Selections from Virgil Aeneid XI: An Edition for Intermediate Students

This is the first intermediate-student edition of a selection from Virgil’s Aeneid XI. Lines 1-224, 498-521, 532-596, 648-689 and 725-835 are included as Latin text with an accompanying commentary and vocabulary. Focusing on a deliberately concise extract from the original, this edition is designed to be manageable for students reading the text for the first time while also perfectly encapsulating the interest of the longer work and inspiring further study of it. A detailed introduction explains points of historical and stylistic interest, encompassing the whole of Book XI, including sections omitted here from the Latin.

In Book XI Pallas, the warrior son of Evander who was killed by Turnus, is buried, amid the mourning of his father and the Trojans. After a truce to collect and bury the dead on both sides, fighting resumes, during which the warrior-maiden Camilla battles bravely for the Latins before being killed. The events of the book take up just four days: Pallas’ funeral occupies the first; the second and third are devoted (briefly) to the truce and burials; the fourth, taking up the second half of the book, is concerned with Camilla’s aristeia, in which she is likened to an Amazon.