ABSTRACT
Camilla dies with her attention fixed on the larger strategic considerations of the day’s combat. The history of the fourth-century bce Roman Republican hero Marcus Furius Camillus is complicated by the usual problem of source criticism. Camillus raises the point that the property assessed for Apollo should include not only that which is moveable, but also the actual city and land of Veii. Livy’s Camillus is presented twice as being in support of the correct religious action; when the senate could not determine whether he should be followed in his second proposal, the priests once again ratified his judgment. Virgil’s lack of explanation may well be a playful acknowledgment of Livy’s wholesale invention of the story of Camillus’ return as savior. Virgil’s Camilla is also a savior of a seemingly lost cost at the penultimate moment in its struggle (in this she is akin to the Penthesilea of the epic cycle, who succored Troy in its last hour).
