Camilla

A daughter of king Metabus of the Volscian town of Privernum. When her father, expelled by his subjects, came in his flight to the river Amasenus, he tied his infant daughter, whom he had previously devoted to the service of Diana, to a spear, and hurled it across the river. He himself then swam after it, and on reaching the opposite bank he found his child uninjured. He took her with him, and had her suckled by a mare. He brought her up in pure maidenhood, and she became one of the swift-footed servants of Diana, accustomed to the chase and to war.

In the war between Aeneas and Turnus she assisted the latter, and was slain by Aruns. Diana avenged her death by sending Opis to kill Aruns, and to rescue the body of Camilla.

Servius1 remarks, that she was called Camilla because she was engaged in the service of Diana, since all youthful priestesses were called Camilla by the Etruscans. That there were such Camillae as well as Camilli at Rome is expressly stated by Dionysius.2

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References

Notes

  1. Servius on Virgil's Aeneid xi, 543 and 558.
  2. ii, 21 ff.; Festus, s.v. Camillus.

Sources

  • Hyginus. Fabulae, 252.
  • Smith, William. (1870). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. London: Taylor, Walton, and Maberly.
  • Virgil. Aeneid vii, 803 ff.; xi, 432 ff., 648 ff.

This article incorporates text from Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) by William Smith, which is in the public domain.