Aeneas.
- Dido: the other great victim of the founding, in a symmetrical place in the first half.
Its Function in the Poem's Architecture
Turnus is the second great sacrifice of the Aeneid, and the pairing with Dido is structural, not thematic. Each half of the poem costs a whole life to the founding of Rome: the first half destroys the queen who welcomes, the second destroys the prince who already had his marriage promised. In both cases the victim is a legitimate sovereign, in both cases the trigger is a divine decree no one asked for, and in both cases Virgil gives the victim more inner life than the hero who tramples over them. It is through this symmetry that the Aeneid does not work as simple propaganda: the poem displays the cost instead of hiding it.
The difference between the two is their place in the structure. Dido dies in the middle, and the poem goes on for eight more books showing what was done with the price she paid. Turnus dies in the last line, and nothing follows: no wedding, no foundation, no funeral games, though Virgil had material enough for all three. The silence afterward is the only thing the poem offers as commentary on the gesture, and it comments on nothing.
The Disagreement over the Final Gesture
The ending of the Aeneid is the interpretive problem of the poem, and the two readings rest on the same lines.
The optimistic, or Augustan, reading takes the death as justice done: Turnus killed Pallas when he could have spared him, displays the baldric as a deliberate trophy, and Aeneas's final fury is the same Pietas that governs the rest of the poem, now turned toward the one debt still left to him, avenging a dead man who had trusted him. In this key, the true ending of the poem is not the duel but the agreement a few lines earlier, in which Jupiter assures Juno that the Latin name, tongue, and customs will survive the fusion, and Turnus's death is only the violence needed to reach that point.
The pessimistic reading sees the same blow as the moment when the poem admits the price of empire: Turnus is already disarmed, wounded, and pleading, his request the same that Priam makes to Achilles for the body of Hector, and Aeneas kills him all the same, moved by personal rage and not by law or military necessity. The hero of Pietas and of clemency succumbs to the fury the poem had condemned, and it is this image, not the foundation, that the Aeneid chooses to leave as its last.
The pessimistic reading has had its own name in criticism since the 1960s, when works such as The Two Voices of Virgil's Aeneid, by Adam Parry (1963), opened what came to be called the Harvard School, in opposition to the Augustan reading then dominant. The debate is, therefore, modern, even though the ambiguity of the text is ancient.
Both readings fit the text, and neither resolves the other, and here the two stand side by side, without a choice. It is worth noting, however, that Aeneas's final speech names Pallas twice and does not mention Lavinia, the kingdom, or the peace the duel was supposed to seal. This does not settle the question, but it shifts the burden: whoever defends the optimistic reading must explain why public justice speaks in the language of private debt.