Who Is Justified In Killing Turnus In The Aeneid

The Aeneid by Virgil, centered on the Trojan warrior Aeneas, tells the tale of a survivor’s journey to fulfill destiny by founding a new city for the Trojan refugees. While searching for this destined kingdom, Aeneas has a vision of his father Anchises and receives the “Rule of Law” which will dictate the actions of this new city’s inhabitants. The future city was to be structured on this rule, “To spare the defeated, break the proud in war,” (A. VI. 980) as well as rational thinking. During his journey, Aeneas enrages a local warrior, Turnus, in a dispute over the hand of Princess Lavinia. This dispute led to a war, which ended with Aeneas killing Turnus, forming a problem that Virgil had eluded to throughout the entirety of the poem. Virgil’s problem primarily concerns the ideas of rationality and justice, and is exemplified when Aeneas kills Turnus. …show more content…
Aeneas, despite his standing as one of the greatest Trojan warriors and as an exceptional leader, suffers from personal blindness. This blindness inhibits Aeneas’ ability to clearly see situations and therefore causes him to act irrationally. It can be deducted, though, that Aeneas was acting solely as a proxy of Pallas and therefore not responsible for his actions. The idea of Aeneas killing Turnus as a proxy is very unbelievable though, because he had a history of misconceiving situations through his blindness and consequentially acting irrationally. There are several points in Virgil’s epic poem where Aeneas fully displays his blindness which creates a conflict of morals for the