Aeneas in Latiium.
    The second half of the Aeneid relates Aeneas’s adventures in Latium and the war by which the Trojan hero finally secured the future home of the Romans.
    Arriving at the mouth of the Tiber River, Aeneas made camp and the hungry travelers devoured the flat hardtack on which their food was served. Thus, the Harpy’s prophecy that they would eat their “tables” was fulfilled.
    The land was ruled by King Latinus, whose daughter, Lavinia, was betrothed to Turnus, ruler of the Rutuli. But Latinus, having learned from an oracle that Lavinia was fated to marry a foreigner and to become the mother of a race that would make the world its empire, agreed to an alliance with the Trojans and promised Aeneas his daughter’s hand in marriage.
    Juno, Aeneas’s implacable enemy, now sent the Fury Allecto to meddle, first by poisoning the Latin queen, Amata, against Aeneas, then by taunting Turnus into declaring war on the Latins and Trojans. She also caused strife between the Latins and the Trojans themselves by setting the hounds of Aeneas’s son, Ascanius, to track a stag that was the pet of Sylvia, daughter of Latinus’s huntsman. Not knowing the stag’s provenance, Ascanius shot it; outraged, the people rose against him and the Trojans and war began.
    While Turnus prepared for battle, the god of the Tiber appeared to Aeneas in a dream, urging him to form an alliance with King Evander of Pallanteum. On the way to Pallanteum (now the Palatine Hill) Aeneas saw on a bank of the Tiber a white sow with thirty piglets; this would be the site of his future city, according to Helenus’s prophecy. Aeneas secured the alliance with Evander, who also advised him to seek the support of the Etruscans. They had banished their former leader, Mezentius, for cruelty, and he had joined Turnus’s forces.
    Meanwhile, Venus asked her husband, Vulcan (who had once provided armor for Achilles), to make a set of arms, which she presented to Aeneas. The shield was elaborately decorated with scenes of the future history of Rome.
     While Aeneas journeyed to seek an alliance with the Etruscan king, Tarchon, Juno’s messenger. Iris, instructed Turnus to attack the poorly defended Trojans. The Rutuli set fire to the Trojan ships, but Cybele changed the burning ships into sea nymphs that swam away. That night the Trojans Nisus and Euryalus tried to slip through the enemy camp to summon Aeneas. They killed many of the sleeping soldiers, but were themselves discovered and slain. In a fierce battle the next day, Turnus managed to infiltrate the Trojan camp. Stranded, he escaped by jumping into the Tiber.
    Jupiter then called a council of the gods to demand an end to Olympian intervention in the battle, decreeing that every man’s future should be decided by his own actions. Meanwhile, Aeneas returned to the Trojan camp with his Etruscan allies, including Evander’s son Pallas. In hand-to-hand combat, Pallas was killed by Turnus, who then insulted the corpse by taking its armor. This incited Aeneas to such fury that Juno, with Jupiter’s permission, lured Turnus away from the battle to safety. Mezentius assumed the leadership and was wounded by Aeneas, who also killed Mezentius’s son, Lausus. Unlike Turnus, however, Aeneas returned the young warrior’s body to his comrades. The grief-stricken Mezentius faced Aeneas in batde again and was killed.
    A truce was called to allow both sides to bury their dead, and the Latins decided to sue for peace. Saying his quarrel was only with Turnus, not the Latin people, Aeneas proposed that he and the Rutulian leader settle the war in single combat. Turnus spumed the offer and returned to action. A cavalry battle ensued, in which the warrior-maiden Camilla (a parallel of the Amazon Penthesilea in the Iliad) led a squadron from the Volscian nation. She fought bravely, but was felled by an Etruscan spear.
    Again, a truce was declared and Turnus agreed to meet Aeneas in single combat. Instead, Turnus’s immortal sister, Juturna, persuaded the Rutuli to a surprise attack, in which Aeneas was wounded. This caused the fighting to resume at full pitch. With the help of the healer lapis, Venus cured her son’s wound and sent him back into the fray, urging him to attack the Latin capital. As the city burned, Queen Amata, thinking Turnus was dead, committed suicide.
    Turnus and Aeneas finally confronted each other. When, in the first round, Turnus’s sword broke and Aeneas’s became impaled in a tree trunk, Juturna gave her brother her own sword while Venus freed her son’s weapon. Jupiter again called a halt to heavenly interference. Juno agreed, but begged Jupiter to preserve the Latin race. With his reassurance, she reluctandy persuaded Juturna to leave the scene. The duel recommenced; Aeneas wounded Turnus, who pledged Lavinia to his rival and declared defeat. But when Aeneas saw that Turnus wore the swordbelt of the murdered Pallas, he avenged the youth’s death by killing his enemy.
    Aeneas thus established the Trojans in Latium, naming their setdement Lavinium after his bride. Through his son, Ascanius, he became the ancestral founder of the Roman race. Ascanius (later called lulus or Ilus) moved the capital from Lavinium to Alba Longa, near the present site of Rome, and became the legendary progenitor of the Julian line that spawned Caesar and Augustus.
    The most commonly treated episodes from this section of the Aeneid are Aeneas’s arrival in Latium, Venus securing armor for Aeneas, the death of Sylvia’s stag, the combat of Aeneas and Turnus, the love of Aeneas and Lavinia, and the stories of Camilla, Turnus, and Nisus and Euryalus. Venus in Vulcan’s forge is commonly depicted as an allegory of the element Fire.