... is unsatisfying in the same way that the end of the Odyssey is appealingly simplistic. In the end of the Odyssey is left with the hero returning home to his wife and laying down on the bed together (or a triumphant end to the warring by Athene). But in the Aeneid, we find the man who will found the Roman race ends the story plunging his sword "full into his enemy's breast", an enemy that has just attempted to supplicate to Aeneas. It is impossible to contest that Turnus deserves his death more than someone like Pallas ("he will bitterly regret this spoil" A.10.505). Yet the description of Turnus' fleeing spirit departing his body to "join the shades" is deliberately similar to that of Pallas' death two books earlier. Pallas is an inexperienced and beloved son of Aeneas' ally Evander, who bravely fought the aggressor Turnus as the "weaker" of ...

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