hihi im bored and im classing this as revision so imma tell the story of one of the loves of my life from class civ (aka classical civilisation or classics) - camilla

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soooo first of all a slight backstory:
camilla is not a real person or a myth. shes a fictional character from the aeneid by virgil, who was completely invented by him and was not a like mythical character that was known throughout rome beforehand.

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(you can skip this bit if you know the story of the aeneid)
tiny bit of backstory for the aeneid since idk how much people know abt it - the aeneid is the story of aeneas, a trojan warrior who managed to survive the trojan war and was destined to go out and find the land which would later become rome. the text is basically him going around to different places tryna figure out where the hell hes destined to go cus he has no idea where it is LMAOOOO. he starts wars like pretty much everywhere he goes because of course he does. the aeneid was commissioned by the emperor augustus for virgil to write an epic poem in the style of homer (the guy who wrote the iliad and the odyssey) to basically show how great augustus is and how great rome is.

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SO CAMILLA NOW MY LOVE

camilla grew up very different from an ordinary roman or greek girl. rome was pretty sexist as u can probably expect so women were expected to stay at home and weave and cook and clean and manage the slaves etc. theyd be under the complete control of their husband or father, in greece a kyrios or in rome a paterfamilias.

camilla didnt grow up like this at all. as a baby, her father metabus was exiled and hence she grew up in the wilderness with her father. her mother did not come with her, so metabus was a single parent raising a daughter.

this was all well and good except an oath was made. when her father was exiled and was travelling away to wherever he was gonna live, he got to a river. at this point, camilla was a baby, so whilst he could swim, she would drown if she crossed the river. he wanted his daughter to survive, so he prayed to diana (aka artemis in greece, the goddess of childhood, virginity and the hunt (also artemis is my love)) that if she saved camillas life then he would dedicate her entire life to her. diana heard this prayer, and metabus tied camilla to his spear and threw it across the river, then swimming over to meet her on the other side. miraculously, camilla had survived due to diana, and hence, her life was dedicated to the goddess.

due to this dedication, camilla was raised to be a huntress. she learnt how to fight, to kill, to hunt. she could use a bow, a spear, a battle axe (she uses a f-cking battle axe thats so hot), any weapon she could to train, and was like completely opposite to any proper roman or greek girl, who would be expected to never leave the house unless escorted.

in this sense, camilla is extremely masculine - she is warrior like and has blood lust which isnt feminine at all by roman standards, however virgil makes sure it is known that she is also feminine. shes described as absolutely beautiful (of course she is he just wants me to simp doesnt he), as despite her being like completely opposite to what the perfect roman wife should be, every single mother in the country wanted camilla to be their daughter in law due to how pretty she was. virgil also describes her as wearing a golden brooch and having smooth shoulders, so yk classic feminine stuff.

despite literally everyone wanting to marry her, however, camilla refused all of them because she had vowed to dedicate her life to diana, who was a virgin goddess who also refused to marry.

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so, fast forward a few years, and aeneas and his guys rock up. hes aeneas so obviously he has to start a war because duh. unfortunately, its trojans vs latins, and camilla is on the latins side.

now camilla in battle is just like, amazing (and so hot). for a start, she co-commands the army with a man, which like a woman even fighting was unheard of nevermind commanding it. she fights with a group of girls who she hand picked and trained, and shes actually just amazing.

camilla fights with a golden bow, spears and a battle axe (again how hot is that), and she goes around just killing everyone. she has something called an aristeia, which is a greek word for when a hero has a blood lust killing spree just before their death. she kills like so so many men completely unaided, and doesnt even sweat istg. one man taunts her like hey "its not fair ur on a horse youre such a coward u cant even fight by foot", so she jumps off her horse, chases him down and kills him.

she even has an apostrophe. an apostrophe in epic poetry isnt a ' LMAOOOO its where the writer of the poem directly talks to and asks questions to one of the characters, and it is so so so so so rare and only the most important characters ever get them. and camilla gets one. like thats how amazing she is.

then this other guy rocks up on the battlefield. hes dressed head to toe in armour made of gold, with his clothes dyed saffron and purple (extremely expensive colours that were very rare). theres two interpretations of what happens next. either, camilla is filled with "feminine desire" (thats a direct quote from the aeneid btw), and gets distracted by her need for gold and jewellery because of course she does shes a woman so she obviously has to be shallow and materialistic. the other interpretation, which virgil also comments on, is that this makes her even more masculine, as she wants the armour as a spoil of war for kleos, or glory.

no matter which way she gets distracted, shes still looking at this mans armour and doesnt realise when this other guy, arruns, throws his spear at her and kills her. and god its so bad. because shes not even focusing she doesnt even get to die a fair fight its just so unfair and shes dying in vain.

diana knew this would happen. it was destined, and as powerful as the gods are, they have no power over destiny and hence she vowed that she would send the nymph opis to go and kill camillas murderer. even the gods have no power to save their favourite mortals, only to avenge them smh.

so back to camilla. the thing that makes her death so tragic is the fact that the person who kills her is arruns. arruns is never mentioned before and never mentioned after. hes literally just some random guy. in fact, hes even worse than some random guy, because hes a coward and he gets scared of someone coming after him and (ar)runs away (im so sorry for that pun). camillas death is so bad because shes literally killed by some random guy whilst distracted. also HE KILLED HER WHEN SHE WAS BEING THE MOST HOT WITH HER BATTLE AXE HOW DARE HE

however, even if camilla is dying, that doesnt stop her, as her last act before her death is to desperately clutch at her weapons and command her army for their next instructions. she dies as she loses her grasp on her weapons, and her spirit dies with her.

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so, thats the story of camilla, the hottest warrior woman to ever exist who gets killed by some stupid nobody called arruns like ARGH but also shes so hot i love her

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also heres her as a child training with her dad because its such a sweet statue they look so close omg (sorry its watermarked its not watermarked in my textbook LMAOOOO)



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hope u enoyed reading camilla if yall like me waffling abt people i simp over in class civ ill write abt other people BHAHAHAHAHAHAHA :33333