Camilla

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Dante mentions Camilla in Inferno I, v. 107, recalling her as a maiden who fell in a conflict of the Trojan-Latin cycle: the note on the passage explicitly identifies her as a young Virgilian heroine, daughter of the king of the Volsci, who fought against Aeneas alongside Turnus, king of the Rutuli. The note further emphasizes how Dante here alternates victors and vanquished, uniting them in the same pity and the same glory. In Inferno IV, v. 124, Camilla is listed by Virgil among the figures of Limbo, within the survey of heroes of the active life connected to the history of Rome and Troy. Immediately after, at v. 125, Penthesilea, queen of the Amazons who died beneath Troy, is also recalled: the commentary note brings the two figures together on the Virgilian suggestion of Aen. XI 659-63, as both are warrior women fallen in battle and involved in the same great story that, from the defeat of Troy and of the Latins, was to lead to the birth of Rome.