Euryalus

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Euryalus appears in verse 108 of the first canto of the Inferno, in a list of young Virgilian heroes who fell in the conflict between the Trojans and the Latins for supremacy in Latium. According to the notes to the canto, Dante recalls him alongside Camilla, daughter of the king of the Volscians, Turnus, king of the Rutulians, and Nisus: while Camilla and Turnus fought against Aeneas, Euryalus and Nisus were two young Trojan companions. The pairing of victors and vanquished in the same pity and the same glory is presented as both a Dantesque and a typically Virgilian feature, aimed at establishing a parallel between the providential time of the Aeneid and that of the Comedy. The mention is situated in the context of the prologue of the journey to the afterlife, in which Virgil enumerates his own characters to confirm the historical concreteness of the prophecy previously formulated.